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The Death Penalty, The Economic Argument
This is the fourth (and final) part of a series, dealing with topics are normally informed by a religious point-of-view, but have somehow managed to leak into some secular world-views. They’ll be collected together under the arrogantly-titled ‘Conceits’ tag. I’ve dealt with The Deterrence Effect in Part 1 and Part 2 of this sub-series, and I also…
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The Death Penalty as Retribution
The next argument that is put forward in favour of the death penalty is that it’s required as part of retributive justice. The major problem with this position is that it has no basis in any sound ethical theories, and appears to be nothing more than a holdover from various religions.
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The Death Penalty, Deterrence in Practice
In Part 1 of this series, I dealt with the plausibility of the model in favour of Deterrence. But let’s forget all about that for a moment. Let’s put aside all the science behind our decision processes, how the human brain works, and all of that stuff. Like Deterrence-advocates, let’s pretend that science hasn’t moved…
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The Death Penalty, Deterrence in Principle
This is going to be the first part of a four-part series on the death penalty, There are two main arguments trotted out in favour, both of which I feel fail to be convincing. I’ll get to them, but first I need to sketch out some philosophical/ethical commitments. It helps to get these out of…
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Because Abortion needs to be explained, apparently.
I am irate. Look, I realise that I am in a position of privilege, and I realise that I’m not angry about this all the time because I’m male and that this is something that I have the privilege of simply not-concerning-myself-about for the vast bulk of my life. I rationalise this as that I…
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Atheism Plus? Sounds awesome!
I’d like to begin by stating that I’m in full agreement with Jen McCreight’s general sentiment in her recent essay: “We can criticize religion and irrational thinking just as unabashedly and just as publicly, but we need to stop exempting ourselves from that criticism.” 100% agreement, no reservations. While the so-called New Atheists (or Gnu…
