Support for the Death Penalty May Be Linked to Belief in Pure Evil

People who think evil exists in the world are more likely to demonize criminals, regardless of their character traits.


Earlier this month, Nebraska became the first largely conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty, joining 18 other states and the District of Columbia. Considering it was also the very last to decommission the electric chair as its sole method of execution—finally repealing the practice in February 2008—the news surprised many who had previously viewed Nebraska as a quiet Midwestern state firmly aligned with Republican views.f bipartisanship, and many hinted that conservative support for capital punishment may be waning. But the U.S. as a whole is still at odds with international opinion—recently it was one of just 38 nations to oppose a UN resolution calling for an international moratorium on the death penalty. That's despite increasing difficulties in obtaining established drugs for "humane" lethal injection and a list of more than 150 inmates exonerated from death row since 1973. So what is it in the nation's psyche that has many people supporting executions?

The reasons behind someone's sense of a just punishment are varied and murky, with a swell of psychological research pointing toward responses to race, sexuality and other hot-button issues. But according to recent research, another fundamental factor may be at play: whether someone believes in the existence of pure evil. A new study by psychologists Russell Webster and Donald Saucier confirms a rising correlation between an individual’s belief in pure evil and their support for harsher punishments, no matter the lifestyle or outward characteristics of the confessed criminal.



Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/support-death-penalty-may-be-linked-belief-pure-evil-180955535/#9xGddK0fjLoylRub.99
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What's interesting is to follow that thought and ask what harsh punishment could possibly accomplish with someone who was purely evil ...

the death penalty is revenge .

Ben_Reilly wrote:What's interesting is to follow that thought and ask what harsh punishment could possibly accomplish with someone who was purely evil ...

That would be where the DP permanently removes that evil from the society.

BUT

it begs the question of whether there is any such thing as "pure" evil

leaving aside the concept of a single being of pure evil aka satan the devil or whatever, is it possible to ascribe the term purely evil to anything except in reference to your own present society?

my argument in the past has been probably not since things we consider "evil " today were accepted as routine many years ago...

Indeed it is possible to construct a thought experiment with two cities (societies, city states) of equal power and existing in an uneasy peace with each other whos individual practices are each as abborant to the other as they are acceptable to themseves...

for instance one may cremate the other bury their dead
one may indulge in paedophillia (as the romans did) the other may well hate this
one may keep slaves the ther not

etc


NOW.....given that IF we suspend OUR mores and judge without OUR PRESENT views.......how could we say one is evil and the other is not...

your point of view surely would ONLY depend upon which society you were raised.....

therfore like most things EVIL is a social construct and NOT a "thing" in itself

and what is evil depends ENTIRELY upon your upbringing

I don't think it depends entirely on your upbringing. There must be a reason we tend to come to the conclusion that things like stealing and murder are wrong.

I would happily support the death penalty on certain crimes, peado's absolutely..
we would have to have a way of making sure and I mean completely sure before the sentence is passed..