Discussion of motivation & Punishment from EP134

[Mr. Tweedy]

Now I'm confused again.  The individual and the environment are connected to the point where it is impossible to talk about one without talking about the other.  Right.  That seems obvious and it doesn't contradict my view at all.

What are we disagreeing about?

Obviously, environment has a huge role in shaping what we are like (I speak English because I was born in America), but I can choose to learn German if I want to.  I want to be a writer, so I write.  My environment does not compel me to write: I choose to, and thus change my environment.  It goes both ways.  It's dynamic.

My primary point was that a person cannot be forced to change against their will.  If I am pleased by any aspect of myself, if I embrace it as part of my identity, if I like being the way I am, then you can't do anything to me to change it.  For instance, my religion.  You can't make me not be a Christian by subjecting me to calculated stimuli.  You can't put me through a program that will wash it out of me.  I can cease to be a Christian if I choose to, but you can't force that change on me.  A person has to want to be changed.  They must cooperate.

If a drunk wants to stop drinking, then they can be helped.  If a drunk likes being a drunk, then there is absolutely nothing you can do for him and any program you can think of will be an absolute waste of time.  There must be an internal desire to change.  That is what I mean be a change of heart.

Do you disagree with that?  If not, then we are in agreement.

[qwints]

Immanuel Kant's The Metaphysical Elements of Justice is one of the first works to lay out retributivism. In its most absolute form it might be represented by the claim that, "Even if a civil society resolved to dissolve itself ... the last murderer lying in prison ought to be executed." In other words, the reason for punishment does not lie in its effects. 

I think I'd fall on the "retributivist" side (although I've never heard that term before and am not sure).  The point of punishment is not to correct behavior or even to deter future crime.  Punishment is primarily as a means of social communication.  It's how a society says "this is unacceptable," and the degree of punishment indicates the degree of society's loathing.  Rehabilitation is a different idea that isn't necessarily associated with punishment at all.

A person can (and should) be punished regardless of whether or not they have a change of heart.  Punishment is externally imposed.  Rehabilitation can occur only if there is a change of heart.  Rehabilitation requires internal impetus.

The idea you suggest here sounds like the expressive theory of punishment. This might be represented by the claim "those persons who rationally resolve to hurt others in certain fundamental respects should be punished in order that they, and others, can see the moral significance of their actions." (Professor Samuel Pillsbury of Loyola Law School) In other words, punishment is a means of denouncing crimes against society. This seems to match how you feel about punishment. That said, it is not necessary to match your views with theories expressed in law reviews to see your basic moral intuitions about how society should treat criminals

You seem to fundamentally believe in an inner self which is independent of the environment and which must consciously participate for rehabilitation to occur. I feel that you are missing the distinction between someone who is freely choosing to keep drinking and someone who is programmed by his environment to need to drink. While it doesn't seem to matter for the story whether the narrator was a natural born killer or warped by his development, Resnick does seem to clearly portray someone who is driven to kill by something completely separate from his present environment.

[Loz]

Now I'm even more confused.  You don't think Sauron and Voldemort were reasoning free agents with complex motives?  Voldemort has a very complex backstory that provides him with lots of motives.  That doesn't mean he isn't evil.  Everyone has some reason for doing what they do.  If your standard for calling something evil is that it must be utterly purposeless and irrational, then you are essentially denying the concept.

Going off-topic, Voldemort never has any motive for being bad, he has the misfortune of having the bad Slytherin genes via his Mum, the bad upper-class genes of his father and being brought up working-class in the orphanage. I think J.K. was trying to draw a clumsy parallel between his growing up without parents and Harry's, he is after all the only baddie who neither has an evil sounding name or looks ugly until he chooses them for himself. After all, does Voldemort have any plans beyond killing anyone, magic or Muggle, that falls across his path?

Similarly Sauron has no purpose other than to be the embodiment of evil in Middle-Earth. Tolkien seems to be more interested in what happens when a variety of characters are offered the apple and typically the answer is to get rid of the temptation in the hopes that we will be allowed to return to the Garden, which is impossible because it's too late to unlearn what we learnt by biting into the apple the first time round.

