Rapist gouges girl's eye out

[Hemi300c]

Someone with a sick mind that he has will never be able to become a normal accepted citizen. He knew his deed was wrong and therefore he should pay the price, IMO hang him high.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

He knew his deed was wrong and therefore he should pay the price, IMO hang him high.

That's too quick and easy. C*unts like this need to suffer.

 

[raind33r]

That's too quick and easy. C*unts like this need to suffer.

Exactly! Therefore I say let some good come from them, experiment away

 

[AfricanTech]

Just about everyone can be controlled with "carrots" far better than they can be with whips. The same even goes for animals or "lesser apes" than humans. Beating a dog when he pees inside will work far slower (or not at all) than giving him a treat when he does it on the lawn.

By the time someone has committed the atrocity it's far too late for carrots. Peeing in the house is not heinous - when a dog maims / kills someone (eg that kid on the beach a couple of months back) then it is put down - why, because it is recognised that the risk of re-occurence is higher than the potential for rehabilitation (habituation, etc).

It's simple social constructionist pragmatism I propose not humanism. The problem with theories of humanity that don't account for social construction is that they then imply that the individual is just "evil" and the process he became that way was random. That's a pointless and unsophisticated way to approach any problem and can never work. Imagine if Kepler or Galileo etc had said "Well some of this lights in the sky thingies just move funny and that's just the way it is." We wouldn't have advanced very far in the fields of astronomy and cosmology.

Depends on the research you read - there is a strong argument that social constructionism alone cannot explain deviant / socially murderous behavior - there seems to be some genetic / biochemical component as well.

And of course how can we ethically justify killing someone if we admit that his deeds were just a result of random "evil" that lurks around an occasionally infects someone ? How is he to blame for "contracting evil" when it's clearly something nobody wants to have curse them as according to you it makes you worthy of being killed ?

How do you ethically justify dying of Ebola? Nature doesn't have ethics - something happens or it doesn't - so you get Ebola- you die - them's the breaks. So you contract 'evil' - you kill someone - you die - them's the breaks - I'll cry at the Ebola victim's funeral - I won't cry at the other

Intellectually it is. But that's perhaps not as important to people than vengeance and blood lust and the resulting catharsis, so I understand if they feel that way, even if acting out violently from our reptile brain is a regression towards barbarism.

In that sense it does. But where do we draw the line at what is a heinous deed ? Not everything is as universally repugnant and obviously heinous as this event. Also who gets to decide when such a deed is carried out ? How is it fairly enforced ? How do we ensure innocent people aren't executed ? It's a very slippery slope we start to slide down.

Ah, here we approach some common ground - where do we draw the line indeed? That is what we have the law for to help us decide where that line is. Enforcement is separate from the principle that it needs to take place. My argument for the Death Penalty presupposes that as many checks and balances are in place to prevent the innocent from being executed.

 

[fantasticfred]

By the time someone has committed the atrocity it's far too late for carrots. Peeing in the house is not heinous - when a dog maims / kills someone (eg that kid on the beach a couple of months back) then it is put down - why, because it is recognised that the risk of re-occurence is higher than the potential for rehabilitation (habituation, etc).

Agreed. No social constructionist would disagree. It's also too late for whips.

The dog metaphor was to demonstrate that even with organisms far simpler than human beings carrots work better than whips in shaping desired behavior.

Depends on the research you read - there is a strong argument that social constructionism alone cannot explain deviant / socially murderous behavior - there seems to be some genetic / biochemical component as well.

Yes there's a biological element. People with more testosterone etc have a higher capacity to be aggressive. People with smaller frontal lobes has lesser potential to have highly developed senses of ethics etc. Some of these we are born with, some of them are caused by environmental factors such as poor diet and intellectually stimulation/stunted development as a child. But it's widely accepted that you can take any individual under a certain age and put him in either a stressful unhealthy environment and the chances of him acting anti socially is boosted dramatically and vice verse if you put them into a nurturing and healthy social environment.

Had the experience of your youth been similar to this individual it's extremely unlikely you would have the values and personality you have today. Had this person experiences been different it's highly unlikely he would have acted in this way.

 

[fantasticfred]

How do you ethically justify dying of Ebola? Nature doesn't have ethics - something happens or it doesn't - so you get Ebola- you die - them's the breaks. So you contract 'evil' - you kill someone - you die - them's the breaks - I'll cry at the Ebola victim's funeral - I won't cry at the other

What is the ebola victim spreads unwittingly it and it kills other people. No difference if we don't add ethics into the equation. Both acted unwittingly. You either cry at both funerals or none of them. You want to go full post modern them's the breaks.

