Final Paper: Capital Punishment & Abortion
This semester we have discussed many topics and the different views on them. One particularly interesting topic for me was capital punishment. In the argument of capital punishment we saw the deontological and utilitarian view. Referring to deontological ethics, we looked at Kant’s theory, which says that is only ok to intentionally hurt someone if acting on a maxim. On the other hand, a utilitarian believes that if punishing someone would produce a greater amount of happiness than unhappiness then it is justifiable.
Kantian ethics argues that, according to the Principle of Humanity, we should treat others as an ends and never as a means (Punishment PP). It focusses on maxims. If we treat others as …show more content…
People would begin to question why there is not a jury for crimes like this. On the other hand, there would be many people who like the changes because capital punishment is already such a hot topic. People who firmly believe in capital punishment would probably question the idea of it being used only for certain crimes. People may begin to think that juries aren’t need for anything if this happens, which may be something to look into, but in my opinion, juries aren’t needed for cases that hold so much power and that are so serious in today’s society. As stated, that decision should be left up to someone who has knowledge over these subjects. Though there will be controversy over the subject, as there is with everything, I think America would be a little better. Allowing capital punishment for certain crimes only would, in my opinion, make our justice system seem like it is more serious. It would open the door for longer investigations. There are so many innocent people that are put on death row and killed because the investigation was not thorough enough. These new changes would allow people (as in the prosecutors) to really sit and look at the facts carefully instead of just trying to get it out the way when it gets too hard because they want to move on to the next
This semester we have discussed many topics and the different views on them. One particularly interesting topic for me was capital punishment. In the argument of capital punishment we saw the deontological and utilitarian view. Referring to deontological ethics, we looked at Kant’s theory, which says that is only ok to intentionally hurt someone if acting on a maxim. On the other hand, a utilitarian believes that if punishing someone would produce a greater amount of happiness than unhappiness then it is justifiable.
Kantian ethics argues that, according to the Principle of Humanity, we should treat others as an ends and never as a means (Punishment PP). It focusses on maxims. If we treat others as …show more content…
People would begin to question why there is not a jury for crimes like this. On the other hand, there would be many people who like the changes because capital punishment is already such a hot topic. People who firmly believe in capital punishment would probably question the idea of it being used only for certain crimes. People may begin to think that juries aren’t need for anything if this happens, which may be something to look into, but in my opinion, juries aren’t needed for cases that hold so much power and that are so serious in today’s society. As stated, that decision should be left up to someone who has knowledge over these subjects. Though there will be controversy over the subject, as there is with everything, I think America would be a little better. Allowing capital punishment for certain crimes only would, in my opinion, make our justice system seem like it is more serious. It would open the door for longer investigations. There are so many innocent people that are put on death row and killed because the investigation was not thorough enough. These new changes would allow people (as in the prosecutors) to really sit and look at the facts carefully instead of just trying to get it out the way when it gets too hard because they want to move on to the next