Capital Punishment from a Philosophical Perspective

This research examines the subject of capital punishment from a philosophical perspective. The research will set forth the historical context in which death-penalty philosophy emerged as a significant issue of social and civic discourse and then discuss prevailing philosophical and religious views of capital punishment, both for and against, with particular emphasis on philosophical views. Whether capital punishment acts a deterrent for the commission of crimes in general will also be discussed.

The practice of capital punishment, or a state-sanctioned death penalty for certain crimes, appears to be as ancient as history. The Code of Hammurabi, discovered only in AD 1902 but estimated to have been promulgated between 2100 and 1700 BC, was the first systematic attempt to foster disinterested, impartial state governance -- at least as the concept was understood in the Mesopotamian context, which fused autocracy, patriarchy, and theocracy (Wells 184; Hayes, et al. 10). The Code deals extensively with property and agricultural rights and military obligations, all of which function at the king's pleasure. Men are required to serve in the armed forces (Edwards 32), and disloyal refusal inheres in death and deprivation of property. Military expeditions appear to lie exclusively at royal discretion, for repeated references are made to the fact that soldiers may be obliged to fight, in person, on the king's behalf (Edwards 32-33). Military misfortune in general belongs

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exert undue power automatically relinquishes his office (418-19). Locke's conception of statecraft in no way prevented the notorious witchcraft trials and executions in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, and in England during the 1700s, "160 offenses were punishable by death, mostly offenses against property" ("Capital Punishment"). However, Locke's view of state is germane to the present research because it interrogates via discourse (a change from the English Civil War) the notion of the equivalence of sovereign and state to which James II, in the wake of the Restoration, had desired to return. Once that interrogation is made, it becomes possible to interrogate specific features of statecraft. And in less than 100 years, as the Enlightenment philosophers emerged, so did a critique of capital punishment. Cesare Beccaria's study of crime and punishment in 1764 can be viewed as a discourse of nation-state structure, not unlike that of Locke. But it began what would become the modern discourse of the death penalty. Beccaria argues that the law must be "capable of being learned by all" in society and that there is a social evil in laws that are so obscure as to require interpretation, forcing everybody "to rely on a handful of men beca

Category: Philosophy - C