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THESIS: The death penalty is a morally justifiable means of punishment —…
THESIS: The death penalty is a morally justifiable means of punishment — and thus, can be defended.
Defense 1: Prudential (Distributional) objections aimed at the death penalty are irrelevant to the morality of it (“If capital punishment is moral, no distribution would make it immoral. Improper distribution cannot affect the quality of what is distributed, be it punishments or rewards…”).
Refutation of Maldistribution Approach? “Maldistribution between the guilty and the innocent is, by definition, unjust. But the injustice does not lie in the nature of the punishment." [UNJUST DISTRIBUTION DOES NOT MEAN UNJUST PUNISHMENT.]
Refutation of Equality Approach? “Equality, in short, seems morally less important than justice...and justice is independent of distributional inequalities.”
Defense 2: Miscarriages of Justice are bound to occur in any (and every) pursuit of justice and thus are not telling factors when assessing the morality of the death penalty.
Refutation of Miscarriages of Justice Approach? “...Miscarriages of justice are offset by the moral benefits and the usefulness of doing justice. For those who think the death penalty unjust even when it does not miscarry, miscarriages can hardly be decisive.”
- Practical Example: “Despite precautions, nearly all human activities, such as trucking, lighting, or construction cost the lives of some innocent bystanders. We don't give up these activities, because the advantages, moral or material, outweigh the unintended losses.”
- This would be like saying that one person who has been wrongly imprisoned for life, is an argument against imprisonment for life.
Defense 3: Just because statistics do not decisively support — or deny — the effectiveness of deterrence, does not serve as valid opposition to the death penalty.
Refutation 2 to the Statistics Approach? Punishment isn’t all about deterrence, it’s about retribution as well.
Refutation 1 to the Statistics Approach? “Deterrence is less than decisive for either side...murder rates are determined by many factors; neither the severity nor the probability of the threatened sanction is always decision.”
Defense 4: Incidental issues do not pose moral objections to the death penalty because they are refutable.
Refutation of Unlawful Killing Approach? Killing a murderer means that we are encouraging unlawful killing
- “Although all punishments are meant to be unpleasant, it is seldom argued that they legitimate the unlawful imposition of identical unpleasantness.”
Refutation of Unjust Approach? The death penalty is unjust to the criminal.
- The death penalty can’t be unjust to the guilty criminal: "By committing the crime, the criminal volunteered to assume the risk of receiving a legal punishment that he could have avoided by not committing the crime…[he] knowingly volunteered to assume the risk.”
Refutation of the Suffering Approach? Suffering is only encouraged by using the death penalty.
- “We cannot know whether the murder on death row suffers more than his victim suffered however, unlike the murder, the victim deserved none of the suffering inflicted.”
- Punishment’s intent is to vindicate the law and the social order undermined by the crime — not to encourage private vengeance.
Refutation of Excessive Approach? The death penalty is excessive.
- “To regard the death penalty as alway excessive, one must believe that no crime — no matter how heinous — could possibly justify capital punishment.”
Refutation of the Monetary Approach? Monetary expenses, for the death penalty, are too much.
- “Most comparisons of the cost of life imprisonment with the cost of execution, apart from their dubious relevance, are flawed at least by the implied assumption that life prisoners will generate no judicial costs during their imprisonment.”
- Even if this is the case, however, is there really a monetary price on the importance of upholding (and prioritizing) justice?
Refutation of Degradation Approach? Execution degrading the executed convicts.
- “...When deserved, execution, far from degrading the executed convict, affirms his humanity by affirming his rationality and his responsibility for his actions….”
- It’s required for the sake of the convict’s dignity
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*If nothing else...Is the life of a convicted murderer more valuable than the innocent victims who could be spared by deterring these potential murderers?
*Sir James Fitzjames Stephen quote