Very good point. I thought of this by applying it to myself – if someone attempted to murder me, but did not succeed, would I want them to be put away for a very long time? You bet.
I get that you're trying to equate attempted and real murder but it sounds very short-sighted and it does not do any argument justice that you isolate such a serious incident from the countless factors that are surely involved (motive being prominent, but i feel a discussion of that would also turn simplistic).
For the sake of future discussions, just remember that these people are real, and there's mostly likely tremendous misfortune behind such a heinous act as murder.
No one gains anything from these 44 year long sentences.[0] He's been incapacitated for his entire life, and because of that, is seemingly going to be it for the rest of his life.
[0] Obviously if he's diagnosed as completely deranged there might be an issue of public safety.
You're not really addressing the grandparent's point. Why shouldn't you purely punish culpability and ignore outcomes? It's seems way more logical and everyone recognizes this on some level.
If I shoot you purely by accident most people will agree that I shouldn't go to prison. It was an accident, I'm not a danger to society.
If I mean to murder you but my aim is off, or modern medical science manages to keep you from death, how is society better off exactly by keeping me in prison for a shorter time just because I wasn't successful?
The rational reason to put people in prison in the first place is because we consider them a danger to society. Am I less of a danger to society just because I was slightly incompetent on my first murder attempt?
> If I shoot you purely by accident most people will agree that I shouldn't go to prison. It was an accident, I'm not a danger to society.
That probably depends on how reckless you were. Stupidity combined with fondness for dangerous objects can be dangerous to society. Jail-time might be good idea.
> If I mean to murder you but my aim is off, or modern medical science manages to keep you from death, how is society better off exactly by keeping me in prison for a shorter time just because I wasn't successful?
Results surely must play some role. Let's imagine a world when tech is so advanced that murdering a person is really hard. Should all who attempt be punished same way as those that really put in the effort to get the job done?
Should a person be punished as if he murdered you if he was trying to kill you using voodoo magic or consciously trying to give you heart attack with insisting on you eating additional burgers?
Let's assume the most generous interpretation possible. I.e. one where I'm at no fault whatsoever by any reasonable definition and pose no future risk to society.
My point is that most people do recognize the importance of intent and future outcomes.
> Results surely must play some role.
The more I think about it I don't think they should.
Why do we put people in prison at all? Revenge is not an actual reason, which is where outcomes would matter. Future deterrence and security is a good reason. Killing someone isn't primarily a crime against /them/, but a crime against society made up by people who'd like to not live their lives surrounded by likely murderers.
If that's the goal it makes no sense to say "oh he stabbed that guy, but missed the heart by an inch, that's OK then". No it isn't.
> if he was trying to kill you using voodoo magic
Now you're just entering the realm of the absurd. I'm talking about cases where actual people actually want to kill you (successfully or not) and what we should actually be doing about that. Let's stay on topic and not bring up silly contrived scenarios.
> The more I think about it I don't think they should.
And I agree. In a perfect world, justice would be only about intent. But we can't read people's hearts, and we can't explore all circumstances that would lead one to a punishable act. Worse, imperfect attempts at this can easily be abused by evil people to harm innocents. Therefore our legal system sticks to the only thing it can reliably measure - outcomes, sprinkling in some consideration for intent when the latter is obvious.
In a perfect world, we could probably also separate compensating victims from punishing the perpetrators. If I steal and wreck your car to save my wife who needs to get to the hospital ASAP, then in a perfect world I should go free and pay exactly nothing, but you should get a new car (or monetary equivalent) plus some reasonable opportunity costs compensation. Who would pay? The society, out of "shit happens" fund. But to work, this again would require probing intent, in order to avoid turning stealing cars into a replacement for taxi service. Since we can't reliably probe intent, we're stuck with punishing outcomes and creating incentive structures preventing such perversions from developing.
> The more I think about it I don't think they should.
