An email: “I’m against the death penalty (firmly, but on purely rational grounds–my emotions run in precisely the opposite direction), but the point you quote Jonathan Last as making against it strikes me as hopeless. Good rhetoric; bad reasoning. We should oppose the death penalty (or support it) on its own merits. It is entirely possible that executing brutal killers, far from coarsening people and inclining them towards accepting abortion, etc., actually strengthens respect for the basic sanctity of life principle (by showing that we are serious about the norm against killing the innocent). Indeed, it is possible (depending on lots of other factors) that it coarsens people in some circumstances or under some cultural conditions, and has the opposite effect in others. There is no a priori reason to think that the social effects will be the same in all places and at all times. So, let’s keep the debate about the death penalty on the death penalty.”