We can’t take something we like only on emotional grounds and call it a progressive, better, notion of justice just because we want it to be

Last fall Wisconsinites decided by a 55 percent to 45 percent vote to endorse the death penalty. While some may think that some of the support for this had to do with an emotional reaction towards the horrific crimes that Steven Avery was convicted of around the time of the election, I voted for it because I believe the death penalty has basis in sound rational principles.

The question posed to myself and other voters was essentially: Is capital punishment in principle just? When we think of the concept of justice what most readily comes to mind is the picture of a pair of balancing scales.

The principle that lies behind this is that when someone commits a crime, they deserve a punishment that is proportional to the crime committed. If the punishment is disproportionate to the crime committed, we cannot properly call it justice. What happens to the victim must equally happen to the perpetrator for the equation of justice to be satisfied.

In the case of certain severe crimes such as murder, for the equation to be properly balanced, the punishment must logically be equally severe. So executing someone for a murder would properly be defined as just.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t other factors involved that a good judge should weigh on the scales of justice. For example sanity and age should be factors.

It should also be determined whether people were fully responsible for their actions before they are punished for them. Additionally, in cases of capital punishment, extreme care must be taken to properly prove guilt so as to not execute someone on shaky ground. Also, there is the question of reform. Is the person the same person who committed the crime, or is he a changed human being now?

There is also room for compassion for changed individuals so long as they have truly changed. On that note, I am prone to agree with many if not most of the proposed restrictions on capital punishment. However, in regards to capital punishment itself, I believe that in principle it is just.

Now let me analyze a couple of common counterarguments against the death penalty. One is that the idea that retributive justice is just a mask for revenge, that we’ve essentially created the idea of justice to essentially formalize and rationalize our desire for revenge.

Another is based on utilitarian grounds and says that the death penalty cannot bring back the life of the person who was murdered. Executing a criminal can only cause more pain and suffering. Therefore, on utilitarian grounds it would not be best to kill the criminal to maximize total happiness.

In regards to the first argument, let me assume that what the argument says is true, that what we call justice is really just revenge. If justice is revenge, then it is vengeful but it is still by definition just. Vengeance or not, justice is still justice.

Additionally I would point out that this same system of justice is one of law and order. It may agree with vengeful emotions in the cases of capital punishment, but it would disagree with those emotions when someone tried to get unjust revenge for something. Justice is supposed to be blind and motivated by a sense of law and order, not by emotional bias either for or against a given act of retribution in and of itself.

As for the utilitarian argument, it might be the case that it would maximize the total amount of happiness, but this would not necessarily imply that it is just. It goes against the concept of justice to disallow capital punishment, simply because it would maximize the total happiness.

Similarly to the previous case, justice may not maximize the total happiness, but it would still be justice by definition. In this case I would suggest that perhaps the utilitarian has misidentified the good he is trying to maximize.

What I find problematic about both of these arguments on a deeper level is that they seem to be motivated by squeamishness towards the logical nature of justice, and not ultimately on rational grounds.

Despite all of our best wishing, we cannot construct an artificial concept of justice on existentialistic notions of what feels good and still properly call it justice. We can’t take something we like only on emotional grounds and call it a progressive, better, notion of justice just because we want it to be. Justice is a rational principle, and as such it can’t change anymore than the idea of the number two is capable of changing.

It seems that voters in the last election understood this - that justice is fundamentally an idea based on law and order, and that crimes deserve punishments of equal magnitude. I hope that Wisconsinite voters will allow themselves to be guided by these common sense principles in coming elections.

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