In fairness, you’re clearly smart enough to disregard all the obvious mistakes where we make prisons as awful as possible (or, more likely, just resist making them better) because we Hate Criminals.
Um, the purpose of prisons is to punish criminals, so yes, prisons should be awful, not necessarily “as awful as possible”, but for sufficiently serious crimes quite possibly.
EDIT: Wait, you mean “punish” in the consequentialist sense of punishing defection, right?
Yes, but this does not imply that the current level of awfulness is optimal. It certainly does not mean we should increase the awfulness beyond the optimal level.
But if someone proposes that the current level is too high (whether on consequentialist or legal grounds), one of the arguments they will encounter is “you want to help rapists and murderers?! Why? Those bastards deserve it.”
(The consequentialist argument for, say, the current state of US prisons is of course undercut by the existence of other countries with much less awful prisons.)
The consequentialist argument for, say, the current state of US prisons is of course undercut by the existence of other countries with much less awful prisons.
If you want to look at optimal awfulness, there is a much better way to test, look at the crime rate. The currant crime rate is extremely high by historic standards. Furthermore, the recent drop from its peak in the 1970′s has accomplished by basically turning major cities into Orwellian surveillance states. I think increasing the awfulness of prisons would be a better solution, at the very least in puts the burden on the criminals rather than the innocent.
That really isn’t a good argument for the current state of US prisons, is it? Clearly, even openly allowing institutional rape has failed to help; yet other, less harsh countries have not seen soaring crime rates by comparison.
I’ve seen studies suggesting that certainty of punishment is much more important for determining behavior than the extremity of it—it’s more a question of a strong justice system, a respect for authority (or fear, one might say), than people performing expected utility calculation in their heads.
It is known that lots of people enjoy inflicting pain on the helpless. Anyone who punishes prisoners because they enjoy doing so is in a conflict of interest, at least if he has any discretion in how to carry out the punishment.
I don’t know if it’s more so because comparing degrees here is hard, but I would say that we should not hire prison guards who enjoy punishing prisoners and have discretion in doing so.
You can rephrase “punishing criminals” in terms of quasi-consequentialist decision theory as deterrent/counter-factual crime prevention. Al the other reasons I’ve heard are little more than rationalizations by people who want to punish/deter criminals but feel icky about the word “punishment”.
What possible reasons there could plausibly be for jailing people, and what actually in fact motivates most people to support jailing people, are not the same thing.
Some possibilities for the former include:
Retribution (i.e., punishing criminals because they deserve it)
Closure/satisfaction for the victim(s), or for family/friends of the victims(s).
Deterrence, i.e. protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect other people to otherwise perpetrate.
Protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect this same criminal to otherwise perpetrate.
Rehabilitation.
… (other things I am not thinking of at the moment)
None of those things are the same as any of the others. Some fit the rather imprecise term “punishment” closely (1, 2), others not so closely (3, 4), still others not at all (5).
I would argue that (1) and (2) are in fact the same thing just formulated at different meta-levels, and that (3) and (4) are the quasi-consequentialist decision theory “translations” of (1) and (2). Rehabilitation (5) is what I called a fake reason, as can be seen by the fact that the people promoting it are remarkably uninterested in whether their rehabilitation methods actually work.
(3) and (4) are the quasi-consequentialist decision theory “translations” of (1) and (2)
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you suggestions that people who advocate (3) and (4) as actual justifications for having prisons do not have those things as their true, internal motivations, but are only claiming them for persuasion purposes, and actually (1) and/or (2) are their real reasons? Or are you saying something else?
Rehabilitation (5) is what I called a fake reason as can be seen by the fact that the people promoting it are remarkably uninterested in whether their rehabilitation methods actually work.
That may well be, but that doesn’t make it not an actual good reason to have prisons.
Your comment which prompted me to start this subthread spoke about what should be the case. If you say “this-and-such are the actual motivations people have for advocating/supporting the existance of prisons”, fine and well. But when you talk about what should happen or what should exist, then people’s actual internal motivations for advocating what should happen/exist don’t enter into it.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you suggestions that people who advocate (3) and (4) as actual justifications for having prisons do not have those things as their true, internal motivations, but are only claiming them for persuasion purposes, and actually (1) and/or (2) are their real reasons? Or are you saying something else?
Something else, see my reply to hen. For where I go into more detail about this.
