The Morality and Ethics of Capital Punishment

@Alan McDougall,

In eleventh century England you had a one in three chance of being murdered but they hanged people for stealing a sheep or you got burnt if you cussed god..Crime and punishment never had a relationship in logic..Its more like poverty and crime...The more affluent or educated, the lower the overall crime. Sadly in your country hope seems to be in short supply ,the hopes of freedom never delivered the expectations.

@Alan McDougall,

The death penalty is sanctioned murder. Sure, the law permits it, but I don't think that makes it morally right. Here in the United States, sentencing someone to the death penalty is more expensive than locking them up for life, so there are no real good arguments for offing someone that offed someone else. Not to mention, rich people are almost never sentenced to death, and all white people are pretty safe as well--unless they commit an extreme act. Most people on death row are minorities and have low income. If the system worked fairly, it would be one thing, but since social status plays a role in who show be put to death, it should be abolished. But even if the system was fair, I do not think it would be morally right though.

My thoughts are based on the United States system of capital punishment. I can't really speak about the rest of the world, but I cannot see how any form of murder can be justified. Rationalized yes. Justified no.

@Theaetetus,

Theaetetus

Quote:

Here in the United States, sentencing someone to the death penalty is more expensive than locking them up for life, so there are no real good arguments for offing

How can the death sentence be more expensive than sheltering someone for almost a life time in prison?,

Please elaborate

@xris,

xris wrote:

In eleventh century England you had a one in three chance of being murdered but they hanged people for stealing a sheep or you got burnt if you cussed god

I would be eternally gratified if you didn't make ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about somthing you clearly know very little about.

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

Theaetetus

How can the death sentence be more expensive than sheltering someone for almost a life time in prison?,

Please elaborate

Because in the US at least, due to all the appeals, the complex legilistation and beuracracy, the high tech nature of the methods used to do the executiona and the ridiculous length of time people spend on death row.
In my opinion, we should only have the death penalty if we are willing to have it publiclly witnessed. If you aren't willing to see it done, you have no real right to demand that it happens.

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

I would be eternally gratified if you didn't make ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about somthing you clearly know very little about.

I know enough to make these claims, can you deny them with proof?

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

Because in the US at least, due to all the appeals, the complex legilistation and beuracracy, the high tech nature of the methods used to do the executiona and the ridiculous length of time people spend on death row.
In my opinion, we should only have the death penalty if we are willing to have it publiclly witnessed. If you aren't willing to see it done, you have no real right to demand that it happens.

Yes why not have a burger bar ,put your hanky in the blood for a souvenir.Put it on the telly, prime time telly with adverts for funeral services..Have you lost your sense of reason? Then you do come from a long line of support for public executions, blaspheme... .Pile the wood high , higher much higher.

@xris,

xris wrote:

Yes why not have a burger bar ,put your hanky in the blood for a souvenir.Put it on the telly, prime time telly with adverts for funeral services..Have you lost your sense of reason? Then you do come from a long line of support for public executions, blaspheme... .Pile the wood high , higher much higher.

I think what avatar was saying is that a death penalty is easy to throw around and accept when you have no relation to it. Its why alot of people disagree with bombing type warfare. It kills more people, but also dehumanizes the act.

If people actually were involved in the process, they would understand what it means. Atleast in a reality type sense.

@Joe,

Joe wrote:

I think what avatar was saying is that a death penalty is easy to throw around and accept when you have no relation to it. Its why alot of people disagree with bombing type warfare. It kills more people, but also dehumanizes the act.

If people actually were involved in the process, they would understand what it means. Atleast in a reality type sense.

Ide would advocate those who agree must either being present or better still do the deed, but not public execution with the mob in attendance..

@Alan McDougall,

I think there is a point in that, one of the arguments pro-capital punishment being deterrance of future crimes. Whilst not seeing the punishment, can future criminals really be deterred? Take John Hurt's 1984, where Oceania publicly executed thought criminals en masse in front of a baiting crowd. Not only was it a method of deterrance, but to promote unity within the proletarians and party members.

