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Notes -
Are the death penalty (and penal theories broadly) not downstream from how we feel about others? Such that it’s about feelings, and not “theory”?
I can imagine a criminal to whom I have no social feelings; if the crime is bad, I would like him punished severely, even to the point of death. This is because the absence of administering the punishment is evolutionarily painful to me. Humans evolved to want to punish wrongdoers.
I can, for brief moments, imagine myself being such a loving Amish fella that I genuinely love every human as if they were an adorable puppy or priceless artifact. And I see their sins almost like “mistake theory”. If this is a person’s abiding belief, and he believes in an afterlife, then I can imagine the evolutionary need for revenge simply turning off, entirely.
Is there necessarily more to it than this? Those who opposite the death penalty probably don’t have an abiding feeling of vengeance. Those who support it would probably feel better knowing crime is taken care of (a sense of balance being restored).
If I were the victim of a terrible crime, I would accept the criminal as 'effectively dead' if they were imprisoned for life without parole but if I was given the option to put them to death, I would do so since it's probably better for society.
Life without parole is extremely rare though, and death row prisoners constantly drag victims back into court over and over again with legal bullshit.
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