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Crimes that deserve the death penalty?

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 11:38 pm
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Mugwump wrote:
^ what principle are you trading away ? Thou shalt not kill ? You have already traded away “Thou shalt not abduct and imprison”.

These are not principles, they are liberties. Liberty under the law is a principle. The right of parliament, not the monarch, to make laws is a principle. That the punishment should fit the crime is a principle. The specific penalty for transgression is not. Another principle is that an act of crime is a de facto surrender of certain liberties.

There is no principle here, just an historic view regarding proportionality which can be decided in light of the health of society by a justly constituted parliament of the people.

But that's just an arbitrary list of things called "principles". The organisation of principles is as meaningful as their identification. This is why relevant systems of thought, such as law and moral philosophy, are argued and consequently structured on the basis of "first principles".

In this case, the first principle is the right to life. Are there any relevant systems of organised thought which have a first principle superordinate to the right to life?

In other words, you're not just trading any old principle here. You're trading the a priori of your system of morality — for no known utility, at high cost.

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Mugwump 



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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 1:42 am
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pietillidie wrote:
Mugwump wrote:
^ what principle are you trading away ? Thou shalt not kill ? You have already traded away “Thou shalt not abduct and imprison”.

These are not principles, they are liberties. Liberty under the law is a principle. The right of parliament, not the monarch, to make laws is a principle. That the punishment should fit the crime is a principle. The specific penalty for transgression is not. Another principle is that an act of crime is a de facto surrender of certain liberties.

There is no principle here, just an historic view regarding proportionality which can be decided in light of the health of society by a justly constituted parliament of the people.

But that's just an arbitrary list of things called "principles". The organisation of principles is as meaningful as their identification. This is why relevant systems of thought, such as law and moral philosophy, are argued and consequently structured on the basis of "first principles".

In this case, the first principle is the right to life. Are there any relevant systems of organised thought which have a first principle superordinate to the right to life?

In other words, you're not just trading any old principle here. You're trading the a priori of your system of morality — for no known utility, at high cost.


You used the shiftless word “principle” first. I was just trying to locate it in some valid frame of reference, in this case some long-standing principles of British (and thus Australian) justice, since that is the topic under discussion.

I repeat - there is no “right” to freedom, when a crime had been committed. So there is not obviously a right to life when crime (of a nature which might proportionately warrant a death penalty) has been committed. Just saying it don’t make it so.

Freedom from arbitrary punishment is a far more important principle, a priori, than a right to life. We abjure the “right to life” in many ways and places, from defence, to resistance to tyranny, to abortion. I don’t think we ever abjure the “right” to freedom from arbitrary punishment. So no, not a priori at all ; just your preference, dressed up as necessity.

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 3:03 am
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I have to admit that I find some of your posts on this topic kind of baffling, Mugwump. On the one hand, by selectively denying the importance of fundamental rights, you almost seem to be advancing a moral relativist argument – i.e. that which is right is what a society decides is right. But the paradox of that approach is that, without an appeal to some other system of ethics – a purely democratic argument, for instance, or a utilitarian one, or even a Darwinist one if you so choose – all you have is precisely what you accuse those on the other side of: merely your own preference dressed up as moral principle, which in this case is criminals forfeiting all rights/liberties, up to and including the right to life (I presume you still advocate some limitations, such as not subjecting criminals to torture). Where is the coherence in that?

It seems that we disagree not only on what is better for society, but also on who can or should belong to society to begin with (my conceptualisation of society does not exclude criminals, any more than giving children time out in their bedroom excludes them from the family). These are each, needless to say, contentious issues that need to be debated in their own right.

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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 3:07 am
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The coherence in that? Where is coherence in that ?
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Mugwump 



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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 11:55 am
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David wrote:
I have to admit that I find some of your posts on this topic kind of baffling, Mugwump. On the one hand, by selectively denying the importance of fundamental rights, you almost seem to be advancing a moral relativist argument – i.e. that which is right is what a society decides is right. But the paradox of that approach is that, without an appeal to some other system of ethics – a purely democratic argument, for instance, or a utilitarian one, or even a Darwinist one if you so choose – all you have is precisely what you accuse those on the other side of: merely your own preference dressed up as moral principle, which in this case is criminals forfeiting all rights/liberties, up to and including the right to life (I presume you still advocate some limitations, such as not subjecting criminals to torture). Where is the coherence in that?

