China executes corrupt Hangzhou and Suzhou officials. Is the Chinese government

morally and ethically justified in executing the corrupt Hangzhou and Suzhou officials?

Morality is, at very least, the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason -- that is, to do

what there are the best reasons for doing-- while giving equal weight to the interests of

each individual who will be affected by what one does (James Rachels 1941 – 2003)

and Ethical Theory is to introduce clarity, substance, and precision of argument to the

domain of morality. Ethical conduct is defined by doing one’s duties and doing the

right thing, and the goal is performing the correct action.

But what is right?

The world’s religious communities are divided on the death penalty. Despite a

seemingly unambiguous commitment to non-violence (or “Ahimsa”) in both Hinduism

and Buddhism, scholars within those traditions continue to debate the permissibility of

lethal punishment. The Old Testament enjoins us to take an “eye for an eye” – the

principle of lex talionis – while the New Testament exhorts us to “turn the other cheek”.

And while Islam is generally regarded as compatible with the death penalty, the

Qur'an’s emphasis on forgiveness suggests that Muslims should sometimes respond to

evil with mercy, not retaliation.

While many European countries urge an ethic of rehabilitation in their criminal justice

systems, many jurisdictions in the United States stand firmly in favour of capital

punishment for serious crimes. Even a federal jury in Massachusetts, a liberal bastion,

recently doled out the death penalty to the sole surviving perpetrator of the Boston

marathon bombing. And while the United Kingdom abandoned the death penalty in

1964 – the year of the last executions – nearly half of the British public favours a

reintroduction of it (though that figure has been dropping steadily).

On the Chinese Government point of view, I believe that they apply the Duty

Framework of Ethical Decision Making and exercise the Utilitarian Approach. It is the

government duty to protect its people and focus on the greatest good for the greater

number and produces the greatest balance of good over harm.

“Criminals should be punished so that they and others will be less likely to commit crime

in the future, making everybody safer.” This is a blunt slogan, but it captures the essence

of a deeply familiar notion: people who have committed culpable wrongs deserve their

lives to go worse as a result. Why do they deserve it? Perhaps because it’s not fair for

the lives of wrongdoers to go well when the lives of the innocent have gone poorly –

punishment levels the playing field.