What is the purpose of the death penalty?
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The crime is so grave that the person commiting it is considered unfit to live.
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To feed the human emotion of an ‘eye for an eye’.
- to be so severe a penalty as to deter others from comming similar crimes. In theory.
I changed the thread title to “What is the purpose of the death penalty.” The original title was “curious.”
Gfactor
General Questions Moderator
Punishment.
Instill fear.
Sadistic enjoyment.
Biblical Wrath.
Prevention, well one person will be prevented from repeating.
News.
Debate fuel.
I’m sure there are many reasons, but I see plain-old meanness as a leading one. In any debate on the subject, there are of course a few proponents who have level-headed and well-reasoned arguments. But there is rarely a shortage of people who shout “Fry 'em all!” with glee.
This thread probably belongs in Great Debates instead of General Questions, even though there is a factual component to the OP’s question. I’ll move it.
Gfactor
General Questions Moderator
And you can be sure that person will never kill again.
No. You can be sure that person will never kill in the future. In order for them to “kill again”, they must have killed in the past, and the way the justice system is run you can never be sure of that.
Because, as much as we hate to admit it, there are [del]people[/del] monsters who will not stop killing. They like to kill other people and see nothing wrong with it. If they got out of or escape from prison, they will kill again. They are beyond redemption and don’t deserve to live.
Timothy McVeign had no arrest record whatsoever when he killed 168 innocent people for no reason whatsoever. Keeping him alive would have served no purpose whatsoever. We are sure that he did this. He admitted doing it.
Serial killers and mass murderers, if we are sure they are such, should be killed.
What is the purpose of the justice system as a whole? Why do we impose fines, imprison people, kill them? Is it retribution? Deterrence? Rehabilitation? Some philosophical notion of “Justice”?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m just pointing out that asking about the “purpose” of the death penalty presupposes that there is a purpose to the rest of the criminal justice system. Frankly, I don’t think there is an overarching purpose, just a patchwork of reasons for this or that punishment or law, some of them contradictory. This is due to the extreme variety of opinions among politicians, judges, juries and the electorate.
In other words, the whole thing is a confusing mess, and the death penalty is just a small part of it. For what it’s worth, I oppose the death penalty.
Because while “life” is a right it is also privilege which comes with certain expectations if you want to “live” within a society.
Your right to live depends on others respecting that right and not harming you. You in turn are expected to resepct their right to live without harm.
When someone violates these rules and disregards others “right to live” they have in essence forfeited their own rights by default.
Society then has the duty to remove these people from the society. That includes the option to permanently remove them.
It’s pure Old Testament retribution, vengeance, and bloodlust.
That is all.
I can think of three given, most already mentioned:
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to prevent a person from killing in the future (accepting Giles excellent quibble.
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to serve as an example for those who might think of killing, but who will not because of fear that they might be killed by society.
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to offer closure to the loved ones of the victim(s) that the convicted killer is not longer alive.
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might be true, ignoring the long time between conviction and execution, but it is not clear that the number of people killed by convicted and escaped murders is greater than the number of innocent people killed by the justice system.
2 doesn’t seem to work. Today many say the probability of dying is too low, but I don’t see a way around that without increasing the number of innocent people convicted and executed. In any case, punishment was swift and public in many societies (such as Elizabethan England) without stopping murder.
- may be true for some, but it seems some survivors don’t want an execution. Do these people get to veto the death penalty?
The 4th reason, which I don’t think many people want to admit, is vicarious revenge. If we really wanted that, we should throw in some flaying to the execution mix.
In a speech in Vonnegut’s Armageddon in Retrospect he states:
The purpose is to ensure that the criminal never is able to commit another homicide.
Amazingly, those who have been subjected to the death penalty show an extremely low rate of recidivism.
Well, as much as some of us would hate to admit it, people don’t stop being people just because they commit some heinous act.
Saving the taxpayers’ money, I guess.
I oppose death penalty. We will never know the number of innocent convicted people but I suspect it to be surprisingly high.
And if we’re not sure they are such? This certainty is left in the hands of many fallible human beings. See below:
From what I can tell, from various Death Penalty debates, my perspective is rare if not unique, but it’s something I’ve put a lot of thought into and I do want to get it out there because I think far too often people view Death Penalty advocates as blood thirsty, vengeful, or what not.
The reason I quoted the post above is because it is purely a philosophical notion for me. In a general sense, I believe in “eye for an eye”, but not a literal translation, simply that the punishment should fit the crime. But to generalize, it doesn’t have to be the SAME as the crime (eg, t I wouldn’t have a person who is charge with assault beaten) it simply has to be an equitable punishment. Being our culture tends to frown upon things like corporal punishment, we use prison terms and fines for most punishments because we, as a society, have decided that they’re equitable and more humane. Ultimately, to me, justice is about achieving a balance in the system.
