The normative rationale for a death penalty is to placate the dis-acceptance of the dignity of citizens and/or culture (the former in idealized honor- or dignity-based societies, the latter (and/or culture) in cults of honor and dignity. Note the implication: the death penalty is NOT unnatural, nor morally heedless, nor even the necessary result of haphazardly thought through principles. It is a statement of loss of deservedness of one’s dignity to be protected once one has to the appointed degree dis-accepted the dignity of another or others. Prevention has nothing to do with such an argument; the notion of ‘an eye for an eye’ likewise has no bearing on the matter, appearances notwithstanding.

The death penalty ‘placates’ insofar as it hinges on moral and ethical justification, these in turn hinging on the importance of pride. Where pride is lost owing to cynicism or dejection, manners and civility fall aside by degrees and criminous intentions come to the fore (seeing no expectation of punishment – witness the recent financial calamities). In effect, society is presumed to enter upon degradation so soon as there is a serious and/or consistent failure to ensure pride of culture at the extremities where failing to deny dignity to those denying it to others amounts to an invitation to turn cynical toward authority.

If these are very unlogical to us, they are not for that reason any less valid a rationale from the vantage of desiring an orderly and peaceable society. Such societies advocating the symbolic and/or factual expression of dignity disestablishment for certain crimes are also those most reliant on a parallel rationale, namely, shame -- for prevention of ordinary problems. It is not so surprising, therefore, that in a society where shame is anathema, as in our own (American), so also tends to be the very notion of capital punishment. (Those in our country who are most supportive of the penalty are also, through a ‘law and order’ outlook riding on testosterone and steroids together, view incarceration as a shame-based answer to moral obloquy, which also explains why these same folks have no qualms shutting up serious chunks of the black community on whatever will comfortably seem to the observer the correct punishment for a shameless sort of folk, and which thus stands as an especially abhorrent expression of deep prejudice).

In other words, where the death penalty stands on rational grounds (I did not say fully acceptable grounds), the idea of deterrence is nowhere to be found for it has nothing whatever to do with maintaining pride in cultural institutions. It has everything to do with fear, occasionally irrational, but real enough in these cultures, that failure to disestablish dignity in the guilty creates conditions of a slippery slope into social devolution. This has always been the basis for honor-based capital punishment whether owing to sorcery aimed at the public or the occasional rare instance where destruction of social symbols is taken to the extreme.

Somewhat the same rationale goes to explain previous ideas mentioned in this thread. The idea that death is a punishment lighter than prison follows from the idea that imprisonment is not merely disestablishment of dignity but far more, the reduction to animal status, so that the affair begins to look like a disgrace upon the society for punishing a breach of dignity with termination of human status, which effectively then offers an excuse for the crime, rather than a shame-based abridgment of normal protections of dignity.

The Greeks offered Socrates the choice of banishment (also separately on the books as a ten year penalty for violating pride of culture in which the public employs ostracism to identify those deserving the penalty) because banishment signifies in fact as opposed to symbolism that a city-state has disestablished dignity, meaning that those to whom the evicted comes in hope of solace will know there is no rationale not to opportunize, whereat the punishment leads invariably to murder. Many traditional cultures have long-standing policies similar, as for example Eskimo tribes of past times (Diamond’s work uncovered this).

Arabs treat women who violate cultural strictures very harshly for the same reason: women are, for being responsible for the cultural health, responsible for upholding the dignity of the culture, whence their crimes become by extension crimes against culture itself, whence the justification for capital punishment. It is less the fact of capital punishment that is unsettling as the fact that so many of the acts thought to lead to degradation of society are hardly what we Westerners worry over, to say nothing of the fact that we also ascribe rights to these same activities.

I am not advocating these cultural norms, only pointing out that the use of capital punishment carries a very deep-rooted human value system that is not entirely extinguished for our claims to modernity and material advancement. As human beings we still can – and indeed ought to – be mindful of fundamental human strivings and justifications, not because they must necessarily be right, but because they can be right under certain circumstances. To deny this is essentially to deny all of previous humanity the dignity of that word – humanity. And I seriously doubt whether anti-death penalty adherents really mean to allow that presupposition.

Now before I am legitimately accused of writing an essay than a post, let me address a couple of points directly and briefly. The problem with the American system is not inherently in the fact or doctrine of the penalty (such as it is taken, and no doubt by too few given the confusion with non-issues like prevention) but in our unique incapacity to properly defend the accused, even our near complete incapacity to manage an honestly impartial view of the presented evidence. neither lawyers nor judges nor juries are anywhere near suitably equipped to take on such cases. And thus there is no rationale, juridically speaking for any instance of capital punishment save the obvious where the culprits are known without recourse to proof, and the calamities sufficient to obviate need of argument as to contempt of culture and its dignity.

