WOW, Rebirth of Reason! Thanks for publishing it.

Luke: I've sent the article with line breaks, but probably, since this happened already before, the publication software can't handle it. Still, the lack of line breaks don't affect the arguments presented, so instead of protesting, please read it. It contains lots of things that must be said.

I added spacing to make it easier to read.

"...juridical mistakes can still appear occasionally. Here the law of possibilities comes to apply, but such possibilities are reduced to an absolute minimum by the presently available methods of investigation to prove the guiltiness of the murderer."

Technology and methods of investigation are constantly changing -  mostly improving - but as recently as 2004, a possibility innocent person, Cameron Todd Willingham may have been put to death for what was likely a tragic accident.  The technology improved between the time the 'crime' occurred (1992) and the time Willingham was executed, and indicated he probably wouldn't have been convicted in 2004. Nevertheless, the state of Texas went ahead with his execution.

But, more important, is the unfortunate fact that government officials - including police - often lie, even on the witness stand.  Sometimes an official may lie to cover his own mistake or could, in rare instances, just be intent on framing someone he doesn't like.  If a police officer decides he doesn't like someone who is an atheist, he could, without much difficulty, frame him in the commission of a crime.  The crime doesn't have to be murder but accidents can be made to look like murders - or vice versa.

With our society constantly heading more towards a combination of fascism and socialism, we do not need a death penalty to help that process along.  Eventually, political crimes, such as being an Objectist, could be punished with death.  The death penalty may even be too easy on the guilty as they don't know it after it happens.  

I say, do away with the death penalty.

@ Michael E. Marotta: If reason cannot be proved „from the outside,“ then it’s high time to eliminate all math and logic tests from schools and colleges. But since these tests effectively prove that reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses and is, thus, used to solve such tests, the statement is effectively falsified. Thus, I continue to have at my disposable this useful tool to further analyze your comment.

As Barbara Smith, the sister of one of the murderers of the Clutter family (See footnote 2 of my article) correctly stated, each person has a personal responsibility for his deeds and is accountable for same. This directly rejects every possible excuse or validation for an act of willful murder. Murderers are, thus, personally responsible for their criminal acts, against the nowadays commonly and wrongly adduced claim that society originates their wrongs, which might be a useful line of defense for the legal defender. But to uphold such a position destroys the correct functioning of a civilized society and plunges it into a barbarian state of savagery which leads directly to its demise.

It’s evident, as shown by your own statement, that you evidently either haven’t paid sufficient attention to the Objectivist law of morality or, else, haven’t read it at all, for you consciously intend to equalize the act of murder committed with the willingness by a civilized society to take a murderer’s life as an act of social hygiene. Stating that murderers act emotionally due to simply lacking absolute intelligence tries to shift attention away from the fact that they are still able to talk and have sufficient understanding of behavior to live within a civilized society. Thus, it can’t be alleged that they don’t know or are unaware of the penalty imposed by morality on an act of murder. To maintain that “cruelty is primarily on civilized society” shows a total lack of understanding of what to live peacefully and fruitfully within a civilized society demands. And, when it comes to “unmindful acts” or “mentally agitated states” my article clearly and precisely pointed to alternative penalties and procedures.

I recommend you to read Mrs. Rand’s corresponding statement (For example in her article “The Objectivist Ethics,” though it is also mentioned in several other writings of her): “Men have the right to use physical force ONLY in retaliation and ONLY against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense.” (Emphasis and capitals mine)

By the way you state your position it becomes evident that you don’t adhere to the Objectivist moral law (as, evidently, David Wooten also doesn’t) but share the nowadays standard American and European way of cataloging guilt: Not the culprit committed the fault, but society lead him to it. I’ve seen many comments, media-articles, etc. that adhere to this anti-conceptual criterion, this reversal of morals, this perversion of fundamental principles. For Objectivists such a behavior is unacceptable, for it places a totally underserved guilt on a society of peaceful and productive citizens, while excusing murder and acts of terrorism that lead civilization into the dungeons of its own destruction.

Indeed, de-humanizing other people has been a convenient claim throughout history. Aristotle said that it was fine to enslave barbarians, but unseemly to make slaves of other Greeks. The assetion is an easy glide for Objectivists because, like Christians and others, for Objectivists, the sine qua non definition of a human being - the ability to reason - is impossible to ignore from the inside and impossible to prove externally.

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Marotta claims that Objectivists are akin to Christians in being "an easy glide" away from justifying slavery!  Yet another example of Marotta as anti-Objectivist.

To my knowledge Christians have historically not been more or less guilty in rationalizing slavery.  Didn't Muslems, Hindus, Budhists, and nearly every religious sect have examples of slave-owners somewhere in history?  

The root of this willingness to enslave, he claims, is in seeing humans defined as possesing the ability to reason!  The fact that Marotta so often departs from reason doesn't make him non-human, and we Objectivists know that.  We know that an individual who chooses not to reason, or is in a coma, or has brain damage is still a human.  We know that the nature of a definition is such that to define table as involving a flat surface upon which we can put things does NOT mean that a table when turned on its side is suddenly no longer is a table.  That isn't the way definitions work.

