A society such as the one in the United States which has a relatively high value for human life, as evidenced by the amount of resources spent to rescue individuals in emergency situations or the vast amounts of money spent on foreign aid to starving people, may struggle with the concept of capital punishment. Democratic societies focused on commercialism and equality of conditions often induce a certain softness into their people. This softness may make it difficult for the society to accept capital punishment. The finality of capital punishment is antithetical to a system that values equality and comfort above justice and honor.
Friedrich Nietzsche writes in Beyond Good and Evil that “the herd man in Europe today gives himself the appearance of being the only permissible kind of man, and glorifies his attributes, which make him tame, easy to get along with, and useful to the herd, as if they were the truly human virtues: namely, public spirit, benevolence, consideration, industriousness, moderation, indulgence, and pity." This is true of both the individuals and the government in the United States today. Indulgence and pity and moderation of punishment are seen as inherent goods rather than something to be meted out when deserved; interestingly, phronesis or the practical wisdom needed to adjudicate well is not a value that Nietzsche saw as important to a democratic society. A democratic society that focuses on equality will be less inclined to favor a system that meets out different punishments for the same crime. Its solution is to gradually reduce its penalties.
Nietzsche goes on to write, “There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it.” A people this soft tends to forget the victim of the crime and the justice due him; so long as the danger to society is neutralized no further action need be taken. Such an idea is completely antithetical to the Bible’s teaching on justice and retribution for capital crimes. , Nietzsche explains the feelings of individuals in such a soft society, “‘Is it not enough to render him undangerous? Why still punish? Punishing itself is terrible.’”
Of course, Nietzsche’s argument is that fear is the only reason that morality exists, but his reflections on the nature of a soft, democratic society need not be rejected on that ground. He writes of a society concerned merely with commerce and comfort, “Wherever the will to power beings to decline, in whatever form, there is always an accompanying decline physiologically, a decadence. The divinity of this decadence, shorn of its masculine virtues and passions, is converted perforce into a god of the physiologically degraded, of the weak. Of course they do not call themselves the weak; they call themselves ‘the good.’” He recognizes that as a society that begins to worship decadence and pleasure becomes weak but frames its weakness as goodness or kindness. Capital punishment has no place in such a system; it does not seem kind. Such a society is far less interested in the justice owed the victims of crimes as it is in preserving a kind and friendly façade. It is not comfortable to hear of someone’s being executed.
Alexis de Tocqueville agrees with Nietzsche on the affect that democracy’s love of material enjoyments has on the individual. He writes of democratic individuals, “They fall into softness rather than debauchery.” He helps to explain this tendency of democratic societies to reject strong punishment. He begins with a brief discussion of how individuals view punishment in an aristocratic society. He writes, “In an aristocratic people each caste has its own opinions, sentiments, rights, mores, and separate existence. Thus the men who compose it do not resemble everyone else; they do not have the same manner of thinking or of feeling, and they scarcely believe themselves to be part of the same humanity. Therefore they cannot understand well what the other feel, or judge them by themselves.” De Tocqueville is arguing that the social differences between people in an aristocratic society keep them from fully participating in punishments meted out to criminals. Thus the French aristocrat can speak of a man being drawn and quartered without feeling anything.
Democratic societies are exactly the opposite according to de Tocqueville. He asks, “Do we have more sensitivity than our fathers?” His answer is simple. The equality of rank causes each individual to imagine each penalty as being imposed on himself. “It makes no difference whether it is a question of strangers or of enemies: imagination immediately puts him in their place. It mixes something personal with his pity and makes him suffer himself while the body of someone like him is torn apart.” “In democratic centuries, men rarely devote themselves to one another; but they show a general compassion for all members of the human species…they are not disinterested, but they are mild.… There is no country where criminal justice is administered with more kindness than in the United States.” Notice the use of such words as Nietzsche found so objectionable; notice also that there is no mention of an equally strong desire to be just as to be kind.
De Tocqueville saw the tendency of democratic societies to reduce penalties. In writing about how Americans treat women well, he states, “The legislators of the United States, who have made almost all the provisions of the penal code milder, punish rape with death; and there is no crime that public opinion pursues with more inexorable ardor.” Today, a mere 170 years after de Tocqueville wrote those words, it is a violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishments to give a life sentence for rape of any form including aggravated sexual assault of a child.
The death penalty is strictly limited, under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution, to cases of murder. That being the case, many states do not allow for the death penalty. The number of states allowing the death penalty is down to thirty-five and they are steadily in decline. In 2009, only 106 death sentences were handed down; down over 66% from 1994. In 2009, a mere 52 prisoners were executed for capital offences. In addition to the problem of the reduction of the use of capital sentencing, many sentences are not carried out, at least for years. As of 2008 there were 3,207 prisoners sentenced to capital punishment in the prison system. Even in the few cases where capital punishment is meted out, the public is still not ready to put people to death.