I also disagree with the conclusion Mr Tweedy draws in the first post. We have to assume that this treatment has been used for many, many other people, as our narrator tells us, and that he is the first one it's broken down on. So, it's already doing better than most Ex-Gay Ministeries. A success rate of 99% is pretty good. So, there's a lot of people who can be 'stopped' from 'being evil'. Secondly, he doesn't start killing again until he starts getting some recall of his previous life, in the form of the mystery voice (I haven't listened again to the story, so might have got confused in the order there) Also, if the Government hadn't left a blank in his memory rather than fill it in with false ones, wouldn't he have then accepted them rather than try to discover what he did?

[qwints]

Going back to Mr. Tweedy's example of two individuals, the claim seems to be that behavior is less important than the inner self perpetuating that behavior. I think there are two ways to refute the implied argument. First, the father of the sick daughter is not as blameless as might first appear. The brief "shots were exchanged" neglects to discuss why this Robin Hood decided to open fire. There are all kinds of factors which might affect the morality of that action. Second, both of these men are equally dangerous to society. Both are willing to break a very basic rule of society when their situation compels them to. The true difference, of course, lies in their motivations. A desire to help family is obviously morally superior to hatred of another, but there is no reason to identify these as attributes chosen by some free-will owning self instead of attributes imparted by the environment and biology.

Since I am using this forum as a break from studying for my criminal law examine, the dad committed capital murder (commonly known as the felony murder rule) and would almost certainly get life without parole in Texas while the poisoner committed a first degree felony murder which carries a sentence of five to ninety-nine years to be decided by the convicted felon's choice of judge or jury.

[Russell Nash]

Since I am using this forum as a break from studying for my criminal law examine, the dad committed capital murder (commonly known as the felony murder rule) and would almost certainly get life without parole in Texas while the poisoner committed a first degree felony murder which carries a sentence of five to ninety-nine years to be decided by the convicted felon's choice of judge or jury.

If this had happened in a country with "European Style Socialized Medicine" (to use the Republican phrase), the father would have gone to the doctor gotten the perscription and had the perscription filled for about $15.  He wouldn't have needed to break the law at all.  But that is a whole other thread.

[eytanz]

Now I'm even more confused.  You don't think Sauron and Voldemort were reasoning free agents with complex motives?  Voldemort has a very complex backstory that provides him with lots of motives.  That doesn't mean he isn't evil.  Everyone has some reason for doing what they do.  If your standard for calling something evil is that it must be utterly purposeless and irrational, then you are essentially denying the concept.

Going off-topic, Voldemort never has any motive for being bad, he has the misfortune of having the bad Slytherin genes via his Mum, the bad upper-class genes of his father and being brought up working-class in the orphanage. I think J.K. was trying to draw a clumsy parallel between his growing up without parents and Harry's, he is after all the only baddie who neither has an evil sounding name or looks ugly until he chooses them for himself. After all, does Voldemort have any plans beyond killing anyone, magic or Muggle, that falls across his path?

That's not a particularly fair interpretation of the story, I think. Voldermort had plenty of reason to be upset and angry and, as the book makes it clear, scared. He ends up going on a path dedicated to making sure no-one has power over him, and to destory anyone and anything that reminds him of his family, especially his father. He is motivated, more than anything else, by fear and self-hatred. The books (esp. Book 6) make it amply clear that it was his *choices*, not his background, that made him turn evil, not his genetics. You can argue with how clumsy and simplistic Rowling's portrayal of this story is  - and I would agree that it's a bit of both - but I think the intention is very different from what you describe, and it is pretty clearly signposted by having Dumbledore explain this to Harry.

[Czhorat]

Do you make any distinction between these two (completely plausible) people?

Joe has a daughter with leukemia and no money.  He tries to earn the money to pay for treatments, but he can't land a job that makes enough money or has the right benefits.  In desperation, he takes a gun to the local Savings and Loan and holds it up.  As he is leaving, the cops show up.  Shots are exchanged, and Joe fatally shoots one of them during a successful getaway.  Joe is heartbroken because of what he's done, and the only reason he doesn't turn himself in and face judgement is that he doesn't want to leave his kid with no family.

Bob has a neighbor who he considers to be "trash."  This neighbor is the wrong social class, wrong skin color and throws the wrong kind of parties.  Bob decides the most straightforward solution to this problem is to slip some poison into the neighbor's food, which he does one day while the neighbor is out of town.  His plan works and the neighbor dies.  Bob pats himself on the back for having "taken out the trash" and spends the rest of his life feeling smug about it.

