Discussing the morality of death-as-punishment lately, especially among the cheering for Hawk Girl's treatment of "Dollar Store Netanyahu" in our favorite Superman (2025)
I learned that I hadn't realized that you can be against capital punishment, but not against death-as-punishment in its entirety.
Ive never felt comfortable with capital punishment as an idea, because we are human and can never be 100% certain that innocent people aren't wrongfully killed through this system
But I did cheer when Hawk Girl dropped that man! And I will stand next to a woman who kills her abuser before they can kill her! And I'll probably nod in understanding if you tell me "XYZ bad person deserves to die"
So I was in a state of indecision for such a long time-i thought that being against capital punishment meant that I was against death as a punishment, and that means I should be horrified by Hawk Girl and the rest, shouldn't I?
But saving your own life by killing another, or a fictional superhero saving thousands of fictional lives by killing one-these are not capital punishment and shouldn't be considered with the same moral convictions, I think.
If I had the time machine, when would I kill Hitler? Is it morally okay to do so? If I can time travel to kill the man, can I not time travel to show him kindness and teach him empathy? Or put systems in place to ensure that the reasons he didn't have access to those things didn't exist? Does anyone actually "deserve" to be killed?
It also helps me feel better less uncomfortable asking myself the question, why is killing the warmongering fictional politician worthy of celebration, but killing the giant fictional alien who was exploited into endangering so many people so NOT worthy of celebration?
So I don't have a cut-and-dry black-and-white answer to the question "does anyone deserve to die or be killed". But I can say that in general, it's not usually any individual's decision, and I'm not sure that it should be
