Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Why capital punishment is immoral.

Rate this topic


Kate87

Recommended Posts

I'm picturing someone rolling up a volume of Atlas Shrugged into a roundish object ...

 

Rape is rape. A rapist should be removed from a rational populance to keep them safe from further instantiaons of the rapist's actions, bearing in mind that with each tax payment, the victim is being re-victimized, if you will.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To objectively punish with rape, one would have to replicate the same horror, the same psycho epistemological state of the victim, in the mind of the rapist. This is obviously impossible.

So such a retributive right is like the right to prevent aliens which exhale chlorine from immigrating; inapplicable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To objectively punish with rape, one would have to replicate the same horror, the same psycho epistemological state of the victim, in the mind of the rapist. This is obviously impossible.

 

What is the objective purpose of punishment (with concern to the government)? Why should the government punish those who initiate physical force, and what are the goals it sets to accomplish?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To objectively punish with rape, one would have to replicate the same horror, the same psycho epistemological state of the victim, in the mind of the rapist. This is obviously impossible.

So such a retributive right is like the right to prevent aliens which exhale chlorine from immigrating; inapplicable.

 

By the way, how does imprisonment accomplish this? Surely it doesn't replicate the same "horror". You should answer the questions in my previous post before you accept rape as a proper punishment (if we could "rape objectively"). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Moral people are immeasurably valuable to each other. One persons love of life doesn't contradict anothers; it compliments it.

Multiple people may always choose contradictory values, but so long as these are all derivative of the value of life, any may be curtailed for its sake. Ie: You don't sacrifice your desire to build a factory to someone else's desire to build a library; you find somewhere else to achieve it.

Hence rights and freedom; you get the idea. But when someone isn't motivated by such values and premises, when someone initiates force they aren't valuable to selfish people; they're a threat to value. So all of the same reasons that make rights good to respect for most, make them good to violate in self defense.

Retributive force becomes relevant once defensive force has failed and I think that's where we disagree; I think its purpose is not to prevent the criminal from harming anyone else (or "change of heart" would be a valid legal plea) but to correct the fact that rights have been successfully violated, in the first place.

Ill have to elaborate later, though; I'm still fuzzy on some of the finer details and need to think about it. That's what I'm sure of sofar.

(yes, I made the disputed assertion without a good grasp of my own reasoning; fixing that presently)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What is the objective purpose of punishment (with concern to the government)? Why should the government punish those who initiate physical force, and what are the goals it sets to accomplish?

The purpose of the justice system is justice. The purpose of justice is a free, rights respecting society.

 

The concept justice is of course not summed up by the phrase "an eye for an eye". Harrison is wrong to describe it that way. Proportional or objective punishment doesn't mean "an eye for an eye", far from it. In fact, "an eye for an eye" is the refusal to bother with justice at all.

 

The essential aspect of justice is the "judgment" part: the evaluation of a criminal's actions and character. The kind and range of punishments a particular society in a particular time in history chooses to enact is a question of that society's means, crime rates, cultural biases, etc. rather than of highly abstract philosophical principles.

 

In other words, there's no philosophical principle that states either that hanging a horse thief is and always has been wrong, nor that punishing murder with life in prison rather than death is and always has been wrong.

 

That said, I am a death penalty advocate for civilized countries like the US, Japan and western Europe - not because I believe in "an eye for an eye", but because I have far too little confidence that a "life in prison" sentence issued today will be enforced by future governments for 6-7 decades. Unfortunately, governments are still not stable enough for that. (just look at Egypt, where the Mubarak regime has spent decades hunting down the country's worst terrorists, and then proceeded to magnanimously spare their lives and lock them up...only to be released by the Muslim Brotherhood...now many of them are back murdering and spreading mayhem, and Egypt's authorities are back trying to catch them...all because some people, specifically Mubarak's western backers, were squeamish about killing savage murderers).

Edited by Nicky
Link to comment
Share on other sites

... bearing in mind that with each tax payment, the victim is being re-victimized, if you will.

 

That's really a stretch- comparing taxation to getting raped. I'm sure every person who has ever been raped would say that's nonsense.

