9 ms·

How can a society which calls itself "civilized" keep the death penalty? There's so much deeply disturbingly wrong with it that I don't even.

by benevol 10y ago

coldtea 10y ago
>How can a society which calls itself "civilized" keep the death penalty? Well, what you say doesn't necessarily has to match what you are. Hypocrisy is a thing -- and modern society is full of it.
onevoice 10y ago
How can a society which calls itself "civilized" allow murderers to stay alive for so long? There's so much deeply disturbingly wrong with it that I don't even.
- nxzero 10y ago
  Mistakes happen, killing people for killing just sends the message that killing is a solution. There is a long list of "murders" that were found not guilty after being executed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution Beyond that, some confessed murders go on to contribute to society, for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs Feel free to respond with your reasonings, though think in the end they'll fail to be reasonable.
  - onevoice 10y ago
    I suppose I should have clarified, my point was mostly that this kind of message isn't really an argument for anything. While it may look like it has more substance, Its simply saying "I don't like this". So it does not really contribute too much for the discussion, other than appealing to the emotions of the reader. Personally I am not particularly for or against capital punishment, because I don't think the subject is researched well enough. And seeing as this is morally a problematic subject with regards to human rights ETC. I don't really have too many hopes it would ever be properly studied.
dforrestwilson1 10y ago
We kill less than 100 people per year via execution. Not so bad compared to drone strikes: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron... The really horrifying thing to me is that drone strikes aren't even a serious topic this election cycle. HRC is in favor for more. Trump wants to commit war crimes. Perhaps I am biased because I helped to do a lot of them. In the end it comes down to the same thing, judging the value of other people's lives, or perhaps more callously never thinking about their lives at all.
- jokoon 10y ago
  Although I agree killing people is wrong, drones strikes are not killing american citizens, it is in the context of an armed, foreign conflict.
  - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
    American lives are worth more then? Who are we fighting exactly?
    - marksweston 10y ago
      To the American government, yes of course they are. The American government isn't supposed to be some even-handed dispenser of global justice; its job is to protect American citizens and their interests.
      - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
        I have trouble squaring this with the DNC narrative that we are stronger together and that immigration is good. How can they claim to be the party of humanism and also advocate for more drone strikes and overseas conflict?
      - jiiam 10y ago
        > its job is to protect American citizens and their interests Are you implying that you can dispense with human rights when it comes to foreign civilians? I am also very frightened by the fact that you are, apparently, condoning it to "protect [American citizens] interests". I hope that interests means safety here.
bpodgursky 10y ago
IMO capital punishment is much more honest than life-without-parole. If you're going to throw someone in prison for the rest of their life, be honest about it and admit you are taking their life. Abolishing capital punishment to "fix" criminal justice is just closing your eyes and pretending to not see the issue.
- lawpoop 10y ago
  If someone is wrongly imprisoned for life, they have a chance of getting out. If someone is wrongly executed, there is no way to fix that.
  - bpodgursky 10y ago
    While that's true, the vast majority of people who are released on new evidence BECAUSE of the many appeals you get before execution. If those people hadn't been on death row, they'd still be rotting in prison. If you give people the option of throwing someone in prison and forgetting about them, or forcing them to actually decide on their guilt, they will always choose the former. If I was wrongly convicted, I would much, much, much rather be on death row than in for life-without-parole.
    - lawpoop 10y ago
      That's a critique of the current state of our legal system, not whether the death penalty is just in the case of a wrongly convicted innocent person.
      - bpodgursky 10y ago
        Let me know when you've created an ideal criminal legal justice system. Fix the problems with wrongful conviction, lack of appeals, etc etc, and we can come back and abolish capital punishment. But right now, it's naiive to advocate for abolishing capital punishment, because in the absence of other reforms, it simply makes the current system worse.
kbd 10y ago
Disappointing to find a "no true Scotsman" fallacy as the top comment.
- klausjensen 10y ago
  ..For those that did not know, what that means (such as myself): No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim ("no Scotsman would do such a thing"), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing"; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- maggit 10y ago
