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Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP
Count me in as another "not against" type. I wouldn't actively advocate introducing capital punishment in a country which doesn't have it, but I don't see anything inherently wrong in having it.
I'll be the first to agree that no one, including the state, is entitled to murder others no matter what they did. Except that, without any context on how we define "murder", this is just a comfortable slogan. Not every killing is a murder. Think abortion. Euthanasia. Killing an enemy soldier on the battlefield. I bet most of you will find at least one of those examples a morally acceptable killing. So why not death penalty (provided the law allows it only in sufficiently rare cases)?
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Those are good points and I also am not necessarily against, but in the end, the death penalty really doesn't compare to your analogies in my view.
Abortion? Pro-choice folk believe that this is keeping a life from existing, and so you're not 'killing' a life. (Introducing pro-lifers here complicates matters, I admit.)
Euthanasia: this is usually chosen by the intended dead, and someone else is simply the implementer.
Soldier on the field: kill or be killed. You were trained and thrown onto the field, and so you do what you must to protect yourself.
The death penalty is weighed against this person we already have in a cage who can harm nobody as long as we keep them captive. We decide, "okay, this is a sentient being that we control, but have decided should no longer live".
Of course, it's more than that. We have that penalty as a deterrent against others that would do the same. That begs the question--is it an effective deterrent? Is it any more effective than a stoning in a third world country?
