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The big problem with this is that our recognition that there's extenuating circumstances (e.g a brain tumour in the prefrontal cortex) says more about our capac

The big problem with this is that our recognition that there's extenuating circumstances (e.g a brain tumour in the prefrontal cortex) says more about our capacity to recognise such situations than it does about actual differences in agency between individuals. For example, we might say that a serial killer who was born into a life of wealth and advantage and has no macroscopic brain damage has more agency than the individual with a large brain tumour. But this killer is also very much a slave to their brain in the same way as the tumour individual. They were gifted with psychopathy and an inability to feel remorse, which will undoubtedly come down to concrete brain states that differ in a material respect to non-psychopaths. Just because we can't see any obvious macroscopic markers of this says more about our knowledge limitations than it does about relative levels of agency. Going further, we're all slaves to determinisic or stochastic physics playing out in our brains and environment, and our agency is just a useful fiction. The justice system should be premised on pragmatic concepts of deterrence, rehabilitation, protecting society, etc, and not on fantasy notions that person A had more agency than person B.

Retric 6y ago
This assumes you define a person as a constant irrespective of everything else. In effect an 8 year olds must therefore be judged as harshly as anyone else. It’s a consistent standpoint, but justice isn’t about punishment. It’s a belief that the world despite all evidence to the contrary should be fair. As such people’s internal thought process is inherently part of the judgement process, the same action with different causes is judged differently. You’re for example allowed to break some rules in an emergency therefore belief that something is an emergency is relevant. Punching someone doing a jump scare because you think their a threat is perfectly legal.
- hntrader 6y ago
  I believe circumstance should be taken into account, but not for the purposes of assigning agency, which is a fantasy concept. It should inform the probability of recidivism, the chances that rehabilitation will work, etc, and therefore inform what type and duration of sentence/treatment is appropriate for a given case. To your example, belief that something is an emergency means that P(recidivism) is effectively the same as if they hadn't committed the action, which is the real reason why there shouldn't be any sentence given to that individual.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> Going further, we're all slaves to determinisic or stochastic physics playing out in our brains and environment, and our agency is just a useful fiction. >The justice system should be premised on pragmatic concepts of deterrence, rehabilitation, protecting society, etc, and not on fantasy notions that person A had more agency than person B. Without a concept of agency it is pointless to talk about “justice”. At the very least, by advocating a notion of justice, you are saying that members of society as a whole have agency to implement that concept of justice. If we all have no agency, how is a feeling that we should immediately execute all criminals unjust?
- hntrader 6y ago
  I used the term "justice system" because that's what everyone calls it. If we want to rename it to something else, that's fine with me.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Morality is not incompatible with free will. Needlessly killing all criminals is unjust because it devalues human life, and the right of individuals to exist. You don't need agency to experience happiness, love, intrigue, or anything else that makes life worth living.
  - f154hfds 6y ago
    I think the exact opposite is true - morality and free will share a symbiotic relationship [1]. When I find a bug in my code, I don't ascribe a moral judgement to its erroneous output. I fix the problem and make a new program. Applying this to criminal justice, there would no longer be any retributive justice, just deterrence and rehabilitation [2]. While for many this is a foregone conclusion eagerly awaited, not so much for the victims and their families, who now must believe that some cosmic forces crushed them, not the work of an individual. The individual can no longer be blamed for their actions, their circumstances are to be blamed, further and further into the past until it becomes a pointless exercise. Where does that leave the victim who is still there when the perpetrator is gone? We must be intellectually honest and say when there is no culpability for wrongdoing, there cannot be victims either, only unlucky segments of memory randomly corrupted by a faulty program. [1] https://ethics.org.au/what-is-the-definition-of-free-will-ethics/ https://ethics.org.au/what-is-the-definition-of-free-will-et... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice
smogcutter 6y ago
> But this killer is also very much a slave to their brain in the same way as the tumour individual. I think there’s an element of, ironically, survivorship bias there. We notice psychopathic serial killers because they kill people, and then we say they lack agency like the tumor victim. But the psychopaths who don’t kill people are invisible. We just call them CEOs (jk, but only kind of).
- hntrader 6y ago
  I believe this perspective is appealing because of our current inability to recognize what are the actual factors that drive psychopath A to become a killer and psychopath B to be a CEO. Agency is like the God Of The Gaps at the moment. We don't know what makes A and B differ and we magic that knowledge gap away with "agency". Over time, as we understand more about the brain and psychology, the serial killers who don't have any macroscopic impairments are going to look very much like the ones that do. And the psychopaths that become killers are going to look very different to those that become CEOs (either brain and/or environment). Only then, we will be able to point our fingers towards the precise causal pathway at play (genetics+environment). Until then, the best we can do is recognize that such a pathway exists, which the individual was gifted at birth, even though we're ignorant of the specifics.
  - smogcutter 6y ago
    This reminds me of the x files episode where a serial killer asks psychics “why do I do the things that I do?” before he kills them. Peter Boyle answers: “that’s easy, you do the things you do because you’re a homicidal maniac!” More seriously, going all-in on biological determinism is just as much an article of faith at this point as looking for agency. This is one of the questions of western philosophy and science, let’s not pretend it’s settled or that we’re going to solve it in an hn thread either way. Also I don’t think this is what you intend, but where the line you’re proposing leads is “phrenology, but with magnets this time so it looks like science.” No thanks, and even if it does turn out to be where we’re going it seems a mite early to take it for granted.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
Agreed. Arguments about relative agency is just pattern matching behavior to expectations. Justice shouldn't be based on the violation of expectations. It should be based on maximizing harm prevention.

