Literally everyone is a product of their environment. So I guess in that regard there's no such thing as a blameworthy individual. If we believe we are products of our environment, we have to actually believe that.
Do I believe that there are people who need to be [redacted]? Hell yeah, lots of them. It's sad that things got this way but sometimes the immediate end to the harm caused by an individual is worth more than their ultimate triumph over their brainworms. Lots of veterans probably fall in this category. I view this as the ultimate and only possible conclusion of embracing historical materialism over great man theory.
I would hesitate to wed socialist thought to determinism. Marx wasn't a determinist and material relations is not the same thing as a lack of free will. Engels was a capitalist and betrayed his class, after all.
I would reject this position as I cannot believe in the morality of harming a blameless person. To me, it would be like executing a mentally ill person. If noone is in control of their actions, then there cannot be punishment for behavior of any sort. It would be horrific to punish someone for behavior they had no control over.
I have some reading on this subject I'll share here: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/molyneux/1995/xx/determin.htm
Full disclosure, I haven't read this, I'm too busy fielding other replies, but one question on this - is there some other factor besides lived experience/material conditions that makes a person more or less likely to make "evil" decisions? If so, do you have any idea what that might be?
thanks for believing that I'm engaging in good faith btw you're making me think and I appreciate you :meow-hug:
I would reject this position as I cannot believe in the morality of harming a blameless person. To me, it would be like executing a mentally ill person. If noone is in control of their actions, then there cannot be punishment for behavior of any sort. It would be horrific to punish someone for behavior they had no control over.
:side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
That sounds pretty correct to me. Punishment is just unnecessary suffering on top of unnecessary suffering.
Why must it be necessary for punishment to be morally justified? Is there some other thing that exists that makes it so that absolutely must be true, other than vague collective opinion?
Yeah, I mean, my biggest "die on this hill" take is that retributive justice is bad. Period. I'm an absolutist about it. I think there are situations where violence is necessary obviously. Sometimes you have to execute someone, in a revolutionary situation, for practical reasons. But I'm against it for retributive reasons.
The example I always use because its fairly extreme, is that like, if world revolution happened somehow and Obama waited out the whole thing in a bunker, and he was still alive after the revolution was finished and secured. And then the leaders of the revolution met to discuss his fate. And I was there (I wouldn't be a leader of the revolution lol, I'd be taking care of the kids, but just for thought experiments sake I guess) I would advocate against executing him. I'd suggest whatever form of restorative justice we could actually accomplish, but mostly just... leaving him alone in a comfortable but not luxurious place mostly separate from society. I would see executing him after he ceases to be a danger to the revolution as retributive, and thus pointless.
And I understand thats a VERY hot take among leftsits.... well sort of. A lot of them will claim to be prison abolitionists and restorative justice believers when asked, but also are also like... extremally bloodthirsty at times. With my Obama example, one of my friends said "if even one Libyan wants him dead, then he dies" (which I think is incredibly absurd but whatever). And I think that takes SIMILAR to that are pretty common. And, honestly, I get it. I get so angry at things like transphobic state legislatures that i want them dead. And its cathartic (WOW I REMEMBERED THE WORD) to demand their deaths as well. But in reality the only reason I want them dead is so they stop hurting people. So I'd also be perfectly ok with them merely removed from power and forced to go through restorative justice programs. Its only the danger they present to others that I want to stop.
So yeah, I think retributive justice is incompatible with leftism and I will die on that hill no matter how much I sympathize with the rage that causes people to want it.
Literally everyone is a product of their environment. So I guess in that regard there’s no such thing as a blameworthy individual. If we believe we are products of our environment, we have to actually believe that.
We aren't merely products of our environment but conscious shapers of it as well. Humans, shaped by their environment, shapes their environment. Given that this shaping is conscious, it means we can assign praise for people who consciously shape our environment for the better and contempt for people who consciously shape our environment for the worse. Marx said that man does not make history as he pleases. He did not say that history makes man, which is what you're suggesting. To suggest this is to slide into undialectical mechanism.
if we're following this thought to its conclusion, do you believe then that people can change? like, yes people are products of their environments but they are not ONLY products of their environments
Literally everyone is a product of their environment. So I guess in that regard there's no such thing as a blameworthy individual. If we believe we are products of our environment, we have to actually believe that.