Ah, here we approach some common ground - where do we draw the line indeed? That is what we have the law for to help us decide where that line is. Enforcement is separate from the principle that it needs to take place. My argument for the Death Penalty presupposes that as many checks and balances are in place to prevent the innocent from being executed.

And I never said I was against the death penalty. I just said if it's not shown to prevent murders then it's nothing more than old testiment vengeance devoid of context or ethical merit. It's just blood lust. I'm saying if you are going to kill someone there has to be a better reason than "it lessens my anger" such as "it's a deterrent against crime" for it to have any ethical or pragmatic justification.

 

[waynegohl]

WTF is going on in this backward country, a 7 and 6 year old boy and girl in Grahamstown raped by the same teacher and he is on suspension and the cops are looking into it??

 

[AfricanTech]

What is the ebola victim spreads unwittingly it and it kills other people. No difference if we don't add ethics into the equation. Both acted unwittingly. You either cry at both funerals or none of them. You want to go full post modern them's the breaks.

We'll have to agree to disagree here - if an Ebola victim spreads the disease unwittingly and it kills other people that's one thing. If an Ebola victim knows he has the virus and consciously spreads it to other people then s/he is simply a murderer. Let me put it this way, if someone murders someone else, they give society the right and permission to be murdered (death penalty) in return. If I walk into your house and piss on your lounge carpet then I automatically give you the right to walk into mine and piss on my lounge carpet. The difference between humans and animals is the ability to reflect on your actions before you peform the action - if you get infected by the 'evil' virus and suddenly want to start murdering people left and right, a human being is able to foresee the consequences through rational forethought - if s/he cannot, then they're no better than an animal, and like a rabid dog, should be put down immediately since they are no longer part of the human race and therefore are no longer entitled to the rights and privileges of a human being.

And I never said I was against the death penalty. I just said if it's not shown to prevent murders then it's nothing more than old testiment vengeance devoid of context or ethical merit. It's just blood lust. I'm saying if you are going to kill someone there has to be a better reason than "it lessens my anger" such as "it's a deterrent against crime" for it to have any ethical or pragmatic justification.

Again, have to agree to disagree - for me the death penalty is not there to satisfy bloodlust - it is there to provide an ultimate consequence in reaction to a deed than you cannot make reparations for - once you've murdered someone they are gone - forever - you can't fix that. You intentionally trample upon someones right to life, you give up your own right to life.

 

[AfricanTech]

Agreed. No social constructionist would disagree. It's also too late for whips.

The dog metaphor was to demonstrate that even with organisms far simpler than human beings carrots work better than whips in shaping desired behavior.

I agree 100% - the point you're missing is that by the time a human murders another human you are way beyond the point of shaping behavior - at this point therefore given that you cannot shape the behavior any longer you have to move towards how best to (1) protect society from further predation by that particular individual, and (2) provide an example to others of the consequences of such anti-societal behavior

Yes there's a biological element. People with more testosterone etc have a higher capacity to be aggressive. People with smaller frontal lobes has lesser potential to have highly developed senses of ethics etc. Some of these we are born with, some of them are caused by environmental factors such as poor diet and intellectually stimulation/stunted development as a child. But it's widely accepted that you can take any individual under a certain age and put him in either a stressful unhealthy environment and the chances of him acting anti socially is boosted dramatically and vice verse if you put them into a nurturing and healthy social environment.

Had the experience of your youth been similar to this individual it's extremely unlikely you would have the values and personality you have today. Had this person experiences been different it's highly unlikely he would have acted in this way.

I agree with your statement above. Where I differ is that you argue that the death penalty is not appropriate as a consequence whereas I believe that it is. Where social constructivism also falls down is that it does not explain why 1 out of 200 (imaginary numbers used for illustrative purposes only) persons who grow up with the same poor environmental factors turn into anti-social murderers while the other 199 don't - same environment...

 

[fantasticfred]

We'll have to agree to disagree here - if an Ebola victim spreads the disease unwittingly and it kills other people that's one thing. If an Ebola victim knows he has the virus and consciously spreads it to other people then s/he is simply a murderer. Let me put it this way, if someone murders someone else, they give society the right and permission to be murdered (death penalty) in return. If I walk into your house and piss on your lounge carpet then I automatically give you the right to walk into mine and piss on my lounge carpet. The difference between humans and animals is the ability to reflect on your actions before you before them - if you get infected by the 'evil' virus and suddenly want to start murdering people left and right, a human being is able to foresee the consequences through rational forethought - if s/he cannot, then they're no better than an animal, and like a rabid dog, should be put down immediately since they are no longer part of the human race and therefore are no longer entitled to the rights an privileges of a human being.

.

