John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant have two things in common: they both advocate capital punishment, and their own philosophies fail to prove it just. In fact, one could argue they do much to discredit the use of capital punishment, despite their efforts. Mill assigns so many qualifiers to his view of the death penalty that he himself inspires doubt in the practice. He also claims the death penalty to be more humane than long term imprisonment, but asserts that the death penalty should still be used for the most grievous of crimes. Kant fails to justify capital punishment because the Categorical Imperative would forbid both the first murder to take place, as well as the killing of the perpetrator. Additionally, Kant's view of human dignity would seem to indicate that a second life taken is just as much a crime as the first.

During Mill's speech to the British parliament in 1868, he was apparently speaking on behalf of capital punishment. However, the use of capital punishment had to have many conditions. For example, the evidence against the accused should be conclusive, and the crime should be the worst act a person can commit. Also, the crime should be a result of the persons personality, and not an exception to it. Finally, there cannot be any hope of rehabilitation for the perpetrator. With each proposed condition, Mill makes it more likely that the practice of capital punishment is unjust. Each one makes it more difficult and unlikely to find a suitable candidate, and his criteria can also be interpreted subjectively.

Mill contrasts a life sentence to capital punishment during his speech to parliament. He says a quick death is much more humane than a life full of suffering. If capital punishment is not the worst punishment, one could conclude that it should not be used for the worst crime. Rather, life imprisonment should be the sentence for murder.

Immanuel Kant's view of capital punishment conflicts with the idea he used for the foundation of his ethics, the Categorical Imperative. In his work Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, he proposes that people should "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Kant also held that capital punishment was appropriate as a punishment for murder because the two acts were proportionately comparable. If the death penalty is considered state sanctioned murder, and the Categorical Imperative were applied to a prohibition of murder, the death penalty then appears unjust.

Kant was known to think humans had a dignity and value beyond calculation and price. If this idea holds true, common sense would seem to indicate capital punishment is a destroyer of priceless human life. One could then use the idea of human dignity to claim that the death penalty is unjust.

John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant both attempt to justify capital punishment, but they both fail to do so. Mill fails because he claims life long imprisonment is worse a fate than death, but also considers the death penalty to be the ultimate punishment. His argument also contains so many qualifying factors required in the use of capital punishment, that he himself seems to doubt his own position. Kant fails to justify capital punishment because his notions of human dignity and universal maxims conflict with its use. While both Mill and Kant share an advocacy for capital punishment, they both fail to justify its use.

Works Cited

Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Lewis White Beck. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956.

Mill, John Stuart. "Parliamentary Debate on Capital Punishment within Prisons Bill," Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, 21 April 1868 (London: Hansard, 1868). Reprinted in Applied Ethics, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 98-103.