I wish I can choose 'Appeal to Emotion.' That's what this is. No evidence brought. It's all subjective emotion.
askyous
Argument To Pity
This doesn't have any real substance to it at all. Nobody is saying that it's good in *all* cases, the point of the argument is that it's good in *some* cases. By bringing up these other cases, you're implying that they're *all* that way, without giving any real evidence except your emotions.
gappleto97
The only reason I can agree with this is because of the "some cases" part. If one could, for example, guarantee with 100% accuracy that someone murdered their parents in cold blood, this would be a fairly good candidate for the death penalty.
But even if you think that someone deserves to be killed, if you have people kill them in turn (directly or indirectly), the total number of people who have killed someone goes up.
I'm not sure that I agree with your conclusion. The people who did so would be absolved of guilt because they did not make the decision; society at large would have condemned the person to death, not the executioner, who acts amorally, not immorally.
Bob locks Alice in his basemet for years(100% sure, cold blood). Is the penalty to jail Bob acceptable?
"But even if you think that someone deserves to be caged, if you have people cage them in turn (directly or indirectly), the total number of people who have caged someone goes up." (?)
Only in the most extreme cases could it be considered. There needs to be absolute irrefutable evidence of guilt and no chance of personal reform of the guilty person. The execution of warcriminals after WW2 is an example of when it can be considered.
The death penalty is something that you cannot undo if later proven innocent. Courts are not perfect, so it absolutely WILL happen that innocents are executed. History showed that this is true.
We're not looking at *every* case here, we're looking at *some* cases. You can conceive of a case where we *know* the person is guilty, so this argument is invalid.
> You can conceive of a case where we *know* the person is guilty, so this argument is invalid.
Many people who were *known* to be guilty were executed and were still later proven innocent by the US government. The latest case I found is as early as 1991!! One is already way too much.
But that's still not the argument. If you can conceive of *any* case where the person *was guilty* and *was known to be* guilty, then your argument is invalid.
The 1991 case I just gave you was a case were the government found him guilty and was known to be guilty by the government until he was brutally executed.
That is with the exception of us maybe not being on par with how we define "was known to be guilty" which I am referring to as legally guilty.
Then you're intentionally misinterpreting me. I am saying:
If you can conceive of *any* case where the person *actually committed the crime* and we have *irrefutable evidence* of this, then your argument is invalid.
So death penalty should be applied more carefully, only if we are 100% sure that accused person really did it, for example if they were caught doing it or if court has very strong evidence (e.g. a video evidence). Any doubts should disallow death sentence from being executed.
Who or what decides whether or not a certain amount of doubt is acceptable to still apply? If a rule like that exists there have to be exceptions. If i kill 100 people, but there is considerable doubt over my methods or doing it would that be enough? or would it be down to a court to decide?
spaghetti_tree
