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Week 7 Assignment: Course Project Milestone – Final Paper

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• Due Feb 21 by 11:59pm
• Points 100
• Submitting a file upload

Required Resources

• Read/ Textbook: Chapter 12
• Lesson
• Minimum of 5 scholarly sources (This includes the sources from the annotated bibliography. Additional sources may be included as appropriate.)

Instructions
Return to the topic you chose in the week three assignment. Articulate a specific dilemma in a situation faced by a particular person based on that topic. The situation can be real or fictional.

• Summarize the dilemma.
• Define any needed key terms associated with the dilemma.
• Analyze the conflicts or controversies involved in the dilemma.

Revise and rewrite based on any feedback you received in your previous draft (week three). Reference and discuss any professional code of ethics relevant to your topic such as the AMA code for doctors, the ANA code for nurses, etc.  State whether and how your chosen topic involves any conflicts between professional and familial duties or conflicts between loyalty to self and loyalty to a community or nation.

What in your view is the most moral thing for that person to do in that dilemma? Why is that the most moral thing? Use moral values and logical reasoning to justify your answer

Next, apply the following:

• Aristotle’s Golden Mean to the dilemma
• Utilitarianism to the dilemma
• Natural Law ethics to the dilemma

Which of those three theories works best ethically speaking? Why that one?

Why do the other two not work or not work as well?

 Is it the same as what you said is the most moral thing earlier? Why or why not?

Use the 5 articles from your annotated bibliography to support your answers. (Additional academic scholarly research from the past 5 years can be included as well.) 

Include a reference page at the end of your paper in APA format that includes your bibliography with the annotations removed and any other sources used in your final paper.

Writing Requirements (APA format)

• Length: 4-5 pages (not including title page or references page)
• 1-inch margins
• Double spaced
• 12-point Times New Roman font
• Title page
• References page (minimum of 5 scholarly sources)

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5

The Death Penalty

Principles of Ethics

Ethics 445
Professor Kristi Wilson
January 20, 2021

The Death Penalty

           The topic of the death penalty has been debated over the years in an attempt to justify whether it should be legalized in U.S. states or not. The death penalty is a government-sanctioned taking of a person’s life for committing a capital crime (Desai & Garrett, 2018). The topic has attracted divergent opinions from different groups of people with supporting and others opposing it. It has often been used to punish serious crimes such as murder, arson, treason and drug trafficking among others (Desai & Garrett, 2018).

Ethical Egoism

           Ethical egoists would support the death penalty by maintaining that the death penalty would protect them from suffering from the actions of capital offenders. Ethical egoists would support the legalization of the death penalty for their own selfish interests rather than communal interests. Ethical Egoism maintains that individuals’ moral obligations are accounted for by their own self-interests (Rachels & Rachels, 2019). Ethical egoists would justify their moral position by stating that individuals do not have to do something because they want to do it, rather because of their best-interests in the long-run. Supporters of the death penalty believe that it deters crime and this would be a strong perspective for the self-interests of ethical egoists. The deterrence effect of the death penalty prevents individuals from the harm of injury or death that arises from the actions of criminals and perpetrators of serious crimes.

Conflict Between Loyalty to Self and to Community

           The conflict between loyalty to self and to the community would arise if an individual opposes the death penalty because the death penalty was imposed to prevent people from committing capital offenses by inflicting them with the harshest punishment. However, for those who support the death penalty, their self-interests benefit others. The deterrence effect of the death penalty protects the individual lives of the people as well as the welfare of the community. The subjective interests of individuals coincidentally help others as well.

Best Course of Action

           The best course of action would be to stop the death penalty because individuals have a moral obligation to protect life. No crime can justify taking life from an individual since no one is capable of giving it back to any individual. The death penalty is punishing an individual for a crime with another crime.

Social Contract Ethicist

           Social contract ethicists would say that the death penalty should be legalized to punish individuals who break the law through capital offenses. Social contract ethicists would support the use of the death penalty in the criminal justice system. Social contract ethicists would justify their moral position by stating that the state has authority over individuals and individuals are part of the decision made by the state (Rachels & Rachels, 2019). The government has the right to exercise power over individuals by making decisions that it deems right; thus, individuals should agree and obey what the state says. Social contract ethicists believe that the social contract theory helps states to avoid states of nature where there would be no courts, no police, no government, no laws and individuals would be looking to satisfy their self-interests. State authority prevents chaos that would arise when everyone tries to look out just for themselves.  

Collision Between Personal and National Obligations

           There is a collision between personal and national obligations because opposes of the death penalty feel that it is the duty of both individuals and the state to protect life and not to destroy it. By imposing the death penalty, the state is destroying the same life it is supposed to protect. The government is punishing individuals who fail to protect life and commit serious –crimes such as murder, by taking the lives of the criminals. Conflict arises when the government requires individuals to protect life and the government itself is causing harm to life.

