Jayan Solanki

What are the Philosophical and Moral Issues of Capital Punishment?

How successfully are these Issues Resolved by Christians?

 ‘Capital Punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the execution of a person by the state as punishment for a crime. Crime is known as a capital offence, or capital crimes.’ Capital Punishment has been a worldwide issue, and has been elaborated since the Christian faith was introduced into the world, although the Christian faith was introduced when capital punishment was an accepted feature of the legal system, as represented when Jesus and a penitent thief were on the crosses…“We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong”.It has and still being debated among a variety of countries and religions. Although only in recent times has capital punishment been questioned. The feature has still been retained by a few western European countries, or those of Anglo-Saxon origin in other parts of the world. 104 countries have formally abolished the feature from their legal system but some countries still retain the feature, but is only used under specific circumstances and capital offences, such as treason. In the USA the practices varies among different states. Capital Punishment was partially abolished in the UK by 1965; at this time only major felonies passed the judgement of using capital punishment such as treason, piracy with violence and arson remained as capital crimes. By 1999 the act of Capital Punishment had been formally abolished as the home secretary (Jack Straw) signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights in Strasbourg on behalf of the British government. Lactantius was one of the first of the few early fathers to oppose capital punishment. The Christian community took a big part of the decision on whether to abolish Capital Punishment. Christians base their beliefs on the Bible and talking’s from heads of churches such as the Pope. It was partly because of the Christians that the act has been abolished. One of the key figures of the time was Pope John Paul II - he spoke of Capital Punishment as the ‘culture of death’. In his encyclical ‘Evangelium Vitae’ he declared his ‘near’ total opposition to the death penalty, his ‘near’ opposition has only one case in which the punishment is appropriate “in cases of absolute necessity, in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvement in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically nonexistent." At the time of voting for the abolishment of Capital Punishment, the Pope was one of the main Christian figures that opposed Capital Punishment, and voted for the abolishment of Capital Punishment. Although there was one other main group which also were against Capital Punishment, they are the synod of the Church of England (Vatican Council) they were the Church governing body. In between 1929 and 1969 Capital Punishment was legal in the Vatican City, although it was only used to one specific case – if the pope was assassinated, although they never carried out any punishments. In 1969 Pope Paul IV removed Capital Punishment from the ‘fundamental law’. At the time, these figurines took up a majority vote when abolishing Capital Punishment. By doing this, they successfully were one of the main figures to be featured in the abolishment of Capital Punishment in the UK. The protestant view of Capital Punishment was derived into factors where it is equally diverse. St Paul favours the death penalty and tends to take the New Testament into disagreement. The utilitarian approach is bound to regard punishment itself as undesirable, epically in the founding of Jeremy Bentham. Bentham argued in his book of ‘Principles of Penal Law’ that ‘punishment is unnecessary if the offence will not recur; punishment is only appropriate to dissuade others from behaving in the same way; punishment is, therefore, to protect society for the future.’

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The main issue of capital punishment in the modern day is whether the execution of criminals is ever justified and if so under what circumstances is it permissible? For my project I shall address the capital punishment from a Christian perspective, and I shall find and examine texts from the Bible with a conclusion of how Christians should view Capital punishment.

Christians often base their views on texts from the Bible and teachings from valued speakers and preachers with an authority background such as church priests and high valued figures such as the Pope. Although when basing views ...

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