death penalty?

Death penalty not necessary. I was thinking about this, and came to the idea that if someone deliberately murdered somebody and it has been proven 100% then the murderer should be put to death for it. However, that's when i came to the realisation that this would make the people who sentenced the murderer to death no better than the murderer itself, as they too would have just contributed to having somebody die. So yeah, i'm against it.

 

I agree with this completely. A death penalty is only necessary in special cases where someone will remain a threat as long as they are living. Punishment is a useless concept unless it will lessen the threat that a person presents while maximizing profits.

I may be seeing things, but doesn't this contradict your cold machine argument? They made their choice, and you are making yours. You have stated that it is a cold machine, but why would a machine decide to kill someone because of evil? It wouldn't, it has to be programmed to do that based on someone's emotions. In order for evil to exist, including that extra evil, you need emotions. In which case I think you should shut up, as you made your choice to kill them in the name of revenge and will continue to do so, making you a consistent threat to society.

A truly cold machine works without emotions; without any notion of good and evil. If you think that the current rules are based only on profit and not on emotion, then please make a case for it being so instead of simply stating it it s a cold machine rather than an angry machine.

 

I disagree with it, it also depends on the crime.
I disagree 100% with Islam's laws like being stoned to death for liking someone of the same gender. You cant control who you love.

 

Unless you kill someone then you shouldn't be killed yourself or unless you're just plain rotten and treat everyone terribly steal, insult, torture, etc...

I believe in an eye for an eye. You steal my bread today I take your bread another day.

 

Literalist. And I tend to mess with wording myself, so I was not misled... But I was misleading. I prefer moral nihilism, so it is easy for me read into these things; I can tell when you use morality, and it stands out to me. When you tell someone to shut up about morality and then go on about evil, you are contradicting yourself. Evil implies morality. Or did I mistake you when you denied morality? Because your first and only response to, "It's not morally right," was, "Shut up," I assumed you denied morality, only to mention evil in support of your argument. Was I wrong?

Perhaps my mention of your machine metaphor was misled, but this contradiction stands, and you did not address it so much as my calling out of your metaphor.

Justice is revenge in nearly every use of the term. "He deserved it" can be and is said in both cases, and they are functionally the same in most cases. Unless you argue an eye for an eye or an ethical approach, then any notion of 'punishment' comes out as revenge.

It does that when determining guilt, but the laws themselves are not based on reason. You can take a set of laws and use a cold machine-like hand to execute them, but those laws are not based on reason just because your executions of them are.

Actually, I find politicians to be worse at it than I am. Poor guys...

You imply that rhetoricians and logical people are mutually exclusive. This was not the case when last I checked.

How is sucking it going...?

 

Oh... so -THAT'S- what you believe... suddenly it makes a little more sense...

It's incorrect Makaze. Which is why we shall never agree on justice. Justice is a combination of revenge, threat reducing (as you mentioned), and threat deterrent.

Clicketh for verbose on my views of justice in general, not specifically the death penalty:

Spoiler

Revenge: "They deserved it." Its a very simple premise built into justice. In its purest form, someone who does something evil, gets repaid with evil. Someone commits a crime, something that would otherwise be considered a crime is done to them under the banner of "justice" and is legal. People may reason "Oh, its to give them time to think about what they done" but that is just an excuse.

Threat Reduction: Sadly, our justice system needs to be reworked on this sense. It reduces the individuals threat to society whilst they are in prison/jail/dead. Only the last one has any lasting effect on society. Granted, a minority of people who have been to prison/jail actually reform, and then, more power to them. But a majority come out worse. I believe our justice system needs to be reworked with more emphasis here.

Threat Deterrent: This is another good factor. To an extent, its pretty effective. Its not perfect... but it works. Its the one I believe you have the biggest issue with Makaze. Basically, its the principle of, if someone does something not socially acceptable, and it has a minor detrimental damage to another (such as burning a CD, but lets not go into -that debate- here) and the punishment is clearly understood to you at the time you did the crime, you brought the justice onto yourself. Essentially, you made the decision yourself. Enforcement is not 100%, but there is always a chance of being caught. So, if it prevents one person from doing a crime because the punishment is so severe, then its working as a deterrent.

Now... my opinion on the Death Penalty? If they cannot be reintroduced into society and make themselves a threat to society without any possibility of placed into a productive role in society, then justice should be served. I see no reason to keep someone who is something extraordinarily dangerous (such as extreme cases of sadistic behavior) locked in a cage forever. Its more cruel to keep someone alive locked in a cage than to kill them.

