Ramblings

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~~Title:Redemption~~
<WRAP centeralign>Philosophy/Religion/\\
<fs xx-large>Redemption</fs></WRAP>

Depending on your specific definition, Redemption denotes the idea of clearing oneself of wrongdoing or the guilt of wrongdoing. "Salvagability" and "redeemability", ie. "redemption", are not philosophical terms, they're theistic and rely on theistic principles. Bad deeds don't just vanish from the earth or get neutralized. There is no ledger that keeps track of good and bad deeds. When we do something bad, all we can do is regret our actions and change for the better.

Redemption //can// be "turned" into a philosophical term by further defining it using philosophical ideas. For example, if you [[Consequentialism|consequentialistically]] define "irredeemable" as "this person will never be able to do more good in their life than they have done bad" (which are [[:value_judgement|value judgements]]) then you have a question of philosophical merit. However, even then it is hardly practical because

  - you cannot really determine a person to be irredeemable until they are definitively dead, because a person might just happen to save a passenger plane seconds before their death((or an equally great good, proportional to how bad the bad thing was)).
  - saving a passenger plane in their dying breaths doesn't mean very much on its own. If you got the opportunity to save a passenger plane from crashing, you probably would do that. Not because you're doing it for the the passengers or even because you value your own life, but because it's the prudent thing to do. In other words, doing a good thing doesn't mean you're a good person, or that you did it for good reasons.
  - Lastly, and this is the most insidious problem with this calculation, a person just might not get much of an opportunity to do good things. If you never get the opportunity to save someone from a burning building or help someone with some things, you're just shit out of luck((And this invites a conversation about, what would you call this, ethical relativism? Like, if you are 100% nice in what little opportunities everyday life gives you, that should count, yes?)).

This is why we, as people, should not really focus on what a person does, has done or will do, but about the person's state of mind: has the moral compass of the person who did a bad thing since improved (ie. are they saving the plane out of compassion/out of the goodness of their heart?)? A person who committed heinous murder might have had a broken moral compass but might realize later on and change - redemption. In this sense, redemption is nothing more than a progression from a broken moral compass to one that is healthy, and this can happen spontaneously at any time, even to people who have done some of the worst crimes imaginable. Whether this happens just seconds after the murder, 5 years into their prison sentence or on their death bed. Anyone's moral compass can at any time change for any reason.

Humans improving, "fixing" their moral compass is why the penal system is originally meant to focus strongly on rehabilitation((That's a [[penology]] term right there, and yes I know that prisons suck but it's not because of a flawed philosophy behind it, it's the capitalistic incentives coming before it.)). People should be imprisoned if they pose a threat to other people (amongst other reasons), but if their moral compass improves then even perpretrators of some of the worst crimes imaginable should not be imprisoned for any longer than necessary to satisfy the pillars of sentencing(([[https://kodlyons.ie/what-are-the-pillars-of-sentencing|Pillars of Sentencing]])). Every human deserves to live the best possible life they can possibly have; to say that perpetrators of serious crimes deserve less even if they have underwent major change and the pillars of sentencing are satisfied would be immoral in my eyes.


Ultimately, "salvage" and "redeem" (redemption) are all terms used by victims (those who have been wronged) to describe their (in-)ability to forgive. Their (in-)ability to relinquish resentment or some other form of morally inflected anger(([[https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2025/entries/forgiveness/#:~:text=many%20contemporary%20philosophers%20argue%20that%20the%20resumption%20of%20relationships%20disrupted%20by%20wrongdoing%20often%20requires%20a%20moral%20reassessment%20of%20the%20wrongdoer%20by%20the%20victim%2C%20and%20that%20such%20a%20reassessment%20involves%20relinquishing%20resentment%20or%20some%20other%20form%20of%20morally%20inflected%20anger|Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Forgiveness]], Winter 2025 Version)). When we talk about someone who is irredeemable, the easiest definition after all is still "I personally will never be able to forgive that person". But, this is inherently subjective (and will never not be subjective) and cannot be generalized into "this person is irredeemable in general". Any person can fix their moral compass.