Both Sides Of The Death Penalty

In this paper I will give you facts from both sides of the death penalty. The death penalty is a very controversial subject. Some people believe that it is wrong to kill a man ever and some believe that if a person kills that they should be killed as well. The arguments that we will see are whether the value of life is enough to not execute a convicted person, if the reason the person is being kills is for vengeance or justice and whether the crime decreases or stays the same if the death penalty is in place.
Many philosophers say that life has an intrinsic value. “The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or ‘in its own right,’” (Zimmerman). Life should not be taken if it holds value in itself. Under no circumstance will there be a good reason to take a life. Once a life is taken, you can never get it back. Some may argue that like the Hammurabi Code in Babylon the punishment should fit the crime, “an eye for an eye” but we are not in those times anymore. If crimes were given unique punishments then for example, if they killed my mother, wouldn’t we have to kill the murderer’s mother as well? To kill a person’s personhood goes against what the United States stands for.
On the other hand, Immanuel Kant, a German …show more content…
According the Death Penalty Information Center, “States Without the Death Penalty Have Had Consistently Lower Murder Rates” meaning that the death penalty will not reduce crime but increase it because criminals do not care. The threat of the death penalty will not stop anybody from committing a crime. People commit crime every day, even though death penalty is still in place. The death penalty will only increase crime rate because it obviously teaches that killing other people is a positive solution to a crime or vengeance, which is not