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Justice, punishment and revenge
Ian MacDougall is a long-time Webdiarist and occasional, highly valued contributor. His last contribution was November 29 and the Birth of Australian Democracy.
by Ian MacDougall
The trial and execution of Saddam Hussein has given us all cause to think over some basic issues, particularly in relation to capital punishment. In my case, this has led to significant revision. But first, let’s take a look at some responses in the media on the issue.
I begin with the piece by Richard Dawkins at the Guardian site Comment is Free, which has stimulated a lively discussion there since January 3. Dawkins argues that Iraq had "…an opportunity to set the world a good example of civilised behaviour in dealing with a barbarically uncivilised man. In any case, revenge is an ignoble motive. " [My emphasis – IM]. Dawkins argues further that Saddam would have been more valuable alive than dead, particularly for academics in the field of psychopathology and future historians of the various wars he started.
The Iranian-Australian playwright Mammad Aidani, in Why a death penalty opponent finds relief in Saddam’s end (The Age, January 3), said:
It is not just his brutal actions that our bodies remember; his name arouses a deep fright in our emotions, in our psyche. My mother tells me that in our city, women call their violent husbands, fathers and fathers-in-law "Saddam Hussein", so that the men's actions receive the public opprobrium they deserve.
I wept when my body remembered, once again, the colossal pain from his military invasion. He used his first chemical weapons in my city and on my people. This killed many of my friends and displaced my family, who became "internal refugees" in their own land.
"I consider myself as being deeply wounded by Saddam's invasion of my city of birth, Khorramshahr, in south Iran, facing Basra."
Interestingly, Aidani is a PhD student in psychology, and is obviously more interested in the relief felt by Saddam’s victims as a result of his demise that the potential loss to psychopathology.
Johann Hari in Is hanging tyrants always wrong? wrote in the Independent of the ecstasy of his friends in Baghdad on hearing the news, and of how it forced him to question whether he opposed the death penalty “in all times and places”.
This is a strange jolt. For me, opposition to hanging has always been manifestly moral. Should the state take a defenceless, unarmed prisoner and break their neck? Obviously not. It is a sign of civilisation that you treat even the most depraved and despicable people with decency. And yet – I have to admit it – when I saw Saddam’s snapped corpse, I was pleased. I spent some time in ‘his’ Iraq. I saw the raw terror at the mention of his name. I saw the Marsh Arabs, rotting in rusting desert huts after Saddam poisoned their marshes and slaughtered their families for the “crime” of calling for democracy. So when my friend Ahmed – whose father was murdered by Saddam’s goons – said in a 4am phone call that he felt his dad was finally at rest now, the anti-death penalty arguments died on my tongue.
So should there be an exception for tyrants, the Mussolinis and Caecescus? This question forced me to go back to first principles. I do not believe in killing people to meet some abstract, quasi-religious standard of ‘justice’, where a death must be avenged with a death. No: the only justification for using violence, ever, is a utilitarian one – to prevent even more violence occurring. "
But after consideration he concluded: "Today, Iraqis have achieved one sort of victory over their tyrant. But the greater victory would have been to say – you hanged; you tortured; you butchered; but we will not do that. We are better than you. "
So we have an answer to his original question: Yes. Hanging tyrants is always wrong.
Consider also this excerpt from Geoffrey Robertson QC’s interview with Scott Bevan on the 7:30 Report (27 December 2006), shortly before Saddam died:
SCOTT BEVAN: Given that it is within 30 days, practically is there any way out for Saddam Hussein now?
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Well, again, this was decided years ago. It was I was part of the debate with the Americans over whether the death penalty should be imposed or whether we should have an international court in which there would be no power to impose the death penalty and the Americans and the Shi’as, of course, plumped for this Local Court with judges being able to be controlled by the State, in order to ensure that Saddam was hung. Of course, we said that is wrong. That will only make him a martyr. That will rev up the civil war. They said, well, you can't keep him alive, life imprisonment in Iraq would be out of the question. So, we looked to the British government and said, "Well, why don't you make Saint Helena available again" - where they put Napoleon. That's the kind of alternative that you have to come up with, because certainly Saddam cannot be left life imprisonment in Iraq. But providing some kind of alternative to the death penalty, to this blood will have blood, to this idea that vengeance must always result in killing would, I think, have been a step forward for the international community and it's a missed opportunity that we have a process which has been an unsatisfactory legal process which is going to lead a man who in all probability is guilty, but the guilty of genocide in a trial that has not finished and will not be allowed to finish to sheet home the responsibility for that worst of all crimes.
