On the Death Penalty

I must begin by apologizing to Pro for mischaracterizing him as 'young'. Though, he must concede that he does appear to be younger in his photograph. ----- My opponent holds that the governmenrt has the right to take the life of a criminal in some cases as both a defense of society and as redress of grievances on behalf of the victim's family. He bases this right on the Social Contract Theory, despite there being no real consensus among social contract philosophers on a government's right to do so. I will address this below. I will note that Pro has conceded that the government can no longer invoke the right to self defense when a criminal is incarcerated, thus no longer a threat to society ("Otherwise, it is a violation of the attacker's rights...My opponent is correct in his notion that the right to self defense stops when one's life is no longer threatened."). Therefore, the remainder of our debate will address the redress of grievances concept in the social contract theory. Finally, he employs the appeal to emotion fallacy to attack life-term for prisoners, characterizing it as "disgusting" that tax payers must pay for the continued existence of someone who has violated the social contract to such extreme proportions (i.e. murderers, rapists, &ct.). This is a debate about the death penalty, therefore I am not concerned with my worthy opponent's opinion as to what constitutes "disgusting." ---------------------------------- Pro's case can be summed up in just one sentence, "...in violating another's right to self-defense and their right to life, the criminal has negated his own claim to this right." He seems to take it for granted that Social Contract Theorists have come to an overall aggreement on this issue. This is despite the fact that few early theorists included this concept in their versions of social contract. Additionally, this ignores the soial contract theory known as the 'di law code theory'. This theory states that two law codes exist. The first set is the natural rights enjoyed by every human for merely existing. The second set is a state's law code. A state can only take away rights that it gives to its citizens. Therefore, natural right can never be taken away or violated by the government, no matter what a person does. Of course, this includes the right to life and liberty. http://en.wikipedia.org... An early version of this can be found in Rousseau's social contract. He states that " on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which he renounced it." (http://www.fordham.edu... Paragraph 27) As to what should be done with them on such a violation he states: "These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one -- the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community." (Paragraph 28) In other words, the transgressor retains all of his natural rights, but is removed from society. In the modern era, we have characterized prison terms as a proper place to remove those dangerous to society; and those violating either set of rights of another citizen. "An argument under this right might follow: 1) You (the criminal) have forcibly removed Joe from the SC. 2) You are clearly guilty of murder (1). 3) The just punishment is to permanently remove you from the SC. 4) The just, and only way to do this is by death." Therefore, this hypothetical situation employed by my opponent woudl be an example of a government violating someone's natural rights. This is itself a violation of some versions of the social contract theory. A more just scenario may look like this: 1) You (the criminal) have forcibly removed Joe from the SC. 2) You are clearly guilty of murder. 3) The just punishment is to permanently remove you from the SC. 4) The just, and only way to do this is by incarcerating you for the remainder of your life. My opponent concludes that: "Some acts are so heinous that the actor responsible for them does not deserve to live." However, this interpretation is based on opinion. Who gets to define what crimes are 'heinous'? In this debate, Pro defines it as murder, rape, and child molestation. But what if someone else were to define 'heinous' as adultery or for being raped like the girl in the following article was in Somalia? (http://www.nytimes.com...) It is dangerous to permit a government, or anyone for that matter, to violate the natural rights of some citizens based on standards they get to define. CONCLUSION A criminal retains his natural rights even when he violates the rights of another. A government only has the right to redress of grievances so long as it does not transgress on the natural rights of the criminal.