Death penalty

Laches - IMO it is your society that dictates what is right and wrong, and that definition is not static. There was a time in this country when slavery was seen as just, yet now we do not see it so. IMO, in a democratic society, where the laws are voted on and the majority rules, the laws are as just (using what I believe to be what you refer to as the common usage) as they can be.

Fabius - If that were true, then any kind of punishment is revenge, and I can't argue with you. I happen to believe the punishments meted out by the courts as dictated by the law are justice.

 

Right/wrong is not arbitrary, because it is based on what the majority in the society believe. If the majority in the society have Christian beliefs, they will point to God/the Bible as the source for right and wrong. If they are Muslim, they will point to God/the Koran. If they are atheist, they may point to philosophers. If they are a mixture they will come to common ground based on what they believe. They then make laws to codify these beliefs as best they can. Beliefs change over time, and so then do the laws.

Yes, at the time it was just to prevent black people from voting and drinking from "white" water fountains, but as I said what is right and wrong is not static. If it was not seen as just, do you think it would have continued?

Those black people didn't start out as part of the society; they were property only. Gradually though they became part of the society they were living in and through their influences showed that their treatment under the law needed to be changed. And eventually it was.

We look back now and say how injust it was to treat them the way they were treated, because in our current society, such treatment is injust. The thing is, it wasn't back then.

What the law says is justice, but that doesn't mean that the law will always be the same. If enough people view a law as no longer "right" based on their changing beliefs, the law is changed and that becomes the new justice.

[ June 23, 2003, 22:42: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

 

It's been a while since law school, so bear with me. IIRC, there were a number of issues raised with regard to justification for criminal penalties. Obviously, the focus was on the death penalty because it is so charged, but the discussion applies to all penalties.

Possible major justifications that I recall: deterrence of others, deterrence of specific criminal, societal revenge factor, rehabilitation factor.

Let's look at them one by one. First, deterrence of others. The punishment of the criminal should be one that will deter other people who may be interested in committing the same crime.

Next, deterrence of the specific criminal. This factor is, essentially, that the punishment should be sufficiently harsh so that the criminal will not want to commit the crime again (i.e., if he is weighing the risk/reward ratio of the crime, the risk will be so high as to never justify the crime), without running afoul of the cruel and unusual punishment boundary. In some cases, this factor can be expressed by taking away the criminal's right to make this decision himself (i.e., locking him up for life or killing him).

Next, societal revenge factor. This is a real factor, especially in heinous cases. Where society feels the need for a particularly evil and revolting criminal to be punished, you had better believe that it will happen, and there is room in the law regarding punishment so that society, at whatever mores are then prevalent, will be able to exact this justice. "Put him away for life" carries a certain element of society's revenge.

The last one I remember is the rehabilitation concept, which I always found ludicrous. Put him in jail so that he will be rehabilitated is absurd. All that putting someone in jail does is expose him to other criminals; he's more likely to become a better criminal than to be rehabilitated.

I remember a great scene in The Shawshank Redemption, where Morgan Freeman's character was asked if he was rehabilitated. It repeated throughout the movie until, finally, he went off on the guy who asked and essentially said, "Sonny, if I could go back and talk to that young man who committed that crime . . ." Before that part, though, he said something like "Rehabilitated? I don't even know what that means, it's just a word."

@ Laches - Justice is what the particular society says it is. We do not agree with justice that our forebears were certain of (slavery, per your example, or lack of female suffrage), nor do we essentially agree with other present-day society's version of it (Singapore caning example comes to mind -- there have been threads here on the topic of going to another country and being subject to its penal code). It is my firm opinion that it is every person's obligation in a society to examine the justice system to see if they agree with it. When the tides of public opinion make it ripe for a change, there will be change. Justice can only be viewed through a present-time lens of one's own society, comparisons are fruitless otherwise.

Again, to use your example, in 1665, I would imagine that few people, if any, thought slavery was such a bad thing. By 1765, I imagine that there were those who opposed it in this country, but certainly not enough to change the opinion of that society. By 1865, there were enough people around who disagreed with it so that it became a factor (no matter how large or small) for the Civil War. Ultimately, an amendment was passed changing the justice of our society. Was slavery unjust before that? By my standards and, I'm sure, everyone else's today, the answer is clearly yes. That doesn't change the fact that the society of the 1800's had a different perspective that was right for them (and no, please do not go into the fact that it was not right for the slaves -- I know it wasn't, but it is an unfortunate part of society, any society [including today's] that those in power make the rules).