I think I'd fall on the "retributivist" side (although I've never heard that term before and am not sure).  The point of punishment is not to correct behavior or even to deter future crime.  Punishment is primarily as a means of social communication.  It's how a society says "this is unacceptable," and the degree of punishment indicates the degree of society's loathing.  Rehabilitation is a different idea that isn't necessarily associated with punishment at all.

A person can (and should) be punished regardless of whether or not they have a change of heart.  Punishment is externally imposed.  Rehabilitation can occur only if there is a change of heart.  Rehabilitation requires internal impetus.

So much here to respond to, as well as some great points from others. Very briefly, I do see a difference between your two hypotheticals, but see neither of them as behaving morally. The father who killed a police officer at a robbery made the choice that his daughter's life is worth more than someone else's. This viewpoint can lead him to continue to treat other people unfairly or unethically so long as doing so benefits him or his offspring. If everyone behaved like that we'd have a lawless, mistrustful, parochial society. The racially motivated killer is dangerous because his kind of crimes tend to split society apart along racial or religious lines, fostering mistrust and further racism. It's for reasons like this that we have bias-crime laws. Both deserve punishment, but I would hope that either or both could be rehabilitated. I'd consider the failure to pay for a citizen's leukemia medicine to be a crime on society's part but that , as Russel Nash said, is a different thread.

So far as the question of punishment versus rehabilitation is concerned, I lean further towards the idea of rehabilitation than you do. I suspect that we'll have to accept this as a disagreement. One question I'd ask you is how you can justify releasing a criminal back to society without a serious attempt at rehabilitation? If someone committed a crime and society takes temporary control of some degrees of that person's freedom, would it not be in everybody's interest for society to try to create a situation in which that person could become productive and law-abiding in the future?

As a final note, I think the question of free will is bordering on metaphysics and, for me, has little practical implication. Unless I'm misreading you, Mr. Tweedy, you believe in an intangible soul in which the "self" resides. I, on the other hand, believe that there is a physical mechanism for everything. What we see as "self" is an effect of the interactions between our bodies and the environment. Greater understanding of these interactions can lead to greater understanding of self, of psychology, and perhaps better treatments for mental illness. So far as I can tell, belief in an intangible self is a dead-end that leads to no greater understanding. As such, I don't see it as a useful idea in solving problems of crime and punishment.

[ajames]

My primary point was that a person cannot be forced to change against their will.  If I am pleased by any aspect of myself, if I embrace it as part of my identity, if I like being the way I am, then you can't do anything to me to change it.  For instance, my religion.  You can't make me not be a Christian by subjecting me to calculated stimuli.  You can't put me through a program that will wash it out of me.  I can cease to be a Christian if I choose to, but you can't force that change on me.  A person has to want to be changed.  They must cooperate.

If a drunk wants to stop drinking, then they can be helped.  If a drunk likes being a drunk, then there is absolutely nothing you can do for him and any program you can think of will be an absolute waste of time.  There must be an internal desire to change.  That is what I mean be a change of heart.

Do you disagree with that?  If not, then we are in agreement.

[Some liberal snipping at the beginning of your quote; pun half-intended ]

We agree in as far as someone who actively resists change will probably find a way to thwart the efforts at change directed towards him/her.  In terms of exactly what a change of heart is, and where it comes from,  we do not agree. A large part of our difference would be metaphysical - what is environment and what is self.     

As a final note, I think the question of free will is bordering on metaphysics and, for me, has little practical implication. Unless I'm misreading you, Mr. Tweedy, you believe in an intangible soul in which the "self" resides. I, on the other hand, believe that there is a physical mechanism for everything. What we see as "self" is an effect of the interactions between our bodies and the environment. Greater understanding of these interactions can lead to greater understanding of self, of psychology, and perhaps better treatments for mental illness. So far as I can tell, belief in an intangible self is a dead-end that leads to no greater understanding. As such, I don't see it as a useful idea in solving problems of crime and punishment.

Minor quibble about the 'physical mechanism' analogy: I'd advocate in favor of a more complex system - an interconnected web, say, versus a causal chain that is typically associated with mechanistic systems.  But that is getting even more metaphysical...

[Mr. Tweedy]

Random responses.  More later (maybe, I'm back at work now).

My leukemia thing was purely hypothetical.  As far as I know, that situation would not exist in the United States: Hospitals are required to provide life-saving care, even if the recipient cannot pay (I think).  The scenario is in a fictitious country.  And the dad shoots to kill on purpose, so he can get away.

