dimreepr

Why does it matter? Other than perhaps a clue, for a small percentage of prisoners, as to what is needed to aid his/her rehabilition, but why waste money on machines? When a well designed rehabilitation program will aid a high percentage of prisoners.

And they're tackled by different departments, the police have nothing to do with rehabilitation.

Free will is irrelevant in this context, but the premise of your OP is interesting although you seem to doubt the concept. There have been many studies that point to a correlation, as presented by Ten oz; how is that not a tool? Ultimately the question posed in the OP is, what is justice?

From your link:

That question goes to the heart of the matter; it all depends on the political spin, as to the perps repentance. It's all to easy to paint a gay person/murderer as unapologetic (because he/she didn't cry,well enough) while a good actor not only, gets off, but is paid....

You've gotta drop the bad guy inference, when talking about justice; it's politics that muddies the water's of mitigation, for instance, repentance can be spun to be either/neither depending on the political will of the time... Crocodile tears, comes to mind...

Irony intended? 😊

I doubt the politicians will ever accept such a subtle distinction.

A society has no choice but to accept that we all have free will, to a greater or lesser extent. Therefore society has to design a means to assess an individual's culpability, the mechanism we use for this is a court (a body of people presided over by a judge, judges, or magistrate, and acting as a tribunal in civil and criminal cases). It's not pefect but it's the closest we can get to justice. While the police and the prison service's should treat everyone in the same way, as if they aren't culpable.

Well, the Decepticons don't seem to learn.

Free will has to be a given in any society, other than a philosophical salon. In a well balanced society, things like poverty, up-bringing, mental state etc... is adressed in the courts via mitigation, and ignored by the other two branches of justice.

The very definition of a non-sequitur and trivially wrong, since I did/didn't... Indeed, but first we must agree what an axiom is; for instance 2+2 could equall 22, where as an object that has four equal side's and 90 degrees in one, is a square...

That's just broken my irony meter, unless I'm mistaken, you've just accused scientists of being square... 😆

I think you have mistaken astrology with astronomy, not the first time you've gotten confused in this thread.

So it's not applicable to good or bad/evil.

That's like saying, hay-fever is due to the number of people wantonly breathing in pollen.

Was the A-bomb beneficial? It did end one war (with much suffering), but inspired another (with much suffering). An axiom is always true, so not really applicable here... No, I'm suggesting enough fruit was shared to ensure next year's harvest.

Show me a story that's not relevant to the real world. Perhaps the "good" was in that there was not enough fruit for all and no means to assure equitable distribution; do you know what comes next???

I've never been hungry enough to eat from a bin, but I have been thirsty enough to drink from a horse-trough; so I know that if ever I am hungry enough, bin food will deserve a Michelin star.

My interpretation is, knowledge it self led to the banishment of Adam and Eve from paradise (as in the sermon on the mount), it's a variation of "ignorance is bliss" that's not to say knowledge in and of itself is bad. It's where we place it's importance in our daily lives, a sparrow, for instance, uses it's knowledge to catch enough to eat for today, it doesn't worry if there will be enough to eat tomorrow; even if he knows he didn't eat yesterday. We know there is no paradise and tomorrow may bring disaster, because one of our yesterday's did, and with that knowledge we tend to forget about today and so miss, all those little slices of paradise.

If we take politics from the equation, isn't that the point of rehabilitation?

How does one determine repentance from self interest?

You've framed the problem very well. "I think everyone is always responsible for their actions." the sane ones at least; for want of a better word, some people are weaker than other's. The only legitimate answer is already in place, with varying degree's of success. A police force that treat's everyone as innocent, when doing their job; presenting the suspect to the court's as sympathetically as possible. A judiciary that leaves their bias at the door, and actively seeks fairness in the face of political pressure. A prison service, that treats the inmate as a victim, even when they're being difficult; and actively seeks to rehabilitate. The Nordic country's come closest; unfortunately most of the rest of the world's woefully short of the ideal.

Just a few of the many flavours of ignorance. 😉

Indeed, like me, he was never trained in the art of persuasion and not lucky enough to have a natural bent. Or, he was stumped by the question; but inteligent enough to ask for extra data. I didn't say "is a religion", but, "if we take your words seriously then"; it could be...