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Notes -
It is entirely possible to commit murder recklessly--the classical term is "depraved heart murder." Your intuition does not match criminal law, which does generally put some forms of recklessness in the same category as intentional action. There are cases where a distinction is drawn between them, but those are exceptions (attempt; crimes with the specific element "did X with the intent to do Y;" etc.), and those exceptions are due to the particulars of those crimes, not their severity.
Recklessness is approximately defined as "knew that a significant risk of harm existed, took prohibited action despite the risk." It is distinct from negligence in that the negligent person was not consciously aware of the risk at the time, while the reckless person knew and disregarded.
Sure, possibly. But the rest of your argument doesn't automatically follow--if one may be executed for an intentional murder, and also executed for a reckless murder, does it matter that "recklessness [is] not quite as bad"? Just because you've shown a distinction does not mean you've shown a categorical difference.
I don't doubt that's what you and the people around you believe. It is not true that the criminal law agrees with you--again, the default rule in criminal law is that recklessness is an equally culpable mental state to intent.
Sure, possibly. But the rest of your argument doesn't automatically follow--
But that's my whole argument! You might well get the same punishment, it might well still be bad, but my entire argument with OP is that we see recklessness or negligence as being just as bad as intentional harm and I argued that did not appear to be true.
If you are conceding that, then that is the totality of my point. I don't have a further argument beyond that.
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