Forced labour is one thing, "scientific experimentation" is another. If there is a moral quandary with possibly executing an innocent person, how is there not also a moral quandary with performing something as nebulous as "experiments" on them?
And regardless of their guilt, viewing forced experimentation on living test subjects as A-OK because it benefits someone else is a dangerous f*cking road to go down.
Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Forced labour is one thing, "scientific experimentation" is another. If there is a moral quandary with possibly executing an innocent person, how is there not also a moral quandary with performing something as nebulous as "experiments" on them?And regardless of their guilt, viewing forced experimentation on living test subjects as A-OK because it benefits someone else is a dangerous f*cking road to go down.
Well I was being deliberately vague with regards to that, as I didn't want to get into that specific argument, but rather I was just trying to be somewhat comprehensive with the options that are available. Not to mention, it seems you're focusing on how bad scientific experimentation could get, when a form not so morally questionable would also be perfectly viable.
Again, not wishing to get into the argument now, but you could potentially scale just how "bad" the punishment would be with the likelihood that the person truly is guilty, so if for example the most heineous of experiments was on the table, it would only be used in cases of the worst crimes with basically a 99.99999% likelihood of guilt.
The general point I was making though is that something that could be of greater benefit to society and isn't so irreversible would always be the better option than capital punishment.
Originally posted by Astor EbligisAdding in a gambling-like game of probability is even more morally problematic than flat-out experimenting. I'm sure there's some dystopian novels out there that have something similar, with the ethically bankrupt government or institution engaging in the name of "progress" or the "betterment of mankind."
Well I was being deliberately vague with regards to that, as I didn't want to get into that specific argument, but rather I was just trying to be somewhat comprehensive with the options that are available. Not to mention, it seems you're focusing on how bad scientific experimentation could get, when a form not so morally questionable would also be perfectly viable.Again, not wishing to get into the argument now, but you could potentially scale just how "bad" the punishment would be with the likelihood that the person truly is guilty, so if for example the most heineous of experiments was on the table, it would only be used in cases of the worst crimes with basically a 99.99999% likelihood of guilt.
The general point I was making though is that something that could be of greater benefit to society and isn't so irreversible would always be the better option than capital punishment.
The extremely cliched question "At what cost?" would never be more appropriately used.
Consequentialism + Chaos Theory + man having little power over nature = morals are practically meaningless, anyway.
The only way to live is in a self-serving way (which incidentally coincides to being perceived as being a moral person, following the law, or at least not getting caught, and being good to the people you care about). That is, unless you can affect change in the truly grand scheme of things.
Originally posted by Astor EbligisYou're definitely a teenager.
Consequentialism + Chaos Theory + man having little power over nature = morals are practically meaningless, anyway.The only way to live is in a self-serving way (which incidentally coincides to being perceived as being a moral person, following the law, or at least not getting caught, and being good to the people you care about). That is, unless you can affect change in the truly grand scheme of things.
Don't worry, you'll grow out of this edgy worldview soon enough.
Originally posted by Astor EbligisMeaningless? No, that's idiotic.
Consequentialism + Chaos Theory + man having little power over nature = morals are practically meaningless, anyway.The only way to live is in a self-serving way (which incidentally coincides to being perceived as being a moral person, following the law, or at least not getting caught, and being good to the people you care about). That is, unless you can affect change in the truly grand scheme of things.
Insignificant on a cosmic scale? Sure man, but who the **** are you, Galactus? No, you're just some very human nerdy ****er on a public forum, who the **** are you to trivialize the morals developed by much greater men over a period of thousands of years? **** you.
If I am anything in this world, it is incredibly edgy. 😎
Edit -
Originally posted by NemeBro
Meaningless? No, that's idiotic.Insignificant on a cosmic scale? Sure man, but who the **** are you, Galactus? No, you're just some very human nerdy ****er on a public forum, who the **** are you to trivialize the morals developed by much greater men over a period of thousands of years? **** you.
Fuck you Neph.
Originally posted by The Renegade
I don't recognize executions as legal, nor is it legal here and several countries. Where you're from? Executions are legal but not where I'm from. The law is obviously a subjective entity so I recognize capital punishment as murder. It is an illegal and premeditated act, which qualifies it as murder, to me.
It is illegal here; therefore, it should be illegal or I consider it to be illegal there.
