The death penalty violates the sanctity of human life

The argument

Proponents of abolition ground this argument in a claim about the standing of persons rather than in a claim about the effectiveness of punishment. Human life, on this view, is intrinsically valuable — valuable in itself, rather than in virtue of what any particular life contains or contributes — and whatever holds that kind of value is owed dignity and respect. The claim is deliberately unconditional, because a value that could be forfeited through behaviour would not be intrinsic at all; it would be a reward for good conduct, withdrawn when conduct failed. Supporters of the position argue that debate about capital punishment characteristically obscures this. In death penalty discussions criminals are often painted as subhuman, monstrous creatures, and that description does real argumentative work: once the condemned person has been placed outside the category of human beings, the prohibition on killing appears not to apply to them, and no further justification seems to be needed. On this account the description is simply false. People retain their humanity even after committing a heinous crime, and heinousness, however great, is not a mechanism by which a person ceases to be a person. A death row prisoner remains a member of the class whose lives are intrinsically valuable. The inference is then short. If a person's life is still valuable regardless of their wrongdoing, and if death row prisoners are still people, then deliberately ending such a life is wrong in the way that ending any human life is wrong. The gravity of what the prisoner has done does not alter the character of what is done in response to them; it supplies only a motive for doing it. Abolitionists therefore present execution as the paradigm case of answering wrongdoing with further wrongdoing, and hold that the proper response is to refuse to do wrong in response to someone else's wrongdoing. Because the death penalty violates the sanctity of human life in this way, they conclude, it should be abolished.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The death penalty protects human life- it does not disvalue it. If people know that murder will be punished likewise, they will refrain from committing it. The death penalty deters violent crime, which ultimately saves innocent lives. Additionally, the death penalty reflects society's value of innocent life. If our society values the vulnerable, we will zealously punish those who prey upon them. If we fail to execute murderers, we would be sending a message: we do not value innocent life enough to punish those who take it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This premise is close to unanimous in the debate and therefore does no work against the opposing position: retentionists also hold that human life is intrinsically valuable, and the counter-argument builds its case on exactly that claim. Shared ground cannot settle a disagreement. [Rejecting P2] The inference needs a step the argument never supplies. Imprisonment also overrides what a person would choose, and no account is given of why execution differs in kind rather than in degree — the usual answer, irreversibility and the risk of executing the innocent, is not mentioned. As stated, the principle would also rule out killing in self-defence or in defence of another, which few abolitionists accept, and it leaves the retentionist reply untouched: that valuing innocent life is precisely what is said to justify the punishment.