I’m not going to participate further here. You are always free to quote me, of course, but please do me the courtesy of not misrepresenting my views in paraphrase.
Heh, the irony.
At this point I only have one mild question for you: what’s your answer to the OP? We’ve been running in circles but I’m not entirely sure whether you share my opinion that having forgotten one’s crime is no reason to be forgiven it.
Feel free not to answer. In the grand scheme of things neither your opinion nor mine actually matters.
In the absence of free will, I don’t believe that anybody ever deserves to be harmed solely as retribution for their actions. “He knows what he did was wrong therefore it is just to harm him in retribution” is immoral reasoning.
So, as with any other punishment, I can only ever justify the death penalty in order to remove a criminal from society (the ultimate form of sequestration) or as a deterrent to others.
Thus, the criminal’s state of mind may a factor, but only to the extent that it influences the need to sequestrate, or to the extent that public knowledge of the criminal’s state of mind alters the empirical effectiveness of the deterrent effect.
If the public is truly convinced that a criminal is no longer aware of their crime, it might remove the deterrent effect of punishing them. But I expect that the public would treat claims of convenient mental deficiency with extreme skepticism, and that optimal deterrence (if it works at all) is probably a simple “actions –> consequences” model. But that’s an empirical question.
I wasn’t intending to be hypocritical about this. Obviously we have both been discussing one another’s views previously. But I was not planning to participate further, and since you don’t agree with the fundamental principles that my views are based upon, it was a request to quote me directly (beyond here) rather than attempt to paraphrase, since I don’t think you will paraphrase my views accurately.
Straightforward and internally logically consistent.
I honestly wonder if capital punishment has any deterrent effect at all nowadays - it’s not like we hang these suckers out for everyone to see, or as if we do 'em in fast enough that the punishment doesn’t do a passable imitation of a life sentence without parole. And here in Idaho executions are so infrequent one can’t possibly expect them as the consequence of a crime - presuming that the sorts of people who do those types of crime are worrying about consequences anyway.
I wasn’t planning to get into this, but - it may surprise you to learn that my justification for the death penalty is principally sequestration rather than deterrence. It’s essentially an argument that’s not qualitatively different from a decision to euthanize a non-human animal rather than re-train it, although the hurdle is obviously much higher. I don’t hold life as sacrosanct as some, I suspect. This view would depend to some extent upon reforming the process with much less hand wringing and extended appeals, so that the death penalty does actually save resources rather then expend them. But under a simple actions>consequences model where the application of a penalty does not depend upon the criminal’s state of mind, I think that’s realistic.
I have a high hurdle for what actions are so egregious that terminal removal from society is a reasonable response. And, of course, there are huge problems with racially biased application of all punishment including the death penalty that must be fixed. But in any event, I think creeping up behind a cop quietly sitting in his car and shooting him in the back of the head should qualify for euthanasia.
At the same time, for the vast majority of criminals whose actions do not reach these extreme egregious levels, the system should be much more strongly oriented toward effective rehabilitation. Unless empirical analysis shows that deterrence works (and, in general, it doesn’t) we should not be trying to hurt criminals because they “deserve” it.
So you could sum up my views as:
For a very small number who commit utterly egregious acts, euthanize them.
For the vast majorities of prisoners, it is immoral to subject them to extended harm because we think they “deserve to pay for their crimes”; and if deterrence doesn’t work, our principal goal should clearly be rehabilitation.
The relationship between deterrence and the death penalty is interesting because it doubtlessly used to be the main reason to use the death penalty - the ultimate punishment for ultimate crimes. It’s somewhat odd to me that it’s basically had its teeth taken out of it by the implementation details and desire for the perception of propriety - odd because you wouldn’t think that something like execution could have the teeth taken out of it.
Presuming, of course, that my impressions of its lack of deterrent effect are correct. Which they might not be; I live in an area with few executions and don’t hear about them, like, ever. There could be places where death hangs heavy over the criminal element.
In my opinion, if we are to pretend that the death penalty isn’t there for vengeance or societal perception reasons (which, let’s face it, it totally is; the people who implement our justice system aren’t beings of impartial logic), then the only real function of the death penalty is to formally state/acknowledge that the person is not considered rehabilitatable. The appeals process exists to weed out people unjustly convicted, and then after that we can free up the cell because there’s no reason to wait and see if he’ll improve.
And while I see a theoretical merit to the deterrent effect of incarceration, I think it’s utterly defeated by the fact our prisons are basically recidivism factories. Forget rehabilitation; I’d be happy if our prisons just didn’t make their occupants worse.
nm
Yup, exactly.
I personally think euthanizing humans under very limited circumstances is justified, but I think I’m atypical in that. I suspect that if people generally acknowledged that a thought process similar to euthanizing an animal is the only valid justification for the death penalty, it would mean the end of the death penalty.
Was his execution of Officer Julius Schulte ethical? Did Officer Schulte know why Madison executed him? Did Officer Schulte know he was about to be shot in the back of the head?