Malevolence and Punishment

Can you punish the "evil" out of someone? I don't know to tell you the truth -- but I'd be willing to bet the answer is NO. Can you sit someone in the corner until they decide to stop being evil? Likely not. Keep in mind that this essay is about hypotheticals.

Is it even possible to sufficiently punish someone, to the extent that they no longer want to commit malice towards others, or is it that you can scare them into submission, or perhaps they continue to get away with it -- until someone stops them? Once stopped, can they truly be reformed?

These are serious questions, because they determine how most people perceive the world around them.

Throughout history there have been evil people. But the level to which they are seen as "evil" varies based on the time period. For example, medieval torture practitioners were considered at the time to be "eccentric." We look at those acts now, and they are seen (rightfully so) as cruel and unusual.

Fast forward to today and things are quite different, in most of the world.

But there have been truly evil people running reeducation camps and torturing large numbers of people. In some parts of the world they still are, you just don't hear about it. Here in the US, the camps most hammered into people's minds are those run by Nazi Germany, but those were not the only reeducation camps. There were camps in many other countries that were specifically designed to break the spirit of the people contained within. Not to "reeducate" them, but to torture them until their very last breath. A sort of Hell on earth situation, run by the most sadistic people that could be found.

I think it's hard to argue that those who committed such acts are not evil. Similarly, I don't think a strong argument could be made that someone with the capacity to perform such acts could be "reformed."

A mental line is crossed when someone gets to that point. Perhaps they were always that way? Perhaps it was learned behavior. Many people who have come home from wars are haunted by the things they were capable of in such situations. Nobody can be sure how they will act in all situations. It's in those moments that people truly have to face their own being. That can be one of the most deeply moving, and deeply disturbing situations a person will ever encounter.

But back to the issue at hand. Can any of these kinds of human actions be avoided by the proper amount of punishment? Well, let me throw another curveball into this situation. Consider, what if the punishment makes the person (being punished) realize that they didn't commit their crimes in the "proper manner?" In other words, they are being punished because they didn't cover their tracks (well enough) -- not because what they were doing was wrong. I imagine that that is the situation the vast majority of the time, at least as it pertains to murderers.

Keep in mind that the majority of people who commit premeditated murder have already rationalized it in their minds. This is usually because the situation that drove them to the point of wanting to kill someone -- was outside of the bounds of law. Someone might have bullied them, or tormented them in a way that's technically "legal, but seriously messed up. Crimes can and are committed within the bounds of the law.

So what is any society to do? Well, there are limited options, and most of these issues have been fleshed out long ago. In fact, most people intrinsically understand this -- it's only in modern times that people have become so sheltered, as to believe that everything and everyone can be "healed." That's simply not the case. Not everyone can be afforded a second chance, nor do they want it.

Righteous indignation is not something that can easily be thwarted. People don't forget a perceived wrong -- not easily. And if that perceived wrong is "wrong enough" their perceived answer might be to put the perpetrator to death. We've seen this exemplified throughout history.

If everyone can be "healed" (their perceived wrongs corrected) why couldn't we end crime -- by capturing all of the criminals? Wouldn't there be a point where the last criminal is captured? Or, as I believe, some criminals are created spontaneously as various situations and opportunities present themselves.

Considering all of the above, what is the answer? The most obvious answers are containment, or death. After a horrific crime has been committed what other options are there?

How do you head off this possibility? I would imagine it would involve some form of "social engineering." Not the overt kind, but the kind that achieves largely positive outcomes by design. A system that rewards positive behavior as a result of participating in society. That is not to say that the laws should not punish bad behavior, but rather, laws should support and foster the methods and outcomes that result in people (whether knowing it or not) working on tasks that are beneficial to society.

However, this seems antithetical to what is expected in a free society. Social engineering to the level necessary get rid of all crime, would likely be tyrannical. As a result "right and wrong" would be highly subjective and often weighed against the overall outcomes of various people groups, and not based on individual outcomes.

A rights based system is the only way to achieve an approximate balance between right and wrong -- without moving into overtly tyrannical territory. God given rights can be clearly defined, and are far less subjective to opinion than what is right or wrong.

Or look at it this way, what system requires very specific behavior of its adherents -- to the point that they are ruled over to the extent that the outcomes are very predictable? Prison. That's the system that forces compliant behavior, a prison system.

Understanding that people are flawed is the philosophical basis for equally applied laws in a free society. People will never be perfected, as such, government and laws are necessary. And sometimes people have to be taken out of society -- because they will not follow the law. The law of course covers those who can not follow the law as well, those who lack mental capacity, or those who are insane.

Criminals, and the criminally insane will likely end up being removed from "voluntary society" and moved into some sort of prison, where societal norms are forced, not coerced.

The picture I used at the beginning of this essay is from one of the creepiest two Sci-Fi episodes I've ever seen. If you're unfamiliar with Doctor Who, you might be more interested after this particular episode S2 E18 and E19 (of the newer Doctor Who series).

Doctor Who is a time traveler, thousands of years old, and has pretty much seen it all, but in this episode even he is freaked out.

The entity he and his time travelling companion encounter is unlike anything he's dealt with before, and in fact might be the actual "Devil" as is referred to in many religious texts.

To the Doctor's question as to which Devil he is, given that there are so many religions, the Beast answers that he is all of them. He explains that the Disciples of the Light rose up against him leaving him defeated, and subsequently chained in the pit for all eternity. He states this occurred before the creation of this universe, to which the Doctor retorts that this is impossible as nothing could exist before the creation of the universe. The Beast asks the Doctor if that is his religion; a question that the Doctor can only answer with that is what he believes. The Beast tells the crew that they know nothing.

This begs the question, why was the Devil imprisoned by the Disciples of the Light and not reformed? Because sometimes people can't be reformed -- sometimes they are just evil.

What do you think?

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