Kostya

First of all I cannot say that I think the Age is anything more than a spurious authority on this matter. This hardly has any relevance because I do not believe in any kind of argument from authority (ie. Do as X advises because X is smart/powerful/expert) in matters of ethics and justice.

Well I cannot say that this would be a particularly good argument for the anti-death penalty side, given that it is merely an argument from authority, that of international as opposed to Singaporean law, and hence not very persuasive. On the other hand, the reverse is also true, the lack of any prohibition on the death penalty in international law does not really lend strength to the pro argument either.

Well this is the argument from sovereignty, yet another longstanding fiction of accepted understanding of international relations. Firstly, sovereignty is subject to a self contradiction, but aside from that it doesn't justify the death penalty, it simply means that we can't do anything about it. I for one do not respect the sovereignty of the military junta in Burma to brutalise the people under their rule, nor do I respect Robert Mugabe, or any other 'sovereign' state which is tyrannous or genocidal. Sovereignty is a fiction, conjured from international law and claimed as a primordial, immutable divine law when it is no such thing. East Timor had no sovereignty, they were rebels, scum, agitators and enemies to the great, sovereign state of Indonesia. But at the stroke of the pen they now have the right to call themselves sovereign, despite having no respect for the sovereign state the brutalised and destroyed their small corner of the world for thirty years.

Firstly this is not 'flawed logic' it is merely a fallacy. If indeed, and I should not be surprised to note that it has, the death penalty has shown a positive correlation with reduction in drug trafficking, then of course the claim that it has not seems less supported. However, I hasten to point out that statistical correlations do not equal logical connections, they are merely evidence to suggest that there may be a connection. In matters as murky and uncontrolled as society, statistical correlations become even less useful given the number of possible unaccounted influences on the data. However, I am willing to accept that it seems not unlikely that introducing the death penalty has probably deterred many folk from trafficking drugs. My argument still stands however, that deterrence ought not be justification for all punishments, and is not at all the sole or primary determinant in how we ought to deal with criminals. Leaving aside the perennial problem regarding the fallibility of human jurisprudence of course.

I for one never made any argument from Nguyen's awareness of his crime or lack thereof, nor that this ought to constitute mitigating circumstances.


We've already been through this. I think it is manifestly obvious that smuggling a substance that might kill someone if they took it after many other people have moved and treated it with various crap, and actually killing someone. I think a person who walks into a bar and shoots a man in the head is clearly the single and efficient cause to the death of the man he just shot, and wholly and solely culpable for his acts. On the other hand, the fellow who sold him the gun seems to me not at all guilty of any real crime, though he might feel a little guilty late at night.
If we take the argument that the death sentence is justified by the deaths of users well down the line, who voluntarily injected themselves with a substance, then ought we not string up Ronald McDonald and the cigarette barons and Jim Beam alongside Mr. Nguyen? They are certainly peddling a product that causes deaths, in fact cigarettes and alcohol kill far more than heroin.
But this aside, the fact remains that it is highly problematic to trace culpability all the way back to Mr. Nguyen for things that are the result of thousands of other interrelated causal influences that, I wish to add, have not even occured yet! Minority report style we are now holding Mr. Nguyen to be responsible for deaths of people he didn't murder that haven't actuall happened.

This seems like an argument niether for nor against the death penalty, and another matter altogether.

In short, I do not find any of these arguments compelling at all