A person can be killed instantly through many different means.
As we know it, to be killed painlessly, is to be killed instantly.
If you instantly destroy a person’s entire brain then they died without pain.
Yet the most effective ways of instantly destroying someone’s entire brain are considered inhumane.
If instantly killing someone by smashing their head with a massive rock, or shooting them in the brain stem is inhumane, then there is no humane way to kill someone at all.
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144 countries had abolished the death penalty in law
Sorry, but there are more countries without the death penalty than with it.
Again, don’t include the sane nations in your we.
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And no one would qualify those as “humane” either. So the argument still stands.
How about euthanasia?
It’s a weird edge case that is between killing and assisted suicide, assuming there is consent.
Euthanasia without consent seems not so humane to me, but once again it is an edge case that is still hard to define.
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There is a difference, but if you start saying that shooting an invader is humane, you have a serious problem.
Self-defense is inhumane? Call out the invader first, please, then we can talk about whether the defender is overdoing it.
Killing is inhumane.
Killing in self defense might be necessary, yet it does not become humane just because you want it to.
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That sounds like your average american too.
Nonetheless, if you start thinking that killing is humane because “they deserve it”, I will repeat myself, you have a serious problem.
Because I’m pretty sure that this horrible rapist invader is also convinced that you deserve it, yet I don’t believe you would find their behaviour humane for that reason.
Fair enough. While I don’t subscribe to pacifism, I do prefer that self-defense be regarded as an unfortunate necessity. Celebrating violence isn’t going to help us.
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Most people are subject to the death penalty. The world population is approaching 8.1 billion souls. The ten most populous nations are India, China, the US, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, and Mexico, adding up to 4.6 billion – over half the planet.
Of those, only Mexico has abolished the death penalty (though Brazil is listed as “extreme only” and Russia is listed as “suspended”, having not officially executed anyone in the past decade*). Putting these together, at least 4.1 billion people out of the “first 4.6” that I looked at live under the specter of the death penalty.
I don’t think you can no-true-scotsman your way out of the simple fact that it’s still “normal” for humans to kill other humans. I also don’t think that acknowledging that fact requires that you endorse the practice.
*whoa, is this a case where RUSSIA is more sane than the USA?! Strange times.
I looked up the population info on https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/ and cross-referenced with the site you posted.
To understand why it’s legal in the USA you have to first understand how the US’s government is structured. The Federal Government actually doesn’t hold that much power, the most power is held by the States which decide on issues like this for themselves.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/19/10-facts-about-the-death-penalty-in-the-u-s/
Oh, I understand quite well why it’s legal in the US. It’s been a topic of some debate my entire life here.