Essay Capital Punishment PDF

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Prof: Adam Langridge
You get to chose a topic and I chose capital punishment which is also week 10...

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Cristiano 1

Nipissing University

Capital Punishment: The Good, The Bad, and The Dirty Candian History, Rententionists and Abolitionists

Isabella Cristiano PHIL 2526: Contemporary Moral Issues Adam Langridge 4 April 2021

Cristiano 2 Capital punishment or death penalty laws can be dated back to 18th century B.C. when this penalty could be given as a response to any crime, not just murder(“History of the Death Penalty”). Ever since the first established death penalty laws, capital punishment has been an incredibly controversial moral issue. To easily explain capital punishment would be to ask the question; is there a crime spiteful enough that the accused/guilty person(s) should be sentenced to death? Although just one question, like every controversial moral issue, there are different opinions and views. This essay will provide a brief Canadian history of capital punishment and will explore the two major stances associated when looking at capital punishment. To start this explanatory essay the history of capital punishment, in Canada, needs to be examined. As mentioned above death penalty laws can date back to the 18th century B.C. with that in mind, Canada had capital punishment begin right from the confederation in 1867. For the first 23 years the vast majority of executions were done by a variation of hanging methods, and then from 1890-1976 people sentenced would typically receive the traditional long drop hanging. The movement to abolish the death penalty in Canada, within Parliament, is said to have started with politician and member of parliament Robert Bickerdike in the early twentieth century(“Death Penalty”). Although Bickerdike brought up his concerns in the early 1900’s it was not until December 11th, 1962 when Canada hung its last two people Arthur Lucas(29) and Ronald Turpin(54) in Torontos’ Don Jail(Capital Punishment Canada). It then took Canada five years after its last capital punishment execution(1962) to place a moratorium on the death penalty. This moratorium stayed in place until 1975 and after several failed attempts, Solicitor General Warren Allmand presented and successfully passed Bill-C84 in 1976. This bill abolished the death penalty in the criminal system, and it stayed legal in military law for another 22 years until 1998. It wasn’t easy to keep this bill active; for many years after there were many efforts to

Cristiano 3 retain the death penalty as it only passed in the House of Commons with a 130 to 124 vote (“Capital Punishment”). In the 109 years, capital punishment was permitted in Canada the country executed 710 people. It is clear that throughout history capital punishment has been a controversial issue with two major stances; those against the death penalty and those in favour of the punishment. The first to be discussed is those against capital punishment or retentionists. Rententionists can be dated back to philosophers, Aristotle and Kant. The men began creating a retentionist as Aristotle describes retributivism justice in what he calls “Nicomachean Ethics’. The basic principle of these ethics is that for justice to be served there needs to be complete equality between crime and punishment; “should a man suffer what he did, right justice would be done” (Aristotle 79). Along with Aristotles’ ‘Nicomachean Ethics,’ he states that punishments don’t have to be exactly the same as their actions but strong enough to impose equality. He agrees to fines and imprisonment as forms of punishment for crime, and this is where he and Kant seem to somewhat disagree. Kant agreed with Aristotle on his position to keep capital punishment and even added that it is societys’ duty to punish a murderer with murder, meaning murdering a murderer is a necessity for him. Kant believes, if it is okay to kill someone then that person should live by their own law and be killed. The philosophers agree that capital punishment is needed but, when it is needed seems to be different in both minds (Langridge). Along with retentionists, it is important to mention philosopher Igor Primoratz. Primoratz echoes everything Kant states but also comes up with eight answers to eight arguments against his and Kants’ view. A couple of arguments against the ‘retentionist’ view would be the sacredness of human life and innocent people. The first argument claims that taking a human life is just flat out wrong, so having capital punishment is just straight up morally unacceptable. To

Cristiano 4 this claim, Primoratz fully rejects the point that taking a human life is wrong as there are instances where it is considered morally acceptable, for example, self-defence or war. Along with that Primoratz also defends capital punishment by stating that it is morally acceptable because once a murderer decides to murder they have then forfeited their own lives. For the second point about innocent people that argument claims that anything that risks letting an innocent person die cannot be allowed. The answer Primoratz fights this argument with is one he used for more than just this argument; this is not an argument against capital punishment but about something completely different, in this case, it is an issue of assuming capital punishment is always the correct punishment. If the state is certain the right person is being executed then this problem completely disappears (Langridge). With Aristotle, Kant and more recently Primoratz supporting Kant’s beliefs it has created ‘retentionists’ or those in favour of capital punishment. On the other hand, are those against the death penalty or abolitionist. When explaining the abolitionist point of view against the death penalty Stephen Nathanson and his novel An Eye For An Eye (1989) has to be examined. Nathanson’s novel is an argument against the retentionists point of view. He argues the retributivist position with two points, the first being that carrying out true retributivism would cause humans to act immorally and that total equality between crime and punishment is impractical. As Nathanson explains how impractical it is to impose lex talionis (Shafer-Landau 421) or the eye for an eye principle as criminal punishment he makes sure to bring up Aristotle’s argument against the retributivist view; when he claims “for in many cases reciprocity and rectification justice are not accord” (Aristotle, 79). Along with how impractical it is, Nathanson’s first argument considers how immoral it would be to punish with the crime that was committed. To inflict total equality Nathansons says “applied strictly, it would require we rape rapiest, torture torturers, and burn arsonists whos acts lead to death”(74).

Cristiano 5 The last point Nathanson uses to highlight how impractical it would be to carry out the retentionist view is that not all crimes that result in death are equally morally unacceptable. Things such as car accidents should not result in the same punishment as a serial killer (Langridge). The goal of the law is not to inflict pain and suffering but to rehabilitate and “respect each person’s inalienable rights” (Shafer-Landau 421). The second point Nathanson uses against those in favour of the death penalty is that there are no guidelines on what to do when an alternative punishment is needed. For instance, what would lex talionis call for when the law encounters a drug user? There is no ‘equal’ punishment for this person, yet they do not deserve the death penalty. With this predicament, Kant and Aristotle’s retentionist view shows a major structural flaw and Nathanson was able point that out to the public as retentionists and the “eye for eye” principle is a compelling argument. Since the beginning of Candian history capital punishment has been a controversial topic with different views an opinions. This essay examined the Canadian history of capital punishment and the two main points of view, rentionists and abolitionists. Furthermore, this essay explored both retentionists and abolitionists’ views along with the philosophers associated with them.

Cristiano 6 Works Cited Aristotle. “The Internet Classics Archive: Nicomachean Ethics .” Translated by W.D Ross, The Internet Classics Archive | Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.5.v.html. “Capital Punishment in Canada” | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 7 June 2010, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/capital-punishment-in-canada-1.795391. “Capital Punishment” Canada's Human Rights History, historyofrights.ca/encyclopaedia/mainevents/capital-punishment/. “Death Penalty in Canada.” Amnesty International Canada, 25 July 2018, www.amnesty.ca/ourwork/issues/death-penalty-support-abolition/death-penalty-canada. “The History of the Death Penalty: A Timeline.” Death Penalty Information Center, 5 Apr. 2021, deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/history-of-the-death-penalty-timeline. Langridge, Adam. “Week 10: Capital Punishment.” 2021. Nathanson, Stephen. An Eye for an Eye: the Immorality of Punishing by Death. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. Shafer-Landau, Russ. The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems. Oxford University Press, 2021....