If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house, which he built, falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. If it kills the son of the owner, then the son of that builder shall be put to death.
Critics of classic lex talionis-oriented capital punishment point out several problems with this view. First, as a practical matter, lex talionis retribution cannot be uniformly applied to every harm committed. The second sentence in the above quote from the Law of Hammurabi shows the inherent absurdity of consistent application: "If it [i.e., a collapsed house] kills the son of the owner, then the son of the builder shall be put to death." Second, as a strict formula of retribution, lex talionis punishment may even be inadequate. For example, if a terrorist or mass murderer kills ten people, then taking his single life is technically not punishment in kind. Third, foundational beliefs in general have the unfortunate consequence of appearing arbitrary. If a belief in lex talionis retribution is foundational, then, by definition, it cannot be defended by appealing to a prior set of reasons. The arbitrary nature of this is particularly clear when we see that there is an alternative retributive view of punishment, which is equally foundational, yet which does not require capital punishment, namely lex salica retribution. Finally, critics of capital punishment argue that the true basis of retributive justifications of capital punishment is not at all foundational, but instead rooted in psychological feelings of vengeance. Even if we grant that vengeance is a natural human emotion, critics argue that it is an impulse, which should be tempered, just as we do natural feelings of fear, lust, and greed. Laws about punishment, then, should not be grounded in our extreme feelings, but should instead be based on our more tempered ones. When we moderate our natural feelings of vengeance, there should be little inclination to execute criminals. This argument is deontological and can be considered more by looking at the theory of biblical ethics.
The Deterrent argument presupposes that capital punishment deters. But even if we grant that, not everyone will admit that capital punishment is justifiable. Two main arguments stand in the way. First, one could adopt a hard pacifist stance, which condemns all killings. But we do not find this position acceptable, for we are then committed to the view that killing in defence and self-defence is always wrong, and this seems mistaken. To say that we cannot kill people to prevent them from killing others or ourselves requires us to regard our killing them as much worse than their killing us or those for whom we care, and there does not seem any reason to hold this. Second, one may argue that, just as disembowelling and then strangling persons with their own intestines cannot be justified, whatever the deterrent effect, neither can capital punishment be justified, because it is so intrinsically cruel that reasons of deterrence are never sufficient to justify it. We must concede that capital punishment is cruel, but it is not clear that it is so cruel that it cannot be justified whatever the deterrent effect may be. If the execution of the murderer would save the lives of a dozen innocent persons, could we still say that the process was so cruel that it was not justified? This argument is teleological and leads us on to the theory of utilitarianism: the greatest good for the greatest number.
The theory of biblical ethics comes from the bible and is of course from a religious perspective. It tells us what God requires us to do in a particular situation. For e.g.: Capital Punishment can only be carried out under extreme circumstances. We are aware of this because of the quotes in the bible regarding this issue. I.e.: “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:6) As it’s clear from this quote from the Old Testament, God has said that whoever kills a person then they should be killed as well. This quote preceded the Mosaic Law and was based on the dignity of man, i.e.: a man’s transcendent value. The life of man is to be protected, whether from animals or other men. Life is a direct from God, was divinely imparted, and divinely maintained. The importance of the life of man, made in God’s image, emphasizes the importance of protecting that life! Some would argue that capital punishment for a murderer "cheapens" human dignity. In reality, it accentuates human dignity! When one person murders another, he is murdering one made in God’s image. Some would argue this is a form of "Deicide" along with "homicide." Life is so valuable, that if you dare break the command of God regarding the sanctity of life, your own life would be required. This is the essence of Genesis. 9:6. However, King David wasn’t put to death for his capital crimes. David understood what justice demanded in this case: "As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die." (2 Sam 12:5.) If God chose to set aside punishment, that doesn't mean the punishment is unjust when it is executed. God was the one who required capital punishment in many instances.
In the New Testament, it says, “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.” Here it defines the purposes of governments, to protect the good, to punish evildoers: the bearing of the sword seems to validate that capital punishment was still the command. Though there are some that would argue that the sword is merely a symbol of authority, there is no scriptural warrant for that interpretation. He bears the sword – for a purpose. In Acts 25:11 “If then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.” This teaches us that some crimes are worthy of death and that governments may practice capital punishment. It also tells us that the guilty have no right to protest the death penalty as Paul says, "if I have committed a crime deserving of the death penalty then I will not fight it. But I have not and so I appeal to Caesar." Also In John 19:11, Jesus Christ illustrates that: He did not oppose capital punishment in his case, he did not oppose capital punishment in His teaching and he never said that the government has no right to exercise capital punishment.
