[quantum_mcts]

Really weird post and discussion around it. The "family" is not some abstract entity / offender's property. The "family" is made of other humans. "Not punishing people that didn't do anything wrong" is pretty high at the list of my consequentialist morals.

[nosefurhairdo]

The point is that there's nothing inherently immoral about family punishment from a consequentialist lens. Consequentialist morality is based solely on outcomes; therefore, if family punishment results in fewer crimes perpetrated on innocent people, there is not a coherent consequentialist argument for family punishment being immoral. It suggests that there's some cost/benefit ratio at which family punishment could be considered morally correct.

[blargey]

Morality frameworks defined as a single rigid rule will always encounter some "repugnant conclusion" given a sufficiently contrived situation, news at 11.

The "retributive morality" the author espouses doesn't actually dodge "justification of family-punishment" either. It relies on the same external axiom, that family should not be held culpable for their members' crimes (and are thus categorized as "innocents"). The same assumption should cause consequentialism to assign an extremely negative valence to family-punishment, because the consequence of family-punishment is that "everyone lives in a society where family members are held culpable for their members' crimes, and live/act in fear of such largely-uncontrollable punishment".

[nosefurhairdo]

What's an example repugnant conclusion for the axiom "don't punish innocent people"?

[InSteady]

Easy -- No one is ever punished for anything and crime gets to the point that society crumbles, because as humans we cannot enact a justice system that does not occasionally punish innocent people.

Slightly less easy, but closer to current reality: For "don't knowingly punish innocent people" -- enact a justice system that is terrible at fact finding (or has gross bureaucratic and procedural inefficiencies), so that you punish a lot of innocent people but never do so knowingly.

Easy again: For "don't punish innocent people, knowingly or otherwise -- you have no criminal justice system that is workable within these constraints in the real world.

[blargey]

That doesn't constitute a framework for answering "who do you punish" or "how do you punish them", so it's not relevant to my assertion.

It is a popular secondary/tertiary/N-ary axiom, though, as demonstrated in the article.

[Juliate]

I see a huge logical fallacy here. It doesn't stand.

> therefore, if family punishment results in fewer crimes perpetrated on innocent people, there is not a coherent consequentialist argument for family punishment being immoral.

Punishing a criminal's family _is_ perpetrating violence on innocent people; unless family itself is criminal, in which case, you can still investigate each family member.

Unless you deny any individual's own responsibility.

In which case, the issue is not only family, but society as a whole. That's a pretty twisted vicious circle.

[ivanbakel]

> Punishing a criminal's family _is_ perpetrating violence on innocent people

What's the logical fallacy here?

The point is that consequentialism doesn't object to ideas like "perpetrating violence on innocent people" with any kind of principle. If the consequences of such violence are overall negative, then the act becomes immoral. Punishing the family members of a criminal has negative consqeuences for those people, but those could be outweighed by the positives for society as a whole by reducing other kinds of immoral actions (which themselves have greater negative consequence.) All of these individual actions have their own moral weight - there are no categories of moral/immoral actions in general.

[Juliate]

> but those could be outweighed by the positives for society as a whole by reducing other kinds of immoral actions (which themselves have greater negative consequence.)

No. Because you cannot outweigh a wrong by another wrong. There's no balance, it only adds up on wrong.

The negative consequences are not only for the innocents wronged in this scenario.

They are also to all the rest of society that, witnessing that, can only deduce and fear that _no one_ is safe from being wronged the same way, because of the actions of a third party (be it family or other). And that it's not anymore a matter of justice, but of power (of who decides what is wrong or not, and who decides how many circles around the criminal should be punished).

Ruling by fear and violence never brought good (but only from the partial and twisted perspective of those in power). Neither in education for kids, neither in training for animals, neither in society for people, never.

Even if still imperfect, democratic-tending societies have this figured out above autocratic ones.

> there are no categories of moral/immoral actions in general.

That depends highly on how you define and consider morality as a virtue.

[ivanbakel]

>No. Because you cannot outweigh a wrong by another wrong. There's no balance, it only adds up on wrong.

This is not in line with consequentialist thinking, so there is no logical fallacy. You're failing to consider a line of reasoning in terms of a different moral philosophy to your own.

>They are also to all the rest of society that, witnessing that, can only deduce and fear that _no one_ is safe from being wronged the same way, because of the actions of a third party (be it family or other).

As other commenters have pointed out, this is not a statement that holds in general in consequentialist terms. How great are the harms to the rest of society? How great are the harms of the crimes prevented in this way? What is the real net benefit or downside to the whole population? These are the questions consequentialism wants answered to judge the morality of such a policy.

[Juliate]

> This is not in line with consequentialist thinking, so there is no logical fallacy.

Ok, but then what's the point of a consequentialist take, if that's so removed from past experiences?

> These are the questions consequentialism wants answered to judge the morality of such a policy.

Correct. The problem/flaw is deep in the roots of consequentialism itself: if you wait only for the outcomes to judge whether something is moral or not, you can only be a spectator, not an actor. You can't act without a principle. If you want to take action, you've got to act after principles, from memory and/or reasoning (or you may act irrationally - but then you may only invoke amorality, which defeats the consequentialist definition as well).

[nobody9999]

>The point is that there's nothing inherently immoral about family punishment from a consequentialist lens. Consequentialist morality is based solely on outcomes; therefore, if family punishment results in fewer crimes perpetrated on innocent people, there is not a coherent consequentialist argument for family punishment being immoral. It suggests that there's some cost/benefit ratio at which family punishment could be considered morally correct.

If one assumes that the families of those who commit crimes are innocent as well, punishing those families are also crimes against innocent people. By your own logic, punishing ten innocent members of a family for a crime committed by a relative against a single person makes things worse, not better -- as more crimes (and more innocent people hurt) are committed in executing such punishment than the harm caused by the initial crime.

In fact, in the US at least, we already inflict a version of this on the communities of those who commit crimes. If someone commits a crime and is convicted, they are generally discriminated against in finding jobs, getting housing, being able to exercise the political franchise and a variety of other punitive "punishments" that are beyond those prescribed by law.

This encourages recidivism, reduces potential economic output, reduces economic/social/political opportunities and otherwise negatively affects the families and communities of those convicted, even after completing the official punishment for whatever crime may have been committed.

While there certainly are folks who cannot integrate into society without harming it (e.g., serial killers) and, as such, should be permanently removed from society in order to protect the other members of that society, most folks who commit crimes are not such people. However, when we discriminate against those who have already been punished for their crimes, we intentionally put them at odds with society, increasing the risk of recidivism. And more's the pity.