Saint Helena is a very isolated subtropical island in the South Atlantic. Following his arrival in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was first quartered at The Briars, but spent most of his stay at Longwood House, from which base he was free to roam the island, and to converse with the members of the large garrison of British troops sent there to prevent a rescue by the French. Though in Saddam’s case the issue is now academic, there are a number of possible candidate monsters for the island still very much alive. Putting someone like Saddam there raises the question of his living conditions, and how many troops would have to be garrisoned there to either protect him (and I cannot think of a her) from would-be assassins on the one hand, from sea-borne rescuers on the other, and from any other psychopaths also imprisoned there. A further issue would be protection of the 5,000 odd inhabitants of the island from the prisoner/s. According to David Hirst, before he was out of his teens, Saddam had personally murdered four people, and God knows how many in all. To prejudge the psychopathologists’ studies, the circumstances of Saddam’s miserable childhood as described by Hirst go a long way towards explaining his vicious personality.
Arguably, the foundation on Saint Helena of an international institute of psychopathology and the quartering of UN peacekeepers and police there could boost the island’s lethargic economy.
The columnist Hazem Saghiya wrote in the Arabic-language London daily Al-Havat:
"Saddam filled the graves with his countrymen, such that it is even harder to forget…[Also] the number of the victims is not simple. The number of those murdered by Saddam… ranges between a million and a million and a half… We now face a schism in Arab culture… Those who want to oppose the U.S. in obliviousness and want to mobilize all efforts to this goal [of resistance]. But even if [all] agree [we should forget] and even if all agree to struggle against [the U.S.] – the road they take will lead to a new Saddam and new graves..."
According to Saghiva, Saddam’s victims (presumably across Iraq, Iran and Kuwait) number 1.25 million plus or minus 250,000. That is a lot of people, and a horrifying lot of blood. (At around 5 litres per victim that is a maximum of 7.5 million litres by the above estimate, and equal to the volume of a large farm dam or a small lake. That is the reality that was Saddam.)
Finally, we call upon Phillip Adams of The Australian to give us, in his own distinct blend of verbosity and condescension, the following:
Yes, Saddam was a monster. No arguments there. Yet that strengthens the argument against his execution, not for it. The greater the crime, the greater the symbolism of lifelong incarceration. The noose may be news - good news for many - but that news is quickly forgotten. So even if you don't view the death sentence with unqualified disgust and repugnance, even if you don't see it as undermining the dignity of any state or any people who carry it out, you must be able to dimly perceive that a moment's vengeance carries a fraction of the moral authority of judicial restraint.
The precedent could be Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess. He was imprisoned for 46 years, from May 1941 to August 1987, firstly in Britain and then in Berlin’s Spandau Prison on sentence from Nuremberg. Few humanitarian voices were raised on his behalf, or over the fact that he went mad in solitary confinement.
I take as a given that we humans have a strong sense of justice, and a need to see it done and to live in just circumstances. This appears to be closely associated with our ability to empathise with others. We also share with many other animals, including the taxonomically higher ones, an inclination to at least defend ourselves when attacked, and also to defend by counter-attack. With other animals, fights between members of the same species are usually brief, and end with the establishment or rearrangement of a dominance hierarchy. But with humans this goes further. Grievances and grudges can be nursed for years, at least until accounts are seen to be settled. This is the reality behind the old saying, ‘revenge is sweet.’
