Willful premeditated murder should result in execution. Period. And I don’t go for the “insanity” defense, either, because frankly speaking you have to be insane to kill someone and think that you’re going to get away with it anyway.
An accidental death, like hitting someone with a car because you’re not paying attention, should carry a severe penalty commensurate with the trust that you’re given when you’re given control of a motor vehicle. Should they be killed? No, but they should be punished severely, because they ended someone’s life.
I’m in total agreement with Zagadka about the drug thing, though. Legalize the damn stuff and then make the punishment for crimes resulting from drug impairment severe.
I don’t think that prisons are for rehabilitation. I think that if a person wants to be rehabilitated then they will seek out the means to rehabilitate themselves. In my view, prisons are for punishment, and therefore they get three hots and a cot, no more and no less. They’re called Penitentiaries for a reason. You are there to serve out the sentence for your crime and square your debt to society.
And one other major exception. War. State sanctioned killing is legal, and is in fact necessary sometimes. As long as the rules of war laid down in the Geneva Conventions are adhered to, I see no moral/ethical problem with war.
The above, BTW, was NOT an invitation to debate this damn war, because I’m tired of that discussion. It was simply an exception that I was bound to get called on sooner or later.
Now, I don’t think this is quite fair. As someone with a vested interest in mental illness, you have to account for the fact that some people really do suffer from mental disorders that could lead to them killing someone without knowing or realizing the consequences of their actions (either that someone will no longer be alive, to not know what death means, to disassociate and be unaware of their actions, to believe themselves to be under imminent threat, have a distortion of reality, or any number of reasons that result from a legitimate psychological disorder).
Throwing out the ENTIRE “insanity defense” is unjust and unfair. I do agree that the loophole is tragically abused at every turn by unscrupulous defense lawyers, but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Those with true mental illnes are spat upon enough by society to get told, “no, you’re all liars and treatment is not a better option for your life.”
Don’t remember my scores - 5.00, 0.93 or something. Very close (IIRC) to Tony Blair.
Disagree. Although not strongly.
I disagree because, taken literally, it would lead to the sorts of punishments already discussed. But I do think punishments should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offense.
In particular, crimes against persons need to be punished more severely than crimes against property. Which is one reason I support the death penalty.
Steal a car, go to prison. Rob a liquor store, go to prison. Murder someone, go to prison. The message being communicated is that life is no more important than cars or money. If you execute the murderer, it communicates that innocent human life is qualitatively different than possessions.
This is an argument, I realize, for disregarding premeditation in cases of murder. Which is fine with me. I support the death penalty as the default punishment for murder or attempted murder, rape involving violence, cases where a serious felonly leads to the death of an innocent person, and even in cases like second-offense drunk driving that causes death or severe injury to someone else.
Incidentally, the Old Testament does not always use “an eye for an eye” as the principle for deciding punishments. Some cases of stealing meant that the thief had to pay the victim back four or five times as much as he stole (Exodus 22:1).
Not trying to nail you on anything or turn this debate into another train-wreck about Iraq - I agree that war in general falls outside the realm of this question. One of the things that I really like about this whole political compass series of threads is the fact that even though they are about personal beliefs, in general no one’s been taking things personally.
The reason I was asking was to understand whether your post was a defense of the death penalty or the more draconian interpretation I was giving the phrase (or rather, a life for a life). You seem to be following the other interpretation, that the punishment must be appropriate/proportional to the crime - in which case my disagreement with you is only on the maximum sanction (or more likely when that sanction is applied)
Without having read all the replies thoroughly, I see that xtisme posted the following:.
The famous phrase, “an eye for an eye” in the Old Testament is probably the most misused phrase ever. Contrary to popular beliefs, the phrase doesn’t refer to physical punishment at all. It means that the perpetrator is fined an eye’s worth for the damage of an eye, ie. it’s about payment.
The Hebrew phrasing of “an eye for an eye” is ayin tachat ayin. In the Bible we learn that the word tachat doesn’t mean that someone has to give or suffer the exact same thing someone else did. Rather, it means that one party must give or suffer or do something equal to something that the other party cannot or did not. For example, when a king dies his son must succeed - tachat - his father, the previous king. In terms of punishment, the victim shall receive a payment equal to the damage done. While tachat means a monetary exchange when two objects are exchanged for each other, it refers to doing something for someone who cannot when dealing with actions.
http://www.montealverno.org/BibleStudies/BibleStudyMar1.htm
In Latin, this principle is known as lex talionis, the law of equivalency, where “Lex” means “law” and “talio” means “like.” The purpose of this law was not to take an eye for an eye, it was meant to control excessive punishment and discourage cruelty, especially against family members of the perpetrator.
In the New Testament, Jesus gives a commentary on lex talionis, in Matthew 5:38-42:
The meaning of the phrase “an eye for an eye” can also be deduced by asking rethorical questions: For example, what would happen if a blind man blinded another? How could he be punished via “an eye for an eye”? He has no eyes himself. Or what if a man with no legs cut off someone elses legs?
So, does revenge have any place in Christianity at all? Actually, it does. “Vengeance is mine” says God. In other words: He shall be the judge - we are not to judge. We are not to retaliate ourselves, that is God’s domain.
Other sources: http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_mishpatim.html (recommended)
The reason you are punishing the manslaughterer is because they ended someone’s life. In a burglary situation, money can be given to the victim, to reply the loss, and life goes on. Even in an assault situation in which you remove someone’s eye, they can still go on with their life. But if you kill someone, it’s all over. There’s no way to recover from death.
