Capital punishment means putting a person to death as a form of punishment for a crime they have committed against the state, for example, murder. No one has been executed in the United Kingdom since 1964.
The death penalty goes against the sanctity of life, the people carrying out the killing are going against God’s plan for the criminal’s life as they are ending their life before God had planned to. This is one of the reasons with the Catholic Church is against the idea as Catholics believe it is only God who is allowed to end life as he has a plan for everyone. Thurgood Marshall (Marshall,1993) supports the Catholic Church as he agrees that all taking of life, whether innocent or not, is morally wrong as it gives out a contradictory message that questions whether life is scary or not and denies wrongdoers dignity and worth.
However, it can be argued that people know exactly what they are doing, so they, therefore, deserve to forfeit their own lives as they themselves have gone against God’s rules and against human nature. Even the Bible states ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ Matthew (5:38-42) This means that the offender should have punishment for what they have done and should not be forgiven. St Thomas Aquinas argues that state execution is like self-defense and agrees with the Bible that those who offend should receive their punishment.
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The Bible can also be seen to be against the use of the death penalty through the ten commandments. Within the commandment, humans are told ‘Do not kill’. The commandments are seen as fundamental laws which tell Catholics how they should live their lives, so by breaking one of the commandments the criminal is going against God and how He wants you to live. However, some may argue that this commandment ‘makes no direct reference to any other form of killing, such as … capital punishment.’ (Crook, 2002, pg.228)
Utilitarianism is a theory that looks for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. ‘(Utilitarianism) treats punishment as an evil in itself but considers that it is justified by the greater good for the whole community that results from the punishment’ (Vardy&Grosch,1999, pg.183) In the case of the death penalty a ‘common and seemingly logical justification…is that executing this convicted murder will reduce the number of further murders.’ (Streib, 2013, pg.14) Therefore, Utilitarianism would argue for the death penalty for the greatest good that brings safety for most people. J.S Mill favors the death penalty as he argues that the criminal is removed from society and will therefore cause no greater harm. In his speech to parliament, he argues that ‘We partly know who those are whom it has not deterred; but who is there who knows whom it has deterred or how many human lives it has saved who would have lived to be murderers.’ (Thoma, 1981, pg.49-50) Mill also mentions that if we did not have the death penalty criminals will be able to re-offend and commit crimes against the innocent.
Those who argue for the use of the death penalty would say that it acts as a deterrent, to stop criminals from committing crimes again. However, there is no evidence to prove that is true as the figures vary between countries and do not prove it to be beneficial to crime rates. Sir Ian Percival MP argued in the House of Commons in 1987 that ‘it is a greater deterrent to those who can be deterred, not a complete deterrent but demonstrably a greater deterrent than life imprisonment.’ (Ranklin, Brown, Gateshill,1997, pg.148)Percival believed capital punishment is better for the criminal than life imprisonment, as he believes it could be seen as more humane.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul said that a ruler ‘is God’s servant and carries out God’s punishment on those who do evil.’ (Romans 13:4) This is used to support the death penalty as people who carry out the death penalty may feel they are doing so for God, as it asks for us to carry out God’s punishment for those who do evil things such as murder.
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