23 April 2017

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Sally Mae

PHI 1123

23 April 2017

Dr. Hammons

The Death Penalty

Louis Pojman and Jeffrey Reiman respectively argue for and against the death penalty.

Pojman focuses on a variety of different aspects about the death penalty, and he tries to make

those ideals fit into his overall argument. Pojman’s Retributivist argument will be my focus for

this paper. This argument formulates the idea that the murderer should already know his actions

were wrong, and thus the murderer must face the consequences resulting from the crime. Reiman

argues against Pojman’s idea in his second proposition by saying that the death penalty is not

necessary to teach the murderer that his actions were wrong. In my critique, I will highlight on

the idea that the State needs to be able to justify their actions when it comes to giving the death

penalty to murderers. I will also include my opinion on how an opposing argument could be that

this theory is just a revenge theory for the victim and their family. While analyzing Reiman’s

view, I will highlight that his evidence is too scant to conclude a formal, justifies opinion. My

own personal belief on how the difference between prison sentences and the death penalty affects

murderers will also be stated. In my opinion, Pojman’s argument is grounded in higher order

thinking compared to Reiman’s. This is why I believe that Pojman’s argument is more

persuasive than Reiman’s.

Louis Pojman’s most substantial argument is his Retributivist argument. This is the

argument that I will be concentrating on for this paper. Pojman introduces the idea that people’s

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actions should end with consequences known as deserts. To put this in its most simplistic

context- People get what they deserve based on their own actions. The idea of desert leads to the

overall notion that people should have responsibility for what they do (Pojman 495). People

should also know that their actions cause them to receive positive and negative consequences.

Pojman then includes John Rawls’s theory concerning responsibility and fairness. Pojman states

that Rawls undermined how important desert is for people. He says that the idea of desert is what

keeps people grounded in the fact that responsibility is the foundation for morality and law

(Pojman 495).

In his argument, Pojman, expresses that the idea of prima facie should be viewed while

considering the death penalty. He explains that most retributivists believe that giving

consequences to people, whether favorable or unfavorable, is a prima facie duty. He also states

that when a murderer kills their victim, this by default forces the murderer to relinquish his

prima facie right of his own life (Pojman 495). Pojman brings up an alternative view in his

article by stating that some believe that because of the prima facie view, this gives the State the

reasoning to use legalized murder. The State is an example of why the death penalty should not

be legal. This is because it demonstrates to men that the murder they committed was extremely

wrong, therefore; the State has the right to murder them.. He counters this alternative view by

using the fifth and fourteenth amendments in the Bill of Rights. Louis Pojman states, “no one

should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law” (495). This

statement expounds the idea that if the State follows its due process, then a murderer can be put

to death without worry over the morality or legality of it.

Although Pojman argues his point concisely, he seems to overlook a few ideas that could

be alternative arguments. People with opposing views might claim that the Retributivist

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argument is just a revenge seeking theory for the victim and their family. The fact that the

murderer is killed, allows the family to feel condolence to the fact that their loved one was killed.

The main problem with the Retributivist argument is that it is steadfast in the idea that the

murderer deserves to be killed. The theory does not consider reform or alternative steps that

could be taken instead of killing the murderer. One example of this is that jail time could be used

in lieu of execution. This specific argument will be seen in Reiman’s article later in the paper.

Pojman also does not address the issue that the State needs a legal reason to continue using

capital punishment. The fifth and fourteenth amendment gives the State authority to use capital

punishment, but it does not give the state explicit reasoning to execute specific criminals. This

should have been addressed in his argument.

Jeffrey Reiman’s second proposition argument is the portion that I will be concentrating

on. Reiman proposes the view that the death penalty does not deter current or future murderers.

