Some famous scientists and contributers to http://www.edge.org got asked "What is your dangerous idea".
Richard Dawkins replied:
Let's all stop beating Basil's car
Ask people why they support the death penalty or prolonged incarceration for serious crimes, and the reasons they give will usually involve retribution. There may be passing mention of deterrence or rehabilitation, but the surrounding rhetoric gives the game away. People want to kill a criminal as payback for the horrible things he did. Or they want to give "satisfaction' to the victims of the crime or their relatives. An especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution is Christian crucifixion as "atonement' for "sin'.
Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software.
Basil Fawlty, British television's hotelier from hell created by the immortal John Cleese, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down and wouldn't start. He gave it fair warning, counted to three, gave it one more chance, and then acted. "Right! I warned you. You've had this coming to you!" He got out of the car, seized a tree branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburettor flooded? Are the sparking plugs or distributor points damp? Has it simply run out of gas? Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty? Or at King Xerxes who, in 480 BC, sentenced the rough sea to 300 lashes for wrecking his bridge of ships? Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes?
Concepts like blame and responsibility are bandied about freely where human wrongdoers are concerned. When a child robs an old lady, should we blame the child himself or his parents? Or his school? Negligent social workers? In a court of law, feeble-mindedness is an accepted defence, as is insanity. Diminished responsibility is argued by the defence lawyer, who may also try to absolve his client of blame by pointing to his unhappy childhood, abuse by his father, or even unpropitious genes (not, so far as I am aware, unpropitious planetary conjunctions, though it wouldn't surprise me).
But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?
Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment.
I think I agree in principle but thinking about the issue kinda gives me vertigo
I have one thought in amongst the many points raised hehre.
It doesn't sound like Mr Dawkins is a great believer in Free-will. I agree that if there is no will then responsibility as a concept is redundant.
I happen to think that free will exists - and therefore I think that I disagree in principle. I am not sure though that I have understood his argument fully.
As celdar has pointed out, what dawkins is dancing around but doesn't mention is indeed the concept of Free Will. I have myself argued his "Basil's car" scenario many times in the past, and wholeheartedly agree with it. I do however, also see that heading down the road of determinism completely voids any opposition to religion - or anything else. He should be more careful
You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?
If we take the deterministic approach then one can find plenty of pro-death penalty situations.
Let's take another car. It looks good, but safety tests have shown it to explode when hit from behind, potentially killing bystanders. Will you keep this car around or will you scrap it and get a new one?
How about people. IF we're all controlled by our past actions in a deterministic way then how about that man who has killed 5 people in the past. Should he be a part of society or be put down? He is not going to change and there is nothing we can do about it short of re-writing his whole brain.
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Question: If one specific component on your computer, that is not vital to the operational capability of your computer, on more than one occasion has caused a complete meltdown of several vital components on other computers working on the same network as your computer, what is the most logical approach towards solving the problem?
Oh it gets much worse than that Norlander. If everything is predetermined, then what should or shouldn't be done to a criminal has no meaning since we have no say in the matter.
Determinism doesn't mean that our previous actions control what we do in the future. You can't say that a man that has killed 5 men in the past is predestined to kill again. It might be very likely, but not unchangable fact. The man might be predetermined by some odd circumstance to save the life of 10 men for all you know.
@thomsen: hmm, I have a sneaky suspicion that this isn't a computer issue! What secret agenda are you pushing - neutering pedophiles?
You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?
Everything is obviously not predetermined, as the actions of other persons and other environmental aspects a person is subject to also have an influence on a person's behavior.
@Celdar: It is very hard for a person to accept that he doesn't have free will. (I myself think the point is rather moot, but that's OT). If humans have free will, can you explain where it comes from? Without a deus ex machina?
@Grizlas: Pedophiles are being neutered (chemically) today, here...
When I kill her, I'll have her
Die white girls, die white girls
Look at the current situation regarding rapists and their victims.
