Abstract
This essay was about developing a researched argument. My argument was about the hypocrisy between being pro-capital punishment and anti-abortion. This is different than other works done about this because I was not attacking any particular side or person, I let most of my argument be about logic and found fallacies within it. This was important because my audience were individuals who do not support abortion, while also supporting capital punishment, essentially performing this hypocrisy. These individuals tend to be more conservative, have fundamentalist values and take literal interpretation of the bible. These individuals are also more likely to be white than any other race. This essay illustrated my ability of research, revision. My purpose for this work was to show that there is a hypocracy of values within view of life.
An Inconsistency of Life
The standard definition of hypocrisy, as defined in the Cambridge Online Dictionary website is “a situation in which someone pretends to believe something that they do not really believe, or that is the opposite of what they do or say at another time”. When compare everyone is a bit of a hypocrite and people are always changing. This in turn results in his or her view being alter as well in the long run. Would this really make a person a hypocrite? Most of the time, if the person is able to acknowledge he or she has changed his or her view of ta the topic, then it would not been seen as a problem. Yet when he or she believes two different sides on the same topic it seems more likely he or she would fit the definition of a hypocrite. This is because even if they do not relies it, his or her believe is opposite of what they are doing or saying. The ethics of state sanction killings, also known as capital punishment, have been argued since the beginning of our country. It is one currently of the most argued controversial topic along with abortion, racism, and gender equality now a days. This argument is about how there are people whom hold inconsistence view over the right of life between convicted criminal and the unicellular zygote.
Capital punishment is reserved for criminals who commit crimes so heinous that the public and the state does not see life in prison as a proper punishment for his or her crimes. This debate that has been occurring since the founding of the United States and the question still remains: Is Capital punishment obsolete in modern day society? There is an active movement for the abolishment of capital punishment in modern day America. With 19 sates so far which abolish capital punishment and while the other 31 states are making it striker for criminals to be charged with it (“31 States”).
The debate over capital punishment hold many complex arguments. Rob Warden, the Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions and award winning legal America journalist, wrote in his article “Reflections on Capital punishment” how capital punishment has not proven that it is more of a determent then life in prison- in fact in countries like Canada that has abolish capital punishment have a lower murder rate then the United States and the states that do not have capital punishment have proportionally have fewer murders then the states that do have capital punishment. Capital punishment is more costly due to the systems of appeals that the convicted will go through to repel the sentencing on them and the execution (330-335). In “Capital Punishment: Our Duty or Our Doom?” Claire Andre, the old Associate Director for Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and founders for Issues in Ethics, and Manuel Velasquez, a Ph.D. Professor of Business Ethics at the Santa Clara University whom has written many articles and case studies on business ethics, took the debate over capital punishment and summarize the opposing views in their article. They summarize the defense of capital punishment in a few points. The first is the bases of morality. This is about how society has a moral duty to protect the lives of its citizens and it is society’s job to make sure that those who commit these heinous crimes are unable to commit them again. In fact it is with the murders receiving capital punishment that the balance between good and evil is able to balance out and justice is able to be served, especially for the victims whom lost their lives due to murder. Another argument is determent, as the deterring effect. This argument has two parts, if there is a determent effect we would not be able to tell due to those who are deter by the idea of capital punishment are not going to commit the murder and there is no way to actually find out how many are deterred. Yet if saying there is no deterring effect then it is the lives of criminals who have committed horrible crimes that have been sacrificed. Therefore it is better to take a risk to protect the lives of innocents with the risk of lives of criminals then to protect the lives of criminals and risk the lives of innocents (Andre).
The capital punishment debate is not the only heated debate in America, another one is over abortion. Just like capital punishment there are two main sides for this debate. On one side are those whom argue against the legalization of abortion and one the other are those who argue for the legalization of abortion. The book Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics has many arguments about several debates in modern society. Chapter one, “The Wrong of Abortion”, by Dr. Patrick Lee, the Director of the Center for Bioethics and professor of philosophy at Saint Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Dr. Robert P. George, professor and the McCormick Chair in Jurisprudence and the founding director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, wrote about how abortion is objectively immoral. They first argue this by displaying how the human embryo is a human being in a number of ways. They explain that by the 8th to 10th weeks of development the unicellular zygote has developed into a recognizable form. Doctor Lee and Doctor George makes four main points about the fetus, the fetus’ cells are different then its parent’s cells, its genetic makeup is that of a human being, and the fetus is just an immature stage of human development and it is actually a complete organism (14-15). While many pro-life argues the person hood of the fetus, the pro-choice argue this debate in a different light. The University of California in Santa Barbara‘s, UCSB, Sociology department created a sexinfo page. This page is for sex education which they based on the findings of their research. The main arguments for pro-choice can be divide in three categories: the fetus, the women, and statistics. For the argument with the fetus UCSB states how the fetus, which will become a child, is unable to survive without the uterus and as such the priority is the women in this case due to the fetus not being able to survive without the mother’s mental and physical resources. This leads into the part of the women in the argument, since the women’s body is belongs to herself, which would mean that she should decide what happens with her body, if forced to keep the pregnancy the child would not come into this world in a loving environment, best case they are in a loving environment where two parents are able to take care of them, worst they are in an abusive environment and somewhere in between they are given up for adoption where they would weigh even heavier on the scares resources that our government provides (“Arguments for and Against Abortion”).
