Should the death penalty be abolished?

The death penalty violates the sanctity of human life

Question: Should the death penalty be abolished?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, we should abolish the death penalty
Argument‹6 of 6: The death penalty violates the sanctity of human life

Regardless of their crimes, the lives of death row prisoners are valuable.

The argument

Human life is intrinsically valuable, and therefore worthy of dignity and respect. In death penalty discussions, we often paint criminals as subhuman, monstrous creatures. We forget that people retain their humanity, even after committing a heinous crime. A person’s life is still valuable, regardless of their wrongdoing, and this includes death row prisoners. Since death row prisoners are still people, regardless of their crime, executing them is wrong. For this reason, we should abolish the death penalty, refusing to do wrong in response to someone else's wrongdoing.

Premises

[P1]Human life is intrinsically valuable and worthy of dignity and respect, and people retain their humanity even after committing a heinous crime. [P2] Since death-row prisoners are still people whose lives remain valuable regardless of their wrongdoing, executing them is wrong. [C] Therefore, because the death penalty violates the sanctity of human life, we should abolish it.

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.