Converation thread

And executed

Nah, death penalty should’ve been abolished a long time ago. Sure, let some people rot in jail, but death doesn’t scare a lot of people, and can actually make them commit worse crimes if they know they’ll be caught. Besides, even Catherine the Great tried to get rid of it, and that was in the 1800s.

Worthless, degenerate scumbags who murder people, in attacking the right of life of others, have renounced their own, and thus deserve the full punishment of the law.

Functionally speaking, it’s not a great idea. Morally, it’s a grey area, but I’d let those criminals stay in prison, a lower quality prison, sure, but someone murdering someone else does not excuse us committing it in turn. An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind, and it does nothing for justice, the sanctity of life, or for the families of those murdered themselves. The best way to deal with crime is to increase the certainty of punishment, not the severity. If everyone knew they’d get caught, and be sentenced to prison, then doing the crime sounds a lot…  Read more less appealing, since most everyone thinks they’d be able to avoid punishment. The law is built upon decisions of the people and those at the heads of government, which can be changed whenever society sees fit. Personally, I think it’s long overdue that we abandon the death penalty as a whole. It’s repercussions are surprisingly small, and most often signify a society that’s been able to actually deal with the justice system in a good manner.

This whole notion that you can't prevent crime by severely punishing it is stupid. In fact, the more severe the punishment, the less of that crime you'll have. Death Penalty is ultimate punishment.

Death penalty is an attempt of a deterrent, and a rather weak one at that. Of the few countries where it works, Singapore is the main example, a nation that has sacrificed much of its liberties and rights to lower crime using harsh capital punishment. At the same time, nations like Denmark, Iceland, and Canada have lower crime levels than most others on earth, yet all 3 have no death penalty to speak of. Most nations on earth have rid themselves of it, and their crime rates are fine. You can try to fix it with severe penalties, but you have to expand government power dramatically higher to do so. That’s been the case with Singapore, and remains the case with a lot of countries. Treating the cause of the crime is a FAR better option than punishing the action far worse than usual.

So you're simultaneously crying out about the alleged injustice of punishing to any worthy degree degenerate murderous scumbags who kill innocent people while at the same time proclaiming as a positive good the industrialised butchery of one million innocent unborn children per year without realising the absurd contradiction? For me, it's quite the opposite scenario: I want to put to justice the murderous scumbags who kill innocent people while protecting with the full power of the law millions of innocent human beings from massacre. In both instances my goal is to protect innocent…  Read more life, but in your instances you are on the one hand for preserving the worst specimens of humanity in existence while favouring the continuity & expansion of a Holocaust of innocent lives. Whereas mine has no contradiction, yours is so grossly contradictory words cannot describe it.

I factor in both my own thought process of the moral value of a fetus and the moral value of a criminal. I see the criminal to be higher because we cannot decide the fate of the born with a threat of death, because it’s never given us the right to attack them once they’re in prison. A fetus has far less moral value than that of a fully grown person, and yes, I do not care what that person has done. If that person is currently committing a crime and you can take them out with death, do whatever you please, but once they’re in prison, they remain alive, because the goal of the…  Read more justice system is to ensure the crime committed never happens again. For a murderer, life in prison will be the most fair option, because it gets the job done without needless death, and it also destroys any risks of killing an innocent person. A fetus is unborn, unthinking, and incapable of most every form of feeling. It doesn’t have the same rights as a human because it’s still a part of the human keeping it growing, and relies on them to literally exist at all. Once that child is born, they’ve developed far more than enough complexity, feeling, and thinking to gain the rights of a fully grown human, because now they do not rely upon the parent to exist in the form of incubation. The moral differences here are rather cut and dry, once you’re born, you have rights at a far higher level than before you were born.

A fetus has far less moral value than that of a fully grown person

Disgusting, morally reprehensible, and scientifically ignorant. As I have said so many times before, it does not matter that the unborn child cannot think logically; there are plenty adults who cannot think logically and using the child's mental capacity as justification for his murder is disgusting and has equally horrible implications for the already-born. Using the child's inability to feel pain eat certain stages is also logically bankrupt and has disgusting and horrific implications for the already-born, logicall…  Read morey necessitating if upheld with any consistency that the murder of those on anaesthetic or pain-killer (or those on drugs) is morally justified as they cannot feel pain. And using the baby's dependency on his mother as grounds for his extermination is also logically bankrupt and morally reprehensible, as we are all dependent upon other human beings for our existence – other people grow our food, other people manufacture nearly all of the necessities of life which provide our substances, so this argument logically must justify the killing of practically every human being on the face of this planet who is not self-sufficient, including almost certainly yourself, as we are all dependent on the exertions of other human beings for our very survival. All of these arguments you have made for the continuity and expansion of the Holocaust of the Unborn we call "abortion" are logically unfounded and amoral.

Just as I have said before, the condition of being born was a requirement for that mora logic. You must be born to have the same rights as anyone else, as I’ve also stated a thousand times.

This is, again, the Question-Begging Fallacy. You have assumed your own viewpoint in order to argue for it, making no logical argument. What you have said is that "I know you have to be born to have equal rights because you have to be born to have equal rights!" Circular reasoning – a real vicious case of it, with deadly repercussions. Instead, take my argument on its own merits. Do you have a rational response? Or does the Marxist Death Cult pretty much get ripped to pieces with this?

