The point of Punishment and Vengence

[persianfan247]

So it seems to me that there is only two reasons for punishment. One seems to be for simple revenge and the other reason is to prevent future occurances of the act that you are punishing for. Yet I don't see the point of the first reason, so can anyone tell me what purpose vengence surves? Why should we want revenge?

Because people always talk about someone receiving their just deserts, but surly it dosn't matter once a crime is done, it is done and getting revenge changes nothing. But it shoud matter about future prevention of the crime not the crimminal, who should be punished as a warning to others not so they can feel some of the pain they have meeted out themselves, which seems like a purposless objective. So purpose do you guys think punishment surves.

P.S this thread is kind of stupid, with obvious answers, but Im bored.

[cfmonkey45]

An eye for an eye and no more. The punishment should fit the crime.

[persianfan247]

But why take his eye just because he took my eye, It doesn't change the fact that I have no eye and how does knowing the fact that he has to suffer the same thing as I do changed anything. Wow know he knows what it feels like, it serves no purpose unless it prevents future crime. Now that he has taken my eye and I his eye, he knows what will happen in the future and hopefully wont do it again and every one else nows he what will happen if they try it.

But why get revenge for vengeances sake? I ask this because some people when they talk about punishment seem think of it as getting there own back. When in reality getting you own back is a pointless exercise, you gain nothing by it. Obviously by getting your own back it serves the purpose of preventing future crime, but people seem to forget about this and only care about getting revenge?

So why should people care about getting revenge so much?

[CtrlAltDe1337]

So it seems to me that there is only two reasons for punishment.

Neither of those are legitimate reasons. Punishment for crime is to fulfill justice, not prevent future crimes or get revenge. It is to punish bad behavior, as letting it go would be unjust. It doesn't matter if it prevents a future crime (although severe punishments probably do); that is not the point. And its not about getting revenge. Revenge is bad, justice is good.

[persianfan247]

But what is Justice? Is it about equality and equal treament, but then how is it different from vengence? when vengence is about getting you own back and most of the time this involves metting out punishment equal to the crime.

Obviously the people are meant to decide what this is and what is right and wrong. But people's concept of justice is not uniform and the majority is no more right than the individual. I support democracies because they are fair, not because they are more effective then a Dictator. But if the majority of people think that the thief should get his limbs cut of, while the dictator/individual think that he should merely be imprisoned and fined whose idea is more just.

And why shouldn't we try to prevent crime? Surely its to the benifit to all, prehaps except for the potential crimminal who was merely trying to fed his family but found he couldn't because the punishment far outweighed the worth of the crime.

[Playfishpaste]

But what is Justice? Is it about equality and equal treament, but then how is it different from vengence? when vengence is about getting you own back and most of the time this involves metting out punishment equal to the crime.

Obviously the people are meant to decide what this is and what is right and wrong. But people's concept of justice is not uniform and the majority is no more right than the individual. I support democracies because they are fair, not because they are more effective then a Dictator. But if the majority of people think that the thief should get his limbs cut of, while the dictator/individual think that he should merely be imprisoned and fined whose idea is more just. prehaps the crime of stealing

And why shouldn't we try to prevent crime? Surely its to the benifit to all, prehaps except for the potential crimminal who was merely trying to fed his family but found he couldn't because the punishment far outweighed the worth of the crime.

And this is exactly why the case actually is that the justice system is in fact designed to keep people from harming others. As much as we'd like to believe it's about justice or a moral fulfillment, we all know that that's meaningless. Harming another person is meaningless. Naturally however, we are flawed and there are those among us who simply don't know to be moral people. We are thus naturally inclined to isolate them.

Trials and justice are there to make us feel better then we are.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

But what is Justice? Is it about equality and equal treament, but then how is it different from vengence? when vengence is about getting you own back and most of the time this involves metting out punishment equal to the crime.

In common language, vengeance is "I'm going to get you back for hurting me." That is morally and socially a very bad thing. Justice is about doing whats right. I don't really know how to explain this simply, as its like asking me to define the word "evil" or something. Justice is about punishing wrong and rewarding good. It is to right wrongs with appropriate punishment according to the severity of the crime. If someone does something that is morally wrong, they should be punished. If good, rewarded.

Obviously the people are meant to decide what this is and what is right and wrong. But people's concept of justice is not uniform and the majority is no more right than the individual. I support democracies because they are fair, not because they are more effective then a Dictator. But if the majority of people think that the thief should get his limbs cut of, while the dictator/individual think that he should merely be imprisoned and fined whose idea is more just.

