Lisa Montgomery

[Svartalf]

But that's not all he said, is it? He provided examples. Being dragged out of your home by strangers and thrown into a cell is not meaningfully different physically from being kidnapped. But it is not considered morally equivalent. Yet, for executions, you've provided nothing but a physical equivalence and assumed the moral one.

Try this: Executing political dissidents is not murder when they are lawfully executed.

and it's well known that in tyrannies and dictatures, the law is what the powers that be want it to be.

[Cunt]

So, yeah, where exactly is justice in our justice systems?

Epstein didn't hang himself.

His network (unsurprising) is still protected. It's a 'conspiracy theory' if one looks into it, at any depth.

[Sean Hayden]

I went by what you presented. My reply was relevant, clear and not a mischaracterisation of his argument. I quoted the critical bits verbatim and drew valid conclusions from them.

He attempted to show that whatever might determine moral equivalence between a punishment and crime, it cannot be physical similarities alone. He did this by showing the similarity between some crimes and their legal punishments, which we don't consider to be morally equivalent.

You took from this only that what is legal is morally permissible. But by drawing attention to the fact that we perceive a difference between a crime and physically similar punishments, he makes clear that he can't possibly mean everything legal is morally permissible where legal can mean anything.

"Legal" necessarily comes with baggage and can't be whatever you want without losing the meaning of his argument. The obvious assumption that "legal" here includes the idea of proportionality renders your statement about dissidents irrelevant for example.

[Hermit]

he makes clear that he can't possibly mean everything legal is morally permissible where legal can mean anything.

Kindly quote the sentences he wrote to that effect. They are definitely not among the excerpt you did quote.

That said, this remains a problem: The only difference between his position and the opponents of capital punishment he refers to is that in his view some laws make capital punishment morally unobjectionable while his opponents maintain that none do. It will be nice of you if you quote his argument by which he concludes that some laws make capital punishment morally unobjectionable.

[pErvinalia]

Legalised kidnapping and legalised murder are a lot different. Without life there is nothing. With imprisonment there's life yet.

And capital punishment offers only revenge over life imprisonment. Not something civilised societies should be involved in.

[Sean Hayden]

You snipped the bolded bit from your quote:

But by drawing attention to the fact that we perceive a difference between a crime and physically similar punishments, he makes clear that he can't possibly mean everything legal is morally permissible where legal can mean anything.

If what is meant by "legal" can be divorced from concepts like proportionality, as it is in your comment about dissidents, then a perception of a moral difference between the physically similar punishment and crime in his examples can't be assumed. He does assume it, ergo he's working with a particular conception of legal that renders your dissidents example irrelevant.

As for the remainder of your post, the excerpt only attempts to show that physical similarities alone can't be all that might make the punishment equivalent to the crime. Giving several examples where this is perceived to be true, he asks the reader to consider what makes the death penalty different then?*

*I can't quote where he actually asks the reader to do that, but it is what he's doing just the same.

[Sean Hayden]

Legalised kidnapping and legalised murder are a lot different. Without life there is nothing. With imprisonment there's life yet.

Yes, I think this is likely to be the right approach. Imprisonment is a kind of wrong...

As for what civilized society ought to do, meh.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, what has civilised society ever given us?

[Sean Hayden]

[Hermit]

You snipped the bolded bit from your quote:

But by drawing attention to the fact that we perceive a difference between a crime and physically similar punishments, he makes clear that he can't possibly mean everything legal is morally permissible where legal can mean anything.

I snipped it because it's word salad. What do you even mean with "difference between a crime and physically similar punishments"? My guess is that you meant something like "difference between a crime and physically similar actions", but that gets us back to the problem I pointed out earlier; van den Haag's only criterion - as far as you quoted him - by which murder can be differentiated from a morally justified killing of a human being is that the latter is condoned by means of a law. He is simply gainsaying the opponents of capital punishment he references, who say that no law justifies the killing of a human being.

If he has something else to prove them wrong you must be able to quote that. If you can't, he has nothing except for this: Capital punishment is morally justified if there is a law that says it is. And with that we are back to testing the assertion with my statement and yours. To wit,

"Executing political dissidents is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?
"Executing car thieves is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?

[Brian Peacock]

You snipped the bolded bit from your quote:

But by drawing attention to the fact that we perceive a difference between a crime and physically similar punishments, he makes clear that he can't possibly mean everything legal is morally permissible where legal can mean anything.

