Does anyone deserve to suffer?

[LJF]

You make a lot of bald assertions. It's impossible to have a discussion if you don't offer up reasons for why you assert these things, because in order to have a discussion, we have to know what your reasons are, so that we might see if you've made a mistake in your reasoning. So, for example, you say: "Within society people must be held accountable for their actions. If someone harms another they must have something done to them, suffering of some sort."

The reason that they need to be held accountable is to deter them from doing the same thing again. If someone is caught breaking into a house and all the cops did was say please leave this isn't your house, why wouldn't they just try that again knowing they would be no consequence. But if they were arrested and went to jail, they might understand what they did was wrong and they will be held accountable. They suffer in the sense that they are now in jail.

How does society function if everyone can do as they please?

Then you infer this from what you thought I said: "By what you are saying wouldn't that mean no one is accountable for what they do and therefore you can do whatever and never pay a penalty to society?"

But that isn't true. I've already said that of course we must do something to prevent criminals from recidivism.

I was asking you if that was what you meant.

[Matz]

I'm not sure "disturbed" vs. "insane" is the right distinction, and I definitely think the issue of control is debated in the literature. If you lack empathy, you're not able to control whether you feel it or not, you just might be able to control whether you appear to be empathetic on the surface.

I'm not talking about sociopaths being empathetic or not, because we agree a 100% that they only know what that is in an intellectual sense, they never, never feel it. They can fake it because they've observed 'normal' people being empathetic, but that's it. And they'll usually only be 'empathetic' if they can end up gaining something by it

However the disturbed vs insane you can't really argue against, I don't think. A scizophrenic killer fx will usually take a knife and maybe stab the first person they see because a voice in his head told him to. Whereas a psychopathic killer, like the guy in Norway, Breivik or many many serial killers will seek out their victims, wait for the right moment and will often times get away with what they have done, at least for a while. The insane guy will get treatment and Breivik will be going to jail for at least 21 years

so to me there is a huge difference between the two groups and the sociopathic group is much, much more dangeorous than the other. If I had to choose between living with a manic depressive and a sociopath I'd definitely pick the MD one

Yes, me too. I'm not sure what you're objecting to in what I said. I think maybe your use of terminology is throwing me off. Also, could you please stop using "fx" as an abbreviation for "for example"! It's really irritating to parse idiosyncratic stuff like that. "E.g.," is what is normally used.

sorry, I'll keep that in mind, fx is what's normally used in Danish so that's where I got it from. The main thing I was objecting was that you seemed to object my clear distinction between disturbed people and insane people and how the first group is always in control of their actions and the other isn't

But let's just agree to disagree and move on

[Hype]

Oh man... your iPad technique is killing me, LJF.

The reason that they need to be held accountable is to deter them from doing the same thing again. If someone is caught breaking into a house and all the cops did was say please leave this isn't your house, why wouldn't they just try that again knowing they would be no consequence. But if they were arrested and went to jail, they might understand what they did was wrong and they will be held accountable. They suffer in the sense that they are now in jail.

This is partially false. All the evidence we have says that the death penalty isn't a deterrent. As for the knowledge of jail-time deterring some people who would otherwise commit some crime, sure... it does do that, but this isn't an argument for making those who aren't deterred suffer. (I do not think serving jail-time for a crime is 'suffering', but even if it was, I don't think it's deserved, it's just a pragmatic thing we do because we have no better solution.)

How does society function if everyone can do as they please?

This is just a bad understanding of the alternative to causing some (bad) people to suffer. I don't know why you think if we didn't have the death penalty or make criminals suffer that everyone "can do as they please". Everyone can't do as they please anyway, since there are infinitely many things causing and controlling our behaviour constantly (media, community, family, etc.) You offer that question as rhetoric, but it really doesn't help your case. I don't want to keep harping on you here... It looks like I'm attacking you, but you really aren't justifying your points at all (I can forgive some of it, since you're clearly struggling with the iPad, lol).

I was asking you if that was what you meant.

Ah, okay, I misunderstood you. I thought you were being rhetorical again. No, that wasn't what I meant, as I said.

[Hype]

sorry, I'll keep that in mind, fx is what's normally used in Danish so that's where I got it from. The main thing I was objecting was that you seemed to object my clear distinction about disturbed people and insane people and how the first group is always in control of their actions and the other isn't

But let's just agree to disagree and move on

Actually you've just clarified it to the point where I think we can discuss it again! I was unclear about your view, but now I see. I think it is simply false that "merely disturbed" people are ALWAYS in control of their actions. There are a couple of different senses of 'control'. One is: being able to freely will what one wants to do. I think this is impossible, so disturbed people can't do that. Another is: being able to exercise control over impulses via track-2 processing. This is the NORMAL sense of control, as described by neuroscience (the prefrontal cortex is the region that governs it; lesions here are involved in addiction and impulse control disorders). It may be true that psychopaths have no damage to their prefrontal cortex, but I think this is false too.

In fact, the other big name other than Hare is Blair, who has written extensively about this. Here's one paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2606709/

The current paper examines the functional contributions of the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the evidence that the functioning of these systems is compromised in individuals with psychopathy. The amygdala is critical for the formation of stimulus–reinforcement associations, both punishment and reward based, and the processing of emotional expressions. vmPFC is critical for the representation of reinforcement expectancies and, owing to this, decision making. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging data from individuals with psychopathy are examined. It is concluded that these critical functions of the amygdala and vmPFC, and their interaction, are compromised in individuals with the disorder. It is argued that these impairments lead to the development of psychopathy.

[Mescal]

I don't really know if people should suffer, I don't think anyone deserves to suffer.

I think severe criminals suffer in their own way anyway.

But, yesterday someone broke into my car and stole my navigation/radio/phone console. It was a regular monday night, car's in the driveway, and I live in a dead end street, so no one had any reason to be there. And I was thinking that people who do that have no contribution to society, so they might as well not be there. So no, no one deserves to suffer, but there sure are a bunch of people out there who don't deserve to live.

[Hype]

I don't really know if people should suffer, I don't think anyone deserves to suffer.

I think severe criminals suffer in their own way anyway.

But, yesterday someone broke into my car and stole my navigation/radio/phone console. It was a regular monday night, car's in the driveway, and I live in a dead end street, so no one had any reason to be there. And I was thinking that people who do that have no contribution to society, so they might as well not be there. So no, no one deserves to suffer, but there sure are a bunch of people out there who don't deserve to live.

Why not vote for politicians who are progressive enough to look at/understand sociological data that could help produce less of that type of petty crime in the future? Taking lead out of gasoline made a huge difference to violent crime 30 years ago. There are probably a shit-ton of things we could do at the level of infrastructure/policy, rather than killing or torturing or making suffer people who fuck up in ways we don't like.

[Mescal]

I don't really know if people should suffer, I don't think anyone deserves to suffer.

I think severe criminals suffer in their own way anyway.

But, yesterday someone broke into my car and stole my navigation/radio/phone console. It was a regular monday night, car's in the driveway, and I live in a dead end street, so no one had any reason to be there. And I was thinking that people who do that have no contribution to society, so they might as well not be there. So no, no one deserves to suffer, but there sure are a bunch of people out there who don't deserve to live.

Why not vote for politicians who are progressive enough to look at/understand sociological data that could help produce less of that type of petty crime in the future? Taking lead out of gasoline made a huge difference to violent crime 30 years ago. There are probably a shit-ton of things we could do at the level of infrastructure/policy, rather than killing or torturing or making suffer people who fuck up in ways we don't like.

I never said we should kill, torture or make people suffer. Who am I? The Judge, the Jury and the executioner?

[Hype]

I don't really know if people should suffer, I don't think anyone deserves to suffer.

I think severe criminals suffer in their own way anyway.

But, yesterday someone broke into my car and stole my navigation/radio/phone console. It was a regular monday night, car's in the driveway, and I live in a dead end street, so no one had any reason to be there. And I was thinking that people who do that have no contribution to society, so they might as well not be there. So no, no one deserves to suffer, but there sure are a bunch of people out there who don't deserve to live.

Why not vote for politicians who are progressive enough to look at/understand sociological data that could help produce less of that type of petty crime in the future? Taking lead out of gasoline made a huge difference to violent crime 30 years ago. There are probably a shit-ton of things we could do at the level of infrastructure/policy, rather than killing or torturing or making suffer people who fuck up in ways we don't like.

I never said we should kill, torture or make people suffer. Who am I? The Judge, the Jury and the executioner?

I just inferred that that's what you meant when you said: "there sure are a bunch of people out there who don't deserve to live."

[Matz]

sorry, I'll keep that in mind, fx is what's normally used in Danish so that's where I got it from. The main thing I was objecting was that you seemed to object my clear distinction about disturbed people and insane people and how the first group is always in control of their actions and the other isn't

But let's just agree to disagree and move on

Actually you've just clarified it to the point where I think we can discuss it again! I was unclear about your view, but now I see. I think it is simply false that "merely disturbed" people are ALWAYS in control of their actions. There are a couple of different senses of 'control'. One is: being able to freely will what one wants to do. I think this is impossible, so disturbed people can't do that. Another is: being able to exercise control over impulses via track-2 processing. This is the NORMAL sense of control, as described by neuroscience (the prefrontal cortex is the region that governs it; lesions here are involved in addiction and impulse control disorders). It may be true that psychopaths have no damage to their prefrontal cortex, but I think this is false too.
]

I think it's very likely that sociopaths have some sort of brain damage because sociopathy is an incureable thing as opposed to psychiatric patients whose conditions stem from chemical imbalances e.g. a clinically depressed person lacks serotonin and can be cured etc. So we very much agree on that one.

About the control thing I just know what I read about the subject in 'Without Conscience' as I mentioned and in another good book on the subject 'The sociopath next door'. In one of these books or maybe on some internet site I remember reading that if a sociopath is in a violent rage towards someone he'll still have the control to decide how much he wants to hurt the guy he's beating up. So that's the kind of control I'm talking about. One could think that if a really dangerous person like a sociopath who typically will love violence, control, to humiliate people, dominans etc went into a rage he would completely lose it and behave like a wild animal and not think of the consequences of his actions. But that's not the case at all according to these books, and from what my mother has told me also. A lot of them want their rage, it's like a fix for them, it's exciting and satisfying BUT they also don't want to go to prison so they do what they have to to get away with their violent episodes.

[Hype]

Maybe it'd help to just restate the original question and see if there are some new trains of thought that can be generated out of it. (The focus on legal 'desert' and psychopathy is a good angle, but it's more technical and involved than the more general moral question of deserved suffering, I think.)

I was just listening to Lime Tree Arbour by Nick Cave and heard this:

There will always be suffering
It flows through life like water

It's clearly a deep question (hence the focus in Buddhism and other religions... the Abrahamic religions seem to thrive on the fact that THIS life is full of suffering, and so offer hope in the form of life after death...).

Say we accept the necessity of endless suffering on this planet. Does that mean that we deserve it? Or that anyone does? What should be our response to suffering? Should we do our best to alleviate it when it occurs to the innocent, but not to those who have wronged others/caused suffering themselves? Haven't we all caused a little suffering, either accidentally, or through rash emotions? (Ain't that the spirit of: "judge not", "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", "forgive them, they know not what they do", and so on?)

I still haven't seen a good and clear defense of the view that anyone, any single person, or sort of person, *deserves* to suffer. There were some offers of the origins of the belief that you can earn suffering (and thus deserve it), and some worries about what might happen if we stopped believing that the worst criminals somehow *deserve* suffering in the form of punishment. But these are not arguments for the view that anyone actually deserves it. At best, these arguments could show that it might be better if we pretended bad people deserved or earned their suffering, even if we really know that it couldn't have been helped.

[Matz]

I think we should just abandon this sociopath discussion for now, it's enough, and hope they all drop dead

[Hype]

I think we should just abandon this sociopath discussion for now, it's enough, and hope they all drop dead

I hope one day we are able to prevent it altogether. There's a whole sub-genre of the field called "Bioethics" that's called "Procreative Beneficence" -- that deals with with the question of whether it can ever be moral to *choose* the traits of your offspring, either directly, through genetic modification, or indirectly, by aborting fetuses that are not "ideal", and either negatively, by choosing which traits you DON'T want, or positively, by choosing traits you DO want. (The controversy is, of course, that this just *is* a kind of eugenics... albeit not one which stipulates the arbitrary "beneficence" of Aryan racial features, which are like... so not even all that good... ). But one could make a pretty strong case for choosing a genome for one's future offspring that is free from genes which might TEND to produce sociopathic brain-structures or traits.

But given that we have sociopaths... maybe it would be better if they all dropped dead, but do they *really* deserve to suffer?

[Juana]

yes we all deserve to suffer! suffering for all!

[Hype]

yes we all deserve to suffer! suffering for all!

[mockbee]

Of course, no one deserves to suffer.

We all suffer already, and I would argue, the worst you are as a person, the more you do suffer. Those pissed off people in cars driving wrecklessly, those people stealing electronics out of cars parked peacefully at the end of the street in the dead of night, those people who lie, cheat, steal, assault, rape and murder have some really messed up stuff going on in their head and suffer immensely as it is. Why inflict more suffering? Doesn't that make you the person you hate?

Before people go ape about people not being held accountable for their actions, remember that is not the question.

Should people suffer?
No.

Should people be held accountable for their actions?
Yes.

If you answer yes to the suffering question I suppose that makes you a little bit of a sociopath, doesn't it?
How could you promote an action that you condemn?

I think the real question should be: What is suffering?

Is life really suffering?
If life were suffering then there is no purpose to the word if there is no discernible alternative.


We are only talking about suffering being deserved by criminals, right?
Is there anyone here who thinks that suffering should be endured by people you just don't like, really, honestly, like Rush Limbaugh......... I know it is tempting but the answer should still be no. With his brain I can tell that he has a boatload of suffering going on in that decrepit head of his as it is. If he were not suffering, I bet he would not be the nauseating man that he is....


As for the criminals........ Send them all to Australia again, that way they would be out of our hair and im sure would just be 'suffering' like the rest of us there.

[Hype]

Why inflict more suffering? Doesn't that make you the person you hate?

That's the SECOND time JA lyrics have been invoked in this thread. ("You know, the man you hate, you look more like him everyday!") Perry I think really did understand suffering when he wrote the old lyrics (A third song with the same theme: "I know about pain and suffering and being cold... but I just wanna FUCK!!!!!!!!!" A fourth song: "It's like slapping yourself in the face..." .. Really that is one of the reasons I love JA, beyond the music.. the theme of coping with and overpowering suffering.)

Those are some really good points Mockbee. Especially the claim that if LIFE itself just *was* suffering (I take it you mean identical with suffering) then it would be a meaningless term because it would lack any alternative. That's a philosophical point that sounds like it could have come from Wittgenstein. But of course, there's a clear sense in which all of life isn't suffering. I gave a tentative definition of suffering (the way I mean it) earlier. I take it to mean something like: the experience of pain which in itself has no other purpose than to be inflicted, or is sustained beyond any purpose it may have originally had. The difference between these two versions is just temporal: in the first case, someone torturing another may say "I just wanted to see him writhe in agony.", whereas a sadistic prison guard might continue harming a prisoner after their court-mandated punishment has already been doled out, for a reason like: "I think he deserves not only to be punished, but to suffer."

[Jasper]

"It's like slapping yourself in the face..."

I've wondered if the "Of Course" lyric is really about the duality of harming another living thing (cue Elton John singing "Circle of Life"). We are life, and we love life inside and outside of ourselves, but we take life, and we do it to live. It could also be a parable about drug abuse.

Maybe it really is about how life, which we consider a good thing, is also suffering, and how the capacity for FEELING also entails being hurt.

I really don't know, but I've wondered about it, and maybe that's why it's such a fine lyric.

[Hype]

"It's like slapping yourself in the face..."

I've wondered if the "Of Course" lyric is really about the duality of harming another living thing (cue Elton John singing "Circle of Life"). We are life, and we love life inside and outside of ourselves, but we take life, and we do it to live. It could also be a parable about drug abuse.

Maybe it really is about how life, which we consider a good thing, is also suffering, and how the capacity for FEELING also entails being hurt.

I really don't know, but I've wondered about it, and maybe that's why it's such a fine lyric.

