The Death Penalty--With a Twist!

In this round, I will make some general comments, and then I shall present my case. GENERAL COMMENTSKbub is correct to observe that theory/kritiks are not expressly prohibited by the terms of the debate; it is simply a personal request on my part that such arguments not be made. If both debaters agree about it, then loss should not be awarded on the basis of a forfeit. RESOLUTIONAL OBSERVATIONS1. Please note that, based on the scenario posited in round one, that the unnamed Criminal is most clearly guilty of a variety of atrocities. Therefore, arguments about potential harm to an innocent life are not applicable.2. Note also that the Criminal has no intention of appealing. This means that arguments over the potential cost of the appeals process are also not relevant.3. Furthermore, the Criminal had a fair trial, so arguments regarding due process cannot be used to invalidate his conviction or guilt.4. As a mentally competent individual, the Criminal cannot be excused from his crimes due to a lack of mental capacity or understanding.5. Next, observe that the Criminal has committed extremely heinous crimes. S/he is not being put to death on the basis of some petty crime or one-time offense. Rather, the Criminal is responsible for the murder of thousands of people. This is a very serious offense.6. Finally, it is a logical extension of the hypothetical scenario to assume that the Criminal knew, that if he were convicted, he may face the death penalty. If the justice system under which he is being prosecuted is considering that course of action after his conviction, this is a reasonable assumption to make. Also, from this point forward I may refer to the Death Penalty as DP. PRO's CASEMost often, the objections to the death penalty arise from the notion of human dignity. The idea that the DP is somehow degrading and disrespectful of that dignity permeates modern philosophical, legal, and ethical discourse over the morality and lawfulness of the DP. However, I believe any coherent discussion of human dignity affirms rather than denies the acceptability and usefulness of the DP, especially as a means of recognizing the dignity of each person. My case shall be structured in three parts. Firstly, I shall briefly discuss wherefrom human dignity arises and why it matters. Secondly, I will discuss where the death penalty fits into the human dignity paradigm. And lastly, I shall tie everything together in a succinct conclusion. So, with that, let's begin. .. Human DignityAccording to G. W. F. Hegel, autonomy separates us from all other things. A table cannot be blamed for a moral failing because it cannot choose to do something wrong. A human, on the other hand, is morally relevant insofar as we have this autonomy. [1] This moral worth grants every person an inherent dignity that should be respected. "At the heart of [human dignity] is a twofold intuition about human beings: namely, that all, just by being human, are of equal dignity and worth, no matter where they are situated in society, and that the primary source of this worth is a power of moral choice within them, a power that consists in the ability to plan a life in accordance with one's own evaluation of ends. " [2] From this analysis, we can conclude that it is a human's rational autonomy that gives rise to human dignity. Autonomy is the brightline that separates personhood from other conditions, and that marks out human beings as worthy of moral consideration. "The idea here is that a human being, as a rational agent endowed with self-awareness, free will, and the possibility of formulating a plan of life, has an inherent dignity and cannot properly be treated as a mere thing, or used against his will as an instrument or resource in the way an inanimate object might be. In line with this, Nozick also describes individual human beings as self-owners. The thesis of self-ownership, a notion that goes back in political philosophy at least to John Locke, is just the claim that individuals own themselves"their bodies, talents and abilities, labor, and by extension the fruits or products of their exercise of their talents, abilities and labor. " [3]What, then, is the impact of human dignity on moral decision-making? "To be a person is to have a status and worth that is unlike that of any other kind of being: it is to be an end in itself with dignity. And the only response that is appropriate to such a being is respect. Respect is the acknowledgment in attitude and conduct of the dignity of persons as ends in themselves. Respect for such beings is not only appropriate but also morally and unconditionally required. " [4] The second an agent is used as a means to an end, they are treated as a tool by which others can benefit themselves. This reduces individuals to objects (or tools) and thus devalues them as autonomous persons. Additionally, treating them as tools or as means