From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Thu Oct 07 1999 - 18:40:06 MDT
Michael S Lorrey wrote:
> ................................... The term 'cruel and unusual punishment'
> IMHO is too frequently used by the squeamish to get out of taking
> responsiblity to do what needs to be done to punish the wicked and
> attain justice for the victimized.
I understand your feelings, Michael, but we don't want "feelings" to
to be basis for human beings mutilating each other in the hope that
Thomas Hobbes' statement "Homini lupus lupi" ["Man is a wolf to man"]
will as a consequence become False. (And by the way, parents do not
INTEND or CHOOSE to produce congenital defects -- quite the con-
trary, and therefore can hardly be held responsible de jure or de facto.
The concept "morally or legally responsible" cannot be applied to "nature"
except by assuming it is a First Cause with the power of choice, i.e.
by simplistically personifying it in an archaic manner. The only sense
in which "nature" can be cited as a rationale for morality is in the
fascist sense -- "Might makes right" and we don't believe that, do we?)
The greatest problem I find with your advocated practice is the utter
impossibility of objectively deciding who is "virtuous" and who is "wicked"
other than by erecting to a Legal Principle the ineffably primitive and
animistic superstition that things are what they do. We all know that
this proposition is False, except perhaps for tropistic and reflexive
behavior. It is very like the impasse over "obscenity" -- are we to
say "this human being in our opinion has no redeeming social value
according to our local community standards"? Rather reminds one
of provinciality gone quite mad. And surely citing the practice of
mutilation of any kind (cutting off hands or clitoral excision) in some
distinctly different culture as if that somehow excused us from
regarding it as something barbarous (i.e. regarding it as a civilized
practice) in our own is neither logically nor otherwise cogent.
The point is: judgments of moral worth cannot be subject to either
logical or empirical verification, and are always associated with a
basic uncertainty. Of course, any workable social arrangement will
attempt to defend itself against random violence (just as the Romans
attempted unsuccessfully to prevent barbarian invasion by use of
deadly force) -- but to allow this End to morally justify means which
are otherwise regarded as vicious is irrational and self-defeating.
If a jury of peers concludes that some individual is an incorrigible
danger to the welfare of his or her community, then exile (if and
when exoterrestrial Penal Colonies like Australia historically become
feasible) or local isolation, while costly, are solutions which do not
compromise our conscience nor our claim to civilization. "Squeamish"
has no relevance to this case which is all about "ensuring the
general tranquility" without loss of integrity and "self-respect".
Bob
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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