 

Retributive force becomes relevant once defensive force has failed and I think that's where we disagree; I think its purpose is not to prevent the criminal from harming anyone else (or "change of heart" would be a valid legal plea) but to correct the fact that rights have been successfully violated, in the first place.

 

It's impossible to 'correct the fact that rights have been violated.' When someone's murdered, you can't bring them back from the dead; when someone's beaten, you can't erase their bruises. When rights are violated, the only things you can do are 1. remove the perpetrator's from society to prevent future damage and 2. punish them for their misdeeds. This is what justice concerns itself with.

 

That said, I am a death penalty advocate for civilized countries like the US, Japan and western Europe - not because I believe in "an eye for an eye", but because I have far too little confidence that a "life in prison" sentence issued today will be enforced by future governments for 6-7 decades.

 

I'm leery of this being anyone's main reason for supporting the death penalty. Obviously with life imprisonment there is the possibility of parole (usually after a decade or as long as 25 years served), unless otherwise stated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That said, I am a death penalty advocate for civilized countries like the US, Japan and western Europe - not because I believe in "an eye for an eye", but because I have far too little confidence that a "life in prison" sentence issued today will be enforced by future governments for 6-7 decades. 

 

I don't disagree - I think the death penalty is important for that reason and it serves as just as good (or better) deterrent as life imprisonment. But if judging (i.e. evaluating one's character and actions) is an essential aspect of justice, how come you don't advocate the death penalty on that point as well? If murder is the worst crime as it is evidence that one doesn't respect man's fundamental right to life, doesn't he deserve to lose his life? Why does he deserve to live?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's really a stretch- comparing taxation to getting raped. I'm sure every person who has ever been raped would say that's nonsense.

 

 

 

True, if you interpreted it that way. I would suggest that it may have been better stated as adding insult to injury. The victim is being force to pay to keep the perpetrator alive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't disagree - I think the death penalty is important for that reason and it serves as just as good (or better) deterrent as life imprisonment. But if judging (i.e. evaluating one's character and actions) is an essential aspect of justice, how come you don't advocate the death penalty on that point as well? If murder is the worst crime as it is evidence that one doesn't respect man's fundamental right to life, doesn't he deserve to lose his life? Why does he deserve to live?

Who said he deserves to live? Just because someone doesn't deserve to live, or doesn't deserve to not be raped with a copy of Atlas Shrugged all wrapped in a cone shape (very funny, dream_weaver), doesn't mean we should build society based on that. 

 

Society aims to achieve what rights respecting individuals deserve. When it evaluates what criminals have done, it is under no obligation to provide what they "deserve" for it. It instead should punish them in a way that best protects the rights of everyone else.

 

Because killing someone is definitive, there are pros and cons compared to life in prison:  

Cons: you can be wrong about his guilt, or he may have some information he might reveal, or he can be studied while caged up. 

Pros: you don't have to worry about him killing anyone else.

 

When you can assure he's not getting out, there are no pros, only cons. I support the death penalty because I can't be assured of that.

I'm leery of this being anyone's main reason for supporting the death penalty. Obviously with life imprisonment there is the possibility of parole (usually after a decade or as long as 25 years served), unless otherwise stated.

And that's unacceptable. I cannot accept a justice system that risks the lives of innocents for the sake of showing mercy to murderers. That goes beyond the factors I described in my previous post, into altruism. Edited by Nicky
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And that's unacceptable. I cannot accept a justice system that risks the lives of innocents for the sake of showing mercy to murderers. That goes beyond the factors I described in my previous post, into altruism.

 

You're operating under the false assumption that many (ie: the majority of those) serving a life sentence will recommit serious crimes upon their release... IF they ever get released. The data available simply does not support that assumption. (See The Meaning of Life, pages 23-27, which explains that "Lifers are less than one-third as likely as all released offenders to be rearrested within three years of release from prison" and "Four of every five lifers are not rearrested.")

 

Edit: I suppose you could bring up something like the best bet argument and say that even if 2/1000 lifers recommit a crime when (and if) they're paroled, that number is too high, and we would be better off executing them or locking them up without any possibility of parole rather than letting any innocent people get harmed.

