>There is more into retribution concept of justice than your travesty of
>it suggests. First, retribution is not utilitarian, it does not intend
>to generare social utility by rehabilitating a criminal or by deterring
>others. It is an act of avenging a wrong because it is a right thing to
>do - and as such it is a form deontological ethics. In the same vein,
>one should do certain things not because they are useful, but because
>they are right and one has the duty to do what is right. As any ethic,
>you can accept or reject it, but you cannot argue that it is irrational
>or inferior.
It is certainly irrational, since it offers no reasoning to support the bald assertion that revenge is "right". If we accept the premise that rational arguments are superior to irrational ones, then it is also inferior.
> > that allows you to avoid asking harder questions, like why
>> some people are more likely to be sentenced to death for
>> capital crimes than others, or whether killing is a just
>> response to killing, aside from its ability to soothe tempers.
>
>
>I think I already said it several times during this discussion that this
>is an altogether different subject - that of application rather than
>than of principle. One may be a supporter of death penalty in principle
>but oppose its application under specificl circmustances. I do not
>think many people on this list would buy the argument that socialism is
>evil because Stalin used it to harm his enemies - but I see a lot of
>arguments that death penalty is evil because it is sometimes used in a
>discriminatory fashion in this country.
Obviously that is a very weak argument, in fact it isn't really an argument against the death penalty at all. It is akin to quibbling over the length of the rope.
>BTW, claiming discrimination because most inmates on the death row are
>minorities is false logic. One needs to show that minorities
>committing similar crimes have a greater chance of ending on the death
>row (i.e. showing that, say, fewer white ax murderers ended on the death
>row than black ax murderers did).
On the face of it though, it certainly appears to be discriminatory. So if you cling to the view that a non-discriminatory death penalty, say for ALL blacks, without fear or favour, is OK, then I guess its worth looking into.
I don't care to quibble though. It seems to me that it is a very poor argument against the death penalty to complain that some axe murderers, or some blacks, are not getting their just deserts. That we need to be more efficient at killing them all. I'll leave that line of argument to Justin, he's a professional advocate so he can probably carry it off without anyone except me noticing the problem.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas