Using Democratic Deliberation to Resolve the Moral Disagreement on Capital Punishment (Death Penalty)
Common American experience seems to suggest that a solution to every dilemma can be found through enough lobbying, legislating, media-blitzing or politicking. We often believe that the person arguing most eloquently, reasonably or forcefully will win every dispute, yet there are times when this optimism fails. Despite great efforts to show the strength of a position, there are arguments that we cannot untangle simply by proving our right and another's wrong. Some moral questions permit such different outlooks that holders of completely opposing views can both be morally sound. Rather than trying to reason away one side we can only hope to understand each position well enough to acknowledge its critical elements and keep bitter dissension to a minimum.
Even with the most fundamental moral differences, we are often forced to make clear, unwavering decisions. Amidst a roar of incompatible claims about the need to protect the lives of fetuses and the freedoms of women, policy makers must conclusively decide if abortions will be legally available. Neither years of careful thought nor months of ferocious debate will yield an objectively right answer-some other method is clearly needed. The deliberative technique proposed here does not give automatic answers, but it does provide progress towards making hard choices.
This idea of democratic deliberation does not demand that all 270 million US citizens enter into debate or cast votes in binding referendum. Such a large and varied state makes this impossible and less obviously, such stark majoritarianism also ignores the positions of a substantial minority. In efforts t...
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...tive discourse has a natural tendency to make the decision-making process more inclusive by embracing a wider field of views, whether they be of students, philosophers or Death Row inmates.
Clearly this method is not foolproof or universally applicable, yet deliberation is valuable for the simple reason that at its core, it is "a form of agreeing to disagree." In many cases of deliberation there will be no obvious compromise to include all views so the most we can hope for is to accommodate the most strongly held points of each. Some groups will always be dissatisfied but we can try to limit the amount of moral discord created. Though we can disagree on opinions, there is little we can say or do to unsanctifiy one's beliefs. Moral stances should not be silenced, but instead must be accounted for, as can be done within a framework of democratic deliberation.
your life, in the space of time it takes for the match to burn out
speech when he said that love is the strongest force in the world. Anyone who engages
"Capital punishment is a term which indicates muddled thinking." George Bernard Shaw The "muddled thinking" that Shaw speaks of is the thinking that perpetuates the controversy over capital punishment in the United States today. The impractical concurrence of a theoretical, moral argument and definite, legal application has left all sides in this controversy dissatisfied with the ultimate handling of the issue. There are legitimate ethical and empirical considerations that stand on both the side that favors and on the side that opposes the death penalty. The general incompatibility of these considerations renders them irreconcilable. It is within this condition of irreconcilability that the government must initiate and implement its policies regarding capital punishment. This fixed condition has led to the necessity for and creation of comprises between both sites of this debate, attempting to synthesize the considerations of the two. The contentious issue of the capital punishment was rekindled in the 1970s when, in 1976, the Supreme reinstated the practice after a four-year hiatus. The arguments that comprise much of the legal debate on the issue stem from the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. The eighth reads, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." 1
William Smith, Democracy, Deliberation and Disobedience (Paper presented at the UK Association for Legal and Social Philosophy Annual Conference, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, April 2003).
Is the death penalty fair? Is it humane? Does it deter crime? The answers to these questions vary depending on who answers them. The issue of capital punishment raises many debates. These same questions troubled Americans just as much in the day of the Salem witch trials as now in the say of Timothy McVeigh. During the time of the Salem witchcraft trials they had the same problem as present society faces. Twenty innocent people had been sentenced to death. It was too late to reverse the decision and the jurors admitted to their mistake. The execution of innocent people is still a major concern for American citizens today.
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This paper will focus on Capital Punishment, which we will define as execution through means of lethal injection administered by an executioner to someone convicted of murder, and for the purpose of this paper murder will be established as killing an innocent person in cold blood. It will concern the dehumanization of the condemned and the inappropriateness of employing the same morality and ethicality to someone who in the eyes of the public have lost all humaneness. Dehumanization will be, for the sake of my argument, classified as depriving someone from his humanity, and by depriving them of humanness, which is essential to ethics; we fracture the foundation of morality and ethics because without humans there is no morality or ethicality. I will argue that Capital Punishment undermines ethical and moral foundations in particular Kant’s theories by dehumanizing the condemned, therefore, opposing ethical arguments supporting Capital Punishment by making morality and ethicality inapplicable to someone who has had his humanity denied to him. I will first outline the various reasons in how the condemned is stripped of their humanity by demonstrating how it violates the value of life and how using it as revenge and as a deterrent of other crimes goes against Kant’s “Practical Imperative” which states that no human being should be seen as a means to an end because this essentially strips him of the right to live for himself. I will also show how Kant’s ethical theory regarding Capital Punishment, in which he indicates that taking a human life should always be punished by taking the offenders life, has contradictions especially in respect to the head of state where the same rules do not apply to them (Avaliani). The authorities are ...
