So what? Qualitatively speaking there's not a great deal of difference between locking a man in a room for the last 20 years of his life and just killing him at the beginning of that. In both cases you take 20 years of his life. Time we take is gone forever, to take time from an innocent person is a misdeed and always will be, the only difference between prison and death is quantity, there is no categorical difference. You can't repay them, because we can't pay in time. We call it repaying, when we toss them a a few tens of thousands of pounds after they've spent their 20's in prison, but you can't give someone back the prime years of their life, they're gone forever and that's that. We need to remember that that's the case in any form of punishment which takes away time from people, be it prison or death. My entire point is that both are irreversible. You can't reverse taking 10 years of someone's life from them. If you have a problem with that fact, perhaps we should never imprison people, just give them community service and fines just to make sure we don't wrongly imprison them when evidence might come up a decade or two later. Y'see, your argument against the death penalty, if we take it seriously, can be applied just as effectively by me about prison time - and so that leaves us with two options: 1) We agree the death penalty is not qualitatively different than prison time or 2) We agree to get rid of prison sentences, and community service and fines are the only punishment methods we accept as moral. I'll leave the choice to you.
Someone can't prove they are innocent when they're dead, if they're in prison they have a chance to prove they are innocent and live the rest of their life free. Your argument and comparison are flawed, one can be reversed before they die, the other can't. I don't see how killing anyone is justice, it makes us no better than the murderers, a simple act of revenge, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
But if someone's serving a prison sentence and has their sentence overturned in light of new evidence, you could release them before they've served it to the full. You can't release someone who's been put to death. Also, you could give compensation (ie money usually) to someone who's been wrongly convicted. Again, you obviously can't compensate a dead person.
Yes, and...? Perhaps, if we let them out before they die, but what difference does that make? You can't give someone back years that you've taken from their life. How is letting a man out of jail 10 minutes before he dies after 40 years in jail any better than just killing him 40 years before? You don't see taking a portion of someone's life one way as justice, but you do see taking a portion of their life in a different way (prison) as justice, care to justify that? edit: 3lusive, you're just bringing the same argument you did last time, as I've pointed out you're talking about something which is different only by degree, not by category. If you want to oppose the death penalty and defend imprisonment you need to explain why they're qualitatively different.
I think there's a difference by category of ending a persons life arbitrarily and putting someone behind bars. Anyway, I thought we had a Right to Life which is ordained in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 3)? We have those rights for a reason.
On what grounds? Both punishments remove a portion of someone's life, both punishments are irreversible (you can't give back years), and both punishments can be given wrongly. And yet self defence and police killing people is acceptable now, isn't it? Then again, we're in the UK where article 19 is breached so commonly anyway that I don't think the UDHR applies here.
I can never justify the death penalty, there will be mistakes made and innocent people murdered by the State. Now, hard labour camps - no problem with that.
I see your point Spec. And to be honest, I can't actually argue against to be fair as both basically diminish life, one's just more instantaneous. Not to mention that most prisoners don't exactly live great lives post-imprisonment. Truth be told, the only reason I'd support some kind of prison sentence as opposed to the death penalty is the fact that there can be at least some sort recompense. Now if only we could somehow introduce one year's worth of hard labor for most crimes.... In all seriousness though, neither are good panaceas for crimes. That's the philosophical question inherent within law, what's good and what's bad "punishment." Qualitatively, prison and the death penalty are relatively the same (in the US) given that it takes quite a while to get out of death row (and never for life sentences). Quantitatively there is a difference in terms of time, but then again that's hardly the issue. Fair point. It's quite hard apply morals to the so called immoral.
We put dogs down if they bite someone... the man that gouged his girlfriends eyes out why can't we put him down just like a rabid animal. Or the lad who lured his girlfriend into some woods to beat her head in, they shouldn't be alive and we shouldn't be paying for them to eat and live. I bet prisons not so bad for some you get hot meals and make friends. For people that are 100% guilty put them down just like you would a dog with rabies.
