I had meant to respond earlier to “The Nameless Libertarian’s” latest submission in our exchange on the death penalty but this is the first opportunity I have had since its publication. He’s one of the less better-mannered opponents as he can’t keep up an exchange without resorting to abuse (often a sign that my interlocutor is running out of rope, if that’s not too appropriate an analogy).  And where there isn’t abuse there is poorly constructed argument.

Take the title of his latest instalment, for instance. “Garry: Still failing to defend the death penalty”. I do not “fail” to defend the death penalty, I just don’t convert “The Nameless Libertarian” to my way of thinking. Which was never my intention. Even if I presented a treatise that “The Nameless Libertarian” found successful, it wouldn’t change his opinion. What he really means is that I fail to defend the death penalty because I do not agree with him.

A similar failure of logic applies to his belief that “[C]riminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they do not expect to be caught – a position that is intuitively plausible given how many people commit crimes that carry hefty sentences.”

Let us not forget that central to his rejection of the death penalty, “The Nameless Libertarian” proposes that criminals do not think about the consequences of their actions before they commit a crime. His reasoning (if it can be called that) is that criminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions, then the use of the death penalty as a deterrent is nullified.

I’ll repeat what he wrote: “[C]riminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they do not expect to be caught”. Note the two verbs in this sentence – to think and to expect. In this context, they mean pretty much the same thing. The verb “to expect” implies some sort of thought process. In other words, “Criminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they do not think they will be caught.” I would like to be able to ascribe this paradoxical construction to the author’s craft, though I suspect this grammatical fallacy was an accident.

If criminals think (i.e., “expect”) that they will not be caught for committing a crime then they must know that there is punishment associated with being caught. In which case, criminals must be thinking about the consequences of their actions.

There is only one other way that “The Nameless Libertarian’s” sentence can be rendered: “Criminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they cannot expect to be caught.” (That is, they lack the faculty that causes them to expect punishment). This is an even more precarious piece of reasoning. If this is the argument that “The Nameless Libertarian” intends to submit, then it is an example of petitio principii, also known as ”begging the question”.

It is a doubly decrepit argument which says that criminals are not thinking about being caught because they are not thinking about being caught.

What is certainly true is that in its current format, “The Nameless Libertarian’s” argument against the death penalty as a deterrent cannot hold up. Unless he is prepared to believe that all criminals, in all history have never thought about the consequences of his crime. My opponent realises he is in a hole and tries to climb out thus: “[T]here are differences in the extent to which any one of us believe we will be caught for any crime that we might commit, and there are varying degrees to which we all understand the consequences of any potential crime. To argue otherwise is to deny the nature of the individual.”

There are differences between criminals in how they calculate the risks of committing an action. By admitting this – albeit through implication – “The Nameless Libertarian” is agreeing with me and contradicting his earlier assertion that criminals don’t think about the consequences of their criminal actions.

He must then claim, to defibrillate his dying argument, that criminals have varying degrees of knowledge of the possible consequences of a given crime. If this is true, it is also true that people who do not commit crimes also possess varying degrees of knowledge of the possible consequences of a given crime. This is largely irrelevant. Our moral code states that murder is wrong and, if we had a death penalty for murder, the worst possible legal outcome (execution) for committing murder would also be known. Nemo censetur ignorare legem.

Where logic fails to stride, sarcasm scrambles: “You are representative of all actual criminals. They all think in the same way you do. They all know the consequences of their actions. Except there is no-one quite like James Garry, and different individuals will have different motivations and perceptions.”

Again, most people do know the worst possible outcomes for their crimes. There may be a few who are stupid or psychotic and do not understand the consequences of their actions, but this insignificant minority should not be used to prevent the reinstitution of an effective deterrent.

“The Nameless Libertarian” proceeds to cite Ian Brady as a reason for abolishing the death penalty because Ian Brady did not “take into account the potential consequences of [his] actions.” Really? Is he on record as saying he didn’t know the consequences of his actions? Have any credible experts said that Ian Brady did not know the consequences of his actions?

Why not assume equally that Brady did know the consequences of his actions and decided that the risk of prison was worth less than the pleasure of satisfying his murderous lusts?

It is far more likely that he did. Most killers are bad rather than mad. And serial killers, in particular, tend to have around an average IQ and can often function normally in society. As much as it may suit “The Nameless Libertarian” to depict killers as stupid or nescient, the reality is otherwise.