bd-from-kg

Walross:

Of course not. “Murder” is defined as wrongful killing. Let’s try to use neutral terms that don’t prejudge the case.

So what would you think of a society that failed to do what it could to protect innocent citizens, including children, from being murdered by thugs and conscienceless psychopaths?

Mike Rosoft:

As NHGH has pointed out, generally the state is the state is not going to reimburse you even if your conviction is reversed (unless, of course, the police or prosecutors acted improperly, say by manufacturing or suppressing evidence). The government’s position is that since it didn’t do anything wrong you’re just the victim of a misfortune for which no one is to blame, like a guy whose house is destroyed by a plane that went out of control due to a mechanical malfunction even though the plane had been properly serviced and checked. This is actually a perfectly reasonable position. People aren’t liable for all consequences of their actions. A person who exercises due diligence and prudence is not responsible just because his actions had consequences that he could not have reasonably foreseen. And the same is true of the state. If it acts in good faith, acting responsibly on the information available to it, there’s no reason that it should be held to account. Some things are no one’s fault; sometimes an innocent person is just out of luck.

Bill Snedden:

So we should avoid imposing just punishments so that we can make ourselves feel better about an occasional injustice by making some wholly inadequate compensation? This seems pretty trivial compared to preventing murders, which are a pretty massive injustice themselves.

Besides, this could actually be counterproductive. Maybe it’s better if we feel really bad about such injustices rather than being able to salve our consciences with “reparations” that actually do very little to right the wrong. Maybe this would make us more determined to prevent such injustices in the first place so far as humanly possible.

fundamental spawn:

This is getting off the subject. The question here is (as I understand it) is whether capital punishment is unjust in principle. Obviously capital punishment as practiced in some societies is unjust.

Just the same: How do you propose to end “much of the power of state funded prosecution”? Shall some entity other than the state decide who is to be prosecuted and for what? Why should it be even harder to gain convictions than it already is? How do you propose to keep prosecutors from “profiting” (i.e., enhancing their career prospects) by being successful at what they do? Shall we promote incompetent prosecutors instead?

As for your suggestion about ending the system of “trial by peers”, this is dangerously wrongheaded and ignores history. "Peers" hasn’t “come to mean” the masses, it’s always meant the masses. And trial by one’s peers was a brilliant innovation which ended just the kind of system you now advocate. The whole idea was to prevent the state from riding roughshod over the “masses” by making the masses the final arbiter.

But remember that a jury cannot convict unless the judge (who is supposed to be an expert) concurs that the evidence can be reasonably interpreted as “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. Judges are always free to find the defendant “not guilty notwithstanding the decision of the jury” or simply to throw out a case if he judges that there is insufficient evidence to justify conviction.

Finally, a democracy must, by its very nature, repose a certain amount of trust in the “masses”. Your arguments against the jury system are really arguments against democracy itself: serious decisions should not be left in the hands of the “masses”

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

Sure, there’s probably a reason for this, but I suspect the reason is a bit different from the one you suggest. Consider: the number of anti-car-theft devices is higher in areas where there are a lot of car thefts. Does that show that anti-theft devices cause more car thefts? Of course not. It shows that people tend to get anti-theft devices where the risk of car theft is high. Similarly, perhaps capital punishment for murder, which is an effective but unpalatable anti-murder measure, tends to be adopted in places where the murder rate is relatively high. (This is just a suggestion; I don’t have statistics to back it up. The point is that this argument is invalid. Correlation does not imply causation.)

I find this highly implausible. Did O.J. Simpson rationalize the killing of his ex-wife and her lover before doing it? Do hit men try to rationalize killing all of the people they kill before killing them? (Hint: how often does a hit man say, “After investigating the situation I can’t justify this particular murder in my own mind, so I just can’t go through with it”?)

Besides, the process you suggest would have to be extremely convoluted. It would have to go something like this: “This society disapproves of killing people in general. But it makes an exception in the case of executing people who are egregiously guilty of murder. Since it allows for lawful killing in this one case to adequately punish those who show wanton disregard for the principle of “thou shalt not kill”, it must not really be committed to this principle at all. So it doesn’t really disapprove of killing people at all. Therefore it’s OK to kill Jones for money.” Is there anyone in the world who could persuade even himself by means of such reasoning?

