Talk:Capital punishment debate

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[edit] Bias vs. POV

The presence of POV statements is not necessarily illegitimate here; the article is, after all, about a debate, which by very definition requires more than one point of view. A more legitimate application of Wikipedia's POV rules would concern bias -- specifically whether one side of the debate is clearly emphasized at the expense of the other. I think that's the case here; if the article considers a little more than a list of arguments against death. However, I think that most of these issues are examined from both sides within the text. At worst (and this is merely my interpretation), some parts of the article seems to be written from the perspective(s) of those clearly opposed to the death penalty but at least making an honest effort to present the other side. However, for those who are concerned that arguments in favor of the death penalty are not given their proper due here, the obvious remedy would be to edit the article to include the arguments you think are missing. If VALID arguments -- meaning points that are commonly debated over regarding this issue -- are brought up within the article, only to be deleted later on, then a complaint about biased editors would certainly be legitimate. Minaker 11:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Social contract

While those against capital punishment might claim this as an irrevocable right, proponents may claim that, classical liberal argument was that people form implicit social contract, ceding their right to the government to protect natural rights from being abused. Therefore, protection from abuse is the basis of such rights under liberal democracy and the right was forfeit by the seriousness of the crimes.

I'm familiar with social contract theory but I can't make head nor tail of these sentences. It needs to be reworded or fleshed out slightly. Can we also have a citation of someone who has made this argument?

Iota 01:01, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Locke, Kant and other classical liberals all justified incarceration (slavery) or execution (killing) on the ground of violation of natural right. And in classical liberalism, natural right and social contact are tied arguments. More importantly, they advanced this propisiton in term of priori argument rather than utilitarian/consequentialist argument. Utilitarian/consequentialist argument appear only at the end of classical liberalism. FWBOarticle 13:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

What I mean about the passage I removed from the article is that I don't think it's clearly worded. What if I reword it something like this:
While some opponents of capital punishment consider the right to life to be irrevocable, some opponents of the death penalty argue that under the classical liberal doctrine of social contract theory no natural rights are irrevocable. They argue that individuals form an implicit social contract with government, ceding to the government natural rights such as the right to life so that their natural rights can be protected. Therefore government has the right to take away an individual's right to life in order to protect the lives of others.
Do you think this is a correct interpretation of the passage, or can you offer an alternative wording? I'm basically trying to find a wording of the paragraph that will be more clear to readers.
On my other question can you provide a citation for a death penalty supporter who has actually used this argument? It's just that I've never heard this precise argument made before and as you know we can't include the private opinions of Wikipedians.
Iota 21:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I actually didn't write the original passage. I only added Lockean clarification, which you can find it here. [1] If you want, you can just google "Kant Death Penalty" and you get the similar result. Plus I should point to you that the conept of right is old while inalienable rights is quite modern concept. It is my general understanding that you don't have to source widely acknowledge opinion. If you want, here is the clearest example.[[2]]. The standard (traditional) understanding of right to life doesn't apply in case of national emergencey or serious crime. Even in E.U. there is an aborogation clause for suspencion of EU charter. AI tend to slant the presenation to project image that abolitionism is a global trend. Because it is so widely held understanding, I can't really source it. I think doing so would amount to mis credit of the original thinkers which can go back to antiquity so I don't know who to pick. FWBOarticle 23:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Plus, it appear that no countries in the world belong to "Blue" category of the global death penalty map. [3] I don't think AI is a good neutral source. They are certainly most visible and vocal though. FWBOarticle 23:41, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Might got it wrong. Missed protocoal 13. FWBOarticle 23:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

i was here!!similing at you!! jajaja —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.248.63.182 (talk) 14:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New draft of article

FWBOarticle's proposed draft can be found here.