But revenge has been seen by generations of sages the way Dawkins, Robertson and most of the others quoted above see it: as ‘ignoble’, disgusting, repugnant, uncivilised and objectionable. Were I inclined to regard St Paul as an authority on the matter, I would add at this point the obligatory quote from Romans 12: "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." So vengeance and punishment can take a novel and oblique form, a bit like refusing to whip a masochist. But the need for them is acknowledged as being still very much there.
So perhaps we should clarify the issue and ask at this point: Given that it is so often seen as desirable, just what is wrong with revenge?
The commonest answer I have encountered is threefold: first, It does not bring back the dead; second, it makes the avenger morally no better than the wrongdoer; third, it is highly likely to start a vendetta: a train of reprisals and counter-reprisals that can become unstoppable. Hence in the traditional Mosaic law, the maximum permissible retribution, and under strict regulation, was an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; one life for one life. Not two eyes for one, or a mouthful of teeth for two.
Hence in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition a death for a death has long been regarded as just and acceptable, provided the whole thing ends there. But in modern times, further objection to the death penalty has been based on the fact that justice systems have proven fallible, and the innocent all too frequently get hung. One such injustice is too many.
In cases like Saddam Hussein’s however, guilt is established by the clear and simple fact that he was head of the Iraqi government in the period in question, and at the very top of the hierarchical death machine that was the Iraqi state. Whether or not in a formal and procedural sense he had a fair trial, there cannot be the slightest doubt that he ordered, presided over and was ultimately responsible for murder on a truly staggering scale. There was absolutely no way he could be found not guilty, except by the most hopelessly partisan stooge court of all time.
This leads to my next question: if we concede and agree that revenge in and of itself is base and undesirable, precisely what is the difference between it and punishment? Is there not an element of revenge in any punishment; an attempt even through mercy, kindness, feeding and watering, to heap at least a few coals of fire on the head of the transgressor? How can the revenge motive be excluded from imprisonment (with or without hard labour) exile to Saint Helena, Devil’s Island, the South Pole, or variations thereon? Try as I may, I cannot find a neat watertight barrier that distinguishes punishment on the one hand from revenge on the other, making it possible for us to find a holy grail of revenge-neutral punishment.
For the record, I used to be totally against the death penalty. Now I would not oppose it in the case of a mass murderer like Saddam Hussein, particularly if the victims want it. Then I add this as the clincher: it brings at least a measure of peace to the minds of his Iraqi, Iranian and Kuwaiti victims, because whatever else happens, Saddam Hussein will never, ever return to power. Not a chance in a billion billion; that is, provided they did not hang one of his doubles. Hopefully also, the hanging of Saddam may deter certain would-be Saddams from believing that under the cloak of state sovereignty, they can indulge their sadistic and murderous passions to their hearts’ content. To revisit Hari: "No: the only justification for using violence, ever, is a utilitarian one – to prevent even more violence occurring." Quite so.
But Dawkins has perhaps unwittingly opened a further issue: If the Saddams of the world are to be kept alive as valuable scientific assets for study, should they not be treated as if they were zoo specimens of an endangered species? Shouldn’t they have the best of everything, if only to prolong their lives as far as possible, and the studies that can be done? On this view, a Saddam should not be banged up for life and left to rot physically and mentally as Hess was. Rather, he should be given the best food, medical attention, entertainment and living conditions possible, and the most congenial company.
Now that would really stimulate the economy of Saint Helena.
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Facts
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
- [US Senator] Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"It is illegal to execute anyone during Eid in Iraq. Saddam was executed during Eid, therefore the execution was illegal."
- Roslyn Ross, 10 January 200, 5:21PM
Facts: "American opposition to executing [Saddam Hussein] in haste centered partly on the fact that the Id al-Adha religious holiday, marking the end of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, began for Sunnis at sunrise on Saturday. In Baghdad, the sun was to rise at 7:06 a.m. Iraqi government officials had promised the hanging would be over before the dawn light began seeping through the palms that shade the capital’s streets."
- New York Times, 7 January 2007
Fact: Saddam was executed at 6:10 AM local time Saturday.
I will leave to others better qualified than I the debate over the legal validity of the prosecution, trial, and execution of Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi judicial system.
