The death penalty
Sir: John Mortimer, in his article 'In cold blood' (10 November), makes a strong case for the inhumanity and barbarism of the death penalty. This is fine, and as far as it goes I have always agreed with it. Unfortunately he does not deal with the strongest argument that can be put up for the death penalty. Let me put it in the simplest possible form.
Professor Isaac Ehrlich, of the University of Chicago International Bureau of Economic Research, has carried out a monumental statistical analysis of all the data available over many years on the effects of the death penalty in different American states. His major conclusion was that: 'An additional execution per year over the period in question may have resulted, on average, in seven or eight fewer murders.' He acknowledges the inevitable inaccuracy attaching to such estimates, but even if the number were much smaller, would we not have here a strong ethical argument to prevent the murders that might occur if we fail to execute a given criminal? Ethical judgments are always difficult because they tend to involve not just a right as opposed to a wrong, but the opposition between two right's, or two wrongs, and the necessity of making judgments of different degrees of grey, John Mortimer has made his task too easy by failing to mention important arguments on the other side—not an uncommon failing in lawyers. It seemed worthwhile to mention at least one of the arguments on the other side; doing so may redress the balance.
H. J. Eysenck Institute of Psychiatry De Crespigny Park London 8E5
Previous page
