Executing Convicted Murders No Different Than Gassing Jews and Gypsies

Great Debates
1

In a closed thread in Comments on Cecil’s Columns, the OP characterized this remark by Cecil as offensive and uncalled for:

“[Regarding swabbing off a prisoner’s arm before execution,] Nazi death camp guards observed no such niceties. Thus do we persuade ourselves that we are better than they.”

I agreed, and suggested that we examine a semantically equivalent statement: “(A primary reason that) the Nazis were worse than us was they didn’t swab off prisoners’ arms before executing them.” Isn’t that a horrific dismissal of the Nazis’ victims, who were gassed, machine-gunned, experimented upon, and nearly obliterated for who they were, not what crimes they had committed?

I think plenty of reasonable people can oppose the death penalty without implicitly excusing genocide, as some posters in that thread seemed to do.

2

Just to be clear, I opened this GD thread because I believe the previous discussion merits continuing in the appropriate forum.

3

Hold on, that’s not what Cecil is saying at all. He doesn’t say not swabbing people’s arms made the Nazis worse. He said we use that difference to convince ourselves they were worse. If anything, he’s saying we’re just as bad as the Nazis, swabbing or no swabbing.

Now, do I actually think Cecil believes this? Of course not. He was taking a rather hyperbolic cheap shot. But hey, it’s his column, so that’s his perogative. I do think he probably believes that executing people is morally wrong, regardless of why you’re doing it. If that’s Cecil’s point, I agree with him – but obviously that doesn’t actually make us morally equivalent to the Nazis.

4

I read the thread, and I don’t think they’re excusing genocide, even implicitely. They just consider that killing a human being in cold blood (as opposed to self-defence) is morally unacceptable in all situations, and that who’s killed, why and how are by comparison mostly irrelevant details.

It would be excusing genocide if precisely they weren’t arguing that state-sponsored murder is an absolute no-no. They aren’t arguing that genocide is as acceptable as death penalty, but that death penalty is as unacceptable as genocide.

You can only interpret this as excusing genocide by keeping the point of view that death penalty is somehow excusable, which completely contradict their position.

5

Large difference…

In a pogrom, a racial, ethnic or religious minority is killed solely for the “crime” of being a member of said minority group.

In capital punishment, a person duly convicted of a capital crime is being killed as a legal penalty for the commission of said capital crime. These crimes, at least in the US, cover crimes of a heinously violent nature, or of national security.

Neglecting for a moment the issue of procedural error or fault in the capital proceedings, the difference is pretty apparent: Pogroms are essentially mass murder, while capital punishment is an indivdual act inflicted on a single, duly convicted criminal.

The presence of procedural errors in capital cases does not invalidate the moral difference between the two.

6

I think the issue is not so much WHY someone is killed, as whether they are killed at all.

For anti-capital-punishment types (including me), killing anyone in cold blood is a moral evil. Whether they are killed for their race or their (supposed) crime is irrelevant, since neither justify the action (although the latter begins, perhaps, to excuse it). The question of MASS murder is neither here nor there- killing many is, of course, worse than killing few, but either is morally repugnant.

7

People we’re refering to don’t argue against capital sentence on the basis that there could be errors, but on the basis that it’s immoral in any case, even when the accused is guilty as hell. Basically for them, death penaty is a murder, and there’s no essential moral difference between the state-sponsored murder of an actual criminal and the state-sponsored murder of an innocent person.

8

That’s a pretty dumb use of equivocation IMO.

It’s no different to saying that imprisonment is kidnap, and there’s no essential moral difference between the state-sponsored kidnap of an actual criminal and the state-sponsored kidnap of an innocent person.

I’m sure many people do believe this. Many people also believe that the moon landings were faked. Doesn’t make it any more logically valid. It is particularly shocking to see Cecil indulging in this sort of illogical and non-factual nonsense. But the columns have been slipping for a while now I suppose.

9

Many (probably most) anti-capital punishment types (including me) are opposed to death penalty first and foremost because there might errors, and you can’t bring back someone and say “sorry”. To say the truth, I don’t like much the concept of an execution, either, but I wouldn’t lose much sleep over the execution of some heinous murderer if I were 100% certain that nobody ever can be executed despite being innocent. I would vote against the reinstatement of death penalty even in this case, but that’s about it.

