The Necessity of Capital Punishment to Enforce the Right to Life

In response to my article, "The Evil of Islamist Intolerance" -- which called for the death penalty to be applied to violent, murderous Islamist fanatics, Dr. Robert P. Murphy wrote to the Hillsdale Collegian critiquing my advocacy of capital punishment. I replied to Dr. Murphy's letter in "The Capital Punishment Imperative," which Dr. Murphy answered in Gene Callahan's blog.

This will be my second reply to Dr. Murphy, where I will answer his principal objections to my case, point by point. I will cite the entirety of his arguments in the course of responding to them -- therefore allowing readers to view both positions side by side.

Dr. Murphy wrote: " (1) [Mr. Stolyarov] has still just asserted that someone forfeits his right to life when he murders another. I still maintain that I don't find this assertion compelling. [Mr. Stolyarov] adds a little bit I suppose with the non-contradiction stuff, but I can walk around thinking, "I don't have any mass." Nonetheless I do. By the same token, even if by his actions a murderer shows that he doesn't believe people have the right to life, nonetheless they do."

Dr. Murphy seems to think that it is possible for a society to simultaneously hold that both a) every individual has an inalienable right to life and that b) some individuals may be allowed to proceed to violate others' rights to life while theirs remain respected. This in itself is a contradiction. How can one consistently assert that these rights are universal and yet may be violated with impunity -- without adequate retribution?

A society that holds a contradictory view of rights does not hold a valid or effective view of rights in the area where the contradiction exists. This is because the very concept of rights follows from the law of non-contradiction. This law, A=A, is actually a statement of three fundamental axioms: existence, identity, and consciousness.