From: Tet Far Jason Soon (tsoon@mail.usyd.edu.au)
Date: Tue Nov 24 1998 - 19:28:25 MST
I don't think there's any definitive extropian position on the death
penalty or any necessarily moral reason to object to it. If it is a useful
deterrent then it should be no more controversial than any other means of
reducing crime. This is in a society with limited government. Of course
there are problems such as racial bias and convicting the wrong person etc
but none of these should be given an infinite weighting under a proper
rational economic perspective just as we don't give an infinite weighting
to what *might* go wrong for other criminal penalties. One also has to
trade these off against the lives which might be saved if the death
pentaty were a useful deterrent.
What about in an polycentric legal order? I think there would be something
resembling a death penalty anyway which undercuts the notion that you can
decisively prove that the death penalty is objectionable on libertarian
grounds. In a society based solely on private law, some hard core criminal
types would be such a huge liability that eventually no jurisdiction would
want to have them. They would be outlaws and anyone from any jurisdiction
would be able to kill them without suffering any legal consequences
whatsoever.
Regards
Jason Soon
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