[sceptic]

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here's a lot of other stuff to wade through and I'll get to it eventually, but what's your standard for "work" if "life imprisonment with no possibility of parole" doesn't work? We put a guy in jail for the rest of his life, no one else is killed, how is this not successful?

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But that is not the case, some of them kill guards and inmates so it is not succesful, you can argue it is nearly succesful nearly succesful is not good enough to sway me from thinking that death would be 100% succesful in preventing that person from killing anyone else

an example of this would be a man or woman jailed and put in solitry confinement, they have the right to prison visits, people still find a way to conduct and influence others from inside jail.. and that could result in further deaths

[sceptic]

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- That same someone has the right to make that decision.
- Someone has the right to carry out the act.

If the death penalty was voted in, someone would have the right to make the decision and someone would have the right to carry out the act

Just the same as we give rights to other people doing other tasks in the world, because we have rules in society that are generally accepted, we give the right to a judge to judge people, we give the right to a prison officer to incaserate someone for whatever time the judge has decided, we give the right for people to appeal against decisions

collectively (majority rule) we can give the right for someone to do what has to be done

[mike777]

sceptic, on Feb 24 2008, 02:18 AM, said:

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here's a lot of other stuff to wade through and I'll get to it eventually, but what's your standard for "work" if "life imprisonment with no possibility of parole" doesn't work? We put a guy in jail for the rest of his life, no one else is killed, how is this not successful?

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But that is not the case, some of them kill guards and inmates so it is not succesful, you can argue it is nearly succesful nearly succesful is not good enough to sway me from thinking that death would be 100% succesful in preventing that person from killing anyone else

Agree, I think it is very common for murderers worldwide not just in the USA to harm/kill/rape,/ stab/attack/threaten others even after conviction.

Of course I think all of the above also happens to convicted murderers worldwide not just in the USA. Not sure how all of that may not be some form of torture but we seem to care little if at all about prisoners, raped or tortured NOT IN GITMO, but maybe that is another discussion.

I am from South Chicago and lived very close to where the killings happened and I remember Richard Speck and the sex tapes he made in prison. In prison he had all the drugs, party sex and taxpayer paid sex hormones he wanted.
As for all the student nurses he killed, well.......If you believe retribution has been banished from society ask people from Chicago about Speck.....

http://en.wikipedia....i/Richard_Speck

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Feb 23 2008, 11:06 PM, said:

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ok, i misspoke... i don't judge bundy at all... i judge (by that i mean that i try to understand rightly) myself so that i can see my need for salvation... if i don't so judge myself, God will do it for me

i'm not clear on this... absolutism in what sense? and as i said, i misspoke re: bundy or anyone else (except myself)

From my perspective, I believe it impossible to not judge others if you judge yourself against an absolute, universal right and wrong.

that's fine, we just disagree

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But how can right and wrong be universal if it is not universally known and understood?

if you use 'universal' in the sense that they are 'objective', then i would argue that they can't be fully known or fully understood - but only because we as humans are limited in our knowledge of God...

me said:

if there is no evil there is no good... if there is no good there is no God

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IMO, this is flawed logically

make your case

[TimG]

sceptic, on Feb 24 2008, 02:24 AM, said:

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- That same someone has the right to make that decision.
- Someone has the right to carry out the act.

If the death penalty was voted in, someone would have the right to make the decision and someone would have the right to carry out the act

Legal right, sure. But, moral right?

[kenberg]

One result of being a mathematician is that you not only develop an appreciation of the power of logic, you also develop an appreciation of the limits of logic. Fundamentally capital punishment all comes down to what we see as the proper role for society when dealing with severe criminal activity, given all of our limitations in accurately assessing the truth of what happened, our view of ourselves, our trust in the legal system, and similar matters.

It is unlikely to the point of impossibility that anyone will change his mind based on a philosophical debate over whether evil is or is not a religious term. I wasn't using it as such, but it was taken as such and so I can change my wording. I have changed my mind about capital punishment back and forth a couple of times over the years but it has been on the basis of items such as I mention above, similar to things mikeh and others have mentioned. My current view, going back I guess decades now, is that I favor abolition of the death penalty. I don't think it is a slam dunk, if that expression can still be used, but I think it is probably best. Sometimes I have put it as: I am opposed to the death penalty but in some cases I am willing to make an exception. Really that means I am opposed, because I won't be asked when the exception should be made and I am not ready to put such power into anyone else's hands.

