Ethical Beatings

In my ethics class, we've been doing presentations on different areas of ethics, such as religion, prostitution, animal cruelty, and the like. I was assigned the topic of how ethics applies to punishment, hence my odd but intriguing title. Contrary to what my title suggests, I didn't talk about parent to child discipline. I aimed at the much broader category of criminal punishment. It's really an interesting topic, so I decided I'd post the one page paper I wrote about it. It's a bit more formal and wordier than my usual stuff because I wrote it for an Honors class, but I hope you'll like it anyway:

This presentation will evaluate the justification for punishing criminals and present three different philosophies concerning how and why criminals should be punished.

1.      Why punish criminals?

Here are two of the most common arguments made against legal punishment. First, inflicting hardship on someone does not benefit anyone, increase happiness, or undo the crime. While it is true that the crime is not retractable, punishing criminals usually does bring peace of mind, security, and a sense of justice to the victim and most of society. Second, our aim should be to restore what was damaged, not punish the damager. This idea is known as restitution. It sounds nice, but it is usually inapplicable and sometimes leads to absurdities. For instance, how should a murderer atone for his crime? Our ideas of restitution are usually subjective, making them difficult to apply to an entire society. There is also the problem of premeditated crime. If you knew that a murder was being planned, you could do nothing about it. Because no crime has been committed, the would-be criminal can’t be arrested.

2.      Utilitarian Justice.

Jeremy Bentham, a proponent of Utilitarianism, proposed the correctional theory of punishment. Since Utilitarianism wants the greatest good for the greatest number of people, Bentham believed that criminals should be separated from society, since this would secure the benefits of security and peace of mind for citizens, but he also advocated reforming prisoners through job training, education, and counseling. Bentham believed that if criminals had the opportunity to make money honestly, then they would.

3.      Retribution.

Directly opposed to Bentham is Immanuel Kant and his Retributionist theory. Simply put, Kant believed that criminals deserve to be punished in proportion to the severity of their crime. He reasoned that if someone saw fit to harm other people for selfish gain, then we should return their behavior in kind. Kant believed that this was actually a form of respect for the criminal’s human dignity.

4.      Divine Command Theory.

The Christian theory is a complicated one. In Matthew 18:23, Jesus begins to tell a parable about a man who owed a huge debt, but was forgiven by the man he owed. The forgiven man then proceeded to find someone who owed him a small sum and relentlessly demanded to be repaid, ordering him to be thrown into prison until he could pay. When the man who had forgiven him heard about it, he ordered the unforgiving man to be thrown into prison until he could pay the original huge debt. The story illustrates that since God has forgiven our sins, we have a duty to forgive other people as well. However, although we may forgive, there are still earthly consequences criminals must suffer. A life of adultery may lead to STD’s or a sex addiction, for instance. Paul also encourages submission to the law and its punishment by saying in Romans 13:4 that government “does not bear the sword in vain.”

In conclusion, we have looked at different philosophies regarding punishment. Although their motives and methods differ, I have shown that criminal punishment is necessary in a just and secure society.


S.D.G.

My Obituary

One of my classes this semester is an online course which teaches more in-depth journalism techniques than the regular newspaper. In newspaper, the focus is more on experience, and the business of making a paper sometimes pushes back the actual "learning the trade" part of the class. The online course is designed to pick up the slack and is much more focused on techniques and tricks of the trade. Anyway, our first real writing assignment was to write our own obituary. That may sound a little morbid, but our teacher explained that most universities will assign it to us anyway.

Do you know how intensely boring most obituaries are? Usually it's the same words used over and over with different names. Sure, occasionally you might find one that really portrays a person's life, but they're rare. Writing a 200-300 word self death notice was none too interesting to me. So I did what anyone with an artistic license and an imagination would do. I had fun with it. I may have had a little too much fun, in fact. By the time I was finished with it, I decided that I would put it up here for you guys to see as well. Please bear in mind that I have no intention for my actual obituary to look like this. This is just the product of someone desperate to add interest to a potentially dreary project:

The church bell is greeted with jubilant cheers. So ends the funeral for Seth Houston, journalist and respected member of society.

Seth Houston was born and raised in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi. After graduating from Jones County Junior College, Houston moved out of the state for legal reasons. He soon began travelling the country on a journey to gain experience in his chosen profession, journalism. “He moved around a lot to hide from the law,” Sheriff Ted E. Bear said. “It’s a good thing he died when he did, because he was running out of places to go.” The entire police force attended the funeral to pay their respects. “I had to make sure he was really dead,” said Bear after respectfully spitting on the coffin.

Houston was preceded in death by his mother and father, who died of natural causes after reading a newspaper article celebrating their son’s community-centered activities.

Houston leaves behind two brothers and four sisters, as well as a loving wife, Caroline. “The scoundrel left after the first month,” she said, the tender emotion evident in her voice. “Nobody could find him, so I couldn’t even get a proper divorce.”

Houston was found in a warehouse, the victim of a tragic gang shooting. He was 35. “It just goes to show that even common thugs have a sense of decency,” said Bear. 

Houston’s grieving wife also had words to affirm his strong character. “He’s lucky the gang got to him before I did,” she said.

Many friends of the deceased from across the country turned out for Houston’s funeral, escorted by their local prison guards. Other than a small cheering section, it was evident that Houston will be missed by many.
S.D.G.