Thought for the Day

[filghy2]

Ending a life is what it is, be it the murder or the execution of the murderer. Human societies have argued that killing a human being is morally wrong, which is why the philosophical argument is impeccable. What you are arguing about, is not some 'technicality', but the excuses societies make to justify what they have previously argued is wrong. Thus, you sub-divide all murders into categories so that you can then excuse some from execution but not others.

Are you saying that If we'd had an opportunity to assassinate Adolf Hitler and thereby save potentially millions of lives we should not have taken it? That seems to me the perfect illustration of the problem with your "impeccable" philosophical argument.

I'm surprised at the primacy you are giving to the religious/moral "thou shalt not kill" argument when you would presumably object to that sort of reasoning in other contexts. Most human societies have also had strictures against homosexuality and adultery, for example, until fairly recently.

[filghy2]

The utilitarian justification is that if one doesn't act their own life be lost. But wouldn't that make us indifferent between the two outcomes in utilitarian terms when we shouldn't be?

I doubt it would be reasonable to expect someone to weigh up the value of their own life against their attacker's before deciding whether to defend themselves - though it would be reasonable to assume the attacker is less likely to be a well-intentioned person. I think the value of utilitarianism is primarily in thinking about public policy issues rather than individual actions.

[broncofan]

I doubt it would be reasonable to expect someone to weigh up the value of their own life against their attacker's before deciding whether to defend themselves - though it would be reasonable to assume the attacker is less likely to be a well-intentioned person. I think the value of utilitarianism is primarily in thinking about public policy issues rather than individual actions.

Fair point. I guess I was trying to work out what my intuition tells me about why the various examples of crimes and punishments Stavros provided don't seem morally equivalent and find a framework for that difference. I would say the person who defends himself is justified in using force because he has a reason, to protect his bodily integrity. The person initiating the confrontation is the aggressor and I don't value the harm that comes to him the same way I would the non-aggressor.

Although the justification for self-defense can be evaluated at the individual level by the person being attacked, whether the state decides to allow it to prevent blame for harming someone is a policy issue. For instance, the authorities may find that disallowing self-defense has a generally pacifying effect and causes there to be fewer instances of violence and escalation that outweigh the harm of people being unable to defend themselves lawfully. In that case I would still support the use of self-defense because it seems unjust to require someone to be helpless.

Anyhow, I agree with your analysis and the set of interests you balanced for the death penalty. Still, when I hear people talk about the hypocrisy of an actor (even the state) using force against someone who has done something abhorrent I am slightly puzzled. I think most people's first instinct is that the actions are not the same and it's not just a way of saying when I do it it's okay but when you do it we condemn it. It's because the aims of the actions are different and that qualitative difference matters to me.

[Stavros]

Fair point. I guess I was trying to work out what my intuition tells me about why the various examples of crimes and punishments Stavros provided don't seem morally equivalent and find a framework for that difference. I would say the person who defends himself is justified in using force because he has a reason, to protect his bodily integrity. The person initiating the confrontation is the aggressor and I don't value the harm that comes to him the same way I would the non-aggressor.

I agree that self-defence is a difficult one -the key must be whether defence of the self requires the death of the attacker, or attackers, because self-defence need not result in fatality. In the case of a woman physically and emotionally abused for years, it would appear the logical solution is for the woman to leave the home. In cases where it does not happen, a variety of expanations are offered, from the lack of financial independence, lack of a support network ouside the home, threats to the lives and/or custody of children, and so forth. If the State offered long-term assistance to women in such relationship the violent, fatal climax might not happen. But even if we think it is morally right that such women be released from prison, the subtle distinction in law that is being made is an example of how a crime can be re-constituted if not to excuse it, to excuse it from the consequencs other murders have. It is cherry picking, and an example of how people who make law prefer to turn themselves inside out rather than admit the law, and some of the ideas that shape it, is wrong. We cannot escape from the fact that for all its rational intent, murder is a moral issue and thus punishment will be shaped as much by emotion as by reason.

With regard to hypocrisy, on one level the State has every right to kill people- but that doesn't mean that it should do so. The modern Liberal State trades the liberty of the individual in return for protecting that individual from harm, either from external attack or internal chaos/civil war resuting in loss of life and property. It is what Max Weber called the 'legtimate monoly of the use of force' or violence, though not all states arm their law enforcement officers. Moreover, that violence is, or has become a rare event, with the possible exception of the USA, where the level of lethal force used by LEO has become a national issue generating BLM and counter-protest movements. If it has become more common in the UK than it was in decades gone by, some woud argue it is because there are more guns avaiable to criminals than was common before. When armed poiice shot dead Mark Duggan, they claimed they had intelligence that he was en route to a crime which would involve firearms, which they claim he threw out of the window of the car he was in befoe he was shot. It may be the case he was shot dead by 'trigger happy' cops, but it is also the case that he ought to have been arrested without a shot being fired, as was also the case with Jacob Blake, who could have been arrested without a shot being fired, using the legtimate force of the State, namely handcuffs.

