Since joining hubski I've reversed my position on the death penalty. There is no group of humans that I trust 100% of the time to make a correct decision regarding ending another humans life. Even if 10,000 people must be locked up forever, rather than executed, to save the life of one innocent, that's worth it. Also I stand by rob05c, nitrogen chambers are the way to go if you have to do it.
*Edit, All that stated, I think that if you are facing life in prison, you should be given the option to at any time end your own life. *Edit to the edit, When I was for the death penalty, I was still a christian. I believed that if you committed a crime egregious enough to be executed, God would sort you out, and keeping you on earth only gave you an opportunity to hurt more people. If any innocents were accidentally killed, again, God would sort them out, and it wasn't any concern of mine. I am absolutely terrified of old me, and old me would be terrified of current me.
How deontological. I agree. But that doesn't solve the issue. Because if you've made a mistake, then you're still locking that person up for life. Which ruins the rest of their life. Is destroying someone's life over a matter of decades better than instantly destroying it? Economics notwithstanding, I think I'd lean towards the highest punishment being life in prison with permissible euthanasia. So, the convicted can decide for themself whether not living is better than the rest of their life in a cell. Economics considered, life in prison is actually cheaper than death penalty. That said, there's another consideration. Consider that you convict Hannibal Lecter and sentence him to life in prison, rather than the death penalty for his heinous actions. Mr. Lecter is very clever and very evil. And so, for the next 70 years, despite extreme precautions, he kills 19 inmates, 4 guards, and 1 hapless puppy. Having determined Mr. Lecter to be an irredeemable danger to society, do we have the moral right to place other humans in danger by permitting him to continue living?Even if 10,000 people must be locked up forever, rather than executed, to save the life of one innocent
There is no group of humans that I trust 100% of the time to make a correct decision
In the U.S., 150 people since 1973 have gone from death row to exonerated.I agree. But that doesn't solve the issue. Because if you've made a mistake, then you're still locking that person up for life. Which ruins the rest of their life. Is destroying someone's life over a matter of decades better than instantly destroying it?
Right, and the guy that went one year? Life probably not ruined. The guy that went 39 years? I wasn't suggesting we should use the death penalty because it's no different. Only that all sentences are irreparably harmful, to some degree. That should be considered, when considering moral or legal policy.
Here's the problem. I know that I would rather be dead than locked up forever. Actually I would take death over a lot of possible scenarios, and considering that everybody seems to react poorly to that, I assume that the vast majority of people would prefer to be alive and in prison than dead. Economically, it's not that expensive to kill people. It's expensive to do it by the methods we currently use. Give every state an airtight room and a few giant tanks of nitrogen and you can kill quite a lot of people super cheaply. Regarding the Lecter example.... ugh, you've pushed a personal button on the design of prisons and other secure facilities. The human animal is not, biomechanically speaking, that dangerous. Without substantial training or weapons, it's hard for us to inflict truly awful damage on one another. We're not equipped with talons, claws, overwhelming strength, and our teeth are modest weapons at best. The only people I believe we should put in cages are those who have demonstrated a willingness to inflict physical harm/death on others. These are dangerous animals that happen to have human shape. How do so many zoos keep tigers and lions, and all other manner of dangerous animals, with remarkably few deaths each year? By designing environments where the animal does not have an opportunity to physically interact with it's captors. With automation, and sufficient industrialization, a proper prison, by my estimation, keeps physically dangerous individuals alive, in good health, and with access to whatever minimums of stimulation necessary to keep them from going insane. All of which can be provided without direct human interaction. Such a prison would be made of materials that humans cannot alter without substantial physical injury, poured concrete, steel bars set in poured concrete and half inch Lexan should prove more than adequate. Structures can be built in such a way that the inmate is never capable of interacting with a seam, lever, door, or any other bit that could be manipulated to come off or cause them to escape. Inmates would never interact with each other, or even with guards except remotely.
Er, that's called solitary confinement. It's typically reserved as an extreme form of punishment, considering humans are social animals. Put any prisoner in solitary confinement all the time and they certainly will want to kill themselves. Disagree. With no weapons and superior strength, a prisoner can kill a guard simply by bashing their head into the concrete. Humans are fragile. Sounds like a great idea. Put it on a ballot and I'll vote for it. Until then, with the environment we have, prisoners are dangerous. Laws should consider the reality, not the ideal.Inmates would never interact with each other, or even with guards except remotely.
