What is the O'ist view on the death penalty?

[AshRyan]

"Objectivist" apparently posted this last message, and when I did not see it immediately since David put his posts on moderator preview, he PM'ed me with it.

I decided to let "Objectivist's" last post through, because it shows why I banned him. I like to let the evidence stand. And I don't appreciate receiving those kinds of messages (my apologies to those other board members who received abusive messages, whether public or private, from "Objectivist"). That, and because I think it's funny.

Here was my response to him via PM:

"You give absolutely no evidence for denouncing "almost all" of us as unthinking as Christians. If you think I'm a "pseudo-objectivist" that's fine--I don't give a damn what you think of me, especially since you have not even attempted to back up that claim. All of which makes you a silly little hypocrite.

Fine--don't give me your sanction. I neither want nor need it. You are not the victim here--you are the offender.

Goodbye."

[nimble]

I sympathize with his point of view. I do agree that some of your views on the death penalty are a little skewed. But i wouldnt call it an unthought out view. We just disagree. I have no need to FORCE you to think my way. I just know that i am right. And that is most-likely the way you feel as well. I hope that this argument can continue rationally, without any hard feelings held during the debate.

[AshRyan]

I sympathize with his point of view.

Sympathizing with his point of view is one thing. What I have no sympathy for is his attitude.

[iouswuoibev]

I would be for punishing criminals even if it INCREASED crime.

The purpose of punishing a criminal is because HE did something wrong and any effect on anyone else is beside the point.

Purpose in this context is reason. If someone commits a crime, it does not logically follow that that in itself is the reason for their punishment. I can see many reasons for punishing a criminal, but that they commited a crime is not in itself a reason. Prevention is one reason. Retribution is another reason.

The statement you put forward is ambiguous. I assume by 'punishment' you mean any punishment, and by 'crime' you mean any crime. I think we can agree that there is no correlation between punishment of criminals and criminal activity. But to take your hypothesis to an arbitrary level, would you advocate the death penalty if, just for the sake of the argument, it meant you had a 50% chance of being murdered if you left your house?

I am making the assumption here - by the way that you conclude that the reason for punishment is because of the crime - that retribution is the appeal that punishment holds for you. Which brings me to ask: what is the value of retribution? You say that the effect that punishment has on anyone else is besides the point. But to what extent does it remain 'besides the point' ? Is it still 'besides the point' when it creates a major risk to individuals? Is it that valuable?

I am still applying your hypothesis here, to illustrate my point; the real issue I am getting at is, what is the value of retribution? Why is it important? In the case of the death penality, RationalCop stated one value: it provides an absolute guarrantee that the criminal can never harm him or anyone else ever again. However, this value does not apply to retribution for crimes that don't involve violence against a person. So what other value does retribution have? It has been mentioned that it has a 'comfort factor', an emotional appeal, for some people. I can relate to this, and I think any conscientious person would be compelled to want retribution visited upon anyone who violated their rights. However, I do not see how this value has rational premises, and while it may be incensing to witness a murderer being spared from death, I do not think it is irrational to discard the base emotional value of retribution from consideration.

In lieu of realising that there is a risk of executing an innocent in the practice of execution, and weighing that with the moral, but ultimately, flawed value of retribution as I've put it, I don't think the death penality is the rational option. If there is a value in retribution that I overlooked, I would be interested to hear it.

[iouswuoibev]

And to address the original topic, I am pro-choice because killing living genetic material that has no values and no awareness is not destroying a value, and therefore there is no reason to oppress the freedom of choice.

[Guest jrshep]

Which brings me to ask: what is the value of retribution?

Justice.

[iouswuoibev]

Justice.

Justice, is the deliverance of punishment. It is legalized retribution. It sounds very righteous, and people often use the concept to try and be a justification of and unto itself, which is circular reasoning. It does not answer the question.

[Guest jrshep]

Perhaps you have never suffered a gross injustice. If and when you do, you'll understand completely, via an unfortunate, first-hand experience, why it's not circular reasoning.

The value of justice is as simple as the Ayn Rand quote that RationalCop uses for his signature, "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent."

Someone pays with every injustice. If the guilty do not, then the innocent do. No punishment, no retribution for an injustice, is to twice violate the innocent.

[stephen_speicher]

Justice, is the deliverance of punishment. It is legalized retribution. It sounds very righteous, and people often use the concept to try and be a justification of and unto itself, which is circular reasoning. It does not answer the question.

It does answer the question, if you understand justice not only as the "deliverance of punishment," but, more generally, as a very important virtue. I like Peikoff's single sentence summation of justice in OPAR (p. 276):

"'Justice' is the virtue of judging men's character and conduct objectively and of acting accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves."