There are many different groups of views between these two topics. For capital punishment there are those who support capital punishment, those who support the abolishment of capital punishment. Those who do not support abortion and those who support abortion. This would place everyone into four different groups, as defined in Popham’s research she did for her thesis Georgia State University for the Department of Sociology which was about the changing view and opinions on abortion and capital punishment where she reasons through her research how individual’s the circumstances and demographic factors influences how a person would view the two debates. Popham places the views towards abortion and capital punishment on a continuum, extremists for each category. She defines them as followed
[T]he first category consists of those who approve of abortion and are not against the use of capital punishment. This will be called the ―”Anti-Life” category. People who approve of abortion but oppose capital punishment make up the second group, known as the ―Liberal‖ group. Members of the third group, the ―Conservatives‖ are those who are against abortion while in favor of the death penalty. Finally, ―Pro-Lifers‖ consist of people that are against both abortion and capital punishment (34).
Popham divides the categories as such because of the four different views mentions above for capital punishment and abortion. Popham then assets that there is an inconsistency with in this division. The inconsistency is value of life in each case. While Pro-Lifers and Anti-Life group’s holds life at the same value for both the unicellular zygote and the criminal, the Conservatives and the Liberals values one over the other.
The question to answer is what is life? What is the value of life, does one person’s life hold more value over another life. These are questions that pelage America society in modern day society and shape the debate over many cultural issues as a result. The answers for tends to be deeply rooted into religious values and have been integrated into the country since The Bill Of Rights and The Constitutions. Since the formation of this country this topic has been debated through different ethical issues. Yet there is an inconsistency with which we are debating. The conservatives and the Liberals in Popham’s groups show this, with the Liberals there would need to be a underlining understanding that the fetus is a human being – yet many argue that this is not so. For the Conservatives they believe that the fetus is a human being, they believe that the person on trial is a human being, yet only one is granted the right to life with the support of capital punishment and being Pro-life. To further make their movement stronger for prolife there needs to be more consistency over life. Without this pro-life debate will just turn into anti-abortion group and lose fire.
An example of complete consistency, in modern day society because they have supported capital punishment in the past, is the Catholic Church. In fact the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops releases states about how they oppose the death penalty due to the teachings of the bibles, especial the old testaments which has been used many times as a way to defend the death penalty. The earliest story of taking a life in the Bible was Cain and Able and “When Cain killed Abel, God did not end Cain’s life. Instead, he sent Cain into exile, not only sparing his life but protecting it by putting a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight” (“The Church’s Anti”).
There are also many reasons as to why one would not support abortion and support capital punishment. Sue Bohlin, an associate speaker, Web Site Administrator with Probe Ministries and a Bible and Christian speaker for over thirty years, answers this in response to a question posted on probe.org. One argument covers that she uses is the value of life pro-life puts on life itself. Bohlin explains that this values in the same for a pre-born baby to that of an elderly or dying person because they are all made in the image of God. Bohlin explains that when murder occurs the murderer is treating their life as more valuable than the one that they murder. Capital Punishment, as a result, puts the highest possible value on the life of the person murdered. It does this by demanding the only thing the murderer could give – his or her own life. Bohlin explains that this shows everyone that it is not ok for one human being to take the life of another human being. She goes on to explain how the Bible says do not judge and then judge rightly: how one should not judge or else they would be judge in one sense and in the other how Jesus taught judge rightly and how he praised those who judge rightly. Lastly Bohlin explains that another thing in the Bible talks about how the government are used for God’s order. This would mean that when the government uses capital punishment then it is doing it for God to maintain order. Bohlin concludes that the Bible then supports capital punishment but the necessity in making sure that only the guilty are executed
People make mistakes. Each day there are millions of people that make a mistake: for getting their phones, mistaking one love one for another, thinking something occurred one moment when it was another. Humans are forgetful creatures and make mistakes. The government is run by humans, this means by definition that the government is prone to make mistakes, and as history has shown us, and it has over and over. Even when people truly believes that someone is not guilty then there can be new evidence that came out, or hidden during trial, that may conclude the convicted as not guilty. There are cases where murderers would seem like they deserve the worst punishment for his or her crimes because how heinous the act was. Yet when the criminal in question is unable to defend his or her self against the court system, especially when it in integrated into our Maranda law system that anything a person says will be used against them, this means things that would prove innocence would be thrown away, and this is the case of James Adams. James Adams – a black man executed in 1984, 31 years ago, in the state of Florida had an all-white jury which said that the conclusive evidence, a witnesses who claim to see him with the victim be for the crime, money with the victim’s blood on it, jewelry in the trunk of Adam’s car, and witnesses who said to see his car in the driveway, was enough to give him capital punishment. There was also many important points that could have proved his innocent which was not released in court: the main witness who said that Adam was driving the car had threatened revenge against Adams because he believed his wife and Adams was having an affair. Another witness who saw the car told police he was certain that Adam’s was not the driver, in fact Adam said he lent his car out to his female friend, who refused to appear in court, at the time of the crime. Another witness stated that they heard a female yell from the victim’s house, and the money with the victim’s blood was just one blood with O positive blood type with fourth five percent of the population has. The last piece of evidence? Florida State Crime Laboratory had excluded Adams as the source of hair found in the victim’s hands.
