On 25 Jul 2002 at 3:56, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> I do not wish to debate whether or not the rape and murder of a five-
> year old is wrong; I wish to incarcerate the perpetrator, and I worry
> about those who consider it a debatable issue.
Excellent use of emotive argument - you rationalists can do it after
all!
The relativiity of this argument is not necessarily found in the crime,
but the punishment.
I would agree such an act is wrong. I would disagree that the
offender needs incarceration. Rather, I would argue the criminal
needs a different kind of justice - a kind that would facilitate a wider
and the deep sense of empathy and respect in the criminal, which
would result in the end of such behaviours.
Personally, I do not support either strand of the relativism vs
absolutism debate - neither seem directly relevant to the everyday
dilemmas and decisions-makings one must face. Negotiation with
other moral agents is more likely to involve different issues that this
rarified concern. (And intuitively, I sense a false dichotomy between
the two positions as informed by our ancient Western dualistic
ontologies.)
Walpurgis
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.noumenal.net/exiles
Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the government police
and other authorities can, with out a court order, demand that phone
companies, internet service providers and postal operators hand over
detailed information on individuals such as their name and address, phone
calls made and received, source and destination of emails, the identity of
websites visited and mobile phone location data, which is capable of
revealing the user's whereabouts at any given time and is accurate to
within a few hundred metres.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,7369,731074,00.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Sep 22 2002 - 05:06:16 MDT