Large Class Reading-response Assignment (Capital Punishment)

Capital punishment involves subjecting the suspect who has already been convicted of a particular offense to death. However, this method has been praised and criticized by many people in equal measure. Nonetheless, the legitimacy of this type of punishment is still in doubt due to the questions surrounding utility as well as morality. This has caused many people to call for its abolishment because of the violation of human rights and some of the utility theories.

However, capital punishment is still justified according to the utilitarian theory. This theory argues that capital punishment should not be viewed as retribution for a severe crime but as a strict method of making sure that similar or related offenses do not happen in future.The punishment is aimed to be cruel as a sure way to prevent other rational individuals from committing it. More so, if the sentence is administered swiftly, this will deter many other potential criminals from thinking of being involved in such a crime.

Nonetheless, capital punishment should be abolished according to the virtue theory. The life of a person who has committed a crime is looked at from a virtue point of view. This means that his/her lifetime activities are weighed up against the recent atrocity that he/she has just committed. In some of the cases, the person may have done so much good than harm to the society as far as his or her virtues are concerned. In this case, the person is considered to be virtuous,and, therefore, does not deserve the death penalty as per the virtue theory. If,however, the person is found to be less upright, the death penalty may be unleashed on him/her.

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