Is free-will an illusion?

Do any of you believe in the death penalty?

@Briancrc,

Most societies already put criminals in jail "in order to protect societies" so there's nothing new here. For the jailed people, it makes little actual difference. For the rest of society, there need to be incentives to follow the law, and punishments exist for that purpose. They also help "settle the score": once you've paid your debt to society, you're good, whereas indefinite detention à la Gitmo is typical of what happens when the goal is not justice, but simply protection of society. Since any inmate could theoretically commit new crimes, the only solution to "protect society" is to jail them forever, and that's totally unjust.

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@Olivier5,

First being set apart from society should only be done when there is probable cause of danger to society.
Second people can be reconditioned, behaviour can be reconditioned. Just like you can train even an old dog to "seat" or "stay" with proper training.
Third, the problem only arises when chemical imbalance, the working of the brain is abnormal to the point reconditioning is not effective. It happens with psychopaths and the likes. These people should be set aside and cared for because they are sick. Faulting them is justicialism not Justice. I have no doubts the future will hold a much more civilized Law system based on the continuous development of science at large, in areas related with behaviour, and the working of the brain itself as neuroscience. Guilt and guilting others is just a cultural lever Darwinism favoured so people can steam off instead of imploding when they are wronged.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Some of the brain can be inspected to show whether the individual has mental problems.
I remember a study done many years ago in Russia on children who were never touched. Their emotional part of the brain didn't exist.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

For the rest of society, there need to be incentives to follow the law, and punishments exist for that purpose.

Just for clarity of language, incentives are not punishments. Punitive sanctions may have a punishing effect or they may be a deterrent to others. Incentives are enticements to do good and may have a reinforcing or strengthening effect relative to what they are being applied.

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They also help "settle the score": once you've paid your debt to society, you're good

Settling the score is more consistent with retribution than restitution.

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whereas indefinite detention à la Gitmo is typical of what happens when the goal is not justice, but simply protection of society.

I don't agree with your assessment. Gitmo is a logical extreme (i.e., argumentum ad absurdum). The true prevalent example (I'll stay with the US for the example) is mandatory minimums.

You said "settle the score," but it could also be described as "just desserts" Although people in America cannot seem to spell the word "dessert" correctly.

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Retribution or "Just Deserts." Perhaps the most commonly-voiced goal of mandatory minimum penalties is the "justness" of long prison terms for particularly serious offenses. Proponents generally agree that longer sentences are deserved and that, absent mandatory penalties, judges would impose sentences more lenient than would be appropriate.

http://www.ussc.gov/news/congressional-testimony-and-reports/mandatory-minimum-penalties/special-report-congress

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Since any inmate could theoretically commit new crimes, the only solution to "protect society" is to jail them forever, and that's totally unjust.

That is a value statement, and we have seen how values statements get twisted to disproportionately effect certain groups of people. It is also not the only solution to a given problem. A utilitarian approach would determine what does or does not protect society and what does or does not change an offender's behavior.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I value accountability and i don't look forward a future where inmates will be systematically treated as mad people in need of therapy. That reminds of the USSR too much. Also Clockwork Orange comes to mind. What you see as a scientific paradise looks to me as a scientist dystopia.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

I value accountability and i don't look forward a future where inmates will be systematically treated as mad people in need of therapy. That reminds of the USSR too much. Also Clockwork Orange comes to mind. What you see as a scientific paradise looks to me as a scientist dystopia.

Therapy is already an everyday practice in America and reconditioning by brute force social peer pressure a reality. Taming it, has nothing of dystopian. It only requires the average IQ jumps another 10 points. Its inevitable. Accountability and retribution is for the blood thirsty not for those that understand how our life is fruit of circumstance, be it genetic or environmental....

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I don't think IQ has anything to do with it.

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@cicerone imposter,

Well instinct is a powerful pillar and one that precedes reason, and that's where your point ends as far as I perceive it...the global society wont be tolerant with cultural phobic groups for much longer, the gang days are over. Understanding why some people act the way they do, or "fail" the way they "fail" is absolutely central for reconciling your instinctive need for retribution with your reasoning skill for self control and pacification through enlightenment. Mastering cultural relativity and reasoning the causes for distinct behaviour is necessary in a global world that wants to stand afloat. Once one knows the reasons that lead to behavioural abnormalities and dysfunctional social entanglement one tends to judge less and try to help more.

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@Briancrc,

In common English, one can speak of negative incentives, aka "disincentives", aka mechanisms designed to discourage some activities.

