There are reasonable arguments you can make about the death penalty, like uncertainty or cost or efficacy as a deterrent. They may even convince some people.

But a lot of people have an axiomatic view of the death penalty.

I personally hold the belief that killing is bad, and should be avoided, with some complicated feels towards self defense.

I may make all of the arguments above trying to convince people to oppose the death penalty. Hell, I may consider lying about the statistics. But they won't change my mind. If it's more expensive to not execute people or less effective at deterring crime, I'll still oppose the death penalty.

Uncertainty is no different. There is always uncertainty of varying degrees. There will be cases where the convicted is almost certainly guilty. Imagine a suspect commits his capital crime in full few of a large crowd of unbiased witnesses, many of who knew him personally and can clearly identify him. Moreover, he was taken into custody immediately after committing the crime, by police officers who also witnessed the crime. He gave an unforced confession, gave details not available to anyone else, and offers no remorse. He is mentally competent by any measure.

Add in any other caveats you'd like. If you are still opposed to the death penalty in this particular case, well, then you're not really concerned about the uncertainty, you're just opposed to the death penalty. If you aren't opposed to the death penalty in this case, then isn't it really just a matter of improving our definitions of "reasonable doubt" for capital cases?

I think people could fall into a spectrum between the axiomatic views you present depending on what is considered a capital offense.

For example I might be in favor of capital punishment but only in cases of war crimes. In that case, for almost all intents and purposes I'm against death penalty since I only approve of it in extreme cases, versus someone that is in favor of death penalty for rapists (assuming there is no uncertainty like in your example), since I could indeed imagine a rape victim that would like to have the rapist dead.

So I agree that if you have an axiomatic view as you put it, the rest of the (non-axiomatic) factors will not be of relevance to you, but then the problem becomes defining on which side of the slide do you consider your view to be axiomatic.

My point is that this almost seems as a sort of "fractal" discussion in the sense that you can always think of yet another factor that would establish different positions for two people although they might seemingly have the "same" axiomatic view, and that makes it very hard to discuss this subject without polarizing people.

I don't buy this for an instant.

The argument isn't that a life sentence can be fully reversed, just that it can be modified later, which death cannot be.

A ruined life isn't much better than death, and sometimes worse IMHO. Without wanting to throw around accusations (truly! I don't mean to presume anything about you, specifically!), I find that people who make your argument often have no appreciation of just how terrible a ruined life can be. I think it's critical to remember that there can be no suffering after death, and while I'd still rather rot in prison than hang for a crime I didn't commit, there's no question that imprisoning an innocent person will cause tremendous suffering and debilitating handicap.

To be clear: there are other, stronger arguments against capital punishment. My point is rather that this one isn't the strong argument it's often made out to be.

This is because either way, people's lives are being ruined. There are a great many people who have been freed from jail only to continue suffering on the outside as a direct result of their incarceration.

Incidentally, I think you've made some assumptions about my position on capital punishment that are mistaken...

EDIT: I seem to have been unclear and this is causing a lot of visceral reactions. Yes, it's worse to be wrongfully killed than wrongfully incarcerated for life (or incarcerated for some length of time and then released). The argument is that it's still close enough that the argument of irreversibility should apply (IMHO) to life sentences. As such, I don't think this is a very strong argument against capital punishment. As an auxiliary point: I think there are other, much stronger arguments against CP. tl;dr: a life sentence is bad enough that the irreversibility argument should apply to it as well.

It's one argument of many, but it's useful for people who think capital punishment is morally justified, but don't want innocent people killed.

That doesn't make sense. While irreversibility is, in fact, an absolute trait of a death sentence, the irreversibility argument is an argument about the relative features of death sentences vs. life imprisonment.

Its true that any imprisonment includes some harms that are (or some probability of harm that is) irreversible, those harms can stop being compounded at any time during the imprisonment by terminating the imprisonment -- as has been done, in fact, not only for innocence but for other causes -- and, even while irreversible, can in some cases be compensated for in some extent, which also (though more rarely) occurs.

To the extent either of those can happen in the case of death sentences, it is only because death sentences are, in practice, sentences to long-but-indefinite terms of imprisonment followed by death, and the imprisonment portion of that sentence behaves exactly like any other sentence of imprisonment. (And note that death sentence proponents often argue that this feature of the death sentence is, itself, a misfeature imposed by resistance to the death penalty which should ideally be eliminated.)

We cannot ignore that there are also innocent people who are sentenced to life in prison -- who die in prison. From the perspective of maximum damage, surely society has harmed these people (and their families) more than it harms the innocents who are executed.

In the context of wrong convictions, I think the question is whether people fear being wrongly convicted more than they fear a cold-blooded killer escaping a life sentence. And secondarily, how strongly wrong convictions of others effects their sense of justice and equality more generally, and thus the legitimacy of their government.

