: : I think if you'd ask any group of people to pinpoint society's undesirables, you'll find "murderers, rapists, and thieves" comes up more often than "blacks, jews, and muslims." There is a pretty clear moral core among people that transcends culture and society. In nearly every society (and I haven't heard of the exception) it is wrong to inflict unprovoked harm. Cynic: I'd like to draw more attention to the above phrase as it appears some are glossing over it as unimportant. This moral groundwork is not culture-specific. It does not care what color, religion, creed, sex, (insert ANY category of your choice here), a person is. It doesn't care how rich one is. It leaves us free to throw out the garbage that comes with cultural indoctrination and focus strictly on the deed. The only thing which is significant is whether or not the person in question committed acts of harm against another without provocation. Period.
Here follow my responses to the common objections:
* Free Will?
If the will truly is free than it can will not to inflict unsolicited harm on other beings. If people were raised such that they "couldn't help but steal" then their will isn't truly free. I propose that the will is free, and moreover is strong enough to overcome even the most traumatic situations imaginable. The only circumstances that could count as excuses for crime would fall under the "soliticed" harm category. I beg you to provide me with an example of a situation that can't be so classefied.
* What's "Unsolicited Harm?"
Solicitation is not a passive action. Children solicit harm to their persons in the form of punishment when they clearly misbehave. Potential killers solicit harm to their persons by their potential victims (self-defense cases). For any and all actions that could be considered criminal, FIRST consider the circumstances and reflect on whether the VICTIM had first solicited that harm upon his or herself.
Please notice that in a case where a son is raped as a child by his father, he has not been solicited to rape another human being. It doesn't matter how he was affected by the incident. In the future, should the son decide to force sex upon the father, he might be committing "justifiable rape." But should the son force sex on a third party he does not have the justification of solicitation on his side.
That is but an example but I trust it will illustrate the point.
* What makes human killers "like animals?"
Look at the very weak, very asinine criterion used to separate human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. These arguments are posed to justify the "superiority" of human beings. These criteria have in the past included intelligence, use of tools, linguistic systems, and moral frameworks. But since then, we've found monkeys that use tools. Dogs seem to behave intelligently. Apes have been taught sign language, and African grey parrots can associate symbols with meanings. Which leaves us with morality, one of the most difficult to prove or disprove. Is morality what separates us from the beasts? Think carefully. If morality is grounds, and killers display a deficient morality, they thus earn defecient human status.
They become, "like animals," as I have said. I'm only following this through to its logical conclusions.
* Why are animals innocent?
What a strange question! Not all animals are, of course. I was speaking, glibly, of the animals whom we yearly destroy to furnish ourselves with leather sofas, tasty fillets, and safe medicines. It is clear that if we extend our policy of "Solicited harm only" to the animal kingdom than we have to leave the animals alone. We would only be justified in killing animals if we would kill a human in the same situation. If a cow wrongs us first she might be subject to retribution, otherwise she must graze unaffected by human interests.
* Why execute?
I don't know. The potential victim clearly has a right to kill his or her potentially killer, but what the state is allowed to do a criminal is up for debate. What was relevant for my argument is that we DO kill. We should abandon it altogether if we want to not balk at using criminals for medicinal research.
* Why use criminals for research?
If we're going to kill people with capital punishment(and as yet we STILL DO), it is an excessive waste not to test on them first. They're already equal to lab rats in status because of our own decisive criteria for the superiority of humans. Moreover, they're worse- the lab rat likely never did anything to harm a human being.
And given that the punishment would be electable BY THE CRIMINAL, there are no grounds on which the position I have presented may be refuted. Would an unjustified murderer rather be tested on than lose his life? Yes, more than likely. But he or she will have their life in exchange for their service- certainly more options than they are given now.
You will, I hope, find this a decent cashing-out of the theory I have proposed. And given that it actually grants the criminal the power of choice in the matter, I can't think of any policy more fair.
