By this, I mean to ask why when bad people like dictators suffer a brutal death (Gaddafi for example) people seem to take a perverse glee in it. Similar shit with celebrating war crimes or torturing prisoners. Why are people so prone to celebrating needless cruelty? Even if someone has to be killed, why not just shoot their brain and get it done with?
They are looking for a resolution that's not there
you don't end human greed, you just mitigate it
So what can people do to prevent the sadism that pops up from lack of resolution from occurring within themselves? What can I do to prevent myself from being cruel?
>Even if someone has to be killed, why not just shoot their brain and get it done with?
An ordinary murderer kills like one or two people, so it's a fair punishment to simply take their life in a neutral, painless way.
But someone like Gaddafi was responsible for thousands of deaths, and hundreds of thousands of people being subjected to all sorts of miserable oppression. A simple execution wouldn't have been enough to exact a punishment proportional to his crime, because he had but one life to lose. Rather, people like this must die in an exceptionally brutal way in order for their single death to be made awful enough that justice can be served relative to the gravity of their crimes.
That’s retarded, torturing a mass murderer or dictator isn’t actually gonna solve anything that just shooting them wouldn’t. It won’t bring back any people killed, it won’t help any refugees or people struggling financially.
Might deter future offenders.
Humans have evolved to enjoy seeing bad people in pain.
What does that have anything to do with it?
The purpose of punishment is to convince society at large that justice has been served, so that people continue to abide by the social contract. It has nothing to do with rendering any specific material benefit.
I generally interpret punishment as more-so being there to prevent that person from doing whatever they’re being punished for, but I suppose an element of “Don’t do this, or something really bad will happen” can be a useful deterrence. Still, after a point, it’s just cruelty for its own sake.
>Still, after a point, it’s just cruelty for its own sake.
Exactly. What I'm suggesting is a third alternative to the two versions of punishment you're describing.
It's not just about removing a dangerous person, or deterring other people from doing similar bad things. Rather, it's about establishing a generalized sense that justice has been done, so that the people as a whole believe that they live in a just society. The criminal himself merely becomes a prop in a sort of broader morality play.
Is it okay to use a person as a prop, simply ignoring their well-being or agency? I waver against such actions, personally. Just doesn’t sit right. Men are men, not tools to be used by men.
>I generally interpret punishment as more-so being there to prevent that person from doing whatever they’re being punished for
Because you've been brainwashed by stupid modernist takes
Revenge has always been the main purpose of justice and is what huma beings strive for when wronged
The whole purpose of centralizing justice under the authority of the state was to have a neutral and widely recognized entity avenge the victims in their stead to avoid the chaos of personal vendettas
Are you a robot? Do you have autism?
Yes, I am autistic, but I fail to see the relevance of that.
Exactly
Based autists dabbing on neurotypicals with superior moral views.
I just don’t like unnecessary suffering.
BTW, how are you and seemingly everyone else I discuss ethics and morality with able to tell that I am autistic? Is it my inability to get motivations which I can not relate to?
If someone murders your mother in front of you, the thought process isn't a cold, logical "what is the most ethical and constructive outcome for us as a species?". You're full of grief, shock, rage, confusion, hatred, and the whole spectrum of emotion blinding your senses. You probably end up screaming and crying as you crush their head, or paralyzed with shock.
Sure, one can forgive a momentary abandonment of reason, but we should strive as a species to at least craft our laws around justice above all else.
That's nice but also has nothing to do in the slightest with the OP
Punishing criminals is for the greater good, even deterrence aside. It is an inherent good, like letting an orphanage visit the zoo free of charge.
Why is it inherently good outside of deterrence, compensating victims, and prevention?
Punishment is a mutually brutalising necessary evil
>An ordinary murderer kills like one or two people, so it's a fair punishment to simply take their life in a neutral, painless way
Only if said murderer killed hios victims in a neutral, painless way
all sin and thus all evil is indulgence, nothing more or less. to see people you perceive as enemies or prey driven before you and tormented can be pleasureful, and sinful people indulge in that pleasure. its no different than indulgence in homosexualry, gluttony, etc. its all the same.