Week IX: “Capital Punishment”Main themes:A. “What is the point of punishing?”B. Nietzsche on origin/purposeC. RetributivismD. DeterrenceE. Abolitionism“What is the point of punishing?”General responses: 1) Restoration of justice (“correction”)2) Prevent negative activity of the same kind (“deterrence”)3) Deserved (“retributivism”)4) Educative (“moral Lesson”)Nietzsche on origin/purpose- reason to punish is more animalisticOrigin= the (great) pleasure of watching others sufferPurpose= “rendering harmless, paying of a debt, having a festival, etc.”Tacked on through social interpretationRetributivism“retributivism is the theory that the criminal deserves to be punished and deserves to be punished in proportion to the gravity of his or her crime, whether or not the victim or anyone else desires it.” (p.233)Proportionality-Punishment “fits” the crime (e.g., “contrapasso”);-lex talionis (“eye for an eye”)’;-Equitability; for the “common good”“whoever has committed Murder, must die. There is, in this case, no juridical substitute or surrogate that can be given or taken for the satisfaction of justice. There is no Likeness or proportion between Life, however painful. And death..” (Immanuel Kant)“Moral-standing”?Actions toward criminals= non-justified (socially congenial)Problems-Possibility of cruel and unusual punishment (torture)-“Where would the line ultimately be drawn?”Deterrence“by executing convicted murderers we will deter would be murderers from killing innocent people.” (234)Assumptions-Humans fear death more than anything else;-serves the “greatest good” of society on the whole;-Accountability for the future“at the moment only first-degree murder and treason are crimes deemed worthy of the death penalty. Perhaps our notion of treason should be expanded to include those who betray the trust of the public (e.g. dishonest corporate executives).” (241)white-collar crime--- first degree murderAbolitionism-“[…] beheading is not simply death […] it is a murder, to be sure, and one that arithmetically pays for the murder committed. But it adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization, in short, which is in itselfa source or moral sufferings more terrible than death. Hence there is no equivalence.” (Albert Camus, “Reflections on the Guillotine”)more rational, more “scientific” than any pre-meditated murder--- condemned= a moral accomplice in his own deathCamus problem with guiettine (scientific punishment)--- more humane than hanging or firing squadYou don’t want it to take more than one time. You become a moral accomplice in your own
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