How do you prove they are 100% guilty? we have no 100% infallible way to determine guilt. If money is your greatest concern the death penalty is more expensive, in America at least, because of all the appeals and High and Supreme court appearances.
At the same time, look at Spec's point. What good is it to keep an innocent man imprisoned for 20 years? You can't exactly pay him/her back in time can you? It works both ways. I just see imprisonment as a lesser evil. Not to mention one where the apology is at least made to the person rather than to their grave.
I can see it, but it's just a terrible way of looking at it, It's logical but logical isn't always right.
I know what you're trying to say: there isn't a difference between being in prison for 20 years and dying naturally inside, or ending a persons life now with the death penalty. Both remove the persons ability to do many of the things we consider essential to human life, so why not just end it now instead of putting them behind bars indefinitely? Well, because most people would say there is a qualitative difference between putting someone behind bars and killing them literally. By ending their life, you're preventing them from breathing/thinking/eating/sleeping and anything else the individual may choose to do in prison. Prison sucks for sure, but it isn't the same as being dead and unable to carry out any human functions. Not absolutely true though: you can give compensation for the years lost and you can potentially end the sentence short of it being completely served. So you could partially end the injustice if the person is behind bars. If someone is dead, you can never administer compensation and never give them a chance to 'live' outside prison again, should the sentence be overturned. Yes, which is why we should never kill someone because the injustice can never be overturned. Doesn't mean they should be. I think an argument could be given in exceptional circumstances, if all other means were exhausted, of killing someone in self-defence. However, this is a much higher bar than the state saying it wants to take away someone's life. There's no necessity for it to do so; it's pure vengeance. Yeah, I know, since 9/11 especially. However, it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to uphold them because some are violated.
In terms of morality, it actually tends to be. An individual doesn't choose to do things in prison, they're allowed to do things. Prison is the place where people with no freedom live. Regardless, again, so what? You're talking as if prisoners have a right to enjoyment of thinking and eating and sleeping, I don't see why this would be the case. But moral (or immoral) actions aren't about the person receiving, they're about the person (or body) giving - in this case the state. The action here is the same in both cases, it's the destruction of someone's freedom, either by placing them in a box where they can't exercise their freedoms, or by placing them in a box underground where they can't exercise their freedoms - either way the action is equivalent in all but execution (pun sort of intended). You think? How much is a year of your life spent behind bars worth to you? What about 20 years? If I tell you they're worth £20,000 and you disagree, and I give you £20,000 after imprisoning you for 20 years, have I compensated you? Have I ended the injustice? The second you start to consider that you can pay people back for years taken from them, you're putting a number not just on years of misery and despair, but also on human life. You really want to be the one to put a price on life? Ok, let's start again here because you don't seem to be catching this:When you take away a portion of someone's life, that can never be returned. Got it? Be it taken by imprisonment or by death, the years you take from them can never be returned. You're talking as if somehow a situation in which a man is imprisoned for 50 years wrongly and then released and given 10 grand as "compensation" is preferable to say a situation in which some old codger is killed 5 years before he would have naturally died anyway - it's absurd. If you want to try and argue that they shouldn't be allowed, be my guest. But sticking someone in a box to live out their natural life in misery is hunky dory eh? You use the word vengeance as a perjorative term because you don't like the death penalty, but let's call it what it is, a form of justice. It might not be on be on you're partial to, but it's a form of justice just like imprisonment or fines or community service or public humiliation. I'm not saying you shouldn't try, I'm just saying that the UDHR is unrealistically broad and violated on a daily basis to the point of being utterly irrelevant for the vast majority of individuals.