This focus on feeling, the feeling of dislike of ending anyone’s life, rather than a focus on justice is the result of an epistemological error – the idea that expressions of value are merely expressions of feeling. A democratic society is especially prone to this as, absent religion, the equality of man causes him to reject any system of morality passed down from an authority. Morality, absent religion, tends to be subjective to the individual or to society. De Tocqueville writes, "It is therefore always necessary, however it happens, that we encounter authority somewhere in the intellectual and moral world. Its place is variable, but it necessarily has a place. Individual independence can be more or less great; it cannot be boundless. Thus, the question is not that of knowing whether an intellectual authority exists in democratic centuries, but only where it is deposited and what its extent will be." He writes that the equality of conditions makes belief in an intellectual authority outside of man somewhat incredulous and that it exaggerates the capabilities of the human intellect.
De Tocqueville writes, “…as people become more like one another, they show themselves reciprocally more compassionate regarding their miseries, and the law of nations becomes milder.” He writes that the basis of such new standards is found either in themselves or in the collective impulse of the society. This tendency towards relativism was retarded in the early years of the American democratic society by the extent of influence which religion held over them. Over time that influence has diminished, and society has had to come up with a new system of morality to accommodate its materialism and immorality.
It is in this democratic system of relative morality that looks for moral guidance to the individual or to the public opinion of the whole that the focus shifts from a transcendent standard such as justice and instead focuses on feelings. Society worries about the criminal’s feelings, about how it will be viewed if it enacts penalties that seem harsh, about how the individuals making up society feel about such penalties, while simultaneously ignoring justice and the feelings of the victims of the crime. A society then attempts to assign penalties to crimes as the majority feels the crimes should be punished.
Nietzsche rejected the hypocrisy of such a system of morality. He realized that a system of morality based on society’s feelings (he believed the feeling to be fear) was completely arbitrary and nonsensical. Either morality, and hence standards like justice, must be based in a higher authority than man, or they must not exist at all. Nietzsche erred by choosing the latter because he declared God dead, but his rejection of an arbitrary human standard of morality should be noted.
The modern American democracy has completely traded a religion of a transcendent God with one of materialism and the pursuit of equality over freedom. The absence of religion has, as de Tocqueville argued it would, left a void in the area of moral truth and something will fill that void. When looking at the issue of capital punishment and its merits or flaws, Americans have not looked to whether capital punishment is just. They have rather, under a legal doctrine known as “the evolving standards of decency” set public and worldwide opinion as the standard of whether a punishment is legal or not. Americans have decided that they do not feel that capital punishment is right for many crimes, and are trending more and more away from supporting capital punishment at all.
This trend finds its basis in a society that rejects a transcendent moral standard or standard maker and subjects morality to the whim of public or personal opinion. The softness of character fostered by a decadent, materialistic lifestyle and the focus on the equality of individuals leads to a dislike of capital punishment – it does not seem “kind.” This softness coupled with a morality based on feelings rather than transcendent concepts such as justice, causes a society to reject capital punishment.
Friedrich Nietzsche writes in Beyond Good and Evil that “the herd man in Europe today gives himself the appearance of being the only permissible kind of man, and glorifies his attributes, which make him tame, easy to get along with, and useful to the herd, as if they were the truly human virtues: namely, public spirit, benevolence, consideration, industriousness, moderation, indulgence, and pity." This is true of both the individuals and the government in the United States today. Indulgence and pity and moderation of punishment are seen as inherent goods rather than something to be meted out when deserved; interestingly, phronesis or the practical wisdom needed to adjudicate well is not a value that Nietzsche saw as important to a democratic society. A democratic society that focuses on equality will be less inclined to favor a system that meets out different punishments for the same crime. Its solution is to gradually reduce its penalties.
Nietzsche goes on to write, “There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it.” A people this soft tends to forget the victim of the crime and the justice due him; so long as the danger to society is neutralized no further action need be taken. Such an idea is completely antithetical to the Bible’s teaching on justice and retribution for capital crimes. , Nietzsche explains the feelings of individuals in such a soft society, “‘Is it not enough to render him undangerous? Why still punish? Punishing itself is terrible.’”
Of course, Nietzsche’s argument is that fear is the only reason that morality exists, but his reflections on the nature of a soft, democratic society need not be rejected on that ground. He writes of a society concerned merely with commerce and comfort, “Wherever the will to power beings to decline, in whatever form, there is always an accompanying decline physiologically, a decadence. The divinity of this decadence, shorn of its masculine virtues and passions, is converted perforce into a god of the physiologically degraded, of the weak. Of course they do not call themselves the weak; they call themselves ‘the good.’” He recognizes that as a society that begins to worship decadence and pleasure becomes weak but frames its weakness as goodness or kindness. Capital punishment has no place in such a system; it does not seem kind. Such a society is far less interested in the justice owed the victims of crimes as it is in preserving a kind and friendly façade. It is not comfortable to hear of someone’s being executed.
