Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!mhuxm!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.misc,net.politics,net.religion,net.women Subject: Re: Guilt and punishment Message-ID: <440@pyuxn.UUCP> Date: Fri, 3-Feb-84 20:59:13 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxn.440 Posted: Fri Feb 3 20:59:13 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 04:57:54 EST References: <791@ssc-vax.UUCP> Organization: Central Services Org., Piscataway N.J. Lines: 51 I keep hearing in both net.religion and net.women about the notions of guilt and punishment. Net.religion is really the appropriate place for discussion, but I am posting to net.women also because of part of a tangential subdiscussion about punishment for rapists. Upfront, I don't believe in this malarchy {n., government by very bad people [?????]} about one's choices and actions. We've got chemicals in our bodies, and we take action based on those chemicals. If the actions a person takes are deemed detrimental to members of society, society is given the right to take action against that person. But what precisely is that action? Is it punishment? [YOU'VE BEEN A NAUGHTY BOY/GIRL AND YOU'RE BEING PUNISHED BY BEING PUT IN A NASTY PLACE SO YOU'LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!] Is it simply stopping the person from doing whatever they did again? (Does incarceration help to accomplish this?) Is it providing the victim with restitution/assistance in recovering from the person's action? (At the expense of the perpetrator?) Our society's current viewpoint seems to be along the lines of "you did something---it was wrong---you must be punished for it". What does this really accomplish? If someone rapes, murders, or steals, and is incarcerated as a result, what has been accomplished? Keeping this person "off the streets" for a few years? Some people may get scared enough by incarceration that their behavior does indeed change, but most would simply continue in their old chemically ingrained behavior patterns when they are released. Since we are not really all that knowledgeable about goal-directed behavior modification as A Clockwork Orange would have us believe (realizing that even in that book the reality was that *they* weren't all that knowledgeable), results in changing the behavior of incarcerated criminals are limited, and there are those who believe that such techniques, if used, would violate one's civil rights (despite the fact that such behavior modification occurs continuously through mass media and societal reinforcement). And what about the victim? Since it is beyond our abilities (probably ever) to change the fact that a person has been raped or murdered as a result of another person's violence, what should be done for the victims and/or their survivors? I don't have a lot of answers, but I have a few questions. What is our motivation for seeking punishment for the guilty? If a person's violent anti-social behavior that is caused by hormonal/chemical ibalances can be altered and verified through therapy, chemo- or psycho-, then is "punishment" still important to "teach that person a lesson"? Why? And does society do its part for the victim? What is that "part"? To what extent are current societal attitudes towards these things a result of religious indoctrination? PLEASE feel free to limit the resulting discussion to a single newsgroup. The only reason for the multiple postings was because of the variety of sources that sparked me to write this. -- Pardon me for breathing... Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr