RE: Open discussion of the Christian Why We're Here thread
May 7, 2018 at 10:10 am
(This post was last modified: May 7, 2018 at 10:15 am by Edwardo Piet.)
@ Mathilda Okay fuck it I'll just let Schopenhauer speak for the both of us on what I think you are trying to say by "It's not punishment it's cause and effect" (although Schopenhauer would make the same point, I think, by distinguishing punishment from revenge).
Replace 'law' with 'rule' (or 'principle') and 'crime' with 'shitty behavior' and I think that's pretty much what you're saying and what we both agree on.
Semantics and all that jazz.
Or to put it simply myself: We're talking about forward-thinking punishment for the purpose of behavior modification as opposed to past-thinking punishment for the purpose of 'they shouldn't have done that so they deserve to suffer for it'.
Arthur Schopenhauer from his book The World as Will and Representation Wrote:...the law and its fulfillment, namely punishment, are directed essentially to the future, not to the past. This distinguishes punishment from revenge, for revenge is motivated by what has happened, and hence by the past as such. All retaliation for wrong by inflicting a pain without any object for the future is revenge, and can have no other purpose than consolation for the suffering one has endured by the sight of the suffering one has caused in another. Such a thing is wickedness and cruelty, and cannot be ethically justified. ...the object of punishment...is deterrence from crime.... Object and purpose for the future distinguish punishment from revenge, and punishment has this object only when it is inflicted in fulfillment of a law. Only in this way does it proclaim itself to be inevitable and infallible for every future case; and thus it obtains for the law the power to deter....
Replace 'law' with 'rule' (or 'principle') and 'crime' with 'shitty behavior' and I think that's pretty much what you're saying and what we both agree on.
Semantics and all that jazz.
Or to put it simply myself: We're talking about forward-thinking punishment for the purpose of behavior modification as opposed to past-thinking punishment for the purpose of 'they shouldn't have done that so they deserve to suffer for it'.
