By “alternatives,” I don’t mean things like life imprisonment or rehabilitation programs. I mean things like taking convicted death-row inmates and using them for medical research. I, personally, would have no problem with surgically severing their spinal cords and experimenting on them to try and regrow nerves…among other things.
Thoughts?
I don’t agree. I suppose it could be alright IF it were possible to know that in every case no innocent person would be convicted, but given the possibilty that an innocent person could be convicted I don’t think such suggestions are justified.
By “alternatives,” I don’t mean things like life imprisonment or rehabilitation programs. I mean things like taking convicted death-row inmates and using them for medical research. I, personally, would have no problem with surgically severing their spinal cords and experimenting on them to try and regrow nerves…among other things.
Thoughts?
Do you think it is kosher to use another person (however evil) as a means to your ends? The point of imprisonment or capital punishment is to separate the evil-doer from the rest of us, presumably making us safer and also deterring any further evil doing. The only time it would be just to make a guinea pig out of a prisoner is if his crime was to make a guinea pig out of his victim.
The principle is tit for tat. For an eye and eye, for a wound a wound, for a life and life. That approximates justice.
Now if you made an offer to a person condemned to death a chance to commute his sentence if he volunteered for medical experiments, that is a different thing. He can always refuse.
Bob Kolker
I don’t agree. I suppose it could be alright IF it were possible to know that in every case no innocent person would be convicted, but given the possibilty that an innocent person could be convicted I don’t think such suggestions are justified.
The only way you can logically use this argument, is if you also oppose the death penalty, altogether.
Do you think it is kosher to use another person (however evil) as a means to your ends? The point of imprisonment or capital punishment is to separate the evil-doer from the rest of us, presumably making us safer and also deterring any further evil doing. The only time it would be just to make a guinea pig out of a prisoner is if his crime was to make a guinea pig out of his victim.
If the only point of the death penalty is to separate the murderer from society, then it would make more sense to lock him up for life, since life imprisonment actually costs less than a single execution.I see no problem using a human as a means to an end, when the human has committed an act (i.e. murder) that forfeits his human rights. From a rights point of view, he ceases to be human.
The principle is tit for tat. For an eye and eye, for a wound a wound, for a life and life. That approximates justice.
Then, would you approve of a death penalty system where murderers are killed the same way as their victims?
Now if you made an offer to a person condemned to death a chance to commute his sentence if he volunteered for medical experiments, that is a different thing. He can always refuse.
I’ve never understood the argument that convicted murderers should have any say, whatsoever, in their fate.
human.Then, would you approve of a death penalty system where murderers are killed the same way as their victims? I’ve never understood the argument that convicted murderers should have any say, whatsoever, in their fate.
I would not object to doing in a murderer in the same fashion he did in his victims, if it is feasible. One bad turn deserves another of a similar kind and nature. Those who shoot should be shot. Those who burn should be burned. Those who stab should be stabbed. It is basic tit for tat.
The idea of being humane to the inhumane has always seemed strange to me.
Bob Kolker
I mean things like taking convicted death-row inmates and using them for medical research. I, personally, would have no problem with surgically severing their spinal cords and experimenting on them to try and regrow nerves…among other things.
Under what circumstances would you advocate convict being tortured, or used for lamphade material? For example, all first degree murder convictions; that plus rape; add in treason, kidnapping, espionage; drug trafficking; assault by an incarcerated felon? I’m leaving out the legal grounds used outside the US which include sodomy, adultery, apostacy and corruption.
The purpose of punishment is to deal justice. If a person commits murder, it is just and right that they be executed. Torture and medical experiments would not be dealing justice to the criminal.
The only way you can logically use this argument, is if you also oppose the death penalty, altogether.
I do oppose it, because of the possibility that an innocent person could be killed. I do think, that it is morally justified in the case of a real killer, and if it were possible to make juries error-free, I would support it.
