3 ms·

I’m not sure I get your meaning? “Deserve” is a consequence of action, whether it’s a reward or punishment depends on the action. The scope of the consequence i

I’m not sure I get your meaning? “Deserve” is a consequence of action, whether it’s a reward or punishment depends on the action. The scope of the consequence is usually clearly defined, and a person or group is empowered with delivering that consequence (reward or punishment). So just as “injustice” exists when someone deserves a reward, (some consequence predicated on their actions), but does not receive it, the same must also exist where someone deserves a punishment but does not receive it.

tgflynn 5y ago
In a democracy what such an action "deserves" is decided by the people and the people are not of one mind on what a person like this "deserves". It seems quite likely that in a different jurisdiction or at a different time a much lighter sentence would have been imposed for this crime.
- aksss 5y ago
  Perhaps worth pointing out for general awareness that trial by jury has nothing to do with democracy, per se. Not all democracies do it, and it was (is) a pretty unique thing about the American system of checks and balances at the time it was enshrined in the sixth and seventh Amendments of our Constitution. Jury trials can exist with or without democracy. To your point about different time and place, yes, but that’s the system: the jury you get, absent a mistrial, is the jury you get and their opinion is what decides what you deserve by definition (absent new evidence, appeals, etc, within the confines of sentencing regulation, etc.). Perhaps what you’re after is that there’s no universally objective standard of what a person deserves for their actions, given all the myriad influences and conditions that lead to a particular moment in a person’s life, and which may lessen that persons agency. Therefore the judgement of society is imperfect in the sense that it cannot adequately grasp all these attributes, and may give attributes differing weight based on something as small as whether their eggs were over cooked that morning. So for a person to use the word “deserves” with authority is flawed because a person or people cannot render a perfectly objective judgement. I think you’ll find that this is an argument as old as time, but whether by birth or immigration, people living in a system operate by its rules, and the word “deserve” reflects the authority of a society to bring down punishment on scofflaws. Like when I tell you something is “cold” we need not debate the true principle of what cold means, you assume to context. So should you assume context for the word “deserves”. Society has never achieved perfection in balancing agency and justice but herein lies a predictable truism - if you run around with a band stabbing others so severely that some die and by luck some don’t, society will determine ya dun f’d up.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Perhaps worth pointing out for general awareness that trial by jury has nothing to do with democracy, per se. Not all democracies do it, and it was (is) a pretty unique thing about the American system of checks and balances at the time it was enshrined in the sixth and seventh Amendments of our Constitution. It was adopted directly from the British system; Americans had some recent experience with and anger about being subjected to fairly novel (at least in their breadth of application in the colonies) exceptions to the norm of trial by jury and the guarantee reflected a reaction against that experience, but trial by jury wasn’t an American innovation.
    - aksss 5y ago
      Comment you’re replying to never said trial by jury was an American innovation. Simply that it was pretty unique at the time to have that right enshrined in the country’s constitution, and that the right is not a requisite feature of democracies. For instance, the right to a jury trial for serious crimes in England has existed longer than England could seriously call itself a democracy.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Simply that it was pretty unique at the time to have that right enshrined in the country’s constitution Having a set, non-nebulous constitution at all, was unique but the claim that trial by jury “ a pretty unique thing about the American system of checks and balances” is false, it was a well-established basic right in the common law system and the deprivation of it in the colonial administration was a fundamental grievance of the American independence movement not because they had some novel ideas about basic right but because they sought it as a deprivation of the rights they saw themselves entitled to in the British common law tradition.
        aksss 5y ago
        No, you introduced the question of innovation, which was never contained in my statement. Now you are limiting the statement to a comparison with England proper (for they did in fact suppress the right in their colonies), which was also never in my statement, even implicitly. These are called strawmen. How was France doing with TbJ? How about Japan? China? Russia? Shall we go through the list of countries in the late 18th century to do this by hand? Tally them up and see how many had a guaranteed right to TbJ for criminal offenses by their citizens? No, the statement I made holds, and you’ll find that by looking at how other countries adjudicated criminal offenses at the time (not just England). Guaranteed TbJ was the exception, not the rule.
lazyasciiart 5y ago
Would you use the word "deserves" to describe a child hanged for stealing food, which was an expected legal penalty in some times and places? To most people it carries the connotation that the speaker agrees with the appropriateness of the penalty.

