So I am going to try to post once a day, whether I have anything to say or not (and, if you've read previous blogs, you might maintain that "not" is more often the case). Right now, I feel like addressing the capital punishment issue that The Acupuncturist raised on our last gaming session.
I have been personally reconsidering my opinion on this for several years, and I have not come to a satisfactory conclusion as yet, but my process has (essentially) been a moral one. I would say that taking a life in general is a morally reprehensible act, but one that is, at times, necessary. In many ways this feels like a moral "cop-out", but it is one that is essential to maintaining social stability (not in regards to the death penalty, but just in regards to appropriate use of force). There are times when a morally evil act can shift to morally neutral (I would maintain that it could never be morally good). For example, if your life is threatened and you take the life of the person who is trying to take yours. This is not a good act - though the end is good, the preservation of a life (yours), nor is it an evil act, assuming you had no recourse other than to defend yourself, and that your intent was not principally to take a life but rather to preserve a life.
Obviously, this is the case with self defense, and while there are nuances to the argument of the ability to defend oneself and the amount of force one should use in said defense are open to debate, I would think that this is a fairly sound line of reasoning. Of course, one could go to absurd extremes in justifying defense and try to distort the argument to absurdity, but this is fairly difficult to do. I believe that choice is inherent to a good or evil act, and when choice is limited, acts become, effectively, less good or evil. For example, if someone makes you punch a child in the face because they have a gun to your head and you believe they will kill you, is that evil. I would say probably not. It is certainly less wrong than making a choice to punch a kid in the face because they are annoying you. Likewise, if the tax man threatens to incarcerate me because I haven't paid taxes that go to good social programs, I have done no good by paying my taxes - the end results (helping the poor) may be good, by I cannot claim any responsibility for the good act - I was forced to do it.
So I have often argued from the "morally evil, but socially necessary" standpoint, which seems a bit weak to me, because, while still having a moral absolute (killing is wrong), it becomes very easy to slip into moral relativism, so I feel that any such argument should have sound precepts behind them. I am still marginally in favor of the death penalty, especially in particular cases, but I will not maintain that it has a deterrent effect, nor will I maintain that it is the "right" thing to do. It may, in rare cases, be the necessary thing to do for the well being of society, but it should be a last resort. That is where I am right now, but I am continuing to research, contemplate, and revise my thinking.
As to the point you made, Acupuncturist, I mentioned this on last Saturday - I do not think that the statistics on the disproportionate executions of the poor or minorities is a cogent argument. It is, without a doubt, persuasive, precisely because few people want to be perceived as racist or classist, so the argument uses spurious logic and guilt to manipulate people into adopting your side, and I feel that this is little better (if it is better at all) than using a scare tactic to intimidate people into being pro death penalty (e.g. if we don't kill the killers, they will be freed to kill more people - maybe you!). Here is the problem - it does not address whether the act of execution is right or wrong, it merely states that we execute a lot of poor people and minorities relative to the overall population. The main issue is that the poor to middle class commit more capital crimes than the rich. There are more of them, and they are in circumstances, in many cases, where crime seems like a reasonable option - whether this is gang violence, drug abuse that leads to murder, or whatever. Also, this line of reasoning can be extended to the absurd - not enough middle class whites are being imprisoned for burglary, so we should not arrest anyone for burglary until this injustice is fixed. What we need to do is address the reason why at risk communities commit more crimes, and as a result are punished more for them.
I could also say that there are a disproportionately high number of white male serial killers who have been executed - stop executing them until we find more poor minority serial killers to execute. This is, of course, an absurd statement, because for whatever reason, serial killers are mostly white, educated, lower middle class to affluent males. Because this is not a demographic that has been traditional discriminated against and who is not "at risk" in the conventional sense, it does not tug at any heart strings like the other argument does. (I actually have a theory about why serial killers are almost exclusively from this demographic, but I will address that in a later blog - plus it is pure speculation)
In short, we cannot arbitrarily mete out any punishment, nor can we establish quotas on who has committed a crime. All we can do is seek to punish criminal in a uniformly just fashion - something that our system has a bit of a problem with, but I believe that our system does a remarkably good job, despite some inadequacies - and we continue to seek to improve it.
Maybe this is too idealistic, but I am in a mood where I want to drag myself out of a funk, so I am forcing optimism on myself :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I actually agree with you Prof. Yes it looks like our Prisons are filled with minorities and the poor, but as you illustrated those are the people that commit crimes. I think Capitol Punishment should be reserved for the truly Evil: Manson, Scott Peterson, any Thug that kills some homeowner who isn't putting up a fight while they invade their home to rip them off. These are the people that it serves Justice to put to death. The reason it's not a deterent as much as it should be is the appeal system. When you can prolong your walk to the "Chamber" by 10-15 years by constantly filing paperwork then there is no deterent.
Professor, you misunderstood my point. Certainly, in terms of absolute numbers, the poor (actually the lower classes, regardless of race or other factors) are overrepresented in crimes committed. Crime, especially violent crime and property crime, is a lower-class phenomenon. When the economy improves, crime goes down; violent crime is much lower in, say, middle-class Pacifica than it is in working-class Oakland.
But even after normalizing for economic status, minorities and the poor are far more likely to get the death penalty than the relatively wealthy and the white. It's an institutional problem: prosecutors are more likely to ask for it in otherwise similar cases, juries are more likely to grant it, and (of course) the "free" public defender is much less likely to do the things to keep her or his client off of death row than are the Johnny Cochrans of the world, both due to lack of experience and also lack of interest. (PDs are often filling out bar-mandated pro bono work, not there by choice.)
So your argument about burglary, while true on its face, is not relevant to my assertion. (Besides, nobody's arguing that we stop prosecuting murderers, just that we stop putting them to death. 20 years in prison for a crime one didn't commit, as was discovered recently in one case, is horrible but at least the accused can be apologized to and receive some kind of vindication. Death is forever.)
I don't believe I misconstrued your argument, I still say that it does not say anything about the validity of the punishment. It clearly states that the current application of the punishment is unjust, but it does not address at all the key issue - that is whether the death penalty is right or wrong. That was the main thrust of my point.
You are right (I believe, I haven't checked the stats myself) in the assertion that if is actually being unjustly applied, then it should be reconsidered, but I am looking at it from a more philosophical angle, and the fact that the punishment is misapplied does not mean that the punishment is not legitimate. By the same argument, any punishment is illegitimate because they all have the potential for misapplication. I am more concerned whether the death penalty is right or wrong as a punishment, not whether it is being correctly or incorrectly applied. Your argument is against the incorrect application, but does not deal with that issue - it skirts it by saying it is not being used appropriately.
My point was, that while your argument is useful in evaluating the application of the death penalty, it does not address the issue of it as a legitimate penalty. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond, though.
Post a Comment