Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?

[bennyboy]

I'll just give you the short version.  Your infatuation with your own subjective moral pronouncements and emotivist justifications has no bearing on descriptive moral relativity.  None.  It may be the case that a society doesn't kill killers because they think killing is wrong.  Each and every emotional reason you give for killing would then be your emotional reason for doing wrong.  Each personal opinion on the subject of killing would be your personal opinion that lead you to do wrong.   There's nothing incoherent in this, there's no "incompatibility" in this.   Dead...fucking...simple.

Actually, you have our roles reversed. I entered this discussion talking about the pragmatic reasons for execution-- save money, and guarantee that a violent criminal has no chance to re-offend. Since this person has not accepted his responsibilities to the society, there's no rational reason why he should be extended him its privileges.

There's a lot of talk about how the social contract is a communal thing, and so we must never murder no matter what the most monstrous criminal does, the implication being that we'll lose something by the "savage" act of killing a killer. But I see in this a Christian-rooted fear of losing spiritual purity.

Back to the meat-eating thing. You yourself have not only expressed the idea that suffering and death are okay, but reveled in it-- you kill, I believe you said, just for the fun of it. So, you aren't afraid of doing harm to others purely because your instincts cause you to find pleasure in it. But what magi-special property does a child rapist/murder have that Bambi doesn't? Being human? So what? Niiether party is a willing member to any social contract. No, this is rooted in the Christian idea of human exceptionalism. There's really no rational basis for it.

In the end, that's where I see this argument-- y'all are a bunch of closet Christians. You've dropped the fairy tale on a linguistic level, but the feelings are too deeply-rooted. The idea that Christian ideals will be dropped is terrifying to you.