The Dark Side of the Death Penalty
The death penalty is legal in 271 states across the country. In other words, more than half the states in the country believe it’s okay to put someone to death for committing a crime.
And it appears the practice isn’t going away anytime soon. A recent report noted that Alabama will be allowed to carry out the nation’s first execution via nitrogen gas.
The breakdown of logic here is baffling.
If X criminal murders someone, the government is legally able to carry out the very same act.
No matter if we agree with capital punishment or not, it’s clear that there’s a contradiction at the core of the practice.
It appears that many people (proponents of capital punishment) don’t have a problem with murder. They only care about who carries out the act. It’s not okay if a civilian illegally kills someone, but it’s okay if the government legally kills someone.
There’s an asymmetry here that often gets overlooked.
Albert Camus said2:
"Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life."
Check out my video essay on the subject:
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"Death Penalty States [2022]". Death Penalty Info. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
David Simpson, “Albert Camus (1913—1960), viii. The Death Penalty” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Martin, March 21, 2005