The Death Penalty

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

Ok, hopefully my EXPLANATION will be better this time...

@ Mr.Nothing: you pretty much spoke my mind, I just had more tact than to point-blank say it.

@ rad3n: why is my name in quotes? And yes, it is the jails fault, but after the killer escapes it's pretty pointless to blame anybody. The focus should be solely on recapturing him.

@www the rest of your name is too long for me to remember: if that's the case I agree with Thailand. I'm VERY anti-drug. In fact, I'd most likely be the guy enforcing it over there. But they're right, a drug dealer does kill more people than a murderer. Actually, they kill exponentially. A murderer gets his licks in and that's it. A drug dealer deals to one perso who shares with another who buys from another who shares with another etc etc. I mean, for drug dealing I wouldn't enforce the DEATH PENALTY, but a life imprisonment, yes.

@ devonin: yeah, I know. Hopefully we've all gotten my point [this time].

[Mookage]

Re: The Death Penalty

I think the death penalty is a good way to get rid of people who can hurt society. The problem with the death penalty is if somebody is wrongly convicted and sentenced to death and killed, there is no going back. I think there should be undeniable evidence that the murder was commited by that person. I think the death penalty should come into effect for a murderer.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

So you're going to pick and choose which crimes are worthy of death and which aren't? Once again I ask where you're getting the validity for your standards other than you just figuring it seems good to you.

I mean, you've all been saying "murderers" but what about someone who kills in self-defense, or someone who was pushed beyond all reasonable limits to not lash out at someone, or someone who wasn't in their right mind etc etc.

What about non-murder crimes? Getting really angry and killing someone in a bar fight who would just as easily have killed you if you lost gets you executed, but raping a child doesn't? Eye-for-an-eye style justice only lets you kill killers, but I'm pretty sure that most people including most of you, could easily rank many non-killing crimes as worse than many killing crimes.

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

Self defense murder is still technically murder. However, it's morally granted. And yes, devonin, I am judging the majority of the crimes I deem suitable for the death penalty on my own personal feelings. As are many people in this thread.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

But do you feel justified in basing the entire actions of say, a nation's legal system, on your own personal feelings?

I'm a fan of Kant in this instance, that you should act as though you would will your action to be a universal maxim. In otherwords: Act as though you wish every person acted that way all the time.

Given that, I'm not prepared to act in a way that suggests "My own personal feelings are correct enough to force them on other people" Because if everyone did that, we would be in an awfully big mess.

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

I'm not sure how adequate this response is, but no, I couldn't. I mentally could not make a decision that would set a precedent for the entire universe.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

And yet you're arguing for the validity of the death penalty, admittedly on the grounds of it being your personal opinion that it should be practiced.

Wanting the law to be willing to kill people is an active stance meaning that it's something that directly effects other people from the status quo. Keeping them alive is a passive stance because even if you're imprisoning them, you aren't taking away their life and their right to life.

That's one of the reasons why I think it is so much more defensible to suggest that the death penalty is a bad idea.

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

So what about torture? Either physical or mental. Based on your logic, we're still keeping the killers alive.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

The stated purpose of torture when people want to justify it is to gain information from someone that they don't want to give up, so you give them the incentive of making the pain stop to encourage them to tell you what they know.

I don't see how that's applicable in this case. You seem to want to use torture simply as a means of punishment. You did something bad, so I'm going to hurt you a bunch. I can't see how that could possible be helpful any more than normal incarceration would be.

I didn't say "Any punishment that doesn't kill them is okay by me" I said "Not killing them is more acceptable than killing them" Cruel and unusual punishment is also not something I'm particularly willing to get behind. The only way I could justify it ever would be in a case where someone provably knew information vital to saving the lives of a large number of innocent people and was refusing to give it up. Even then, I imagine I'd be carrying an awful lot of guilt around afterwards.

[Shadowlessheart]

Re: The Death Penalty

How far can you take torture before it becomes "involuntary manslaughter"? Here in the great U.S-of-A we can go as fair as to anything that doesn't purposely cause organ failure, though if deemed "Oh...we didn't know it'd do that" it becomes completely legal.

