You can’t be neutral on this issue. Capital punishment or death penalty is illegal because it over-rides the rights of the criminal’s family. For example, what did this mother do to go through the pain of seeing her child executed? You CANNOT take HER right away of BEING with or SEEING her child just because her CHILD committed a crime. But the supreme courts can be stupid everywhere and in this case some are because they don’t see the rights of everyone concerned. The criminal must be punished severely for the crime but execution or death penalty is not the solution, you have to let them live or you play with the rights of others in their life.
I can endorse my above opinion by the following rationale that you can’t argue with:
Where there is death penalty, it is mostly there because of the rights of the victim’s family because the victim is not there anymore to defend himself. So, if the victim’s family’s rights are an issue then why not the criminal’s family’s rights are an issue too?
Capital Punishment is the result of the State taking upon itself the ancient right of vengeance. Whether this is a good thing or not is open to debate. However, the fact that the State has implemented (usually by force) a judicial system over the members of a society does have one good consequence; it prevents the cycle of violence and reprisal from overwhelming a society. Consider that the Hatfield-McCoy feud started after the ownership of a pair of hogs fell into dispute. Nearly eleven years and twenty odd deaths later, the US Supreme Court had to intervene to stop the fighting. Who knows what a large city of two million inhabitants would be like if we still operated using scapegoat violence, dueling and feuding as methods of resolving desputes.
the Courts arrogate upon themselves not a right of God, but a right of society, and they do it for damn good historical reason.
hermes the thrice great,
Are you telling me that the State suddenly has rights to execute this person but this person’s family has no rights at all to condemn that execution? You forget that it was the criminal at fault and not the family, so why should they be punished? And don’t give me “vengeance” or it would be just another killing by the State then.
You say, “the Courts arrogate upon themselves not a right of God, but a right of society, and they do it for damn good historical reason.” Really? And this is the State that in prescribing the death penalty overlooks the rights of the criminal’s family and you want to tell me that this State is acting for society, to look after society and their rights? You know that is crap!
I’m not saying that disputes should not be resolved in courts, they should be, rather than going “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth,” but death penalty should not be there!
Because the victim didn’t choose to become a crime victim. The criminal chose to harm the victim. Generally, unless you’re in Texas, the State will not decide to execute a criminal for anything less than A heinous crime - serial rape, serial murder, murder with premeditation (poisonings, assassinations, planning to Kill your wife, things like that. Check your local state or province definition of First Degree Murder). Criminals have choice in the matter. Now , I don’t believe for one second in absolute freedom like some of the more ridiculous law-and-order Republicans in the States. People are influenced by their environment, by mental illness, by family. But actions do come from some agent and that agent needs to be held responsible.
Generally, the criminal’s family does get to testify in court during the sentencing phase of a trial. they do have some voice, some influence on the judge or jury.
Other than that, the criminal’s family is not taken into to consideration because we aren’t Chinese. We don’t have a Confucian legal system that uses the idea of group responsiblity. Therefore the criminal Is responsible for their actions alone.
when you talk about “agent” above, I assume you’re talking about the criminal and not their family.
I wasn’t talking about the rights of the victim or the criminal but the rights of the family and friends of the victim’s and the criminal’s and I was emphasizing that why the criminal’s family’s rights aren’t considered when the victim’s family’s rights are?
Who said that the criminals should not be held responsible for their actions, my question was that along with them why is their family and friends punished too in the case of death penalty for the criminal, where they lose their loved one when they did not even commit any crime?
And please don’t give me what happens in Texas or here and there please, we are questioning why it has to be so.
There is no such thing as an abstract statement without the particulars from which to abstract. Based off this urge to go beyond the particulars, your negative reaction to BillWalton’s materialist question and your general uppitiness regarding the Vedas, I have come to believe you are damned opposed to reading Beena.
