Louis Pojman In Defense Of The Death Penalty Analysis

The history of the death penalty can be traced back in time all the way to the fifth century B.C. through Roman’s Law of the Twelve Tablets, where people would be put to death through crucifixion, drowning, and even by being burnt alive.. From there it can be found in seventh B.C.’s Draconian Code, and even in eighteenth century B.C. through the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, in which twenty-five various crimes would lead to the death penalty (Part I, 2015). Though the crimes punishable under the death penalty and the methods of which the death penalty have changed over time, the ideology behind the method still stands the same: An eye for an eye. The argument for the death penalty stands that those who commit a crime such as capital murder should be punished the same way that they punished their victim: by death. However, while this ethical principle may sound clear and cut on paper, the stance-both for and against-and methodology behind the death penalty is much more complicated than that.
Pojman argues the need for a death penalty. He makes the claim that because of natural instinct, we as human beings demand that a criminal is punished properly in relation the crime he or she commits. We are not fully satisfied until this punishment is fully brought against the criminal (Pojman, 2004). Yet at the same time, we as humans have evolved to be able to refrain from taking vengeance into our hands; instead, we depend on the law to do so. Therefore, the death penalty is a perfect punishment, Pojman argues, because it both satisfies our need for revenge, but also allows the law to settle it swiftly (as compared to waiting out the criminal's lifetime in