 

The last two do not apply to justice exclusively. Justice is used in conjunction with threat reduction and threat deterrent as a means of moralizing your methods, but these concept are not strictly speaking 'just'. There is no right way to do things, and no wrong way to do things. There is an efficient way and and inefficient way. If justice has any connection to efficiency, then you have failed to explain it in your post. I hold that no action is just or unjust, and that if you do take care of threat reduction and threat deterrent, it is not justice, it is simply making the world a better place for everyone. Justice includes the criminal in its process, and this is not necessary for society. You might say that killing someone was justice because he deserved it. I would prefer for you to say that you had to kill him for society. When you take care of threat reduction and threat deterrent, it does not need to be personal. Justice is personal more often than not, and it is an obsolete concept because of this.

 

I am merely stating why the justice system itself was built. I never said it was the only method, I just stated why it exist. I made no argument for it being efficient or inefficient.

As for your response to the case of death penalty specifically: Often, the individual is killed for revenge. The policy of killing them exist for society. If no individual was punished for criminal actions, it would be to the detriment of society. I believe we agreed on this in the past.

 

Not necessarily. I dislike the words punishment and justice. They sometimes coincide with the betterment of society, but not usually. Culling is not punishing, and I see the death penalty and many other 'punishments' as that. When people stop feeling justified, or like the people they are killing deserve to die, then they may be a little more careful with who they kill and who they do not. Changing the words that you use can change the way people think about it, and if you don't get them angry about it and make them feel righteous, then they will act more calmly and make better decisions because of it. Moral rhetoric about 'justice' and 'deserved punishment' does not help society; in fact it makes people more likely to become violent and vengeful, and more vigilantes will show up if they think that justice is the point of the system and their version of it is not being enforced. You should not subscribe to a word if it does not apply to you specifically or is a moral concept.

 

Ok Makaze.

Let's use your thinking for a second. How would you propose dealing with someone dangerously psychotic, who's every intent is to inflict harm to others? Its not a common situation, but such people do exist. Your proposal?

 

HEY. I resent that. I am pseudo-nothing.

Seriously though, why don't you? What's the point of posting in the thread if you're not gonna lay out your point for everyone to understand? We all recognize different standards for "extreme," at any rate.

One cannot scare many killers. Especially with death.

I like it. Should've stopped the post here though, would've been a lot more fun.

 

I would probably kill them. Is this justice? No... It simply needs to be done. I am eliminating a threat that cannot be contained in a more efficient way. I am protecting everyone else rather than punishing.

 

I fail to see any points. You have repetitively told people to shut up and then stated things, and if you want me to show you where, I can, but I recall nothing looking like an argument. I have not argued against you, per se. I have merely riled you up by pointing out a contradiction in your wording. I have not taken a side yet. You assumed I was against you in practice, and that was your assumption and no fault of mine.

Nothing is obvious. You can say what you think justice is, but it is such a broad concept that you cannot single it down to your usage without good reason. What makes vigilante justice apply less than a judicial system? They both use the term correctly. In both cases, it means 'to give people what they deserve'. If you think that anyone deserves a kind of treatment, then you go into revenge. It is better to avoid using the word justice for these reasons.

It does not mean nothing. Words are very important in things like discussions, which are based on them. You should seek the best possible wording for your meaning, not resort to reciting platitudes. That is what I am doing. I do not have to disagree with you to point out a flaw in your wording, and you can be wrong and too broad in your wording without being wrong in your meaning. Do we have an understanding?

 

I disagree with death penalty. If someone kills others, and get a death sentence will they be doing something different than that guy was doing? No, you will kill someone just like him, you'll be not better than him.

I believe people can change, I believe people can forgive...

Yes, the person will have to face his owns consequences, but never face death. The person has to learn about theirs mistakes to don't ever do something like that again, I believe...

 

Death penalty is an easy way out of whatever they did. They'll only feel pain for a little while and then they're gone, no lesson learned.

Now on the other hand... if someone were crazy, and they just killed multiple people for the hell of it, or they did some serious crime along the lines of that, the death penalty should come in there.
If someone accidentally killed a person out of self-defense, I don't think they should get the death penalty, a few years in jail would be enough.

Kind of a weird view on it, but there you go.

 

You are missing the point. You only teach them a lesson to make them less of a threat. If you kill them, you eliminate the threat completely, so no lesson is needed.

 

If you lock them up and chain them for years and keep them on chains isn't that eliminating the threat completely and teaching them a lesson?

 

No, not quite. Can you prove that they will be less of a threat when you let them out? I think that they would be more of one if you treated them badly. And if you do not let them out, then why did you keep them alive? You spend more money that way, and you do not profit society.

This is true assuming you can claim one hundred percent guilt for the criminal. If you do it to teach them a lesson, then you believe they did it, and if they did it and will not go free, then why keep them alive just to teach them a lesson that will not help anybody?