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Chapter Seven: Capital Punishment Review. Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings (10 th ed.) Julie C. Van Camp, Jeffrey Olen, Vincent Barry Cengage Learning/Wadsworth. What are characteristics of all forms of punishment?. Must involve pain, harm, or another unpleasant consequence
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Chapter Seven:Capital PunishmentReview Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings (10th ed.) Julie C. Van Camp, Jeffrey Olen, Vincent Barry Cengage Learning/Wadsworth
What are characteristics of all forms of punishment? • Must involve pain, harm, or another unpleasant consequence • Must be administered for an offense against a law or rule • Must be administered to someone who has been judged guilty of an offense • Must be imposed by someone other than the offender • Must be imposed by rightful authority
What are the aims of punishment?Do these justify capital punishment? • What is retribution? • “eye for an eye,” justice • What is prevention of crime? • people don’t commit crimes if they are in jail or executed • What is deterrence of crime? • discourage people from committing crimes • What is reform and rehabilitation? • does this make sense for capital punishment?
Retentionist and abolitionist • What is a retentionist? • Someone who supports retaining or reinstituting capital punishment • What is an abolitionist? • Someone who opposes capital punishment
“Speech in Favor of Capital Punishment”John Stuart Mill • How does Mill support capital punishment? • Utilitarian argument in support of capital punishment • Why does he prefer capital punishment? • It is more humane than life in prison • How does he address the criticism that innocent people might be executed? • Well-run Courts of Justice address this criticism
“A Life for a Life”Igor Primoratz • Why does he use a retributive argument to justify capital punishment? • eye-for-an-eye: justice • Are the consequences of capital punishment relevant? • No. They are irrelevant for purpose of justification of capital punishment • Does capital punishment meet the demand for proportionality between the offense and the punishment? • Yes. This supports his defense of capital punishment • Does his argument justify using torture against a torturer? • No. Torture is absolutely wrong morally • Torture is indecent, inhuman, degrading
“On Deterrence and the Death Penalty”Ernest van den Haag • How does he support the death penalty? • Deterrence: psychological defense, even without data, to justify the death penalty • Protection of society does not justify death penalty
“Capital Punishment and Social Defense”Hugo Adam Bedau • Why does he oppose the death penalty? • Analogy with self-defense does not justify capital punishment • Deterrence: no evidence that it deters murders • Moral principle: in the absence of data that capital punishment deters, we should use the less severe punishment