For instance, I’m not going to shed a tear on Saddam Hussein when he’s going to be executed, because I’m absolutely sure he’s guilty, but I still think he shouldn’t be executed because executing anybody is a bad precedent (well…hardly a precedent, but I hope you understand what I mean) and only secondarily because I don’t think hanging someone is very civilized.
I can understand that some people think vengeance is a good enough reason to execute someone, but I’m opposed to accept it as a justification because vengeance could equally justify the most barbarious punishments.
I don’t believe that the death penalty is a deterrent, either. Actually, I’m quite convinced that if potential murderers thought they were going to get caught and spend merely 5 years in jail, the crime rate would collapse. I believe that, with some exceptions, most criminals don’t think they’ll get caught or don’t think at all when they commit their crimes.

So, what am I left with as arguments in favor of DP? I find the concept of punishment quite blurry when it’s not intended to correct a behavior (what would be its purpose?), and of course you’re not going to correct your behavior once you’ve been executed and besides I’m unconvinced that the DP is a worst punishment than a life sentence. So…what exactly? Peace of mind for the relatives of the victims? I covered this in the “vengeance” part. The fact that we’ll get definitely rid of the criminal? It seems quite a weak argument to engage in an action that I still find rather barbaric.
So, I can’t find a good reason to support DP. And that would be in the theorical case where we would be 100% certain every sentenced person is guilty, and guilty of a crime heinous enough for me not to be bothered about his fate. Since anyway there’s no such certainty in the overwhelming majority of cases (and I really can’t conceive a law that would be written in such a way that only people we’re really, really, really certain are guilty could be executed, nor do I think there would be a point in implementing a DP that would only apply to a couple exceptionnal cases every decade), basically, I’ve no real need for other arguments to oppose/support DP. “There will be mistakes” is a good enough reason for me.

10

Yeah, the equivocation we see is both dangerous and disingenuous.

The state is permitted to do lots of things that, if done by a private citizen would be a crime. They get to take our money, is that theft? They can conscript us, is that slavery? They can imprison us, is that kidnapping, or unlawful detention? They can execute us, is that murder?

No, it isn’t murder. And I say that as someone who passionately opposes the death penalty. The death penalty isn’t murder because murder is a creature of statute, it is a legal term, and it is most simply defined as the unlawful killing of another person. Fetuses being counted as murder victims does muddy the water a bit.

But why is it I think executions are immoral and imprisonment is not? Simple enough.

We accept, every logical person and ideology accepts, that the state has certain powers. A state without power isn’t a state. Imprisonment is an acceptable use of power, it provide protection for society and punishment for those who have done wrong. The concept of punishment is not an immoral one, and religiously it is not anathema to me either, the bible makes it clear punishment as a concept is not morally wrong (obviously to me, that’s my personal religious opinion.)

I don’t likewise oppose executions because I view all killing as wrong, that isn’t true. Killing in self defense is not morally wrong. Killing an enemy combatant in warfare is not morally wrong.

However killing a criminal, I think, is a step too far for the state. The state needs to be restricted to a degree by the people, and I think that morally speaking the people shouldn’t permit a state which itself kills those who are not a direct threat to anyone else. There are other avenues of protecting society and there are other avenues of punishment as well. It isn’t a necessary state function, like imprisonment, and it isn’t the only option that takes care of its stated goals.

Killing a defenseless (or mostly defenseless) person is a moral wrong, imprisoning someone is not, especially when it is apparent that said person is actually a dangerous person, and that only by imprisoning them do we keep them from being dangerous to society.

Just as individuals have a right to self-defense, as should the state, so the state should be able to defend itself from criminals by locking them up. But killing them? That’s a step too far. That’s shooting an intruder after you’ve knocked them out, so to speak.

So yes, executions are morally wrong. But just because one killing is morally wrong doesn’t mean it is equivalent to another killing, or even equally bad. That’s foolish. Most reasonable people recognize different degrees of evil and injustice. There’s a reason hate crimes are punished more harshly. Systematic mass murder is obviously a greater wrong that highly selective judicial killing. Are both wrong? yes. And both involve killing by state actors. But that doesn’t instantly mean they must be equivalent.

11

I’m not sure I follow. If a murderer thought they would only spend five years in jail, why would that make them less likely to murder? I’m not arguing it would make them more likely to murder, but I don’t see why it would make them less likely to murder.

I mean, let’s say I find out my business partner has been having an affair with my wife. I decide to kill him because I want revenge, and I think there’s a good chance I will get caught. I live in a state that has the death penalty. But, I’ve already decided that I’m willing to kill someone despite that. Why would my mind change if the penalty was lowered to five years?

