I enjoy reading the American Scene in large part because the range of writers there provide some insight into how the other sides think and a rather enjoyable to read. The one I tend to agree with most is Noah Millman who recently wrote on the Supreme Court decisions finding that a child rapist who had not committed murder could not be executed.
If you’re interested, I think his whole argument does a good job analyzing the ideas systematically. However, to keep things short, I’ll just quote his conclusion:
I’m more confortable arguing against the death penalty on the pragmatic grounds that we don’t want to grant ourselves the power lest we misuse it than arguing on the grounds that it violates a criminal’s inalienable right to life. But it does seem to me that if you start from a premise of such a right to life, then you can only barely justify the death penalty in cases of murder (on the grounds of satisfaction and/or expiation – the consequentialist justifications will never fly), and certainly not in any other cases.
I also reject the death penalty, at least outside of traditional federal criminal cases (not that Gitmo craziness), as being so unevenly and unjustly administered as to be unacceptable. Beyond that, were working with a reliable system, I’m torn; however murders are certainly the outer bound of people I’d consider executing.
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