Best Course of Action 

           The best course of action is for the government to avoid the death penalty since it destroys life because it has a moral obligation to protect the life of its citizens and not to cause harm. The death penalty causes harm rather than protecting life. Instead, the state can adopt alternative punishments that do not cause harm to life.  

Professional Code of Ethics 

           The American Nurses Association (ANA) released a position statement to address the topic of the death penalty acknowledging that registered nurses (RNs) and other health care professionals have been involved in the execution of the death penalty, where lethal injection is used. ANA maintains that nurses should not participate in the execution of the death penalty to a prisoner, and goes ahead to oppose the death penalty.

           ANA opposes nurses’ participation in the execution of the death penalty either directly or indirectly since the death penalty is viewed as a violation of the ethical traditions and fundamental goals of the nursing profession (Potera, 2017). ANA opposes the use of the death penalty to prosecute criminals and considers the action to be unacceptable, inhuman and cruel. The ANA Code of Ethics requires the nursing profession to take a stance against actions that do not respect the dignity of individuals. ANA opposes the death penalty due to the overwhelming evidence that question the fairness of the death penalty and its effectiveness in deterring serious crimes (Potera, 2017). ANA recommends that the nursing profession should be committed to the delivery of care, preserve the rights and dignity of individuals, preserve the trust of the people, and adhere to the ethical principles of fidelity, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

References

Desai, A., & Garrett, B. L. (2018). The state of the death penalty. Notre Dame Law Review, 94, 1255. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/tndl94&div=35&id=&page=

Potera, C. (2017). ANA expands opposition to capital punishment. The American Journal of Nursing, 117(6), 13. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000520235.99148.4d

Rachels, S., & Rachels, J. (2019). The elements of moral philosophy (9th ed.). Mcgraw-Hill Education.

7

The Death Penalty:

Annotated Bibliography

Principles of Ethics

Ethics 445
Professor Kristi Wilson
February 7, 2021

The Death Penalty: Annotated Bibliography

           The death penalty debate has been ongoing for a while, with different parties holding varying points-of-view about the morality of the death penalty. The personal and communal ethical factors that may help determine the moral position of the different perspectives on the debate include whether the argument can be supported by good reasons, the deterrence effect of the death penalty and whether it serves justice to the victims. Proponents of the death penalty have to justify the moral significance of the death penalty by offering good reasons as to why the practice is moral. The reasons would define the moral worth of the practice. The moral position of those supporting the death penalty is that it serves justice to the victims by killing a murderer. Those opposed to the use of the death penalty argue from the perspective of the respect for human dignity, the absolute value of life, and suffering of innocent people who are executed. The moral position of those opposed to the practice is that it does not respect the dignity of humans as well as the absolute value of life. From a moral perspective, the party that is able to defend and justify its position with reasonably would be morally right. Rachels and Rachels (2019) shared Elizabeth Anscombe’s non-consequentialist position that moral actions should be judged by the factors that inform the action rather than the consequences.

Kant’s categorical imperative holds the principle of morality which states that individuals should act only if their actions can be universalized (Rachels & Rachels, 2019). According to Kant, an action is moral if it is supported by absolute rules that are not determined by the consequences of an action. Kant requires individuals to engage in actions that they are willing to be applied universally regardless of individuals’ self-interests. Categorical imperatives imply that the reasons supporting a moral action must bind all agents. The imperative defines what individuals should do. In the context of the death penalty debate, categorical imperative requires individuals to approach the debate by focusing on the universality of the practice. Therefore, the practice would be moral if it can be applied universally and consistently regardless of what the individual agents desire. The death penalty should not be used to take advantage of others, rather apply to all agents. Kant’s morality assumes that the courts would be able to accurately establish whether a person is guilty or not, and those found guilty of murder should be executed.

Annotated Bibliography

Cholbi, M., & Madva, A. (2018). Black lives matter and the call for death penalty abolition. Ethics, 128(3), 517-544. https://doi.org/10.1086/695988

Cholbi and Madva (2018) discussed the call by the Black Lives Matter movement for capital punishment to be abolished. The authors defended the two contentions that support the movement’s stance for capital punishment to be abolished: first, the use of capital punishment against the black communities in the United States, and second, the abolition of the practice is a defensible remedy for the wrong. The movement holds that capital punishment “devalues black lives” and is a “racist practice” (p. 517). The controversies that are raised by the article are, first, whether there is enough evidence showing that there is the unequal application of the capital punishment, where black defendants are most likely to be executed than those of other races; and second, whether abolishing the most defensible remedy. It is difficult to disagree with the argument given the effect of implicit racial bias from racial stereotypes that might influence court decisions. Black defendants feel less protected by the law than their white counterparts. The article is important to this debate because it raises questions about the unequal application of the death penalty, and as a law, it should be applied universally. 

