Moral dilemma

India has no choice really with the eyes of the world on it.

In this country, of course, the right thing to do would be to lock them up for the rest of their lives.

Yes, some Indian commentators have said that it is now a political issue.

I'm uncomfortable with that.

I think of I didn't feel uncomfortable about this whole atrocity (or any like it), I'd be worried.

if not of

sigh

No. I think the Indian government have made the right decision. For that country at the moment.

I don't want the surgeon who ruined my daughter's life to be executed - I would just like to see him showing some remorse for all the women he butchered and not living in luxury in his retirement. I do feel vengeful - until it has happened to your own daughter you can't really know how you would feel.
I understand the horror and revulsion felt by so many, but I wouldn't like to see judicial killing anywhere in the world.

Perhaps the perpetrators of this vile crime would rather die than be imprisoned.Do we have any more right to deprive someone of freedom than to kill them? I agree with Bags about the problem of wrongly accusing someone. if there is absolutely no doubt about their guilt then Im all for the ultimate punishment in this case . I cant believe that there would be any chance of rehabilitating them in India .. few years ago I would not have said this..perhaps it is an age thing.

I love India but what worries me that the execution of the men will be cathartic for the country if that is the right word and then the movement for better treatment for women will lose momentum.

Atqui - we must have the right to imprison people who pose a risk to others. That is not to say they should be kept in inhumane conditions.

Judicial killing is still killing and, as far as I am concerned, is as wrong as any other kind of killing. How one would feel if the the victim were one's own daughter is irrelevant – of course we all feel that we would want to tear out the perpetrators' hearts. The law and the processes of the law must be independent of personal emotions in order to be fair and just. I think that this is undoubtedly a politically motivated sentence and will end up doing more harm than good for the women of India.

It's late and I'm tired. What were those holes called that evil doers would be cast into in medieval times? You know the ones where the perpetrator couldn't stand up, or stretch out, where they could be left and forgotten about.

They sentenced the victim to death without any trial!

Nik - oubliettes.

One's own daughter is not irrelevant to the case, absent, but one must, as my arguments have on this thread, distinguish one's animal response from one's intellectual response, and act as well as forcing oneself to think, accordingly.

That's it. Oubliette. Bring back the Obliette.

But I do not feel it is my place to criticise the decision in India. If the country still has a judicial death sentence on its statute books, then it can be used.

The death penalty for murder was only abolished in the UK in 1965, and last used in 1964. That's less than fifty years ago.

As for it being political... well, what isn't in the international scene? That is irrelevant if anything is.

I think it's going to be difficult for the Indian courts to go back on the death sentence without seeming to condone the rapists.

I know how I would feel if it had been my daughter that was raped so terribly. So I tried to imagine how it would be if my son had been one of the rapists. I can't. I think the pain of it would be worse than if he'd died. Perhaps for the parents of those men it would be better if the death penalty is carried out.

Bags I disagree. How I would feel about my daughter or how you would feel about your three daughters is not relevant here. I do think this is a political decision in the sense that it is expedient and, therefore, worrying. (Think Henry V by one W. Shakespeare to get a grip on political expediency.)

So how would you have handled it Absent?

Surely whatever sentence had been given, it could have been seen as political.

We'll have to agree to disagree then, absent. I can detach the case from my animal emotions on one level, but my animal emotions are not irrelevant. They never are, but civilising influences are important too.

Expedient in what way?

And with reference to whom?

Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith The Lord.
No moral dilemma for Christians then?

Didn't Jesus also say that we should forgiven 'even up to seventy times seven' and love our neighbour? And we should turn the other cheek? No point in quoting the OT - there is always something either there or in the NT to contradict it.

Not that I care as I am an atheist.