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From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Materialist Moral Philosophy & Brain Death
Message-ID: <634@spar.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 18:23:12 EST
Article-I.D.: spar.634
Posted: Fri Nov  1 18:23:12 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 13:53:49 EST
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Organization: The Institute of Impure Science
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>>>                                   Of course, you get some people who work
>>>backwards from a desired conclusion:  well, humans ARE self-determining
>>>entities, otherwise how could we blame/credit ourselves and others for the
>>>things that are done...[Rosen]
>
>                                                              If reward/
>punishment is the goal rather than the means for reaching a goal (like
>non-interfering "pro-social"(?) behavior), you're in trouble.  Yet, in a way,
>that's where we seem to be.  [Rosen]
>
>>>                       This notion permeates a good deal of western law:
>>>you do something wrong, YOU are a bad person who should be punished.  That
>>>may not be the hallmark of "sadistic disciplinarians", but it hardly sounds
>>>like the actions of rational people to me. [Rosen]
> 
>                                                                   What it
>DID say is that the GOAL has become reward/punishment, mostly punishment,
>coupled with judgment of the person as "bad" and thus "worthy" of punishment.
>[Rosen]
>
>Do you see any evidence that that punishment facet is used with an intent
>of reaching such a goal, rather than BEING a goal in and of itself? [Rosen]
>
>                            How many kids grow up with the notion that you
>seem to have, regarding punishment (and power to administer it) being a goal
>in and of itself. [Rosen]

Saying it six times doesn't make it so, Rich.  Again, who are these people 
whose goal is punishment and HOW DO YOU KNOW that that is their goal?

My interactions with my parents, my teachers, and with the American judicial 
system, both as a (juvenile) malfeasant and as a juror, lead me to believe 
that punishment is principally used as conditioning against the repetition 
of an unacceptable act, and secondarily as a deterrent against such acts 
on the part of others.  There are certainly sadists in the world, but to
believe that our ethical, social, and legal systems operate primarily for 
their benefit is literally madness.

I started this series of postings in an attempt to demonstrate that the 
concepts of credit/blame and reward/punishment are rational and useful
even in a materialist/determinist universe.  You are evidently too lost
in your own dark obsessions to be able to discuss such things.  Sorry.

						Baba