[sceptic]

TimG, on Feb 24 2008, 02:36 PM, said:

sceptic, on Feb 24 2008, 02:24 AM, said:

Quote

- That same someone has the right to make that decision.
- Someone has the right to carry out the act.

If the death penalty was voted in, someone would have the right to make the decision and someone would have the right to carry out the act

Legal right, sure. But, moral right?

depends, I am sure that I could live with myself if this were the case, so yes they would have the moral right also

[Winstonm]

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if there is no evil there is no good... if there is no good there is no God




QUOTE 
IMO, this is flawed logically


make your case

"if there is no evil there is no good": first off, this asserts a causitive relationship when no such relationship is proven. Next, these are generalized terms that discount specifics - who or what defines evil and good? Because this is a generalized, non-proven assumption, what follows is based on accepting this flawed assumption, making the conclusion also flawed.

"... if there is no good there is no God": again, this conclusion is based on a faulty, non-proven causitive claim that good cannot exist without evil. This conclusion also prohibits other valid reasons for a God to be, i.e., there is a God who does not interfere; there is a God who doesn't care; there is a God who supports evil; there is a God who is neutral, while good and evil are man-made explanations; there is a God who allows without judgement the natural law of actions and consequences to operate.

I don't mean this as personal criticism as we all do this, but the construct of the argument appears to me as if a conclusion is believed (God and Satan exist) and an argument was created to support that conclusion. In my thinking, the better method is to start with a proven, verifiable premise and then see where that premise leads by logic.

Understand that this is simply IMO and not based on education in logic or argument theory - so my opinion and 5 bucks will get you a latte' at Starbucks.

It would be interesting to me to hear from someone well-schooled in logic and argument theory to chime in - any takers?

[kenberg]

A: If there is no evil there is no good

This has more the nature of an axiom than an argument. Axioms often contain undefined terms, so let's work with it. It would follow that we should all agree that never, under any circumstances, would we ever do anything good. The axiom, in the logically equivalent contrapositive form (If there is good then there is evil) , asserts that the existence of good forces the existence of evil. This is something of a paradox. If I do something good, it will cause the existence of evil. But then what I do isn't really good, is it.

B: If there is no good then there is no God.

This seems more logical, assuming that somewhere else we have the axiom that God is good. Again take the contrapositive: If there is a God then somewhere there is some good. Of course. If there is a God, and God is good, then there is something good, namely God.

You could vary this: Satan is evil, and if there is no evil then there is no Satan. Sure, since the existence of Satan, combined with the description of Satan as evil, shows that there is evil. Satan exists implies evil exists is logically equivalent to evil doesn't exist implies Satan doesn't exist.


It's possibly of interest (well, anything is possible) to note that the arguments here are a rebuttal (I don't say effective rebuttal) to the age old problem of reconciling evil and the existence of God. The usual argument goes: There is evil in the world. If God were all knowing, all good, and all powerful then He would know about this and, being all good, he would correct the situation. Therefore the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. In this counter-argument, God would ensure His own destruction by ridding the world of evil. As soon as evil disappeared, so would good (by axiom A) and the disappearance of good would then, by axiom B, force the disappearance of God. The bottom line here is that we must all suffer evil in order to preserve the existence of God.

My preferred summary on this argument from evil comes from Woody Allen in Love and Death: IF God exists we certainly have to call him an underachiever. But really my view is that it is all just word games. Ideologues of various stripes seem to be very fond of word games and it may be satisfying to catch them out in them, but it is ultimately pointless.

[Winstonm]

Thanks, Ken.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on Feb 24 2008, 07:53 PM, said:

There is evil in the world. If God were all knowing, all good, and all powerful then He would know about this and, being all good, he would correct the situation. Therefore the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. In this counter-argument, God would ensure His own destruction by ridding the world of evil.

Is this a joke? The premise was that good requires evil, presumably because good is defined by it's contrast to evil.

