fandomhigh | Ethics Class, Monday, 2-4pm

"Angelus is gone," Tara informs the class solemnly. "Now, I know you've all heard the 'evil soul' excuse before, and that you're sick and tired of it. I am too. It would be nice if you could just trust that each person had only one face. However, with the number of unrelated identical twins running around the place, that was never going to happen, so let's all just let it go and deal with what is. Angelus is gone, and Angel is here.

"Most of you know that Angelus and I are Sunnydale expatriots. I assure you that I am in a better position than almost anyone you can think of to guarantee that he and Angel are very, very different people.

"With that in mind, today's discussion is about punishment for crimes done - and I say with that in mind, because if Angel does have the courage to walk through that door today, I will not tolerate anyone accusing him of crimes that were committed through his mouth and hands, but without his knowledge or consent. Please think of him as an unrelated identical twin, as different as Archie and Lee, or Cameron and John Crichton."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(defined: killing in punishment for a crime)

Believe it or not considering some things I'm sure people have heard me say about certain not-here TA's in the past, I'm not big on killing as punishment for something. It doesn't exactly teach anybody not to do it again. All it does is stop them from doing it again.

But I'm good with that, if there's no other way. Some things.. or maybe even people... aren't gonna change. Or even if they could, the chance of them hurting or killing people before that happens may not be worth the risk.

"So you don't advocate capital punishment, but you would support selective assassination?"

I want to believe that people can change. If you kill them, there's no way they'll be changing after that. Death's pretty final. And I just don't think it works. If it worked as a deterrent, people wouldn't still be killing others. And personally I think rotting in a cell is a worse punishment than a quick and relatively painless death. And ultimately, if you're killing someone for killing someone, how is that better? I can understand wanting to, but shouldn't we be better than that by now?

"Alright, Lindsey," Tara nods, taking in his words. "You say rotting in jail is actually worse than death - but you're advocating against the death penality. Why? Do you want them to suffer?"

How is killing as a punishment for killing right?

There are several ethical problems with that soultion, but one of the things that stands out is that you don't pay for your crime if you in turn are killed. There is no punishment in death. And I know for a fact that just because you're killed doesn't mean you stay dead.

Angel took a seat as far away from anyone as he could manage. He'd hoped to stay quiet and effectively invisible but, as always, Buffy made that difficult for him.

"Sometimes killing works," he said. He watched Buffy carefully, hoping she could tell he was backing up her argument instead of disagreeing with it. Or trying to, at least. "Dust a vamp, they stay dusty. Usually." He paused, then muttered, "Stupid spells."

"Killing does clean things up. Gets rid of the problem for society, there's no drain on resources keeping people cooped up for their crimes. In a way, it's a punishment 'cos that's it, game over. You screw up, you're dead. No second chances. The actual death may not be the punishment, but the knowledge that it's gonna happen must screw with the person's head more than anything anyone else can do."

Ethics Class, Monday, 2-4pm

Capital Punishment

Re: Capital Punishment

Re: Capital Punishment

Re: Capital Punishment

Re: Capital Punishment

Re: Capital Punishment

Re: Capital Punishment

Re: Capital Punishment