Death Penalty

Running head: DEATH PENALTY 1

Death Penalty

Death penalty

Introduction

The many debates that surround the death penalty and its legalization tend to center on a number of issues such as ethical, religious, utilitarian, political, as well as legal aspects. An important issue for discussion is whether killing an individual as a way of punishment is ethically and morally right (Braswell, McCarthy & McCarthy, 2011). It is often argued that threatening to put an individual to death using the death penalty is a good teaching technique to would-be murderers that “killing is wrong,” and that this technique would deter people from committing such crimes.

Philosophically the debate on death penalty concerns whether putting criminals to death is a defensible form of punishing them and passing a strong message to others that killing is wrong. Ethically, a number of moral justifications have been provided. Isn’t putting criminals to death in essence killing a person? In addition to the defensibility of this topic, the effect of death penalty has been doubtable. For instance, the possibility of reducing the rate of capital crime using death penalty is doubtable and can be argued. The most important justifications are based on the ideologies of deterrence, retribution and forfeiture (Steffen, 2010). Therefore, it is worth discussing these justifications to examine the moral and ethical aspects of death penalty as a form of punishment.

Ethical and Moral View of Death Penalty

Rights Forfeiture

According to Braswell, McCarthy and McCarthy (2011), the classical justification that has often been used when legalizing and applying death penalty is that when individuals commit capital crimes, those individuals lose their right to life and should be put to death. In the legal system, the concept of rights forfeiture is applied in various methods to punish wrong doers. The most common method that is applied is incarceration. The...