Philosophical problems concerning capital punishment involves the understanding of two more significant issues; life and death. Therefore, in this essay our discussion of capital punishment from a moral perspective will depend on what we understand from these two issues. The significant theories concerning the nature of life in the first place can be separated into three: Aristotle’s view of life; the mechanical view of life defended by Descartes; Kant’s definition as life as “organization”. We can add the Darwinian theory of life also as a new perspective which is still changing and evolving. The biological approach of Darwin and later evolutionary biologists is materialist. Since Darwin is searching for the origin of life, his biological explanations will give as a byproduct the nature of life as well. We shall try to argue that if life has a significant meaning then we will try to preserve it.
We also need to explain the nature of death. We shall then try to define death. In the final analysis this will bring us closer to analyze capital punishment also from a moral perspective. We have one more point which I would like to discuss: Since religion plays an important role in human life it cannot be neglected in discussions regarding the ethics of capital punishment and therefore we shall try to examine this issue. I would like to show that all these debates are endless and they seem to repeat each other without resolving the problem whether there should be the death penalty or not. There are still many countries where capital punishment is applied nevertheless there are many other countries in which the death penalty has already been lifted and replaced with life imprisonment. My discussion will end with a discussion of how Islam in our culture offers a solution to this problem.
