Philosophy Explorer wrote:You know how technology keeps progressing so let's say we have this scenario.
We have a serial murderer who normally would be executed or punished for his crimes. Let's say that the people he killed can be restored back to life and that the restored people suffer no lingering effects from the murders. Let's further say that through an operation, the murderer can be changed so that he doesn't go around hurting or killing people anymore, in effect just as if the murders never happened.
Now it's true that the murders did occur. Yet they can be erased from the record books based on what I just said. Should the guilty be punished? What do you think?
PhilX
There are many opinions as to what is the purpose of punishment. I personally regard all that have anything to do with emotions to be irrational opinions.
The only legitimate purpose of imprisonment is to avoid further damage, we imprison people because they are dangerous. And while in prison, we treat them the best we can, to make them significantly less dangerous for an eventual reunion with society.
But there is a list problems with your thinking. And that is that people could still want to do it, and the consequences to society would be severe still. It could cost a lot of money, cost a lot of inconvenience, it is very fantastical to say that undoing murders will return people to an exact state just prior to their murder, and for various reasons there could be complications that would unable some, but not all, bodies from being resurrected, and that means there's always a statistical risk, and those who put people to that risk would still have to pay for it. Not to mention the possibility of great trauma as a cause of witnessing ones own murder, and if you then say their memories were erased, then you'd have the problem of having to erase somebody's memory which is a great offence in itself.
Therefore, even if it was possible, reality always dictates that significant offence could still take place. But to answer your question in a situation that is so fantastic that nothing majorly bad really came from: no, it would not make sense. But as soon as you just start to add a little bit of realism to your situation, you'll see that the hypothetical situation is hugely irrelevant, because any situation that comes close will still have huge problems to it.
I could mention though, that the conditions that the person would serve under, would be made in such a way as to optimize the person's rise to functionality within society. For instance, making the person study every day as part of the prison program, study to get a profession and/or finish school if that's a problem, and several other studies that might be relevant to become a fully functional citizen. Society does loose something when you look at it with any realism, and therefore there must be some kind of way the person can serve society to pay for the damage.