[edit] I'm going to revamp this page

Awhile back, I rearranged the debate section by merging pro/con argument into "secular argument" which had subsection titled "justice" and "utilitarian". Mine was concise and short. I further suggested that separate pro and con sections should be deleted, because there were 15 lists of arguments for each section and it was quite difficult to grasp the overall picture. Some didn't like my proposal, so I left it at that. Now, someone who is more philosophically minded brought the arrangement back to where it was. I think the current state of the article has two problems. One is that, the article is badly organized, narrative wise, so people keep adding ambiguity, which bloated the article. Second, yes, philosophy is helpful, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make the page more accessible to the general reader. I believe I can simplify the page by merging different arguments into priori/Deontological/vitture/humanright/naturalright section and consequentialist section. FWBOarticle 13:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Please don't do a revamp just yet. It is obviously best to improve the article as much as possible. I'm in the middle of my own revamp and I think it would be best if we make sure we don't have totally different views about how the article should look. So far, I've redrafted everything except the introduction and the Legal Views section and I think it's looking a lot better.
First of all I agree with you that the article shouldn't be divided into separate pro- and con- sections. I also agree that the article shouldn't contain too much philosophical jargon. In my opinion, the current introduction should be scrapped. I've already gotten rid of most of the references to deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, etc, in the rest of the article. These concepts are interesting to philosophy students, but not the casual reader who wants to know about the death penalty debate. Most of the campaigners, politicians and others taking part in the death penalty debate in the real world mostly do not understand or use these terms.
However I'm a bit confused when you say you want to reorganise the article into "priori/Deontological/virtue/humanrights/naturalrights section and consequentialist sections". Surely this is going in the wrong direction. I think it's better to leave out the complicated philosophy of ethics stuff and divide the article up on another basis.
You also write "the article is badly organized narrative-wise so people keep adding ambiguity, which bloats the article". I've tried to improve this a little bit. In the end there are so many different kinds of arguments made in the death penalty debate, that I think the article is inevitably going to have a lot of subsections. However, I've reordered things a bit and tried to group these subsections into larger sections which are currently called Deterrence, Other purposes of punishment, Other arguments, and Pragmatic concerns (I haven't yet touched the Legal views section). Generally speaking, I've tried to start with the more commonly made arguments and proceed to more obscure ones. I've also tried to eliminate duplication and make sure that, more or less, each argument is described only once. Iota 23:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent "Demolition" of the page explained

I completely rearranged and rewrote the page. My reason are

  • The arrangement of each section is mess. There are six subsection in "Other arguments". "Other Purpose" also has three sub category. Because the argument is all over the place, the same claim and counter claim is repeated everwhere.
  • Because this page is about the "Debate", I recategorised the page according to the "type" of debate (priori/utilitarian + law) rather than each "issues".
  • My page might "looks" like original research but I didn't use any arguments which doesn't pop up in this controversy. I merely contextualised these by attributing each argument to where I think it belong. Almost everything is pragiarised from other wikipedia page and the previous edit FWBOarticle 19:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I deliberately damb down the philosophical content. But wiki link exist so anyone interested can pursuit the topic further.

Hope you like what I did. FWBOarticle 19:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

FWBOarticle, I've reverted the page to the version it was in before you replaced it with a completely new version. The convention on Wikipedia is that before radical changes are made to an article there should first be a thorough discussion so a consensus can be reached. So please don't revert the article until the matter has been resolved on this talkpage.
Aside from reverting the article I've also made an edit that finishes the work I was doing on the article by giving it a new introduction and redoing the legal views section--including removing duplication. By finishing off my changes it should be easy to compare the my preferred version of the article to your proposed version. I've put a link to your proposed redraft at the top of this section (and here).
Anway I think your redraft contains some good information that should be included in the article somehow. You've also obviously put in a lot of work. However I'm afraid I honestly think there are also some very big problems with it.
The arrangement of each section is mess. There are six subsection in "Other arguments". "Other Purpose" also has three sub category.
There are indeed a lot of subsections but as I say above there are so many different kinds of arguments made in the death penalty debate that I think this is inevitable. Currently I think if people are looking for a particular one of the common arguments they will know how to find it very quickly by looking at the contents. I think that this makes more sense than yoking arguments together under obscure philsophical categories. I think that most lay people looking at the list of headings in your draft would be completely baffled.
Because the argument is all over the place, the same claim and counter claim is repeated everywhere.
Have you read over the article since my recent changes? If you haven't please do. I think I've removed most of the unnecessary duplication. Sometimes an argument is relevant to more than one heading. Where this happens I have put it into only one section and then simply refered the reader back to that section if the topic comes up again somewhere else.
My page might "looks" like original research but I didn't use any arguments which doesn't pop up in this controversy. I merely contextualised these by attributing each argument to where I think it belong.
This I think is a really big problem. To me your draft reads like a research paper rather than an encyclopedia entry. It's as if it were an assignment with a title like: "How can the death penalty be understood in terms of the major theories in the philosophy of ethics?". Remember that this article is not a chance for Wikipedians to list what they see as the convincing arguments for or against the death penalty. It is supposed to be a description of all of the actual arguments that real notable people have actually made in the debate.
I have a hard time believing that many of the arguments you use have ever been made by anyone. For example there is a long discussion of how Locke's social contract theory applies to the death penalty. Did Locke ever say anything specifically about the death penalty, has any notable participant in the death penalty debate ever actually used social contract theory in an argument? If so please provide some citations.
When we discussed this subject above you provided me with a link to the main article about Locke. That page provides a description of social contract theory, but the precise arguments you use are nowhere to be found. What I'm trying to say is that it is one thing to explain social contract theory in general, but to apply it to a specific case involves using your own judgement and amounts to original research. I am only giving the social contract stuff as one example. As I say the whole article reads like original research and contains many, many arguments that seem to be your own original work.
Finally there is one last problem. Please don't take this the wrong way but the article is full of spelling and grammatical errors. It's actually very hard to read. I don't want to discourage you, especially if English isn't your first language (forgive me if I'm wrong about that), but unless it is thoroughly proof-read and fixed I don't think it can be put up for this reason alone.
Listen I think we both just want to improve the article as much as possible so please don't be offended if I seem over-critical. As I say I think that aside from the original arguments your article contains some stuff that should be included in the article somehow. But I also feel very strongly that your new draft is not the right way forward.
Iota 22:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


