[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).