Dr. Retard

Another bad anti-DP argument is suggested by these quotes:

This argument commits a genetic fallacy: if the original motives or current driving motives for a social institution are nasty enough, then we should abandon the social institution.

First, there is no logical connection between an institution being prudent, collectively advantageous, useful, praiseworthy, moral, just, etc. on the one hand, and involving nasty motives on the other hand. Destructive, wasteful instutitions can have picture-perfect origins with the best of intentions; praiseworthy, efficient institutions can have base origins borne of malice and iniquity.

Second, by similar reasoning, we could condemn the institution of marriage, which, I am told, began as a sort of brutal sex slavery. A great many marriages are created from terrible motives. Should we then abandon the institution? Not necessarily. Similarly for markets. Are they driven by and originated from greed? Perhaps; but even so, they're worth having for the wealth they bestow upon the societies that embrace them.

All psychoanalysis (amateur or otherwise) of those who support and enforce the death penalty is beside the point. What matters is whether the institution improves all our lives.

Happy Wonderer

Your analogy fails. Police officers are not officials we hire to go out and kill people who need to be killed. Their job is to enforce the law, which may in VERY RARE cases require the use of deadly force. These rare cases must always involve a threat to the Officer's life, or the life of bystanders. Contrary to what you may see on T.V. programs, an officer is not justified in shooting a fleeing suspect who poses no threat.

The death penalty is a system that we put in place to kill people who we think we need to kill. That is its only function, and the possibility of killing the wrong person is certainly an important issue to judge it on.

Our judicial system (*) is based on the principle (not the fact...) that it is better to leave a criminal unpunished than to unjustly punish an innocent man. That is why criminal cases require all jurors to vote to convict, rather than a simple majority -- and is in fact why we bother having juries at all. It is why the rules of evidence are biased in favor of the defendant. It is why we start with a presumption of "not guilty" even for the most notorious criminal. (This is key, the initial presumption isn't "maybe guilty or not" it is "he is not guilty.")

Even with these safeguards, innocent people are convicted. Some are on death row (look up Barry Sheck and the innocence project.) Surely you don't think that is an O.K. price to pay for the doubtful benefits of the death penalty?

What are the benefits of the death penalty, anyway? Many other countries don't have it (see link below), and have so far not descended to anarchy.

(*The judicial system in your country may vary.)

HW

<a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deter.html" target="_blank">What the heck, how about some propoganda?</a>
<a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html" target="_blank">Countries with and without death penalty</a>

Dr. Retard

The analogy fails only at tasks it never signed up for. Sure, police officers are not hired to kill people, while executioners are. But instructions don't matter on their own; what matter are the real-world consequences. And the fact remains that, as a matter of empirical fact, if a society institutes a police force, it runs the risk of thereby killing an innocent person. The point is that an institution cannot be condemned on the sole grounds that it runs that risk, for that risk can be outweighed.

I don't even support the death penalty. I'm just pointing out a poor argument.

wordsmyth

The reason the death penalty doesn't seem effective as a deterrant for crimes that warrant it, is because society is detached from the penalty itself.

You hear on the news that Joe Smith was executed in Texas at midnight last night. Everyone says "ok" and goes on about their business never giving it a second thought. We don't know Joe Smith or even what crime(s) he committed, so why should we care.

Now imagine the execution is televised... we get a recap or re-enactment of what Joe Smith did... we get a brief interview with the victims family and friends... then a brief interview with Joe Smith which leads up to the execution itself.

We now know what Joe did to deserve the death penalty and a bit about Joe the person. This gives us a more personal attachment to the penalty of death.

Not only am I in favor of the death penalty, but I believe it should be used more often. Is it possible that an innocent person could be executed? yes, its possible. Its also possible that an innocent person could be sentenced to life in prison where they are sodomized daily or brutally murdered by another inmate over a cup of black cherry jello.

Our justice system isn't perfect, but until we come up with a better one we have to trust in it.

I'm not in favor of cutting off hands for shoplifting, but I am in favor of corporal punishment like they have in the Philipines. Remember that kid that was publically caned for spray painting cars? I guarantee he will think twice about spray painting another car in the Philipines. If I had caught the little bastard spray painting my car, he would have been begging to be caned.

