We are all biased. That may not make him more qualified, but he still retains an equal voice. I'm generally against the death penalty, primarily because of it being prohibitively expensive due to the obligatory and long appeals process. At the time I was writing on the topic, the unfair application in sentencing regarding race was problematic as well.

But, I also felt extreme unease standing on the same side of the issue as the serial killers and mass murderers. That's the moral conundrum we face.

Who would be the best, then? One can argue from experience or self-interest without arguing incorrectly.

You said, "So no, I don't think you're one of the best people to speak on this topic as the family member of a murder victim" and ended there without addressing anything he said. You insulted him about his spelling and dismissed him -- and I'd wager so far only him? Who else have you said that to so far?

I happen to believe that categorical opposition to the death penalty tends to accompany (actually relies on) indifference to the suffering of victims and questions of desert -- bureaucratic apathy is something we expect of the DMV but I would hope that those left behind to speak and feel for murder victims have some standing in an internet discussion?

The case he presented was one where misidentification of the man responsible is impossible, and we know it was done with proper planning and for excessively trivial reasons, edit, and exceptionally brutally at that. He was sentenced to the same 15 years he would get for burglary. If that is not a system that places the same value on life as it does on property I don't know what to say.

Firstly, I don't really care. Its an internet forum and the only people who find it important to point out grammatical mistakes are snobs. IMO Pretty much by definition if you feel the need to point out my mistakes that makes you a snob.

Secondly, I said that she worked with immigrants that didn't speak the language, that she worked with deaf people, and that she worked with minorities that could not afford their hospital stays. I felt it very important to point this out since she did this on a volunteer basis. (I said outreach work) She was murdered by a person in one of the groups of people she did outreach work for. I should not have mentioned which group the person convicted was a part of? I also think that you are the only person that labeled an entire group as criminal. Besides saying what the person was convicted of I didn't label anyone a criminal. I even went as far to qualify the theft of my aunts debit card as alleged. My post was completely void of racism or even bias my post was factual, (except for statement where I said she was determined to live, which was an assumption, you can nit pick that if you want.) If you saw racism or discrimination it was because you were looking for it.

Finally, Your right, revenge and justice are similar but not that same. For it to be revenge IMO (oh and websters) I would have to be administering the death sentence myself, and obviously that is not something I would consider reasonable. The definition of justice is "just behavior or treatment." the definition of just is "based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair." To me a convicted murderer being put to death for putting another person/s to death is behaving according, to what is morally right and fair. I suppose what is morally right and fair is up for debate, but I don't see how a person can say that being treated as they treated others is not fair. IMO turnaround is fair play. Its one of those infinite arguments, if i treated you unfairly then you treated me unfairly etc, etc. Again its just my opinion but if is determined that you treated a person one way, then is is a just punishment for you to be treated that way.

I have been having this conversation for the past 15 years so I don't except to change your mind. Your entitled to your opinion as much as I am. I actually wouldn't have even responded if it weren't for the revenge comment. I just don't see how me thinking that anyone who purposely kills another person should be put to death equals revenge for my aunt. Joesph Woods being put to death does not make up for the fact the my aunts killer is out walking the streets. Dennis Lindsey dying by lethal injection wouldn't have been revenge either, but it would have been justice. Would you mind sharing your opinion on why him dying was not a just punishment for him killing another person? You don't even have to think of my aunt as an example, you can use completely fictional people. If person A hunts downs and purposely kills person B, why is it not justice for person A to be put to death? and what would a just punishment be?

I don't know. Does someone have to be best? I think all opinions are valuable if they are reasoned.

I didn't have anything else to say to him that I didn't already say elsewhere. And I only addressed the spelling because I was already addressing the content of those words. I didn't comment on any other grammar or spelling issues (if there are any others).

I'm not indifferent to their suffering, I just don't think that the death penalty is the right way to empathize.

Is her work any more charitable because she helped poor minorities instead of poor white people? Why did you point out that the ones who committed the crimes were minorities? It was an irrelevant detail. I did not label any group criminal -- I pointed out that you labeled the criminals as minorities.

Well this just seems obtuse. Is vengeance a better word? I'm not good with words, but I hope my point is clear.

I don't subscribe to this 'eye for an eye' philosophy. I feel life in prison is just. It keeps the rest of us safe while not taking more lives. I feel life is too valuable for us to take except when imminently necessary for safety. I don't think everyone must feel this way, but I am surprised at how many seem to think I'm crazy for this view.

i'd say a better approach would be one where criminals are obliged to take steps towards compensating society for the damage they caused... or at the very least training them to be productive enough to justify the cost of their incarceration. if that's not realistic... use them as lab rats. there aren't many situations where killing them is productive beyond satisfying our appetite for vengeance.

Holy ****, are you serious ?

That'd make most of the West sociopaths lol

I was referring to the inclination by those opposed to focus almost exclusively on the needs of the offender rather than the offense, probably due to the fact that murderers are still around to have interests. Details of the crime are ignored or slapped down as appealing to emotion (rather than a reminder of what the offender did to occasion the question of what to do with him, this question often being considered almost in isolation as though he's just a random person drawn by lottery), in other words that opposition to the death penalty is based in cool rationality and therefore is often (not saying you) a symptom of the opponent's vanity: you barbarians might be stuck in the dark ages like all those brown countries, I belong to the modern era. Please take a number, the expected wait time is 45 minutes.


