Break up into small groups. Delegate one or more members of your group to (1) prepare a summary of your group's discussion and (2) make a list of your group's members.
Discuss your answers to the following questions.
1. Briefly review major arguments for and against the death penalty. Which arguments (of both the "fors" and the "againsts") do your group members find most convincing? Least convincing? Why?
2. What reason is offered for the executions in "A Thousand Deaths?" Is this reason convincing in that context? Why or not? Do you normally find such reasoning convincing in discussions of the death penalty? Why or why not?
3. Why is the prosecutor willing to kill? List his reasons and motivations. Explain how these resemble or fail to resemble arguments for the death penalty.
4. By the end of the story is
the prosecutor still
willing to kill? If so, why? If not, why not? Do their end of story
situations suggest anything about the disadvantages or advantage of the
death penalty? How so?
5. Do these arguments
for and against executions suggest
anything about how someone could or would or does know
if the death penalty
is right or wrong? If not, why not? If so, what do
they
suggest about moral knowledge concerning this?
For Philosophy 302, Issues in Ethics, Le Moyne College, Prof. Michael Kagan
Last edited on February 14, 2010