seen by deterrence advocates as essential for maximum protection.
The factor of deterrence in capital punishment advocacy may be seen as a measure of protection for society at large. Deterrence theory appears to be consistent with utilitarian theory inasmuch as capital punishment can be viewed as an instrument of achieving the greater good for the greater number (society as a whole). The good accomplished would be the removal of an evil, criminal behavior. A Sher explains, summing up Mill's view of Utilitarianism: "we should always perform that act, of those available, which will bring the most happiness, or least unhappiness, to the greatest number of people."
But Bedau asserts that the deterrence rationale for capital punishment has never been proven and cannot be justified in a civil society. He sees a contradiction in the fact that societal hostility is intended as a deterrent (in any case ineffective) for future behavior by others, even as society shrinks from public executions that, as Bedau believes, are more properly and logically seen as deterrents.
Bedau also takes the view that society's wish for reasons of moral outrage or indignation to punish wrongs to the innocent is not reason enough "to warrant the inference that [the criminal] and his conduct are appropriate objects of our unqualified hostility." The argument against capital punishment as a retribution for crime puts society in the position of asserting that a greater good is accomplished by refraining from acting out of revenge than by insisting on carrying out revenge:
And can't we make the case for others that it is far better to affirm a victim's life by an affirmative act: to refuse to take a life in retribution, to give another a future. If nothing else, life imprisonment gives hope of a criminal's repentance; many murderers have come to suffer
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