Jayson_Virissimo comments on Rationality & Criminal Law: Some Questions - Less Wrong

14 Post author: simplicio 20 June 2010 07:42AM

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Comment author: Doll_Hairs 20 June 2010 01:19:06PM 3 points [-]

Fun crazy ideas that come to mind:

1) Punishments get scaled by the judged likelihood of guilt, i.e. judge says there's a 65% chance Bill is the killer, Bill gets 65% of the punishment.

2) All punishments become monetary fines varying by judged negative utility, i.e. Judge says murdering Joe was worth x negative utilons, Bill is fined to outweigh damage done with good.

Potential problems/thoughts: Bankruptcy? Lower bound on fines/guilt likelihood? Diminishing percieved utility of money/punishment in large amounts? How to measure negative utility of crime, positive utility of fine? How much should fine weigh compared to crime? Some/all money to victims/government/charity? Problems reaching accurate judgments? Inequality of man measured in punishment cause some complex problem? Lack of appearance of justice? Other complex effects on society?

Add your own for upvotes.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 22 June 2010 02:48:38AM *  0 points [-]

Is there an operational difference between

(1) the revealed preference of the judge for one party over the other party

and

(2) the judge performing a utility maximizing operation whereby he weighs the negative utility of one party against the positive utility of another party?

Why do we keep assuming that we can add and subtract interpersonal utility, as if we can measure them with the same "ruler"?