Hehe, no prob. I didn't expect my draft to pass in the first shot. I'm fluent in Engrish. (^^) Plus my computer doesn't have world processor. Before we discuss the main issue, let me clarify about Locke. He state explicitly in his "Two Treaties"

"Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good"

You can google it. The similar argument is made in relation to justification of slavery and coquest. It is here. Once you understand the (Hobbsian) context in which the original liberal thinkers discuss the natural rights, it isn't really difficult to grasp. FWBOarticle 01:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, let discuss the core issue, that is the overall structre of the article. We have three type of debate here, philosophical (prior/utilitarian/virtue), legal and political/issue based debate. So far, the sections has been organised by issues which I don't think is a good style of presentation.

  • It appear that you intend to purge or reduce philosphical debate but I think this is not kosher. In wikipedia, you aren't allowed to censor. You can only attribute. Plus wikipedia prefer the debate being more academic. We can't pretend that these ethical (academic) debates don't exist. They have to have fair presentation. Problem is how to do it without creating duplication.
  • So far I've been keep inserting "This apply to life imprisonment as well". "Life imprisonment is irrversible too". "Life imprisonment is arguably more cruel". "this only apply to particular method/discrimnation/istitution/argument so it doesn't amount to priori invaldiation of death pealty from philosophical/legal point of view" and so on. Moreover, it is hard to see where each issues fall into within the overall debate of the death penalty. So the same arguments pop up everwhere. But we can't delate separate legal or phisolophical section. Does it meant that we have to have Miscarraige of Justice/Inhumane/Discrimination within separate legal debate, issue debate and philosphical debate?
  • The major problem with issue based presentation is that it is essentially Amnesty International presentation which isn't really helpful here. AI obviously have priori objection to the death penalty. That itself is fine. Problem is that they pick every issues they can lay their hand on without making this position clear. For example, it is almost elementary fact within ethics debate that you can't substitute life imprisonment with death penalty if your objection is priori. And I really don't think that this have to be repeated for every issue AI (or abolitionist) raises just because these people refuse to listen (or ignore deliberately). Wikipedia is about proper attribution and I beleve that allocating issues according to different arguments prevent duplication while allocating argument according to issues encourage duplication.FWBOarticle


[edit] Attempt at better attribution and disambiguation

I hope, aside from my Engrish, no one object to me replacing Law section with my new draft. The previous section was started by me and it was incomplete. The newer version give much coherent overall view on this topic. Plus the relevance and the importance of judiciary is obvious. FWBOarticle

Again, Economics section is no brainer given that it is distinct category of debate. Whether it is philosophically categorised as Consequentialist or politically categorised as Economics is not really issue IMO. FWBOarticle

I have made attempt at better attribution between Human right (amnesty international) and Ethics (philosophy). Philosophical debate essentially fall into the discussion of "Ethics". Utilitarian is often categorised as non-ethical debate. And Human right is a distinct ideology advocated by AI and other anti death penalty organisation and they follow different line of debate and reasoning. I believe this rearrangement achieve better attribution and balance. FWBOarticle

[edit] Spelling and Grammar

Spelling and Grammar on the page is atrocious. I will try and get round it when I can, but if somebody else could look, I would be grateful. --Chachu207 ::: Talk to me 18:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That's fault is mine. I wrote "Legal section", did substatntial reorganisation of Utilitarian section (appeal to evicence, commonsence, economics subsectioning is mine) and I introduced priori arguments way back when this article was still part of capital punishment article. My Engrish edit were allowed to stay, aside from Engrish, structure was much more NPOV which killed off much of edit war. I will try to get wordprocessor and fix spelling if I can. Fixing of grammer is beyond me. FWBOarticle

FWBOarticle, you might want to try downloading a free wordprocessor such as abiword, found at http://www.abisource.com. A reduction of spelling mistakes and confusing grammar will make for a much more readable and accessable article. You might also want to consider asking someone with better English to read over your edits before you post them, to save others from trying to reword your additions to be more coherant. If you need someone to do this I would be more than happy to help. mergie 20:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks.Vapour

