Do you believe a system of preemptive justice is unjust?
This came up in one of the other discussions. Someone said that a system of imprisoning people before they commited the crime was unjust, as the person is not the same person before and after. What do you all think?
I actually voted that I do think it is unjust, but just to play devil’s advocate. I can only imagine for example that someone was about to kill my brother. Now with a system of pre-emptive justice (like the one in minority report) there is a chance that they could catch the man (assuming the killer is male) before they manage to harm my brother, which naturally I think is better then having to see my brother dead. However I guess I voted that it was unjust because any system used to predict future events is potentially falliable and can maybe be manipulated, as we see in minority report.
Well, the interesting thing is any such system would have to be falliable, as for it to work, the events need to be mutable.
Lol never looked at it that way, but your right. I think they get around this in minority report by saying the precogs (people who see into the future) are really only seeing the most likely outcome of the events. Hence the minority report is an alternate outcome that is seen by only one of them. However your correct since if it is most likely that they will catch the criminal (or at least future criminal… actually that’s not even correct) then the precogs should see them catch the criminal as well, which would just about kill any sense of urgency. Ahh time travel and casuality are sooo fun to play with… 
which is why you should never go back in time and kill you grandfather
Do you believe a system of preemptive justice is unjust?
For me, I think this is definitely unjust.
I think this question is somewhat related to the issue of determinism. So long as people believe in Hard Determinism, then what will happen will happen finally. Therefore, it is nothing wrong to have a system of preemptive justice.
But I beleive in “Soft Determinism” and “ineffective structure of temporality”(By Sartre, right?). That means, in between “having the desire to do” and “do it”, there are still a lot of time for us to change our judgement.
To conclude, this system is unjust for me.
BTW, this is the first post I have ever made in this forum. I am so
happy to have chance to learn from all philosophy’s lover here.
i havent seen it in a long time, but wasnt it a case of them interveneing litereally seconds before the crime was committed?
if i was to make a system it would rely on the person being caught in the act, but before they had followed through and killed the person. this would ensure that they were “guilty” or as close as could be ensured without them actually killing anyone.
If you read the Brothers Karamazov Dimitri was also seconds away from commiting the act.