The problem with assuming on principle that the death penalty is somehow ipso facto morally flawed, not only does not stand up to historical practice throughout the world and throughout all of history, but it suffers also from this defect: life tends to be horrifically over-valued in a society dominated by cults of dignity (my dignity is better than your dignity). What do the Palestinians constantly rebuke the Israelis for? But of course, the latter’s penchant for destroying ten thousand Palestinians in avenging a single Israeli death (that is an overstatement, but the idea is understated, whence the hyperbole). Every interview with the past Iranian president featured this essential retort: “Since when are the Israelis so special and so deserving?”

We need to be addressing more questions like this in order to assure a certain perspective upon the death penalty as a social construct. Since when does extinguishing a life for extinguishing another deprive all of us of dignity? It does so only by a willingness to park upon Mount Olympus our desire to think only the best and purest thoughts. But this also tends ineluctably to favor unreality over reality at the expense occasionally of the very moral precepts we thought were being vouchsafed from on high. There is simply no logical or rational argument in defense of the proposition that there can be no adequate justification of a death penalty.

Such a position mistakes death as an absolute opposite of life, when in fact there is, as Christ allowed, sufficient death in life. And Christ’s dis-acceptance of a death penalty was ministry oriented, not in principle. He could hardly ask the guiltless to cast the first stone if he were in favor of a death penalty. But then, how realistic was his command that the guiltless toss the first stone? We ourselves manage to do exactly that every day of the week a thousand times over in every court of law. Recall, Christ’s task was a ministry, not the instruction as to absolutes.

When it came to instruction, Christ was quite sensitive to the realities of the day, even to the inclusion of Roman taxation (render unto the Romans…). In this light, and in absence of the ethical responsibilities attending the conversion of people into altered norms, how can we be so certain that he would have had so much trouble acknowledging the validity of a death penalty?

We also have trouble of a very similar sort in evaluating the respect owed to offices versus officeholders. Thus we will support a rapacious wretch of an officeholder out of respect to the office. No office can be respected by respecting violations of the officeholder. The same parallel is not entirely out of place in the death punishment discussion. We think to respect life by sparing death when in taking a life to repair damage to the spiritual fabric of society can save many more lives merely by ensuring that all are happier and more law-abiding in a fair and generous society. Are we to deny that precept simply because we have opted on a destructive society with destructive policies and with examples of perfidy that go regularly unpunished?

Frankly, I had rather keep the death penalty on the back burner until we have matured rather a good bit further as a society.

This is a very difficult issue, and one of very few I had to commit to work on a separate site and then cut and paste. I only hope I have done some justice to the approach I advocate and again apologize for the length. Doubtless it is my inability that accounts for prolixity.

First of all let's point out that the deterrence effect of the death penalty has been till today inconclusive. Being sent to prison for life is more for the incapacitating effect of the individual who has been found to be heinously violent. But in places were there is no death penalty, that's the only alternative there is.

Now in regards to the death penalty preserving human dignity, it varies on the case. Developed nations execute people thru lethal injections and the electric chair, but many developing nations do not do that. Instead they use firing squads, hangings or other barbaric measures and on top of that are publicly shown. That sort of execution might have been acceptable to the Roman, Greeks or Vikings; but i doubt that nowadays they preserve the dignity of the accused. Because now they're treated more like public spectacles than acts of justice, on top of that their bodies aren't given a proper burial and displayed like trophies.

I won't fight or even have an argurment with anybody about killing a criminal by applying death penalty, when those who defend killing unborn babies use the concept that the ones who are against abortion are favorable to death penalty, just look at the figures for both, and it's delusiolnal saying that those not aborted will become criminals later, or soldierns in wars, and would be killed anyway.

The Wolfman Jack, a well know philosopher and DJ, said in the American Forces Radio, 100.2 FM Stereo, Madrid, that the commandment is not : 'Thou shall not kill', but: 'Thou shall not murder'. 'Moral Theology for lay persons', Ethics, and the job of Moralist are in serious contestation today, but in saving persons, it would be better focusing in the innocent, even more, it's better having one hundred criminals free than a single innocent damned.

Jose, having one hundred criminal free means a lot of innocents damned. Your statement is so flawed it even does not need to be discussed.

