From: dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: morality????????
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 05:11:34 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
NNTP-Posting-Host: b63519.student.cwru.edu

In article <10803@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) writes:
>In article <ednclark.722148297@kraken> ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark) writes:
>>bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) writes:
>>
>>
>>If there was a possibility of her harming innocent members of society then
>>she should be restrained from doing so. However she should not be held
>>personally responsible, in fact personal responsibility only counts if you
>>are interested in retribution, which I most definitely am not. 
>
>  Given that there are means of removing violent criminals from
>  society that do not include death, what reason other than
>  retribution do you see for allowing capital punishment?

Are you referring to life imprisonment? There are many cases of people who 
have been sentenced to life imprisonment who have subsequently killed again.

However, I would be happy to see mantadory life imprisonment without parole 
for murder. Although I would prefer the death penelty. And would choose 
exile over that.

>  Had I grown up a black child in the south during the 1950's, I can
>  easily see situations where I would have potentially become
>  violent.  Can you honestly say that someone in that situation must
>  shoulder the blame for their violence alone?

No. But the fact is that the person is violent here and now. We should work 
on eliminating the causes of violent crime. This includes people who are now 
murderers.

If a dog is brought up to kill people, we must protect ourselves from it. 
The same goes for people. I agree that killing them is far from being 
humane, but I have yet to hear a truly practical alternative.

>>Only a few
>>respond in this manner, some of them don't even have some bad childhood
>>excuse. Sure society sucks, but it doesn't say hey your Dad beat up on your
>>Mum so it's Okay for you to beat up on your wife. People who commit these
>>crimes know they are doing something wrong or at least knew that doing such
>>a thing was wrong.
>
>  I think our time would be better spent trying to understand what
>  creates this kind of behavior rather than spending millions of
>  dollars attempting to execute the criminals.  

We should work to understand the behavior so that we can prevent people from 
becoming criminals in the future. If some person develops a miraculous way 
of removing criminal behavior from existing criminals, we should use it. 
Until that time, we should protect ourselves as best we can.

>  Perhaps you can truthfully state that under no circumstances could
>  you perform a violent act.  I can't honestly say the same about
>  myself.  What's a senseless act to you may appear to be a matter
>  of paramount importance to me.

If I should ever begin performing senseless acts of violence, I hope that 
society takes whatever steps are necessary to stop me. Including killing me.
+-------------+------------------+---------------------------------+
| Damien Neil | dpn2@po.cwru.edu | Case Western Reserve University |
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