Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham’s Ideology on Capital Punishment

Abstract

Punishment is defined as an act of imposition of a penalty or consequence on someone as a result of their immoral behaviour. The top punishment given in present time is known as “Capital Punishment”, it is a state-sanctioned practice of killing (highest punishment) a person as a punishment for an extreme crime. The question is how we arrive at the conclusion. In what ways is the death penalty acceptable? This article chose to contrast two opposing points of view and show how they differ in their attitudes about the death sentence. This article analyse Kant and Bentham's positions on the death penalty because they both embody the core ideas of two well-known ethical schools: retribution and utilitarianism. The researcher focused on the ideologies of Kant and Bentham because they both had a large influence on Western thought, both of them discussed extensively about the death sentence, and the majority of the justifications we use today for and against it are based on one of the two. We look at how they view the system's operation and whether they concur with one another. Additionally, we also look at whether their theories on the death sentence are still relevant today in India. Did, the Indian criminal justice system employed the theories of Kant or Bentham to implement the death penalty? And it will conclude with providing a personal viewpoint on the subject and going over how to draw conclusions that will help us make better decisions on the death sentence.