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Why not hanging for carrying out the death penalty?

Ziggurat said:
I'm not sure if the assumption is that they cannot be so much as they won't be. Society doesn't want the hassle and expense of doing that rehabilitation for the owner, and we think the owners are likely to continue to fail to keep the dog under control (which is often true), so just for expediency we remove the problem in the surest manner available.

Harsh but practical. The distinction isn't so much that dogs are less able to be rehabilitated than humans, but that they're worth less to begin with and so erring on the side of convenience to society at large isn't a problem.
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Well explained. Although I might disagree about the relative worth of some dogs/humans.
 
I mean sure executions are murders in the same way that putting people in prison is kidnapping. This is "Taxation is Theft!" logic.

Regardless of how you feel about executions (and again for the record I am very, very, very much against them across the board for countless valid reasons) there is something functionally different about killing someone in response to their actions after they have been given a trial after they have been given appeals and doing inside the structure of a society using a government and just blowing someone's head off because they didn't open the cash drawer in time or you caught them in bed with the milkman.

The government HAS to be able to do certain things that individual citizens can't do or what's the point? If execution is murder then every punishment the government can oppose on people who break laws is just "the crime itself."
 
"Killing people is so wrong that we'll kill you if you do it" still doesn't feel right on its own, tho.
 
TragicMonkey said:
We also imprison kidnappers, even against their will! Shocking stuff.
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Right, but saying "you need to be removed from society for a set legth of time" is not quite the same as kidnapping. Your whereabouts and care are fixed, for instance. "You can no longer exist because you made someone else not exist" carries an inconsistent moral vibe.
 
Thermal said:
"Killing people is so wrong that we'll kill you if you do it" still doesn't feel right on its own, tho.
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Which is why nobody actually subscribes to that.

What people actually subscribe to is that some reasons for killing people are so wrong that you forfeit your own right to life if you kill someone for one of those reasons. Meanwhile, killing people for some other reasons are necessary evils, or even great good deeds.
 
Thermal said:
Right, but saying "you need to be removed from society for a set legth of time" is not quite the same as kidnapping. Your whereabouts and care are fixed, for instance. "You can no longer exist because you made someone else not exist" carries an inconsistent moral vibe.
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Meh, God sorts it all out in the afterlife.
 
Thermal said:
Right, but saying "you need to be removed from society for a set legth of time" is not quite the same as kidnapping. Your whereabouts and care are fixed, for instance. "You can no longer exist because you made someone else not exist" carries an inconsistent moral vibe.
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I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree. I put it in the same category as a doctor rebreaking a leg to set it. They're not supposed to do harm, and breaking a leg is doing harm... but without that step, the overall outcome is much worse.

We've tried most of the things we can do: exile, imprisonment, execution. For me, exile is out, because that's just making someone else be subjected to those crimes. Imprisonment is meh... but then you're making all of the law-abiding citizens pay for the upkeep on them. That's not necessarily bad... but it's a bit iffy when the law abiders end up having less food and medical care than the criminals in many cases.

And at the end of the day, some people have demonstrated that they are simply too much of a risk to their fellows. At some point, the most reasonable and compassionate approach is to cancel their life subscription. As long as we're not being douche-bags about it, I don't have any ethical objection to execution.
 
Emily's Cat said:
And at the end of the day, some people have demonstrated that they are simply too much of a risk to their fellows. At some point, the most reasonable and compassionate approach is to cancel their life subscription. As long as we're not being douche-bags about it, I don't have any ethical objection to execution.
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How the **** have you rationalized that the reasonable and compassionate approach is death? You've basically just said that the only reason you're for putting people to death is because it's cheaper for the tax payer. That's reasonable and compassionate to you?

Some people have been sentenced to death as young as 18. Crimes can be heinous and terrible, but to me that's excessive.

Again, your views on this topic do not surprise in the slightest but I think you just need to be a bit more honest about it. You don't mind people being put to death because it saves a few bucks in the long run.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree. I put it in the same category as a doctor rebreaking a leg to set it. They're not supposed to do harm, and breaking a leg is doing harm... but without that step, the overall outcome is much worse.

We've tried most of the things we can do: exile, imprisonment, execution. For me, exile is out, because that's just making someone else be subjected to those crimes. Imprisonment is meh... but then you're making all of the law-abiding citizens pay for the upkeep on them. That's not necessarily bad... but it's a bit iffy when the law abiders end up having less food and medical care than the criminals in many cases.
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Shhhh.. the Australians can year you, you know.

And at the end of the day, some people have demonstrated that they are simply too much of a risk to their fellows. At some point, the most reasonable and compassionate approach is to cancel their life subscription. As long as we're not being douche-bags about it, I don't have any ethical objection to execution.
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Roundly agreed. I'm just saying I can sympathize with the POV and acknowledge that it's +/- legit.
 
plague311 said:
How the **** have you rationalized that the reasonable and compassionate approach is death? You've basically just said that the only reason you're for putting people to death is because it's cheaper for the tax payer. That's reasonable and compassionate to you?

Some people have been sentenced to death as young as 18. Crimes can be heinous and terrible, but to me that's excessive.

Again, your views on this topic do not surprise in the slightest but I think you just need to be a bit more honest about it. You don't mind people being put to death because it saves a few bucks in the long run.
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This is false.
 
Death penalty cases tend to be more expensive than life imprisonment...

A preliminary study by South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, examining first-degree murder cases since 1985 that have resulted in a death sentence or life in prison, found that on average, legal costs in death penalty cases exceeded those in the other cases by $353,105.[24]
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Source

Annotation
This analysis of the dollar costs of capital punishment and life imprisonment uses data from a variety of States an studies and concludes that the death penalty is not an economical alternative to life imprisonment.
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Source

Consequently, while cost is not the only factor to be considered, when it comes down to an argument regarding the benefits of the death penalty to society, the argument that it is cheaper to execute someone than keep them alive in prison for the rest of their lives is utterly wrong.
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Source
 
Life in prison for a capital crime is a waste of money, of course. But that is the least of my concerns. The greatest of my concerns is that life in prison for a capital crime is unjust. And that's true for me regardless of which option is cheaper.
 
theprestige said:
Life in prison for a capital crime is a waste of money, of course. But that is the least of my concerns. The greatest of my concerns is that life in prison for a capital crime is unjust. And that's true for me regardless of which option is cheaper.
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Well, that's completely subjective, or entirely dependent on the justice system. Which is essentially subjective. And if we're going down that road, then surely there are crimes deserving of much harsher punishments. A few years of horrible torture leading up to the execution, that sort of thing.
 
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