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[kaijyuu]

I live by a forested mountain range, and twice it's been set on fire by homeless people wanting to be jailed so they have a bed and something to eat.

[MonkeyHead]

Yea, which quickly becomes a different issue - one of "should care and provision be provided as opposed to punishment". Not sure where I stand on that just yet - seems tricky to draw a line between what could be called orthodox criminality, and criminality with a goal (like you describe).

[Vector]

I do not advocate killing murderers, because I am afraid the same argument will be employed to cull the mentally ill.

[G-Flex]

... But aside from that slippery slope, you think it would be fine?

[Vector]

... But aside from that slippery slope, you think it would be fine?

I still don't think it's fine.  I'm a vegetarian, remember?

I'm saying that that particular argument scares me like the dickens, and is not one I choose to add to my personal portfolio of moral arguments.

Their acts have stripped from them those things which with attribute humanity (or at least some important subset thereof) and as such they're no longer worthy of receiving the same consideration given to other people, who have not performed such acts.

This is what I'm addressing, in particular.  Perhaps there is a difference between willing acts and "fate" performed by nature in the usual moral calculus, when we decide who gets to live and who will be killed like an animal.

If there's a slippery slope, I don't see much of one.

[Nadaka]

I don't advocate killing murderers either. A simple murderer can possibly be reformed and reintegrated into society. When you go past that, mass murderers, serial killers, sadistic torturers (including some serial rapists) then you get into the territory where the death penalty is justified. I personally don't see the slippery slope of using the death penalty with culling the mentally ill.

[G-Flex]

I still don't think it's fine.  I'm a vegetarian, remember?

No, I don't?

The words I hear fairly regularly, is that when you kill a murderer, you're not killing a human, you're putting down an animal. Their acts have stripped from them those things which with attribute humanity (or at least some important subset thereof) and as such they're no longer worthy of receiving the same consideration given to other people, who have not performed such acts. There's a parallel scenario in the fact that people generally put down rabid dogs, instead of attempting to cure them.

The problem: By dehumanizing people who commit serious crimes, you make it more likely that other people will commit them. Why? Because if you say that, for example, murderers (or rapists, or whoever) aren't human, you sort of pretend that nobody who is human (read: anyone else) could ever actually do it. You throw all pretense of prevention and understanding out the window. If, on the other hand, you admit that actual human beings are capable of performing those acts, and that there are reasons why it happens and why they turn out to be that sort of person, then you open the door to understanding, and possibly rehabilitating those people before they get that bad in the first place. Also, from the perspective of a criminal: If people treat you like you're subhuman, and you've probably internalized that notion yourself, then why not live up to the expectation?

Prisons aren't particularly nice or comfortable places, but they're honestly better than some alternatives. It's a very real issue that some people (In the US) perform petty crimes strictly to get incarcerated, because the situation in jail is better than outside of it.

That doesn't mean prison is nice; it means that being homeless is worse. We live in a world where literally being raped in prison is treated as a joke. Prisons make criminals worse, not better, not to mention the fact that we've literally privatized some of it.

[freeformschooler]

I don't advocate killing murderers either. A simple murderer can possibly be reformed and reintegrated into society. When you go past that, mass murderers, serial killers, sadistic torturers (including some serial rapists) then you get into the territory where the death penalty is justified. I personally don't see the slippery slope of using the death penalty with culling the mentally ill.

Well, it's a tricky problem. One of my family members has worked with truly, chronically mentally ill people for 10 years of his life. For those people, there's often only two options as they are genuinely a danger to themselves and others at all times, even when medicated with their experimental medicine (I am not talking about simple paranoia/depression type stuff here). You cannot help or rehabilitate these people. They will always be this way. When it comes down to it you can:

1) Lock them up in a solitary environment where they can not hurt themselves or others or
2) "Cull" them.

Obviously I'm for the former, but I've heard people talking about the latter quite a bit after having been explained just how these people are.

[Vector]

Reducing criminals to animals when I do not kill or eat animals as a matter of moral principle means that I do not kill or eat criminals.

[kaijyuu]

I'm anti death penalty because I don't think vengeance should have any part in our justice system. Sure, vengeance is cathartic, but it carries numerous consequences.