Errors in Roslyn's latest ...
.....such as "The democratic world, the free world, the developed world has sought to establish principles of human rights and justice for all ..... the UN represents that as arbiter."
No, the UN represents the nations of the world whether they are free, developed, have human rights and justice, or not. Even Iran is represented.
"It is illegal to execute anyone during Eid in Iraq."
You either accept the present judicial system and laws in Iraq, or reject them, but you cannot logically do both at the same time. Not that such considerations of logic have stopped you before....
as here, earlier in the same post:
"By comparison, at Nuremberg, following World War II the Americans set the bar very high by declaring that even the Nazis, who had committed the most heinous of crimes, should have a fair trial."
The Americans themselves tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. Are you saying that the Americans should've tried Saddam? If they had done that you and your fellow travellers would be screaming bloody murder. You get no points for consistency.
The US still militarily occupies Germany and Japan
Japan's Consitution a product of the US occupation
So again, Roslyn, as Japan's legal system is a product of occupation, does that make its laws invalid in your view? You made this argument about Iraq, so why not Japan?
The Nullum Crimen Principle
G'day Malcolm, on the other thread I published some sources for material on the Saddam trial and execution. Amongst the questions raised was the matter of Nullum Crimen. Perhaps you might care to give your considered legal opinion on this question.
Revenge and legality
Revenge might not be good or even nice. It is, though, a normal human emotion. So are many other less then desirable emotions. Human emotions are what they are.
The best thing we can hope for as humans is to suppress and control them. They will, though, always be lurking just beneath the surface for every single one of us. To be human is to be less then perfect.
Roslyn Ross: The execution of Saddam Hussein was the second because it made the US and their allies, particularly following a trial which is not considered legal in any real court of law, no better than Saddam Hussein the tyrant and murderer.
Whose judiciary did not consider it legal? I was not aware the Iraqi judiciary considered his execution illegal. I was not aware an appeal could have been lodged with the Australian High Court or the American Supreme Court. You do have a habit of making the most outrageous statements.
Roslyn Ross: This failure on the part of the US is a betrayal of one of the most important principles of justice underpinning the civilized world.
What abstract principle would that be?
So you are calling for the US to usurp Iraqi Court decisions? Ideas of an independent nation and all that gone completely out the window now?
Roslyn Ross: Because punishment should demonstrably fit with a credible legal system and accord with civilized values of human rights. Capital punishment, as the UN decrees, is an abuse of human rights.
I was not aware the UN was now in charge of Iraq and its legal system.
Actually, capital punishment is perfectly legal in nations that deem it to be legal. The UN and its opinion are neither here nor there when it comes to this issue.
I suggest law is not your strong point. Gathering from what you have deemed over the years to be "illegal" I would be certain of it.
Crime, Punishment And War
The hanging of Saddam was something beyond ugly. It was, in my case literally, nauseating. It was not so much the actual images of the killing that turned my stomach. With a little effort they could be avoided. It was the vile pornography flowing from the event and broadcast worldwide within hours that was sickening. I don't mean just the internet. It was the film, including official film, and the stills from the film, splashed all across the world's media. It was everywhere. From the Gold Coast Bulletin to the BBC. Not so long ago that would have been impossible. Public standards would not have allowed it. Now, the talking heads announce breathlessly and live to a global audience the news that soon they will have the images. Stay tuned. The only issue is when.
So we have returned to the era of public executions barely seventy years after the last in the US , over 130 years in the UK and 160 years in Australia. Only this time it has been globalised. But just like a big day out at Tyburn in 1740 or Newgate in 1820 nevertheless. Like reality TV and snuff movies, nobody asked me.
It is interesting they were all hangings. There must be something about a hanging that particularly appeals to a mob as a spectacle.
But I have no objection to the killing of Saddam by the Iraqi Government, not as an act of "punishment" but as an act of self defence. An act of war if you like against an insurgency that seeks to take the state by waging war. Saddam alive was just too dangerous. Now one thing can be said for certain. There can never be any more trouble from Saddam Hussein.
