BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Head Shop >

The Moral Case for Execution?

  
  

Page: 1(2)

 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:27 / 17.05.05
In terms of the absolute question of whether or not certain crimes should be punishable by death, yes. In terms of the social ethics of instituting the death penalty within a society? Not so much.

Let's take the life of an eight year old girl who has been raped and murdered. She has no option to be 'cleared' 30 years later, she's dead, her life is gone, her family is ruined, and her community will never be the same. The person who committed this crime deserves no less. If life is sacred then the punishment for taking it must be severe. If it isn't then i don't believe we actually consider life to be sacred.

This line of argument assumes that anyone who opposes it supports the rape and murder of children. This is not, to the best of my knowledge, a logical conclusion to draw. How about, for example, a nine-year-old boy. Is he still worth the death penalty? How about an eighteen-year old boy? What if he isn't raped first? You are arguing for the death penalty as a proof that one values life, but actually seem to be suggesting that only _certain_ forms of life, ended in certain ways, are actually that valuable.

So, fallacies to address:

1) On deserving any less. Does the logic follow that the perpetrator of this heinous act should also be raped before execution? If not, what does the value of life have to do with that?

2) If life is sacred, punishment for taking it must be severe. If death penalty is not used for the taking of (certain kinds of) life, life is not sacred. You've missed a step of your proposition, which is, by deduction:

If punishment is not execution, punishment is not severe.

Do no other severe punishments exist, and can no other punishment be considered severe?

More generally, the proposition that the way to demonstrate the value a society places on human life is to build mechanisms for removing it into a state's constitution, but that could certainly be argued...
 
 
skolld
20:14 / 17.05.05


haus,
I certainly don't argue that being against the death penalty means being for rape and murder. I was using that scenario as an illustration.
My point is that the victim of murder (young girl, old man, whoever) had no choice in the matter. Their life was taken due to the Choice of another human being. That criminal choice is what's at the heart of this. Murder 1 entails, Malice and Forethought. I don't think we can overlook the intent of the criminal in our sentencing.
We have to define what the word 'Justice' means.
We have laws. If a law is broken, there are consequences. The punishment should fit the crime, this seems sensible to me.
At what point does the perpatrator deserve more leniency(sp) than they showed their victim?

1) On deserving any less. Does the logic follow that the perpetrator of this heinous act should also be raped before execution? If not, what does the value of life have to do with that?

I actually have no problem with that. There are machines made for that sort of thing. Would it be considered cruel and unusual punishment? maybe but perhaps people don't understand the nature of the crime.



2) If life is sacred, punishment for taking it must be severe. If death penalty is not used for the taking of (certain kinds of) life, life is not sacred. You've missed a step of your proposition, which is, by deduction:

I don't believe i have. I will concede that there are alternatives to the death penalty, but are any of them in existence now, as severe?
I should add that i personally don't think life is nearly as sacred as most people tend to tell themselves it is.
I'm just trying to show that there is a justification for the death penalty. Can we find alternative punishments, maybe, but does that take away the justification?

(a little sporatic in my argument there, sorry, i'm typing from work. I can make it more coherent later)
 
 
skolld
14:49 / 18.05.05
upon reflection, i think i may be too emotional in my argument.
so let me ask a few questions if i may,

what is our distinction between types of killing? Is a soldier justified in killing on the battlefield? It would seem to me that a soldier gives up his/her right to live after signing up. They've made that choice. Does a murderer also fit this criteria of choice?
i don't know, i see your problem with the idea that the State has control over execution, but can we call execution, state sanctioned murder? I'm not sure that we can since 'murder' has a set definition which includes malice and forethought (i suppose an argument could be made for that though)
I guess my biggest question would be, Is all killing 'wrong'? if it is then execution cannot be justified. but if there is even one case where killing is OK then it seems as though execution could be justified. Does that hold up to logic?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:23 / 18.05.05
Skolld, let me present you with another scenario. A 30 year old schizophrenic, let's call her Lizzie, has just killed a man on the street. She has been prescribed medication and has been taking it regularly but unfortunately it hasn't worked. She has shown signs that it hasn't worked but they haven't placed her in hospital because her actions up to this point have not been violent. She is placed on death row for murder because she has a disease that cannot be cured and was at the time of her action out of control.

My point is that every murder case depends on social reaction as does every instance of killing. War now is rather different from war in the 1930's, how do you react to soldiers who have been conscripted. How do you react to an American kid who has been placed in the position where their only possibility of university entrance is through the army? Do you convict a man for killing in self defence, in a combat situation where he is being shot at. The answer to each of these questions is dependent on the individual situation, societal pressure, class background, that's why sanctity of life is an idea that is logically incorrect because it wilfully ignores a hundred and one other factors that are equally as important to a person.

Execution, by the way, certainly depends on forethought.
 
 
skolld
16:58 / 18.05.05
Execution, by the way, certainly depends on forethought.

yeah, i thought about that after i wrote it.

In your scenario, ideally the woman wouldn't be put on death row because she lacked the mental capacity to understand the correctness of her actions. That scenario would depend on our justice system, not the legitimacy of the death penalty.
Conscription of soldiers isn't something i had thought about though, that's very convincing.

The answer to each of these questions is dependent on the individual situation, societal pressure, class background, that's why sanctity of life is an idea that is logically incorrect because it wilfully ignores a hundred and one other factors that are equally as important to a person.

This i agree with this 100 percent but where does that leave us in terms of the death penalty? Is there a case where society could reasonably justify it and isn't that what our respective judicial systems are supposed to determine on an individual basis?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
19:30 / 18.05.05
It would seem to me that a soldier gives up his/her right to live after signing up.

