Peter L. Berger

The death penalty is cruel and inhumane, argues Peter L. Berger in the following viewpoint. Inmates awaiting execution experience mental torment; furthermore, capital punishment morally corrupts those who enforce and inflict it. Institutionalized execution is an act that no civilized society should tolerate, he concludes. Berger is director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture at Boston University and the author of Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. In Berger’s opinion, why should conservatives not be surprised by the suggestion that innocent people have been executed"
2. On what grounds should opposition to the death penalty be based, in the author’s view"
3. In what way has the death penalty been “sanitized,” according to Berger"

For a long...