Questions We Can Help You To Answer
Capital Punishment and Relations of Power
The goal of the papers in this course is to, first, present a question, puzzle, problem, or tension that has multiple potential answers or resolutions. It should be something of a genuine puzzle, either because it is puzzling to some people, or because people genuinely disagree on what the best resolution is. The goal of the paper for this unit is to analyze and criticize others’ arguments. You should restate the thesis that you provide in your title, but emphasizing its significance. Tip: Avoid using the word “important” or its synonyms in your introduction. That is, don’t tell me that the topic is important; show me that it is.
This is a paper’s introduction – here you explain what motivates your argument. The intro should be one to four sentences.
The paper then makes an argument in support of or against one of these potential answers. It will likely not be a definitive argument, but it should demonstrate careful thinking and consideration of the issues. It should show that you understand the course materials and the nuances within them, and it should contribute something substantial to the ongoing “conversation” on the topic.
This is a paper’s body – here you explain what your argument is.
Lastly, the paper discusses one reason why your particular thesis or the original question is worth thinking about and paying attention to. Often, you may draw out some implication of your argument.
This is a paper’s conclusion – here you explain why your argument is ultimately important.
Details
This paper should be 750-1000 words (3-4 pages) with 1000 words as a maximum limit. That is roughly the length of 7 philosophical constructions strung together. The word limit is only for your essay; it excludes the heading, title and thesis statement.
Your paper should contain a heading, title, and your essay. Please follow the format below.
Heading:
[Your Name Here]
Paper #2: Capital Punishment
Topic and Position [#1a, #1b or #2]
Word Count: [Word count for the body of your essay, not including heading or title, and not including lengthy quotations]
Sample Heading:
Pat Doe
Paper #2: Capital Punishment
Topic #2 – Mill and Bedau: The Risks of Wrongful Sentencing Do Not Threaten the Justification for Capital Punishment
Word Count: 998
Title:
[Provide a title that both describes the topic and indicates its philosophical significance. You can provide just a single title, or a title with an accompanying subtitle.]
Thesis: [Summarize your main thesis in one sentence. Colons and semicolons are allowed. Your thesis should be a claim that is non-obvious and has an interesting or important implication.]
Sample Title:
Mill and Bedau on the Misadministration of Sentencing: A Separate Issue from the Justification for Capital Punishment
Thesis: While both Mill and Bedau argue that wrongful sentencing would compromise the ethical use of capital punishment, I argue that wrongful sentencing is a separate issue that does not compromise the fundamental justification for the death penalty.
Overview for this unit:
We generally want and expect our government and legal system to establish and defend laws for the benefit of our society as a whole, while honoring and protecting values that we hold as a society, as well as our rights as individuals. (So far in this class, we have examined some of these values, rights and principles, including those covered in MacKinnon and Fiala’s “Punishment and the Death Penalty,” Hicks’s ideas on dignity, Mill’s utilitarianism, his ideas on justice, and Mill’s and Bedau’s essays on capital punishment.)
We also want and expect our government and criminal justice system to support and defend our laws in a fair and effective way. In order to allow our government and justice system to defend laws in our name and for our benefit, we expect and allow them to have great powers. This includes the ways our government and justice system deal with people who are accused of committing different crimes.
In “Punishment and the Death Penalty” and in Mill’s and Bedau’s essays on capital punishment, we have seen that there are different approaches to dealing with people who have been accused of different crimes, including capital punishment. In any of these approaches, we expect our government and criminal justice system to exercise the powers granted to them in an ethical and responsible way.
Topic 1: Demonstrate Understanding of Another’s Argument and Its Weaknesses. You will demonstrate understanding of the argument and weaknesses of either
Topic 1a: Mill’s “Speech in Favor of Capital Punishment” or
Topic 1b: Bedau’s “Capital Punishment and Social Defense”
by doing the following:
summarize the main conclusion of the chosen essay
analyze and explain the author’s specific argument (i.e., the important points and reasoning he uses to justify his conclusion)
criticize the argument. You can do this by showing that the essay has any of the following important weaknesses: 1) an important gap (a “lacuna”) – something that is not discussed but that the author could or should have included; 2) an important assumption that the author uses that is not valid or is not currently true; 3) an important fault in the author’s reasoning; etc.
Important: Remember that you can agree with someone’s conclusion while criticizing the specific argument that they give to support the conclusion.
For your final position, either strengthen the argument by giving a minor modification that would eliminate (or diminish) the weakness(es) that you have just given, OR argue that the weakness(es) cannot be easily repaired and that the conclusion cannot be supported because of this criticism (i.e., show that your criticism reveals a failure of an essential part of the argument)
discuss the ways in which your final position and argument show an ethical and responsible exercise of power, and the ways in which your final position and argument fail to show an ethical and responsible exercise of power
explain whether your final position presents any other costs or unresolved problems
Lastly, as part of your conclusion, discuss your reflections on what has been most insightful about writing and thinking about this paper.
To answer the above, any of the following can be helpful to find criticisms of the argument, possible ways to address the criticisms, and characteristics of the ethical and responsible exercise of power:
our discussion in class 3/28 on ethical relations of power
the values, rights and principles we have covered so far
the different approaches to criminal justice we have studied
the other essay that you are not directly treating in your essay (i.e., Mill’s or Bedau’s).
Topic #2: Compare Mill’s and Bedau’s arguments concerning the risks of sentencing innocent people to capital punishment, and consider the importance of these arguments on the greater debate on capital punishment. The instructions for this topic follow the quotations given, below.