OPAR is a sytematic presentation of Objectivism and I think you would both enjoy and benefit from reading it.

[oldsalt]

louswuolbev:

I am curious how you define justice and what would be your alternative to retributive justice. On what basis would you, if you would, punish criminals. I noticed that you put the word crime in quotes, so I would also like your definition of crime. Do you equate retribution with revenge?

[Spearmint]

Can we really say that the death penalty is the objectively proper penalty for murderers? We can certainly say that murder is wrong and that people who do it should be punished more severely than thieves or muggers. We can also say that locking up a murderer for a year and then sending them back into society unreformed is wrong. However, I don't think it's correct to say that the death penalty is more objectively proper than life imprisonment - these are both very severe punishments, and it doesn't seem the place of philosophy to dicate which one more objectively represents justice.

I don't think theres anything _wrong_ with the death penalty in principle, but I could understand why others would disagree, without thinking that they are showing compassion for the guilty at the expense of the victim. It's not like they are advocating releasing the murderer, they are just asking for a different form of punishment. It's the same kind of argument regarding punishing serious thieves - we can certainly say that punishment is justified, we can also say that execution would be excessive, but I dont think we can say that jailing them for 1 year is more 'objectively correct' than jailing them for 2 years, or even cutting off one of their hands.

For the record, I do agree with the death penalty as a moral principle, but there is no way I would trust the government with the 'right' to execute citizens.

[Spearmint]

And to address the original topic, I am pro-choice because killing living genetic material that has no values and no awareness is not destroying a value, and therefore there is no reason to oppress the freedom of choice.

I dont like this argument, because one could claim that a very young child has no values or awareness either - I certainly doubt that there's a significant difference between a foetus a week before birth and a baby a week after, so the difference between abortion and infanticide seems to lie in something other than purely awareness.

I think the question to ask would be "if it were shown tomorrow that a foetus is a fully self-aware conscious being with the ability to form concepts, would this affect the woman's right to have an abortion?". To me the answer has to be no, since I think abortion follows from a person's right to own and control their body (and anything inside it), rather than from any special property which the foetus may or may not have.

[RationalBiker]

Which brings me to ask: what is the value of retribution? You say that the effect that punishment has on anyone else is besides the point.

I just found a passage in OPAR that I think addresses this well. (p. 366)

Government is inherently negative. The use of force is a power of destruction. The government's purpose is to protect individual's right and in doing so it must use force to deny the individual rights of the criminal. It's not the purpose of the government to create a positive value for others through retribution. It is the purpose of the government to negate the negative, or to destroy the destruction caused by the criminal. In other words, to punish. If a criminal creates a negative value through crime, he/she should have a negative value imposed on him/her. Any value that anyone else gets from this is immaterial to the purpose and varies from person to person. That is what Betsy pointed out. When the government negates a negative value, it is not creating or restoring the value lost, it is imposing a negative value on the perpetrator.

So, what's the value of retribution? None. It's not supposed to create a postive value.

Now this has to be coupled with the idea of "punishment in proportion to the crime". What is the value lost in a murder? A life. Now when I say murder, I mean "the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought." That is the current legal definition. It does not include crimes of passion, or voluntary/involuntary manslaughter.

How does one value a life? I think the only value comparable to a life lost to murder is another life. I would even go say far as to suggest that murder is the only instance in which one can insure parity or proportion between the crime and punishment. If one steals from another, the right to property has been violated. That is sometimes easily quantified in direct proportion (monetary value), but not so much the indirect damage caused. (i.e. a robber steals the rent money from a victim so he/she can't pay his/her rent and the victim risks losing his apartment. I don't think that potential damage should be considered in the punishment)

However, when a murderer takes a life, ALL of the victims rights are lost. Therefore, the proportion is for the criminal to lose ALL his rights. Clearly, if the murderer kills more than one person, you can't kill him/her more than once, so you might say there is a disproportion in his/her favor. Or....

...others suggest that life imprisonment is worse than the death penalty. To have a "life" but not be allowed to live it. To be placed in solitairy confinement and be deprived of sensory stimulation and human contact. If that's true, then I would suggest that the punishment is disproportionate to the crime of one murder, but perhaps not to multiple murders since otherwise direct parity cannot be achieved. In that situation, assuming the criminal truly is guilty, the compassionate thing to do is to kill him/her.

Yes, I know none of this goes to addressing the other problem with capital punishment in terms of the error rate. It was simple meant to address the concept of the "value of retribution".

