“If we’re going to harm somebody because they’ve done something wrong, we should do it because we expect good things — better things — to come from it.”
— Professor Adam Kolber
As humans, we have strong feelings about right and wrong. But our individual opinions regarding what constitutes justice — or even what constitutes a crime, in many cases — may vary. Our culture remains deeply divided on the policies that guide punishment, so how do we determine the best and most ethical courses of action when it comes to maintaining law and order in our society? Should punishment be inflicted to cause harm and suffering, or as a consequence that will produce some good?
This episode of The Living Jewishly Podcasts is an instalment of What Would You Do?, a podcast about ethics in the modern world. This episode’s guest is Professor Adam Kolber, who teaches health law, bioethics, criminal law, and neurolaw at Brooklyn Law School.
During this conversation, Dr. Elliot Malamet and Professor Kolber dive into the goals and moral basis of punishment, the difference between vengeance and punishment, and how culture and politics affect crime and its institutional consequences.
“When you increase amounts of punishment a little bit, it doesn’t affect people’s behaviour very much… because most people don’t think they’re going to get caught.”
— Professor Adam Kolber
This episode discusses:
Highlights:
00:53 Intro
02:42 Adam Kolber & goals of punishment
04:46 Vengeance & punishment
06:03 Blood avengers v. institutions
07:44 Crime in the United States
10:39 Crime & culture
13:11 Heroes in popular culture
14:40 “Getting away with it”
16:12 Effective punishments
18:27 Kant’s thought experiment
22:40 Free will, responsibility & capital punishment
27:30 Eye for an eye
30:11 Proportionality & drug offences
32:27 Atonement
34:09 Punitiveness in the digital era
38:19 Conclusion
Links:
Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant & Mary J. Gregor (Editor)
https://www.amazon.ca/Kant-Metaphysics-Morals-Immanuel/dp/0521566738
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Shalom!