You wrote, "Beena, please go find a copy of this book…
Read it and you will understand why I was filled with such evil that I would force the Vedas upon you. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
You brought the Vedas in the thread, ‘Insults as a debating tactic’ and now in this capital punishment thread it is you who is bringing arguments of mine with BillWalltonSexUniversity regarding ‘materialism’ from another thread, when you know that this guy was wrong when he didn’t specify the kind of materialism he was talking about. Do you not understand that this thread is about Capital Punishment? Maybe it’s YOU who cannot read anymore. If you don’t have anything substantial to add to this thread I will understand but please don’t criticise me or my ideas just because YOU have no bright ones on Capital Punishment
Beena, I have added ideas to this thread. You, however, tend to be an emotional, do what feels good type of participant in these discussions, so you wouldn’t recognized reasoned debate if it whacked you square in the eyes like a thrown baseball. I brought forth previous posts to point to the fact that you, basically, are ignorant and prefer to “feel” your way through problems and yell at people at the drop of a hat, attacking and criticizing people because you yourself Aren’t educated enough to tell irony from seriousness (as in my Vedas thread. I cannot believe you thought I was serious. What a dumb miscommunication! Could you be more fucking defensive? I asked you a sincere question about indian thought because of your posting history and you think I’m being a bully and Picking on you? Holy shit! Not everybody’s against you girl. At least not until you start misunderstanding people and slapping back well meaning gestures from potential friends - but that’s all dead now, ain’t it?) nor can you tell materialism from materialistic. (One of ‘em’s a noun, the other’s an adjective. The noun one means that every thing is matter and that there is no spirit. The Adjective means that material possessions are the most important value in a person’ life. There is some small Overlap between the two, but Not enough to excuse a conflation. ) What I find hard to swallow is that you made a damn fool of yourself in the forum and then you blamed BillWalton ( a right jackass, agreed, but an innocent man in that past post) for your own ignorance.
As for Capital Punishment, the criminal’s family doesn’t matter because we live in a society that respects people’s free will. The individual Is responsible for their actions and of those actions cause people pain then so be it. Goddamn read some anthropology for god’s sake!
Philosophy doesn’t mean a non-educated, non-literate intuitionist method of learning about the cosmos. That’s Mysticism and this isn’t the forum for that.
Even you can see that you are just one big contradiction above but I will overlook your insults this time 'cause I need to prove my point.
My dear let me be very brash so you can understand this problem of Capital Punishment. Let’s say that your dear son whom you love goes and commits a horrible crime and the justice system says that you cannot see him anymore let alone that they won’t even let him exist anymore for you, and you are saying that you agree with that? How? What wrong did you do? What wrong did the mother or the grand-mother do? Sure, some peers let’s say or genes were perhaps responsible to an extent in the crime he committed, but why should you be punished for that, can you just explain that to me rather than insulting me?
And philosophy is so gigantic it encompasses everything in life. It is NOT about reading Socrates or Nietzche, these people did not read about philosophers to be be great philosophers, they went after knowledge any kind to arrive at some truth. If universities are WRONG in having philosophy as a subject where they read about philosophers and that is considered philosophy, count me out. I would even go so far as to say that philosophy is so wide, it is life. Please DO NOT INSULT philosophy by assigning boundaries to it just because your intention is to insult me and kick me out of this forum which is the prime reason for your bashing just because you feel insecure about your mediocre posts. No one has given you the right to insult me without basis, alright?
Beena, if my own child were executed I would be crushed at the loss. I would also be bewildered at what lead my child to this action. I would try to keep them alive. If the state decided to execute him/her, I would mourn the loss of my child. However, the criminal’s family’s loss of the enjoyment of the criminal’s company doesn’t logically invalidate the death penalty in the United States, as we hold individuals responsible for their actions, not whole families. The inverse of this means we usually don’t let an individual off the hook because of the detriment to the family. Haven’t you ever heard a criminal, usually a DUI defendent, say during sentencing "But what about my kids? My family?’ The judge usually responds “You should have thought about that before you did X” My wife was a public defender for several years. I have seen, heard or had described to me many court room scenes of this type.
Beena, you seem very adverse to reading books. I don’t understand. Philosophy is, of course, wider than simply reading dead White males, yet philosophy is also discourse and the only way to discourse with the dead is to read their works. To assume that the way to wisdom is reached through subjective experience and intuition is to ground oneself in an arrogance that not even I myself, a truly arrogant bastard, would ever try to do. What have you got against reading?