I’m not seeing your argument. You are right that most criminals don’t think they’ll get caught or don’t really put much thought at all into their actions.

12

What I’ve never understood is that you are quite happy for someone to go to jail for life with exactly the same risk of error. Based, apparently, on the fact that the presumably small number of the innocently convicted people who are identified can be apologised to. It seems to me that you are more worried about assuaging your guilt than any effect on the victims of such miscarriage of justice.

Which completely ignores the two most salient facts:

  1. Imprisonment is also justified by vengeance.

  2. Rehabilitation, the removal of a threat from society, justice, deterrence and every other justification that you use for imprisonment are also being used somewhere in this world to justify the most barbarous punishments.

If we follow this logical fallacy through to its conclusion you can not accept any justification for any criminal penalty, and as such must reject any penalty for crimes.

If a person has a socially unacceptable behaviour such as killing children, and they are executed, I fail to see how you can argue that the undesirable behaviour has not been corrected.

You seem to be arguing that dead people are prone to recidivism. How can you possibly argue that death isn’t a guarantee that behaviour will not be repeated? And if the behaviour is guaranteed not to be repeated how can you possibly argue that it hasn’t been corrected?

So we have a child who has been repeatedly raped and whose attacker told her he had killed dozens of other children, and he was telling the truth. He also threatened to kill her if she ever told is simply seeking ‘vengeance’. According to you such a child seeking piece of mind is only after vengeance. That’s a load of baloney. There is a world of difference between peace of mind and vengeance.

In addition to that your only argument against vengeance is one that demands that you reject imprisonment as well. So if your only argument against peace of mind is based on your vengeance argument we would have such people living next door to their victims. Presumably to you that is an acceptable outcome.

That’s fair enough. It’s purely personal opinion so at least it can’t be seriously logically flawed, but it can’t really be argued either.

I disagree. That’s all that can be said. It’s not really a debating point.

But if that is a good enough reason for opposing the death penalty why isn’t it good enough for opposing all punishment for criminal acts?

This is the part I can never get. Why is it unacceptable to make mistakes when people are executed but perfectly acceptable to make exactly the same mistakes when people are going to die in jail in 20 years time?

Apparently that’s good enough for you but to me it just to be a way of symbolically washing your hands of their blood and nothing more.

13

A lot of people are much more bothered by a person being killed than by a person being jailed.

Irrelevant comparison, IMO. Believing or not in moon landings is an intellectual decision. Being opposed to death penalty has much more to do with feelings, internalized values, etc… (like any moral issue, actually), and not much with “beliefs”. If I feel that hanging someone in cold blood is horrific you’re not going to find a logical argument to convince me otherwise. At best, you’ll manage to convince me it should be done nevertheless. In the same way that you won’t convince otherwise someone who thinks that torturing the culprit to death is barbaric. If you happen to think so, what would convince you that a good old quartering on the public square would be an acceptable way to deal with murderers or cutting a hand or two the appropriate punishment for thieves?
Accepting DP but having a big issue with cutting thieves’ hands off isn’t different from accepting jail sentences but having a big issue with DP.
As for the “them being guilty makes a moral difference” that’s not obvious, really. Your basic moral assumption can be “killing a human being in cold blood is evil, period”. Taking that as a basis, the fact that the executed person is himself a murderer doesn’t change anything. Executing him won’t ressurect his victims, for instance. By executing him, you’re just going to add an evil action to another evil action. You have to arbitrarily assume that him being a murderer makes a moral difference and makes the executionner somehow less guilty to think otherwise (or alternatively think that it serves some purpose, does some good, etc…despite being an evil action). That’s what most people do but really it’s not in any way “logical”. You can’t justify it “logically”. Morals rarely have much to do with logic.

14

Why? Let’s say something like three people are found later to be innocent after being convicted of a death-penalty worthy crime. The state apologises and (depending on where you live) they sue and get bucketloads of cash. I prefer this outcome (even though it does take money from the state) to one in which those three innocent people are killed. Am I merely assuaging my guilt? No. I’m wanting innocent people to be set free - and a state with no death penalty does this better than a state with the death penalty.

15

Forgive me for this Martin, but I honestly think that I can get my point across far better by parody than by simply presenting it

Once again, apologies for the parody, but I think it speaks volumes that I can simply exchange ‘imprison’ and execute in your post and produce an equally coherent position.

You seem to have started form a position that execution is wrong and unnecessary and proceeded to argue that it is immoral and shouldn’t be allowed because it’s wrong and unnecessary. Your whole position seems to be self referential, and that seems to be proved by the fact that I can simply switch terms and reach the diametrically opposite conclusion with equal validity.

