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John Stuart Mill Death Penalty Ethical Analysis

836 Words4 Pages

Evan Ring
Intro to Ethics
Dr. A. Mansfield
12/7/16
The Death Penalty and Ethics

John Stuart Mill on The Death Penalty
John Stuart mills supported capital punishment in certain cases and was a known Utilitarian which states that the morally right action is the one that produces the most favorable balance of good over evil, everyone being considered. Suffering being one of the main elements represented in this philosophical approach, as being intrinsically bad and that suffering should always try to be avoided unless it is in the best interest of the majority. In the eyes of a Utilitarian when it comes to crime the action taken must be to inflict justifiable punishment that will in turn reduce crime in the future which is what is best for the majority of the population. In doing this the suffering from every party must be considered even the offender. Mill’s speech points out the importance of deterring crime through implementing punishments sufficient to the …show more content…

Although he supports capital punishment in certain cases such as heinous crimes, the offender must be undoubtedly guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and must not have committed the serious offence due to external pressures or self-defense as this would not lead to the death penalty as a plausible punishment. Mill also illustrates that capital punishment must be used in the most severe cases as it is the most certain way to prevent that person from harming people again but feels that life imprisonment although not as much of a deterrent on the outside looking in as death, might be a worse punishment than a capital punishment. Through the eyes of a Utilitarian it is logical to want to put the most severe criminalists to death but to possibly give other murderers a life sentence with a chance to

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