Analysis Of The Death Penalty In Dead Men Walking And Return To Paradise

As we grow up, our parents’ views on what is morality good and bad is embedded into the way we see issues and situations. One ethical issue that splits society into two groups is the death penalty and accepting culpability. In the movies Dead Men Walking and Return to Paradise the death penalty is a controversy due to different perspectives. Moreover, there are ethical theories such as utilitarianism and ethical formalism that analyzes both of the movies from its viewpoints. In the movie Dead Men Walking Matthew Poncelet is awaiting his death sentence for the murder of a young couple. Matthew Poncelet shot the male two times and shot and raped the female victim. There was also another man when who participated in the crime. However, he got

One ethical issue from this movie is those the death penalty bring justice to the families of the couple? One may disagree and request for forgiveness, however, according to the families they insist that the death penalty would make them feel at ease and that justice was served. The family are devastated and are basing their opinion and actions on their emotions.
One example that implies that the family of the couple believes in the death penalty is when sister Helen goes to their house and they find out she has been visiting Matthew Poncelet. The victim’s father becomes very upset at Helen and asked how can she help a men that rapes and kills. They also asked her to exit their house. This shows that they are pro death penalty. The death penalty serves as justice when the crime is gruesome because it brings peace to the families. In the movie Return to Paradise three good friends go to Malaysia for vacations. However, one friend stayed behind to pursue his career, the other two friends return to New York. Two years later, Both Sheriff and Tony receive the news that Lewis has been in a Malaysian prison and on death role because the police found hash in the house. All three of them where involved with it but only Lewis got penalized. Now Sheriff and Lewis have eight days to decide if they are returning to Malaysia to save Lewis from the death

Also the life of Lewis is at stake. Thus, accepting culpability shows that it is part of their moral obligation. Lastly, having motivation to accept culpability shows good will. Moral obligation is accepting responsibility, and when an individual accepts responsibility shows that it is part of their duty as knowing from good and evil. In both movies ethical formalism analyzed the ethical issue differently. In Dead Men Walking the death penalty is not shown as the right thing to do because death should not be morally correct in any situation. However, in Return to Paradise accepting culpability is shown as a good will because it focuses on the duty as human and accepting responsibility and the death penalty is shown as negative approach because it does not achieve justice in Return to