I disagree, on the basis that retribution should simply not be a state penalogical goal at all. When you say someone "should be executed" you're conjuring up in

I disagree, on the basis that retribution should simply not be a state penalogical goal at all. When you say someone "should be executed" you're conjuring up innate feelings of the desire for vindictiveness. A modern state should not have that in consideration at all. Either they're so dangerous that no matter what you do or say to them they will never change their ways, or they can be rehabilitated. Neither of those posibilities justifies the kind of cruel treatments that plague America's prisons today, much less the death penalty.