Criminal Justice

First off I would like to thank Jennifer, the author of the blog Cozy Toes for her recommendations. The lecture by Daniel C. Dennett led me to a cute little comic strip that illustrates the issue with free will.

The Dilbert comic along with parts of the lecture left me wondering about the law and criminal justice. Being inherently passive, I've never been too concerned about the law. I figure if I'm content enough with the way things are, there's really no reason for me to get involved. I do watch the news and read up on articles from time to time, but it's just not all that interesting to me.

I've always been very humble in the fact that I could never really know anything for sure. Terms such as right, wrong, good, evil, and morality have meant nothing more to me than just words whose meanings were fabricated and linked to religions and other belief systems. So naturally I've never felt any sort of need to become involved with politics. From my point of view, many politicians or even folks who join the police force or organizations such as the FBI are very passionate people who have a strong sense of what they believe to be right and wrong.

It is for this very reason I could never be a cop, or a judge for that matter. I was watching COPS on television a few weeks ago and they were setting up traps for prostitutes. An undercover cop would pose a civilian who would lure women into their car and eventually get them to name their price. It's at this point when she is arrested. I was just sitting there wondering what was going through these people's minds. Maybe something along the lines of, "yes, we've successfully captured another dirty hooker, we did the right thing" or "this scum is polluting our society, she deserves to be behind bars", or maybe "whoohoo, I did my job, I will most certainly get a raise for this". I felt bad for the woman. I did some light research on the subject, but I could find nothing substantial to convince me that prostitution should be illegal.

While I may disagree with many people's beliefs, I won't deny that in order to live peacefully, we need some sort of government. We then also need people to enforce the laws instituted, no matter their personal beliefs. In my early teenage years I used to go around spray-painting various objects with the symbol for anarchy. I didn't quite grasp the full implications of such a society, but I realized that whatever it was, it would be fair. A free for all, survival of the fittest, as described by one of the villains from The Dark Knight (can't remember if it was the Joker or Two-Face).

So getting back to what I originally planned on discussing, the issue of free will and the law, in regards to how we should treat criminals. In the first part of his lecture, Dennett describes how psychologists suggest how new discoveries in neuroscience will change the way we treat criminals. This puzzles me a bit. I'm not exactly sure how the law treats criminals today, but in my opinion, our understanding of consciousness and free will should not alter the punishment. If you break the law, regardless of whether or not you had the capacity of choosing between one option or another, you will be dealt with accordingly. If you break the law, you are liable to do it again.

Thinking about the Dilbert comic, the little dog questions our ability to 'blame' people for their actions with the idea that all of our actions are controlled by our brain. This somehow suggests that the brain and the person are separate entities. Blame the person. Blame the brain. They are one in the same. And I think that pretty wraps up what I wanted to get across. I meant for this to be a short post.

Look what Dilbert does to me!