Okay, so two states do have capital punishment and ten don’t. Although statistics are important, they are not always right. Just because a large majority of people believe something doesn’t make it so. Otherwise, we would still be living on a supposed square planet. Furthermore, this isn’t about whether it is right or wrong, this is about whether it has any detering effect. I don’t see any reason how anyone could say it has ZERO effect. When we are given a choice between doing something and dying or not doing that thing, we will usually not do that thing because of the threat of dying. Just to clarify though, I don’t believe in using Capital Punishment as a deterrent, nor do I believe it is a well devised and effective deterrent. But it does have deterrence value nevertheless. Hence, you still have a long way to go in presenting an argument for why Capital Punishment is not a deterrent.
Metavoid stated:
So? Again, that doesn’t show or bring evidence to the effect of Capital Punishment not being a deterrent whatsoever. I agree with you that many crimes are such as you have explained them above, but you still haven’t shown how it is that Capital Punishment doesn’t affect these people. Nor have you stepped to the other side and presented the crimes that were methodical, thought-out, planned, etc. Nor have you made mention of all those waiting on Death Row who have said that if they could take things back they would. Nor have you brought the psychological evidence for people who have admitted to wanting to commit crimes but resisted from doing so because they fear dying.
Metavoid stated:
Please provide me with a link or a source of any kind to the very concept you stated in the above quote.
Metavoid,
I visited the site and although I expected you would be decent enough to provide me with direct links, I took the arduous task of searching and reading through the site myself. Which especially annoys me when I find that you have misrepresented what you have read.
From the site, I have conveniently bolded the pertinent words you conveniently missed:
Two points. 1) None of this says anything to the effect of what you said:
. 2) As I mentioned in my previous post about you, this site too fails to mention those who premeditate their crimes, as well as, others who may be affected by the thought of being punished by Capital Punishment. Remember, I agree that capital punishment should not be used as a punishment for crime. I am merely arguing for the, as Polemarchus stated “limited deterrence” of capital punishment. Of which, you nor the site you provided, have had anything to say that would change my mind. Especially when I have myself as a piece of evidence. I know that I wouldn’t commit a crime that had capital punishment as the punishment for doing the crime, unless I was not in a rational state of mind. Even though we can argue till the sun comes up about the number of people who commit crimes in irrational states of mind, it doesn’t refute the effect of capital punishment being a deterrent for those who are in a rational state of mind. I guess I should make note, that the question is no longer whether capital punishment is a deterrent, but to whom is it a deterrent to.
— Even if we assume the statistic correct, it could still be due to other reasons, i.e. (maybe those states with lower crime have a better police force). As much as i would like it to, that statistic in and of itself does not prove the general thesis that capital punishment is not a good deterrent.
Yes that is exacally what i mean. I know this was posted a long time ago, but i just noticed it now. Nobody owes anything to anybody but themselves. I do not believe that murder is right. But they do. I do not belive in objective moral values, so how can i rationally argue that he should do something simply because i belive it is wrong. Social order breaking down is irrelevent. Animals do as they please and they seem to get along fine enough. We are nothing but suped up animals.
You have it backwards. Civilized men do as they please, animals do what they do in order to survive. I watched a Pileated Woodpecker in my garden this past Spring looking for bits of straw in order to build its nest. Every few seconds it had to twist its head upwards to check for hawks. It would take a step, look for hawks, peck at a twig, look for hawks, take another step, look for hawks, grab a piece of straw, look for hawks…
This young woman is living in a world where people are “free” to do as they please. The sniper is free to shoot her. She is free to run for her life. I wish you could ask her if she were getting “along fine.”
Lemi and Livek ought to have scratched your quote above their scoreboard –