Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


That was only my opinion, based on the system of thought I use most of the time. It’s not necessarily unethical, it really depends on you're system of ethics... and those do wary *a lot* either way I do concede that almost anything can be considered unethical or ethical so I retract that point.

Concerning morality, I meant Christian morality. I also concede that morality is utterly irrelevant and unneeded.

Sorry, for Dan S'ing you ( I edited my post to add stuff after the initial post)

[Kontiki]

Personally, I'd like to see more "paying your dues to society" in the form of prison labour. It doesn't have to be "hard" labor necessarily, and you can even pay some sort of stipend if you want, but if criminals harm society as a whole (which I'd argue they do), then they should be made to repay some of that outside of just being removed from society.

[Ramo]

This is where the concept of "justice" comes into play.

That's your conception of justice. Not mine. The criminal justice system exists to protect society, not to sate the general population's bloodlust. As such, deterrence is the central question in the death penalty debate.

Imprisoning someone never retroactively prevents the crime; it never retroactively revives a deceased victim.

It also doesn't, you know, kill a person.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ramo
That's your conception of justice. Not mine. The criminal justice system exists to protect society, not to sate the general population's bloodlust.

So "punishment" is an unacceptable element in criminal justice?

The criminal justice system exists for four reasons. You're only acknowledging one of those reasons.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Personally, I'd like to see more "paying your dues to society" in the form of prison labour. It doesn't have to be "hard" labor necessarily, and you can even pay some sort of stipend if you want, but if criminals harm society as a whole (which I'd argue they do), then they should be made to repay some of that outside of just being removed from society.

I'm against that, as you end up in a situation in which the criminals would end up taking jobs away from the innocent populations. Hard manual labor jobs may be unpleasant, but plenty of people make their living from them. It doesn't seem fair to me to take away job opportunities from people who need them and give them to criminals.

[Ramo]

Revenge is your reason, not mine. As for the others, as a semantic point, they can be folded into protecting society.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ramo
Revenge is your reason, not mine. As for the others, as a semantic point, they can be folded into protecting society.

You're quite the cliche machine today, Ramo. Punishment is "revenge," "Republicans hate 'brown people'"- are you wearing a Che t-shirt and wire-rimmed glasses too?

So you'd be perfectly happy with this criminal justice system:

X, an otherwise law abiding person, is bored one day. X, who perfectly understands his society's criminal justice system, knows that that system will only imprison someone to "protect society," meaning protecting other people and propery from harm, deter people from commiting those crimes, and to rehabilitate the criminal. X hasn't committed a crime before, and knows that, after today, he'll never commit a crime again. X decides that, therefore, he'll go out and kill someone to see what it's like.

X goes out and kills a random stranger in broad daylight and in front of a crowd of people. X then happily awaits his arrest. When taken before the magistrate, X successfully demonstrates that he is no further danger to society and that he will never again commit a crime. The magistrate, satisfied with X's proof that he'll never again hurt anyone, gladly releases X. X does not serve a single night in prison.

[Ramo]

Thanks for that totally absurd stawman. No, I'm not for that.

Doing something bad to a person solely because they did something bad is revenge. That's what we're talking about (i.e. a justification of the death penalty independent of protecting people). If you want to call the dictionary a cliche, whatever floats your boat...

[Wezil]

The "punishment" aspect is also a check against vigilanteism.

[Ramo]

Vigilantes are going to break into a maximum security prison specifically to kill someone who's in prison for life?

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I'm against that, as you end up in a situation in which the criminals would end up taking jobs away from the innocent populations. Hard manual labor jobs may be unpleasant, but plenty of people make their living from them. It doesn't seem fair to me to take away job opportunities from people who need them and give them to criminals.

It doesn't have to be a situation where you take a paying job away. It could be doing stuff that's traditionally volunteer work.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ramo
Thanks for that totally absurd stawman. No, I'm not for that.

Why not? Afterall, X is never again going to commit a crime. Society doesn't need to be protected from him, as he's already done all the damage to society that he'll ever do. His knowledge that he's now a known criminal, that further criminal activity will indicate that he's still a danger to society and be a sign that he's not truly rehabilitated, and that therefore one more crime would lead to jailtime, will deter X from ever again commiting a crime. Besides, X, who found murder to be unpleasant and did not enjoy the fact that a portion of his day was wasted at the magistrate's office, truly desires to never again commit a crime, and he has the capability to never again commit a crime. He's rehabilitated. What possible reason would you have to imprison X? He's no longer a danger to society!

Doing something bad to a person solely because they did something bad is revenge. That's what we're talking about (i.e. a justification of the death penalty independent of protecting people). If you want to call the dictionary a cliche, whatever floats your boat...

I do know that many dictionaries define punishment and revenge as synonyms (although some dictionaries define revenge as being punishment + malice). I also know that the dictionary is a poor refuge in an argument (unless you're playing Scrabble).

There's no real way to rationally argue over this. In the way that we are using the words, revenge is basically a emotionally charged name for punishment. It's a tactic in the anti-DP strategy. You call punishment that you approve of "punishment," and you call punishment that you don't approve of "revenge." It's a cliche.

EDITED for grammar

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kontiki
It doesn't have to be a situation where you take a paying job away. It could be doing stuff that's traditionally volunteer work.

I'd turn the traditionally volunteer work (like picking up trash off of the sides of highways) into a government work program for the unemployed before turning it into work for criminals.

Maybe the criminals could do pointless make work, like carrying heavy rocks back and forth across a football field, but that's not really "giving back to society" in the terms you're using.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Ramo
Vigilantes are going to break into a maximum security prison specifically to kill someone who's in prison for life?

I'm speaking wrt the criminal justice system in general not dp in specific.

You take offence to the idea of "punishment". Just watch the public reaction if punishment is not served.

edit: fix quote

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I'd turn the traditionally volunteer work (like picking up trash off of the sides of highways) into a government work program for the unemployed before turning it into work for criminals.

Why?