Capital Punishment

The Greek philosopher Aristotle turns his back on his beloved Athens, having outraged the authorities by his outspoken opinions: had he remained, he would have found himself facing the death penalty.

There has often been a divide between the attitudes of intellectuals to capital punishment and those of society as a whole; this was evident as long ago as classical Athens. The philosopher Aristotle felt that the satisfaction of the one dealing out the punishment or the well-being of the public could not alone justify any pun- ishment. The purpose of any penalty must be the improvement of the offender s character, yet this could hardly be possible if the punishment was death. Aristotle himself would have to leave Athens for a lengthy exile under the shadow of the death penalty, having antagonized those in charge of the ancient city. Athenian statesmen showed little sign of being influenced by arguments against the death penalty. A generation previously in fact, in 399 B . C ., the father of all the philosophers, Socrates, had been compelled to commit suicide by drinking hemlock, on the grounds that his teachings “corrupted youth.” Athens was the world’s first democracy , and Socrates, as a free citizen of Athens, had the right

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The Death Sentence