Reiman's Argument Against The Death Penalty

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Reiman clearly defines that he is against the death penalty, because it does not deter criminals, proves to be inhumane, and tortuous. In his first argument, he states “If the government can reduce people’s tolerance for cruelty without acting unjustly, it should”, meaning the governments active role is deterring cruelty should only happen if it is done justly to the criminal. He does this in his paper by addressing the different punishment sentences in the “common sense principle”, in explaining it is only common sense that people will be more deterred by what they fear more, and since people fear death more than life in prison, they will be deterred more by execution than by a life sentence” (506). But he then raises the question that having …show more content…
Citizens should be able to enforce certain acts on to themselves, ad they should be responsible for interpreting, while the government should responsible for creating and slightly enforcing. The reason why the government should play this role is because of the large population and mass differences in views, the population would be chaotic without a higher shaping figure. Current government is an excellent example, public education is strictly enforced, there’s legislation that forces children to go to school, and some certain criteria is made for them to complete. The citizens’ role is, parent’s role is to make sure their children go to school, the children’s role is to actively participate and hopefully archive, the individual role is what you do with the education. The options are to either purse down a path of future education and hopefully to a life of prosperity and the wealth due to the education. Or stop after the required amount of years and live a life the is down the line of what life could’ve became if education was continued and taken advantage of, a life of possible lower income. It should not be in the hand of the people because that would only create differences among areas where values, ideas, and characteristics are altered. It is better to have a national standard and a controlling body that creates policies and principles that shape us rather than a free for

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