3 ms·

Cute, but fallacious. To unpack, you seem to be arguing that since 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent, then about 1 in 25 people are wrongly convicte

by mturmon 10y ago

Cute, but fallacious. To unpack, you seem to be arguing that since 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent, then about 1 in 25 people are wrongly convicted, and PG is saying that ratio is unacceptable. I think your probabilistic reasoning is a bit off (by confusing P(I|DS) with P(DS|I)). But the actual issue is about the punishment, not the guilty/innocent determination. So in other words, PG doesn't seem to be making any claim about the size of the group of "n guilty men" -- but rather about the way they can be punished.

ikeboy 10y ago
Saying we shouldn't punish anyone with the death penalty, because 1 in 25 of them will be innocent, is making a claim about n guilty men. From my link: >Commandments for man can be found in the book of Exodus, by the same Author(s), where God rejects the tradeoff between convicting the guilty and convicting the innocent, and simply commands, "the innocent and righteous slay thou not." 32 One can take this to imply an infinite value of n, at least in capital cases. The twelfth-century Judeo-Spanish legal theorist Moses Maimonides, however, interpreted the commandment of Exodus as implying a value of n = 1000 for execution. 33 He refers to it as the "290th Negative Commandment" and argues that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice. Hence the Exalted One has shut this door" 34 against the use of presumptive evidence, for "it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death once in a way." 35 There may be multiple ns required, one for conviction and one for punishment, but the underlying structure is the same. >To unpack, you seem to be arguing that since 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent, then about 1 in 25 people are wrongly convicted, and PG is saying that ratio is unacceptable. I think your probabilistic reasoning is a bit off (by confusing P(I|DS) with P(DS|I)). I'm not sure what you mean. If 25 people are sentenced to death, and one of them is innocent, then PG is arguing we should let 24 guilty men escape death rather than allowing 1 innocent man to be killed. I guess maybe I should have said n>24, then, but the overall point remains.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  No, it doesn't. They won't escape death, they'll be dead sooner or later anyway. It is just that society will not have lowered itself to their level in response and will have an opportunity to figure out which of those people was in fact innocent. It's all fun and games until you are that innocent person.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    Don't be pedantic, you know I meant "escape the death penalty". Are you arguing for n=infinity?
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Well, it all depends on how many people you intend to kill, it's all about the ratio npeopleinnocent/npeopleguilty after all. The problem is that no matter how small the ratio gets in absolute terms there is only the possibility of killing an innocent person or not killing an innocent person. Even if you assume that everybody is guilty I'd still make the argument that people can genuinely change and that no matter what you do you will not be bringing anybody back that's already dead. Think of still having the death penalty as a black mark on a civilization. As a nice example have a look at the Philippines and try to work out for yourself if you feel that even if society will be better afterwards it is worth it to kill this many people, many of them in serious trouble already. The extreme example of that is a society that simply kills everybody that is convicted of a crime, after all, why not, it makes society better, right? Or does it?
      - ikeboy 10y ago
        >Even if you assume that everybody is guilty I'd still make the argument that people can genuinely change and that no matter what you do you will not be bringing anybody back that's already dead. That may be (and I agree with it), but I'm critiquing PG's argument (in particular his assertion that it's obvious), not his conclusion. >The extreme example of that is a society that simply kills everybody that is convicted of a crime, after all, why not, it makes society better, right? Or does it? You need different punishments for different crimes, or someone who commits a small crime has no more deterrence against big crimes. I'm not sure what point you're making with this.

by mturmon 10y ago

ikeboy 10y ago

Saying we shouldn't punish anyone with the death penalty, because 1 in 25 of them will be innocent, is making a claim about n guilty men. From my link: >Commandments for man can be found in the book of Exodus, by the same Author(s), where God rejects the tradeoff between convicting the guilty and convicting the innocent, and simply commands, "the innocent and righteous slay thou not." 32 One can take this to imply an infinite value of n, at least in capital cases. The twelfth-century Judeo-Spanish legal theorist Moses Maimonides, however, interpreted the commandment of Exodus as implying a value of n = 1000 for execution. 33 He refers to it as the "290th Negative Commandment" and argues that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice. Hence the Exalted One has shut this door" 34 against the use of presumptive evidence, for "it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death once in a way." 35 There may be multiple ns required, one for conviction and one for punishment, but the underlying structure is the same. >To unpack, you seem to be arguing that since 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent, then about 1 in 25 people are wrongly convicted, and PG is saying that ratio is unacceptable. I think your probabilistic reasoning is a bit off (by confusing P(I|DS) with P(DS|I)). I'm not sure what you mean. If 25 people are sentenced to death, and one of them is innocent, then PG is arguing we should let 24 guilty men escape death rather than allowing 1 innocent man to be killed. I guess maybe I should have said n>24, then, but the overall point remains.

jacquesm 10y ago
No, it doesn't. They won't escape death, they'll be dead sooner or later anyway. It is just that society will not have lowered itself to their level in response and will have an opportunity to figure out which of those people was in fact innocent. It's all fun and games until you are that innocent person.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  Don't be pedantic, you know I meant "escape the death penalty". Are you arguing for n=infinity?
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Well, it all depends on how many people you intend to kill, it's all about the ratio npeopleinnocent/npeopleguilty after all. The problem is that no matter how small the ratio gets in absolute terms there is only the possibility of killing an innocent person or not killing an innocent person. Even if you assume that everybody is guilty I'd still make the argument that people can genuinely change and that no matter what you do you will not be bringing anybody back that's already dead. Think of still having the death penalty as a black mark on a civilization. As a nice example have a look at the Philippines and try to work out for yourself if you feel that even if society will be better afterwards it is worth it to kill this many people, many of them in serious trouble already. The extreme example of that is a society that simply kills everybody that is convicted of a crime, after all, why not, it makes society better, right? Or does it?
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      >Even if you assume that everybody is guilty I'd still make the argument that people can genuinely change and that no matter what you do you will not be bringing anybody back that's already dead. That may be (and I agree with it), but I'm critiquing PG's argument (in particular his assertion that it's obvious), not his conclusion. >The extreme example of that is a society that simply kills everybody that is convicted of a crime, after all, why not, it makes society better, right? Or does it? You need different punishments for different crimes, or someone who commits a small crime has no more deterrence against big crimes. I'm not sure what point you're making with this.