Herewith, a link to an essay of mine from a few years ago on why an effective system of capital punishment is necessary for a rational system of criminal justice, with additional discussion of such ancillary issues as the perverse incentives of prosecutors. Comments welcome.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/071602B.html
18 comments:
JC ... you beat me to the rant.
It is of course the modern project that theology and philosophy should be replaced by the social sciences.
But the social sciences are by definition incapable of moral reasoning. They can only tell us what is, not what should be.
(That the APA can decree that the deterrent value of capital punishment has not saved a single life is to claim a infallibility of which social science is incapable.)
"WHEREAS capital punishment appears statistically neither to exert a deterrent effect... "
Significant ... now there is a scientific word. What the bloody he!! does significant mean?!
I'll tell you, it is used to coerce the reader into believing something that cannot be described quantitatively ... ie, not scientific.
Aye, CLA. Sophistic objections.
If one innocent man executed is too many, then even one saved by deterrence is significant.
Further, every time a murderer who was not executed kills someone, either in prison (a fellow inmate or a guard) or after release (an innocent), that is significant.
Of course, social science has no moral standing to determine what is "significant," but in the latter case, the number is assuredly in the hundreds or thousands.
Patent nonsense and opinion under cover of authority.
The APA resolution is ridiculous. They have no right to pretend to speak for the community of psychologists on this matter. It would be just as silly for Phi Beta Kappa to support/oppose the war in Iraq or for the American Medical Association to support/oppose abortion. Or for the American Bar Association to support/oppose gay rights... wait, nevermind that last one...
Um, speaking as a member of several professional associations, including the APA, I can say that you're, well, kind of wrong. The APA is the accrediting body of psychologists. Resolutions within professional organizations such as the APA are voted upon by the body of the membership.
Don't worry, T. It's Tom and CLA who are playing the semantic sophistry games. I don't believe for a second that Tom doesn't get the difference between "significant" in the social science sense and in the everyday language sense. He's just playing his semantic games because it's the only way he can score a point.
You realize of course that you addressed only one word in my comment, "sophistic," and ignored the rest. I have given up hope that any point brought up around here will be directly responded to, on its own terms. However, as an exercise in futility, I will continue.
You realize of course that the APA is using practical language (and proofs, such as they are) to address a moral issue.
Of the practical matters, it is yet to be proven that the US has executed an innocent man. If you wish to argue mathematics, the prospect of innocence is statistically insignificant.
It is yet to be proven (and is nigh unprovable) that deterrence has not saved lives, and so, scientifically the issue can not be judged either significant or statistically insignificant.
It is, however, indisputable that convicted murderers who have not been given the death penalty have gone on to kill again. For this there is no scientific response. It is an inconvenient fact and so will be avoided.
As for moral and philosophical issues, of which the APA is no more qualified to speak than anyone else (and less than most, apparently), they confuse "fairness" with "justice." (Neither is it proven that minorities are executed with greater frequency than the murders they commit. On the contrary.)
Further, it is not up to the APA to decree the common-sense understanding of "mitigation" in the penalty phase. The question of "mitigation" is a moral and philosophical one.
(The retardation and juvenile dimensions have recently been addressed by the Supreme Court.)
My central premise, that if one innocent man executed is too many, then even one saved by deterrence is significant, remains unmolested, as is Dr. Zycher's, that perfection cannot be achieved in any human endeavor (altho it appears the system has come close).
RE Significant:
According to Vito, Koester and Wilson (cited by APA above), only 4.5% of those paroled by the Furman decision committed another violent crime, and only 1.6% committed homicide.
To the APA, that is not significant. Using data from the DOJ, about 4 in 100,000 whites commit homicide, and about 25 in 100,000 blacks commit homicide. I'll ballpark that its probably close to 10 in 100,000 for the general population of the US.
To Summarize, per 100,000:
General population: 10 are murderers.
Insignificant parolees: 1600 are murderers.
But really, what's a factor of 160 between friends?
Of the practical matters, it is yet to be proven that the US has executed an innocent man. If you wish to argue mathematics, the prospect of innocence is statistically insignificant.
Technically correct. However, of the over 3,000 death penalty recipients and 1,000 executions, nearly 200 were exonerated, and chief prosecutorial witnesses are now repudiating their testimony in the cases of two executed men, one in Texas and one in Missouri. Isn't a 5% chance of innocence a little too high? That's pretty statistically significant.
It is yet to be proven (and is nigh unprovable) that deterrence has not saved lives, and so, scientifically the issue can not be judged either significant or statistically insignificant.
Curious. Explain then why the region of the U.S. (the South) responsible for 80% of all executions had the highest murder rate (6.6 murders per 100,000 persons) in 2004? Since it is, indeed, impractical to ask someone "Why didn't you commit murder?" - it's sort of like asking them when they stopped beating their wife; no one's going to answer your question - we have have to look at pesky things like statistics that disprove your point. Indeed, the South, where the law is harshest, has roughly 30% of the nation's population and over 40% of its crime. It would appear that deterrence is, shall we say, no deterrence at all?
