25th December 2013 A

Lev
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Ess
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Pun
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The question as to whether or not it is
morally acceptable for the state to
execute people, and if so under what
circumstances, has been debated for
centuries.

The ethical problems involved include

the general moral issues of punishment
with the added problem of whether it is
ever morally right to deprive a human
being of life.
This post highlights the different arguments for

and against capital punishment taken from various

resources.

Introduction to capital punishment

Capital punishment is the practice of

executing someone as punishment for
a specific crime after a proper legal
trial.

It can only be used by a state, so when

non-state organisations speak of
having 'executed' a person they have
actually committed a murder.

It is usually only used as a punishment

for particularly serious types of murder,
but in some countries treason, types of
fraud, adultery and rape are capital
crimes.

The phrase 'capital punishment' comes

from the Latin word for the head. A
'corporal' punishment, such as
flogging, takes its name from the Latin
word for the body.

Capital punishment is used in many

countries around the world. According
to Amnesty International as at May
2012, 141 countries have abolished the
death penalty either in law on in
practice. Source: Amnesty
[http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/DeathPenaltyFa
ctsMay2012.pdf]
In 2008, there was a growing
reluctance among those countries that
do retain the death penalty to use it in
practice. In 2008, only 25 out of 59
countries that retain the death penalty
carried out executions.
Amnesty International, March
2009

China executes the most people per

year overall, with an estimated figure
of 1,718 in 2008. Amnesty
International also states that in 2008
Iran executed at least 346 people, the
USA 111, Saudi Arabia 102 and
Pakistan 36.

Details of which countries are

abolitionist and which are retentionist
can be found on the Amnesty website.

In China, at least 1,718 people were

executed and at least 7,003 people
were known to have been sentenced to
death in 2008. These figures represent
minimum estimates - real figures are
undoubtedly higher. However, the
continued refusal by the Chinese
authorities to release public
information on the use of the death
penalty means that in China the death
penalty remains shrouded in secrecy.
Amnesty International, March
2009
There is now steadily increasing
support for abolishing capital
punishment.

On 18 December 2008, the United

Nations adopted resolution 63/168,
which is a reaffirmation of its call for a
moratorium on the use of the death
penalty (62/149) passed in December
the previous year. The resolution calls
for states to freeze executions with a
view to eventual abolition.

The World Coalition against the Death

Penalty was created in Rome in 2002,
and 10th October 2006 was World Day
against the Death Penalty.

Arguments in favour of capital

punishment

Retribution

First a reminder of the basic argument

behind retribution and punishment:

all guilty people deserve to be

punished

only guilty people deserve to be

punished

guilty people deserve to be punished

in proportion to the severity of their
crime
This argument states that real justice
requires people to suffer for their
wrongdoing, and to suffer in a way
appropriate for the crime. Each
criminal should get what their crime
deserves and in the case of a murderer
what their crime deserves is death.

The measure of punishment in a given

case must depend upon the atrocity of
the crime, the conduct of the criminal
and the defenceless and unprotected
state of the victim.
Imposition of appropriate punishment
is the manner in which the courts
respond to the society's cry for justice
against the criminals.
Justice demands that courts should
impose punishment befitting the crime
so that the courts reflect public
abhorrence of the crime.
Justices A.S. Anand and N.P. Singh,
Supreme Court of India, in the case
of Dhananjoy Chatterjee
Many people find that this argument
fits with their inherent sense of justice.

It's often supported with the argument

"An eye for an eye". But to argue like
that demonstrates a complete
misunderstanding of what that Old
Testament phrase actually means. In
fact the Old Testament meaning of "an
eye for an eye" is that only the guilty
should be punished, and they should
punished neither too leniently or too
severely.

The arguments against retribution

Capital punishment
is vengeance rather than retribution
and, as such, is a morally dubious
concept
The anticipatory suffering of the
criminal, who may be kept on death
row for many years, makes the
punishment more severe than just
depriving the criminal of life

That's certainly true in the USA, but

delay is not an inherent feature of
capital punishment; some countries
execute people within days of
sentencing them to death
Some people are prepared to argue
against retribution
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/a
gainst_1.shtml#h4] as a concept, even
when applied fairly.

Deterrence

Capital punishment is often justified

with the argument that by executing
convicted murderers, we will deter
would-be murderers from killing
people.
The arguments against deterrence

The statistical evidence doesn't

confirm that deterrence works (but it
doesn't show that deterrence doesn't
work either)

Some of those executed may not

have been capable of being deterred
because of mental illness or defect
Some capital crimes are committed in
such an emotional state that the
perpetrator did not think about the
possible consequences

No-one knows whether the death

penalty deters more than life
imprisonment
Deterrence is most effective when the
punishment happens soon after the
crime - to make an analogy, a child
learns not to put their finger in the fire,
because the consequence is instant
pain.

The more the legal process distances

the punishment from the crime - either
in time, or certainty - the less effective
a deterrent the punishment will
probably be.