VES

[stephen_speicher]

Can we really say that the death penalty is the objectively proper penalty for murderers?

Morally, yes we can. And, we have.

[oldsalt]

Thank you, Stephen, for the OPAR reference.

Thank you, RationalCop, for your discussion of "negating and negative." It's given me something to think about, and fleshes out what I already know to be the principle involved.

The argument goes against using the so-called testimony of family members who have lost loved ones. I've always been uncomfortable with using this sort of emotion ridden tactic in a courtroom. As a juror in a murder trial, I found I had strong emotional reactions to the cold, hard facts. The "victims statements" seemed like an indulgence that had no place. This isn't to say that I don't understand the need to confront someone who's murdered someone you love, I just think that a trial must be as objective as possible, relying on the facts and not the terrible emotions of the victims, no matter how understandable.

Sorry to get off topic. RationalCop's statements made me think of the connection with my own experience.

[RationalBiker]

Thank you, RationalCop, for your discussion of "negating and negative."  It's given me something to think about, and fleshes out what I already know to be the principle involved.

You are welcome. That particular section helped explain some things to me as well.

VES

[Xanadu]

Uhh...Is just me....I mean.....Did I miss something or did the "almighty" Greedy Capitalist chicken-out about responding to the arguments from Nimble and objectivist? Ouch! Whip! Whip! Whip!

I mean he said he was going to thrash him or something like that.

Please don't spam my board. Your other taunts have been deleted. -GC]

Edited August 24, 2004 by GreedyCapitalist

[Elle]

Xanadu, you will learn someday that taking the time to explain something to someone requires the returned benefit of either enjoying the response or expecting an outcome in line with one's goals. When neither is present conversation ceases, as is the case here.

[Xanadu]

Ok fine... but it was ridiculous to make the claim, and then do nothing.

[AshRyan]

Ok fine... but it was ridiculous to make the claim, and then do nothing.

More ridiculous than making several taunting posts in a row, rather than simply pointing out that he had failed to follow up and saying that you would be interested in hearing his response?

[Soulsurfer]

According to Objectivism, man can be contextually certain. Does this mean that Objectivists would approve of the Death Penalty on epistemological grounds? I.e., would an "Objectivist Judge" say, in effect: "All the proper evidence are there, as far as our objective evidence and knowledge are concerned, we are contextually certain of this man's guilt. The suggestion that a mistake could have been made on the way would manifest moral agnosticism and skepticism by introducing the arbitrary into the realm of cognition. So let's fry him!"?

[y_feldblum]

People do just that - achieve certainty - all the time in other contexts.

[DavidOdden]

Does this mean that Objectivists would approve of the Death Penalty on epistemological grounds?

It may be possible to satisfy the epistemological grounds for imposing the death penalty, but to "approve of" the death penalty", you have to also address the moral issues. I take it that you're only addressing the epistemological question.

I.e., would an "Objectivist Judge" say, in effect: "All the proper evidence are there, as far as our objective evidence and knowledge are concerned, we are contextually certain of this man's guilt. The suggestion that a mistake could have been made on the way would manifest moral agnosticism and skepticism by introducing the arbitrary into the realm of cognition. So let's fry him!"?

An Objectivist judge could not subjectively make that decision: it would have to be made in the context of an objective legal system that states what actions are punished by execution. I don't see how moral agnosticism is an issue. The moral issue has been sorted out already (by assumption) -- that is what you have to do in order to have a law requiring death as a punishment. Skepticism (let's name it what it really is: epistemological nihilism) is the real issue. The law has to address the question of what evidence is required to prove that a person must be executed. It is insufficient to say "I feel very strongly that the defendant did commit this crime" -- there has to be some objective standard of proof.

The question is whether death penalty cases should have more stringent epistemological conditions put on them than, say, petty theft (assuming petty theft isn't a capital crime). Because man is not omniscient, a judgment that the accused did commit a crime requiring the death penalty could in some case be in error (quite a number of cases, as it happens -- 50%, in the state of Illinois). Normally, when such an error in judgment is discovered (for instance by discovering new facts that disprove the claim that the defendant committed the crime), the unjust punishment is reversed. (Sadly, this is not automatic and is often at the discretion of the state). Thus DNA evidence has been used in a number of cases to disprove an earlier judgment of guilt, and when that happens, an effort can and should be made to make the victim whole. But an execution is not reversible. For that reason, the epistemological prerequisites for execution have to be much stricter that for other punishments.

If the definition of "certain" is applied carefully and rigorously....

