Case Study: Murder by Two Colleges Students
Case Study: Murder by Two Colleges Students
As an intellectual game, two male college students, ages 18 and 19, attempt to commit the “perfect crime” by kidnapping a young boy and demanding ransom from his parents. They receive the ransom money but kill the boy anyway. Later, they are caught, tried and convicted of murder and kidnapping with intent to do bodily harm. Their defense attorney, a brilliant lawyer, successfully argues against the death penalty and both men are sent to prison for life. After about five years, one of the men is killed in a fight, but the other completes his college education while still in prison and teaches other convicts English. He also volunteers for medical experiments, allowing himself to be injected with malaria germs in order to test new drugs. A model prisoner, he causes no trouble throughout his entire prison term. After about 30 years, he is paroled, whereupon he goes to a different country and continues to teach English. Two years later he dies of natural causes. Should this man have been subjected to capital punishment? Why or why not
Theories that will be applied: 1. Divine Command Theory 2. Virtue Ethics 3. Utilitarianism
Capital punishment has been and will always be a widely debated topic. The biggest question that surrounds capital punishment would be is it morally right or is it morally wrong? There are many arguments for and against capital punishment. Is a capital punishment really a deterent as some would say? I will apply and test three theories to the case mentioned above to see if capital punishment is the most appropriate solution or not.
First I will examine the divine command theory and see how it applies to the case mentioned above. In all fairness I must say that in the case mentioned above the divine command theory is strongly contradicting itself. How is that possible? Well let us start by saying that the divine command theory uses Gods commandments to measure whether something is morally
As an intellectual game, two male college students, ages 18 and 19, attempt to commit the “perfect crime” by kidnapping a young boy and demanding ransom from his parents. They receive the ransom money but kill the boy anyway. Later, they are caught, tried and convicted of murder and kidnapping with intent to do bodily harm. Their defense attorney, a brilliant lawyer, successfully argues against the death penalty and both men are sent to prison for life. After about five years, one of the men is killed in a fight, but the other completes his college education while still in prison and teaches other convicts English. He also volunteers for medical experiments, allowing himself to be injected with malaria germs in order to test new drugs. A model prisoner, he causes no trouble throughout his entire prison term. After about 30 years, he is paroled, whereupon he goes to a different country and continues to teach English. Two years later he dies of natural causes. Should this man have been subjected to capital punishment? Why or why not
Theories that will be applied: 1. Divine Command Theory 2. Virtue Ethics 3. Utilitarianism
Capital punishment has been and will always be a widely debated topic. The biggest question that surrounds capital punishment would be is it morally right or is it morally wrong? There are many arguments for and against capital punishment. Is a capital punishment really a deterent as some would say? I will apply and test three theories to the case mentioned above to see if capital punishment is the most appropriate solution or not.
First I will examine the divine command theory and see how it applies to the case mentioned above. In all fairness I must say that in the case mentioned above the divine command theory is strongly contradicting itself. How is that possible? Well let us start by saying that the divine command theory uses Gods commandments to measure whether something is morally