Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?

[bennyboy]

There IS a reason to indulge savage instincts.  There's great advantage in savagery if done right.  And any American who sits there comfortably reading an internet forum, while sipping a latte or a glass of gin or whatever-- is willfully ignoring the benefits of it. It's easy to be an idealist when life is this easy, hey? When others savage the world on your behalf, so you can sleep like a baby at night?

There are no benefits it's a regressive leftover that we need to abandon 

Go to Ukraine and ask them how they feel about execution of Russian war criminals. They aren't sipping Starbucks, they are picking up their children's body parts. I'm guessing their sentiments are going to be pretty different than your own.

Just because they want to indulge in savagery doesn't make it right or needed 

I can give a perfectly sound evolutionary reason for savagery-- if you let fuckers get away with fuckery, then the fuckers' DNA will survive and possibly thrive-- and then we'll live in a world full of savages. . . which we do, because your grandfather and mine, going back for tens of thousands of years, didn't have the luxury of ignoring it like we do.

Naturalism fallacy just because there was a reason it evolved doesn't mean we must be slaves to it.


So all these points fail epically

You've made a lot of assertions, but you've provided no real rational argument to support them.  Why, exactly, is it better to spare a brutal criminal than to execute him?  Is it possible that your position is an emotional one?  If so, why are your emotional positions more valid than someone's else.  If not, then what non-emotional position do you take?