Lisa Montgomery

[Sean Hayden]

Also, it's already been pointed out that proportionality is talked about before the bit I posted here. But I don't think that was necessary. Face it, there's no conception of legal where Haags' example crimes and punishment, and your execution of dissidents rely on the same thing.

[Hermit]

Sean, quote van den Haags argument by which he concludes that some laws make capital punishment morally unobjectionable. It is not contained in the excerpt you provided.

Keeping in mind that legal/laws isn't whatever you want them to be, the argument is the point of the comparison between crimes and physically similar punishments. He assumes the reader will perceive a moral difference despite their similarities, ergo just because death is the result of both murder and capital punishment, they needn't necessarily be considered the same morally.

Correction: You assume that he assumes. If one writes an article titled In Defence of the Death Penalty it is pretty sloppy, to say the least, to leave it at that, especially since van den Haag is arguing against abolitionists who assert that no law justifies capital punishment. Not only does he have to convince them that some do, but also why they do when others don't.

I ask you again to provide the relevant text where he does that - if you can find it. If you can't it means he mounted no such argument.

[Sean Hayden]

Correction: You assume that he assumes

Do you suppose he hoped to draw the reader's attention to something other than the realization that they perceive a moral difference between crimes and punishment despite their sometimes physical similarities?

I wonder what it would be.

[Hermit]

Correction: You assume that he assumes

Do you suppose he hoped to draw the reader's attention to something other than the realization that they perceive a moral difference between crimes and punishment despite their sometimes physical similarities?

Yes. The difference the law supposedly makes. No more than that can be seen in the excerpt you quoted from his article.

[Sean Hayden]

Law: a simple placeholder which might stand for anything. This is why when you said that executing political dissidents is moral so long as it is legal, nobody perceived a difference between that and the examples given in the excerpt.

Except I, and probably everyone else did note a difference. Because "law", or what is legal, doesn't mean whatever you want it to but has certain concepts--like proportionality--baked in at this point.

[Sean Hayden]

Anyway, what'd you think Brian?

Is there anything to how we perceive a moral difference between crimes and physically similar punishments, except when it comes to murder and execution? Why don't we claim serving a warrant for kidnapping is morally equivalent to kidnapping?

[Hermit]

Law: a simple placeholder which might stand for anything. This is why when you said that executing political dissidents is moral so long as it is legal, nobody perceived a difference between that and the examples given in the excerpt.

Is that what Ernest van den Haag wrote in defence of capital punishment? If so, a quote would come in handy. If not, his article is a piss-poor defence. No competent philosopher leaves fundamental assumptions untreated.

[Sean Hayden]

It's an excerpt dealing with the very specific claim that equates execution with murder morally, and it makes its point fairly well: we don't typically equate other punishments with their crimes despite their sharing similarities.

If you want his full argument defending the death penalty you'll need to read the rest.

[Hermit]

It's an excerpt dealing with the very specific claim that equates execution with murder morally, and it makes its point fairly well: we don't typically equate other punishments with their crimes despite their sharing similarities.

If you want his full argument defending the death penalty you'll need to read the rest.

That's not how discussions work, Sean. You made a number of claims about the article. I argued that they are not evident in the excerpt you quoted from it and asked you to quote the bits where they are. It's really not up to me to prove you right. It's up to you to convince me that you are, and the way to do it is to quote the relevant bits of the article which confirm that the claims you made about the article are true.

[Sean Hayden]

I'm happy with my responses. I think you've failed to understand the excerpt, and unfortunately I've failed to make it clearer for you.

But in my defense this isn't the first time you've done this. Most recently you went on in the same way about a video in which the speaker was clearly calling for more democracy, but because you didn't hear it, no amount of explanation of that being his point could convince you. It wasn't until I posted an article confirming his views that you let it go.

[Hermit]

I'm happy with my responses.

Your failure to back up your claims of what the article says by quoting the relevant bits is noted. Why you have not done so is not clear, but I think the reason is that they do not exist. If they did, you would have posted them by now. It's not as though that would be a difficult or onerous job.

I think you've failed to understand the excerpt

The excerpt is easy to understand. It argues that the difference between murder and morally justified killing is that the latter is sanctioned by a law. Van den Haag illustrates the point with two examples in which physically identical activities (driving in the first example, depriving a person of his/her freedom in the second) are morally justified if a law says so and a crime if a law says they are not. Lawfulness is the only criterion he provides in the excerpt you quoted in his attempt to prove that capital punishment is morally justifiable. As such, van den Haag is merely gainsaying those opponents of capital punishment who claim that no law makes executions moral.

[Sean Hayden]

You continue to treat "law" and what is legal as independent from principles like proportionality. In this sense it is just some term which on its own isn't particularly helpful.

