Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord

[qatarperegrine]

Last week, the issue of hell came up at an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians at Education City. One of the participants explained hell by saying that God loves people so much that God punishes us when we hurt another one of God's beloved servants. And, in fact, God loves us so much, God even punishes us for hurting ourselves. As happens every time the subject of hell and divine retribution comes up, I was struck by how little sense this concept makes to me.

I've never formally studied theories of justice, but when I worked in corrections, it seemed like there are a couple of different justifications given for punishing wrongdoers, for example:

• incapacitation: wrongdoers should be prevented from being able to commit further crimes against the community.
  
• specific deterrence: wrongdoers should be punished in order to discourage them from committing further crimes.
  
• general deterrence: wrongdoers should be punished in order to discourage other people from committing similar crimes.
  
• rehabilitation: wrongdoers should be helped to become more productive members of society in future.

All these justifications are essentially utilitarian: they say that punishment is justifiable only when it serves a purpose. As a pet owner, I can relate to this. If I smack my cat for biting me in the (vain) hopes that this will dissuade her from biting me in the future, this is punishment. If I smack my cat simply because I am angry, knowing that it won't change her behavior, then IMHO I am not punishing her; I am abusing her.

But hell can't possibly serve any of the functions we accept as possible justification for punishment. It can't incapacitate or even deter people from committing further sins, since, well, they're dead. It can't rehabilitate them (this may be debated if, like Muslims, you believe hell may be temporary). I suppose you could argue that hell provides a general deterrent, since people might abstain from sins for fear of going to hell. But if that's the real justification for hell, then God is effectively sacrificing some people's eternal happiness in order to make an example of them for others, and it's hard to imagine God being so... well, un-Kantian.

When you've ruled out the utilitarian justifications for punishment, it seems like the only one left (to my knowledge) is retribution. The retribution theory of justice says that it is moral to punish someone for wrongdoing even if the punishment won't improve the situation, simply because wrongdoing merits punishment. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, for the reason discussed above in the kitten example. There may be circumstances in which it is ethical to harm someone, because that harm is necessary for a greater good. But if no greater good is served, then harming someone is wrong, even if they've previously harmed someone else. Two wrongs don't make a right.

So, readers, what do you think? Is there any utilitarian justification for the existence of hell? Is retribution an adequate justification? Or is there some other justification entirely? (Of course, if things are virtuous because they are godly and not vice versa, there is no reason to justify God's actions whatsoever -- but, then we also shouldn't advance arguments like the one that came up at the interfaith dialogue.)

Comments

Re: obnoxious yay

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Yes, deterrence is a weak form of restriction. :-) But we've already ruled out specific deterrence as an explanation from hell, because by the time you get there you're too dead to be better in future. So we're going with general deterrence, right? In that case it seems like one must argue that it's justifiable for God to torture other people infinitely for YOUR "own good." Or to torture you infinitely for OTHER people's good, of course. It seems to me that this violates our basic understanding of fairness.

(And wait, did you just use the word "steal" for intellectual property? ...)

Re: obnoxious yay

[douglasperkins.livejournal.com]

No I didn't -- it is *possible* to steal mp3s, though downloading via Limewire isn't one of them. Lol.