But when you talk about what should happen or what should exist, then people’s actual internal motivations for advocating what should happen/exist don’t enter into it.
See hen’s comment for the problem I have with rehabilitation.
With respect, both hen’s comment and your reply read to me like nonsense. I can neither make sense of what either of you are saying, nor, to the degree that I can, see any reason why you would claim the things you seem to be claiming. Of course, I could merely be misunderstanding your points.
However, I think we have now gone on a tangent far removed from anything resembling the original topic, and so I will refrain from continuing this subthread. (I’ll read any responses you make, though.)
I think Eugine_Nier might be trying to say that the reason we evolved the emotions of anger and thirst for vengeance is because being known to be vengeful (even irrationally so) is itself a good deterrent. And possibly that this therefore makes these the same thing. But I’m not sure about that because that seems to me like a straightforward case of mixing up adaptation executors and fitness maximizers.
To see what I mean by the dignity of moral agents think of a criminal as a moral agent, rather then a defective object to be fixed. The idea of rehabilitation should acquires a certain Orwellian/totalitarian aura, i.e., this is the kind of thing the Ministry of Love does.
As for my statement about deterrence and retribution, I believe we’re having that discussion here.
A datapoint: I think the purpose of prisons is the institutional expression of anger, and insofar as they do this, they are an expression of respect for the criminal as a moral agent. In fact, I think that the use of prisons as a deterrent or to modify behavior is downright evil: you’re not allowed to put people in a box and not let them out just to change the way they act, and especially not to communicate something to other people.
(For the record, it looks like you may not be a consequentialist, but it seems worth asking.)
I think that the use of prisons as a deterrent or to modify behavior is downright evil: you’re not allowed to put people in a box and not let them out just to change the way they act, and especially not to communicate something to other people.
Um … why not? I mean, when we all agree it’s a good idea, there are reasonable safeguards in place, we’ve checked it really does reduce rapes, murders, thefts, brutal beatings … why not?
I think the purpose of prisons is the institutional expression of anger, and insofar as they do this, they are an expression of respect for the criminal as a moral agent.
Is it OK to lock someone in a box because you’re angry? Isn’t that, in fact, evil? Does it become OK if you “respect” them (I’m not sure what this refers to, I admit.)
I more-or-less agree with your world view, with the caveat that I would interpret contrafactual crime prevention as anger translated into decision theory language (it helps to think about the reason we evolved the emotion of anger). Deterrent as applied to other people is a version of the contrafactual crime prevention where we restrict our thinking to other people in this event branch as opposed to all event branches.
Um, the purpose of prisons is to punish criminals, so yes, prisons should be awful, not necessarily “as awful as possible”, but for sufficiently serious crimes quite possibly.
EDIT: Wait, you mean “punish” in the consequentialist sense of punishing defection, right?
Yes, but this does not imply that the current level of awfulness is optimal. It certainly does not mean we should increase the awfulness beyond the optimal level.
But if someone proposes that the current level is too high (whether on consequentialist or legal grounds), one of the arguments they will encounter is “you want to help rapists and murderers?! Why? Those bastards deserve it.”
(The consequentialist argument for, say, the current state of US prisons is of course undercut by the existence of other countries with much less awful prisons.)
If you want to look at optimal awfulness, there is a much better way to test, look at the crime rate. The currant crime rate is extremely high by historic standards. Furthermore, the recent drop from its peak in the 1970′s has accomplished by basically turning major cities into Orwellian surveillance states. I think increasing the awfulness of prisons would be a better solution, at the very least in puts the burden on the criminals rather than the innocent.
That really isn’t a good argument for the current state of US prisons, is it? Clearly, even openly allowing institutional rape has failed to help; yet other, less harsh countries have not seen soaring crime rates by comparison.
I’ve seen studies suggesting that certainty of punishment is much more important for determining behavior than the extremity of it—it’s more a question of a strong justice system, a respect for authority (or fear, one might say), than people performing expected utility calculation in their heads.
Personally I’m in favor of corporal punishment, cheaper than prisons and you don’t have the problem of long term prisoners getting used to it.
It is known that lots of people enjoy inflicting pain on the helpless. Anyone who punishes prisoners because they enjoy doing so is in a conflict of interest, at least if he has any discretion in how to carry out the punishment.
Also, it’s possible to take that effect into account when deciding punishment.
More so than existing prison guards?