People don't agree on anything, so its not surprising that they disagree on something like this, seeing how dull-witted man is. What if I told you that blue is not really blue because 19 million people think its orange, and 1 billion people think its purple? You would say that they are wrong, no matter how many people say that. Blue is blue, no matter what people say. The same is true with justice. The only problem is discovering whose justice is the correct one. This is what the philosophers termed "natural law" in former days, and what Christians find in the Bible, which they (we) hold to be the ultimate and clearest revelation of justice, as it is given at the very hand of God himself.

And why shouldn't we try to prevent crime? Surely its to the benifit to all, prehaps except for the potential crimminal who was merely trying to fed his family but found he couldn't because the punishment far outweighed the worth of the crime.

Preventing crime is great, but that isn't the point of punishment. You don't make the punishment really extreme just to dissuade people from crimes. Otherwise we would put people on a stretching rack for even minor offenses. No, the punishment is to do justice. It is to right the wrong that has already been done. Now, if that dissuades people (which it would me), thats great. But the point is to do justice, not prevent a future crime.

[Djûn]

In common language, vengeance is "I'm going to get you back for hurting me." That is morally and socially a very bad thing. Justice is about doing whats right. I don't really know how to explain this simply, as its like asking me to define the word "evil" or something. Justice is about punishing wrong and rewarding good. It is to right wrongs with appropriate punishment according to the severity of the crime. If someone does something that is morally wrong, they should be punished. If good, rewarded.

Retribution is a key part of the modern punishment structure. Without it, we would have a fair bit of trouble with the age-old concept of 'make the punishment fit the crime'. When you talk about the "appropriate punishment according to the severity of the crime", this is pricely what the retributive ascpect of the punishment system contributes.

People don't agree on anything, so its not surprising that they disagree on something like this, seeing how dull-witted man is. What if I told you that blue is not really blue because 19 million people think its orange, and 1 billion people think its purple? You would say that they are wrong, no matter how many people say that. Blue is blue, no matter what people say. The same is true with justice. The only problem is discovering whose justice is the correct one. This is what the philosophers termed "natural law" in former days, and what Christians find in the Bible, which they (we) hold to be the ultimate and clearest revelation of justice, as it is given at the very hand of God himself.

Indeed, this form of Natural Law is the basis of a great deal, if not all, of the Criminal Law and even finds itself in other fields such as Judicial Review and Tort. As you have identified, however, Natural Law is still entirely a construct, an artifact of man, and although it may indeed have an objective point, true objectivity will never be achieved simply due to the shortcomings of man.

Preventing crime is great, but that isn't the point of punishment. You don't make the punishment really extreme just to dissuade people from crimes. Otherwise we would put people on a stretching rack for even minor offenses. No, the punishment is to do justice. It is to right the wrong that has already been done. Now, if that dissuades people (which it would me), thats great. But the point is to do justice, not prevent a future crime.

Preventing future crimes is another key element of punishment, else we would simply be punishing for the sake of punishing. What you term "justice" is an aggregate of many legal concepts, of which two of the somewhat predominant components are what you have just dismissed above: Retribution and Prevention.

[basics]

" But what is Justice?"

persianfan247,

Justice is the righteousness of God. By that I mean anything outwith God's being, what He is, His righteousness, falls below the measure, the standard, He sets for men to abide by. That is why He gave Moses the Law to show these standards to the people of what is expected of all men. Justice therefore is the consequence of all men and women falling short of that standard.

The ultimate punishment in failure then is death. That is the price set by the Law and none are exempt. There is nothing higher that men and women may be judged. So when men and women defy that Law, they defy God and must expect to pay with their lives. Natural law is no less as powerful because ultimately for both God's righteousness is still the measure required of all men.

So is natural punishment of no value? No, it has value because who is to say that a perpetrator cannot be changed anymore than them who are not? As long as a man or woman might live, there is always the hope that God may act in their lives to change the nature that has brought them to the point of being punished. But that must be done before death comes calling.

[catintheoven]

" But what is Justice?"

persianfan247,

Justice is the righteousness of God. By that I mean anything outwith God's being, what He is, His righteousness, falls below the measure, the standard, He sets for men to abide by. That is why He gave Moses the Law to show these standards to the people of what is expected of all men. Justice therefore is the consequence of all men and women falling short of that standard.

