for what it's worth, my stance on the death penalty is as follows: people who put forth a deterrence argument need to be smacked upside the head with a pavlovian response paradigm. why? because deterrence really only works once you've experienced the deterrent mechanism. last i checked, you can only die once**.
the death penalty serves retributive justice, and perhaps too a rehabilitative purpose in relation to the families of those affected by the criminal act. i don't think it's too far-fetched to say that the original purpose of government was to enforce some sort of retributive legal system, and death certainly plays a role in that. if you infringe upon my natural right to life, then frankly, i assume that you've given up your natural right to life in exchange.
that said - i have sincere issues with the policy implications of the death penalty, especially as practiced in the united states. the criminal justice system is stacked against those of lesser economic standing. that is just a simple fact. if you can afford a better lawyer, the odds of your being sentenced to death decrease exponentially. there are countless cases of similar crimes committed by an african-american and a caucasian, and the end result is usually that the caucasian gets life without the possibility of parole and the african-american ends up on death row. how is that fair or right? that doesn't serve retributive justice. that serves the maxim, "with wealth comes power." so, in sum, i think the death penalty serves a purpose, and i'm not at all opposed to it.
but we need to fix the system.
i would like to apologize for the disjointed nature of this post.
in other news:
iran is celebrating national nuclear day. the president of iran [may his name be erased] is expected to announce the installation of 3000 new centrifuges.
it definitely sounds like the sanctions imposed by the united nations are working.
** again, with the disclaimer: this disregards a multitude of religious stances that state you can, in fact, die more than once. let's just stick with one lifetime for the sake of argument.
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12 comments:
Pavlov. What a silly man.
"because deterrence really only works once you've experienced the deterrent mechanism."
This would be operant rather than Pavlovian conditioning, but that aside, this would seem to stand for the notion that the only way to learn from consequences is to actually experience them.
Of course I don't to experience prison to know it's something I want to avoid, and alter my behavior accordingly. Same for being strapped to a gurney.
Seems like the real question here is not one of absolute, but incremental effectiveness of deterrence, relative to the costs of the deterrent.
anonymous:
good, cogent points. however, your statement regarding prison brings up the response, however inane, that you will relate prison to your nearest shared experience. you remember being grounded as a child, so it's a relation you use when imagining prison as a deterrent.
i definitely agree that deterrence cannot be completely absolute, and the costs of the deterrent must be weighed. that's why you bring in the cost of the appeals system, etc. in efficiency considerations.
and i'm not a psychologist. but i can pretend. ;)
here's the argument i'm sympathetic to:
say i'm standing on the border of two states, one with the death penalty, one without. if i shoot someone while standing here, the government's allowed to kill me. buuut, if i just take two steps to the left and shoot the same person, no dice.
especially from a retributionist perspective, it strikes me as a really dubious moral position to say that we're allowed to kill people for doing the exact same thing depending on where they do it.
another way of putting that argument is that whether you're facing north or south shouldn't count as an attendant circumstance, especially when we're talking about whether it's appropriate to kill someone.
again, i agree. that's the problem with states' rights. mwahahaha.
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