# Ethics of capital punishment **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2004, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797 "2004-06-11T11:47:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/21 "2004-06-12T22:52:43Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > Is that so? Care to provide a cite? [http://hcs.harvard.edu/~amnesty/articles/injec.html](http://hcs.harvard.edu/~amnesty/articles/injec.html) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/22 "2004-06-12T22:53:59Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > For Petes sake, you are _killing_ them. Just contemplate that sentence. Thoroughly. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/23 "2004-06-13T10:37:06Z")
> [@GLWasteful](#): > > I’m not sure that I’m following your line of reasoning, here. Are you saying that nobody murders anyobody else in Singapore and/or the Middle East? Because while I don’t know about Singapore, I’m fairly certain that there are more than a couple of murders that have taken place in the Middle East in the last few months. Or am I missing your point? Yes, I’m really saying that the Middle East and Singapore have developed some new social theory that completely eliminates crime and nobody but me has even payed attention to it :rolleyes:. I also think that because I know of someone who died in a car accident wearing a seatbelt and someone else who died of lung cancer having never smoked a cigarette that not wearing seatbelts and smoking are perfectly fine. I’m saying that very, very harsh rates of punishment act as a significant deterrent factor. Maybe not for crimes of passion like _some_ murders, but it’s foolish to discount the deterrent effect of harsher punishments. As for humane dealth penalties, why not just inject someone with a sleeping drug that will knock them deeply unconcious and then kill them? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/24 "2004-06-13T13:29:07Z")
> [@Paladud](#): > > I’d consider life without parole in **solitary confinement** with minimal functional sustenance the only proper substitute for the death penalty. Until that’s implemented, I’ll favor the DP. I don’t think there’s much difference between perpetual solitary confinment and torture. People would went plainly crazy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/25 "2004-06-13T14:09:37Z")
> [@Shade](#): > > As I see it possible reasons for punishment are: > > 1. Retribution. Anyone who does something bad deserves something bad happening to them. > 2. Prevention. Lock them up, kill them, etc, stops them doing it again. > 3. Deterrance (both for that person and other people). I’m scared of the punishment, I’ll be good. and > [@SentientMeat](#): > > The only argument left is revenge, which I do not believe is a valid moral basis or motivation for the actions of a civilised state government. A major purpose of a justice system in any society is to obviate the natural revenge response of the victimized which can easily lead to escalation. Likewise, for victims suffering because they are incapable of meting out revenge, a justice system can provide the means to secure a degreee of closure. All too often these days, in my opinion, the plight of the victims is not being adequately addressed by the current western justice systems. Having said that, I draw the line at capital punishment. The planned methodical taking of a human life goes beyond any sense of human decency that I can contemplate. Life behind bars till a natural death is more than an equal measure to capital punishment. ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/26 "2004-06-13T18:29:11Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I don’t think there’s much difference between perpetual solitary confinment and torture. People would went plainly crazy. I don’t think there’s much difference between incarceration in general and torture. Honestly, there has to be something to differentiate the punishments for the heaviest offenses from the rest. When you have a pothead, a petty thief and a guy who decorated a liquor store with its owner’s gray matter within similar prison facilities (regardless of the difference in the periods of incarceration) something is seriously wrong. Lesser offenses should be punished by sentences of forced Sisyphean (so as to not welcome corporate exploitation) labor, IMO. The worst do not merit humane treatment - a prompt execution given DNA evidence, or life in solitary based on other overwhelming proof seem pretty fitting. ---
**Author:** ![Brainiac4](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brainiac4/32/3534_2.png) [@Brainiac4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac4)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/27 "2004-06-13T21:12:16Z")
I used to be in favor of capital punishment. In an abstract sense, I still am – I think that there are things that one can do for which the only appropriate consequence is to remove that person from society permanently. Jeffrey Dahmer, for example. However… I am currently opposed to the death penalty. The problem I have with it is that flawed humans are responsible for determing when to apply it. And I don’t think that giving humans the power to take the life of another human is a morally responsible thing. I say this, btw, as an atheist. Perhaps because of my “lack of faith,” I view the taking of life as the ultimate decision. Since our existence ends completely with death, and there is no afterlife (IMO), ending life is pretty damn serious. ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/28 "2004-06-13T21:32:33Z")
