Consider the following passage from Plato’s dialogue Crito:
Socrates: …wrongdoing or injustice is in every way
harmful and shameful to the wrongdoer. Do we say so or not?
Crito: We do.
Socrates: So one must never do wrong.
Crito: Certainly not.
Socrates: Nor must one, when wronged, inflict wrong in
return, as the many believe, since one must never do wrong.
Crito: That seems to be the case.
Socrates: Come now, should one do harm to anyone or
not, Crito?
Crito: One must never do so.
Socrates: Well then, if one is oneself done harm, is it
right, as the many say, to do harm in return, or is it not?
Crito: It is never right.
Socrates: Doing people harm is no different from
wrongdoing.
Crito: That is true.
One consequence of taking this reasoning seriously would be that punishment -- harming someone in retribution for having done something wrong -- would be indefensible. What do you think?
7 comments:
I agree with Socrates. Wrongdoing or injustice harms the wrongdoer, any purposeful harm of another person is wrong, no matter what the harm is in response to, and just creates another wrongdoer.
I am not saying that wrongdoing should have no socially imposed consequences, just that the consequences and enforcement of same need to be motivated by a desire to reform the wrongdoer, not hurt her/him.
Plato's character Socrates argues elsewhere that (in addition to being wrong in itself) punishment is bad policy, as harming people tends to make them worse people, and even more destructive.
There are difficulties with the reformist model as well, however, as it assumes paternalistically that we know what's wrong with people and how to fix it. But maybe we should be willing to bite the bullet on this one and accept some degree of paternalism.
I do believe that some fairly strong evidence exists to support the character Socrates' position that punishment tends to make the punished worse.
If punishment worked to dissuade or reform behaviors, prisons would not be overflowing, nor would there be such thing as a recidivism rate.
But do elaborate on paternalism, please. You've used that word several times, and I'm unsure of what it actually means.
Paternalism in public life occurs whenever the state restricts your autonomy in choosing for yourself. The political philosopher John Rawls argues for a principle of neutrality on the part of the state with respect to comprehensive visions of the good -- citizens get to decide what they think is most important, and the state should stay out if it. Of course, there are limits -- the state must enforce prohibitions on murder, for example, even if there are sociopaths who really, really like doing it. But within those rather wide boundaries, the state would be errantly paternalistic to decide on our behalf what makes life worth living.
Clearly indefensible. Human behavior, however, needs no defense. (Historically speaking)
Formally, I think this argument is fine.
1. W--H
2. ~W
3. W--~I
4. I--~W / therefore I--W
5. I Supp/CP
6. ~~W DN 2
7. I--W CP 5, 6
Plato is never explicit in defining what wrongdoing and injustice are. Could you say it's unsound because not all the premises are clear and because of their unclearness may not be true, i.e. killing someone may be considered wrongdoing but if it's to save the human race from mass extinction, there may be some ambiguity with regard to how wrong it is. Or am I taking a relativistic wrong in which it would be right for the surviving human race and wrong for the dead guy?
The limits of our understanding of key concepts such as justice do not make the argument unsound, but they do raise the question of whether we can (yet) determine soundness once and for all. Then again, we certainly know well enough what we mean by wrongdoing and justice that we can act on these principles with considerable confidence.
It is possible for an act to be wrong prima facie, while being at least conceivably permissible under unusual circumstances. So perhaps the principle is flexible enough to accommodate marginal cases.
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