[Edit: I was typing while BTA added his points, so please excuse the duplications.]

 

If you wish to define arbitrary that way, that's fine; I take arbitrary in this case to mean more capricious or even random. But your definition is fine.

I would defy you to show that morals are not arbitrary then.

 

That's exactly my point Laches. You have just laid out several different moral codes, all believed by some to be correct, by others to be incorrect. Which of them is "right"? IMO all of them are, and many more besides, including ones where rape is the norm.

Obviously you and I don't feel that rape could possibly be the norm in a society, because we live in/have been brought up in a much different society and therefore have certain beliefs that are inconsistent with that.

Lets look at the modern day Muslim suicide bombers. We see this as morally wrong not only because he is killing innocents, but he is also intentionally killing himself in the process. Ask him if he is doing the "wrong" thing or the "right" thing and you will (I hope ) get a very different answer from you and I.

There were (and maybe still are) societies that practiced cannibalism and human sacrifice. Did they think they were doing the "wrong" thing?

 

Yes, I understand your argument, I'm just saying that your point of view comes from the society you live in. Every society believes they are living according to what is "right".

You are claiming that there is some inherent morality in the universe, and that some societies were in the "wrong" even though they believed they were in the "right". Well, even if that were true, what difference would it make?

 

@Laches:
No, no, just the opposite in fact. I'm saying that the society believes it is in the "right"; even if it believes as you do that there is some universal morality, it believes it is adhering to it. So, what difference does it make to that society if in fact there is (and I'm not saying there is) a universal morality, and they are all unknowingly violating it? None, as far as I'm concerned. As far as that society and all its people are concerned they are doing the "right" thing, and I would submit that it is impossible to know this "universal morality" even if it existed.

 

Man, go to a client meeting and edit a brief and look what I miss!

@ Laches - it is my opinion that the defintions of both justice and good may be taken at any particular level and that, at whatever level they are viewed, they will be substantially akin. For example, if you look at a basic dictionary definition of justice, you see such terms as righteous, fair, correct, etc., which are terms that find their way into the definition of good as well. Ultimately, you're going to find, in my opinion, that there is substantial overlap between the two, although good is obviously a much more expansive term. Thus, good and justice may both apply to the suicide bomber from his perspective, and the perspective of his society, but certainly not from my perspective or my society.

How the ancient feudal societies of Europe might view such behavior is equally interesting: Is such a person a coward who refused to fight with swords according to the rules then governing conflict, or is that person a hero bucking the odds by destroying a larger force of his enemies? I don't know, but it doesn't matter. There is no universal ethic in my opinion.

Here's another question, touched on above: Most people in modern society believe that cannibalism is "wrong." What if you're stuck in the mountains in winter after your plane goes down, snowed in, with no food and the dead pilot frozen there? You're going to die if you don't eat and he's dead. Do you eat him? I imagine that most people would grudgingly say yes. Does that make it right?

Next question is the obvious one: you're both alive. Say you agree to draw straws, and the loser goes out in the snow to sleep the night away and die of exposure so the other one can eat. Is that right?

Next, what if you draw straws, the pilot loses, and he then refuses to follow through? You would have followed through if you lost. You kill him and chow down. Where's the morality there?

Finally, let's say you just skip the BS about drawing straws because you know it's ultimately him or you. You knock him out, kill him, and eat him. Morality?

I read somewhere (and I cannot remember where), that morality is an expression of the best way for you and your offspring to survive. If that's true, then the universal ethic is "keep me alive, propagate my line, and keep my species alive." If that's the case, then the death penalty is one way that certain societies believe (whether consciously or not) will advance the maximum chance that that society will survive, thrive and flourish.

(This sounds like a college philosophy class now -- maybe that's where I read it -- it's been a while.)

 

@ Laches - I did read that book ages ago. It's in a box so I can't check, but is the section you quote from one of those flashbacks to the philosophy class taught by the veteran? I loved those moral lectures. Imagine that, I can remember an invented philosphy lesson from a science fiction book I read two decades ago, but I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday (oh, wait, I think it was frozen pilot -- heh )