Or is it not?
Is execution by the state murder?
Short answer? No. State sanctioned executions are legal, whereas murder is illegal.
Hey, another death penalty thread. If somehow we could combine homosexuality, the death penalty, and gun control in one thread we’d have it made in the shade!!
Murder, at least how I define it, is the illegal or immoral killing of another human being. Now it is certainly legal for the state to execute an individual for certain crimes so by that definition it isn’t murder. So I suppose we have to focus our attention on whether or not it is morally wrong to do so.
It is not immoral for the state to execute people as punishment for certain crimes. Therefore executions are not murder.
There are those who argue that killing for any reason is morally wrong. Those people are wrong. There are those that would argue that the state has no right to take a human life. These same people seem to think that the state has the right to imprison someone for the rest of their life though. Go figure.
Personally I am mildly against the death penalty. I have no ethical problems with executing people for certain crimes. But I do have concerns about the welfare of those who carry out the executions as well as the fear of executing an innocent person. I don’t actively lobby for an end to the death penalty but I won’t attempt to hinder it so long as there is life with no possible chance of parole. That means if the murderer lives to be 120 he dies in a prison hospital not as a free man.
Marc
I think all convicted gay-bashers should be put to death, but only with knives and mace and stuff because there are too many guns. Oh, and just to add another thing, without God and with evolution and stuff.
How’d I do?
As to the OP, be careful what you wish for. I happen to oppose the death penalty, but I don’t agree that all state-sanctioned killings are “murder”. What about a police shooting to prevent imminent killings by another? What about a just war?
Surely you wouldn’t oppose either of these things.
Reason magazine just published a very good column on this particular argument.
We need to address many issues concerning capital punishment, but this particular red herring is not one of them.
You shouldn’t say ‘murder’. Reeder. The pros will yank out the ol’ Websters every time.
Execution by the state is killing.
The question is, does vengence justify the taking of yet another human life?
Not for this old non-limo liberal. 
Besides, she/he just might be innocent. The pros hate that.
Peace,
mangeorge
It depends on how the legal authority is determined and what role is given to State sovereignty.
All legal syatems are based on a set of rules and then decision procedures followed by coercion for rule breaking.
European states have come to see capital punishment as inherently unacceptable. On joining the EC there are assumed rules about the definition of a suitably moral and advanced type of state that can be admitted (Turkey, currently applying for admission, has serious problems on these issues). On admission to the EC, certain undertakings are made about the future handling of affairs of government; one of these is the possession of a fair system of government and judiciary, and nominally includes the exclusion of the DP. Were a member of the European Community to attempt to reintroduce capital punishment, their membership and benefits of the EC would be called into doubt and possible sanctions, up to and excluding expulsion. If they went ahead and killed someone, then it could be seen as murder (even by the dictionary definition) in that they had acted illegally.
No, and I’ll tell you why:
-
Murder - action.
-
Execution - reaction.
Good ol’ Isaac Newton comes through for us again!
I hadn’t realised he was a moral philosopher and sociologist; I thought he was a mathmatician and physicist.
And they will find that “murder” has a wide range of meanings not confined to “unlawful killing”. It’s facile to argue that simply because a killing is carried out lawfully, it cannot be a murder in any sense of the word.
As Manhatten pointed out, there are many situations where even anti-death penalty people feel that killing is morally justified. They just don’t agree that execution is one of those.
People are morally justified if they kill another person in self defense. Policemen are morally justified in killing to protect the life and safety of others. Soldiers are morally justified in killing enemy soldiers, as long as the war itself can be morally justified. Killing an unborn baby may be morally justified if that is the only way to save the life of the mother. And so on.
Killing is not always wrong. Murder means to kill someone wrongly. Arguing that if we, through our representatives, kill someone that it must be murder is therefore wrong. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But the simple equation killing=murder=wrong fails.
Does that somehow make his words any less applicable to the situation?
From Merriam-Webster:
In general, I’ve no objection to the concept of capital punishment, I do, however, have some very serious reservations about how it’s applied. That is to say, there are way too many innocents on death row (one is too many). For reference, look-up the “Innocence Project”.
“Life in prison without parole” is just a death sentence carried out in a cowardly fashion, preceeded by a lifetime of low-grade torture.
What we really need is a whole new approach to crime and punishment, but that’s a subject for another thread.
Yes, it does. In fact, it makes them entirely inapplicable.
Newton was talking about the behaviour of physical bodies; he was not talking about murder and judicial execution. By suggesting that Newtonian physics has any bearing on the question, you inply that execution is a natural consequence of murder (note the emphasis). This is patently false. Then laws of physics have no more to do with the morality of the death penalty than do the rules of whist.
Tranquilis
I don’t know if that’s the entirety of the M-W online entry, but the OED offers several other definitions, including:
(Emphasis added)
Yup, that was the entirety of the M-W entry, Collegiate Edition, on-line (webster.com).
TomH, so what you’re saying, by extension, is that war is murder. It’s state sponsored, and people die, so does that fit your definition?
If it does, then what do you suppose we should have done in the case of World War Two? Just let Hitler kill all the people he felt like killing?
