Subject:
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Re: Excellent news!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 7 Mar 2005 19:56:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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1174 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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At this point I should restate my standard disclaimer that I see no reason
to conclude that any moral absolutes can be known by humans with certainty.
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Why would you be so reticent to conclude that the taking of an innocent human
life for no reason or purpose, but for, say amusement, isn’t absolutely wrong
and evil for everyone, not just you yourself?
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Because if a person is doing it for amusement, then chances are that it’s not
absolutely wrong for that person. The most broadly inclusive conclusion I can
draw is to say that the taking of life is generally considered to be
objectionable to the great majority of people. But even if I were to accept
that it’s “absolutely wrong and evil” for all of those people, that still
wouldn’t make it an actual, transcendent wrong—that’s the type of absolute I
describe as unknowable-with-certainty.
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For me the problem is simply that I’m not comfortable with the uncertainty
(of conviction).
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Yes, but according to you, nothing is (or can be ascertained to be)
certain, so where does that leave your objection?
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Heh. Well, I admit that we can be pretty darned sure in some cases. See my
response immediately below for an elaboration.
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With capital punishment in place, we seem to prefer erring in favor the
possibility of guilt, while to me it would be morally superior to err in
favor of the possibility of innocence.
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I don’t understand looking at an issue through the lens of error possiblity.
If this type of introspective scrutiny were applied to everything, nothing
would ever get decided!
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If we identify a kind of “threshhold of necessary certainty” relative to the
severity of the issue in question, then we can probably decide a lot of things.
But when an action is non-correctible, the stakes become markedly higher (near
infinite, I suppose).
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And if the convicted person is
incarcerated, the level of possible harm to society-at-large is about the
same as if he’s been executed.
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Yes, but where is the justice?
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Without being intentionally glib, I’d have to suggest that justice is a social
convention that is seldom in line with reality (well, with as much of “reality”
as we can ascertain, of course).
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You are merely addressing the issue of protecting society from the killer.
There is no justice in merely removing a criminal’s freedom. Did we not
agree that life is more precious than freedom?
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Sure, but because of that, we as a society can take away his freedom because
freedom can be restored if later evidence exonerates the prisoner, but we can’t
currently restore his life.
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But for clarity, I’ll state it explictly: in my view capital punishment is
not justified if the intended recipient of that punishment can otherwise be
rendered permanently unable to harm society-at-large.
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So you do equate “life” with “freedom”.
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I don’t think so, because I’m stating a preference for removing the murderer
from society (ie., eliminating his freedom) rather than executing him (ie.,
eliminating his life). That is, I think I’m distinguishing between them and
expressing a preference for the former.
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But if the murderer would be frozen in perpetuity, I don’t see that it’s
tangibly different from capital punishment, so my objection remains.
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But I thought your rub with capital punishment was the permanency of it--
if we merely freeze the murderer, the possibility still exists that in the
unlikely event that new evidence comes to bear which exonerates him, he can
be thawed and released, with no loss of longevity, no less.
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I’m afraid that we’re veering into non-relevant hypotheticals here, if only
because of the scope of what’s being proposed. If everyone convicted of a
capital crime is frozen, is it reasonable to think that many of those cases will
be reviewed with sufficient scrutiny to justify the overturning of those
sentences? Additionally, this popsicle theory overlooks the trauma to the
wrongly-frozen person’s family; if his case is reviewed and he’s thawed out
sixty or eighty years down the road, then for all practical purposes he’ll have
been executed.
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Also (and again without being flippant), it would seem to me that execution
is not the ultimate penalty under Christian thinking.
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Well, I don’t recognize any set “Christian thinking”. Obviously not, because
Christians are all over the map on issues such as abortion or capital
punishment.
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Fair enough. But to be more specific, I meant that “damnation” (whatever that
entails) is a seemingly more ultimate punishment than temporal incarceration or
execution.
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The hope is that individuals raised morally by families will be less likely
to be influenced towards evil through group dynamics. That’s my strategy for
my children, at least....
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So you say, but you’ve steered poor Ross toward the evils of 8-wide…
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I think that the morally superior course is to value life rather than
execute people (even those who are grossly out of step with society). It
strikes me as logically inconsistent to value life by terminating life.
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Yes, I agree that, at first glance, it sounds logically inconsistent. But
where is the unlogical in this: if one values life above all else, then the
penalty for taking life should reflect the degree of intolerance. So, if you
hold that life is the most precious thing, and murder is the ultimate crime,
only the most precious thing can be paid to satisfy murder’s debt.
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But this doesn’t get me anywhere, alas. I don’t understand how killing one
person will satisfy the debt of another person’s death. Also, what happens if
the survivor’s family forgives the murderer? Doesn’t that negate the debt?
Does he then get to go free?
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Excellent news!
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| (...) Why would you be so reticent to conclude that the taking of an innocent human life for no reason or purpose, but for, say amusement, isn't absolutely wrong and evil for everyone, not just you yourself? (...) Yes, but according to you, nothing (...) (19 years ago, 7-Mar-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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