 

Obviously I believe this line of reasoning is wrong because it's fear-driven rather than fact-driven. Although there are some cases of lifers (namely murderers) getting paroled and going on killing sprees, that rarely happens, and we should not create policies in response to very rare parolee behaviors. When any criminal is released from prison, there's always the possbility that he'll go on to commit future crimes. (This is especially true of people who get lesser sentences than life- something like 3/4 of these guys recommit crimes). However, we don't lock up every criminal and throw away the key just because that is a possibility.

Edited by mdegges
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, nicky and thenelli: you're right.

I was thinking in terms of an eye for an eye, which can't be proper because if we apply that consistently (which I wasn't) it leads to very bad places.

But this leaves us with an interesting question: is the purpose of retributive force punishment or prevention?

Is it for the actual victims sake, or to protect the rest of society?

They aren't necessarily opposites but neither are they the same and they seem to be used interchangeably when they aren't. If it's punitive then our current legal system coincides but I don't know how that would follow from other oist principles (although it still seems right). If converse then we need a radical reexamination of the justice system.

Still not sure how to answer yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But this leaves us with an interesting question: is the purpose of retributive force punishment or prevention?

Is it for the actual victims sake, or to protect the rest of society?

Still not sure how to answer yet.

 

I think Nicky already answered this question correctly. The purpose of retaliatory force:

 

 

Society aims to achieve what rights respecting individuals deserve. When it evaluates what criminals have done, it is under no obligation to provide what they "deserve" for it. It instead should punish them in a way that best protects the rights of everyone else.

Edited by thenelli01
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah; preventive.

So then, if someone honor-kills their own child or an unfaithful lover, etc; any crime which has no chance of recurrance, they aren't legally culpable. I don't think that's right.

It ties into entities as causal primaries, which I'm working on fully grasping (apologies again to plasmatic) and which also ties into property rights.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When someone violates rights they don't deserve to have their own respected, as far as preventive force goes. But the above post was wrong.

If someone commits murder, even if it's very specific and isolated, there's always a chance of recurrence- because entities are causal primaries.

And revenge isn't selfish, hence immoral. I suppose it can't follow politically.

Sorry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

True, if you interpreted it that way. I would suggest that it may have been better stated as adding insult to injury. The victim is being force to pay to keep the perpetrator alive.

 

Must have overlooked this post, but thanks for explaining your point. It definitely makes sense coming from the viewpoint that any type of forced taxation is immoral.

 

As an aside: Is it possible to support the idea of 100% voluntary taxation AND be against capital punishment? I doubt anyone who had the choice would voluntarily pay to keep criminals like murderers and rapists alive. My guess is that in this type of society, the sentencing requirements for capital punishment cases would be substantially less severe than they are today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As an aside: Is it possible to support the idea of 100% voluntary taxation AND be against capital punishment? I doubt anyone who had the choice would voluntarily pay to keep criminals like murderers and rapists alive. My guess is that in this type of society, the sentencing requirements for capital punishment cases would be substantially less severe than they are today.

 

This presumes that the deciding (i.e. most important) factor in creating proper punishments for criminals is money. It is not, at least not in the context of the United States. 

Edited by thenelli01
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hypothetically, would something like expulsion/deportation from the geographical confines of Objectivist-America along with revocation of citizenship be an option?  Hypothetically and morally I would say yes.

 

An Objectivist society would be a voluntary association.... so if certain people could not peacefully remain in that society without risk of harm to others we could, with moral justification, "cast them out" .. yes?

 

 

(I realize that today, "America" would bow under international pressure not to "set loose" undesirable persons)

Edited by StrictlyLogical
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My guess is that in this type of society, the sentencing requirements for capital punishment cases would be substantially less severe than they are today.

 The sentencing requirements for capital punishment cases need to be set according to stringent objective criteria based on evidence to ensure against misuse and/or abuse. Considering that justice, and not money (as thenelli01 properly identified in post #70), is the criteria by which a proper moral evalution need be ascertained, the serverity of the sentance is inexorably linked to the serverity of the crime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SL: Yes.

And money must be a critical factor, along with justice; to suboordinate any consideration of means to their respective ends (somehow!) makes the cure worse than the disease.

If 75% of Americans had initiated significant force at one point, it would be a manifest absurdity to imprison them all at the price of starving the remainder.

TANSTAAFL.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...