The penalty does not involve a long prison stay so its cost effective and its made public so everyone can see the consequences of the action. Now I know some of you probably think that its barbaric and violence isn't the answer, but think of its effectiveness as a deterrant. Its quite painful, but does not cause any long-term debilitating damage... its basically an extreme public spanking, but I imagine just the thought of it makes some of you uneasy which is precisely why it makes a good deterrant and effective punishment.

Jamie_L

Carl,

Actully, when I was younger, I was pro-death penalty. I've never had a real moral delima with the idea of executing someone who did, in fact, deserve it. I school, I engaged in debates arguing the pro-death penalty side.

My shift in postion actually came from an odd source - I started reading a lot about human memory. I read a book specifically relating to eye-witness testimony and how maleable our memories are. A lot of the information was based on research that appeared legitimate to me. It was a real eye-opener.

Since then, I've come to the conclusion that the death penalty cannot be administered in a way that protects innocents, and this goes against the ideals of government that the U.S. (my home) has and (IMHO) should have.

In theory, if I KNEW McVeigh did it, I wouldn't have a moral problem with his execution. In keeping with my current outlook, however, I have to stick by my guns and say I think he should not have been executed, because the system requried to execute him should not exist.

Jamie

Jamie_L

Okay, I did say one innocent was one too many. Underlying that sentiment, however, is my belief that the ACTUAL benefits of the death penalty are not worth the goverment exectuting even one innocent person. In my opinion, the DP has no significant advantages over LWOP that warrant putting innocent people to death.

The risk of not having a police force is huge. It vastly outweighs the risk of the police killing innocent civilians. The risk of having LWOP instead of a death penalty is virtually nil. It's a "feel good" punishment (odd that a death penalty's main function should be to make people "feel good"). I provides very little "value added" to our justice system. I don't care how many people "feel better". THAT is not worth giving the government the power to execute potentially innocent people.

Edited to add:

I'll conceed this point in general, but add that preventing the government from executing innocents should be given extra weight when compared to the potential threat to innocents from criminals. This lies at the very heart of the U.S. justice system (in theory) - the rights of individuals must be protected from government infringement in order to preserve liberty. This is why illegal evidence is suppressed at trials. Clearly this puts the public at greater risk since known criminals have a chance of going free. This is accepted as part of the system, however, to protect the rights of citizens from unlawful searches, and to keep powers away from the government which could be abused.

Jamie

Also edited to acknowledge the fact that I do promote the "Not even one innocent" idea - sort of.
[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Jamie_L ]

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Jamie_L ]</p>

Jamie_L

I disagree entirely. Criminals, especially violent ones, do not seriously consider the long term consequences of their actions. If they did, they would not engage in violent crime. Violent criminals either a) don't think about the consequences at all (heat of the moment crimes), b) they don't expect to get caught, or c) don't care if they get caught (suicidal). It's not that these people are detached from the death penalty, it's that they either don't expect to be subjected to it (i.e. won't get caught) or they don't care.

Can you really imagine a situation in which a criminal would consider committing some heinous crime, and then stop because they fear execution? Honestly? The kind of people who would worry about being executed would also worry about being imprisoned for the rest of their lives. The kind of people who aren't going to worry about beng put away for the rest of their lives also aren't going to worry about being executed.

This is hardly a defense of the death penalty. It's an arguement that our prisons need to be run better than they are. And again, it is an assessment of risk. The death penalty provides no benefit, thus it doesn't outweight the risk of killing innocents. A justice system and prison system provide GREAT benefit. Not having them puts many, many innocents at risk. Thus, risking putting innocents in prison is much preferable to having no justice system at all.

Jamie

Happy Wonderer

Hmm, maybe I was misunderstanding what you were trying to get at with the analogy. We agree that anyone killed by a police officer is an innocent man in the eyes of the law?

Would it be fair, then, to say that your argument is "innocent people are killed every day by (X), therefore the fact that (Y) kills innocent people has no bearing on the morality of (Y)?" (I'm getting this from "what matters are real-world consequences.")

