Dear MoQ'ers,
Glen wrote:
>Thought Experiment:
>Say you are the citizen of an inhabitated island in the south pacific that
>is a sovereign nation with a population of ten citizens. A serial killer
>kills seven of the citizens. You, a friend and the serial killer are the
>only people left on the island. You and your friend could undertake the
>long voyage off the island or you could kill the serial killer. What do you
>do?
I would still put her to "jail", rather than to kill her. You could also send her off
the island. You could make her pregnant, so she had other things to think about. You
could give her mental treatment.
The two first solutions will always let you and your friend undertake the long voyage
off the island, and the rest may work as well. One of my solutions may raise other
ethical problems, but that was not your question.
Glen refered to RMP:
>"In the case of treason or insurrection or war a criminal’s threat to a
>society can be very real. But if an established social structure is not
>seriously threatened by a criminal, then an evolutionary morality would
>argue that there is no moral justification for killing him."
If any of my solutions works, the society is no longer at threat.
Pirsig states:
"The strongest moral argument against capital punishment is that it weakens
a society’s Dynamic capability—its capability for change and evolution. It’s
not the “nice” guys who bring about real social change. “Nice” guys look
nice because they’re conforming. It’s the “bad” guys, who only look nice a
hundred years later, that are the real Dynamic force in social evolution.
That was the real moral lesson of the brujo in Zuni. If those priests had
killed him they would have done great harm to their society’s ability to
grow and change."
Glen adds:
>What he doesn't say is "the reason capital punishment should never be
>allowed is". While I do not think that MoQ would support death for most
>crimes is does not rule out the death penalty for all crimes.
But as there are lots of other solutions, it would be prefered by MoQ to select one
that did not kill a source of thought too.
Glen finally said the obviously:
>Would you
>sincerely argue that the serial killer on our hypothetical island represents
>a potential dynamic force for the evolution of our social pattern?
This is purely rhetorically, but I can't see any reason that she's not.
Friendly Greetings
Gerhard
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