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drnickbone comments on Holden's Objection 1: Friendliness is dangerous - LessWrong
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Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" discusses the death penalty imposed on a violent child rapist/murder. The narrator says there are two possibilities:
1) The killer was so deranged he didn't know right from wrong. In that case, killing (or imprisoning him) is the only safe solution for the rest. Or,
2) The killer knew right from wrong, but couldn't stop himself. Wouldn't killing (or stopping) him be a favor, something he would want?
Why can't that type of reasoning exist behind the veil of ignorance? Doesn't it completely justify certain kinds of oppression? That said, there's also an empirical question whether the argument applies to the particular group being oppressed.
What would a Rawlsian decider do? Institute a prison and psychiatric system, and some method of deciding between case 1 (psychiatric imprisonment to try and treat or at least prevent further harm) and case 2 (criminal imprisonment to deter like-minded people and prevent further harm from the killer/rapist). Also set up institutions for detecting and encouraging early treatment of child sex offenders before they moved to murder.
They would not want the death penalty in either case, nor would they want the prison/psychiatric system to be so appalling that they might prefer to be dead.
The Rawlsian would need to weigh the risk of being the raped/murdered child (or their parent) against the risk of being born with psychopathic or paedophile tendencies. If there was genuinely a significant deterrent from the death penalty, then the Rawlsian might accept it. But that looks unlikely in such cases.