As we discussed at the beginning, punishment is a necessary thing. We need and depend on it in our society to hold people accountable for their actions and act as a way to teach others and deter them from committing similar crimes. By further analyzing the concept of punishment and studying what is needed for it to be effective, we found that capital punishment actually meets the four criteria outlined by Thiroux. Views on punishment from three different ethical points of view were then carefully examined. It has been found that, in retributivist, utilitarian and restitutionalist views of punishment, capital punishment can not only be defended but also embraced. Having established that the death penalty is an exceptional form of punishment, we examined three specific topics including deterrence, economic cost, and justice. First and foremost, the goal of capital punishment is to dissuade the criminal from acting again by putting him to death and to dissuade the public from committing crimes by showing them directly what the consequences of their actions are. Although some argue that deterrence rates are low, this is not a flaw in capital punishment but is due to the fact that the public cannot see these executions and that they do not happen often enough. Secondly, it does