Capital punishment, Thoughts?

[fast]

Haha, nice observation!

 

[Unbeatable]

Self-defense is very ethical.

Exactly. I can't really fault prisoners who kill guards in their escape attempts.

 

[WAB]

Is the question, "are you in favor of capital punishment (?)" a moral question or a legal question?

Both, I think.

As I said in my last post, I believe I've come to think it should not be legal. However, as for morality...

I think it's easy for those of us who haven't had a loved one brutally murdered to sit back and wax philosophical about the matter. I think if someone raped and murdered one of my sons, I'd probably want that person dead. I might even want to kill the bastard myself. I don't know. I haven't, thank God, been put into such a situation.

If I knew of a man who's daughter was raped and murdered, and this man in turn killed the person who did that, I would not think of that man as a murderer.

Like I said, I know I'm contradicting myself.

 

[DBT]

Self-defense is very ethical.

One purpose of prisons being to remove the risk from the public. We do not need to defend ourselves from inmates locked away in high security cells.

Self defense is ethical, but self defense should not exceed threat, the use of excessive force, etc. If you have an attacker subdued, it is neither ethical or legal to execute him.

 

[Speakpigeon]

If I'm asked if I support capital punishment, I don't know whether I'm being asked if it's a righteous act or if I would vote in favor of it.

Neither.

If you are asked if you support capital punishment you should understand that one is asking you if you support capital punishment.

You can interpret the question so as to ignore or not all moral issues related to capital punishment. Similarly, the person asking the question may or may not have moral issues in mind when asking the question.

Maybe the fallacy would be to suggest that the question "Do you support capital punishment?" is not subject to interpretation.

Can we conclude whether one supports capital punishment on knowing their moral attitude alone?

We could, yes.

Can we conclude whether one supports capital punishment on how they would cast their vote alone?

We could, yes.
EB

 

[credoconsolans]

Self-defense is very ethical.

Exactly. I can't really fault prisoners who kill guards in their escape attempts.

The guards are not the ones with a history of psychotic violence. They need the defending, not the perp.

Self-defense is very ethical.

One purpose of prisons being to remove the risk from the public. We do not need to defend ourselves from inmates locked away in high security cells.

Self defense is ethical, but self defense should not exceed threat, the use of excessive force, etc. If you have an attacker subdued, it is neither ethical or legal to execute him.

You must have missed my earlier posts. The prisoner is still a risk to the guards who are around him every day.

The heinous criminal is executed because of his crimes and is a danger to the public. This is society defending itself.

 

[Unbeatable]

Exactly. I can't really fault prisoners who kill guards in their escape attempts.

The guards are not the ones with a history of psychotic violence. They need the defending, not the perp.

False dichotomy. The need for self-defense isn't limited to situations where the other party has a history of psychotic violence, and having a history of psychotic violence doesn't magically make you safe.

 

[fast]

Neither.

If you are asked if you support capital punishment you should understand that one is asking you if you support capital punishment.

You can interpret the question so as to ignore or not all moral issues related to capital punishment. Similarly, the person asking the question may or may not have moral issues in mind when asking the question.

Maybe the fallacy would be to suggest that the question "Do you support capital punishment?" is not subject to interpretation.

Can we conclude whether one supports capital punishment on knowing their moral attitude alone?

We could, yes.

Can we conclude whether one supports capital punishment on how they would cast their vote alone?

We could, yes.
EB

Interesting. It may be open to interpretation in so much as one might interpret it differently than others, but if it's a straight forward objectively oriented question, then despite the complexities surrounding the issue, it would seem to me that the skewed responses brought on by the ability to accurately interpret the question would indicate that some people may inaccurately respond with a wrong answer--such that one may indeed support capital punishment but profess to oppose capital punishment.

Suppose two different individuals both have no qualms with capital punishment in theory (oh say, on moral grounds) but do have qualms with it in practice (because of high cost or potential for mistakes), they may answer the posed question regarding support or opposition differently. If I'm correct, then one of them responded incorrectly.

 

[credoconsolans]

The guards are not the ones with a history of psychotic violence. They need the defending, not the perp.

False dichotomy. The need for self-defense isn't limited to situations where the other party has a history of psychotic violence, and having a history of psychotic violence doesn't magically make you safe.

But it can be. If a person has a history of violence, you are well within your rights to take precautions and defend yourself from that person.

 

[DBT]

You must have missed my earlier posts. The prisoner is still a risk to the guards who are around him every day.

The heinous criminal is executed because of his crimes and is a danger to the public. This is society defending itself.

No, I didn't miss your earlier posts....I pointed out several times that prisons are designed to manage the risk posed by violent inmates. The staff know what they have to deal with and are trained to do the work, which is something they willingly signed on to do.

The point of prisons being to remove the risk to the public, who may not be aware of the danger, who are not trained to deal with the risk.

Nor does any western government consider it ethical to execute prisoners because they are violent and may pose a risk to prison guards, which is what you appear to be suggesting.

 

[Jokodo]

Exactly. I can't really fault prisoners who kill guards in their escape attempts.

The guards are not the ones with a history of psychotic violence. They need the defending, not the perp.