Somewhere else I sought to draw a rough comparison with Sir Oswald Mosley , leader of the British Union of Fascists, who was interned without charge or trial during the most dangerous phase of WW2. As far as I know, Mosley never killed anybody, except perhaps as a young officer in the British military in an earlier war.
An exceptionally talented man with a strong following and charismatic personality, Mosley was the most obvious choice as a Quisling British Leader in the event of a Nazi occupation of Britain. As such he should have been summarily shot had the Germans launched their anticipated invasion. Nothing to do with "punishment". Merely an act of national defence in time of war. Once the immediate danger subsided he was released.
I'm not suggesting that Saddam should not have been treated as the worst type of criminal. Clearly he was and his permanent departure from the planet will never have me singing Auld Lang Syne. But I am going to suggest that his unlamented death cannot be justified as a form of "punishment" and should not have been carried out if the situation in Iraq was not as it is. Moreover the manner of the execution, including the role played by the Western media, reduces us all.
Legally Saddam died an innocent man
Ian, you raise good questions which should be discussed, or re-discussed, as part of any society which wishes to maintain its momentum toward civilized behaviour instead of away from civilized behaviour.
Revenge by its very nature is wrong simply because it is a visceral response to a situation of injustice, or, often, perceived injustice, which renders those who take revenge no better than those who wronged them.
Revenge is primitive and is a form of punishment used by societies which had or have no formal structure of justice. Vendettas running back hundreds of years have been recorded and stand as clear evidence that revenge in any form is destructive to society.
In a civilized society we are meant to use our capacity for reason and common sense to rise above base responses. Revenge is a base response. Revenge in essence demands some sort of 'equivalent' hurt to be done to the other whereas justice demands that the wrongdoer be punished, but in a fair and humane way.
Capital punishment is neither fair nor humane. And it is final, as others have pointed out. A civilized society refuses to risk the death of one innocent in order to completely remove a dozen clearly guilty murderers from the world. And so it should.
Studies from the US also show that capital punishment is not a crime deterrent so as well as being barbaric it is ineffective.
As to Saddam Hussein's guilt. Well, because he was not given a fair trial he died an innocent man. At least by civilized standards of law he did. What you or I might know, or believe about his guilt ..... and it is all based on what we have read or been told (and yes, I do believe he was guilty) does not stand as evidence of guilt. A basic principle of law in the civilized world is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and that includes Saddam Hussein, or Hitler, or anyone accused of war crimes.... yes, Bush, Blair and Howard as well.
This failure on the part of the US is a betrayal of one of the most important principles of justice underpinning the civilized world.
The execution of Saddam Hussein was the second because it made the US and their allies, particularly following a trial which is not considered legal in any real court of law, no better than Saddam Hussein the tyrant and murderer.
The circumstances of his execution was yet another betrayal of principles of justice and civilized values and once again showed the world that the US and its allies were no different to Saddam and his thugs who used to do exactly the same thing.
You said: there cannot be the slightest doubt that he ordered, presided over and was ultimately responsible for murder on a truly staggering scale.
Unfortunately until he is tried in a fair and legal process there is doubt. That is the point of it: to provide evidence, beyond any reasonable doubt of his guilt. That was not done. Hence, under our legal system he remained 'innocent.' and that in itself is a travesty of justice given the situation.
You said: "This leads to my next question: if we concede and agree that revenge in and of itself is base and undesirable, precisely what is the difference between it and punishment?"
Because punishment should demonstrably fit with a credible legal system and accord with civilized values of human rights. Capital punishment, as the UN decrees, is an abuse of human rights. Saddam Hussein did not get a fair trial and was therefore killed with either the encouragement or the approval of the occupying power, the US, hence victor's justice.... which is revenge. Actually I think it was to silence him but that's another issue.
If Saddam had been given a fair trial and convicted beyond any reasonable doubt and punished with life imprisonment that would be justice, not revenge.
Punishment is making someone pay for a crime as part of a clearly defined legal process; revenge is exacting a 'payment', usually a life, for a crime, without recourse to law.