Hi Bill,

Is this a new twist on your “Double Effect Doctrine” question? I ask this because of your reference to the views of Kant and Hegel in support of the proposition that putting a prisoner to death would have the salutary effect of “early release” from life imprisonment. Likewise, if one discounts Mill’s erroneous assumption that the death penalty has a deterrent effect (“Oh wait, I had better take this child across the border to Illinois before I kill her because Illinois has just abolished the death penalty!”), then Mill also feels execution of a prisoner is a humanitarian act in that it will help the person escape life imprisonment.

Assuming this is just another version of the Double Effect Doctrine question, can there be a clearer case of sophistry? Recall Giselle’s more detailed clarification of Aquinas and the Double Effect Theory, to which I replied:

“Your additional comment about Double Effect Theory not being applicable when a good effect results from a bad (immoral?) action really hearkens back to what my Mother always used to say, ‘God don’t like ugly.’ And, I think this refinement of Double Effect Theory coincides with the notion that it is only valid when the bad effect is ‘a mere side effect of the action and NOT intentionally brought about.’”

Bill, the evidence is in on capital punishment; it is an immoral act – a bad action. Death is not a side effect, but an action intentionally brought about so it is sophistry to have a conversation about whether a noble and humanitarian purpose (freeing the prisoner from life imprisonment) is being achieved by the immoral act of capital punishment.

WHY DO I SAY THE EVIDENCE IS IN? Read on:

“The United States was the only Western democracy that executed prisoners last year [2011], even as an increasing number of U.S. states are moving to abolish the death penalty, Amnesty International announced Monday.

“America's 43 executions in 2011 ranked it fifth in the world in capital punishment, the rights group said in its annual review of worldwide death penalty trends. U.S. executions were down from 46 a year earlier.

“’If you look at the company we're in globally, it's not the company we want to be in: China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq,’ Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA, told The Associated Press.” (From, “Capital Punishment: U.S. Ranks 5th On Global Execution Scale, Amnesty International Reports,” by PETER JAMES SPIELMANN 03/27/12 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/capital-punishment_n_1381652.html )

Gwen

If you can prove somebody is a criminal with the kind of evidence needed for a sentence to ve valid from a legal point of view, you just cn'at punish him or her, It's known that the Gangster Al Capone was put into jail because evading taxation, everybody knew about his many crimes, but it was imposible given evidences about it, and the Italian dictator Mussolini put all the Mafia people in jail, but when the US Army noticed mafiosi were in the condition of helping the alleis defeat 'the axis' they released tehm all, with the consequence that just after more tan 35 years of criminal activities, mafias are having its power reduced.

'Habeas corpus' and a Fair trial' continue being a must for every law enforcement system.

My main doubt about this is how can this goal be even approached at not too close distance by the 'Jury systems' and the 'Common law' systems, were in fact, judges do emit what in other places is the task of law writing bodies, thus acting simultaneously as law writer and judge, legislative and judicial power not in the same body, but in the same person.

The 'separation of powers' can be actually zero even in the formal appearance of its full existence, and if people is satisfied with their systems, it would be purposeless even suggesting them to change it.

Dear Bill, Please follow the link:

http://ofswaa.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/no-capital-punishment/

The link has several useful references.

Whoa, Saurav -- Dr. Martin Luther King! Bringing out the heavies, huh?

Gwen

The normative rationale for a death penalty is to placate the dis-acceptance of the dignity of citizens and/or culture (the former in idealized honor- or dignity-based societies, the latter (and/or culture) in cults of honor and dignity. Note the implication: the death penalty is NOT unnatural, nor morally heedless, nor even the necessary result of haphazardly thought through principles. It is a statement of loss of deservedness of one’s dignity to be protected once one has to the appointed degree dis-accepted the dignity of another or others. Prevention has nothing to do with such an argument; the notion of ‘an eye for an eye’ likewise has no bearing on the matter, appearances notwithstanding.

The death penalty ‘placates’ insofar as it hinges on moral and ethical justification, these in turn hinging on the importance of pride. Where pride is lost owing to cynicism or dejection, manners and civility fall aside by degrees and criminous intentions come to the fore (seeing no expectation of punishment – witness the recent financial calamities). In effect, society is presumed to enter upon degradation so soon as there is a serious and/or consistent failure to ensure pride of culture at the extremities where failing to deny dignity to those denying it to others amounts to an invitation to turn cynical toward authority.