It is immoral to try to obtain a value by force. Defend a value, yes, but NOT to obtain a new value. This holds even when the recipient of the force has forfeited his entitlement to have his right to life respected as the issue of our attitude towards the use of force rather than the rights of murderers. If someone is to be executed, then that’s the only thing that should be done. The most you can get to is making reparations to victims out of the convicted’s own existing non-human resources, but not to force labour out of them or dehumanise them in some way.
Nor is it wise to become beholden to the existence of criminality to obtain values as it opens the door to generating criminality for the purpose of obtaining those alleged values. You do NOT want to expand the scope of governments - especially today - getting continuous revenue flows arising from convictions in courts of law (and yes, I am opposed to prison industry, such as the making of car rego plates).
Even were the government totally well-principled, there should be no economic benefit of any kind arising from the existence of a prisoner population, including Death Row. Economically, prison should be a cost centre and nothing else. Prisons and legal justice must remain exclusively in government hands and run strictly as an item of consumption. Trying to generate revenue out of it, or even just the production of goods as a break-even proposition, blurs the boundary between trade and the use of force. The attempt is another instance of the same grievous mistake made by anarchists, and is a counterpart to having competing police forces generating revenues from the services they provide. Force and trade should be kept at an arm’s length from each other.
JJM
I don’t agree. I suppose it could be alright IF it were possible to know that in every case no innocent person would be convicted, but given the possibilty that an innocent person could be convicted I don’t think such suggestions are justified.
The lack of certainty in convictions could be used as an argument against capital punishment.
In the State of Illinois about five percent of people convicted of major felonies such as rape and murder were cleared by DNA evidence analyzed subsequent to their conviction. The State suspended any further capital punishment decrees. Given a track record like that, I think it is a good decision.
On the other hand, one could regard the occasional wrongful conviction as “friendly fire” in the War Against Crime. Mistakes happen, even in the best of causes.
I think a relatively low cost penal colony serves the purpose of separating the intractable felon from the rest of us and it has the virtue of being reversible in the case of a wrongful conviction. The French had the right idea with the penal colony at Devil’s Island.
Bob Kolker
The lack of certainty in convictions could be used as an argument against capital punishment.
It could be, but that would be an intellectually sloppy argument. Instead, the lack of certainty in convictions should be used as an argument for attaining certaining in convictions.
It could be, but that would be an intellectually sloppy argument. Instead, the lack of certainty in convictions should be used as an argument for attaining certaining in convictions.
Until that certainty is attained, what do you recommend that we do?
One approach is to hang’em high anyway.
The other is to put them in cages.
In either case separation is attained which I believe to be the essential objective.
Bob Kolker
Until that certainty is attained, what do you recommend that we do?
You’re mistakenly treating certainty as a general state that descends on the whole justice system. Certainty pertains to a specific proposition; in some instances, convictions are made properly, with certainty of guilt, and in other cases, convictions are made improperly. The solution is to only convict when it is certain that the accused is guilty.
You’re mistakenly treating certainty as a general state that descends on the whole justice system. Certainty pertains to a specific proposition; in some instances, convictions are made properly, with certainty of guilt, and in other cases, convictions are made improperly. The solution is to only convict when it is certain that the accused is guilty.
Most those folks in Illinois that were cleared by DNA evidence were convicted by juries who were certain beyond a reasonable doubt or who copped pleas. As long as there are juries and clever lawyers who play on their emotions and prejudices, the certainty of which you speak is not easy to achieve. In the case of Illinois a miscarriage rate of five percent or more is reasonable grounds for not pushing for capital punishment. If someone is put in a cage, he can be released and compensated later on if he is exonerated. It he is put to death, the matter is finished.
I respectfully ask what practical steps you would recommend for achieving the certainty which you advocate?
