Ethical Positions Paper
Ripple in the Pond
The Death Penalty and Four Ethical Theories
The death penalty has been in our country for a long time. The first recorded death from the death penalty in America was in 1608 in the colony of Virginia. (History of the Death Penalty, n.d.) Since before America was even a country the death penalty has been established as something we as a majority of people are okay with. However, it is still debated as an ethical dilemma in 2017. The debate has many views for and against continuing the death penalty. In this paper the views of Kantian, Christian, greatest good, and relativism will all be used to view the death penalty as a dilemma. Each theory of ethics can be boiled down simply to a few words but they …show more content…
In Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics cultural relativism is described as, “when in Rome do as the Romans do.” (Wilkens, 2011) It is described very simply and isn’t altogether hard to understand. When a culture does something that another culture may find odd it can be explained by cultural relativism. Your culture does things that other cultures do not and therefore it is all relative depending on the culture you grew up with.
“Cultural relativism is built on the belief that there are no absolutes,” says Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics, and that means that one’s culture is in, “the role of God.” (Wilkins, 2011) Therefore based on what your culture thinks about the death penalty is what is right about the death penalty according to cultural relativism. Moral improvement through cultural relativism may seem impossible some cultural relativists argue that improvements can happen as long as they are not moral reasons. According to Cultural relativism moral beliefs and improvements could not happen in a …show more content…
Simply put utilitarianism is the greatest good for the greatest number of people. (Wilkens, 2011) Therefore, the death penalty in the view of utilitarianism would be an appropriate step to take. Many people argue that caring for a prisoner for their entire life, assuming that if they were not put to death they would be condemned to a life sentence, is more expensive and limits the resources for other prisoners in the system.
On the other hand, the amount of people that would be most happy for the death penalty to occur would be the victim’s family. Otherwise in the grand scheme of things it does not affect the relative happiness of the average citizen. It is very hard to calculate happiness of a group of people. Utilitarianism is based on common sense of a society, the more people happy the better the society works. This is hard to qualify though when a single person’s happiness is greater than a group of three people’s collective mediocre
Ripple in the Pond
The Death Penalty and Four Ethical Theories
The death penalty has been in our country for a long time. The first recorded death from the death penalty in America was in 1608 in the colony of Virginia. (History of the Death Penalty, n.d.) Since before America was even a country the death penalty has been established as something we as a majority of people are okay with. However, it is still debated as an ethical dilemma in 2017. The debate has many views for and against continuing the death penalty. In this paper the views of Kantian, Christian, greatest good, and relativism will all be used to view the death penalty as a dilemma. Each theory of ethics can be boiled down simply to a few words but they …show more content…
In Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics cultural relativism is described as, “when in Rome do as the Romans do.” (Wilkens, 2011) It is described very simply and isn’t altogether hard to understand. When a culture does something that another culture may find odd it can be explained by cultural relativism. Your culture does things that other cultures do not and therefore it is all relative depending on the culture you grew up with.
“Cultural relativism is built on the belief that there are no absolutes,” says Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics, and that means that one’s culture is in, “the role of God.” (Wilkins, 2011) Therefore based on what your culture thinks about the death penalty is what is right about the death penalty according to cultural relativism. Moral improvement through cultural relativism may seem impossible some cultural relativists argue that improvements can happen as long as they are not moral reasons. According to Cultural relativism moral beliefs and improvements could not happen in a …show more content…
Simply put utilitarianism is the greatest good for the greatest number of people. (Wilkens, 2011) Therefore, the death penalty in the view of utilitarianism would be an appropriate step to take. Many people argue that caring for a prisoner for their entire life, assuming that if they were not put to death they would be condemned to a life sentence, is more expensive and limits the resources for other prisoners in the system.
On the other hand, the amount of people that would be most happy for the death penalty to occur would be the victim’s family. Otherwise in the grand scheme of things it does not affect the relative happiness of the average citizen. It is very hard to calculate happiness of a group of people. Utilitarianism is based on common sense of a society, the more people happy the better the society works. This is hard to qualify though when a single person’s happiness is greater than a group of three people’s collective mediocre