• proudblond@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    I would not say there is specifically an upside to keeping a serial killer alive, but there are many downsides to the death penalty both ethically and in practice, not the least of which is the chance that you would execute an innocent person. For those of us who are anti-death penalty, that is usually where we’re coming from.

    • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      I’m against the death penalty, and I know the best argument against it, something nobody in this thread has even approximately articulated.

      Currently, as far as I know, there is only one strong argument against the death penalty, and it has to do with moral proscriptions against treating the death of a person as a spectacle, which I notice nobody mentioned.

      • proudblond@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        I don’t want someone to kill me; therefore I believe it is also not okay for me to kill someone else. It’s just the golden rule. I am not a student of ethics or philosophy but it seems pretty straightforward to me.

        • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          In the event that I were guilty of causing great harm to innocent people, then I should be killed. Not in revenge, but as a matter of course, given that my life would no longer be worth living.

          This is the golden rule in action, which is about how you would want to be treated in similar circumstances.

      • aidan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Currently, as far as I know, there is only one strong argument against the death penalty, and it has to do with moral proscriptions against treating the death of a person as a spectacle, which I notice nobody mentioned.

        Nah I think not killing innocent people is a pretty strong argument, death being a spectacle doesn’t really matter to me- someone killing someone is much worse than the part where they post it on LiveLeak

        • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          If you’re so against killing innocents, I assume you’re vegan. Or… is your morality as twisted and inconsistent as I suspect?

            • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              So your morality is arbitrary, and at least we can both agree that the chicken has more reason to live than you do.

              • aidan@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                So your morality is arbitrary

                Yours isn’t? Where does it come from?

                both agree that the chicken has more reason to live than you do.

                You’re clearly not trolling

                • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  2 months ago

                  Your morality isn’t arbitrary?

                  This is literally nihilism.

                  I’m genuinely happy to discuss metaethics, but I’m getting a sense that you don’t actually care about ethics very much, given your nihilism.

                  • aidan@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    2 months ago

                    This is literally nihilism.

                    No, it’s not.

                    Nihilism requires intentionally rejecting morality. Accepting that any belief is inherently arbitrary, but still caring about that, is not nihilism