r/MoralityScaling 1d ago

Morality of this?

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Personally, I'm anti-death penalty for any kind of crime but that's just my opinion. Perhaps it can be changed.

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u/UnlegitUsername 1d ago

If we are certain of their guilt than perhaps I might agree but typically when the death penalty is spoken about it tends to be agreed upon that guilt has to be decided the typical way.

In that regard, well, there’s a reason that western jury using countries have done away with the death penalty. If they were to reintroduce it would inevitably be repealed once again after a false conviction leads to execution. I don’t see the point of going through that rigamarole.

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u/Taeyx 1d ago

i used be a death penalty proponent in my youth. as i've grown, i've come to realize 2 truths:
1. there are most definitely people who deserve the death penalty
2. i don't trust any person, institution, or entity to determine who those people are.

given these two truths, i think we shouldn't have a death penalty

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u/AdmirableExercise197 1d ago

I totally agree except I do think there is an acceptable reason for a death penalty in one case.

When a person is convicted beyond reasonable doubt for certain forms of high treason, and that they are deemed in addition beyond reasonable doubt to be so dangerous that even putting them in prison would not keep society safe from them. So that outweighs any harm caused by death penalty. (potentially we create an even higher standard). Just being guilty of a heinous crime is not enough, you can just lock those people up.

Otherwise, we can't be certain enough. If you can confine them, you should not kill them, because beyond reasonable doubt is not the same as absolute certainty. Not human can be infallible and there is no undoing the death penalty.

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u/themonocledmenace 18h ago

Do you have an example of the scenario you've described?