Natural Law Is the Law Term Paper

On the other hand, an argument may be made that the death penalty is actually in accordance with natural law theory. The basis of natural law theory traces its roots to what humans feel is fundamentally right and wrong (Robinson and Groves 105). Since almost all societies, especially American society, believe killing another human being is wrong, this type of behavior must be stopped. Another fundamental tradition in human history is a punishment system based on the "eye for an eye" principal. If a society's natural law is rooted in this system of equal justice, then employing the death penalty as punishment for murder seems natural. However, there is still the contradiction of killing a human being because society feels that killing another is wrong.

As can be seen, how natural law theory applies to the death penalty varies greatly depending on what one views as being the natural law of that society.Most likely, considering the general Christian roots of American society, the taking of the life of another is a traditionally immoral act. Based on this tradition, our common law made murder an illegal act. However, as American legal society has moved away from the common law and more towards a civil law society, our adopted statutes, such as capital punishment, have seemingly abandoned this natural tradition. Although we claim to maintain our tradition of protecting the natural rights of equality, life, liberty, and property, our adopted laws have put various restrictions and conditions on them. These restrictions create inconsistencies and an inconsistent legal system cannot be a just legal….....