There's also the fact that many people in jail continue to commit crimes, even to the point of being able to intimidate witnesses and such. For people like that, for whom jail is no deterrent, and it's not enough to protect us from them, what then? Exile? Bet they'd be the kind of people capable of finding their way back. Supermax? Some of them kill even in prisons like that. Or, they manipulate those around them and continue to do the things that put them in jail in the first place. I do not support the death penalty in most circumstances, but there is a point where a person cannot be safely removed from society. At that juncture, where not only is guilt proved beyond a shadow of a doubt but attempts to incarcerate are no deterrent but in some cases foster continued crimes, it is for the good of the populace that they should be executed. Spec is right, morally there is no difference between the concept of incarceration and that of execution, though the concepts are not executed perfectly, introducing the ability for inmates to continue to commit crimes in prison. And he's also right that lost years for innocent inmates cannot be replaced, and those attempts to remunerate them for time served are a pittance compared to the crime committed against them (now the shoe's on the other hand.) Morally and logically, execution for crimes in which it is fully known that the person is guilty and there is incontrovertible evidence of incorrigibility should be practiced. There are people who it is simply dangerous to allow to live. Why not terminate them for the good of the society? It's not every criminal I'm talking about-those caught in the act, those guilty of heinous war crimes, those who even in prison kill, manipulate or terrify others and for whom incarceration is simply a new set of people to control. For other issues, we surely do not do our due diligence in determining guilt or innocence. That's why I only support doing so to those who we can establish that they cannot be rehabilitated. We also have turned our prison system inot revenge, not punishment, so why do we wonder that there is such a high recidivism rate in this country?
No, that's not completely true again. You have some freedoms because some things are considered a human right. They're considered essential to human life and thus shouldn't be taken away even in the gravest circumstances. If that wasn't true why don't they just put you in a cage outside, without shelter, and feed you stagnant water and watch you die from disease and starvation? They have to let you survive and provide some kind of existence. You do have rights, and those derive from socially accepted principles (because we all have a moral grammar seeing as we're all homo sapiens). It's not the same type of 'destruction of someone's freedom'. If you can't make that distinction, I suggest you think about it more carefully. Well, compensation is a real legal concept and people do get compensated with money for wrong imprisonment in the UK. How much depends on the circumstances and how long you were wrongly locked up. It wouldn't completely end the injustice, but it would make up it for it partially. Trying to mystify the issue by saying you can't put a price on human life is not strictly true in the real world. Otherwise how would you ever give compensation for any injustice? All injustices take away some aspect of human life and compensation is often given to make up for it partially. It's true the time is technically gone, but at least there's some recourse for those who've been wrongly convicted. This is never the case after you've been killed. Also, people are usually given hundreds of thousands for years of wrong imprisonment. And, furthermore, the burden of proof should be massive if the state or a community or whoever wants to lock a person up for 50 years. See below. No, it's not hunky dory but some people are a real threat to society and should locked up. And by that I mean it's reasonable a majority of a community would agree an individual should be kept out of the public's way because they have demonstrated they are dangerous and will re-offend. But the burden of proof should always be exceptional (as in extremely high) if the use of authority is exceptional: i.e if a community claims that they have a person who has demonstrated repeatedly they will cause harm to others, and shows no signs of changing, then the community would have to prove exceptionally that this is the case in order for them to lock the individual up. I am in fact opposed to many of the prison sentences given for crimes today.
