Justice or Spectacle: What Livestreamed Executions Say about Our Civilization

Unlike some of my friends with whom I normally agree, I find the idea of livestreaming a public execution deeply troubling. There is a fundamental difference between administering justice and turning a human being’s death into a spectacle for public consumption. We can believe that someone has committed a heinous crime, deserves the ultimate punishment under the law, and should be held fully accountable for his actions without concluding that his death should become entertainment for millions of viewers. I’m pleased to learn the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the December 3rd firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan has been canceled.

We often distinguish ourselves from societies we regard as less civilized by pointing to our respect for the rule of law, human dignity, and the principle that even the worst among us remain subject to certain standards of human conduct. Yet what does it say about us if we deliberately broadcast an execution for the public to watch? Are we administering justice, or are we indulging a collective appetite for vengeance? And if the purpose is to deter future crimes, where is the evidence that livestreaming an execution would accomplish that goal? No established evidence shows that broadcasting an execution live would prevent murders or make society safer.

More fundamentally, the evidence that capital punishment itself deters murder is inconclusive. In a 2012 review, the National Research Council concluded that existing research was insufficient to determine whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates. This does not prove that capital punishment has no deterrent effect whatsoever. It does mean that claims of deterrence should not be presented as fact, much less used to justify turning an execution into a public broadcast.

Since I’m known for my love of Greek philosophy, I wonder what Socrates and Plato would have made of this proposal of a live-streamed execution? Socrates devoted his life to questioning whether people truly understood justice, virtue, and the good, rather than simply accepting what the crowd believed. He might have asked us whether the public appetite for watching an execution reflects a genuine commitment to justice or merely a desire to witness vengeance. Does watching another human being die make us wiser, more virtuous, or more just? Or does it encourage us to take pleasure in suffering, even when the person suffering has committed a terrible crime?

Plato, who explored the nature of justice in The Republic, was concerned with the relationship between justice, virtue, and the proper ordering of the human soul. He understood that a society’s character is shaped, in part, by what it encourages its citizens to admire, desire, and celebrate. Although Plato himself contemplated severe punishments for certain offenses, we can still apply his philosophical concerns to this question. Does turning an execution into a mass spectacle cultivate wisdom and self-restraint, or does it feed the appetites that reason and virtue are supposed to govern? Most importantly, does it deter? If so, please explain how and why.

We cannot assume either philosopher opposed every form of severe punishment. But the distinction between justice and vengeance, between reason and appetite, is central to the questions their philosophy invites us to ask. Even if a punishment is justified, does that mean we should turn it into entertainment? Perhaps the most Socratic question we could ask is this: What kind of people do we become when we gather to watch another human being die?

I am not suggesting that murderers should escape punishment, nor am I necessarily arguing against capital punishment itself. My concern is with the impulse to transform an execution into a public event. There is something profoundly degrading about encouraging millions of people to gather around a screen to witness another human being die. It risks reducing the gravity of justice to morbid entertainment, appealing to the same base instincts that civilized societies are supposed to restrain, not exploit.

We look at countries that stage public executions and often regard their practices as evidence of barbarism. We tell ourselves that we have moved beyond such things, that our institutions and moral traditions reflect a higher standard of civilization. But civilization is not measured simply by whom we execute, or even by whether we execute them humanely. It is also measured by the limits we place on our own power, the dignity we preserve in administering justice, and the impulses we refuse to indulge.

If the objective is to protect the public, we should demand evidence that a proposed policy actually works. If the objective is justice for victims, we should pursue it without confusing justice with spectacle. And if the objective is deterrence, we should be honest about what the research can and cannot establish. A livestreamed execution might satisfy public curiosity or a desire for retribution, but those are not the same things as preventing another innocent person from being murdered.

If we believe that human life is sufficiently precious to warrant the most serious deliberation before the state takes it, then surely it deserves more than a worldwide audience and a place in the news cycle. We can demand justice for victims, insist on accountability for perpetrators, and defend the rule of law without turning death into a spectacle.

The test of a civilized society is not merely how it treats the innocent. It is also whether, when confronted with the guilty, it can exercise justice without surrendering its own humanity. If we abandon that distinction, we should be careful not to congratulate ourselves on being more civilized than the societies we condemn.

Thanks for listening.