For starters, morals are based upon one’s own beliefs and logical thought processes behind it. I am setting up my own morals by adding requirements, the same way most people do, and that’s why I add that they must be born, because there’s a massive difference between someone on their deathbed with loads of meds, and a fetus who’s never seen daylight and is incapable of feeling.

there’s a massive difference between someone on their deathbed with loads of meds, and a fetus who’s never seen daylight and is incapable of feeling.

Still begging the question, all you did was rephrase it to make it look like you weren't. You still have never bothered to explain WHY there's a moral difference (which is what we would be discussing if you had been honourable and logical) and I am instead left politely asking you to provide a rational argument for your position, which you so far seem incapable of doing. It that is the case, just say so, and we can end this here, right now...

Because they’re different circumstances, therefore different actions should be taken. The man on his deathbed was previously capable of thought and feeling, and has gained rights because they were capable of sentience and consent in the first place. Losing that due to having a coma doesn’t change the fact that you normally can, same way as consenting to sex while under the influence is not considered consent. A fetus hasn’t ever had that capacity, nor even been close to developing it, therefore it’s wants and needs are of less moral value because it never once had that capacity, nor would they ever feel that no matter what medicinal circumstance they have.

Why should those who have lost their mental capacity, with no hopes of regaining it at the End of their lives, have more rights than those who will in a matter of weeks develop it, and thereon enjoy a life of potentially eighty years in extent, utilising to the benefit of society those abilities which the former party no longer possesses? It is an absurdity.

Because they have been capable of feeling before, making it more than plausible to say that they have fulfilled the requirements to have implied rights to life due to being capable of consent at any point in their life. A fetus cannot have consent, and does not have the capacity to feel at all to begin with. Waiting for a bit will make them able to feel, yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen, nor is future possibility applied to present possibility because that same logic could apply to sperm or earlier forms that are even further away from feeling, hence why I allow it…  Read more up until the approximate time a fetus can feel pain, which is why I have few issues with an abortion ban at 15-24 weeks, because that’s a sizeable amount of time to allow the parent to make an informed decision before the fetus can feel pain, which would therein allow implied rights.

I'm sorry, did we logically establish that "Feeling" is what makes it wrong to murder people? I don't recall doing that... it seems to be one of the points in question...

The capacity to feel pain, yes, it’s a factor, alongside being capable of thought, being fully born, and the necessity or wants of the parent.

Why is it a factor? You're begging the question again. That's what I want to know. I already am aware what you believe, so you don't have to tell me anymore. Just tell me the LOGICAL REASONS why you believe it. That's all I'm asking for.

Why is it morally wrong to inflict pain on others? Can you explain that apart from God?

Because that feels bad for oneself, and since I don’t want that on myself, I don’t want to inflict that upon others either, as most don’t. Generally, giving it a “would I be okay in that situation” perspective tends to be helpful.

All you've said is that you shouldn't inflict pain on others because it hurts others and you don't like getting hurt yourself. So essentially all you've said is "you shouldn't inflict pain because you shouldn't inflict pain!" Which is blatantly circular reasoning.

If you don’t like it yourself, it is mutually beneficial for all to agree not to inflict pain on one another, both because the risk for yourself of feeling pain is high, and because society has agreed mutually that inflicting pain is just inherently not good for the community or the people at large, because that can start fights that hurt everyone, and because we have evolved a tendency to not like inflicting pain upon others. I refuse to have to redefine every last aspect of morality to explain my side here, I can have solid morals without religion in this case, and I’m tired of these ridiculously recursive arguments that you and I have on this subject.

The reason you're tired of these "ridiculously recursive arguments" we have is because you don't have a clue how to respond to them. And it's impossible for morality to just mean "what is mutually beneficial for society" and I can prove it. Imagine a random guy on the streets accidentally trips you, and you fall to the ground, hurting yourself, but he sincerely apologises. Are you angry with him. No, of course not, if you're a decent person, it was an accident and he said he was sorry. But suppose another random guy on the streets deliberately tries to trip you, but fails. Read moreThen you're angry with him, and have good cause to be. But why? In the first instance, a man actually physically hurt you, yet you did not angry at him. In the second instance, you were not hurt at all, and yet you're angry at the man who failed to inflict injury rather than the man who actually did. Why is this? Why are you angry at the one who did nothing to you but not with the one who inflicted harm upon you? Because the first, as he accidentally produced the offence, was not in violation of the Moral Law God established. But the second, even though he failed in his attempt at mischief, did in fact violate this law, which 999 out of 1000 people have some basic awareness of ingrained by God into their conscience. Obviously then, Right cannot merely mean what is good for society, and Wrong cannot merely mean what is bad for it.

I cited effect as one of many factors, though I find it to be one of the biggest pieces. Morality came from our evolved senses and thoughts over the course of our existence, forming from emotions, logic, thoughts, desires, and yes, in part, religions that created set codes. Its origin and evolution points only partially to god during the age of European dominance over the northern hemisphere. A higher power was used as an explanation and simplifying factor for what we couldn’t understand about our own minds and thoughts. Morality is very much objective, but decisions made using differen…  Read moret moral principles will very much differ, as our realities are based upon assumptions about what is factual, and are therefore liable to extreme amounts of faultiness regardless of what most people think.

I cited effect as one of many factors

Apparently you forgot to provide other factors. If you'd like to do so now, please do, I'll be glad to debunk them.

Morality came from our evolved senses and thoughts over the course of our existence,

Begging the Question again. (I'm noticing a trend.) This is what we're supposed to be debating. You're not supposed to be spewing it as if it's some accepted fact. I provided powerful evidence against it, which you've chosen to largely ignore, and not answer logically, instead just restating the very thing we're discussi…  Read moreng.