Nobel Prize vs Proof that the Death Penalty MUST kill innocents

What a dull person you are. I wasn't citing "common knowledge", I was discussing what it is to "know" in every day life, as opposed to when we want to say we "know" something in science (which will have different standards).Its called the field of epistemology. Look it up somewhere. So possible moral actions, drive epistemological rules? Then you agree with creos that Evolution is the same as Creationism? Yes, yes I could. And I really ought to. I will try. Now what you can do is actually answer my direct questions and not give me glib questions or refusals to answer in return. Is that a deal? I am not calling you names. I am giving you a direct comparison of what you are doing to a group you criticize when they make the same argument.Should morals drive rules of knowledge? There are those that pretend they know something. You are one of them. I have explained where tentativity comes from and how it was used. As far as solipsism is concerned you don't even seem to be using it correctly.What's great is you don't even bother to rebut my historical statements, you just restate your own assertions. If you are really correct, why don't you tell me how tentativity came about and where concepts of occam's razor and denial of Hume's skepticism fit into science, and show that I am incorrect. The last failed attempt of someone that does not know. I already gave you one name, do you really need more? By the way, have you read Gould?There is a difference between admitting tentativity in science, where theories are always tentative, and pretending that you don't know anything.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I asked you to read my posts. I agree with that position 100%. I have said this on not just one occasion, including in this thread, and even gave the example of my own state's suspension of sentences to review the system (and I still don't think it's fixed)! Whew. Thank you. Stay tuned, I may actually start asking you more questions. I think you may find you are a bit more flexible that this. Not that it is necessary, but that there are other reasonable alternatives. Well what you really mean to say is that the frequency of it coming into play, without lots of cameras and such would not be very often.Having dirty cops is moot, given the rest of the necessary evidence.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Hot dog, two in a row! Yes, this is how systems could be devised. Indeed the point is to increase the level of evidence necessary that not only is guilt achieved beyond a reasonable doubt, but that there is no reasonably plausible avenue contrary evidence could come from in the future.That's why I had listed two pretty intensive hypotheticals, and the case of Dahmer which is pretty solid beyond a mega conspiracy which included Dahmer himself.They were cases showing that there is a level of evidence which reasonably eliminates any possibility of counterevidence being introduced. Well this is why I was so insulted by the "why don't you show us your system already" jibes. There are many different types of systems, and we could build in some redundancies. And of course I have always maintained an appeals process. It's somewhere in the Coffee House. I think Schiavo, or Terri is in the title.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

That is a plausible requirement for making sure that no one innocent ends up getting executed. And yes, that probably means many would not confess and so not become available for the death penalty. Because in some cases we would meet that condition. That is the practical difference. And yes some do confess. Some even request the death penalty. No not many.The point being, and it was the only point of this thread is that such a system could be devised and so eliminate the possibility that innocents would be killed. Because as you have just pointed out a guilty person, much less an innocent person would likely have the common sense not to confess, or challenge any forced confession along the way.Your huge mistake was trying to ride me as if I was saying that this is what should be made, instead of seeing it for what I said it was which was a challenge to show how a system COULD be made. The existence of a death penalty within a system does NOT INHERENTLY mean it will have to kill innocents.That is what I have shown, unless we want to dip into incredulity and hypocrisy. That is what it seems you are willing to stoop to.Could someone argue, hey that'll come up to less than 1 case every hundred years so let's chuck the option to save money on preserving equipment we don't use? Yeah, sure. But that is another debate.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This shows what you know. Perhaps you should practice some of that tentativity, and learn some more about rules of knowledge and knowing.Indeed go further and check out how tentativity works in science as opposed to metphysical in/credulity in daily life, driven by potential moral outcomes.Rules are formed based on the nature of the actor and the subject under study and arbitrary requirements to achieve a level of certainty the actor desires.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

i suppose. i was referring to the obtainance of confessions.(yes i know it's not a word, but i use it all the time)This message has been edited by brennakimi, 04-14-2005 12:25 PM

You are arguing from the specific to the general. You have this one airtight case then point at it and ask for agreement to the death penalty. People say no, because the DP more than a single case.No system can be 100% foolproof, and I think that Crash, et. al. are saying that they will accept nothing less.