Therefore, to summarize, Kaiser says, "It was because humans are made in the image of God that capital punishment for first degree murder became a perpetual obligation. To kill a person was tantamount to killing God in effigy. That murderer’s life was owed to God, not to society …” It is important to see that capital punishment for the crime of murder was commanded in Genesis 9, is practiced in the Old Testament, maintained in the New Testament, and was never rescinded. Thus, it is still compelling! It is also important to note that all human life taking was not wrong – e.g. besides capital punishment, wars may be justified (Genesis. 14, Josh. 6), as is self defence (Exodus. 22:2, Luke 22:36).
Jeremy Bentham, who also devised the principle of utility, devised the theory of utilitarianism. Bentham’s utilitarianism is called hedonic utilitarianism because he believed that all human beings pursued pleasure and sought to avoid pain. He saw this as a moral fact, as pleasure and pain identified what we should and shouldn’t do. As a hedonist, Bentham believed that pleasure was the sole good and pain the sole evil. He then developed the utility principle, whereby the rightness and wrongness of an action is determined by its utility or “usefulness.” Usefulness refers to the amount of pleasure or happiness caused by the action. He believed that “an action is right if it produces the greatest good for the greatest number”, where the greatest good is the greatest pleasure or happiness and the least pain, and the greatest number are the majority of people. Good is the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain. His theory ends by identifying those with the most pleasure and least pain. In order to establish which option measures the most pleasure and the least pain, he proposed the hedonic calculus. The hedonic calculus weighs up the pain and pleasure generated by the available moral actions to find the best option. It considers seven factors:
- Its intensity
- Its duration
- Its certainty or uncertainty
- Its remoteness
- Its fecundity
- Its purity
- Its extent
The balance of pleasures and pains is compared with those of other options and the best result determined. The action that leads to this best consequence is the morally correct one to pursue.
Mill maintained that the well being of the individual was of great importance and that happiness is most effectively gained when individuals are free to pursue their own ends, subject to rules that protect the common good of all. While Mill accepted the utility principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, he was concerned about the difficulty raised in the example of the sadistic guards, “sadistic guards torture a wrongly imprisoned innocent man.” If the greatest good for the greatest number were purely quantitative, based on the quantities of pleasure and pain caused, what would stop one person’s pleasure from being completely extinguished if the majority gained pleasure from that act? To address this difficulty, Mill focused on qualitative pleasures. He developed a system of higher and lower pleasures, preferring the higher pleasures to the lower ones: “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” (Mill, 1863, chapter 2).
Mill maintained that the pleasures of the mind were higher than those of the body. There’s a link between the two, as to be able to enjoy poetry or art, we need to eat and drink in order to survive. Nevertheless, Mill clearly believed that to pursue purely bodily pleasures- food, drink, drugs and sex- were not as high an objective as those that are intellectually demanding. When confronted with a choice between a pleasure of the body and a pleasure of the mind, that of the mind is to be preferred.
For the utilitarian all suffering is intrinsically evil. So if punishment involves suffering then punishment involves an evil. This is a strike against punishment for utilitarianism, and punishment would have to be outlawed if other reasons cannot be adduced in its favor. For utilitarianism, societies should punish criminals only if punishment is a cost-effective method of social control - of reducing or eliminating crime. Because punishment is a means of producing suffering, and suffering is bad, punishment can only be justified on utilitarian grounds if: a) the amount of suffering is outweighed by benefits to society; and b) that good cannot be produced in any other way which is more economical or does not involve suffering. If punishment will bring about more good than bad for society, and that good cannot be produced in any other more advantageous way, then it can be justified on utilitarian grounds. The utilitarian must look at punishment like we look at going to the dentist - it may hurt but ultimately it is good for us, and may prevent something which is even more unpleasant. Punishment will not be justified on utilitarian grounds if there is some other way of reducing or preventing crime which does not involve suffering. Since suffering is an intrinsic evil for utilitarianism, it must be eliminated whenever possible, and is not morally justified when its use does not result in more good than evil. For utilitarianism, the primary benefit of punishment is reducing crime and hence reducing the evil of suffering which is caused by crime.
Punishment can serve to reduce crime both by being a deterrent, and by making people who have already committed crimes incapable of committing future crimes. Criminals are prevented from committing further crimes through incarceration or even death. The death penalty is a unique means of guaranteeing that a convicted killer can never kill again. For utilitarianism, the primary benefit of punishment would be less crime, which increases happiness and decreases misery, and the main argument against it would be the suffering experienced by those who are punished.
To calculate the morality of punishment, the utilitarian needs to consider different kinds of punishment in relation to the same and different kinds of criminal action and then determine whether the overall balance of pleasure over pain is increased or decreased due to the kind of punishment considered. All pains are bad for utilitarianism, but some pains are worse than others, the greater the pain the worse it is morally.
For utilitarianism and capital punishment, a utilitarian would advocate the death penalty only if it is the least costly way of bringing about benefits to society which are greater than any harms to society which its use may cause. The death penalty also would not be valid for utilitarianism if there were another way of benefiting society which caused less suffering overall than whatever suffering may be caused by the death penalty.
