Psychopathy simply means "mental disease" - 'psych' = mind, 'pathy' = illness. Its probably a spectrum, and probably everyone is a little bit messed up in the head. I do think that stronger meaning of the word applies to people who advocate the death penalty. Maybe some people simply haven't thought it through, but I don't think most people fall into that category.

> I live in the US, and I would emphatically argue that there is no justice in our court system, for many reasons.

I am 100% with you. The way we do it is unjust. I don't think that means that a group putting people to death is unjust though, as I'll explain later, I just think we need a better way of doing it and better reasoning about when it's warranted.

> First, as someone already wrote, if an individual doesn't have the right to kill, for any reason, then a group cannot magically have the right to kill by virtue of being a group or having some higher status.

 An individual does have the right to kill though in some circumstances.

> Second, no human is perfect. If no individual is perfect, then no group is perfect. Their judgement may be wrong. Evidence and testimony may be faked. Incentives may reward them for judging wrongly. Power structures may be threatened, and the politics may demand the death of an innocent. None of these possibilities can be ruled out.

Yup, which is why I agree with you that putting people to death the way our society does it is wrong.

> Even if you know absolutely that they did it, its still wrong to kill them. 

I am in complete disagreement with you about this. I reason that if someone is a threat to the safety those around them and will continue to be, it is just for a group to kill them.

> Incentive structures are generally out of our control, and they work in positive and negative ways, and they work in both the short and long term. For example, the current monetary system of usury and perpetually devaluing money causes some amount of stress in people. How much stress? Impossible to know. It affects different people differently, and social emergent phenomena could amplify stress more on particular people, and those people will be more likely to break and do something violent. Entire belief structures are built around compensating for felt oppression. For example, both the state and religion are belief structures that relieve people's anxiety - these social structures emerge from fear. And both the state and religion cause people to kill, and they will never define such killing as murder. But would these structures even exist without the constant application of stress on people, subconsciously felt, from the devaluing of people's savings and work? You can see that, at least partially, incentive structures are self perpetuating cycles. The things that motivate behavior are mostly subconscious and out of an individual's control. Its not simply, "he decided to kill, he's just bad." That doesn't exist. That's a fantasy. And if justice boils down to such a simplistic view on behavior, then there's no hope of ever having 'justice.'

There's a lot going on here. I think you're right, there are plenty of social structures that make people behave erratically and violently, often they convince themselves they are justified when they're not. But in the world, we still can't let those people run wild. They present a danger *now.* Ultimately we have to hold individuals responsible for their behavior, and then we have to fix those other issues separate from that. 

> This is too long already. I'll reiterate that the death penalty is wrong, and say that there are other options. And I'll reiterate that someone who thinks society should repay murder with murder is a psychopath. Definitely.

I can say, when I talk about the death penalty, I'm saying that when a group is threatened by an individual, either by words or demonstration of intent with action, that group has a right to neutralize that threat. So it's not really repayment, not a penalty by my reasoning, it's more of a self defense measure. But I do believe that groups killing individuals is just in such a scenario.