[From Rick Marken (920302)]
Well, just my luck. A mistrial was declared so I don't get
to be on a jury once again. But I'm on lunch break so
I'll make some comments on Gary's post.
Gary Cziko (920302.1030) says:
I was
a determinist in the Skinnerian sense. People did what they did because of
the contingencies of reinforcement provided by the environment. How could
I call someone guilty and justify punishing him or her when I believed that
I or anybody else on the jury (or the judge for that matter) would have
done exactly the same thing if given the same genome and raised in the same
environment? We were all beyond freedom and responsiblity.
Yes. I don't know why Skinner didn't call for the immediate
dismantling of the entire legal system in the country since, if he
were right, the courts would be, at best, irrelevant.
Now, PCT has given me new way to look at behavior, but I haven't thought
much of what PCT means for dealing with crime and justice. What does it
mean for someone to be "guilty?" Does it mean having a "bad" system
concept and/or principles and following them? Or does it mean having a
"good" system concept and/or principles but NOT following them? Neither
perspective seems satisfactory to me.
A person is guilty if they intentionally produce results that are
perceived equivalent to the results descibed in words (laws) as being
forbidden. I have no problem with the law here. It is illegal for
me to make my car go faster than 55mph on the freeway. If I produce
that result (even accidentally) I am guilty. Some results must be
produced intentionally for there to be guilt -- so the law must
do a verbal and circumstantial version of "the test" to establish
intentionality. This is an interesting study in itself and maybe
PCT could make some contributions to the law in terms of determining
the intentionality of an act in retrospect.
I think the deeper question is "what are laws" and why do we
have them? This will overlap a lot of the old social control
discussion. But right off the top of my head I think laws are
just an attempt to agree on where people should set their
reference levels for certain results. Now there's going to
be all kinds of detailed problems with this -- since people
will not necessarily perceive the world in the same way, or
describe it with the same words, let alone agree on a reasonable
reference level for anything. But, basically, laws are just an
articulation by a group of where their common references should be
and where these references probably already are set if everyone
is generally living fairly successfully in the group. Thus,
the biggies (like murder, theft,etc) are pretty much already
agreed on -- but, as the ten commandments shows, people seem
to feel better when it is publicly stated that "this is our
reference level for X".
I think laws are a good thing -- they make people feel like
they are agreeing about variables of common concern. But
the making of laws is an on going process because, as societies
change there are changed results that can occur, new ways
to produce results, etc. So there have to be changes in our
references all the time -- and groups of people must decide,
all the time, what are the "best" referece levels to agree to.
I don't know how "best" is determined but when it is determined
then we get new laws.
Now the problem, as I see it, is that there seem to be many
laws that do nothing but create crime. I don't know why
these stay on the books -- but they are generally what I call
victimless crimes. My favorite example is drug laws. I can
understand that most people don't want to perceive drug crazed
people roaming their streets. So a law that says "no drugs"
seems sensible enough. Except that many people find that setting
their own reference for drugs to the level required by law is
difficult -- it must produce inner conflict. So they get the
drugs anyway. Any this is a process that creates REAL problems;
violence, theft, etc etc. So I don't understand
why people don't see that the law (even though they like the
reference it represents) is a bad thing. They did during
prohibition. My conclusion:laws are not designed to solve problems!!!
(at least not problems like daily murder and robbery that is a
direct result of having a law against drug posession).
They are designed, as I said, to reflect consensual reference
levels -- and if this consensus results in massive societal crisis
then tough. Catastrophic consequences of consensual references
don't seem to make much difference to people -- and this makes
sense from a control theory perspective. People just want to
have things match their refernce -- and I think people have a
reference for having laws that mirror their own references.
Most people have a reference for "zero drug use" . The law reflects
that and so most everybody is happy -- even though our
cities are battlefields. This is not a rare occurrence.
The Catholic church still maintains as it's own law that birth
control is forbidden -- even though the side effects of this
are theoretically and observably catastrophic. But its
more important to have a law that matches that "respect for
life" reference of whatever it is.
So I guess I am proposing that people would apparently want,as
laws, things that reflect their reference for the way particular
perceptions should be (zero drugs, zero prostitution, zero
[insert the thing that repulses you the most here]) even if
putting the coersive power of the state behind that reference
level means catastrophe for the society. I believe that most
of the laws that have this effect (nice idea but bad side
effects) are crimes where the only victim is the perpetrator.
So it gets me a bit upset. If drug laws, prostitution laws,
etc really made things better -- and had none of the horredous
side effects that their enforcement produces -- I'd support
them as strongly as I support the freway speed limit law
(even though I got a ticket one year ago).
I think these "victimless crime" laws are just another reflection
of people's inability to keep from trying to control other
people. I think control theory is obviously relevent here.
Best regards
Rick
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Richard S. Marken USMail: 10459 Holman Ave
The Aerospace Corporation Los Angeles, CA 90024
Internet:marken@aerospace.aero.org
(310) 336-6214 (day)
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