I snipped it because it's word salad. What do you even mean with "difference between a crime and physically similar punishments"? My guess is that you meant something like "difference between a crime and physically similar actions", but that gets us back to the problem I pointed out earlier; van den Haag's only criterion - as far as you quoted him - by which murder can be differentiated from a morally justified killing of a human being is that the latter is condoned by means of a law. He is simply gainsaying the opponents of capital punishment he references, who say that no law justifies the killing of a human being.

If he has something else to prove them wrong you must be able to quote that. If you can't, he has nothing except for this: Capital punishment is morally justified if there is a law that says it is. And with that we are back to testing the assertion with my statement and yours. To wit,

"Executing political dissidents is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?
"Executing car thieves is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?

What about the idea of proportionality in sentencing? I think the idea here is that proportionality isn't simply the legal recourse available in sentencing as determined by the law, such that sentence B follows action A because the law says that it should and must, but that B is (or at least should be) in some way proportionate to A. Then the argument might be that execution is a proportionate sentence for murder reflected in law and not necessarily determined by law. Interested in your thoughts on this.

[Sean Hayden]

You snipped the bolded bit from your quote:

But by drawing attention to the fact that we perceive a difference between a crime and physically similar punishments, he makes clear that he can't possibly mean everything legal is morally permissible where legal can mean anything.

I snipped it because it's word salad. What do you even mean with "difference between a crime and physically similar punishments"? My guess is that you meant something like "difference between a crime and physically similar actions", but that gets us back to the problem I pointed out earlier; van den Haag's only criterion - as far as you quoted him - by which murder can be differentiated from a morally justified killing of a human being is that the latter is condoned by means of a law. He is simply gainsaying the opponents of capital punishment he references, who say that no law justifies the killing of a human being.

If he has something else to prove them wrong you must be able to quote that. If you can't, he has nothing except for this: Capital punishment is morally justified if there is a law that says it is. And with that we are back to testing the assertion with my statement and yours. To wit,

"Executing political dissidents is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?
"Executing car thieves is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?

Again, it's an excerpt and it deals with a very specific counter to capital punishment i.e. that the death penalty is murder.

I snipped it because it's word salad. What do you even mean with "difference between a crime and physically similar punishments"?

I had to go back and reread the excerpt. You had me worried about my sanity for a second.

Legally imposed punishments such as fines, incarcerations, or executions, although often physically identical to the crimes punished, are not crimes or their moral equivalent.

--excerpt

...and later

Unlawful imprisonment and kidnapping need not differ physically from the lawful arrest and incarceration used to punish unlawful imprisonment and kidnapping.

--also except

[Hermit]

You snipped the bolded bit from your quote:

But by drawing attention to the fact that we perceive a difference between a crime and physically similar punishments, he makes clear that he can't possibly mean everything legal is morally permissible where legal can mean anything.

I snipped it because it's word salad. What do you even mean with "difference between a crime and physically similar punishments"? My guess is that you meant something like "difference between a crime and physically similar actions", but that gets us back to the problem I pointed out earlier; van den Haag's only criterion - as far as you quoted him - by which murder can be differentiated from a morally justified killing of a human being is that the latter is condoned by means of a law. He is simply gainsaying the opponents of capital punishment he references, who say that no law justifies the killing of a human being.

If he has something else to prove them wrong you must be able to quote that. If you can't, he has nothing except for this: Capital punishment is morally justified if there is a law that says it is. And with that we are back to testing the assertion with my statement and yours. To wit,

"Executing political dissidents is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?
"Executing car thieves is not murder when they are lawfully executed." Is it?

What about the idea of proportionality in sentencing? I think the idea here is that proportionality isn't simply the legal recourse available in sentencing as determined by the law, such that sentence B follows action A because the law says that it should and must, but that B is (or at least should be) in some way proportionate to A. Then the argument might be that execution is a proportionate sentence for murder reflected in law and not necessarily determined by law. Interested in your thoughts on this.

Yes, proportionality is an excellent idea, but that is not what Ernest van den Haag argues about, at least not in the excerpt Sean Hayden quoted. From what we've seen so far he is simply asserting that a state sanctioned execution is not murder because a law makes it moral. The question must be asked: Is that what the law does? Hence my test statement, to which Sean has added his own.

[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.

[Sean Hayden]

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.