Still think Texas has never executed anyone who was innocent?

There are always going to be false positives and false negatives. We can choose to eliminate the cost of false positives by not executing anyone. Similarly, we can also choose to eliminate collateral deaths in military action by not engaging in acts of war. There will be costs associated with these choices, of course.

Re: the "innocent person jailed for life" not being equivalent to "innocent person being put to death." I agree that those are not comparable. Also, I'm right there with you in stating that just because someone believes there should be a death penalty (I do, but it's 50.0000000001% to 49.999999999% for me), that doesn't mean I have to be OK with innocents being executed.

 

The only way it makes sense is if the ONLY way to avoid the unfortunate outcome is to stop the process completely.

And that is almost never the case.

Except for waging war.

 

Does Texas ever just admit that this guy was wrongly executed?

What would it take?

 

You guys are focusing on the wrong thing. I never compared being falsely imprisoned for life with being falsely executed. I compared BEING OK WITH with being falsely imprisoned for life with BEING OK WITH being falsely executed. I was pointing out the flaw in the original argument. And it is demonstrably flawed. To suggest that somebody who is OK with the death penalty is also OK with the execution of innocents is to suggest that somebody who is OK with any activity is also OK with the negative inevitabilities of that activity.

In proof form

1. If one is OK with a behavior, then one is OK with all of its eventual outcomes.
2. X is a behavior.
3. Y is an outcome of X.
4. I am OK with X.
5. Therefore, I am OK with Y.

Substitute any behavior X (death penalty, life imprisonment, eating steak) and any outcome Y (false execution, false imprisonment, indigestion), and the conclusion is valid. Well, let's define X as "continuing to live" and Y as "dying." Continuing to live is a behavior. Dying is a an outcome of continuing to live. I am OK with continuing to live, therefore I am OK with dying. It doesn't make sense because Premise 1 is false. Reductio ad absurdum.

The original poster was making a flawed argument that if one is OK with the death penalty, then one is also OK with innocents being executed. That would be the same as arguing, "Anyone who is OK with alcohol must be OK with alcoholism," or, "Anyone who is OK with allowing people to drive cars must be OK with people dying in car accidents."

Personally, I am of the belief that killing is only justified when it can be proven to prevent more deaths than any other alternative. If someone is attempting to kill me, and the end result is either I die or the other person dies, then I am justified in attempting to kill him, because not attempting to kill him will result in the same net loss of life as attempting to kill him. It's -1 lives either way.

If a war can be shown to prevent as many or more innocent deaths as it causes, and diplomacy cannot prevent as many innocent deaths, then it is justified.

If the death penalty can be shown to prevent as many or more innocent deaths as it causes, and if life imprisonment cannot prevent as many innocent deaths, then it is justified. I have yet to see any proof that the death penalty does prevent more innocent deaths than life imprisonment, which is why I am not in favor of the death penalty. But I also don't view one innocent death as proof that the death penalty is not justified. I also think the potential of false execution is a poor rationale for opposing the death penalty. I oppose the death penalty because I believe that killing motivated by anything other than necessity is inhumane, and it makes no sense for us to sacrifice our own humanity to punish somebody else's inhumanity.

 

Thing is, you do have to accept the possibility of people being falsely executed as part of the death penalty. You do have to be okay with it, no matter how many rhetorical games you try to play to make it seem otherwise.

And then it comes down to the very simple, very accurate point that HC made. If somebody is imprisoned for life and later proven innocent, you can let that person out. If that person was put to death, you can't undo that. I get that you don't like the comparison working that way, but it does.

 

I give up