Cardinal Avery Dulles has pointed out

another problem with the deterrence
argument.

Executions, especially where they are

painful, humiliating, and public, may
create a sense of horror that would
prevent others from being tempted to
commit similar crimes...
...In our day death is usually
administered in private by relatively
painless means, such as injections of
drugs, and to that extent it may be
less effective as a deterrent.
Sociological evidence on the deterrent
effect of the death penalty as currently
practiced is ambiguous, conflicting, and
far from probative.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, Catholicism
and Capital Punishment, First
Things 2001
Some proponents of capital
punishment argue that capital
punishment is beneficial even if it has
no deterrent effect.

If we execute murderers and there is in

fact no deterrent effect, we have killed
a bunch of murderers. If we fail to
execute murderers, and doing so would
in fact have deterred other murders,
we have allowed the killing of a bunch
of innocent victims. I would much
rather risk the former. This, to me, is
not a tough call.
John McAdams: Marquette
University, Department of Political
Science
Rehabilitation

Of course capital punishment doesn't

rehabilitate the prisoner and return
them to society. But there are many
examples of persons condemned to
death taking the opportunity of the
time before execution to repent,
express remorse, and very often
experience profound spiritual
rehabilitation.

Thomas Aquinas noted that by

accepting the punishment of death, the
offender was able to expiate his evil
deeds and so escape punishment in the
next life.

This is not an argument in favour of

capital punishment, but it
demonstrates that the death penalty
can lead to some forms of
rehabilitation.

Prevention of re-offending

It is undeniable that those who are

executed cannot commit further
crimes.

Many people don't think that this is

sufficient justification for taking human
life, and argue that there are other
ways to ensure the offenders do not
re-offend, such as imprisonment for life
without possibility of parole.

Although there have been cases of

persons escaping from prison and
killing again, these are extremely rare.

But some people don't believe that life

imprisonment without parole protects
society adequately. The offender may
no longer be a danger to the public,
but he remains a danger to prison staff
and other inmates. Execution would
remove that danger.

Closure and vindication

It is often argued that the death

penalty provides closure for victims'
families.

This is a rather flimsy argument,

because every family reacts differently.
As some families do not feel that
another death will provide closure, the
argument doesn't provide a
justification for capital punishment as a
whole.

Incentive to help police

Plea bargaining is used in most

countries. It's the process through
which a criminal gets a reduced
sentence in exchange for providing
help to the police.
Where the possible sentence is death,
the prisoner has the strongest possible
incentive to try to get their sentence
reduced, even to life imprisonment
without possibility of parole, and it's
argued that capital punishment
therefore gives a useful tool to the
police.

This is a very feeble justification for

capital punishment, and is rather
similar to arguments that torture
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/torture/] is
justified because it would be a useful
police tool.

A Japanese argument

This is a rather quirky argument, and

not normally put forward.

Japan uses the death penalty sparingly,

executing approximately 3 prisoners
per year.

A unique justification for keeping

capital punishment has been put
forward by some Japanese
psychologists who argue that it has an
important psychological part to play in
the life of the Japanese, who live under
severe stress and pressure in the
workplace.

The argument goes that the death

penalty reinforces the belief that bad
things happen to those who deserve it.
This reinforces the contrary belief; that
good things will happen to those who
are 'good'.

In this way, the existence of capital

punishment provides a psychological
release from conformity and overwork
by reinforcing the hope that there will
be a reward in due time.

Oddly, this argument seems to be

backed up by Japanese public opinion.
Those who are in favour currently
comprise 81% of the population, or
that is the official statistic. Nonetheless
there is also a small but increasingly
vociferous abolitionist movement in
Japan.

From an ethical point of view this is the

totally consequentialist
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/conseq
uentialism_1.shtml] argument that if
executing a few people will lead to an
aggregate increase in happiness then
that is a good thing.

Arguments against capital

punishment

Value of human life

Everyone thinks human life is valuable.
Some of those against capital
punishment believe that human life is
so valuable that even the worst
murderers should not be deprived of
the value of their lives.

They believe that the value of the

offender's life cannot be destroyed by
the offender's bad conduct - even if
they have killed someone.

Some abolitionists don't go that far.

They say that life should be preserved
unless there is a very good reason not
to, and that the those who are in
favour of capital punishment are the
ones who have to justify their position.

Right to live

Everyone has an inalienable human

right to life, even those who commit
murder; sentencing a person to death
and executing them violates that right.

This is very similar to the 'value of life'

argument, but approached from the
perspective of human rights.

The counter-argument is that a person

can, by their actions, forfeit human
rights, and that murderers forfeit their
right to life.

Another example will make this clear -

a person forfeits their right to life if
they start a murderous attack and the
only way the victim can save their own
life is by killing the attacker.

