Rehabiliation of offenders has always been based on this idea that prisons and hospitals should have a similar function and that criminality is treatable
Whether crime was caused by race, mental illness, poverty, or bumps on your head, there has long been a belief that humans are not responsible for their crimes. Genetics is not going to radically change this tradition.
So, from the 18th century, punishment inside the prison was one method to treat the disease - a dog or cat is not responsible for its bad behaviour, but we correct it through punishment and reward.
The problem is that this tradition attacks the idea of free will and personal liberty. Whether we treat prisoners through punishment, drug therapies, genetic therapies, psychotherapies, etc, (and even the euthanasia solution) we are still denying the liberty of the individual, objectifying the person, and travelling the road of dehumanisation.
(, Tue 16 Sep 2014, 15:23, Share, Reply)
Hang on...
You're confusing free will and liberty - which aren't the same thing at all. And you're assuming that (a) there is such a thing as free will, based on apparently nothing more than a desire that there should be; and (b) that freedom must be understood in one particular way.
I don't see what worrying about dehumanisation has to do with it - if the world is thus and so, whether or not its dehumanising is neither here nor there.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 16 Sep 2014, 16:19,
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