**Shalmanese** : Well, thanks so much for the forced smart-assedness. Usually I’m competely unappreciative of such, but when it comes from you, well. . . > [@](#): > > I’m saying that very, very harsh rates of punishment act as a significant deterrent factor. Maybe not for crimes of passion like some murders, but it’s foolish to discount the deterrent effect of harsher punishments. And I’m still standing by my recall that murders happen pretty regularly in the Middle East. And here in the good ol’ USA, capital punishment doesn’t seem to make a whole hell of a lot of difference. And death, I assume you would agree, is pretty harsh. > [@](#): > > As for humane dealth penalties, why not just inject someone with a sleeping drug that will knock them deeply unconcious and then kill them? Because the end result is still that they are dead. And since people are administering the death penalty, and people fuck up and make mistakes all the time, then the last step shouldn’t be (IMO), “Then they’re dead.” ---
**Author:** ![bodswood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bodswood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bodswood)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/29 "2004-06-17T08:21:43Z")
The essential argument for capital punishment is whether it is deserved or not, whether the crime merits it. Whether it is a deterrent or not, and whether the criminal can be “cured” through imprisonment are secondary - I would say irrelevant - issues. If someone, for example, rapes and dismembers a young girl, then I feel capital punishment is deserved. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/30 "2004-06-17T10:37:36Z")
> [@bodswood](#): > > The essential argument for capital punishment is whether it is deserved or not, whether the crime merits it. Whether it is a deterrent or not, and whether the criminal can be “cured” through imprisonment are secondary So you regard the essential function of a justice system to be revenge? ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/31 "2004-06-17T14:54:54Z")
Is life a prilvedge or a right? Do you have to essentially earn the right to live by obeying society’s rules? Is life a privledge which can be revoked if you don’t? Who are we to determine who “deserves” to live and die? We would all agree, I think, that forcibly taking a human life is wrong, but yet we’re willing to collectively do so as retribution. I honestly don’t see much difference. Sure, we dress it up with court proceedings, but when it comes right down to it, we are killing a human being. My husband works in corrections. Through him, I have seen the true depths of evil. Human beings can be astoundingly cruel. Even knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen, I still do not support the death penalty. Why? Because I think killing people is wrong, no matter what. Plain and simple. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/32 "2004-06-17T15:33:58Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > So you regard the essential function of a justice system to be revenge? That’s one of the functions of a justice system. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/33 "2004-06-17T16:33:15Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > So you regard the essential function of a justice system to be revenge? I would regard vegeance as one of the essential components to any justice system. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/34 "2004-06-17T16:37:01Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Is life a prilvedge or a right? Do you have to essentially earn the right to live by obeying society’s rules? Is life a privledge which can be revoked if you don’t? It is a right. Of course rights can be taken away. > [@](#): > > Who are we to determine who “deserves” to live and die? Who are we to determine who should be imprisoned or who should be free? Who are we to even determine that something merits punishment? > [@](#): > > We would all agree, I think, that forcibly taking a human life is wrong, but yet we’re willing to collectively do so as retribution. I honestly don’t see much difference. Sure, we dress it up with court proceedings, but when it comes right down to it, we are killing a human being. I don’t think taking a human life is always wrong. Taking the life of someone in defense of myself or others isn’t wrong. Taking the life of someone guilty of murdering others isn’t wrong. > [@](#): > > Why? Because I think killing people is wrong, no matter what. Plain and simple. It isn’t so plain and simple. Marc ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/35 "2004-06-17T21:40:19Z")
The essential function of a justice system is to _remove_ revenge from the equation. That’s why vigilantes, mobs, lynchings etc are all so obviously wrong, no matter what they ‘achieve’. If you want revenge, then your argument should be to remove to justive system entirely, given that it is structured to prevent you getting the immediate, sudden and often violent result you intend. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/36 "2004-06-17T23:20:58Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > The essential function of a justice system is to _remove_ revenge from the equation. I disagree. A justice system sets up standards and procedures to ensure that punishment is properly meted out. Retribution still exist but instead of laying in the hands of those wronged it lays in the hands of a judicial system and various laws. > [@](#): > > That’s why vigilantes, mobs, lynchings etc are all so obviously wrong, no matter what they ‘achieve’. If you want revenge, then your argument should be to remove to justive system entirely, given that it is structured to prevent you getting the immediate, sudden and often violent result you intend. Mobs, lynchings, etc. are wrong because they act outside of the law, punish more harshly then they should, and guilt isn’t always established. So laws do prevent someone from getting immediate, sudden, and often violent results but that doesn’t mean it prevents vengeance. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/37 "2004-06-18T02:06:41Z")
