Penalties and punishments

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Bundy

Bundy

Player Valuation: £35m
A world without penalties and punishment would be an interesting place. If I were to murder my next door neighbour and wasn't going to be punished for it, would I feel guilty? If I were to feel guilty, why? There's nothing to say that it's wrong, no punishment for the deed. Why is it wrong? If I evolved from a monkey or some other sub human kind, it is the law of the jungle, the strongest survive, why should I follow my conscience, where does my conscience come from? Do monkeys have a conscience? Do they feel guilty when they kill one of their own? Do they get the death penalty are they locked in prison? Is this what makes us human - our conscience, our ability to discern that something is right or wrong? Why do we have a right and wrong and where do those values come from?
 

A conscience is necessary for a society to survive. Without it, wouldn't society be a lawless, chaotic mess?

Doesn't psychology label a person with no conscience as a sociopath? Pretty much the most dangerous citizens in society.
 
Bundy said:
A world without penalties and punishment would be an interesting place. If I were to murder my next door neighbour and wasn't going to be punished for it, would I feel guilty? If I were to feel guilty, why? There's nothing to say that it's wrong, no punishment for the deed. Why is it wrong? If I evolved from a monkey or some other sub human kind, it is the law of the jungle, the strongest survive, why should I follow my conscience, where does my conscience come from? Do monkeys have a conscience? Do they feel guilty when they kill one of their own? Do they get the death penalty are they locked in prison? Is this what makes us human - our conscience, our ability to discern that something is right or wrong? Why do we have a right and wrong and where do those values come from?
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I'm pretty sure laws wre born from conscience, not the other way round.
Actually, I was watching a programme yesterday abaout the dufference between apes and humans. Showed a clip of a chimp helping a guy who was stretching to pick up a banana. An 18 month old baby did the same demonstrating that altruism is annate in bith species. However it mentioned that while a chimp would get angry if another stole its food. It wouldn't be bothered atall if it stole another's food. whereas if we see someone stealing a bag from a woman in the street, we'd feel that we should do something about it (whether we do anything is another matter).

there are lots of things that aren't covered by laws, that we feel guilty about. Or are you talking about any kind of punishment
 

James Martin said:
I'm pretty sure laws wre born from conscience, not the other way round.
Actually, I was watching a programme yesterday abaout the dufference between apes and humans. Showed a clip of a chimp helping a guy who was stretching to pick up a banana. An 18 month old baby did the same demonstrating that altruism is annate in bith species. However it mentioned that while a chimp would get angry if another stole its food. It wouldn't be bothered atall if it stole another's food. whereas if we see someone stealing a bag from a woman in the street, we'd feel that we should do something about it (whether we do anything is another matter).


there are lots of things that aren't covered by laws, that we feel guilty about. Or are you talking about any kind of punishment
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Spot on..
 

A conscience is surely a necessity of a civilised society. As soon as we all started living together it just... grew.

Otherwise we'd all be eating each other's offspring and killing people over a lost umbrella.
 

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