Hugo Adam Bedau

Executing Justice

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“We have, by now, a shelf of books that offer empirical, constitutional, or political discussions of the death penalty. What we don't have is a comprehensive, accessible, and persuasive evaluation of the death penalty in our society from the moral point of view. Thanks to Lloyd Steffen's new book, that need has been met. He enables us to see in patient detail just how difficult -- if he is right, how impossible -- it is to defend the death penalty on moral grounds. May his argument reach and persuade many!”