Since only a tiny percentage of first degree murderers get the death penalty I don’t see what the point is in even having it at all. It also appears that race of the victim and the killer is all too often the deciding factor in whether the defendent lives or dies. The Supreme Court has pretty much given up on trying to remedy this problem, saying it can’t be helped if juries decide to grant mercy to white killers more often than black killers. If we can’t administer capitol punishment in a fair, objective, and evenhanded manner, we shouldn’t have it at all. ---
**Author:** ![bodswood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bodswood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bodswood)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/38 "2004-06-18T02:15:46Z")
The idea that to punish a person because they deserve it is mere revenge, and therefore barbarous and immoral, combined with the idea that the only legitimate motives for punishment are the desire to deter others or to mend the criminal, appears merciful but actually deprives criminals of their human rights. The reason is that the humanitarian theory of punishment removes the concept of desert, which is the only connecting link between punishment and justice. For it is only as deserved or undeserved that a sentence can be just or unjust. You can’t have just deterrents or just cures but you can have just punishments. In terms of human rights, when we stop considering what criminals deserve and consider only what will cure them or deter others, we remove them from the sphere of justice altogether. Instead of a person with rights, we are treating the criminal as an object or a case. And who would wish to put the fate of criminals - or come to that, our own potential fate - in the hands of experts (penologists or psychotherapists) who don’t believe in punishment basd on desert and who rely on statistics rather than on rights or justice? ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/39 "2004-06-18T03:40:59Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] It is a right. Of course rights can be taken away. [/quote True enough. The inmates in the prison in which my husband works lose their right to vote while incarcerated, as well as their liberty, and certain rights of privacy and search-and-seizure among others. > [@](#): > > Who are we to determine who should be imprisoned or who should be free? Who are we to even determine that something merits punishment? Well, there always has to be ruling authority in a culture. Society simply cannot function without rules and punishment for breaking them. I’m not arguing against punishment, I’m arguing against what I see as an unjust sentance. I believe we as a society lower ourselves to the level of murderers when we execute a person. We have just done what we supposedly abhor: the intentional, deliberate, uncessesary taking of human life. Unecessary? Yes, unnecessary. \*Many countries survive quite well without the death penalty. Their crime rates are no higher than ours as a result. \*The death penalty does not “unring the bell.” The crime has still been comitted: but now there are two grieving families. \*It costs more to kill a man than to keep him in a prison for the rest of his life. \*The death penalty is final and cannot be revoked if the defendant is later found to be not guilty of his accused crime. Innocent people have gone to the death chamber and will continue to do so. The justice system isn’t perfect, nor can it be. (I’ve always toyed with the idea that an irrevokable sentance is in of itself unconstitutional. IANAL, and I’d be curious as to what people wiser than I in the ways of constitutional law would think.) \*The deterrence effect is not proven to be substantial enough to justify the continued use of the death penalty. Of course, the flip side of this argument, the brutalization effect hasn’t been conclusively proven, either. \*Racial disparities in death penalty sentancing cannot be ignored. \*It arguably shortens the sentance a criminal could be serving. If he only serves ten years and then is executed, his punishment is over. Boom. But you could be making him miserable for fifty years in a state-run prison. Life in prison is a greater punishment for the convicted than the death penalty, in my opinion. > [@](#): > > I don’t hink taking a human life is always wrong. Taking the life of someone in defense of myself or others isn’t wrong. I agree. Self defense is acceptable.But the death penalty isn’t self defense. No one is in eminent danger of bodily harm. > [@](#): > > Taking the life of someone guilty of murdering others isn’t wrong. I disagree. To me, it’s always smacked of the excuses one hears on the playground: “But Jimmy hit me first!” How are we any better than a murderer when we execute? We’ve done essentially the same act, only ours was court-permitted. Does that ruling really make _that_ much of a difference? How do we determine who lives and who dies? Currently, it seems pretty arbitrary, mostly based on the sense of moral outrage that a crime makes us feel. Should justice be based on emotion? > [@](#): > > It isn’t so plain and simple. > > Marc Yes, with our current system, the death penalty is not plain and simple. There are too many arbitrary factors involved. It would be a lot simpler if we didn’t execute. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797/40 "2004-06-18T04:16:14Z")
> [@](#): > > The reason is that the humanitarian theory of punishment removes the concept of desert, which is the only connecting link between punishment and justice. For it is only as deserved or undeserved that a sentence can be just or unjust. You can’t have just deterrents or just cures but you can have just punishments. On the flip side, you can’t have only punishments and not deterrants. The Death Penalty serves no legitimate penological purposes of deterrance or incapacitation that can’t be satisfied by alternative means (life imprisonment) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-capital-punishment/249797.md?page=3)