The rapists get an average prisonterm of 3-6 months in jail and is ordered to pay his victim a compensation of app. 10.000,- krónur. This, even if the rapist is a repeat offender.
The victims get their life shattered. They normally develop severe phobias (fear of the dark, fear of crowds, fear of members of the opposite sex. etc.). Their sex-life is ruined for, at least, several years. This does not only affect them, but also their partners and husbands and children. Their lives are also severely damaged by these crimes (The childrens and sofort).
And to make it all well again, the prosecuting authorities award them a measly 10.000,- krónur "refund" and remove the person, who destroyed their lives, from their vicinity for a maximum of 6 months!
After this, the rapist is free, even to approach his former victim again, if he so choses.
To get a court-order to keep him away, the victim has to prove, that the rapist is a danger to them!
This is wrong on all levels.
It's not merely about revenge and pay-back, although it's a big part of it. And why shouldn't it be?
Lock the bastards up, for a minimum of 10 to 15 years on a first time offence, and have their genitals removed with a spoon on second offences.
(plus another 15-30 years minimum in jail).
This is my 5 cents on the issue.
The viruses that plague mankind can not be allowed to endure, even for scientific purposes. They only sollution that can benefit mankind, is to have them removed from existance.
Having rapists and childmolestors publicly flogged in the town square is a punisment, that I have absolutely nothing against reinstating.
Everything is obviously not predetermined, as the actions of other persons and other environmental aspects a person is subject to also have an influence on a person's behavior.
I think you mean that everything is obviously not predetermined by one's prior actions or influences. Everything might still be predetermined even if we're subject to outside influence. If what we are influenced by or interact with is predetermined, then such influences will not ensure that your actions aren't predetermined also.
And yeah I know people are chemically neutered. Still, that was the only thing I could come up with for the computer metaphor.
You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?
Well, for reasons well stated by Dawkins above, I'm not a big believer in retribution. What is most important to me is that the crime doesn't happen again, - or ideally, never happens. To do that we need to understand what compels people to commit sex crimes, so research is a big part of it. As for it not happening again, chemical neutering seems like a very good way to ensure that.
About the jailtime, I'm not sure. It might be too low. It would depend on what the jailtime for other crimes is. Makes no sense to give a rapist a longer jail sentence than a murderer for instance. You have to look at rape and child molestation objectively (even if it is hard) to understand why the sentence is so mild currently. It has alot to do with individual cases and the justice system.
I was googling a bit and came acroos this essay that I found interesting. The main problem with rape is that it's so hard to prove.
Om voldtægtsforholdets ofte vanskelige natur påpeger professor Carl Torp i 1917:
â€[Det] maa [ ] erindres, at List og Svig har spillet en fremtrædende Rolle i erotiske Forhold,…og hvilken Rolle Svigen in Concreto har spillet som Bestemmelsesmiddel er netop her, hvor Lidenskaben, Sanserne spiller med ind, og hvor derfor Villigheden til at lade sig bedrage ofte er ret stor, i Reglen saa vanskelig at bedømme, at der bør vises den yderste Varsomhedâ€.
Dommer Skadhauge supplerer i 1924:
â€Straf [ ] og Frifindelse tvinges derfor lige opad hinanden, uden anden Grænselinie end et forborgent [dvs. hemmelighedsfuldt] Samtykkeâ€.
For det andet gælder det i strafferetsplejen, at enhver grundet tvivl skal komme den sigtede, evt. den tiltalte, til gode og at det er anklagemyndigheden, der skal løfte bevisbyrden (in dubio pro reo). Således lader man hellere ti skyldige gå fri, frem for at dømme en enkelt uskyldig person.
Moreover, it's required of a danish court to prove intent or set free. Proving intent is extremely hard in rape cases.
All this aside, I do not believe that increasing prison sentences is a solution. Neither is public flogging, crucifiction or the iron maiden. If the only solution you've got is to return to the middle ages, then I prefer the current system.
You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?
