The death penalty is medieval and should be outlawed, along with lynching. A society based on the rule of law should not be taking other people’s lives. The fault derives (need anyone ask) from the ancient Jewish stricture "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", and absorbed into extreme "christian" religious sects. Even modern (genuine) Christians shun this leftover from pre-historic tribal culture, all except the pre-historic tribalists of the American South, it appears.
Epicureans should not, if they have strong moral beliefs, support judicial murder.
It is banned by nearly all civilized countries. But then there is a segment of American opinion that hasn’t caught up with the world outside. I suspect anti-black racism and fear is really at the core of it.
What exactly is the alleged Epicurean moral argument against capital punishment? It doesn’t give murderers pleasure? Perhaps we should give them a lollipop and a Swedish massage instead?
Capital punishment gives this (semi)Epicurean pleasure, not because I enjoy seeing the state execute people, but because I enjoy justice. Murderers certainly won’t get their comeuppance in the (non-existent) afterlife by the (non-existent) Great Judge in the Sky. Epicurus wasn’t exactly a proponent of such fairy tales. Justice is in the here and now, or not at all.
I also enjoy the security of knowing these predators will never harm anyone again. Epicurus repeatedly emphasized the importance of security in personal happiness.
Capital punishment also helps alleviate the suffering of the victim’s family. As Epicurus taught, the alleviation of suffering is a natural good.
Finally, probably the most relevant thing Epicurus said on the subject is that the “natural benefit of kingship and high office is (and only is) the degree to which they provide security from other men” (Principal Doctrines VI). The men who end up on Death Row are violent predators—protecting society from them is a “natural benefit” of the state.
Now THOSE are Epicurean arguments, not some thinly veiled “Europe-is-so-much-more-civilized-than-America” nonsense. Besides being utter crap, it’s also utterly unrelated to anything Epicurus ever taught….
Well, to start with, they are finding all too many instances where condemned men are exonerated after DNA testing. That might be dismissed by the bloodlusters as a bit of liberal guff : you gotta execute someone to make the family feel better, and if it’s a mentally disturbed guy with an IQ of 60, so be it.
(I will ignore, for the sake of civilized debate, the fact that an overwhelming number of the executed have been black, out of proportion to the population. Mmmh. Wonder why that should be?)
Assuming the men who end up on death row are indeed violent predators, I totally agree that protecting society from them is a “natural benefit†of the state.But since the invention of prisons (they did not exist even in Roman times, so there was no alternative to death in the days of Epicurus) there is an alternative, and you don’t have to let proven killers out -ever they are a danger to society. I suggest we look at Epicureanism in the context of modern conditions, not through the lens of the 3rd Century B.C.
By the way, prisons are one of the institutions, along with the whole panoply of the Law, that are paid for by our (shudder!) taxes, that is if we pay them!
First off Robert, sorry for the snarky tone of my first post. As you can see, I have very little patience for the Eurocentric “America is an uncivilized backwater” argument. I’ve been reading your blog off and on for some time now, and I do appreciate it. Makes me think about the Sage’s most wonderful and rational teachings.
As for blacks being overrepresented on death row relative to their population, the propensity of African-Americans to commit violent crime at a significantly greater rate than European-Americans or Asian-Americans is very well documented, if not well publicized (PC and all that rot). Occam’s Razor suggests that this is sufficient explanation for their relative abundance on death row.
I would also venture to guess that there may be a negative correlation between IQ and violent crime rates, though I haven’t seen any empirical evidence for this. Besides, just because someone has an IQ of 60 does NOT mean that they don’t know right from wrong, nor should it mean that they are exempt from the same punishments everyone else is.
Imprisonment for life is a reasonable alternative. That is a rational argument. I personally feel that being imprisoned for life is a much harsher punishment than becoming worm food, however. I would rather be dead myself. But I don’t think there is a compelling argument for life imprisonment rather than execution. Spending your life in prison on a false conviction is still a wasted life. The solution is to make the justice system more rigorous, particularly by requiring DNA tests whenever feasible. There have been cases where DNA evidence exists, but DNA tests have been refused on ridiculous legal grounds. This is unconscionable, but typical of the amoral sophists who populate the legal profession.
I still don’t think Epicurus would necessarily support your initial post, at least from what I can glean from his remaining writings, which admittedly are a tiny fraction of his original work. But if it makes you feel any better, one of my other great philosophical heroes, Shakyamuni Buddha, would probably thoroughly agree with you 🙂
“the propensity of African-Americans to commit violent crime at a significantly greater rate than European-Americans or Asian-Americans is very well documented”
But this is a class matter, not a racial one (personally I think the preoccupation with “race” in America is both ridiculous and boring, like “class” in the UK). Do you inherit a propensity for violent crime? I don’t know. Isn’t it something that develops out of your environment and and the influences you encounter in your youth? Not sure whether anyone knows. But were African Americans to allow themselves to join the modern world more thoroughly, instead of allowing themselves to subsist in a cultural laager, their crime rates would be no different to anyone else’s. I bet if you look at the upwardly mobile section of the black population you would find that their crime rate was no different to the rest of the population.
A very encouraging development has been the outrageous theft of millions of dollars from the taxpayers of DC by a couple (?) of government workers – the property tax refund scam (if you have followed this). This shows that African Americans can thieve as well as white white collar workers on a longterm and effective basis. So much better than violence, don’t you think?