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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Justice requires proportionality between offense and cons... — Carmelics
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    Supports→It is not that the debt can be paid

    Justice requires proportionality between offense and consequence; an offense against infinite holiness generates infinite moral weight (Jonathan Edwards, 'The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners').

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Moral weight of an offense scales with the status/worth of the offended party; infinite worth generates infinite offense.
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    • 2.Proportional justice requires consequences matching offense severity; failing this makes punishment arbitrary, not just.
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    • 3.Finite creatures cannot adequately compensate infinite holiness through finite suffering; only infinite consequence satisfies justice.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Proportionality assumes commensurability between offense and punishment; infinite punishment for finite acts may be logically incoherent.
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    • 2.Finite beings with limited cognitive capacity cannot intentionally commit infinite offenses; moral culpability requires proportional agency.
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    • 3.Retributive justice systems historically justify severe punishments through similar logic; the framework itself may be fundamentally flawed.
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    Key Terms

    Jonathan Edwards(as the source of this philosophical argument)
    An American theologian and philosopher from the 1700s who wrote extensively about God's justice, sin, and damnation from a Christian perspective.
    Justice(Utilitarian account of justice; contrasted with non-utility-based theories)
    A name for certain classes of moral rules which concern the essentials of human well-being more nearly than other rules for the guidance of life, carrying more absolute obligation.
    Proportionality(One of the standard conditions for Jus Ad Bellum)
    The requirement that the ends to be secured by going to war would warrant the costs and harms of waging it.
    damnation(theology/philosophy of religion)
    In religious belief, the state of being condemned to Hell or eternal punishment after death.
    holiness(Kant, Critique of Practical Reason 5:122)
    Complete conformity of a rational being's dispositions with the moral law.
    moral weight(as used in ethics)
    How serious or significant a wrong action is; how much it matters ethically.
    offense(Mill's distinction between harm and offense in On Liberty)
    A category of action distinct from genuine harm; does not satisfy the harm principle

    Connections

    2 topics

    Eternal Conscious Torment1 linkedProof of definition segments1 linked

    Related

    Finite beings with limited cognitive capacity cannot intentionally commit infini...Finite creatures cannot adequately compensate infinite holiness through finite s...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    It is not that the debt can be paid
    Moral weight of an offense scales with the status/worth of the offended party; i...
    +3 moreShow less
    Proportional justice requires consequences matching offense severity; failing th...Proportionality assumes commensurability between offense and punishment; infinit...Retributive justice systems historically justify severe punishments through simi...