The only glimmer of logical construction I can see in there seems to stem from the consensus that execution is a more serious punishment than imprisonment. The problem with constructing your argument argument on that basis is we are then able to substitute "life imprisonment’ for “imprisonment” and then are forced to conclude that life imprisonment is just as reprehensible as the death penalty. Then we can substitute “20 years” and reach the same conclusion and so ad infinitum.

By basing your entire argument (as far as I can see) on the proposition that the government should not have the right to order the worst punishment it can legally exercise you are inevitably forced to conclude that no government should ever be able to order any punishment for any crime.

16

Exactly. Though I would add of course substantial compensations. The fact that the mistake can be to some extend be repaired makes a substantial difference to me. Also, a living person has a better chance to show he was unjustly sentenced than a dead one.

And even if it were true? But anyway, what would you prefer? Being executed or being freed after 10 years in jail and handed, say, a dozen millions dollars of damages? Would you say that it doesn’t make a difference to you? It seems to me that in such a case the effect on the victim of said miscarriage of justice is way worse in the first situation. So, I’m not sure why you think this position is only motivated by a feeling of guilt, rather than by a desire of justice.

Not necessarily so. For instance

  1. Rehabilitation, the removal of a threat from society, justice, deterrence and every other justification that you use for imprisonment are also being used somewhere in this world to justify the most barbarous punishments.

If we follow this logical fallacy through to its conclusion you can not accept any justification for any criminal penalty, and as such must reject any penalty for crimes.

If a person has a socially unacceptable behaviour such as killing children, and they are executed, I fail to see how you can argue that the undesirable behaviour has not been corrected.

You seem to be arguing that dead people are prone to recidivism. How can you possibly argue that death isn’t a guarantee that behaviour will not be repeated? And if the behaviour is guaranteed not to be repeated how can you possibly argue that it hasn’t been corrected?

So we have a child who has been repeatedly raped and whose attacker told her he had killed dozens of other children, and he was telling the truth. He also threatened to kill her if she ever told is simply seeking ‘vengeance’. According to you such a child seeking piece of mind is only after vengeance. That’s a load of baloney. There is a world of difference between peace of mind and vengeance.

In addition to that your only argument against vengeance is one that demands that you reject imprisonment as well. So if your only argument against peace of mind is based on your vengeance argument we would have such people living next door to their victims. Presumably to you that is an acceptable outcome.

That’s fair enough. It’s purely personal opinion so at least it can’t be seriously logically flawed, but it can’t really be argued either.

I disagree. That’s all that can be said. It’s not really a debating point.

But if that is a good enough reason for opposing the death penalty why isn’t it good enough for opposing all punishment for criminal acts?

This is the part I can never get. Why is it unacceptable to make mistakes when people are executed but perfectly acceptable to make exactly the same mistakes when people are going to die in jail in 20 years time?

Apparently that’s good enough for you but to me it just to be a way of symbolically washing your hands of their blood and nothing more.
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17

OK, so it’s an argumentum ad populum. That is completely logically invalid.

A lot of people are more bothered by Negroes living in their neighbourhood than white folks. That doesn’t justify it nor does it make it moral.

Which is all the more reason why “many people believe it” (ie an argumentum ad populum) is an invalid. IOW this makes my comparison even more relevant. Pointing out that it is a purely subjective moral issue doesn’t make it more valid that lots of people believe it. If anything it makes it less valid.

Unfortunately that applies to everything from the equality of Blacks to the theory of evolution. People feel that those things are horrific too, and experience tells us that you’re not going to find a logical argument to convince them otherwise. That doesn’t make their beliefs correct.

In those cases all anyone can do is point out when their arguments are illogical, such as when they utilise arguments from popularity or equivocation as you have just done.

Well if you could point out that 6 of the 7 reasons I have for my beliefs are incorrect I would be forced to reconsider. Wouldn’t I be guilty of wilful ignorance if someone pointed out that 6/7ths of the reasons I use to justify my beliefs are logically invalid and I continued to cling to those beliefs nonetheless? Especially if the 7th reason was nothing but ‘it’s wrong coz I believe it’s wrong’.

It certainly isn’t if you are prepared to accept provable logical fallacies like arguments form popularity and equivocation as your standard of comparison. Based on logical moral standards there is a very big difference.

