As I mentioned in class yesterday, I believe the root of all injustice is the separation of dominance. Every illegal act can be considered an act of dominance; from Bernie Madoff to OJ Simpson. We discussed the benefits of retribution verse rehabilitation and from Plato’s perspective, if justice is the organization of that person’s soul then the system and not the person should be to blame. Why fight fire with fire by causing a form of dominance through the prison system. If we are trying to fix the problem, shouldn’t we treat others the way we would like to be treated?
The only argument that Aristotle’s have for retributive justice is the lack of ultimate success with rehabilitation. If we were able to find a way to rehabilitate every criminal to the point that they would never commit a crime again there would be no use for retribution. Another way to look at the situation is that most people don’t commit crimes because they rather not go to prison, showing us that retributive justice has its pros as a “scare tactic.” Would more crimes be committed if criminals knew that they would only receive rehabilitation for their actions? I don’t see why not. Accordingly, the rehabilitation method would highly decrease repeat offenders, but the retributive method would decrease first time offenders. It is problematical to pinpoint a golden mean of justice where a fusion of rehab and retribution could decrease injustice, but if we can find the problem in the soul of individuals prior to unjust actions we can prevent injustice from occurring.
Aristotle blames the individual for things they voluntarily do, but Plato believes the system is what causes people to be unjust. Why do people steal? Because in that specific system they felt the need to gain more money because they were not receiving enough. Should the person be to blame or the fact that the monetary economic system forced him to feel the need to steal to live a better life? The system/society, if run perfectly, should be structured in way that unjust acts shouldn’t even be considered because everyone is satisfied with their current state. Unfortunately, human kind has never seen a society without a judicial type system for punishments due to injustice, but that doesn’t mean it can’t take place. The attraction of “dominance” needs to be investigated further to figure out its role in the human psyche to pin point its roots.
-Peter Hall
I think the point you brought up about how rehabilitation could be problematic in allowing offenders to continue repeating their injustices is very interesting, and it is something I did not consider. However, I believe that if we could find a way to apply both retribution as well as rehabilitation it could be successful in our justice system. Obviously these people who are committing crimes should not be given a choice for rehabilitation nor should they be free during this process. Instead, maybe they should be locked up and go through a rehabilitation in the progress of their time in jail? It is definitely an idea to be considered..
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