wormwood

Hi all,

Over the past few weeks I've been working through my feelings on capital punishment, and I've run into a question that I'm hoping you can help me with.

One of the recurring arguments against the death penalty is that it only caters to a base desire for revenge. Understandable on the surface, but after thinking about it this strikes me as more than an argument against capital punishment -- it seems like an argument against punishment itself, in any form.

Let's say that, instead of putting a convicted murderer to death, you lock him in prison for the rest of his life. Couldn't the same charge be levied -- that his incarceration is justified only by a desire for revenge? There's no chance of bringing the victim back to life, so no direct restitution can be made. And while it's true that lifelong incarceration greatly decreases the chances of another crime being committed, one could argue that the death penalty wins on that account, since it eliminates the possibility entirely.

If we are to believe that revenge is an unacceptable motive for punishment, doesn't that preclude almost any kind of punishment beyond "Give it back and say you're sorry"? Aren't most jail sentences a form of revenge? And are "revenge" and "justice" simply two ways of describing the same urge?

I realize that there are many other (compelling) arguments against capital punishment, but if possible I'd like to restrict this thread to the one above. Is there something I'm missing?

general_koffi

No, it doesn't eliminate all forms of punishment. An effective punishment has to be an effective deterrent. One has to be reasonably sure that the criminal is going to be discouraged from committing the offence again or even committing the offence in the first place. Murder does fulfill this function, but it doesn't do it better than incarceration and it does it at the expense of killing someone.

Life imprisonment is interesting. Personally I think that it should only be imposed with a chance for parole (or something similar) somewhere down the line. Life imprisonment with zero chance of parole *ever* is pretty close to capital punishment.

If it turns out that the prison system is incapable of reforming a prisoner, then that prisoner would have to spend his/her life behind bars.

Angrillori

Close, but different in a very very very very important way:
It is revocable if the person is later exonerated.

I agree with you in principle though, that if reformation is a goal of our prison system, then the opportunity at least should always be there. The fact that it is sometimes removed seems to be primarily a concession to the vengeance instinct. But it's still an incredible step up from the death penalty if only because you can let a guy out of prison if he's found innocent. It's much harder to let him out of a grave.

Mountain Man

Punishment is done in hopes the person will learn a lesson and not commit any more crimes. Capital punishment provides no such lesson or hope of a lesson learned. Murder has a low rate of recidivism so, many but not all, of these people are capable of learning their lessons and upon release from prison becoming productive, contributing, safe, members of society.

Mountain Man

That's part of the problem with this society (oops, I mean the USA society since that's the one I'm most familiar with), the prison system is not for reformation but only for storage and revenge. Little, if any, serious attempts at reformation go on in US prisons. Any attempt would be seen as "soft on crime" and would not be politcially correct.

Angrillori

Yeah, it's kind of goofy. We're so hung up on being macho* that even a dialogue on some of these issues is impossible. I mean our legislature here in Wisconsin, when debating a law allowing people to carry concealed firearms** VOTED DOWN an amendment to prevent the carrying of concealed weapons into hospitals and bars! I mean bars?!?!?!? Even in Mad Max world they didn't let you pack heat into Thunderdome city!!!


*(Heck, look at any election. So much effort is devoted to showing who's the tougher guy, that many elections just turn into "I'm tougher than he is" pissing matches. 2004 pres. was a great example! We had two east coast ivy-league aristocrats vying for president, and the biggest issue of the election was how bad one of them was wounded in a war almost 40 years ago!)

**Something universally opposed by every law enforcement organization in the state!

Dlx2

Traditionally (although obviously not always in practice) isn't capital punishment generally reserved for individuals who have eschewed the social contract and have not only committed murder, but have committed gratuitous murder (i.e. rape/murder, serial killing, etc)? By abandoning the social contract, you also abandon the protection it provides for you. Thus, capital punishment in these cases at least is perhaps less revenge than it is social hygiene, although certainly it prompts feelings of revenge for some individuals.

Note that murder does not always mean abandoning the social contract. Most of the time, murder is an act of passion or desperation. People who commit murder for these reasons are generally reformable to at least a certain extent. People who commit murder as part of an atrocity are probably not reformable.

Here's a question, though. Killing a police officer carries a death penalty. Is that legitimate?

