There are many views regarding the morality of capital punishment. These moral views are based on cultures, religions, personal ethics and standards. We will explore theories in regards to the death penalty from utilitarian, John Stuart Mill

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Paper #2

Ronnye, Cherell, Maria

Due: April 13, 2006

Moral or Immoral: The Death Penalty

The death penalty is often used as a form of justice for heinous crimes and it is one of the most controversial topics of discussion throughout the world.  It is a unique means of guaranteeing that a convicted killer can never kill again.  There are many views regarding the morality of capital punishment.  These moral views are based on cultures, religions, personal ethics and standards.  We will explore theories in regards to the death penalty from utilitarian, John Stuart Mill and retributivist Immanuel Kant.

Mill’s ethical views are based on the Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, which holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as the tend to produce the reverse of happiness.  Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends (RTD, pg 66).  The death penalty does not promote pleasure but invokes pain.  Since suffering is an intrinsic evil for utilitarianism, it must be eliminated whenever possible and is not morally justified when its use

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doesn’t result in more good than evil.  For utilitarianism, the primary benefit of punishment is reducing crime therefore, reducing the evil of suffering which is caused by crime.

Mill’s believes the death penalty is evil.  However, he will agree that the death penalty is justifiable.  It is justifiable because it deters further crime within society and sets an example for those that may contemplate committing future criminal acts.  Mill’s concludes that by putting a criminal to death it would cause him unhappiness, but not doing so would create even more unhappiness.  Therefore, in order to prevent greater ...

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