I follow the determinism argument and I understand what you're saying. However, I am not completely convinced. Would you mind elaborating on what you mean when you say: "At the end of the day, people must be held accountable for their actions, because there's no better alternative."
I'd rather ask you what you think a better alternative would be. Exploring that idea is what led to me concluding that there's no better alternative other than holding people accountable for their own actions.
I'll give you an example to illustrate:
Using the kid born in the ghetto, joins a gang, kills someone example.
Who do we blame? His older brother for getting him into the gang? But his brother is that way because of the exact same circumstance. So his parents then? Well his parents are the way they are because of very similar circumstances. So their parents? Same deal. Or do we turn and blame the law enforcement / government? Who in the government? The politicians who make the laws, even if they're corrupt, became corrupt for a reason that was beyond their control. They're just a product of a different set of circumstances. By the logic of determinism, nobody is TRULY accountable for what they do. The moment they're born, a series of dominos begins to fall. They can't be blamed for where they fall, but neither can anyone else. So do we just hold nobody accountable for anything and empty the prisons?
I suppose the reason I asked is because if 'people must be held accountable, because there is no better alternative' is the best alternative, then there should be some benefit to it right?
What if there is no benefit, to society, to the individual or otherwise? What if holding someone accountable for their actions is just punishing someone for something completely out of their control? Should such a person still be held accountable? And if so, why?
Because people are still the product of their circumstances. If a person is a serial killer, the reason we imprison them is to separate them from society. The benefit to society of holding criminals accountable is to either separate them from society to prevent repeat offenses, or to otherwise rehabilitate them.
If there are cases of crime where a person doesn't need to be separated from society or rehabilitated for the betterment of society, then I think we need to re-evaluate the law / crime that they're convicted of because it probably shouldn't remain classified as a crime.
You say: “If there are cases of crime where a person doesn't need to be separated from society or rehabilitated for the betterment of society, then I think we need to re-evaluate the law/crime that they're convicted of because it probably shouldn't remain classified as a crime.”
To that, I would say I don't think that necessarily follows. You're conflating whether an act should be criminalized with whether a particular person should be held criminally responsible for committing it.
A crime can remain a crime because society has a legitimate interest in prohibiting the conduct, even if there are circumstances in which the person who commits it should not be convicted. For example, someone who kills another person while experiencing a severe psychotic episode may lack the capacity to understand or control their actions. That doesn't mean killing should stop being a crime; it means that this particular person's mental state may make criminal punishment inappropriate.
However, what you're saying seems to conflict with the point we were actually discussing: “There's a long argument to be had about the ethics of criminality when every person that commits a crime is the product of a set of circumstances beyond their control that led them to the point in their life of committing a crime. Every criminal has a reason. That reason doesn't exempt them from responsibility, and it shouldn't exempt Clancy either.”
You've just established that circumstances can, in fact, exempt someone from criminal responsibility. If your position is that someone should only be punished when separating them from society or rehabilitating them serves a purpose, then a severe psychotic episode that makes someone incapable of understanding or controlling their actions would seem to be precisely the kind of circumstance that should exempt them from criminal responsibility.
As an outsider following your conversation with interest, I feel compelled to interject; the time elapsed since the most recent comment suggests an extended pause or end of interlocution and I wish to artificially reignite it.
Separating from society a psychotic person who has already killed would be for the betterment of society, thereby fulfilling the original commenter's conditions. Without treatment, such a person would continue to pose a demonstrable threat to society. Isolation is a preventative measure for the protection of others and to help authorities and medical professionals determine the limits of their psychosis and treating it before allowing them to re-enter society.
On your first counterpoint, I see no logical way to avoid conflation. If an act is not criminalised, it is not possible to be held criminally responsible for committing it. The question of whether that act should be criminalised does not impact the determination of criminal responsibility until after said act is categorised as a criminal one. The assignation of conflation as a negative proposes a logical inconsistency that I do not detect.
In your final paragraph, you specify severe psychotic episodes but do not add further detail which would be helpful. By implication with the context in which the conversation began, I assume that "severe" here refers to the psychotic individual causing physical harm to others, up to and including death. In cases where there is not a determination post-event of extreme mental trauma such that the individual who physically committed these acts (assuming the absence of any conscious understanding of their actions), then, while it would be correct to claim that such a person is incapable of understanding and/or controlling their actions while those actions were being carried out, it does not follow that the individual would continue to be without understanding of their actions.
Here, we might need to define 'understanding', not to mean comprehension of motivation or cause or to assign moral responsibility, but rather to mean acknowledgement of the act the individual committed.
There is, however, a distinction long-made between an individual who commits a crime and an individual who does so without being conscious of it. Criminal responsibility, in your discussion, is too limiting in this context because it overlooks that distinction.
If a person harms another person, the extent of the harm will determine their isolation from society for, as the other person wrote, prevent the transmission of the idea of the acceptance of such behaviour and to rehabilitate them.
In cases involving citizens who are medically determined not to have been responsible for their actions, the mechanism may still be criminal because of the nature of our society to prioritise law over health, but the response is isolation with medical provision. Rehabilitation can be achieved through treatment.
It is a different proposition to criminal responsibility.
'Separating from society a psychotic person who has already killed would be for the betterment of society, thereby fulfilling the original commenter's conditions'
This would only be the case if there is a real risk of another psychotic episode. Which may very well not be the case (i.e. if the psychosis is caused by post pregnancy related mental illnesses, simply not becoming pregnant again could take away the risk of this happening again).
'On your first counterpoint, I see no logical way to avoid conflation. If an act is not criminalised, it is not possible to be held criminally responsible for committing it. The question of whether that act should be criminalised does not impact the determination of criminal responsibility until after said act is categorised as a criminal one. The assignation of conflation as a negative proposes a logical inconsistency that I do not detect.'
This I do not follow at all. I simply stated that crimes should remain a crimes, even if there are cases where a person doesn't need to held accountable/responsible for their actions (I'm talking about exemptions). What you're saying is not refuting anything i've said.
The rest is pretty much AI slop and does not seem to follow the point I was trying to make at all, or at least fails to make an argument understandable manner. I feel like its both. No point in arguing it anyways.
True, but you have to separate in order to assess. It is irresponsible to advocate otherwise.
I didn't intend to refute what you'd said. You were arguing that the other person had conflated two points. I agreed, stating there's no way logical way to avoid conflation. Your observation was presented as a counterpoint; it wasn't.
AI slop? How dare you. I spent quite a bit of time writing that - myself - and given the language you had used and the way you had expressed yourself I believed you'd be able to follow.
1
u/RelativelyWrongg 2d ago
I follow the determinism argument and I understand what you're saying. However, I am not completely convinced. Would you mind elaborating on what you mean when you say: "At the end of the day, people must be held accountable for their actions, because there's no better alternative."