Capital Punishment PHIL 102
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Ivy Tech Community College, Indianapolis *
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102
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Philosophy
Date
Apr 3, 2024
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docx
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Abolish Capital Punishment
Amber N. Neeley
Ivy Tech Community College
102: PHIL
Professor Thom Howell
March 3, 2024
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Abolish Capital Punishment
The case against capital punishment is often made on the basis that society has a moral obligation to protect human life, not take it. Taking human life is permissible only if it is necessary to achieve the greatest balance of good over evil for everyone involved (Vaughn 2021). I do not believe that taking a human life is ever permissible or necessary.
Abolitionists claim that capital punishment violates the condemned person's right to life and is fundamentally inhuman and degrading. No one deserves to die. When the government metes out vengeance disguised as justice, it becomes complicit with killers in devaluing human life and human dignity. (Hill 1955).
Abolish Capital Punishment Now
I do not support Capital Punishment because it’s cruel and unnatural treatment. As an abolitionist, I believe when people play God and dispense the Ultimate Justice, human beings cannot morally justify taking another human's life. An effective alternative to the death penalty exists. On utilitarian grounds, life in prison without parole is moral, practical, and far less expensive than the complicated process that leads to the death chamber. With life imprisonment, the cold-blooded murderer is removed from society and immediately forgotten, so that attention can be turned to the victims and their needs. I think the death penalty would be an easier sentence than life in prison without parole because the murderer is faced with living within those walls every day and is reminded daily of the crimes, he/she committed (Hill 1955). Abolitionists often appeal to notions of fairness or justice. One prevalent argument is based on the assertion that our penal system is inherently unjust, sometimes executing innocent people (numerous cases
have come to light in which people who had been executed or who were on death row were found to be innocent). Because the death penalty is irrevocable—that is, there is no way to
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“undo” an execution or to compensate the executed—the execution of the innocent is an especially egregious miscarriage of justice. Therefore, we should get rid of the death penalty, since abolition is the only way to avoid such tragedies. Retentionists are generally unmoved by this argument, offering counterarguments. (Braybrook 2024)
Conclusion: Abolish Capital Punishment now! Further, the death penalty is not necessary to achieve the benefit of protecting the public from murderers who may strike again. Locking murderers away for life achieves the same goal without requiring us to take yet another life. Nor is the death penalty necessary to ensure that criminals "get what they deserve." Justice does not require us to punish murder by death. It only requires that the gravest crimes receive the severest punishment that our moral principles would allow us to impose (Braybrook 2024)
. Lastly, and most importantly to me, Christians believe in the sanctity of life
– this means that life is holy and
belongs to God, therefore only God has the power to take life. Romans 12:17-19 it states, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil”
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References
Braybrook, David. “The Relation of Utilitarianism to Natural Law.” Ivy Tech Virtual Library,
University of
Texas at Austin, 2003.
Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment? The Experts on Both
Sides
Make Their Best Case
(2004)
Hill, Paul. “Capital Punishment and Pro-Choice.” Ivy Tech Virtual Library Humanist, Jan. 1955
Vaughn, Lewis. Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning Theory and Contemporary Issues. Available from:
Yuzu
Reader, (6th Edition). W. W. Norton, 2021.
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