Sliced bread would still exist without the Gerber convention. Maybe we would perceive sliced bread differently because it would no longer be contrasted with Gerber. Maybe a benevolent god created Gerber for us to appreciate the relative goodness of sliced bread. But a god that created holocaust for the same reason would hardly be benevolent.

[Winstonm]

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Is this a joke? The premise was that good requires evil, presumably because good is defined by it's contrast to evil.

I have trouble with this premise because I can't determine if it is a causitive relationship - evil creates good - or a correlative relationship - good and evil exist and move in relationship to each other.

If the determination of good and evil is relative contrast, it seems more likely to be a correlative expression, meaning an assumption that the terms are valid, but their values change in relationship to each other - which would seem to argue against absolutism.

However, by saying 'without evil there can be no good" suggests to me a causitive relationship - one is required in order for the other to occur.

The end result - again, to my untrained mind - is a statement of causation (good requires evil) argued as a correlation (because of the relative contrast).

[kenberg]

helene_t, on Feb 24 2008, 02:32 PM, said:

kenberg, on Feb 24 2008, 07:53 PM, said:

There is evil in the world. If God were all knowing, all good, and all powerful then He would know about this and, being all good, he would correct the situation. Therefore the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. In this counter-argument, God would ensure His own destruction by ridding the world of evil.

Is this a joke? The premise was that good requires evil, presumably because good is defined by it's contrast to evil.

Sliced bread would still exist without the Gerber convention. Maybe we would perceive sliced bread differently because it would no longer be contrasted with Gerber. Maybe a benevolent god created Gerber for us to appreciate the relative goodness of sliced bread. But a god that created holocaust for the same reason would hardly be benevolent.

Maybe not exactly a joke, but sort of. The assignment was to consider the logic of

the non-existence of evil implies the non-existence of good
the non-existence of good implies the non-existence of God.

My view is that the whole argument is not to be taken seriously but that if it is, then apparently God cannot destroy evil without it leading to his own destruction.

I went from a fairly religious childhood to a non-religious adulthood. Considerations such as this played no role whatsoever in my transition. Nor do I think that they play any role in the views of my Christian friends.

On the other hand, I can imagine that the argument that was presented: "If there is no evil then there is no good, and if there is no good then there is no God" might very well have been used by overly logical theists to counter the overly logical argument that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas, for example, had a weakness for misused logic.

The point I want to stick with is that you get nowhere, neither towards God nor away from God, with this sort of analysis. And you certainly don't resolve the issue of capital punishment this way.

[helene_t]

Tx Ken. That's what I thought, tx for confirming. I agree with all that. I am sure my religious friends have better reasons for their believes, also.

[luke warm]

[quote name='Winstonm' date='Feb 24 2008, 12:31 PM']"if there is no evil there is no good": first off, this asserts a causitive relationship when no such relationship is proven.[/quote]
as in many such cases the 'evil' and 'good' i speak of are metaphysical, or transcendent, much like logic itself... however, if one denies that evil exists (or its counterpart), not much can be said about it... the discussion stalls in the quicksand of subjectivity... such and such is good here but not there, or now but not then... this is evil here and now, but not there an then, etc...
[quote name='kenberg' date='Feb 24 2008, 01:53 PM']A: If there is no evil there is no good

This has more the nature of an axiom than an argument. Axioms often contain undefined terms, so let's work with it. It would follow that we should all agree that never, under any circumstances, would we ever do anything good. The axiom, in the logically equivalent contrapositive form (If there is good then there is evil) , asserts that the existence of good forces the existence of evil. This is something of a paradox. If I do something good, it will cause the existence of evil. But then what I do isn't really good, is it.[/quote]
imo this is the same misunderstanding winston has of the matter, that of a causative link... your contrapositive asserts that the existence of good forces the existence of evil... this is not necessarily so, i haven't claimed it to be so, and it is (imo) neither logical nor intuitive to believe it to be so... assume for the sake of argument the axiom "God is good" to be true... it seems self-evident to me that God could have created any number of worlds without evil... that he didn't (to my knowledge) only points to the sufficiency of *this* creation for his purposes
[quote]B: If there is no good then there is no God.

