Executing Convicted Murders No Different Than Gassing Jews and Gypsies

Great Debates
21

The objective fact is that the mistake can not be repaired to any extent. You can no more give a woman back 20 years of her life than you can giver her back 60 years.

Once again you seem to be assuaging your own guilt by pretending that somehow you can give someone back the years you took provided they aren’t dead yet. Sure, they’re 85 and perpetually semi-comatose, but you’ll let them out after 60 years in prison and somehow that repairs the mistake to some extent.

So you are comfortable that an innocent 20 year old man spend 60 years in jail before proving himself innocent. But killing an 80 year old man is inevitably and always wrong and afar worse crime. Because he has no opportunity to prove himself innocent?

Could you possibly explain what moral equivalence you used to reach such a conclusion?

  1. Never having spent 10 years in a maximum security jail I honestly couldn’t say. And neither can you. Given the high rates of suicide in maximum security jails obviously many individuals prefer the former.
  2. IANAL but my understanding is that if there was no procedural error then a wrongfully convicted person doesn’t get one red cent in damages. Please provide references to support your claim that such people receive millions in compensation.

For the sake of argument let’s assume that’s true. Can you explain why you don’t apply the exact same argument to life imprisonment vs 10 years imprisonment? What would you prefer ** clairobscur**? Being freed after 40 years in jail or serving only 10 years in jail and being exonerated 30 years after our release?

Your “desire of justice” compels you to reject the death penalty because the effect on the victim of a miscarriage of justice is worse than the effect of life imprisonment. Yet you don’t feel the same compulsion to reject life imprisonment despite the effect on the victim of a miscarriage of justice being far worse than the effect of 10 years imprisonment.

Can you explain why that is?

You totally missed my point. I wasn’t claiming that the death penalty allowed for rehabilitation.

I was pointing out that if we reject a motivation for a penalty simply because it is being used somewhere in this world to justify the most barbarous punishments then we are forced to reject all penalties.

Yet you seem to find ‘protecting the public’ an acceptable motivation for fines and imprisonment, yet ‘protecting the public’ is being used somewhere in this world to justify the most barbarous punishments.

Can you explain this apparent hypocrisy? If you can not accept a motivation because it is being used somewhere in this world to justify barbarous punishments then why do you apparently accept ‘protecting the public’ as a motivation?

Where specifically? You have utilised so many, most obviously equivocation and argumentum ad populum.

That’s a heck of a complicated question that depends on the harm done by the crime, the harm done by the punishment and what outcomes I hope to achieve.

What it is never based on is logical fallacies (eg appeals to popularity), differentially applied standards (eg I can’t endorse any motivation that can justify torture, except when those motivations are being used to justify imprisonment) or “It’s just wrong”.

It is possible to construct a logical morality, but you can’t construct a logical morality with such obviously and provably illogical premises.

22

That would precisely be the kind of crime I had in mind when I mentionned “some exceptions”. People who think they might get caught but will still will commit the crime because they think it’s well worth whatever punishment they’re risking.

I don’t think that a 5 year jail sentence would make potential murderers less likely to kill, but that in most cases it wouldn’t make them more likely to kill than DP. I don’t buy much into deterrence because I believe that most criminal just don’t think they’re going to be caught, or don’t take the time to think about it, or react on impulse, etc… and that if they were actually thinking “hmmm…I’m likely going to get caught and sentenced” a slight sentence would probably suffice to deter most of them because the motives of many crimes (say, a short sexual gratification, a little cash, a desire for revenge, etc…) just aren’t worth several years in a cell and that many criminals would be affraid of a jail sentence if they really thought it was going to happen to them.
IOW, I strongly doubt there are many criminals who actually think : “well, I wouldn’t do that if was risking the DP, but a life sentence is no big deal, so let’s do it”.

23

To give another example. People who drink and drive. They’re not doing so because they think “I’m not going to be killed, at worst I’ll end up in the wheel chair for the rest of my life or I’ll be disfigured”. They do so because they think nothing will happen to them. Or don’t think at all.

24

It doesn’t speak volumes because, for instance, what are the “other avenues” used to protect society, etc… lacking imprisonment? Your child rapist is unlikely to rape another little girl while in a penitentiary, so the original post is indeed coherent. Your parody isn’t coherent contrarily to your statement…

Well… Now, I’m really going to sleep a little…

25

What reasoning have I presented that can logically be followed to that conclusion?

I’d have to look at the statistics for the actual deterrence value of thief burnings in candle thefts before I could believe your claim that it has deterrence value. Could you possibly provide such figures?

No, and no and no.

