Milosevic dies in jail

Originally Posted by Musharraf

[...]It's just that without a sentence, you're not guilty of a crime, law is easy as that!

You might still be guilty of a crime. Just because a court hasn't told be that I am indeed guilty doesn't mean I'm not. It just means that the court was not convinced of my being guilty. I mean even though Hitler committed suicide he's still guilty of a lot of bad things, isn't he?

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Criminals like Saddam or Milosevic should feel the same pain they made their victims feel. But im afraid you cant make someone feel a million deaths -.-

Sorry if this is off-topic, but I've never understood that. Why should you create even more suffering in the world than there already is? I mean why should you make someone suffer because he made someone suffer? That way you're not better than him, because you have caused as much suffering, not? Anyway, as an utilitarian, I think that it's wrong to cause even more suffering than there already is, no matter who is the one suffering ...
Generally I think that justice is the wrong way to go about problems. The world is unfair, it's just the way it is ...

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Devo

If you don't punish those who commit murder than what's to stop others from doing it? Not all people are afraid to take a life, it's the consequences that keep them from doing so.

Sure, you have to take the deterrent effect of punishment into account, and see whether the unhappiness caused by the punishment is smaller or larger than the happiness "caused" by it by deterring people from comitting crimes.
But I do think there is a limit to what punishment can do to prevent crimes, and I don't think that the death-penalty is doing a better job than long prison sentences do. I see no reason why I should punish someone harder, if a lesser punishment is as deterrent as the hard one.

How ya doing, buddy?

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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?

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.

How ya doing, buddy?

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Problem is "most happiness" is not only idealic but way to subjective.

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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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You still don't get my point. Morality and happiness are merely ideas, they are not concrete subjects. My happiness is not your happiness. What I believe is right can be different from what you believe is right. Laws and penalities are as close to an agreement on morality as any of us can come.

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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Ah but what if one person's suffering causes the happiness or pleasure for those whom we're victims or families of victims. What then?

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 ...

How ya doing, buddy?

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I'd assume that suffering is to be avoided as much as possible, and the suffering of one doesn't not justify happiness for all because true happiness should not come from the pain of others.

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

FELIPE NO

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True happiness shouldn't come at the cost of others but of course that's my opinion. You can't conduct any sort of debate on non-concrete subjects without agreement on what certain terms mean. So this is probably just going nowhere.

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 ^^

How ya doing, buddy?

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...

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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.

you quoted me saying:

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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 [...] than I would think it's the right thing to do.

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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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.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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Then Utilitarianism is a meaningless philosophy, because if it is impossible to determine whether or not one's actions cause happiness, then there is no objective way to implement moral decision making. It is decisively amoral.

Yes, essentially utilitarianism doesn't really help you making everyday-decisions... For me it's simply a definition what is right. Of course I would have to be all-knowing and god-like being in order to act morally right, but having defined "causing as great happiness as possible" as ones goal has other implications, one of them being that justice is nothing one should try to achieve (if it in itself doesn't create more happiness, which I doubt it does in many cases).

Basically, with utilitarianism you can never formulate any principles on how you should act in some given situation, e.g. driving while being drunk might actually, although it's not probable, save someones life, etc...

EDIT: Actually, I think that if everyone would try and cause as great happiness as possible, without any principles on how one should act in some given situation, it would also create more happiness, because humans are highly sociable animals, and we do know quite alot about other people's feelings, etc... although of course there are some extreme cases where this is not true.

I think every philosophy that states some rules on how one can decide whether it's morally right to act in some way or not (like Kant's philosophy, etc..) can never lead to as great happiness as people trying to achieve it by actually *thinking*.

The thing is, I could probably program my computer to apply the "Categoric Imperative" of Kant to actions, but I think that's one thing that distinguishes humans from computers, that we can think about *the consequences* of our actions. And if we try to achieve "great happiness" as the consequence of our actions, I think we will be quite successful.

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