This seems more logical, assuming that somewhere else we have the axiom that God is good. Again take the contrapositive: If there is a God then somewhere there is some good. Of course. If there is a God, and God is good, then there is something good, namely God.

You could vary this: Satan is evil, and if there is no evil then there is no Satan. Sure, since the existence of Satan, combined with the description of Satan as evil, shows that there is evil.  Satan exists implies evil exists is logically equivalent to evil doesn't exist implies Satan doesn't exist.

It's possibly of interest (well, anything is possible) to note that the arguments here are a rebuttal (I don't say effective rebuttal)[/quote]
i'd say that to call them rebuttals of any stripe is an exaggeration
[quote]to the age old problem of reconciling evil and the existence of God. The usual argument goes: There is evil in the world. If God were all knowing, all good, and all powerful then He would know about this and, being all good, he would correct the situation. Therefore the existence of evil disproves the existence of God.[/quote]
and of course i know you aren't arguing this
[quote]In this counter-argument, God would ensure His own destruction by ridding the world of evil. As soon as evil disappeared, so would good (by axiom A) and the disappearance of good would then, by axiom B, force the disappearance of God. The bottom line here is that we must all suffer evil in order to preserve the existence of God. [/quote]
again, this does not follow... it assumes that because God (good) exists, evil must exist and that without evil, good (God) ceases to exist...
[quote]Ideologues of various stripes seem to be very fond of word games and it may be satisfying to catch them out in them, but it is ultimately pointless.[/quote]
i don't know if i should be offended by this or not... i will pretend i'm not
[quote name='helene_t' date='Feb 24 2008, 02:32 PM'][quote name='kenberg' date='Feb 24 2008, 07:53 PM'] There is evil in the world. If God were all knowing, all good, and all powerful then He would know about this and, being all good, he would correct the situation. Therefore the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. In this counter-argument, God would ensure His own destruction by ridding the world of evil. [/quote]
Is this a joke? The premise was that good requires evil, presumably because good is defined by it's contrast to evil.[/quote]
that wasn't my premise... but if evil does exist, how does one know it? how is it measured?
[quote name='Winstonm' date='Feb 24 2008, 03:00 PM']I have trouble with this premise because I can't determine if it is a causitive relationship - evil creates good - or a correlative relationship - good and evil exist and move in relationship to each other.[/quote]
why must it be either of those two?
[quote]If the determination of good and evil is relative contrast, it seems more likely to be a correlative expression, meaning an assumption that the terms are valid, but their values change in relationship to each other - which would seem to argue against absolutism.

However, by saying 'without evil there can be no good" suggests to me a causitive relationship - one is required in order for the other to occur.

The end result - again, to my untrained mind - is a statement of causation (good requires evil) argued as a correlation (because of the relative contrast).[/quote]
the purpose of 'without evil there can be no good' was aimed at those who deny that one or the other, or both, exist... if, as some here have said, evil does not exist then good does not exist... now for the ones who say neither exists, there is no problem... all acts are morally neutral, there are no "good" or "evil" acts, only those with which we agree or disagree
[quote name='kenberg' date='Feb 24 2008, 03:56 PM']Thomas Aquinas, for example,  had  a weakness for misused logic.[/quote]
philosophers, on both sides of this issue and throughout history, have honored aquinas as a thinker of note... i feel safe in saying neither you nor i will ever approach his reputation, nor the clarity of his "misused logic"

[Winstonm]

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the purpose of 'without evil there can be no good' was aimed at those who deny that one or the other, or both, exist... if, as some here have said, evil does not exist then good does not exist... now for the ones who say neither exists, there is no problem... all acts are morally neutral, there are no "good" or "evil" acts, only those with which we agree or disagree

I see. The way you stated it initially read like a statement of fact. But I am still confused, as you follow the statement, "without evil there can be no good" with this:

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imo this is the same misunderstanding winston has of the matter, that of a causative link... your contrapositive asserts that the existence of good forces the existence of evil... this is not necessarily so, i haven't claimed it to be so, and it is (imo) neither logical nor intuitive to believe it to be so...

This seems to imply that good or evil can exist without the other - but isn't that a validation of the same claim others' have made that one or the other or both do not exist?