[edit] Brutalising effect

I've added a sentence to the con capital punishment debate under brutalising effect to make the meaning more clear. The last sentences on both the pro and the con side of the argument are difficult to understand and due to the fact I don't know what the author was going for. I'm going to leave them for the time being. Blue Leopard 08:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Nobody has come to defend the sentence about guilt or why it refers to the brutalising effect, aka brutalization hypothesis, therefore, I'm deleting it. Blue Leopard 20:59, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Tried to add a reference to this journal http://www.justiceblind.com/death/sorensen.html, but due to my low wikiskills, I couldn't get the reference to work. Help would be appreciated. Blue Leopard 21:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

ah, you mean this? or you want to do end note? End note is usually a bad idea in wikipedia because the edit get updated constantly and lot of endnote get lost. FWBOarticle
Made an endnote. Messed around till I figured it out. I like endnotes because you can see without following the link that the material came from a scholarly source. I think the pro death penalty section should be removed from this section because the reason given doesn't discredit the brutalisation hypothesis and instead just gives a Fox News commentator like rebuttal and attempts to redefine the theory. The statement phrased as it is isn't backed up of utlized by any scholarly source. The article would still be NPOV even if the specific section was weighted in the con side.Blue Leopard 02:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

As per above, removed part of section after no complaints. Blue Leopard 12:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deontological argument overlap with Brutalising effect

Statements in the Deotological argument overalp with the Brutalising effect argument and terms defined in Brutalising effect aren't stated in the deotological argument. Also, there are very few references in this article and it would be nice if more were added. Specifically, in both these sections.Blue Leopard 20:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Entire human right argumens are indeed duplicates of deotological argument. I initially deleted Human right arguments section and submerged it under priori/deotological section. However, some raised objection because it is too academic and less acessible. I also suspect that objection is partly due to the fact that submerging human right arugments under deotological section expose anti death penalty arguments to be moot in most case. Anyway, I forked out Human right arguments (which is just duplicate of deotological argument) as a separate section again. Yes, it is a POV forking. But I did it to keep people (who base their arguments on human right) happy. This article has been stable since. ~~ (Comment by FWBO article)

FWBO article, just because the article is stable, doesn't mean that it's good. I reccomend instead of the weak summary under the capital punishment article for this, ahem, fork,each section be summed up stating the core structural components of each argument. I also advocate a complete dejargonation of this article. Priori should be no more. I don't care if it's proper english use. In fact, some of the only "proper English" makes the article harder to understand than it already is. Blue Leopard 05:07, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, stability is one of key criteria of feature article status. So stability is good in wikipedia term. In fact, stability in a controvercial article like this one is exellent. It indicate that different POV are properly attributed in appropriate section. You may not be aware but previously, there were some disagreement between one side advocating more formal/philosophical/academic presentation using deontological/Consequential/Virture sectioning of the article and the other side advocating more accessible presentation focused on issues based sectioning (e.g. miscarriage of justice, detterent, and so on). Rejecting/Accepting philosophical/academic perspective over issue/journalist perspective is not NPOV in either way. So compromise was reached. Human right section deal with "issues" (wrongful conviction, race discrimination, brutality and so on). A priori (deontological) section deal with philosophy. Consequentialist/Utilitarian/Detterent section deal with issues in more analytical (i.e. economic) manner. Legal section was forked out because it is obviously a separate and independent perspective. Think the current format in term of a compromise among POVs from Philosopher, Lawer, Economists, Activits/Journalists and you might find the current arrangement to be NPOV. I'm still trying to find more coherent presentation which allow merging of Human right section and deontological section. But hey, nothing is perfect. FWBOarticle

[edit] Why I hate priori in this article

1) Priori on it's own isn't a word or meaningful statement! It's part of a latin term A Priori meaning:

  I. Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive.
  II.   a. Derived by or designating the process of reasoning without reference to particular facts or experience.
        b. Knowable without appeal to particular experience.
  III. Made before or without examination; not supported by factual study.

Source: www.dictionary.reference.com

Literally translated it means before the fact.

2) It's jargon we can do without. Can we just use Lockean position or something to that effect?

-Blue Leopard 05:17, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Lockean position isn't a generally accepted term for a substitute of deontological or priori position/objection/justification. Plus, google search do seem to shows that use of priori as adjective is not uncommon. Most can recognise what priori position or priori justification means. I used priori because there were much complaint about philosophical argument being too academic relying on words (e.g. deontological) most people are not familiar with. So I used phrase "priori agument" to indicate what deonntological argument means. FWBOarticle
I think the term is fine (because I'm a lawyer and we use Latin all the time), but the correct Latin term is a priori. Most philosophers use a priori, not priori. There is a difference. --Coolcaesar 07:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Converting Engrish into English is beyond me. :D FWBOarticle
But, I think that converting Latin to English is good for an ENGLISH wikipedia. Blue Leopard 10:46, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
"A priori" is an example of loanword, a valid English word with latin origin. In fact, English language doesn't make sense if loanword are eliminated. FWBOarticle

[edit] This article needs pictures!

I think the article should include picture of philosophers and sociologists that make the various arguments to liven the article up.