It certainly can. Just as your basic moral assumption can be “all Negroes are subhuman” or “All Jews are children of the Devil”. Nobody can stop you making such baseless moral assumption. All we can hope to do here is point out that this is all you are basing your position on and point out that your ‘reasons’ are in fact all logically flawed.

As you can see adopting precisely the same position as you have we can justify not just lynching Negroes but that anyone working for equal rights is committing an evil act.

Morals may not have much to do with logic, but we can certainly point out when your stated reason for ‘morality’ can be used to justify actions that we all agree are completely immoral. And if your reasons can so easily justify immoral acts how can you know that they are not justifying an immoral act when you apply them to the death penalty?

Don’t you think that at least bears consideration?

18

I fail to see how DP could allow rehabilitation, I specifically mentionned that I don’t buy much in deterrence beyond some threshold, but apart from that :
What kind of logical fallacy are you talking about? Any limit you put on criminal penalty is totally arbitrary. Your position is probably that 6 year old burned at the stake for stealing candies is too harsh and that a 50 $ fine for murder too lenient. Besides that, what logic let you determine what kind of punishment is acceptable and what kind isn’t? Which crime is deserving of which punishment?
If we follow your reasonning through to its conclusion, you cannot object to any kind of criminal penalty, either. Yes, I think that DP doesn’t serve any purpose that another sentence wouldn’t serve. And I arbitrarily state that DP is worst than jail, hence shouldn’t be applied if there’s no need for it. Now, if you’ve a problem with that, tell me on what objective basis you decide that a kid stealing candies shouldn’t be tortured to death? It removes a threat from society, it’s a detterrent, it serves justice, etc… too. If what I say is a logical fallacy, on what kind of non-fallacious and perfectly logical reasonning are your basing your own position about what consitute an acceptable punishment and what doesn’t?
More generally, trying to “follow reasonnings through to their conclusions”, IOW, applying them with an absolute consistency always lead to absurd conclusions. That’s always a poor counter-argument, really.

19

There is somewhat of a difference being dead, don’t you think? Then again, this isn’t among my main objections to being against the death penalty.

Very few people who go to jail for killing children ever get out, (unless it is their own), so how has the behavior not been stopped? The problem is that in most places where they reinstituted the death penalty, people who comitted rapes, were more likely to kill their victim in order not to leave a witness. I will find the sites.

The state should have no stake in vengeance. The point is to protect society from the people who have given up their humanity. I am afraid it is silly, and frankly insulting to suggest that people against the death penalty are against imprisonment. There is a difference between wanting the state to kill in my name and wanting the state to remove the unfit from society.

If we were just putting random people in jail, this would make sense. Mostly, we think we have the right people in jail. It would be sad to take years from someone because of a mistake, but the guy isn’t dead. It can never be made right, not for money or anything but he isn’t dead. He can be released from jail and have something of a life if the mistake is found. That can’t happen if he is dead.

So are you arguing that we should let everyone no matter what he does run the street or we should kill them all? There is nothing in between?

20

I was specifically adressing the concept of punishment in this paragraph. And my question was : what purpose serves punishment exactly? I mentionned that obviously in the case of the DP it couldn’t be intended to correct the behavior of the culprit (which is often the purpose of punishment). I fail to see how your response adress my question. Your comment would be appropriate in response to the “getting rid of the culprit” part of my post, but not here.

So, again, what’s the purpose of punishment, exactly? Generally speaking and in the context of DP specifically?

I’m going to stop here because not having slept this night, I can’t manage to remember what you’re responding to (that’s why I cut my response in three different post so far, so that I could reread my post and your response) and I begin not to even understand what I’m reading.

I might respond to the rest of your post later if I’m not too lazy to do so. Or maybe I won’t, since I’m sure many other posters probably will make the same point I would anyway.

So, really briefly :

I’lm pretty certain I adressed separately “peace of mind” for the victims and vengeance (mentionning that peace of mind IMO doesn’t justify an execution), so I’m not sure why you’re stating I’m conflating them.

Once again, yes, in the same way that having shoplifter quartered would probably be an acceptable outcome for you :rolleyes: If “you reject DP so you must logically reject imprisonment” seems a sensible argument to you, then “you don’t reject DP for rapists so you logically must not reject quartering for shoplifters” has to be equally sensible.

I’m going to respond for the upteenth time that it’s of course arbitrary, exactly as your own definition of what is good enough or not, whatever it could be, is equally arbitrary.

Bec

Apparently that’s good enough for you but to me it just to be a way of symbolically washing your hands of their blood and nothing more.
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