You said: "Is there not an element of revenge in any punishment; an attempt even through mercy, kindness, feeding and watering, to heap at least a few coals of fire on the head of the transgressor?"
No, you are confusing revenge with retribution.
Revenge is simple retaliation for a real or imagined wrong.
Retribution is something justly deserved, or something given or demanded in repayment.
You said: "For the record, I used to be totally against the death penalty."
Thankfully you are in a minority and more and more nations continue to do away with capital punishment. The movement against capital punishment is also increasing in the US which will ultimately ban it as well.
You said: "It brings at least a measure of peace to the minds of his Iraqi, Iranian and Kuwaiti victims ..."
Really? But in your world where revenge is acceptable then clearly it is fine for Saddam's family or supporters to take revenge for his death and then it is okay for someone else to take revenge for those deaths and so it goes.
Again, studies in the US have shown that many people do not feel at peace when those who have wronged them die. Perhaps because they are civilized enough to know that capital punishment is state sanctioned murder and barbaric.
But, by accepting revenge in one instance you accept it in all. It used to be the way of the world in less civilized times, and it is still the way of the world in some places...... the pity is that the US and allies have shown that it is also the way of our world.
You said: "Hopefully also, the hanging of Saddam may deter certain would-be Saddams."
So that would be just as the Nuremberg trials and executions 'stopped' Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and all the other insane genocidal maniacs from Rwanda to Zimbabwe?
What rot. It dissuades no-one as history so clearly demonstrates. In fact, given that the US, the supposed leader of the developed world has sent out the message that it is happy with illegal invasions, unfair trials and executions we can expect to see more of this insanity not less.
By the way, if Saddam's death is meant to be a lesson to would-be tyrants I take it you would support anyone who ever supported Saddam going up on trial also? The court would be busy with various US presidents and a few British and European leaders in that case. So should they also be hanged as a deterrent to any would-be supporters of tyrants? And if not, why not?
You said: "To revisit Hari: "No: the only justification for using violence, ever, is a utilitarian one – to prevent even more violence occurring." Quite so."
Sort of destroy the village to 'save it', that kind of thing? Primitive and barbaric to use more violence to supposedly prevent violence. And it has never worked. The Israelis use more and more violence against the Palestinians and debase themselves in the doing and will still ultimately lose. The US and its allies use more and more violence against the Iraqis and debase themselves in the doing and will still lose. Violence begets violence it never stops it. And when you add your revenge into the simmering pot it makes it even worse.
Sadly, you are merely mouthing Saddam's view of life..... use more and more violence against more and more violence and look where it got him.
So many travesties of justice and sanity as the civilized world dies a death of a thousand cuts.
How say you? Guilty or not guilty?
This time it only took Roslyn Ross 1283 words to get it wrong. Now, while I have a general policy of ignoring anything she says, when she trenches on my bailiwick, I feel it incumbent to reply.
To some extent, she has been misled by an error on Ian MacDougall’s part. The concept of revenge as it carries into our legal system is not a judeo-christian-muslim one: it is Roman. What MacDougall’s article ignores is that other great legal system on which ours is based: the customary legal system of the Norse, the Anglo-Saxons and the Germanic Tribes (not confined just to them but found in many other societies). The emphasis there was not necessarily either revenge or retribution. Rather the question was one of just compensation. That extended from a life for a life to blood-price. I rather like blood-price myself. If the rellies are satisfied with some form of compensation why not let them have it (this finds its modern reflection in the idea of criminal injuries compensation)? Alternatively, the wronged family could have the wrongdoer forfeited as their slave (a much more useful form of life imprisonment than we utilise today). Without writing a treatise, Anglo-Saxon or customary law (from which we get concepts like hue and cry and the jury) had a range of options for dealing with violent wrongdoers or thieves.
To the point, however, let’s see exactly how Roslyn Ross gets it wrong again.
