My main arguments against the death penalty are from first principles:
1/ Irreversibility
2/ Inadequate and discriminatory justice system
3/ Golden Rule (would I still support it if someone I loved or I were the prisoner)
4/ Lack of necessity, need for proportionality
5/ Nobility of mercy and compassion.
That’s nice. Would you care to answer the question?
Technically, if someone commits one murder and was then executed for the murder, that would be the very mathematical definition of proportionality. 1 life for 1 life.
If someone murders 50 people, and is then executed, that would actually be mathematically disproportionate in favor of the murderer. He causes 50 deaths but dies only once.
But, of course, it’s impossible to execute someone more than once.
That is your interpretation of lex talionis.
I am talking about a more modern consideration of proportionality- what is the minimum necessary loss of rights to make society safe- is the punishment proportionate to the needs of security. The Vatican advice is wise- judicial killing is only allowed where it is the only way to treat the crime- specifically where the state is unable or is too poor to incarcerate. Even those religions found on the rather spiteful Old Testament now interpret the lex talionis in your archaic fashion.
Just a bunch of utilitarian nonsense, which is oddly the philosophical home for most leftists. But the only real problem with the death penalty is #2 on your list, inadequate criminal justice system. If that weren’t the case I don’t think there’s any moral hazard in the death penalty.
Especially since it’s just one type of State killing, the State makes decisions to kill all the time. I don’t view the decision to do so in a prison, after a trial and lengthy appeal, particularly concerning.
How are Irreversibility, the same Golden Rule, Lack of necessity, need for proportionality, Nobility of mercy and compassion, in any way utilitarian (greatest good of the greatest number. They may be consequentialist rather than deontological, but not utilitarian.
I can see how different philosophical starting points could lead one to disagree with #4 and #5, but what is your disagreement with #1 and #2?
Additionally other kinds of state killing, especially warfare are only justified if they fall within similar restraints.
If military action is not likely to be successful, not necessary, not rational, not proportional, then it can be seen as a war crime.
… you have some strange ideas about Spanish history. Are you truly confusing Zapatero with Franco?
We Americans are notoriously good innovators. Give us time…
Ahhhh you Europeans just wait a few more decades till the Islamist take over your political culture and you will have the death penalty back soon enough.
I think that will take longer than the takeover of American politics by liberal people of colour. Maybe we shall cross in the middle.
When Iraq invaded its much smaller and weaker neighbor Kuwait decades ago, Kuwaiti military resistance against the greatly superior Iraqi forces was “not likely to be successful.”
Some military operations have to be carried out anyway even if likelihood of success is slim to none.
Enjoy nit-picking? The restriction is on aggressive war, not simple self defence. Countries are allowed considerable leeway in true self defence, but not in aggressive ones.
Ask yourself this:
Is the death penalty as currently implemented a deterence?
You are more likely to die on death row than by being executed.
In some states there’s no de facto chance of being executed.
Are you worried about the DP if you are a middle-class white male as opposed to a 19 year old black male? What if you’re a woman?
Death penalties are sanitized and private. I’m not saying the US should have public crucifixions but if we did I guaranty it would be more of a deterence than lethal injection only a few people witness.
Even if you commit a death-penalty eligible crime, what’s the likelihood that you’ll get it as a sentence?
So if we had a state that made the death penalty mandatory, public, unsanitized (like hanging or gas chamber) and 90 days after sentencing no matter your age, sex, race, etc. then we can talk about whether it deters crime or not.
It would also kill a lot of innocent people.
While it might be possible to get brutal enough that you actually can deter crime through capital punishment, it would be entirely indefensible for other reasons.
Please don’t tar all leftists with Pjen’s silliness. I’m on the left and neither a utilitarian nor a principled opponent of the death penalty (though I oppose using the death penalty for common crimes, and would reserve it only for political crimes).
Cuba is just about as far left as a country comes nowadays, and has been since the 1960s, but they still have a legal death penalty (although fairly rarely used).
Could you define “political crimes” here?
Treason, spying, rebellion, genocide, tyrannical government, etc…
I don’t think common murderers should be executed.
Reminder that my original post was in response to this:
No, I don’t think there’s any special wisdom in other western nations, nor some unique flaw in “the American psyche”. I do think, however, that there is a very substantial flaw in the information and the balance thereof that said American psyche has access to, and in the world-view that results.
Case in point: People in the United States are much less likely to accept evolution than adults in other Western nations.
Case in point: People nearly everywhere generally accept the attribution of human activities to climate change. The U.S. is the exception, with nearly half (47%) – the largest percentage in the world – attributing global warming to natural causes.
Of course there’s lots more if one wants to dig for it: The ACA is “socialism”; universal health care doesn’t work and people are dying because of “socialized medicine”; and let’s not forget that Obama is a Kenyan socialist Muslim and must be impeached.
Why is this? Aside from the preoccupation with celebrities and junk television and an insular and dismissive attitude with respect to the rest of the world, consider this: The country’s largest and most-watched news network is a thinly disguised flagrant PR machine for the Republican Party and the religious right, yet on the other hand there is an appalling lack of funding for quality public broadcasting; the Supreme Court has persistently ruled in favor of unlimited corporate propagandizing, and the Koch brothers alone control one of the largest advocacy and propaganda networks the world has ever seen.
So please don’t tell us how “the American people” wisely ignore Europe and make independent policy decisions when it’s the only country in the industrialized world that doesn’t provide its citizens universal health care but does proudly provide them with the death penalty. No wonder Europeans are baffled.