Death Penalty .pdf - Brandon Garces Philosophy 102...

Brandon Garces
Philosophy 102
Professor Bradley
9 December, 2021
Why the Death Penalty Brings us Closer to Justice
A hot button issue that continues to remain in political discourse is the one of capital
punishment. There are many ways of viewing this moral dilemma, but it often can come down to
a binary decision due to the moral questions it leaves us with. Is it moral for us to have the death
penalty? Is this a policy that is aligned with our understanding of justice? I believe that the death
penalty is ultimately a just act for it upholds proportionality in the justice system, recognizes
human responsbility, and contrary to popular objection, is still just regardless of miscarriages or
mistakes.
In order for us to begin the argument of capital punishment, we need to address the
concept of justice. Justice has long been a philosophical topic of discussion for hundreds of
years. According to the text, there are many different perspectives of viewing what justice is or
what justice should be. One perspective that I advocate for is the concept of retributive justice.
This type of justice focuses much more on the punishment of the offender than anything else.
Now, it is important to note that this is not synonymous with revenge. Vengeance is the act of
seeking similar ends to retribution, but oftentimes the intent and the context of revenge is very
different and personal. Retribution in contrast is principled, and is only aimed at righting wrongs
without any desire to do harm, but to mainly provide the justice necessary for the situation at
hand. There is often times within debates of the death penalty that the conepts of rehabilitation,
and distribution will come up. The problem with these two schools of thought is that they simply

do not provide sufficient proportional justice. Seeing rehabilitation as the main driving force of
the justice system is like seeing the world in rose tinted glasses. We of course would all like to
believe that people can become better, but the idea that eventually letting a criminal out and have
them recommit a crime is a much worse moral wrong than actually pursuing the harsh justice
that the death penalty is percieved as. Any chance of that happening is not worth the cost. The
leniency of rehabilitative justice should be looked at with caution, for it does not provide the