Death Penalty

Final Project 2

The death penalty is one of the most hotly debated subjects in our society. Controversy surrounding this issue is emotional with proponents for and against the death penalty arguing their position by using appeals to emotion, appeals to pity and the use of expert opinion. My intent is to show that reasonable dialogue has been impeded by both sides of the death penalty issue through their use of these fallacies.

Proponents of the death penalty assert that those who are members of the anti-death penalty movement argue their positions by using fraudulent means. According to Dudley Sharpe (1997) “the culture of lies and deceit so dominate that the movement of many falsehoods is now wrongly accepted as fact, by both advocates and opponents of the death penalty. The anti-death penalty movement specializes in the abolition of the truth.” Viewing this statement critically it is apparent that Sharpe’s intention is to argue his position by using an appeal that will arouse emotion in the recipient, most particularly an appeal to anger. This type of statement serves to directly attack the advocates of the death penalty and fits well into Walton’s description of abusive ad hominem. The focus of this method of argumentation is to create questions regarding the honesty, the motives and the trustworthiness of opponents to the death penalty. The result of this type of argumentation is that the other party will respond with a similar attack. If this method of dialogue continues the likely outcome will take the form of a personal quarrel and reasonable dialogue will not be the result. Interestingly advocates of the death penalty frequently use appeals to pity to attempt to win their argument. Their focus on the victim’s of crime is so descriptive that the readers focus is taken off the real issue, the one they indicate they are attempting to propose.

Final Project 3

According to Walton (2006) the ad misericordiam fallacy is “used as a distraction from relevant evidence that should be brought forward to support a conclusion.” The main contention of advocates of the death penalty is that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder as well as to the commission of future murders; appeals to emotions, attacking the character of their opponents and appealing to pity is irrelevant to the issue and will not support their conclusion. Rather than using these fallacies to present their argument, advocates of the death penalty can rely on a plethora of studies to support their conclusion. For instance Sehba, L. & Nathan., “Further Exploration in the Scale of Penalties”, British Journal of Criminology, 24: 221-249, 1984) conclusive evidence was extracted directly from death row inmates. This study indicated that inmates on death row feared the death penalty and feared it most when it permeated their realty. Although they concede that the inmates on death row presently were not deterred by the prospect of death prior to the commission of the murder, the probability that they will be executed has a deterrent effect on future murders. According to Sehba & Nathan (1984) “Although you will never deter all murder, the effect of deterrence will rise as the probability of executions rises, the fear of that punishment will also rise, And that which we fear the most deters the most. Indeed, prisoners rate the death penalty as the most feared punishment, much more than life without parole.” This statement is meant to show that the continued use of the death penalty will affect the rate of future murders. In this way and if this proposition is so, innocent lives will be saved. However, the flaw in

Final Project 4

this argument lies in the fact that the implementation of the death penalty is neither swift nor sure. Clearly, there can be no intrinsic support for this conclusion as the death penalty in the United States although a severe punishment is neither swift nor sure. The argument of these authors does not support their conclusion. As Walton (2006) indicates the argument is deductively valid, then the premises must true and the conclusion true. Sheba and Nathan may well have a deductively valid argument; however, their contention is that what “we fear the most, deters the most” is a flawed premise thus the conclusion cannot be true, According to Sharp 1997 if the death penalty was applied swiftly and surely to the worst criminal’s in the United States, a logical conclusion could be drawn relative to the deterrent effect of the death penalty. He further contends that significant deterrence could be expected and innocent lives would be saved. In fact he asserts that ‘”swift and sure executions do result in deterrence.”