It seems that we disagree not only on what is better for society, but also on who can or should belong to society to begin with (my conceptualisation of society does not exclude criminals, any more than giving children time out in their bedroom excludes them from the family). These are each, needless to say, contentious issues that need to be debated in their own right.


Fair enough, and as you’ve put it very reasonably, let me try to explain.

There are principles of justice which seem pretty rooted in human nature. Examples (inter alia) are freedom from arbitrary punishment, proportionality, and laws and punishments which serve reasonable purposes. These things are probably universal and integral to our conception of justice. Quite clearly, the “right to life”, regardless of precedent actions, is not universal. History and cultural practices across the world show that clearly, and we think it arguable in a way that a right to a fair trial is not.

This is not relativism at all. It is just a debate about the reasonable purposes of punishment, and whether the death penalty serves the principles of justice outlined above. While it is clearly arguable, I think the answer is yes. Regardless of the position one takes, there is plainly no outright contradiction. We’ve just been lulled by years of propaganda into the idea that the death penalty is unthinkable.

If you can find a flaw in my logic above, please let me know !

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 12:33 am
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I guess my continuing issue is that I don’t understand the distinction you’re making. If we’re referring to “principles of justice rooted in human nature”, what more essential desire or drive could there be than to preserve one’s own life? What makes the desire to not be arbitrarily punished any more fundamental? Are not all punishments a question of degree and suitability, and doesn’t the history of humanity – from the torture chambers of pre-Renaissance Europe to the maximum jail terms and near-utopian prison conditions of modern-day Scandinavia – suggest that there is practically no upper or lower limit to where these lines can be drawn?

What’s interesting about a right to life is that it has, in most if not all societies, been a fundamental principle of justice. It seems clear to me that the primary difference in its apllication has been how far it extends. Traditionally, criminals, foreign soldiers, slaves, unborn children and obviously animals have been excluded; in certain situations, so too have the disabled, ethnic minorities or old people. I won’t pretend that my belief in not excluding criminals from society is not a controversial one or that it is one for which no serious counter-arguments exist. But to me, it’s clearly that which is the real battleground here, not the nature of the rights themselves.

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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 2:20 am
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David wrote:
I guess my continuing issue is that I don’t understand the distinction you’re making. If we’re referring to “principles of justice rooted in human nature”, what more essential desire or drive could there be than to preserve one’s own life? What makes the desire to not be arbitrarily punished any more fundamental? Are not all punishments a question of degree and suitability, and doesn’t the history of humanity – from the torture chambers of pre-Renaissance Europe to the maximum jail terms and near-utopian prison conditions of modern-day Scandinavia – suggest that there is practically no upper or lower limit to where these lines can be drawn?

What’s interesting about a right to life is that it has, in most if not all societies, been a fundamental principle of justice. It seems clear to me that the primary difference in its apllication has been how far it extends. Traditionally, criminals, foreign soldiers, slaves, unborn children and obviously animals have been excluded; in certain situations, so too have the disabled, ethnic minorities or old people. I won’t pretend that my belief in not excluding criminals from society is not a controversial one or that it is one for which no serious counter-arguments exist. But to me, it’s clearly that which is the real battleground here, not the nature of the rights themselves.


At this point I don’t think you want to understand.

Justice is the process through which a society decides whether an ethical principle has been broken by an individual, and hands out punishment and restitution if so. In doing so the state necessarily allows itself to mete out sanctions which are not lawful if done by an individual.

I described some key principles of justice above (fair trial, proportionate punishment etc etc). My desire to preserve my own life may be a consideration in any ethical system, just like “thou shalt not steal” and “do not abduct and hold someone against their will”. But it is not a principle of justice. The state obviously does abduct and hold people, and/or it does take their property when they commit crime. Killing the offender as punishment is another sanction in that line. It is more extreme, and thus reserved for the severest and most aggravated crimes.

The good arguments against it, I think, are that it is categorically different, being irrevocable and final, with all that entails - or that it injures the criminal’s body, which we do not otherwise think right. But the idea that killing an egregious offender is inherently unjust is not obvious at all.

