The dilemma of whether the death penalty is ethical or not is the main problem facing today's society. The death penalty is given to those who commit crimes deemed worthy of death by society and the government, and crimes such as murder deserve this punishment. A widely controversial topic, the death penalty is a divider between many ideologies, religions and cultures. This essay will examine why the death penalty is ethical from the perspective of Immanuel Kant and utilitarianism. Immanuel Kant believed that in some cases the death penalty was morally justifiable. He absolutely insisted on capital punishment for murder, saying: "he who has committed murder must die" (Kant). He believed that a society that does not sentence to death someone who has killed people becomes an accessory to a crime. Kant criticizes the concept that no one has the right to deprive a person of the right to life, therefore the death penalty is unjust. He believed that a state should have the right to kill a murderer. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. Kant believed that capital punishment was justified only for serious crimes such as murder or anything that causes extensive harm to society. He believed it impossible to allow any kind of situation in which a murderer had to enjoy legal rights and could justify his actions. He also believed that we could not replace capital punishment and did not know what could replace it if it were abolished. Kant thought that if a criminal is not punished, society becomes controversial and weakens. Even accidentally punishing an innocent person was preferable to not punishing someone who had actually committed a crime against Kant. According to Kant, a murderer sentenced to death cannot resort to pardon or a lighter sentence. The authorities should not have the right to allow such a situation, but if they still choose to do so, it means that the legal authorities are contradicting themselves. Legal authorities must not violate justice, arbitrariness regarding justice cannot be allowed. A legal system must strictly respect the law, because observance of the law is an expression of justice. The death penalty in the United States is reserved for only the most heinous crimes. It is not a state lottery that randomly chooses people from among all those convicted of murder. Instead, it is a system that selects the worst of the worst. If murderers like those described above were sentenced to a lighter sentence, such as a long prison term, it would be disproportionate to the severity of the crime. Kant insisted on capital punishment for murderers. Kant said that "he who has committed murder must die" (Kant). A society that does not sentence a murderer to death is complicit in this crime. Utilitarianism considers the death penalty to be morally justifiable if it benefits society as a whole or promotes general happiness. So, if someone committed a heinous crime like murder or rape, then it would promote the general happiness of the public to see that person be punished with the death penalty. So, even though punishing criminals might cause sadness and pain to them and the people close to them, these punishments will ensure the happiness of society as a whole. It can be said that utilitarianisms support the death penalty because violation of laws causes pain for the majority of society, so it is necessary to prevent this pain. However, they do not believe that it is right to punish criminals to give them what they deserve. or exact revenge or punishment on them. The problem of remuneration, for utilitarians,is that it promotes suffering without any gain in happiness. Utilitarians also believe that capital punishment is intended to deter many criminals from committing murder. The severity of the loss of life is intended to cause fear and consequently prevent crime. The death penalty is better than life imprisonment also because it prevents the criminal who has committed such heinous crimes from being released from prison and committing them again. From this point of view, the taking of the criminal's life is justified because it prevents the taking of other innocent lives. If it were decided that allowing the criminal to live would lead to consequences of more terrible crimes, then capital punishment would be considered an appropriate alternative in that case. These views demonstrate that the death penalty is an ethical solution to terrible crimes. All of these views state that the death penalty should only be used in scenarios where the criminal in question has committed the most heinous of crimes, murder. Kant states that if a criminal killed someone he loses his rights as a human being and his punishment should be equal to the crime committed. Executing murderers prevents them from committing the crime again and thus protects innocent victims. Good outweighs evil and the executioner is morally justified in taking the life of the murderer. It is actually more morally wrong to simply incarcerate a murderer in an air-conditioned prison with television, where he receives three free meals a day, free time and visits from people close to him. Someone who kills another person can only be forced to pay for their actions by giving up their rights and giving their lives in place of the person they had killed. It should be this way because the loss of freedom is not comparable to the loss of life. If the punishment for minor crimes such as theft is imprisonment, the punishment for murder must be even more severe, because human life is worth far more than any material possession. If, for example, a murderer took the life of a child and the criminal was only given a life sentence, the victim's family will pay taxes for his meals and his television. And if he were to take the college courses that prison could offer him, the victim's family would finance that too. This goes against Kant and utilitarianism because it does not deprive the criminal of his rights or punish him accordingly, but it also does not promote the happiness of the victim's family. More than revenge Many people argue that the death penalty is just a means of revenge. vendetta. However, this is not the case, while in reality the murderer gets off quite easily when he is sentenced to death. The killer is often given only the lethal injection. If a person is given the lethal injection, they are put to sleep and then given potassium chloride which will stop their heart. The criminal dies from an overdose and respiratory and cardiac arrest while unconscious. The small amount of pain the criminal feels cannot even compensate for the pain of the victims and their families. The death penalty is not a deterrent against violent crimes. The death penalty as a deterrent to crime is not the problem. Capital punishment is, sorry for the redundancy, a punishment for a crime. As punishment, the death penalty is 100% effective: every time it is used, the prisoner dies. Furthermore, the death penalty is actually 100% effective as a crime deterrent: the murderer will never commit another crime once executed. While there is no evidence that innocents have been executed this century, there is abundant evidence that escaped or prematurely released prisoners have again killed innocent victims. 11.404.