The medieval philosopher and

theologian Thomas Aquinas made this
point very clearly:

Therefore if any man is dangerous to

the community and is subverting it by
some sin, the treatment to be
commended is his execution in order to
preserve the common good...
Therefore to kill a man who retains his
natural worthiness is intrinsically evil,
although it may be justifiable to kill a
sinner just as it is to kill a beast, for, as
Aristotle points out, an evil man is
worse than a beast and more harmful.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa
theologiae
Aquinas is saying that certain contexts
change a bad act (killing) into a good
act (killing to repair the violation of
justice done by the person killed, and
killing a person who has forfeited their
natural worthiness by killing).

Execution of the innocent

The most common and most cogent

argument against capital punishment is
that sooner or later, innocent people
will get killed, because of mistakes or
flaws in the justice system.

Witnesses, (where they are part of the

process), prosecutors and jurors can all
make mistakes. When this is coupled
with flaws in the system it is inevitable
that innocent people will be convicted
of crimes. Where capital punishment is
used such mistakes cannot be put
right.

The death penalty legitimizes an

irreversible act of violence by the state
and will inevitably claim innocent
victims. As long as human justice
remains fallible, the risk of executing
the innocent can never be eliminated
Amnesty International
There is ample evidence that such
mistakes are possible: in the USA, 130
people sentenced to death have been
found innocent since 1973 and
released from death row. Source:
Amnesty
[http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/DeathPenaltyFa
ctsMay2012.pdf]

The average time on death row before

these exonerations was 11
years. Source: Death Penalty Information
Center
[http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-
leading-researchers-release-report-and-national-
registry-exonerations-us]

Things were made worse in the USA

when the Supreme Court refused to
hold explicitly that the execution of a
defendant in the face of significant
evidence of innocence would be
unconstitutional [Herrera v. Collins,
560 U.S. 390 (1993)]. However many
US lawyers believe that in practice the
court would not permit an execution in
a case demonstrating persuasive
evidence of "actual innocence".

The continuous threat of execution

makes the ordeal of those wrongly
convicted particularly horrible.

Retribution is wrong

Many people believe that retribution

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/f
or_1.shtml] is morally flawed and
problematic in concept and practice.

We cannot teach that killing is wrong

by killing.
U.S. Catholic Conference
To take a life when a life has been lost
is revenge, it is not justice.
Attributed to Archbishop Desmond
Tutu
Vengeance

The main argument that retribution is

immoral is that it is just a sanitised
form of vengeance. Scenes of howling
mobs attacking prison vans containing
those accused of murder on their way
to and from court, or chanting
aggressively outside prisons when an
offender is being executed, suggest
that vengeance remains a major
ingredient in the public popularity of
capital punishment.

But just retribution, designed to re-

establish justice, can easily be
distinguished from vengeance and
vindictiveness.

In any case, is vengeance necessarily a

bad thing?

The Victorian legal philosopher James

Fitzjames Stephens thought vengeance
was an acceptable justification for
punishment. Punishment, he thought,
should be inflicted:

for the sake of ratifying the feeling of

hatred-call it revenge, resentment, or
what you will-which the contemplation
of such [offensive] conduct excites in
healthily constituted minds.
Sir James Fitzjames Stephens,
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
Retribution and the innocent

But the issue of the execution of

innocent persons is also a problem for
the retribution argument - if there is a
serious risk of executing the innocent
then one of the key principles of
retribution - that people should get
what they deserve (and
therefore only what they deserve) - is
violated by the current implementation
of capital punishment in the USA, and
any other country where errors have
taken place.

Uniqueness of the death penalty

It's argued that retribution is used in a

unique way in the case of the death
penalty. Crimes other than murder do
not receive a punishment that mimics
the crime - for example rapists are not
punished by sexual assault, and people
guilty of assault are not ceremonially
beaten up.

Camus and Dostoevsky argued that the

retribution in the case of the death
penalty was not fair, because the
anticipatory suffering of the criminal
before execution would probably
outweigh the anticipatory suffering of
the victim of their crime.

Others argue that the retribution

argument is flawed because the death
penalty delivers a 'double punishment';
that of the execution and the preceding
wait, and this is a mismatch to the
crime.

Many offenders are kept 'waiting' on

death row for a very long time; in the
USA the average wait is 10
years. Source: Death Penalty Information
Center [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/time-
death-row]

In Japan, the accused are only

informed of their execution moments
before it is scheduled. The result of this
is that each day of their life is lived as
if it was their last.

Capital punishment is not operated

retributively

Some lawyers argue that capital

punishment is not really used as
retribution for murder, or even
consistently for a particular kind of
murder.

They argue that, in the USA at least,

only a small minority of murderers are
actually executed, and that imposition
of capital punishment on a
"capriciously selected random handful"
of offenders does not amount to a
consistent programme of retribution.

Since capital punishment is not

operated retributively, it is
inappropriate to use retribution to
justify capital punishment.

This argument would have no value in

a society that applied the death
penalty consistently for particular types
of murder.

Capital punishment is not

retribution enough
Some people who believe in the notion
of retribution are against capital
punishment because they feel the
death penalty provides insufficient
retribution. They argue that life
imprisonment without possibility of
parole causes much more suffering to
the offender than a painless death
after a short period of imprisonment.