When we talk about "environment" we are primarily talking about persons, not about trees and mountains etc.  My environment is the people I interact with and the results of their actions.  Environment is the sum of the choices of many individuals.  Hence, I would say that environment itself is a product of free will.

I have no idea if the soul exists or not, and I don't think the question is ultimately relevant.  I am not aware of any aspect of human behavior or personality that cannot be attributed to a physical cause.

[qwints]

Environment is the sum of the choices of many individuals.  Hence, I would say that environment itself is a product of free will.

I have no idea if the soul exists or not, and I don't think the question is ultimately relevant.  I am not aware of any aspect of human behavior or personality that cannot be attributed to a physical cause.

Free will, as I would define it, is something that cannot be attributed to a physical cause, but that is a question of metaphysics.

I think Czhorat makes the very good point that, although rehabilitation may be difficult or impossible, it is still something the state should try to achieve. As I see it, the fundamental difference of opinion in this discussion is whether such efforts are capable of effecting change on Mr. Tweedy's inner self. In other words, can external influences make a drunk who like to drink stop liking to drink? My opinion is that such an attitudinal change is possible and that cognitive behavioral therapy is an effective means of doing so.

[ajames]

When we talk about "environment" we are primarily talking about persons, not about trees and mountains etc.  My environment is the people I interact with and the results of their actions.  Environment is the sum of the choices of many individuals.  Hence, I would say that environment itself is a product of free will.

You do have a way with words, Mr. Tweedy.   I don't agree with what you said, but you said it well.

When I speak of environment I do mean everything, and when I speak of it in terms of explaining behavior I am including anything that is relevant [as far as I can tell] to that explanation.  By narrowing the environment to choices people make, you ignore other [in my opinion] relevant factors.  Sometimes people shovel the driveway more because snow fell during the night, and less because of the choices they and other people make.

[Mr. Tweedy]

We have to assume that this treatment has been used for many, many other people, as our narrator tells us, and that he is the first one it's broken down on.

In the story, the state doesn't find out that he has started killing again.  He is able to keep his hobby a secret for the first two kills, and presumably will be able to keep it a secret for a long while to come.  Hence, it's possible that there have been many breakdowns, but all of them are clever enough to not get caught.  Part of my original point was that the state's attempt to rehabilitate had actually made the killer more dangerous by giving him accountant skills in addition to his killer skills.

Also, if the Government hadn't left a blank in his memory rather than fill it in with false ones, wouldn't he have then accepted them rather than try to discover what he did?

That would be no more nor less than the death penalty.  If you destroy my mind and replace is with a new one, then I am dead in every practical sense.

When I speak of environment I do mean everything, and when I speak of it in terms of explaining behavior I am including anything that is relevant [as far as I can tell] to that explanation.  By narrowing the environment to choices people make, you ignore other [in my opinion] relevant factors.  Sometimes people shovel the driveway more because snow fell during the night, and less because of the choices they and other people make.

If we were talking about behavior in a general sense, you would of course be correct.  People who live in the jungle must by necessity have a different culture from those who live on the tundra, etc.

But we aren't talking about general behavior, we're talking about good and evil.  For instance, every culture has means of showing hospitality, whether with a wreath of flowers or with a hot drink or with a smack on the ass (as I observed in jock subculture at high school), and all of these methods are good because hospitality is good.  Similarly, every culture has a means of belittling people, whether with flying rocks or a turned back or a smack on the ass (anywhere other than the jock subculture), and all of these are bad because belittlement is bad.

When we talk about good and evil, we aren't talking about whether people where cravats or kimonos; we're talking about the attitudes with which people regard each other and the actions which result from those attitudes.  Attitudes toward fellow humans are not taught to us by nature.  They are of human origin.  I can teach my daughters to be cruel or kind whether I live in a palace or in a log cabin.  Their moral environment is what I, as their father, do and say.  The physical circumstance in which I act and speak is of little importance.  This is why I say that environment is created by free will.

[qwints]

Mr. Tweedy,
I don't think that anyone would disagree with the proposition that actions have different meanings in different cultures, but you seem dismiss the possibility that who one belittles or praises is itself culturally determined. In other words, society expects certain behaviors of us in certain context and people, at least to some extent, internalize those expectations. Are your daughters truly free to choose their actions when you can teach them to be cruel or to be kind? And, if you can form behaviors in the first place, why can't another change someone's behaviors (e.g. rehabilitate them) later on?