  This is not an example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. It is instead an overt accusation that the USA is acting uncivilized with regards to this one issue, and should know better because they are otherwise civilized. If it were an example of the mentioned fallacy, the poster would have to imply that the USA is not to be considered truly civilized. But this is not what the comment says.
  - kbd 10y ago
    It's implying, without argument, that having the death penalty somehow makes a country "uncivilized". That still counts as "no true Scotsman". "No civilized country..." etc. I get what you're saying. You're saying the poster isn't implying that the US is not civilized, but rather that given that it is civilized, it should know better. It still amounts to the same thing. I think you're saying it's not a "no true Scotsman" because instead of a "no true Scotsman would" it's "no true Scotsman should"? But the essence of the fallacy is that it, without argument, applies an attribute (in this case, "no death penalty") to a word ("civilized") and argues based on that unargued assertion that it isn't, or isn't acting like, that word (a Scotsman, or civilized). Edit: I'll put it this way. Here's the OP: "How can a society which calls itself "civilized" do X?" Similar to "How can a man call himself a Scotsman if he does X?". It's implying, without argument, that X is un-Scotsman-like. It's still the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, with a different sentence structure.
dsacco 10y ago
The society utilizes a different definition of the word "civilized" than you do. "The death penalty is bad" is not an a priori conclusion; unless you work it directly into the definition, it doesn't necessarily contradict "civilized society."
aaron-lebo 10y ago
Why do you think Charles Manson should remain alive? That's an individual who has gone out of their way to take the lives of multiple innocent people. Why does he get to keep what he took from others? Why do the families of the victims have to suffer him? It's not even a question of innocence. If Manson was in any way sane, he'd realize that his actions were that of a monster. What is there to rehabilitate? If he's sane, how is living in a cell for decades not horrific punishment? A quick death would be a lot easier for everyone involved. The death penalty is a harsh, horrible penalty. But everyone dies. I don't see how removing literal mass murderers is a detriment to society, unless we simply don't like the reality of it. What's the alternative? Do we prefer situations like like Breivik? In November 2012, Breivik wrote a 27-page letter of complaint to the prison authorities about the security restrictions he was being held under, claiming that the prison director personally wanted to punish him. Among his complaints were that his cell is not adequately heated and he has to wear three layers of clothing to stay warm, guards interfere with his strictly-planned daily schedule, his cell is poorly decorated and has no view, his reading lamp is inadequate, guards supervise him while he is brushing his teeth and shaving and put indirect mental pressure on him to finish quickly by tapping their feet while waiting, he is "not having candy" and he is served cold coffee, and he is strip-searched daily, sometimes by female guards. Authorities only lifted one minor restriction against Breivik; his rubber safety pen, which he described as an "almost indescribable manifestation of sadism," was replaced with an ordinary pen.[137] In letters to foreign media outlets he told about his demands (in 2013) to prison authorities "including easier communication with the outside world and a PlayStation 3 to replace the current PlayStation 2, because it offers more suitable games"; media reported in 2014 about demands that he would starve himself to death if refused "access to a sofa and a bigger gym"; furthermore he said that "Other inmates have access to adult games while I only have the right to play less interesting kids’ games. One example is ‘Rayman Revolution,’ a game aimed at 3-year-olds," Breivik complained to prison officials."[138][139] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
- tim333 10y ago
  He should remain alive because it's simpler to have a general rule not to kill people. Once you start doing executions you get a bunch of innocent people killed too in practice.
lhnz 10y ago
Is a life spent imprisoned within a cell a more civilized punishment?
- icc97 10y ago
  Reversible is the important bit.
brownbat 10y ago
A good friend of mine teaches philosophy and ethics and supports the death penalty. I'm a former prosecutor* who opposes it, but he's convinced me that people can make reasonable arguments on both sides. I can dispassionately list some of the arguments in favor if you seriously want to know what they are, to understand the other perspective. The arguments on both sides generally fall into three areas, utilitarian, normative, and pragmatic. Utilitarian arguments in favor of the death penalty claim that there's a deterrent for future crimes, that essentially society must choose between the death of a murderer or the death of future victims. Responses to this argument typically question the effectiveness of deterrence. Causation here is hotly debated, there are studies on both sides, and it strikes me as generally unsettled (and likely unknowable). The normative arguments are harder to understand, because most people today instinctively gravitate towards liberal utilitarianism. Normative supporters of the death penalty find it grossly immoral to suggest that we should allow some extreme criminals, say someone who serially tortures, rapes, and murders children, the future enjoyment