Chapter Seven:
Capital Punishment
Review
Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings (10th ed.)
Julie C. Van Camp, Jeffrey Olen, Vincent Barry
Cengage Learning/Wadsworth
What are characteristics of
all forms of punishment?
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Must involve pain, harm, or another
unpleasant consequence
Must be administered for an offense
against a law or rule
Must be administered to someone who
has been judged guilty of an offense
Must be imposed by someone other than
the offender
Must be imposed by rightful authority
What are the aims of punishment?
Do these justify capital punishment?
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What is retribution?
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What is prevention of crime?
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people don’t commit crimes if they are in jail or
executed
What is deterrence of crime?
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“eye for an eye,” justice
discourage people from committing crimes
What is reform and rehabilitation?
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does this make sense for capital punishment?
Retentionist and abolitionist
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What is a retentionist?
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Someone who supports retaining or
reinstituting capital punishment
What is an abolitionist?
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Someone who opposes capital punishment
“Speech in Favor of Capital Punishment”
John Stuart Mill
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How does Mill support capital punishment?
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Why does he prefer capital punishment?
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Utilitarian argument in support of capital punishment
It is more humane than life in prison
How does he address the criticism that innocent
people might be executed?
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Well-run Courts of Justice address this criticism
“A Life for a Life”
Igor Primoratz
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Why does he use a retributive argument to justify capital
punishment?
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Are the consequences of capital punishment relevant?
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No. They are irrelevant for purpose of justification of capital
punishment
Does capital punishment meet the demand for
proportionality between the offense and the punishment?
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eye-for-an-eye: justice
Yes. This supports his defense of capital punishment
Does his argument justify using torture against a torturer?
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No. Torture is absolutely wrong morally
Torture is indecent, inhuman, degrading
“On Deterrence and the Death Penalty”
Ernest van den Haag
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How does he support the death penalty?
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Deterrence: psychological defense, even
without data, to justify the death penalty
Protection of society does not justify death
penalty
“Capital Punishment and
Social Defense”
Hugo Adam Bedau
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Why does he oppose the death penalty?
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Analogy with self-defense does not justify capital
punishment
Deterrence: no evidence that it deters murders
Moral principle: in the absence of data that capital
punishment deters, we should use the less severe
punishment