I think it is very important to distinguish between societally desirable and undesirable actions and good and evil people. Resnick seemed to describe something internal which is independent of its immediate environment and divorced from its memories, but whether the inner voice is of nature or nurture is left to the reader. I am willing to admit the possibility that there exist people who are so deranged that they can never be a productive part of society (which could be the moral of the story), but I believe they are the exception and not the rule. Most criminals could be reformed given the correct situation.

[ajames]

Mr. Tweedy, I'll concede your point that not everything in the environment [trees etc] possibly relevant to behavior need be taken into consideration when accounting for social behavior.  I have to, given something I read today from a radical behaviorist, Philip Hineline, on the matter.

First your statement [again]:

When we talk about "environment" we are primarily talking about persons, not about trees and mountains etc.  My environment is the people I interact with and the results of their actions.  Environment is the sum of the choices of many individuals.  Hence, I would say that environment itself is a product of free will.

Now Hineline: "Social behavior is also treated as not different in kind from other behavior.  By definition, organisms constitute salient parts of each others' environments.  The synergistic interaction between social behavior and its environment can be extremely dynamic [...] but for a radical behaviorist this dynamism is to be understood through separate but simultaneous analyses of the behavior of the organisms that are involved."

I was rather struck with the similarities, though the differences are important, too.  From your statement, it is not many steps to saying the discussion is about good and evil, right and wrong, moral environments.  Freewill, writ large, is at the core of the social environment, therefore the discussion is about choices, moral ones, and good and evil. 

From my perspective, good and evil need not enter the discussion and would not be a component of Hineline's analysis of social behavior.  As Hineline said, social behavior is not different in kind from other forms of behavior.  We may get upset at the ice when we slip on it and hurt ourselves, we may even hit it and curse it.  We don't call it evil, though.  Good and evil are descriptions we give behavior, of course, not things [unless we are imparting intelligence on these things], and if a person behaves a certain way reliably, we will also say that the person is good, or evil, or has a good heart, or an evil one.  But describing behavior or patterns of behavior as good or evil doesn't get us any closer to determining the cause of the behavior.  Do I commit crimes because I am a bad man, or am I a bad man because I commit crimes?  Aren't there other reasons I might commit a crime [Ah, but if I give in to these other reasons, I am still a bad man, therefore the reason I commit the crime is still that I am bad].  In determining the cause of social behavior, I look for other explanations.  If I can find them, and in most cases I suggest they can be found, I can probably do something about the behavior.  Now, if I find someone who is dead-set against changing their ways, for whatever reason, [for example, someone like the character of Mr. Resnick's story, who takes pleasure in killing], my task is clearly a difficult one.

For the record, although I don't think in terms of good and evil in determining the cause of behavior, I do believe people are, and should be, accountable for their behavior. 

[Czhorat]

But describing behavior or patterns of behavior as good or evil doesn't get us any closer to determining the cause of the behavior.  Do I commit crimes because I am a bad man, or am I a bad man because I commit crimes?  Aren't there other reasons I might commit a crime [Ah, but if I give in to these other reasons, I am still a bad man, therefore the reason I commit the crime is still that I am bad].  In determining the cause of social behavior, I look for other explanations.  If I can find them, and in most cases I suggest they can be found, I can probably do something about the behavior.  Now, if I find someone who is dead-set against changing their ways, for whatever reason, [for example, someone like the character of Mr. Resnick's story, who takes pleasure in killing], my task is clearly a difficult one.

Thank you, ajames. This sums up one of the points I've been trying to make this whole thread. The definitions of "good" and "evil" aren't even static enough to be easilly defined in absolute terms. There was a time not too long ago, for instance, in which it would have been acceptable for me to physically attack my wife or kid in order to insure their proper behaviour. In America a couple centuries ago I could even purchase some human beings from another place and smack them around. These actions today would be considered "evil". If one doesn't believe in absolute evil, what does that do to the premise with which you started this thread, Mr. Tweedy? Do you still see the story the same way, or were you using it to make your own comment about what you see as an incorrect "liberal mindset".

[qwints]

The "change of heart" I refer is the move from desiring evil (an evil heart) to desiring good (a good heart), a move from a desire to resist change to a desire to cooperate in it.