Alexis de Tocqueville agrees with Nietzsche on the affect that democracy’s love of material enjoyments has on the individual. He writes of democratic individuals, “They fall into softness rather than debauchery.” He helps to explain this tendency of democratic societies to reject strong punishment. He begins with a brief discussion of how individuals view punishment in an aristocratic society. He writes, “In an aristocratic people each caste has its own opinions, sentiments, rights, mores, and separate existence. Thus the men who compose it do not resemble everyone else; they do not have the same manner of thinking or of feeling, and they scarcely believe themselves to be part of the same humanity. Therefore they cannot understand well what the other feel, or judge them by themselves.” De Tocqueville is arguing that the social differences between people in an aristocratic society keep them from fully participating in punishments meted out to criminals. Thus the French aristocrat can speak of a man being drawn and quartered without feeling anything.
Democratic societies are exactly the opposite according to de Tocqueville. He asks, “Do we have more sensitivity than our fathers?” His answer is simple. The equality of rank causes each individual to imagine each penalty as being imposed on himself. “It makes no difference whether it is a question of strangers or of enemies: imagination immediately puts him in their place. It mixes something personal with his pity and makes him suffer himself while the body of someone like him is torn apart.” “In democratic centuries, men rarely devote themselves to one another; but they show a general compassion for all members of the human species…they are not disinterested, but they are mild.… There is no country where criminal justice is administered with more kindness than in the United States.” Notice the use of such words as Nietzsche found so objectionable; notice also that there is no mention of an equally strong desire to be just as to be kind.
De Tocqueville saw the tendency of democratic societies to reduce penalties. In writing about how Americans treat women well, he states, “The legislators of the United States, who have made almost all the provisions of the penal code milder, punish rape with death; and there is no crime that public opinion pursues with more inexorable ardor.” Today, a mere 170 years after de Tocqueville wrote those words, it is a violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishments to give a life sentence for rape of any form including aggravated sexual assault of a child.
The death penalty is strictly limited, under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution, to cases of murder. That being the case, many states do not allow for the death penalty. The number of states allowing the death penalty is down to thirty-five and they are steadily in decline. In 2009, only 106 death sentences were handed down; down over 66% from 1994. In 2009, a mere 52 prisoners were executed for capital offences. In addition to the problem of the reduction of the use of capital sentencing, many sentences are not carried out, at least for years. As of 2008 there were 3,207 prisoners sentenced to capital punishment in the prison system. Even in the few cases where capital punishment is meted out, the public is still not ready to put people to death.
This focus on feeling, the feeling of dislike of ending anyone’s life, rather than a focus on justice is the result of an epistemological error – the idea that expressions of value are merely expressions of feeling. A democratic society is especially prone to this as, absent religion, the equality of man causes him to reject any system of morality passed down from an authority. Morality, absent religion, tends to be subjective to the individual or to society. De Tocqueville writes, "It is therefore always necessary, however it happens, that we encounter authority somewhere in the intellectual and moral world. Its place is variable, but it necessarily has a place. Individual independence can be more or less great; it cannot be boundless. Thus, the question is not that of knowing whether an intellectual authority exists in democratic centuries, but only where it is deposited and what its extent will be." He writes that the equality of conditions makes belief in an intellectual authority outside of man somewhat incredulous and that it exaggerates the capabilities of the human intellect.
De Tocqueville writes, “…as people become more like one another, they show themselves reciprocally more compassionate regarding their miseries, and the law of nations becomes milder.” He writes that the basis of such new standards is found either in themselves or in the collective impulse of the society. This tendency towards relativism was retarded in the early years of the American democratic society by the extent of influence which religion held over them. Over time that influence has diminished, and society has had to come up with a new system of morality to accommodate its materialism and immorality.
It is in this democratic system of relative morality that looks for moral guidance to the individual or to the public opinion of the whole that the focus shifts from a transcendent standard such as justice and instead focuses on feelings. Society worries about the criminal’s feelings, about how it will be viewed if it enacts penalties that seem harsh, about how the individuals making up society feel about such penalties, while simultaneously ignoring justice and the feelings of the victims of the crime. A society then attempts to assign penalties to crimes as the majority feels the crimes should be punished.
Nietzsche rejected the hypocrisy of such a system of morality. He realized that a system of morality based on society’s feelings (he believed the feeling to be fear) was completely arbitrary and nonsensical. Either morality, and hence standards like justice, must be based in a higher authority than man, or they must not exist at all. Nietzsche erred by choosing the latter because he declared God dead, but his rejection of an arbitrary human standard of morality should be noted.
The modern American democracy has completely traded a religion of a transcendent God with one of materialism and the pursuit of equality over freedom. The absence of religion has, as de Tocqueville argued it would, left a void in the area of moral truth and something will fill that void. When looking at the issue of capital punishment and its merits or flaws, Americans have not looked to whether capital punishment is just. They have rather, under a legal doctrine known as “the evolving standards of decency” set public and worldwide opinion as the standard of whether a punishment is legal or not. Americans have decided that they do not feel that capital punishment is right for many crimes, and are trending more and more away from supporting capital punishment at all.
This trend finds its basis in a society that rejects a transcendent moral standard or standard maker and subjects morality to the whim of public or personal opinion. The softness of character fostered by a decadent, materialistic lifestyle and the focus on the equality of individuals leads to a dislike of capital punishment – it does not seem “kind.” This softness coupled with a morality based on feelings rather than transcendent concepts such as justice, causes a society to reject capital punishment.
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