Do I believe that there are people who need to be [redacted]? Hell yeah, lots of them. It's sad that things got this way but sometimes the immediate end to the harm caused by an individual is worth more than their ultimate triumph over their brainworms. Lots of veterans probably fall in this category. I view this as the ultimate and only possible conclusion of embracing historical materialism over great man theory.
I would hesitate to wed socialist thought to determinism. Marx wasn't a determinist and material relations is not the same thing as a lack of free will. Engels was a capitalist and betrayed his class, after all.
I would reject this position as I cannot believe in the morality of harming a blameless person. To me, it would be like executing a mentally ill person. If noone is in control of their actions, then there cannot be punishment for behavior of any sort. It would be horrific to punish someone for behavior they had no control over.
I have some reading on this subject I'll share here: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/molyneux/1995/xx/determin.htm
Full disclosure, I haven't read this, I'm too busy fielding other replies, but one question on this - is there some other factor besides lived experience/material conditions that makes a person more or less likely to make "evil" decisions? If so, do you have any idea what that might be?
thanks for believing that I'm engaging in good faith btw you're making me think and I appreciate you :meow-hug:
:side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
That sounds pretty correct to me. Punishment is just unnecessary suffering on top of unnecessary suffering.
Why must it be necessary for punishment to be morally justified? Is there some other thing that exists that makes it so that absolutely must be true, other than vague collective opinion?
Yeah, I mean, my biggest "die on this hill" take is that retributive justice is bad. Period. I'm an absolutist about it. I think there are situations where violence is necessary obviously. Sometimes you have to execute someone, in a revolutionary situation, for practical reasons. But I'm against it for retributive reasons.
The example I always use because its fairly extreme, is that like, if world revolution happened somehow and Obama waited out the whole thing in a bunker, and he was still alive after the revolution was finished and secured. And then the leaders of the revolution met to discuss his fate. And I was there (I wouldn't be a leader of the revolution lol, I'd be taking care of the kids, but just for thought experiments sake I guess) I would advocate against executing him. I'd suggest whatever form of restorative justice we could actually accomplish, but mostly just... leaving him alone in a comfortable but not luxurious place mostly separate from society. I would see executing him after he ceases to be a danger to the revolution as retributive, and thus pointless.
And I understand thats a VERY hot take among leftsits.... well sort of. A lot of them will claim to be prison abolitionists and restorative justice believers when asked, but also are also like... extremally bloodthirsty at times. With my Obama example, one of my friends said "if even one Libyan wants him dead, then he dies" (which I think is incredibly absurd but whatever). And I think that takes SIMILAR to that are pretty common. And, honestly, I get it. I get so angry at things like transphobic state legislatures that i want them dead. And its cathartic (WOW I REMEMBERED THE WORD) to demand their deaths as well. But in reality the only reason I want them dead is so they stop hurting people. So I'd also be perfectly ok with them merely removed from power and forced to go through restorative justice programs. Its only the danger they present to others that I want to stop.
So yeah, I think retributive justice is incompatible with leftism and I will die on that hill no matter how much I sympathize with the rage that causes people to want it.
I suppose the Nuremberg trials went too far, in your opinion?
We aren't merely products of our environment but conscious shapers of it as well. Humans, shaped by their environment, shapes their environment. Given that this shaping is conscious, it means we can assign praise for people who consciously shape our environment for the better and contempt for people who consciously shape our environment for the worse. Marx said that man does not make history as he pleases. He did not say that history makes man, which is what you're suggesting. To suggest this is to slide into undialectical mechanism.
if we're following this thought to its conclusion, do you believe then that people can change? like, yes people are products of their environments but they are not ONLY products of their environments