of life's pleasures. Take an extreme. Would it be just to set aside a special palace of pleasures for such a criminal, where they can live out their days enjoying everything they like (except for torturing children to death)? No, at least for most people, that would seem odd. (A very strict hedonic utilitarian might argue that we should provide pleasure palaces to serial killers, but such a view strongly clashes with our intuitions.) Extrapolating, should we allow heinous criminals to enjoy the feeling of the rising sun on spring days and the smell of freshly cut grass outside the prison yards? Should we allow them to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow prisoners they meet? Why does lavishing pleasures on them in a special palace seem so morally odd and allowing these continued pleasures of life seem ok? For the normative supporter of the death penalty, it's not. After a certain line has been crossed, certain categories of especially heinous murders, the state has an obligation to ensure the criminal no longer enjoys life's pleasures. Another normative argument is along the lines of the "worst crimes deserve the worst punishment." When you study crime for a while, it becomes pretty apparent that some crimes are not just more intense than others, some are so heinous they belong in an entirely separate class. It seems wrong to punish them in the same way that we punish theft or assault but just for a longer time, because the spectrum of inhumanity gets so extreme. They are different in kind not just in degree, and the punishment should be different in kind as well. Pragmatic considerations arise for a variety of reasons. There are arguments about the cost of housing a prisoner for an entire life. Cost may seem a base concern, but if the system simply ignores cost, then it will be able to process fewer criminals, which means some serial criminals go free. (Death penalty skeptics will question the cost figures, noting that the appeals process is generally lengthy and expensive.) Another consideration is the impact on victim survivors of heinous crimes, who may know that the person who murdered their family and tried to kill them would like to escape and finish the job. If we are unable to securely hold criminals who might break free and commit more crimes that raises other pragmatic concerns. Call it the Batman rule. Even though I oppose the death penalty, I think after the Joker escapes a few times to kill more civilians, after that Batman starts to become responsible for everyone the Joker kills. Comics provide a straw hypothetical, but you don't have to go too far before drug kingpins like El Chapo are regularly escaping or buying their way out of prisons. We don't have escapees too often in the US, but a variation on this, criminals can commit crimes while locked up. If criminals repeatedly violently attack other criminals while locked up, and if we have exhausted all other measures of control, then at a certain point we cannot either house them or let them free while ensuring the safety of others. Since the state has a duty to protect innocents, in those cases I feel like the arguments get stronger. For me, the arguments against the death penalty that I find most compelling come from understanding the impact of the process on living victims, who have to repeatedly attend appeals. They come from biases that emerge in the system (primarily against the indigent and mentally ill). I worry about misfires in the justice system that could lead to the execution of innocents. I feel like we can accomplish similar societal goals through incarceration, and if you can choose between two options where one has less killing, I think that option is generally superior. I also worry about whether any state should have the authority to take the lives of its citizens, bit of a libertarian critique. I think there are some very bad reasons to support and some very bad reasons to oppose the death penalty that each get used quite a lot. I get the impression most people have a strong gut reaction on one side or the other and leave it at that, never really learning about the other side. * Note: I never tried a case that would have involved a question of the death penalty, though, for what it's worth.
Unbeliever69 10y ago
We have a long way to go as a country and as a world. I always think about how barbaric we would look to some spacefaring race that may one day visit our planet. As it stands right now, they might very well just pave over earth for an intergalactic highway.
venomsnake 10y ago
Civilization is mostly access to hot water, order and sanitation. And internet. Nothing precludes even torturous execution (or even mass ones) from being civilized. Human life is not that valuable no matter what we believe currently. We have 7000000000 - you could cull the herd with a billion or two and we will recoup in less than a generation. I am not a supporter of death penalty too, but labeling everything outside of the current zeitgeist as inconceivable really hurts the cause.
- orly_bookz 10y ago
  That little "and internet" presupposes such a mountainous pile of infrastructure beneath it to be working that you might as well list out hundreds of things before it. You can't just throw it in there like it's an easy thing.
yAnonymous 10y ago
Some people undoubtedly deserve it and it would be better than having society pay to keep them alive. The problem is that the death penalty can't be reversed or the person compensated if someone is found to have been wrongly convicted.

