Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

First, advances in forensic science, particularly DNA fingerprinting, have shown that innocent people have almost certainly been put to death, a scenario that unnerves even ardent supporters of the death penalty. Second, the grisly business of snuffing out a life has evolved from the gory sadism of crucifixion and disembowelment, to the quick but still graphic ropes, bullets, and blades, to the invisible agents of gas and electricity, to the pseudo-medical procedure of lethal injection. But doctors refuse to administer it, pharmaceutical companies refuse to supply the drugs, and witnesses are disturbed by the death throes during botched attempts. Third, the chief alternative to the death penalty, life in prison, has become more reliable as escape-proof and riot-proof penitentiaries have been perfected. Fourth, as the rate of violent crime has plummeted (chapter 12), people feel less need for draconian remedies. Fifth, because the death penalty is seen as such a momentous undertaking, the summary executions of earlier eras have given way to a drawn-out legal ordeal. The sentencing phase after a guilty verdict is tantamount to a second trial, and a death sentence triggers a lengthy process of reviews and appeals—so lengthy that most death-row prisoners die of natural causes. Meanwhile, the billable hours from expensive lawyers cost the state eight times as much as life in prison. Sixth, social disparities in death sentences, with poor and black defendants disproportionately being put to death (“Those without the capital get the punishment”), have weighed increasingly on the nation’s conscience. Finally, the Supreme Court, which is repeatedly tasked with formulating a consistent rationale for this crazy quilt, has struggled to rationalize the practice, and has chipped away at it piece by piece. In recent years it has ruled that states may not execute juveniles, people with intellectual disabilities, or perpetrators of crimes other than murder, and it came close to ruling against the hit-and-miss method of lethal injection. Court watchers believe it is only a matter of time before the Justices are forced to confront the caprice of the whole macabre practice head on, invoke “evolving standards of decency,” and strike it down as a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment once and for all.

The uncanny assemblage of scientific, institutional, legal, and social forces all pushing to strip government of its power to kill makes it seem as if there really is a mysterious arc bending toward justice. More prosaically, we are seeing a moral principle—Life is sacred, so killing is onerous—become distributed across a wide range of actors and institutions that have to cooperate to make the death penalty possible. As these actors and institutions implement the principle more consistently and thoroughly, they inexorably push the country away from the impulse to avenge a life with a life. The pathways are manifold and tortuous, the effects are slow and then sudden, but in the fullness of time an idea from the Enlightenment can transform the world.

CHAPTER 15EQUAL RIGHTS

Humans are liable to treat entire categories of other humans as means to an end or nuisances to be cast aside. Coalitions bound by race or creed seek to dominate rival coalitions. Men try to control the labor, freedom, and sexuality of women.¹ People translate their discomfort with sexual nonconformity into moralistic condemnation.² We call these phenomena racism, sexism, and homophobia, and they have been rampant, to varying degrees, in most cultures throughout history. The disavowal of these evils is a large part of what we call civil rights or equal rights. The historical expansion of these rights—the stories of Selma, Seneca Falls, and Stonewall—is a stirring chapter in the story of human progress.³