1. The assertion that Saddam Hussein did not get a fair trial (paras 7, 12 and 15). Assertion it is. He was tried in a Court, he was able to face his accusers, he was given the opportunity to defend himself and answer the charges which were quite specific. He was tried by judges alone who were not prosecutors in accordance with the law set down by the ruling elected government (“a clearly defined legal process” – para 16). Seemed like a pretty fair trial to me. Absent any evidence of actual interference with the judges, it was a fair trial. There is no such evidence: it was a fair trial and there was no “travesty of justice”. While one may disagree with the death penalty and I do, it was a sentence open to the Court.
2. I have dealt with the revenge/retribution question but there is a further illogicality to the argument she propounds. Her revenge/retribution distinction is nothing more than semantics (as is so much of the nonsense she posts) but she doesn’t seem to appreciate its logical consequences. While it may not be legally permissible (i.e. sanctioned) to exact revenge for what she calls retribution, there is nothing to stop it happening. In fact, in NSW we have seen it in recent times: intimidation of witnesses and death threats against victims in sexual assault cases. In Victoria, there have been recent gang wars. What possible effect will sanctioned retribution have on those bent on revenge? None. While I hesitate to adopt any argument Roslyn Ross advances, there is the law of averages. Deterrence does not work. That is patent. If it did, there would be no crime. Yet, if it be the case that deterrence doesn’t work, retribution can operate no more as a deterrent than revenge.
3. I see no utility in exploring the usual US conspiracy theories advanced – they are so tiresome.
Hope that clears that up kiddies.
A minor correction to Roslyn:
Does Bedrock really exist?
Will Howard “The fact that justice systems in most Western democracies have an inherent bias in favour of presumption of innocence means any conviction for a criminal offence requires a high standard of proof. Far, far more so in death penalty cases for obvious irreversible reasons.”
This of course depends on how you equate justice to geographic regions. If you export your crimes you can bypass any justice system.
Also depends on how you define democracies, justice, freedom, morality, and ethics, all these terms have no concrete meaning to start with.
Justice systems in most Western Democracies have an inherent bias in favour of Capital.
If innocence was a prime consideration in Western Democracies, than why isn’t the notion taken into consideration in Iraq, or anywhere else that injustice has been committed?
Justice equals what keeps the system healthy, injustice equals what has an adverse affect to the system.
Will Howard “Thus even in USxecution” states which apply the death penalty, the sentence is usually carried out only after years - often decades - of exhaustive appeals, motions for stays of execution, court challenges, etc. As it must be, because of the rightful fear of a wrongful execution."
Unless there’s money in it, in terms of resources or geopolitical advantage, than the death penalty or any crime can be justified, no time restrictions need apply, from what I hear Miami is a popular place for some of our more memorable friends, who have a very deep and profound understanding of Time and such extremely complex metaphysical considerations, heck who cares if it’s in someone else’s back yard?
How many innocent people around the world are victims off Imperialism?
So justice depends on geography, the domestic populations must understand the term, because it is needed to validate a system, but the term must not be expanded to include victims somewhere else when the powerful need no justification for their acts.
Will Howard “So even in cases where the convicted person really is guilty, even of a heinous crime for which death arguably is just punishment, "justice" is almost never carried out swiftly for perpetrators or victims. So it's not clear to me how the death penalty satisfies even a need for revenge or justice when by the time the sentence is carried out most people in society at large will have long forgotten the original crime.”
What is very clear to me is rationalizations are cool; well most people in society are far to busy to remember anything, that is, if they ever work out that there is anything to remember in the first place.
Memory is another beautiful thing, how can you have a memory if you hardly have a consciousness?
Kind of joking but an interesting philosophical idea none the less
Systems can be Unjust
I believe up to 3 million people died in Vietnam, were any of those deaths justified or just?
How many litres of blood is that?
Ian, I certainly don’t miss Saddam, but what is the scale for measuring inhumanity? Is it the number of victims, or as you put it the litres of blood.
Saddam is an easy target because all our hatred can be projected on to a single man, which makes the whole thing clear and easy to define, but what about a system or gradual inhumanity?
Is there any chance of an American President being charged with war crimes? There is no chance in the world, because the system is too powerful to allow such a concept.