Replace 'it' with 'stoning women for imagined infidelity' or 'suspected of being a witch by other people who think science is a con'. This isn't an argument in any sense of the word; it's just saying because your nation doesn't subscribe to the same logic, it can't be valid. That's conventional ethics.
Also, "justified homicide" isn't appealing. I'm not even sure if it's possible to justifiably kill another human being. "Well, he did rape and kill someone else."
Justified homicide would be more along the lines of this:
A killing without evil or criminal intent, for which there can be no blame, such as self-defense to protect oneself or to protect another, or the shooting by a law enforcement officer in fulfilling his/her duties. This is not to be confused with a crime of passion or claim of diminished capacity which refer to defenses aimed at reducing the penalty or degree of crime.
The idea that people don't have a right to defend themselves against other people blatantly violating the social contract and WTFmurder you is mind-boggling. "I respect your right not to be killed so much, I am jeopardizing myself and/or other people".
Does not compute.
This isn't saying I advocate blowing away some black girl knocking at your door at 3 in the morning with a shotgun (Which was ****ing BS); I'm simply saying if there's imminent threat and that threat amounts to torture, rape or killing, citizens should be entitled to defend themselves.
I don't see the similarity. Cars are a practical application used for transportation and can be abused, like running over someone to murder them or driving inebriated and killing a whole family. This is not proper usage of a vehicle.
Right, just like killing a person without due process, or if they're innocent and the system itself is just lame is not the proper usage of state execution either.
In that, they're similar. Abuse does not mean that it should be outlawed; it means abuse itself should be examined and limited as much as possible. Hence why cars are still allowed despite this:
[list]The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released new data today showing 10,322 drunk driving fatalities in 2012—compared to 9,865 in 2011.[/list]
Versus:
[list]NEW YORK -- The United States was the only Western democracy that executed prisoners last year, even as an increasing number of U.S. states are moving to abolish the death penalty, Amnesty International announced Monday.
America's 43 executions in 2011 ranked it fifth in the world in capital punishment, the rights group said in its annual review of worldwide death penalty trends. U.S. executions were down from 46 a year earlier.[/list]
When you decide to execute someone, even if they're innocent, you haven't misused anything. You've executed someone, which was the purpose of what you'd been doing, except innocent people die as a cause.
LOLWUT. Yes, you have misused something. It's called the 'justice system', and it's a direct component of the execution process. The execution itself is not the morally shaky component here; it's the flawed judicial process. And to be fair, most of the sketchiness is from 2+ decades ago, since the average number of years spent on death row is approaching about that. DNA evidence is now becoming mainstream and is overturning wrongful executions.
Even then, it leaves no room to review any potential future evidence or new findings.
This would make sense if they murder them right there in the courtroom, or like in two weeks.
When a convict is imprisoned and serving time, they can be found innocent or maybe their charge/involvement was not as primary and/or severe. You cannot do this when you kill an individual.
This is true. Which is why I don't advocate the death penalty wholesale. Evidence must be compelling; especially compelling and beyond a reasonable doubt. In this age of forensics, this means DNA evidence must be solid and the evidence in general overwhelming. A great example would be a guy with a prior criminal history shooting someone in a bar; tons of witnesses, evidence, and he could have easily been apprehended at the scene or fleeing from it. Once his guilt is established conclusively, there's no reason to give him 20-30 years to stew and possibly let him out on a technicality. He's blatantly guilty, period.
Also, don't even get me started on soldiers and war killings. I'm wholly against that as well. Others here who have agreed with me may not be but I am entirely against it.
The point is, soldiers are required to make decisions where they pull the trigger without due process, as are federal agents, border patrol, and police among others. We don't call them murderers unless it's a situation where they operated well outside of set guidelines of appropriate behavior.
Why would we consider state executions to be murder (ignoring the semantic ****fest it entails) following the same reasoning?
Violence and murder aren't solutions, no matter how bad the crime is.
Bollocks.
Giving hardened horrific members of society, who leave behind nothing but death, devastation, and trauma the right to live safely with all care paid for by the very society they wronged is even worse of a crime than having to stitch together one's first-world ego over having to "kill something".
The moral and logical justification standing as, "They did something really bad themselves so let us do it back" is not substantial enough.
Tell that to the mothers of missing children.
Using murder as a tool to keep people away from society isn't substantial enough either. This is why we have prison, among other reasons.
Prisons of which are overcrowded (because of stupid drug laws; unrelated sidebit).
Rehabilitation is also a primary/strong factor. I mean, there are other variables as well, such as what I had mentioned earlier.
I have looked before, strongly, because Fishy said that it was true. I have not found anything to support the assertion that rehabilitation is largely true or even minimally the case. If anything, the longer one spends in prison, the harder it is to integrate and the more likely they will commit some kind of crime just to go back.
That the people I'm advocating killing off are lacking in empathy and could never work in most positions due to their history, what are we rehabilitating them for? Their own benefit? Not ours.
We don't teach children that got beat up really badly to go seek vengeance and beat up the other child responsible.
Well, I'd personally tell my kid to kick his ass, but I don't advocate knee-capping or anything. But it's not a comparable situation either; your kid can get his face bruised by another child who's having at-home issues and later on that kid could grow out of his problems, or get disciplined. Your child will most likely recover, and so will your family.
When someone damages something really expensive that we own on purpose, we don't go and damage something they own and call it equal. It has no net result. It does not alter the action that came before it.
So you're saying that because I can't change the past, I can't punish people?
How is that even legit?
Capital punishment is the same.
See above. nope.
With that argument put forth, I've noticed you see this less as a means to give them what they gave but more as a method to keep them away from society permanently and even out of life permanently.If these people have served time, gone through rehabilitation and shown promise, or had new evidence showcase that they were wrongfully convicted, these are enough for me to consider death as an unworthy application.
Then by all means.... provide evidence that rehabilitation for serious criminals (those committing torture, murder, rape) works on any meaningful way.
If I saw proof that most could be rehabilitated, I wouldn't hold this position so strongly.
Yeah, I don't know if I'd go that far. I support the reasoning that human life is more valuable than the latter organisms you've mentioned. I understand that animals, bacteria, etc. are important but I do not argue that they're as inherently valuable as humans.I'd cry every single time I ate a steak and I don't fucking need that. Well, probably not, but it's the thought that counts. Sort of.
Plus all the good foods are former living.
Bloody char limit.
This is a really shoddy argument. This implies that people accidentally dying as a cause of using practical devices is the same as the purposeful killing of an innocent individual using devices that, well, purposely kill people.
Perhaps you misunderstand; it's a comparison given how few people are hurt by the practice. Far more people die in situations far more preventable. In other words, the death penalty is not this Holocaust-style killing mechanism.
More individuals dying from falling off a ladder or being pwned by a vending machine is obviously still tragic and horrible because people are dying and I hear dying sucks. However, this is an apple to the orange of using a system that already unjustifiably kills (in my opinion, obviously) to FURTHER do so by eliminating additional lives, like the innocent.
But you've asserted that it's unjustifiable so far because... well, let's see:
- Your country says so.
- Some non sequitors.
- Unsubstantiated claims regarding rehabilitation.
The point I made is that vending machines are a far greater menace to far more people than is the death penalty. So next time you get a Payday, watch the **** out.
True, but "consequence" isn't a synonym for "death." Harsh crimes are worthy of harsh consequences but I do not think it calls for something as permanent and as final as death.
Why? What's your actual ethical argument?
Also, countries that have the death penalty implemented do not show a drop in the rate of these "harsher" crimes.
They tend to have higher crime across the board anyways.
Do you remember that white power asshat in Norway who went to a children's resort island and killed a shitton of people? He's locked up, without possibility of parole, won't die, and just got a university degree at the expense of the people he's unjustly attacked (i.e. Norweigians). You mean to tell me that this is preferable to say, killing the stupid, blatantly guilty criminal?
What is he going to do with that degree? Charge more for the license plates he's stamping out?
There's also:
"I don't think you should die; but you don't deserve freedom or independence of any sort. Therefore, your life is just this prison."
^ That's not a rational punishment for a heinous crime. That's just saying "I don't like killing; so you can just stay isolated".
So, it's not like the system is going unexploited simply because death is a known consequence of a severe crime. If someone is mentally unstable or committed enough, that is irrelevant.
I'm not a big fan of the deterrence argument. I think it gets strawmanned far too often. The point is, that arguments against the death penalty invariably become circle-jerks instead of solid ethical stances.
PS:
Spoiler:
Love you, Sorgo. Have my babies.