Effectively Sharing the Commons

When have the commons been effectively shared without being enclosed? (Q&A 1)

The commons are most effectively shared when the groups that are involved in sharing the common are available to communicate with each other. Even before the tragedy of the commons is played out, in which the people sharing the commons fail to act to their mutual benefit, communication can allow these multiple players to work out how it is in their mutual advantage to cooperate.

The commons is in fact the basic mode shared human resources exist in. Private appropriation is a far more artificial treatment of a resource. For example, when a group of people share a house the resources there-in are naturally held in common, no matter who technically owns it. It is merely human that that group establishes rules and procedures to govern the use of bathrooms, the oven, the sink, and so-on, in order for these things to be most effectively used. The commons that are natural resources should also be treated in this way. And while it would be similarly bizarre and detrimental if a person not living in the house controlled the use of it's resources, it would also be detrimental if an external player owned and controlled the commons that is naturally at the disposal of any other group.

Effects of Moralizing

Well I think I may have been effected by all this moralizing. During the last class while discussing torture I wanted to convey that we should never bend our morals, torture is not OK, it should never be legitimized.

After class Brandon cornered me about vegetarianism. I am convinced by the arguments for vegetarianism, animals are sentient beings deserving not to be killed because they have particularly tasty flesh. I kept dragging my feet on the whole thing though. We'd discussed it before, and after that class it felt particularly hypocritical to keep dragging my feet. We've also discussed how frustrating it is that people don't seem to respond to rational argumentation. 

So I've taken the leap, I plan to be a pescatarian this summer and become a full vegetarian when school starts up (I wouldn't want to eat any Aramark fish anyways). 

Rehabilitation as a Radical Solution

Could rehabilitation be a radical alternative to the current state of justice in the US? How is it not a continuation of the old justice and importantly different?

I contend that rehabilitation is just as much a radical alternative to punishment as restitution is. In fact rehabilitation is the natural opposition and has been the long standing alternative to our system of retributive justice, it has simply never been implemented.

Retributive justice assumes the innate morality of punishment proportional to the crime committed. Beyond this theory sounding rather childish in practice ('you hit me I will hit you back'), it obstructs the proper use of a system of justice, which is to regulate human behavior according to the generally accepted ideal of what society should be.

We clearly can not agree on everything, some things need to be deliberated upon, but these things are not the issue here. Murder, rape, and theft are prime examples of things we agree need to be curbed. The retributive system of justice has absolutely no solution except blindly hitting back. A system of rehabilitation dissuades people who have commit crimes from committing them again. It does not propose that the criminally insane, who cannot be rehabilitated, do not exist. These need to be segregated from the population. Rehabilitative justice promises to eliminate criminality to the furthest extent possible.

You may have noticed I have posted about this sort of system of justice about three times now, I think I will make it the subject of paper. I feel like I still have not located why people accept the retributive theory of justice. Without this I don't think I can mount a serious critique, any thoughts?

Waiving Rights

Could a population consent to be subject to torture? (Q&A 1)

I doubt that a population has the right to waive it's rights unless it does it unanimously, which is nigh impossible. Even though I accept rights are human concepts not innate to our beings, we must act as if they are, and guard them as if they are. I don't think it should ever be possible for a ruling body to waive the rights of it's subjects, similarly I do not think that such a thing can be democratically decided.

Torture

Here it is: no. no no no. NO NO NO. NOOOOOO!!!!

We haven't talked about it in class yet but I suppose it's up for discussion on the blogs. Beyond the purely emotional reaction as worded so eloquently above, I have deeply seated objections to the legitimate use of torture of the death penalty.

I will use a term that seems unphilosophical but in fact gets across exactly why I object. This term is 'barbaric.' The act of torture is barbaric in precisely the way that the more sophisticated Roman civilization thought the human sacrifice of Druids in Britain was barbaric, because it was incompatible with their civilization and they had found a better way to live. The metaphor goes even further and shows how we have plenty of atrocities beyond torture that we have very few qualms with, the same way the Romans carried out mass murder and genocide but for some reason found human sacrifice barbaric. But I digress.

We don't want torture to ever be acceptable, and as in my last post, I disagree with legitimizing it as a means to extract information because it could lead to the far more dangerous means to extract revenge. In effect, legalizing torture in any situation would be a hugely regressive policy.

Response to "Nazis =/= Monsters"

Original post here

I've been pondering this subject on and off for quite a while now, and I think that a sustained effort to prove that is is never OK to dehumanize human beings under any circumstances, even petty criminals or mass murderers.

First off there are very real practical objections to why you should never treat a criminal as only a criminal. By putting a murderer into prison you strip him of everything he has besides being a murderer and is reminded of his social role as villain every moment of his life. As a criminal he is not given attention in his role as a normal member of society, and as it is being proven in progressive mental institutions, it is far more effective to treat the part of the person that is not sick than to constantly remind them of the part of them that is wrong. It encourages exactly the wrong part of a person to grow and develop.

A more philosophical consideration is that to treat someone with as much dignity as that person acted with  against another person is just forcing the state or community giving out justice to stoop to the same level as them.

A system of justice, whether domestic, or in response to genocide and war, has the dangerous propensity of perpetuating the desire for revenge. By using the state as an instrument of revenge it legitimizes acts of revenge both big and small throughout society and in daily interactions. If revenge wasn't a legitimate means of emotional release we would be forced to pursue options that wouldn't perpetuate cycles of physical and emotional violence.

The model of enlightened compassion for criminals would lead to a more humane system of justice. I am absolutely not suggesting we pardon all crimes, but we would be forced to see justice in a more reasonable light. That is, as a way society regulates itself so we are able to maintain the furthest extent of our freedoms without compromising those of others. Criminals that made a mistake or can be rehabilitated should be rehabilitated, if criminals are a danger to other's rights and freedoms they should be segregated from the general population. Revenge and the hatred it engenders should never be a part of it.

Prohibition Anyways

Can a state realistically achieve a functional prohibition on certain substances? Is it desirable to make the attempt anyways? (Q&A 2)

I think the first question I ask is almost rhetorical. Prohibition as clearly not eliminated addictive substances in the past, and it is clear to all involved that prohibition will never be perfect.

Should we try to prohibit use despite this? One of the critiques of cannabis legalization is that society actually saves itself a lot of expense and trouble by suppressing use of cannabis. If it as legalized there would be huge issues with productivity, psychosis, and addiction recovery. That seems to follow, if you can do the numbers out and if you think productivity is a big societal priority. However, if that logic follows, why don't we attempt to legally suppress alcohol for the same reasons? 

This whole debate depends on how people run the scenario of legalization in their heads. In my mind, even if all banned substances where legalized, there would still be a huge stigma and a vast majority of the population would avoid using addictive substances. If you think that legalization would lead to an ever growing proportion of the population becoming addicts, then clearly legalization is a bad idea.