1. Arguments that prove too much.
a. Many arguments against capital punishment prove too much because they apply with equal force against any punishment at all.
b. "Capital punishment is applied unfairly."
1) Even if this were true, the injustice here applies
to those that got away, not to those that got punished. It's never
unjust to punish a guilty man if the punishment itself fits the crime
(lex talionis). The injustice is remedied by applying it more often, not
less.
2) Better unequal justice than no justice at all.
3) If one
man is paid for a job (he gets what he deserves) and another isn't, how
do you rectify the inequity? You don't take away what the first man
deserves, withholding his pay because the second man didn't get paid.
That would double the injustice.
c. "Innocent people get condemned."
1) This is a criticism of any system of justice, not a particular type of punishment. Life is flawed, not capital punishment.
2)
Why must we accept a philosophy that says it's better for 100 guilty
people to go free than for one innocent person to be condemned?
3) Guilty people repeat crimes that injure and even kill other innocent people.
4) "But death can't be undone." No punishment can be undone.
5)
Our attempts at improving justice here must be at the level of the
process of adjudication making any determination of guilt more
trustworthy.
2. Other objections:
a. "How can you be for capital punishment but against abortion" (the "seamless garment" argument)?
1) The term "Pro-life" is actually a misnomer. Our case
is not for every one's life or every form of life. Pro-lifer's are
against the unjust taking of innocent human life, particularly the life
of the unborn child.
2) The right to life is not an absolute; it can
be forfeited. This moral right is only prima facie; it stands only until
challenged by some greater law, like justice or protecting the lives of
the innocent.
3) We also have a right to freedom, but it can be properly overridden with incarceration when certain conditions are met.
4) An unborn child has committed no crime that forfeits its life.
b. "Capital punishment is cruel and unusual."
1) It's not cruel and unusual, but rather the exact punishment that fits the crime.
2)
This is an appeal to the language of the Bill of Rights, but the ones
who wrote those words believed in capital punishment. If one wants to
redefine the term for modern times, then he cannot argue from the Bill
of Rights itself, because that has the old definition.
c. "Capital punishment doesn't work; it doesn't deter crime."
1) It always deters the offender. Dead people don't commit more crimes.
2) If it lacks in deterrence, it might be because it is not widely exercised or not done speedily enough to be a threat.
3) The principal goal of capital punishment is not deterrence, but punishment. In that way it works every time.
d. "Why not a life sentence?"
1) Confuses a life sentence with a death sentence.
2) It's unjust (doesn't fit the crime) because the criminal only loses liberty, not life.
e. "This kind of death is undignified."
1) In one sense, all death is undignified.
2) Argues only against certain aggravated forms of capital punishment and not capital punishment itself.
3) In the final analysis, the question is not the dignity of death, but its equity or justice.
f. "There's no opportunity of to reform the criminal." Justice is the goal of punishment, not reform.
g. "Capital punishment violates human dignity."
1) It is specifically because of man's value and
dignity that we punish his moral wrongdoing. We don't punish animals for
stealing or killing (we don't punish them, we remove them for our
safety).
2) We hold men morally responsible because of dignity.
3)
"It is based on the assumption that normal adult beings are rational
and moral beings who knew better, who could have done otherwise, but yet
who chose to do evil anyway, and who therefore deserve to be punished."
JPM p. 118
4) Arguably it is undignified to force rehabilitation on free moral agents who don't want it.
h. Roman Catholic objections
1) The Catholic position against capital punishment is
somewhat ironic given their position on purgatory, in which even when
God forgives a sinner, still he must suffer for his own sins.
2) What of the practice of penance?