The system can share out the blame, so that it is much more difficult to define or to even detect, but in terms of litres of blood can be even greater when you consider it spread out over years and geographic regions.
Hitler came to power because of a lot of factors, but again it is much more convenient and simplifies matters to focus on one man.
Maybe I have my facts all wrong, but my understanding is the Middle East has been destabilized by foreign powers, namely the West in order to control the rich resources of the region.
Iraqi’s history and the birth of a tyrant such as Saddam are a consequence.
So does justice have a time scale, x = victims in y = years?
I have great difficulty understanding the concept of justice, because it seems to me the powerful determine what justice means.
Deterrents and delayed justice
Thanks, Ian, for that analysis. Some comments:
1) You touch upon the issue of deterrence. One of the reasons I'm against the death penalty in general is that I'm sceptical of its deterrent value in an ordinary criminal justice system. Has anyone ever heard a defendant testify along the lines of "well, I was going to kill him, but then I thought: what about the death penalty?" I think people murder because a) they think they're going to get away with it (e.g. professional hit-men); b) they're so deranged they value no-one's life including their own; c) in a moment of passion and/or anger they lose control. How is the death penalty going to deter in such cases? (I don't count cases where assailants intend harm but not death; I don't think the death penalty would be applied in such cases anyway.)
The death penalty, I suppose, could be argued to have more deterrent value in crimes other than murder. For example, drug smuggling requires quite a bit of premeditation. No one swallows condoms stuffed with heroin in a "moment of passion."
But I suppose deterrence is difficult to measure - how do you collect statistics on crimes that haven't been committed?
2) You touch upon the injustice of false convictions and erroneous executions.
Anecdote: I don't remember the exact situation, but a politician was asked about the death penalty. I think it was Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential campaign. Anyway the question was something like how many erroneous executions he thought would be too many. And he hesitated! His immediate answer should have an unequivocal "one." Whether he was for or against the death penalty.
The fact that justice systems in most Western democracies have an inherent bias in favour of presumption of innocence means any conviction for a criminal offence requires a high standard of proof. Far, far more so in death penalty cases for obvious irreversible reasons.
Thus even in US states which apply the death penalty, the sentence is usually carried out only after years - often decades - of exhaustive appeals, motions for stays of execution, court challenges, etc. As it must be, because of the rightful fear of a wrongful execution. So even in cases where the convicted person really is guilty, even of a heinous crime for which death arguably is just punishment, "justice" is almost never carried out swiftly for perpetrators or victims. So it's not clear to me how the death penalty satisfies even a need for revenge or justice when by the time the sentence is carried out most people in society at large will have long forgotten the original crime.
3) The Old Testament notion of "an eye for an eye," as you point out, is a call for punishment appropriate to the crime rather than a validation of revenge (at least this is how rabbinical scholars have interpreted this Biblical passage). But I think we should be seeking punishment that fits preventing further commissions of the crime.
Of course the irreversibility of the death penalty does "fit" the irreversibility of the crime for which it's most often imposed: murder. Restitution can be demanded, and supplied, for many crimes: theft, embezzlement, fraud, and the like. But not for murder.
So it comes down to our own moral view of ourselves as a society: do we want to answer death with death, even in the most certain cases?
Revenge
Revenge is, of course, part of the contemporary zeitgeist, and personal advice columns, and articles, encourage it as a healthy, necessary and empowering strategy.
They are full of tips on how to "pay out", as they say, your ex boyfriend, ex spouse, boss, erstwhile best friend, or anyone else who has annoyed you.
It's obviously the philosophy behind road rage and such.
A death for a death
"In the Judeo-Christian-Islamist tradition a death for a death has long been regarded as just and acceptable"
Well, no, Ian, not so. In the Judeo-Islamist tradition only, as you have shown in your post.
The Christian tradition is of "love your enemy" and "turn the other cheek". That is, of course, if you regard Christianity as having some kind of connection to Christ's teachings.
But, of course one doesn't need any kind of Christian endorsement to disagree with the hanging.
Pragmatically, it was not in our interests.