Utilitarian vs. Deontological Ethics: Where Do You Stand?

[jross]

The death penalty debate always gets me thinking about ethics. Utilitarianism says we should focus on the best outcomes, like saving more lives, even if it means tough trade-offs (e.g., risking one innocent execution to save many). Deontology, though, argues some things, like never killing an innocent, are non-negotiable no matter the result. How do you weigh these two approaches when thinking about issues like the death penalty? Is one more practical or moral than the other, or is there a middle ground?

[jross]

Being against the death penalty because the wrongful execution of a single innocent person is deeply understandable...

 

However, can the death penalty be justified through utilitarian concerns about outcomes? Some questions:

1. Would you reconsider its use if limited to cases with overwhelming evidence, like DNA and video?
2. What if it deters even a few more murders than wrongful deaths?
3. What if executing the worst offenders restores trust in justice for the victim's family and society?
4. How do you balance the harm of homicides within prison itself?
5. How concerning is the risk that released murderers commit new violent crimes and homicides?
6. Why is there a higher standard for the wrongful executions than there is for deaths by medical errors?
7. It is morally acceptable to prioritize prevention over the rare risk of wrongful executions? 

Prison reform is very expensive and when balancing quality of life freedoms, there will continue to be violent crime.  There are more annual homicides within prison itself than wrongful executions stacked over multiple decades. This is not an argument against concerns, rather thoughts for consideration

[wrestlingguy]

5 minutes ago, jross said:

The death penalty debate always gets me thinking about ethics. Utilitarianism says we should focus on the best outcomes, like saving more lives, even if it means tough trade-offs (e.g., risking one innocent execution to save many). Deontology, though, argues some things, like never killing an innocent, are non-negotiable no matter the result. How do you weigh these two approaches when thinking about issues like the death penalty? Is one more practical or moral than the other, or is there a middle ground?

I don't support the death penalty. I was always confused growing up how we could say we were against killing others yet send troops over to kill people in kuwait, iraq, etc. I guess there are some times where it is a necessary evil like Saddam, Bin Laden, etc.

[Scouts Honor]

the death penalty as is will never be a deterent

b/c it takes too long to put them to death

and the people who commit heinous crimes are already prepared to die, nothing to lose really... or past the point where they can mentally see the problems with consequences

i now get 20 years of being taken care of, IF i get caught

 

public hangings didn't really deter the criminals.

It's kind of like legalizing pot.  If illegal, most people won't do it. The ones who don't care about the law will anyway.

but after legal, now we have a few more willing to try. b/c no consequences with law. 

Murder is against the law. death penalty or not... criminals dont' care about law.  the death penalty may be enough to calm a rational person down, but people willing to put themselves in this position are usually not rational .

[ionel]

... and maybe read or watch  The Innocent Man  before answering. 

[jross]

Quote

 

A 2014 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Gross & O’Brien) estimated that 4.1% of death row convictions are wrongful, suggesting around 120 of the 3,000 inmates on death row at the time might be innocent.  https://time.com/79572/more-innocent-people-on-death-row-than-estimated-study/

 

This implies that, with approximately 1,619 executions since 1973, around 66 executions (4.1%) could involve innocent people, or roughly 1–2 per year on average.

1. If the death penalty deters 3 or more killings of innocent people annually, would you prefer to save those 3 over the 1-2 wrongful executions?

2. 100+ inmates are killed each year, predominately by those convicted previously of violent and/or homicides.  Is that worth saving 1-2 wrongful executions?   

• https://www.statista.com/statistics/220920/number-of-state-prisoner-homicides-in-the-us/

3. An estimated 25 murderers are released from prison annually and kill again.  Is that worth saving 1-2 wrongful executions?   

• 2K released annually, 1.2% rearrested for another homicide

 

Which is more humane?  

Edited April 18 by jross

[jross]

Singapore data indicates it is a successful deterrent, but note they are more timely in execution than the US.  

• Minister for Home Affairs (MHA) found that there was a 66% reduction in the average net weight trafficked for opium, in the four-year window after the mandatory death penalty was introduced in 1990 for trafficking more than 1,200g of opium. Similarly, in the four-year period after the introduction of the mandatory death penalty for trafficking involving more than 500g of cannabis in 1990, there was a 15 to 19 percentage point reduction in the probability that traffickers would choose to traffic above the capital sentence threshold.
• Prior to 1973, firearms robbery was on the rise, reaching a peak of 174 cases in 1973. A dramatic drop was witnessed over the decades following the introduction of the death penalty for such offences. Firearms offences immediately fell by 39% to 106 cases the next year, and fell further within the next three to four years to an even lower level, and remains at a very low level today. At Annex 1 is a chart showing this. Today, firearms robbery is rare in Singapore, with no cases reported in the last 13 years. 
• The introduction of the death penalty for kidnapping under the Punishment of Kidnapping Ordinance in 1961 likewise resulted in a dramatic drop in such cases. In the three years before 1961, there were on average, 29 kidnapping cases a year in Singapore. But this fell to only one case in 1961. Except for six cases in 1964 and three cases in 2003, kidnapping cases have not exceeded two cases per year since the death penalty was introduced. 

https://www.mha.gov.sg/mediaroom/parliamentary/written-reply-to-parliamentary-question-on-studies-on-the-deterrent-effect-of-a-life-sentence-relative-to-the-death-penalty-by-mr-k-shanmugam-minister-for-home-affairs-and-minister-for-law/

[JimmyCinnabon]

Why do we need to kill someone to save lives? I understand the argument, but simply locking them in a cage for the rest of their life serves the same outcome. It also allows for a mistake to be corrected if we find out the person is actually innocent. Once we end their life we can't bring them back. 

I am not sure the death penalty actually serves your point that it will save lives when a less extreme measure accomplishes the exact same thing.

[JimmyCinnabon]

On 4/16/2025 at 11:43 AM, jross said:

 

Being against the death penalty because the wrongful execution of a single innocent person is deeply understandable...

 

However, can the death penalty be justified through utilitarian concerns about outcomes? Some questions:

1. Would you reconsider its use if limited to cases with overwhelming evidence, like DNA and video?
2. What if it deters even a few more murders than wrongful deaths?
3. What if executing the worst offenders restores trust in justice for the victim's family and society?
4. How do you balance the harm of homicides within prison itself?
5. How concerning is the risk that released murderers commit new violent crimes and homicides?
6. Why is there a higher standard for the wrongful executions than there is for deaths by medical errors?
7. It is morally acceptable to prioritize prevention over the rare risk of wrongful executions? 

Prison reform is very expensive and when balancing quality of life freedoms, there will continue to be violent crime.  There are more annual homicides within prison itself than wrongful executions stacked over multiple decades. This is not an argument against concerns, rather thoughts for consideration

 

My answer to all of these questions is that no, the death penalty doesn't outweigh killing even one innocent person. Even with DNA evidence you can still have the wrong person. We have had what we consider to be overwhelming evidence in cases before and we were 100% sure the person was guilty, right up until we discovered they were not. It's a slippery slope to say that it's ok as long as we are 100% sure they are guilty, because again we've been 100% sure before until we weren't. 

Because of that I think the best thing we can do is remove these people from society by locking them up. And if we find out they are innocent later we can attempt to rectify the situation as much as possible. 

[JimmyCinnabon]

On 4/16/2025 at 12:10 PM, Scouts Honor said:

the death penalty as is will never be a deterent

b/c it takes too long to put them to death

and the people who commit heinous crimes are already prepared to die, nothing to lose really... or past the point where they can mentally see the problems with consequences

i now get 20 years of being taken care of, IF i get caught

 

public hangings didn't really deter the criminals.

It's kind of like legalizing pot.  If illegal, most people won't do it. The ones who don't care about the law will anyway.

but after legal, now we have a few more willing to try. b/c no consequences with law. 

Murder is against the law. death penalty or not... criminals dont' care about law.  the death penalty may be enough to calm a rational person down, but people willing to put themselves in this position are usually not rational .

I actually think the death penalty can, in some instances, be a motivation to kill someone rather than let them live. It's the biggest reason (outside of putting an innocent person to death) I am against using it for crimes other than murder such as rape or sexual abuse against minors. I think expanding the use of it would actually be worse. If the penalty for rape and murder are the same then what is the incentive to leave a witness alive after someone commits rape? All we would be doing is giving an incentive for someone to kill their eye witness victim because in the end the murder charge wouldn't get them any more of a punishment if caught. 

[jross]

10 minutes ago, JimmyCinnabon said:

My answer to all of these questions is that no, the death penalty doesn't outweigh killing even one innocent person. Even with DNA evidence you can still have the wrong person. We have had what we consider to be overwhelming evidence in cases before and we were 100% sure the person was guilty, right up until we discovered they were not. It's a slippery slope to say that it's ok as long as we are 100% sure they are guilty, because again we've been 100% sure before until we weren't. 

Because of that I think the best thing we can do is remove these people from society by locking them up. And if we find out they are innocent later we can attempt to rectify the situation as much as possible. 