The ultimate punishment in failure then is death. That is the price set by the Law and none are exempt. There is nothing higher that men and women may be judged. So when men and women defy that Law, they defy God and must expect to pay with their lives. Natural law is no less as powerful because ultimately for both God's righteousness is still the measure required of all men.

So is natural punishment of no value? No, it has value because who is to say that a perpetrator cannot be changed anymore than them who are not? As long as a man or woman might live, there is always the hope that God may act in their lives to change the nature that has brought them to the point of being punished. But that must be done before death comes calling.

hmm I see a gaping void in this theory

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

GODS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER!

[Arch-hereticK]

" But what is Justice?"

persianfan247,

Justice is the righteousness of God. By that I mean anything outwith God's being, what He is, His righteousness, falls below the measure, the standard, He sets for men to abide by. That is why He gave Moses the Law to show these standards to the people of what is expected of all men. Justice therefore is the consequence of all men and women falling short of that standard.

The ultimate punishment in failure then is death. That is the price set by the Law and none are exempt. There is nothing higher that men and women may be judged. So when men and women defy that Law, they defy God and must expect to pay with their lives. Natural law is no less as powerful because ultimately for both God's righteousness is still the measure required of all men.

So is natural punishment of no value? No, it has value because who is to say that a perpetrator cannot be changed anymore than them who are not? As long as a man or woman might live, there is always the hope that God may act in their lives to change the nature that has brought them to the point of being punished. But that must be done before death comes calling.

Stop dragging God into every argument, it clutters the argument aswell as being freaking annoying.

[Ciabhán]

" But what is Justice?"

persianfan247,

Justice is the righteousness of God. By that I mean anything outwith God's being, what He is, His righteousness, falls below the measure, the standard, He sets for men to abide by. That is why He gave Moses the Law to show these standards to the people of what is expected of all men. Justice therefore is the consequence of all men and women falling short of that standard.

The ultimate punishment in failure then is death. That is the price set by the Law and none are exempt. There is nothing higher that men and women may be judged. So when men and women defy that Law, they defy God and must expect to pay with their lives. Natural law is no less as powerful because ultimately for both God's righteousness is still the measure required of all men.

So is natural punishment of no value? No, it has value because who is to say that a perpetrator cannot be changed anymore than them who are not? As long as a man or woman might live, there is always the hope that God may act in their lives to change the nature that has brought them to the point of being punished. But that must be done before death comes calling.

This kind of thing makes me want to punish the bastards even more. I would prefer to let 'god' judge them rather than hope that some magical transformation will occur that makes them into useful and worthwhile beings. If 'god' cares so much about transforming the tossers he should do something about it BEFORE they do whatever it was that gets them punished.

That and 'god' as it is called is yet to be proven so I would prefer we continue with human punishments rather than wait for a possibly non-existent entity to fix things. The biggest bloody cop out in the history of humankind is the 'god' will do something about it idea.

Murder a few innocent people for no reason? God or Satan told you to. Declare war on some other god/s followers? They are evil heathens, or infidels, or kafirs and as such should die. Give a few punt to the charity bucket during the holidays? God tells us to be generous to the poor(as long as they are not heathens, or infidels, or kafirs). Bloody bullocks take responsibility for your own actions be they good or bad.

[Chlodwig I.]

Justice is neither Good nor Bad
and on earth is no justice only the law

The Law is a Ruleset that shows which behaviour in a society is unwanted or considered to be wrong and how someone who breaks these rules is punished
Law is necessary to to keep a society stable, thats all.

The way someone is punished for a crime depends on the Society
E.g. in most Dictatorships there is still a rule of law but only in those areas where the Government is not effected.
Most democracies are only considered better (in terms of law) then a Dictatorship because of things like habeas corpus etc.

[magickyleo101]

So it seems to me that there is only two reasons for punishment. One seems to be for simple revenge and the other reason is to prevent future occurances of the act that you are punishing for. Yet I don't see the point of the first reason, so can anyone tell me what purpose vengence surves? Why should we want revenge?

Because people always talk about someone receiving their just deserts, but surly it dosn't matter once a crime is done, it is done and getting revenge changes nothing. But it shoud matter about future prevention of the crime not the crimminal, who should be punished as a warning to others not so they can feel some of the pain they have meeted out themselves, which seems like a purposless objective. So purpose do you guys think punishment surves.