In legal section we could have the photo of Lady Justie, blind, holding sword and scale. In Human right argument section, we could have photo of "Universal Declaration of Human Right" document. For A Prior Argument, what about the face off between Pro and Anti Death Penalty Demonstraters, both of whom are implicitly and unknowningly basing their arument and sentiment to a prior position. No idea what is a appropriate pic for utilitarian section. Possibly the portrait of Bentham, the father of untilitarianims, hence consequentialism. FWBOarticle

I'm not a big fan of the abstract concept pictures of Lady Justice. Human rights doc ok. Definately should have pictures of protestors. Every debate article needs pictures of protestors! Blue Leopard 12:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] i like the wikireason link

I dig the wikireason sister project. It would be cool if the edit wars could be segwayed to an actual debate on wikireason Mathiastck 08:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV problems in "Appeal to Common Sense"

I have alot of problems with this section because I do not think it expresses a NPOV. First of all "common sense" is a very loaded and subjective term. What is considered "common sense" to one person is inevitibly not to another. Some could even view common sense as simply a collection of one's personal prejudices. At the very least, this term should be eliminated or altered. Calling it a common sense argument sidesteps the whole debate. This section contains many assertions which are vague and sometimes have few sources. Who exactly are the proponents of this argument?

Whether punishements by the state work as a detterent is preciesly what is at issue here yet the supposed common sense arguement assumed "that punishments do work as a detterent and as a "general tendency, severe forms of punishment has a higher detterent effect." Who aruges this?

"By common sense, most would agree that those who commit crimes of passion...distinguish the difference between simple armed robbery and robbery accompanied by murder." Who argued this? These sentences just seem like a bunch of wild generalizations.

You also make a general claim about "utilitarian criteria" and that "result of death penalty must be greater than murders not comitted" Where did this forumla come from?

I want to suggest a complete revision of this entire section, or perhaps it's deletion. Farbotron 19:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. Arguments that are so called "common sense" are presented neutrally elsewhere. I have no idea where the section on the military, which one by the way? shooting thier own was relevant to the article. Being that this section was useless in every way shape and form there was no point in fixing the grammar and I simply deleted it.Blue Leopard 04:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This entire article is set up with a POV

This article needs to be restructured. First of all, the philosophy terms need to be removed since there is an attempt to put all the issues under those headings and makes it not only POV, but also artificial. Second, the issues should be presented along the lines of what the main issues are in the debate such as deterrence, innocence, economics. Having a section on "human rights" is not one of the issues. The issue is "morality," and opponents sites "human rights" as one of the reasons that it would be immoral, but it is not the reason for a section to be titled "human rights". Look at amnesty international as a guide to the issues that they argue against the death penalty. Also look at prodeathpenalty.com as an example of issues to which the article should be structured. ED MD 20:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I basically agree, but I didn't want to be as harsh. There does need to be a restructuring as alot of the opinions seem to be the author's own philosophical arguments. Somtimes they make logical sense, but they need citations. Perhaps there should be a separate page for philosophical debate about capital punishment?
Farbotron 21:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Seperating this article out from the main death penalty article is bad enough. Perhaps a better summary of that article could be left once this article is heading somewhere. All pros and cons should be here. Blue Leopard 05:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. The "human rights" section should not even be here. This is completely opinionated and should show both the pros and cons of this issue 72.45.63.60 22:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anyone know what this means?

I'm in the middle of copyediting this article, and I'm stumped by this sentence: "Rather that the opponent find right to life to be specifically inviolable whose distinction is arbitrary." Does anyone know what this is saying? It's in the "Right to Life" section within "Human Rights". --Natalie 02:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Opps sorry about that. This expression makes more sense in my language. "The opponent of DP say "right to life" cannot be violated. But they say incarceration is o.k. which mean that "right to liberty" can be violated. This distinction of what right can or cannot be violated is arbitary." Vapour

[edit] Lethal Injection

All states that use the death penalty use lethal injection. Data in the article is out of date. Blue Leopard 06:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

No, some states still use hanging, firing squad, and electric chair. Look at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/cp97.txt Gov't Statistics

[edit] One-sidedness of the article

I'm shocked that this article is so biased towards abolitionists. I'm surprised that no one has tried to change this. There are none, or very little arguments in this article the view of retentionists. This problem should be rectified immediately since it constitutes a clear breach of Wikipedia policy (that all articles should be objective).

I recommend that we should divide this article into two main sections: a section explaining the view of abolitionists and an another explaining that of retentionists. If needs be, then additional sections can be added to represent other views, such as that of differents faiths, etc.

I'm open to hear what others have to say and suggest.

