[QUOTE="peter1191"]
[QUOTE="Teenaged"]But its a point which has no relevance to the discussion. And if it has you are not doing a good job in showing the connection.
Elaborate on your point.
Teenaged
When we set standards, socially, we set laws than (should) not be crossed. Murder is one of them. When someone recieves capital punishment for murder, there are two ways of looking at it: mudering a murderer or applying justice. Justice is a tough word to define, but it is certainly NOT vengence. A person who applies the drug that kills a prisoner is not particularly excited or ready to split blood. That is how we have "evolved" so to speak. Less cruelty in our actions, which I wholeheartly love to see. The connection I made was a simple one: we (the people, the nation, its history, etc) make moral codes, and they are followed thereout. Those who break it have stepped outside the bounds of what is accetpable at the time. Whats so hard to understand? Moral relativism is real because we have made it so. The society, which gives the person opportunity, takes it away when one acts out against it. Thats it. I'm not saying anything new. I'm only washing away the dirt of "we're no better" that clouds the eyes of sensible people. Yes, some deserve to die. And some deserve reform. Thats what we should be arguing about. Are you honestly going to say that someone who rapes children, for example, is no better than yourself? If your not crazy, the answer is obvious
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.
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)
Log in to comment