Θανατική ποινή: Σωστό ή Λάθος

Ένας διάλογος πάνω στο αμφιλεγόμενο αυτό ζήτημα. Το άρθρο εστιάζει στους τρεις σκοπούς της επιβολής της ποινής:
- εκδίκηση (backward - looking view)
- παραδειγματισμός  &  σωφρονισμός (forward- looking view)
https://theconversation.com/death-penalty-is-capital-punishment-morally-justified-42970

The execution, by hanging, of Yakub Memon for his part in the 2003 Mumbai bombings invites us to revisit the vexed issue of capital punishment. Few topics incite such moral passion and controversy.

The world’s religious communities are divided on the death penalty. Despite a seemingly unambiguous commitment to non-violence (or “Ahimsa”) in both Hinduism and Buddhism, scholars within those traditions continue to debate the permissibility of lethal punishment. The Old Testament enjoins us to take an “eye for an eye” – the principle of lex talionis – while the New Testament exhorts us to “turn the other cheek”. And while Islam is generally regarded as compatible with the death penalty, the Qur'an’s emphasis on forgiveness suggests that Muslims should sometimes respond to evil with mercy, not retaliation.

While many European countries urge an ethic of rehabilitation in their criminal justice systems, many jurisdictions in the United States stand firmly in favour of capital punishment for serious crimes. Even a federal jury in Massachusetts, a liberal bastion, recently doled out the death penalty to the sole surviving perpetrator of the Boston marathon bombing. And while the United Kingdom abandoned the death penalty in 1964 – the year of the last executions – nearly half of the British public favours a reintroduction of it (though that figure has been dropping steadily).

We will not make progress in the public debate about the death penalty unless we realise that it is only one element in a much bigger controversy: about the point of punishment itself. As The Conversation invites us to rethink the death penalty over the next few weeks, we must not conduct this discussion in a vacuum. Before you ask yourself whether we should have the death penalty, consider: why hand out any punishments at all? Considering the three main families in the philosophy of punishment can help us organise our conversation.

Retribution

“Bad guys deserve to suffer.” This is a blunt slogan, but it captures the essence of a deeply familiar notion: people who have committed culpable wrongs deserve their lives to go worse as a result. Why do they deserve it? Perhaps because it’s not fair for the lives of wrongdoers to go well when the lives of the innocent have gone poorly – punishment levels the playing field. Whatever the reason, “retributivists” – those who believe in retribution – argue that the punishment of criminals is intrinsically valuable; it is valuable in and of itself, rather than valuable because of its good consequences (for example, preventing future crime).

Even if punishing murderers and thieves had no effect on reducing the overall crime rate, retributivists tend to think it’s still the right thing to do. Retributivists also think that the severity of punishment should match the severity of the crime. So, just as it is wrong to over-punish someone (executing someone for stealing a pair of shoes), it can be wrong to under-punish someone (giving him a community service order for murder).

If you are a retributivist, you might support the death penalty because you think that certain or all murderers (and perhaps other criminals) deserve to suffer death for their crimes. Depending on how you think about death, however, you might oppose the death penalty on the grounds that it is disproportionately harsh – perhaps you think that no matter what someone has done, she does not deserve to die for it.

On the other hand you might oppose the death penalty on the grounds that it is disproportionately light. Many people who opposed the recent death sentence for the Boston bomber did so on the grounds that life in a maximum-security prison would be a worse punishment – and so more fitting – than death.

Deterrence

“Criminals should be punished so that they and others will be less likely to commit crime in the future, making everybody safer.” Many people criticise retributivism on the grounds that it is nothing but a pointless quest for barbaric revenge.

Australia withdrew its ambassador to Indonesia after the execution, in April, of two of its nationals for drug trafficking.EPA/Dan Himbrechts

Inflicting suffering on human beings, if it is to be morally justified, must instead have a forward-looking purpose: protecting the innocent from harm. If this sounds sensible to you, you probably believe the point of punishment is not retribution, but rather deterrence.

The idea here is familiar enough: people face temptations to break just laws; the demands of morality and the demands of rational self-interest sometimes seem to diverge. Threats of punishment realign those demands by making it irrational for self-interested individuals to break the law.