Another example is the planner of a

suicide bombing - execution might
make that person a martyr, and
therefore would be a lesser retribution
than life imprisonment.

Failure to deter

The death penalty doesn't seem to

deter people from committing serious
violent crimes. The thing that deters is
the likelihood of being caught and
punished.

The general consensus among social

scientists is that the deterrent effect of
the death penalty is at best unproven.

In 1988 a survey was conducted for

the UN to determine the relation
between the death penalty and
homicide rates. This was then updated
in 1996. It concluded:

...research has failed to provide

scientific proof that executions have a
greater deterrent effect than life
imprisonment. Such proof is unlikely to
be forthcoming. The evidence as a
whole still gives no positive support to
the deterrent hypothesis.
The key to real and true deterrence is
to increase the likelihood of detection,
arrest and conviction.
The death penalty is a harsh
punishment, but it is not harsh on
crime.
Amnesty International
NB: It's actually impossible to test the
deterrent effect of a punishment in a
rigorous way, as to do so would require
knowing how many murders would
have been committed in a particular
state if the law had been different
during the same time period.

Deterrence is a morally flawed

concept

Even if capital punishment did act as a

deterrent, is it acceptable for someone
to pay for the predicted future crimes
of others?

Some people argue that one may as

well punish innocent people; it will
have the same effect.

This isn't true - if people are randomly

picked up off the street and punished
as scapegoats the only consequence is
likely to be that the public will be
frightened to go out.

To make a scapegoat scheme effective

it would be necessary to go through
the appearance of a legitimate legal
process and to present evidence which
convinced the public that the person
being punished deserved their
punishment.

While some societies have operated

their legal systems on the basis of
fictional evidence and confessions
extracted by torture, the ethical
objections to such a system are
sufficient to render the argument in the
second paragraph pointless.

Brutalising society

Brutalising individuals

Statistics show that the death penalty

leads to a brutalisation of society and
an increase in murder rate. In the USA,
more murders take place in states
where capital punishment is allowed.
In 2010, the murder rate in states
where the death penalty has been
abolished was 4.01 per cent per
100,000 people. In states where the
death penalty is used, the figure was
5.00 per cent. These calculations are
based on figures from the FBI. The gap
between death penalty states and non-
death penalty states rose considerably
from 4 per cent difference in 1990 to
25 per cent in 2010. Source: FBI
Uniform Crime Report, from Death
Penalty Information Center
[http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-
states-without-death-penalty-have-had-
consistently-lower-murder-rates]

Disturbed individuals may be angered

and thus more likely to commit murder.

It is also linked to increased number of

police officers murdered.

Brutalising the state

Capital punishment may brutalise

society in a different and even more
fundamental way, one that has
implications for the state's relationship
with all citizens.

...the state's power deliberately to

destroy innocuous (though guilty) life
is a manifestation of the hidden wish
that the state be allowed to do
anything it pleases with life.
George Kateb, The Inner Ocean
1992
Brutalising the law

Capital punishment is said to produce

an unacceptable link between the law
and violence.

But in many ways the law is inevitably

linked with violence - it punishes
violent crimes, and it uses
punishments that 'violently' restrict
human freedoms. And philosophically
the law is always involved with violence
in that its function includes preserving
an ordered society from violent events.

Nonetheless, a strong case can be

made that legal violence is clearly
different from criminal violence, and
that when it is used, it is used in a way
that everyone can see is fair and
logical.

Capital punishment 'lowers the

tone' of society

Civilised societies do not tolerate

torture, even if it can be shown that
torture may deter, or produce other
good effects.

In the same way many people feel that

the death penalty is an inappropriate
for a modern civilised society to
respond to even the most dreadful
crimes.

The murder that is depicted as a

horrible crime is repeated in cold
blood, remorselessly
Beccaria, C. de, Trait des Dlits et
des Peines, 1764
Because most countries - but not all -
do not execute people publicly, capital
punishment is not a degrading public
spectacle. But it is still a media circus,
receiving great publicity, so that the
public are well aware of what is being
done on their behalf.

However this media circus takes over

the spectacle of public execution in
teaching the public lessons about
justice, retribution, and personal
responsibility for one's own actions.

Expense

In the USA capital punishment costs a

great deal.

For example, the cost of convicting

and executing Timothy McVeigh
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1384
129.stm] for the Oklahoma City Bombing
was over $13 million.

In New York and New Jersey, the high

costs of capital punishment were one
factor in those states' decisions to
abandon the death penalty. New York
spent about $170 million over 9 years
and had no executions. New Jersey
spent $253 million over a 25-year
period and also had no
executions.Source: Death Penalty
Information Center
[http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-
penalty]

In countries with a less costly and

lengthy appeals procedure, capital
punishment seems like a much cheaper
option than long-term imprisonment.

