Utilitarianism Death Penalty

The death penalty has had and will always have the danger of judicial errors. As the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center Richard Dieter has emphasized, “every time we have an execution, there is a risk of executing an innocent person. The risk may be small, but it’s unacceptable” (Death to the Death Penalty). According to the Death Penalty Information Center, among all 7,818 people who were sentenced to death since 1977, 1412 people have been executed and 155 people have been proved innocent. Therefore, for every nine people executed, we have found one person is innocent.

Capital punishment is a difficult subject for a lot of people because many question whether or not it is ethical to kill a convicted criminal. In order to critically analyze whether or not it is ethical, I will look at the issue using a utilitarianism approach because in order to get a good grasp of this topic we need to look at how the decision will impact us in the future. The utilitarianism approach will help us to examine this issue and see what some of the consequences are with this topic of capital punishment. For years, capital punishment has been used against criminals and continues to be used today, but lately this type of punishment has come into question because of the ethical question.

Capital Punishment, also known as the Death Penalty, has been a part of the United State’s justice system for the majority of the country’s existence. Today, 31 out of the 50 states still recognize the death penalty as a viable option when dealing with high profile crimes, most notably murder and sexual assault. While many people argue that the death penalty should be made illegal, there is also widespread support in favor of keeping the death penalty, leaving the nation divided on the issue. Both sides of the argument possess valid evidence that supports their claims, but in the end, the arguments in favor of the death penalty are noticeably stronger. The death penalty is an appropriate sentence that should continue to be allowed in the

According to capital punishment supporters, many of these reasons of the anti-death penalty movement are false and are now wrongly accepted as fact. The argument that the death penalty does not deter crime is debatable. By executing murderers you prevent them from murdering again. If these people no longer exist then they obviously cannot commit more crimes. In addition, criminals have admitted, in thousands of fully documented cases, that the death penalty was the specific threat which deterred them from committing murder (Pro-Death Penalty, 2014). The opponents of capital punishment claim that the death penalty has caused and can cause the execution of innocent people. However, according to the supporters, no evidence indicates that innocent people have been executed. Upon reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, a Wall Street Journal study indicated that they were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed (Eddlem, 2002). Furthermore, advocates note that the

Supporters of the capital punishment system penalty argue that when enforced, the death penalty saves lives. The fault placed into the opposing side for using the system with new trials to postpone execution. The problem with that argument is that in Florida, a total of twenty-five death row prisoners had been released due to erroneous convictions and were able to prove innocence, not a strong argument when lives are at risk.

Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man or woman who might accidentally get an execution sentence. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year by the hands of heartless murderers. There are more murderers out there than people who are wrongly convicted, and that is what we must remember.

     Capital punishment should be viewed as the stripping away of humanity from a person. The death penalty itself should be "executed" because of racial inequities, the concept of murder, the possibility of error, lack of deterrence, the cost, and an overwhelmed legal system. "The goal of capital punishment is revenge" (Introduction 1). Capital punishment is simply an outlet for the bloodlust of the American people (Introduction 1).

The death penalty or Capital punishment is a controversial topic on its own. With the US being one of the states that allow capital punishment makes the topic even more personal. The utilitarian theory in the book is described as an action that would promote happiness or good consequences to "all concerned". With that simple definition, anyone can tell that someone who follows this theory would disagree completely with the idea of Capital punishment. In Chapter nine of the textbook the section "Utilitarianism, or Results, Theory" explains the difference between utilitarian and retributive theory. In the retributivist theory consequences are determined by the severity of the crime. For example someone murders a person for no reason, they would receive a very long or life sentence, opposed to a trespasser might receive six months or a fine depending on the severity. Utilitarianism is not always against

Capital punishment is an important social justice issue that causes us to rethink the moral value and dignity of criminals. It has been abolished in a majority of the countries worldwide, however, the United States is the only remaining Western democracy that actively uses it as a punishment method. Prior to the 1970s, it was not widely supported because people believed society had an obligation to help transform the lives of criminals and give them another chance. The United States Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in a 1972 court case. However, public support started increasing due to the escalating occurrences of violent crimes, especially murders.

If the offender of the law is indeed worthy of being punished, how then would utilitarianism justify the degree to which the individual is punished? With the ultimate ends to punishment being the promotion of the greatest good, the proportions to which coercive force is used are determined via subordinate ends. These subordinate ends define the punishment as only positive as a response to the initial crime - the secondary act of evilness by punishment is what allows the injustice of the crime to be righted, inducing the prospect of a brighter future. Bentham goes on to suggest that these proportions must ensure that the offender loses the motivation to commit future mischief, must be proportionate to the extremeness of the act committed (by

Which question did I pick and why? Is putting a serial killer to death ethically sound when guilt has been established with absolute certainty? When it comes to answering this question, one must come to terms with what is their ideal of justice. For a long time the ideal, an eye for an eye as especially been the basis for all compensation of a crime. So when it comes to the logic, if serial killer is caught it would only make since for the death penalty to be enforced. After all, he did murder even if he felt guilty. Fair is fair, right? To break this down one must look on both sides of the argument, explain the Utilitarianism approach to the issue, as well as the view Kant would assume using both forms of his

Philosophy branch which streamlines, protects and guides the concepts of being correct or incorrect is referred as Ethics. People learn this concept from their parents who got it from their parents and it is a chain. However philosophers claim that it is people’s belief which decide ethics along with human intuition. An individual at singular level conscientiously decides what is right and wrong and define a limit of pushing ethical behaviour and morality in being. Moral acceptability of any action can be judged from the points if action is understood by an individual well, the consequences of that action on public, fair treatment of action with all people respectfully and the way action is being performed, the motivation of people for it.

In the past years, the death penalty has gotten out of hand. More states have been using the death sentence as one of the major punishments a delinquent can receive. It is not always an accurate thing because there have been major mistakes where the person is innocent. According to a recent study, 4% of the people put on the death penalty are not guilty (Brook). Since 1973, 144 prisoners on death row have been found to be innocent of crimes they have been convicted to (Brook).

The usefulness of the death penalty to society from a utilitarian perspective cannot be determined apart

The issues surrounding the discussion of death penalty focus on two main points. First, this punishment is assets from a purely utilitarian perspective. In order to understand and