Philosophical
problems concerning capital punishment involves the understanding of two more
significant issues; life and death. Therefore, in this essay our discussion of
capital punishment from a moral perspective will depend on what we understand
from these two issues. The significant theories concerning the nature of life
in the first place can be separated into three: Aristotle’s view of life; the
mechanical view of life defended by Descartes; Kant’s definition as life as
“organization”. We can add the Darwinian theory of life also as a new
perspective which is still changing and evolving. The biological approach of
Darwin and later evolutionary biologists is materialist. Since Darwin is
searching for the origin of life, his biological explanations will give as a byproduct
the nature of life as well. We shall try to argue that if life has a significant
meaning then we will try to preserve it. We also need to explain the nature of
death. We shall then try to define death. In the final analysis this will bring
us closer to analyze capital punishment also from a moral perspective. We have
one more point which I would like to discuss: Since religion plays an important
role in human life it cannot be neglected in discussions regarding the ethics
of capital punishment and therefore we shall try to examine this issue. I would
like to show that all these debates are endless and they seem to repeat each
other without resolving the problem whether there should be the death penalty
or not. There are still many countries where capital punishment is applied
nevertheless there are many other countries in which the death penalty has
already been lifted and replaced with life imprisonment. My discussion will end
with a discussion of how Islam in our culture offers a solution to this problem.
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A. E. Taylor, Aristotle, New York: Dover Publications, 1955.
A. J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1976).
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary, (Brentwood, Maryland: Amana Corp., 1983)