Punishment | A Philosopher's Take

Browsing All Posts filed under »Punishment«

Responsibility, Identity and Artificial Beings: Persons, Supra-Persons, and Para-Persons

June 2, 2016 by James DiGiovanna

Thanks to Justin Caouette for inviting me to the blog. I’ll start with a bit that draws ideas from a paper I’m working on for a book on Robot Ethics: The standard criteria for personhood are not obviously inherently impossible for AIs to obtain: they could be self-conscious, they could regard others as persons, they could […]

Mass Incarceration And The ‘Overfederalization’ Of Crime

May 15, 2016 by Justin Caouette

Originally posted on Samir Chopra:
America’s mass incarceration is the bastard child of many. Among them: racism, the War on Drugs (itself a racist business), the evisceration of the Constitution through ideological interpretive strategies, prosecutorial misconduct, police brutality, and so on. Yet other culprits may be found elsewhere, in other precincts of the legal and…

Some Thoughts On Punishment (1)

February 24, 2016 by Justin Caouette

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I’ve been thinking a lot about punishment over the past few months. I participated in a symposium over at the Brains Blog where I wrote a bit about moral enhancement and punishment (see here) and yesterday I did a short post over at PhilPercs where I think out loud about trying to justify retributive punishment […]

Neuroethics Symposium On Focquaert & Schermer’s, “Moral Enhancement: Do Means Matter Morally?”

August 28, 2015 by Justin Caouette

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There is a great symposium taking place over at the Brains Blog on Focquaert & Shermer’s paper in Neuroethics titled “Moral Enhancement: Do MeansMatter Morally” (See here). Disclaimer: I am one of the commentators on the piece. My commentary can be found here. The symposium is a bit different than most in that there is a […]

Luck, Choice, and Rationing Health Care

January 12, 2015 by Ray Aldred

According to some philosophers, a feature that matters for assessing inequalities is how the inequality comes about. One theory that assesses inequalities in this way is presented by Ronald Dworkin in a position called “luck egalitarianism.” According to the luck egalitarian, a factor that matters when assessing inequalities in a given situation –and whether these […]

What’s Wrong With Torture? Lots!

December 18, 2014 by Justin Caouette

There was an excellent post (and comment thread) over at PEA Soup on torture (see the original post and the excellent discussion thereafter here). I have copied and pasted the original post here, though I highly recommend visiting the original post to read the ensuing discussion in the comment thread. Given the recently released torture […]

Calgary Woman Gets 18 More Months In Prison (36 Total!) For Killing 2 Children?

January 30, 2014 by Justin Caouette

My initial reaction when reading the headline today was, WHAT!?! (see article here) Meredith Borowiec just killed two babies by putting them in the dumpster (leaving them for dead) and she can walk the streets in 18 months? I think my reaction is telling. To me, this woman ought to get punished with more severity. Why? Because […]

Martha Nussbaum, “What is Anger, and Why Should We Care?”

January 16, 2014 by Justin Caouette

Martha Nussbaum has given a very nice talk on why anger is “of dubious value in both life and the law“, the talk can be found here. Although it seems obvious that anger can be bad for our well-being and is often associated with acts of malice and bad intent (and rightfully so), I do […]