I'll do my best to respond to comments, and you can be as blunt as you like, but I won't publish abuse.
Please note that I have very limited internet access until around 24th March, so comments may not appear until after that.
Ross Andersen from Aeon interviewed Anders Sandberg, Hannah Maslen, and me about a paper we're writing on how punishment practices might change as technology advances. You can read the interview here. It's attracting a fair bit of attention, having been picked up by various other news outlets. A lot of people have contacted me via Twitter. Since 140 characters is pretty inadequate for a philosophical discussion, please feel free to leave a comment below if you have anything to say about the interview.
I'll do my best to respond to comments, and you can be as blunt as you like, but I won't publish abuse. Please note that I have very limited internet access until around 24th March, so comments may not appear until after that.
8 Comments
Eric
19/3/2014 08:00:15 am
I haven't been nice to you on twitter, I'm gonna assume your feelings about this are due to the fact you're a mother and that you wouldn't eventually make someone suffer this much. Because I need to believe that, I cannot find beauty in this world knowing that someone, a mother, a Doctor in Philosophy, would do that to another human being. Because what reassures me the most about life is the idea that, whatever amount of pain someone can experience in this world, death eventually ends it for good. To this day, whatever barbaric torture human beings were subjected to, death eventually put an end to their agony. If you reach an awfully high level of pain your heart is "programed" to stop, that's the miracle of biology, that's what put an end to the agony of Dr Mengele's victims. Can you imagine a world where death couldn't do that? By uploading your brain on a computer, someone could multiply tenfold your capacity to feel pain, speed things up so that one minute IRL is one decade inside the computer and torture you like that for decades (millions of years). I believe even Hitler doesn't deserve that. That doesn't mean I wouldn't piss on his grave if he had one. Whatever barbaric society we live in, death has this capacity to end your agony for good, let's keep it that way. Picturing a world where this would no longer be possible gives me nightmares. Sorry for my English. All the best.
Reply
Adam C. Emerson
20/3/2014 11:25:27 am
I didn't really care for your posting or your interview, but not because the punishments you suggest are so cruel. I believe they are cruel, but that isn't the heart of the objection I have. I understand that your ideas follow logically from the idea that people who do good things ought to be happy and people who do bad things ought to be unhappy, but I don't understand why you embrace the retributive model in the first place.
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Adam Whybray
20/3/2014 02:40:01 pm
Firstly, I think it's important not to conflate the two separate ideas that you posit:
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Blake
21/3/2014 07:38:40 am
Why do we care about free will or aspects of autonomy? We tend to care about them because they are seen as important for determining moral responsibility, in other words, who ought to be punished and how they ought to be punished. Why do we tend to care about determining moral responsibility? Because how we determine who ought to be punished and how, has a significant impact on crime rates and the overall well being of society. It's important not to forget, that, the primary purpose of a system of punishment in a society is to benefit the society.
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Greg Slepak
23/3/2014 04:56:07 am
Congratulations, in attempting to punish criminals, you've succeeded to lowering yourself to their level.
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Greg Slepak
23/3/2014 05:11:32 am
My comment was based on first being introduced to your work from VICE:
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Greg Slepak
23/3/2014 05:12:01 am
My comment was based on first being introduced to your work from VICE:
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Greg Slepak
23/3/2014 05:12:06 am
My comment was based on first being introduced to your work from VICE:
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