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Last edited by Mugwump on Sun May 20, 2018 11:31 am; edited 3 times in total
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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 2:59 am
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David wrote:
What’s interesting about a right to life is that it has, in most if not all societies, been a fundamental principle of justice. It seems clear to me that the primary difference in its apllication has been how far it extends. Traditionally, criminals, foreign soldiers, slaves, unborn children and obviously animals have been excluded; in certain situations, so too have the disabled, ethnic minorities or old people. I won’t pretend that my belief in not excluding criminals from society is not a controversial one or that it is one for which no serious counter-arguments exist. But to me, it’s clearly that which is the real battleground here, not the nature of the rights themselves.

It does seem universal, but remember it often operates downstream from the divine and eternal.

E.g., the 10 commandments take this hierarchy pretty seriously, starting at the top:

Exodus 20:3-7, KJV wrote:
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

The eternal soul gets a better run when the influence of Greek philosophy kicks in:

Matthew 10:28, KJV wrote:
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

With those a prioris set, you can then get a morality which feels justified killing blasphemers, witches, and soulless savages and infidels.

Within the liberal Western tradition you and I operate out of, I can't think of a case where the right to life does not have primacy.

In some cases, such as self defence and war, the right to life is being challenged by a right of equal rank, i.e., the right to life versus itself. The controversy here concerns the determination of the threat and the necessity of the response, not the pre-eminence of the right to life.

In other cases, such as abortion, euthanasia, and animal rights, the controversy concerns the definition of the subject of the right to life. Again, the pre-eminence of the right to life is not in question.

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Mugwump 



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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 1:29 pm
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no one is arguing that the right to life is not an ethical principle.

The issue is that ethical principles do not apply equally to governments as they do to individuals, subject to a reasonable and fair justice system. Punishment involves removal of rights. It’s not hard.

It is the offender’s initial destruction of an innocent life which renders the offender liable to penalties in the first place. The question is only the reasonableness of the penalty in question.

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 2:39 pm
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^ That’s not in contention, though. Even when I brought it up, I was quite clear that I wasn’t asserting an equivalent between an individual’s actions and those of the state. I don’t see why, say, having a fair trial is some kind of natural or fundamental aspect of justice and the question of extent of punishment isn’t (was Bin Laden entitled to a fair trial? A lot of people didn’t seem to think so). And surely you accept that states, too, have legal and/or ethical limitations regarding what they can do with their subjects. I return to my hypothetical in my earlier post: is it acceptable for the state to use torture as punishment? It might not be to your taste, and you may find it morally indefensible, but does that actually tell us anything about fundamental principles of justice? Punishment entails removal of some rights; it need not entail (or have the capacity to entail) removal of all rights.

I’m not ignoring your argument, I’ve just been approaching the problem from a different angle (which nevertheless ends up in the same place) – i.e. extent of rights rather than justifiable extents of punishment. The reason for that is that I see the latter as being mostly determined by a society’s ethical dispositions and not, as you seem to be claiming, some kind of function of natural law.

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Mugwump 



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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 5:29 pm
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That’s odd, as I’m certainly not claiming that the death penalty is a matter of natural law. That is a social choice, of course. I think you are claiming that there is some kind of natural law (ie universal human predisposition) which makes the death penalty untenable ? It seems to me a very odd view to hold, in light of the evidence of history and cross-cultural practice.

I said that the idea of justice seems to have some natural law behind it, which is surely true.

The death penalty does in a sense involve the removal of all rights, but it’s a bit casuistic. Rights can only be violated upon the living. The execution is a single act which extinguishes the question of rights. While alive, the prisoner has the ordinary rights of the convict : to medical treatment, to religion, to nourishment etc.

Punishment via torture (assuming by that we mean cruel and unusual punishment) has multiple unique problems :

First, it has no instrumental value other than the exaction of pain, and that seems to violate the idea that punishment must serve some reasonable purpose. The death penalty serves the purpose of permanently excising the perpetrator of a hideous moral act from society - no small matter when three innocent people are killed annually by convicted killers on release in the Uk. If you are religious, of course, it also refers the matter to a higher authority.

