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That feels kind of silly to me. If there were no state, and a rando came in and murdered a few people, then your gaggle of humans tracked them down and captured

That feels kind of silly to me. If there were no state, and a rando came in and murdered a few people, then your gaggle of humans tracked them down and captured them; killing them seems like a reasonable action. Does the existence of an organized state really feel like it changes the ethics of the situation? I don't think so. Does the existence of prisons change the ethics? I don't think so either. Further I'd argue that the state going against the will of the people is unethical and an abuse of power. Lastly, murder as the ultimate sin seems like a pretty western religious oriented perspective. I don't think it holds as much weight as it used to. The only compelling reason in my opinion that capital punishment is unethical is that our criminal justice system is so shit.

ginko 5y ago
This argument is so weird to me I don't even know where to start. Are you saying that because a murderous mob would just kill someone the laws in large organized states should also be based on mob justice?
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I'm not saying murderous mob. I'm saying group of humans. They don't need to be a mindless ravenous horde. They don't need to kill him on the spot. I'm saying this is probably the conclusion that rational humans would come to if an outsider arrived, killed people, and left. They should be killed, because, even ignoring themes of justice, he's a huge outlier threat. The entire pretext that killing him is morally outrageous is not a given at all. On some level if you're gonna play ball at the extreme ends of crime, then you should be willing to accept that you're gonna fucking die if society manages to stop you. It doesn't strike me as morally problematic to say "if you rape and murder child then we'll kill you", and then kill someone who rapes and murders a child. The problem, again, with both our justice system and mob justice that makes these not good is that they're easily manipulated, inaccurate, and emotionally swayed. And historically super racist if you care to bring that into the discussion.

ginko 5y ago

This argument is so weird to me I don't even know where to start. Are you saying that because a murderous mob would just kill someone the laws in large organized states should also be based on mob justice?

spywaregorilla 5y ago
I'm not saying murderous mob. I'm saying group of humans. They don't need to be a mindless ravenous horde. They don't need to kill him on the spot. I'm saying this is probably the conclusion that rational humans would come to if an outsider arrived, killed people, and left. They should be killed, because, even ignoring themes of justice, he's a huge outlier threat. The entire pretext that killing him is morally outrageous is not a given at all. On some level if you're gonna play ball at the extreme ends of crime, then you should be willing to accept that you're gonna fucking die if society manages to stop you. It doesn't strike me as morally problematic to say "if you rape and murder child then we'll kill you", and then kill someone who rapes and murders a child. The problem, again, with both our justice system and mob justice that makes these not good is that they're easily manipulated, inaccurate, and emotionally swayed. And historically super racist if you care to bring that into the discussion.