GreatKing 12:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Spliting POVs into for and against is not considered as a good style of presentation. (Wikipedia:Criticism) We have gone through this process already where each become lists of for and against opinion with little coherence. The current format at least identify the issue involved, in which each topic has a summary of arguments. Vapour 15:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Human Rights topics should be redistributed

The only thing that they have in common is that they are used by Amnesty etc. Wrongful convictions should go into the Law etc. section, as should discrimination. Right to life and Inhumaneness should go with Philosophical etc. Brutalisation should go with the deterrance arguments. Don't know about Democracy: it seems rather circular. Me...™ 10:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

This has been debated already. I initially did structured the article in the way you suggested. This was met with a strong objection from people who are abolitionists, partly because that would submerge all of their preciouse issues (such as wrongfull conviction, universal decralation of human right etc). As a compromise, I created "Human Right" section which has a structure which mirror the arguments raised by likes of Amnesty International. Vapour

[edit] This can Hardly be called a debate

A debate requires 2 sides. This is the various positions of those opposing the death penalty and not a debate. -Agreed, this article is absolutely biased and without merit.

I disagree. This article professes to talk about the debate and des not in any way say that it is the debate it's self 59.92.110.44 04:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)NB

Yes, but this article DOESN'T talk about the debate; it merely argues against the death penalty. In order for the debate itself to be discussed, both sides MUST be presented or else the very concept of "debate" is meaningless and the article becomes useless. Otherwise the article is biased, incomplete, misleading, POV, and generally unacceptable as a Wikipedia article. I don't think anyone is saying that the ENTIRE ongoing debate should be presented here, which would be impossible, but if the article is going to list and discuss at length the points of one side, the same should be done for the other in order for this to even qualify as a debate. Minaker 07:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible POV?

"Some arguments revolve around empirical data, such as whether the death penalty is a more effective deterrent than life imprisonment, while others employ abstract moral judgements."

As i read this sentence, it comes across as being very POV. Am i reading it wrong? Or does anyone else think it should be removed/re-worded? Greebo cat 15:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that "abstract moral judgements" somewhat imply that it is an irrelevant philosophical speculaton. Why not just remove "abstract". Afterall many people object to death penaty purely on moral ground. Vapour
Good idea, i was trying to think of how was best to fix the problem but that seems the simplest way. Done. Greebo cat 10:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] utilitarianism/economics

I just wanted to say that the statement "Economics is derived from utilitarianism" is not true at all. Utilitarianism is a school of philosophy, economics "studies the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities."
If you do economics at post graduate level, you would realise that the statement is not so far off. Entire microeconomics are based on use of the concept of (ordinaly) utility which is explicitly formulated (intially by Jevon) out of utilitarianism. Macroeconomics launched by Keynes were not based on microeconomic analysis but, one might argue that the concept of utilitarianism (cost/benefit trade off) is taken for granted. And current trend in macroeconomics is to base the analysis in term of (cardinal) utility curve. Vapour
While that might be the case, it is still ridiculous to make a categorical statement like "economics is derived from utilitarianism." The two are still very separate. Even economic welfare theory and philosophical ethical utilitarianism are quite distinct. Moreover, the suggestion that utilitarians all support the death penalty is highly misleading, as is the seeming implication that all economists do. I plan to edit that section soon, any objections? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by catquas (talk) 07:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC).
Demand-Supply curve analysis of market/economy can cleary trace it's origin to utilitarianism of Jevon through Marshall. Sure, Srafian and Classical Economics are not based on that. However, you should take into account of the fact that the term utilitarianism has much wider implication than narrow meaning of utility. It generally denote any cost/benefit trade off approach. It's bit hard to claim that ecomics isn't about cost/benefit trade off. Vapour

[edit] Torture during Execution

I did a report on capital punishment when I was college freshman. In it, I stated that there have been cases where prisoners were actually tortured during the execution. For example, during a lethal injection execution, the prisoner had to be stucked many times, because the executioners couldn't find a vein to inject the poison into, causing pain and stress to the prisoner. Another case was when a malfunction in an electric chair occured, increasing the voltage to a higher level than what the electric chair was supposed to be set at; this caused agonizing pain to the prisoner that the prisoner's execution was considered by many to be 'cruel and unusual punishment.' Shouldn't this be included in this article? SCGhosthunter1 16:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add any properly sourced information you have. JCO312 01:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I would avoid using the term torture because to quote from the torture article, torture is "Torture is the infliction of pain intended to break the will of the victim or victims." That isn't the case here. Blue Leopard 22:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why does Capital punishment cost So much?

If someone could please answer my Question of "Why Capital punishment costs So much?" i would really apreciate it. Colosaggon 18:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Because there are more avenue for judicial reviews compared to other crimes. You also have to take into acount of the fact that, in u.s., lot of life imprisonments are the result of plea barganing, in which the accused accept guilty verdict so to avoid death penalty. Vapour
P.S. So that judicial process of capital punishment cost a lot but, in u.s. the overall economic effect would probably be huge saving on taxpayer's money. Whether judicial process based on plea barganing is "just" is another entirely different question. Vapour

The reason it costs so dang much is because of the stupid appeals system. Now for my question. Why does the defense get somewhere around 7 appeals, but the prosecution only gets one chance due to the double jeopardy laws?

