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Capital Punishment: A Comment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2016
Extract
It seems that nothing new can be said about the issue of capital punishment. And of course even this apologetic proposition itself is hardly original as is attested by the opening remark of Justice Mosk's paper. Yet, this is not an uncommon plight for a commentator in a philosophical conference on capital punishment, and particularly so when his task is to join into a long, comprehensive, and sophisticated debate between two of the major contestants in this battle. Actually, I feel almost like a child invading the privacy of its parents engaged in one of their quarrels. I use this metaphor because, for me, the names Bedau and van den Haag connote the “pro” and “con” attitudes to capital punishment since my philosophical childhood. I still have my notes, taken twenty years ago while reading as a student the exciting exchange in Ethics between these two sharp, persistent, uncompromisingly critical philosophers. They have introduced me into the subject which has interested me since, without of course imagining at the time that I will ever have the chance to get personally involved in their debate.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1991
References
1 van den Haag, Ernest, “For Capital Punishment”, in this issue, at p. 460Google Scholar.
2 Bedau, Hugo A., “How to Argue about the Death Penalty”, in this issue, at p. 466Google Scholar.
3 For a full elaboration of this argument, see my article “Hobbes on Capital Punishment” (1991) 8 History of Philosophy Q. 119–134Google Scholar.
4 Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (Oxford, Blackwell, 1946)Google Scholar.
5 I find, therefore, Watkins's exposition and implicit defence of Hobbes's ideas on capital punishment unacceptable. Watkins claims that the sovereign “did not receive [the right to impose the death penalty] from anywhere”. He, unlike the rest of us, retains in the social state the right to kill aggressors, a right we all had in the state of nature. But how and why does he retain it, and why is it the only exception to the general principle that the rights of the sovereign are derived from the consent of the contractors in the state of nature? See, Watkins, J. W. N., Hobbes's System of Ideas (London, Hutchinson, 1973) 97–8Google Scholar.
6 Glover believes that execution of criminals can be justified if it is expected to save many future lives. I cannot see how the number of statistical lives saved in the future can make a difference regarding the legitimacy of sacrificing an actual person's life; maybe it is the general utilitarian approach to which Glover adheres. However, it has nothing to do with self-defence. See Glover, J., Causing Death and Saving Lives (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977) Chap. 18Google Scholar.
7 Is not our strong intuitive opposition to expulsion as a mode of punishment based on the same logic?
8 Naturally one expects to find in Rawls an ally to this non-psychological interpretation of the limits of contractual agreements. Take, for instance, this passage: “Thus in agreeing to penalties that stabilize the scheme of cooperation the parties accept the same kind of constraint on self-interest that they acknowledge in choosing the principles of justice in the first place”. Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Harvard U.P., 1971) 576Google Scholar.