Counter-arguments

Those in favour of capital punishment

counter with these two arguments:

It is a fallacy that capital punishment

costs more than life without parole
Justice cannot be thought of in
financial terms

People not responsible for their

acts

This is not an argument against capital

punishment itself, but against applying
it wrongly.

Some countries, including the USA,

have executed people proven to be
insane.

It's generally accepted that people

should not be punished for their
actions unless they have a guilty mind
- which requires them to know what
they are doing and that it's wrong.

Therefore people who are insane

should not be convicted, let alone
executed. This doesn't prevent insane
people who have done terrible things
being confined in secure mental
institutions, but this is done for public
safety, not to punish the insane
person.

To put it more formally: it is wrong to

impose capital punishment on those
who have at best a marginal capacity
for deliberation and for moral agency.

A more difficult moral problem arises in

the case of offenders who were sane at
the time of their crime and trial but
who develop signs of insanity before
execution.

Applied unfairly

There has been much concern in the

USA that flaws in the judicial system
make capital punishment unfair.

One US Supreme Court Justice (who

had originally supported the death
penalty) eventually came to the
conclusion that capital punishment was
bound to damage the cause of justice:

The death penalty remains fraught with

arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice,
and mistake ... Experience has taught
us that the constitutional goal of
eliminating arbitrariness and
discrimination from the administration
of death ... can never be achieved
without compromising an equally
essential component of fundamental
fairness - individualized sentencing.
Justice Harry Blackmun, United
States Supreme Court, 1994
Jurors

Jurors in many US death penalty cases

must be 'death eligible'. This means
the prospective juror must be willing to
convict the accused knowing that a
sentence of death is a possibility.

This results in a jury biased in favour

of the death penalty, since no one who
opposes the death penalty is likely to
be accepted as a juror.

Lawyers

There's much concern in the USA that

the legal system doesn't always
provide poor accused people with good
lawyers.

Out of all offenders who are sentenced

to death, three quarters of those who
are allocated a legal aid lawyer can
expect execution, a figure that drops to
a quarter if the defendant could afford
to pay for a lawyer.

Cruel, inhumane, degrading

Regardless of the moral status of

capital punishment, some argue that
all ways of executing people cause so
much suffering to the condemned
person that they amount to torture and
are wrong.
Many methods of execution are quite
obviously likely to cause enormous
suffering, such as execution by lethal
gas, electrocution or strangulation.

Other methods have been abandoned

because they were thought to be
barbaric, or because they forced the
executioner to be too 'hands-on'.
These include firing squads and
beheading.

Lethal injection

Many countries that use capital

punishment have now adopted lethal
injection, because it's thought to be
less cruel for the offender and less
brutalising for the executioner.

Those against capital punishment

believe this method has serious moral
flaws and should be abandoned.

The first flaw is that it requires medical

personnel being directly involved in
killing (rather than just checking that
the execution has terminated life). This
is a fundamental contravention of
medical ethics.

The second flaw is that research in

April 2005 showed that lethal injection
is not nearly as 'humane' as had been
thought. Post mortem findings
indicated that levels of anaesthetic
found in offenders were consistent with
wakefulness and the ability to
experience pain.

Unnecessary

This is really more of a political

argument than an ethical one. It's
based on the political principle that a
state should fulfil its obligations in the
least invasive, harmful and restrictive
way possible.

The state does have an obligation to

punish crime, as a means to preserve
an orderly and contented society, but
it should do so in the least harmful
way possible

Capital punishment is the most

harmful punishment available, so the
state should only use it if no less
harmful punishment is suitable
Other punishments will always enable
the state to fulfil its objective of
punishing crime appropriately

Therefore the state should not use

capital punishment
Most people will not want to argue with
clauses 1 and 2, so this structure does
have the benefit of focussing attention
on the real point of contention - the
usefulness of non-capital punishments
in the case of murder.
One way of settling the issue is to see
whether states that don't use capital
punishment have been able to find
other punishments that enable the
state to punish murderers in such a
ways as to preserve an orderly and
contented society. If such states exist
then capital punishment is unnecessary
and should be abolished as overly
harmful.

Free will

The idea that we must be punished for

any act of wrongdoing, whatever its
nature, relies upon a belief in human
free will and a person's ability to be
responsible for their own actions.

If one does not believe in free will, the

question of whether it is moral to carry
out any kind of punishment (and
conversely reward) arises.

Arthur Koestler and Clarence Darrow

argued that human beings never act
freely and thus should not be punished
for even the most horrific crimes.

The latter went on to argue for the

abolition of punishment altogether, an
idea which most people would find
problematic.

Religion
Buddhism and capital punishment

Because Buddhism exists in many

forms, under many organisations,
there is no unified Buddhist policy on
capital punishment.

In terms of doctrine the death penalty

is clearly inconsistent with Buddhist
teaching. Buddhists place great
emphasis on non-violence and
compassion for all life. The First
Precept requires individuals to abstain
from injuring or killing any living
creature.

