I apologize if I sound argumentative or critical but my only point was that, while I accept that you made no ‘claims’ about the criteria of personhood, I fail to see the relevance of mentioning it at all. Introducing the concept is distracting and does nothing to bring clarity to the issue of the right to life for a murderer. I mentioned the rights of the victim to see what the response would be to someone with no culpability in the action of taking a life. This particular question remains unanswered.

I must also apologize for having no comprehension for the values you offer or what they might bring to the discussion. I appreciate that they may have some significance in the realm of theoretical mathematics but they do nothing for me to understand the issue in any greater detail. I am looking for practical perspectives and personal positions on the issue and they fail to offer me any insight or understanding.

My position would be similar with the ‘people in favor of capital punishment’. Since I am not one of those people, I would have liked a more neutral characterization so as not to be divisive and inflame those prone to emotion. I believe ‘capital punishment proponents’ is an even stronger derogatory term that only detracts from an important and significant issue. None of these things were in the original post and were introduced without bringing a deeper understanding of the concepts in question. I hope that you can understand my position.

The whole idea of a moral intuition is rather nebulous and contradictory, at least for me. Morality is made through philosophical investigation and contemplation and while emotion may be of value in the process, I find it neither substantive nor significant.

I really enjoy the investigation of concepts such as the right to life and the inevitability of death. Do you realize that it is only humans that commit murder for whatever reasons? Animals kill but they do not murder, they do not hate, they do not judge. I find that interesting.

I would suggest that this is an oversimplification and presents a fairly narrow perspective. Yes, we can believe that everyone has the right to their life, but what is not addressed is what happens when this ‘murderer’ (which infers that there was no accident nor an act of self-defense) takes the life of his victim, who, I hope that we can agree, also has that same right to life? I, of course, assume that this was a completely ‘innocent’ individual with no culpability in the act.

I find it disturbing that the narrative immediately begins the process of painting someone who may disagree with some ‘absolute’ right as ‘people in favor of capital punishment’. I think that is unfair and inconclusive. This is not a simple concept of black and white. There are multiple issues that must be considered, contemplated, and concluded.

Can an individual commit murder with abandon and then claim some nebulous and undefined right to life? Is there no responsibility or obligation that is inherent in every law? The victim could be the father of twelve children with parents and grandparents, not to mention another dozen brothers and sisters and a hundred relatives, all replete with children of their own. They may all be impacted by this horrible act. Does this person who commits murder have any culpability at all? The family may well be destitute without their ‘breadwinner’. How are all these things addressed?

Without a ‘lot’ more information, I would not judge those in favor of capital punishment too harshly, they are not the individuals that killed without compunction and I would tend to think without ethics or morality as well. Where does justice play its part?

I personally have little interest in the debate on capital punishment, but I am interested in people being accountable for their actions. We don’t seem to teach or even believe this to be true anymore. The right to life is inarguably an ‘absolute’, but unfortunately so is the concept of ‘death’, and no one seems to be representing the victim who was, I again assume, completely innocent of any wrongdoing or the precipitation of the act of the murder.

The discussion of legitimate concepts, taken out of context, tends to only confuse and obfuscate the debate, and invariably an incapability of coming to valuable insights and conclusions. I think we should continue to think deeply about the issues involved and attempt to achieve some semblance of fairness and justice in our determinations.

Where did the ‘if it is a person’ enter the conversation? When did ‘people in favor of capital punishment’ become ‘capital punishment proponents’? Can we talk about issues of import without letting our ideology and prejudices get in the way of a reasoned argument? It would be interesting to understand what you mean by ‘being a person’ and what determines that state of being.

Just to be clear I would posit that:

Yes, all people have the right to life, and I would have to agree that all murderers are people, therefore deserving the right to life. They are also responsible for their actions and have to live with those consequences. The social paradigm will determine the ramifications and punishment for those actions, and whether or not one agrees with the determinations made we have to make a decision: Does society have the right to negate life as that punishment, or is this right to life inviolate?

What happens when the ‘murderer’, as in the case of Parkland which was just in the news last week, we have a young man who shot and killed 17 children? The issue of mental competence is somewhat moot since I believe that anyone who kills is to some degree damaged goods. What do you do with such an inhuman human? What if it were your child, your wife, your mother or your siblings? Would that change the determination?