Capital Punishment: Morally Required?

One of today’s most debated political and moral topics is that of Capital Punishment. Many people believe that the sanctity of life should take precedent over all, and that even if there is some deterrent effect stemming from capital punishment it is still not morally permissible. However, there are still others that believe that it is this same sanctity of life that requires the use of the death penalty in “death eligible” murder cases and capital punishment requires a certain “life-life tradeoff”. Two of the major supporters of the “life-life tradeoff” theory in regards to capital punishment are Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule; together the two co-authored the very persuasive and well-written essay entitled: Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs. As aforementioned, the basis of this essay centers on the argument that capital punishment is not only a morally permissible act (punishment) carried out by the government, but could be seen as a morally required act because of its potential life saving abilities in the form of deterrence. After reading Sunstein and Vermeule’s essay I would have to agree whole-heartedly in their argument that capital punishment, as a deterrent, should be actively used in death eligible cases to further protect innocent “statistical lives”.

For those who support the death penalty there are really two overcastting theories as to why capital punishment, in its current or advanced form, should be used: retribution and deterrence. The first theory, retribution, which is not significantly included in Sunstein and Vermeule’s essay, is centered on the belief that those who intentionally kill another human being, and in doing so undermines that victim(s)’ right to life, should also forfeit their right to live. If this holds true, then the best way to carry out such retribution would be through a well defined and competent judicial system. If the judicial system is unable or unwilling to hand out acceptable punishment to murderers then citizens will resort to vengeance in much less civilized manners. While this theory has many supporters and is highly regarded by many proponents of the death penalty, the Sunstein and Vermeule essay chooses to focus more on the theory of deterrence (the life-life tradeoff) as the main reason for the justification, obligation, and continuation of capital punishment in our society.

According to Sunstein and Vermeule, the life-life tradeoff is rooted in that whichever the state chooses (that being whether to use capital punishment or not use capital punishment) there is going to be some lose of life. The qualifier then comes with whether or not the loss of life is going to be in 1) the death of the death-row inmate or 2) the death of multiple innocents because of the lack of deterrence. The evidence used by Sunstein and Vermeule comes from recent econometric studies. In these studies the authors used either county-level panel data or state-level panel data to calculate the extent to which capital punishment and death sentences were a deterrent to other potential capital offenses. The results of these studies varied slightly in the projected amount of innocent lives saved, but all still found that capital punishment had some deterrent effects; the range of numbers are as follows: 18, 14, 5, and 4.5. For argument’s sake Sunstein and Vermeule used eighteen as the number of murders actually deterred by the use of capital punishment (that meaning that for every death sentence 18 theoretical or “statistical lives” are saved). Other evidence that supports their claim that the death penalty is a legitimate deterrent comes from the fact that during the moratorium of the death penalty from 1972-1976, 91% of the states noticed an increase in the homicide rate. Then, once the moratorium was lifted, 67% of states saw a significant decrease in the homicide rate. This evidence backs up the fact that capital punishment is a clear deterrent and thus the life-life tradeoff theory holds some theoretical ground.

After establishing the basis of the life-life tradeoff Sunstein and Vermeule continue by establishing the moral justification and obligation of the death penalty modeled after the life-life tradeoff. The co-authors are able to establish how, not only does the life-life tradeoff appeal to consequentialists (those looking for the option that will produce the greatest good for the general welfare), based on the fact that capital punishment minimizes killing overall; they would also argue that those who oppose capital punishment (deontologists), because of their respect for and value of human life, also would have to inherently accept the life-life tradeoff. “For deontologists who emphasize life’s value and object to the death penalty, the problem is acute if the refusal to impose that penalty predictably leads to significant additional murders.” This quote clearly shows that if deontologists really do value life then it would only make sense for them to value the lives of 3 to 18 innocent peoples over the one life of a heinous murderer. If one is able to view the 3 to 18 statistical lives as more so than just numbers and potential innocent children, mothers, fathers, or spouses then this argument brings with it an immense amount of power and conviction. The next aspect of the overlapping argument comes with proving that moral agents (both individuals and the government) have a moral justification in killing some to save a greater number.

In the section labeled “Acts and Omissions”, there is a very convincing argument as to how the government has a moral obligation to act, and because of such they are providing an injustice to the citizens if they refuse to act. Act-Omission is the theory of judging harmful actions more harshly, or seeing those actions as less moral then the omission or inaction of not doing something to prevent that harmful action from being done in the first place, or at least stopping it from being successfully carried out. Keeping this in mind then, the basis of this argument is essentially, whether or not someone (or some agent of the government) can be held responsible for a murder or other injustice if they did not take necessary actions to prevent said injustice. The state, as the authors would suggest, have two chooses when it comes to the death penalty and capital punishment. They can either 1) use capital punishment and actively partake in purposeful killings; in this case they are killing to both punish the murderer for what they have done and to deter other would-be murderers from murdering, or they can 2) not use capital punishment but instead use other forms of lesser punishment (be that jail time,