If these are very unlogical to us, they are not for that reason any less valid a rationale from the vantage of desiring an orderly and peaceable society. Such societies advocating the symbolic and/or factual expression of dignity disestablishment for certain crimes are also those most reliant on a parallel rationale, namely, shame -- for prevention of ordinary problems. It is not so surprising, therefore, that in a society where shame is anathema, as in our own (American), so also tends to be the very notion of capital punishment. (Those in our country who are most supportive of the penalty are also, through a ‘law and order’ outlook riding on testosterone and steroids together, view incarceration as a shame-based answer to moral obloquy, which also explains why these same folks have no qualms shutting up serious chunks of the black community on whatever will comfortably seem to the observer the correct punishment for a shameless sort of folk, and which thus stands as an especially abhorrent expression of deep prejudice).

In other words, where the death penalty stands on rational grounds (I did not say fully acceptable grounds), the idea of deterrence is nowhere to be found for it has nothing whatever to do with maintaining pride in cultural institutions. It has everything to do with fear, occasionally irrational, but real enough in these cultures, that failure to disestablish dignity in the guilty creates conditions of a slippery slope into social devolution. This has always been the basis for honor-based capital punishment whether owing to sorcery aimed at the public or the occasional rare instance where destruction of social symbols is taken to the extreme.

Somewhat the same rationale goes to explain previous ideas mentioned in this thread. The idea that death is a punishment lighter than prison follows from the idea that imprisonment is not merely disestablishment of dignity but far more, the reduction to animal status, so that the affair begins to look like a disgrace upon the society for punishing a breach of dignity with termination of human status, which effectively then offers an excuse for the crime, rather than a shame-based abridgment of normal protections of dignity.

The Greeks offered Socrates the choice of banishment (also separately on the books as a ten year penalty for violating pride of culture in which the public employs ostracism to identify those deserving the penalty) because banishment signifies in fact as opposed to symbolism that a city-state has disestablished dignity, meaning that those to whom the evicted comes in hope of solace will know there is no rationale not to opportunize, whereat the punishment leads invariably to murder. Many traditional cultures have long-standing policies similar, as for example Eskimo tribes of past times (Diamond’s work uncovered this).

Arabs treat women who violate cultural strictures very harshly for the same reason: women are, for being responsible for the cultural health, responsible for upholding the dignity of the culture, whence their crimes become by extension crimes against culture itself, whence the justification for capital punishment. It is less the fact of capital punishment that is unsettling as the fact that so many of the acts thought to lead to degradation of society are hardly what we Westerners worry over, to say nothing of the fact that we also ascribe rights to these same activities.

I am not advocating these cultural norms, only pointing out that the use of capital punishment carries a very deep-rooted human value system that is not entirely extinguished for our claims to modernity and material advancement. As human beings we still can – and indeed ought to – be mindful of fundamental human strivings and justifications, not because they must necessarily be right, but because they can be right under certain circumstances. To deny this is essentially to deny all of previous humanity the dignity of that word – humanity. And I seriously doubt whether anti-death penalty adherents really mean to allow that presupposition.

Now before I am legitimately accused of writing an essay than a post, let me address a couple of points directly and briefly. The problem with the American system is not inherently in the fact or doctrine of the penalty (such as it is taken, and no doubt by too few given the confusion with non-issues like prevention) but in our unique incapacity to properly defend the accused, even our near complete incapacity to manage an honestly impartial view of the presented evidence. neither lawyers nor judges nor juries are anywhere near suitably equipped to take on such cases. And thus there is no rationale, juridically speaking for any instance of capital punishment save the obvious where the culprits are known without recourse to proof, and the calamities sufficient to obviate need of argument as to contempt of culture and its dignity.

The problem with assuming on principle that the death penalty is somehow ipso facto morally flawed, not only does not stand up to historical practice throughout the world and throughout all of history, but it suffers also from this defect: life tends to be horrifically over-valued in a society dominated by cults of dignity (my dignity is better than your dignity). What do the Palestinians constantly rebuke the Israelis for? But of course, the latter’s penchant for destroying ten thousand Palestinians in avenging a single Israeli death (that is an overstatement, but the idea is understated, whence the hyperbole). Every interview with the past Iranian president featured this essential retort: “Since when are the Israelis so special and so deserving?”

We need to be addressing more questions like this in order to assure a certain perspective upon the death penalty as a social construct. Since when does extinguishing a life for extinguishing another deprive all of us of dignity? It does so only by a willingness to park upon Mount Olympus our desire to think only the best and purest thoughts. But this also tends ineluctably to favor unreality over reality at the expense occasionally of the very moral precepts we thought were being vouchsafed from on high. There is simply no logical or rational argument in defense of the proposition that there can be no adequate justification of a death penalty.