The hypocrisy exists because the State, in the case of the UK, has a national faith, and it is Christian, and much of our law has been shaped by Christian values, but as I have pointed out, the reality is that whether it is the whole of the Bible, or the New Testament, the emergence of secular law based on reason rather than faith, has undermined the moral or religious foundation of the State. It is acute in the US because the Revolutionaries of 1776 were practising Chistians, de Tocqueville in his book on Democracy in America records his view that the communites he visited were bound together by their Christian faith, and we have had a steady diet of all this 'God Bless America' stuff since Ronald Reagan began it. Yet virtually zero application of Christian belief in the formation and prosecution of the law, which enables Christians to violate the most profound of their beliefs, that the Crucifixion be the last example of man killing man. One is left with the feeling that when it comes to judicial killings, Dirty Harry has the edge on Jesus of Nazareth, though to be fair to Eastwood and Siegel, there are issues in that remarkable film that go beyond the simple argument about whether or not it is right to kill, such as the Miranda Rights which motivated and shape the story of the film

The US is in a crisis on this issue, because there is a contradiction between the 2nd Amendment, and the right of the Liberal Democratic State to own the monopoly on the use of force -indeed, having so many citizens armed when the State exerts its monopoly at three levels -the armed forces, the National Guard, armed Law Enforcement Officers- undermines the authority the State has, given to it by the People. For that reason, citizens must by definition be disarmed, though to do this, the 2nd Amendment must be repealed in its entirety.

As for executions, none of them are necessary once a criminal has been secured in prison. There is no moral justification for it, no relgious justification, no rational or philosophical justification. It must end.

[Stavros]

Are you saying that If we'd had an opportunity to assassinate Adolf Hitler and thereby save potentially millions of lives we should not have taken it? That seems to me the perfect illustration of the problem with your "impeccable" philosophical argument.

I'm surprised at the primacy you are giving to the religious/moral "thou shalt not kill" argument when you would presumably object to that sort of reasoning in other contexts. Most human societies have also had strictures against homosexuality and adultery, for example, until fairly recently.

The philosophical argument is secure, because it is about language and ideas, rather than specific historical examples. The Hitler analogy is weak. Millions were sent to their death, had their homes destroyed, their lives ruined through injury and permanent displacement, because Kaiser Wilhelm had ambitions for Germany and an emotional loathing of the British, but at a time when there was a strong element of 'Social Darwinism' among military types and nationalists who could not be stopped because so many approved, and indeed, millions willingly volunteered on all sides in the First World War. It could not be stopped before it happened, even though from a strategic point of view, the South African War of 1899-1902 like the First World War that followed, was supposed to be a short sharp shock to recalcitrant Boers, but slithered into a war lasting years, costing millions even the Empire didn't have, with an unsatisfactory outcome. Far from learning from their mistakes, the Generals marched into Belgium and France to make the same mistakes all over again.

As for Hitler, look at it this way: imagine someone asks -is it right to kill one man to save the lives of 1,000? Then, is it right to kill 1,000 to save the lives of 100,000? You can then ask, is it right to kill six million to save a civilization numbering multiple millions? Unless you provide a philosophy that argues in favour of the extinction of human life, there is no argument to be made, and if you do wish to consult such a philosophy, then the 'Race' based ideas of Adolf Hitler -which he did not develop himself alone- not only justify mass murder, but in their application, prove that it produces an outcome worse than the problem it intended to solve. This is not a philosophical paradox, it is just bad philosophy.

Once you argue that it is right to kill, there is no reverse in the discourse, all that follows must then twist and turn in its variations of the definition of murder, of punishment, and for what purpose, when the end result is one person as an individual or the State, murdering another?

[broncofan]

Once you argue that it is right to kill, there is no reverse in the discourse, all that follows must then twist and turn in its variations of the definition of murder, of punishment, and for what purpose, when the end result is one person as an individual or the State, murdering another?

Ultimately we have to be able to reason about the quality of people's actions and about what is true or not. It was true that Hitler was a threat to mankind who annihilated millions and would have annihilated millions more if unopposed. It wasn't true that Jews controlled the world or were responsible for the things he claimed.

I know everyone is aware of that and isn't the point of the analogy but it is the reason I don't think the justification for killing Hitler somehow leads to wanton killing. I don't see how a fictitious motive for killing is the same as a motive to avoid the harm of someone who would kill more. There's either some basis in truth to the claim that someone is a threat or there isn't.

That is to say I understand there's a risk that justifying killing can lead to the kind of murder Hitler engaged in, but if we're not worried about the slippery slope, and we are concerned with human welfare, would killing him with the intention of avoiding further atrocities be harmful? And to whom?