Personally, I'm more of a 'murdering a murderer isn't justice, just more murder' kind of guy. Life was indeed ended, and as it warranted murder in the first degree then it was probably with malicious intent, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it makes it okay for anyone to kill the murderer. Then what seperates us?

@xris,

xris wrote:

I know enough to make these claims, can you deny them with proof?

You are claiming a statistic which even you know is made up, and I have no idea why you thought it would aid your point. Quite aside from that as it is you who is making claims, then the onus of proof is upon you.

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

You are claiming a statistic which even you know is made up, and I have no idea why you thought it would aid your point. Quite aside from that as it is you who is making claims, then the onus of proof is upon you.

If the statistics i read are not true i appoloigise but i read that in ones life time in 11c. kent your chances of being murdered rather than die of natural causes was one in three..I have tried to find the source but i cant,but the point does not change..Crime and punishment has no relationship only the desperate needs of those who commit the crime.If you are not hungry there is not the necessity to steal food or a reason to rob and kill.

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

You are claiming a statistic which even you know is made up, and I have no idea why you thought it would aid your point.

Avatar,

According to two historical sources regarding Punishments, Proceedings and Crimes at the Old Baily (London's Central Criminal Court from 17th to the 19th century), one could indeed be hung for steeling a sheep (or even a hankerchief, apparently). There were in place a particularly-brutal set of laws and available punishments therein called "the bloody code". Both sources did; however, qualify their research on these offenses by stating that although extremely harsh punishment had been doled out, that generally sentances for minor infractions were mitigated.

I find very interesting, two things here:
[INDENT]1. I found this information in about 40 seconds of searching the web. I can only conclude that either you felt confident enough that you already knew everything that happened and didn't look, or that it just sounded too absurd to even have been possible (and therefore didn't look).

2. Xris claimed that this sort of law had been in place in 11C; it seems he was not only correct, but that such things were in existence much later.
[/INDENT]The reason I emphasize this error: I believe it's an important point for perspective; that just as surely as there have been absurd uses of capital punishment in the past, so very likely will it be reflected in our future that, "... back in 2009 humanity was uncivilized enough to still use the death pentalty". It's also important to note that this isn't a condemnation on the Brits at all. From my reading into history, I've found most (all?) nation-states have gone through particularly-brutal times where capital punishment was very liberally applied; some still do.

Hope this helps, Thanks

Sources:

Punishments at the Old Bailey (Funded by The University of Hertfordshire, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, The University of Sheffield and the New Opportunities Fund).

Crime and Justice - Punishments at the Old Bailey (Funded by many of the same entities as the aforementioned source as well as the Big Lottery Fund (2001) and the Economic and Social Research Council (2005).)

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

http://www.philforhumanity.com/Capital_Punishment.html

This is an ongoing subject but in my country of South Africa where the death penalty's been abolished from law crime is now rampant and risen to unimaginable heights

South Africa my country has discontinued with capital punishment against the wishes of the majority and crime has worsened unimaginably. I believe only Colombia has worse crime statistics

But the question remains Is it moral to murder the murderers

The Pros and Cons of Capital Punishment

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Capital punishment is an attack on morality as all law is... Vengeance support morality... And let me explain... When it became necessary for anyone to be killed for the sake of justice, to maintain community peace then it was their own who did the deed... When Orestes killed his Mother it was to retrieve honor... She understood that fact, and so did Electra who said she would do it if Orestes did not... So blood could not be a cause of further dischord... The family sacrificed one of their own with loving hands, and the cause of strife was behind them... Law, when it takes capital punishment out of the hands of people does so to end blood feud, but it is always supported to give the public vengeance...The thing is, that it is not the public which deserves or requires vengeance...The public wants and should support justice; but across the board so that the cause of violence is removed from the community...But where it can show no injury it is the injured parties themselves who have a cause, and they are the ones with the rights... Now, if the public takes some person for killing and kills him, nothing is done to make the injured family whole... Family used to be able to work with family to avert another death, and make some cash payment, or other exhange of value... The people who most need justice are denied justice, and the real source of law, which is each community's authority over their own is denied, so the problem grows worse...There is never a half way morality, and all people have come out of moral communities, and the survival of humanity rested always on logical, universal and well know rules of behavior...Law is just a misguided attempt to build larger communities on the destruction of older communities...It does not work, and it permits injustice to grow until it destroys the society...