I'm sure this sense has changed over the years, especially when we were more segregated and different classes of people didn't feel that the treatment of certain classes could effect their own class. But I think it's become increasingly the case that the death penalty is having a detrimental effect on our sense of justice and equality. Part of that has to do with modern mass media--dead or alive, our killers are both omni-present and strangely distant. Also, unlike in bygone times we basically kill on-the-spot many of the criminals we'd otherwise be afraid of. For example, domestic terrorists.

So on the whole I would guess that the death penalty provides increasingly less benefit and incurs increasing social costs. The moral question is more definitive for some, but if we're going to be utilitarian about it, it's much more complex than a simple accounting of the statistics.

That is incredibly myopic and presumptuous. You're effectively arguing that we're going to destroy your life so it'll be better if we just end it. If the person's life ends up being so terrible after the fact they still have the option of just ending it. There is no benefit to making such a callous decision for them. Calling the argument weak when your own is short-sighted and at the very worst disingenuous is kind of disgusting to me, personally.

I am not even sure you understand your own position completely.

I argue that a life sentence is only marginally better than a death sentence. I further argue that if we oppose the death penalty on the grounds that it causes substantial irreversible damage, then we must also oppose perpetual incarceration because the difference in harm is not large enough (IMHO). I, and many others, are not willing to do away with perpetual incarceration so this is not a satisfactory line of argumentation.

From there, I reach my point: there are other, more compelling arguments against the death penalty.

I'll say the same thing to you as the other guy: you're making assumptions about my position relative to capital punishment.

If you're going to call people disgusting, at least make a good-faith effort to understand what they're saying.

This is where your argument fails to convince me (and, I suspect, many others). I could accept, if I really stretched myself, that a death sentence is only marginally worse than a life sentence, but only up to the point when it is actually carried out. The obvious discontinuity brought about by the irreversibility of death cannot be ignored; it makes the distinction between the two sentences not marginal, but catastrophic.

Because of this, your argument is weak (IMHO, in keeping with your restrained manner).

No where in my post was there indication or any reason to make the claim that I don't understand what you're saying. I get what you're saying, it's just unsupported and presumptuous -- which is exactly what I said in my first post.

Even if we knew that in every single case that your life was completely ruined after the fact for various reasons (which is factually not the case), it's still morally reprehensible that you consider the outcomes marginally different to the point where whether or not we allowed you to live is insignificant.

I don't consider this argument weak at all. There is no reason for it to be weak; in fact the only way it can be weak is if you make certain assumptions (that we know aren't true) along with some other not-so-popular philosophical value judgements. Hence, not only is the position rather disgusting at a certain level, but making a claim that the argument in discussion is weak is actually rather weakly supported in and of itself.

Again, it is you who does not really understand the position you are taking. I'm not sure how much more you want me to spell it out.

A good example of a candidate for life imprisonment is a mass murderer who has obviously shot tens of peoples without any remorse and boasts doing it again. The crime is not debatable - the question then remains - how should a society respond to such a situation.

No, that's not the assumption they're making. They're saying that the damage can at least be partially reversed.

What's the difference? Dead or locked in a horrible box for life? We euthanize sick cats; we don't make them suffer needlessly. I would argue life imprisonment is a punishment more severe than death.

Just by way of disclosure, I have witnessed two executions in Texas back when I worked for Reuters. I spent a lot of time on death row, interviewing prisoners as well as families, so I don't have a positive feeling about the death penalty... however I contend that life inprisonment is even worse.

It of course depends on the nature of the prison. I would claim it could be just like a regular apartment - except you can't leave. There is no reason for it to be doomy , gloomy and grimy if the raison detre is to protect the society from the person locked away.

I think norway's treatment of prisoners is great example of how to do this as sensibly as possible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway

Do you have any evidence that reality conforms to this theory?

Do you have any evidence that reality doesn't conform to this theory?

Not a counter-question just for the sake of counter-questioning; I am sincerely interested in knowing.

Then that's what should be fixed, isn't it? The amount should be substantial enough to a) be a significant deterrent for future screwups and b) support the former prisoner indefinitely.

That's a bill that probably won't get paid. What are they going to do, throw me in prison?

Possibly that's an appropriate punishment then, for the very worst of offenders.

I think above a few months, imprisonment probably isn't the answer. We should explore alternatives: corporal punishment (wouldn't you rather a single lash than a year in prison?), fines, slavery (why not make someone who commits manslaughter work for the victim's family for a decade, rather than sit in prison for a decade?) and, yes, execution (which is, I contend, more humane than long-term imprisonment).

I don't really know what the answer is, but I'm pretty certain it doesn't involve years of prison.

I think it literally is, which is why I think requiring it in order to graduate from high school or college is uncouth and unconstitutional (likewise, the draft).

I have no problem with it as a punishment for crime, although I do have concerns about the efficacy and efficiency of how it is administered. Does it make sense for someone with high-value skills to be cleaning toilets as community service?