Can external influence encourage a person to make such a change?  Absolutely!  But it can only encourage.  The necessary change of heart is ultimately up to the individual, and no one else can force them to change.  (Unless, of course, you find a way to totally abolish the person's will through some kind of brainwashing, which would be, I think, far crueler than simply killing them.)

I think this is works as a plausible model for both the story and life, but I don't think it's a very useful one. Although I disagree with the proposition that some absolute moral standard exists to define good and evil, I think we all agree that efforts at rehabilitation require some amount of cooperation. I think Ajames is correct, however, when he says that the concept of a good or evil heart cannot explain causation. That's not to say that there exists a model which can describe a 1:1 correlation between a person's biology and development and their behavior, but there are some which do find correlations between people's environment and their actions.

I guess the point I want to make is you have to go beyond simply saying:
 Person x did bad things because he is a bad person.
 If he became a good person, then he wouldn't do bad things.

I'm pretty sure that's not what you're saying Mr. Tweedy, but I can't see the difference.

[Mr. Tweedy]

Well, actually, that's exactly what I'm saying.  It is a simplification, of course, but it is the underlying bones that give shape to all the complex meat on surface.

I doubt you'll understand what I mean by that, though.  You'll think I have in mind some cartoonish image of people with halos and people with horns, who are either all bad or all good, nothing but saints and monsters.

Here: An analogy that might help explain it:

Picture a very long road between point E (Eville) and point G (Goodsborough).  This is a two-way road, with cars going both directions, some toward G and some toward E.  None of the cars has yet reached its destination, and they are all moving different speeds, but they are all facing one way or the other.  Because of various circumstances, the cars start off at random points along the road, and they all encounter various obstacles that impede their progress, and their cars have various speeds.  Over these things the driver has no control.  But the thing he can control (and is responsible to control) is which direction he will drive in.

Someone who starts off at E may have a very long and difficult journey to G, and he might not get very far or very fast, but he is still pointed the right way, and that is the crucial factor.  Similarly, someone might start out at G can drive full throttle towards E.  A person pointed at G can be helped toward it, even if the distance is great, but a person pointed at E cannot be helped unless they turn their car around.  It is the destination toward which a person is driving, not the precise position along the road, that determines whether they are good or evil.

That's not a perfect analogy, but it's the best thing I could think of off the cuff.  (It is also a very Christian idea, and I'm not sure it would make sense outside that context.)  Anyway...

[ajames]

That's not a bad analogy at all, Mr. Tweedy.  I'd probably add to it that sometimes the road takes crazy turns and long loops, and the cars are round saucers with tinted windows so that other people can't tell which way you are pointing, and wild storms often blow over the road and turn you around until sometimes you don't even know which direction you are facing, and sometimes there's no road and you are four-wheeling it, and a bunch of other stuff, too.  But that's me.

Again, though, I don't see this discussion as about good and evil, but I can see where you are coming from and I don't think I'll be convincing you to see it my way, or vice versa.  I'm thankful for the opportunity to discuss our differences here, as it did help me clarify some of my ideas and got me thinking about some things I hadn't thought about in awhile.  The observations from qwints and czhorat and others were helpful in this regard, too.

[qwints]

But just saying that there are degrees of good and evil doesn't help. To be useful, a model for describing behavior has to predict behavior in given circumstances or at least be able to give a reasonable explanation for why someone did something.

But describing behavior or patterns of behavior as good or evil doesn't get us any closer to determining the cause of the behavior.  ... In determining the cause of social behavior, I look for other explanations.  If I can find them, and in most cases I suggest they can be found, I can probably do something about the behavior.  Now, if I find someone who is dead-set against changing their ways, for whatever reason, [for example, someone like the character of Mr. Resnick's story, who takes pleasure in killing], my task is clearly a difficult one.

For the record, although I don't think in terms of good and evil in determining the cause of behavior, I do believe people are, and should be, accountable for their behavior. 

The point ajames made earlier remains clear, and unless we try to understand the kinds of motivations leading a driver to point his car in either direction, we abandon the possibility of understanding other people's decision making. Society cannot be content to write off the people heading in the wrong direction.
If we understand why people commit crimes, we can prevent some from doing so again. Certainly not all, but we can reform some if we at least try.

