You definitely have some good ideas about an alternative system, but you also have some nonsense in that first paragraph.

Thank you, and yeah some of that post was a little shaky, I didn’t proofread it much.

The idea of someone deserving punishment is inherently dehumanizing. It’s not possible to punish someone unless they are beneath you. Thinking another human is lesser than you defines them as less than human.

I disagree that it’s not possible to punish someone unless they are beneath you. Firstly, a group could punish someone who is equal to any given member of the group. But mostly, I think your definition of dehumanization might be too strict, although your argument is consistent if I take that definition to be true. To consider someone punishable, they do generally need to be beneath you in some sort of power structure, but that doesn’t make them less than human. Is a child less human than a parent? A boss more human than an employee? A follower less human than a leader? You can easily advocate for universal human rights and general equality while creating punishments for those who violate the peace or cross moral lines. Someone who is punished isn’t given that punishment because they’re less than human, they’re given that punishment because they did something wrong-- a rule that applies to every human equally. To allow them to violate the social order and harm others without consequences would in fact put them higher on a hierarchy than everyone else, and by your logic dehumanize everyone else!

There are no “evil people” there are only evil actions. Every single person has the capacity for evil. We’re going to be stuck where we’re at until we collectively recognize that truth.

Everyone has the capacity for both good and evil, but some people consistently choose one over the other. I believe someone who consistently chooses to be evil can be usefully categorized as an “evil person”, even though they can change. And we should give them as much of an opportunity to change as we can. But if that doesn’t work, are we to allow them to continue to do evil in hopes that they’ll turn good eventually?

Hard lines of behavior? That’s just what laws are, like we currently have.

I meant on a more personal level, we should have less tolerance for behavior that’s unfair, deceptive, malicious, etc. Social enforcement is powerful but people are reluctant to do it (and understandably so).

Seriously though, “hard lines of behavior” is an extremely authoritarian phrase.

I try not to concern myself with what categories my personal beliefs fall into because I think that limits the way in which you can think about things. I wouldn’t categorize myself as an authoritarian but I’m sure I have some views that go towards that territory. I don’t consider a passing similarity to concepts used for bad purposes to be damning, though. If it’s bad in the context of my usage, it will be apparent without the need to compare it to existing systems of thought. That sounds a bit conceited but mostly it’s that I want to avoid arguing about beliefs that I don’t hold that are seen as related to the ones that I do hold in some way.