His overall argument is that reform or jail sentences for the murderer is a better option than

execution. One piece of evidence that Reiman relies on is a few case studies that occurred in the

1900’s. The most notable case study he highlights is the Ehrlich study. He explains that the study

claimed to cover and prove that each execution, between 1933 to 1969; deterred as many as eight

murders. Reiman then goes on to cover the Ehrlich study after the National Academy of Sciences

proved it to be false (Reiman 505). Reiman suggests that because of the correlation studies and

their claims, people should conclude that capital punishment does not influence the rate of

murders more so than other forms of punishment (Reiman 506).

Reiman uses the argument that life in prison or lengthy prison sentences are more of a

deterrent to murderers than capital punishment. He suggests that the fear of getting these

sentences is a major disincentive to many murderers (Reiman 506). This is because the

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murderers will have to face the consequences of their actions, unlike if they were given the death

penalty. Jeffrey Reiman states, “Likewise, though the death penalty may be worse than life in

prison, that doesn’t imply that the death penalty will deter acts that a life sentence won’t” (506).

This gives the ideal that capital punishment does not deter murder, so it should not be a

considerable form of punishment. He suggests that because it does not injure current or potential

victims, it is morally right to give murderers lesser sentences. One point of the argument that

Reiman utilizes is the concept of torture. The main idea expounded upon is that whether you

torture someone for six months compared to a year, that does not mean that the longer sentence

will deter you more from doing wrong actions (Reiman 506). This is because the punishment of

six months of torture might be able to deter you from your wrong actions more so than the year

worth of torture.

The arguments that Reiman consolidates in his article cover most of his main ideas, but

there are a few counter arguments that could be used to weaken it. The case study that Reiman

focuses on cannot be used to definitively say that capital punishment does not deter murderers.

This is because the study and after study that is explained in the article was from one time period

in history. It does not involve the different reasons that murder rates could have increased, and it

does not include enough reason as to say that capital punishment does not deter murderers.

Overall, this part of the argument is a weak one that shouldn’t be seriously considered. Reiman

also uses torture as a compare to the death penalty. The problem with this is capital punishment

is the ending of a life, unlike torture, which would keep the murderer alive. The two cannot be

compared to each other due to their vast differences.

One critique that I have with his argument involves the fact that the murderer still has a

chance at life, while his victim does not. If one were to be the victim of a murder, it would be an

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insult to them to say that the punishment of their killer does not matter to them. Reiman touches

on this in his article because he states that the victim and potential victims cannot be injured by

the decision of the punishment (Reiman506). If Rule Utilitarianism were to be used in this

situation, it could be argued that the action of a murderer getting the death penalty would be to

the greatest good of society. If the murderer gets released within an amount of time and is

allowed back in society, it would not be to the greatest good for society. This is because he could

resort back to his former ways and continue killing. This is not the case for every murderer, but it

is a valid argument for the use of capital punishment rather than prison sentences.

Throughout this paper, I have argued for and against the death penalty based off of

Pojman’s and Reiman’s arguments. Based on Pojman’s Retributivist argument, his ideas have

influenced me to conclude that I am for the death penalty. The main reason that Pojman’s

argument was more persuasive, is that he offers up rebuttals to his own argument. He then

provides points as to why the opposing opinions could be wrong. By doing this, he does the best

overall job of explaining his argument from multiple sides. One of critiques that I had with the

Retributivist argument, is that it does not conclude that the State needs a formative justification

to kill the murderer. The other critique was that people opposing his idea could justify their

answer by saying that Pojman’s theory was based on revenge for the actual or potential victim.

Reiman’s argument failed to impress with the amount of evidence used in his second

proposition. It did not cover the different aspects of how the evidence was linked or concluded,

in order to deduce if it could be usable. He also fails to justify his argument by comparing the

death penalty and prison time to torture. The three are completely different types of punishment,

and they cannot be considered a stand in for one another. In most aspects, Pojman’s argument in

the defense of the death penalty is a more concrete, reliable theory.

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Works Cited

Pojman, Louis P. In Defense of the Death Penalty. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. By Hugh

Lafollette. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. N. pag. Print.

Reiman, Jeffrey. Against the Death Penalty. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. By Hugh

Lafollette. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. N. pag. Print.