Ethical Dilemmas with Death Penalty

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Capital Punishment Law in US3

Ethical Dilemmas with Death penalty4

Ethical Dilemmas for the Legal System4

Ethical Dilemmas for Doctors5

Ethical Dilemmas for People6

Conclusion7

References8

Ethical Dilemmas with Death Penalty

Introduction

Capital punishment may be defined as the lawful infliction of death as punishment. Despite continued debate over merits and effectiveness of capital punishment as a means to deter serious crime, it is still adopted in the United States. A majority number of countries in the world have abandoned death penalty (Hood, 2003). Either it is not made part of the constitution or the country does not practice it. Between 1995 and 2010, the number of countries involved in judicial killing has fallen from 41 to 23. This is because there are many ethical and moral dilemmas associated with this form of judicial killing. The paper discusses the ethical dilemmas related to capital punishment through shedding light on the opinions held by proponents as well as opponents of execution.

Capital Punishment Law in US

In the year 1972, the US government made one of the most historic decisions of its time with the majority of 5 to 4. It declared the death penalty law unconstitutional across US. However, five states introduced bills to resurrect the death penalty. They collected evidence of incidences where released murderers committed yet another crime of murder. Due to the strong support for the death penalty in California, in the year 1972, the matter was propelled to ballot. By 1976, the federal government enacted the capital punishment statutes anew. If we look at the public opinion on the matter of the death penalty, we can see a drastic shift in public opinion between 1972 and 1976 (Banner, 2003).

Ethical Dilemmas with Death penalty

Death penalty is a very debatable issue. It presents ethical dilemmas for the doctors, legal system as well as the general public.

Ethical Dilemmas for the Legal System

The system of criminal justice is criticized for its flaws. This is so because the proponents of death penalty argue that according to the theory of deterrence there is a high level of correlation between the likelihood of a crime and the punishment for the crime. The more severe the punishment for a crime, the more unlikely it is for people to commit it. This argument is flawed because of two major reasons. If really punishment could help deter a crime then the rate of killings in US must be zero by now considering the over crowdedness of prisons in the US and the number of death row inmates (Metzner, 2010). In addition, psychology suggests that a person does not always take the life of another person in a sound state of mind. At the instance of committing the heinous crime, he loses the ability to think of the consequence of his action. The motivation for killing and the underlying purpose blindfolds the person to the aftermath.

The adverse psychological impacts that death penalty is married with have implications not only for the person being executed but also for the many ...