Addition to lecture notes on Wellman text, last updated 6-24-96.
Comments, additions, and corrections are welcome.
Please send them to Michael Kagan
Le Moyne College Department of Philosophy
Syracuse, NY 13214
Email: KAGAN@lemoyne.edu
Capital Punishment
XVI Is Capital Punishment ever right? Wellman,Chapter 11
A. Arguments for capital punishment
1. Prevention
2. Deterrence
3. Retribution
4. Self-defense
5. Fulfilling a duty
B. Arguments against capital punishment
1. The moral law (usually conceived as
divine moral law or self-evident truth)
2. Monstrous harm
3. Unnecessary evil
4. Irremediability
5. Corrupting influence
C. Criticisms of some arguments:
1. The moral law
a) The moral law via scriptures-some
traditional difficulties (contextual, higher, philosophical criticism)
b) The moral law via intuition-if rational persons disagree can there
be a self- evident principle (discuss problems of intuitionism and
multiple systems)
2. Deterrence
a) the problem of reform
b) the problem with the statistics
c) who deterred [the dilemma]