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Comment by rendall | Hacker News Reader

How bizarre and ivory-tower.

He defines his identity ("I am a retributivist") according to philosophical stance rather than to simply describe his beliefs ("I ascribe to retributivism").

> "To be clear, I oppose family punishment. Why? Because I am a retributivist."

That's not an explanation. The answer "I am a retributivist" does not answer "why?". The natural next question is "What led you to retributivism?"

Once your political or philosophical stance becomes your identity ("I am a conservative." "I am a progressive.") it becomes extremely difficult to accept alternative information or perspectives that might change your mind. It becomes extremely difficult to even bother justifying your stance. "I vote straight line Democrat because I am a Democrat" "I vote straight line Republican because I am a Republican"

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Everyone goes through a phase of needing to determine where they stand on the most important issues. University is the time and place for that. It's very convenient shorthand to say "I'm a ___", to let others know your current thinking. It just saves time.

Some people never got the memo, you aren't supposed to construct your identity around these things. It's just a shorthand expression that starts with "I'm a".

As everyone matures, people either give up on these questions, or refine their views into something that doesn't fit cleanly into a label.

So it is "ivory-tower", but it's not bizarre, it's very normal. And unfortunately, not growing out of it is also normal for the professorship.

Agreed. I think for me, bizarre because the conclusion was so medieval. I get that it is a philosophical essay so reasoning like "I do not agree with punishing family members for the crimes of their kin because I am a civilized human being" isn't really going to point us readers to anything new. But "... because I ascribe to an equally medieval value that the punishment of a crime must include the suffering of the perpetrator" was a shocking, rather bizarre turn that I had not expected.

Yeah, the author has committed to a stance without explaining why or how, beyond kind of provocatively suggesting that it's the only stance intellectually consistent with ruling out family punishment as a policy... as if he didn't outline his stance in several bullet points, and only 1 of those bullet points is sufficient to rule out family punishment.

> How bizarre and ivory-tower.

I agree in general, but knowing that the author is a professor of Economics at George Mason University, I am less surprised.

My perception is that Econ department seems to have a lot of room for unusual ideas within the field and rather a lot of professors who hold forth or publish on topics that overlap to a variable degree with economics-- like how this post addresses questions of punishment and moral philosophy with what appear to be the tools of economics.

He defines his identity ("I am a retributivist") according to philosophical stance rather than to simply describe his beliefs ("I ascribe to retributivism").

That could also just be you reading way to much into a certain choice of words. I use the phrase »I am a XYZ« with all kind of values for XYZ all the time - human, American, software developer, atheist, heavy metal fan, ... In none of the cases - except maybe for human - do I want to imply that XYZ defines my identity or even dominates my identity.

> That's not an explanation.

This article was not trying to explain that. It was a challenge to consequentialists' view.

He kinda explains it later:

> I think that inflicting suffering on vicious wrong-doers is morally praiseworthy even in the absence of any deterrent effect. Deterrence is a happy byproduct, but the fundamental point of punishment is to balance the scales of justice. In my Hitler-on-an-island thought experiment, for example, I maintain that the morally correct action is to make Hitler suffer as much as possible. Though you can’t make him die twenty million times, you should try your best to approach that ideal.

However, something is off here. They don't so much think that punishing wrong-doers is right; I suspect, since no reasoning is given, that they feel it's right. I'm no better, I don't agree with redistributism just because I don't feel the same, but I do feel that suffering is bad.

I suppose you're right and my expecting an entire dissertation in an off-hand blog post isn't reasonable. Maybe I just disagree with "retributivism" (I find the concept barbaric and uncivilized fr) and so my standard for justifying its adoption is unreasonably high. Still, "balance the scales of justice" seems a rather weak justification.

I think the moral justification for the revenge motive in distributing justice is rather flimsy, but it does have an actual utility. The other rationales have utility as well (deterrence and isolating dangerous people from the rest of society), but the utility in incorporating revenge into the justice system is social cohesion (or at least removing a threat to it). Most people who have been wronged crave revenge, which I would personally consider to be rather immature, but nearly all people react this way when tested. If people lose faith that the justice system will implement it for them, then faith in the institutions falls to pieces, and social cohesion collapses as people resort to vigilantism. Which would lead to the total collapse of a country as the government loses its monopoly on violence.

Right, and the 'revenge' (retributive justice) is ostensibly measured and fair for the crime, acted out by impartial and dispassionate agents. The other danger of allowing revenge by the hand of those directly wronged is that there is a desire to escalate the response. See the classic fueds for examples of how this can spiral out of control.

State administered vengeance is certainly a superior alternative to vigilantism. It’s the underlying desire for revenge that I consider to be morally dubious. I’m not sure it’s entirely immoral to seek revenge, but I definitely think it’s immature and that the morally superior option is forgiveness.

But in any case, our justice system does incorporate vengeance into processes, but I don’t think that stems from a moral necessity. I think that it’s necessitated by the fact that the role of the government is to govern people, and people demand vengeance, regardless of the moral consequences.

> If people lose faith that the justice system will implement it for them, then faith in the institutions falls to pieces, and social cohesion collapses as people resort to vigilantism.

I understand the argument, and I do understand you're not advancing the argument yourself, simply presenting it.

Still, I disagree. The US is perceived as uniquely barbaric among the developed world for its punitive practices with its corporal punishment, extraordinarily long prison sentences, globally highest per capita prison rate, extra legal punishments like prison rape or "tuning up" by cops and guards that get a nod and a wink by American society. Not so coincidentally, trust in American institutions is at such an all-time low that some cities seem to have simply given up attempting to enforce any rule of law in certain districts. Partisanship and polarization is at levels not seen since the US Civil War.

So, I'm not sure that a sincere, compassionate reformation of the penal system that emphasizes rehabilitation and redemption could make things much worse.

There’s nothing unique about the US system when it comes to addressing this particular question. The details of specific sentencing guidelines are just implementation details. The primary concerns addressed by any justice system that implements “punishments” are deterrence and revenge (though the rationale for confinement can be slightly different). Nearly every justice system in the world seeks to punish offenders, because justice dictates that’s what they deserve. If the public feel that the justice system is not inflicting the appropriate level of suffering onto offenders, then you see vigilantism and other forms of civil unrest. But there’s not some grand moral justification for this, it’s just human nature.

The word “is” has many meanings, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with identity. If you say “I am hungry”, it doesn't mean that your hunger is your entire identity. “I am a retributivist” and “I ascribe to retributivism” are completely equivalent sentences.

I’m not sure what kind of thing you expect to find at the end of this chain.

I'm not sure I understand your query, but I appreciate self-reflection in general, e.g. "I hold the view that the suffering of the victim of a crime creates a kind of cosmic imbalance that is only rectified by equal suffering of the perpetrator, therefore I am a retributivist" or "Human beings who have been wronged have an emotional need to exact revenge and, like it or not, they are incomplete until this happens, therefore I am a retributivist" or "Societies that enact retributivist penal policies have less crime" or whatever, rather than "I think the way I do because I am a retributivist"

Same with politics. "I voted for the Republican because I am a Republican" elides a lot of self-reflective reasoning. "The Republican in the contest has a sound fiscal policy and promised to repeal the smoking ban" or whatever is just better thinking.

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