Smoke if ya got em! Mencius was an ancient Chinese philosopher. One of his views said that people commit crime because of poverty and insecurity about their survival. Fair enough right? Well, with this view, there are rulers who do nothing about poverty and insecurity, yet they punish the people for committing crimes. To Mencius, this is equivalent to entrapment. Basically, we have naturalist school of thought on crime verses the voluntarism school of thought on crime. Which one do you agree with more, and why?
What school was Mencius a part of? Either way, I agree, and also disagree. Most crimes are committed because of poverty, but I think some people, just love to do wrong.
Not really, I don't think. Even if you were living in poverty and feared for your survival, you could still choose not to commit crimes against anyone, even if it meant your death by starvation or something. Plus, those people, given that situation, could choose to go into the woods and fend for themselves that way in lieu of committing immoral acts just to be a part of society. Being poor isn't really a reason to do bad things. Poverty isn't a good thing, and something should be done about it, but hurting other people for selfish reasons isn't the answer.
live in the foods? no person is self sufficient. i suggest we start educating everyone at an early age at boarding schools.
Are we to answer it contemporary context or ancient chinese context? We are a little beyond the simplicity of this question today. People just steal stuff because they want it and it's easy to do. A community should provide for its citizens but today in the developed world true communities are hard to find. In our case we are so dependent on people we don't even know that it can hardly be called entrapment when a person is punished for stealing food that was imported from some other community in the first place.
In accord to our past post scuffles I mean no offense toward you or any other folk here. What I relate his view to mine is that, you pushed me to the edge its really not my fault man. When someone gets pushed to the edge, (forced to kill, steal, rape, mutilate, segregate, or elevate) There are influencing factors. The people you put yourself around can indefinitely entrap you.
What do you mean by crime? Because some laws that are written might as well be entrapment. Crimes which coerce us to follow suit according to the rest of society, and ignore our freedoms and property, are unjust and deserve to be broken. ( thus they are, on a daily basis) As for poverty causing crime im assuming you mean robberys, burglary, and violence. No doubt poor people commit these crimes more often. But that does not mean its not still wrong for a person to steal or commit violent crime. I grew up relatively poor for a large portion of my childhood and i never robbed someone, or acted violenty against somebody without just cause. People make a decision to commit crime, and being poo is no excuse for it. That being said, its your own responsibility to make sure you and yours are provided for. Not anybody elses.
Not all people have the self ability to avoid the people who entrap them. so send em to boarding school at an early age! we think alike bro, im digging your posts.
The feeling of the value of your life, plays a large part, when I tried to commit suicide, I couldn't bring myself to do it, why? Because I guess I do value my life to some degree. I'm sure people would go to the extreme just to live, even if they die while trying to live. Cause to a primal degree, what do we really have but this life?
I think that you can't classify all crime as having one, or even a few main causes, because every crime has a different motivation, some people get a thrill out of it, some people need things that they steal, some people like hurting other people, some people feel the need to rebel, some people commit crimes because they are activists and believe in a higher cause, I don't think you can just lump it into one category, or even say that one is more right than the other.
I think that society makes people want to steal goods and makes peoples' lives very money driven so a lot of people will do things, some illegal to acquire money. It happens on both ends of the spectrum: from the people stealing in small stores to politicians taking bribes for whatever reasons. If society makes the decision to be less concerned about money and material things, and starts sharing resources more, then people will mellow out about stealing.