There are many cases where trials were rushed and information came out either after the case was on trial or after the person was executed that could have proven the person with being innocent, for example DNA. Instead of admitting such mistakes the state took it into their own hands to cover up the evidence. James Adam was just one of many, in the last couple decades, in fact over ten cases have occurred just like Adams. Timothy Baldwin, Ruben Cantu, Girvies Davis, Carlos De Luna, Gary Graham Larry Griffin, Leonel Herrera, Leo Jones, Joseph O’Deli, Roy Roberts, and Cameron Todd Willingham are all examples of either a rush trial or a misuse of evidence. Yet once the execution happens there is no way for us to call a mistrial and reevaluate evidence for the person, there is no life at this point that is honored, not either of the two victims.
Thus this case exhibit the question of true innocent in the court systems, though the court has said Adams’ was guilty there are many potential evidence exclude from the case that could have proven him innocent. This would make his conviction with doubt. We are only human sometimes we forget our keys in the door, glasses on our heads, wallets on the table. So we are prone with making mistakes, we are not able to run before we crawl and that is what this case showed. The disregarding evidence that could have proven evidence for a man. We will never know now if he is indeed innocent or not because this case was not properly performed (Warden, 339-349).
Another argument that Bohlin used was the value of life. It can be understandable that the value of life need to be consistent and with the case of abortion and capital punishment there are inconsistency threats with the values of life. Yet using the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament is important to look more closely at. Imagine, for the sake of an argument, four children are playing on the playground. Two are looking at the other two when both went down. Objectively they both tripped and fell because neither had their shoes on, yet to the other two looking in it appeared that one pushed the other. Now imagine that the one that looked pushed broke his or her nose and had to be rushed to the hospital and the other had their own blood and the other’s child blood on their hand. When asked both of the children looking into the situation would say that that child pushed the other child while the other child would say they both tripped. The teacher would then in that case either believe the child or not. In this case the teacher could reserve judgement until the child who when to the hospital comes back and says his or her side, but in real murder cases the victim is silence and there is no apple from them. In a murder case a simple misperception, which is truly believed to be true, can occur. No one would say that the two children are lying, instead one would say they were mistaken. Yet the teacher could just believe the two children over the other and suspend or expel in the case of capital punishment. When looking at a trial it can be hard to tell when one is guilty or not, while there are criminals that are completely guilty and there is seemingly no doubt, what may be doubt could be covered up with asserted arguments from the mistaken person. This would mean that the value of life is not being consistent throughout the non-guilty but image of being guilty convicted criminal. Once they receive capital punishment there is no turning back, unlike the grade school case. The convicted life is lost and there is no changing that.
Law regarding capital punishment could become even stricter-but there are officers that have taken prisoners out of their cells and essentially forced them so sign a confession as such the case with Girvies Davis. Another reform would be with just removing capital punishment out of our legal systems because of the potential of recovering evidence with modern day science is growing rapidly and because there is a chance that eye witnesses that claim to know exactly what they see are actually mistaken. Yet once that person loses his or her life then even if evidence come out that shows that he or she was not the criminal in the end now there are two victims: one who lost his or her life in the original crime and one who lost his or her life in the wrongful conviction. In the end there is no justice for either victims.
Works Cited
“31 States with the Death Penalty and 19 States with Death Penalty Bans – Death Penalty – ProCon.org.” ProConorg Headlines. N.p., 13 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
Andre, Claire, and Manuel Velasquez. “Capital Punishment: Our Duty or Our Doom?” Santa Clara University. N.p., 16 Nov. 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.
Bohlin, Sue. ““How Can You Be Pro-Life and For the Death Penalty? Isn’t That Judging?”.” Probe Ministries. Probe.org, 2005. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
“Hypocrite Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” Hypocrite Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Lee, Patrick, and Robert P. George. “The Wrong of Abortion.” Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. Ed. Christopher Heath Wellman and Andrew I. Cohen. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2005. 13-26. Print.
Popham, Ashley Hope. “Abortion and Capital Punishment: Changing Attitudes and Demographical Influences.” Scholar Works. N.p., Dec. 2008. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
“The Church’s Anti-Death Penalty Position.” The Church’s Anti-Death Penalty Position. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Warden, Rob. “Reflections on Capital Punishment.” Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy 4.2 (2009): 329-59. Scholarly Commons. Northwestern University School If Law Scholarly Commons. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
Emilia Carlo :3 