Partly because it could take decades for the appeal to run it course. Someone who is wrongly convicted staying in jail for decades is bad enough. Innocent person being prosecuted for decades by over-zelous prosecutor is worse. Vapour

[edit] Economically poor people and Capital punishment

One of the best arguments against capital punishment in the USA, (since 1977), is that only economically poor people, (who are guilty) tend to get executed; while rich people tend to get life, or perhaps found not guilty in the first place.204.80.61.10 20:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)Bennett Turk

Thanks to this criticism, especially since late 1990, the prosecutors tend to seek death penalty in equal measure. I don't believe anti death penalty group is asking for more death penalty for the rich. So your argument that this is "one of the best argument aganist capital punishment" doesn't quite work. This is partially discussed in race aspect of death penalty. Feel free to add. Vapour
While prosecutors may seek the death penalty in equal measure, the people being executed most of the time in America are the poor, minorities, and the disavantaged of our society. When I read about a rich murderer in the USA being executed, I will change my mind. 204.80.61.110 20:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)Bennett Turk
The question then being, is that a problem with the punishment itself, or the legal system which administers that punishment? Certainly, the distribution may not be in favor of poor people, but it still stands that these people committed capital crimes and should be punished.RageGarden 05:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Poverty and destitution seems to be one of the main factor of crime. How many well off commit drive by shooting or burglary which often result in capital offense. If rich and famous is accused of capital offense, it will be a media sensation partly because of its rarity. Vapour

[edit] Utilitarianism

I just changed the content related to utilitarianism around. In the original, utilitarianism was not mentioned until the deterrence/economics section, suggesting that this is all that utilitarians care about. It was also implied that utilitarianism is unambiguously pro-death penalty. I moved utilitarianism to the ethics section, leaving references to it in the deterrence/economics section.--Catquas 02:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC) (aka 72.200.129.235 - stupid log-in problem)

[edit] NPOV issue

This article seems to exhibit a pro-retensionist standpoint, because it will raise an abolitionist argument and then promptly knock it down in what seems (to me) to be a rather partial manner. Repeatedly we are told that this or that abolitionist argument is rendered 'moot' by a corresponding retensionist one, a phenonomenon which never operates in reverse despite there being a range of wholly sufficient abolitionist rebukes.

The author seems to have made an effort to surround the remarks with phrases such as "proponents argue...", but this does not (to my mind) justify what seems like very apparent bias.

I feel obliged to mention that I am an abolitionist, and that I could therefore merely be labouring under some paranoid delusion. Even so, I feel uncomfortable with the tone and approach of the article and so until I have been presented with a sufficiently persuasive argument I will be questioning its neutrality.

86.1.36.85 17:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Please understand that the meaning of the term "neutrality" in Wikipedia is slightly different from the common meaning of English. In here, as long as partisan view are attributed, e.g. right wing view are clearly stated as right wing view, then it is considered as "neutral". By merely stating "who say what", wikipedia avoid expressing its' own view, NPOV. Even if there are 20 argument for abolition and only one argument for retention, it is still considered as neutral in wikipedia. In this way, we can avoid pointless POV edit/delete war. Of course, you are free to add counter-counter argument from abolitionist perspective. Then that will be countered again. This is how the wikipedia article evolve. If you don't object, i will remove neutrality tag and switch it with lack of source tag. Vapour

[edit] Does this belong on Wikipedia?

This is an interesting and detailed article. Clearly there's been a lot of debate about whether or not the article is NPOV — I'm not going to address that here. I just think that maybe we should consider whether this kind of article belongs on Wikipedia in the first place. Should Wikipedia also have an article outlining (or attempting to outline) both sides of EVERY political debate? I would say no. There are countless political (and other) debates as complicated and heated as this one, and they don't all have this kind of page nor do they need it. What is needed is, on the capital punishment page, simply a rather short summation (perhaps a couple of paragraphs) of the major arguments typically voiced for and against the death penalty. Attempting to write a page like this one inevitably results in some sort of essay rather than a quality encyclopedia article.

I don't mean to disrespect all of the people who have put a lot of time into this article, but I felt I would be remiss not to bring this up. I would be interested to hear what other people think. Dce7 00:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Can a rational thinking person answer these questions please, "If you have killed 50 other innocent men/women or children, do you deserve to live?" another question "as we are fighting in iraq, who is taking responsibility of all the innocent people being killed there, i mean all the soliders aren't really guilty of anything, and all the people on the streets certainaly aren't terrorists, maybe the terrorists killed 2000 of our innocent people on 9/11, but how many have we killed of their's now, my guess atleast 50000, thats a ratio of 1:25 and we aren't done yet!!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.16.22.18 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 13 April 2007(UTC).