Such a position mistakes death as an absolute opposite of life, when in fact there is, as Christ allowed, sufficient death in life. And Christ’s dis-acceptance of a death penalty was ministry oriented, not in principle. He could hardly ask the guiltless to cast the first stone if he were in favor of a death penalty. But then, how realistic was his command that the guiltless toss the first stone? We ourselves manage to do exactly that every day of the week a thousand times over in every court of law. Recall, Christ’s task was a ministry, not the instruction as to absolutes.

When it came to instruction, Christ was quite sensitive to the realities of the day, even to the inclusion of Roman taxation (render unto the Romans…). In this light, and in absence of the ethical responsibilities attending the conversion of people into altered norms, how can we be so certain that he would have had so much trouble acknowledging the validity of a death penalty?

We also have trouble of a very similar sort in evaluating the respect owed to offices versus officeholders. Thus we will support a rapacious wretch of an officeholder out of respect to the office. No office can be respected by respecting violations of the officeholder. The same parallel is not entirely out of place in the death punishment discussion. We think to respect life by sparing death when in taking a life to repair damage to the spiritual fabric of society can save many more lives merely by ensuring that all are happier and more law-abiding in a fair and generous society. Are we to deny that precept simply because we have opted on a destructive society with destructive policies and with examples of perfidy that go regularly unpunished?

Frankly, I had rather keep the death penalty on the back burner until we have matured rather a good bit further as a society.

This is a very difficult issue, and one of very few I had to commit to work on a separate site and then cut and paste. I only hope I have done some justice to the approach I advocate and again apologize for the length. Doubtless it is my inability that accounts for prolixity.

I'd say the the policy 'One eye for an eye' was an improvement, as probably the automatic punishment for offenses before this was death penalty. In these times, when 'magic thought' was much more intense and prevailing than today, receiving an offense without a response to the offender was in some way internalizing the offensor's aggression, a self-destructive bug inside the mind, thus, in this context, killing the ofender killed the inner aggression too. The issue in the question about paying ot not paying tribute to Rome, besides the political issue of 'accepting a foreign dominancy' that paying tributes would mean, if the coins are made by Rome, it's Rome who has the right to control it, but the answer 'Give God what belongs to God' is connected to the absolute refusal of the cult to emperor, and this was the important issue in the problem.

I always thought that death penalty, and every penalty, has only a deterrent intention, dissuade the offender to repeat the crime, dissuading others to make the same crime, but it's obvious that a way to suicide is making others kill the suicide, the issue of how much crime is reduced or increased depending on the presence or absence of a death penalty can be quite easily addressed, but penalties have also a protective effect for the rest of members of a society, as it keeps the offender apart for a while, as in prison sentences, or forever, as in death penalty.

Well, it's easy feeling that you're better when you withdraw from emitting and/or applying death sentences, but is not smart, when you're a drunk, feeling saint when you look at a junkie.

I was told by the attorney who defends the attorney who defends WikiLeaks man, about a British case: an insane person killed somebody, during the trial, it became evident that the accused was mad, and was send to an asylum, then, the killer escaped from the asylum, and killed again, a new trial came to the same conclusion, and the offender returned to another asylum. In another escape, the intern killed again, this time, the repeated killer was hung.

Who knows what's the best? I don't.. Salut †

A practical issue in 'death penalty' may be that some kind of crimes may pay in a no death penalty, no perpetual jail legal environment, for example, a killing such as the one of the Battenberg who acted as last governor in India, his yatch was blown away by a bomb, may give in fact those behind the killing the same ascendent on Indians as an ancient King may have had, when people gave their sovereignity to their monarchies, one of the rationales in being specially strict in punishments to terrorists may be in this frame, and the situation is even more cristal clear in some types of robbery, when out of prison because having completed the prison term, some thieves may have managed to store the product of their piracies in countries without no commitment for extradition or to return the object of theft, for example, a joist of the Cordoba Mosque, apparently missing since XIX century appeared in an auction, no doubt that there was no legitimate way for those offering the relic for sale having acceded its property existed, but the institution of 'prescription' always applies, an Spanish specialist in Civil Law, said about this legal concept: 'Only a people of thieves as Romans may have invented an institution as prescription', and the Bible's concept that sins are carried over to the 4th generation, but no more, is disregarded by many that claim following it, any offense against some of them would be eternally remembered and be a subject for attacks against all the offender's line.

My original question here was being asked with a view towards history. I was wondering if the horrendous and inhumane prison conditions which may have existed during the lives of Mill, Kant, and Hegel might have had some bearing on their views about the death penalty. I seem to have had no takers on the actual question.