to an end may violate a person's freedom of choice. Consider, I wish to get some cash (my desired end). I decide that I can use you to do that, perhaps by getting you to work on my farm to produce food that I can sell. If you agree to this arrangement, and are compensated for your work, I haven't used you as a means to an end, because the deal was voluntary and you were allowed to own your labor and abilities. Yet, if I force you through some coercive mechanism to work on my farm without compensation or freedom, then I have used you as a means to an end. So, when you USE someone, there is no freedom of choice for the person being used; they are a slave, devoid of autonomy. Ultimately, for both of these reasons, human dignity demands a sort of unconditional respect for people as ends in and of themselves--for people as self-owners. The Death Penalty, and ChoiceG. W. F. Hegel once observed that ""in punishment the offender is honored as a rational being, since the punishment is looked on as his right. "" [1] The argument that Hegel is making is rather simple. Let's first take a look at a more mundane example first, and then draw parallels to the resolutional scenario afterward. Let us suppose that I am a teacher, and I tell my students not to write on the chalkboard. If they do, I warn them, they will be placed in a 5 minute time-out. One student choose to mark up the chalkboard irrespective of my warning, and is admonished with a 5 minute time-out. This student deserves the time-out, because they chose to take action X, knowing (reasonable) what the consequence of doing action X would be. This can even be expressed mathematically, as X = Y (action = punishment), so that SX = SY (student's action = student's punishment). The point I am making here, is that when I freely choose to do something, I simultaneously acquiesce to whatever reasonably predictable consequences might arise therefrom. So if I am the student writing on the chalkboard, I can reasonably expect that if I do that, then I will face I 5 minute time-out. I have not simply chosen to write on the chalkboard, I have chosen also to take a 5 minute time-out. To deny me the time-out, would be to undermine my power of choice. To tie into the topic, the criminal has, at this point, willingly and knowingly chosen to perpetrate atrocities, and therefore, he has accepted the consequences of his actions. Those consequences become his due. Consider the analogy of a prizewinner at a contest; it is agreed that "the prize is due of the winner. If we refused the winner the prize merely because we did not want him to benefit, then we would be acting illegitimately by not giving him his desert. So too with punishment. " [1] A person has a right to choose, and reciprocally, a right to the effects of his choices. A criminal has made a choice, and to deny him the results of his choice would be to devalue his autonomy. "Punishment acknowledges the autonomy and responsibility of offenders and the significance of the norms violated by holding offenders accountable. Failure"to punish can be seen as an unacceptable form of paternalism where individuals are viewed as morally deficient and lacking an understanding of what they did. " [5]So, when we connect this back to the concept of human dignity, we can see a very clear link. I have a right to make autonomous decisions, implying that I have a right to the consequences of my actions. To deny me those consequences is to reject the validity of my autonomy, and to objectify and devalue me. Similarly, it is to treat me as if--in effect--I have no power of choice at all, because I can not access the results of my choice. ConclusionThere are two ways in which the human dignity paradigm can be used to affirm the moral correctness of the death penalty in the abovementioned scenario.1. The worst crimes deserve the worst punishment, and crimes against humanity are the worst crimes. This rests very simply on the idea of relative proportionality, and, if we grant that punishments and crimes should be roughly proportional, the worst crimes (e. g. genocide) should result in the worst punishment (e. g. death. ) By choosing to participate in the former, I accept the consequences expressed in the latter.2. If I reasonably expect the consequences of X to be Y, by doing X, I choose to incur the consequences of Y. So, if the Criminal expected genocide to result in the DP, then he chose to incur the DP. To deny him the DP would be to reject or undermine his human dignity. SOURCES1 - Perlmutter, Martin. "Desert and Capital Punishment. " Morality and Moral Controversies: Readings in Moral, Social, and Political Philosophy. 1981. 139-146.2 - . http://tibormachan.rationalreview.com...3 - . http://www.iep.utm.edu...4 - . http://plato.stanford.edu...5 - Ward, Tony; Katherine Salmon. "The Ethics of Punishment: Correctional Practice Implications. " Aggression and Violent Behavior. 2009. 239-247.