The purpose of our justice system is to rehabilitate, not punish, or at least it should be in my eyes. There's no point or purpose to punishment beyond deterrents and adding additional atrocities upon the ones already committed (except those atrocities are committed by the state, which is apparently somehow better). As for deterrents, there's plenty of debate as to what punishments work for that and what don't; the death penalty certainly does not work for it.

[Heliman]

I'm for the death penalty. I don't think that taxpayers should pay to keep monsters like serial killers alive. This would be my argument, if the death penalty didn't cost more than a life sentence.

[Nadaka]

I'm anti death penalty because I don't think vengeance should have any part in our justice system. Sure, vengeance is cathartic, but it carries numerous consequences.

The purpose of our justice system is to rehabilitate, not punish, or at least it should be in my eyes. There's no point or purpose to punishment beyond deterrents and adding additional atrocities upon the ones already committed (except those atrocities are committed by the state, which is apparently somehow better). As for deterrents, there's plenty of debate as to what punishments work for that and what don't; the death penalty certainly does not work for it.

I agree with you on the goal of the justice system. In my view the death penalty isn't incompatible with that goal if it is reserved for the truly irredeemable.

[Aqizzar]

The only reason I advocate the death penalty - and mind you, stricter standards of when it can be employed and the level of evidential proof needed (speaking from Texas that is) - is there are some criminals who simply cannot be reformed.  Charles Manson may be an outlier but he does exist.  Likewise, there are cases where a person who may be reformable commits a crime so atrocious that society simply cannot accept them trying to reintegrate - a guy I know of through my family who, an otherwise ordinary person, got liquored up one night and killed four people in a crime of passion.

It's cases like these that I advocate execution for, because I honestly believe it's a more humane choice than leaving a prisoner to linger in a cell for however many decades it takes before they die in state custody anyway.  Genuine life imprisonment is government sanctioned murder as much as any lethal injection, and there are some prisoners for whom returning to society, for one reason or another, just is not an option.

[Bauglir]

I suppose there are two things at work here. There's the belief that they have "thrown away" or otherwise given up their humanity; that, because of their acts, they are subhuman. This makes it acceptable in the eyes of some people to kill these people. Personally, I don't see where they derive the authority to determine who is or isn't human, and what sets apart "This murderer isn't really human, so it's not wrong to kill him" from "This woman isn't really a person, so it's not wrong to rape her" (as an arbitrary example). Both are just ways of suspending your conscience, but if you're really trying to do the right thing you should realize that that probably isn't something you should have to do. Certainly not by arbitrary dehumanization.

Spoiler: Tangent (click to show/hide)

Well, aside from the fact that the former is usually more explicitly a part of the reasoning that goes on; I don't think the latter is a thought that consciously passes through somebody's head right before committing a rape, so much as the failure to think "This woman is a person, so it is wrong to rape her".

The other is the argument that the person in question has done something heinous, and needs to be punished. I don't think this is really the issue people disagree about, but it is the response that always seems to be brought up in support of the death penalty. A crime needs to be punished, and the most severe crime deserves the most severe punishment. And I agree, so far as that goes. That carries us as far as deciding what's the most severe acceptable punishment, but no further; other arguments set the upper bound on what's acceptable, and bringing up that a punishment, of some kind, is justified and necessary does not then justify any punishment.

[Frumple]

The purpose of our justice system is to rehabilitate, not punish, or at least it should be in my eyes.

That's definitely both the ideal, the goal we should be aiming for, and by and large what the US justice system doesn't do and isn't interested in. There's been progress, though, and a certain degree of shift toward that line of thinking. Definitely not there, yet.

The question of the death penalty is (or should be, at least) largely what is to be done with those that can't be rehabilitated, and weren't caught before they managed actual and significant harm. Lifetime incarceration is at least as morally abhorrent as killing the person in question (The choice here is between many years of torture, followed by death, as Aqizzar says, or simply death.), and definitely more expensive. The third choice -- allowing the individual in question to go free and continue to do harm -- isn't something I'd see as anyone allowing for a viable option.

If rehabilitation isn't possible (and the chance has been genuinely exhausted), murdering the individual in question isn't acceptable, and incarceration just as great an evil as execution, what option is left? It's an incredibly troubling place to be when killing someone is the lesser evil and no alternatives are presented.