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> 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

> 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
  - hntrader 6y ago
    I don't think there's mutual exclusivity there. The individual can be blamed while also realising that their actions are a result of circumstances/physics/cosmic forces. If a hurricane (individual) kills a person, it's accurate and fair to blame the hurricane (individual), while simultaneously realising that it's just the laws of physics unfolding and not erroneously attributing a god of the gaps type of agency. Likewise, it's accurate to say that someone who died by a hurricane (individual) is a victim, and that the hurricane (individual) is culpable for the death. Retributive justice (and certainly other types of justice) can still be argued for even in the absence of free will, under a utilitarian perspective. The absence of free will doesn't imply the absence of utility/qualia/etc. Families won't accept this of course, because our brains are designed to see agency, seek revenge, monitor debts to see who is not reciprocating, etc, these are just more adaptive heuristics which help us to perceive our social reality in a way that maximises fitness.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    I’m not separating blame from the perpetrators of crimes. I think they should be held accountable. Just because the bug in your program didn’t choose to be faulty, doesn’t mean it isn’t to blame for problem. Similarly, Perpetrators of crimes are a problem. The fact that there are additional factors to blame shouldn’t absolve them. Bad inputs can make a bad person. When a drunk driver kills a pedestrian , is both the drivers fault and cosmic chance. The driver could drove the same road drunk 100 times and the pedestrian could have walked the same road 100 times. The fact that chance is involved doesn’t absolve the driver.

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
- hntrader 6y ago
  I don't think there's mutual exclusivity there. The individual can be blamed while also realising that their actions are a result of circumstances/physics/cosmic forces. If a hurricane (individual) kills a person, it's accurate and fair to blame the hurricane (individual), while simultaneously realising that it's just the laws of physics unfolding and not erroneously attributing a god of the gaps type of agency. Likewise, it's accurate to say that someone who died by a hurricane (individual) is a victim, and that the hurricane (individual) is culpable for the death. Retributive justice (and certainly other types of justice) can still be argued for even in the absence of free will, under a utilitarian perspective. The absence of free will doesn't imply the absence of utility/qualia/etc. Families won't accept this of course, because our brains are designed to see agency, seek revenge, monitor debts to see who is not reciprocating, etc, these are just more adaptive heuristics which help us to perceive our social reality in a way that maximises fitness.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  I’m not separating blame from the perpetrators of crimes. I think they should be held accountable. Just because the bug in your program didn’t choose to be faulty, doesn’t mean it isn’t to blame for problem. Similarly, Perpetrators of crimes are a problem. The fact that there are additional factors to blame shouldn’t absolve them. Bad inputs can make a bad person. When a drunk driver kills a pedestrian , is both the drivers fault and cosmic chance. The driver could drove the same road drunk 100 times and the pedestrian could have walked the same road 100 times. The fact that chance is involved doesn’t absolve the driver.