Someone asked a tough question in a philosophy group, so I gave
it my best shot. Tell me how I did, and what your opinion is, if
you wish.: "can someone justify to me why repeat murders,
rapists and child rapists shoud be allowed to live in this
"civilized "society we live in today?" My answer:
It's because we generally believe that humans are basically
rational beings that make mistakes and get reason their way
through their problems. Years of punishment are set for various
crimes. When you have been kept away for a certain of time, a
reasonable person will see the error of their ways and
discontinue the behavior. But ultimately, it is because we treat
each case as unique for fairness in justice. All things that are
considered crimes are generally distasteful, some more than
others and some extremely so. Having a jury allows for reason
and emotions to mix, with the two lawyers as the "devil" and the
"angel" being the voices of reason and emotion, the devil's
emotional reasoning and the angels emotional reasoning. They act
as your conscience's warring sides. A multiple of jurors are
mostly hidden unconscious, murmuring through things secretly and
coming up with a verdict (a reasoned answer, allowing for
emotional input) The executive brain (the judge) makes the final
decision. That is my interpretation of a jury trial. I don't
know if it's true or not. I suspect either the jury system was
modeled after the human brain or, more likely, the model we have
of the brain was unconsciously formed by modeling it after the
jury system. I don't know which came first. They are not special
cases. Those crimes have set appropriate punishments, changeable
of course. The danger of treating them differently is precedent.
If a special case is made for these crimes, special cases will
then be true for other crimes as well and trickle down to being
applicable to traffic violations and such. I don't know if I
agree or disagree, but that's how I see the current way things
are done in Western countries and justice.