Yes, and I understood them. I agree that they're absurd, remember?But they're not impossible. That's the problem you seem to have - no amount of "absurd" equals "impossible". We didn't have a discussion. You told me to do the reading, and so I did, and I discovered that you were totally wrong about the nature of scientific tentativity. It isn't a practical result of the fact that scientists are idiots or bad at their jobs or simply working in areas for which there's simply not enough data.Scientific tenativity stems from the fact that no amount of evidence overcomes the fact that relying on evidence itself is a fallacy, specifically the Inductive Fallacy. And your only response to this fact is to tell me "no, you're wrong." Well, it doesn't work like that around here. Did you forget? It has to be. Why wouldn't it be? We have a justice system predicated on a principle of the greatest possible benefit of the doubt for the accused, filled with people operating from the greatest possible benefit of the doubt, with the vast majority of the financial incentive working for the accused. (Generally.) If that's not the highest bar for guilt that we can possibly set, what is?If there was a higher bar that could be reached, we'd be reaching it. You ask a direct question that's relevant to the topic at hand, and I'll answer it. You insist on bringing in these irrelevancies in a vain and disingenuous effort to paint your opponents as hypocrites, and you'll get more of the same.

I understood you completely, and that's the point to which I've been referring. We all know that the rules of the scientific methodology are considerably stricter than the rules you apply to have knowledge in every-day life; therefore it's beyond idiotic to assert that the knowledge you gain from a looser, more error-prone methodology is somehow better or less tentative.C'mon. I can't imagine anything more patently self-refuting. How can the introduction of greater error lead to greater precision? Results drive the rules. The half-assed, casual methodology we all employ serves just fine for getting us to work and getting us fed. When decisions become a little more important, we apply stricter methodologies. Laws, government. Mangement hierarchies. Policies and procedures. And ultimately, for the greatest fidelity to the real world possible, the scientific methodology.You're going to turn that on its head and tell me that the half-assed casual methodology, that operates from, hell, no rules that we can articulate, is going to result in conclusions that we are to hold more confidently than the rigorous scientific methodology?How stupid do you think I am? I'm not saying we don't know anything. I mean, clearly, I'm saying that in many situations, we're going to know enough, and know it confidently enough, to put a man in jail, possibly until he dies.But I'm saying that we don't know enough to kill him. We'll never know enough; it's not possible to know enough.

This is how I identify when people can't see past their own pet causes. Find where I said that everyone should agree with the death penalty. Better yet, find where I use a specific case to argue that we should have the death penalty.The only thing I am doing is trying to show that the claim that a death penalty will inherently mean the execution of an innocent person MUST happen.How I am doing this is using gedanken experiments. The best bet is to start with a clear cut case. We can use hypotheticals or real life cases, and from them generate rules of evidence such that we would only accept that level of evidence, and then work backward (making softer cases) until we reach a point that we cannot be practically certain.I could have just as easily worked in the other direction. I could have started with a case that is totally unjust, like Brenna offered, and worked my way upward, asking what is sufficient to negate each innocent person from being found guilty.Yeah, I could have started with either. But I started with the one I thought was easiest. The problem is no one even tried to gedank.It seems everyone really thought I was arguing look at this case, let's kill 'em all. That is right, that is why you create a system whose failure is not to execute when it should, rather than execute when it shouldn't. The idea that that level cannot be reached is simply a fallacy, at least with the arguments proposed.Just because something is flawed does not mean all flawed outcomes are possible.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Could you turn down the snippiness? I'm pretty sure I'm not the one here who thinks Crashfrog is such an idiot that he's going to put more confidence in half-assed, casual everyday reasoning - especially knowing as I do that, in the human brain, decision preceeds rationalization - than in rigourous scientific methodology.Exactly how stupid do you think I am, Holmes? Fine. For the death penalty, I require a greater level of certainty than the scientific method, and certainly far better than the half-assed casual method. Can you deliver it? Apparently not.

Hey. Brilliant. That's only the exact system you've been arguing against the whole goddamn thread.But I'm glad we finally agree.

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Seems to me that the instances where it, the death penalty, would even be an option would be far and few between...good, and even then it would be finalized by maybe a panel of judges?

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But the judges could make a mistake, or be heavily biased, or able to be bribed, or racist, or whatever.

How can you start with a clear cut case and not be specific?Sounds like reasoning from specific to general to me.

I don't think he's going to agree. Float on your back in the water, think calm thoughts.