P.S this thread is kind of stupid, with obvious answers, but Im bored.

There are a couple arguments you see for the retributive theory of punishment, but I think the best one is one from elimination. The argument essentially says that the retributive theory is correct because the other, results oriented, theories justify obviously immoral behavior. We can put the argument like this:

Suppose for a moment that you're right, and whether we're justified in punishing someone has only to do with whether the punishment will prevent future crimes and nothing to do with whether the punishment is "deserved" because of a past crime. Then it should follow that when we're thinking about punishing someone we only ask whether doing so will stop future crimes at a sufficiently low cost. We don't care about whether the person we're punishing actually did anything, so long as the preventative effect of the punishment is the same.

So let's say you're the sheriff in a town where a crime's been committed. You know you can't catch the real criminal but there's a vagrant passing through town who you can convincingly frame. If you frame and then punish the vagrant you'll get the same deterrent effect that you would have gotten from punishing the actual criminal. (And stipulate that no one will catch you: For example, say you live in the American South during the 1930's and the vagrant is black. People will think he did it just because of the color of his skin.)

If the results oriented justification of punishment is correct, then, there's no reason no to punish the vagrant. In fact, so long as you know the deterrent effect would be the same, you have no more reason to punish the actual criminal than the vagrant, even when could catch the actual criminal.

But punishing the vagrant is obviously wrong - he didn't do anything. Thus, the results of punishment can't actually be the real source of the justification of punishment.

Another, faster, way to put the argument goes like this: If punishment is justified because of its results, then whenever you have the same result from a punishment you ought to be equally justified in imposing it. But there are cases where the results are the same but you're nonetheless justified in imposing the punishment on one party but not the other (e.g. the example above). So punishment isn't justified by its results.

In any case, the point is that the retributive theory of punishment becomes attractive because it avoids the conclusions we saw in the hypothetical above. We don't want to say its OK to use innocent people by punishing them to deter others, so adopt a theory that recognizes the importance of desert.

[Djûn]

Magickyleo summary explains it excellently. I would add another argument though which is often used by the editor-in-chief of the International Criminal Law Review:

If we adopt a theory of justice which is based solely on preventative action, then we will have problems with the whole concept of 'making the punishment fit the crime'. When looking at crime rates and indeed human nature, we can see that the more serious crimes such as murder and rape are much fewer and far between than the lesser crimes such as theft. Thus, we can conclude that, as humans are generally 'good', there is a much lesser chance that someone will commit a murder than a theft. If we are to apply a results-based form of punishment, i.e. one which is designed to prevent further crimes arising whilst using as little of the public resources possible to do so, then we find ourselves in the situation where the prevention of crimes such as theft should carry a heavier penalty than crimes such as murder. This is simply because natural human aversion to murder acts as a large enough deterrent to prevent a vast majority of the population from ever committing that crime whilst this is less-so for a theft. Therefore, for the prevention of these crimes, one must essentially hand out severe and lengthy sentences for theft but only need give lighter ones for murder.

[catintheoven]

I think vengeance is just a ridiculous primal instinct, often it causes even more trouble, just look at the stupid blood feud wedding massacre they had in turkey a few weeks ago, the western world lol's at such behaviour but we do it all the time, people forming mobs outside courts screaming 'gut the b*tards'.

A few weeks ago their was a boy in the UK who got ran over and the driver ran off and their was a massive hunt for her, and the family were christian and saying how they were happy he was with jesus now but then had a press conference saying that they wanted her to come forward to give them 'peace', which is odd because I thought they had come to terms with it?! I suspect they just wanted her punished.

I often have a problem with punishment because no one ever does it logically,

If your punishing to inflict pain then arent you just saying its unacceptable for people to act one way but the state can do it if they want, for example the death penalty.

I often worry about people given life in prison, because if they reform early on they are a different person being punished for the way they acted years before, people change, if they were released they might never act that way again.

Is punishment supposed to be reforming? If so why are people who commit accidental crimes or are genuinely sorry punished if they already have learn't their lesson?

I find the motives behind punishment and vengeance totally beyond my understanding, it seems so illogical to solve problems

[magickyleo101]

...

If your punishing to inflict pain then arent you just saying its unacceptable for people to act one way but the state can do it if they want, for example the death penalty.

...

