Death penalty ethics

To kill or not to kill? Death penalty debate weighs heavy on us all

Fresno Bee, September 24, 2016

Two rival death penalty initiatives are on the November ballot. Proposition 62 seeks to abolish the death penalty. Proposition 66 intends to make it more efficient. The moral questions raised are complex.

Opponents of the death penalty argue that killing is always wrong. Defenders of capital punishment believe that some criminals deserve death. Between these two positions there is little common ground.

BEFORE VOTING IN NOVEMBER, TAKE TIME TO DISCUSS THE ISSUE. AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT DECENT PEOPLE WILL DISAGREE ABOUT CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, AS WE DO ABOUT OTHER VEXING MORAL QUESTIONS.

Death penalty defenders often understand punishment as retribution. Retributive justice is intuitively appealing. The scales of justice are balanced by restitution and retaliation. Thieves should pay back what they’ve stolen. And if you take a life, you owe a life.

Critics worry that retributivism is too closely linked to revenge. Revenge seems to provide emotional catharsis. There is pleasure and power in hurting those who harm us.

Donald Trump tapped into this emotional element this week when he called for “just and very harsh punishment” for a recently captured terrorist. Someone in the crowd yelled, “hang him.”

Death penalty opponents reject vengeful calls for harsh punishment. At the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty this year, Pope Francis argued that the death penalty “does not render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance.” He continued, “The commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty.”

Modern executions don’t satisfy vengeful emotions. Lethal injection kills without spilling blood. The modern trend is toward more humane and less cruel punishments. A possible place for common ground is found in the idea that cruel bloodlust is wrong and that suffering should be minimized.

We certainly don’t behead or crucify people – and we condemn other cultures that do. We don’t hold public executions. Crowds no longer mock the condemned on the gallows.

But a more public and bloody execution system might work as a deterrent for crime. Our sanitized, secretive and infrequent executions don’t scare anyone.

If the death penalty worked as a deterrent, it might be justified as socially beneficial. However, research on the deterrent effect of the death penalty is inconclusive. And the death penalty is applied so infrequently in California that any deterrent effect is lost.

There are reasons to be skeptical of the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Violent criminals seem to accept violence. Armed bandits understand that they may be shot while committing a crime. The threat of execution will not deter suicidal terrorists.

Further reflection points toward political questions. For example, some fear expansive and corrupt government power. In a debate about capital punishment with Hillary Clinton,Bernie Sanders said, “I just don’t believe that government itself should be part of the killing.”

Libertarians tend to agree with Sanders about limiting the state’s power to kill. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson opposes the death penalty because he worries that innocent people may be executed. He has reportedly said, “I don’t want to put one innocent person to death to punish 99 who are guilty.”

Concern about the chance of executing an innocent person is connected to larger concerns about fairness in the justice system. Racial and class-based issues should be considered here. Abolitionists think that the justice system will not fairly apply the ultimate punishment. Reformers want to make sure that the system is fair and just.

In her debate with Sanders, Clinton asserted her trust in the federal court system. She defended the use of the death penalty for heinous crimes and said that she has “confidence in the federal system.”

It may be surprising that Clinton agrees with Trump about the justification of the death penalty. It is not surprising that Trump goes further than Clinton in supporting aggressive policing – and even torture – as necessary for maintaining social order.

Beyond the politics, we should consider higher moral goods. Death penalty opponents extol peaceful virtues such as mercy, gentleness, and forgiveness. But death penalty advocates see retributive justice as required by the ancient law of eye for eye, life for life.

Serious and good people have disagreed about this for millennia. There are compelling arguments on each side. Before voting in November, take time to discuss the issue. And acknowledge that decent people will disagree about capital punishment, as we do about other vexing moral questions.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article103665217.html#storylink=cpy

February 21, 2015

The Ethics of Death

Don’t avoid the big questions about death

Fresno Bee, February 20, 2015

Death prompts serious reflection. If death is a dreamless sleep, there is no reason to fear it, since “you” won’t know you are dead. But if death opens the door to another life, where God metes out justice, evildoers ought to fear death and good people should look forward to it.

These issues are the focus of a new book, “The Ethics of Death.” The book provides an interesting dialogue between Lloyd Steffen, a scholar of religion, and Dennis Cooley, a humanist philosopher. I am on a panel with the authors this weekend at a conference in Southern California, discussing the meaning of death.

