Hugo Bedau: Capital Punishment
“Central among these ethical considerations are the value, worth, and dignity of persons-the victims of crime, the offenders, and the rest of society.”(261)
It is morally wrong for Bedau to take human life no matter what. If we take a human life as a means to some other task we are damaging the dignity of human life. Part of our duty in the social contract is to maintain the integrity of our value of life, killing humans for any ‘means’ damages this. We as a society can not treat people as a means to an end.
“I mean any view that makes it permissible to kill persons in order to protect some other value (e.g., property) or in order to advance some social or political goal (e.g., national liberation)…” (261)
“The right to life seems to pose a problem for a policy of capital punishment. Even if a person has committed murder (so the argument runs) and has therewith intentionally violated another’s right to life, the criminal still has his or her own right to life. Would it not be a violation for the murderer’s right for him or her to be put to death as punishment? (262)
“The chief attraction of the idea of natural rights is that it provides each of us with moral armor (our rights) to protect us against burdens and deprivations that might be imposed on the ground that they are in the interests of the many or good for society in the long run…”(263)
p. 269 – note on societal downside of a government that kills its citizens
“A system like this does not enhance human life; it cheapens and degrades it. However heinous murder and other crimes are, the system of capital punishment does not compensate for or erase those crimes. It tends only to add new injuries of its own to the catalogue of human brutality.”(271)
He raises the inevitable question, why do we punish? “We re not likely to assess the morality of capital punishment correctly unless we understand the morality of punishment in general…” (265)
His answer… “[m]ost of us believe that it is not morally wrong and may even be our moral duty to use violence to prevent aggression directed against either ourselves or innocent third parties.”(267)
We have a duty to not use more force than is necessary. 266-267
“Unless there is a good reason for choosing a more rather tan a less severe punishment for a crime, the less severe penalty is to be preferred. This principle obviously commends itself to anyone who values human life and who concedes that, all other things being equal, less pain and suffering is always better than more..”(268)
“As for punishment it prevents crimes by incapacitation and by deterrence. The tows are theoretically independent because they achieve prevention very differently. Executing a murderer prevents crimes by means of incapacitation to the extent that the murderer would have committed further crimes if not executed.”(267)
Just as we have the duty to not overuse our power to get the job done, when the job is to remove a criminal from society, lifetime incarceration is just as effective as the death penalty. So, we shouldn’t use excessive force and execute murderers.
Conclusion: long term imprisonment gets the job done and state sponsored killing of humans is a violation of the natural rights that are supposed to protect us from being killed as a means to an end. Therefore death penalty is excessive and a moral wrong. P. 271
It is morally wrong for Bedau to take human life no matter what. If we take a human life as a means to some other task we are damaging the dignity of human life. Part of our duty in the social contract is to maintain the integrity of our value of life, killing humans for any ‘means’ damages this. We as a society can not treat people as a means to an end.
“I mean any view that makes it permissible to kill persons in order to protect some other value (e.g., property) or in order to advance some social or political goal (e.g., national liberation)…” (261)
“The right to life seems to pose a problem for a policy of capital punishment. Even if a person has committed murder (so the argument runs) and has therewith intentionally violated another’s right to life, the criminal still has his or her own right to life. Would it not be a violation for the murderer’s right for him or her to be put to death as punishment? (262)
“The chief attraction of the idea of natural rights is that it provides each of us with moral armor (our rights) to protect us against burdens and deprivations that might be imposed on the ground that they are in the interests of the many or good for society in the long run…”(263)
p. 269 – note on societal downside of a government that kills its citizens
“A system like this does not enhance human life; it cheapens and degrades it. However heinous murder and other crimes are, the system of capital punishment does not compensate for or erase those crimes. It tends only to add new injuries of its own to the catalogue of human brutality.”(271)
He raises the inevitable question, why do we punish? “We re not likely to assess the morality of capital punishment correctly unless we understand the morality of punishment in general…” (265)
His answer… “[m]ost of us believe that it is not morally wrong and may even be our moral duty to use violence to prevent aggression directed against either ourselves or innocent third parties.”(267)
We have a duty to not use more force than is necessary. 266-267
“Unless there is a good reason for choosing a more rather tan a less severe punishment for a crime, the less severe penalty is to be preferred. This principle obviously commends itself to anyone who values human life and who concedes that, all other things being equal, less pain and suffering is always better than more..”(268)
“As for punishment it prevents crimes by incapacitation and by deterrence. The tows are theoretically independent because they achieve prevention very differently. Executing a murderer prevents crimes by means of incapacitation to the extent that the murderer would have committed further crimes if not executed.”(267)
Just as we have the duty to not overuse our power to get the job done, when the job is to remove a criminal from society, lifetime incarceration is just as effective as the death penalty. So, we shouldn’t use excessive force and execute murderers.
Conclusion: long term imprisonment gets the job done and state sponsored killing of humans is a violation of the natural rights that are supposed to protect us from being killed as a means to an end. Therefore death penalty is excessive and a moral wrong. P. 271
posted by Charles Carlson at
8:17 AM
