The debate over capital punishment includes every citizen that lives and breathes; no individual is immune from the threat of death, and as members of an organized society, no individual can ignore that the state has been vested with the power to take the lives of those who would kill. Thus, capital punishment is a moral dilemma in the truest sense. If killing is understood to be wrong, then how may a society justify killing those who murder? The answer is not so difficult to perceive as one might expect. Capital punishment is ethical because it works to preserve the sanctity of the whole of society at the expense of just one of its individual parts: the murderer.
In this, it is clear that capital punishment is morally defensible in three primary ways. First, by clearly defining the risk attached to murder, it serves as a deterrent to those who would consider killing as a logical means to an end. Second, it is proportional, and satisfies the most basic criteria for justice. And third, it is incapacitating, and prevents any individual that murders from ever harming anyone again. Ultimately, the moral center of the capital punishment debate must be understood as one which does not truly lie with the murderer and his rights to life. Quite the contrary -- it is a debate which must focus on everyone who is not a murderer. These citizens deserve the protection of the state, and the state in turn has a moral imperative to protect its citizens. Abandoning capital punishment would be to disrupt this most basic facet of the social contract.
It is difficult to deny that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. However, many opponents contend that other penalties (such as life in prison) do just as well. This is clearly not the case. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the average prison sentence served for homicide is five years and eleven months (Jacoby, 1997, p. 56). Criminals are well aware that this is the...