We talked in class about punishment in America's society and the justification of punishment: Deterrence, vengeance and retribution. We also talked about how American's have trapped the convicts in by not educating them while in prison and also some states not allowing them to vote. Looking at the present day America, how can one input Confucius views on punishment into the system and how effective would it be?
The American system exemplifies Confucius' idea of entrapment of the people. children are born into poor families, where they have few proper role models because statistically the population in question are African American males who are more likely to be imprisoned. Then they receive a half-hearted education that most will not finish because their schools are not given enough funding to meet the masses and because they perform so poorly they lose money every year. These individuals provide for their families in the only way that they know...crime, and then the cycle continues again. Confucius advocated to provide for the people so they could provide for themselves and avoid behavior that would need punishment. American society does not accomplish this. We create a mini-society in which hereditary crime is the only thing that people know because they have been denied privileges to lift them from poverty.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Confucius would not like our system at all. It doesn't accomplish what he was trying to avoid by providing a deterrent and it doesn't give a means for people to provide for their families to avoid most crime. Our system doesn't even do what most Americans believe it should because it doesn't let someone with a criminal past move on from the punishment he already served. If crimes are going down because of lead, than that can benefit our system, but there will always be cases like Kelli mentioned and that is what needs to be fixed somehow. I do not know how we can fix it as we talked about in class, we have been doing it wrong for so long it will be difficult to turn about-face to fix it.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I think the deterrence is completely necessary, at least among the order of Punishment X for action Y. It doesn't have to be insane, or draconian, just enough to take back exactly what was taken (maybe in a metaphoric sense.) If a criminal steals 500 dollars, he should have to pay back 500 dollars.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that it is as efficacious as it sounds in my head, however. If everyone did do exactly what they were called to do by nature, there would be no need for crime. Confucius' idea does work on paper, however I think it's unattainable. After all, aren't certain people drawn to commit crime as a livelihood? And what then of people who seek to deliver judgment? I think it removes genuine life pursuits (perhaps unwholesome though) for an idealistic and unattainable goal.
What you describe is a principle of retribution. Confucius is less concerned to balance the wrong act than to structure things so that wrong acts are less likely in the future.
DeleteConfucius is aware that you probably can't eliminate all crime, but don't dismiss him for impracticality on that account -- if he could eliminate 98% of crime simply by making it unnecessary and unappealing, that would be huge!