Is There Ethics Behind The Death Penalty Essay

Is There Morale Behind The Death Penalty?

There are a lot of debates for whether the death penalty is moral or not. Ultimately, the moral question surrounding capital punishment in America has less to do with whether those convicted of violent crime deserve to die than with whether state and federal governments have the right to kill those it has imprisoned. This causes people to have controversies of the ethics behind the death penalty. Only 32 states have the death penalty now, while 18 of them do not (Kolodny). “Evidence of racial discrimination in the U.S. death penalty system has attracted worldwide attention.” Its pretty bad when a country is well known for discrimination. In the states still acting on the death penalty, their death row census is disproportionately non-white. Which causes some to believe that there is some

Fisanick says in his book that “respect for life forbids its use and others see it as that respect for life requires it” (pg. 8). Here it’s showing both sides; the death penalty shouldn’t be in place and then other say it should. People are born with their natural rights; life, liberty, and property. Those charged with capital punishment are being deprived of their right to live. There’s also the contradiction. “Capital punishment ought to enhance and advance the value of life, yet inflicting the death penalty constitutes a killing and is therefore a direct and willful societal assault on the value on life” (Fisanick, pg 21). Some believe in the idea of ‘an eye for an eye’. This is tied into the theory of retributivism. “Retributivism is the theory that the criminal deserves to be punished and deserves to be punished in proportion to the gravity of his or her crime” (Fisanick, pg 8). Overall there is no such thing as perfect justice, and the death penalty acting as vengeance is never gonna be true