The Morality of Capital Punishment

Definitions

1. the issue assume two conditions

1. the person is guilty and deserves punishment (very difficult to justify

punishing an innocent person)

2. the authority is a legitimate governing one (very difficult to justify

1. when is it an expression of a moral good for a legitimate governing authority

use death as punishment for a crime?

1. The Kinds of Punishment

1. Punitive

1. revenge--"an eye for an eye"
2. to balance the "scale of justice"

1. Rectificatory

1. the pay back the victim and her or his family
2. to pay back the wrong done to society

1. Deterrence

1. to prevent future crimes

1. Transformative

1. to change the criminal into a better person and citizen

1. Viewpoints

1. Immanuel Kant, from The Philosophy of Law--"the right of retributivism"

1. capital punishment is a moral necessity for a capital offence
2. shows respect to the moral law
3. shows respect to the criminal to treat her or him as bound to the moral law

1. Hugo Adam Bedau, "The Case Against the Death Penalty"

1. deterrence does not work
2. unfairly administered against minorities and the poor
3. it is barbarous
4. retribution is incoherent
5. too financially costly
6. USA is behind the abolitionist trends

1. Ernest van den Haag, "The Collapse of the Case Against Capital Punishment"

1. justice is preferred to equality
2. deterrence does work
3. the motive of revenge is socially useful against crime
4. it values human life by putting to death the capital offender

1. Harmon L. Wray, "Violence and God: the Unholy Alliance"

1. capital punishment is a symptom of a deeper commitment to violence

1. The Goals of Capital Punishment

1. What does it promote?

1. if it is punitive, then the State becomes the final judge
2. if deterrence, then crime must go down
3. if rectificatory, then the victim and society must be "repaid"
4. if transformative, then must show the criminal is morally better for it than other

1. The Church and Capital Punishment

1. The Bible

1. OT--Leviticus 24.20--"eye for an eye"

Leviticus 19.18--the limits of revenge

2. NT--Matthew 5.21f and 38f, 7.1-5--denies revenge, violence, and judgment

1. The Church and the State--the Church must de-idolize the State
2. The Church and the Criminal--the balance between justice and mercy

1. the legitimacy of punishment--rectificatory and transformative
2. the illegitimacy of killing
3. ministry to death row