Thanks for your thoughts on the death penalty and the risks of convicting the innocent. I’m curious about your direct take on this hypothetical: if killing one innocent person would definitely save *ten innocent lives, is it worth it? Please address this specific scenario.

*10 arbitrarily represents evidence that the death penalty deters murders, prevents inmate killings, and stops released offenders from killing again. Please answer the ethical question directly without challenging this assumption, though deterrence can be discussed separately.

Edited 4 hours ago by jross
asking for answer in good faith (*)

[JimmyCinnabon]

7 minutes ago, jross said:

Thanks for your thoughts on the death penalty and the risks of convicting the innocent. I’m curious about your direct take on this hypothetical: if killing one innocent person would definitely save *ten innocent lives, is it worth it? Please address this specific scenario.

* 10 is a stand-in for evidence that the death penalty deters murders, prevents inmate killings, and stops released offenders from killing again

The old trolly problem. You know, I've never been able to come up with an answer for that. Are ten lives worth more than one life? I guess you can say they are worth 10x more. I think it's a great philosophical question because I don't really have an answer for it. I lean towards not intervening in the scenario if you put a gun to my head, meaning I wouldn't switch the trolley no matter who it was aiming for. Maybe that says more about me though, in that I wouldn't be able to make the decision to actively kill either the one person or the ten and would just let it play out without me. Maybe I'm just a coward.

Edited 4 hours ago by JimmyCinnabon

[jross]

1 minute ago, JimmyCinnabon said:

The old trolly problem. You know, I've never been able to come up with an answer for that. Are ten lives worth more than one life? I guess you can say they are worth 10x more. I think it's a great philosophical question because I don't really have an answer for it. I lean towards not intervening in the scenario if you put a gun to my head, meaning I wouldn't switch the trolley no matter who it was aiming for. Maybe that says more about me though, in that I wouldn't be able to make the decisions to actively kill either the one person or the ten and would just let it play out without me. Maybe I'm just coward.

Absolute utilitarianism says you would sacrifice the one for the benefit of the ten.  The act-omission distinction is irrelevant, rather the outcome is relevant.  it isn't about lawsuit risks, cowardice, etc...

Absolute deontology says killing one innocent is always wrong, but letting ten die isn’t your responsibility, due to the act-omission distinction (doing harm is worse than not preventing harm).

So maybe ten isn't enough... there is some deontology threshold in which they become utilitarian.  Would you kill one innocent to save 10,000?  Would you sacrifice 1M to save 6B?  What is your breaking point?

[jross]

It is curious how ethics might shift in different scenarios:

• A doctor refuses to kill one healthy patient to harvest their organs and save ten others (up-close and personal).
• The same doctor supports a mandatory vaccination program that saves millions but risks rare fatal side effects for others (abstract impact).

Both involve potential loss of innocent lives, but through different choices.

My point is to understand people’s death penalty reasoning and show it’s not inherently wrong.

[JimmyCinnabon]

11 minutes ago, jross said:

Absolute utilitarianism says you would sacrifice the one for the benefit of the ten.  The act-omission distinction is irrelevant, rather the outcome is relevant.  it isn't about lawsuit risks, cowardice, etc...

Absolute deontology says killing one innocent is always wrong, but letting ten die isn’t your responsibility, due to the act-omission distinction (doing harm is worse than not preventing harm).

So maybe ten isn't enough... there is some deontology threshold in which they become utilitarian.  Would you kill one innocent to save 10,000?  Would you sacrifice 1M to save 6B?  What is your breaking point?

It seems like I am more of a deontology guy then. That sounds like what I described. I would also agree that at some point there is a threshold where I would become absolute utilitarianism. I would sacrifice the one person to save a million lives. I am not sure where my threshold is though. It's below one million. 

Edited 3 hours ago by JimmyCinnabon

[jross]

I'm inconsistent based on how personal and rare the scenario is.

• Utilitarian on the death penalty, even if that meant the death of one of my beloved children.
• Utilitarian on vaccine creation even with the risk to harm several.
• Mixing on the organ donor scenario for the possible brain dead patient
  • If I am the doctor, deontology that may later turn to utilitarian.
  • If I am not the doctor and non of my family is involved, utilitarian.
  • If I am the patient, utilitarian.
  • If my beloved is the patient, utilitarian.
  • If I am the 10 to be saved, utilitarian.
  • If my beloved is one of the 10 to be saved, deontology.
• Deontology if the organ donor scenario is a healthy patient. 

Oy but what about The Last of Us.  Should Joel have saved Ellie?  (Tough situation and Joel was wrong!)

Edited 3 hours ago by jross