The precise question at issue in this essay is the moral standing of capital punishment. Taking the teachings of the largest Christian denomination (Catholic) as a starting point, some say that the presentation of capital punishment in the Catechism of 1992 (#2266) differs surely in restrictiveness from the teaching of the Catechism of 1566. And that the revised Catechism of 1997 is even more restrictive. Leet's examine these ane other aspects of the morality of capital punishment.
Sometimes within a large group of people you tend to have disagreements about certain things because the communication isn't there, but I do agree with the fact that interaction and clear communication are huge when it comes down to a discourse community. For example, I am on the women's soccer team here at Western Illinois and communication is one of our most enforced rules. Being on a team of 33 girls and having zero communication would be very hard for our own discourse community to function. During meals we all eat together, and each time we eat we make sure we sit next to someone different every time so we can on be on the same level with getting to know each other and making sure we all communicate. We all have our set of common goals as well and without communication and readiness to attack them we won't be able to reach
poem expresses to the reader, the pain of war and what it is like to
Romanticism is a major concept used in the 18th-19th centuries in revolt against Enlightened thinkers of prior centuries. The writer, Wordsword, is a poet that uses romantic ideas in his writings. Wordsword wrote the poem, “Daffodils”, using the characteristics of romanticism to develop the theme of nature’s connection to humanity. Wordsword uses appropriate setting, imagery, speaker, literary techniques, and other writing tools. These tools help his readers grasp the beauty and personality of daffodils.
in his life and that the epitaphs were both an expression of that crisis and a means
Capital punishment is a declining institution as the twentieth century nears its end. At one time capital punishment was a common worldwide practice, but now it is only used for serious violation of laws in 100 of the world's 180 nations (Haines 3 ). It can be traced back to the earliest forms of civilization. The origins of the movement away from capital punishment are difficult to date precisely. The abolition movement can be heard as early as the religious sermons of the Quakers in the 1640's (Masur 4). In the seventeenth century, the Anglo-American world began to rely less on public executions and more in favor of private punishments. The possible decline in popularity of the capital punsihment system is directly related to the many controversial issues it entails such as: the questions of deterrence, morals and ethics, constitutionality, and economics.
It is almost unanimously agreed upon that the right to life is the most important and sacred right possessed by human beings. With this being said, it comes as no surprise that there are few issues that are more contentious than abortion. Some consider the process of abortion as immoral and consisting of the deprivation of one’s right to life. Others, on the opposite end of the spectrum, see abortion as a liberty and a simple exercise of the right to the freedom of choice.
To provide a successful comparison of any two things, one must be able to comprehend all aspects of the articles in question. Many forms of literature are easily comparable due to the very nature of an author transcribing a piece of history or thought directly to paper; however, poetry is not one of these afore mentioned forms of literature so easily compared. This is because poetry itself is as emotionally driven, as it is ambiguous. With there being no definitive set of rules, dictating what is or is not poetry, attention to detail is paramount in fully understanding the relationships between the poems. The utilization of three different poems, by different authors, and all contained in a similar category, allows for a more broad range of analysis; moreover, the stark differences, as well as the shared commonalities between them, become more evident with a comparison of more than two works of an author or authors. The works of poetry in this comparison are “The Mother,” by Gwendolyn Brooks; “The Man He Killed,” by Thomas Hardy; and “Ballad of Birmingham,” by Dudley Randall. At first glance, each of these poems seems to have very little in common with one another. On one hand, they are unique to each specific poem unto itself. On the other hand, these three pieces of poetry are alike in many ways. The analysis of each poem in regards to the theme presented, tone being communicated, imagery used, and the rhyme scheme employed, exposes the coexistence of similarities and differences between the three poems.