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Rain comments on Open Thread: April 2010 - Less Wrong
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Perhaps the folks at LW can help me clarify my own conflicting opinions on a matter I've been giving a bit of thought lately.
Until about the time I left for college, most of my views reflected those of my parents. It was a pretty common Republican party-line cluster, and I've got concerns that I have anchored at a point too close to favoring the death penalty than I should. I read studies about how capital punishment disproportionately harms minorities, and I think Robin Hanson had more to say about difference in social tier. Early in my college time, this sort of problem led me to reject the death penalty on practical grounds. Then, as I lost my religious views, I stopped seeing it as a punishment at all. I started to see it as a the same basic thing as putting down an aggressive dog. After all, dead people have a pretty encouraging recidivism rate.
I began to wonder if I could reject the death penalty on principle. A large swath of America believes that the words of the Declaration of Independence are as pertinent to our country as the Constitution. This would mean that we could disallow execution because it conflicts with our "inalienable" right to life. But then, I can't justify using the same argument as the people who try to prove that America is a Christian nation. As an interesting corollary, it seems that anyone citing the Declaration in this manner will have a very hard time also supporting the death penalty for this reason.
So basically, I think I would find the death penalty morally acceptable, but only in the hypothetical realm of virtual certainty that the inmate is guilty of a heinous crime. And I have no bound for what that virtual certainty is. Certainly a 5% chance of being falsely accused is too high. I wouldn't kill one innocent man to rid the world of 19 bad ones. But then, I would kill an innocent person to stop a billion headaches (an example I just read in Steven Landsburg's The Big Questions), so I obviously don't demand 100% certainty.
It seems like I might be asking: "What are the chances that someone was falsely accused, given that they were accused of an execution-worthy crime?" And a follow-up "What is an acceptable chance for killing an innocent person?"
Can Bayes help here? I am eager to hear some actual opinions on this matter. So far I've come up with precious little when talking to friends and family.
Standard response: politics is the mind-killer.
Personal response: I'm opposed to the death penalty because it costs more than putting them in prison for life due to the huge number of appeals they're allowed (vaguely recall hearing in newspapers / reports). I feel the US has become so risk-averse and egalitarian that it cannot properly implement a death penalty. This is reflected in the back-and-forth questions you ask.
I also oppose it on the grounds that it is often used as a tool of vengeance rather than justice. Nitrogen poisoning (I think that was the gas they were talking about) is a safe, highly reliable, and euphoric means of death, but the US still prefers electrocution (can take minutes), injection (can feel like the veins are burning from the inside out while the body is paralyzed), etc.
That said, I don't care enough about the topic to try and alter its use, whether through voting, polling, letters, etc, nor do I desire to put much thought into it. Best to let hot topics alone.
And after asking about Bayes, you should ask for math rather than opinions.
Yeah, my formatting of the last few sentences wasn't very great. Sorry.