Murder is very extreme example because it's very easy to kill a human if you decide to do it and even if you fail with a bit of luck things might have played out differently. Also murder is sharp. You can't kill a person just a little.
But consider theft. Someone who stole your insulin pump should be treated differently from someone who took some money or someone who tried to enter your house but couldn't open the lock and gave up. Or consider assault. Trying to hit someone shouldn't be punished same as hitting. I think mostly because you can hit someone to no effect (should be punished somewhat anyway) or you can kill with one hit. You'd have a problem to estimate what was attempted and what the punishment for attempt should be. ... you could have a rule that attempt is punished same as most harmless possible outcome.
...unless you are making a point just about murder and attempted murder. Then I'm inclined to agree that serious attempt and murder should be treated same if you can show that the attempt was to murder not just wound.
At least until we have technology that will make most deaths just temporary nuisances and there will be spectrum of how much you can murder someone.
>> if he was trying to kill you using voodoo magic
>Now you're just entering the realm of the absurd.
You are right. I just wanted to bring into focus some (very small fraction) of murderers that are so stupid that they attempt to use methods that couldn't possibly kill anyone and suggest that as technology progresses there might be more such people.
> Why do we put people in prison at all? Revenge is not an actual reason
That's the actual reason we put imprisoned people to death.
> Now you're just entering the realm of the absurd.
Which is a valid form of argument. He's showing you how absurd what you're saying is if applied literally. You don't get to duck out and claim he's off topic, you need to address his point which is perfectly valid. If intent is all that matters, then a superstitious person who believes voodoo works should according to you be charged with attempted murder; that's the logical outcome of your position, you owe him a real answer.
Culpability doesn't reveal the whole incentive structure. Suppose person A 'tries to kill' person B and fails but a situation arises where they have another chance to kill you but don't seize the opportunity.
To prove a moral equivalence between 'murder' and 'attempted murder' the law should have to prove that person A tried to kill person B and failed, and then also prove that they would've repeated their attempts until success if they hadn't been stopped by law enforcement ...
If I try to murder you, fail, and then stop trying to murder you, I've inherently done something 'less' than if I had succeeded in murdering you.
This would also avoid creating a legal incentive for Person B to take extra action to complete a failed murder attempt which they might otherwise not take. If the punishments for murder and attempted murder are equivalent, then a criminal should never stop until the victim is dead once reaching the point of 'attempting' murder -- the not-dead person can testify against them making it (in general) far easier for the law to successfully convict than it would be if the victim had died ...
>No one gains anything from these 44 year long sentences.
He attempted to murder a police officer, so why should benefit anything from it?
>He's been incapacitated for his entire life, and because of that, is seemingly going to be it for the rest of his life.
Of course. That's the point. That's the whole point of what a punishment is. You can't punish if you don't punish.
I understand. You don't want to punish criminals. You want to teach them how to become good. The thing about criminals is that they have no respect for nice people. So when nice peoples try to teach criminals to become good, the criminal feels like, "Why is this weak ass person trying to lecture me? I would break his neck if I am not in these chains. Talking as if he's holier than me."
Okay. You might say, "Well, if a criminal won't listen to a nice person, let's just have someone not nice teach a criminal how to become good."
Asshole: "Hey criminal, you need to be a good person."
Criminal: "Fucking asshole, I'll break your neck."
Not gonna work either.
However, organized crime have found a way to do it (does not work guarantee to work 100% of the time).
The Boss: "Lowly criminal, I need you to be a good boy and not try to kill my family."
Lowly Criminal A: "No." The Boss's 30 henchmen kills him.
Lowly Criminal B: "Okay. Fine. I will not try to kill your family."
Only death can deter a criminal, and that's not even guarantee to work 100% of the time (criminals back stabs their boss).
Anyway, as you can see, the above is even worst than our prison system.
However, if you feel you have a method of installing goodness into criminals, please feel free to share.
And in that case you'd be looking at hospitalization rather than jail. (Though the person would still not have freedom of movement it would be a whole lot better for them.)