The assumption here seems to be that people are so unsophisticated that they can’t understand any but the most simple-minded blanket principles: “Never lie”, “Never steal”, “Never deprive anyone of his physical liberty”, “Never kill”. But we all know that this is nonsense. People are capable of much finer moral discrimination than that. They understand that there are circumstances where it’s OK to lie, where it’s OK to steal, where it’s OK to deprive someone of his liberty, where it’s OK to deprive someone of his life. The existence of such exceptions does not deprive the general rules of their power.

Aren’t you assuming that the would-be murderer accepts the norms of the society he lives in? What if he doesn’t? For example, take the street punk who kills someone because he feels he’s been “disrespected” by being looked at the wrong way. Is he under the impression that this is in accord with the norms of our society as a whole?

Also, a wildly disproportionate number of violent crimes are committed by psychopaths. (Note: “psychopath” is not synonymous with “psychotic” or even “sociopath”. Many psychopaths are quite nonviolent. Their defining features are a very shallow emotional life (“weak affect”), an inability to feel empathy or compassion for others, and a near-total lack of conscience. These are probably closely connected. For a fascinating in-depth look at psychopaths, including their contribution to the crime rate, see Robert Hare’s book Without Conscience) Psychopaths don’t even seem to understand the concept of “rationalizing” their actions; the only thing they think about is “what’s in it for me?”

Finally, a very significant number of murders are “crimes of passion”. It’s highly doubtful that the people who commit such murders try to rationalize them before the fact. Most of them don’t even try to do so after the fact. They’re typically wracked by guilt. It’s quite common for them to confess and plead guilty (though it they have a good lawyer it will be to a lesser offense.)

Does this really sound plausible to you? Do you really think that a significant number of people anywhere have been influenced to kill someone because “murderers are executed, so killing people is OK under some conditions, so I guess it’s OK to murder this person”? This is surreal. A far more plausible line of reasoning would be “murderers are executed, so if I kill this person I might be executed, so I’d better not do it”. To argue (as death penalty opponents do) that the first line of reasoning influences many people to kill, but that the second doesn’t influence anyone not to kill, seems to me to be completely disconnected from reality.

Actually social science is in such a primitive state that we have very little understanding of the underlying dynamics of any number of social trends. At any rate, as I pointed out before, correlation does not show causation. It’s just as plausible to claim that the (supposed) relatively low aversion to murder in the U.S. is the reason that many states still have capital punishment rather than the other way round. Or that the prevalence of guns in the U.S. is the reason for the higher murder rate. Or that the higher number of professing Christians is the reason. (All of these explanations, and others that I hesitate to mention for fear of being flamed, have been seriously proposed.) But actually we have no idea what’s going on, any more than we have any real idea why reproductive rates have dropped so much in almost all Western countries.

Another reason why such statistics are all but useless in this context is that the number of executions is very small relative to the number of murders. A hundred or so executions out of several thousand murders is simply not statistically significant in social science terms. An effect has to be very strong before the “signal to noise” ratio is high enough to make it detectable. For example, if every execution is deterring or preventing four murders, it’s almost certain that an effect of this magnitude would be overwhelmed by the numerous other (mostly unknown or unquantifiable) factors involved.

Yet another problem is that executions, when they occur at all, take place many years after the crime. This is a really serious problem since most serious criminals have fairly short time horizons; something that might happen a decade from now doesn’t even appear as a blip at the edge or their radar screens. It’s been known for millennia that to be an effective deterrent a punishment should be “swift and certain”. Capital punishment, as currently practiced in the U.S., is far from being either swift or certain.

And, of course, for many years the U.S. was only nominally a “capital punishment” country; Supreme Court decisions blocked all executions for over two decades (as I recall).

I have no idea where you got this idea. In many European countries, for example, the highest murder rate is among Moslems, who are an increasing percentage of the population because of extensive immigration. This problem is so serious that it has led to increasing support for capital punishment in some of these countries.

