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I agree with Charin. For the most part.

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There is nothing immoral or unethical with the death penalty, but I am not a supporter of it.



EY, can you explain how the death penalty is not unethical? And what are your reasons to not support it?




Well, I can, but it takes a bit more writing than I want to commit to in order to do a good job, but I'm off work today, and procrastinating getting something done, so...

I think every group of organized human beings down through the ages has agreed that some actions are so horrible that the appropriate punishment is the death penalty. The death penalty has been used by human beings since prehistoric times in just about every culture and religion in history.

In a purely logical sense, if you assign appropriate punishments for various crimes, you quickly come to actions so grotesque that the death penalty easily fits the crime. All people on the globe inherently agree with this concept.

The problem with the fast XPT answer comes from this deep examination of the very simple notion that some actions rise to the level of the death penalty. I think that the way to get to the notion of the death penalty as an ethical response to an action comes from the deep investigation of lesser crimes and the ethical punishments that they warrant. I believe it is easy to run up against that death penalty mark if you start with lesser crimes and their ethical punishments first and work your way up slowly to more egregious actions. I think a person quickly will admit it is a fair and reasonable response for SOME very terrible crimes.

The "Sickness" defense is a cheap ant-intellectual cop out. It would take me a couple of days to explain that better, but for now let me say that being sick does not relieve you of responsibility for your actions or prevent you from being punished for them, NOR SHOULD IT! I can walk through that in excruciating detail if you want, but only if you really don't get it.

So, why am I against the death penalty?

Because it is not implemented correctly or fairly. I believe that we should not murder an innocent man so that we can exact vengeance on a guilty man. I do not see how we can prevent innocent men from being killed unfairly because of lying police, racist juries, and career minded prosecutors (who would easily kill a hundred innocent men if meant advancing their careers).

So, while the death penalty is an acceptable punishment in my mind, I think that avoidance of killing an innocent man because of defects in the justice system is more important than carrying out a just death sentence on a guilty man. It is a matter of degrees, not black and white. It is more wrong to kill an innocent man by mistake, than it is right to kill a guilty man correctly.

For these reasons, I agree morally and ethically with the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for some crimes, but do not support the death penalty as a practical application in the real world.
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--Some of us look for The Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.