{Capital Punishment}[31st March 1987]

[Redbook3:83-84][19870331:1825g]{Capital Punishment}[31^st March 1987]

19870331.1825

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Remarks about the Sikh Sants ordering executions have some bearing on the hanging debate*. As a Society, we do accept death: both avoidable (on the roads) and deliberate (in Defence policies). Our conventional deterrent – and our use of it – shows readiness to order men to go out and kill other and morally innocent men who get in their way. We use this to protect our own vital interests, or those of our allies and dependent peoples. Our nuclear deterrent depends on our **willingness to order destruction of millions of innocents who are not even in the way, if our own or some allies vital interests are threatened in particular ways (how it is now I don't know, but at one time the NATO strategy relied on first use of battlefield nuclear weapons against moving military targets). Compared with this, capital punishment may seem rather small beer, even if (as I see the greatest practical argument against it) the wrong people are bound to be hanged from time to time. I suppose the individual scale, and the existence of an option, lead to all the fuss.

Perhaps what we should ask is: Is the threat to our Society (or to ourselves) sufficient – or sufficiently comparable in seriousness compared to other threats, to protect ourselves against which we do allow deaths – to justify deaths, if they are really likely to reduce the threat? (Whatever people say to the contrary, and I have heard some pretty silly arguments, I am inclined to think capital punishment will reduce the number of murders: in the end it is not a matter of proof but of judgement; but one of the shocking aspect of so many of contemporary murders is their casual nature, and very few men, I should guess, are able to remain casual when considering their own execution as a real possibility.) On the whole, and despite appearances, I am inclined to think that the threat is not sufficiently serious, or not yet; but I am not sure: and the victims and their friends and relatives might give a different answer.

*(cf. Letter in [The] Times 870401) <0401>

**perceived <930331>

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