This big question has deep roots. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus argued that death was annihilation. He thought this was a liberating idea, since it cured the anxiety created by religious stories of reward and punishment. Don’t worry about being dead, Epicurus advised, because your own death will literally be nothing to you. Epicurus and his followers ignored religion and focused on living long and living well.

The early Christians argued directly against the Epicureans and their indifference about death. Augustine argued, for example, that the Epicureans vainly pursued merely fleeting satisfactions. Augustine thought that real happiness is only found in eternal blessedness after death.

Epicurean affirmation of mortal finitude may help us savor the pleasures of life. If the Epicureans are right, ethics becomes a matter of prudence: clean living helps us prosper in this life. But Christians and others who long for eternal life will argue that the joys of this life are shallow and worthless. If we believe in an afterlife, ethical action takes on infinite weight.

A variety of concrete moral implications flow from this dispute. For example, if death means annihilation, then the death penalty is not much of a punishment, since once the criminal is dead he is no longer being punished. A harsher punishment might keep the bad guy alive in order to cause him to suffer as long as possible. On the other hand, if there is an afterlife, then execution speeds the criminal on to final judgment.

Or consider suicide and euthanasia. If death is nonexistence, then death could provide relief in the face of terrible suffering. But those who believe in an afterlife tend to think that suicide is immoral because our lives are not entirely our own to dispose of.

Despite the import of these issues, we often ignore them. Perhaps they are too difficult to think about. But the fact of the matter is that you can’t grow younger and you can’t avoid death.

Phillip Levine, Fresno’s beloved and recently departed poet laureate, once lamented the fact that it takes a very long time to believe the simplest facts of life: “that certain losses are final, death is one, childhood another.”

In another poem Levine said, “no one believes that to die is beautiful.” Levine suggested that in death we might join the waters of the world, flowing into every crack and crevice. Perhaps something beautiful happens when we give up the ghost and join the flow of nature. A poet’s ear may be needed to hear this.

Reflection on death naturally gives way to poetry. In his last days, Socrates wrote poetry and composed hymns. But he also philosophized until his final moments, talking with his friends and speculating about the afterlife.

Music, poetry, religion, and philosophy are expressions of the depth of the human spirit. Consciousness transforms brute experience into meaning. Awareness of death gives urgency to the soul’s need to express itself. We sing and talk and write because we want to leave a fluttering trace of ourselves in the void. If we never died, would we bother to think or talk at all?

To be conscious is to be surrounded by darkness. We do not recall the nothingness before life. Nor can we see beyond the shadows of death. The great religious and philosophical dialogue is an attempt to shed some light on this surrounding gloom.

Death gives meaning to life. Unfortunately, we each have but one lifetime to pray, argue, and sing, while the light still shines. At stake in this discussion is simply everything.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2015/02/20/4387659/ethics-dont-avoid-the-big-questions.html#storylink=cpy

July 26, 2014August 30, 2014

Death Penalty and War

What do we want when it comes to war or the death penalty?

Fresno Bee, July 26, 2014

Federal judge Cormac Carney recently ruled that California’s dysfunctional death penalty is cruel and unusual because those who are sentenced to death are rarely executed. Since 1978 only 13 people have been executed in California, while more than 900 people have been sentenced to death. The average time spent on death row is 25 years. Execution in California is a matter of luck, not justice.

Carney argues that the arbitrariness of the death penalty means that this punishment is not working to deter crime. Nor is it working as retribution. Neither of these moral purposes is fulfilled when executions are infrequent and random. Carney does not deny that the death penalty can be justified. Rather, he maintains that the current system does not live up to its own standards.

Carney’s argument raises the challenge of idealism and perfectionism in thinking about state-sponsored killing. He concludes that if the execution system does not live up to the ideal, we ought not employ it. One obvious response would be to fix the dysfunction in the system and make it less arbitrary. But until that is done, the judge ruled that executions are cruel, unusual and unconstitutional.

We usually don’t demand this sort of perfectionism. Schools, marriages and sports leagues rarely live up to our ideals. However, we don’t abolish them. Instead, we aim to reform them to bring them closer to the ideal.

Usually it is not wise to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Perfectionism sets up a false dilemma: either perfection or abolition. The perfectionist false dilemma can lead us to jettison valuable but imperfect things. It can also cause us to give up the effort to reform and improve.

