Blake Invitational 1 Kamiak nb aff

11 Valley AJ Aff

https://hsld.debatecoaches.org/Valley/Joshi+Aff

Aff Kantian Punishment

I affirm that plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the U.S. criminal justice system.

First, the endorsement of truth through reason is the only innately motivating feature of any system of ethics. Tubert:

“One may think that beliefs aim at accepting what is true and only what is true. That is, in order for an attitude to be one of belief, it must be truth-directed in this way. Given that logical rules of inference are truth-preserving, insofar as we are committed to accepting only what is true, we are also committed to following certain logical rules (e.g. the law of noncontradiction, modus ponens, etc.). And so we are required to follow these rules because we are committed to them insofar as we have beliefs; if we were not committed to them, we would not be believers at all. But, could we fail to care about being believers? And if so, should we care? In response to these concerns, one may argue that having beliefs is, again, constitutive of agency. The rational requirements of theoretical reason are requirements on the formation of belief, for example, that we be sensitive to evidence or follow certain rules of inference. The normativity of these requirements may be linked to the fact that they are truth preserving or the best means for arriving at what is true. The connection seems to be as follows: Pursuing the truth entails being sensitive to the best available evidence; this in turn seems to imply at least implies a commitment to some basic rules of inference. So, in representing one’s attitudes as aiming at or being sensitive to the truth, one is committed to certain rational requirements.”

Tubert, Ariela. “Constitutive arguments.” Philosophy Compass, 5/8, 2010, pp. 656-666.

Thus, demonstrating that an imperative maxim is consistent with clear reasoning is sufficient to demonstrate that it is ethically motivating.

Next, there is no a priori morally relevant distinction among persons. Godofsky:

“Indeed, human beings must have equality of consideration, that is, the recognition of a right and a duty automatically affirms that they have basic interests that are not intrinsically different and therefore must be weighed fairly. Equality of interests presumes infinite moral worth; because human beings are rational agents capable of free will, we equally consider the interests of all any person, irrespective of his or her individual characteristics. It is necessary to establish such a rule to ensures autonomy, a person’s developmental ability to make his or her own rules and limits. By acting and intending to survive through free will, human beings employ reason to preserve their lives. According to Kant, this establishes our infinite worth and our ability to claim to rights and possess obligatory duties. Ian Barbour argues that the fundamental equality which of persons is derived from the ‘common nature of persons as rational beings’ and the ‘universality of basic human capacities’ which have been established to which allow us human beings to assert their our natural right to survival.”

Godofsky, Jessica. “Future generations and the right to survival: a deontological analysis of the moral obligations of present to future people.” TCNJ Journal of Student Scholarship, vol. XII, April 2010.

And, all ethical systems are governed by the law of noncontradiction. Gahringer:

“Within any deductive system the basic principle of criticism is self-consistency. To show a deductive system inconsistent is to disqualify it. If it is asked why be consistent, it will be answered that it is a basic condition of having a system. And if we ask why this, it will be answered that Without this a system would not be an intelligible unity in any other way. The demand for consistency rests ultimately on intelligibility; it is a condition of intelligibility. Consistency may appear as a principle of requires the bare absence of contradiction, and this may be only a matter of the independence of elements. But consistency may go much deeper. If someone suggests that we dispose of the principles of consistency, we can ask the consistency of such a suggestion. If the principle of consistency is the condition of intelligibility, the denial of it (which must be an intelligible denial) denies in principle what it assumes: it is transcendentally inconsistent. The proposal to abandon the principle of consistency (the law of noncontradiction) cannot be made within any system, since every system presupposes it; and it cannot be made outside, since every proposal assumes it. This is, of course, a material consideration belonging to logic in the larger sense.”

Gahringer, Robert. “Moral law.” Ethics, Vol. 63, No. 4, July 1953, pp. 300-304.

Since all persons are ethically equal, and since logic requires that no proposal can be both true and false, it follows that any ethical proposal must be true in principle for all ethical actors. Thus, the standard is the the Categorical Imperative, defined as “the principle that a morally correct choice is one which recognizes the status of all others as ends in themselves, and refrains from using them as mere means to one’s own ends.”