A stronger aversion to killing would be highly desirable, no question about that. But I have very serious doubts whether the government can really influence such things significantly. And if it can, the most effective methods are almost certainly education and other forms of persuasion. But by and large governments can’t influence social trends all that much, largely because we have very little knowledge of their actual causes and dynamics. What governments can do is to deal with the situation that presents itself. Thus, if the incidence of violent crime is low, perhaps lighter punishments are in order. But if it’s high, sterner measures are called for to maintain (or restore) public safety to acceptable levels.

everlastingtongue

I would like to see the data that you base this claim on.

Mike Rosoft

This isn’t a problem specific to capital punishment; it’s a problem for all punishment. How do you decide whether a perp should get 10 years or 20, especially when either sentence is permissible under the official sentencing guidelines?

If the only possible choices were either ten or twenty ears of imprisonment, I would have agreed with you. But there is also a continuum of 11, 12, etc. to 19 years.

I don't think there is too much difference between fifteen and twenty years of jail. Neither there is too much of a difference between sentence of twenty-five years and a life sentence with a possibility of conditional release after twenty years. But there is a significant difference between life imprisonment with and without parole ("this person must never be released"), and even greater one between either and a death penalty ("this person must be put to death").

Do you understand my line of reasoning?


Mike Rosoft

fundamental spawn

Well, if the question is whether or not capital punishment is wrong IN PRINCIPLE the answer is "no." Norms of civilization came into being and change through evolution .... man is an animal that collectively, in general, chose a societal system where some individual freedom is given up to better deal with the environment. I suppose we could go back to hunting and gathering and predation and in that case, even cannibalism would not be "wrong" "in principle." Societal norms have always been established by law, common/popular opinion, and the USE of religion to restrain behavior. There are certainly a myriad of possible frontiers of normality other than what we are familiar with in experience.

In short, there is no external "principle."

Walross

Originally posted by bd-from-kg:

Would it be correct to use the term "Murder" if I contend that all killing, short of self-defense, is wrongful?

(and no, I don't consider killing already imprisoned murderers to be necessary for self-defense)

I would think that such a society needs to make some changes, because it is obviously not functioning properly. Thankfully, societies can, to a large degree, protect it's citizens without having to resort to capital punishment. Regards,

Walross

bd-from-kg

Mike Rosoft:

And this is supposed to help how?

You might think differently if you’d just done the fifteen years.

Not really. You seem to be saying that there’s a significant difference between some punishments, less between others. But how does this relate to the question of the death penalty? The whole point of the death penalty is that it’s thought to be a more serious punishment than even life without parole. (Well, maybe not the whole point. Another point is that a dead person will certainly not commit any more crimes, even agains prison inmates.) So this fact (if true) can hardly be an argument against capital punishment.

fundamental spawn:

I think that you mean that there’s no objective moral standard. I have no problem with that, but “in principle” doesn’t have to refer to an objective standard. It can mean something like, “Would any society of human beings be better off if it adopted the principle that capital punishment would never be used?” It can also be meant in a more restricted sense: “Would our society be better off adopting this principle than it would be by retaining capital punishment, in conjuction with some feasible set of reforms or modifications?”
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Walross:

It isn’t a matter of being technically correct; it’s a matter of using terminology that prejudges the case. This is rhetoric, not reasoned discussion. In reasoned discussion you use terms that your opponents would agree to, or at least have no strong objection to. It’s like talking about “murdering babies” in a discussion of abortion.

Perhaps. And perhaps we can get adequate nutrition from a diet that does not include any fruits or grains. Perhaps we can get by without educating our children beyond the sixth grade. But the question before the house is whether is would be desirable.

bd-from-kg

Doubting Didymus:

The proof consists of observing a universal principle of human behavior and noting that the claim in question is just a special case of it. It’s ridiculous to demand a “proof” that the prospect of getting $500 will be more of a motivator than the prospect of getting $5, a separate proof that the prospect of getting a ticket to a Lakers game will more of a motivator than the prospect of getting a ticket to ride a bus a couple of blocks (for a Lakers fan anyway), yet another proof that a threat of having one’s teeth knocked out will be more of a motivator (in reverse) than a threat of being fined 15 cents, still another proof that the prospect of being imprisoned for a year will be more of a motivator than the prospect of missing out on a dinner at Denny’s, etc. The general principle is well known and universally accepted. The presumption is that the general rule will hold in any specific instance unless there is some special reason to believe that it is an exception.