Doubt anyone would call that crazy. I don't really know what the no-matter-what value of life is based on, though.

fwiw I think the death penalty is valid in some cases, it is imposed on fewer people than have earned it and fewer yet have this sentence carried out, and while reservations about its practical application* are well-founded I do not consider it justice or logically very sound to abolish it wholesale without a jury's consideration of each individual circumstance. My own feeling is that life imprisonment is most often used as a means of garbage disposal and is sought for the benefit of permanence but, it is thought, without nearly the same moral complexity and as such the consideration given to what that means is far less than the 'harsher' punishment -- it does seem like this is for the convenience of it.


Kamikan: don't confuse public policy with public support. Britain and Canada haven't had the death penalty for a generation but ~half the populations (I've seen between 45% and 65%) would bring it back tomorrow -- this isn't a desire for more people to be executed for the hell of it but in recognition that some crimes are heinous to a degree the current setup doesn't adequately answer. In Canada we rarely impose the maximum sentences possible anyway (a man got five years for raping a baby so hard he nearly split her in half and her anus and vagina are permanently disfigured; he got seven years on appeal and will serve maybe four) and are in fact so lenient that minimum sentences (as short as two weeks) had to be forced on judges, so there's no point to reopening the discussion here. That's a separate issue from the moral justification of the death penalty, though. It's really not appropriate to determine that with a straw poll of other countries, as you've done.


* as a lever to compel a guilty plea out of someone, for instance.

Yes. And it shouldn't be, "valuable enough that the state shouldn't execute," but, "valuable enough that shouldn't be executed." Looks like a moot differentiation, but it warrants noting. The decision to have execution or not, let alone to execute or not, shouldn't be based on, "human life is valuable," but rather, "person X's life has less value (offender) than person Y (victim)."

Note that the former is talking about intrinsic value and the latter about extrinsic value. We value the life of the nation's leader, for example, a hell of a lot more than that a homeless vagrant (see: Secret Service). Yourself and others may not call it "extrinsic value", but you make a valuation of the person's life based on socio-economic status, role, and benefit to society nonetheless.

The reason was that the decision to have execution or not should be based on extrinsic, not intrinsic value. If, as a society that exercises capital punishment, such a punishment is delivered, it's declaring that the extrinsic value of the offender lowered enough to the point of being executed as punishment.

A value system which determines punishment already exists: minimum time in prison based on severity of crime. You don't get the same time in prison for stealing a few thousand dollars during a B&E when the home owners go on vacation as you do for grand theft auto, rape, armed robbery, and murder. What this means for us, as a society, is that we value more serious crimes as deserving of more serious punishments. Currently, that simply translates to varying degrees of time in prison all the way up to imprisonment until death.

And you just asserted that a dog is a person without any explanation. I gave a reason for what constitutes personhood: moral agency and a more advanced brain. Tell us again why a dog is a person? LOL @ bringing Terry Schiavo into this. You're really drawing at straws here.

Until you deal with this problem you've created for yourself, the rest of your post is noise.

gg

I'm really not understanding. You are telling me that my argument is not allowed but you give no justification why. Why am I not allowed to feel that all lives are valuable enough to not have executions, regardless of how much or how little you value a certain life relative to other lives?

This was already explained twice.

You are comparing different valuations and value types. What you're trying to do is fit a square into a circle. You're using the argument of, "all humans lives are equally valuable, therefore do not execute." The argument for execution is that, "yes, all humans are valuable in that way, but the reason to execute is based on a different way of value."

When it comes to inter-species valuations, intrinsic value takes priority. When it comes to intra-species valuations, extrinsic value takes priority. Execution is based on intra-species valuation.

A lot of people definitely have a strong desire for more people to be executed. In the US there's no shortage of people who just naturally lean toward the decision that involves the least thought or effort, and find it easier to ignore or discard problems than address them. Not that this applies to all or even most of those who support the death penalty, but there's enough of them to matter. People can be very biased, careless, and extremely capricious when it comes to who should be executed and why.

To the other matter (about the current setup not being an adequate answer for some crimes), I think that's probably just as much an indictment of leniency in the justice system and possibly of prison conditions not being as punitive as they could be. I know here some people think prisons are a relative joke as punishment for certain crimes, while others argue that we're already on the wrong side of the 8th Amendment with prison conditions.

For me, if the death penalty is on the table at all, then even harsher and more punitive prison conditions ought to be as well, 8th Amendment be damned. The fact that Jerry Sandusky can have a 13" TV in his cell and Charles Manson can have a guitar suggests there's a fairly big gap between [at least some] prisons' conditions and actually executing somebody. Maybe some people would be appeased if that gap were narrowed, knowing that the monster that killed [whoever] is in a really ****ty state, and not discovering Ray Bradbury in the prison library while munching on canteen snacks.

You're not explaining anything. You're just continuing to assert your position.

I get that you support the death penalty based on these extrinsic values. But that has nothing to do with my position so I don't see how it makes my position invalid.

...

You're kidding, right? In no uncertain language did I already do just that in several detailed posts. If that's failing to reach you... well, I can't help you understand then.

It was clearly outlined why your reasoning doesn't hold, and that it's a weak basis for an argument against capital punishment. You need to come up with better reasons. "All life is valuable" is not good enough. I explained how, based on how all societies value different lives, there is already a system by which it's established that the value of everybody's lives is not the same - it's almost natural and intuitive. And I already explained how your reason of "all life is valuable" doesn't apply. (You may as well just say, "all life is sacred." The two phrases are interchangeable.) I've explained it a few times already. If you don't see it, maybe get somebody to point it out for you.

Sorry if that sounds harsh. Not trying to be a dick, but we're going in a circle now where I explain it, you don't get it, I explain it again, you don't get it again.

Still waiting on a solid anti-capital punishment rebut.

This kind of thing is just so wrong on so many levels.

The fallacies are rampant, extensive and exhausting, but I especially liked the part where you said your asserted opinions are "almost natural and intuitive".

6% of the American states agree with you. 2% of European states. Islamic theocracies and China agree with you. Congrats. Your opinions are natural and intuitive!

Terry Shiavo has neither moral agency or an advanced brain. A baby has the potential for either, but possesses neither. Chimpanzees and capuchins have observed moral agency and an advanced brain. By your logic I assume coma patients aren't persons and apes are?

Picking difficult cases isn't grasping at straws. It's a recognition that the law doesn't get to shrug and ignore tricky moral calculations just because the unwashed masses do. At some point in the future, the tricky case is going to come up and the language that you use in defining personhood will literally dictate whether someone gets to live or die. It is far too much power to leave in the hands of the state. Most Western historians and legal scholars understand this.

I'm not sure if you actually know what your posts have said. What you did was explain why you feel that people should be judged based on their extrinsic value and how that supports capital punishment. But what you have not done is explain why it's not valid to prefer to look at people's intrinsic values when making a judgment on capital punishment.

There's a difference between showing that your argument has validity and showing that my argument is invalid. You get that, right?

Everybody's intrinsic value is the same, by virtue of being human. That doesn't change, so we use a different way to measure of value of a human's life compared to another human's (what I keep calling extrinsic value). Since they're both human, so you can't use the "value of human life" for comparison.

Third (fourth?) time. Do you get it now?

Why are we comparing? I don't recall that having anything to do with my position, so I don't get the relevance.

Arguments!=opinions.

Still can't tell your elbow from your ass, I see.

Here's your chance to shine, show me and put me in my place. Extract the argument, the premises, the conclusions, and identify the fallacies.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Still waiting on why you said a dog is a person, by the way.

We'll get to your assumptions in the rest of your post later, once you catch up.

We aren't. You are. You're comparing the life of a murderer to a victim and saying they have the same value/are worth the same. Comparison is made when two things are alike in some way. The way they're alike in one way - the way in which you're arguing for as a reason why capital punishment should not be used - is that they have the same intrinsic value.

Ad nauseum.

I'm against the execution of Joseph Woods because I don't think it's okay to kill people as punishment. I also don't think people should be killed in general if at all possible, and I am particularly not fond of the state killing its own people, though I'd prefer if they didn't kill anyone tbh.

Okay.

What are your reasons for thinking these?

Because killing is really, really bad. And the state killing its own people is like extra bad.

No, just before you said that we compare human lives (based on the extrinsic values):

None of this serves as an explanation to why my argument is invalid, anyway. Why is it that I can't say that all people have the same intrinsic value, and then we use that to decide that capital punishment is bad? Why do we have to jump away and use the extrinsic values? Why is it important that all people don't have the same value when we decide on capital punishment? It seems entirely arbitrary and therefore not invalidating.

Okay.

(Society.)

Already covered.

This is a good question, but you know the answer yourself already. All societies place values on members within. Criminals have low - sometimes negative - societal value. They don't bring good to society, they harm the ones they're in.

Everybody already uses "extrinsic value." We just don't think of it in those terms.

Once you begin to see that all members of society don't actually have the same value (but members of the human species do! *cue aforementioned posts*), then you will begin to see how executing people like cold-blooded murderers, mass murderers, and serial murderers starts to make sense.

nab, tough read.

i think that it must be extremely difficult to swallow the fact that your aunt's killer is out walking the streets after 15 years of a 30 year sentence.

i find that many sentences don't really give justice to the victims.

over those 15 years your aunt's killer was entitled by the state to - 3 hot meals, a shower a day, commisary buy privileges once a month, face to face visits with the family, unlimited phonecalls with his family daily, conjugal visits with his wife if qualified (one such program allows approved family members to come and stay for 2-3 days in a private on site trailer with their family), free medical and the list goes on.

- the crime was brutal, the victim is gone- the victim's family has lost that person's presence in their life forever. Yet the criminal goes away and obtains many new entitlements when he arrives in prison. The guy could bang his wife, wake up next to her and have breakfast with his kid potentially the next morning- all while still in prison.
----

sometimes i just have a hard time wrapping my head around that reality.