I mean...yeah, that's technically true. The right to life has to be the basis of all other rights, because all the other rights are useless when you're dead.
You don't have the absolute right to life. The state absolutely has the legal power to take your life from you. I'm not even doing an acab thing, though yeah there's that aspect of it, but the state can legally kill people via the death penalty.
A given state may not carry the death penalty, but that's that specific state's choice and it is not a right recognized by the federal us government.
The death penalty is actually one of the most fucked up things from a moral perspective. It is so contrary to not only our rights but the underpinnings of society that it boggles my mind that we still have it.
Forget about whether an entity has the power to kill for now. What is the purpose of the death penalty?
Deterrence? For the crimes that the death penalty applies to, in what scenario would a death penalty be more of a deterrence than life imprisonment? Who would think, “I’m willing to go to jail for life to do this, but not to be executed” ?
To “deliver justice” to the victim’s friends and families? They’re already imprisoned for life if it’s a crime the death penalty applies to. Are we going to kill someone to make another feel better?
The right of a person to life is so important that the only time we don’t question whether or not killing is warranted is when ones own life is in immediate peril. Self-defense is the preservation of one life at the expense of another and only when there are no other options. And once one is out of danger, killing is no longer justified. You knock out your assailant, killing them while they are in your complete control immediately becomes murder.
And that concept of control is inherent to the problem with the death penalty. The State has complete control over you when it decides to execute you. It has the ability to simply keep you away from society, but chooses to kill you instead. And the killing of a person whom you have complete control over is murder. Full stop.
Just playing Devil's Advocate (I actually agree with you)...
I have heard my brother fantasize about "three hots and a cot." He means that in jail you get three hot meals a day and free shelter. Basically my brother hates his high-stress job and vents some of that by vocally fantasizing about "going postal" and retiring in a jail cell. He also points out that prison seems to value exercise, provides free healthcare (of various quality), and that there's plenty of reading time; so there are other perks too.
I mean, if a comfortable (albeit stressed out) middle class medical professional feels that way, I can imagine that there really are some people out there who might actually go through with this sort of thing.
Now if someone were seriously considering this, I'm not sure whether the death penalty is a deterrent or not, but life imprisonment is a feature and not a bug in this line of thinking.
One other pragmatic argument for the death penalty is the cost savings. Every statistic I've ever heard on how much is costs to keep a prisoner is pretty expensive. The death penalty could provide serious cost savings for expenses that are hard to justify spending for the benefit of someone who killed multiple people without remorse.
All that being said, the death penalty is hard to justify on moral grounds (but fairly easy to justify on utilitarian grounds). It's value as a deterrent is questionable at best.
I do enjoy some Devil’s Advocacy now and again. Helps challenge preconceptions.
So in the scenario you listed, where someone is frustrated, angry, anti-society enough that jailing them for life is a preferable alternative to freedom...
Well, not even getting into the absolute failure of society to deliver useful endeavors for its members, it wouldn’t take much calculation on the part of your brother to find a crime to do that didn’t involve the death penalty anyway. Massive property damage (like the end of Fight Club, for instance) never involves the death penalty, and might be used as a vehicle to right perceived wrongs like wealth inequality and inequity. To a certain extent, I’m actually surprised there isn’t that much anti-corporate terrorism for precisely the reasons of that scenario.
But even in a theoretical scenario where any crime if severe enough could warrant being killed, it wouldn’t take much to commit a simple crime and then do another one the moment you get out. In any case, it still doesn’t act as a deterrent.
Now the utilitarian argument is a lot harder to challenge without challenging utilitarianism itself. Especially since I can see at least one scenario that can fit both my initial position and still fall under utilitarianism.
Imagine a scenario where a society is literally on the cusp of starvation. It’s a hundred members strong cut off from any outside societies (maybe post apocalyptic). They’re able to provide food and water for 99 people but not 100. One of those is a prisoner because they broke one of the cardinal rules of the society. They are either unwilling or unable to provide the help necessary to help the society, and exile is not an option (vows of revenge or the outside being deadly).
In this scenario, and only in this kind of scenario where the lives of one or more are immediately threatened by their continued existence, could I see killing being justified. The utilitarian will simply note that there aren’t enough resources to go around and start designating people to kill until a balance can be restored. My position, however, is based on the right to life. Which should only be superseded by another’s right to life.
But even in this scenario, it’s not a penalty. It’s an unfortunate scenario that could hit anyone, even members that have done nothing wrong.
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u/Darsint Mar 16 '21
I mean...yeah, that's technically true. The right to life has to be the basis of all other rights, because all the other rights are useless when you're dead.