This post may be quite fragmented since I have been rewriting various parts of it.
I am slowly reading through papers trying to think of arguments for various essay topics. One possible topic is, “Is the death penalty morally permissible or not?”
I personally feel the death penalty is not permissible.
Two arguments I know of for the death penalty are
1. It is the only way to get justice for a murder
2. It can act as a deterrent for crimes such as murder.
When someone commits a crime our legal system will step in and impose a punishment that will force the perpetrator to pay for any damages he or she causes. So in the case of theft, the perpetrator will have to pay for any damages or stolen property to the victim.
This basic idea gets a bit more muddled in the situation of crimes such as murder. If a person kills someone, what punishment can a system impose that will have the same value as the life they took? You can’t put a monetary value on a persons life (unless you are an actuarial scientist)). So the natural idea would be a life for a life. If a person kills someone they have to make up for it with their own life. People will also contend that this is the only way to offer family and friends of the victim some kind of justice.
Following the previous point, the death penalty does offer closure to family and friends of the victim. People close to the person that died may feel comfort in the fact that the person who killed their friend no longer lives. However this sort of emotion, just and reasonable as it may be, doesn’t seem like a trait humans should have. We shouldn’t take solace in the fact that someone has died.
The other argument for the death penalty is that by imposing it people will think twice before performing acts such as murder. I am pretty sure though studies have shown this isn’t a actually the case. People who are thinking of killing someone would do so regardless of punishment.
I have wrote/rewrote my arguments against the death penalty over and over again and can’t seem to construct a good argument yet. My basic idea is that the death penalty feels more like an act of revenge. The person who has committed the crime isn’t given any chance to make amends for his or her mistake. I believe in idealistic worlds, in particular that all humans have some piece compassion. Following this belief I would argue that a man or woman can make amends for their mistakes.
Of course the problem with this argument is we can find people in history who will most likely never attempt to make amends for their mistakes. An easy example would be Hitler. However I still don’t think it would be right to issue the death sentence on Hitler. There is something evil about the death penalty which I clearly can’t express into words yet, but when I do expect another post.
i’m a little thrown off by the “morally permissible” part. I assume you mean descriptive morality?
anyway, a really big argument against it would be condemning an innocent man
Any punishment has the problem that we may punish an innocent man though. So to avoid the death penalty simply because we could be wrong isn’t a good argument.
Lifetime imprisonment is 25+ years of your life gone. You can’t get that back. The best we can do is offer some kind of monetary compensation. With the death penalty there is no turning back which I guess could be argued. But in the first case though you still aren’t getting back what you lost yet we will still issue lifetime imprisonment.
I don’t know how well I can argue against the death penalty on the idea that humans can make mistakes and that we may kill an innocent person as a reason against it.
i’m still not quite convinced that my point is invalid because mistakes can be made in other forms of punishment. Aren’t these independent things?
e.g., in your pro argument, sentencing the murderer to life in prison/torture/exile could bring closure to the family too; so then by your same logic the death penalty bringing closure as a pro argument isn’t very good as well?
The fact that we can make mistakes in other forms of punishment isn’t a deterrent for us to avoid issuing punishments. Humans are bound to make mistakes yet we can’t let the sheer fact that we may make a mistake hinder us from taking action. That is why we will still issue sentences for various crimes.
People would argue though that by simply exiling/torturing/imprisoning a person isn’t nearly as equatable to the crime of actually killing someone. If the justice system is about trying to maintain equality one would argue that if a person steals a life the only thing that person can offer to make up for their mistake is their own life.
Of course this gets really odd when you run into problems like mass murderers or people that cause psychological harm.
Hopefully I didn’t totally overlook your argument. My brain is still a mess from doing Complex Analysis
“I’m still not quite convinced that my point is invalid because [the same] mistakes can be made in other forms of punishment.”
oops, left out something the first time
Well one more reason in favor of the death penalty, is the government no longer as to pay to keep them in prison for life. Actually for the rest of your life, not the 25 years and out in 8 on parole canadian version
I suppose so. But I feel that is like putting a dollar value on a persons life.
We will sentence this man to death because the society as a whole refuses to pay the 3 cents a year to keephim a live.
I sometimes wonder why people who are homeless don’t just commit felonies and go to regular jails and just get food/shelter.
Here’s a nice argument against the Death Penalty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjcaoC–pgY
Links seems broken