Mumbai attack gunman executed

[Lord Zentei]

Exactly. Which is (among other things) why I oppose the death penalty. However, in this case they should have just put him into ordinary prison; then the convicts would kill him, and that's it - accidental death. Since the state cannot provide all people with solid safety bubbles that exclude the change of injury or death, neither should they give special protective treatment to criminals.

While I recognize that this gets around the problem of spending, it may lead to anther problem, should the person turn out to be innocent. Does the measure of doubt that prevents execution not also call for a measure of protection? Is killing someone by proxy not still killing them morally speaking?

Focusing on this specific case: another option might have been to petition the USA to take the guy. They already have the facilities, after all, and the marginal price of adding another inmate is quite low. Some kind of quid pro quo might have been arranged if anyone were inclined to raise a fuss, but the US and India are supposed to be allies.

The tyranny of small decisions and general irreversibility of actions, as well as the sheer complexity of social interaction, render this point moot. At one point holding a slave was not considered a transgression against the slave's rights. And not that the slave necessarily had no rights either; for example the Indian slavery system allowed slaves to have wages and property, and even somehow protected these posessions. The sheer stupidity in relying on currently established social rights is manifested in the evolution of the category through the vast historical background that we can see from today. Rights are never solid and pre-determined, which makes relying on them quite arbitrary.

Although they had no legal rights historically, slaves theoretically did have rights from the perspective of individualism. By that philosophy, every person has them simply by dint of being a sapient human being that feels and thinks for themselves. Whether the rights are recognized to exist and/or enforced is another matter.

[UnderAGreySky]

However, in this case they should have just put him into ordinary prison; then the convicts would kill him, and that's it - accidental death. Since the state cannot provide all people with solid safety bubbles that exclude the change of injury or death, neither should they give special protective treatment to criminals.

I think this is a silly line of thought. One of the big reasons so much was spent to keep him isolated was not to prevent him from being killed by fellow detainees but to prevent him being busted out of jail by his fellow terrorists. And secondly, he may or may not have had a long life in prison but "lets put him in jail so that our dirty work will be done by someone else and our conscience is clean" is absolutely the wrong way to do it.

[Sidewinder]

Focusing on this specific case: another option might have been to petition the USA to take the guy. They already have the facilities, after all, and the marginal price of adding another inmate is quite low. Some kind of quid pro quo might have been arranged if anyone were inclined to raise a fuss, but the US and India are supposed to be allies.

No, the US and Pakistan- the nation Qasab came from, where the allegedly (ha!) received training and equipment- are supposed to be allies, although this may change. Personally, I'm all for cutting ties with Pakistan, which is quickly proving to be a liability- India, at least, is not waging holy wars against America, in an effort to force Americans to convert to Hinduism.