I am not trying to follow these arguments with absolute consistency. I am simply trying to follow them with the minimum consistency. There is no validity in having a reason for avoiding the death penalty that can only be applied to the death penalty. It has to be applicable to the next minimum step up (eg death by torture) and to the next minimum step down (eg life in prison) to have any validity at all.

If you can’t do that then your ‘reason’ is nothing but a post hoc justification.

Can we have a reference to support this claim please? I would really like to see figures that say that there are fewer innocent people imprisoned in states with no death penalty.

There is indeed. Just as there is a difference between being released after 40 years in prison and exhonerated 30 years after being released. What I don’t get is why you apparently cease considering these differences as grounds for rejecting the punishment as soon as the punishment ceases to be the death penalty?

Can you explain why that is? When it’s the death penalty being discussed the differences in the punishments are grounds for rejecting the punishment. But when the punishment is prison terms or fines suddenly difference cease being of any consideration? Why?

I don’t know, how has the behaviour not been stopped? Since we were discussing peace of mind for the victim and not repitition of the crime I have no idea what your point is here?

Unless it is that a child will have piece of mind if you explain that very few of the men who threaten to kill children get out. Somehow I doubt that gives piece of mind.

Hmm? And what is that based on? You do realise that ‘The State’ in a democracy is on no small part the people. Are you suggesting the people should have no part in vengeance?

Well it’s a jolly good thing I never suggested or even implied such a thing isn’t it?

All of which is perfectly true and a perfect non sequitur. If someone is executed they are dead. If someone is dead they can’t come back to life. I agree. And?

Once again we seem to come to this point where an argument ceases to considered valid as soon as it being applied to something other then the death penalty. Why don’t; you also apply this penalty to argue that nobody serves more than 10 years in jail? That way if they were found guilty after 10 years they won’t have served all those extra years in jail?

Can you explain why that argument is perfectly valid? Why is it that this argument about minimising harm to the wrongfully convicted is only applicable when talking about the death penalty? Why isn’t it equally true for any other penalty?

If you can’t explain that the you don’t have an argument, only a justification.

Just as there is a difference between being released after 40 years in prison and exhonerated 30 years after being released. What I don’t get is why you apparently cease considering these differences as grounds for rejecting the punishment as soon as the punishment ceases to be the death penalty?

Can you explain why that is? When it’s the death penalty being discussed the differences in the punishments are grounds for rejecting the punishment. But when the punishment is prison terms or fines suddenly difference cease being of any consideration? Why?

No, and no.

26

Let’s cut past all this equivocation about differing moral standards and get straight to the point: what is the purpose of punishment for any crime?

  1. To protect society by removing the socially unfit* from it.
  2. To rehabilitate the socially unfit, both in order to make them more socially fit peopleand to prevent undesirable acts in the future.
  3. To deter other from commiting undesirable acts through threat of punishment.
  4. To enact vengeance on the criminal for his “evil” acts.

It is the last, and only the last, that offers justification for the death penalty. Consider the other points:

  1. Protecting society can be done just as well by locking someon up for life than by killing them (given the vanishingly low rate of escapes from high-security prisons). In the current US legal system, it will also cost less.
  2. In the case of life imprisonment, rehabilitation is not an issue. Otherwise, rebhabilitation is not served by killing someone before the have a chance to reform.
  3. I would argue that the threat of long imprisonment is at least as serious a deterrant as the threat of death. I will seek some statistcal data to back this up, but I’m reasonably sure the rate of violent crimes has not decreased in states (sovereign states, not the American kind) that have reintroduced the death penalty.

The only way in which the death penalty is therefore logically, rather than morally, justifiable is when you think that vengeance should play a part in the legal system. I personally don’t. As others have pointed out above, vengeance does not undo the crime, and although it might make the victims feel better, so might torturing the criminal to death- which I don’t condone, either. Furthermore, vengeance administered by the state makes the state no more than an instrument of violence. Add this in to the risk (which is appreciable) of innocent people being executed- a final and irrevocable sentence, as opposed to any period of imprisonment- and I think there is no moral or logical justification for the death penalty.
*I’m using this as a catch-all term that we can at least vaguely agree on. I realize it has unpleasent connotations: in the USSR in the 1960’s, for example, being “socially unfit” might mean not being Communist, and you’d be sent to prison or a mental hospital. Imagine, therefore, that when I say “socially unfit” I mean “conforming to the values that the reader recognizes as being somehow intrisically right”, in the sense that this a theoretical discussion.

27

And as I pointed out, such a conclusion seems to assume that the culprit will repeat the behaviour after being executed. How is that even possible? If the culprit doesn’t repeat the behaviour ever again hasn’t that behaviour been corrected? You have simply ducked the question.

