PHI-2630 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Consequentialism, Capital Punishment By Country, Drunk Drivers
Document Summary
Capital punishment: a defense of the death penalty. When talking about the death penalty, the term abolitionist refers to those who do not think that the death penalty is ever a justified form of punishment. The term retentionist refers to those who think that the death penalty is (or could be) morally justified. Much of what we will talk about in this section is concerned with not just the morality of the death penalty, but also the morality of making it a part of a legal system. Two theories of punishment: the retributive theory of punishment, the consequentialist theory of punishment (theories of punishment, not general theories of morality) (distinguishing the two is by two questions:) What morally justifies punishment of wrongdoers is that those who break the law deserve to be punished. The punishment for a particular offense against the law should fit the crime. Lex talionis- doing to the wrongdoer what they did (eye for eye)
