Capital Punishment For Murderers

[AlienBoy]

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There is no such thing as "worth" in any universal sense - it is an entirely human concept, rooted in the human ego. As such, it is defined as a human may define it. Thus a human can simply define humankind as "more worthy" as it is a value based judgment that arises from human ego in the first place.

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That's not an argument. Emotional responses(ego is tied to emotion) are not valid arguments.

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It is entirely an argument.

The argument is:

You claim that humans are not worth more than any creature.

My assertion is that "worth" is a human concept in the first place and as such only receives the value assigned to it by humans.

AB

[LandonM]

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Thats an assinine statement. I think if you ask the vast majority of freed wrongly convicted people what they'd prefer they'd take losing some number of years of their life to losing all of the rest of their life.

I don't deny its horrible to imprison someone unjustly, but to say its equivalent to killing thelm is ridiculous.

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I never said the two injustices were "equal", I simply said they are both equally bad.

Of course, if given the choice, I do believe that most sane people would obviously choose being wrongly incarcerated then released over being killed, however, I do not believe that either is any less unjust than the other.

It's sort of like saying that being assraped with a pinecone is "worse" than being assraped with a smooth dildo.
While you might prefer one over the other, both are equally egregious in nature so as to warrant the same degree of disgust. I do believe there is a point where something "can't be any worse". Wrongly incarcerating a man crosses that threshold, right there with wrongly killing one.
While the consequences and outcomes may vary, they're both just as bad.

Whenever I hear of a man being released after 5, 10, 20 (etc) years in prison when he was innocent, my reaction is precisely the same as it would be if we discovered that we had executed a totally innocent man.

[blackize]

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Of course, if given the choice, I do believe that most sane people would obviously choose being wrongly incarcerated then released over being killed, however, I do not believe that either is any less unjust than the other.

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Not me. I think being wrongly imprisoned would destroy your quality of life and likely make you miserable. First you have the misery of knowing you're an innocent man in prison. Then you have spent your life savings fighting the conviction so when you get out you're in poverty. Then you can't get a job since you've been in prison. All your relationships are destroyed, your wife has left you or grown distant, your kids probably resent you, and your family will be distant and awkward. I'd rather be dead than to go through that.

[Xhad]

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I never said the two injustices were "equal", I simply said they are both equally bad.

Of course, if given the choice, I do believe that most sane people would obviously choose being wrongly incarcerated then released over being killed, however, I do not believe that either is any less unjust than the other.

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You're using some bizarre metrics.

[Matt Ruff]

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I think if you ask the vast majority of freed wrongly convicted people what they'd prefer they'd take losing some number of years of their life to losing all of the rest of their life.

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If you're sentenced to life without parole, you *do* lose all the rest of your life.

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I agree in cases where the conviction is never overturned. The point is though that convictions are overturned and wrongly convicted people are proven innocent.

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They are, but my impression is that this a fairly rare occurrence -- and being on death row actually may improve your chances of having your conviction overturned, because pro bono lawyers and other good Samaritans are more likely to want to help a condemned man.

[Xhad]

adios,

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It would also nice of the post I responded to actually provided a source for his case that there isn't a deterrance factor. You could actually try doing some research yourself, it might take you five minutes or so to come up with some data.

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tbh I agree, but every time I have seen this debate come up and people actually start showing their work, "The death penalty is a deterrent" ends up being discredited pretty thoroughly. What bugs me about this argument is that a lot of people think it's obvious without even considering the evidence, kind of like people who think that hands-free cell phones are less likely to cause accidents.

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IMO you're being disingenuous when you bring up the lack of detterent factor being a reason you're opposed to death penalty. The deterrance factor has no bearing on your view whatsoever IMO.

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I agree with you on one thing here: if the death penalty has no net affect on the number of new murders, positive or negative, then that factor becomes a non-factor. Meaning this argument BY ITSELF is not an argument to abolish the death penalty. The problem I have is that a lot of pro-execution people just think, "Oh, stop executing people, then we'll encourage more murders! That sounds like a plan!" and think their work is done.

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IMO you're really opposed because you find it objectionable from a moral point of view. I actually have no problem with that reason. I just don't know why posters don't state their real reasons.

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I agree. There seem to be a lot of argument in this thread that are little more than rationalizations to hold on to an already-decided viewpoint. I actually agree with ending a murderer's life in principle; the only way that morality enters my argument at all is that I think a significant error rate is unacceptable.

[Xhad]

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Of course, if given the choice, I do believe that most sane people would obviously choose being wrongly incarcerated then released over being killed, however, I do not believe that either is any less unjust than the other.

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Not me. I think being wrongly imprisoned would destroy your quality of life and likely make you miserable. First you have the misery of knowing you're an innocent man in prison. Then you have spent your life savings fighting the conviction so when you get out you're in poverty. Then you can't get a job since you've been in prison. All your relationships are destroyed, your wife has left you or grown distant, your kids probably resent you, and your family will be distant and awkward. I'd rather be dead than to go through that.

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Your underestimation of the human ability to move on is astounding.

[LandonM]

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You're using some bizarre metrics.

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Work on your right brain a bit.

[Xhad]

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You're using some bizarre metrics.

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Work on your right brain a bit.

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Yeah, I'm sure it takes a lot of creativity to say, "One of these things is worse than the other but they're both equally bad."

[blackize]

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Your underestimation of the human ability to move on is astounding.

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Have you ever talked to anyone who was in prison for any significant period of time? There was a post in OOT recently about one guys experience in prison and his inability to find a job afterwards because of it.

Do you really think your friends and family(wife and kids) are really going to be sitting around for 10 years while you're in the appeals process and not move on? Your life will not be the same and I don't think it would be worth living.