How can a society which calls itself "civilized" keep the death penalty? There's so much deeply disturbingly wrong with it that I don't even.

by benevol 10y ago

How can a society which calls itself "civilized" keep the death penalty? There's so much deeply disturbingly wrong with it that I don't even.

coldtea 10y ago

>How can a society which calls itself "civilized" keep the death penalty? Well, what you say doesn't necessarily has to match what you are. Hypocrisy is a thing -- and modern society is full of it.

onevoice 10y ago

How can a society which calls itself "civilized" allow murderers to stay alive for so long? There's so much deeply disturbingly wrong with it that I don't even.

nxzero 10y ago
Mistakes happen, killing people for killing just sends the message that killing is a solution. There is a long list of "murders" that were found not guilty after being executed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution Beyond that, some confessed murders go on to contribute to society, for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs Feel free to respond with your reasonings, though think in the end they'll fail to be reasonable.
- onevoice 10y ago
  I suppose I should have clarified, my point was mostly that this kind of message isn't really an argument for anything. While it may look like it has more substance, Its simply saying "I don't like this". So it does not really contribute too much for the discussion, other than appealing to the emotions of the reader. Personally I am not particularly for or against capital punishment, because I don't think the subject is researched well enough. And seeing as this is morally a problematic subject with regards to human rights ETC. I don't really have too many hopes it would ever be properly studied.

dforrestwilson1 10y ago

We kill less than 100 people per year via execution. Not so bad compared to drone strikes: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron... The really horrifying thing to me is that drone strikes aren't even a serious topic this election cycle. HRC is in favor for more. Trump wants to commit war crimes. Perhaps I am biased because I helped to do a lot of them. In the end it comes down to the same thing, judging the value of other people's lives, or perhaps more callously never thinking about their lives at all.

jokoon 10y ago
Although I agree killing people is wrong, drones strikes are not killing american citizens, it is in the context of an armed, foreign conflict.
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  American lives are worth more then? Who are we fighting exactly?
  - marksweston 10y ago
    To the American government, yes of course they are. The American government isn't supposed to be some even-handed dispenser of global justice; its job is to protect American citizens and their interests.
    - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
      I have trouble squaring this with the DNC narrative that we are stronger together and that immigration is good. How can they claim to be the party of humanism and also advocate for more drone strikes and overseas conflict?
    - jiiam 10y ago
      > its job is to protect American citizens and their interests Are you implying that you can dispense with human rights when it comes to foreign civilians? I am also very frightened by the fact that you are, apparently, condoning it to "protect [American citizens] interests". I hope that interests means safety here.

bpodgursky 10y ago

IMO capital punishment is much more honest than life-without-parole. If you're going to throw someone in prison for the rest of their life, be honest about it and admit you are taking their life. Abolishing capital punishment to "fix" criminal justice is just closing your eyes and pretending to not see the issue.

lawpoop 10y ago
If someone is wrongly imprisoned for life, they have a chance of getting out. If someone is wrongly executed, there is no way to fix that.
- bpodgursky 10y ago
  While that's true, the vast majority of people who are released on new evidence BECAUSE of the many appeals you get before execution. If those people hadn't been on death row, they'd still be rotting in prison. If you give people the option of throwing someone in prison and forgetting about them, or forcing them to actually decide on their guilt, they will always choose the former. If I was wrongly convicted, I would much, much, much rather be on death row than in for life-without-parole.
  - lawpoop 10y ago
    That's a critique of the current state of our legal system, not whether the death penalty is just in the case of a wrongly convicted innocent person.
    - bpodgursky 10y ago
      Let me know when you've created an ideal criminal legal justice system. Fix the problems with wrongful conviction, lack of appeals, etc etc, and we can come back and abolish capital punishment. But right now, it's naiive to advocate for abolishing capital punishment, because in the absence of other reforms, it simply makes the current system worse.

kbd 10y ago

Disappointing to find a "no true Scotsman" fallacy as the top comment.