Deterrent, restoration of public safety, compensation, restoration of public confidence.

Probablythe factthat you said: “So…what exactly? Peace of mind for the relatives of the victims? I covered this in the “vengeance” part.”

IOW you quite clearly did not address separately “peace of mind” for the victims and vengeance. You simply stated that peace of mind for the relatives of the victims was covered entirely as "vengeance”. You didn’t simply conflate them, you stated they were one and the same and could be dealt with as the same thing.

You really do need more sleep.

The difference being that I have never made any argument that might suggest that quartering should be acceptable.

You OTOH said that you oppose any justification for a punishment if it is used to justify atrocities. Yet deterrence, restoration of public safety, compensation and restoration of public confidence have all been used to justify atrocities. Don’t we conclude form this that you oppose all justifications for imprisonment? And if you oppose all justification for imprisonment where does that leave us?

The problem is that your initial statement that “I’m opposed to accept it as a justification because vengeance could equally justify the most barbarious punishments.” Is quite obviously a post hoc excuse, not an actual position you believe. If you did believe that you would also need to oppose deterrence and restoration of public safety because oppose deterrence and restoration of public safety could equally justify the most barbarious punishments.

IOW your position is inherently hypocritical.

And I will say for the umpteenth time, it’s not the arbitrainess that is the issue. It is the fact that you presented the position in great debates as though you could somehow defend it.

“I know it’s arbitrary but I just believe it’s true” is not a valid rebuttal when someone points out that your argument has gaping holes and logical errors.

I dunno. Lemme think. I know! We could, say, execute them?

Umm, I posted the parody before anyone mentioned a child rapist as an example. It has no bearing whatsoever on the point of the parody.
Bec either you really do need sleep or this is the worst ‘debating style I have ever seen on these boards.

“I know it’s arbitrary” “I never said that” (When you demonstrably did) and attempting to amalgamate unrelated points does not constitute a valid defence.

Weak, very weak.

28

It’s not a fucking “argumentum at populum”. It’s an “argumentum at psychologicum”. I wasn’t trying to prove a point but to explain a position.

You keep on trying to show that the position of your opponents are not logical, but it’s non-sentical and completely pointless because there’s absolutely no way to “logically” determine what is a morally acceptable punishment for a given crime.

If you believe that any of your moral stances, beliefs or positions can be logically defended, you’re the one guilty of ignorance, or maybe naivete. And reconsidering such beliefs is pointless exercice because the new set of beliefs will be equally arbitrary.
Show to me “logically”, since you like this word so much why your own opinion on which legal sentences are morally acceptable, whatever it could be, is justified. Once again tell me if there’s any “logical” reason not to sentence to death a 8 yo shoplifter. Prove to me that it’s not moral. If you can’t, I expect you to change your beliefs and to support death penalty for candy theft. Or a smal fine for child rape. Or whatever else.

And you didn’t even point out that 6 of the 7 reasons I gave were incorrect, actually.

“Logical moral standards”??? Please, go ahead… I think you’re going to be remembered as the greatest philosopher of all times…

Conveniently forgetting that pushed to the extreme, your own arguments lead to exactly the same result. If I can’t “logically” draw a line between DP and jail sentence, you can’t logically draw a line between whatever punishment you find acceptable and whatever punishment we would both find morally repugnant, either. So, your moral beliefs are obviously logically incoherent and you must change them lest you’d be guilty of willfull ignorance.

There’s absolutely no way to discuss a moral issue lacking commonly accepted values. Actually, without even mentioning common moral values, we need to at least agree on some sort of basic reference frame. For instance, if you argue that there’s no difference between being wrongfully sentenced to death and being wrongfully sentenced to 20 years in jail, while I do, then discussing the issue is a completely pointless exercise.

29

That’s so patently untrue that it’s laughable. To say that removing the socially unfit from society doesn’t demonstrate a valid role for the death penalty is ridiculous. Of course the death penalty can remove the socially unfit from society

Riiigght. And protecting society can be done just as well by killing someone as by locking them up for life. How does this mean that the death penalty fails to remove the socially unfit from society?

So we agree that in the cases under discussion rehabilitation is not an issue at all. So why does this mean that the death penalty fails to remove the socially unfit from society?

And I would argue that the threat of death is at least as serious a deterrant as the threat of long imprisonment. How does this mean that the death penalty fails to remove the socially unfit from society?