If you are saying that both are real but have no causitive or correlative relationships, then the claim that "without evil there can be no good" is invalid, isn't it?

[kenberg]

Luke, what's your view on the point that I gave the most emphasis to: All this debate about "if there is no evil there is no good" and whether evil is a religious concept or not is pretty much beside the point. Let me clear about what I mean by "beside the point".

I have, over my life, changed my mind about many religious matters. I have changed my mind, a couple of times, about capital punishment. But I have never given a moment's thought to issues such as "if there is no evil there can be no good". I just don't find it useful at all, whether it is true or false. Actually I doubt that it is even meaningful. We can disagree about Aquinas, but even if I were to become convinced that he is brilliant it would not change my mind about capital punishment.

So I am interested in whether we have agreement or disagreement about some of these issues being a blind alley, no matter how they are resolved. For example, Aquinas has, as I recall, five proofs of the existence of God. How ever many there are, I read them once upon a time. I didn't think any of them had any merit at all. But that's a long way from saying that as a result of reading his flawed proofs I gave up on the existence of God. That's not at all the way it happened. Not for me, and I would strongly guess not for most people. Believers may find the proofs convincing, they already believe. No one else finds them convincing. No minds are changed.

On another thread, there is a discussion about a book called "The God Delusion". I stated there that I couldn't imagine reading it. Even if he has sound arguments, I don't care. He and Aquinas can spend eternity having a great philosophical debate. I'll have some wine. I would be willing to place a bet that it would be hard to impossible to find anyone who changed his mind about God as a result of reading this book.

Minds do change, but not that way.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on Feb 25 2008, 03:42 AM, said:

But I have never given a moment's thought to issues such as "if there is no evil there can be no good". I just don't find it useful at all, whether it is true or false. Actually I doubt that it is even meaningful.

Meaningful or not: As it is discussed in this thread, it has little meaning to me. The problem is that we need to know what we discuss before we can discuss it.

As a child I would complain about the weather in november. Then my mother would say that it needs to be bad weather once in a while for us to appreciate the good weather.
Alternatively she might have said that some physical law dictated an average temperature of 13 degrees so for it to be 18 degrees in july it needs to be 8 in january, or that if it were five degrees hotter overall our physiology as well as the physiology of plants and animals would be adjusted accordingly so that we would still only be able to swim in the sea in july-august and still need warm socks in november, and birds would still fly to Africa in september.

If she had said either of later, she would need to refer to some scientific evidence (geophysical or biological, respectively) and her opinion might change in the face of new evidence. As it was, she was referring purely to the aesthetic aspect, it had nothing to do with geophysics or biology.

[Winstonm]

I think Ken hit upon it - we all tend to find the logic in that which we already believe, and see the illogic in that which we do not accept. Logic can only change viewpoints if it is unassailable and encounters an open mind.

Solid wood is hard.
Tree trunks are solid wood.
Tree trunks are hard.

The Soft Tree-Trunk Society would have difficulty assailing this logic. If they are thinkers instead of believers, they may even morph into The Hard Tree-Trunk Society.

However, I have no knowledge of The Hard Tree-Trunk Society's views on capital punishment.

[helene_t]

Winstonm, on Feb 25 2008, 04:23 AM, said:

Solid wood is hard.
Tree trunks are solid wood.
Tree trunks are hard.

The Soft Tree-Trunk Society would have difficulty assailing this logic.

They would of course agree with the logic, but they would dismiss either of the premises.

Anyway, I don't care about arguments for the existence of gods since it's a personal thing, no reason to be bothered about other people thinking differently.

I do care about arguments for and against death penalty since that is an issue that must be resolved at the level of society so it does matter what other people think.

And here your/Ken's point holds as well, I'm afraid. People often refuse to accept arguments that go against the desired conclusion. It becomes black-white: either all valid arguments are in favor of death penalty (or abortion or nuclear power or ACBL system regulations or whatever) or all valid arguments are against.

Of course, in a heated debate there is no reason to help the opposition by putting forward arguments in their support. But if this leads to one dismissing their arguments for one's own thought process, not only for the purpose of the debate, then it can be difficult to adjust one's opinion in face of new evidence.