Kants Position Concerning the Death Penalty - Research Paper Example

Put another way, “there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life. There is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.” (Pojman, 1998, p. 29) The example that is given by Kant is that if a society lived on an island and decided to disperse and go to various parts of the earth, first the last murderer in prison would have to be executed so that each should receive his just desert and that “the people should not bear the guilt of a capital crime through failing to insist on its punishment; for if they do not do so, they can be regarded as accomplices in the public violation of justice.

” (Pojman, 1998, p. 29) Kant believes that the “right to not be killed is a natural right which society cannot override and it can only be undermined by one’s immoral acts, as the criminal forfeits his right to freedom or life.” (Pojman, 1998, p. 30) Kant believed that “each person has intrinsic worth, based upon their ability to reason, but that we can forfeit that worth through immoral acts” (Pojman, 1998, p. 44) such that the death penalty might well be appropriate. Pojman interprets Kant’s position to be that “a failure to punish constitutes an endorsement of the criminal act or a form of criminal complicity after the fact.

” (Pojman, 1998, p. 9) Kant and his followers have three main theses they base their justification of punishment on. First, that “only the guilty can be punished; that if you have committed a crime, morality demands that you suffer an evil for it; and, that the correct amount of punishment imposed upon the morally or legally guilty offender is equal to the moral seriousness of the offense.”