I mean, this question is not just about normal criminals.

Think like very bad crimes. Like serial killers, rapists, child rapists, terrorists, corrupt officials, terrible leaders, cruel dictators, generals that ignore laws of war, or like people has bad as Hitler. Which of these people do you think deserve a respectful burial, if any.

Is there a level of evilness that you think should not be allowed to have a proper buriel or have their corpses mutilated. Or should everyone deserve a respectful burial regardless of crimes.

I personally don’t even know how to answer this question myself. Like the funeral isn’t even for the dead. Its for the living. So to me, the question seems like, should the relatives of a bad person be allowed to see the corpse treated respectfully. I personally don’t have an answer to this question.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
      2·
      2 hours ago

      It is completely true; the only reason to punish bad behavior is to disincentivise it.

      We are not born with inherent understanding of good, bad, and what ends justify the means. It’s all absorbed from our surroundings.

      For example, you can be an openly corrupt authoritarian leader or CEO of massive evil corporation, and see yourself as good as you learned to put your family first and that randoms are all self-interested, so you might be as well in the name of something you hold dearer.

      There are many ways to corrupt a person’s thinking in a way that is hard to unfuck as it gets fundamental. Harder, even, if the base idea is shared by many.

      In that regard, getting cruel is, on the practical side, only really an attempt to reinstate other values, or, more commonly, implant fear in others, so they might consider the danger too high and chicken out.

    • fakir@lemm.ee
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Excellent point!

      Polish your mirror and look deep, you are the universe as am I, as was Gandhi and as is Putin, capable of all good and all evil, all shaped by life like a rock shaped by a river. The rock has no choice but to take that shape. The rock is special but no more so than any other rock, so don’t assume you’d do any different if you were in their situation.

      • Flocklesscrow@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        lol, your counterpoint is hold to hold up Gandhi as the paragon of “Good?”

        People are the aggregate of their choices. Behavior dictates the outward expression of inner motives. Sure, there are vast gulfs of grey within the theoretical discussion of black and white, but ultimately each person’s legacy is simply a accumulation of the paths they have chosen, given the available options. To assume that everyone would make the same choices, when presented with the same opportunities, is simply not congruent to the patterns of human behavior that we see in reality, regardless of era or culture.

        • fakir@lemm.ee
          1·
          2 hours ago

          Behavior dictates the outward expression of inner motives.

          Correct, but you can’t control your motives as much as you like. Think as much as you want about this.

          To assume that everyone would make the same choices, when presented with the same opportunities, is simply not congruent to the patterns of human behavior that we see in reality, regardless of era or culture.

          Show me what patterns you’ve seen, but from my personal experience and reflection, this is incorrect. We can’t control the opportunities, and we can’t control our motives, hence we can’t control our behavior. You will do what you were gonna do.

          • Flocklesscrow@lemm.eeEnglish
            11·
            2 hours ago

            Your core argument is essentially just a rationalization of your own behavior.

            So my original analysis holds true: a remarkably bad hot take.