But state-sponsored killing seems to require a special and more perfect justification. If we are bothered by the arbitrary and capricious nature of the death penalty, then we should be even more worried about arbitrary and random killing in war. Consider the problem of collateral damage in war. Enemy soldiers are legitimate targets of justified warfare. But noncombatants — innocent civilians — are not supposed to be killed. Unfortunately, modern wars kill noncombatants in large numbers.

Defenders of the morality of war argue that civilian killing is permissible so long as armies do not deliberately target civilians. Critics of war reject this subtle moral point.

Critics argue that bad luck and accidental factors cannot justify the killing of the innocent. Following Carney’s reasoning about the death penalty, a critic might conclude that war ought to be abolished until we can ensure that wars are fought without creating collateral damage.

The analogy between war and the death penalty is not seamless. We presume, for example, that the convicted criminal is guilty of a crime and deserves to be punished, even though some death row inmates have in fact been exonerated. On the other hand, we presume that noncombatants are innocent and do not deserve the harm they suffer, even though the mothers and children of soldiers can work behind the lines to support the war effort.

A form of skeptical pacifism can result when we insist on perfectionism with regard to state-sponsored killing.

Until state-sponsored killing becomes less capricious and more deliberately targeted, the pacifist will say, states ought not kill.

Those not convinced by this argument will have to reconcile themselves to the apparent conflict between the arbitrary and random nature of state-sponsored killing and perfectionist idealism about justice.

A perfectly just system of state-sponsored killing would only kill those who deserve death and it would kill them in a fair and consistent way. A perfect system of state-sponsored killing would not bomb children or apply the death penalty in haphazard ways. It would give people what they deserve. And it would bring about good consequences. But of course, in a perfect world we would not need executioners or armies.

This line of thinking leaves us with a difficult decision. Should we demand perfection, or can we accept something less than perfection when it comes to war and the death penalty? This is a crucial and serious question for democratic citizens, since in a democracy state-sponsored killing is ultimately done in our names and on our behalf.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/07/25/4040930/ethics-what-do-we-want-when-it.html#storylink=cpy

February 25, 2013March 4, 2013

The Sometimes Difficult Path to Forgiveness

Ethics: The sometimes difficult path to forgiveness

By Andrew Fiala- Special to The Fresno Bee

Monday, Feb. 25, 2013 | 01:26 PM

It is easy to focus on justice, resentment and punishment. We forget that mercy and forgiveness are also important social values.

The conflict between justice and mercy is a central focus for Trudy Conway, an ethics professor from Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland. Conway was in Fresno this week to give a lecture for Fresno State’s Ethics Center on her new book opposing capital punishment, “Where Justice and Mercy Meet.”

Conway’s work points toward a larger consideration of virtues such as hospitality, tolerance and compassion. She is interested in how those values help us develop genuine moral communities. In an earlier essay, Conway explained that compassion rests on “feeling myself into the other.” She writes, “it is only when I can see and feel the other’s pain and recognize it as in some way my own that I can begin to morally respond to the other.”

We often fail to see and feel other people’s suffering. Criminals obviously fail to consider the suffering of those they assault. Retaliation and retribution appear to offer compensation for the suffering of the victim. But Conway warns that the desire for retaliation can lead us to reduce wrongdoers to their worst moments and downplay compassion. She asks, how would you like to be judged and remembered for your worst deed? Mercy and forgiveness look beyond a person’s worst act, toward the dignity and worth of that person’s entire life, with compassion for their suffering, and hope for redemption.

Forgiveness and mercy do help us sustain ordinary relationships in a world where people make mistakes and do bad things. But murder seems different. The finality of murder appears to cut off the possibility of forgiveness by annihilating the victim, who cannot offer forgiveness. And there is something morally problematic about offering forgiveness on behalf of another. Forgiveness is a gift that can only be granted by the one who has been harmed.

But it is possible that those who are most closely related to the victim could offer a kind of forgiveness. One of the co-editors of “Where Justice and Mercy Meet” is Vicki Schieber, the mother of a young woman, Shannon, who was brutally raped and murdered. Schieber has actively opposed the death penalty since Shannon’s murder. She has been working toward the abolition of the death penalty in Maryland, a legislative outcome that may soon be accomplished.

In the concluding chapter of “Where Justice and Mercy Meet,” Schieber celebrates forgiveness, reconciliation and compassion. She describes overcoming the desire for revenge in Christian terms, as a process of un-hardening the heart, grounded in Catholic teaching about the sacredness of all human life.

