Pojman Death Penalty

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At the end of 2013, 35 states held 2,979 prisoners on death row. In 2014, seven states executed capital punishment on 35 inmates. That number is four fewer than the number executed in 2013. Proponents of this type of punishment will state that all 35 of those individuals got exactly what they deserved, because they deserved nothing less than paying the ultimate price: death Louis P. Pojman stated in his essay “In Defense of the Death Penalty” that the right to life is not an absolute, and is entirely conditional. But is the right to life truly conditional? If so, what are these conditions? Do other crimes forfeit the individual’s rights in the same way as first-degree murder? And who is the deciding factor in these cases? For Pojman’s argument …show more content…

He states his age-old belief that people receive what they deserve. The “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap” mentality he has throughout this argument goes by the notion of responsibility. Individuals are always accountable for their actions and they should always be punished and rewarded based on what they have done. While it is true that we are responsible for our actions, what Pojman follows this statement with is false: that the right to life is conditional based on our actions. He believes it can be overridden by “weighty moral reasons” (Pojman 495). He believes that if the right to life was an absolute then we could not kill in self-defense, but I believe this to be false as well. Capital punishment and self-defense cannot be compared, because killing an inmate after he/she has been on death row for 20 years does not protect anyone. Their crime has already been committed whereas killing to protect oneself is still a viable option because both individuals involved have equal absolute rights to life. Pojman states that the murder of an innocent person forfeits their right to life and that they then deserve to face the death penalty. While some of Pojman’s opponents state that the death penalty is murder, Pojman disagrees. He states that the “murdered volunteered for his crime” and that the “victim didn’t volunteer for his …show more content…

Do you believe that an individual with a learning disability, or a coma patient, or a person who has been institutionalized all their life has any less right to life than you or I? How about drug addicts, soldiers who come back with PTSD and struggle with emotional issues, or people who commit vehicular manslaughter on a snowy, dark night? These individuals either at fault or not, but no one would doubt they all have the right to a life. There are no exceptions to the rule, and there is no reason anyone’s right should be stripped

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