I don’t know if it’s more so because comparing degrees here is hard, but I would say that we should not hire prison guards who enjoy punishing prisoners and have discretion in doing so.
That is one possible purpose to have prisons, but not the only one.
You can rephrase “punishing criminals” in terms of quasi-consequentialist decision theory as deterrent/counter-factual crime prevention. Al the other reasons I’ve heard are little more than rationalizations by people who want to punish/deter criminals but feel icky about the word “punishment”.
What possible reasons there could plausibly be for jailing people, and what actually in fact motivates most people to support jailing people, are not the same thing.
Some possibilities for the former include:
Retribution (i.e., punishing criminals because they deserve it)
Closure/satisfaction for the victim(s), or for family/friends of the victims(s).
Deterrence, i.e. protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect other people to otherwise perpetrate.
Protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect this same criminal to otherwise perpetrate.
Rehabilitation.
… (other things I am not thinking of at the moment)
None of those things are the same as any of the others. Some fit the rather imprecise term “punishment” closely (1, 2), others not so closely (3, 4), still others not at all (5).
I would argue that (1) and (2) are in fact the same thing just formulated at different meta-levels, and that (3) and (4) are the quasi-consequentialist decision theory “translations” of (1) and (2). Rehabilitation (5) is what I called a fake reason, as can be seen by the fact that the people promoting it are remarkably uninterested in whether their rehabilitation methods actually work.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you suggestions that people who advocate (3) and (4) as actual justifications for having prisons do not have those things as their true, internal motivations, but are only claiming them for persuasion purposes, and actually (1) and/or (2) are their real reasons? Or are you saying something else?
That may well be, but that doesn’t make it not an actual good reason to have prisons.
Your comment which prompted me to start this subthread spoke about what should be the case. If you say “this-and-such are the actual motivations people have for advocating/supporting the existance of prisons”, fine and well. But when you talk about what should happen or what should exist, then people’s actual internal motivations for advocating what should happen/exist don’t enter into it.
Something else, see my reply to hen. For where I go into more detail about this.
See hen’s comment for the problem I have with rehabilitation.
With respect, both hen’s comment and your reply read to me like nonsense. I can neither make sense of what either of you are saying, nor, to the degree that I can, see any reason why you would claim the things you seem to be claiming. Of course, I could merely be misunderstanding your points.
However, I think we have now gone on a tangent far removed from anything resembling the original topic, and so I will refrain from continuing this subthread. (I’ll read any responses you make, though.)
I think Eugine_Nier might be trying to say that the reason we evolved the emotions of anger and thirst for vengeance is because being known to be vengeful (even irrationally so) is itself a good deterrent. And possibly that this therefore makes these the same thing. But I’m not sure about that because that seems to me like a straightforward case of mixing up adaptation executors and fitness maximizers.
You mean hen’s comment about the dignity of moral agents, or my statement about how deterrence is the quasi-consequentialist translation retribution?
Both, I’m afraid.
To see what I mean by the dignity of moral agents think of a criminal as a moral agent, rather then a defective object to be fixed. The idea of rehabilitation should acquires a certain Orwellian/totalitarian aura, i.e., this is the kind of thing the Ministry of Love does.
As for my statement about deterrence and retribution, I believe we’re having that discussion here.
A datapoint: I think the purpose of prisons is the institutional expression of anger, and insofar as they do this, they are an expression of respect for the criminal as a moral agent. In fact, I think that the use of prisons as a deterrent or to modify behavior is downright evil: you’re not allowed to put people in a box and not let them out just to change the way they act, and especially not to communicate something to other people.
(For the record, it looks like you may not be a consequentialist, but it seems worth asking.)
Um … why not? I mean, when we all agree it’s a good idea, there are reasonable safeguards in place, we’ve checked it really does reduce rapes, murders, thefts, brutal beatings … why not?
Is it OK to lock someone in a box because you’re angry? Isn’t that, in fact, evil? Does it become OK if you “respect” them (I’m not sure what this refers to, I admit.)
I should probably mention that hen has answered me via PM, and they are, in fact, basing this on consequentialist (more or less) concerns.
I more-or-less agree with your world view, with the caveat that I would interpret contrafactual crime prevention as anger translated into decision theory language (it helps to think about the reason we evolved the emotion of anger). Deterrent as applied to other people is a version of the contrafactual crime prevention where we restrict our thinking to other people in this event branch as opposed to all event branches.