Ok, here's a rational thinking person to answer your questions for you. Yes, if you've killed 50 other innocent people intentionally, you deserve to die. And as for the civilians killed in Iraq, a) those weren't intentional killings b) the killings occurred in a wartime environment c) The number is substantially lower, somewhere in the area of 20,000, so the ratio would only be 10:1.75.17.9.140 03:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree about getting rid of this article. I mean, it's an important thing, but it's totally POV and it reads like an essay more than an encyclopedia entry.

I have to agree with the previous entry. This debate has been an important issue since the 1970's, but it does tend to be POV. There's no way of making an article on this debate unless you have taken a position on whether you support or reject capital punishment. And to the person asking those questions, here's another rational, thinking person with a neutral answer to those questions. If a person kills 50 innocent people intentionally, we as a country have a right to remove that person from our society, whether it be by death or life sentence w/o parole. But here's a rhetorical question: If we could remove all flaws from our judicial system, would capital punishment be necessary? Please feel free to answer that question at my Talk Page. I would be very interested to hear your responses. And about the deaths in Iraq, no one is sure whether those 50,000 or so civilians were killed intentionally. We all have our own opinions on the war. Let's try to keep the number of arguments down to a minimum. Sigmund1989 11:09 A.M., 02 May 2007 (PDT)

Ah, I think some people seems to have mistaken idea of NPOV policy which is the core value of this site. Neutral point of view does not mean non presentation of POVs in wikipedia. It means that different viewpoint/opinion should be attributed correctly to the sources. Deleting some entry for being a POV is categorically incorrect application of the policy. There are literary ten of thousands of wikipedia articles about different and often opposing POVs. What is important is the attribution of POV. Entry about POV has never been a problem in this site. Please check other articles of this site, such as abortion or whaling. Lastly, wikipedia talk page is not supposed to be used as a discussion forum. We can debate about policy and guideline. The article and talk page isn't the place to "debate" the moral of death penalty. It is a place to "present" the dabate of death penalty by attributing different POVs. Vapour

[edit] Studies Say Death Penalty Deters Crime

Associated Press have an article claiming that at least among those who practice econometrics (i.e. economics statistics), the deterrent effect has been well proven. [4] The article doesn't provide exact reference for such studies so I'm in no hurry to cite this news article. However it mention that

" Steven Shavell, a professor of law and economics at Harvard Law School and co-editor-in-chief of the American Law and Economics Review, said in an e-mail exchange that his journal intends to publish several articles on the statistical studies on deterrence in an upcoming issue."

I would love to cite this paper in wikipedia when it comes out. Vapour

The problem with these studies is that they are (at least) as controversial as the whole debate itself — the article has some pointers, as well as the news article you mentioned. It is still worth citing these studies and the associated criticism, but I fear that doing so in an NPOV way will be as difficult as it is for the whole article... Schutz 09:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I run scholar search on this topic. It appear that the latest findings by those trained in economics seem to show minor but statistically significant deterrents effect of death penalty. These research contrast with earlier work done by non economist who are not professionally trained in statistics. Unfortunately, I don't have Athene access anymore so I can't read the papers itself, only the abstract.
The criticism of these resent studies, which appear in non academic source, seems to be coming from non economist. There arguments i have seen so far isn't that impressive. They seems unable to grasp the meaning of "statistical significance". Sure, It is possible to come up with multitude of other statistical analysis which show different results. But that work "only if" you don't discriminate the analytical method. One can make valid counter by refining the regression model, which might show that the result of "statistical significance" is faulty. This is how peer review publication system eventually reach conclusion. Instead, it appear that they seem to be dodging the whole issue because they can't deal with math. Anyway, I will wait until someone publish a survey of recent literatures. Vapour (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 11:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page needs serious work

No offense to those who have been working on it, but it is almost unreadable. The overly long introduction makes no sense and is too full of jargon and legal and philosophical arguments that are not presented clearly for the average reader. The rest isn't much better, and almost all of it is unsourced. I know this idea has already been rejected arbitrarily, but a simple, point form presentation of the arguments on both sides (with sources!) is what the reader is going to want, not a college paper. Keep in mind that people come to Wikipedia for an overview, which they can expand upon if they choose. If any french speakers want to check out the french version of this topic, it is presented far more clearly. Stardog101 (talk) 00:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Stardog

100% agree. I marked it for rewrite. SBPrakash (talk) 08:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Poop?

From Article: Discrimination "It is argued that the poop of the person to be executed can affect the likelihood that they receive a death sentence."

...Since when? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.131.130 (talk) 02:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Purpose Of Criminal Punishment?

What exactly is the purpose(s?) or goal(s?) of criminal punishment? Perhaps the argument can be reframed to fit which better fits the purpose/goal(s?) of the system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.134.149.100 (talk) 06:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Argument from democracy"

Er, that argument may be used for all political opinions. I don't think it is a valid argument and it should be removed. --212.247.27.19 (talk) 17:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)