[Buddha-l] Re: Texas liberals (death penalty)

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2005-06-30 at 10:11 +0200, Stefan Detrez wrote:

> Ironically, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Japan, three traditionally
> Buddhist countries still retain the death penalty. 

Don't forget Myanmar.

> For me, I was for a long time parrotting the human rights rhetoric
> that humans have a right to life.

My opposition to the death penalty has never been connected with a
discussion of rights. I find almost all talk of "human rights"
unproductive, because no one has ever figured out how to adjudicate
satisfactorily between competing rights. Perhaps reading Alasdair
MacIntyre has helped me clarify my thinking on this sort of thing.

My principal opposition to the death penalty is not on ethical grounds
but on epistemological grounds. It is possible to make mistakes in
finding people guilty. It is impossible to bring someone back to life if
one finds one has mistakenly sentenced him to death.

Given that taking someone's life is an irreversible action, I would have
to have a very strong argument for doing so. It has been shown
repeatedly that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime, so I
don't buy the utilitarian argument in its favor. There are other ways of
keeping violent people from doing harm than killing them, so I don't
accept the argument based on public safety. I don't believe in vengeance
in any form, so I am not inclined to think that executing a murderer is
a comfort to the loved one's of her victims. So what grounds does that
leave for killing someone?

> You can ask yourself, 'should a serial murderer be kept alive, just
> because he has 'the right to life'?'

If the question is phrased that way, I would reply that nothing has a
right to anything. My claim would be that we never need a reason to
allow someone to live. Where we require a reason is to bring on a
person's death. Just as I have never yet seen any good argument in favor
of war, I have never yet seen any good argument in favor of taking a
human life.
 
> The problem with legalising/carrying out the death penalty is that
> some governments will make abuse of it. But that alone is not a good
> reason abolish it. The debate on the death penalty should not be:
> 'Death penalty: yes/no', but 'Death penalty: in what case?', just like
> any other ethical discussion.

That's a good way of putting it. My answer to that question is that I
have never yet seen a case in which the death penalty seemed the best
course of action. But perhaps this will change.

-- 
Richard Hayes
***
"Above all things, take heed in judging one another, 
for in that ye may destroy one another...
and eat out the good of one another."-- George Fox