Capital Punishment: Should the Death Penalty Still Exist In A 'Civilised Society'?

But it's not because I respect the sanctity of life or some bullshit. Human beings are ultimately expendable, probably more so than other mammals. But giving the federal government that kind of power? Ultimate DUD.

This is one cause I'd probably march for. It's a deeply flawed (and proven so!) system - biased, cruel and barbaric.

Being 'civilised' has nothing to do with it. It's common sense. Don't make me quote that overused "First they came for the Jews..."

Well, the perversely more amusing (?) thing is that Allawi and crew just reinstated the death penalty in Iraq, so smiles all around!

The death penalty as such is an abomination.

Killing people is a-ok so long as the government doesn't do it?

right. which is why study after shows that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime.

NOT.

Plus, as a system, it's 'racist,' etc etc etc

this is one of the scariest things that i've read. look around the next time you're out in public.

Putting emotions aside (always difficult in this debate), the death penalty does not serve any interest of the state that could not be better served through other means.

The state has an interest in preventing heinous criminals from continuing to commit crimes. But that interest can be equally well served through life imprisonment. The death of the criminal provides no added benefit.

The state has an interest in promoting justice. No system can ensure perfect justice. Given that we know our justice must necessarily be imperfect, the best remedy requires that all mistakes, when discovered, must be corrected. The very nature of the death penalty thwarts this requirement.

The state does not have an interest in promoting revenge. Revenge does not provide any tangible benefits to the state or anyone else. The fact that certain people connected to the crime declare a sense of satisfaction or relief at the death of the criminal is of very doubtful benefit, even to those who seek it, and a sense of satisfaction or relief are not sufficient ends to justify taking life.

x-post

"The death of the criminal provides no added benefit."

except financial. Just playing Devil's advocate here, but it costs taxpayers a lot of money to keep a 19 year old prisoner alive for that long.

some people deserve it

especially very fat people

ugh, they're so gross

One nice thing about money is that it can be measured with great accuracy. It should therefore be possible to compare average costs per inmate between death penalty states and non-death penalty states to get a handle on which approach is more expensive and by how much. Just guessing is not a good approach.

If mere cost-effectiveness turns out to be the strongest and best reason for the state to execute certain prisoners, I think that would be a good indicator of just how weak the practical argument in favour of capital punishment is.

Then how come every European government is still in charge of things? In Finland the death penalty isn't lawful even during wartime.

Why is there the death penalty in USA but not UK? Does mainland Europe have it?

The EU regulations say that a member state cannot have the death penalty, so none of the EU countries have it. I'm pretty sure it's same with most of the non-EU countries, though some Eastern European countries, like Belarussia, probably still have it.

are you being funny?

It doesn't?

maybe im being a bit too Hobbsian, but since i think anarchy is untenable there needs to be strong (read: effective) means for enforcing order. what means are "moral" (by what definition?) or reasonable is i suppose what the death penalty debate is all about. i dont think the death penalty really meets any needs that U.S. in particular has, and should therefore be abolished.

I find it slightly disturbing that you rate the threat to order over the threat to human life.

and i tend to see the threat to order as a threat to human life.

I'm pessemistic too. We'll more than likely blow ourselves up/iredeemibly poison our environment/regress to a new dark age before we achieve a post-scarcity anarchistic society. But that doesn't mean it's untenable, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to strive for it.

As for the order/human life thing, it's very easy for a government to justify an atrocity by saying it was to maintain order. Remember Tianiman Square.

Trump is an absolute fucking creep.

hard to think of a better litmus test for being an evil person than supporting the death penalty in any form in 2020

He called for the execution of the Central Park Five, too, which kind of ties it all up neatly: the incarceration system and wealthy white people teaming up to try to get innocent people of color executed for political gain

hard to think of a better litmus test for being an evil person than supporting the death penalty in any form in 2020

Is that any way to talk about Mordy and darraghmac?

