Critical Thinking and the Death Penalty Debate

Critical Thinking as a Foundation for Inquiry

Wisdom is the continual desire to think critically about oneself, the environment in which we live, and the world around us in order to give accurate and enlightened meaning to life and events. Once a person is able to question their beliefs and develop an understanding of how those beliefs shape the lens through which they view the world, they are then able to evaluate the same scenario from several other perspectives. This ongoing attempt to synthesize and integrate knowledge with our belief system allows for evolving definitions and a life path during which one continually discovers new information.

There are many people who can be viewed as critical thinkers by the nature of their profession. Psychologists, for example, are curious, independent thinkers who continually question how life events and a client's perspective have influenced what that client is currently experiencing. Critical thinkers may come across as judgmental of others or as perpetually questioning the beliefs of those around them, when in fact their intention is not to be negative but rather to give meaning to a situation and develop an understanding of the many phenomena encountered in life.

The death penalty involves a court's decision to impose the sanction of death upon an individual who has committed a crime so heinous that the judge determines ending the offender's life is the appropriate punishment. While sanctions are necessary in order to maintain social order, utilizing the death penalty as a response to capital offenses such as murder is, in my view, a contradiction in itself.

Taking a Position: Opposition to the Death Penalty

From my point of view, using violence as a response to violence is not the manner in which crime should be addressed by our legal system. The legal system is based upon the concepts of punishment, accountability, and deterrence. The death penalty is therefore viewed not only as a punishment for capital offenses but also as a deterrent for others who might contemplate committing similar crimes. However, with rising rates of crime, the deterrent effect of our legal system is clearly losing its hold, and we are now largely in the practice of imposing consequences for socially unacceptable behaviors after the fact. While this is a necessary process, one must consider that our justice system has a track record of convicting people for crimes they did not commit — a gamble we simply cannot take with a human life.

Defining and Supporting the Anti-Death-Penalty Stance

I once believed in the old saying "an eye for an eye," until I came to understand that two wrongs do not make a right and that the taking of a life should not be answered in kind. While I have long trusted the justice system to uphold the law and ensure the safety of the American people, the significant number of individuals being falsely convicted of crimes has shaken the foundation on which my beliefs were built.

When I say that I oppose the death penalty, I am assuming that it does not meaningfully increase the safety of society, nor does it restore a sense of security to the individuals impacted by the crime. I also assume that there are alternative approaches — ones that do not involve taking a life — that can achieve the same protective end result as capital punishment.

Opponents of the death penalty point to the capture and imprisonment of a criminal as sufficient for removing that individual's threat from society. It is therefore argued that the death penalty is not a necessary means of ensuring public safety and may in fact send the message that meeting violence with violence is an acceptable course of action. The greatest evidence supporting this position is the high rate at which sentences in the criminal justice system are reversed. Some studies have found that in capital cases this reversal rate is as high as 50%. There are also arguments that the economic burden of a death penalty case far outweighs that of a life-imprisonment sentence, due to the numerous appeals and legal proceedings involved.

Conclusion and Consequences

After examining all aspects of this issue, my conclusion is that while the justice system requires a process by which individuals can be held accountable for socially unacceptable behaviors, the death penalty is not a sound way of doing this. Our country is based upon the concept of human rights, and while one can argue that an individual in custody no longer retains full rights, if that person is later determined to be innocent those rights must be restored. The evidence regarding the fallibility of the justice system is sufficient to convince me that we cannot take lives in circumstances where we cannot ensure with complete certainty that the individual is in fact guilty of the crime with which they are charged.