One interpretation that is my own, and that I think fits the lyrics is that Perry's brother taught him that other people will cause you pain that comes from yourself, and that if you can take that pain and "eat the other" (because one must) "who runs free before" you, then you'll do just fine, but it's just like slapping yourself in the face, because you're kinda forced into this "life feeds on life" (cf. Tool) opposition with every other, and they're making you slap yourself in the face even as you're eating them.

Something like that... there's a very deep Jewish sensibility about that view, and I think it's no coincidence the song is clearly Klezmer inspired and has a reference to Perry's childhood.

[Matz]

But given that we have sociopaths... maybe it would be better if they all dropped dead, but do they *really* deserve to suffer?

[/quote]

I don't know, it's a tough one. My mother's sociopath certainly does. I'd like to see him get ebola virus, aids, lung cancer, lose an eye etc tomorrow. But the rest, hmm, I mean they didn't choose to become sociopaths in the first place and once you are one it's incredibly difficult to be a good person because the urge to do horrible things is so overwhelming for them and they love it. That ties in with the whole free will thing of course.

[Hype]

But given that we have sociopaths... maybe it would be better if they all dropped dead, but do they *really* deserve to suffer?

I don't know, it's a tough one. My mother's sociopath certainly does. I'd like to see him get ebola virus, aids, lung cancer, lose an eye etc tomorrow. But the rest, hmm, I mean they didn't choose to become sociopaths in the first place and once you are one it's incredibly difficult to be a good person because the urge to do horrible things is so overwhelming for them and they love it. That ties in with the whole free will thing of course.

This is really weird to watch:

[LJF]

Mockbee can't someone suffer by losing rights. Jail, not being able to drive or something else like that. To me that is a way to make someone accountable for the actions. This could be the consequences it to their actions.

Does that make sense?

[mockbee]

Mockbee can't someone suffer by losing rights. Jail, not being able to drive or something else like that. To me that is a way to make someone accountable for the actions. This could be the consequences it to their actions.

Does that make sense?

Losing the right to drive, or separating someone from society who is a clear and present danger is a far, far cry from physical or deliberate psychological torture or of course the death penalty. The question should be, what about the victim or potential victims; hiw do we protect them? And if the victim insists on death or suffering, well I think they are wrong because that's what we are all striving to stop, intentional suffering should be stopped and/or mitigated everywhere.

I would argue that not having the right to drive or being rightfully separated, in jail is the best idea we have now, is as close as we can get, on terms of mitigating human suffering and protecting victims and potential ones as well.


I don't like the idea of messing with people's brains, however, as an alternative to jail. Humans have such a piss poor record when intervening in things we don't fully understand. But I guess we have cured many many diseases and any surgery prior to 50-100 years ago was truly a horror....... So I guess anything is possible..... just makes me think One Flew Over the Coocoos Nest. People are stupid, especially when only a couple people really understand something.

[LJF]

Mockbee can't someone suffer by losing rights. Jail, not being able to drive or something else like that. To me that is a way to make someone accountable for the actions. This could be the consequences it to their actions.

Does that make sense?

Losing the right to drive, or separating someone from society who is a clear and present danger is a far, far cry from physical or deliberate psychological torture or of course the death penalty. The question should be, what about the victim or potential victims; hiw do we protect them? And if the victim insists on death or suffering, well I think they are wrong because that's what we are all striving to stop, intentional suffering should be stopped and/or mitigated everywhere.

I would argue that not having the right to drive or being rightfully separated, in jail is the best idea we have now, is as close as we can get, on terms of mitigating human suffering and protecting victims and potential ones as well.


I don't like the idea of messing with people's brains, however, as an alternative to jail. Humans have such a piss poor record when intervening in things we don't fully understand. But I guess we have cured many many diseases and any surgery prior to 50-100 years ago was truly a horror....... So I guess anything is possible..... just makes me think One Flew Over the Coocoos Nest. People are stupid, especially when only a couple people really understand something.

I look at at those types of things as suffering, minor compared to death penalty but suffering still. The loss of rights is a form of suffering to me.

As far as the go in Colorado, would you think the death penalty for someone like him? There is no doubt he did it.

[Hype]

LJF, by your reasoning, you suffer by being in a society in the first place.

[LJF]

LJF, by your reasoning, you suffer by being in a society in the first place.

Why, help me understand how I've said that. I don't think that at all.