I find that this argument gets significantly more attention in terms of how often its repeated than its quality really merits. I mean, it's just astounding to me that people say this... So let's make a short list of two very, very glaring problems with it:

First, the whole point of a government is to do things that ordinary people aren't allowed to do. That's what makes them governments.

For example, the government gets to take your money through force in the form of taxes to pay for projects it deems worthy. Ordinary people can't do that. The government gets to make up rules about what counts as acceptable behavior (e.g. municipal ordinances telling you how loud your music can be, or what side of the street you live on, or what animals you can own as a pet, etc.). Ordinary people can't do that. I mean, for Christ's sake, the definition of "government" is often said to be "an organization that claims a monopoly on the use of force." "Monopoly" here, you'll note, is understood to mean "something they get to do that you don't."

Second, I'm just going to go ahead and assume that you think that at least someone ought to be empowered to take steps to prevent things like assaults, burglaries, rapes, murders, etc. So you've got two options here:

1. You can say that everyone ought to be empowered to an equal degree to stop socially unacceptable behavior; or
2. You can say that some people or organizations (presumably the government) ought to have powers to stop crimes but that those powers shouldn't be shared by everyone.

If you go with the first option you're essentially endorsing privately administered (aka "vigilante") justice, and all of the wonderful impacts such a system would bring. I take it from the wording of your post that that's not actually what you're saying.

And that brings us, then, to the second of the two options, and full circle from where we started - that the whole point of government is to do things that normal people can't. It's simply not an intelligible criticism of a government action that normal people can't take that action.


So let's put this argument on the "never, ever, make again" list. The meme has to die somewhere...

If we adopt a theory of justice which is based solely on preventative action, then we will have problems with the whole concept of 'making the punishment fit the crime'. When looking at crime rates and indeed human nature, we can see that the more serious crimes such as murder and rape are much fewer and far between than the lesser crimes such as theft. Thus, we can conclude that, as humans are generally 'good', there is a much lesser chance that someone will commit a murder than a theft. If we are to apply a results-based form of punishment, i.e. one which is designed to prevent further crimes arising whilst using as little of the public resources possible to do so, then we find ourselves in the situation where the prevention of crimes such as theft should carry a heavier penalty than crimes such as murder. This is simply because natural human aversion to murder acts as a large enough deterrent to prevent a vast majority of the population from ever committing that crime whilst this is less-so for a theft. Therefore, for the prevention of these crimes, one must essentially hand out severe and lengthy sentences for theft but only need give lighter ones for murder

This is another one of my favorite arguments against results-based justifications of punishment. You can extend the argument - for example, if we know that members of certain demographics are more likely to commit a given crime, a results based theory would justify a rule punishing those individuals more harshly, even though their specific act wasn't any more culpable than the same action taken by a member of a different demographic.

I would add more here, because this stuff is really quite interesting, but I was up late on a project for my summer job and the other stuff I had was somewhat incoherent...

[eisenkopf]

The poll is missing an important reason: Compensation. For most lesser crimes, the punishment is also about compensating individuals or society for what they have suffered due to the actions of the convict.

Also, the preventive effect of punishment is highly overrated. Many studies have shown that what really deters potential criminals is not the severity of the punishment they could face, but the probability of getting caught and sentenced at all.

[AqD]

The poll is missing an important reason: Compensation. For most lesser crimes, the punishment is also about compensating individuals or society for what they have suffered due to the actions of the convict.

revenage is part of the compensation!

Also, the preventive effect of punishment is highly overrated. Many studies have shown that what really deters potential criminals is not the severity of the punishment they could face, but the probability of getting caught and sentenced at all.

hmmm our police systems are too ineffective I guess.....

An eye for an eye and no more. The punishment should fit the crime.

What would you if one of your neightbors go crazy and decide to beat you everyday?

According to the rule of "an eye for an eye", he'd be beaten too after he beats you. But what if he just ignores the pain and continue to beat you?

[catintheoven]

I'm not saying laws should not be enforced by courts and the police which you've some how warped from my statement but punishing for the sake of it (for pain as I put it) just sounds like sadism to me, simple vengeance which I don't think is the way the state should act. They do have power over people yes, but they need to administer that power carefully in courts, punishing just to punish to me seems ridiculous when your returning misery for causing misery, it just further encourages an eye for an eye culture, it makes it acceptable to flex power for the sake of it, it doesn't matter if the state has the 'right' to do it, the common criminal does not make that distinction.