That being said, the debate seems to continue everywhere as regards the death penalty. In American ethical/philosophical publications it is usually argued from a utilitarian perspective, and we are alternately told that the death penalty or incarceration is the best option on the basis of costs (legal fees get compared to prison costs). It seems that an issue in which a human life hangs in the balance ought not to be decided on cost, but it seems that may be too idealistic. After all, in the USA we are now being told that "of course there will have to be so-called death panels" for health insurance. If medical care will be meted out on a financial basis, then apparently "justice" will be as well. The biggest question from my point of view (if one is arguing secularly) is that of whether or not the death penalty is a deterrent. From one point of view it is unquestionably a deterrent. The person executed will never be able to take another human life. However, the philosophical debate is not about that, but about whether or not knowing an offence carries a capital sentence, if one is convicted for it, discourages people from committing that offence. To me that is an issue that will be (ostensibly) argued empirically at a surface level, but will always be driven by ideology at a practical level.

You can't talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand. The Bible states that the effect of sins is carried over to the fourth generation, but no longer, Mamzer are not allowed to join the lord's assembly until the 7th generation. It's interesting to recall the conditions in the German prison system during XVII century, and also the situation of British workers that lead Engels and Marx to write 'The bourgeoisie will sell us the rope we will hang them with', the UK contracts for sailors forced the EU to oblige the Britons to derogate it for allowing them to 'join' the EU, it were considered some kind of slavery, the american civl war took place in the second half of XIX century, one of its consequences was the offcial abolition of slavery there, a fact accomplished in the 1812 Wien convention, and the work in Roman mines was considered one of the worse places in historical times.

Why do you constraint your comments to the periods and places you cite, and don't sepak about others?

The list of atrocities in the path of mankind to the present situatiob, and I don't need to remind you that the currentñly prevailing 'Homo sapiens', whose main feature can be considered its constant aggresiveness, having just 200'000 years of history, eliminated as an entity, even when in some European places, some mixing occurred, wiped out two other close species, Neanderthal and Denisovich, much older?

Did you know that the garlands in Xmas tres are a reminiscence of the times when people hung in the branches of a tree in front of 'their territory', the guts of those having attempted to enter it?

Are you aware of the history of Maria Pita, a woman from 'La Coruña' Spain?

Her case is just 100 years or soyounger tan I Kant.

Are you in the condition of pointing to how many governments or kingdoms all over Europe that doesn't have roots in a Tyrany, in the classical Greek meaning of the term, somebody having accessed the power by violence?

Does it make any sense, in a discussion about a miniature problema, the number of persons died because of a death sentence all over the world is negligible in front of those killed by famine, or AIDS, or Tuberculosis, well, it keeps you busy, and probbaly gives you and others some revenues, if you understand spoken Spanish, you may watch: 'El verdugo' a movie by Luis Garcia-Berlanga about this, but in the end, it makes no big difference if you die in the gas chamber or from Alzheimer's disease, our fate is death, and the real issue in the discussion is if some persons do have a right, or if the action is aceptable, of anybody purposedly killing somebody under the premises of law and order reinforcement, in a world that considers abortion, that kills fetuses, and eutanasia, that kills handicaped persons, the discussion is 'Bizantine', or close to those about the sex (not the gender) of angels and of the deitie/s.

I'm still wondering abot the reasons why of a comment by the DJ 'Wolfman Jack' in the 'American Forces Radio', 100.2 FM Stereo, Madrid, long ago, about the commandment, he shouted it's 'Thou shall not murder', and not 'Thou shall not kill'.

When saint Paul wrote: 'Sin -and damnation- entered the world because of the law, as before the law, there was sin, but it was not imputed'. Would this apply to 'Thou shall not murder' too?

Your'e lucky you have the opportunity of writing about intelectual questions and receive support and consideration for this, many people still have the question. What are we going to eat? day after day.

The process that allowed the Italian mafiosi to regain freedom from the fascist jails, and re-start their criminal activities, the need of US army to have a local support there, is an evidence of how 'maleable' are the concepts of 'rule of law', 'equity in justice' and 'the aim never justifies the means'

Who wants to live forever? -here

Salut

I like your enthousiasm in being kind with law offenders, but are you aware that some sources cite that specially arranged flights go frequently from Africa to the UK, bringing there girls to be submitted to 'genital mutilation', their families wanting an environment for the procedure cleaner than the 'stables' in their home places?

Even in the aim of reducing morbi-mortality of the procedure, ethics in this are extremely hard to find.

Did you watch the movie, paid by Malcolm McDowell: 'O lucky man'?