@Alan McDougall,

I think that those who have lost loved ones to murdurer rapist "want closure" and this is only given by capital punishment

But to me murdering the murderer is not the answer and bring us and the state down to their depraved level

@Alan McDougall,

This is a good forum, or one very coincidentally aligned with my preoccupations. Where have you been all my life?

Capital punishment, be it moral, immoral or amoral, is responsible, in theory at least: those that enable execution take responsibility for the life or death of a convicted criminal. Also, it is a human system and thus fallible. Thus an innocent person in a society having capital punishment may be killed and the responsible parties are responsible for that death. I would not call this legalised murder, but it is legalised manslaughter. Some may write this off as collateral damage, but to what end? An impossible-to-realise Utopia or the satisfaction of violent vengeful urges?

One need not assign moral value to state executions unless one can show that they are required in some way: only then does this become a question of the lesser of two evils. Capital punishment has been an important issue for as long as I can remember, and I have always considered and reconsidered the issue and my stance on it, and never have I heard of realised the justification for its requirement. I think this is because people either start from the point of view of it being right or wrong, never of whether it is necessary.

For instance, the banning of capital punishment in South Africa appears to have some correlation with increased crime, but one must have some idea of what this correlation is before one could sanction its reinstatement, or else you're sponsoring execution 'just in case'. Why doesn't life imprisonment do the same trick? Both are strong incentives to obey the law.

@Bones-O,

Bones-O! wrote:

This is a good forum, or one very coincidentally aligned with my preoccupations. Where have you been all my life?

Capital punishment, be it moral, immoral or amoral, is responsible, in theory at least: those that enable execution take responsibility for the life or death of a convicted criminal. Also, it is a human system and thus fallible. Thus an innocent person in a society having capital punishment may be killed and the responsible parties are responsible for that death. I would not call this legalised murder, but it is legalised manslaughter. Some may write this off as collateral damage, but to what end? An impossible-to-realise Utopia or the satisfaction of violent vengeful urges?

One need not assign moral value to state executions unless one can show that they are required in some way: only then does this become a question of the lesser of two evils. Capital punishment has been an important issue for as long as I can remember, and I have always considered and reconsidered the issue and my stance on it, and never have I heard of realised the justification for its requirement. I think this is because people either start from the point of view of it being right or wrong, never of whether it is necessary.

For instance, the banning of capital punishment in South Africa appears to have some correlation with increased crime, but one must have some idea of what this correlation is before one could sanction its reinstatement, or else you're sponsoring execution 'just in case'. Why doesn't life imprisonment do the same trick? Both are strong incentives to obey the law.

Statistics are never a good reason..would you hang a man for stealing a sheep if it stops men stealing sheep ??

@xris,

xris wrote:

Statistics are never a good reason..would you hang a man for stealing a sheep if it stops men stealing sheep ??

Not I. But would I hang a man for murdering innocents if it stopped murderers murdering innocents..? Depends. Would I hang a murderer if it stopped murders and were the only way to stop murders..? Perhaps.

But this is irrelevant. If you ask whether we should have capital punishment, all you get is an influx of personal opinions. If you ask whether it is necessary to have capital punishment to achieve X, then we can do some analysis.

@Bones-O,

Bones-O! wrote:

Not I. But would I hang a man for murdering innocents if it stopped murderers murdering innocents..? Depends. Would I hang a murderer if it stopped murders and were the only way to stop murders..? Perhaps.

But this is irrelevant. If you ask whether we should have capital punishment, all you get is an influx of personal opinions. If you ask whether it is necessary to have capital punishment to achieve X, then we can do some analysis.

An honest answer and i cant realy disagree on the principle..even though im against capital punishment on occassions ide gladly cut some nasty killers throat and enjoy watching them gurgle..When they can kill a little child my logic leaves the room..We must endevour not to be subjective and think of the moral issues , we must be better than them ...

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