People can choose not to reason, or they can choose to reason and they might reason well or do so badly - this is the case on any given instance.  But whichever occurs, it is an exercise of the human rational faculty.  To say that humans are rational beings is to refer to the kind of faculty we possess and is not the same as the use of the word 'rational' when discussing the logic of an argument.

When people engage in dehumanizing a group of people, that is most likely using their rational faculty poorly by choosing not to reason (psychologically a case of rationalizing, maybe motivated by projecting self-hate onto others).  It is using the human faculty, the rational capacity in way that is not rational.  It is unfortunate that the word 'rational' can be used in those two ways, but it doesn't mean that Objectivists having 'the ability to reason' as the defining characteristic of humans makes them 'an easy glide' away from accepting slavery!

Manfred and Steve: You both minic Ayn Rand poorly when you take one statement that you do not agree with and inflate that into an entire philosophy which Ayn Rand also conveniently condemned for you.  In point of fact, Manfred, I did not assert that society is to blame for the actions of an individual.  Moreover, Steve, it was Manfred who dehumanized others by claiming that anyone who takes a life is not rational, ergo not human.  

As for an objective criminology, I have been writing about it for a decade.  Most recently, start here, and read down:

http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2015/03/alternatives-to-prison-part-1-of-3.html

I created this website for science teachers and science students who expressed an interest in a career in crime scene investigation:

http://csiflint2011.blogspot.com

Here is an archive of my academic papers on criminology.

https://sites.google.com/site/washtenawjustice/

I have given criminology a lot of thought, Manfred, and, based on your essay here, you have not.  Moreover, I have a ton facts; and you have none. Your theories are based on a mass mediated hyper-reality of crime in which the television plays back to you what you want from it. You suffer from the "CSI Effect."  Your essay is more properly titled, "One Objectivist's Viewpoint of the Death Penalty."  You may well be an Objectivist, but your opinions about criminology lack objective validity.

@ Steve Wolfer: Viewed you comments and agree with them fully. Please look up also the link I mentioned below (for Mr. Marotta) I just received from my friend Alexandra York. Jeff Jacoby is Objectivist oriented.

@ Michael E. Marotta: Please see http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/03/17/the-end-lethal-injections-won-mean-end-capital-punishment/lS6sDGSOoDJaHzQHh4kY7K/story.html

@ David Wooten: Your comment on Post 8 confirms my earlier comment in regards with you’re being fully unfamiliar with Objectivism, for Ayn Rand NEVER separated epistemology from morality, as you are trying to do.

@ Jules Troy: Please be a little more specific. Do you think that Marotta is a Vidiian, a Krenim, a Voth or is he from Species 8472? You see, we must be careful, to know with what kind of polylogism we Objectivists are to face his rebellion against reason, for he seems to have emerged from some yet unknown area of Chaotic space.

"Your comment on Post 8 confirms my earlier comment in regards with you’re being fully unfamiliar with Objectivism, for Ayn Rand NEVER separated epistemology from morality, as you are trying to do."

No, Manfred.  I am not trying to separate Rand's "epistemology from morality", but the fact is that epistomology and morality have different meanings. If you cannot comprehend that, you are mentally deficient in much more than Objectivism. 

If were to argue against Ayn Rand's ethics I would have said that something like 'it is wrong to kill someone who has taken the life of another'. That was NOT the argument I made.  Frankly, I think prison life is a little too easy on real criminals.  I would like to see some of them put in 'no human contact' cells without books, music, visitors or TV.  But as bad as that kind of punishment would be, it is, unlike death, reversible.

By epistemology, I was referring to the fact that it is difficult to know for sure that a person is guilty.

The fact is, Manfred, that courtroom testimony, upon which death sentences are issued, is very often subjective.  Judges, who are supposed to be objective do not always do their job.  Witnesses do lie and, even when they do not, the picture that emerges in the minds of jurors is likely to be different from what actually occurs.  Science, including forensic science, is always subjective to revision.  People convicted of rape have been found to be innocent years after their conviction thanks to DNA evidence.  Public pressure can also put a (subjective) bias on courtroom officials.  Some people kill in self defense and it is impossible to prove it wasn't self defense as you cannot prove a negative.  There are numerous cases of police officers killing people who haven't committed crimes and the officers get off without even losing their jobs and I am not just talking about the Michael Brown case.  I have personally observed a police officer give misleading testimony in court while his three-year-daughter sat on the (female) judge's lap - he brought his daughter to court, apparently, to curry favor with the judge. 

And as one who believes strongly in Objectivist politics, I am wary of anything coming out of 'our' government including the judicial branch.

As a 62-year-old returning college student, I have homework to do so I am not going to waste any more time with your feeble attempt to use Objectivism as the justification of the death penalty.  Violent crime is on the decline due to our aging population and concealed carry rights.

I've argued with people here and elsewhere who don't think any amount of evidence is enough to justify a death penalty, including detailed confessions from the accused, guilty pleas and knowing where the bodies are buried.