Following are some relevant excerpts of both essays. You can refer to these quotations in your essay by “Quote [X]” as indicated below. If you would like to include other excerpts as pertinent, include them in your paper either as direct quotations or as cited paraphrasing. You may omit the quotations from your word count.
Mill:
Quote A: “There is one argument against capital punishment, even in extreme cases, which I cannot deny to have weight – on which my hon. Friend justly laid great stress, and which never can be entirely got rid of. It is this – that if by an error of justice an innocent person is put to death, the mistake can never be corrected; all compensation, all reparation for the wrong is impossible. This would be indeed a serious objection if these miserable mistakes – among the most tragical occurrences in the whole round of human affairs – could not be made extremely rare” (p. 295).
Quote B: “If our own procedure and Courts of Justice afforded ground for similar apprehension [as do those on the Continent of Europe], I should be the first to join in withdrawing the power of inflicting irreparable punishment from such tribunals. But we all know that the defects of our procedure are the very opposite. Our rules of evidence are even too favorable to the prisoner; and juries and Judges carry out the maxim, “It is better that ten guilty should escape than that one innocent person should suffer,” not only to the letter, but beyond the letter. Judges are most anxious to point out, and juries to allow for, the barest possibility of the prisoner’s innocence. No human judgment is infallible; such sad cases as my hon. Friend cited will sometimes occur; but in so grave a case as that of murder, the accused, in our system, has always the benefit of the merest shadow of a doubt” (p. 296).
Quote C: “The very fact that death punishment is more shocking than any other to the imagination, necessarily renders the Courts of Justice more scrupulous in requiring the fullest evidence of guilt. Even that which is the greatest objection to capital punishment, the impossibility of correcting an error once committed, must make, and does make, juries and Judges more careful n forming their opinion, and more jealous in their scrutiny of the evidence” (p. 296).
Bedau:
Quote D: “The risks of executing the innocent are also part of the social cost. The historical record is replete with innocent persons arrested, indicted, convicted, sentenced, and occasionally legally executed for crimes they did not commit. This is quite apart from the guilty person unfairly convicted, sentenced to death, and executed on the strength of perjured testimony, fraudulent evidence, [subornation] of jurors and other violations of the civil rights and liberties of the accused” (p. 315).
Quote E: “Suppose also that the administration of criminal justice in capital cases is inefficient, unequal, and tends to secure convictions and death sentences only for murderers who least ‘deserve’ to be sentenced to death (including some death sentences and a few executions of the innocent) ... It is important to remember throughout our evaluation of the deterrence controversy that we cannot ever apply the principle…that advises us to risk the lives of the guilty in order to save the lives of the innocent. Instead, the most we can do is weigh the risk for the general public against the execution of those who are found guilty by an imperfect system of criminal system of justice. These hypothetical factual assumptions illustrate the contingencies upon which the morality of opposition to the death penalty rests. And not only the morality of opposition; the morality of any defense of the death penalty rests on the same contingencies. This should help us understand why, in resolving the morality of capital punishment one way or the other, it is so important to know, as well as we can, whether the death penalty really does deter, prevent, or incite crime, whether the innocent really are ever executed, and how likely is the occurrence of these things in the future” (p. 316).
For this topic,
1) summarize the two authors’ views on the importance of considering the risk of wrongfully sentencing a person to the death penalty. You can include additional quotations but you must consider at least all those given, above. If you consider that any of the quotations given above is not relevant, you must explain why.
2) discuss the salient similarities and differences between the two authors’ views on:
- the gravity of the possibility of convicting innocent people and/or of sentencing guilty people erroneously to the death penalty
- whether the risk of wrongfully sentencing people affects their overall views on capital punishment, and why it does or doesn’t
3) In light of the statistics given in the sections on “Exonerations” and “Racial Bias and Fairness” (pp. 374-76) of MacKinnon and Fialta’s chapter on “Punishment and the Death Penalty:”
3a) analyze the validity of the arguments that Mill and Bedau give for why the risk of wrongful death sentences should or should not be considered, and
3b) for your final position on the importance of wrongful sentencing, discuss and give an argument for why the risk of wrongful sentencing remains or is not an important factor in the debate on capital punishment. Here you can modify, or agree with, or argue against Mill’s and/or Bedau’s argument on the importance of considering this risk. You can also give your own argument for the importance of this factor
3c) discuss the ways in which your final position and argument on wrongful sentencing show an ethical and responsible exercise of power, and the ways in which your final position and argument fail to show an ethical and responsible exercise of power. For this point, refer to:
our discussion in class 3/28 on ethical relations of power
the values, rights and principles we have covered so far
the different approaches to criminal justice we have studied
the values discussed in Mill’s and Bedau’s essays
any other values or principles you think are important and pertinent
3d) explain whether your final position on wrongful sentencing presents any other costs or unresolved problems
4) discuss whether or not your final position on wrongful sentencing affects Mill’s and Bedau’s positions on the greater issue of capital punishment, and your own position on capital punishment. Explain why it does or doesn’t affect these positions.
5) Lastly, as part of your conclusion, discuss your reflections on what has been most insightful about writing and thinking about this paper.
And here are some additional optional resources on Capital Punishment:
- Real-life example of a different ending to the same situation as the film, "12 Angry Men:" "My Regrets as a Juror Who Sent a Man to Death Row" - https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/10/my-regrets-as-a-juror-who-sent-a-man-to-death-row#.2zLBc9mGM (Links to an external site.)
- Interesting statistics on executions and people on death row:
* from the Bureau of Justice: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cp13st.pdf (Links to an external site.)
* and international figures from Amnesty International, as reported in the National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130412-death-penalty-capital-punishment-culture-amnesty-international/ (Links to an external site.)
