It has everything to do with it, you don't want to die for something you didn't do if you're going to be wrongly accused of something which does happen sometimes would you rather live in a country that doesn't have capital punishment or would you rather die at the hands of a country that does have it, I know which one I'd rather be in. You see the problem lies in letting these murderers and rapists back out after only a few years or whatever so they do it again and again, if they were locked up for life and I mean life you would see a dramatic fall in these crimes.

If you have the desire for individual vengeance should society reflect that desire? Do we incarcerate the individual for forty years or hang them? I cant imagine in that same position what would be more painful.

Are we submitting to ethics or logic? I just dont know. I do know our system is fallible and we must accept that in or demands.

If you see barbarism in proportionality then you throw away the whole concept of justice. Applied to any other case of legality, theft, vandalism, fraud, etc. incongruence in punishment seems absurd. You certainly cant be arguing for punishments that dont fit the crime?

There's a difference between philosophy and jurisprudence is there not? I mean something may be logically justifiable or consistent but the reality of the legal system has to take into account a great deal of uncertainty, the possibility of error and wrong-doing on the part of prosecutors, and many other factors, none of which ever feature much in 'philosophical debate'. It means one thing in a philosophical argument and something else in the 'real world'. I think many agree that there are people for whom the death penalty is an apt penalty, but the point we are having difficulties with is the inevitable imperfections of a criminal justice system, which is hardly a philosophical matter.

In a rational society men are entitled to certain rights. Those who initiate force against another individual's rights open themselves to a just punishment. A punishment that is proportional to their crime. Where there is no proportionality there is no justice. A man who intentionally robs another of his most sacred right to life, deserves no less and probably more than capital punishment. Any less is a mockery of justice, because any less would not be proportional. The only obstacle to the Justice system is it's infallibility. This is a deficiency improving simultaneously with scientific development. Which is a more moral choice practicing justice at the expense of the rare, albeit horrible fate of a few, or voiding the Justice system of it's founding principle, proportionality?

There was no chance that Harvey Oswald was innocent. He was seen by millions to have murdered Jack Ruby.

So, the only question was whether he deserved death. Isn't that right?

Also the idea of propostionality is but an ideal.

What are we working towards if not to our ideals? Mediocrity? Imperfection?

I do not even like to type the word, and I don't allow the P word in my home if I can help it... Good enough is good enough...As the Muslim say: Only Allah is perfect, and in their work they often deliberately avoid sin by deliberatly screwing up a part of the job, and then they are free of the weight of perfection, and can do a good job without tension...

This is a radically backwards distortion of life. It is nonsense. Your "good" divorces pride from human potential. Moral perfection is infeasible if you injure yourself to become "free of the weight of perfection." It is not "good" if it is not the highest potential you can attain, and certainly not if you do it in the name of a higher authority than your mind.

So are we more merciful in killing them or giving them life behind bars?

Which people? There are lots of people who would argue that with the enormous number of appeals available to those accused of murder, and with the great power of DNA tests, the chances of killing an innocent man is less than putting an innocent man into prison. The difference between punishing people for rape and punishing people for murder, does not leap out at me as it seems to you. And I cannot help thinking of the people who might not be murdered if there is a death penalty to deter potential murderers. How would you like to be someone who was murdered, but who would not have been murdered if there had been a death penalty. "Hard cheese"?

The question is whether it should be demanded for something irrevocable like execution, as opposed to life imprisonment which is revocable. And whether the irrevocability of it makes it completely immoral in the absence of absolute certainty (both about guilt AND whether execution is appropriate). And whether the inherent biases (i.e. the indisputable fact that racial minorities are more likely to be executed for the same crime) make it morally unsupportable.

People who kill don't seem to care about the laws of the state or country to begin with. Most criminals don't care about the law, if they did, they wouldn't be committing crimes to start with.

If you are correct in saying that the threat of capital punishment reduces murder then you should see the opposite with the US statistics, but clearly it is not the case. But then why is it not working? I say because a person who is willing to take another life, is not considering either in that moment, or that day or when ever, the results of their actions. I would go as far as to make the claim that those who are willing to kill plan on never getting caught for the crime as well. If you plan on not getting caught then technically they wouldn't care about the punishment either.

In a rational society men are entitled to certain rights. Those who initiate force against another individual's rights open themselves to a just punishment. A punishment that is proportional to their crime. Where there is no proportionality there is no justice. A man who intentionally robs another of his most sacred right to life, deserves no less and probably more than capital punishment. Any less is a mockery of justice, because any less would not be proportional. The only obstacle to the Justice system is it's infallibility. This is a deficiency improving simultaneously with scientific development. Which is a more moral choice practicing justice at the expense of the rare, albeit horrible fate of a few, or voiding the Justice system of it's founding principle, proportionality?

Other way around...

The first question is Does anyone deserve to die for a crime? If yes, then the next question is How can we always discriminate those who deserve to die from those who don't?

What is good is survival, and we have that potential, but the possible has often proved impossible for many peoples to reach...

Think of how many people were swallowed up in the demise of Rome and Greece and how little of perfection survived...Human perfection is not just heavy, but is impossible to bear...In modern times no curse save perfection as idealism is has claimed so many human lives and people are no more perfect than before, only more leery of idealism as is only just, since it has burned us bad...

Here is some wisdom for the ages: Go along to get along, and get along to go along...We all have our forms, and all forms are considered abstractly, ideal, and perfect... The real thing, the relationships we all know are less than perfect because we are imperfect...

Why force people to conform to any ideal when it will never ever happen???

Rather than government or law as forms of relationship, consider only marriage and consider than not one of them is perfect, or ideal; and yet, many of them work well enough to serve their participants and carry on...

The big, epic, insuperable obstacle for justice is the fact that everone has its own concept of justice. You think a killer of even one man should be killed. I, myself, dont. See?

My opinion on the Death Penalty is that it is justifiable only under certain circumstances but I won't explain my reasoning here. They are too complicated. And I prefer to leave the thread open for arguments either way. I will simply state my opinion: That there are in the world monstrous inhumans (not humans ... for to call them such would be irrational) whom the world would be far better off without.

I suppose that capital punishment can be justified from an emotional point of view, but I don't think there's any type of logical rationale for it.

Why not? There is the rational of justice, and there is the rational of prevention, and there is the rational of deterrence. So those are three rationals for it.

The death penalty is about revenge, not justice. What does capital punishment prevent? I'm skeptical of its affect on deterrence.

Justice is not revenge. Capital punishment prevents the murderer from murdering again. That you are skeptical of deterrence is not an objection.

Exactly; justice is not revenge. Justice is the minimization, reversal, and punishment of aggression with the minimal amount of coercion necessary.

I thought preventing the murderer from murdering again was the purpose of incarceration.