klausjensen 10y ago
..For those that did not know, what that means (such as myself): No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim ("no Scotsman would do such a thing"), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing"; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
maggit 10y ago
This is not an example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. It is instead an overt accusation that the USA is acting uncivilized with regards to this one issue, and should know better because they are otherwise civilized. If it were an example of the mentioned fallacy, the poster would have to imply that the USA is not to be considered truly civilized. But this is not what the comment says.
- kbd 10y ago
  It's implying, without argument, that having the death penalty somehow makes a country "uncivilized". That still counts as "no true Scotsman". "No civilized country..." etc. I get what you're saying. You're saying the poster isn't implying that the US is not civilized, but rather that given that it is civilized, it should know better. It still amounts to the same thing. I think you're saying it's not a "no true Scotsman" because instead of a "no true Scotsman would" it's "no true Scotsman should"? But the essence of the fallacy is that it, without argument, applies an attribute (in this case, "no death penalty") to a word ("civilized") and argues based on that unargued assertion that it isn't, or isn't acting like, that word (a Scotsman, or civilized). Edit: I'll put it this way. Here's the OP: "How can a society which calls itself "civilized" do X?" Similar to "How can a man call himself a Scotsman if he does X?". It's implying, without argument, that X is un-Scotsman-like. It's still the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, with a different sentence structure.

dsacco 10y ago

The society utilizes a different definition of the word "civilized" than you do. "The death penalty is bad" is not an a priori conclusion; unless you work it directly into the definition, it doesn't necessarily contradict "civilized society."

aaron-lebo 10y ago

Why do you think Charles Manson should remain alive? That's an individual who has gone out of their way to take the lives of multiple innocent people. Why does he get to keep what he took from others? Why do the families of the victims have to suffer him? It's not even a question of innocence. If Manson was in any way sane, he'd realize that his actions were that of a monster. What is there to rehabilitate? If he's sane, how is living in a cell for decades not horrific punishment? A quick death would be a lot easier for everyone involved. The death penalty is a harsh, horrible penalty. But everyone dies. I don't see how removing literal mass murderers is a detriment to society, unless we simply don't like the reality of it. What's the alternative? Do we prefer situations like like Breivik? In November 2012, Breivik wrote a 27-page letter of complaint to the prison authorities about the security restrictions he was being held under, claiming that the prison director personally wanted to punish him. Among his complaints were that his cell is not adequately heated and he has to wear three layers of clothing to stay warm, guards interfere with his strictly-planned daily schedule, his cell is poorly decorated and has no view, his reading lamp is inadequate, guards supervise him while he is brushing his teeth and shaving and put indirect mental pressure on him to finish quickly by tapping their feet while waiting, he is "not having candy" and he is served cold coffee, and he is strip-searched daily, sometimes by female guards. Authorities only lifted one minor restriction against Breivik; his rubber safety pen, which he described as an "almost indescribable manifestation of sadism," was replaced with an ordinary pen.[137] In letters to foreign media outlets he told about his demands (in 2013) to prison authorities "including easier communication with the outside world and a PlayStation 3 to replace the current PlayStation 2, because it offers more suitable games"; media reported in 2014 about demands that he would starve himself to death if refused "access to a sofa and a bigger gym"; furthermore he said that "Other inmates have access to adult games while I only have the right to play less interesting kids’ games. One example is ‘Rayman Revolution,’ a game aimed at 3-year-olds," Breivik complained to prison officials."[138][139] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik

tim333 10y ago
He should remain alive because it's simpler to have a general rule not to kill people. Once you start doing executions you get a bunch of innocent people killed too in practice.

lhnz 10y ago

Is a life spent imprisoned within a cell a more civilized punishment?

icc97 10y ago
Reversible is the important bit.

