Don't Be Cruel: Cruelty, Complicity, Self-Knowledge, and Growth

(Excerpt) The papers in this symposium, and the larger body of scholarship to which this symposium is a contribution, ask us to attend to the often brutal and inhumane conditions in American jails and prisons. But why should we do that? Why should we confront the suffering of the incarcerated? Why should we ask ourselves whether that suffering is unjust, unnecessary, or even unconstitutional? The main reason, of course, is that we want to remedy those injustices. We care about the suffering of our fellow human beings, and people do not cease to be our fellow human beings merely because they have been incarcerated, nor because they have committed crimes for which they have been incarcerated. That is, or certainly should be, sufficient reason to care about the rights of the incarcerated. But I would like here to add another reason. Cruelty diminishes those who are cruel.