[Mr. Tweedy]

But just saying that there are degrees of good and evil doesn't help. To be useful, a model for describing behavior has to predict behavior in given circumstances or at least be able to give a reasonable explanation for why someone did something.

But describing behavior or patterns of behavior as good or evil doesn't get us any closer to determining the cause of the behavior.  ... In determining the cause of social behavior, I look for other explanations.  If I can find them, and in most cases I suggest they can be found, I can probably do something about the behavior.  Now, if I find someone who is dead-set against changing their ways, for whatever reason, [for example, someone like the character of Mr. Resnick's story, who takes pleasure in killing], my task is clearly a difficult one.

For the record, although I don't think in terms of good and evil in determining the cause of behavior, I do believe people are, and should be, accountable for their behavior. 

The point ajames made earlier remains clear, and unless we try to understand the kinds of motivations leading a driver to point his car in either direction, we abandon the possibility of understanding other people's decision making. Society cannot be content to write off the people heading in the wrong direction.
If we understand why people commit crimes, we can prevent some from doing so again. Certainly not all, but we can reform some if we at least try.

I agree with all of that and don't see that it conflicts with my view, as far as I can understand what you mean.  Saying that a person is evil does not keep you from trying to understand what motivates them or what it would take to change them.  Neither does it indicate that you hate them or require you to write them off.  It also doesn't stop you from making theories.  I don't think it's really anything more than a simple acknowledgment of their agency.

Going back to my analogy, saying that a driver has pointed his car toward E does not keep you from studying the driver, the road, the journey or forming theories as to which factors encourage driving in a given direction.

[Czhorat]

I agree with all of that and don't see that it conflicts with my view, as far as I can understand what you mean.  Saying that a person is evil does not keep you from trying to understand what motivates them or what it would take to change them.  Neither does it indicate that you hate them or require you to write them off.  It also doesn't stop you from making theories.  I don't think it's really anything more than a simple acknowledgment of their agency.

Going back to my analogy, saying that a driver has pointed his car toward E does not keep you from studying the driver, the road, the journey or forming theories as to which factors encourage driving in a given direction.

If we want to continue to use roads an an analogy, I think we're nearing the point on this one at which we need to simply agree to disagree and call it a night. This might come across as deliberately obtuse and argumentative, but I have no idea what you're talking about when you say the "good-evil" highway is a "simple acknowledgment of their agency". If you're accepting that people in general have motives which are rational to them and that by understanding those motives we can try to understant and hopefully correct their behavior then I fail to see what labelling people as "good" or "evil" can accomplish. At best it's simply another word to classify what we already agree is anti-social and unacceptable behavior. At worst it's a label that on some level de-humanizes a criminal and absolves society of its share of responsibility. This is the problem I had when you started off talking about "evil hearts", and going back to the idea of some kind of good-evil access strikes me as simplistic and judgemental.

What do the words "good" and "evil" mean to you, Mr Tweedy? Does it concern you that what is morally acceptable has changed considerably over the years? How can we measure such a thing and, if we can't, of what use is it as a concept?

[Mr. Tweedy]

I'll give my answers to those questions, but, if you don't mind, I'll ask you a question first:

If you do not believe there is any objective moral standard and that, consequently, what is right and wrong can change as one moves geographically or chronologically, then how do you justify the idea of rehabilitation?  Wouldn't that be merely an attempt to replace the arbitrary, mutable, temporary preferences of one person with the equally arbitrary, mutable and temporary preferences of another?  If so, what gives you the right to do it and on what basis would you call it "good"?

[qwints]

The point of rehabilitation, Mr. Tweedy, is to allow someone to rejoin society by discouraging anti-social behavior. Although you may find it troubling, there are ways that "arbitrary, mutable and temporary preferences" can be evaluated and compared. Regardless of the existence of some absolute standard, we have certain moral intuitions which we can debate and discuss to arrive at a code of behavior for society. There are a large number of ethical theories which don't need to appeal to 'natural law' or divine commandments.

There is a concept in the Anglo-American tradition of criminal law called mens rea (evil mind.) To convict someone of any criminal offense you have to prove they acted purposefully, knowingly, recklessly or negligently with regards to all the material elements of the offense. So, we say a person is morally culpable relative to the amount of certainty and desire they had towards the outcome. Using the levels of culpability, we can differentiate, if you will, between grades of evil behind the action. It is worse to kill someone deliberately than to accidentally do so during risky behavior. Beyond this, I can see no purpose for speaking of good and evil to establish the agency of an individual who commits a crime.