Retric 6y ago

This assumes you define a person as a constant irrespective of everything else. In effect an 8 year olds must therefore be judged as harshly as anyone else. It’s a consistent standpoint, but justice isn’t about punishment. It’s a belief that the world despite all evidence to the contrary should be fair. As such people’s internal thought process is inherently part of the judgement process, the same action with different causes is judged differently. You’re for example allowed to break some rules in an emergency therefore belief that something is an emergency is relevant. Punching someone doing a jump scare because you think their a threat is perfectly legal.

hntrader 6y ago
I believe circumstance should be taken into account, but not for the purposes of assigning agency, which is a fantasy concept. It should inform the probability of recidivism, the chances that rehabilitation will work, etc, and therefore inform what type and duration of sentence/treatment is appropriate for a given case. To your example, belief that something is an emergency means that P(recidivism) is effectively the same as if they hadn't committed the action, which is the real reason why there shouldn't be any sentence given to that individual.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> Going further, we're all slaves to determinisic or stochastic physics playing out in our brains and environment, and our agency is just a useful fiction. >The justice system should be premised on pragmatic concepts of deterrence, rehabilitation, protecting society, etc, and not on fantasy notions that person A had more agency than person B. Without a concept of agency it is pointless to talk about “justice”. At the very least, by advocating a notion of justice, you are saying that members of society as a whole have agency to implement that concept of justice. If we all have no agency, how is a feeling that we should immediately execute all criminals unjust?

hntrader 6y ago
I used the term "justice system" because that's what everyone calls it. If we want to rename it to something else, that's fine with me.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
Morality is not incompatible with free will. Needlessly killing all criminals is unjust because it devalues human life, and the right of individuals to exist. You don't need agency to experience happiness, love, intrigue, or anything else that makes life worth living.
- f154hfds 6y ago
  I think the exact opposite is true - morality and free will share a symbiotic relationship [1]. When I find a bug in my code, I don't ascribe a moral judgement to its erroneous output. I fix the problem and make a new program. Applying this to criminal justice, there would no longer be any retributive justice, just deterrence and rehabilitation [2]. While for many this is a foregone conclusion eagerly awaited, not so much for the victims and their families, who now must believe that some cosmic forces crushed them, not the work of an individual. The individual can no longer be blamed for their actions, their circumstances are to be blamed, further and further into the past until it becomes a pointless exercise. Where does that leave the victim who is still there when the perpetrator is gone? We must be intellectually honest and say when there is no culpability for wrongdoing, there cannot be victims either, only unlucky segments of memory randomly corrupted by a faulty program. [1] https://ethics.org.au/what-is-the-definition-of-free-will-ethics/ https://ethics.org.au/what-is-the-definition-of-free-will-et... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice

smogcutter 6y ago

> But this killer is also very much a slave to their brain in the same way as the tumour individual. I think there’s an element of, ironically, survivorship bias there. We notice psychopathic serial killers because they kill people, and then we say they lack agency like the tumor victim. But the psychopaths who don’t kill people are invisible. We just call them CEOs (jk, but only kind of).

hntrader 6y ago
I believe this perspective is appealing because of our current inability to recognize what are the actual factors that drive psychopath A to become a killer and psychopath B to be a CEO. Agency is like the God Of The Gaps at the moment. We don't know what makes A and B differ and we magic that knowledge gap away with "agency". Over time, as we understand more about the brain and psychology, the serial killers who don't have any macroscopic impairments are going to look very much like the ones that do. And the psychopaths that become killers are going to look very different to those that become CEOs (either brain and/or environment). Only then, we will be able to point our fingers towards the precise causal pathway at play (genetics+environment). Until then, the best we can do is recognize that such a pathway exists, which the individual was gifted at birth, even though we're ignorant of the specifics.
- smogcutter 6y ago
  This reminds me of the x files episode where a serial killer asks psychics “why do I do the things that I do?” before he kills them. Peter Boyle answers: “that’s easy, you do the things you do because you’re a homicidal maniac!” More seriously, going all-in on biological determinism is just as much an article of faith at this point as looking for agency. This is one of the questions of western philosophy and science, let’s not pretend it’s settled or that we’re going to solve it in an hn thread either way. Also I don’t think this is what you intend, but where the line you’re proposing leads is “phrenology, but with magnets this time so it looks like science.” No thanks, and even if it does turn out to be where we’re going it seems a mite early to take it for granted.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

Agreed. Arguments about relative agency is just pattern matching behavior to expectations. Justice shouldn't be based on the violation of expectations. It should be based on maximizing harm prevention.