So consider two cases.

1) Fred runs over little Johnny because he doesn't see him in his rear-view mirror.

2) Fred runs over little Johnny because Johnny is an (Israeli/Palestanian) and Fred doesn't like what they have been doing to the (Palestanians/Israelis) in the Middle East.

I think that we can all agree that #2 is an immoral act of collective punishment and a hate crime. However, it has the same effect as #1 and may even take an identical form to it. Is #1 an immoral act or a tragic accident?

HW

Dr. Retard

Here is my point, rendered as clearly as I can.

Some argue as follows:

(1) The functioning of the institution of the death penalty runs the risk of thereby killing innocents.
(2) If the functioning of an institution runs the risk of thereby killing innocents, then we ought not use that institution.
(3) Therefore, we should not use the death penalty.

I claim that premise (2) is false. There are some institutions that we should use, despite the fact that their functioning runs the risk of thereby killing innocents. My counterexample to premise (2) is the institution of a police force, whose functioning runs the risk of thereby killing innocents.

I do not claim that an institution's risk of killing innocents should be irrelevant to our appraisal of that institution. Quite the contrary -- that's a pretty important factor to consider. But it is not the only factor. We should be willing to grudgingly accept the risk of dead innocents if the other benefits are great enough. I submit that this is how most of us view the police force -- though the institution puts all of our lives at risk, it helps us enough as to overcome that handicap.

I do not claim that intentions should be irrelevant when morally appraising an action. Inadvertent killing is generally less blameworthy than intentional killing. But if two institutions tend to produce the exact same outcomes (in terms of what we care about), it should not matter that the one produces the outcome by commanding collective effort to achieve it, whereas the other produces the outcome by making other commands that happen to generate the outcome as an unforseen consequence. There is no strong reason to care about the intentions behind an institution, except insofar as they affect the outcomes thereby generated. Simply put, if system A and system B both endanger my life equally, I don't care that system A sanctions the danger and system B frowns upon it; the two different systems both come to the same end. There is, however, very strong reason to care about the intentions behind an action -- our rules can only influence people's behavior if they take intentions into account. This issue of why and how intentions should count is all beside my main point, though.

Happy Wonderer

And here is the main disagreement. Would you agree to this rewording of the claim you are trying to counter? "The functioning of the death penalty runs the risk of society deliberately killing a person, thought to be guilty, who may be innocent?"

This is why the police analogy breaks down. The police force doesn't exist to deliberately kill bad guys, any more than the sanitation service does. There is no civil force that deliberately kills people unless you have a death penalty. Of course, any activity runs the risk of killing somebody, that doesn't seem to be a strong counter-argument to the death penalty argument...

Intent matters -- it isn't a case of one caused death being more or less "blameworthy" than another. With no intent or no free will, there is no moral issue.

With the death penalty, society is is making a deliberate moral decision to execute a person who our (vastly flawed) court system has convicted of a crime. When a criminal is tried, we don't have a scientific panel impartially trying to determine the truth. We have laywers competing to convince a jury that their view of the case is the correct one. Better lawyers win cases more often than less-able lawyers. (One name makes my case: O.J. Simpson...)

So in this case, taking the risk of convicting and killing the wrong person is a moral decision and a value judgement. It says we don't value the lives of people who can't afford good lawyers. It is the same thing as sending people over a bridge that you know is faulty and near collapse - you can't escape a moral judgment for the deaths of the few who die in the collapse by pointing out the benefits to those who didn't!

This quality of judgement is inseperable from the "penalty" part of the "death penalty." You can't separate the penalty from the judicial system, since it is by definition an intended consequence of the system. Death is not an intended (or very common) consequence of having a police force.

A moral system based upon the cost/benefit ratio doesn't seem to me to be a very strong one. Suppose we do an analysis of the advantages of not prosecuting serial predators. We find that they don't harm all that many people per year but cost a tremendous amount to keep in jail. We could use that money for more worthy causes that would benefit more people than would be harmed by the collective release of all these maniacs. Would it be a moral decision to grudgingly accept the harm to a small number of future victims and decide to let them go?

HW