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Gabriel Lamar

Dr. Cassel

English 101E-14

4 December 2017

Ethical Argument Against the Death Penalty

You lost your daughter, the most important person in the world to you. She was found

shot, raped, and wrapped in garbage bags in a plastic bin in a middle school football coachs

basement. You find yourself crushed. How do you move on? How could anyone move on?

Stacey Barfield was forced into this situation in February of 2014. Some people would choose to

pursue the accused to the fullest extent of the law and wish death upon him. She may have

wished death on him, but, even more, she wished the whole matter would be dismissed. She

requested that the defendant take a plea deal for life in prison instead of the death penalty so that

the case wouldnt go to trial. She would rather not spend hours recounting the gruesome death of

her daughter, instead she wanted only to make a reasonable deal and spare herself the torture. For

a lot of families that go unnoticed in todays polarized society, the death penalty may not be the

best option, in fact it could even be the exact opposite of what they want. This is a prime

example of an alternative to retributive ethical decision making. Retributive ethical decisions

regarding the death penalty are grim, and this school of ethics is seemingly the only one that

would always be in favor of the death penalty in a murder trial. Capital punishment is a hard-

fought issue because nobody knows what to truly think about legally taking a persons life.

Obviously, if a person felt that another persons life wasnt worth anything, then they dont value

theirs, so they deserve death. I say that in no way should the government have the right to take a
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persons life because each school of ethics one chooses, except retributivism, has at least one

reason the death penalty is fundamentally unethical.

One of the most basic schools of ethics is libertarianism. A libertarian believes in a non-

interference right. A person has a right to do or say what he or she pleases so long as it does not

interfere with the actions of another person. Conversely, they respect other peoples rights to do

as they please so long as it does not interfere with them. Furthermore, libertarians believe in the

concept of ownership of self; that your consciousness is the owner of your body, and thus you

are free to do as you please with your possessions (i.e. your body.) The fundamentals of

libertarianism lead one to believe that a libertarian would be against the death penalty. A

libertarian could agree with the death penalty if the convicted murderer was sure to take more

lives, or if the execution of one murderer was proven to deter other people from committing

murders. As Robinson says in Is Capital Punishment Just? Assessing the Death Penalty Using

Justice Theory, stated simply, if an execution was necessary to help achieve and assure liberty

for potential victims, states fail citizens 98-99% of the time because only 1-2% of convicted

murderers are executed or sentenced to death respectively (Robinson, 44.) If capital punishment

was a successful deterrent, then libertarians would support it, as it would ensure greater liberty

for the majority of people, but it fails because it does not affect enough people.

Libertarians disapprove of the death penalty because it takes away someones rights

without benefiting enough people. Another school of ethics is utilitarianism. How would a

utilitarian view the death penalty? First, one must examine how a utilitarian defines justice.

Utilitarians believe that the right choice is the one that maximizes aggregate utility. They make

decisions such that the greatest amount of people get the greatest amount of pleasure. Again, the

question as it regards the death penalty then is whether an execution prevents the deaths of more
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citizens or if the net number of deaths increases with an execution. The White Paper on Ethical

Issues Concerning Capital Punishment form the World Medical Journal says, a study quoted

by Robinson says that, out of 238 paroled offenders, less than 1 % were returned to prison for

committing a subsequent homicide (83.) Statistics suggest that convicted murders going on

parole are not likely to commit another murder, thus making an execution a needless death.

Furthermore, executions may be excessive because effective incapacitation can be achieved

through life imprisonment, although leaving a risk that the offender might kill again while in

prison (World Medical Journal, 83.) Utilitarians would disapprove of the death penalty then

because the same outcome of protection from harm can be achieved through life imprisonment,

while not taking the life of a person, thus not

lowering utility.

On the other side of the bars, maybe

criminals fear the death penalty, deterring them

from committing a murder in the first place.

Libertarians and Utilitarians would have to

support capital punishment then of course, but,

the deterrent effects of the death penalty are

very difficult to measure. There have been

studies modeling the effects of the death

Figure 1:There is popular sentiment in the public that
the death penalty is not just. A rational point of view
penalty on murder rates, however they have from the public is expressed in this image. (Thompson,
Michael. Flickr, 29 September 2010.)
been inconclusive or did not consider other variables such as the deterrent effects of life without

parole. Therefore, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that the death penalty has any

deterrent effect on people considering committing a crime. The ethical concern remains the
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same, as taking a life does not show any sign of preventing other lives from being taken, which

causes the same ethical dilemma as mentioned for both utilitarians and libertarians.

Finally, a person who supports virtue ethics believes that a person should get what they

deserve. The basis of this ethical stand point is rather vague because it greatly relies on personal

belief, but for this argument the focus is going to be on a specific type of virtue ethics. A

retributivist believes in the principle of an eye for an eye. If a person commits a crime, then an

equal punishment should come their way. If taking a life is considered the ultimate crime, then a

retributivist would suggest that only the ultimate punishment would make up for the crime. This

is a case in which ethically the death penalty would stand up because for justice to be served the

punishment must equal the crime.

The death penalty exists because many people believe that certain homicidal crimes are

so heinous and inhumane that the perpetrator forfeits his/her right to life. This reaction, however,

is purely emotional and when heat-of-the-moment rage is taken out of the equation, a rational

decision can be made based on the analysis of ethical principles. If your daughter is gruesomely

murdered and you are left to deal with case proceedings for months on end, struggling and

fighting to get the murderer put to death, you fuel your anger and grief, and torture yourself for

no reason. Am ethically sound perspective would consider that taking the murderers life would

not gain you anything, but lock you into a vicious cycle of grief. An ethical person could see that

even the retributivist comes out worse for having taken a life and that ethics does not support

legal murder.
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Works Cited

Gunn, Erik. "The Case for Mercy: Some of the Unlikeliest People Oppose the Death

Penalty." Progressive, vol. 81, no. 7, Oct/Nov2017, pp. 26-29.

Johnson, Kevin. Panel Fails to Establish Death Penalty as Deterrent. USA Today. 19 April

2012, p. 03a.

Robinson, Matthew. Is Capital Punishment Just? Assessing the Death Penalty Using Justice

Theory. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology, vol. 3, no. 2, 2011, pp.

27-66.

Thompson, Michael. Death is not Justice. Flickr. 29 September 2010.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/freestylee/5036139869/. Accessed 12 December 2017.

"White Paper on Ethical Issues Concerning Capital Punishment." World Medical Journal, vol.

58, no. 3, July 2012, pp. 82-87.