Also beena, unless you have a PhD in philosophy, don’t criticize university curricula. It makes you look resentful and sullen towards something you couldn’t achieve. If you haven’t walked the walk, don’t talk the talk.
Reading for what purpose though, to what end? Philosophers, or prokoptoi surely read with some object in mind. If they read to acquire knowledge of the history of philosophy then they cannot properly be called philosophers or students of philosophy. It’s obvious that philosophy is not history of philosophy. If they read to understand the psychology of philosophy then surely they cannot be called philosophers. Again, if they read solely to impress others with their debating skills once more they cannot correctly be called philosophers.
What then is a philosopher and what does he read? Maybe he reads a bit on logic, a bit on equivocal premises, and the suchlike; maybe he examines the work of some dead master in depth; then perhaps he reads other stuff to ‘escape’ philosophy… …there are those who are more or less permanently immersed in books, in reading. There are those who read science books; those who love detective fiction; those who prefer to… …suffice to say there is a hell of a lot to read out there!
Surely the philosopher is best advised to keep his reading within limits, otherwise his butterfly reading may well affect his thinking adversely. One wonders. On the other hand…
I am fortunate in having ‘read’ virtually the entire gamut of western philosophical literature and have still been able to situate my own thinking within a particular school of thought, the Stoic, i.e., Epictetean ‘tradition.’ One can search in many areas for kindred spirits. I looked in Rabelais at one point. I examined Montaigne at another. At another still I looked into Ibsen’s plays. And so it went on and perhaps it’ll never finally be over. And all the time searching for this ‘debate’ with the dead. Why? Well, quite frankly it wasn’t ever easy to engage with the living in such matters!
But I am rambling…
The point is, Hermes the Thrice Greatest, it is not easy to know how much or what sort of literature each of us as individuals should look into. And I’m not certain even whether copious amounts of reading is really any good for us. Might it not be a distraction, or even a sort-of laziness? But my essential point is this. Namely, to be a great philosopher one surely needs to know well a very few things. What follows is that one put this knowledge into practise in one’s daily life. For me this is the essence of philosophy, living it.
Are not professors who teach the subject failed philosophers? When someone looking for a philosopher to teach him something approached Socrates didn’t he generally pass the enquirer on to some sophist or other?
One thing for sure, philosophy is not sophism! What do you think?
hermes the thrice great,
You say that, “we hold individuals responsible for their actions, not whole families.” Then how can you punish the criminal’s family when prescribing the death penalty? And you say, “However, the criminal’s family’s loss of the enjoyment of the criminal’s company doesn’t logically invalidate the death penalty in the United States.” Don’t say that, say, “the criminal’s family’s loss of the enjoyment of the criminal’s company…” should not invalidate the criminal being punished and this punishment must be severe but it should not be capital punishment.
Ohh Much candy to eat. I will go slowly and methodically, out of respect for your time spent writing these questions.
We must read for two reasons The First is to transcend our cultural-historical location, our unconscious worldview. If we don’t read, we look at the world with what I’ve always understood to be common sense. This common sense, as I see it, is received from your surroundings (parents, peers, local and national society). If you are confronted with a problem, such as a broken hammer or a screaming neighbor or fists flying your way, most people just act according to their natural inclination. Yet there is a way to be trained to repair a hammer, soothe an angry neighbor or deflect a punch so that much less energy is expended trying to bring everything back to calm and unbroken. Now in the intellectual world, most people just bumble around with no training, responding to problems with the same common sense that they use to function in the less abstract world (I realize this Is A somewhat false dichotomy). Their answers to abstract questions do not advance them, but reinforce where they are. We must read to find out how little we know and how different the rest of the world is. Besides you have to find out what other people are thinking and reading is the best way to transcend distance.
The second reason we must read is to become pluralistic and to prevent ourselves from becoming trapped in an overarching totalizing explanation for everything. I point to “scientific” Marxism, Fundamentalist Christianity, and such ideological schools as examples of trying to reduce the massive complexity of the world down to one or two principles
How can reading adversely affect thought? This implies that there is incorrect thought. How can there be such a thing? Thought simply is.
