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Even if you feel that capital punishment is justified, there is simply no humane way to kill someone who knows they're going to be executed. Psychological torture is still torture. Knowing you're going to die by execution, especially knowing the date and time, is psychological torture.
If you could put a condemned prisoner into a room and flick a switch and they died instantly and without pain, you would be torturing them as they waited for the switch to flip.
How do you differentiate what you're calling psychological torture here from just bog standard negative anticipation?
Is it psychological torture if I tell a child that we're going to the doctor because they need to get their flu shot? They have to sit and live with that dread for the whole ride over.
If this is in some way a difference of kind, what differentiates them? What is the key characteristic that separates the two?
Is the only difference one of degree? That hurting someone in this way just a little bit is fine, but there's some amount of damage that makes it unacceptable?
Or is it that the ends justify the means? That it is psychological torture to tell a child about the flu shot, but that the need to get the shot outweighs the negative of the torture? If so, and if someone truly believes that capital punishment is correct in a given case, why would the same argument not be valid?
It's not the 'ends justify the means', it is a matter of stark magnitude. There are many MANY things for which pain or inconvenience can be anticipated but do not fall under the category of torture simply because it is minor. Forget about getting into the weeds of 'how much impending pain crosses the threshold of actual torture'. We are talking about threat. of. death.
Is it unnecessarily cruel to tell the child they will be getting a shot at the doctors? Yes. "We are going to see the doctor for a check-up". If the child asks then it is a moral dilemma to be honest vs prevent suffering by lying that I'll leave up to the reader but until then it is best not to add to the child's stress by voluntarily 'taunting' them with foreknowledge. Is it torture though? Ofc not.
In the case of prisoners you can't apply this reduction of harm due to anticipation concept because the prisoner has a right to know otherwise it would be 'ideal' to just let the prisoner fall asleep one night and the button gets pressed.
Sorry, how do you in any way equate getting a temporary thing like a flu shot with "this is the end of everything for you?" The kid knows the flu shot isn't forever.
taiwanese death penalty involves knockout with barbiturate and then shooting, it sounds like it would be hard to fuck up (especially for americans), prisoner is not conscious, but it would require giving up all these theatrics and pretense of subtlety
Issue with that is finding mentally healthy volunteers that won't be traumatized by being the executioner. Even in cases where they used multiple executioners, with one of them randomly and blindly using a dummy round for plausible deniability, it scars them.
Imagine finding out years later that you participated in the firing squad for an innocent convict. What would that do to you? Would the 1 in 7 chance you technically didn't kill the person be enough to assuage your guilt?
Hate to say it but I think that is the whole point, by design, intentional whether you agree with it or not.