Beautiful things our congress passes...pure beauty, so what I'm saying here is torture never works at all...just in shows, you torture me (or most sane ppl) and we'll tell you what you wanna hear no matter the situation, just so it'd stop.

I believe most people who deem it o.k. to torture use the validity of saying "it was for our country (as torture is only legal for them, any normal joe does it they're screwed)" already know it won't work, so in my opinion i believe that's just as wrong as manslaughter.

Now on the death penalty, who is who to deem what is and isn't morally right or wrong? Over all it's society, so if we all said it was o.k. to kill someone for murder perhaps (eye for and eye...etc [which would mean in Hammurabi's time death penalty would be socially accepted as people wouldn't argue with a king because of their impending fear of eternal damnation, and in that wouldn't think twice]) then the death penalty could work.

I don't know I'm probably completely under analyzing this, and for that I'm sorry, but I guess if my over all statement hasn't been apparent, what I'm trying to say is "Nobody who isn't everybody can deem what is and isn't the context of correct morals."

~Edit~: This is where I got that whole "organ failure" thing if people didn't believe me, I'm sorry I don't remember what part is was I'm thinking 1. Anyway this is a credible source I believe :X.

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

Ok, devonin, let's look at it scientifically:

I have two white lab rats. I have four doors. I seperate the rats. Each sat gets two doors. The scenarios are identical: one door is guarded by an invisible electric fence, the other has a slice of Swiss cheese behind it.
Rat A tries to open door 1. He is electrictued. He tries again. Same result. Again. Same result. Finally he tries the other door. He gets the cheese. He no longer tries door 1.

A murderer/rapist/robber etc is put in a dungeon. There is no light. There is no clean air. There is no indoor plumbing. They eat their own feces. They drink their own urine. They see nothing. Every morning a man comes to them and slices a pattern into their genitals. Every evening a different man comes to them and pours boiling water over their naked body. They are released.
Prior to all that they are told that for committing the crime that is their punishment.

Well, something tells me they won't do it again (subtracting the factor of mental insanity etc).



*I know that was graphic, but hopefully it made my point. Torture could be a perfectly effective, not reasonable, but effective, method of enforcing laws.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

Negative reinforcement works on dogs too, but it's still a) less effective than positive reinforcement and b) illegal cruelty.

In fact, what is likely to happen in that case, when you just release the person is that they are going to go after the people responsible for their horrible torture to get revenge. You don't come away from 5 years of horrible torture going "Well, I guess I won't do -that- again, maybe I should go find a nice job" You come away from that swearing revenge and substantially more prone to violence. Hell, you've pretty much -created- the mental insanity you've described as an exception.

[Grandiagod]

Re: The Death Penalty

I'd imagine extreme prolonged torture would work less as a deterrent and more as a way to create a mentally instable individual.

[tsugomaru]

Re: The Death Penalty

It probably would considering that for people who do murder, they do not think of the consequences. People who commit murder for several reasons, for those who commit murder for money, they usually completely believe that they can get away with it. People who commit murder for passion will not be stopped because they strongly believe that what they are doing is right. People who commit murder based on a whim do not think of their punishments as they commit murder. Of course there are the people who kill others on accident, there is really no way to avoid that type of killing because it really isn't intentional.

~Tsugomaru

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

Negative reinforcement works on dogs too, but it's still a) less effective than positive reinforcement and b) illegal cruelty.

In fact, what is likely to happen in that case, when you just release the person is that they are going to go after the people responsible for their horrible torture to get revenge. You don't come away from 5 years of horrible torture going "Well, I guess I won't do -that- again, maybe I should go find a nice job" You come away from that swearing revenge and substantially more prone to violence. Hell, you've pretty much -created- the mental insanity you've described as an exception.

This is pathetic. Four posts on this thread since I've last been on.

Devonin, they don't walk away saying "I'll never do that again" even know. Hence the term 'repeat offender'. It does seem more likely that they would refrain from repeating the actions after extreme torture. I mean, duh, they're going to want revenge. I would too. I would swear it too. But I sure as hell would never commit the same crime again.