Comment Re:Cause or effect? (Score 1) 438
Alternately criminal justice could be based on minimising the number of crimes. Then the only purpose of the punishment is to act as a deterrent. You end up with the same outcome of not punishing truly unintentional acts since these would not be deterred by punishment anyway. We get to the same practical results in most cases but without all the philosophical free-will issues on the way.
Even if we're all deterministic, a good criminal justice system is an input into our deterministic self, and will influence how we behave.
Even if we're all deterministic, a good criminal justice system is an input into our deterministic self, and will influence how we behave.