Why punish with the death penalty?

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Why punish with death?

The stimulus above depicts a man being buckled up on an electric chair upon receiving capital punishment. So the man must have a committed a crime, which the state believes should be punished with death. What are the reasons behind such a decision? The issue allows me to look at how we can justify death as a punishment. This is still a very controversial contemporary topic. Even if the capital punishment is been abolished by the majority of the countries and the actual sentences which leads to death are decreasing, we take upon our duty to discuss the ethical implications which arise. When we look at justifying capital punishment, three main theories can be used; retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation. Personally, I think that retribution is intrinsically wrong and rehabilitation cannot be applied to capital punishment. On the argument of deterrence I still stand against such a punishment, until the statistics will prove any kind of deterring effect.

In a ‘state’ society certain laws are enforced and when breaking this law, a crime is committed. The legal stystem then deals with this by imposing on the criminal a set punishment. A punishment has different meaning in different contexts. However it always shares this common theme of ‘loss’ therefore ‘suffering’. One can be imprisoned, stripped of all his possessions, tortured or even murdered in this case. In these examples there is always some sort of loss and the general loss of happiness. Nevertheless the actual punishment is important as the reason behind it.

The justification is what distinguishes proper ‘legal’ punishments, like the state’s, from any random immoral punishment. The difference between civilized and uncivilized. The concept of punishment it’s a product rooted from society, a system to maintain order of what is the ethical world. This system has to be carefully employed as it can lead to an abuse of power and very importantly it must root from an unbiased rationalization.  Feelings like vindictiveness are subjective and neglect the moral connotations which on the other hand are emphasized in ‘punishments’. This why throughout history we have come to see inflicting physical voluntary pain, like torture and death, as inacceptable punishments. This is because of what a punishment represents nowadays. It’s close connection to justice. These moral overtones are one of the reasons we shouldn’t punish with death.

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To counter this, we must re-evaluate the whole idea of ‘revenge’. One could argue that in a way a legal punishment is just a methodical revenge. However when we think about revenge, it feels very personal and we act in such way thinking about our own interests and not societies. This is where revenge crosses that line and becomes intrinsically bad. Therefore justice can’t be associates better to punishment and it’s ethical implications. This demonstrates that the one possible way where we could justify death or torture if it’s done on extreme utilitarian grounds, so for the benefit of society. ...

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