Because they choose not to. I'm afraid that's not how debate works, I'm not going to go thinking up reasons you're right. You're going to have to give some sort of reasoning behind your claim, and you've yet to do so for this. To hell with the law! It's irrelevant in any moral discussion. Says who? You? Why do you get to decide what my life is worth? Why does anyone? I don't think you can give monetary compensation for non-property based injustice, and I don't think the state should ever endorse situations in which money is given for that purpose. You can tell me that what I'm claiming isn't strictly true all you want, but I'm only making the simple claim that you can not buy time, and what my time is worth to sell to you is up to me, not you. Technically gone? My good man, it's absolutely gone. It's done, gone forever, a wrongly imprisoned man will never get that time back, technically or otherwise. You say there is recourse because you've decided that it's acceptable for a man to have some of his life stolen so long as he gets given a certain amount of money which you deem to be payment for his stolen years. Nevertheless, you still haven't explained how taking 20 years from a man by sticking him in a cell and taking 20 years from a man by killing him is any different. I've addressed the fact that irreversible mistakes occur in all forms of justice, so you do not have recourse to that argument against the difference in the above two examples, so please, bring me an objection which doesn't revolve around this fanciful notion of reversibility. Your life might be worth hundreds of thousands, but personally speaking mine's worth trillions per day. Should I get paid trillions per day if I'm wrongly imprisoned? Who decides what my life is worth? Why? By what right? If we're sure they'll reoffend and we're just going to have to keep them in prison forever, why not just execute them painlessly? But not opposed to prison as a concept, which means you are in favour of taking away a portion of someone's life, you're just picky about the way it's done.
Well, because they know no public would ever allow such a situation to occur, because it's barbaric, inhumane and against innate human instincts which make up our shared moral grammar. I still can't believe you can't see the difference. One's breathing and performing some human functions, the other is in the ground with no pulse. See the difference? I would usually agree with you but it could be true that the law, or the example about compensation I gave, represents the fairest way to undo injustice in the existing socio/economic and legal system. I'm an anti-capitalist, but I'm sympathetic to the fact we live in a society that is capitalist, and thus what I write takes into account this fact: i.e we live in the UK in 2012 and not some harmonious, highly integrated, democratically cooperative, anarchist society in 2560 (if we've not blown ourselves or the environment up by then). Well you permit the state to determine who should be locked up and who shouldn't. Why can't a court of law put a price on the injustice? Are you going to deny that the person will have lost money through not being able to have a proper occupation? There's a start. Fine, but how should they be compensated then? I mean the compensation doesn't wipe away the injustice; it just helps the individual get back into normal life, and it demonstrates that an injustice has happened and they're trying to remedy it. We live in a capitalist system where money = ability to do things. You would think a person who embraces capitalism like you would support compensation for miscarriages of justice. Death is the ultimate price though, different from everything else. And see below. In the real world that wouldn't be the case, maybe on Bittech that's true though. The British judicial system would determine this. Because executing someone who is a known pathological killer could have consequences far worse than simply ending his immediate life (which is an injustice anyway). What if you barbarise the society? What if you increase the chances of violent crime? If the state murders people as a form of social policy, you think that doesn't have consequences? All these issues have to be considered when determining social policy like this. Lastly, I think people have a right to die naturally and with dignity, not at the hands of a cold and distant 'state'. I'm not opposed, in principle, to detaining people within the existing system. Whether a modern prison is humane is different question though (it isn't but that's what currently exists and that's where people who need to be kept away have to go). Again, I'm talking about how things are now, not what I want them to be like. I do believe too many crimes are given prison sentences, and that only in exceptional circumstances should someone be locked up. It's my personal opinion, and many others, that if we had a more just and equitable economic and social system, many of the crimes would disappear and the need for prisons would be much reduced. The fact that people have to rent themselves to private institutions as wage slaves, with no control over their productive life, and are forced to produce and buy products which have no bearing on their life other than to fulfill a profit agenda for a private company, worries me greatly. I believe the existing system is very anti-humane in many respects, but the fact is we currently live within it so my judgements have to consider this if I can claim to be talking morally or about helping people. However, even if such a perfect system existed, it would probably be the case that some pathological individuals would have to be kept away, separated from the community and society. Now whether this would be within a dehumanising modern 'prison', I doubt it. I could think of fairer ways of detaining people or restricting their ability to do certain things.
I'm of the opinion that while both options equate to lost time, imprisonment at least affords the opportunity for time served - that is, an imprisoned person has the opportunity for rehabilitation, whereas a dead person does not. That, to me, seems like the more compassionate option.
