Quickfire Debate: Justice, Retribution, and Forgiveness

C1The purpose of this was to note that there are some victimless crimes. Claiming it's a kritik seems pretty unfair--the notion of "victimless crimes" is pretty standard [1]. As I said when I brought up the point, I did not intend to play semantics, but only noting that not all crimes have victims, and so therefore Con's burden is to establish that with crimes that DO have victims, it's necessary to get their forgiveness in order to obtain justice. To be clear: I'm arguing that forgiveness is irrelevant and unnecessary to justice, though I concede it is generally a good thing, and he needs to show "justice benefit to forgiveness".C2Con semms to want to escape his burden, claiming "it's not my job to argue that forgiveness is obligatory. I can argue that it is just a moral good. All I need to assert is that justice cannot usually be obtained without some forgiveness." This is just false. Moral goods are not equivalent to justice, and that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed likewise. He wants me to show definitely that justice can be obtained without forgiveness, yet doesn't want to fulfill his end of this, which is to show that there's any link to justce from forgiveness at all. Thus far, he hasn't linked the two. Without that link it's completely reasonable of me to assert that there's no need for forgiveness in justice, which is sufficient to carry the motion. Let's be clear here, if forgiveness is irrelevant to justice, as I contend, then it's not necessary to obtain justice. I've given arguments as to why it's not necessary. C3Con seems to misunderstand me here. While it's true that empathy helps us understand, emotionally, the reasoning behind justice, it's not a required emotion. A sociopath with no empathy can still behave justly--it doesn't make it unjust to not "feel" the empathy.He then tries to have things both ways, after arguing that forgiveness as an emotional response can be valid, by arguing that it's NOT an emotional response. But forgiveness is "the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense". If it's not voluntary, it's not forgiveness; if it's not a change in feelings and attitude, it's not forgiveness. He hasn't offered a reason why justice needs a change in attitude or feelings yet, and so my conention that it's unnecessary stands and the resolution stands until such time as he can give us some reason to impose a moral justice burden on victims to forgive their criminals. Thus far, he's given us no reason to suppose that justice cannot be obtained without it, and at this point he's locked into defenses as opposed to new arguments. Con here conflates action with emotion in a way that simply has no validity. Certainly, you can unjustfly inflict emotional pain. You do that with ACTIONS. Your own emotions cannot be unjust. Bullying and torture require action. If I simply don't like another person, there's no argument that I've somehow violated justice in doing so. Only if I ACT on that dislike in an unjust way is it unjust. C4Con thinks that it's begging the question to assume that justice and forgiveness are different. It's begging the question to assume that they're the same. It would be an instant win for Con. So of course I'm arguing they're different--that's my entire burden in this debate, and to argue that it's fallacious to fulfill my burden is troublesome. He claims I go in circles with a strawman. I dismiss his strawman and ask him to engage with my arguments as I presented them. It's worth noting that pardoning and reconciliation are expressly excluded from forgiveness under his own definition. "Forgiveness is different from condoning ...excusing ... pardoning ... forgetting... and reconciliation...." Second, it's worth noting that Con is asking us to assume he's right, and that forgiveness is necessary for justice, despite never actually linking the two as per his burden in R1. Conclusion:I've argued that forgiveness is an emotional response, in keeping with the definitions Con provided, and that there's no grounds to assert that victims owe criminals forgiveness. Without a link, this argument should stand to demonstrate a lack of necessity for forgiveness in order to obtain justice. Con has argued that forgiveness is a good thing, and has used things like pardons and reconciliation (which are, per his own definition, NOT forgiveness) to justify it as having possible links to justice. These possible links are not directly related, and "possible" at best. They don't any link from forgiveness to justice, just a link for forgiveness to good things. I conceded forgiveness was good in R1!If we took it as true that forgiveness was generally necessary to obtain justice, we'd be taking it that justice was generally impossible if the victim would not, or could not, forgive the perpetrator, and that the failure to forgive was unjust. I reject both of those. Justice attempts as much as possible to be objective and not reliant on one side's obstinancy; just as a criminal's failure to recognize they've done something wrong doesn't affect whether what they've done is just, neither does a victim's failure to forgive affect the justice of the situation, both because justice doesn't require emotions and because there's no grounds to assert a moral burden on the victims of crimes to "wish the offender well". I believe I've fulfilled my BoP by virtue of Con's failure to uphold his admittedly much smaller burden of showing any link at all. In the absence of any link of forgiveness to justice, it's fair to say that forgiveness is not necessary to obtain justice and so I believe the resolution is upheld.Thanks to bsh1, and to the voters who read this quickfire debate! As a reminder, I waive the final round as per the rules and can't respond again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org...