The Death Penalty Capital punishment: Officially sanctioned punishment

by death for very grievous (capital) crimes

Abolitionist: One who wants to do away with capital punishment, who believes the death penalty is never justified

Retentionist: One who wants to retain the death penalty as part of a system of legal punishment, who believes that sometimes capital punishment is warranted

Capital Punishment in the U.S. In 2010, 46 inmates were executed; in 2007, 42.

Of those inmates on death row in 2010, 55 percent were white and 42 percent were black. Ninety-eight percent were male and 2 percent were female.

At the end of 2010, the death penalty was authorized by 36 states.

Capital Punishment in the U.S.

At the end of 2010, all 36 of the death-penalty states authorized lethal injection as their execution method. Sixteen states authorized other execution methods (in addition to lethal injection): hanging, electrocution, firing squad, or lethal gas.

By the end of 2010, the number of prisoners under sentence of death had decreased for the fifth straight year to 104.

In 2010, the average elapsed time from sentence of death to execution was 178 months.

Retentionist Arguments

1. The death penalty either prevents criminals from harming others again or deters would-be offenders from capital crimes.

2. Retributivism: the doctrine that people should be punished simply because they deserve it and that the punishment should be proportional to the crime

Abolitionist Arguments 1. Although offenders should get the punishment they deserve,

no one deserves the death penalty.

2. Life in prison for murderers results in greater overall happiness or goodness for society than sentencing them to death.

3. Human beings have inherent value and dignity.

4. All persons have a right to life.

(Cont.)

Abolitionist Arguments

5. Punishment should be fair, and the use of capital punishment discriminates against minorities and the poor.

6. The punishment should fit the crime, and the death penalty is unjust because it does not fit the crime.

Kant’s Retributivism Argument for the Death Penalty

Criminals should be punished because they deserve to be punished, because they must receive their just deserts. Murderers deserve death, and a just society will punish them accordingly.

Kant’s Retributivism He subscribes to the doctrine of lex talionis, the “eye for an

eye” notion of punishment in which society does to the criminal what he has done to his victim.

Maintains that by executing a murderer, we give full recognition to the murderer as a person, as a rational, moral agent who chooses freely and can be held responsible for his or her actions

The Discrimination Argument Against the Death Penalty

The death penalty is imposed unfairly—equals are not treated equally—so it is unjust and should be abolished.

The death penalty is biased against minorities (primarily African Americans) and the poor, and since any discriminatory system of punishment is unjust, the death penalty is unjust.

The Discrimination Argument Retentionists generally deny that statistics support the

empirical claim of discrimination.

The fundamental retentionist criticism of the discrimination argument: unjust administration of the death penalty does not make the death penalty itself unjust.

The Deterrence Argument for the Death Penalty

The death penalty is morally justified because it deters capital crimes (namely, first-degree murders).

Since it dissuades would-be killers from taking innocent lives, it is justified on utilitarian grounds, by its enormous benefit to society.