phil104 ethics short assignment 2

Your work:

Please produce about 250-350 word work (about one page long, double spaced) arguing against the argument below. Your work may be presented in the paragraph-writing format, or in a bullet point format.
Please appeal to Kantâ€™s or/and Utilitarian claims (learned from your readings and class discussions) to support your points.

Please argue against the argument provided to you, regardless of what you really think about the death penalty (please do not offer any support for the death penalty).

The aim of this assignment is to practice how to use Kantâ€™s and Utilitarian principles in a moral debate.

a) If you argue against the argument below without any appeal to Kantâ€™s and Utilitarian principles, you will not get a full credit for your work.

b) If you argue against the death penalty problem in general, instead of debating the argument below, you will not get a full credit for your work.

* Do not write any introduction. Write straight to the point.

* Your work should not be longer than 1 page of text (double spaced)

Pro Death Penalty Argument (Retentionist Argument):

Premise 1) If we keep the death penalty, we run the risk of needlessly eradicating the

lives of convicted murderers who might have been reformable (correctable).

Premise 2) If we abolish the death penalty we run the risk of some innocent people

becoming future victims of the murderers (for example, the prison guards).

Premise 3) Whether we choose to keep the death penalty or abolish it, there is a risk

that some human lives will be needlessly lost.

Premise 4) We have no right to risk (endanger) lives of the innocent people.

Conclusion 5) Therefore, it is our moral obligation to retain (keep) the death penalty.

***TIP: Premise (1) supports your assignment; you do not need to debate this point.

Readings from

Shafer-Landau, Russ.The Fundamentals of Ethics, Russ Shafer-Landau, Oxford University Press. (2009) 89-102.