I suppose we could have done that. Then we might be good, decent, moral people, right? :rolleyes:
Compared to the cruelty shown by the people on death row, capital punishment is very merciful. We could go back to the old days and just execute them in the town square, if you like. That would work for me just fine.
TomH, SPOOFE was using words applicable in one situation and comparing them to another. People do it all the time. Take “Social Darwinism” for instance. That being said, I agree with SPOOFE. Capital punishment is a reaction to someone committing a heinous crime.
Emphasis noted. Before we became “civilized” (which is in fact a topic for debate), murder was often penalized by summary execution. People fought duels until very recently in human history for such minutia as personal insults. That we now have laws governing such things does not mean that the human desire for vengeance has gone away.
That’s what capital punishment is. Vengeance. And I have no problem with that whatsoever. Life in prison is vengeance, too, but I don’t find it nearly as satisfying as execution when you consider the crime that was committed.
And of course, I must include at least one facile observation which people often overlook: The people executed are guilty of the most heinous crimes imaginable. If you don’t want to be executed, don’t kill anybody. That’s not so hard to figure out, is it? I don’t have any sympathy for the people on death row. Why should I? I follow the rules of society. They choose not to, and so must pay the penalty.
The OP requires that we define not just “murder” but “execution.” Is an assassination sponsored by the state an “execution” for the purposes of the question? If so then yes, in this instance execution by the state is murder.
Other than that, I largely agree with the legal analysis others have posted. “Murder” by definition means “illegal killing” and if the state has made this particular form of killing legal then it’s not “murder.” It’s ethically disgusting, but it’s not “murder.”
Of course, it all depends on legal jurisdiction and the definition of murder (or other unlawful killing) by that jurisdiction. Several states allow the trying of major crimes committed abroad back in the country of origin/residence.
Consider:
National State A has a very lax definition of self defense (e.g. US- Texas and intruders). National State B has a tight definition of self defense (e.g. England- only reasonable force).
Person 1 kills person 2, in State A as he climbs in, drunk, through a window, mistaking him for an intruder. Both people are nationals of State B. On his release in State A from investigation, he returns to State B (which allows prosecution of overseas offence) where he is arrsted, charged and found guilty.
Not guilty of any wrong-doing in one country, guilty of murder in another, for the same act.
That is not what I’m saying at all nor, FTR, is it what I believe. The OP asks whether execution is murder or not. The argument has been advanced that judicial execution is not murder because and only because it is legal (i.e. that illegality is essential to the concept of murder). I was rebutting that particular argument. I am sure that there are other good arguments on both sides.
And BTW, it’s not my definition but the OED’s.
Yes, it’s called an analogy. And in this case I think SPOOFE’s analogy is flawed.
But it is not a natural reaction, which is the entire basis of my disagreement with SPOOFE’s analogy (that and the fact that it is a glib answer to an important question).
What Newton described was a natural relationship between two things (action and reaction). “Natural” in the sense that it is governed by the laws of nature: if you drop something, it will fall; if you increase the temperature of a gas in a container of fixed volume then the pressure will increase; if you spill red wine on a white carpet then you will leave a stain.
Execution is a contingent or socially-determined consequence of murder. The very fact that many countries do not have the death penalty is sufficient evidence for this assertion. I don’t disagree with your suggestion that it has a long and auspicious history, but that still does not make it natural, any more than marriage, democracy or organised religion are “natural”.
To give an example: It is time for me to leave for work but I decide to stay at home and have another cup of coffee. This makes me late for work and my boss decides to fire me.
We can argue about whether or not my boss was right to fire me. We can argue about whether I should have stayed at home for the extra coffee or not. But it would be absurd for me to argue that staying home for the extra coffee should not have made me late: the lateness was a natural consequence of my decision.
That is why SPOOFE’s analogy is so dumb: he is taking a rule of the kind which applies to the coffee-lateness relationship and applying it to the lateness-firing question.
It seems to me that the death penalty is a revenge killing. It has been shown that the death penalty is not a deterant to any crime.
Just what gives the state the right to kill? Are they copying laws from way back when?
What if the person turns out to be innocent? Not very many cases are for certain. Isn’t the risk of killing even one single innocent person worth not killing at all?
**
That may just be because of the way the DP is applied today. With death often occuring 15-20 years after the crime, the connection is not so great anymore. If death were to occur immediately after conviction (or maybe after one appeal) then there might be a greater deterrent.
**
The U.S. Constitution? Ammendment V states "No person shall…be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law;. The implication is that life, liberty or property can be taken by due process of law.
Well, according to that argument, any punishment (other than a monetary one) is bad. What if you stick a guy in prison for life and find him innocent twenty years later? Granted, the person is still alive and can be set free; but you’ve still (a) robbed him of twenty irreplaceable years of his life and (b) ruined many oppurtunites for the rest of his life that he might otherwise have had.
I’m not necessarily advocating killing someone right after conviction; or abolishing prisons. I just wanted to show that you’re arguments are flawed and need to be better stated if they are to be effective.
Zev Steinhardt