Resolved: Rehabilitation Should Be Valued Above Retribution

Viewers should note that both con and I could agree that greater crimes warrant greater punishment. Retribution isn’t only about punishment, but the purpose of punishment. So we could more severely punish rapists and murderers but do so only for the sake of deterrence or something else and that wouldn’t be retribution. Punishment is something we can make use of to accomplish various goals. Those goals are often times not related to retribution. I want viewers to keep in mind that I do not advocate a purely rehabilitative model of justice. All I need to advocate is a model that takes rehabilitation as more primary than retribution. Rehabilitation could be secondary or even less, just as long as it’s more valued than retribution. Fairness Con presents us with an example what he would take as retributive justice. Someone commits a parking offence the result being that he gets a ticket and fine. I have to disagree with con on the reasons for giving out parking tickets. It is not, or at least not necessarily, done out of retribution. The reasons I can see for giving out parking tickets is because it favors an orderly society where people don’t take advantage of the lax law system and commit crimes due to there being no repercussions. That is not retribution at all. It’s deterrence (which doesn’t conflict with my model). I would also just like to refer viewers back to my disclaimer. Not everything needs to be done for the sake of rehabilitation or retribution. In this scenario, reaction to parking offences is done for deterrence. It’s preventive, not retributive. It’s thus irrelevant, as this debate doesn’t revolve around deterrence. All arguments requiring higher standards of punishment in correlation to the degree of the crime are irrelevant unless shown to require a retributive model. As shown, there's no reason to believe such frameworks do stem off of retributive justice. The concept of more severe punishment for more severe crimes enters in to almost all models of justice, whether it be retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence or an orderly society. Punishment is a tool sometimes needed for rehab and many times more severe punishment is needed for more severe crimes. Having repercussions for criminals committing crimes is not retributive at all. It's preventive which is entirely consistent with my model. For my model is not purely rehabilitative. When you cannot rehabilitate, it is good to prevent and keep order in society. Having criminals pay a price for their wrong-doing is a good way to prevent others to do the same. But it's a waste of space to talk about deterrence because it is not at odds with my case and I’m not sure why con uses it as an argument against me. Responsibility This was an argument both for rehabilitation and against retribution. Not just against retribution as con says. Con stresses his view of rehab as, "we know you killed that guy but we don't really care about him, just so long as you stop killing in future". I have to disagree with this and I think I already showed a different viewpoint last round. We do very much care for the person who was killed, but what is it we should hate (using that term loosely)? As stated last round, we should hate the evil, not the evil doer. The doer is merely an unfortunate victim of nature. Nature produces people who commit evil acts. We can hate that nature is this way but not the agent that the evil was done through. Con never once disputed that we have no free-will. So we can lament the murdered all we want but putting a retributive blame on the murderer doesn’t solve anything except a satisfaction of revenge. Yes we can punish the murderer but we only do so for the betterment of society, not in any way a need for retribution. In order for retribution to be of value, we should still seek it even if all else is equal. In other words, even if society is just as orderly and good disregarding retribution, retribution should still be used if we are to place a value on it. However, I see no reason to place any value on retribution if it serves no purpose outside of itself. Retribution for its own sake is of no use. The only ways con has defended it involves goals outside of retribution that merely (according to him) result from retributive justice. But con needs to show why we would value retribution for its own sake. On the other hand, it’s easy to see why we would want rehab even if all else remains equal. We value human life and making an immoral person into a moral one would be good even if that were its only purpose. Rehab is good for its own sake. Retribution is not. Con exaggerates the outcome my argument would lead to if applied. Con states that a rehabilitative model would lead to an irresponsible society where anyone can just excuse his actions on his environment. Valuing rehabilitation would not lead to the society con fears. Moral goodness would still be just as valued, as would an orderly society. So if a rapist made the appeal, as con theorizes, that he’s merely a product of society, the justice system would not merely imply he be let go. They would segregate him from society and try to reform him if possible. He would remain in prison where he would not be a risk to all law abiding men and stay there until it either becomes unjust to keep him there any longer (perhaps never) or he is reformed (also perhaps never). It does not matter if rehabilitation does not always work, for it is still something we must aim for in favor of retribution. And if it fails, we do not turn to retribution but segregation and deterrence. My case does not entail one can just excuse his pedophilia merely because "that's the way he is". We still assign a negative value to child rape, and we still take action against those who commit such acts. The whole point of rehabilitation is to make individuals into people who act morally, not an excuse to act irresponsibly. Anticipating the future Con again strawmans me despite my clear explanations before. Con says this debate is about whether we should punish criminals or "equip them for what we imagine their future might be." This is entirely inaccurate. I’ve stated numerous times, punishment is just a tool that can be used for retribution, segregation, deterrence or even rehabilitation. This debate is not about whether we should have punishment. It’s about how we should use punishment. And even if rehabilitation didn’t involve punishment, my model is not exclusive so punishment would still enter in for purposes relating to other factors such as deterrence. I don't know why con wants to look to the past so much. It's the future and present that matters. But is rehab a gamble? Well gamble implies risk, so not really. Yes, rehab may very well not work, but so what? If it doesn't, what's the cost? Nothing, because they still remain segregated from society. Con's scenario is wholly unrealistic. If you look closely, all he's saying is reforming business executives may end up having consumers taking advantage of them. Let's be realistic here. First, if the rehabilitation did not take place, it would be the business executives taking advantage of the consumers and second, how would the consumers be taking advantage of the executives? Con doesn't show why that could happen. He merely states it as if we should intuitively see or something. Con wants us to be overly cautious to a ridiculous degree. ‘Don't reform business executives because, while we don't like executives committing fraud, something totally unforeseen might happen. We can’t visualize it, but who knows? So let's let them commit fraud. It's better than taking such a gamble...’Like I said, please, let's be realistic. In fact, I’d say retribution is more of a gamble because if you end up miscalculating, or being wrong, you’ll be punishing an innocent man, or too severely punishing someone. Rehabilitating an innocent man is merely a waste of time but punishing an innocent man is far more costly.