So, amid the disturbing reports of the Saudi's executing forty-seven people in one day came the startling detail that one person, whose sentence seems to have not yet been carried out, had been sentenced to be crucified (most Saudi executions are by beheading). I don't know why that seemed so unsettling, but it does. I think it must be the sheer unfamiliarity with the way others carry out death sentences helps us fool ourselves that our own ways of doing the same thing aren't similarly cruel and barbaric.
Here's a link to the article; the details about the particular case are about three-quarters of the way down through the piece.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/02/suadi-arabia-cleric-execution-unrest-predicted-shia-areas
--JDR
current reading: Aratus's PHAENOMENA
UPDATE: I corrected the number of people executed that day from fifty-seven to forty-seven.
I would argue that you cannot have a just society without a fairly, impartially applied death penalty. There are crimes for which death is the only just, moral punishment.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul
ReplyDelete"I would argue that you cannot have a just society without a fairly, impartially applied death penalty."
re. Point One: I'd say that since the death penalty is either fairly nor impartially applied, ours by that definition wd be an unjust society. More's the pity.
"There are crimes for which death is the only just, moral punishment."
re. Point Two: I disagree. An immoral punishment does not bring justice, whatever the crime.
--JDR
I agree that our society is unjust. I think we are closer then most other human societies, but we definitely have many failures.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't believe the death penalty is immoral. In fact, I believe NOT executing those who deserve the death penalty is immoral. I doubt we would ever agree on that. I agree with Gandalf that we should not be eager to deal out death in the name of justice, but I do think we must be willing to do so.