Capital Punishment

This paper shall investigate whether or not capital punishment is right from three moral/philosophical viewpoints. The first is egoism, which posits the belief that everyone is motivated to act in their own self-interest. The second is utilitarianism, which says that the usefulness of an action is what determines its degree of morality. The third is Kantianism which adopts the viewpoint that the world is experienced through the senses. However, reality is determined by forms and categories which are a priori, meaning determined outside of the senses.

From the egoism perspective, capital punishment may be viewed in a variety of ways. Egoism states that all individual conduct has a motivation. This primary motivation is self-interest. The individual who commits the crime does so out of self-interest, even if it merits capital punishment

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e. Yet society cannot tolerate such actions and maintain stability or civility. If one person is allowed to commit terrible crimes, then everybody will assume they are allowed to commit them. Crimes must be dealt with immediately if the punishment is to be useful. Without a dramatic punishment, the crime is worth committing because of weak deterrence. Death is the most dramatic punishment society can dole out and it is very utilitarian under certain circumstances. It is useful because it is the means to a utilitarian end. This makes it morally correct according to utilitarianism. Capital punishment deals with the offender directly and removes him as a social threat. There is no return for the criminal, so the punishment is very useful. Society never has to deal with the individual criminal or his crimes ever again. So again capital punishment is viewed favorably. The action is morally justified by its end. The end is to eliminate crime and criminals from society. Kantianism is the final approach considered herein to the problem of capital punishment. Since Kantianism is like separating feelings from thinking, this shall be the approach supported with respect to the issue of capital punishment. A man kills another
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Approximate Word count = 1202
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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