If you are a defender of deterrence, you must answer two questions about capital punishment before determining where you stand. The first is empirical: a question about real-world facts. Does the threat of the death penalty actually deter people from committing heinous crimes to a greater extent than the threat of life imprisonment?

The second question is moral. Even if the death penalty deterred crime more successfully than life imprisonment, that doesn’t necessarily mean it would be justified. After all, imagine if we threatened execution for all crimes, including minor traffic violations, theft, and tax fraud.

Doing so would surely slash the crime rate, yet most people would judge it to be wrong. Deterrence theorists tend to defend some upper limit on the harshness of punishment – and it may be that death simply goes beyond what the government is ever permitted to threaten.

Reform

“Punishment communicates to criminals that what they have done is wrong, and gives them an opportunity to apologise and reform.” There are many different variants of this view: educative, communicative, rehabilitative – and there are important differences between them. But the basic idea is that punishment should make the wrongdoer understand what he or she has done wrong and inspire her to repent and reform.

Whatever version of this view one supports, its implication for the death penalty is reasonably clear. What is the point of a criminal reforming herself as she prepares for the execution chamber?

To be sure, many people try to mix and match different elements of these three broad views, though such mixed theories tend to be unhelpfully ad hoc and can offer conflicting guidance. Far better, to my mind, to plant one’s flag clearly and answer the question: which view should have priority in our thinking about punishment?

Then, and only then, can we proceed to think about the justice (or lack thereof) of governments who kill their citizens.

Volunteerism or Voluntourism? δυο γράμματα που διαφοροποιούν τόσο πολύ μια έννοια

                                Volunteerism     vs     Voluntourism

https://theconversation.com/think-looking-after-turtles-in-costa-rica-for-three-weeks-is-good-for-your-cv-think-again-66148

Every year, an estimated 1.6m people across the world choose to volunteer overseas. The majority of these individuals are under the age of 25 – they have often just left school, or are taking a year off between studies.

While helping to alleviate poverty appears to be of key importance to all volunteers, many are also motivated by the opportunity to bolster a CVor personal statement. In the eyes of recruiters – particularly universities – candidates who have volunteered internationally are considered a step ahead. They are seen to possess a greater awareness of global issues and different cultures, and a desire to contribute to society.

Yet there is a huge variety of opportunities in international volunteering, and it is important to recognise the difference between shallow and deep volunteering. So-called “deep volunteers” may embark on a six-month trip, contributing to a long-term project in poor living conditions with no communication to the outside world, or travel as a medical volunteerat great personal risk – for example, to care for Ebola victims in Western Africa.

At the other end of the spectrum there are “shallow volunteers” – those who spend £625 of their own money for a one-week project with elephants in Thailand, or £420 to protect marine wildlife on the beaches of Costa Rica. These options are attractive to volunteers seeking a fun experience in exotic locations, without a long-term commitment to a specific project.

[...]

Yet there is a growing recognition that shallow volunteering can do more harm than good. Author and philanthropist J K Rowling recently criticised the rise of “voluntourism”, because it enables individuals to “consume” poverty as an enriching experience that looks good on their CV, which can actually make problems worse for vulnerable children.

But recruiters and young people alike must realise that international volunteering is not a box to tick on a CV. Employers and universities should probe individuals on what sort of volunteering they conducted and how they think the experience makes them better candidates.

[...]

To improve the quality of international volunteering, recruiters of young graduates must only give merit to valuable volunteer work. Likewise, volunteers who wish to prove their worth must have a commitment to a project, be responsible, and have respect and appreciation for the cultural environment in which they are immersed.

Μάθημα... μέσων κοινωνικής δικτύωσης: υποχρεωτικό ή επιλογής;

https://theconversation.com/uk/education

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[...]

Given all of this, it is my belief that social media education should be treated with the same level of importance as sex education. And as adults, educators, and employers, we need to take some responsibility in educating our children on the “birds and the bees” of social media use – because it has the potential to do serious damage to young people’s future’s and prospects.

Children today engage with social media at a young age, so the responsible use of it needs to be built into the curriculum at primary school level. As children progress through their education – what they are taught can evolve.