It depicts some frightening cases, among it, an incident in a nuclear plant in the north of the UK. More than 20 years after the film was released, authorities admitted that the nuclear incident in the movie was a real one, without any specifical cite of this movie. Does this point that some of the other terrors depicted in the movie may have been actual cases?

Jose I have no idea what all this has to do with the question at hand.

It's just that it had some connection inside my mind with the subject, and this is enough for me, but living in an English speaking country, and being part of a 'fuzzy' alliance that formally exists between all English speaking places, it's not aggressive if I say that you have much more serious problems to address inside your own homes before starting using energy in 'deity-scale' questions as death penalty, connections between church and state, and so on.

Even being part of a private institution as yours, as the resources you spend in your activity come from the efforts of many, considerations should be made frequently as to self-assess if an activity is providing an actual benefit to somebody, or is focused in the real world affairs, and not in equivalents at the brain level of a computer trying to divide zero by zero.

By the way: after a somere sight, I guess that I was right in one of my old feelings, that anybody coming from the US, UK, or Zyon administrations at a level above captain or its civilian equivalent should be banned from visiting other places. There are institutional behaviors and inveterate attitudes that deserve some kind of a quarantine, and if you apply some of the rationalizations expressed for 'rules' in certain places, there are societies, governments and nations that deserve being aborted, in order not to give birth or feed the growth of a monstrous being, and nations are different to the people living in the places it act at, nations are not real beings, but fantasies.

Here Jose, let me try my hand at that:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Thanks for your interest, but I guess that even If I enter every posible equivalent of 'Google translate', I won't be able to understand the meaning of the sentences above, that really sound good.

I add one from an old manual of oncology:

'I have finally came to the conclusion that a good reliable set of bowels is worth to a man than any amount of brains'

H Wheeler Saw.

An another from a 'damned poet' Jorge Llopìs: 'Literary works, if it focus on forms, are called 'poetry', if it focus on content, are called 'prose', if it doesn't focus neither on sthetics nor in content, are called: 'Official State Bulletin'

Salut

Judges are aware of the ominous nature of punishments, whatever the reason that triggered it; even a few years in jail are an appalling suffering, and then, the 'social' consequences after release, as many won't take the risk that in their minds is associated with hiring a former convict.

(This risk can be quantifyed, as there are statistics, data from the law and order bodies,...)

I suppose you're aware that around the XIV Century, when the inquisition that started in France as a way of repression of Cathars begun to work in Spain, many death sentences were changed into 'life inprisonment', and most having received a 'lifeterm sentence', were allowed to return to their homes after a period as short as three years, with just some restrictions in circulation and appearence in certain public places, but the way law enforcement acts in a closed place, for example an island, something close to a ship in the high seas, where the discipline that keeps the thing going is a value of utmost importance, or in a small town or region, where everybody would know the nature of those having received a jail sentence, to a nation the size of the US or China, where a convict can hide and eventually repeat the offense, deeply affect the way law is reinforced.

The take home message would be that administration of law is never 'justice', it never gives a punisment for an action, evenmore, probably a jail or death sentence doesn't pardon the sin associated with the evildoing, judges and policemen can't pardon a sin, nor can the victim, the only in the condition of giving pardon for sins is the Creator, but law reinforcement apparatus is there just to protect interests, mainly of an economical nature, solve conflicts between parts by reaching a solution mandatory for all, and, in penal cases, having a dissuasory effect for the convict or others repeating the same crime or offense.

I know this is an utilitarian approach many wouldn't accept, but even when common social and religious values are incorporated in the rules for sanctioning, law affects only those who break it, the sanction has never the aim of having the convicted 'back to the good path', or 'back to society' (What the heck a 'society' is?) as this is an ethical decission, and decissions lacking freedom, for example, the ones made while inside a jail, have no moral value at all, it are 'man's actions', but are not 'human actions'.

'Momeraths' are cartoon beings in the Disney version of 'Alice in Wonderland', -don't stop on Momeraths they say- a movie that for unknown reasons always gave me the feeling of watching some kind of an 'initiation trip'.

This is a late response to your question Bill, but the question is important. JS Mill made this argument about capital punishment in1868, in a parliamentary speech against a proposal to abolish the death penalty. This was well after the death penalty had been eliminated in England for all but the most serious crimes. I doubt that Mill's support for capital punishment had anything to do with the state of English prisons. If that was the basis for his argument he would be caught in the intolerable paradox of advocating more lenient treatment for murderers than, say, robbers, who were not executed. So what was the underlying basis for his argument? Two possibilities occur to me. The first has to do with the assumption that a criminal who commits a truly 'atrocious' crime will spend the entirety of their remaining years in prison. If this was what Mill had in mind, it is the duration of the penalty that destroys dignity. Perhaps so - to condemn an offender to life in prison might be understood to involve a conscious decision to ensure, so far as it is possible to do so, that the criminal will live on in the consciousness that their remaining years, however many or few, will be completely wasted. European human rights jurisprudence now recognises a 'right to hope' for eventual release: 'whole of life' sentences without the prospect of release are taken to be an indefensibly cruel form of punishment.