The problem with your entire argument Happy Clam is that you started from a position that the death penalty was unjustified as a way to remove the socially unfit from society, then proceeded to argue that the death penalty was unjustifiable as a means to remove the socially unfit from society. You never actually showed any reasons why the death penalty was unjustified in the first place. Your whole post was an argument from assertion. Anyone who didn’t agree with you at the outset wouldn’t be any more inclined to agree with you at the send because you started from almost exactly the same position your were trying to argue to.

30

Wow, swearing. You must be one of the cool kids. I bet you smoke in the locker rooms too, right? You must be right.

Your trouble is that you can no more logically explain a position with logical fallacies than you can prove a point. It’s GIGO.

And of course this is GD, Not IMHO. If you put up position here you can expect people to point out where it’s wrong and why.

I see. So your defence when I point out that your moral position is illogical, relies on hypocricy and logical fallacies, makes no sense and could be used to justify the most morally reprehensible acts is….

to say that there is no way it could be is logical, rely on sound reasoning and justice, make sense and be able to refute immorally acts.

Well you certainly showed me.

Would you perhaps care to engage with me in another thread (so we don’t hijack this one)? In that thread you can show me that one of my moral positions can’t be logically defended? Since you state this to be a fact you should have no problem demonstrating this, right?

Done

Well yeah, I did. Which ones do you still believe are correct and I will go over them again?

Hardly.

The fact that you are apparently unaware that literally thousands of logical moralities have been constructed doesn’t bode well for your performance in that other thread.

I will repeat for the third time. This is not about pushing these arguments to the extreme. This is about seeing if they can be applied anywhere at all aside form the cases where you sought to apply them.

Do you really think that attempting to apply your arguments regarding the death penalty to life imprisonment or to torture followed by death is pushing them to the extreme? If so then can you give some les extreme cases I can attempt to apply them to so that we can see whether they are consistent? I was making a bona fide attempt to apply them to the most similar cases, not to extremes.

Well, yeah, I can as I will demonstrate as soon as you arrive in that other thread.

Agreed. But in this case we have a whole suite of commonly accepted values, and I am seeking to establish more.

Once again your response when I point out that your discussion of your position position makes no sense and is based on logical fallacies is….
to declare that it can’t make any sens and can’t be logically discussed.

I agree entirely. Of course I never said that there is no difference between being wrongfully sentenced to death and being wrongfully sentenced to 20 years in jail. I simply asked you to explain why you *always[/I[ decide to set your cutoff point at death and believe the same arguments can never be applied to 20 years in jail.

If you have an argument that you only apply to the specific case you select then you don’t have any argument at all. You are simply indulging in special case pleading.

31

I’m not saying that killing the socially unfit doesn’t remove them from society, I’m saying that imprisoning them is a much BETTER way of removing them from society, since it carries less margin of error and is, given the current cirumstances, somewhat cheaper. I think you have to justify capital punishment as a more (efficient, effective, whatever) means to protect the innocent than a life prison senetence.

If they are equal, then there is no difference between the death penalty and life imprisonment in terms of deterrence. Therefore there is no reason to kill when you can imprison with the same result for a reduced cost and less risk to the falsely accused.

The problem with your entire argument Blake is that you are simply misreading my post. I stated what I believe to be a statement of fact, that is capbable of being accepted as neutral: the four reasons for legal punishment are protection, deterrence, rehabilitation and vengeance. If you think there are others, or think one of those points is invalid, please state them. I then argued that protection, deterrance and rehabilitation are each served equally well by life imprisonment as by the death penalty (in either case rehabiliation is a non-issue, as you pointed out, therefore equally irrelevant).

Finally, I stated that, IMO, vengeance is not sufficient reason for killing the convicted. It does nothing to benefit society, except in one respect, the consolation of victims. And there have been plenty of cases where victims, or their families, have appealed for clemency for a killer. Therefore, the fact that innocent people have in the past been executed, and may be in the future, without the prospect of release that would have existed had they been imprisoned, makes the death penalty unjustifiable. It does nothing to benefit society that imprisonment does not do equally well, and may well harm society.

Note that I have here restricted myself to arguments that I think are subject to logical analysis. I also oppose capital punishment on the basis of a belief that it cheapens human life, makes the punisher as bad as the criminal, and encourages an attitude of recrimination. However, I think that capital punishment is ALSO indefensible on purely utilatarian terms, which I laid out above. Do you have a response?

32

And this is exactly the point that Cecil was making. If a society is entitled to decide that it’s right to execute the “socially unfit”, then why isn’t it similarly entitled to declare Jews, Gipsys, and homosexuals “socially unfit”?

33

I note that people in prison for life can still rape and murder, and not just other prisoners, and not just by escaping.

Cite for murder.