That's why you are able to say that executing dissidents is moral so long as it is legal, and believe that you're challenging his point. You're not using the same concept of what makes a legal punishment appear different despite similarities with the crime.

But I've stated at least twice now that proportionality is part of his conception of justice. What is "legal", and what causes us to perceive a difference between physically similar crimes and punishments--a distinction he correctly assumes we will make--cannot simply be a statement of law devoid of principles like proportionality. He cannot simply be saying something so naive as what is declared law, irrespective of the laws content and foundations, determines morality.

He can be sure that you will recognize the moral distinction between crime and punishment despite their similarities, because "law" is absolutely never taken to be an empty term, or authority by fiat which might be used to support anything.

[Sean Hayden]

And finally, again, it's an excerpt dealing with a specific claim about the death penalty. Its point was not to be the argument in support of the death penalty, but just to show that saying execution is morally equivalent to murder runs into the fact that we don't perceive other legal punishments in this way, despite their similarities to the crime.

If you want his argument for the death penalty you'll need to read it, this excerpt ain't it.

[Brian Peacock]

Anyway, what'd you think Brian?

Is there anything to how we perceive a moral difference between crimes and physically similar punishments, except when it comes to murder and execution? Why don't we claim serving a warrant for kidnapping is morally equivalent to kidnapping?

I guess that depends on the extent to which killing is, or can be, justified as an expression of moral rectitude. Why is a particular killing, or a type of killing, good, or a type of good?

I presume we don't claim that incarcerating a criminal for kidnapping is the same as kidnapping, even if kidnapping and incarceration are both, functionally speaking, depriving someone of their liberty against their will, because we (generally speaking) don't think that crimes warrant equivalent responses from society - we don't burn the arsonists house down or subject the mugger to a beating etc. We incarcerate the kidnapper in the same way, and for essentially the same kind of reasons, we incarcerate the fraudster, the drugs importer, or the rapist: as a simple punishment for transgressing moral assertions embodied in laws, and for the protection of society(*). The carceral system is a state endorsed and enforced system of social recourse for criminality where prison sentences differ in their length and/or in the severity of their regimes - shorter sentences and/or low-security placements for lesser crimes, longer sentences and higher security placements for more serious crimes.

I don't think that the fact that we have a hierarchy of crimes and punishments is particularly surprising or controversial, or that we consider killing to be at the top of the list. For me the question is not how or why we should allow executions to take place. That, as discussed, merely entails a legal provision. For me the question is about the justification for killing the killer as opposed to simply incarcerating them: what justifies that this particular kind of crime actually does warrant a physically similar punishment? Which brings us back to where I started.


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* Here we might also talk about prison as a deterrent and a venue for rehabilitation. However, anyone who knowingly commits a crime invariably thinks they're going to get away with it (if they even think that far ahead), and anyone who commits a crime on impulse is almost certainly not involved in weighing up the potential consequences, so the existence of laws, justice and carceral systems probably do little to deter (some people also commit crimes in ignorance of the law). And while lip-service is often paid to rehabilitation is that really possible in carceral systems which over the last 30 years or so have become venues for the mass warehousing of people too poor to post bail, pay fines, or cover court costs, or too ill with mental health or drug and alcohol problems to adequately care for themselves(?) (Incarceration's Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America. [2015, PDF])

[Hermit]

You continue to treat "law" and what is legal as independent from principles like proportionality. In this sense it is just some term which on its own isn't particularly helpful.

OK, Sean, I got that point at last. You are right; Proportionality is integral to any justice system, and has been for longer than the precept formulated in Exodus 21:23-24, where it lists punishments in descending order of the seriousness of crimes committed, but always remaining proportional. "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." Before that, the principle, similarly expressed, literally writ in stone circa 1754 BCE, and known as the Code of Hammurabi.



Apologies for the delay.

While I am at it, I may as well apologise for my behaviour in the Monbiot debate. I should have explicitly acknowledged I was wrong there too, before exiting stage right. That was bad form by me.

Back to the morality of capital punishment for a moment. It can be regarded as moral as long as one takes a literal and strict view concerning reciprocity, but to me it reeks of vengefulness that has superseded evolutionary behaviour, and evolutionary behaviour is neither moral nor immoral. It is amoral.

Besides that, the writers of Exodus have already started to distance themselves from a literal and strict view concerning reciprocity. A brief, yet reasonably nuanced rundown of it appears here.

As for me, you may have noticed that I had taken care to not be associated with the abolitionists Ernest van den Haag addressed. My objection to capital punishment is based on chauvinistic rather than moral grounds. It is barbaric, uncivilised and based on vengeance rather than restitution. Altogether yucky and odious.