This is not at all like saying that something is “common sense”. Lots of things that are “common sense” aren’t true. It’s more like claiming that if you release a pressure washer in the air at zero velocity relative to the ground, it will fall. I don’t know whether this claim has ever been tested (and I’m not about to test it with my pressure washer), but we can be certain that it’s true because it’s a special case of a general principle that we know is true.

Just the same, since human behavior is more complicated than gravity, I’m not claiming that this is absolute proof. (But then, demands for absolute proof are out of place in public policy discussions.) I claim only to have established a strong prima facie case. And that puts the ball in your court. To refute the prima facie case you have to provide some convincing evidence that this is an exception to the general rule.

Yup. So stop trying to shift the burden of proof onto me.

Note that, unlike you, Alonzo Fyfe at least accepts that a claim that capital punishmint increases (or even that it fails to decrease) the incidence of murder is a claim that this is an exception to a well-accepted general rule, and therefore requires an argument, preferably including a plausible mechanism by which the opposite effect from the one predicted by the general rule might occur. This makes sense. A mere demand for proof with no suggestion as to why a proof should be needed does not make sense.

Doubting Didymus

That is a very strange idea. Why don't you stop squirming and provide evidence for your claim? I don't care if you think it as universal a principle as the frigging laws of thermodynamics. I'm asking for proof anyway, and your utter failure to provide it is speaking volumes.

Intriguing. "All punishments decrease the frequency of the related action. All rewards increase the frequency of the related action." Just because this applies to many known situations, it is supposed to be an obvious universal principle, and I should just accept it and move on.

Sorry, but that is absolute crap. You've provided examples involving small amounts of money, and expect me to swallow the claim that the same principle extends infinitely into all aspects of human behaviour. You may think it's unreasonable for me to demand proof even in the face of such an... overwhelming case, but thats just too bad: I'm going to demand it anyway.

Strong prima facie case! Indeed, I scoff. Don't you think that a strong case would rest on foundations of evidence? What you do have, is an empty hypothetical. It is nothing but an unsupported claim. Not even a suggestion of proof of any real sort at all, and worse!; you don't seem to even intend to ever try.

I don't think you understand the situation at all. You've made a claim, I have neither agreed not disagreed with that claim, but simply requested proof. In response, you have provided nothing but prevarication and a smoke-and-mirrors show about "universal principles of human behaviour". You have attempted to demonstrate that you dont need to prove your claim, that it is such an obvious idea that any request for proof is "ridiculous". I consider that a cheap and obvious diversion, and I will repeat my request: Prove your damn claim. I don't care how obvious you think it is. The burden of proof is clearly on you, and I am calling you on it. If its so damn clear-cut, you should have no problems provinding some sort of reliable evidence that here in the real world your hypothesised punishment/behaviour link actually works in the case of capital punishment.

Yet another attempt at squeezing out of your obligation follows:

I agree. If I were making such a claim then I would be obliged to prove it. Obviously you DO understand how burden of proof works. Logician, heal thyself. I have made no claim. YOU have made the claim. You have positively asserted that removing capital punishment would lead to more murder. If you think I'm a raving lunatic if I don't swallow that medicine like a good little boy, then rope, throw and brand-me-a-nutter cowboy, because I'm asking you for proof.

I'll tell you why I'm asking you for proof. It's because I don't think you can do it. I don't believe I'm under some sort of obligation to demonstrate a sound case just so that I may ask the question. If you make a claim, I am entitled to ask for proof of it. That's simple, everyday argumentation.

I am verging on disgust at your continued attempts to wriggle out of your burden of proof. If you make a positive factual claim, you've got to prove it. This case could hardly be more clear: the burden of proof is squarely on you. If you can't do it, then you should at least be honest and say so. Is your claim based on evidence, or is it heresay, 'common sense', and armchair psychology that you base your opinions on?

Doubting Didymus

I should note that when I say I have not made any claim contrary to bd's own, it is seriously because I do not have that opinion. I will construct my opinion on this question based on the evidence, and I have not at this point made up my mind. This is why I am stressing the importance of proof.