The Ethical Dilemma of Capital Punishment Essay

One of the most acute and highly controversial ethical issues is death penalty, as one of the forms of punishment, which could be legally applied in cases of severe crimes. There are several terms, used to name this kind of punishment – “death sentence”, “execution”, “death penalty”. This idea is certainly not new; this form of punishment could be traced back in ancient times in various countries. Nowadays capital punishment is one of the highly debated ethical and cultural issues in the world. Starting from the colonial times more than 13.000 individuals were legally executed at the beginning of the 1900s. Then around 150 individuals were executed annually. Such situation certainly caused public outrage and the situation started to change. More and more individuals became aware of the fact that death penalty, as a form of legal punishment, does not suit the frames of ethical rules and categories. Thus death penalty is a highly controversial issue for most political ideologies, cultures and ideologies.

Historically the first records about death penalty could be found in ancient civilizations, where people were beaten to death, burnt alive, crucified, etc. One of the brightest historical examples of death penalty is the death of the famous Greek philosopher Socrates, he was made to drink poison, as he was accused of heresy and corruption of young people of his society. The crimes, which were later punished with death, varied in different cultures and countries, these could be cutting of crops, planted by a farmer or making noise in the city during night time. The forms of capital punishment were in most cases severe and really cruel, for example boiling to death, crucifixion, decapitation, slicing, etc. There was an idea expressed that the Britain Empire had had a strong impact upon other countries in relation to death penalty. “Up until about the 1700’s, Britain had named upwards to two hundred and twenty-two crimes that were punishable by death, including cutting down a tree or counterfeiting tax stamps.” (Reggio 1997). During the nineteenth and twentieth century the concept of death penalty was reconsidered and more and more countries abolished this practice, becoming focused upon humane forms of punishment.

The first records about capital punishment in America date back to 1608, when George Kendall of Virginia was executed for alleged plots to betray the British. In 1620 the first legal execution for theft took place. In different colonies the situation with death penalty varied, thus in Massachusetts there were seven concrete crimes defined, which were punished with death penalty, including burglary, arson, rape, treason, buggery, sodomy and murder. “By the late 1700s, the colonies in America shared common capital crimes, with the exception of a few, and later reforms were foreseeable. The first series of significant reforms arose during the period of 1833-1853.” (Reggio 1997). One of the most terrible tendencies, related to death penalty, was the fact that this punishment was transformed into a kind of show, when a lot of people gathered in the streets new the place of execution with the aim to watch, how it was going to happen. There were constant fights during these “shows” as local merchants offered alcohol and the general procedure gave push to human aggression. The era of reform brought changes to capital punishment execution, as public hangings were substituted with private forms. In the year 1846 the first steps towards abolishment of the death penalty were made. “The majority of the world has moved toward more humane forms of punishment in response to the disorder associated with the dated forms of capital punishment. Currently, the United Nations passed a nonbinding resolution to promote the abolishment of the death penalty across the world, yet approximately 60% of the population of the world lives in countries where executions take place.” (Reggio 1997).

Consideration of capital punishment as a serious ethical issue is one of the modern controversies. Generally killing or murdering a person is considered to be a crime and is prohibited in any country by any legal system. However, in case with capital punishment, killing is authorized by the state, in other words by the official representatives of the society. Here the real controversy starts, as it is not clear, whether a state, a government, the whole society or any other institution or group of individuals has really the right to define, whether a person should live or should die? Who is the one to be responsible for defining such serious moral responsibilities? Has really a state the right to conduct such punishment, which would deprive individuals their major right for lives? All these are not easy questions and could be discussed on the basis of actual facts about capital punishment, historical experiences and ethical and moral theories. In order to find the justification for death penalty, it is important to define the main aims of this form of punishment. First of all it should have the potential to deter criminals. There are around 200 countries and in the world and in 139 capital punishment is abolished exactly due to the fact that no evidence was found that the death penalty could make the whole society safer in those countries, where death penalty is legal in comparison to those countries, where it is not acceptable. Even in those societies, where death penalty was one of the forms of legal punishment, murders, rapes and other violent crimes continued to take place. Irrespective of the time and effort, spent for investigation of the concrete crime, there is always a risk left that a wrong person was convicted and correspondingly that an innocent individual will be killed. There is no chance to prevent such cases and only the fact that there is no chance to remove all mistakes from trial and criminal justice system for 100% is enough to take the decision to abolish death penalty. It was already mentioned here that all individuals have their fundamental rights – right to live is the fundamental right of each person born to this world. “Catholic Conference says that we cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing ourselves. This point alone proves that capital punishment is wrong and sets a bad precedent for the society. There are many religions in the world that believe that killing is a sin and no one has any right to kill another person for any reason.” (McCafferty 2010).

Referring to the philosophic theories, categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant could be considered for making conclusions about the moral aspects of death penalty. According to the categorical imperative, “society and individuals must act in such a way that you can will that your actions become a universal law for all to follow” (Kant, 2004). Kant supported the idea that it is not correct to punish criminals just for the sake of benefiting the society, as this would result in punishing innocent people. He assumed that any society has the laws, which should be followed, and once they are broken, then the penalty comes.

The ideas of Jeremy Bentham could be useful for considering of the ethical aspects of capital punishment. He stated that “All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil.” (Dinwiddy 2004). According to the utilitarian position punishment inevitably leads to even more pain and suffering, thus punishment in general is not the best option for the society. It could only be justified, when the benefits outweigh the costs. Thus if an individual, who is accused of murdering several other individuals, is sent to jail, then this is for good for the society, as this person will not be able to continue cause suffering. Actually utilitarians do not support any forms of punishment, especially they treat negatively the idea of capital punishment. Death penalty does not suit their formula of pleasure outweighing the pain. Speaking about cost benefit analysis there is an evident controversy, as on the one hand capital punishment contributes to securing safety to the society, as criminals’ lives are taken away, on the other hand, the very process of taking criminals’ lives is already negative for the society and could be interpreted as crime, especially if there is a risk that an innocent person was killed. The categorical imperative of Kant fails to interpret the argument about punishing of an innocent person, whereas utilitarianism could utilize it. Ron House, the faculty of Sciences at the University of Southern Queensland, offers a new prospective which could be considered in relation to  the death penalty using a principle known as the “Principle of Goodness” (House, 2007). His theory beautifully encompasses the philosophers that preceded him. “We must act so as to accord with a general rule, and the Principle of Goodness is a general rule (Or becomes one as soon as we say “act such as to avoid evil and pursue goodness”); stricter because not any general rule satisfies the Principle (House 2007).

Overall, the ethical dilemma of capital punishment is without any doubts one of the most challenging and many-sided in the modern world; it could be treated from the point of view of philosophy, religion, sociology and criminal justice theory and still there is a great number of questions, which remain unanswered irrespectively of the theory or approach applied to consideration of death penalty.

Works cited:

Dinwiddy, John. Bentham: selected writings of John Dinwiddy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004

House, R. The death penalty and the principle of goodness. Manuscript submitted for publication, Faculty of Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Australia, 2007

Kaminer, Wendy. It’s All the Rage: Crime and Culture. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995

Kant, I. The Right of Punishing, Retrieved on April 1st, 2004

McCafferty, James A. Capital Punishment. AldineTransaction, 2010

Reggio, M. H. History of the death penalty. PBS, 1997

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
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[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]
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