Nevertheless, a utilitarian should decide whether capital punishment is right by:
1. Considering all the present and future consequences of the
practice of the death penalty – for the executed offenders, the
victims of crime, friends and families of both, and the rest of
society.
2. Considering each of the alternative modes of punishment
that might be imposed and the consequences of each were it
to be employed.
3. Deciding in favour of the death penalty rather than any
alternative only if, in light of all the facts, its practice would have the greatest balance of benefit over cost.
Both the theories that have been discussed earlier have strengths and weaknesses. With the biblical ethics theory, it clearly states that if a person has taken away another life then they deserve for their own life to be taken away, as a punishment for what they did. Therefore as in the Green Mile, the criminals that were guilty of their crimes deserved to be punished. Even though they may have sincerely regretted their actions (i.e.: One of the criminals just before he was about to be executed says to the guard “If you really think a man sincerely repents on what he done then can he go back to the time that was happiest for him?”) even so according to the bible, “an eye for an eye…” still stands and if a person can take away someone’s then life theirs should be taken away from them as well. If the death penalty were carried out for every criminal then the government would save money because they would not use it on the long-term imprisonment of criminals. This money that is saved can be used for the old and sick people. However, I don’t think the bible would quite agree if for example lets just say a man was caught stealing from a shop and because of this he is executed. The bible totally disagrees with this because firstly he has not taken away another persons life and secondly the death penalty is only allowed to be carried out under extreme circumstances. However it can be argued, on what is considered extreme and what is not in society. In the Green Mile, all the criminals who were executed part from John Coffee (who we know was innocent) committed crimes, which they were, deserved to be punished as one of them raped and murdered the girls. As I discussed earlier, about the bible stating “an eye for an eye..” execution is a very real punishment rather than some form of rehabilitative treatment as the criminal is made to suffer in proportion to the offence. The bible agrees with this because it states that capital punishment is allowed for first-degree murder. In the Green Mile, some of the prisoners were convicted of first degree murder just like Coffee, however he was wrongly convicted so it can be argued that even though the bible may think its ok, genuinely innocent people like Coffee will be executed and that there is no possible way of compensating them for this miscarriage of justice. Also another danger here is that it is highly probable that people are convicted of murder when they should really have only been convicted of manslaughter or not convicted at all, as in the case of the Green Mile. So, sometimes even the bible can be ignored because if like Coffee, people are executed for being innocent then that completely goes against bible in which a man’s life is not to be taken if he has not done anything wrong. In the Green Mile, towards the end of the film the guards realised that Coffee was innocent, they wanted to help him and they didn’t want him to go through with the execution. One of the guards says to him “ what do you want me to do? Do you want me to take you out of here, so you could run away and see how far you could get? Because on the day of judgement when I stand in front of God and when he asks me why I killed one of his true miracles, what am I going to say, that it was my job…?” So the guard knew it was wrong to go ahead with the execution knowing that he was innocent. But at the end he went along with what Coffee wished for. In the Green Mile it was not shown whether Coffee had family or not but imagine the suffering his family would have been going through in the time leading up to his execution, which would have caused them serious traumas for years afterwards. Also, it must be remembered that animals are real people too, who have a life and with it the capacity to feel pain, fear and the loss of their loved ones and all the other emotions that the rest of us are capable of feeling. This was strongly shown in the Green Mile because of the reactions of the criminals at the time leading up to their executions. Most of them were very scared, nervous, tears were in their eyes and you could tell that they regretted what they had done. All the executions that took place made me feel sorry for them all because I could not imagine the pain they must be going through and the mental torture they were put through before being executed. Another thing is that with the death penalty, it can go terribly wrong. In the Green Mile it was shown that one of the executions went terribly wrong that the face was set alight and burnt due to the sponge not being wet. By looking at this, it makes you think whether some criminals who committed less awful crimes really do need to be put through all that pain and suffering because two wrongs do not make a right now does it? The executions were really gruesome and terrifying.
Therefore to conclude, religious people support biblical ethics theory of capital punishment. Those who sincerely believe that a criminal who has committed a really bad crime truly deserves to be executed but it is more questionable in the case of less awful crimes. However, those who are not very religious and do not follow the bible I think it lies on the basis of their own personal opinion regarding capital punishment.
