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> The thing is, it doesn't seem to me like this precludes punishing family members for a better result. Correct. The "system" if you can even call it that is n

> The thing is, it doesn't seem to me like this precludes punishing family members for a better result. Correct. The "system" if you can even call it that is not stemming coherently from any moral foundations. 1 and 2 are the same. To say a wrongdoer deserves punishment is to say it's good to punish. Deserves is language of morality. 3 is completely unrelated. This article is nonsense. Also from the article: > My challenge for readers: Propose any alternative to retributivism that precludes family punishment. I'm sorry but that is hilarious. Here's one off the top of my head, having literally never thought about this before. 1. Punishing the innocent is wrong. 2. Literally any ideas at all about crime and punishment that don't violate point 1. That passes the author's sniff test anyway. Is there a bounty for such a challenge? > That’s right, I think that inflicting suffering on vicious wrong-doers is morally praiseworthy even in the absence of any deterrent effect. Deterrence is a happy byproduct, but the fundamental point of punishment is to balance the scales of justice. This is caveman levels of moral justification. What does it mean to balance the scales? If somebody is maimed, and we maim the maimer, does that count? The first act worsened the victims life and the second act did nothing to help them. Doesn't feel like the scales are tipping correctly. It doesn't even seem that using analogies about scales is even useful to the conversation. It's almost like the issue is really complex and can't be summed up as a system in 2.5 bullet points by way of measuring scales.

Gibbon1 3y ago
The best argument about why and how governments punish people was. If you consider the hoary old governments that implemented this stuff you find that contrary to what you might assume they can't even begin to care about a the guy that got in a fight and died. The farmer whose chickens were rustled. Life is cheap and the peasants lives are barely worth the paper to mark their existence. What do they care about. The the system keeps functioning. Someone does something like beating a man do death in a drunken brawl, stole some chickens. That causes problems if unchecked. So what do you do. You reserve retribution to you and you alone. So that exacting private retribution is a challenge to your authority. You also reserve truth, only you get to say a man is a badie or not. And once you've done so you force his community to accept him back. If you accept the above punishing his family makes things worse not better. You gave him 20 lashes and he's butthurt about that, so what. Give his family 5 lashes each and they hate you not him.

Gibbon1 3y ago

The best argument about why and how governments punish people was. If you consider the hoary old governments that implemented this stuff you find that contrary to what you might assume they can't even begin to care about a the guy that got in a fight and died. The farmer whose chickens were rustled. Life is cheap and the peasants lives are barely worth the paper to mark their existence. What do they care about. The the system keeps functioning. Someone does something like beating a man do death in a drunken brawl, stole some chickens. That causes problems if unchecked. So what do you do. You reserve retribution to you and you alone. So that exacting private retribution is a challenge to your authority. You also reserve truth, only you get to say a man is a badie or not. And once you've done so you force his community to accept him back. If you accept the above punishing his family makes things worse not better. You gave him 20 lashes and he's butthurt about that, so what. Give his family 5 lashes each and they hate you not him.