I think we agree so far. But now our thoughts’ diverge. To me, ending a man’s life as a punishment is wrong for the reasons outlined above, there is no possible for him to recover, no possibility for rehabilitation. I the life of all men as equal. To me the act of killing as a punishment, or even as a protection for society is as reprehensible as the illegal killing of a man.
To me the life of the criminal, is worth the same as the life of the victim, or as any other man. And the taking of that life under whatever circumstances is wrong.
erislover mentioned rehabilitation, which I strongly believe should be the aim of the justice system, although I don’t believe that it currently provides this (I am in the UK).
How can you judge the value of a man’s life? Some killers have previously given a great deal to society, some have been doctors and healed many sick people. Do you discount the good they might be able to do in the future? And might have done in the past? To me it makes no difference, but I’m not advocating killing them.
Who are we to judge the value of another man’s life, and to end it?
-G
[sub]I was interrupted while writing this, so I might have missed something I intended to say, if so I’ll post again later.[/sub]
Alien posted while I was replying, with a very insightful post. While I don’t know if there is a God or not, the Bible does contain some wise words, thanks for showing us them.
Another interesting weekend’s input: It seems that nobody (except, perhaps, friend Doors) actually advocates that one who deprives another of their eye should have their eye physically removed, even though they might tick Strongly Agree. Indeed they appear to take my reasoning, that the severity of the punishment must match the crime but not the nature, as being their justification for doing so! I must admit I find it difficult to see how these two statements are compatible, but such interesting interpretations are nonetheless what I had hoped to discover in the course of this endeavour, and so thanks again for all contributions.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this, it’s that People Have The Funniest Views. No matter how kooky an opinion, there is always someone willing to put their name to it. (Note also that in most of the industrialised democratic world, the idea that one who deprives another of their life must have their life physically terminated might be considered similarly “kooky”.)
Disagree but not strongly, because there ARE times when you just NEED to make sure that the consequences hurt, or else the offending party will believe he/they had the last laugh. (e.g. in my fantasy utopia, corrupt executives responsible for wiping out people’s retirements, should be sentenced to be equalized in wealth to the average laid-off employee and then made to start again)
Why would you think the severity of the punishment should match the severity of the crime – if not out of a desire for revenge? From strictly detergency or resocialisation perspectives such two need not have any correlation what so ever.
I believe that effective deterrence would correlate with a system which strove for proportionality (though, of course, no correlation is ever necessarily a causation). A system which dished out fines for murder and beheaded dope-smokers would I think be confusing to the point of people doing whatever they felt like and to hell with the system, and a beheading regime for all crimes, no matter how minor, would likely suffer a similar fate.
It is more important that murder does not occur than dope-smoking does not occur. This is relected in the sentencing, which in turn is input to the brain’s calculation regarding its actions.
I always wondered how generally overrated people felt the deterrence angle is… I know a prison term isn’t what gets in the way of me killing people or stealing cars. On the other hand, it probably has kept me from dealing drugs in the past. Hmm.
Interesting subject. The one thing I don’t understand is the idea of prison as “punishment”. Let’s say you poke someone’s eye out. Why is it agreed that it would be fine to torture someone by locking them in a small room for years at a time, but barbaric to poke out the perp’s eye and have an end to it? Jail as punishment is surely as barbaric as corporal punishment.
Why do we have prison? The only reasons that make sense are segregation and rehabilitation. You place a violent person in prison because that is the only way to keep other people safe from the violent person. Of course there are other alternatives to segregation via prison…you could kill the person, not out of punishment but as the only way to stop them, or you could exile them. Of course, in the modern era there really isn’t any fair place to send our exiles, you can’t just drop them off at the Mexican border. And if capital punishment is out, the only thing to do is lock violent people up. The other rationale for prison is rehabilitation. In this model prison is a way to control the perp’s environment, to force them into counseling or job training or bible reading or some such. While I think this has little chance for success, as long as we are jailing the perp for segregation purposes we might as well try a little rehabilitation while we’re at it…what could it hurt?
But for punishment purposes, jail makes no sense. What makes sense is restitution. But if the perp is unable to make restitution (if they had enough money to pay for the car they stole they probably wouldn’t have stolen it in the first place), then some sort of forced labor might make sense. I know I said I was against jail-as-punishment. But if the perp is forced to work to pay back his victims the punishment isn’t the jail itself, but rather the work he has to do in compensation. Oh, and you might try a little rehab on him while you’ve got him on your work farm, couldn’t hurt. But once the perp has paid back his victims, punishment is over.
It seems to me you’re trying to ride both horses, for, as the liturgy goes – and you yourself alluded to, harsher sentencing (as well as capital punishment) are not effective means of deterrents (because most such violent crimes are not planned etc.). And yet now that you apparently are of the opinion that harsh sentencing does indeed work as a deterrent, it most follow that harsher yet sentencing must be even more of deterrent. What is harsher than corporal punishment or indeed death – so I can’t see how you can hold that they aren’t effective deterrents?
And yet violent crimes such as assaults or rape only become full-blown murder (or attempted murder) charges in only a relatively small proportion of cases. There must be some mechanism at work whereby any old fight does not uniformally end with one party dead. If you can provide statistics which bear out a claim that extremely lenient sentencing for serious crimes makes no difference to offending rates I’d be grateful. In any case, longer sentencing effectively prevents more serious crimes simply by virtue of the fact that the perpetrators are in prison longer and can therefore not reoffend.
Firstly, I’m not sure that death is “harsher” than lifelong imprisonment. However, my point is that statistics bear out that capital or corporal punishment does not lower offending rates compared to other alternatives.
If someone pokes my eye out, poking his eye out in revenge isn’t going to help me see. What should happen is that he is segregated from society so that he doesn’t do that again. Civilized societies do no inflict physical atrocities on criminals in their custody.