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...
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