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Thursday, December 18, 2003
Sienes: Never-ending debate on death penalty
By Cris G. Sienes
Different Strokes
THE lifting of the moratorium on death penalty has revived the age-old debate on the ethics and efficacy of the death penalty. This never-ending debate is attributed to the two opposing views on the purpose of punishment. One is retributive, the other utilitarian.
Punishment has been defined as "a penalty levied by society on individuals for their misdeeds." Taken in this context, the purpose of punishment is retribution for the wrong done. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.
Thus the retributive view of punishment holds that justice is done when a criminal suffers pain in the body, purse or freedom equal to the wrong done. The utilitarian view holds that punishment should reform the criminal and deter others from committing similar acts.
Protagoras, in one of Plato's dialogues, argued that it is not reasonable for society to retaliate against a criminal for an act that is already past and therefore irremediable. A criminal should only be punished to prevent him or others from doing wrong again.
Plato himself believed that the main purpose of punishment is to correct, to cure, to restore right order to the criminal's soul. But he also believed that the death penalty should be imposed on incurable criminals as a deterrent example to others.
Socrates also favored the imposition of the death penalty on incorrigible criminals.
Cesare Beccaria, the 18th century Italian criminologist, was the first notable figure to demand that the death penalty should be abolished. He argued that it is not necessary to execute a criminal in order to deter others from committing similar crimes. Furthermore, there is always a possibility that courts err in convicting criminals.
Kant and Hegel both upheld the retributive view of punishment. Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes and Bentham were all advocates of the utilitarian view of punishment.
But even Rousseau asserted that "as members of society we consent to die if we ourselves turn assassins."
It was St. Thomas Aquinas who tried to combine the retributive and utilitarian views of punishment. He held that moral order requires that penalties be imposed in order to right wrongs that have been committed. But he also believed that punishment should also reform the criminal and deter criminal acts.
Most legal system in the world today tries to achieve all three aims of punishment--retribution, reform and deterrence. It tries to fit the punishment to both the crime committed and the criminal.
The argument between the retributive and utilitarian views of punishment continues to this day and, in the case of the death penalty, it has become acute.
But back to Pres. Gloria Arroyo's lifting of the ban on the death penalty.
It seems that whatever she does about the death penalty, she cannot avoid being criticized.
When she suspended the imposition of the death penalty, she was soundly criticized by groups who are in favor of the extreme punishment. Now that she has lifted the suspension of the death penalty, she is again being criticized by those who oppose capital punishment.
The Catholic church, for one, strongly opposes the death penalty. Its stand is understandable. The church values life, as we all do.
But it is interesting to note that ethics or moral philosophy, which Catholic colleges and universities teach, justifies capital punishment.
Vernon Bourke, in his book, Ethics, A Textbook in Moral Philosophy, which was used by the University of St. Tomas before, wrote: "A state may kill a criminal who has seriously offended against the common good of the community. Just as it is reasonable to cut off a diseased member of the human body, so it is reasonable to permit the body politic to cut off a bad member of society for the sake of the good of the whole society."
Bourke added: "There must be a public trial to determine that the man is a criminal and a serious offended against the common good before he can be executed. The punishment of such offenders against the common good is the work of those who have charge of the community."
Bourke's book on ethics has the imprimatur of James C. Cardinal McGuigan, Archbishop of Toronto, and the book's editorial board, whose members included Gerard Smith, S.J., director of the Department of Philosophy, Marquette University.
Finally, the Rev. Francis J. Ripley, in his pamphlet, "What You Should Know About the Ten Commandments", wrote, and we quote in part: "God alone is the author of life; He alone may take life, apart from the circumstances of a just war, the execution of a criminal and legitimate self-defense (emphasis ours)."
Point to Ponder: "Juridical punishment can never be administered merely for promoting another good, either with regard to the criminal himself, or to civil society, but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime." (Kant)
(December 18, 2003 issue)
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