Troy Davis

[blackshoe]

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

 

What does this have to do with the death penalty? If I were able to travel back in time to 1920 and put Hitler in jail for life, then of course I would do that.

 

Years ago there was a science fiction story about a 21st (or perhaps later) Century Jew who developed a method of sending his consciousness back in time, into the brain of someone living in the past. This man got the bright idea that maybe he could persuade Hitler not to do the terrible things he actually did. So the Jew inserted his consciousness into Hitler's brain, and set out to try to persuade him to leave the Jews alone. Unfortunately, the "voice in his head" drove poor Mr. Hitler insane, and a man who, left alone, would not have committed or ordered the commission of genocide, did so.

 

This doesn't have much to do with the death penalty question. It does have a lot to do with the idea of changing the past. Actions have consequences. Often these consequences are unforeseen. Equally often, they are bad.

[gwnn]

Good luck with that. You're asking for the impossible.

How about: no death penalty for people who plead innocent?

[mike777]

I am against the death penalty on moral reasons.

 

 

With that said with you need to do something with guys who keeps killing and raping even while in jail.

 

 

There seems to not be enough money to keep everyone in isolation cells since states are running out of money and courts, police etc are being cut back. in EUROPE IT sounds like even some Central govts are running short of cash.

 

 

For the last 30 years or so the partial solution has been to let prison gangs mete out justice gang style.

[blackshoe]

How about: no death penalty for people who plead innocent?

 

Sure. Of course, the obvious consequence of that is that everyone will plead innocent.

[Fluffy]

A nice ethical dilemma is:

 

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

 

Very off topic, but when people talk about travelling in time they often reffer to changing something from WWII. I find interesting the fact that Japan attacked US, US maybe let Pearlr Harbor die on purpose, and then US conquered Germany just before they got jets for aircrafts and nuclear bombs. It doesn't take that much imagination to think that perhaps, if travelling in time was possible, WWII might have already been changed.

[Lobowolf]

In my opinion, capital punishment is morally wrong. The State cannot have the power to do things that individuals have no right to do. But what's the alternative? Put 'em in jail? Who pays? What if they escape? Does the State have any more right to put people in jail than to execute them?

 

 

Obviously, the solution is not to put them in jail. By your rationale, the state has no right to do that, since individuals have no right to confine people against their will. As individuals, we do have freedom of speech, so perhaps for convicted murderers, what we should do as a group is verbally (and in print) express our disapproval.

[Lobowolf]

Partly unrelated: I think all people found guilty of such crimes should have a choice between life sentence and capital punishment. It seems like cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone locked up who does not want to live like that. It is definitely cruel and unusual punishment to kill someone who does not want to die. I am particularly disturbed by scenes in which honest pleads for clemency by fellow human beings are rejected by civilised, elegant human beings.

 

If it's cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone locked up who doesn't want to be, and to kill someone who doesn't want to die, then per the 8th Amendment, we need a third alternative.

[blackshoe]

Obviously, the solution is not to put them in jail. By your rationale, the state has no right to do that, since individuals have no right to confine people against their will. As individuals, we do have freedom of speech, so perhaps for convicted murderers, what we should do as a group is verbally (and in print) express our disapproval.

 

Interestingly, the Quakers (I think, it may have been another of the "Pennsylvania Dutch" sects) don't have a "penal system" in their society. Instead, if someone does something they don't like, they "shun" the person. No one will have anything to do with them. No talking, no exchange of goods, nothing. The idea seems to be that the miscreant will just go away. This means, of course, that he becomes someone else's problem, which is, well, a problem in itself when the planet is as crowded as this one. The British Empire had a pretty good solution for its day — and in the view of the BE. They shipped folks off to Botany Bay. Of course, times change. Nobody is shipping criminals to Australia today - and if they tried, Australia wouldn't take them.

 

It seems to me we — society as a whole — have put ourselves in an awkward position. Either we keep the death penalty and imprisonment, or we let predators run loose in a society whose members are not prepared to protect themselves. To me, either situation is immoral. Unfortunately, the only answer I see would require a pretty drastic change in societal attitudes, and I don't see that happening any time soon. So basically, absent that change in attitudes, it's a problem with no solution.

