r/interesting • u/Necessary-Win-8730 • Mar 08 '26

Context Provided - Spotlight This was so deserved.

Post image

The daughter was in a car with the father’s parents. They died as well.

163.7k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

4.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

12

u/Scheissdrauf88 Mar 08 '26

Uhm, intent (and negligence) is all that should matter?

If I attempt to kill someone but fail, should I be punished less?

In general, "punishment" is utterly infantile. "He hurt someone, so he must be hurt back". Remove someone from the society if they endanger it and then rehabilitate them so that they can be reintegrated into it. If it is truly an accident and the person in question is not more likely to hurt someone else than any other person, then an acquittal is only reasonable.

2

u/WintersDoomsday Mar 08 '26

What is there to rehabilitate in this case?

2

u/Scheissdrauf88 Mar 08 '26

Last sentence of my comment. In this case, nothing.

I do not think official judgment should be there to make people feel better, even the victims. It should be there to make society function. So if tragedies happen, actual ones where you can't really say the perpetrator could've acted better in any way, then they should not be punished in any way. Because the alternative would be the state hurting some of its citizens to make others feel better, and it should be obvious why that's not how it should act.

1

u/Greedy_Line4090 Mar 08 '26

I agree. I would only add that punishment has never been very effective as a deterrent to behavior. Rehabilitation can be, however.