The Death Penalty from a Pagan Perspective

This question came up in a study group I belong to: Can you be Wiccan (or Pagan, following any form of the Rede) and believe in the death penalty? Here are my thoughts on the subject.

My personal view is that it the answer to that question depends on how you interpret the Rede ("An it harm none, do as ye will"). I've mentioned in other essays that there are two main interpretations of the Rede. One interpretation is a "strict" interpretation, which views the Rede as meaning never harm anyone under any circumstance. The other view, which I follow, is that the Rede should be interpreted as meaning "do as little harm as possible" or "do the greatest good" (after all, every action has the potential to harm someone, somewhere). For simplicity, I call this the "mitigated" interpretation (meaning that this interpretation recognizes that there are situations where there are mitigating circumstances; in other words, there are situations where one person might be harmed, if that harming brings a greater good to more people).

Under the absolute or strict interpretation of the Rede, I think it would be hard for one to support the death penalty. The strict interpretation states "harm none", and the death penalty, obviously, does harm an individual. Under the "mitigating" interpretation, one could support the death penalty. The purpose of the death penalty, in theory, is to perform the greater good (public safety) at the expense of the individual. So, in my view, one could not be a Wiccan (or Pagan) who follows a strict interpretation of the Rede AND support the death penalty. But one could be a Wiccan (or Pagan) who follows a mitigating interpretation of the Rede and still support the death penalty.

Of course, some would argue that a "life" sentence would better fit even the mitigated Rede philosophy. A life sentence would achieve (in theory) the same result (public safety from a dangerous individual) with the least harm (no one dies). But of course, this doesn't always work as well in achieving the "greatest good". People who receive long sentences often get out early, there's a great cost to taxpayers to keep folks in prison for a long time, and so on. So, under our current system, the theory of "life in prison" is not as effective as the reality of the death penalty-- it isn't a perfect world, and sometimes we have to accept the "next best idea." So the death penalty does, in my opinion, fit in with the mitigated Rede belief system.

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