Utilitarianism and Retributivism Views of Capital Punishment

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The court handles all cases with extreme seriousness; however, different cases are handled differently. For instance, murder cases have different pre-trial procedures to be followed as compared to a case like violation of traffic rules. This paper outlines philosophers’ view of punishment and how the County District Court Division handles capital punishment. To begin with, punishment is an act that involves intentional infliction of agony or misery to a person for wrong doing, with the aim of correction. Capital punishment involves penalty by death or life imprisonment killing of the person who has been found guilty. In Philosophers endeavors to justify punishment, they have come up with theories, which explain the core objective of punishment. The theories are Utilitarianism and Retributivism (Fieser, 2001). Utilitarianism is a theory that seeks to identify the consequence of administering punishment. It explains that punishment should serve to dissuade a potential offender from committing a crime. This could be done by setting clear laws, which outlines the punishment for specific crime committed. The theory also proposes punishment as a way of rehabilitating the offender. For instance sentencing an offender to do community work should be done with the aim of improving the character of the offender (Fieser, 2001).On the other hand, Retributivism is a theory that advocates proportionate punishment to any wrongdoer. The theory invokes the retaliation principle, which stipulates that a person, who kills another, should also be killed. The proponent of this theory, Immanuel Kant, seems to be in agreement with the existence of capital punishment in some states. However, to rule out chances of an innocent person being pu... ... middle of paper ... ...ions. However, sometimes judges overrule the jury’s recommendations and impose death penalty rather than life imprisonment (Death Penalty, n.d). In conclusion, statistics indicates that many inmates were executed in the year 2009 compared to 2008. In 2008, 37 inmates from nine states were executed either by lethal injection or electrocution. The following year recorded the execution of 52 inmates (Capital Punishment Statistics, 2008). Works Cited Capital Punishment Statistics, (2008). U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1757.html Death Penalty, (n.d.). Death Penalty Information Centre. Retrieved from http://www.spectacle.org/linkpgs/deathpenalty.html Fieser, J. (2001). Capital Punishment. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retried from http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/punishme.htm#H5. html

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