The Buddha did not explicitly speak

about capital punishment, but his
teachings show no sympathy for
physical punishment, no matter how
bad the crime.

An action, even if it brings benefit to

oneself, cannot be considered a good
action if it causes physical and mental
pain to another being.
The Buddha
If a person foolishly does me wrong, I
will return to him the protection of my
boundless love. The more evil that
comes from him, the more good will go
from me.
The Buddha
Buddhism and punishment

Buddhism believes fundamentally in

the cycle of birth and re-birth
(Samsara) and teaches that if capital
punishment is administered it will have
compromising effects on the souls of
both offender and the punisher in
future incarnations.

As far as punishment in this world is

concerned, Buddhism has strong
views:

inhumane treatment of an offender

does not solve their misdeeds or
those of humanity in general - the
best approach to an offender is
reformatory rather than punitive

punishment should only be to the

extent to which the offender needs to
make amends, and his rehabilitation
into society should be of paramount
importance

punishing an offender with excessive

cruelty will injure not just the
offender's mind, but also the mind of
the person doing the punishing
it is impossible to administer severe
punishment with composure and
compassion

if the crime is particularly serious, the

person may be banished from the
community or country
Buddhist countries and capital
punishment

Despite these teachings several

countries with substantial Buddhist
populations retain the death penalty,
and some of them, for example
Thailand, continue to use it.

These are no states that have

Buddhism as their official religion.

Alarid and Wang (see below) suggest

that this apparent paradox partly
stems from the difference between
popular and monastic Buddhism. The
majority of lay Buddhists in these
countries follow Buddhist practices and
are entirely sincere in their
commitment, but "the genuine study of
Buddhism, its rituals, and carryover to
daily life is superficial for most
Buddhist followers."

Other reasons Buddhist countries

retain the death penalty are:

belief by politicians that capital

punishment is necessary for
retribution, cultural customs, or for
deterrence value

a long tradition of capital punishment

in a particular country
keeping order in society is seen as
more important than Buddha's
teaching
 reaction to long periods of political
unrest or economic instability
Reference: Material in this sub-section
is largely taken fromMercy and
Punishment: Buddhism and the Death
Penalty; Alarid and Wang

Hinduism and capital punishment

An eye for an eye ends up making the

whole world blind
Gandhi
There is no official Hindu line on capital
punishment
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/]
. However, Hinduism opposes killing,
violence and revenge, in line with the
principle of ahimsa (non-violence).

India still retains the death penalty,

and the reasons for this are likely to be
similar to be those suggested in the
Buddhist section.

The debate on capital punishment in

India
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/258
6611.stm] was revived in 2004 by the
case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee who had
been sentenced for rape and murder.

At present more than 100 people are

on death row in India, although the
number of executions in that country is
actually very low and the Indian
Supreme Court has ruled that the
death penalty should only be used in
the rarest of rare cases.

Judaism and capital punishment

Anyone reading the Old Testament list

of 36 capital crimes might think that
Judaism is in favour of capital
punishment, but they'd be wrong.
During the period when Jewish law
operated as a secular as well as a
religious jurisdiction, Jewish courts
very rarely imposed the death penalty.
The state of Israel has abolished the
death penalty for any crime that is now
likely to be tried there.

The classic Old Testament texts quoted

to justify capital punishment are these:

... life for life, eye for eye, tooth for

tooth ...
Exodus 21:23-24
A man who spills human blood, his own
blood shall be spilled by man because
God made man in His own Image.
Genesis 9:6
Although they seem clear these texts
are commonly misunderstood.

To really understand Jewish law one

must not only read the Torah but
consult the Talmud, an elaboration and
interpretation by rabbinical scholars of
the laws and commandments of the
Torah.
The rabbis who wrote the Talmud
created such a forest of barriers to
actually using the death penalty that in
practical terms it was almost
impossible to punish anyone by death.

The rabbis did this with various

devices:

interpreting texts in the context of

Judaism's general respect for the
sanctity of human life

emphasising anti-death texts such as

the commandment 'Thou shalt not
kill'

interpreting texts to make them very

narrow in their application
refusing to accept any but the most
explicit Torah texts proposing the
death penalty

finding alternative punishments, or

schemes of compensation for victims'
families
imposing procedural and evidential
barriers that made the death penalty
practically unenforceable
The result of this is that there are very
few examples of people being executed
by Jewish law in rabbinic times.

Israel

In 1954, Israel abolished capital

punishment except for those who
committed Nazi war crimes.

In the 54 years that Israel has existed

as an independent state, only one
person has been executed. This person
was Adolf Eichman, a Nazi war criminal
with particular responsibility for the
Holocaust.

Christianity

Introduction

Christians argue both for and against

the death penalty using secular
arguments (see Ethics: Capital
punishment
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/]
), but like other religious people they
often make an additional case based
on the tenets of their faith.

For much of history, the Christian

Churches accepted that capital
punishment was a necessary part of
the mechanisms of society.

