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The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

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Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#31

Post by hntrader »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #22
hntrader wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem with this is that our recognition that there's extenuating circumstances (e.g a brain tumour in the prefrontal cortex) says more about our capacity to recognise such situations than it does about actual differences in agency between individuals. For example, we might say that a serial killer who was born into a life of wealth and advantage and has no macroscopic brain damage has more agency than the i…

> Going further, we're all slaves to determinisic or stochastic physics playing out in our brains and environment, and our agency is just a useful fiction. >The justice system should be premised on pragmatic concepts of deterrence, rehabilitation, protecting society, etc, and not on fantasy notions that person A had more agency than person B. Without a concept of agency it is pointless to talk about “justice”. At the…

I used the term "justice system" because that's what everyone calls it. If we want to rename it to something else, that's fine with me.

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#33

Post by mulmen »

solutron wrote: post #17

Evil doesn't have to have remorselessness or have awareness of it's evil to be evil. Ongwen is clearly traumatized. But, he is also the trauma. The spread of death and despair by his hand has to be adjudicated. Life in prison is the most morally just outcome for him, regardless of whatever reformations or personal developments he might make. Some things can't be undone and the consequences have to be lived with, fore…

If it is possible to do so much evil that no amount of good can overcome it then it is not also possible to do so much good that no amount of evil deserves consequence?

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#34

Post by DaedPsyker »

onethought wrote: post #18
solutron wrote: post #17

Evil doesn't have to have remorselessness or have awareness of it's evil to be evil. Ongwen is clearly traumatized. But, he is also the trauma. The spread of death and despair by his hand has to be adjudicated. Life in prison is the most morally just outcome for him, regardless of whatever reformations or personal developments he might make. Some things can't be undone and the consequences have to be lived with, fore…

Is prison to punish? Rehabilitate? Or both? I feel like we could be way more creative in how we treat prisoners in how they “repay their debt”. Someone like Ongwen could probably be very valuable in finding and converting other people away from situations similar to his. Or from helping security forces secure against the kind of tactics they used... I don’t know random thoughts, but we can punish someone and have val…

Its purpose is not just those, another is protecting society. I actually think that is its primary function, rehabilitation can be done in better ways. I think jail should only be considered where a threat to the public is posed. This case is an open and shut example of a dangerous threat.

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#35

Post by tschwimmer »

f154hfds wrote: post #8
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #3

We either view Ongwen as an morally culpable human who is capable of making moral choices (certainly by the time he reached adulthood) and hold him responsible for those choices, and likely lock him away for many, many years as punishment for the horrible choices he made. The other way is that we view him as so broken by his childhood trauma that he has had no moral capacity, even in his adulthood. If that is the cas…

There's a sort of disconnect going on in our sense of justice between gaining explanatory power to describe why a person did something, and that person's culpability. We seem to think if we can understand why they behaved in such a way (for instance, they were victims themselves, they had a mental disorder, etc.) they must merit compassion. The converse is perhaps more troublesome: if we can't understand how someone…

I think this is conditional, not universal. If someone did a crime for greed, or because they are a "bad person" who is seemingly rational but simply enjoys hurting people, I think you'll find that most people are not sympathetic.

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#36

Post by bigfudge »

swinnipeg wrote: post #26
solutron wrote: post #17

Evil doesn't have to have remorselessness or have awareness of it's evil to be evil. Ongwen is clearly traumatized. But, he is also the trauma. The spread of death and despair by his hand has to be adjudicated. Life in prison is the most morally just outcome for him, regardless of whatever reformations or personal developments he might make. Some things can't be undone and the consequences have to be lived with, fore…

It is curious how the trauma from his kidnapping is considered different than if he had been a 2nd generation war criminal. Presumably the child of a war criminal would also have suffered trauma in youth, but there would no consideration of mercy, or sympathetic longform articles for the 30something 2nd generation war criminal. They would be simply be treated as evil.

Totally agree. It's a kind of narrative/availability fallacy.

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#37

Post by anonAndOn »

mulmen wrote: post #33
solutron wrote: post #17

Evil doesn't have to have remorselessness or have awareness of it's evil to be evil. Ongwen is clearly traumatized. But, he is also the trauma. The spread of death and despair by his hand has to be adjudicated. Life in prison is the most morally just outcome for him, regardless of whatever reformations or personal developments he might make. Some things can't be undone and the consequences have to be lived with, fore…

If it is possible to do so much evil that no amount of good can overcome it then it is not also possible to do so much good that no amount of evil deserves consequence?

If we can agree that he is the destroyer of many lives, how would he ever overcome that debt? I suppose organ donation is one way...

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#38

Post by s1artibartfast »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #22
hntrader wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem with this is that our recognition that there's extenuating circumstances (e.g a brain tumour in the prefrontal cortex) says more about our capacity to recognise such situations than it does about actual differences in agency between individuals. For example, we might say that a serial killer who was born into a life of wealth and advantage and has no macroscopic brain damage has more agency than the i…

> Going further, we're all slaves to determinisic or stochastic physics playing out in our brains and environment, and our agency is just a useful fiction. >The justice system should be premised on pragmatic concepts of deterrence, rehabilitation, protecting society, etc, and not on fantasy notions that person A had more agency than person B. Without a concept of agency it is pointless to talk about “justice”. At the…

Morality is not incompatible with free will.

Needlessly killing all criminals is unjust because it devalues human life, and the right of individuals to exist. You don't need agency to experience happiness, love, intrigue, or anything else that makes life worth living.

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#39

Post by s1artibartfast »

hntrader wrote: post #15
ip26 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the short summary is we are coming to understand circumstances where an individual has lost their agency. In which cases the nature of justice changes. if we can't understand how someone could have done that thing... If we are not aware of a reason they did not posses agency, then we must assume they still had it.

The big problem with this is that our recognition that there's extenuating circumstances (e.g a brain tumour in the prefrontal cortex) says more about our capacity to recognise such situations than it does about actual differences in agency between individuals. For example, we might say that a serial killer who was born into a life of wealth and advantage and has no macroscopic brain damage has more agency than the i…

Agreed. Arguments about relative agency is just pattern matching behavior to expectations.

Justice shouldn't be based on the violation of expectations. It should be based on maximizing harm prevention.

Re: The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

#40

Post by t-writescode »

anonAndOn wrote: post #37
mulmen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is possible to do so much evil that no amount of good can overcome it then it is not also possible to do so much good that no amount of evil deserves consequence?

If we can agree that he is the destroyer of many lives, how would he ever overcome that debt? I suppose organ donation is one way...

People tend to define retribution and the scales in a way that they themselves can be forgiven and return to good standing, but people they don’t like cannot.
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