There is a more fanciful alternative explanation for Mill's argument for the dignity of the death penalty. If the crime was truly atrocious - if it really was bad enough to inspire universal revulsion - perhaps the offender deserves the mercy involved in the infliction of a penalty that will provide an opportunity for sincere and deeply felt contrition. In a English law an offender who went insane after their crime could not be executed, for their insanity would make intelligent and sincere repentance impossible. In a slightly different context, Samuel Johnson once remarked that the offender's expectation that he will be hanged tomorrow for his crime, 'concentrates the mind wonderfully'. I have often thought that the film 'Dead Man Walking', contrary to the film makers' intentions, provided a worryingly persuasive argument in support of capital punishment.

The well known authority, considering that he spoke in the American Forces Radio in Madrid, 100.2 FM Stero in the 80s, the Wolfman Jack, said that the commandment is: 'Thou shall not murder', and not: 'Thou shall not kill', that as a matter of fact matches with another text in the Bible: 'Thou shall not kill the innocent and the just'.

Death penalty, and any legally supported penalty, lacks any meaning of the offenders receiving a punishment that will clean their soul and mind from the sin, but punishmnents do have only a deterrent meaning, for the same, or other offender not feeling repeating the offense may pay.

A death penalty, or an imprisonment, doesn't pardon the offense, think that those burnt in Sodom and Gomorrh, will suffer an additional judgement in the last day, that will be softer to them than for example, to those in Capernaum.

Sometimes, judges are requested to abstain having an intervention in a trial they may have a personnal interterest in, being 'part and judge', but the basical problem remains that if the subject didn't touch the courts in some way, they won't have an intervention in it, judges do have interventions in Ponzi schemes, but don't touch the problems between aardvarks and ants.

A methodic doubt: if you kick a dog, you risk being put in front of a judge and receiving a fine, if you cooperate in an abortion, well, if you're a Roman Catholic, you'll be automatically banned from receiving the Holy Communion Sacrament (That's what 'excommunication' means) but for some, sadly many, this will put the offender in the class of 'heros of human rights'.

Death penatly took away in this Century some thousands of lives in China, one of the more active places in this, but abortion killed more than 6 million Britons since its decriminalization not many decades ago. Does the quantitaive make a qualitative change? This may be one of the very rare cases it actually can.

The man who shoot some hundreds of persons in the Ardeatine fossae, Italy, by the end of WWII, is considered a war criminal, but Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, 'MD', who killed by himself more persons along his whole mass murder career than the Ardeatine's man, is proposed as a model and a pattern of behavior to follow, and many won't have a problem in wearing 'T shirts' with his image.

Do all deaths receive the same care? No.

Are there first class and second class dead? It seems yes.

Salut †

I sometimes have the feeling that 'Politically uncorrect' comments, or comments in fields outside my profession, Medicine, tend to be associated to some negative scorings in my overall rating. In dealing with this kind of events, there's a continuum you can consider: 'Suspiciousness',->'Referential ideation',->'Referential delusions',->'Paranoid delusional state'. or 'May be I'm paranoid, but they're after me'

'Dada Siegt!'

Salut †

Yeah!: the Gospel deals with this: 'Speak no evil about the powerful, even in the privacy of your bedroom', Thanks a lot!

Salut †

Graham, you're right. This is a troublesome question. Having read the title of the question, I first thought about the dignity of the executioner (formerly deathsman). How can a civilized community order someone to kill someone else? Is this just a job like that of a janitor? How do they feel about their actions?

You'll like a movie by Luis Garcia-Berlanga: 'El verdugo', sorry, but I don't know if there's an English speaking version or an English subtitled DVD available. Have a good weekend. Regards. Salud †

What was in oyur opinion the M Gaddafi's case?

It was obvious that without an strict order for respecting and protecting his life, he was at risk of lynching, what actually they said happened. Salut †

We all receive a death penalty once conceived; if death comes from a disease or an accident, or is inflinged by other people, as a murder, as an execution, as a consequence of a conflict, is not the important or the main issue. There's no 'Death with dignity', all deaths are humiliating and imposed. Thanks