Read what’s interesting to you. Solve the problems that vex you. The world will take care of itself. (This is the genius behind capitalism, just to be mischevious)
I think Plato is a lying hypocritcal jackass. But he’s very fun to read. Whenever I’m reading a dialogue and Socrates starts question some hapless Athenian dupe, I always feel like I’m watchin one of two things - one, a horror movie where you HAVE to shout “Not that door! Don’t go through that door!!” or, two a bunch of grifters in New York or New Orleans trying to swindle some dumb tourist out of his money “Say, Hermogenes, I betcha I can tell ya’ where you got dem shoes at!” Oh shit!
I don’t think philosophy professors are failed philosophers. This is one of those stupid “I’m cool, you’re not” dichotomies that arise from peoples listening to fucking Plato. If I’m not pondering thoughts deep in the Black Forest, I’m not authentic enough. Bahhh, that’s what I say, bahh! I think philosophy is almost entirely sophism. I mean c’mon what is Socrates but a master of rhetoric. Hell sophism’s just lyrical experimentation anyway and the whole world’s based on seeing what works.
I don’t support Capital Punishment. Why kill someone because they have done wrong? To kill him or her - it would be the easy way out. I think it would be one of the best things you could do to them. But if they were to be locked alone up the rest of their life, they would have to broad on the memories of what they did. It would drive them slightly insane. To kill him or her would be the easy way out for them. I think the policy ‘an eye for an eye, a life for a life’ is idiotic.
I oppose capital punishment, and I can give multiple reasons.
Utilitarian:
It may be for the greatest good that we kill someone. But our system is in no way infallible, and to punish someone with so final and outcome seems to presume that it is. And since the same thing can be accomplished by simply locking someone in a cell forever (and indeed, it’s less costly) the satisfaction a family may feel from “justice being served” seems to be minimal. The harm of killing the occasional innocent is far greater.
Right:
We have a right to life. This is indeed our most basic right. And since a right is something that cannot be taken away, then there is no justification for taking away my right to life.
(I’m not horribly convinced by right theory, but there it is).
Virtue:
Harming another person is obviously (I hope this is obvious to all) wrong. And doing something wrong makes me a bad person. A virtuous person does as little harm as possible and promotes the good. So I shall not be party to the death of another, be it directly or indirectly.
Mill (aka, “The Man”):
We should promote the good of others, but we cannot do harm to others. And since killing someone is obviously harming them, then we cannot do so.
(It actually gets more complicated than that with Mill, but it seems pretty clear to me that he can be used to object to capital punishment.)
End Note:
I guess I could go into others but I guess I don’t need to. If you have any great desire to dig deeper into my brief and largely unsupported statements, just let me know (and please be somewhat specific).
I shall not be a party to the death of another unless it is in self-defense or in defense of another. A person wearing shackles who’s going to be Bob’s **** for the rest of his life is no threat to anyone, and so killing him is utterly pointless. Since we can be wrong as to guilt, that’s just another strike against it. And I’d rather promote a society where killing is abhorent rather than one where it’s Joe’s job to pull the switch.
hermes,
I’m sorry for taking the example of your child regarding capital punishment. No matter how significant the issue or serious, that was a very bad example, I realize that now even though you never criticised me for that. I am deeply sorry for that, please forgive me.
As for execution, if a justice system ever executed my child whom I made, I raised, I cared for and I looked after and loved, baby, I would not mourn the loss of my child but I would make this justice system mourn it for THE REST OF THEIR LIFE.
I dunno where you got this from that I don’t read books, so please don’t cook up nonsense just to make people look small. Not that I believe in, “reading maketh a full man” but the irony is that I probably read not pages but whole databases. And for you to remark without any justification that I don’t read, where did that come from? I had a valid basis in criticising what people learn under philosophy at Universities given the basic definition of philosophy which is - going after knowledge, any kind and not studying philosophers. You have a problem understanding logic, fine, but don’t try to put those down who don’t, ok?
Moreover, considering the kind of response I get from you in every thread now, I will not correspond with you anymore in the future!
