RE: Atheism & the Death Penalty.
January 25, 2016 at 10:28 pm
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2016 at 10:31 pm by Excited Penguin.)
(January 25, 2016 at 6:06 pm)phil-lndn Wrote: oh, come on! the list given isn't an exclusive list?
as a liberal living in a 1st world country, i would argue that execution is always a poor response to crime, from a bunch of rational and ethical reasons.
however.
if you were on an island alone with 3 other people with a finite food supply, and one of those people killed the other for his food, would you not kill him as a response to the "crime"?
because you already have information to know in this situation:
it's him or you.
judgement is always context dependant. doesn't matter how evolved or how barbaric you are.
I would argue that in such a scenario you would try to kill the other two yourself for the food no matter how much you think you wouldn't. That is, of course, if it seems to you like there are no other options for extended survival left. It also depends on how much food there actually is. If there's very little to begin with then you couldn't rationalise commiting murder for it.