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Argument: The death penalty upholds individual responsibility and dignity
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Charles Colson, Founder of the Prison Fellowship Ministries, "Preserving the Dignity of Man: The Case for Capital Punishment". 2001 - "For years, modern psychology has argued that the criminal is not guilty of crime; he’s just sick, and in need of therapy. C.S. Lewis argued in 'The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.', however, that this view strips man of his dignity: It says we’re not free moral agents, responsible for our actions, but rather patients to be manipulated for the good of society. Lewis wrote, 'To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better,’ is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.' I realized that this went right to the heart of a central precept of Judeo-Christian belief. The Scriptures teach that people are responsible for their own behavior. The object of justice is not to rehabilitate or create some new person, like scientists in a Viennese laboratory, but rather to balance the scales of justice. And sometimes the only way to do that is to give the offender his just deserts: capital punishment. The execution of Timothy McVeigh isn’t about therapy, or retribution, or getting even. It’s about justice and preserving the dignity of man."
Margaret Thatcher (1984) - I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty.[1]
Michael Rubin. "Immoral Equivalency". Jerusalem Post. 17 Mar. 2002 - "While it sounds noble, the rhetoric of moral equivalency is not only empty, but also destructive. To equate blame is to deny responsibility. And to deny responsibility is to remove disincentive for violence. The quickest way to end terrorism is not to spout platitudes, but rather to create consequences."[2]
Louis P.Pojman. "Debating the Death Penalty", Chapter 3: "Why the Death Penalty is Morally Permissible". 2004 - I suspect that the growing awareness of the sociological influences on criminals has resulted in a tendency to minimize the responsibility of criminals....because human beings, as ratianl agents, has dignity,one who with malice aforethought kills a human being forfeit his right to life and deserves to die.
C.S. Lewis - "To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better,’ is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image."[3]