Self-defense is very ethical.

One purpose of prisons being to remove the risk from the public. We do not need to defend ourselves from inmates locked away in high security cells.

Self defense is ethical, but self defense should not exceed threat, the use of excessive force, etc. If you have an attacker subdued, it is neither ethical or legal to execute him.

You must have missed my earlier posts. The prisoner is still a risk to the guards who are around him every day.

The heinous criminal is executed because of his crimes and is a danger to the public. This is society defending itself.

Someone presenting a danger is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to make killing them an act of self defense. If you set off an explosive belt as a group of thugs closes in on you in the mall, killing the thugs and half a dozen bystanders but miraculously surviving yourself, you'll have a very hard time claiming self-defense once you awake from coma.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Neither.

If you are asked if you support capital punishment you should understand that one is asking you if you support capital punishment.

You can interpret the question so as to ignore or not all moral issues related to capital punishment. Similarly, the person asking the question may or may not have moral issues in mind when asking the question.

Maybe the fallacy would be to suggest that the question "Do you support capital punishment?" is not subject to interpretation.


We could, yes.

Can we conclude whether one supports capital punishment on how they would cast their vote alone?

We could, yes.
EB

Interesting. It may be open to interpretation in so much as one might interpret it differently than others, but if it's a straight forward objectively oriented question, then despite the complexities surrounding the issue, it would seem to me that the skewed responses brought on by the ability to accurately interpret the question would indicate that some people may inaccurately respond with a wrong answer--such that one may indeed support capital punishment but profess to oppose capital punishment.

Suppose two different individuals both have no qualms with capital punishment in theory (oh say, on moral grounds) but do have qualms with it in practice (because of high cost or potential for mistakes), they may answer the posed question regarding support or opposition differently. If I'm correct, then one of them responded incorrectly.

Not necessarily. I would agree that there has to be a mistake somewhere but it may well be in your suggestion that if two people answer the same moral question differently then at least one of them has to be wrong.

I guess you are also and more fundamentally suggesting that there is just one possible moral position for all of us, irrespective of our differences. That may not be true and I certainly don't know that it is true.
EB

 

[Bomb#20]

I think the mistake is here:

Can we conclude whether one supports capital punishment on knowing their moral attitude alone?

We could, yes.

Consider a guy like Unbeatable whose moral attitude is that there are no correct moral judgments. He'll support capital punishment or not based on how often it has a result he likes compared to how often it has a result he doesn't like. How are you going to extract that information merely from knowing he thinks there are no correct moral judgments?

 

[arkirk]

I think the mistake is here:

We could, yes.

Consider a guy like Unbeatable whose moral attitude is that there are no correct moral judgments. He'll support capital punishment or not based on how often it has a result he likes compared to how often it has a result he doesn't like. How are you going to extract that information merely from knowing he thinks there are no correct moral judgments?

I think we are losing track of the fact that human beings are very capable of mistaking the intentions of others. The idea there are no correct moral judgments is correct in that a moral statement is one which can neither be proven true nor false. A person's internal agendas and thinking are always inscrutable. I think this was the issue that Kant was bringing up about categorical imperatives. As long as a person is capable of lying and exercises this capability, you really can never come to any independent certainty regarding his intent. The heinous murderous agendas of people can be completely hidden. The Innocence Project sometimes uncovered that the prosecution was using its powers to imprison and sometimes execute innocent people...innocent of the act they were convicted of. While they may have lined up a series of seeming evidence against a defendant, it was in some degree their desire to kill the defendant or hurt him that was their driving motivation...sometimes just to let a guilty party off.

The death penalty when applied to a wrongly convicted person gives comfort to the actual criminal. Murder cases and other heinous crime cases should always remain open till there is no chance the perpetrator could still be living. This can only happen without the death penalty. Humans seem to have a love affair with judgment and certainty when in reality error abounds. I think we need to concern ourselves with justice, but the veracity of what we call justice is always in question.

 

[fast]

Maybe the word "supports" suggests an action of sorts. For instance, I voted in favor of X, so I supported X.

Second example: I went and stood by and cheered for the team I liked, so I did show up and support the team I favored.

Maybe a moral position is merely (and only sometimes) a reason for support or opposition.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Maybe the word "supports" suggests an action of sorts. For instance, I voted in favor of X, so I supported X.

Second example: I went and stood by and cheered for the team I liked, so I did show up and support the team I favored.

I would agree that originally "support" probably meant "active support". But precisely because we can also say "active support" it seems to me that "support" today just means "being in favour of".

Maybe a moral position is merely (and only sometimes) a reason for support or opposition.

I guess that a moral position should explain what our actions would be given at least some specific circumstances. There should be some circumstances in which we would act accordingly. We may have the moral position that the death penalty is wrong and yet possibly do nothing about it until for example we stand on a jury.
EB

 

[fast]

If someone tells me she is against the death penalty, I'm in the unfortunate position of not being able to tell if she has moral qualms stemming from a belief that killing in such instances are simply morally wrong or whether her position stems from the possibility of an irrevocable mistake of killing the innocent. It's a situation where we can't compare moral values by voicing the same position because of the reasonings behind the positions.