@jurban I can see that a dog is rabid, and know it can't help itself, and know I can't cure it, and feel sorry for it, but still not let it bite me.

@jurban A moral is a value, an ethic is a strategy.

Exercising judgment is a strategy, which can be informed by morality.

My moral and ethical framework tend to reject or minimize punishment as a strategy.

I'm not motivated by wanting suffering for myself or others.

I'm motivated by wanting to protect, teach, redeem, build, inspire, grow.

I already want to hurt neither the guilty or the innocent.

If somone's broken, I want to know why, in case I can help.

But I won't let them run amok.

@jurban I believe people are biased to want to believe that others only "act bad because they're sick".

What if some people just have a moral compass that says "only I matter, and the suffering of others feeds me. I don't care if there's an Earth tomorrow."

What if that isn't damage. What if that's a choice? An evolutionary strategy that doesn't have a moral of "life is precious" or "freedom is good".

"destroy all competitors" is ethical under a moral system of "only I matter".

@AskTheDevil
I've lost the objective.
Are we trying to fix the world or our next decision?
I can only fix myself and attempt to understand others.

I don't "believe" that people are "good". They're animals. Viscous. Selfish. When they get the chance to exercise their higher abstract thinking they might consider empathy and morality. Most don't. My original premise is that their brains can't manage it.

@AskTheDevil
Exercising Judgement is a process to Build a strategy.
Minimizing punishment may be an attribute of the building of a strategy, but is not fundamental. It might even be labeled as hedonistic.

Motivation is an outgrowth of world-view. That's the boundary of my current foundational view. I'm currently unable to argue beyond that given my lack of spirituality.

@jurban Not punishing people is hedonistic? I'd like to hear your take on that.

It looks very much to me like an inordinate number of people seem to take hedonistic pleasure in _punishing_ others, or even thinking of horrid things to do to punish others.

My reasoning for minimizing punishment is not based on hedonism.

It is based on outcomes and experimentation.

Punishment is a strategy that is rarely more useful than it is counter-productive.

@AskTheDevil
I'll need a good night sleep to flesh out the hedonism topic...
But, I think we need to differentiate between individual actions and society adjustments. I'm only addressing the brain and the humans using it.

@AskTheDevil
Re: hedonistic....
Allowing bad behavior to go unchecked might be the result of a hedonistic disposition. If you only prioritize pleasure, why engage in the messy process of punishment? Unless, of course, you are wired to get pleasure from punishment. I'd rather keep the analysis closer to the middle of the bell curve.
Regardless, this is a different rabbit hole from my original premise that some people are insufficiently wired to think with complex abstract concepts.

@jurban The process of punishment is not a chore that needs to be done by responsible people, and it is not a sign of slacking when you don't engage in it.

There is no law of matter or energy or physics that requires punishment.

Punishment is a conceit.

@jurban It seemed that you were also touching on how they could or should be judged.

You're the one who called "not punishing people" "hedonistic" and there's just no way I could resist responding to that. It's such a novel concept to me!

@AskTheDevil
Absolutely. Protect yourself. Abstractions don't provide protection.

@jurban When you have the opportunity to understand, always take it.

Understanding allows reconciliation, healing, even defeat of an enemy or challenge.

You will often enough have to make decisions when you lack full information or understanding.

And you can't understand anything if you let bad guys kill you and other people who like understanding things.

@AskTheDevil
"And when his sinews grew long like metal strings, he felt them under his fingers like cords of deep music.
Winning does not tempt this man. This is how he grows..
By being defeated by constantly greater beings" - Rilke

@jurban Let's just say it helps if you can respawn.

@AskTheDevil
Let's question "judging".
I'm not yet at a point of determining if I can do so outside of assessing someone's courage.

Choice implies thought. Thought has levels of influence.

If the levels are compromised relative to your own, then you have to empathize with their handicap ( unless you, too, have the same handicap).

If we get beyond that, we would have to discuss objective, because that provides the trajectory that guides strategy.
Next: The ends don't justify the means.

@jurban When you talk about judging, what do you mean? We might be thinking of the term differently!

Are you just referring to whether they are blameworthy for something they've done?

What are we attempting to assess? Their character in full?

@AskTheDevil I'm attempting to build a framework that I can trust.
All must and will judge.
How should we do so?
"Blame" is already at a higher level. I'm not there yet, but can speculate.

@jurban I don't think blame is at a higher level. I think it's at a very low one, evolutionarily speaking. I think it largely manifests through instinct and id.

@AskTheDevil
The primal reaction to "blame" is at a lower level.
The justification of assigning blame is at a higher level.

Assigning blame doesn't ensure it was assigned justly. That is what we should strive to understand.

That is why the mechanism to assess justice is important to unpack.

If some of us are insufficiently 'wired' to use higher levels of abstraction, their ability to properly assign a just-blame is limited.

A mouse cannot lift a skyscraper.

@jurban What do you think blame is useful for?

To me, the only usefulness blame has is to identify where a problem originated.

We focus on blame and punishment, instead of understanding and correction (I mean correction of a problem, not necessarily making a person somehow be nicer).

If someone can't help themselves, it leaves the rest of us to deal with the fallout. Whether it's their "fault" or not, because of a defect changes what? How hard we punish them?

@AskTheDevil
Prison vs Penitentiary.

A just judgement must consider the entire context.

That context includes the structure of their brain. (my original premise)

Blame may be the same regardless of that structure. But applying punishment may be useless to society.

Punishment *should be* about restitution and course-correction for society's benefit. Typically, though, it is not.

I'll maintain that if the punishment does not change the brain, it's useless to society - and cruel.

@jurban Thank you. I agree.