The human animal is not, biomechanically speaking, that dangerous.
With automation, and sufficient industrialization, a proper prison
I'm not saying solitary, I'm saying they can't interact with others physically. Camera + Monitor behind lexan, let a guard take care of actually starting and ending the call. On the dangers of the human animal, we'd need a shit ton of information to even begin to have a meaningful debate. I'll concede that a determined individual is capable of royally fucking up somebody unprepared to deal with them. Ok, lets immediately release all non-violent offenders, and start locking up real criminals, the ones who kick people out of their homes, and sell their debt. The criminals in white collars. The change that I want to see will require so much other social change that I'm just going to say that a near full-blown revolution will have to occur in order to make it happen.Sounds like a great idea. Put it on a ballot and I'll vote for it. Until then, with the environment we have, prisoners are dangerous. Laws should consider the reality, not the ideal.
The ethics of a death penalty aside, we already know how to do painless executions. We have known for decades: nitrogen chambers. It's absolutely insane that we continue to use anything else. Not a single US state uses nitrogen chambers.The recent history of capital punishment in the United States evidences the search for methods of execution that allow the U.S. to continue to execute but to do so in a way that would never be grisly.
I've never really understood the idea of the Death Penalty being some ultimate punishment. I mean, what better way to get out of doing a life sentence than to be killed so you don't have to suffer it? Isn't it more torturous to keep someone alive as long as possible, away from the society which we crave as a species? As a side note, this is also why I need to make sure i have a DNR if I ever get cancer, or lose one of my arms. I've said this a few time around the web, but when someone asks "What is the point of prison?" there are usually two answers: Punishment and Rehabilitation. If you're in for rehabilitation (as I generally am), then you're probably against the death penalty. If you're in for punishment, why cut the "punishment" short? Some of the most gruesome torture scenes we see in horror movies are the ones where we ask "How is that person still alive?" At some level, we culturally see death as a release, regardless of whether or not we see judgement on the other side. So... How does the death penalty fit into that? My only thought is that it is not punishment, it is vengeance. But then, it's not even very good vengeance - Who opts for short term, quick vengeance when long term, slow vengeance will be "better" (in quotations because i don't know if you can consider it better from a moral standpoint, or just more effective)
A third answer might be Quarantine, and certainly death is the ultimate quarantine. I could see it giving a victim some peace of mind to know for sure that an assailant isn't coming back. Death might also be more acutely threatening than captivity as a consequence of a crime. I'm not even sure which I would pick to suffer if given the choice.
That's an interesting answer. I would still personally classify it under punishment, because you are removing someone's right to free movement etc. but i think that's a topic of another, separate debate. I think death only becomes acutely threatening if there is something after it. Because i don't believe that, The only part of death i fear is the pain during the killing act. Because it is the pain I fear, the concept of years, decades of long, drawn out pain is much, much better as a deterrent.
I agree that even if you considered the point of prison to be quarantine, it would still be a punishment. However, if your goal is quarantine rather than punishment, you don't need to choose the solution that maximizes suffering. I disagree that death is only acutely threatening if there is something after it. It depends very much on how highly you value your remaining lifespan. Right now, I'm enjoying life, and I'd be more disappointed about my reduced lifespan than afraid of the transition. This is actually pretty new to me; l I feel like I understand where you're coming from. Not sure what else to say about that. Feelings of solidarity and respect. It's not even clear to me that a life sentence in prison would necessarily be a net negative. I'm sure there would be some suffering, but hedonic adaptation would have your back, and I hear some people get to read a lot.
Assuming there is an absolute requirement to be "humane" to criminals in the first place. I personally am against the death penalty in general, but when a person murders their friends, makes sculptures out of them, shows no remorse for their actions, and are clearly disturbed to an extent that cannot be cured, I have no issue if their execution has a chance of going wrong. If I saw a story where an execution went wrong, if it were the Boston bomber, the person from France, any mass murderer, I wouldn't really be shocked or saddened. I would be if it was intentional, and designed to torture, but that's not how the modern system works. We should consider how society is arranged, we should only use the death penalty in the worst cases, and rarely even then, but we cannot be weak just because there is a chance things can go bad. If we did, we wouldn't do a whole lot of things that are good for everyone at the end of the day.