Summary Of John Stuart Mill Justifies The Continuity Of Capital Punishment

In his speech, John Stuart Mill justifies the continuity of capital punishment for the worst murderers. Throughout the beginning of the passage, one can find that aggravated murder is the main idea that is being discussed and controversy is if the death penalty should still carry on for those who commit such an extreme crime. He argues that the most dangerous of criminals do the most extreme crimes and that these crimes deserve capital punishment. Therefore, the most dangerous of criminals deserve capital punishment. Mill centers his position around the underlying proposition that punishment possesses an important quality that discourages criminal behavior and says, “to deter by suffering from inflicting suffering is not only possible, but the very purpose of penal justice”

What Mills is conveying is that he defends the death penalty because it is only used for the most extreme cases so that in comparison, the threat of death will discourage these atrocious offenses. Moreover, it would also be considered less cruel than what the criminal had done to deserve the death sentence in the first place. The penalty would also only be used for felons of the highest degree who do not have any excuse or reason that could save them of the crime he or she committed. Correspondingly, Mill states, “It appears to me that to deprive the criminal of the life of which he has proved himself unworthy—solemnly to blot him out from the fellowship of mankind and from the catalogue of the living—is the most appropriate as it is certainly the most impressive, mode in which society can attach to so great a crime the penal consequences which for the security of life is indispensable to annex to it” (Mill 1868). He portrays in this quote that these offenders deserve a punishment that fits their crime because they have made themselves unworthy of living among other