This is the best criterion for justice because it is the only ethical principle that both recognizes the universal principle of equality and the logical principle of non-contradiction. Thus, any choice that positions some as subject to treatment as a mere means fails the categorical imperative. Jeffrey Reiman explains:

“I call the second approach ‘Kantian’ since Kant held (roughly) that, since reason (like justice) is no respecter of the sheer difference between individuals, when a rational being decides to act in a certain way toward his fellows, he implicitly authorizes similar action by his fellows toward him. A version of the golden rule, then, is a requirement of reason: acting rationally, one always acts as he they would have others act toward him. Consequently, to act toward a person as he has they have acted toward others is to treat him them as a rational being, that is, as if his act were the product of a rational decision. It should be clear that the Kantian argument also rests on the equality of persons, because a rational agent only implicitly authorizes having done to him action similar to what he has done to another, if he and the other are similar in the relevant ways.”

Reiman, Jeffrey. “Justice, civilization, and the death penalty: answering van den Haag.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 14, no. 2, Spring 1985, pp. 115-148. Bracketed for gendered language

I contend that plea bargaining fails to recognize its subjects as ends in themselves.

The affirmative advocacy is that plea bargaining should be abolished for psychologically competent persons accused of crimes that involve treating others as mere means. For example, plea bargaining would generally be unavailable for murderers and thieves, because their choices fail to recognize others as ends in themselves.

Punishment consists of acts that would generally reflect violation of the categorical imperative in that they fail to treat their subjects as ends — i.e. fining or imprisoning someone against their will. Someone who acts on maxims that treat others as mere means, however, authorizes punitive treatment by contradicting the categorical imperative. Punishment is rendered moral by the individual’s decision to voluntarily defect from the requirement. Hill:

“Moral duties are, in a sense, self-imposed. Kant analyzes what he takes to be the ordinary idea of moral duty in a series of steps, the upshot of which is that moral duties, if there are any, are based on unconditional principles to which we are necessarily committed as rational persons with autonomy of the will. When thinking clearly and free from self-deception, we cannot but regard them as authoritative, rational, overriding, and in need of no further justification. They are supposed to be principles constitutive of our practical reason; they do not represent commands of any external authority, but rather the constraints of our own reason. To put it metaphorically, my true (rational) legislative will, as an author of moral law, commands that I, as "subject", obey its laws; and so, when I do so, I am only obeying myself, or my "better" self, as it were. One may doubt whether this model of moral agency fits all human beings; sociopaths, for example, may be an exception. The point, for present purposes, is just that, wherever Kant's model of moral agency is applicable, persons are presumed to be deeply disposed to do what they recognize to be their moral duty, regarding it as an overriding rational and self-endorsed requirement rather than simply one among many inclinations. One need not buy into Kant's whole worldview to acknowledge something like this: although often weak, easily distracted, and neglectful of their acknowledged responsibilities, virtually all competent moral agents, when faced with a clear, undoubted case of moral duty, judge and feel it to be overridingly required, independently of potential rewards and punishments, and they would regard themselves less true to themselves if they failed to respect it.”

Hill, Thomas. “Kant on wrongdoing, desert, and punishment.” Law and Philosophy, vol. 18, No. 4, July 1999, pp. 407-441.

In that case, recognition of them as an end in themselves requires reflecting those agential decisions in our treatment of them: thus it is not merely permissible to punish the wrongdoer; rather, they are owed punishment as a recognition of their status as an end.

Punishments are rendered obligatory because and only because of desert — that is, the agent ratifies the treatment by expressing contradictory maxims underlying decision to treat others as mere means. McCloskey:

