Some Thoughts

I've been thinking about what I said concerning the end of punishment. There seem to be some, like Nietzsche, who think this is a ludicrous idea. To him, in particular, punishment as an expression of the desire for cruelty just seems a part of human nature. He writes: “At any right the time is not so long past when it was impossible to conceive of royal weddings and national festivals on a grand scale, without executions, tortures, or perhaps an auto-da-fe, or similarly to conceive of an aristocratic household, without a creature to serve as a butt for the cruel and malicious bating of the inmates” (Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, Part 2, Section 6). Of course, I think he's referring to the noble class of society, the kind that's already in power. However, I think his more general point is that cruelty has historical always been a part of human existence. In fact, there are other parts in Geneology where he seems more specifically to say that a society without cruelty would appear inconceivable. He says: “A legal organization, conceived of as sovereign and universal, not as a weapon in a fight of complexes of power, but as a weapon against fighting, generally something after the style of During's communistic model of treating every will as equal with every other will, would be a principle hostile to life, a destroyer and dissolver of man, an outrage of the future of man, a symptom of fatigue, a secret cut to Nothingness” (Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, Part 2, Section 11). I think a detailed analysis of Nietzsche's view would be unfair here. But his words at least provoke the idea that perhaps a world without cruelty and punishment would be utopian. It would be annihilating the fact that we enjoy competition and power struggles, that a world where some do not dominate others is simply not possible.

Although there's a part of me that understands this, there's another part of me that thinks this is perhaps an exaggeration. The “proof,” as per usual, seems to come from my own experience. I won't say what exactly, but there have been times where grave acts by people in power have been committed against me. I have been seriously harmed, although the truth of things would never be acknowledged by the status quo. Nevertheless, what I feel in my heart is not a desire to hurt or get revenge. What I wish most of all is reconcilation. Simply put, I do not want the people who caused me harm to be torn limb from limb and decapitated, although to be honest the thought has entered my mind. What I want, most of all, is to be healthy and happy again, so that I can go about my life as I normally would without that harm that was caused to me. That's only one person's thoughts and experience, but I think it's a good example of the idea that justice could exist without punishment. The idea is that a wrong is rectified without having to hurt another person. The compensation exists apart from a right to cruelty.

If I were to consult with Nietzsche, he might say that “Everywhere justice is practiced and justice is maintained, it is to be observed that the stronger power, when confronted with the weaker powers which are inferior to it (whether they be groups, or individuals), searches for weapons to put an end to the senseless fury of resentment, while it carries on its object, party by taking the victim of resentment out of the clutches of revenge, partly by substituting for revenge a campaign of its own against the enemies of peace and order, partly by finding, suggesting, and occasionally enforcing settlements, partly by standardizing certain equivalents for injuries, to which equivalents the element of resentment is henceforth finally referred” (Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, Part 2, Section 11). In other words, it may appear that my lack of fury for those who wronged me, my inability to want to harm them, is that I have been tricked by those in power so that my desire for cruelty is tamed. They might, for instance, offer me a settlement in material goods, thereby ending the resentment I feel toward whoever wronged me. But again, that's not at all how I feel. I have a principle in mind that tells me I don't want to be a person who seeks revenge. I don't want to engage in what I see as the awful parts of human nature. For whatever reason, be it empathy, compassion, a higher order understanding, all I want is my life again. I don't have a will to cruelty.

That may be fine and well for me, but other people don't feel the same way. Some victims of brutal crimes need cruelty, punishment to feel a sense of satisfaction. But again, the question is why dark desires of human nature should be encouraged. It might be that we have desires to hurt others, but it just doesn't follow that they deserve fulfillment. As Nietzsche says, perhaps this is hostile to life. But surely many things we think are worthy are also. As trivial examples, everyday we groom ourselves. We cut our beards, shave our legs, we cut our hair. But we do this because we think our lives are better off that way. We don't believe that we should just let nature overcome us. The same holds true for things like medicines to kill naturally occurring bacteria and viruses, to having some kind of self-restraint on our desires so that we have some order in life. We would not, for example, be able to accomplish the slightest critique of morality if we did not first arrange our lives so that we eat, bathe, sleep, or even arrange our rooms so that we can write. In essence, then, I'm questioning why we need punishment. Why is it that we have to give into nature, especially our propensity to cruelty?

Pragmatically, this idea is quite radical. It would mean, for instance, an end to the way in which our criminal system currently operates. We would need to know what to do in cases where people have committed grave offenses, such as murder, rape, even genocide. How exactly do we keep people from harming others? Exactly what are the steps required to reconciliate these situations? I don't deny that these questions and answers are serious, but this does not weaken anything I have said so far. Perhaps the real problem is not that this is inconceivable, but that our desire for cruelty is so strong that we often we can't seem to look beyond it.