Lethal injection involves a cocktail of drugs, administered in three stages, with the
first intended to induce unconsciousness, the second muscle paralysis and the third
cardiac arrest. It was introduced as a more humane method than the electric chair,
which itself was thought at one time to be painless (it was inspired by domestic
accidents involving electrical appliances). A defender of capital punishment might
well argue that many forms of punishment involve pain, whether it be physical or
psychological: so why single out capital punishment? It may be wrong deliberately
to inflict pain, and this might require the state to explore more humane ways of
killing, but it does not undermine the case for capital punishment. Indeed, opponents
of capital punishment are charged with bad faith: they are simply using ‘cruelty’ as
a way of ending the death penalty. They ought to be honest about their intentions.
On the other hand, people should be permitted to use any arguments they think
have force or are persuasive and we should concentrate on the arguments and not
on ad hominemobservations.Capital punishment is brutalising and barbaric for society
Death is an industry. It requires juries and judges, a prison administration,
manufacturers of execution equipment, doctors to oversee lethal injections and
clergy to provide religious guidance. Is it possible to participate in this ‘industry’
and remain decent people? Surely people become sadists? Does it not coarsen
people? You get people outside Departments of Correction (execution centres)
waving frying pans on execution day (the use of euphemisms, such as ‘Departments
of Correction’ could also be taken as evidence of the costs to civilisation of capital
punishment). A defender of capital punishment might argue: (a) it is important that
the process is carried out in a disciplined and respectful way; (b) that people are
bound to find execution revolting but that does not make it wrong. We can develop
these two points: normal human beings ought to be appalled by killing – that is
what makes us good people – but murderers deserve to die: it is right that they die.
For that reason to do the rightthing we need temporarily to suppress our good
instincts. Rightness and goodness are distinct: we can do bad things for the right
reasons (kill a person) but also the wrong thing for good reasons (spare a murderer).
To avoid becoming bad people it is essential that we organise executions in such a
way that we retain our humanity. But perhaps the opponent of capital punishment
is making a wider point about society, and here we come to the issue of European
identity touched upon earlier. Protocols 6 and 13 of the European Convention on
Human Rights are not merely legal statements but moral statements: the death
penalty is absolutely prohibited. Europe – with its history of war and genocide –
has collectively made the decision to abjure violence to human beings. Jeremy
Waldron argues that what we call the ‘law’ is not just a pile of individual rules and
judgements but forms a structure (Waldron, 2005: 1721). Within that structure
some rules or prohibitions act as ‘archetypes’: they are not just rules among other
rules but actually define the legal system as a whole. They also form moral images
in the minds of citizens. The British 1807 Abolition of Slavery Act was not just
another Act of Parliament, although technicallygiven the sovereignty of Parliament- or the Queen-in-Parliament – it is, but rather it defines what ‘we’ are. Waldron
develops this point in relation to torture, arguing for its absolute prohibition, but
some might argue that the abolition of the death penalty functions in the same way.
160 Part 1 Classical ideas