...the total of the available evidence points in a single direction, and this evidence fulfills the standard of proof. In such a context, there is nothing to suggest even the possibility of another interpretation. There are, therefore, no longer any grounds for doubt

(emphasis added), then the epistemological prerequisites will have been met.

[AwakeAndFree]

I agree with Mr. Odden.

Moreover, there are objective legal practices that have been in practice for years, that are meant to prevent the case of error even when there is no reasonable doubt as to the indentity of the crime, or criminal.

For example - the sentenced is delayed for 5 to 10 years from the moment it is decided. This period of time gives opportunity and motive for any new evidence to arrive and be evaluated.

[Soulsurfer]

The law has to address the question of what evidence is required to prove that a person must be executed. It is insufficient to say "I feel very strongly that the defendant did commit this crime" -- there has to be some objective standard of proof.

I agree that there has to be some objective standard. But how is such a standard anchored back in sense-perceptual data, i.e. reality? These are my premises:

1. The status of the relationship between "my mind" and "my sense-perceptional data" is NOT the same (according to the law of identity) as the relationship between "my mind" and "other minds' sense-perceptional data". This is a very crucial distinction, epistemologically (and specifically for the concept of objectivity).

2. Objectivists are (if I am not mistaken) primarily concerned with integrating sense-perceptional data which can -- in principle although maybe not in immediate practice -- be directly percieved by their own senses. This would imply that Objectivists qualify the relationsship between their own minds and their own sense-perceptional data as the only properly objective validation.

3. Thus, Objectivists don't deduce their conclusions about reality from the axioms (a process going on inside their heads, without anchors to sense-perceptual data in the form of direct perception or in the form of past perceptions, i.e. memories). Instead, their conclusions follow from an inductive focus, i.e. looking at their sense-perceptional data and integrating it logically with previously established knowledge.

4. If scientists report that they have discovered a new star in the galaxy, most people trust that their claim is true -- based on earlier (inductive) conclusions in regard to the scientists' judgements. Even if other people don't get their own first hand sense-perceptional sight of that particular star, they can do it in principle. I.e. they can validate the claim themselves (by using their own telescopes or whatever other means necessary); they can trace it back to their own perception of reality rather than OTHER people's reports of THEIR perceptions of reality.

Now I think this last point is important. The complex body of established knowledge, as formed by many individuals' direct perceptions of reality and their deductive conclusions from other people's claimed direct perceptions of reality, is not the same thing as objective reality!

What is it, then? Some philosophers, such as John Searle, speaks of it as a "construction of social reality". The point is that in order for an individual to be completely objective, he would have to validate every bit of information he gets out of that "social construction" by anchoring its conclusions to his own sense-perceptional data. But there is no time for this: in order to function properly at all, he must trust that the conceptually derived knowledge has been validated back to sense-perceptional data by others. (So when he reads about the discovered new star, he will integrate that fact with his knowledge even if he himself didn't actually see the star with his own eyes.)

Now, let's go back to the original question: Death penality. Let's make a case. Suppose Mr. Smith is thrown in jail because ten witnesses have reported that they saw him walking out of a house 30 seconds after a gun was fired inside that house, where the police later found a dead man, shot in the head. The police also finds the gun in Mr. Smith's car later that day.

From this most people would assume that Mr. Smith is the killer. In fact, they have no particular reason to assume otherwise. But still, this "contextually certain evidence" may later be re-evaluated in light of new evidence. Perhaps Mr. Smith was innocently convicted because the real killer carefully planned the whole thing and other people didn't discover it. All they discovered was Mr. Smith. The objective fact was that Mr. Smith didn't hear the gunshot when he went out of the house, because he listened to music. Yet, no witness noticed his mini ear-phones. The objective fact was that Mr. Smith didn't even own a gun. It was placed in his car by others. Yet, Mr. Smith couldn't prove to the court that he didn't get the gun from somewhere. Et cetera.

Since nobody (except the murderer himself) did see the murder -- i.e., perceiving the case first hand by his own sensory experience -- the "social reality construction part" is the most "objective" parameter to deal with here. But, please observe, that if I actually witness for Mr. Smith -- and I am objective in the sense that rely on my own sensory experience (for instance, I saw from my point of view that day that Mr. Smith went out of the house listening to music, I tried to scream at him to make him stop walking, but he didn't hear me...) -- that sensory experience does not have the same status as the sensory experience of the other ten witnesses!

Mr. Smith is judged this way: ten witnesses' perceptions is more important than one individual's perception. From that "socially constructed" conclusions -- serving as the "objective standard" -- the case closes in accordance with that particular degree of objectivity the system produces (depending on the philosophy of law and its widest abstractions).