Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?

[bennyboy]

Your responses are simple hand wringing and I have made the only arguments I need to. Just because you don't like them is none of my concern....

It's not that I don't like them, it's that I haven't really seen any attempt to form a rational basis for your positions, or any concrete examples to elucidate them.

[The Architect Of Fate]

It's not that I don't like them, it's that I haven't really seen any attempt to form a rational basis for your positions, or any concrete examples to elucidate them.

I have more than backed my positions so your complaints are without merit ....

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think "agreement not to kill each other" need apply when one party clearly hasn't gotten the memo.  It's pretty simple-- you deprive a kid of life, you lose yours.  

-and there, is an incompatibility, an inconsistency, some incongruence.  It's your notion of this that has the exception, you must understand?

Of course, because we're so "genteel," we will extend to these POS luxuries their victims don't get, like a trial.

Because someone else committing crimes is no reason for us to commit crimes, yes.  Extrajudicial killings are an even lower category of deed than judicial killings, in this view.  

In my opinion, sheltering someone that evil is itself an evil, and shows a weakness of character rather than strength of one.

We have laws to that effect as well - they're not really moral judgements but people do take them to be (or to correspond).  Harboring, sheltering, complicity before and after a fact.  Alot of the time it's family or an so that does it - another instance of the many ways that human beings are compromised, and particularly compromised when they have some emotional connection to the people involved - victim or perp.  For or against.

Not terrorism?  You really believe these are meant to be surgical strikes?

Correct, not terrorism, because word - what does it mean.  Yes, drone strikes are meant to be surgical strikes - again..what is word.  Whether or not they end up that way...obviously one of the many problems you and I both see with drone strikes.  Our other lethal options are bigger missiles or boots on the ground, both of which would be certain to amount to even greater collateral damage.  It;s deciding that we're going to kill killers that puts us in this situation.

Is it ....bad...or something?

I don't-- I hear the message loud and clear: "You associate with anyone who's on America's wrong side, even by something as happenstance as living nearby or being a member of the same family, and you and everything you hold dear could be forfeit at any moment, without any warning"

And in case you think I'm reading it wrong, consider Bush Jr's big speech about the new axis of evil, where he said (I'm paraphrasing but I can look it up if you want), "Either you're with us or you're against us, and if you're against us, we will hunt you down."

Seems like he might have been trying to invoke a particular emotion-- ebullient glee maybe?

Are we supposed to look at Bush the Dumbers opinion as right thought?  Is it bad form if that guy refers to emotion as a justification or approved motivation for killing, but good form if you do?  You can see how the "let's not kill each other" rule makes any waffling back on forth on these issues and carving out exceptions moot, yes?

[The Grand Nudger]

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?

In a society that holds to a no killing rule, you don't have to "spare" a killer to hold to your no killing rule, just not kill them.  The reason it's considered to be better not to kill that killer is because it's one less violation of the same rule they broke.  

People may also feel a certain way about it.  They may desperately want to kill that person.  Unfortunately, the "no killing" rule doesn't state "unless you really wanna"...and so, while a person may understand that it's a good rule for society..they also understand they may find themselves personally unsatisfied by it.    

This isn't difficult to understand. You may disagree...but I don't think that you disagree for any of the doomed objections made thusfar, and your insistence that any possible decision to do x must be emotional is projection on it's face. As I said before, it's your complete intolerance for any other explanation that's lead you down this silly path. Personally..laying aside any rule whatsoever about killing, I don't want to live in a society where the set of justifiable things is determined by people's emotional response to tragedy. Sounds like a recipe for a pile of burnt out hovels, not a functional society. You could come up with a bajillion examples of The West™ doing some thing x for that reason in criticism...and each one will powerfully argue for my position on that matter.

[bennyboy]

Because someone else committing crimes is no reason for us to commit crimes, yes.  Extrajudicial killings are an even lower category of deed than judicial killings, in this view.  

The same act is not always at the same moral tier. The government may take my property, hopefully within certain limitations, but certainly without my consent. Taxes and so on are not (generally) considered a crime.

The government can also limit my liberty by incarcerating me-- again, whether I submit voluntarily or not. This is not a crime.

Okay, extrajudicial killings are a crime, but that doesn't make them intrinsically wrong. It may be a crime (or at least a sue-able offense) to injure someone while trying to rescue them from a burning car-- but I wouldn't consider that an immoral act.

[bennyboy]

People may also feel a certain way about it.  They may desperately want to kill that person.  Unfortunately, the "no killing" rule doesn't state "unless you really wanna"...and so, while a person may understand that it's a good rule for society..they also understand they may find themselves personally unsatisfied by it.    

I can't imprison you, either. I have to petition the government to do it on my behalf.
Nor can I take your property at a whim. If I think I'm owed, I have to petition the government to do it.

If I desperately want to kill a person-- well, I might just do it, knowing the legal consequences, and I wouldn't consider it immoral. But generally speaking, I'd have to petition the government to do something like that, since I cannot legally do it myself.

[The Grand Nudger]

The same act is not always at the same moral tier.  The government may take my property, hopefully within certain limitations, but certainly without my consent.  Taxes and so on are not (generally) considered a crime.

The government can also limit my liberty by incarcerating me-- again, whether I submit voluntarily or not.  This is not a crime.

Okay, extrajudicial killings are a crime, but that doesn't make them intrinsically wrong.  It may be a crime (or at least a sue-able offense) to injure someone while trying to rescue them from a burning car-- but I wouldn't consider that an immoral act.

Doesn't matter if they're intrinsically wrong.  The social contract is relative.  They either fit in a societies ideas of itself or they do not.  

I can't imprison you, either.  I have to petition the government to do it on my behalf.
Nor can I take your property at a whim.  If I think I'm owed, I have to petition the government to do it.

If I desperately want to kill a person-- well, I might just do it, knowing the legal consequences, and I wouldn't consider it immoral.  But generally speaking, I'd have to petition the government to do something like that, since I cannot legally do it myself.

If you don't think killing someone is immoral then you probably won't think killing a killer is immoral either, but since it doesn't matter what you think is immoral.....

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.

[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.

[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.

[bennyboy]

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?

"You. . . shouldn't. . . kill (people)," you mean. Again, we've established that you not only kill animals, but relish the act of doing it for fun. So harm and suffering in and of themselves are not the objection-- there's something special about people, ALL people, even the greatest pedophiliac murderer, that is sacrosanct to you. Why would that be? I'm saying that human life is NOT intrinsically valuable, and that to claim it is is either an emotional opiinion or a religious one-- in either case, irrational. All the talk about morality of execution-as-murder takes human exceptionalism as axiomatic-- but I do not accept that axiom.

The social contract can have a rational veneer: "If we do not agree that killing (people) is wrong, then ourselves or our children may be killed. And that would be counterproductive."

Sounds rational, but the truth is more like: "I'm a social animal with instincts for love, and the idea that someone I care about might be harmed is abhorrent. If one of my children were killed, it would be emotionally and psychologically devastating, something I know to be true because even imagining it is terrifying. Therefore, no matter what, I must support the idea that killing people is wrong." But there's a clear alternative-- killing GOOD people is wrong. Set about to making sure you and your children are good people, and you don't have to worry.

As I said before, if you don't give a shit about something, you don't worry too much about the morality of it. It's ALL emotional, and any rational argument is just spackled on after the fact. It's not rational turtles all the way down.