4 ms·

I think the part you're missing here is that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime (it's an eye for an eye, not your whole head for an eye). Also i

I think the part you're missing here is that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime (it's an eye for an eye, not your whole head for an eye). Also it requires the punisher to have some form of legitimacy. These two conditions make it unlikely that you would be compelled "to murder one in three people I meet everyday".

colinsane 3y ago
> I think the part you're missing here is that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime. i'm going more for the "death by a thousand cuts" angle, because that's just the nature of most large-scale interpersonal harm among otherwise well-off nations. i drive an automobile, knowing full well that the impacts on air quality from my actions causes illness and premature death. Caplan's an economist, so let's say my portion of that pollution accounts for 0.1 premature deaths, or 2 life-years (made up numbers). i'm complicit in this act, i have knowingly and willingly harmed other beings: looking at this act in isolation it's surely a moral failing. "eye for eye" retributive justice says "i cut a life short by 2 years, so throw me in prison for 2 years". most people who consider retributive justice make _some_ sort of carveout here: "this is ridiculous: the infrastructure in my country is such that i can't live a reasonable life without burning fuel, 2 years jail won't change that!" but author explicitly goes out of their way to suggest punishments like these actually are merited "even in the absence of any deterrent effect". i threw out "one in three people" pretty casually. add up all these individually small harms i've willingly inflicted: maybe "one in ten" is more reasonable. either way it's too large to ignore if you take seriously that every wrong-doing is to be punished without regard to deterrence or broader circumstance.
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  I think the author did not try to justify retributivist's view in this article, but, rather, suggest consequentialists cannot make better argument.
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    The argument misses differences assumes that individual power and agency are infinite - which is something economists like to do, because it's a bedrock misdirection that capitalism requires to function. In reality most people have limited agency, and failing to live according to the terms and conditions set by those with more power can have serious negative consequences. Obviously (to me at least) the people ultimately responsible for resulting horrors and atrocities are those with the most power and agency. Individually, there's a line to be drawn between enthusiastic compliance and reluctant compliance. There's also a line between healthy self-responsible functioning and diminished responsibility because of mental illness and/or breakdown. Even so - ultimately when someone else sets the terms, they're responsible for what happens. This culture is set up to hide that reality. The more power and agency you have the less you're personally responsible for the consequences of your actions. Fictions like limited liability companies, corporate personhood, "markets", the invisible hand, and the rest all exist to absolve the rich and powerful from personal consequences. Very occasionally people go to jail for fraud - usually for inconveniencing the wrong class of people. But more extreme transgressions - promoting tobacco and alcohol addictions, abusing workers (sometimes to death), pushing destructive drugs through official channels, destroying public education, using healthcare to exploit not to heal, knowingly using media channels to distribute lies, poisoning the ecosystem - are either not punished at all or punished with inconvenient fines.
- dahfizz 3y ago
  You're arguing against a straw man. Most people do not consider driving a car to be a morally wrong act, certainly not one deserving of retribution. The complexities of society, negative externalities, and infrastructure are built into our moral code. The author is not advocating for some utilitarian scheme where every possible harm you have contributed to must be paid back to you. I think you understand the difference between "morally heinous act that deserves retribution" and "participating in a society"
  - colinsane 3y ago
    > You're arguing against a straw man. i'm struggling to balance examples which are unambiguously acts of harm but which everyone does against examples which carry moral weight. i probably got a bit too clever trying to go for both. what i'm more specifically worried about is how the author's viewpoint plays out in the world where we don't all agree on the moral code. half my country has conflicting moral views around drug use and abortion and sex reassignment. a world where i'm punished so that you can enjoy a richer life is one i can at least understand (that's just the tradeoff between positive and negative rights). but a world where i'm punished for no benefit to anyone is exactly that world in which i risk my livelihood every time i want to unwind after a stressful week of work with a record and a joint in the privacy of my own bathtub. but that's the world Caplan's advocating for when he separates punishment from things like "deterrence".
    - dahfizz 3y ago
      Agreeing as a country on what is illegal / immoral is a complex issue, but it is orthogonal to the consequentialist vs retributionist debate. The discussion there is only about what happens after someone is proven to have done something society deems wrong. If anything, a consequentialist would be _more_ likely to lock you up for drug use because the net effect of forced rehab could be positive. Whereas a retributionist would want to punish you proportionally to how you have harmed others (which, in the case of smoking a joint, is no harm at all).
pyrale 3y ago
> Also it requires the punisher to have some form of legitimacy. https://dancingbrick.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/deathpenalty.png https://dancingbrick.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/deathpenalt...

