Comments on: Being Humane and Accepting Death as Punishment http://www.moralhealth.com/2010/01/huumanedeath/ An on-going discussion and analysis of the moral problems of daily life. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:54:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Anonymous http://www.moralhealth.com/2010/01/huumanedeath/comment-page-1/#comment-2266 Anonymous Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:35:09 +0000 http://moralhealth.com/?p=1789#comment-2266 Based upon your entry, do you believe that sociopaths can be determined as children? According to the DSM-IV one cannot determine a "sociopath" until one reaches adulthood. Would you suggest that children can be labeled as sociopaths? If you commit to the fact that children can be sociopaths, would you believe that society should siphon these individuals off from the rest of the greater population? Due to the fact that sociopaths cannot be rehabilitated this would seem to be a logical solution to ensuring that these individuals do not wreak havoc upon society, such was the case with Theodore Bundy. I am not disagreeing with you that prisons do not rehabilitate prisoners, however, what would you suggest would be a viable solution to handling these individuals after their crimes have been committed. Surely mass execution would be effective in terminating these menaces to society; however, not all crimes are equal (stealing a loaf of bread compared to rape/murder). Therefore, do you believe that all murderers and rapists should be either executed, sterilized or perhaps both? And what if we presuppose that a murderer can in fact be rehabilitated and be released back into society, or at the very least incarcerate this person for the rest of their life. Should we adopt a utilitarian mentality that although some murderers/rapists can be rehabilitated, society should in fact terminate all of these individual due to the fact that if only one remains to be kept alive more damage will be ascertained from this action rather than benefit. Indeed, it would seem that capital punishment does not serve society as a deterrent to crimes, but rather it acts as a method to cleanse society of these criminals. Therefore, is the justice system truly aimed at rehabilitation or the deterrence of future crimes in the first place, or is the system more geared at serving the ultimate or ongoing punishment to those individuals whom have broken society's laws? Another question which stems from this argument is if there is a human option to "properly" bring individuals to justice after they have committed a crime against society. If society merely terminates individuals based upon the fact that they are indeed sociopaths or they have committed heinous crimes, is society adopting a method of eugenics to its legal system? Finally, I will beg the question of what is proper and right in order to deter/punish those who will/have commit/ted extreme atrocities against humanity? Is a mass grave the option or are there other alternatives? It would seem that with the case of sociopaths (ex. Theodore Bundy), there is no viable solution in order to rehabilitate these individuals. Shall society utilize this principle for all criminals in order to maintain "the greater good?" Based upon your entry, do you believe that sociopaths can be determined as children? According to the DSM-IV one cannot determine a “sociopath” until one reaches adulthood. Would you suggest that children can be labeled as sociopaths? If you commit to the fact that children can be sociopaths, would you believe that society should siphon these individuals off from the rest of the greater population? Due to the fact that sociopaths cannot be rehabilitated this would seem to be a logical solution to ensuring that these individuals do not wreak havoc upon society, such was the case with Theodore Bundy.

I am not disagreeing with you that prisons do not rehabilitate prisoners, however, what would you suggest would be a viable solution to handling these individuals after their crimes have been committed. Surely mass execution would be effective in terminating these menaces to society; however, not all crimes are equal (stealing a loaf of bread compared to rape/murder). Therefore, do you believe that all murderers and rapists should be either executed, sterilized or perhaps both? And what if we presuppose that a murderer can in fact be rehabilitated and be released back into society, or at the very least incarcerate this person for the rest of their life. Should we adopt a utilitarian mentality that although some murderers/rapists can be rehabilitated, society should in fact terminate all of these individual due to the fact that if only one remains to be kept alive more damage will be ascertained from this action rather than benefit.

Indeed, it would seem that capital punishment does not serve society as a deterrent to crimes, but rather it acts as a method to cleanse society of these criminals. Therefore, is the justice system truly aimed at rehabilitation or the deterrence of future crimes in the first place, or is the system more geared at serving the ultimate or ongoing punishment to those individuals whom have broken society’s laws? Another question which stems from this argument is if there is a human option to “properly” bring individuals to justice after they have committed a crime against society.

If society merely terminates individuals based upon the fact that they are indeed sociopaths or they have committed heinous crimes, is society adopting a method of eugenics to its legal system? Finally, I will beg the question of what is proper and right in order to deter/punish those who will/have commit/ted extreme atrocities against humanity? Is a mass grave the option or are there other alternatives? It would seem that with the case of sociopaths (ex. Theodore Bundy), there is no viable solution in order to rehabilitate these individuals. Shall society utilize this principle for all criminals in order to maintain “the greater good?”

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