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DanKarmelFirstPaper 5 - 22 Jun 2010 - Main.DanKarmel
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| | | Our justice system is more than carelessly replete with moral phraseology. It is, at its most basic levels, built upon assumptions of morality. We throw around phrases like "good man" and "black hat" with a tone of irony, but such language reflects the truth about the way most of us view criminal justice. | |
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< | Granted, most people understand that these labels are not entirely binary. We talk of shades of gray and "hating the crime not the man." These are modest acknowledgments of the absurdity of reducing human beings to these labels. However, they muddle an even more important assumption. When we punish someone, in the criminal system or otherwise, there is a core and necessary belief of
culpability. | >
> | Granted, most people understand that these labels are not entirely binary. We talk of shades of gray and "hating the crime not the man." These are modest acknowledgments of the absurdity of reducing human beings to these labels. However, they muddle an even more important assumption. When we punish someone, in the criminal system or otherwise, there is a core and necessary belief of culpability. | | | The Myth of Moral Culpability | |
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< | Is culpability a myth? At best, it is exaggerated. Holmes touches upon this is
The Path of the Law, when he writes, "If the typical criminal is a degenerate, bound to swindle or to murder by as deep seated an organic necessity as that which makes the rattlesnake bite, it is idle to talk of deterring him by the classical method of imprisonment. He must be got rid of; he cannot be improved, or frightened out of his structural reaction." Page 11. | >
> | Is culpability a myth? At best, it is exaggerated. Holmes touches upon this in The Path of the Law, when he writes, "If the typical criminal is a degenerate, bound to swindle or to murder by as deep seated an organic necessity as that which makes the rattlesnake bite, it is idle to talk of deterring him by the classical method of imprisonment. He must be got rid of; he cannot be improved, or frightened out of his structural reaction." | | | | |
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> | Though he attributes this idea to "men of science," there is reason to believe that he himself holds such a view. In the process of criticizing the second fallacy of the law, namely that logic is the only force within it, he concedes that "in the broadest sense, indeed, that notion would be true. The postulate on which we think about the universe is that there is a fixed quantitative relation between every phenomenon and its antecedents and consequents. If there is such a thing as a phenomenon without these fixed quantitative relations, it is a miracle. It is outside the law of cause and effect, and as such transcends our power of thought, or at least is something to or from which we cannot reason." | | | | |
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< | Signs that proofreading
is not being done. You need to get used to proofreading carefully
every version of every document that leaves your
hands.
And what's the point of
a page citation to an HTML document available on the web? Make a
link.
Though he attributes this idea to "men of science," there is reason to believe that he himself holds such a view. In the process of criticizing the second fallacy of the law, namely that logic is the only force within it, he concedes that "in the broadest sense, indeed, that notion would be true. The postulate on which we think about the universe is that there is a fixed quantitative relation between every phenomenon and its antecedents and consequents. If there is such a thing as a phenomenon without these fixed quantitative relations, it is a miracle. It is outside the law of cause and effect, and as such transcends our power of thought, or at least is something to or from which we cannot reason." Page 7. | | | As I understand it, Holmes is conceding that law, like anything else in the universe, must be some combination of inevitable logic and unpredictable randomness.
No. This was discussed |
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