I guess the main problem I have with your view Mr. Tweedy is your need to go beyond behavior. We can speak of tendencies, or how a given environment will affect someone but there is no way to evaluate a man's soul. Furthermore, efforts to try to evaluate someone's soul rather than their behavior are the fastest path to injustice imaginable. While I still agree that people must participate in their own reform, the idea that they need a change of heart is a useful concept. I believe it was the apostle Paul who said "Faith without works is dead." I would argue that works can create their own faith. Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective.

In fact I would argue that the important part of reform is in changing behavior and that changing the inner soul comes after.

[Czhorat]

I'll give my answers to those questions, but, if you don't mind, I'll ask you a question first:

If you do not believe there is any objective moral standard and that, consequently, what is right and wrong can change as one moves geographically or chronologically, then how do you justify the idea of rehabilitation?  Wouldn't that be merely an attempt to replace the arbitrary, mutable, temporary preferences of one person with the equally arbitrary, mutable and temporary preferences of another?  If so, what gives you the right to do it and on what basis would you call it "good"?

I think qwints beat me to the punch on this one. It needs doing on the basis of allowing one to become part of society. If your morals do not, at least on some level, match up with mine then it creates a conflict between us. One purpose of laws is to minimize such conflict and allow people to live together peacefully.

I believe that there are moral principals that seem universal, but am humble enough to recognize that elements of my morality would seem foreign to someone from the past and, quite possibly, old-fashioned and out-dated to a time traveller from the future. As our understanding deepens, some of our values as a a society evolve. Think about slavery. It was an acceptable practice for much of human history until what we see today as a deeper moral understanding allowed some people to take the lead in fighting to help change society's behaviour to represent a new set of values. Would you agree that there's most likely something in our behaviour today that would be equally shocking and shameful to our descendants, or do you think we've reached the state of understanding "absolute good"?

[Mr. Tweedy]

Qwints, you confound me.  You seem to be agreeing with me, but at the same time claiming you are not.

There is a concept in the Anglo-American tradition of criminal law called mens rea (evil mind.) To convict someone of any criminal offense you have to prove they acted purposefully, knowingly, recklessly or negligently with regards to all the material elements of the offense. So, we say a person is morally culpable relative to the amount of certainty and desire they had towards the outcome.  Using the levels of culpability, we can differentiate, if you will, between grades of evil behind the action.  It is worse to kill someone deliberately than to accidentally do so during risky behavior.

Isn't that exactly what I've been saying?  That the pragmatic fact of the behavior is less important than the intent behind it?  That the fact that someone kills is less important than why they kill?  I am at a loss as to how you can write a statement like this and still deny that good and evil are relevant concepts.

Furthermore, efforts to try to evaluate someone's soul rather than their behavior are the fastest path to injustice imaginable.

Huh?  Then what was that about mens rea?  Didn't you just say that we need to evaluate the perpetrator's motive and knowledge to determine culpability and achieve justice?  If we did not "evaluate someone's soul" then we would give everyone who kills the same punishment without considering their reasons!  (Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "soul"?)

While I still agree that people must participate in their own reform, the idea that they need a change of heart is [not] a useful concept. I believe it was the apostle Paul who said "Faith without works is dead." I would argue that works can create their own faith. Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective.

That's actually from the book of James, but I'm afraid you don't understand what it's saying.  That thought is finished with "I will show you my faith by what I do."  The idea is this: A lack of works demonstrates that there is no faith.  A person's actions are the expression of their heart.

In fact I would argue that the important part of reform is in changing behavior and that changing the inner soul comes after.

That is absolutely ghoulish and horrifying.  That's abolishing the will of a person, destroying their personality and imposing your own fabrication.  That's "1984".  Apply the right "therapy" to a person, and their mind will snap, turn to mush to be reformed as you see fit.  (I'm sure that's not what you have in mind, but it's what any kind of outside-in change would ultimately come down to.)

In sum, I now have no idea what you mean about any of this, save for a vague impression that it might be unwholesome.

------------------

Neither of you answered my question.  I did not ask what the goal of rehabilitation is.  I asked how you justify it.  If the values of society are not better in some objective sense than the values of the criminal, then how can you justify ousting one set of values in favor of the other?