The theory of utilitarianism also has strengths and weaknesses. Utilitarianism exists in act and rule form. Act utilitarian’s maintain that, whenever possible, the principle of utility must be directly applied for each individual situation. When faced with a moral choice, I must decide what action will lead to the greatest good in this particular situation. For example if I’m in a situation where lying will create the greatest pleasure, then I should lie. According to act utilitarian’s, when determining whether the act is right, it is the value of the consequences of the particular act that count. I may break any law if, in that situation, greater happiness will result. Act utilitarianism has the benefit of flexibility, being able to take into account individual situations at a given moment, although the actions that is justifies can change. Therefore when applying this to capital punishment, each individual and his situation can be taken into account and whether they deserve to be executed. Relating this to the Green Mile, every prisoner shown in that film deserved to be executed apart from Coffee because he was truly innocent. But the problem with act utilitarianism is the fact that it has the potential to justify virtually any act if, in that case the result generates the most happiness. Also its impractical to suggest we should measure each and every moral choice every time, especially as we may not have all the information required by the hedonic calculus and also because it takes time and what if a criminal needs to be executed urgently as he is a real danger to the society than you can’t spend time thinking about your decision. Also, act utilitarianism can have some quite extreme results.
Rule utilitarianism focuses on general rules that everyone should follow to bring about the greatest good for that community. Rule utilitarianism establishes the best overall rule by determining the course of action which, when pursued by the whole community leads to the best result. In a particular situation, I must obey the rule even if it doesn’t lead to the greatest pleasure for me in this particular situation. For example, I should never lie because, as a general community rule, lying doesn’t bring about the greatest good for the community. The rule takes priority over my immediate situation. A weakness with act utilitarianism is that you have to stick with the rules and relating this to the Green Mile, the executions that took place in the film you could tell from the facial expressions of the guards while people were being executed that they knew it was harsh and severe but they still did it because it was their job. It was a rule by the state, which did not give them pleasure by looking at it. However with Coffee’s execution, it went ahead which showed that the guards believed in rule utilitarianism and so they followed the rules of the state, as they could not break the rule.
Jeremy Bentham’s theory has a number or clear benefits. It seems reasonable to link morality with the pursuit of happiness and the avoidance of pain and misery. Therefore linking this in with capital punishment Coffee’s execution according to this should never have gone ahead. It also seems natural to consider the consequences of our actions when deciding what to do. Utilitarianism offers a balanced, democratic morality that promotes general happiness. It is a commonsense system that’s practically applicable to real life situations. It has no need for special wisdom. Therefore utilitarianism can be applied to capital punishment to promote general happiness. So, for example in the Green Mile, those criminals that underwent execution, well most of the people would have been glad because if the state had said they were truly guilty of murders, rape etc then the people in the society would have trusted that decision, unless you were the family of the criminal that was being executed. Therefore, as it would have produced the greatest pleasure for most people in the society then the execution would be carried out. However there are a number of difficulties with utilitarianism, the first concerns all theories that rely on the consequences for deciding which actions are good. I need to be sure that what I think will come about as a result of a particular action will actually come about. Utilitarianism depends upon accurate predictions of the futures, but human beings don’t always play accurate foresights. The consequences of actions may not become apparent until years into the future and for capital punishment this will be too late because if the person being executed just like Coffee is innocent then there is nothing to bring him back alive. That is why humans need to play accurate foresights especially when making decisions about something so serious such as capital punishment and whether a person deserves to be punished by the death penalty. A second difficulty is found in measuring pleasure. The balancing process brought about using the seven criteria of the hedonic calculus appears straightforward. However can different pleasures and different pains be so easily quantified? Can I compare the pleasure of seeing children grow up into adults with the pleasure of eating a chocolate bar? How do I quantify those two pleasures? What about pain that’s good for you? When we hurt ourselves, the pain is a reminder that we have the injury and must take care of it. Some pain is good for us- its there for a reason, but can we say the same about capital punishment? Can we really say that a criminal deserves to go through all that pain and suffering especially if he truly repents for what he had done? John Coffee did not deserve to go through all that pain and suffering. A third difficulty concerns the issue of justice. While utilitarianism ensures a maximum-pleasure result, it doesn’t set out how that pleasure is distributed. It ensures that the most people receive pleasure, but it guarantees nothing for minorities for example the family of the person being executed. There’s nothing in utilitarianism that prevents the total sacrifice of one pleasure for the benefit of the whole. Maclyntyre notes that utilitarianism could justify horrendous acts as being for the pleasure of the many. I.e: Capital punishment. A fourth difficulty is utilitarianisms failure to consider different views on what happiness is. It asserts that there’s common agreement about what brings pleasure and what brings pain. This can be challenged on many levels. There are people who are different and find pleasure in experiencing pain, referring back to the Green Mile when the guard asked Coffee if he wanted to escape, he replied that he would not do a foolish thing and he wanted to get the execution over and done with because he was sick of life and sick of the amount of pain he saw in the world.
Therefore to conclude, the usefulness of the death penalty to society from a utilitarian perspective cannot be determined apart from a great deal of empirical data which we do not now have. Does it really act as a deterrent? Is it less costly than life in prison? Does it result in more happiness than unhappiness? . It might make society as a whole happier to know that a murderer can never again kill, and it may infact make the murderer himself less unhappy than life without parole.
