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I don't know if this is the right thread for this but here it goes: What did Jeremy Bentham say about personal identity?

Did he think a person who committed a crime should be held accountable for it if it happened 30 years ago? And what did Stuart Mill say in this matter?

If the person who committed the crime has changed, should he still be punished for the crime according to either Bentham, Mill or both?

@Azaleas,

Azaleas;156424 wrote:

I don't know if this is the right thread for this but here it goes: What did Jeremy Bentham say about personal identity?

Did he think a person who committed a crime should be held accountable for it if it happened 30 years ago? And what did Stuart Mill say in this mater?

If the person who committed the crime has changed, should he still be punished for the crime?

Of course. Even if people change, they remain the same person. What would change if something did not change? Change presupposes sameness.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;156429 wrote:

Of course. Even if people change, they remain the same person. What would change if something did not change? Change presupposes sameness.

The object of punishment is not punishment, but rehabilitation...The punishment is a means, and not an end, so if change was effected without punishment, then all the better, suck it up, and get on with life...

@Fido,

Prison changes people,
why not once they have found god there set them free?

People need to know the worth of their liberty and most of the time this means denying them of it.

But then again there is also something ot be said of the prison of the mind.
And how if you are truly sorry for something you will never be free again.

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;156891 wrote:

Prison changes people,
why not once they have found god there set them free?

People need to know the worth of their liberty and most of the time this means denying them of it.

But then again there is also something ot be said of the prison of the mind.
And how if you are truly sorry for something you will never be free again.

The reason prison must be such punishment is that liberty is so non existent as to be meaningless...You are not free or unfree, you are only more punished or less punished... Which do you choose???

@Fido,

Fido;156913 wrote:

The reason prison must be such punishment is that liberty is so non existent as to be meaningless...You are not free or unfree, you are only more punished or less punished... Which do you choose???

More punishment for those who need it more.
That is what true justice and law is about.
The wicked will serve their time.

@Fido,

Fido;156888 wrote:

The object of punishment is not punishment, but rehabilitation...The punishment is a means, and not an end, so if change was effected without punishment, then all the better, suck it up, and get on with life...

Some think that punishment is a means to what Aristotle called, "retributive justice", not rehabilitation. So did Kant. Kant held that if a murderer was going to be put to death in the morning, and if it was known that an earthquake would happen, and kill everyone present, that the murderer ought to be put to death before everyone was killed by the quake.

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;156921 wrote:

More punishment for those who need it more.
That is what true justice and law is about.
The wicked will serve their time.

That is not the way it works... When the guilty are punished as an example they are not punished in ratio to the crime and the damage the crime caused... It is an injustice to then and so to us, because we do not get what we pay for; but instead, for what we are told will work, when, if the criminal could learn by an example they could learn more easily in some other fashion, and if there were any money in it, they could learn faster too...

---------- Post added 04-26-2010 at 11:16 PM ----------

kennethamy;156923 wrote:

Some think that punishment is a means to what Aristotle called, "retributive justice", not rehabilitation. So did Kant. Kant held that if a murderer was going to be put to death in the morning, and if it was known that an earthquake would happen, and kill everyone present, that the murderer ought to be put to death before everyone was killed by the quake.

None of those people knew what worked, but the lessons of feud violence where not so distant in their time as in ours...Murder for murder, death for death is fair enough, usually; but when Western society used to hang children for stealing bread, children still stole bread... The example is pointless, so the extremes of example failes in it purpose, but only tends to dehumanize the very people we want to humanize...

This is not chicken feed we are talking about...The price of law enforcement in this country is huge, and it is a failure... There was a revisit to the Mai Lai Massacre tonight on the TV... William Calley after forty years of silence said he was sorry for everything, and that without life in prison, or the noose for that matter...He did not have to say it, and he did not have to mean it; but he did say it in a heartfelt sort of manor... If that simple feeling of genuine remorse was the object, and if was accomplished with out the brutalization, or the support of brutes, then why not??? Why not just pen people up and give them time to think...Why not, as much as is possible, try to get the punishment to fit the crime???

You know, very often in the distant past, murderers could escape with their lives if they got away fast enough...One group could settle with another and the life of the guilty was spared...Did that work, and if so, why??? When we think we are punishing an individual we are punishing his whole family... But where are the communities of the past who could defend their individuals or who could bargain for their lives??? Law breaks down communites, and when it does so it makes crime ever more certain...It does not work...

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;156923 wrote:

Some think that punishment is a means to what Aristotle called, "retributive justice", not rehabilitation. So did Kant. Kant held that if a murderer was going to be put to death in the morning, and if it was known that an earthquake would happen, and kill everyone present, that the murderer ought to be put to death before everyone was killed by the quake.

The supreme court said something about punishment being part of it:

Quote:

Although this is from a more pragmatic perspective than the "execute him even if everyone will die the next day" bit.

@Azaleas,

This discussion is really relevant to my life. When I was 15 I broke into my middle school with a friend, for fun. We didn't think about the fact that we were committing a breaking and entering felony into a public building, but we found out afterward.
Anyways, 5 years later I feel like an entirely new person. I try to understand what I was thinking back then and I can't even contemplate it. A certain amount of change has happened to my mind in the last 5 years, so much so that I can honestly tell you that I think I'm a different person now.
Biologically I am the same person, obviously - but I think that personal identity is founded in the mind, not the body, and that my identity has transformed.
If I were punished today for that crime, I would feel that it is unwarranted and inappropriate.
The discussion, I suppose, is not about whether individuals can recognize this transformation, but whether the state could effectively recognize it and determine an appropriate response. It would certainly incite a series of defendants to wrongly claim transformation to escape punishment.

@Azaleas,

Azaleas;156424 wrote:

I don't know if this is the right thread for this but here it goes: What did Jeremy Bentham say about personal identity?

Did he think a person who committed a crime should be held accountable for it if it happened 30 years ago? And what did Stuart Mill say in this matter?

If the person who committed the crime has changed, should he still be punished for the crime according to either Bentham, Mill or both?

Surely depends on the crime, scale and conesquenses.

@Azaleas,

If one understands that their action was wrong and refrains from that future action then that person has been rehabilitated with one's self and prison is no longer required. However, the mob-mentality usually rules such that society will demand "justice" and--like Pontius Pilate--the law by the people will rule for the people.

@Ergo phil,

Ergo;165800 wrote:

If one understands that their action was wrong and refrains from that future action then that person has been rehabilitated with one's self and prison is no longer required. However, the mob-mentality usually rules such that society will demand "justice" and--like Pontius Pilate--the law by the people will rule for the people.

I agree with the first part, that rehabilitation is the goal of punishment... The reason people accept law is because if you leave it to the injured to seek justice there is no limit to the justice they will demand; so that in looking at the Biblical measure of an Eye for an Eye, you are looking at a demand for restraint, even mercy... One should never forget that in punishing the guilty we are also punishing the innocent, those who are related, and even the tax payers who must see the largest part of their taxes, in many instances, go to nothing more than the creation of a worse human being coming out of incarceration than went in...

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