 

Regarding the death penalty, there is Juan Rico's conclusion after one of his mates deserted from boot camp and killed a four year old girl in the novel Starship Troopers. The MI brought him back, tried and convicted him at court martial, and hanged him in front of the entire regiment. Rico worried quite a bit over whether the death penalty was right. In the end, though, he concluded "all I knew was he wasn't going to kill any more little girls. That suited me. I went to sleep". Of course, in that case the guy's guilt was, by authorial fiat, certain.

 

Note, btw, that I have no problem whatsoever with any citizen retaliating to deadly force with deadly force. There was a case here a few years ago. Guy walked into a crowded bar, pulled a gun, pointed it at the ceiling, looked up, fired the gun, yelled 'this is a stickup!' and looked at the room, expecting, I guess, to see everybody cowering in fear. What he saw instead was the muzzles of forty two guns. He'd picked a cop hangout to rob. The robber surrendered immediately, so "stupid, not crazy" fits. But if he hadn't, I wouldn't have had a problem if he'd ended up full of holes. I wouldn't have had a problem if none of the forty two had been cops, either.

[gwnn]

If it's cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone locked up who doesn't want to be, and to kill someone who doesn't want to die, then per the 8th Amendment, we need a third alternative.

Well my alternative was to let them choose. I didn't say "locked someone up who wants to be free", I said like lock someone up for the rest of his life when he would rather die (not live locked up for the rest of his life).

[hotShot]

A society believes that killing people is wrong, so they kill murderers.

They consider killing people to have a finanzial advantage is even more unethical, but they argue that executions are cheaper than paying for a lifetime in jail.

 

Moral is hard .......

[PassedOut]

In my opinion, capital punishment is morally wrong. The State cannot have the power to do things that individuals have no right to do.

Note, btw, that I have no problem whatsoever with any citizen retaliating to deadly force with deadly force.

If it is not morally wrong for citizens to retaliate with deadly force, why is it morally wrong for the state?

[Bbradley62]

Note, btw, that I have no problem whatsoever with any citizen retaliating to deadly force with deadly force. There was a case here a few years ago. Guy walked into a crowded bar, pulled a gun, pointed it at the ceiling, looked up, fired the gun, yelled 'this is a stickup!' and looked at the room, expecting, I guess, to see everybody cowering in fear. What he saw instead was the muzzles of forty two guns. He'd picked a cop hangout to rob. The robber surrendered immediately, so "stupid, not crazy" fits. But if he hadn't, I wouldn't have had a problem if he'd ended up full of holes. I wouldn't have had a problem if none of the forty two had been cops, either.

If it is not morally wrong for citizens to retaliate with deadly force, why is it morally wrong for the state?

It appears to me that Blackshoe simply had an unfortunate choice of word here... it appears that he meant to say that he has no problem with citizens responding with deadly force in a self-defense sitation. I expect he would still say that after-the-fact retaliation (you killed my brother, so the next day I find and kill you) by a citizen is wrong.

[Lobowolf]

A society believes that killing people is wrong, so they kill murderers.

They consider killing people to have a finanzial advantage is even more unethical, but they argue that executions are cheaper than paying for a lifetime in jail.

 

Moral is hard .......

 

It's a very small minority who believe that "killing" people is (inherently) wrong. I believe all 50 states, for instance, recognize a right to use lethal deadly force in self defense in certain circumstances. It's murder that's wrong.

[hotShot]

It's a very small minority who believe that "killing" people is (inherently) wrong. I believe all 50 states, for instance, recognize a right to use lethal deadly force in self defense in certain circumstances. It's murder that's wrong.

 

I don't think that the belief that killing is wrong implies that you accepted to be killed without resistance.

[mike777]

If you believe killing is wrong you are a pacifist.

 

Lets not confuse words.

 

 

really silly comments. If killing is wrong so be it that ends the discussion.

 

In fact people have no idea what do with killers and rapists, they concede there is no money.

 

 

They beaT their chests AND CLAIM THEY ARE MORAL as injustice and present no solutions......

[Lobowolf]

I don't think that the belief that killing is wrong implies that you accepted to be killed without resistance.

