Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Does that mean that if we just empty the prisons we'll be more secure and less afraid?

You miss the point. The quote doesn't actually say anything about whether the insecurity or fear are justified or not.

[DinoDoc]

Then I fail to see the point of it in this thread.

[SlowwHand]

Nietzsche, snake oil salesman to the masses of the naive.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ramo
I really don't know why you persist in believing that you're making a serious argument (instead of one that's so ridiculous that it hardly merits a response).

I don't know why you persist in writing lazy responses that hardly merit reading. You don't like reductio ad absurdum, so you resort to the internet version of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "I'm not listening."

I repeat: there are two factors to keep in mind. First of all, random murder is pretty good evidence that this individual is likely to hurt people in the future (since we can't predict the future, that's probably the best thing to go on; note that if we could predict the future, criminal justice would be considerably different).

Your appeals in this factor are irrelevant. The hypo takes care of it. Although your objections are no doubt true in the abstract, the criminal justice system in this scenario has analyzed X and determined that, from this moment onward, he isn't dangerous. Of course the system can't "prove" that X will never again be dangerous, but no criminal justice system in which prison sentences are based on safety and rehabilitation can ever "prove" that a particular convict will never again pose a threat. All they can ever do is to use their best judgment, a judgment based on a person's criminal history, psychological make-up, and responses to other similar evaluations.

The hypo assumes that the criminal system analyzed X's personal history, psychological make-up, etc., and determined to the necessary degree of certainty that he'll no longer posed a threat. It may have taken a very short time to make that determination in X's case, but such a time period is not completely foreclosed by the "safety & rehabilitation" theories of criminal justice.

Secondly, a lengthy prison sentence is probably the most efficient deterrent. Please don't make absurd arguments about red tape being almost equivalent, because you know that it isn't true.

I'm starting with the premise that there is no such thing as a perfect deterrent. Once we get past that, we have to ask ourselves how well we want our deterrent to work. You're obviously not going to argue for the absolutely most effect form of deterrence (as that would require the support of the DP if even one person who would otherwise not be deterred would be deterred by it)

In my hypo, the CJS has determined that the proper system creates deterrence by fashioning the punishment around the convict's continued dangerousness and rehabitability. Some people are deterred by this system- no doubt there are fewer deterred in this system than there would be in a mandatory life sentence or DP system, but there's deterrence nonetheless. If the prison sentence is any longer (in other words, if there's a blanket prison sentence imposed regardless of the convict's rehabitibility and dangerousness), then you'll wind up with non-dangerous, fully rehabilitated people sitting behind bars solely for deterrence. Every society thus has a trade off when sentencing their convicts between the sentence that is as deterrent as possible and the sentence that is best shaped to release non-dangerous, rehabilitated people back into society (as keeping such people behind bars for actions that they comitted in the past doesn't change the past, serves no purpose in bettering them in regards to society, and seems suspiciously close to "punishing" them becase they did something "wrong")

Anyway, since you don't want to work with my hypo, I'll give you a more realistic example. Let's say that a 5 year prison sentence for 1st degree murder would deter 99% of all potential 1st degree murders, while life sentence would deter 99.9% of all such murders. Would that .9% difference in deterrent effect justify locking up people for life who were fully rehabilitated and no longer dangerous? How do you justify keeping people imprisoned decades after they're safe for society if the deterrent effect is only marginally increased?

I think government's job is to make society as a whole better, and not be some kind of metaphysical entity that makes "bad people" suffer and die. I would also add that exalting bloodlust is probably a bad thing for society in general (i.e. making people more violent).

You don't have to be working on some "metaphysical" assumptions to make moral judgments. You make moral judgments all the time, using emotionally charged and morally judgmental terms like "revenge" and "bloodlust" to demonize your opponents' positions and to express your moral outrage in regards to them. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that your statements are based on metaphysics (you are an atheist, aren't you?), just on your moral judgment.

Like it or not, our government and society is based on sets of moral decisions and assumptions. People, even rational, secular people, make them all of the time. Government officials are people, and they exercise moral judgment in their governmental actions.

It doesn't take metaphysics to support the DP (and the concept of punishment in general) any more than it does to oppose the DP and the concept of punishment in general. I make the moral judgement that some crimes are worse than others on a moral level; you don't. Neither of us is religious or spiritual. Legislators make the same types of determinations when fashioning the proper punishments for crimes.

[Dinner]

Faded Glory used to be dead. Maybe he could tell us if it was cruel or not.

[Ramo]

Your appeals in this factor are irrelevant. The hypo takes care of it. Although your objections are no doubt true in the abstract, the criminal justice system in this scenario has analyzed X and determined that, from this moment onward, he isn't dangerous.

This is the definition of a ridiculous strawman. We can't do this. Period. As I wrote in my post:
"[S]ince we can't predict the future, [previous actions are] probably the best thing to go on; note that if we could predict the future, criminal justice would be considerably different"

You're obviously not going to argue for the absolutely most effect form of deterrence (as that would require the support of the DP if even one person who would otherwise not be deterred would be deterred by it)

Most efficient deterrent using the entirety of my metric for moral good (net increase in [generalized] freedom). Whether his loss in freedom can be justified by an increase in everyone else's. This is an empirical question that's at the heart of the debate, and is not thoroughly settled IMO (and because it's not settled, I would err against harsher sentences in general). Whether or not your system deters some obviously does not imply that it has an appropriate level of deterrence.

I repeat, this is a completely bizarre argument you're making. I can't believe that you expect anyone to take it seriously.

You don't have to be working on some "metaphysical" assumptions to make moral judgments.

I'm not talking about making moral judgments. Obviously I do so, as I explicitly wrote in my previous posts. I'm talking about punishing people you find lacking independent of any greater considerations about society. Where the metaphysics come in is that this has pretty strong religious connotations, i.e. the state acting as God.

I make the moral judgement that some crimes are worse than others on a moral level; you don't.

You're misunderstanding my objections. Just as I think that an individual participating in a violent action out of revenge is immoral and justifies action by the state, the state should not be applauded when it acts in a similar manner.