You see I don't believe in an "evil virus" that randomly just forms in our minds. That's no better than believing in being possessed by the devil, tokolosh etc and other outdated mumbo jumbo. But in actual fact it's a very good analogy for what people are effectively saying when they take no interest in the cause of someones behavior. It may as well be anything they just don't care and want the person punished.

It tells us nothing about the world and about what causes people to act in such insanely cruel ways to just put it down to "They are evil!" or "People should know the difference between right and wrong." Well clearly people don't know because they do these types of things happen all over the world every day. If there's a terrible threat around is it not wise to try and understand the cause of this threat so we can do something about it ? What's the wisdom in saying "We will wait until after the threat has happened! Then after it's happened we can perhaps react to it ! no point in trying to understand it or stop it."

What you are then saying is that these things are inevitable and destined to happened and a part of life we must accept. Where as I am saying "People can be averted from acting out in violent ways if we can understand and change the source and catalyst of their behavior." To sum up you think human beings are destined to be a certain way and we must create a society to inhibit their freedom as much as possible. I think they are blank canvases and we must both push and pull on their wants and fears to get the best out of them and that in doing this intelligently a free society is possible and desirable.

They are very fundamentally different views. I find yours terribly hopeless pessimistic and cynical. You probably find mine naive, optimistic and unrealistic. You probably would describe me as a liberal and I might describe you as a fascist. But that's neither here nor there and I doubt either of us fits that description. We may agree to disagree.

Again, have to agree to disagree - for me the death penalty is not there to satisfy bloodlust - it is there to provide an ultimate consequence in reaction to a deed than you cannot make reparations for - once you've murdered someone they are gone - forever - you can't fix that. You intentionally trample upon someones right to life, you give up your own right to life

In a perfect world we would also sign that contract and it wouldn't even be necessary to enforce it. If I for one were responsible for taking someones life without really good reason I would take my own out of guilt. But it's not a perfect world. It's far from one yet. But still I think the best way to stop crime from happening can only be obtaining if we fire all our artillery in a preemptive strike at the causes of crime and violence, rather than pretend there's nothing we can do to locate it until it's fired at us first. That's the crux of my views.

 

[fantasticfred]

I agree 100% - the point you're missing is that by the time a human murders another human you are way beyond the point of shaping behavior - at this point therefore given that you cannot shape the behavior any longer you have to move towards how best to (1) protect society from further predation by that particular individual, and (2) provide an example to others of the consequences of such anti-societal behavior

While I agree to a strong degree that especially in countries with poor correctional services you're probably going to have a low success rate to the point that practically speaking this might be the best solution for such a society. At the same time I have worked with prisoners who have committed heinous crimes and sometimes if you really get to the bottom of some of the things they have experienced in their lives you do gain an empathy for them. There are many people I know who have done terrible things, yet I could not look you in the eye and say "Yes, they must die" and send them off to the hangman. Yet I could not look into the eyes of their victims families and say they musn't either. That's maybe a weakness in me in that I formulate empathy too easily for all parties because I understand how fallible even good people are under situations of trauma and grief. I'm just reluctant to go that far and give up my belief that people are redeemable. I've seen it too often. You can't deny what your experience teaches you.

I agree 100% - the point you're missing is that by the time a human murders another human you are way beyond the point of shaping behavior - at this point therefore given that you cannot shape the behavior any longer you have to move towards how best to (1) protect society from further predation by that particular individual, and (2) provide an example to others of the consequences of such anti-societal behavior

I think if the person who committed the crime can not see the value in giving his own life to bring his victims peace, then perhaps you are right and he is not redeemable. but it's barbaric to not give someone the chance isn't it knowing it can and does happen ? So many people who have committed horrible crimes (although not a majority) want to live only to try and make up for the wrongs and hurt they have caused. Would you have them killed too ?

I'm not arguing with you. I'm just presenting what's at heart of the other side of the story. I fully respect your right and the logic behind your sentiment that we deserve freedom only if we are able to not abuse the freedoms of others. I just take it a step further and consider sometimes our roles as a callous society to allow people to grow up in horrible circumstances and then turn a blind eye when when they grow up messed up as if there was nothing we could have done about it.

 

[AfricanTech]

You see I don't believe in an "evil virus" that randomly just forms in our minds. That's no better than believing in being possessed by the devil, tokolosh etc and other outdated mumbo jumbo. But in actual fact it's a very good analogy for what people are effectively saying when they take no interest in the cause of someones behavior. It may as well be anything they just don't care and want the person punished.

Eh, don't get me wrong - I don't believe in an 'evil' virus either - not by any stretch of the imagination. I am very interested in the cause of the aberrant behaviour in the hopes of preventing it in others.