The majority of victims of violent crime are poor people of color (60%). And yet as of 2004, 80% of the victims in death-penalty cases since its reinstatement were white. Only 12% of victims in death penalty cases were African-American, far out of proportion to their victimization. Coincidence? You'd have to be utterly stupid to think so. 58% of death row inmates are white. 37% are black. Now, this is actually fairly in proportion to arrest rates (60%/37% respectively). However, the argument was not about commission of crime. Your argument was that there is no racial disparity in executions, but there is clearly a bias in terms of sentencing. In fact, studies find that in 96% of case reviews of death penalty sentencing, there is a case of race-of-defendant or race-of-victim bias. In North Carolina and California, studies show that the killer of a white person is over three times as likely to receive the death penalty than if his/her victim was black and four times more likely if their victim was Latino.
Further, it is not up to the APA to decree the common-sense understanding of "mitigation" in the penalty phase. The question of "mitigation" is a moral and philosophical one.
Quite the contrary. Human behavior, in this case judgment, is influenced by the "rules" they are operating under. Applying mitigation is a matter of applying human judgment under legal guidelines. It is not merely a moral and philisophical question, but a very real question of how people understand what they are being asked to apply. That is what the APA was addressing. Jury behavior is a long-studied question of judicial psychology, and the results in this case are not encouraging.
CLA, I know you're just trying to argue with those of us who deal with stats and figures for a living, but please, man. You're comparing populations that have no business being compared in order to willfully misunderstand the point of the word "significance" in a scientific context.
Or, in the words of Inigo Montoya, "I do not think it means what you think it means."
Capital letters are considered shouting on the internet, and are therefore considered rude.
Perhaps instead of posting the same thing for the third time, you should stop there and give the other fellow the last word. Otherwise, you are merely shouting him down.
Jaffa on Strauss, social science, and political philosophy.
No, Connie, you didn't diverge the thread. You put it on track. Strauss' disagreement with historicism--historical relativism--is precisely the point. Much of the human equation defies the calculator.
But "God" arguments won't swing it either, as (the highly religious himself) Jaffa notes, at least by themselves.
(And Marxism is a purely material view of man. It discounts the possibility that one can be poor but happy, and that's us, right?)
Connie, your Deist use of small "g" is just fine, since it still acknowledges a higher moral order, which elevates the essential philosophical question of "what is good?" beyond what is utilitarian, or in Marx' case, material.
(This is where Bill Bennett got in trouble, with an offhand remark that was used to condemn him by those who didn't know that he was saying quite the opposite.)
Still, we (you, I and he, I suppose) are hard put to make that which we believe deeply resonate with reason. My reading of Strauss is that he rejects "natural law": he, like Plato and Hobbes, is an atheist, but an entirely (and supremely) reasonable man.
If the calculator could prescribe how man should live, it would be far easier, but then again, it would remove all purpose from our lives. It would tell us "what is good," and there would be no need to gather here together.
(I think the Phillies are getting rid of the "numbers" guys, in favor of players who can inspire each other. Strauss, who saw the meaning of life lying in the pursuit of excellence and virtue, would approve, I think.)
In case you missed how Strauss guided the White Sox to their World Series victory...
;-)
I have to say, the reasoning of Connie and a timely email from Liberal Anonymous have pretty much swayed me from my "effectiveness" arguments. I have, in some respects, changed my mind as to the nature of the argument. Effectiveness arguments - which I was giving - are only, pardon the pun, effective if we already accept the death penalty as essentially moral. The flaw in Dr. Zycher's work is that he uses economic (i.e. rational and utilitarian) "effectiveness" arguments to refute what is basically a moral argument against the death penalty.
So, in some respects, I was wrong, and effectiveness arguments swing both ways unless one fully accepts a utilitarian value of human life, which I reject on principle. Tom is correct to reject effectiveness arguments until the moral issue is settled, which it has not been. Something's effectiveness does not lead to its being moral. After all, barbarity and brutality are effective, but I doubt any person here would argue they are moral.
The death penalty is ultimately about revenge, a base instinct in man. It has next to nothing to do with justice and less with deterrence. Connie's pretty much dead on with this one.
Oh, and JC? What would you say to the fact that more Republicans believe in the right to abortion than don't? Should anti-abortion platforms then be removed from the Republican party official plank? After all, they're supposed to represent all Republicans by your (flawed) logic. That was the case in the '90s, and you didn't see them embracing your logic, now did you? The APA and other scientific organizations provide a collective outlet for the consensus of their community. Their job is not to keep all members happy, but to communicate what the majority (or, in the case of global warming, VAST majority) believe to be the proper conclusion.
I'm sorry, Tlaloc, I have to disagree.
Anti-death penalty advocates are divided into two camps: Those that believe the death penalty is immoral and those who may feel it could be moral but that it is ineffective or unfairly applied.
The death penalty advocates are already convinced of the morality of the death penalty. On its face, this would seem to be a case where your utilitarian effectiveness arguments could be useful. Unfortunately, that presupposes that support for the death penalty emerges from a rational place. It does not. Support for the death penalty exists not on any rational level, but on a deep, atavistic plane of animal morality that resists reason and rationality. The death penalty is the result of bloodlust and vengeance, and no amount of rationale will convince its proponents of its ineffectiveness. The only way to combat the death penalty, I now see, is to get its supporters to see how atavistic and purile it is.
This effective system could be so, only if all criminals who committed terrible acts are punished as they deserve. The interest to this necessary method is all over the news. I knew about a prisoner which had not been punished yet who lost sexual appetite Viagra Online Without prescriptionafter being in jail for twenty years.
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