From: naddy@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber)
>>Brian D Williams <talon57@well.com> wrote:
>> As a death penalty advocate, I would be against any attempt to
>> cryonically suspend anyone to whom the death penalty has been
>> administered.
>Well, we seem to have another death penalty discussion at hand.
>This appears to generate lots of opinions, but little reasoning
>from first principles. When we administer criminal punishment,
>what are we trying to accomplish in the first place? Several
>things come to mind:
I would disagree, in fact the principals are quite simple:
1)One may not murder another human being.
2)If found to be in violation of principal (1), ones own life is
forfeit.
>- Revenge.
> I find it difficult to come to grips with this rationally.
> Clearly, we have a strong desire to do unto others as they do
> unto us, especially if they harmed us. This looks like an
> evolved survival trait, but I'm uncertain how to justify it in
> a rational manner. The death penalty fulfills the revenge urge
> very well.
>- Reform.
> That's what they told us in religion/ethics class back in
> school. Supposedly reforming the criminal to make them a better
> citizen is the primary purpose of punishment. In practice, it
> doesn't look like this to me. Capital punishment does nothing
> for this, of course.
Murder is the exception to this rule in my book.
>- Removal.
> This also applies to prison and deportation. The goal is to
> remove criminals from society in order to keep them from doing
> any further harm. Clearly, the death penalty is a supremely
> effective means to get rid of a problem person.
Agreed
>- Restitution.
> Have the criminal repay the damage they did. Basically, this
> is only applicable to property damage, and in practice usually
> only to minor ones. Putting a price tag on a human life is
> difficult, but killing yet another person doesn't provide any
> economic gain in itself.
Restitution is not possible in the case of murder.
>- Deterrence.
> I'm under the impression that US experience tells that the
> death
> penalty does little to deter criminals, although I'm uncertain
> about the psychology involved. If you build a system based on
> deterrence, you have to carefully grade punishment. Once
> people are subject to the maximum penalty if caught, they have
> nothing to lose, and that's one of the least things you want.
> ("Hey, I already killed a cop. Five more won't change
> anything." Bad.)
Deterence will not be a factor at the current rate of punishment.
there are a number of murders each day, there are not a number of
executions each day. Even someone of low intelligence can see the
lieklyhood of receiving the death penalty is small.
--Punishment.
The death penalty is the only just punishment for the crime of
murder. (IMO)
Brian
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