What is most important to me is that the crime doesn't happen again, - or ideally, never happens
A very good way to take care of that is by capital punishment of the guilty ones.
The only - and I mean only - problem I have with capital punishment of people convicted of serious crimes is that we can never be 100% certain that we have convicted the right person. Because capital punishment is a irrevocable punishment it gives room for grave errors in judgement that never should happen in a civilized society.
Therefore I am more for life imprisonment without parole (and give the inmate a suicide pill he can take on his own choosing), but on a purely theoretical level capital punishment for people repeatedly guilty (if there was a way to be 100% certain) of aggravated/premeditated murder is the correct punishment.
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Well, i'm against it for a few other reasons. 1. the death penalty has never been proven to be more effective in deterrng murderers than a lenghty jail sentence, correct me if i'm wrong.
2. Killing people has a symbolic meaning that is evident by all the fuss surrounding every such trial. It sends the message that it's ok to kill human beings some of the time, wheras the removal of the death penalty altogether signals that it is absolutely wrong to kill another human being - it enforces the ideal.
that's all I can think of right now.
You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?
This is a horrible scenario I'm going to put forward, so bear with me on this!
Imagine, that a ex-boyfriend, beat up your sister, trashed her appartment and then violently raped her.
Would you still have the same point of view on punishment, that you have now?
Would you still argue, that we can never be sure of the question of guilt and intent?
I know 2 girls, that have been raped. They both live here in Tórshavn. One of the assailants was convicted on a staggering amount of evidence.
He still got only 3 months in jail, and a 10.000,- fine.
When he got out of jail, he raped another girl and got sent back to jail for another 3 months, and another 10.000,-.
I'm not saying that if he got sent to jail for 10 years instead, that he wouldn't rape again when he got out, but at least the women of the country would be safe from the possibility.
That is a truly horrible story. I find it incredible - if not flat out impossible that a person can be convicted of rape and only get 3 months in jail and a fine. I'm even more flabbergasted if it happened twice.
If something like this happened to my sister, I would most likely be out there with a blowtorch and a pair of pliers, looking for the guy, then after I'd tortured him horribly I'd kill him, his family and everybody who owed them money. I would not be able to think straight.
And that's the point. Justice should not be carried out by people who are emotionally distressed. However horrible the crime might be, you must remain objective if you're going to decide how to punish it. There was an episode of West Wing that illustrated this: When the president's daughter whines about bodyguard protection, he explains to her that if she were to be kidnapped, he would probably use all the power of his office to meet any demands. Just like you dont want a distressed father in charge of nukes, you neither want distressed rape victims to determine how people should be punished for crimes.
You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?
Your story seems quite unique. Atleast here in Denmark (where any faroese case going to a superiour court would be tried) you'll get a minimum 2 year sentance for rape, and up to life in prisonment (forvaring) for serious cases. A repeat offender falls under the "forvaring" clause.
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Well, happen to know that this is not the case in FO.
The guy got 3 months, for rape and violence.
He trashed the girls appartment and then raped her. He also beat her up quite a bit.
Within a month of his release, he trashed another appartment (or actually a hotel-room) and raped another girl. This girl is now in a wheel-chair because of it.
He got a somewhat harsher sentence the second time. But not nearly 2 years. He went to DK to serve the second sentence, and is still living in DK.
I believe that we need laws, but because we are human we are imperfect, and therefore our laws are imperfect. eg."Some people that where convicted before DNA testing was invented, have later been released because the DNA test proved their innocence."
We humans are often guided by our instincts, and often we are forced to act accordingly. This may cause people to kill, murder, rape, etc. and thereby violating the law. But not all crimes are by instinct, many are premeditated.
I believe that the punishment should fit the crime, but since we never can be 100% certain of the guilt, we can't convict other people with capital punishment. Put them in jail for the rest of their natural life, and thereby making sure that they don't comit a crime again.
My 5 cents.
- Not all those who wander are lost -- J.R.R. Tolkien