[filghy2]

As for Hitler, look at it this way: imagine someone asks -is it right to kill one man to save the lives of 1,000? Then, is it right to kill 1,000 to save the lives of 100,000? You can then ask, is it right to kill six million to save a civilization numbering multiple millions? Unless you provide a philosophy that argues in favour of the extinction of human life, there is no argument to be made, and if you do wish to consult such a philosophy, then the 'Race' based ideas of Adolf Hitler -which he did not develop himself alone- not only justify mass murder, but in their application, prove that it produces an outcome worse than the problem it intended to solve. This is not a philosophical paradox, it is just bad philosophy.

If you are familiar with philosophy you ought to know that this argument is an example of reductio ad absurdum, which is definitely bad philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

In essence, you are arguing that because if is hard to know where exactly to draw the line the only correct place is at the extreme end of the spectrum (absolute prohibition). In general, that is a dubious position, both logically and ethically. Almost every legal and public policy issue involves difficult questions about where to draw lines and where to allow exceptions to general rules. Absolutist solutions don't actually resolve these difficulties; they just attempt to ignore them by removing human judgement.

[broncofan]

Almost every legal and public policy issue involves difficult questions about where to draw lines and where to allow exceptions to general rules. Absolutist solutions don't actually resolve these difficulties; they just attempt to ignore them by removing human judgement.

On the last page you said the U.S. sets the bar too low for capital punishment. I was curious whether you mean procedurally, in terms of making sure the person isn't innocent, or legally, in terms of what acts qualify for the punishment.

Also, since we're talking about this issue in the abstract it's difficult to know what is means in the real world. Have you seen a country that has applied the death penalty in a way that its benefits exceed the costs? If not, do you think it could be feasibly administered in such a way that it is beneficial?

For my part I think the U.S. does try to reserve it for especially heinous crimes. Procedurally there are many opportunities to challenge guilty verdicts by proving actual innocence or rights violations. Yet it is difficult for people to agree about what makes one murder so heinous as to deserve the death penalty while another is not. That is, it's difficult to do it categorically and without any human judgment. And in practice the doubt often exists about guilt, even if the procedures to prevent unjust conviction are ample. Given the frailties of any legal system the potential for innocent people to be executed seems like it would always be too great for whatever meager benefit it might provide.

Yet I've seen cases where I've thought if the institution were reserved specifically for such instances I would not object.

[Stavros]

If you are familiar with philosophy you ought to know that this argument is an example of reductio ad absurdum, which is definitely bad philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

In essence, you are arguing that because if is hard to know where exactly to draw the line the only correct place is at the extreme end of the spectrum (absolute prohibition). In general, that is a dubious position, both logically and ethically. Almost every legal and public policy issue involves difficult questions about where to draw lines and where to allow exceptions to general rules. Absolutist solutions don't actually resolve these difficulties; they just attempt to ignore them by removing human judgement.

Let me try to clarify this by drawing a distinction between he act of killing, and the punishment that might follow. By its nature, killing is an absolute condition, there is little else one can say about it, other than to describe the way in which the act was committed, and then ask why. As we have seen, it then becomes a matter of sophistication in which the killing is either justified, or excused, even though the moral argument is without blemish- it is, and always has been wrong to kill.

We then watch people tie themselves in knots in an attempt to justify or explain the killing, and in the case of Hitler and those who shared his idelogy, killing millions did not disturb their sleep because they first re-classified human beings as Untermensch, thus may have believed they were not exterminating human beings at all, but an inferior version.

What this debate thus pivots on is the multiple excuses that are brought into play to excuse the killing, or class the killng as beng so horrible it deserves a different kind of punishment to other forms. Thus we have Murders in the Degrees 1, 2, and 3. We have Crime Passionel; Self-Defence; honestly, I didn't mean it, guv; serial killers, terrorists -these are the lines that are drawn, and all of them are just excuses to justify punishment.

I accept that society has created these excuses in an attempt to resolve what often are profound dilemmas -I am note ignoring that- but it seems to me that if the original position is solid, namely that killing is wrong, then by definition capital punishment is wrong. The volume of hypocritical garbage that seeks to justify death is merely that. At least if we can understand why one person has killed another, we might be able to deal with the consequences without repeating the crime.

[filghy2]

On the last page you said the U.S. sets the bar too low for capital punishment. I was curious whether you mean procedurally, in terms of making sure the person isn't innocent, or legally, in terms of what acts qualify for the punishment.

Probably both, but I haven't studied the issue enough to be sure. To be clear, I don't have a firm view either way on capital punishment, for the same reason. My concern has really been about the right way to frame the issue. I can see a theoretical case for capital punishment in limited circumstances, but it turns on some empirical questions that I don't know enough about.