brownbat 10y ago

A good friend of mine teaches philosophy and ethics and supports the death penalty. I'm a former prosecutor* who opposes it, but he's convinced me that people can make reasonable arguments on both sides. I can dispassionately list some of the arguments in favor if you seriously want to know what they are, to understand the other perspective. The arguments on both sides generally fall into three areas, utilitarian, normative, and pragmatic. Utilitarian arguments in favor of the death penalty claim that there's a deterrent for future crimes, that essentially society must choose between the death of a murderer or the death of future victims. Responses to this argument typically question the effectiveness of deterrence. Causation here is hotly debated, there are studies on both sides, and it strikes me as generally unsettled (and likely unknowable). The normative arguments are harder to understand, because most people today instinctively gravitate towards liberal utilitarianism. Normative supporters of the death penalty find it grossly immoral to suggest that we should allow some extreme criminals, say someone who serially tortures, rapes, and murders children, the future enjoyment of life's pleasures. Take an extreme. Would it be just to set aside a special palace of pleasures for such a criminal, where they can live out their days enjoying everything they like (except for torturing children to death)? No, at least for most people, that would seem odd. (A very strict hedonic utilitarian might argue that we should provide pleasure palaces to serial killers, but such a view strongly clashes with our intuitions.) Extrapolating, should we allow heinous criminals to enjoy the feeling of the rising sun on spring days and the smell of freshly cut grass outside the prison yards? Should we allow them to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow prisoners they meet? Why does lavishing pleasures on them in a special palace seem so morally odd and allowing these continued pleasures of life seem ok? For the normative supporter of the death penalty, it's not. After a certain line has been crossed, certain categories of especially heinous murders, the state has an obligation to ensure the criminal no longer enjoys life's pleasures. Another normative argument is along the lines of the "worst crimes deserve the worst punishment." When you study crime for a while, it becomes pretty apparent that some crimes are not just more intense than others, some are so heinous they belong in an entirely separate class. It seems wrong to punish them in the same way that we punish theft or assault but just for a longer time, because the spectrum of inhumanity gets so extreme. They are different in kind not just in degree, and the punishment should be different in kind as well. Pragmatic considerations arise for a variety of reasons. There are arguments about the cost of housing a prisoner for an entire life. Cost may seem a base concern, but if the system simply ignores cost, then it will be able to process fewer criminals, which means some serial criminals go free. (Death penalty skeptics will question the cost figures, noting that the appeals process is generally lengthy and expensive.) Another consideration is the impact on victim survivors of heinous crimes, who may know that the person who murdered their family and tried to kill them would like to escape and finish the job. If we are unable to securely hold criminals who might break free and commit more crimes that raises other pragmatic concerns. Call it the Batman rule. Even though I oppose the death penalty, I think after the Joker escapes a few times to kill more civilians, after that Batman starts to become responsible for everyone the Joker kills. Comics provide a straw hypothetical, but you don't have to go too far before drug kingpins like El Chapo are regularly escaping or buying their way out of prisons. We don't have escapees too often in the US, but a variation on this, criminals can commit crimes while locked up. If criminals repeatedly violently attack other criminals while locked up, and if we have exhausted all other measures of control, then at a certain point we cannot either house them or let them free while ensuring the safety of others. Since the state has a duty to protect innocents, in those cases I feel like the arguments get stronger. For me, the arguments against the death penalty that I find most compelling come from understanding the impact of the process on living victims, who have to repeatedly attend appeals. They come from biases that emerge in the system (primarily against the indigent and mentally ill). I worry about misfires in the justice system that could lead to the execution of innocents. I feel like we can accomplish similar societal goals through incarceration, and if you can choose between two options where one has less killing, I think that option is generally superior. I also worry about whether any state should have the authority to take the lives of its citizens, bit of a libertarian critique. I think there are some very bad reasons to support and some very bad reasons to oppose the death penalty that each get used quite a lot. I get the impression most people have a strong gut reaction on one side or the other and leave it at that, never really learning about the other side. * Note: I never tried a case that would have involved a question of the death penalty, though, for what it's worth.

Unbeliever69 10y ago

We have a long way to go as a country and as a world. I always think about how barbaric we would look to some spacefaring race that may one day visit our planet. As it stands right now, they might very well just pave over earth for an intergalactic highway.

venomsnake 10y ago

Civilization is mostly access to hot water, order and sanitation. And internet. Nothing precludes even torturous execution (or even mass ones) from being civilized. Human life is not that valuable no matter what we believe currently. We have 7000000000 - you could cull the herd with a billion or two and we will recoup in less than a generation. I am not a supporter of death penalty too, but labeling everything outside of the current zeitgeist as inconceivable really hurts the cause.

orly_bookz 10y ago
That little "and internet" presupposes such a mountainous pile of infrastructure beneath it to be working that you might as well list out hundreds of things before it. You can't just throw it in there like it's an easy thing.

yAnonymous 10y ago

Some people undoubtedly deserve it and it would be better than having society pay to keep them alive. The problem is that the death penalty can't be reversed or the person compensated if someone is found to have been wrongly convicted.