Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 29, 2024, 1:18 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
#21
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 2:53 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:
(August 4, 2022 at 1:25 am)bennyboy Wrote: The problem with justice is that it lessons the intensity of our efforts to prevent.  It gives the illusion that there can be balance in the world, and that we are the bringers of balance, through punishment.

I recommend treating crime prevention as a procedural issue, not a justice issue.  A dead man is much cheaper, and has an infinitely lower chance of recommitting his crimes.  Making tax payers support this guy for $50k / year or whatever in order to torture him psychologically when he can just be removed-- I'd rather have improved health care and a few less pot holes.

It's actually MORE costly to taxpayers to execute someone than it is to incarcerate them long term. I mean, unless you want to scrap all that pesky, pricey stuff like lawyers, evidence, appeals...you know - 'rights'.

Boru
That's not a problem with execution. That's a problem with the execution process. I could (and probably would) take out a convicted child rapist for about $10.

And if we're so big on rights, I would think that a life sentence, being almost as life-ruining as an execution, should be subject to all those same expenses. But we seem pretty comfortable with depriving a (black) man of his liberty until his existence ends if he takes about 3 wrong turns in life.

To get back to the OP: criminals of war. I don't particularly think we NEED justification. If we are lucky enough to win a war, we can string up whomever we want on a pretext-- the purpose of the pretext being to give us an excuse to pat ourselves on the back for our moral virtue more than anything else.
Reply
#22
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
To sum up your post, "Might makes right."
Reply
#23
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
I doubt that you'll get much traction with a plan to kill people for $10 in a thread questioning the morality of executions. Have a little self respect, anyway. 10$ won't get you the therapy you'd probably need afterwards.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#24
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 5:32 am)bennyboy Wrote:
(August 4, 2022 at 2:53 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: It's actually MORE costly to taxpayers to execute someone than it is to incarcerate them long term. I mean, unless you want to scrap all that pesky, pricey stuff like lawyers, evidence, appeals...you know - 'rights'.

Boru
That's not a problem with execution. That's a problem with the execution process. I could (and probably would) take out a convicted child rapist for about $10.

And if we're so big on rights, I would think that a life sentence, being almost as life-ruining as an execution, should be subject to all those same expenses. But we seem pretty comfortable with depriving a (black) man of his liberty until his existence ends if he takes about 3 wrong turns in life.

To get back to the OP: criminals of war. I don't particularly think we NEED justification. If we are lucky enough to win a war, we can string up whomever we want on a pretext-- the purpose of the pretext being to give us an excuse to pat ourselves on the back for our moral virtue more than anything else.

Then in that was it was immoral.
Reply
#25
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 7:03 am)Jehanne Wrote: To sum up your post, "Might makes right."

Indeed if the Nazis had won, the ones executed would have been the Americans and English.
Reply
#26
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 5:32 am)bennyboy Wrote: ... a life sentence, being almost as life-ruining as an execution, .....
Please re-read what you wrote here, and let it sink in for 5 seconds.
Cetero censeo religionem delendam esse
Reply
#27
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 9:11 am)Deesse23 Wrote:
(August 4, 2022 at 5:32 am)bennyboy Wrote: ... a life sentence, being almost as life-ruining as an execution, .....
Please re-read what you wrote here, and let it sink in for 5 seconds.

I don't need to re-read it, because I thought about it when I wrote it.  It depends what you mean by "life."

If you're talking biology, death is absolute.  It's the worst thing that can happen.

But if you're talking about the human narrative-- growth, discovery, pleasure, ambition, hope, and so on-- I'd say that a life sentence is pretty much the end of a meaningful human existence.  It is sufficiently horrible that it should automatically trigger the same compensations and considerations of execution-- extensive appeals, discovery of new evidence, and so on.

In short, re a previous post, an execution should NOT be more expensive to carry out than a life sentence.
Reply
#28
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 7:20 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I doubt that you'll get much traction with a plan to kill people for $10 in a thread questioning the morality of executions.  Have a little self respect, anyway.  10$ won't get you the therapy you'd probably need afterwards.

Yeah, I thought about that.  I probably wouldn't do it for any amount, after all.  But you could pretty easily find someone to do it, probably just for shits and giggles.
Reply
#29
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 7:03 am)Jehanne Wrote: To sum up your post, "Might makes right."

Not really.  If you have might,  you don't even NEED to be right.  You might pretend to be in the right, though, just for the PR of it.

Ask the thousands of brown people, many of them women and children, that have been bombed by American drones in the past decades, under administrations of both parties.  You don't see Obama crying over little 6-year old Ahmed, the goat-herder's son.
Reply
#30
RE: Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?
(August 4, 2022 at 9:47 am)bennyboy Wrote:
(August 4, 2022 at 7:03 am)Jehanne Wrote: To sum up your post, "Might makes right."

Not really.  If you have might,  you don't even NEED to be right.  You might pretend to be in the right, though, just for the PR of it.

Ask the thousands of brown people, many of them women and children, that have been bombed by American drones in the past decades, under administrations of both parties.  You don't see Obama crying over little 6-year old Ahmed, the goat-herder's son.

Which is probably why Humanity is destined to destroy itself. Don't even think about talking to the destitute goat herders in Afghanistan about their poor efficiency gas engines.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Maximizing Moral Virtue h311inac311 191 12782 December 17, 2022 at 10:36 pm
Last Post: Objectivist
  As a nonreligious person, where do you get your moral guidance? Gentle_Idiot 79 6403 November 26, 2022 at 10:27 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  On theism, why do humans have moral duties even if there are objective moral values? Pnerd 37 3088 May 24, 2022 at 11:49 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Can we trust our Moral Intuitions? vulcanlogician 72 3613 November 7, 2021 at 1:25 pm
Last Post: Alan V
  Any Moral Relativists in the House? vulcanlogician 72 4584 June 21, 2021 at 9:09 am
Last Post: vulcanlogician
  [Serious] Moral Obligations toward Possible Worlds Neo-Scholastic 93 5295 May 23, 2021 at 1:43 am
Last Post: Anomalocaris
  A Moral Reality Acrobat 29 3185 September 12, 2019 at 8:09 pm
Last Post: brewer
  In Defense of a Non-Natural Moral Order Acrobat 84 6904 August 30, 2019 at 3:02 pm
Last Post: LastPoet
  Moral Oughts Acrobat 109 7517 August 30, 2019 at 4:24 am
Last Post: Acrobat
  Is Moral Nihilism a Morality? vulcanlogician 140 10151 July 17, 2019 at 11:50 am
Last Post: DLJ



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)