Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland
Warp wrote:
I have a philosophical question:
What is happiness? How do you know if you are happy?
Happiness is a state of mind. You know if you are happy because then you're ... well, happy. And it doesn't depend on how much stuff you own or even how successful you are. If you simply enjoy existing, then you are happy.
Well Charles Schulz said it was a warm puppy, and John Lennon said it was a warm gun...
Google says...
Personally I think of it as a chemical reaction.
In theory the death penalty reduces the amount of people in jail, without releasing them to harm the citizens. In practice, however, even in the US the amount of people on death row is minuscule compared to the total amount of people in jail, so abolishing the death penalty would not increase economic costs significantly. Thus in practice there's not even an economical reason for death penalty.
Though you have already conceded that the death penalty is not economically sound, it is worth noting that life imprisonment does not necessarily entail greater expenses; indeed there is evidence to suggest that the death penalty with its associated additional court proceedings and numerous appeals could well place imprisonment as the cheaper alternative. This is, however, a moot point as even in the case that the death penalty were frugal, killing people to save money is morally suspect, it would seem.
Well Charles Schulz said it was a warm puppy, and John Lennon said it was a warm gun...
Google says...
Personally I think of it as a chemical reaction.
I was not really talking about happiness as a momentary sensation of well-being. I was more referring to happiness as the deeper concept, like "are you happy with your life?".
Enh, I'm not convinced that imprisonment for life is necessarily morally better than just offing the person. I mean, obviously nobody wants to die, but would they rather live out their lives in jail? The answer's going to be "yes" for some people and "no" for others.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland
I don't support the death penalty is because really, the only reason anyone supports it is because of their feeling of needing some kind of revenge. I understand that, of course, and I do think some people simply do not deserve to live at all (child rapist-murderers, for example). But I think we as a society should be "above" such low human feelings as hatred and revenge. The death penalty is nothing other than murdering someone in revenge. Besides, if you do have the death penalty, you run the risk, however remote, of wrongly convicting innocents. If you put an innocent person in jail, there is at least the possibility of letting him out later, If you've already killed him, you can't do that.
The way I see it is that if you murder someone, you deserve to get the same treatment. It's not about revenge, it's about justice.
Sidenote: Of course in Finland we've never heard of justice, so here a 19-year-old man who burned a church and turned himself in was sentenced to 6,5 years in prison and when 2 men sexually abused their stepchildren for several years one of them got 5 and the other 7 months of conditional jailtime, i.e. they didn't spend one day in prison.
The way I see it is that if you murder someone, you deserve to get the same treatment. It's not about revenge, it's about justice.
That is revenge, thats simply pleasing the victim who may be filled with bitter hatred with no thought for the criminal what so ever. They do have feelings however hard that may be for you to grasp. Justice is about harmony, a life sentence or death penalty should never be considered light treatment.
Kyrsimys wrote:
Sidenote: Of course in Finland we've never heard of justice, so here a 19-year-old man who burned a church and turned himself in was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison
You've clearly been taken by a cherry picking media. Considering he turned himself in I wouldn't consider that "light treatment" at all. If anything I would have considered that a little too harsh. A lot can happen in 7 years you know, ever heard of OoT?
Kyrsimys wrote:
and when 2 men sexually abused their stepchildren for several years one of them got 5 and the other 7 months of conditional jailtime, i.e. they didn't spend one day in prison.
Thats probably because they have mental health problems, there is special rehabilitation for that sort of stuff. I'm sure their step-children were taken away from them to avoid being harmed in future.
AKA: The whole point of my post was that it was incredibly harsh to convict someone who burned a church to 6,5 years in jail when child abusers get away with nothing. And no, the child abusers didn't have to go to a mental asylum and they didn't have any mental disorders. They simply walked free with conditional jailtime, which is bullshit.
And the concept of justice is subjective, you cannot just say that "justice is harmony". The way I see justice is that if you do something bad, something bad gets done to you in return. It's not done because of the families of the victims (because what if they dont don't have families? The guilty person could just be let go, right?) but because there needs to be rules in a society, and there needs to be a punishment for the bad stuff you do. In my opinion, the best punishment is an eye-for-an-eye type of punishment where applicable.
I understand that, of course, and I do think some people simply do not deserve to live at all (child rapist-murderers, for example).
I have never understood why rape-murdering an adult is "more acceptable" than rape-murdering a child. If people are ok with the adult-murderer getting a lighter sentence than the child-murderer, that implies that they think it's more ok to harm and murder an adult.
Isn't every innocent life equally valuable? Is the life of some innocent people more valuable (and thus taking it away more punishable) than others? It doesn't make sense.
The way I see justice is that if you do something bad, something bad gets done to you in return. In my opinion, the best punishment is an eye-for-an-eye type of punishment where applicable.
Again, you've just implied revenge, which is about making the victim feel better.
And you've just implied you're stupid. Or at least that there's something wrong with your reading comprehension. Read the rest of my post before commenting on it, please.
I'll just try to make this very clear: Punishments are there to stop people from committing and repeating crimes. In my opinion this is most effectively achieved by having strict eye-to-eye type punishments, and in my opinion this is fair, and is what is called justice. I've said nothing about revenge, so shut up and stop tearing my comments out of their proper context.
I know there's some USB autorun software that'll get your Windows XP password if you're locked out. What is it and where can I download it?
[Edited by AngerFist: LSK, please read the http://tasvideos.org/ForumRules.html , specifically at the "Stay legal part". Your request is something we prohibit in this forum.]
You made individial points; you never made points which go in harmony with each other. Thank you for displaying your vast ignorance, and I will call your random lash out an epic win for me :-)
I'll just try to make this very clear: Punishments are there to stop people from committing and repeating crimes. In my opinion this is most effectively achieved by having strict eye-to-eye type punishments, and in my opinion this is fair, and is what is called justice.
I disagree. Do you understand the concept of mitigating and aggravating circumstances? Also doing the exact same thing to the culprit might not be a fair punishment at all from the point of view of the victim.
Suppose that someone pokes someone else in the eye in a way that requires surgery. Maybe it was a pure accident with no malice nor negligence. Should the culprit's eye be poked as well, or would that be too harsh of a punishment because of a pure accident?
What if the culprit was just being a bit careless and should have known better? Is it still ok to poke his eye? Why would that be a fair punishment from the point of view of the victim? Wouldn't a much fairer punishment be for the culprit to pay the victim's medical expenses? The victim shouldn't suffer more than necessary because of this situation, so the fairest thing is for the culprit to pay for the expenses.
If the culprit pays for the expenses *and* he is also poked in the eye as a punishment, then he is punished *more* than the crime he committed. It's not an eye-for-an-eye punishment anylonger.
Let's go to the other extreme: Suppose that the culprit poked the victim's eye with great malice and premeditation, with the clear intent to cause as much suffering and damage as possible, and he isn't even ashamed to admit so much. Wouldn't in this case be fair to punish him *more* than if it was simply an accident which happened due to slight negligence and carelessness? Wouldn't it be fair that he pays for the expenses, plus more, and perhaps spends some time in jail for his crime?
You see, mitigating and aggravating circumstances should always be taken into account when deciding the punishment. A pure one-to-one punishment is not fair in most circumstances. Sometimes it's too harsh, sometimes it doesn't help the victim at all (in other words the victim would have to suffer more than necessary because the culprit is only punished by the exact same thing he did), and sometimes it could even be too light of a punishment.
Is the life of some innocent people more valuable (and thus taking it away more punishable) than others?
a childs life might be more valuable than a 90 year olds because the child has longer to live. how valuable a life is also depends on who the person is. a great scientist could be more valuable than an ordinary person.
Should the culprit's eye be poked as well, or would that be too harsh of a punishment because of a pure accident?
that wouldn't be "eye for an eye". if someone pokes me in the eye accidentally, i don't have the right to poke him in the eye intentionally.
Kyrsimys wrote:
I'll just try to make this very clear: Punishments are there to stop people from committing and repeating crimes.
i agree. but sometimes i think it would be good for the victim to get revenge.
I never said there shouldn't be exceptions. Just because I didn't for example specify that 5-year-old kids and mentally handicapped people shouldn't always pay for their crimes in full doesn't mean I'd condone it. Common sense should always be the starting point. I also think incarceration should still be used to keep people like sex criminals off the streets. This eye-to-eye stuff was mainly sparked by the talk of the death penalty, where I think it is a fitting punishment. It is not to be extended to all punishments. I was trying to cover this by the "where applicable" in my post but I wasn't very clear, sorry.
Is the life of some innocent people more valuable (and thus taking it away more punishable) than others?
a childs life might be more valuable than a 90 year olds because the child has longer to live.
Then we'll just have to disagree. In my opinion every life is equally valuable, and murdering someone is equally punishable regardless of the age of the victim. I think putting people's lives in order of importance is egregious.
how valuable a life is also depends on who the person is. a great scientist could be more valuable than an ordinary person.
Not from the point of view of murdering someone. Murdering a person does not become more acceptable if that someone is "less valuable" to society or humanity. Every life is equally valuable.
So, if every life is equally valuable to you, this should be problematic then: You're given a choice to kill either a mass murderer who you know beyond any doubt has raped and murdered hundreds of innocent people or an innocent 12-year-old schoolgirl. Which do you choose? If you really have to think about it, I just don't know what to say.
Ehh I don't think I disagree. I'm assuming you mean human life but humans are not equally strong or equally intelligent or equally successful. It's hard to think of any valid metric where all people come out equal so how can we say people are equally important?
What if the question were flipped around and you had to decide who lives as opposed to who dies. Say a meteor is falling and there is only room in the fallout shelter for 1 more person, do you give it to the doctor or the drug addict?
People who hold onto all life as equally valid can make irrational decisions, such as equating the life of a person to a clump of undifferentiated cells.
This signature is much better than its previous version.