colinsane 3y ago

> I think the part you're missing here is that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime. i'm going more for the "death by a thousand cuts" angle, because that's just the nature of most large-scale interpersonal harm among otherwise well-off nations. i drive an automobile, knowing full well that the impacts on air quality from my actions causes illness and premature death. Caplan's an economist, so let's say my portion of that pollution accounts for 0.1 premature deaths, or 2 life-years (made up numbers). i'm complicit in this act, i have knowingly and willingly harmed other beings: looking at this act in isolation it's surely a moral failing. "eye for eye" retributive justice says "i cut a life short by 2 years, so throw me in prison for 2 years". most people who consider retributive justice make _some_ sort of carveout here: "this is ridiculous: the infrastructure in my country is such that i can't live a reasonable life without burning fuel, 2 years jail won't change that!" but author explicitly goes out of their way to suggest punishments like these actually are merited "even in the absence of any deterrent effect". i threw out "one in three people" pretty casually. add up all these individually small harms i've willingly inflicted: maybe "one in ten" is more reasonable. either way it's too large to ignore if you take seriously that every wrong-doing is to be punished without regard to deterrence or broader circumstance.

j16sdiz 3y ago
I think the author did not try to justify retributivist's view in this article, but, rather, suggest consequentialists cannot make better argument.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  The argument misses differences assumes that individual power and agency are infinite - which is something economists like to do, because it's a bedrock misdirection that capitalism requires to function. In reality most people have limited agency, and failing to live according to the terms and conditions set by those with more power can have serious negative consequences. Obviously (to me at least) the people ultimately responsible for resulting horrors and atrocities are those with the most power and agency. Individually, there's a line to be drawn between enthusiastic compliance and reluctant compliance. There's also a line between healthy self-responsible functioning and diminished responsibility because of mental illness and/or breakdown. Even so - ultimately when someone else sets the terms, they're responsible for what happens. This culture is set up to hide that reality. The more power and agency you have the less you're personally responsible for the consequences of your actions. Fictions like limited liability companies, corporate personhood, "markets", the invisible hand, and the rest all exist to absolve the rich and powerful from personal consequences. Very occasionally people go to jail for fraud - usually for inconveniencing the wrong class of people. But more extreme transgressions - promoting tobacco and alcohol addictions, abusing workers (sometimes to death), pushing destructive drugs through official channels, destroying public education, using healthcare to exploit not to heal, knowingly using media channels to distribute lies, poisoning the ecosystem - are either not punished at all or punished with inconvenient fines.
dahfizz 3y ago
You're arguing against a straw man. Most people do not consider driving a car to be a morally wrong act, certainly not one deserving of retribution. The complexities of society, negative externalities, and infrastructure are built into our moral code. The author is not advocating for some utilitarian scheme where every possible harm you have contributed to must be paid back to you. I think you understand the difference between "morally heinous act that deserves retribution" and "participating in a society"
- colinsane 3y ago
  > You're arguing against a straw man. i'm struggling to balance examples which are unambiguously acts of harm but which everyone does against examples which carry moral weight. i probably got a bit too clever trying to go for both. what i'm more specifically worried about is how the author's viewpoint plays out in the world where we don't all agree on the moral code. half my country has conflicting moral views around drug use and abortion and sex reassignment. a world where i'm punished so that you can enjoy a richer life is one i can at least understand (that's just the tradeoff between positive and negative rights). but a world where i'm punished for no benefit to anyone is exactly that world in which i risk my livelihood every time i want to unwind after a stressful week of work with a record and a joint in the privacy of my own bathtub. but that's the world Caplan's advocating for when he separates punishment from things like "deterrence".
  - dahfizz 3y ago
    Agreeing as a country on what is illegal / immoral is a complex issue, but it is orthogonal to the consequentialist vs retributionist debate. The discussion there is only about what happens after someone is proven to have done something society deems wrong. If anything, a consequentialist would be _more_ likely to lock you up for drug use because the net effect of forced rehab could be positive. Whereas a retributionist would want to punish you proportionally to how you have harmed others (which, in the case of smoking a joint, is no harm at all).

pyrale 3y ago

> Also it requires the punisher to have some form of legitimacy. https://dancingbrick.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/deathpenalty.png https://dancingbrick.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/deathpenalt...