[QUOTE="peter1191"]
[QUOTE="Teenaged"]The morals though do not necessarily define the punishment in their wording. That is decided later, upon the moral. Thats why two countries can have the same morals, and yet different punishments for each crime that breaks the moral code.
The way you present the social structure is way too simplistic and that serves so that you can fit anything there. Nothing in the social construct and the morals it abides by declares that the opportunity is taken away by using death as the punishment. You are only arguing in favor of them getting punished. No one advocated not being punished.
The phrase "we are not better..." makes perfect sense if you looked into the history of the past few decades. People are indeed aware of the atrocities of the past - be that the near past even - and choose to not make the same mistakes the previous generations did.
And since you like analysing the social structure and whatnot, I am very confident that people who oppose the deathpenalty see that revenge is not a safe rout for a penalty system to follow. Revenge is subjective, highly uncontrollable and irrational. And that would not benefit the character of the social structure.
Even if you do prove the phrase to be non sensic, still you havent shown how your quote "some deserve to die" is justified.
Teenaged
Ok, good point. I assumed punishment of death in the breaking of the morals. But you haven't dashed my initial arguement. THere are crimes which supersede our expectation for proper behavior. These usually result in the more harsh sentences.
And "we are not better" logic, which fails, fails because we are applying it to individuals. Sure, societies are on equal footing in many things, but in between themselves, not with themselves and the people. But thats a whole other discussion that I will most certainly not attempt to explore (interntational courts and whatnot)
Expectations of proper behavior are also subjective. And even still, expectations should not be the only factor by which we judge a criminal. There are cases of mental illnesses. How is one to judge mentally ill people? There are also cases of a wrong verdict. The death penalty is irreversible.Another issue is the issue of what causes criminal behavior. If its not the social structure itself then what is it? Genes? So be it (although genes are never unfiltered in ones behavior). Both are factors beyong the control of the individual. Isnt it ironic that the same society that gave birth to the criminal, now seeks to terminate him/her for what is actually its doing?
The justification "we are no better than them if we kill them" is not one that is, say, objective, and its not about being humane. Its about people having "pride" and say "you know what? I'll choose to not stoop to your level". Strange as though this mindset may seem to some, it shouldnt be conveniently rejected as a "pseudo-new age philosophy" or what have you.
Besides thats just one justification. There are plenty others regarding the efficiency of the measure, its irreversibility, its extremeness (and here I could invoke your argument about expectations of proper reaction to events (you said "...of proper behavior") etc.
And again I await for a justification as to how one can say who deserves to die.
I could answer your question point by point, but I won't. What I will do is ask this question: what crime is such that one cannot return to normalcy after it has been commited? Answer this question, then the world will open up, and I can argue freely. All we have been doing so far is with abstract thought. And to quote an author I had read earlier this year: "abstract thought cannot imagine a handsome murderer." Answer this question, and we can move forward
Log in to comment