However, the “eye for an eye” argument doesn’t justify the death penalty alone. Since we can substitute equitable punishments for other crimes, why can’t we just do the same thing for murder? In my mind, this is a question of what life is worth, and this is really where the philosophical part comes in. I’ll try to explain it in a few general steps.
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In my opinion, most laws exist (or should exist) to protect the rights of an individual (or group of individuals). For instance, stealing is illegal because it violates the right to property, murder is illegal because it violates the right to life, etc. Thus, inside of an equitable punishment frame work, the appropriate punishment is either to remove an equitable amount of the same right or an equitable amount of another right when not really possible or practical (eg, rape) or when a more humane option is available (eg, prison sentence for assault).
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Different rights are of different values, and while some may be more valuable to some individuals, our society still generally places some as more valuable than others. This is simple to observe because the punishments for some crimes, like burglary, are less than others, like rape. In my opinion, the right to life is clearly the most valuable right. In fact, I would argue not only that the right to life is the most valuable right, but that it’s value is greater than the sum of all other rights because, quite frankly, if you’re dead, what good are property or privacy rights?
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Based on the above two points, the only equitable punishment for murder is the death penalty because it is impossible to find an equitable amount of another right, even removing all other rights, and have the value be enough to balance out the lost rights of the victim.
So, whether or not it acts as a deterent, or prevents repeat offenses or makes victims’ families feel better, if any of that stuff is true, it’s just a bonus and really is irrelevant.
Also, with regard to the seriousness of a murder, whether it’s a driveby shooting, or a serial killer who raped and tortured a dozen people, the severity of the death is irrelevant. Because harmony, not revenge, is the important factor here, there’s absolutely no reason to make the death penalty anything but as humane as possible, because he can pay no higher price than his life. This is why I also have no issue with finding supposedly painless and/or quick methods for executing the criminal.
I also want to address some objections, one of which is cost. I realize it’s much more expensive to execute a criminal than to imprison him for life. I would argue that this is more a flaw with the expense and beauracracy of the system, and that it needs to be fixed rather than a reason to be against the death penalty. However, even given the cost, and that it may not be something that can be fixed easily or at all, as I consider a dedication to justice to be one of the most important principles of a civilized society, and that I believe that it is the only just solution, I think the cost is justified.
The other objection is mistakes, where people may wrongfully be executed. This is a real problem, and this is part of the reason why I’m not that shook up about the cost, because I do believe that it would be a travesty of justice to not be certain someone is guilty. However, this is also a measure of human life when weighed against the values of a society. Obviously we, as a society, weigh some things greater than some number of lives, otherwise we would never have wars. I think justice is one of those priniciples that, for a society on a large enough scale, is worth lives. It’s difficult if not impossible to put a number on something like that, but since I can construct examples that I feel are obviously on either side (eg, 1 person every 50 years is an acceptable rate to me, 1 person a week is not).
IMO, I believe our rate of mistakes, especially given the drawn out process is acceptable. Further, the way sentencing works, it could even potentially allow someone that the jury is absolutely certain is guilty (like Timothy McVeigh) to get the death penalty, and someone who leaves that tiny little smidge of possibility, but still beyond a reasonable doubt, an option for life imprisonment. And while that isn’t necessarily optimal from a commitment to justice perspective, it’s certainly better than no death penalty at all.
And, really, if there are mistakes of people being found guilty when they’re innocent, it’s not even a real argument against the equitable nature of the death penalty, but rather should be a referendum on the system in which guilt is found. So, if it is found that there is, in fact, too high of an error rate, I would still hold that the death penalty is just, even if it has to be applied sparsely or even suspended in light of that error rate. However, society then has an obligation to address the flaws of the court system so that the justice of the penalties can be brought back into balance, otherwise it will similarly show a lack of commitment to justice.
On Preview: LilShieste, I absolutely agree with you, and it’s all the more reason why I support the death penalty, but support it being done with caution and as humanely as possible. It’s easy to take the life of a monster lightly, but it’s difficult to take the life of a human. To mark a criminal as anything but human shows, to me, a sign of being compelled by vengence and not justice. The death penalty should NEVER be taken lightly, even in the case of a “monster” like Timothy McVeigh, and it should never be motivated by revenge. Even though someone like him clearly deserves the death penalty in my philosophy, I am still greatly saddened that it is necessary at all, and I never delight in the loss of life.