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Guilt or innocence is irrellevant to the discussion about whether the death penalty is justified though, for several reasons; it's binary thinking (there's a ri

Guilt or innocence is irrellevant to the discussion about whether the death penalty is justified though, for several reasons; it's binary thinking (there's a right and a wrong, there's good and bad people); it's dehumanizing (a bad person is forever bad and will forever be a burden to society); it's reductionist (a prisoner unit costs X per year at no benefit to society), etc. I don't know enough philosophy to list everything wrong with this premise. Think hard about why someone commits a crime. What is their background, their circustances, and what would have prevented it from happenign. Then think about what you think the purpose is of a sentencing? Is it for revenge, revalidation, setting an example, or removing undesireables from society (temporarily, indefinitely, or permanently)?

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
> Think hard about why someone commits a crime. What is their background, their circustances, and what would have prevented it from happenign. I think that the kind of crimes which lead to a death sentence happen because the perpetrator is a bad person who likes to hurt others. There's no "background" or "circumstances" that would make you break into a woman's house and stab her to death - to do such a thing, you have to either not know or not care that it's wrong. That doesn't by itself prove that the death penalty is right, or even that people who commit these kind of murders can never be rehabilitated. But it's really disturbing to me how often people whitewash the specific crimes death row inmates are accused of, as though we're all a couple missed paychecks away from randomly murdering people.