This means that from being made aware of issues such as their personal security and safety, they can move on to learning about how they could find themselves on the wrong side of the criminal and civil law for what they post or tweet. And how their online profiles can influence their job prospects – both negatively and positively.

Because in this modern age we live and work in today, this type of training could make a real difference to the futures of children and young people – both online and off.

H δύναμη της κοινωνικής ομάδας (crowdsourcing / citizen-led science): μήπως τελικά όλοι μαζί μπορούμε καλύτερα;;;

https://theconversation.com/can-citizen-science-empower-disenfranchised-communities-53625

https://theconversation.com/expanding-citizen-science-models-to-enhance-open-innovation-61554

Ο κόσμος μου - Το smartphone μου: Ένα ακόμη άγχος στην μεταμοντέρνα εποχή μας - “the anxiety of the disconnected”

https://theconversation.com/my-smartphone-myself-digital-separation-anxiety-in-the-postmodern-

world-66881

Has this ever happened to you: you accidentally leave your cell phone at home, and it feels like your soul has stayed there with it? Your nerves crackle, you feel short of breath – in short, you panic. The specific reaction to a forgotten device depends on the individual, but in the end it’s basically separation anxiety: you find yourself far from something that’s really important to you.

In today’s technology-driven reality, we are seeing the emergence of this new symptom – what I call “anxiety of the disconnected”. It may sound trite, but the phenomenon is real enough to have been studied.

Teachers see it all the time. Just recently, at the Instituto Michoacano de Ciencias de la Educación, the teachers’ college where I work, one of my students started yelling, “S**t! S**t!”, surprising his peers with his profane outburst. “I forgot my …” He rifled through his backpack, taking out books, papers, emptying out everything. But to no avail: the smartphone wasn’t there. I could see the anxiety on his face, as if he’d lost a piece of himself.

So based on the psychoanalytical literature and philosophical truth, we know that the anxiety of the disconnected isn’t because one feels separated from humanity. No, the anxiety comes from the opposite direction: from feeling too close to humanity, too near to the other.

If the subject is disconnected, they have no choice but to face their spouse, their children, their father, whomever else. It is a hard thing to confront one another using words, to dialogue, make agreements, find peace.

That anxiety you feel when you realise you’ve left behind your smart phone? It isn’t about the object you forgot so much as what it represents: a social function that you must now perform in person.

No screen to sink into, like Narcissus drowning in his own image. 

Η γλώσσα χωρίζει ή ενώνει τους λαούς;

http://theconversation.com/back-to-the-19th-century-how-language-is-being-used-to-mark-national-borders-66357

According to a series of newspapers, immigrants will apparently change the English language in Britain beyond repair over the next 50 years. TheDaily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have all run alarming stories on this topic. Language will change “because there are so many foreigners who struggle to pronounce” certain sounds, such “th” as in thin or this.

[...]

The answer lies in the way languages are understood, especially in the West. Consider the names of European languages such as English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, for example. Now consider the names of the countries where these languages are spoken: England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. And now consider, also, the names of the people living in those countries: the English, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Spanish. All these names suggest that there is an obvious and entirely natural bond between specific languages, their speakers and the territories that they inhabit.

Old-school thinking

[...]

So, towards the end of the 19th century, at the height of European nationalism, histories of languages were created in order to demonstrate their primordial existence. For example, it was in the 1880s that language historians began to use the term “Old English” to refer to the assortment of languages used in Britain before the Norman Conquest. The obvious advantage of “Old English” over, say, “Anglo-Saxon” is that it clearly suggests that what is spoken now and what was spoken well over 1,000 years ago is fundamentally one and the same language.http://

The fear of multiculturalism

For this reason, as many in Europe are looking for a firmer re-establishment of national borders, language is once again being used instrumentally to mark boundaries between people. And this fits perfectly well with the anti-immigration agenda of some newspapers. Their A-B-C logic goes something like this:

a) The English language is the language of the English, and it has been so since time immemorial.

b) Now, suddenly, it’s changing, and that can only be caused by non-English people (immigrants).

c) Consequently, by living here and speaking English (badly), immigrants are changing not only our language but the very essence of our national identity.

[...]

