Death Penalty: Moral or Immoral?

The question of whether capital punishment is a moral or immoral form of punishment is one that has hugely significant impacts on the ways in which contemporary society conducts itself. Though many developed nations have already outlawed the death penalty, it nonetheless remains a practice that occurs with frightening regularity in the United States. An analysis of the “justifiable grounds of punishment” grants insight into the “moral integrity of the death penalty”, and the roles that “retribution and utility” play allows a valid claim to be made that clearly supports the idea that the death penalty is, in fact, immoral (Qui, 9). Moreover, the morality of the death penalty is further thrown into question when one considers the arbitrary way in which it is applied, as well as the impossibility of showing any effective results from deterrence. In the end, the death penalty is both unnecessary to enact proper retributive justice and is not logically sound with regards to utilitarianism. Thus, the immorality of the death penalty is clear.

The first perspective, namely the view of retribution and retributive justice, is based on the fundamental question of whether society as a whole can morally justify retributive justice, or justice where the punishment mirrors the crime whenever possible. In this perspective, it can be argued that a core right innate to all humans is the right to life. Life is the most precious of all human possessions and the right to life, according to theories put forth by John Locke, cannot be taken from an individual, nor can society even through collective action morally deprive an individual of their right to life. However, it is important to note that “although one cannot be deprived of natural rights, including the right of life, one can forfeit them because the precondition for not being deprived of life is that one does not deprive another of life” (Qui, 11). With Locke’s views in mind, we can argue, with some validity, that the state maintains the right to take the life of others away if, and only if, the criminals have likewise deprived other citizens of their most basic inalienable right. However, a closer look reveals the inadequacy of these arguments.

Given the fundamental assumption of the ideas of Locke, we can state that the state can deprive an individual of his or her own life along the lines of retributive justice; that is to say, if a man commits an act that takes away the inalienable right to life of another man, his own life is forfeit. However, this is not only logically inconsistent, but bizarre in its unique application. Indeed, “it is widely accepted [in modern times] that anyone who wrongly injures another should not be sentenced to mutilation” (Qui, 12-13). With this in mind, the question arises of why murderers should be treated any differently. If maiming is viewed as socially repugnant for a crime in which another individual is disfigured, mandating the death penalty for killers is inconsistent and illogical. Moreover, “if we base our defense of the death penalty on equal-harm retaliation, we will also have to defend corporal punishment, including castration” (13). Claiming that the death penalty is necessary in order to enact sufficient retributive justice on individuals for the results of their actions is not only a dangerous precedent to set, but the theory itself must be applied to many aspects of criminal law, with potentially devastating effects (Reams, 17).

The second theme of retributive justice, namely that of the idea that the punishment should fit the crime, is equally unsustainable. First, it must be understood that the core of retributive justice is the idea that the punishment associated with a crime can somehow be arbitrarily linked to the severity of the crime itself; that is, there is no objective way of determining what the true appropriate punishment for a crime is, so we are instead forced to rely on the assumption that the most severe crime imaginable must, in some way, correspond to the most severe punishment. Yet, this association itself is based entirely on cultural values and the moral allowance a society is willing to give to its justice system (Kolhberg & Elfenbein, 640). The death penalty, then, can be safely assumed to be the worst punishment available to a state. If the death penalty is outlawed, the “next worst” punishment, which we shall posit as life imprisonment without parole, is now, by definition, the most severe punishment imaginable. Indeed, “we can still fit the punishment to the crime without the death penalty, and we can still accomplish retributive justice without it”, given that retributive justice is not dependent on the death penalty as a form of punishment (Qui, 15). In this way, we can effectively show that the death penalty is not a necessary condition of retributive justice with regards to killers and murderers; instead, the arbitrary association is nothing more than a subjective way of allocating life or death.

The second way the morality of the death penalty can be seen as lacking is seen in the utilitarian argument. The core of this argument is that the death penalty is morally justified through utilitarian means; that is, individuals in society are less likely to commit terrible crimes in they know that an equally terrible punishment awaits them. In this sense, the question becomes whether the conclusion that the “death penalty possesses the greatest threat factor because it is the most severe punishment […] is tenable” (16). This conclusion is morally and logically unsound, and an unjust punishment—the effectiveness of deterrent is not based on the severity of punishment, or at least not completely. Indeed, if we assume that the secret theft of an apple with no witnesses or bystanders, for example, would result in the death penalty, “the death penalty would carry no threat whatsoever, and the fear of punishment would be canceled out by the knowledge that I could not be punished” (17). In other words, the severity of the punishment does not prove to be a critical reason as to whether or not an individual will commit a crime, but is rather merely a contributory factor at best.

Lastly, it is important to understand the near impossibility of showing the effectiveness of the death penalty in deterrence. In order for utilitarianism to justify the death penalty, it must show, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that the death penalty is an effective policy tool in preventing crime. It cannot do this, however. Indeed, counterfactual evidence points to the contrary—a U.N. study “found that crime rates had not risen in countries that had abolished the death penalty” and that the great reduction of the use of the death penalty in China “did not disrupt social order”, nor was there any increase in the rate of crime (Qui, 18). Overall, the evidence, as well as the mere existence of the debate over the morality and effectiveness of the death penalty itself, clearly shows that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent with regards to crime, and is certainly not necessary to intimidate or frighten individuals into compliance with the law. Fear of capture seems to be a far more powerful argument on this point, and the severity of the death penalty does nothing but irrevocably condemn people to death without the hope of future appeals and, for example, exoneration via DNA evidence (Hawkins, 39).

It is clear that the death penalty is an ineffective tool with regards to crime deterrent, and that the death penalty itself is morally unsound. As a practice, it lacks justification in views of retributive justice as well as utilitarianism and seems to be not only an immoral practice but a flatly ineffective one. Based on these arguments, it can be concluded that the death penalty is, in fact, immoral. 

Works Cited

Hawkins, Steven W. "It Is Immoral And Ineffective." World & I 17.9 (2002): 39. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 28 July 2013.

Kohlberg, L., D. Elfenbein, And Inc American Orthopsychiatric Assoc. "Development Of Moral Judgments Concerning Capital Punishment." American Journal Of Orthopsychiatry 45.4 (1975): 614-640. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 28 July 2013.

Qui, Xinglong. "The Morality Of The Death Penalty." Contemporary Chinese Thought 36.3 (2005): 9-25. Humanities International Complete. Web. 28 July 2013.

Reams, James M., and Charles T. Putnam. "The Morality Of The New Hampshire Death Penalty." New Hampshire Bar Journal52.2 (2011): 16-18. Academic Search Complete.  Web. 28 July 2013.