Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

A point upon which you are mistaken.  There may be no rational reason that you agree with - but there are any number of rational reasons that societies and individuals can and have offered.  

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.

By definition..yes, the social contract involves more than a single person.  Christians have never had trouble murdering murders...and you'll find higher acceptance of capital punishment amongst yall qaedas demographic, today, in the good ole us of a.  Especially if you prime the pump about some murderers, rapists, thieves, and groomers.  Preferably brown.  Were not killin em fast enough, and our prisons are too nice..recall?  

However, if a person thinks that people shouldn't kill people, and if a society develops around this idealized form of organization - the reason that you don't kill someone who kills has nothing to do with whatever they did.  You....shouldn't....kill.  It's a simple rule.  It's not one we have to agree with to understand.  Do you understand?

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.

Speaking of abandoning any pretense.....

I have all of the same compulsions you'd expect to find in a species like ours, yes.  A point on which I think we're pretty much in agreement.  People have it in them to be cruel and violent and exploitative and to enjoy themselves while doing it.  No, I'm not afraid of doing things just because I think they might be fun (...I'm not sure how that even makes sense in this context...?)...though I can and do recognize that some things I enjoy couldn't credibly be called good - or even good for society.  

How am I supposed to respond to this nonsense about how people or societies who hold to the idea that we shouldn't kill people are closeted christians?  Are you under the impression that christianity came up with that idea, that no one in their right mind could ever come to any such conclusion or make any such assertion otherwise...or? The mind would boggle at how we come to such garbage - if it wasn't made manifestly obvious in the litany of doomed and disposable objections that preceded it.

If your actual issue with the idea that we shouldn't kill killers is that it seems to christian for you, let's just dispense with all the bullshit you tried to fob off before getting to that moneyshot; then rejoice! Because your issue has been resolved..in that it was not an issue in the first place. You're welcome.