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What shapes our legal systems the most IMO is the idea of guilt and punishment. Its a very automatistic thing. Somebody does something wrong, they charge themse

What shapes our legal systems the most IMO is the idea of guilt and punishment. Its a very automatistic thing. Somebody does something wrong, they charge themselves with guilt, and then this guilt has to be balanced by punishment or atonement. This leaves little way for nuance and mercy (but you can of course introduce exceptions into your laws). Also it tends to lead to wierd considerations the more we know about brains, and we have to think about if somebody is really "responsible" for their actions or doing it involutarily (due to insanity or determinism...). If I'd design a society from scratch, one thing I would consider is a legal system without guilt. Instead of a big table PUNISHMENT -> ATONEMENT, I would make imperative laws a la: "Police officers shall prevent people from being harmed" and "Police officers may lock you away for X days after consulting with a psychologist/judge that you are dangerous, especially after you already hurt somebody". I'm just making this up as I go along, in reality it would be more precise of course. My point is that this system of moral prohibitions (and rights) is in a way a broken abstraction. I wonder if a completely different society could work differently and better.

gumby 10y ago
> What shapes our legal systems the most IMO is the idea of guilt and punishment. That may true today, but that simplistic model waxes and wanes with the times. Notice how prisons departments, in particular those formed in the late 19th century on the east coast of the US, are often called "department of corrections" and the jails "penitentiaries". During a reformist period the idea is that the criminal would have time to reflect on their crime (be penitent) and correct their error. It reflects a more hopeful, less manichean view of society. The gradual abolition of the death penalty happened at the end of such a period; it's revival in the US happened as a more binary world view returned. Victorian England was definitely hard core on the "punish" side, even punishing the poor, but did abandon some of the more extreme ideology (e.g. dropping the practice of trying and hanging animals that killed humans). I actually think your characterization is not quite correct: I think what's reflected is a re-emergence of the idea of the christian idea of original sin: certain people are inherently bad and deserve punishment; thus whatever they do can be taken as an excuse to exact justice (and even have them finance it!) while others are deserving of "charity" (i.e. being judged by a more generous standard)

gumby 10y ago

> What shapes our legal systems the most IMO is the idea of guilt and punishment. That may true today, but that simplistic model waxes and wanes with the times. Notice how prisons departments, in particular those formed in the late 19th century on the east coast of the US, are often called "department of corrections" and the jails "penitentiaries". During a reformist period the idea is that the criminal would have time to reflect on their crime (be penitent) and correct their error. It reflects a more hopeful, less manichean view of society. The gradual abolition of the death penalty happened at the end of such a period; it's revival in the US happened as a more binary world view returned. Victorian England was definitely hard core on the "punish" side, even punishing the poor, but did abandon some of the more extreme ideology (e.g. dropping the practice of trying and hanging animals that killed humans). I actually think your characterization is not quite correct: I think what's reflected is a re-emergence of the idea of the christian idea of original sin: certain people are inherently bad and deserve punishment; thus whatever they do can be taken as an excuse to exact justice (and even have them finance it!) while others are deserving of "charity" (i.e. being judged by a more generous standard)