The people are already dead. They aren't deciding whether they get to live or die.

The arbiters decide whether someone lives again or is obliterated for all eternity, that's life or death.

Reincarnation is completely different. People don't remember their previous lives. Although I'm not too sure on that because Onna said something about the guy seeing his sister in his next life. But if you don't even remember her, what's the point? Your consciousness is pretty much what your life is, and if that very consciousness, from what I know, although I maybe be wrong, doesn't retain any memories, then "living or dying" doesn't really matter a whole lot. So I don't think arbiters are monsters in that case.

If that were the case then the trials would be literally pointless as the have the same effective result. In that case the only thing accomplished is physically and emotionally abusing them one last time before ending them. That's still horrifically monstrous.

Sure, they manipulate people. But guess what? Those very people make their own decisions. The arbiters only set the foreground. And that's the point. They don't force people to take action, but they put their emotions to the breaking point. Like I said in my previous post, emotion and action are not the same thing. So while you are correct in saying that they manipulate people, I don't think you're correct when you said they manipulate people into doing horrible things.

If you take someone that is emotionally traumatized, then traumatize them further, then arm them...they might still be responsible for their actions (though I wouldn't be surprised if a sane court would reduce their sentence for such a situation) but so are you. The arbiters are absolutely complicit in everything they manage to manipulate people into doing. Decim handed him the knife, stacked up the pucks, and said he was doing it to "draw out the darkness that lurks in a person's soul". Decim knowingly and purposefully tried to push him over the edge in order to judge him.

So what does this all mean? To me, it means that Decim isn't a monster. The things he does is leading the dead people to a point of choice. They are broken mentally and pushed to the edge, now what do they do? And that is what they are judged on, the actions they do in their own volition.

And that doesn't strike you as a horrifying perversion of justice? Would you be ok with police mentally breaking people, then arming them in order to see if they'll do something illegal? Then summarily executing them if they do of course.

And that's why I feel bad for Decim in this scenario. Personally, I don't think he's at fault. While the way all arbiters are judging is certainly flawed, like I said in my previous post, he should not have to be put down by Onna for what he has done up to that point because he is not forcing them physically to make a decision to do bad things.

Physical force is in no way necessary for an action to be morally wrong. So if we're talking about how responsible people are for their actions, why shouldn't he take crap for the things he's done?