Gitmo is exactly what happens when a carceral system is solely focussed on protecting society, without consideration to justice and human rights. Since there is no sure-fire way to know if an inmate will commit a crime once freed, the tendency would be to keep them in prison forever. I am not against protecting society but that objective has to be balanced with the individual rights of the inmates. Society needs don't trump individual rights.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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Accountability and retribution is for the blood thirsty not for those that understand how our life is fruit of circumstance, be it genetic or environmental....

I disagree, of course. Accountability is a form of justice, and we are NOT fully determined by our genetics and environment. Your dystopia is downright scary.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

Gitmo is exactly what happens when a carceral system is solely focussed on protecting society, without consideration to justice and human rights.

Whatever it is, you are conflating issues, and then treating what has happened to less than 800 people as equivalent to what has been done to more than 2,200,000 people. But then this is what you did when I used the example of the 6% of problem gamblers. You pretended that they didn't exist by pointing to the non-problem-gamblers.

But the problems don't go away just by not looking at them. Peek-a-boo...oh where did that little problem go?

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@Briancrc,

I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Gitmo is an example, and the size of the example is irrelevant to its value as exampke.

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@Olivier5,

A stated goal of incarceration is public safety. It is not unique to Gitmo

Quote:

Safety: Finally, discussions about prison effectiveness and reform often center on the assumption that their purpose is to keep people like John Gardner (who raped and murdered two teenage girls in the period of a year in San Diego) separated from society, so that they will physically not be able to commit their crimes again. This theory was implicit in a 2000 probation report, which contained a psychiatrist’s evaluation concluding that John Gardner had “significant predatory traits toward underage girls and should be kept in prison for as long as possible.”

While the four theories above are not mutually exclusive, and probably not exhaustive of all possible theories behind the operation of a state’s prison system, they represent a brief overview for the purpose of discussion and reflection.

Before we decide how to forge a better prison system, we have to determine what exactly our prison system exists to do.

But the next attitude stems from free will beliefs

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Justice: The idea here is that the purpose of a penal system is to punish inmates in order to set things right- to make them pay a sort of moral debt they owe to their victims and society. One of the world’s oldest systems of law was enumerated in the Code of Hammurabi, which expresses this view of the law and its enforcement where it says in its statement of purpose, “to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers.”

And these beliefs have led to long sentences, and with respect to the US, more incarcerated people than anywhere else on the planet.

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@Briancrc,

Many people in prison don't belong there. It's the failure of our legal system.

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@Briancrc,

It doesn't mechanically lead to long sentences. In my country it doesn't. But the idea that society needs to protect itself from possible future crimes does lead to long sentences, because of course nobody can predict future crimes so the tendency will always be to err on the side of caution, and the hell with the rights of the inmates.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Do any of you believe in the death penalty?

No, except in the most extreme circumstances, e.g. the Nuremberg trial.

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@Olivier5,

Except ? Wow ! Really wow...new France is corrupted by murikan culture...must be the web effect.
Its amazing Europe a far superior culture having complexes with their rebel son...

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@Olivier5,

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It doesn't mechanically lead to long sentences

I agree...but in practice it has

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and the hell with the rights of the inmates.

I think this is the more common sentiment. If we altered what people were exposed to such that they didn't choose lives of crime, then this would mostly be moot. Studies on cocaine addiction tested the free choice consumption of cocaine by rats when there was nothing with which to engage (i.e., an impoverished environment) versus the free consumption when other choices were available (e.g., sex partner, objects interesting to interact with). The cocaine abuse only occurred in the impoverished environment.

Why would the citizens of Switzerland, Japan, and Luxemberg in large degree choose to live peaceful lives, but the citizens of Honduras, Venezuela, and Belize be amongst the most violent? Going back to Switzerland, it should be noted that much of the crime there is reported to be committed by foreigners.

If you believe that peoples' behavior stems from innate characteristics (genetically defective) then you look to brutal methods to perceived problems (one thinks of Hitler and his obsession to develop an Aryan nation, and to exterminate the Jews).

If you believe that people's conditions affect their behavior, then you look to the conditions and make determinations about which changes might be beneficial.

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@cicerone imposter,

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Many people in prison don't belong there. It's the failure of our legal system.

It's that, but I would argue that it's been a failure of the education system and the government, as well as the failure in effectively communicating systems of proven efficacy.

1 Reply

Is free-will an illusion?

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