Delphic Maxim 51: Shun murder

I’ve set myself the challenge of responding to each Delphic Maxim for 15 minutes a day

51. Shun murder

Problem: some days I look at the maxim for the day, and it seems so obvious that there’s no point writing about it. Today is one of those days. Who wouldn’t ‘shun’ murder? Shun’s a bit of a strange word to use, but nevertheless — it seems obvious that murder isn’t something we’d embrace? So instead, let me extend this a little further and explain why I don’t support the death penalty (since shunning murder should extend to all forms of murder, right?)

In our society, the only institution with the legitimate, legal right to violence is the state. The government uses violence in defence of the country and its interests (the military), in the maintenance of law and order (the police), and in the administration of justice (the courts). When a judge sentences someone to jail, they are depriving them of liberty by force — this is a straight up act of violence. It’s designed as a reparative violence, of course — it’s a penalty for a breach of civil order. In a sense, the violence of state is a necessary violence: it’s what Hobbes would describe as the Leviathan — a powerful third party that ensures decent relations between individuals and institutions.

Given that I am comfortable with the state having this monopoly on violence, why shouldn’t it have the right to kill people for penalties which warrant it? For example, we currently have a number of people in jail in Australia — mass murderers themselves — who are serving so many consecutive life sentences that they will never be released. The state is denying them liberty for the rest of their lives, and it is expensive to keep someone in prison. So, some would ask, why not just kill them? They’re not free, they’re not going to be free, and it’s going to cost money keeping them locked up. They are already a non-person, why shouldn’t we make that fact a physical reality?

The most basic argument I have against that is that the justice system is not infallible. There are instances where innocent people can be found guilty of crimes they didn’t commit. Now this is comparatively rare next to the instances of people being let off for crimes they did commit, but regardless, there’s a strong moral argument here. Even the prospect of killing just one innocent person is enough to overwhelm the argument for the death penalty. It’s a penalty that can’t be taken back — there’s no compensation that can be paid to a person falsely executed. Their life can’t be restored. So at the level of pure pragmatics, it’s just unreasonable to have a consequence that can’t be undone.

But more than that, we need to draw a line somewhere on that monopolised violence of the state. Part of our social contract involves handing over some of our freedoms in exchange for protection and care from the social body — we pay tax, we obey the law, we expect health care, education and protection. Part of the bargain is that we participate in elections (one of the reasons why, for all of its flaws, Australian democracy is one of the best models in the world because it is compulsory to participate). And as well as this, we let the institutions of government go some way towards actualising the moral virtue of our society.

If we collectively shun murder, then it makes sense — as much as a nation having a ‘soul’ can make sense — that our institutions of government shun murder as well. Accepting the death penalty means that we do not believe our justice system is capable of repairing a person (no matter how far beyond repair a person might seem). The justice of the death penalty is of retribution, not restoration. I’ve argued before that mercy is a vital component in true justice. The death penalty puts a nation beyond mercy, it is so final and monstrous a punishment that it corrupts the soul of a society: allowing the state to practice a legitimate violence that involves killing its own constituents.

I know all this sounds pretty academic — discussions about life and death always do. So today’s maxim helps boil it down to something quite simple. If you shun murder, you oppose the death penalty. It’s as simple — and as complicated — as that.