RE: The Death Penalty!
November 13, 2010 at 12:31 pm
(This post was last modified: November 13, 2010 at 12:41 pm by Anomalocaris.)
I do not believe death penalty has any genuine additional deterrence effect against the sort of crimes to which they are applied in the western world as judged from the risk calculus of committing the crime. However, it is much more costly to apply even compared to incarceration for life. So I think there is no utilitarian justification for death penalty in the contemporary western systems of norms and values of human life, unless one were to put a high value purely on uncalculating vindictiveness.
I think ironically death penalty is probably easier to justify in systems whose values allows it to be applies it to wide range of crimes of economic and property nature, For example in China now, or in Europe of up to early 19th century. In these cases death penalty probably has significant deterrence effect in the risk calculus of the commission of the crime.
I think ironically death penalty is probably easier to justify in systems whose values allows it to be applies it to wide range of crimes of economic and property nature, For example in China now, or in Europe of up to early 19th century. In these cases death penalty probably has significant deterrence effect in the risk calculus of the commission of the crime.