Pope Innocent III, for example, put

forward the proposition: "The secular
power can, without mortal sin, exercise
judgment of blood, provided that it
punishes with justice, not out of
hatred, with prudence, not
precipitation."

The Roman Catechism, issued in 1566,

stated that the power of life and death
had been entrusted by God to the civil
authorities. The use of this power did
not embody the act of murder, but
rather a supreme obedience to God's
commandments.

In the high Middle Ages and later, the

Holy See authorized that heretics be
turned over to the secular authorities
for execution.

The law of Vatican City from 1929 to

1969 included the death penalty for
anyone who tried to assassinate the
Pope.

Research done in the 1990s in the USA

found that Protestants (who interpret
the Bible to be the literal word of God)
were more likely to be in favour of the
death penalty than members of other
religious factions and denominations.

In favour of the death penalty

It's in the Bible

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by

man shall his blood be shed
Genesis 9:6
Old Testament

The death penalty is consistent with

Old Testament Biblical teaching, and
suggests that God created the death
penalty.
In total, the Old Testament specifies 36
capital offences including crimes such
as idolatry, magic and blasphemy, as
well as murder.

But many Christians don't think that is

a convincing argument - they say that
there are 35 capital offences, in
addition to murder, described in the
Old Testament. As these are no longer
capital offences, Christians say it is
inconsistent to preserve murder alone
as a capital crime.

New Testament

The New Testament embodies what

must be the most famous execution in
history, that of Jesus on the cross. But
paradoxically, although the tone of the
whole of the New Testament is one of
forgiveness, it seems to take the right
of the state to execute offenders for
granted.

In Matthew 7:2 we read "Whatever

measure you deal out to others will
be dealt back to you", though this is
unspecific as to whether it is God who
is doing the dealing, or the state.

In Matthew 15:4 Jesus says "He who

speaks evil of father or mother, let
him surely die".
Despite the fact that Jesus himself
refrains from using violence, he at no
 point denies the state's authority to
exact capital punishment.

At the moment that Pilate has to

decide whether or not to crucify
Jesus, Jesus tells him that the power
to make this decision has been given
to him by God. (John 19:11).
Paul has an apparent reference to the
death penalty, when he writes that
the magistrate who holds authority
"does not bear the sword in vain; for
he is the servant of God to execute
His wrath on the wrongdoer"
(Romans 13:4).

Capital punishment affirms the

commandment that 'thou shalt not
kill' by affirming the seriousness of
the crime of murder.
This argument is based on interpreting
the commandment as meaning "thou
shalt not murder", but some Christians
argue that the 'Thou shalt not kill'
commandment is an absolute
prohibition on killing.

God authorises the death penalty

Christians who support the death

penalty often do so on the ground that
the state acts not on its own authority
but as the agent of God, who does
have legal power over life and death.
This argument is well expressed by St
Augustine, who wrote:

The same divine law which forbids the

killing of a human being allows certain
exceptions, as when God authorises
killing by a general law or when He
gives an explicit commission to an
individual for a limited time.
Since the agent of authority is but a
sword in the hand, and is not
responsible for the killing, it is in no
way contrary to the commandment,
'Thou shalt not kill' to wage war at
God's bidding, or for the
representatives of the State's authority
to put criminals to death, according to
law or the rule of rational justice.
Augustine, The City of God
Capital punishment is like suicide

This argument is that the criminal, by

choosing to commit a particular crime
has also chosen to surrender his life to
the state if caught.

Even when there is question of the

execution of a condemned man, the
State does not dispose of the
individual's right to life. In this case it
is reserved to the public power to
deprive the condemned person of the
enjoyment of life in expiation of his
crime when, by his crime, he has
already dispossessed himself of his
right to life.
Pope Pius XII

Against the death penalty

Only God should create and

destroy life

This argument is used to oppose

abortion and euthanasia as well.

Many Christians believe that God

commanded "Thou shalt not kill"
(Exodus 21:13), and that this is a clear
instruction with no exceptions.

St. Augustine didn't agree, and wrote

in The City of God:

The same divine law which forbids the

killing of a human being allows certain
exceptions, as when God authorizes
killing by a general law or when He
gives an explicit commission to an
individual for a limited time.
Since the agent of authority is but a
sword in the hand, and is not
responsible for the killing, it is in no
way contrary to the commandment,
"Thou shalt not kill" to wage war at
God's bidding, or for the
representatives of the State's authority
to put criminals to death, according to
law or the rule of rational justice.
St Augustine, The City of God
But a modern Franciscan writer says
there should be no exceptions to "thou
shalt not kill".

In light of the word of God, and thus of

faith, life--all human life--is sacred and
untouchable. No matter how heinous
the crimes ... [the criminal] does not
lose his fundamental right to life, for it
is primordial, inviolable, and
inalienable, and thus comes under the
power of no one whatsoever.
Father Gino Concetti,
L'Osservatore Romano, 1977
The Bible teaching is inconsistent

The Bible speaks in favour of the death

penalty for murder. But it also
prescribes it for 35 other crimes that
we no longer regard as deserving the
death penalty. In order to be
consistent, humanity should remove
the death penalty for murder.

Secondly, modern society has

alternative punishments available
which were not used in Biblical times,
and these make the death penalty
unnecessary.

Christianity is based on
forgiveness and compassion

Capital punishment is incompatible

with a teaching that emphasises
forgiveness and compassion.

Capital punishment is biased

against the poor

Some Christians argue that in many

countries the imposition of the death
penalty is biased against the poor.
Since Christian teaching is to support
the poor, Christians should not support
the death penalty.

Abolition is in line with support for

life

Capital punishment is inconsistent with

the general Christian stand that life
should always be supported. This stand
is most often taught in issues such as
abortion and euthanasia, but
consistency requires Christians to
apply it across the board.

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church and capital

punishment

Throughout the first half of the

twentieth century the consensus
amongst Catholic theologians remained
in favour of capital punishment in
those cases deemed suitably extreme.
Until 1969, the Vatican had a penal
code that included the death penalty
for anyone who attempted to
assassinate the Pope.

However, by the end of this century

opinions were changing. In 1980, the
National Conference of Catholic
Bishops published an almost entirely
negative statement on capital
punishment, approved by a majority
vote of those present, though not by
the required two-thirds majority of the
entire conference.

In 1997 the Vatican announced

changes to the Catechism, thus making
it more in line with John Paul II's 1995
encyclical The Gospel of Life. The
amendments include the following
statement concerning capital
punishment:

Assuming that the guilty party's

identity and responsibility have been
fully determined, the traditional
teaching of the Church does not
exclude recourse to the death penalty,
if this is the only possible way of
effectively defending human lives
against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are
sufficient to defend and protect
people's safety from the aggressor,
authority will limit itself to such means,
as these are more in keeping with the
concrete conditions of the common
good and more in conformity with the
dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the
possibilities which the state has for
effectively preventing crime, by
rendering one who has committed an
offence incapable of doing harm--
without definitively taking away from
him the possibility of redeeming
himself--the cases in which the
execution of the offender is an absolute
necessity are rare, if not practically
non-existent.
Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of
Life

Islam
Islam and capital punishment

Islam on the whole accepts capital

punishment
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/]
.

...Take not life, which God has made

sacred, except by way of justice and
law. Thus does He command you, so
that you may learn wisdom
Qur'an 6:151
But even though the death penalty is
allowed, forgiveness is preferable.
Forgiveness, together with peace, is a
predominantQur'anic
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/text
s/quran_1.shtml] theme.

Muslims believe that capital

punishment is a most severe sentence
but one that may be commanded by a
court for crimes of suitable severity.
While there may be more profound
punishment at the hands of God, there
is also room for an earthly punishment.

Methods of execution in Islamic

countries vary and can include
beheading, firing squad, hanging and
stoning. In some countries public
executions are carried out to heighten
the element of deterrence.

Each case is regarded individually and

with extreme care and the court is fully
able to impose more lenient sentences
as and when they see fit.

Islamic countries that practise a very

strict Sharia
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beli
efs/sharia_1.shtml] law are associated with
the use of capital punishment as
retribution for the largest variety of
crimes.

At the other end of the spectrum are

countries such as Albania and Bosnia,
which still retain the death penalty as
part of their penal system, but are
abolitionist in practice.

In Islamic law, the death penalty is

appropriate for two groups of crime:

Intentional murder: In these cases

the victim's family is given the option
as to whether or not to insist on a
punishment of this severity
 Fasad fil-ardh ('spreading mischief in
the land'): Islam permits the death
penalty for anyone who threatens to
undermine authority or destabilise
the state
What constitutes the crime of
'spreading mischief in the land' is open
to interpretation, but the following
crimes are usually included:

Treason/apostasy (when one leaves

the faith and turns against it)

Terrorism

Piracy of any kind

Rape

Adultery

Homosexual activity

Whilst Islam remains firmly

retentionist, there is a small but
growing abolitionist Islamic view. Their
argument is as follows:

The Ulamas (those who are learned in

Islamic Law, constitution and
theology) do not always agree on the
interpretation or authenticity of the
sacred texts. Neither do they agree
on the social context in which these
texts should be applied.
Sharia law is often used by repressive
 powers that attack women and the
poor.

There are incidences of these states

summarily executing those who are
accused whilst denying them access
to a lawyer. These acts are totally
contradictory to the concept of
Islamic justice.
In Geneva, on 28th April 2005, there
was a call for a moratorium on corporal
punishment, stoning and death
penalty. This was, however, rejected by
the Legal Research Commission of the
Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the
world's leading Islamic learning centre.

Note: Due to time constrain, I have not included

the resources for this post. Everything here is

most likely copyrighted in one way or the other.

Please excuse my lack of reference. This

information is solely used for teaching and learning

purposes.

Posted 25th December 2013 by Kirsten

Labels: A level, capital punishment, Essay
topic, general paper

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