Despite the controversy over capital punishment, the American public is not adverse in general to the use of the death penalty for certain crimes. This is most true with respect to imposing capital punishment on those guilty of murder, something 75 percent of all respondents to a Gallop Poll favored with only 17 percent opposed (Lamb, p. 145). In KantÆs normative theory of morality, which maintains the existence of transcendent or universal principles of morality, the death penalty is justified as an action that is moral when the condemned has committed murder.
From biblical law to civil law murder is viewed as intolerable and merits severe punishment. In determining if capital punishment is a valid moral action imposed on those guilty of committing murder, we can look to KantÆs normative philosophy of morality in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In this work, Kant (p. 188) maintains that through reason human beings can discern a realm of ôtranscendent principlesö beyond the realms of sensory experience. In determining a norm or measure for moral action, Kant (p. 186) postulated the ôcategorical imperative,ö a principle that mandateÆs an action morality based on its being willed as a universal law. This means that any law should be one that the individual agent who enforces it wills to be universal.
We see with the act of murder that it is a crime so heinous to human beings that laws against it are universally accepted. Price (p. 15A) maintains that a large majority of Americans (75%) ôsupport the death penalty for the most heinous offenses.ö Murder is among these heinous offenses. Therefore, the death penalty is a law that is willed by individuals to be universal in application when the crime is murder. Nobody ever proposes application of the death penalty only for some individuals who kill, thus it meets KantÆs criteria of universality.
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