When we speak of punishment, according to psychology, we regard it as an action done with the precise intention of reducing or stopping a particular behaviour. Punishments are essential in what is regarded as operant conditioning (Wahome, 2022), a method of learning that uses rewards and punishments in order to try and modify behaviour.

The history of punishment dates back to the excellent book, where a period after the creation of man and woman, we find that the man did wrong, and the Lord punished them for that. Regarding the death penalty, we find that the very first one was implemented around eighteenth-century B.C. It was in the reign of King Hammurabi of Babylon, who made capital punishment a repercussion of performing 25 different crimes (Center, 2023). Over time since then, capital punishment has been mentioned in numerous parts of history. The fourteenth century B.C.’s Hittite Code, the Seventh Century B.C.’s Draconian code of Athens, where death was the only punishment for all cases of breaking the law (Center, 2023). Fast forward to the 1700s, within the civilization of Britain, 222 crimes were punishable by death, including Stealing and cutting down trees, among others.

I have the unpopular belief that when it comes to capital punishment, I support it as an effective way of implementing forms of justice within a society. This particular debate is rather essential as it brings two contrasting opinions on the people’s stand regarding capital punishment. In this particular report, there will be the introduction of six reasons that argue for the acceptance of capital punishment within society. There will also be six arguments against capital punishment. Afterwards, a comparison and contrast between these two essays will be made.

Arguments for Capital Punishment

The first argument that is pro-capital punishment is seen to be the inevitability of death. There is the suggestion that highlights that since all humans ultimately face death, many of whom happen to even be waiting for it in conditions like Cancer, capital punishment ought to be viewed through the same lens. The argument fell into what we may regard as the false equivalence fallacy. There is the equation of natural death to that of legal execution. The former is a circumstantial action, while the latter is a deliberate act (Effectiviology, 2021). The analogy does not consider the aspect of death being something natural. Capital punishment is a decision made with the hope of having ethical implications.

The second argument is that capital punishment incapacitates criminals, positing the execution of dangerous criminals permanently being eradicated from society. This argument can be criticized as it oversimplifies the situation, overlooking other incapacitation methods, including life imprisonment, which does the same job.

The saving of cost is the third argument cited in favour of the death penalty, and it argues that execution is the most cost-effective action within correctional facilities. However, this perspective has a misleading cause fallacy since financial considerations are prioritized over moral and ethical ones (U.S. Department of Justice, 1978). The emphasis on monetary savings being valued over human life happens to be in total disregard of the moral and social costs of wrongful execution and often the higher financial cost of the legal processes that involve capital punishment.

Retribution is also frequently mentioned, where execution is seen as a deserved and proportional punishment for heinous crimes. This argument appeals to the emotional desire for revenge but can be ethically contentious. It mixes analogy and authority, comparing the harm caused by the crime to the punishment and relying on the justice system’s judgment. However, this assumption that retribution is a valid form of justice is challenged by many ethical frameworks that favour rehabilitation over retribution.

The deterrence argument suggests that with the death penalty, there is deterrence to severe crimes that occur (Death Penalty Information Center, 2023). This argument often falls into a correlation-causation fallacy, presuming that the presence of capital punishment is the direct cause of lower crime rates. Despite the use of statistics, the assumption of a direct link between capital punishment and crime reduction disregards factors that influence crime rates.

In finality, there is the claim that the opposition uses misleading data. They claim that the use of the death penalty correlates with a decrease in rates of murder. This is a strawman fallacy. It heavily misrepresents arguments of death penalty opponents to make it easy to refute the claims (Blair & Tindale, 2020). The argument assumes a direct relationship between the implementation of capital punishment and a reduction in murders although m