The secular justice system is, however, not focused on those values. We expect justice to be impartial, equal and fair. Forgiveness and mercy appear to be too subjective and arbitrary for the institutions of justice.

But we forget that justice has an emotional component. Conway points out that concern for justice is linked to righteous indignation. It is appropriate to feel outrage in the face of wrongdoing. But Conway warns that “righteous anger” can devolve into the desire for “retaliatory revenge.”

The move from righteous anger to retaliatory revenge is a familiar one. Consider what happens when rude or disrespectful behavior occurs. Adrenaline surges and blood pressure rises in a variation of the flight or fight response. Righteous indignation is linked to the justifiable urge to fight back in defense.

But righteous anger can lead to resentment and an excessive desire for revenge. And this can blind us, preventing us from seeing others as persons, who make mistakes and deserve compassion. Compassion, forgiveness and mercy point beyond justice and anger toward a calmer, broader perspective that sees individuals as more than their worst deeds.

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October 6, 2012March 30, 2013

Justice, Mercy, and the Death Penalty

Ballot offers choice between justice and mercy

Andrew Fiala

Fresno Bee 2012-10-06

Proposition 34 aims to repeal the death penalty in California, while replacing it with life imprisonment without parole.

Those arguing in favor of Prop. 34 claim that abolishing the death penalty will save money which can be used to pursue criminals. The election booklet clarifies this focus on law enforcement by saying, “we cannot let brutal killers evade justice.” The argument also claims that abolishing the death penalty will ensure that innocent people are not executed.

Opponents of Prop. 34 argue that without the death penalty, murderers would indeed evade justice. That argument claims, “Proposition 34 lets serial killers, cop killers, child killers, and those who kill the elderly, escape justice.” The argument then describes a number of cruel and brutal murders.

This points toward some deep moral issues.

Justice appears to require an equivalence between crime and punishment. The retributivist idea of “eye for eye, life for a life” may have developed as a way of restraining the desire for revenge. Consider, for example, the ancient Greek story of Achilles. When his friend was killed, Achilles went on a rampage, slaughtering every Trojan he could find. Achilles defiled the body of his friend’s killer and ritually murdered a dozen Trojan prisoners. From the standpoint of “life for life,” Achilles’ revenge was unjust.

The “life for life” ideal may establish a duty to execute. Immanuel Kant once argued that even if society were to collapse and the prisons were to be dismantled, we would still have a moral obligation to kill every murderer awaiting execution. For Kant, we have an obligation to the murder victim — and to the murderer himself. People should be given what they deserve. If murderers deserve to be killed, we ought to deliver justice, even if it is inconvenient or expensive.

An alternative to retributivism is an ethic of mercy. When we show mercy, we give people less than what they deserve, perhaps because we feel compassion to them. The ethic of mercy is associated with Christianity, with Jesus recommending that we “turn the other cheek” rather than taking an “eye for an eye.” The Catholic Bishops of California have argued in support of Prop. 34, connecting it with a larger “pro-life” view. The California Catholic Conference website explains: “we consistently proclaim the intrinsic worth and the God-given dignity of all human life, whether innocent or guilty.” They claim that if society can be protected from violence through the use of life imprisonment, this is preferable to killing the murderer.

This points us toward the question of protecting society and the deterrent effect. The question of deterrence is a complex one, depending on a variety of psychological and social factors. Are murderers rational? Do they value their own lives enough to engage in cost-benefit analysis, weighing the risk of punishment before they engage in their crimes? There is no proof that the death penalty, as currently employed, has a deterrent effect on a murderer.

One reason for this is the infrequent use of the death penalty. The November election book explains that since 1978 about 900 people have been sentenced to death. But only 14 have been executed. When you are more likely to die on death row of natural causes than to be executed, there is not much reason to fear a death sentence.

If we really want to deter crime, we may need swifter and more certain system of execution. But opponents will argue that this could lead us to execute some innocent people, who are protected by the lengthy appeals process. For deterrence to work, we might want to return to public executions–public hangings or the guillotine. The spectacle of a brutal execution may in fact scare people away from crime. But our current practice emphasizes the painless killing of lethal injection.

This brings us back to the question of justice and mercy. We no longer cut off criminal’s heads or hang them in public. Why not? Perhaps we are simply squeamish about doing what justice requires. Maybe we just don’t like to see blood — even when we believe that it is justly spilled. Or perhaps we are convinced that mercy and compassion are important values. We’ll see whether justice or mercy wins out in the November election.