 

You're allowed to kill someone, if necessary, to prevent someone from doing things other than killing you. The point, though, was not that the belief that killing is wrong implies anything, per se, but rather that the vast majority of people DON'T believe that killing is wrong. If you don't like lethal self-defense as an example, here's another - euthanasia.

 

What most people believe is that murder is wrong, which is another matter entirely. Equivocating most people's anti-murder stance to an anti-killing stance, then using it as a platform from which to make further points is rhetorical sleight of hand.

[kenberg]

I prefer that we, as a society, stop executing people. If balancing the scales were the only issue then some people should be given a drug that would cause them to die slowly and painfully. It has its allure. But we don't do that and I think we are the better for it. I think we would also be better as a society if we simply dropped the executions. The choice is for us, not them.

[phil_20686]

You're allowed to kill someone, if necessary, to prevent someone from doing things other than killing you. The point, though, was not that the belief that killing is wrong implies anything, per se, but rather that the vast majority of people DON'T believe that killing is wrong.

 

I feel that these arguments are badly constructed. It is perfectly possible for an action that is "morally wrong" to still be the "best possible moral choice". Some people hold to a strictly utilitarian position that the best possible course of action is necessarily "right", but it seems to me to be a flawed way of looking at human behavior. The point being that often when other people are making morally wrong actions, your choices are restricted.

 

Here is a thought experiment along those lines:

 

You are part of a commando unit operating behind enemy lines in a failed state. You come across a group of local men gang raping some local women. There is neither the time nor the resources for either a trial or imprisonment. Your choices of action are:

 

a) Ignore it and go on with your mission.

b) Kill all of the offenders.

c) Drive off the offenders, possibly killing some, and leave. (I.e. allowing them to continue in the future).

 

My vote goes for (b), but that does not mean that I believe that that (b) is a morally right decision, it is just the least bad course of action.

[blackshoe]

One of the considerations in that example case has to be whether interfering with the rape will compromise the mission. If it is likely to do so, a) may be your only option, like it or not. There may also be rules of engagement to consider.

 

Aside from that, discussing "fringe" cases is pointless when we haven't established what the "normal" action should be.

 

Change the scenario. You come upon a man raping a woman. You are armed. Do you a) shoot him in the head, then call 911, b) call 911 and let the cops deal with it when they get there, c) attempt to arrest him, then call 911 d) something else. If c), what do you do if he resists? If you are not armed, how does your answer change? If he is armed, how does your answer change?

 

Note that the moral position in this scenario is one thing. The legal position may be different depending on where you are, even within the United States.

[hotShot]

Although these examples are interesting to discuss, let's keep the focus on topic.

 

In the case of a convicted and imprisoned criminal , the state should be under no pressure to do anything else than what is morally right.

[mike777]

Although these examples are interesting to discuss, let's keep the focus on topic.

 

In the case of a convicted and imprisoned criminal , the state should be under no pressure to anything else than what is morally right.

 

 

And of course in the real world the state is under pressure. The state or country is near broke.

 

As I pointed out instead of executing people, they lock them up and let gangs carry out prison justice through rape and murder. Not morally right but this has been going on for decades and no one stops it. It easy for us posters to beat our breasts and say states should do what is morally right.

[blackshoe]

Although these examples are interesting to discuss, let's keep the focus on topic.

 

In the case of a convicted and imprisoned criminal , the state should be under no pressure to do anything else than what is morally right.

 

That presupposes that imprisonment is morally right in the first place.

[phil_20686]

That presupposes that imprisonment is morally right in the first place.

 

Whereas your comment presupposes that

a) There is a morally right course of action and

b) That the state is under some obligation to take the morally right action regardless of the cost.

[blackshoe]

The State asserts that it can do pretty much whatever it likes. I guess you're okay with that.

[Lobowolf]

The State asserts that it can do pretty much whatever it likes. I guess you're okay with that.

 

Certain state actors may make that claim, but "the state" as a whole is limited by the Constitution. Many individuals and bodies of "the state" have had their efforts to do whatever they like thwarted. The fact that you may disagree with where the limits are drawn, or whether they're drawn in a particular case, doesn't imply that there are no limits.