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The moral argument for the death penalty has nothing to do with revenge, or with deterrence, or hatred against the perpetrator of the crime. It is an issue of justice. Bear in mind that we are working in ideals here, not in realities.
The prime motivation in atonement justice is the reparation for the wrong done. If you steal something, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the value of the item stolen. If you cause a living thing unnecessary pain, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the social value placed on the living thing (we don’t punish for killing rodents, we do punish for setting the neighbor’s cat on fire). This is the principle behind the punishment fitting the crime.
So what value do we place on a human life? When that life it taken with malice, with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action, what manner of reparation is appropriate? It must be recompensed with something of equal value – a human life.
As with most crimes, it is not only the victim who receives reparation, but society as well. A violation of an individual’s rights is also a violation against the social well-being. In the case of murder, the victim cannot receive reparation of any kind, but that does not alter the just demand that it be paid. It is therefore received solely by society, in the form of the state.
To argue against the ideal (again, not in practice but in theory) death penalty on moral grounds, you must either argue that justice makes no demand for equal reparation, or you must argue that a life lived out to it’s natural end in prison is equivocal with a life ended prematurely – that the value of any life is only in proportion to it’s freedom. To do the first is difficult, to do the second sets up a principle that, carried to its logical end, makes the con argument even more difficult.
-sm
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