Well, no. I mean, you were in the forces, weren't you? And yet you are not currently dead, and you might further protest quite vehemently if somebody decided to kill you now. That's pretty basic - if the right to life can be signed away by something as simple as an employment contract, then it is clearly not valuable, which means punishment need not be so severe for murder but also that less severe crimes could result in the death penalty.

Anyway, back to the soldier. When a soldier signs up he is aware that the job he is being trained and paid for may place him in situations in which his life is in greater peril than it would be in a different carrer; this is reflected in his remuneration. He _does_ sacrifice certain rights, but these are career-specific - he surrenders the right to trial for military offences in a civil court, for example. His right to life remains as great as before - signing the contract only potentially affects his likelihood of living, which is very different. A bungee jumper has as much right to live as a non-bungee jumper; they have made their own decisions about how much risk they are prepared to take with their life and to what purpose.

This is possibly also why one is not generally prosecuted for killing other people while you are a soldier, _as long as the contractual obligations are observed_. So, if you massacre civilians or unarmed enemies who have surrendered, you should at least theoretically get into trouble for it.

So, the field of battle might be seen as a place where certain people (those who have signed up to fight on either side) have agreed that, as long as certain conditiions pertain, certain coonsiderations (the advantage, strategiic or tactical, of their nation, say) can temporarily outweigh the sanctity in which life should normally be held. It's weirdly consensual... obviously less so if you are a conscript, or indeed a civilian. Does that specific environment have implications for everyday life? Is a court of law, for example, a place where the sanctity of life can in certain circumstances be suspended, so that, for example, a person can with forethought (and malice?) have their life ended (or scheduled to end) even though there is no immediately pressing reason (self-defence, for example) to do so?
 
 
skolld
20:31 / 18.05.05
Well, no. I mean, you were in the forces, weren't you? And yet you are not currently dead, and you might further protest quite vehemently if somebody decided to kill you now.

I am not, but many others are. During your term of service you, by choice (at least in the States right now) make a commitment, and part of that commitment involves the potential for dying.
A bungee jumper is not being shot at nor are they in danger from hostile forces, I wouldn't agree that they are of the same essence.
I don't know if you ever read a contract for military service but the part about being killed or maimed is definitily in there.
A soldier is willing to give up their life for their country and for others (at least that's what you tell yourself while you're there). An ideal essentially becomes more important than your own life. So i suppose this would establish that life is not 'sacred' per se, but that it has value on perhaps a sliding scale.

That's pretty basic - if the right to life can be signed away by something as simple as an employment contract, then it is clearly not valuable, which means punishment need not be so severe for murder but also that less severe crimes could result in the death penalty

This i have no diagreement with but then we come back to defining the circumstances of 'murder', which takes us to what Nina was saying about situations all being relative.
But again where does that put us in terms of coming to justification for the death penalty? There are obviously no absolutes, so at what point do decide 'it's the best we can come up with?"
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:57 / 18.05.05

I am not, but many others are. During your term of service you, by choice (at least in the States right now) make a commitment, and part of that commitment involves the potential for dying.

The possibility of dying in the pursuit of objectives. Different thing than just "sign here, and if you are randomly selected from your batallion, we'll shoot you". It may not be the same as bungee jumping (although bungee jumpers, I assume, also have to sign something accepting that in certain situations you may die and the bungee rope manufacturers and event organisers will not be liable), but it is also not the same as signing away your right to life because otherwise anybody would be free to kill you, and you would have no right to stop them. That's pretty basic - an army with no right to live is not a strategically useful proposition, unless, say in the case of the Dirty Dozen, they are motivated by the desire to regain their right to live. If you get what I mean. A soldier retains his right to life, as do the soldiers on the other side. They are simply in a job in which they might infringe each other's rights. These situations I covered in the previous post, downstream.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
09:27 / 19.05.05
all

Just glancing through this discussion and was quite interested in some of the questions it raises. The argument I am especially interested in appears to revolve around issues of human life being sacred and that of individuals being held to account for there actions by the state killing them. I believe that it is already been accepted that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. During 2004, at least 3,797 people were executed in 25 countries. At least 7,395 people were sentenced to death in 64 countries. These figures include only cases known to Amnesty International. I'm really not sure what I think about child executions...

The question that interests me is whether it is morally acceptable for the state to have the social right to take life? Can any argument justify the state having the right to take life ?

I'm not sure that it's obvious from the phrasing of the question but I don't think that anyone has managed to justify such killing - not just because of the inevitable state killing of completely innocent people, but also because the state decides on what constitutes 'guilt'.

s
 
 
skolld
13:47 / 19.05.05
. That's pretty basic - an army with no right to live is not a strategically useful proposition

That's actually the complete opposite. An army that accepts it's going to die is far more strategically useful.You seem to making the assumption that because you sign a contract that there are no other clauses or expectations. When i say you give up certain rights to living, that doesn't mean that just anybody can kill you, there are still contractual obligations on the part of your own military.
But that's all a tangent really to the actual question.

sdv clarifies the question i think
The question that interests me is whether it is morally acceptable for the state to have the social right to take life? Can any argument justify the state having the right to take life

so how do we shape an argument for it.
I think there are at least a couple of points that we would all agree on.
1. The value of human life is not fixed, it is not 'sacred', but rather its value is circumstantial.
2. The state can and has made mistakes with regard to executing innocent people. Our current legal systems cannot guarantee a verdict will be true 100 percent of the time.
3. There are situations where killing another human being can be justified (self-defense or mutual consent)
4. States can and have abused such powers to quell dissent and for other political aims.

Given these factors and others that i'm not thinking of right now. I would have to say No. State sanctioned execution cannot be reasonably justified in a democratic society.
 
  

Page: 1(2)

 
  
Add Your Reply