Secondly, torture inherently barbarises the torturer and the sufferer, where a properly conducted execution does not. Most ordinary people would feel that they can pull a lever or a trigger to execute a lawful sentence without being cruel, and our society carried through death sentences for generations without being cruel at its root. I don’t think anyone can conduct an act of torture without being cruel, and becoming debauched by the experience. Ditto society.

When we took the ultimate sanction away from society, we left the sole right to kill with the murderous thugs. Because our children are taught what to think, not how to think, by the 1968 revolutionaries, there is little chance that it will come back in the near term. But as our society becomes ever more violent and degraded, it will probably come back when it is too late, and be exercised badly as a result.

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pietillidie 



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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 11:16 pm
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Mugwump wrote:
no one is arguing that the right to life is not an ethical principle.

The issue is that ethical principles do not apply equally to governments as they do to individuals, subject to a reasonable and fair justice system. Punishment involves removal of rights. It’s not hard.

It is the offender’s initial destruction of an innocent life which renders the offender liable to penalties in the first place. The question is only the reasonableness of the penalty in question.

But the general acceptance of "the removal of rights" does not mean: "if a right can be overridden, any right can be overridden", as if all rights exist in a mixed bag of tradeable rights of equal weight. What is accepted in regard to punishment is far more measured, being something like: "the minimum violation of the minimum rights necessary to achieve some end as determined unavoidable".

Again, this is because rights are organised into systems, with the right to life constituting the a priori or first principle of the systems under consideration here. Or, to put it another way, there is the life/not-life of the organism under consideration, with all other rights being derived from and organised in relation to this starting point.

Whether this is a natural or synthetic limitation doesn't seem to matter very much. Our most reasonable selves seem forced to bootstrap our moral system with it. By now I've probably forgotten more philosophy than I've learned, but I can't recall a non-religious argument which starts with something other than life/not-life, or (human) life/not-life.

I can't see how you get to override this and maintain the integrity of your moral system at the same time. Think about it: if you believe another principle has overridden your a priori, you've just created a new a priori. In this new system, your first principle is not the right to life, but rather something like "the right to punish heinous murderers with death".

Perhaps you can get there, but I can't see how. Consider some of your arguments:

Mugwump wrote:
The issue is that ethical principles do not apply equally to governments as they do to individuals, subject to a reasonable and fair justice system. Punishment involves removal of rights. It’s not hard.

But punishment doesn't involve the removal of just any right; again, you're ignoring the organisation of the moral system. No one is arguing: "The removal of a right implies the removal of any right". Instead, they're arguing something much more limited: "the minimum violation of the minimum right needed to achieve some unavoidable end that is deemed necessary."

Mugwump wrote:
It is the offender’s initial destruction of an innocent life which renders the offender liable to penalties in the first place. The question is only the reasonableness of the penalty in question.

Sure, but this is no small step because "being reasonable" means getting to the penalty concerned within the constraints of the principles as established.

Proportionality can't get you there, because "proportionate punishment" does not mean "literal like-for-like punishment". Just what is the principle here? "You killed so you will be killed" is not a reasoned moral principle; it's a commandment of some kind. Just where does it fit, and how does it roll out across your moral system? And there is no way to invoke it, even once, without first establishing it as a consistent principle within the system.

Furthermore, what purpose is served by "the maximal punishment of killing" that can't otherwise be served by maintaining the primacy of the right to life, and only "minimally violating the minimum rights as needed to achieve some unavoidable purpose"?

By finding a punishment within this constraint, or something like it, you get to maintain the integrity of your moral system by (a) upholding your first principle, and (b) upholding the integrity of the important lower-order principle concerning the administering of punishment.

Capital punishment, in contrast, makes a mess of the moral system. And, as argued earlier, it does this for no known gain, at higher cost. It really has nothing going for it — either in principle or in utility.

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Mugwump 



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PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2018 12:20 am
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PTID, that’s a hell of a good post, with a well-considered and responsive argument (plus a creditable avoidance of personalisation, which makes it worth serious consideration).

I have a busy few days ahead so I will respond in a day or so, but well-argued, old son.

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Nick - Pie Man 



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PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2018 12:02 am
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It's like being at university all over again!
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PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2018 12:03 am
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All?
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