Aristophanes

not an argument against punishment, an argument against retributivism (an eye for an eye principle). though superficially it may seem like it makes sense; but it doesn't. Eye for an eye principle states that, for every wrong thing you do to someone, they should do that wrong thing back to you. so, if you poke out my eye, it follows that i should be allowed to poke your eye out. the main problem with this, is that it doesn't take motive into account. you could have accidentally poked my eye out; whereas i would have poked your eye out on purpose. it just doesn't give condemnable things their "proper" priority. let's look at instances of murder:
1)X carefully plans, and then kills Y
2)X kills Y in a fit of rage (a crime of passion)
3)X is driving through a playground, and kills the child of Y (*)
4)X kills Y by pure accident

(in each instance, X represents a different person)
*(instance 3 is an example of reckless endangerment)

first, although X killed Y in both instance 1 and 4, surely they do not deserve the same punishment.

second, the punishment is not consistant. if you are punishing against the criminal with the exact crime, then it follows that in instance 3, Y should recklessly drive through a playground and un-purposefully run over the child of X. this is clearly wrong, as it needlessly harms an innocent party.

third, it does not take into account atonement. for the sake of argument, let us say that in instance 1, X does not feel sorry for killing Y; but in instance 2, X feels sorry and regrets killing Y. X2 would like to atone for his crime, but does that mean he must give his life? and X1 does not with to atone, so he will not give his life, so we must take it. what if X2 does not want to take his life? do we then forcefully take it from him? isn't there something else he could do? like, spend some time in isolation, whilst working on a project to help the community, and pay the family of the victim? would that not be more productive?

fourth, if X kills Y, it follows that Y should be allowed to kill X. but Y is already dead, so X shouldn't be killed. but since we think we are abiding by the eye-for-an-eye principle, we get our executioner to kill X. but now Z has killed X. if the punishment is being carried out by a different person, then it follows that, since Z has killed someone, Z should be put to death; so Z is killed by A, A is killed by B, and B is killed by C, and so on and so forth (until all the letters in the english alphabet are dead).

eye-for-an-eye principle merely perpetuates suffering, and death (in the instance of murder).
it inflicts unnecessary suffering, where there could me more productive things to be gained; and it is therefore, not in the rational self-interest of the punisher.
by repaying the criminal with his crime; you are lowering yourself to his/her level.
it is in a sense, hypocritical to condemn a thing as wrong, and then carry out that wrong. or as the saying goes, "two wrongs do not make a right".

these are some of the reasons why eye-for-an-eye principle has generally been all but abandoned by contemporary societies.

(perhaps later, i'll get to why kant's perspective on retributivism is wrong; but i'm spent at the moment)

wormwood

Thanks to everyone for your replies. Mountain Man, I particularly like your summation -- that the possibility of reformation is what separates justice from revenge.

But I'm still not completely sure how that makes a life sentence palatable. I guess it depends on what kind of reformation we're talking about -- societal or personal. Locking someone in prison until they die doesn't seem to send the message that we hope they'll eventually become productive members of society. So whereas I can see how my broader question about punishment has been answered (ideally, punishment involves the perpetrator learning a lesson and then reforming), I'm still not clear on why a life sentence is seen as so much more humane than a death sentence -- even given what Angrillori said about finding exonerating evidence later.

(After all, as technology improves, won't there be more and more certainty regarding a person's guilt? I understand that better technology is resulting in a lot of overturned convictions now, but as time passes, won't it lead to more solid court rulings, and thus lend more support to the idea of capital punishment?)

Angrillori, if I ever travel to Wisconsin, I'll try to remember not to get into any bar fights.

And Aristophanes, I just now saw your post, so I'm going to think on it for a bit before I respond. Thanks for your thoughts.

wormwood

Aristophanes, I agree with what you're saying about retributivism. But do you think that that's what fuels most proponents of the death penalty? (Aside from the Old Testament fans, that is.) I always got the impression that it was -- to borrow Dlx's phrase -- a kind of social hygiene, whereby the people who have committed what society considers the most heinous possible acts are simply and permanently removed from that society. The fact that both involve death is -- not exactly a coincidence, but not exactly a motivating factor either.

Are there crimes other than murder that can (or should) earn a person the death penalty?