Anja,

Don’t let the scales fall so far from your eyes that you become a Hobbsian cynic. People are not so uniformly villainous that they can only be taught to do good through the threat of criminal sanction. People cheat, steal, and murder, sure – but they also donate kidneys to total strangers. We are more complicated than you are letting on, and you know it.

We do bad things for many reasons, and ‘profit’ is usually the least of them. Genocide is not profitable – you can steal someone’s bike without killing them and their family. This school is trying to teach us to see everything through a cost/benefit/economic lens; we are not required to succumb.

I agree with your insight law is not always based on moral certainties, but is created by humans. There are wise ways to proceed from here without growing the criminal law. Has the ICC found any genocide perpetrators who wouldn’t have done it if they thought they’d be punished more severely if caught?

On a micro level, I’d ask you to think seriously about paying your train fare. In theory, New York imposes significant penalties on turnstile-jumpers, as you advocate. In practice, theft of service arrests are just another means by which the state supplies young black men with longer criminal records than their white peers. Once we give the state the power to regulate our lives by threatening to punish us, we don’t always control how the power is used.

Much Best,

Andrew