Sentence "Attempted" Crimes The Same As Successful Ones

Con says that while it is possible for the authorities to be wrong it is not very likely. Using authorities as evidence is valid if it is used to back up arguments presented by them. "So-and-so said so" is a statement of fact about something a person said and not something one can reasonably argue against other than "they might not be right", which is a valid argument since nobody is right 100% of the time. If Con were to elaborate the arguments these authorities use to defend their position then I would have something to refute. As it is while Con has not presented the actual reasoning used by these authorities I can still show good reasons to doubt them.The Bible and the Quran are religious documents. There are many religions with many different rules and ideas. No religion has ever been proven by science. In fact scientific evidence has already disproven the creation myths of the Bible and the Quran.Furthermore, the Constitution, beginning of the 1st amendment reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". So "religious authorities" are irrelevant to what law should be. It was one of Kant's opinions that a person asked by a would-be-murderer where to find his intended victim should "tell the truth", because "truth" should be a "universal law". This is not to say Kant was wrong about everything, but that "Kant said so" is not a good reason to support or oppose something. The Supreme Court has changed its mind on many issues. Laws against anti-war speech used to be upheld, but are not anymore. Furthermore, the Supreme Court deals with issues of constitutionality. Even if retribution is constitutionally allowed it is still not constitutionally required. There are many things the government can do constitutionally. It doesn't make them good ideas. India does not exactly have a spotless record on human rights. This is enough to cast doubts on what ever opinions are expressed within its penal code. http://www.amnestyusa.org... As Con says we are talking about the legal system. However, Con seems to be implying that legal situations exist in some moral limbo where ordinary moral reasoning does not apply. As legal situations likewise involve the actions of human beings moral reasoning valid for other situations can be applied to it as long as we take into account the concrete differences between the situations. Retribution involves harming a person for no reason other than that they had committed a "harm"(called a crime) as defined by law.The only differences between this and the sort of revenge people take out against each other all the time is 1. the # of people & resources that work to carry out retribution 2. the deliberative process to make sure they got the right person. 3. Common agreement-The court system alone decides whether retribution will take place, preventing disagreements and more conflicts over it in the future. If it is the 2nd & 3rd differences that makes retribution moral then the inescapable conclusion would be that as long as you make sure you are certain the person did it and as long as any disagreements are resolved as to the person's guilt revenge is morally acceptable. So if it was something like cheating and just between you and that person and you were certain(stumbled upon it) this system of morality would give you the green light to go cheat on them in return for revenge. Revenge no matter how much social agreement can be reached on it and no matter how much you make sure you got the right person is immoral & only promotes more revenge. Revenge does not make emotions go away. A murderers victim is dead, no sentence will change that. Its not that emotions are irrelevant. Emotions have values that can be considered when weighing positives and negatives. BUT this consideration extends to the impact an action may have on emotions not what the "emotions" make us feel like doing but what'll yield the best emotions in the end. Just because we feel like hurting a criminal doesnt mean doing so will make it better. "Emotional damages" can make things better but this is handled in civil courts where the burden or proof is even lower than criminal courts. "A successful criminal is more likely to spot opportunities" This isnt evidence, but Con's opinion that a successful criminal is more likely to spot opportunities. The most important thing for a criminal is whether or not they avoid getting caught. Failing is not the same as getting caught nor is succeeding the same as avoiding it. A person who is committing his 1st crime, succeeds & gets caught'll be more likely to be deterred in the future compared to someone who gets caught attempting a crime but who had previously gotten away with various attempts and successes. Punishment harms the criminal. However, the harm should not be the point itself. That is just revenge. The important thing is the harm is not disproportionate to the harm society is trying to prevent(the reattempt at the crime). With selective quoting Con completely ignores my argument about how since it is NOT necessary for us to rely on generalizations we should rely on more specific criteria than the "success or failure". Even if on average a failed criminal is easier to rehabilitate than a successful criminal that is still not evidence that is is "Because" the criminal had failed. Con has presented no evidence for how failing in and of itself would cause a person to be easier to be rehabilitated. Con only brought up how a more ruthless person may be more likely to succeed in carrying out the crime in which case it is not the "success" that causes the person to be harder to rehabilitate, it is his ruthless attitude. Taking into considering success v. failure would mean punishing the successful worse regardless of whether they had been more ruthless. So, it's an inefficient way of sentencing. It's better to rely on a case-by-case basis of how ruthless the crime was. When examining the facts of a crime it's easy to tell whether it was done ruthlessly or not without ever having to factor in success or failure. Even if generally people who are more ruthless tend to be successful cases that are the exception to a general rule should never be treated the same way as the general rule if it can be helped & in this case it can be helped. If successful criminals tend to have been more ruthless and so tend to be sentenced higher AS AN INDIRECT RESULT of measuring the ruthlessness then I don't disagree with this statement. However, the debate is about whether the law should distinguish between success and failure or not, not whether we should have laws that have an incidental effect of leading to successful criminals getting higher sentences on average. Comparing two individual cases where the ruthlessness is the same but one succeeded and another failed there is no good reason to punish them differently. Men by having a more aggressive nature and because of culture are more likely to be ruthless BUT that does not mean that the law should take into consideration gender, because its not gender itself that makes it harder to rehabilitate and the factor that does make it harder(ruthlessness) can be measured independently. I had said: ""It is the burden of Pro to provide evidence that it is equally difficult to rehabilitate a successful and unsuccessful criminal."That would be the case ONLY if that was essential to my main argument, and it is NOT."He then says "MasturDbtor has claimed that rehabilitation was not one of his main points."I was only saying that it is NOT necessary for it be equally difficult on average, only that there is nothing about success or failure in and of itself(by direct result, not by correlation with another factor(ruthlessness) that can simply be measured independently) that would make it more or less difficult. I did NOT say "rehabilitation" was not one of my main points, just that it is was NOT my point in the way that Con had reworded it.