Even sympathetic observers may find retaliatory killing morally corrosive to society

Evidence

A rarity among politicians, New York State governor Mario Cuomo forcefully opposed the death penalty. In an op-ed piece in the New York Daily News, Cuomo (2011) explained that he understood the anger over egregious murders and the desire for revenge because he experienced the same emotions himself. However, retaliatory killing, he said, “is a surrender to the worst that is in us.” He viewed capital punishment as an “abomination,” a “stain on our conscience” that corrodes society. He challenged not only the morality of the death penalty but its utility as a deterrent as well. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1857

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1857