This hard-headed association of language with national identity was at the core of an extreme version of nationalism that led Europe to two world wars. But we can turn this on its head: if we understand how fluid languages are by their very nature, if we appreciate the way they evolve and mix, we will also find it easier to live together and multiculturalism will no longer be so scary.

Προσεχώς εμείς μεγαλώνουμε...: Συμμετοχική Εκπαίδευση

Προσεχώς εμείς μεγαλώνουμε...: Συμμετοχική Εκπαίδευση: Γιάννης Μεταξάς, Βήμα, 11-9-2016

Μεταξάς Γιάννης 

Συμμετοχική εκπαίδευση

ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ:  11/09/2016 05:45

Το έχω στα χέρια μου κάποιους μήνες. Και ανακαταρτίζομαι με αυτό. Στην κυριολεξία μαθαίνω για όσα έπρεπε έγκαιρα να ξέρω. Πρόκειται για ένα βιβλίο. Χρήσιμο για τον κάθε εκπαιδευτικό.

Το συμπέρασμά του - είναι αναγκαίο από εκεί να αρχίσω, όπως το υπογραμμίζουν η Αννα Φραγκουδάκη και η Θάλεια Δραγώνα, πρωτεργάτριες για μια άλλη σχεδίαση της εκπαιδευτικής πράξης - είναι η αξία μιας παιδαγωγικής «που καλλιεργεί στα παιδιά την περιέργεια για τη γνώση και τα κίνητρα για την απόκτησή της. Που μετατρέπει τα παιδιά από παθητικούς δέκτες σε ενεργά υποκείμενα που ερευνούν και δημιουργούν...».

Στο πλαίσιο του «Προγράμματος για την εκπαίδευση των παιδιών της μουσουλμανικής μειονότητας της Θράκης» προέκυψε μια γνώση που η χρησιμότητά της ξεπερνά τον χώρο και την αφορμή που προκάλεσαν και το πρόγραμμα και το βιβλίο.

Με αφορμή τη μειονοτική διάσταση - ως ακραία δυσκολία - για έναν συνολικό και ελεύθερο εγκοινωνισμό σε μια πολιτεία, δηλαδή με σεβασμό στην αρχή της θετικής διάκρισης, της discrimination positive, μια ομάδα εκπαιδευτικών σε συνεργασία με τους εκπαιδευομένους παρήγαγε ένα έργο αναφοράς.

Επιλέγοντας τη λογοτεχνία ως συζητητική αφετηρία - απέναντι στην οποία η περιέργεια και η απόλαυση παρακάμπτουν σε μεγάλο βαθμό το «roman national» - οι ερευνητές εφάρμοσαν τη συλλογική συμμετοχή στη διαδικασία της μάθησης και, κυρίως, προκάλεσαν την παραγωγή μοιραζόμενης ευτυχίας με όσα διεξάγονταν εντός αλλά και εκτός του σχολείου.

Πολλές ειδικότητες ενεπλάκησαν εδώ. Αλλοτε σε διακλαδικό και άλλοτε σε διεπιστημονικό επίπεδο - ακριβέστερα, σε μια ανοικτή συνάντηση - ώστε ό,τι θα προέκυπτε να είναι κοινωνιολογικά σε επαφή με την πραγματικότητα και επιστημολογικά ελέγξιμο.

Δεν έχω τον χώρο για να αναφέρω τα «πολύτιμα» ονόματα που συγκροτούν την ομάδα με την οποία μια άλλη ουμανιστική εκπαιδευτική πολιτική εφαρμόστηκε. Και με κύριο χαρακτηριστικό την σε κάθε επόμενη φάση αυτοδιόρθωση της προσέγγισης.

Το βιβλίο στις εκδόσεις Τόπος με τίτλο «Προσεχώς Εμείς Μεγαλώνουμε», τολμώ να πω πως θα πρέπει να θεωρηθεί διεθνές πρότυπο. Σε κάθε περίπτωση, το μοντέλο εκμοντερνίζει και την πρόθεση και τη σχεδίαση.

*Ο κ. Γιάννης Μεταξάς, ομότιμος καθηγητής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών, είναι τακτικό μέλος της Académie Européenne Interdisciplinaire des Sciences.