“These criticisms of utilitarian punishment turn on and support the contention that punishment to be just must be of an offender, for an offence, in a morally relevant sense of 'offence', and be such as not to exceed what is commensurate with the offence. To be just, punishment must be deserved. The objections to utilitarian punishment are an important part of the case for a retributive theory of justice in punishment-but not because, by showing that the utilitarian account is unsatisfactory, they suggest that some other account such as the retributive theory is more likely to be satisfactory-but rather because of the nature of the reasons why the utilitarian account is unsatisfactory. The utilitarian theory fails, according to the above arguments, because it cannot take note of those features of punishment which constitute the retributive theory. Thus a consideration of the case against utilitarianism is one way of bringing out the intuitive insights upon which the retributive theory rests. It is important, now, that an attempt be made to state the retributive theory in a more positive, unequivocal way. In "A Non-utilitarian Approach to Punishment" I distinguished between punishment that was dictated by justice and punishment that was morally permissible. The point I was concerned to make was that the claims of justice are simply one sort among prima facie claims and that they may on occasion be overridden, so that it may be morally right, even though unjust, to inflict various of the punishments noted above as unjust but useful punishments. The rejection of utilitarian punishment rests on its failure to take account of the relevance of the injustice of certain punishments when determining whether they are permissible or even obligatory. Sprigge very properly takes me up on my use of the expression 'morally permissible'. Clearly, if the ground of my contention that unjust punishment may, under certain circumstances, be morally permissible is that there may be a clash of prima facie duties such that the claims of justice are overridden, the infliction of unjust punishment must then be obligatory and not simply permissible. This I accept. Unjust punishment may become obligatory in special circumstances, and what I have been concerned to urge, as against the utilitarian, is that, to be justified, the utility of the unjust punishment must be sufficiently great to override the stringent demands of the duty of justice which rests on the intrinsic character of the act. Further, I have spoken of just punishment also as being morally permissible; yet I have argued that retributive punishment falls into the sphere of justice and that typically the demands of justice are demands that create positive obligations. It may be the case that, when there is a clash between the prima facie duties of justice in punishment and of the promotion of good, the clash is between the duty not to be unjust and the duty to promote good. However, since the duties of justice are usually conceived of more positively, as duties to do, not simply as duties to refrain from doing, it might be argued that, when the claims of utility and justice clash in the area of punishment, the clash is between the duty to impose the deserved punishment (as opposed to the duty not to impose un- deserved punishment) and the duty to promote good or to prevent evil. It is necessary here to acknowledge that I find myself as reluctant to contend that there is a duty positively to inflict the deserved retributive punishment as utilitarians such as Smart and Sprigge have been to insist that we ought to punish innocent people to promote greater good. Both sorts of view seem to be harsh and inhumane. Rather, I have sought to argue, but not always consistently, for the more negative conclusion that the infliction of undeserved punishment is unjust and, unless dictated by an overriding prima facie duty, wrong. I have also sought to argue that, if the deserved punishment is inflicted when it serves no useful purpose, the person punished cannot legitimately complain. The judge who imposes the punishment commensurate with the offence cannot be condemned by the man punished as acting unjustly or wrongly on the grounds that, although the punishment harms no one but the guilty man, it is useless. To such an objection the judge has what I suggest is a completely adequate defence, namely, that the punishment was deserved. We may come to consider such a judge a harsh man if he always imposes the maximum punishment that is just. This is true too of the just man who insists on strict justice elsewhere-for example, in enforcing a just contract that brings about the ruin of another person. We may dislike him because of his their harshness, but we cannot condemn him them as having acted unjustly. At most, we should say that justice was not everything, that there is a case in humanity for mercy, kindness, leniency. However, I find myself reluctant to go further and say of the judge who has imposed the just sentence that is useless but causes no harm other than that intended to the offender, that he has acted wrongly, immorally, that he has done what he ought not to have done. I have sought to reconcile the more negative thesis: that unjust punishment is morally wrong unless dictated by a more stringent duty than that of justice and that the man justly punished cannot legitimately complain that he is being wrongly treated simply because the deserved punishment is useless, by looking at other areas of justice. On a superficial look it appears that no injustice is involved in awarding more than is deserved where it is good that is deserved. Closer examination, however, suggests, as I shall be concerned to bring out, that it may be wrong and unjust to give more good than is deserved and, similarly, to withhold deserved evil. Retributive punishment is an aspect or element of justice. Justice involves treating equals equally, unequals unequally, giving to each his their due, and this, the giving to each of what he they deserves.”

McCloskey, H.J. “Utilitarian and retributive punishment.” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 64, no. 3, February 16, 1967, pp. 91-110. Bracketed for gendered language.