This article by Murray Rothbard from 1978 was posted today. It's very old, so maybe he changed his views at a later stage, but regardless... In this rare case, I believe he is wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
His argument hinges on moral relativism, as do all rights-based arguments. There's no god up there carving us out these "rights" and depriving us of the rest of liberty, and there's no legitimacy to the state's attempts to do the same.
If people can opt-out of the right to bloody retribution for their murder, it's the same as saying that people are effectively opting in to the retribution if they want it. It's no more difficult to make a choice one way or the other. If it's ok for people to elect to have their murderers murdered, is it okay for people to elect to have their rapists raped? Is this eye-for-an-eye biblical moral relativism we're working with here? If it's okay for people to inflict a punishment which doesn't exactly replicate the suffering inflicted on the victim, then who is making the decisions as to what sort of punishment is appropriate? What if you think that homosexuality is a crime worthy of punishment by death, as millions of people do? I mean... Insert crime, as dubious as you please, and insert insane punishment. What if you think that's appropriate? How is the majority in any legitimate position to compel you to believe otherwise?
There is no objective moral justification for the initiation of force, and the death penalty - as distinct from self-defense - is the initiation of force. You are entitled to protect your property, or indeed another's, inclusive of person, from the initiation of force by the private defense principle, but killing someone who is presently posing no threat to you or anyone else, regardless of what they have done in the past, is not protection against, but initiation of force.
Property, including fundamentally non-transferable self-ownership, is what allows humans to develop objective, rational morality with the assistance of philosophy, economics, psychology etc... It is really what seperates us from the beasts. You are not defending your property when you kill someone out of a desire for revenge, nor are you compensating for your loss in any way, for there is no way that the death of a murderer can bring about the resurrection of his victim. Self-ownership is non-transferable. Slavery, as a legal construct, is a fallacy.
Some people seem to worry that genuine sociopathic murderers and whathaveyou wouldn't suffer enough under a system where no one with any integrity associates with them, and points a gun at them every time they come within sight... If it's evident to everyone that someone is an utterly evil wretch, then that person will be relegated to a pariah existence. I'm not just talking about the death penalty as some sort of special moral case here either... This applies to all "crimes". It applies to "punishment" in general, if you consider the initiation of force to be legitimate punishment against people. There is really no need for it at all.
Individuals must choose whether they wish to "punish" ('sanction' might be a more appropriate term) someone for their actions, the same way individuals must choose everything else that happens in our "society"; physically non-existant concept that it is. Individuals must choose to save money or buy gold or whatever else, so they should choose, in their equal individual capacity, to sanction those whose actions they find morally abhorrent. If you go ahead and kill someone, you deprive every other sentient being of his right to choose how he wishes to sanction the person you just killed. You cannot exercise choice in this matter when someone is dead. When you inflict the death penalty on someone, or indeed initiate force against them in any way, you are indeed denying the right of anyone to disagree with your culpability assessment of the individual in question. Indeed, this happens to a lesser extent with any initiation of force, because one cannot undo the pain of a beating if it later turns out to be undeserved, but with the death penalty it's entirely absolute. There really is no going back at all.
A disavowment of the initiation of force under any circumstances is not a 'pacificist' belief... Pacificists believe that you should never inflict violence against a non-consenting party under any circumstances. Effectively, they don't believe in private defense except in a sort of passive-aggressive, pathetic, unworkable way.
You want punishment to be proportional to the crime? If someone murders ten children in cold blood, burns down a hospital and rapes his own grandmother, his notioriety is going to be pretty high. People are probably gonna point guns at him if he goes anywhere near them, leave alone trade with him in any way. It would be in the best interest of dispute resolution organisations to automatically nullify all contractual obligations previously owing to these sorts of people, because their remaining clients would cheer them on, and it would improve their integrity in the marketplace. He is relegated to a state of nature. I mean... It's almost worse than the death penalty in effect, because his life is going to be a short, fearful one before a painful and quite possibly prolonged death.
I do not understand why there is a need for capital punishment - or any other initiation of force - and I do not think its compatible with a truly libertarian worldview.
I agree. An eye for an eye does nobody any good and only perpetuates violence. In my opinion, a truly libertarian system would consist solely of the criminal compensating the victim. I think a system using something similar to weregild would be best.
In case anyone is wondering what weregild is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild
It's interesting how many anarchists here advocate death penalties. My personal view is that all these punishements are immoral and just "revenge" seeking, not justice.
The only punishment I would advocate is ostracism (not doing business with violent people).
I am not against self-defence (killing a person who wants to kill you for example), but I am against institutionalized violence against criminals or suspected criminals. It won't change their nature and won't teach any lesson. Also there are "error posibility". Dead person can not complain, yeah?
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
"His argument hinges on moral relativism"
lmao, no. And considering that has nothing to do with political philosophy, you are way off base.
"There's no god up there carving us out these "rights" and depriving us of the rest of liberty"
Ummm.... natural law is neither pro or anti religion - in fact, it is completely irrelevent to the task at hand.
"If it's okay for people to inflict a punishment which doesn't exactly replicate the suffering inflicted on the victim"
Time for you to read the estoppel approach from Kinsella.
"You are entitled to protect your property, or indeed another's, inclusive of person, from the initiation of force by the private defense principle, but killing someone who is presently posing no threat to you or anyone else, regardless of what they have done in the past, is not protection against, but initiation of force."
Sorry - trying to erase history and the past doesn't count as restarting the clock. If you murdered someone and violated their rights - to the extent you do, you have no argument against the same proportional punishment being returned to you, to the extent you violated anothers rights.
An eye for an eye does nobody any good and only perpetuates violence.
Something about economics tells me that "Two eyes for an eye" would really reduce the total poking out of eyes.
I heard that phrase two eyes for an eye too. I think it should be clear that Rothbard is talking about justifications for coercion. Not the morality of it. An eye for an eye may be legally an option, but I, being the victim have the power to grant the perpetrator a leniant sentence. If I am against the death penalty, I may opt for a less severe punishment for the murder of my child for example.