Well, that's disappointing. :/

I always thought the latter was just talking about Serge Aurier and it was more of a joek

he is talking about Aurier and it's not a joek

an appeal for clemency on recent good behavior

Is that any way to talk about Mordy and darraghmac?

aka the Just Retribution Crew.

it's a mindset we all understand, because I think most of us can agree that there are crimes so abhorrent that they cry out for just retribution. The problem at its base is that there's no way to allow for a death penalty in those cases that doesn't simultaneously open the door for all sorts of profound and irreversible injustice. and that is even more abhorrent to the concept of justice than any 'failure' of justice involved in letting evil people live in a cage.

I most of us can agree that there are crimes so abhorrent that they cry out for just retribution

Yes, and the death penalty is never it.

Think ive rather come round to the view that theres plenty deserve death but no human system capable of administration in any way that can work

hth

A penniless, ostracized Trump cast adrift in a country he deems a 'shithole', reduced to tearfully solliciting alms as the locals gleefully spit in his begging bowl, would be preferable to a highly publicized lethal injection, for instance.

Granted

But how bout public chainsaw

the death penalty horrifies me, seriously, but

i like watching docs about ex Nazis getting there just desserts. that appears to be my line

not classifying Trump as an ex Nazi for this quibble

but i wouldn't cry or anything

Would mete out less long-term satisfaction imo.

2xp

We'll not split heirs, so no guillotine for eric

I sort of singled out Mordy and deems there, because they're the two who stuck in my mind, but there might well be other ILXors who argued in favour of the death penalty itt.

I'm fairly sure they're not evil but who knows?

well thanks for your contribution at any rate

I can be agnostic about the morality of killing another human being who poses no risk to others (I’m not, but for the sake of argument I can be), but as deems says there’s just no way a system designed by people can justly implement it. and seeking some sort of compromise likely only ensures that very predictable populations will be the ones whom it’s applied to in practice

I notice you'd locked horns with Mordy on this before itt.

Wow

Going back, I see that Mordy's support of the death penalty was based on his conviction that:

it's more humane because imprisoning someone for life is dehumanizing, horrific, and never-ending torment. if we're going to end someone's life, maybe we should be honest and do it for real. not lock them in some kind of existential state of nothingness.

This is quite different than the Just Retribution argument and I did Mordy a disservice by lumping him into that category. However, I do not agree with his view of life imprisonment as a state of never-ending torture. It is too simplistic to account for the wide variations in both human psychology and conditions of imprisonment. If Trappist monks voluntarily enter and remain in monasteries then a life of strict confinement is not necessarily to be viewed as a form of torture. This is just Mordy projecting his own imagined response to something he has not experienced.

If Trappist monks voluntarily enter and remain in monasteries then a life of strict confinement is not necessarily to be viewed as a form of torture.

hmm

(xp) There was a lot more to it than that.

hmm

well, if one wishes to argue that a life of strict confinement must necessarily to be viewed as a form of torture, then one must plausibly account for such instances, because... they exist.

there's the aspect of consent.

yes. and consent is important to the overall experience of confinement and I would never describe involuntary confinement as anything but a punishment. But as I read Mordy's description ("horrific, and never-ending torment"), it seems necessary to explain why anyone would view a similar state of confinement differently enough to consent to it. iow, if one accepts one's existential condition as confinement, then that condition may not necessarily be experienced as horrific, and never-ending torment.

As I understand it, very long term prisoners (25 years or more) who are finally released often feel less comfortable in their newfound freedom than they did in prison, largely because they adapted to and accepted what Mordy believes must always be a horrific, and never-ending torment.

Disgraced spiritual teacher Bo Lozoff, who taught meditation in prisons, alluded to this idea of existential confinement in the title of his book We're All Doing Time.

I had to look to see how Lozoff disgraced himself. It doesn't seem like his idea of existential confinement was connected to it, unless his book advocated sexual and psychological abuse as a concomitant to the proper running of a halfway house.

yes. and consent is important to the overall experience of confinement and I would never describe involuntary confinement as anything but a punishment. But as I read Mordy's description ("horrific, and never-ending torment"), it seems necessary to explain why anyone would view a similar state of confinement differently enough to consent to it. iow, if one accepts one's existential condition as confinement, then that condition may not necessarily be experienced as horrific, and never-ending torment.

― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Friday, December 11, 2020 1:21 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it's fairly plain that the consensual aspect completely alters the nature of confinement, so you're no longer talking about the same experience, even if they are superficially similar. it may be added that the superficial similarity is heavy on the superficial. the atmosphere in a monastery is a lot more congenial than that of a maximum security prison's death row, the access to the outside less limited - I am picturing the cistercians frolicking in the alpine snow in the documentary "into great silence", the labour often satisfyingly artisan. not a lot of solitary confinement, violence, 1 hour in the yard per day, beating by guards, rape, etc. going on in abbeys.

more congenial than that of a maximum security prison's death row, the access to the outside less limited

I agree. But neither Mordy nor I have stipulated such lifetime confinement occurring on death row. If there is no death penalty, there is no death row. Nor have we included maximum security, solitary confinement, or other such qualifications in the discussion of life sentences. Mordy's position was that life sentence was in itself enough to merit the description of "some kind of existential state of nothingness" that was a torture worse than death. I disagreed with that.

The inhumanity of the various deprivations that are currently practiced in our prison system should each be considered according to their own lack of merit and I think most of them should be abolished, along with many other features of our penal system. But just as it is possible to eliminate the death penalty as part of that overhaul, many of those practices ought to be abolished or curtailed and the prison populations reduced by more than half, too.

Mordy's argument in favor of death as being the more humane and less cruel alternative to life imprisonment just doesn't convince me.

So when he said he was in favour of executing Dylann Roof you think he was being humane?

He thought so. Not me.

I agree. But neither Mordy nor I have stipulated such lifetime confinement occurring on death row. If there is no death penalty, there is no death row. Nor have we included maximum security, solitary confinement, or other such qualifications in the discussion of life sentences. Mordy's position was that life sentence was in itself enough to merit the description of "some kind of existential state of nothingness" that was a torture worse than death. I disagreed with that.

I goofed by mentioning death row - obviously not relevant to the discussion - but if we're talking about theoretical jail that doesn't exist and isn't as shitty as the actual maximum security jails murderers and the like inhabit in North America then that obviously changes the conversation and I would assume that it is unlikely that any interlocutor on the subject would have been considering a platonic ideal of humane imprisonment when weighing the two things.

(xp) I don't believe he did.

Or if he did that was only part of the reason why he supported his execution.

Just to clarify, jiv, would you consider life imprisonment, even in the current wretched and cruel USA prison system to be less humane and therefore less preferable than swift execution by whatever means you might name? Or does working to eliminate the death penalty and then to improve the prison system in the direction of that elusive "platonic ideal of humane imprisonment" sound like the more humane alternative to you?

to be clear I think the death penalty is bad. but it does have to be judged on the actual merits of the current alternative that society offers, which is also "inhumane"

Or if he did that was only part of the reason why he supported his execution.

Fine. But if it was "part of the reason", then you are saying he thought it was more humane, which is also what I said. More to the point, Mordy directly said this was his position I quoted him saying it just a bit further upthread, though the quoted post was not directly in reference to Dylann Roof.

to be clear I think the death penalty is bad. but it does have to be judged on the actual merits of the current alternative that society offers, which is also "inhumane"

that is clear in one sense, but "it is bad" doesn't quite answer the question I asked, which is about relative merits, not absolute merit. but it's fine if you'd prefer not to take a position on that.

It's bad and I am against it. I've never lived anywhere with the death penalty (technically it was still on the books for treason in the uk until 1998 but no one had been tried for treason during my lifetime) or where it may have a chance of being reintroduced, so it's not something I tend to think i need to be clear on my objection to, sort of like being against witch trials

i think of the witch trials as a relatively enlightened time

people of various theories faced off against each other, each being expected to provide evidence and logic. the evidence and logic was corrupted, of course, but the overall expectation of its soundness was still there. plus, no one brushed their teeth. it was better

in the end, we all get the death penalty

https://myhero.com/content/images/thumbs/0038187_bob-marley.jpeg

maybe the point of living is...to make your death penalty unjust?

:D

Oklahoma governor actually commuted a death sentence for a man who was scheduled to die today.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/18/1056753071/activists-call-on-oklahoma-governor-to-stop-julius-jones-execution