This is a class blog set up for 4S1 students. It is a platform for you to do your reflections, post your comments and feedback about anything that goes on in English class. I'd first like to invite you to reflect on the lesson(s) on developing the concept of "Justice."
Was the task interesting, challenging, engaging? Were the conclusions satisfying?
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To me, I think that the utilitarian theory of justice is not valid because it punishes the criminal based on what is best for the society as a whole. Hence, to achieve deterrence, the punishment would be measured based on firstly, the crimes that he is presumed to commit, the crimes of others presumed to be ignited by his action and the crime he has committed. And since deterrence itself is just for providing a SENSE OF security to the society, which itself is extremely subjective, all this presumptions of future crimes and the people's subjective opinions will dilute the main aim of the charges which is to punish the criminal for only his crime. Hence, the retributive theory for justice is adequate as punishing someone for their foreseen crimes is not justifiable.
ReplyDeleteThe Haiti police was seen firing to the people on the 6th day after the Haiti Earthquake. The reason why the police shot was that someone attempted to loot the food and water provided by the government. Is this action justice or non-justice? It is non-justice because the looting is not a crime lead to capital punishment. They kill people without a legal reason. However, it do keep the society stable. It keep the public form turbulence. We can not image that all the citizens plucked each other's collars and struggled to grab the food.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happened 20 years ago on 4th of June 1989, known as the Tiananmen Square Incident. The chinese government sent military forces to put down the rebellion and killed many innocent citizens and university students. The action Chinese Grovernment took was considered evil. However, China would gain nothing but chaos indeed if the government let the rebellion continue.
Generally speaking, justice refers to the moral rightness based on ethics, moral principles, laws and some other principles which most people should abide by. However, the crux of the issue is that what kind of principle should be considered 'correct'. Take Ancient India as an example. During 3000 B.C., the Hierarchy System was commonly applied to the whole society of India. The King and those nobles were considered as the superior part of the society, and the inferior part consisted of most of the civilians. At that period of time, nobody doubted the correctness of this System. However, with the progress of human civilization, this system was eventually regarded as 'feudal'and a violation of human rights. Thus, the Hierarchy System was finally abolished by people.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, it is hard to determine whether a set of principle is really justified or not. What we consider 'correct' today may become obsolete and incorrect for the next generations. Hence, does absolute justice really exist? If it does, then what principle is it based on?
It was difficult to think about examples of justice. The penalty given to the guilty is usually not equivalent to the harm that the victim has suffered. For example, executing a terrorist does not pay for the lives of all the victims who suffered the bombing. Hence, we often see much more unjustified cases in the world. As for Singapore's case, I think it is due to good governance and economic development that there is no need to fight for a living. A good example would be our schoolmates handing the money which they have found to the general office. Part of it is definitely due to the moral values which they possess, but if they were to be short of money, would they have done the same thing?
ReplyDelete-Fangxu
Justice in the form of capital punishment would backfire on itself. Justice and punishment is meant to achieve status quo ante. However, in capital punishment, while the victim's family's may achieve status quo ante upon witnessing the execution of the murderer, the status quo ante of the murderer's family members cannot be restored. Human beings are social creatures thus the loss of a loved one is depressing and hard to overcome. It is thus impossible to achieve status quo ante through capital punishment since the status quo ante of the murderer's family is compromised for the victim's family. Thus, this is extremely unfair to the murderer's family as they did not commit any crimes at all! Besides, it is impossible to resurrect the victim even if the murderer dies, thus I feel that capital punishment is an inhumane, barbaric and sadistic form of punishment that portrays the worst side of human beings, sadism.
ReplyDeleteLee Men Quan:
ReplyDeleteThe lesson was not too challenging even though it was quite engaging.
To me, justice simply means to punish or make the ones who have done something deemed wrong by the people compensate, and seldom is used to refer to rewards. To mete out punishment as close to the wrong doings is perhaps called justice, but in my opinion, justice does not just make sure the treatment is what the criminal deserves exactly for his crimes, but may also include meting out punishments that are more harsh than should be for deterence effect. And why? This is no longer a matter of theory of fairness and equality, but rather is a practical problem that the society faces.
To think of it this way, somehow if the punishment is to be made equal to the offence, then the people will definitely feel that commiting crimes is worth. For you get what you deserve, and you get an extra chance to escape too.
On the other hand, if the punishment is slightly or more harsh than the common punishments, then wouldn't commiting crimes be unworthy, and therefore achieve a much stronger deterrent effect? In societies that cannot afford to deal with chaos, justice is regarded much more of a practical problem than just theories of equality. Furthermore, since the criminal is the one who made the mistake, wouldn't it be fair to punish him more than what he did since he was responsible for the problem, as long as the punishment is not far too harsh beyond reasoning.
In class today, we talked about examples of justice and injustice. Topics ranging widely from compensation, punishment of the guilty, proportionality and retirbution were discussed. Moreover, crime and punishment were also redefined as violation of the criminal law and penalty levied on individuals for their misdeeds respectively.
ReplyDeleteI agreed that justice was indeed "restoring balance in the moral order of things". It is carried out only when someone commits a crime or offence, otherwise it would be redundant. Moreover, I believed that punishment proportionate to crime is the best way to deal out punishment because it is the fairest way. Punishments that are dealt by circumstance is both impartial to the victim and the guilty. The victim gets to understand why he was infringed on as the guilty has to explain the reasons behind his crime while the accused can also recieve a fair trial as he can be understood to be acting under circumstance. Furthermore, this form of punishment is much better than the utilitarian theory as the end justifies the means for that particular theory and the retributive theory which has the people out to get the head of the guilty party.