In several upcoming issues, we will focus on Bryan Stevenson's important book, Just Mercy. (Stevenson will be speaking in the Mountainlair Ballrooms at 7:30pm on Monday, November 7th.) We begin this series with Dr. Jessica Wolfendale, a professor in WVU's Philosophy Department. She asks us to think carefully about some big questions connected to Just Mercy. Are modern methods of execution painless and humane, as purported, or are they cruel and violent? What is the moral cost of creating institutions and training executioners to kill other human beings? Please respond to Dr. Wolfendale's ideas or pose your own ideas and questions in the blog. (If you don't have a Disqus account, you can post as "Guest.") You can follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wvuthequestion/
Dr. Jessica Wolfendale, WVU Philosophy Department
Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercyreveals an aspect of the death penalty that is often neglected in discussions about
the ethics of capital punishment: what does it really mean to put someone to
death? Once we look closely at our modern execution process, we see that our
choice of execution methods and our approach to executions reveals the impossibility
of reconciling the use of the death penalty with a commitment to humane values
and a rejection of cruelty. Until the early 20th Century, executions in most
countries were public and often involved methods we now consider to be brutal
and barbaric, such as beheading and hangings. Today, executions in the US are
hidden and secret, witnessed only by a select few. Modern execution methods purport
to be more humane than previous methods, and we would be horrified at the suggestion
that we should use a method such as the guillotine, for example, even though
the guillotine is arguably one of the the most efficient and painless method
of execution available. We would reject such a method as violent and barbaric.
Yet our modern execution methods, such as lethal injection, point to a deep seated
unease with the reality of the death penalty; the reality of intentionally killing
people who are no longer a threat to us. Lethal injection, for example, aims
to make an execution appear almost like a peaceful death. But our attempts to
make executions appearhumane, to make the death of the condemned person seem peaceful, is not really motivated by a desire to reduce the suffering of
the condemned. It is an attempt to mask the reality of the death penalty. The
death penalty is the violent taking of a human life against a person’s will.
And our attempts at creating peaceful and humane executions do not thereby make
the death penalty a more humane punishment. Instead, these attempts make
us complicit with the myth that it is possible to uphold humane values and at
the same time kill people who are not a threat to us. Even if we think some
people deserve to die – and that is a question we ought to be very hesitant about
answering too readily - we have to ask ourselves what the cost is of creating
institutions and training people to administer the death that we think they deserve.
To learn more, please watch the video of Dr. Wolfendale's presentation: