Arabs attack Grozny

[chequita guevara]

Yes, but I'm not going to put words into your mouth.

[Ned]

Throughout history, the death penalty was unevenly applied. The rich and powerful were never executed although they were sometimes asked to commit suicide. However the lower classes were not only executed, they were executed many times for sport.

The death penalty, in my opinion, is not justified unless it is equally applied to all citizens without regard to the class.

You will find that may death penalty sentences are overturned in the United States due to inadequate representation. This is primarily a money issue. One solution would be to provide everyone accused of a capital offense a very high budget defense. I think this is ridiculous. I would prefer simply to end the death penalty in United States because it is not working for a number of reasons, but most importantly is that it is unevenly and infrequently applied, and too much resource is put into endless appeals causing delays that amount to cruel and unusual punishment for society and the victims families.

[Az]

That gets into a debat over the nature of morality. Either morality is fixed, as objectivists would argue or it is fluid and changes with society, as we Marxists would argue. I might find the burning of witches and the Death Penalty in general reprehensable, but within their contexts, they are/were moral acts.

CONSIDERED moral, and WERE moral are two different things.

My argument is that the same act could be moral under different sircumstances, but the reason for the morality or the immorality of the same act would remain the same, because the effects of the same act under different sircumstance would vary greatly. However, I fail to see the utility of witch-burning under any sircumstances. If you have a good example, please, enlighten me.

and about he DP issue: I admit I don't know all of the sides to it in the US. But since I only brought it as an example, It really doesn't mean anything.

[Az]

*bump*

[Az]

Bump

[Ned]

Originally posted by Azazel

CONSIDERED moral, and WERE moral are two different things.

My argument is that the same act could be moral under different sircumstances, but the reason for the morality or the immorality of the same act would remain the same, because the effects of the same act under different sircumstance would vary greatly. However, I fail to see the utility of witch-burning under any sircumstances. If you have a good example, please, enlighten me.

and about he DP issue: I admit I don't know all of the sides to it in the US. But since I only brought it as an example, It really doesn't mean anything.

An act is moral if it remains justified when made universal. However, this does mean morality may be context sensitive.

For example, making love to a woman may be moral or immoral depending upon her level of consent or her marital status.

[Az]

so, basically, you agree?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Azazel
so, basically, you agree?

Yes.

Killing, for example, is a problem that caused Church theologians angst for 2000 years. However, even the Church agrees that killing is at times moral - for example, in self defense or in the context of a just war.

[Az]

I would like also to point out that what we call these days morals : 'human rights' , etc. are not actually sacred, but the most efficient in utilitarian terms, way to run a society.