tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post2138983049723479582..comments2024-02-26T00:59:26.907-08:00Comments on Ana the Imp: Death and DilemmaAnastasia F-Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-76680238550953378672009-11-24T16:25:16.546-08:002009-11-24T16:25:16.546-08:00Your contributions never fail to impress me, dear ...Your contributions never fail to impress me, dear Allectus.Anastasia F-Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-73185628436574637342009-11-24T13:28:07.943-08:002009-11-24T13:28:07.943-08:00... continued from post 1
I have never been impre...... continued from post 1<br /><br />I have never been impressed by the sort of argument implied by "it may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit ...", not only because it invokes the kind of superstition and sentimentality which has already been allowed to obscure the debate on this subject for far too long, but because it could serve equally well as an argument against the use of punishment in any circumstances. This argument can, moreover, also serve against your views on abortion and eugenics, which also imply, correctly in my view, that one human life can possess a higher value than another. <br /><br />Abandoning the trammelling and superstitious belief in the "sanctity of human life", and embracing the reality that our lives are finite, contingent and of unequal value, is a necessary first step away from our moribund and guilt-ridden society, obssessed with the bottom ten or twenty percent of its members, towards one with a more healthy and positive focus on those at the other end of the ability range. Of course, it will involve leaving behind a lot of comforting old certainties and facing up to a host of awkward questions, not an attractive proposition for a society which has long preferred a culture of hypocrisy, self-deception and misplaced guilt to one of self-confidence, self-realisation and the pursuit of excellence. But I believe we'll find our way, eventually.<br /><br />EndAllectushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02724166678032002731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-1649378122558140272009-11-24T13:21:42.942-08:002009-11-24T13:21:42.942-08:00Capital punishment is a difficult subject to consi...Capital punishment is a difficult subject to consider dispassionately. I find that the protagonists tend to set out by defining their position in terms of more or less inflexible, and mutually irreconcilable, first principles, and the debate, if it can be so called, quickly degenerates into a series of emotionally-charged skirmishes, with neither side prepared to risk decisive intellectual engagement. This may have something to do with the large numbers of stupid people who hold strong views on the subject. But I believe that there is also a more general reluctance, where the emotional stakes are so high, to look behind one's emotions, to try and understand why one believes what one does, and discover whether those beliefs are actually justified.<br /><br />I find your argument here interesting. Opponents of capital punishment usually define their position around a core belief in what they call the "sanctity of human life". Given your views on abortion and eugenics, expressed here and elsewhere, this is not an option available to you. It would appear from the arguments in this post that your objection to capital punishment rests chiefly on the observation that at least some of its supporters are motivated by a desire for vengeance, and it is wrong to indulge such a desire. Before moving on to consider the merits of this observation as an objection to capital punishment, it will be useful to examine this desire for vengeance more closely. <br /><br />A desire for vengeance in a victim of a crime, or in their family or close friends, is readily understandable; and since you yourself appear ready to entertain the idea of personal vengeance, here and elsewhere on your blog, I shan't let it detain us further here. But there is often a wider manifestation of the desire for vengeance, one that it is more difficult to understand, and I presume that it is this to which you object. For want of a better term, I shall call this a desire for "vicarious vengeance" - "vicarious" both in the sense that it arises from a wrong suffered by another, and that it may only be satisfied through the agency of another. It manifests itself in those - the ignorant, the impotent and the feeble-minded - who, unable to recognise, understand or come to terms with their own negative emotions, follow the age-old custom of the scapegoat and project them onto others, typically those perceived by society as outcasts. When society becomes enlightened as to the wickedness or folly of persecuting one group, another one simply takes its place. Nietzsche would have recognised vicarious vengeance as a manifestation of ressentiment, an outlet for the repressed aggression of the herd. <br /><br />An irrational desire is hardly a compelling argument for capital punishment; but neither is it an insuperable objection to it. Indeed, this could only be so if there were a clear causal link between a society's carrying out the death penalty and the intensity of the desire for vicarious vengeance, or indeed of any other negative or violent emotion, in that society. But there appears to be no such link. There certainly doesn't appear to have been a significant falling off of this phenomenon in the UK since the abolition of the death penalty; quite the opposite in fact. Nor is it possible to demonstrate a link between the comparatively higher levels of violent crime in the US and the very small numbers of executions that still take place there. It is just as easy, easier in fact, to argue that continued and unrelieved repression of a desire is likely to result in its becoming potentially dangerous. If some unimportant people were occasionally allowed to enjoy the illusion that their desire for vicarious vengeance had helped bring about the execution of some superfluous individual, would this really be such a bad thing? Surely not. Who knows, it might even perform a cathartic function. All that matters is that the punishment is morally deserved and that it serves the public interest. <br /><br />Continued to post 2 ...Allectushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02724166678032002731noreply@blogger.com