I respectfully ask you to consider these points:
Many cases are settled by plea bargains. The State basically brow-beats or coerces the defendant into copping a lesser plea to avoid the risk of being convicted on the greater offense. This is not so much a matter of evidence as it is of power or clout. Fortunately, in these cases capital punishment is not likely. No one will cop a plea in such a way that puts him on a gurney or in a gas chamber.
When criminal cases do go to trial you have juries (most of the time). I have served on juries and I can tell you from first hand experience it is not wise to overestimate the perspicacity of the sort of folks selected for jury duty. The skills of logic, evidence weighing and critical thinking are not well taught in American schools.
Many of the defendants have to resort to public defenders who are rarely first rate legal practitioners. As a result, opportunities for refuting or blunting prosecution testimony are missed. So convictions can be secured from poor prosecutions because the defense is even poorer. That does not sound like certainty to me.
Bob Kolker
I would like to add that when we send someone to prison, we take away their human rights (although poetically speaking, they revoked their own the moment they breached another’s, but anyway…) and thus declare that they are are not a man. However, they are not an animal either. They deserve to receive a punishment fitting to the inhumanity of their crime, but to put them on the level of animals, as resources for our survival? I don’t think that’s right. They’re already treated inhumanly – why treat them like animals?
Do you think it is kosher to use another person (however evil) as a means to your ends?
I do that all the time. Although I prefer to deal with good people, since there isn’t much good one can gain from the evil ones.
That people use each other as means to their ends is implicit even in one of Kant’s formulations of his Categorical Imperative: “Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own or in any other person, at all times as an end as well, and never merely as a means.” Note how he takes it for granted that you will use other people (or “the humanity” in them) as a means, and commands that you treat them as an end as well. And, since he speaks of “humanity” in people, how much humanity do you think there is left in a mass murderer? Not that I want to base my position on Kant, of course, just to show that your above idea isn’t even implied in where you probably (directly or indirectly) got it from.
While we figure out those creative alternatives, the Governor of Texas is thinking up some creative comebacks to the Euros, according to this (awfully misspelled) article:
Convicted murdere[r] becomes Texas’ 400[th] execution since 1976
A convicted murderer on Wednesday was put to death by lethal injection, in Texas’ 400[th] execution since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
[…]
Earlier this month, the European Union had urged Texas Governor Rick Perry to consider a moratorium for all executions scheduled by his state.
Perr[y] rejected the appeal, suggesting it was out of place since the United States asserted its independence from Britain in the 18th century.
I wish all politicians would keep this in mind whenever the EU “urges” them to do something un-American!
I respectfully ask what practical steps you would recommend for achieving the certainty which you advocate?
Practically speaking, reform of jury instructions is necessary. Philosophically speaking, direct instruction in epistemology is necessary. Legally speaking, the legal definitions themselves often need to be corrected. Above all, though, I advocate abolishing the random-citizen jury system and advocate a system of qualified or even professional jurors.
Practically speaking, reform of jury instructions is necessary. Philosophically speaking, direct instruction in epistemology is necessary. Legally speaking, the legal definitions themselves often need to be corrected. Above all, though, I advocate abolishing the random-citizen jury system and advocate a system of qualified or even professional jurors.
I don’t think the jury system is a good idea at all for any crimes (not just murder, but all crimes). I think deciding whether someone is guilty should be left to a judge or a few judges. For each case that is.
If the only point of the death penalty is to separate the murderer from society, then it would make more sense to lock him up for life, since life imprisonment actually costs less than a single execution.
Indeed. That is the most compelling argument against the death penalty. I find it impossible to feel sorry for convicted murderers, so I don’t wince at their being executed like some of the liberal set does. But it’s s damn expensive it’s not worth it.
While I don’t buy the humanitarian arguments against the death penalty, there is one undercurrent that has always disturbed me nonetheless. That is for the state to have the power to legally take life. I am not certain that’s a power I want a state that I do not trust to have.
Like other matters in which the people have given their trust to the state, they government has managed to botch that trust by making it a gargantuan waste of money.