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It is beyond the scope of this article to explore the full range of religious responses, which range from a conviction that the taking of a life can be compensated for only by another life to a belief that the sacredness of life can never justify condoning of the taking of another’s life, and include everything in between.Ī brief overview of a couple of religious perspectives may, however, give a flavor of the moral reasoning undergirding religious responses. But it is equally the case that not all persons within those religious traditions – and not all religions – condemn capital punishment. It certainly is the case that for some religious groups, any notion of capital punishment is contrary to fundamental beliefs.
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Georgia, the Supreme Court recognized that right and wrong can transcends the laws on the books at any given moment. One might perhaps think that the answer to any question of the ethics of capital punishment begins and ends with moral law. Is Capital Punishment Wrong According to Traditional Moral Measures? In examining the ethics of capital punishment, then, this article will address three questions: Is there an absolute position on the death penalty that renders it immoral in all circumstances? What does the law permit, command, or prohibit? Does the practice accord with these permissions, commands, and prohibitions – and is the perception that it does? The answer to those questions then prompts a fourth: how is a lawyer in today’s legal system to act ethically in a state that authorizes capital punishment? He continued with his duties, but also continued to pray to God at home daily the legal consequence of which was that Darius was compelled to throw Daniel into a lions’ den (from which, Daniel 6 explains, God delivered him, thus honoring Daniel’s adherence to the conduct dictated by his faith rather than the law created by the king). Daniel was a slave who had become a trusted advisor to the king. This is seen in Judeo-Christian scripture at least as early as Daniel 6, when King Darius was beguiled into signing a law that forbade prayer to any but him. Indeed, many people have explored the dilemmas that arise when a community – either through its laws or practices – mandates or prohibits a course of action that is fundamentally at odds with what a person recognizes as an ultimate moral code. The response to an “immoral” but “accepted” practice represents an ethical choice.
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Any analysis of the ethics of capital punishment thus need to echo the Supreme Court’s recognition of the possibility that something that has become “accepted” in society may nonetheless be “immoral.” But it has also recognized that an examination of those values must be tempered with respect for the “dignity of man” such that punishment must not be excessive, either through “the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” or by being “grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime.” These “natural law” values correspond in many instances to moral views set forth in ancient and sacred writing. The United States Supreme Court has certainly recognized that current community values are critical to an analysis regarding whether capital punishment violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes that its origin relates to nature or disposition, but instead defines “ethos” as “he characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its attitudes and aspirations” or “the character of an individual as represented by his or her values or beliefs.” Regardless of the definition, it is apparent that ethical behavior is necessarily an individual action and portrayal in relation to a community – although Aristotle’s definition is more susceptible to an absolute source of such “right behavior” or “moral action” than the Oxford English Dictionary’s. In the traditional Greek, it is used by Aristotle to describe the apparent character of the speaker.
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The word “ethic” is derived from the Greek “ethos,” which itself has taken on multiple meanings. Partner at Drinker Biddle & member of theĪmerican Bar Association’s Steering Committee of the Death Penalty Representation Project,Īssociate in the Drinker Biddle’s Litigation Group