Yet your argument wasn't that people should serve jailtime, but that creating more suffering in the world wasn't what is right. Yet, how can jailtime be interpreted in any way other than suffering? The response then, is to create a prison environment where inmates do not suffer at all, yet if that is the case, then you are essentially rewarding criminals with taxpayer money, and how is that right?

Eh, close minded people will be close minded people. That doesn't mean that opinions shouldn't be discussed or otherwise limited. Singling out Americans is not fair and make's me a sad panda. Could I get a hug from you after this?

Prisons aren't exactly paradise retreats, especially not European prisons.

*edit*
Plus, American prisons actually generate money. All the non-risk prisoners are whored out as cheap labor. Some of which are highly qualified.

Actually, that's pretty much what's happening here in Sweden right now. there are people coming from abroad, committing crimes, only so that they can be caught and be put into prison, because the living-standard in the prison's here is pretty high, they even get better food than we do at school...

But actually, I wouldn't have any problems with prisoners enjoying their time in prison, if it would deter them from committing crimes. The point I have been trying to make, is that I don't think that "justice" is the right way to go. I believe that whatever causes the most happiness is the right way to go, and if "letting Milosevic experience a few million deaths" would cause greater happiness overall in the world than him only getting to spend a few years in prison, or even be freed, than I would think it's the right thing to do. It's just that I do not think people are so sadistic, that the happiness caused by his suffering would be as great as his own suffering.

I don't think that "not creating suffering" is the right thing to do, but creating "most happiness", and sometimes creating suffering might be necessary to deter people from creating even more suffering. And that's why I think the "eye for an eye" logic is wrong.

Yes, of course in reality it's also not possible to see all the consequences of ones actions, but I think one could try and see as far as one can, and do the things one thinks are right. In this case I don't see how vengeance can cause much happiness.

Or the assault on those young boys carried out by British soldiers. Or the use of cluster bombs (which are illegal, mind you) during the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia.

That's true, but my definition of what is morally right is a purely theoretical one. I, as a human being, can never know what is right/best for someone else, so I can never know if what I do is right or wrong. But still I can make some predictions. For example, making someone experience a few million deaths, as in this case, is as far as I can see, not causing more happiness than it is causing suffering.

Yes, that's a dilemma. There are different views on that, some utilitarians think that one should create as much happiness for as many as possible, while others only care about the total sum of happiness minus the unhappiness, i.e. theoretically the right thing to do could be to make just one, or a small group, very happy, if the sum in the end is greatest.

Personally, I'm very split on the issue, and find it very difficult to decide, though I do think/hope that the greatest happiness would be caused by having as many people as possible happy... Maybe this dilemma is the reason I have begun looking at other philosophies ...

Sorry what are you saying there; it's late and I haven't had my nightbooze yet

That however is not utilitarianism.

Sadly, I don't think that will ever be possible...
How does one distinguish between "true happiness" and "not true happiness"?

Yes, probably you're right...I think that we have fundamentally different views on what accounts as "true happiness". I count all happiness as "true happiness, but that's just my definition of it...

But it's good that there are different views on things, else the world would be very boring ^^

I think the discussion has become somewhat off-topic also, considering the topic being "Milosevic dies in jail"...

Anyway, I'm going to sleep now, so good night to you ^^

Again, have you ever seen the movie A Clockwork Orange? I'm assuming that you haven't, because otherwise this dilemma would have become apparent to you, so I'll give you a basic synopsis of what happens in the movie.



In the case presented by A Clockwork Orange, you have an individual who increases his own happiness by causing pain and misery to others. Eventually, this misery is visited back to him by an amoral government, yet he is also eventually rewarded for being a terrible person by said government, which seeks to service it's own ends.

So, the boy derives pleasure from harming others, increasing his own happiness, and reducing those of others. Eventually, he is sent to prison, which serves to increase the happiness of the relatives of his victim, while simultaneously increasing his own. Eventually, an amoral government which seeks to cause the most happiness in society (i.e. a low-cost rehabilitation program to replace expensive penitentiaries) causes an extraordinary amount of pain and suffering to the boy to further it's own ends. Causing more pain and suffering to the boy increases the happiness of the man whose wife he raped, yet this man, who acted in a justifiable manner, is eventually punished, while the boy is rewarded by the government, which seeks to maintain this idealized level of "happiness" by punishing a select amount of Just individuals.

By all acounts, the boy should be executed, yet he is both punished, and rewarded, and put into a position where he could potentially harm more people, all for the sake of self-serving agendas in the assumtion that a greater good is being accomplished.

Ultimately, had he been left to rot in prison, society in general would have been for the better, as he was in a place where he could not harm others.

How do you respond to this?

Uhh basically that people who aren't open to different ideas, aren't open to different ideas because it threatens their close-minded view on life. Also, that it's not right to single Americans out just because some (or the majority) of Americans are small-minded.

The last bit was just crap I thought was funny at the time. You totally killed it for me though.

One last post for today...

Sorry for not answering you last time you asked, I forgot when I read on in the thread...Yes, I have seen the movie, though it was some time ago, so thanks for the good summary for reminding me...

you quoted me saying:
What I think is that, if putting him into prison would cause the greatest happiness overall, then it would have been the right thing to do, so I think it would have been better to put him into prison.

Once again, I do not think that "not causing suffering" is the right thing to do, but "causing most happiness" and I believe that might include causing some suffering, sadly. But I'm against causing unnecessary suffering in the world, only because some people think that it's "just" if someone suffers because of causing suffering.

Yet you're forgetting what happens in the movie, which is that because certain agents acted in the pursuit of "happiness" that more suffering is caused than happiness. Without the morals applied by a just society, the amount of suffering and potential suffering caused in the movie would have been avoided. All of which was caused in the pursuit of ultimately Utilitarian ideals.

That's actually a pretty different ending of the story from what was in the book, if I'm remembering it right (heck, I hadn't even known they made a movie of it).

The book continues on for a while after the point where the movie ends. There is some debate about which ending is better.

Also, how could you not know they made a movie of it?

Illegal or not, this is the NATO. They can do what the hell they want.

Yes, but whatever reason they acted for is not interesting from an utilitarian perspective. It's only the consequences that matter.

So, in this case, clearly the morally more right thing to do would have to be "just", if that's what causing more happiness. Just because someone acts in pursuit of happiness doesn't mean that he's acting morally right from an utilitarian perspective.

Utilitarianism is purely theoretical, and it does not tell people for which reasons they should act, just that the morally right thing to do is the one that causes most happiness. Someone trying to achieve most happiness doesn't neccessarily cause it.

In this case, being just would have caused more happiness, and therefore it would have been more morally right to do than what they did in the movie.

Sorry to butt in here:

It's a bit off-topic, but has anyone read Death Note (manga)?

When I heard Milosevic died in jail of a heart attack, it's pretty much the same premise as the beginning of Death Note (the main character has a book that, if a person's name is written in it, that person will instantly die of a heart attack). Basically, the main character wrote down dozens of names of famous criminals in prison and they all died of heart attacks.

Just a funny coincidence.