tgflynn 5y ago

In a democracy what such an action "deserves" is decided by the people and the people are not of one mind on what a person like this "deserves". It seems quite likely that in a different jurisdiction or at a different time a much lighter sentence would have been imposed for this crime.

aksss 5y ago
Perhaps worth pointing out for general awareness that trial by jury has nothing to do with democracy, per se. Not all democracies do it, and it was (is) a pretty unique thing about the American system of checks and balances at the time it was enshrined in the sixth and seventh Amendments of our Constitution. Jury trials can exist with or without democracy. To your point about different time and place, yes, but that’s the system: the jury you get, absent a mistrial, is the jury you get and their opinion is what decides what you deserve by definition (absent new evidence, appeals, etc, within the confines of sentencing regulation, etc.). Perhaps what you’re after is that there’s no universally objective standard of what a person deserves for their actions, given all the myriad influences and conditions that lead to a particular moment in a person’s life, and which may lessen that persons agency. Therefore the judgement of society is imperfect in the sense that it cannot adequately grasp all these attributes, and may give attributes differing weight based on something as small as whether their eggs were over cooked that morning. So for a person to use the word “deserves” with authority is flawed because a person or people cannot render a perfectly objective judgement. I think you’ll find that this is an argument as old as time, but whether by birth or immigration, people living in a system operate by its rules, and the word “deserve” reflects the authority of a society to bring down punishment on scofflaws. Like when I tell you something is “cold” we need not debate the true principle of what cold means, you assume to context. So should you assume context for the word “deserves”. Society has never achieved perfection in balancing agency and justice but herein lies a predictable truism - if you run around with a band stabbing others so severely that some die and by luck some don’t, society will determine ya dun f’d up.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Perhaps worth pointing out for general awareness that trial by jury has nothing to do with democracy, per se. Not all democracies do it, and it was (is) a pretty unique thing about the American system of checks and balances at the time it was enshrined in the sixth and seventh Amendments of our Constitution. It was adopted directly from the British system; Americans had some recent experience with and anger about being subjected to fairly novel (at least in their breadth of application in the colonies) exceptions to the norm of trial by jury and the guarantee reflected a reaction against that experience, but trial by jury wasn’t an American innovation.
  - aksss 5y ago
    Comment you’re replying to never said trial by jury was an American innovation. Simply that it was pretty unique at the time to have that right enshrined in the country’s constitution, and that the right is not a requisite feature of democracies. For instance, the right to a jury trial for serious crimes in England has existed longer than England could seriously call itself a democracy.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Simply that it was pretty unique at the time to have that right enshrined in the country’s constitution Having a set, non-nebulous constitution at all, was unique but the claim that trial by jury “ a pretty unique thing about the American system of checks and balances” is false, it was a well-established basic right in the common law system and the deprivation of it in the colonial administration was a fundamental grievance of the American independence movement not because they had some novel ideas about basic right but because they sought it as a deprivation of the rights they saw themselves entitled to in the British common law tradition.
      - aksss 5y ago
        No, you introduced the question of innovation, which was never contained in my statement. Now you are limiting the statement to a comparison with England proper (for they did in fact suppress the right in their colonies), which was also never in my statement, even implicitly. These are called strawmen. How was France doing with TbJ? How about Japan? China? Russia? Shall we go through the list of countries in the late 18th century to do this by hand? Tally them up and see how many had a guaranteed right to TbJ for criminal offenses by their citizens? No, the statement I made holds, and you’ll find that by looking at how other countries adjudicated criminal offenses at the time (not just England). Guaranteed TbJ was the exception, not the rule.

lazyasciiart 5y ago

Would you use the word "deserves" to describe a child hanged for stealing food, which was an expected legal penalty in some times and places? To most people it carries the connotation that the speaker agrees with the appropriateness of the penalty.