It tells us nothing about the world and about what causes people to act in such insanely cruel ways to just put it down to "They are evil!" or "People should know the difference between right and wrong." Well clearly people don't know because they do these types of things happen all over the world every day. If there's a terrible threat around is it not wise to try and understand the cause of this threat so we can do something about it ? What's the wisdom in saying "We will wait until after the threat has happened! Then after it's happened we can perhaps react to it ! no point in trying to understand it or stop it."

Agreed

What you are then saying is that these things are inevitable and destined to happened and a part of life we must accept. Where as I am saying "People can be averted from acting out in violent ways if we can understand and change the source and catalyst of their behavior." To sum up you think human beings are destined to be a certain way and we must create a society to inhibit their freedom as much as possible. I think they are blank canvases and we must both push and pull on their wants and fears to get the best out of them and that in doing this intelligently a free society is possible and desirable.

They are very fundamentally different views. I find yours terribly hopeless pessimistic and cynical. You probably find mine naive, optimistic and unrealistic. You probably would describe me as a liberal and I might describe you as a fascist. But that's neither here nor there and I doubt either of us fits that description. We may agree to disagree.

LOL - must confess it's the first time in my life anyone's called me a fascist - liberal plenty of times but never fascist. Anyway, good debate. I do confess to being somewhat cynical and maybe even pessimistic in this particular area of debate - maybe it's my personal experience with having lost family members to murderous criminal activities over the years (two cousins and an uncle - 3 separate occasions spanning the last 25 years gunned down in cold blood).

Over the years I used to believe that a perfect society was one that was self regulated because people 'naturally' act in a rational manner that contributes to the greater good of society. Life has taught me that unfortunately this is not so - we do need the law, we need courts, we need policemen, we need traffic lights, we need roadsigns, we need roadblocks, we need people to be tested for drunk driving, etc because if we didn't have these things our society would simply fall apart.

Sigh, I do wish that it was not so but wishes are for fairytales

In a perfect world we would also sign that contract and it wouldn't even be necessary to enforce it. If I for one were responsible for taking someones life without really good reason I would take my own out of guilt. But it's not a perfect world. It's far from one yet. But still I think the best way to stop crime from happening can only be obtaining if we fire all our artillery in a preemptive strike at the causes of crime and violence, rather than pretend there's nothing we can do to locate it until it's fired at us first. That's the crux of my views.

Not too dissimilar from mine except that I don't believe that we'll ever eliminate all the causes - some causes are completely internal to individuals (crimes of passion) and of course, I don't believe that the consequence of murder is mitigated by the root cause.

Thanks for the interesting chat - I haven't had one of these kinds of discussions for a long time (not too often you end up discussing ethics and moral certitude in the IT world - more likely to have a roaring debate about IOS vs Android vs Windows )

 

[fantasticfred]

LOL - must confess it's the first time in my life anyone's called me a fascist - liberal plenty of times but never fascist.

Didn't mean it to come across that way. I meant to say those are the extremes but probably we are somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, good debate. I do confess to being somewhat cynical and maybe even pessimistic in this particular area of debate - maybe it's my personal experience with having lost family members to murderous criminal activities over the years (two cousins and an uncle - 3 separate occasions spanning the last 25 years gunned down in cold blood).

Sorry to hear that. I think that would make me very cynical too.

[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the interesting chat - I haven't had one of these kinds of discussions for a long time (not too often you end up discussing ethics and moral certitude in the IT world - more likely to have a roaring debate about IOS vs Android vs Windows )

Likewise. Thanks for the interesting debate.

 

[Apache]

The rape problem won't be solved in SA until we start investigating the role pheromones plays in all of this.

 

[ponder]

The rape problem won't be solved in SA until we start investigating the role pheromones plays in all of this.

Dude, you're a loon.

 

[Apache]

Dude, you're a loon.

Look it up.

 

[fantasticfred]

The rape problem won't be solved in SA until we start investigating the role pheromones plays in all of this.

What's special about the pheromones in this country ? Enlighten us.

 

[Apache]

What's special about the pheromones in this country ? Enlighten us.

Men who produce more, coupled with other factors, are more likely to be sexually agressive.

 

[fantasticfred]

Men who produce more, coupled with other factors, are more likely to be sexually agressive.

Oh you mean testosterone ? That's a hormone. I don't think you're really as well read on this as you make out.

And by the way men with more testosterone are also meant to be more likely to be balding. Work that into your thesis, Darwin 2.0. Maybe we should go on a balding man witch hunt ? Those rapists !

 

[ponder]

Men who produce more, coupled with other factors, are more likely to be sexually agressive.

:wtf:

Listen up, I have some raging hormone/sexual stuff going but for the love of all that is sacred I don't go raping people. You're logic is seriously fscked up.