Mann, W. (2015). The death penalty debate: A critical examination of the moral justifications for capital punishment. The University of Central Florida Stars, HIM 1990-2015 (Dissertation). https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses1990-2015/1722

In the article, Mann (2015) examined the “moral justifications” of the death penalty and applied the “Kantian retributivism” when attempting to address the political and ethical issues surrounding the death penalty. The author discusses several concepts including “restitution,” “deterrence,” and “retribution” in the discussion. The controversy raised by the author includes the application of capital punishment to individuals with “mental disorders and brain damage.” The author tries to justify the use of the death penalty with its retributive effect, where “punishment levied against someone because they have done something wrong” (p. 17). Mann (2015) argues that “for every crime, there must be a punishment of equal effect” but cites the execution of innocent people that prevents the achievement of a “perfect equilibrium” (p. 18). I disagree with the author on the justification of the death penalty because he ignores the moral limitations of the application of the practice by supporting the death penalty. The article is useful to the discussion as it attempts to solve the contradictions that exist in the moral framework through some reasoned explanations.

Mbah, R. E., Pruitt, T., & Wasum, D. F. (2019). Cruel choice: the ethics and morality of the death penalty. Research On Humanities and Social Sciences, 9(24), 14-22. https://doi.org/10.7176/RHSS/9-24-03 

The primary objective of the article was to determine how the death penalty impacts the person executed, the family of the executed, and the family of the victim. The evidence provided indicates that the death penalty significantly affects all parties. the authors noted that sometimes, the practice does not give the victim’s family the “healing” that was expected; thus, making it difficult to say that justice was served. The controversy raised in the article is the cases where “persons were wrongly murdered” (p. 14). The authors describe the death penalty as “cruel,” immoral, and unethical. Given the concerns raised by the authors, I agree with them as it appears that the death penalty does not bring justice to the victim, and also “creates more victims-families of the executed” (p. 21). The article is important because it highlights some critical shortcomings of the death penalty that makes it more harmful than beneficial, since it cannot be reversed is a person is wrongly executed.

Steffen, L. (2010). The moral and spiritual challenge of capital punishment. Sacred Heart University Review, 19(1), 15-33. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/shureview/vol19/iss1/2

In this article, Steffen (2010) examines the “moral and spiritual challenge” of the death penalty. The author provided a reasoned explanation of why the death penalty has huge support in the United States, including the lack of trust of the criminal justice system to offer justice and the retributive effect of execution. Steffen (2010) maintains that the death penalty is morally justified on the grounds of “retribution” but faults the “ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system” (p. 31). From a religious perspective, the author argues that although Jewish teachings seemed to approve the death penalty, “Jesus asked to forgive his executioners” because he believed “execution was ultimately against God” (p. 19). The controversy raised in the article is the religious perspective of the death penalty where the author argues that “God commands it” and at the same time “the Gospel tells of Jesus interfering to prevent a legal execution against adultery” (p. 18). Although the divine command states that what God commands is morally right, it is not clear what the will of God is in the issue of execution. The article is important to this discussion as it describes the illusion of the death penalty that is used as a “symbol of justice,” and “symbol of power” but does not conform to the requirements of fairness and justice.

Sunstein, C. R., & Vermeule, A. (2005). Is capital punishment morally required” Acts, omissions, and life-life tradeoffs. Stanford Law Review, 58, 703. https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/

Sunstein and Vermeule (2005) examined whether capital punishment is “morally required” including both arguments for and arguments against the practice. The authors termed the practice as “cruel” and “barbaric” and supported it using Emmanuel Kant’s “retributivism.” The controversies raised in the article include whether capital punishment on crimes such as rape should be morally relevant as does the life-life tradeoffs applied to murders. Also, the Supreme Court ruled that juvenile offenders should not be executed, stating that it is difficult to deter such offenders. This complicates the matter because it would mean that the death penalty could only be applied to murders that can be deterred by the practice. Deontologists maintain “that the unjustified execution cannot be supported even if the state is secure in its knowledge of the execution’s beneficial effects,” which means regardless of the deterrence effect of capital punishment, “moral wrongdoing by the state cannot be justified” (p. 718). The article is important as the authors do not necessarily support or defend the death penalty but give an objective explanation of the arguments that can be used to justify either side of the debate.  

References

Rachels, S., & Rachels, J. (2019). The elements of moral philosophy (9th ed.). Mcgraw-Hill Education.