Reply #69: I sort of agree. [View All]

I think that the death penalty is immoral, but my reasoning is not that killing is necessarily* always immoral but that if you're going to execute anyone then inevitably you're sometimes going to execute innocent people.

I think there may* be some people on death row (or elsewhere), for whom the death penalty is not inappropriate, but I have no way of knowing which ones they are I think the only moral solution is not to execute anyone.

If I (or the state) were omniscient I might* well be pro death penalty in a few cases, but as I'm not I'm not.

I also think that the US (and many other nations with the death penalty) apply it far, far too widely - a lot of people are executed who clearly shouldn't be executed even if they are guilty of everything they're accused of.


* I'm not necessarily dismissing the "ritual human sacrifice is barbaric" argument, but I think it's much less decisive than the "sometimes you kill innocent people" argument, and less clear-cut than you make it out to be - some people do do very bad things, and it's at least not self-evident that murdering them is a disproportionate response.