Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty Research Paper

Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty - Research Paper Example Today, close to 58 countries around the world actively employ the penalty against those who commit capital offenses. Although close to 96 countries have abolished the use of death penalties against humans, several others still have it still entrenched within their judicial systems without practicing it for at least the last ten years owing to its controversial nature. The death penalty has drawn great and uncommon controversy throughout the world with different groups and members of society taking different stands concerning the subject. In fact, the subject of death penalty is a matter of active debate even among states, nations and territories. With regard to the subject, people often take differing stands even though they may share similar political, religious and cultural ideologies. This paper discusses the subject of death penalty and will mainly focus on the pros and cons of employing the mode of punishment according to different viewers and commentators. The death penalty is the pre-meditated and planned process of killing a human being in reaction to an offence committed by the person (Banner, 2002).. Also known as capital punishment, the act is normally done by a government against a person who has legally been convicted through a legal or judicial process. There are several methods that have been employed in executing capital punishments against people accused of committing capital offenses as noted by Hood (2002). Historically, the death sentence was carried out mostly in the most painful of ways. In many ancient societies, convicts were often stoned to death while in other societies the convicts’ heads were severed using different means. For example in ancient Russia, executioners used swords to chop of the heads of those who were condemned to die while in France, the victim’s head was cut off using a guillotine. Ferocious or venomous animals were also used in some societies to cause the deaths of those who

Descartes Views on the Mind and Body

Descartes Views on the Mind and Body In Meditation VI (see week 5 reading) Descartes argues that there is fundamental difference between mind and body. Do you think Descartes is right? If yes, explain why, if not, explain why The mind body dilemma has been subject of philosophical analysis for decades and has yet to be fully understood. As the principal advocate for dualism, Descartes states that as humans we are composed of two major substances: the mental and the physical which manage to exist side by side. Without a doubt, Cartesian Dualism was one of Descartes major contributions to the study of philosophy; idea with which I agree based on the following analysis. The fundamental choice between the mind-body problem and its contra argument is the existence of materialism and its denial. Descartes states that the mind is separate from the body based on the reasoning that the mind exists and stands alone as a substance, therefore; they must be separate things. He then proceeds to add that anything that is physical occupies space. Unlike the mind, the body can be altered due to its materialistic nature, and can be changed and divided into smaller components. We find further support in Leibniz Law, which states that if a has a property that b lacks, then a is not identical to b which are applicable to the mind and body, as the mind does not occupy space, it is just housed by the body. Another argument is the one of introspection, which relays on the rationale that our best evidence for the existence of mental substance is the access to our own minds. Via introspection of the mind, we are capable of accessing and assessing different features of our own minds such as feelings, sensations, desires, etc. None of them have physical properties. Descartes then elaborates on this principle stating that there are certain things that come naturally to us as humans such as desires, which come instinctively. However, there are others such as thinking, which needs to be based on intentionality. Among these features we also encounter consciousness, which has been defines by Descartes as the epitome of the human nature, although it is not something that can be perceived by the senses, thus, it is not physical. We are capable of imagining the existence of our mind without the body. In the case of any material object, you can describe object a as existing or object a as not existi ng; however there cannot be a blending of both premises. Contrary to this, we have consciously just pictured the mind existing without the body, therefore it must follow that the mind and the body are separate things. As written in Descartes Mediation VI: And although I may, or rather, as I will shortly say, although I certainly do possess a body with which I am very closely conjoined; nevertheless, because, on the one hand, I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing, it is certain that I, that is, my mind, by which I am what I am, is entirely and truly distinct from my body, and may exist without it. [i](Descartes, Meditation VI) An example would be a paralyzed patient, where he is totally aware of his environment, and is conscious about his desire to perform an action, yet he cannot do so. He lacks the capability to acquire sensations physically, although he can still imagine what it would feel like to perform such task. As with any major idea, we find opposition, in this case, on the hands of the scientific community. The notion that Descartes work fails to completely explain how the connection between mind and body works is enough to trigger a response. As explained in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Willis wrote about the pineal gland that we can scarcely believe this to be the seat of the soul, or its chief faculties to arise from it because animals which imagination, memory and other superior powers of the soul have this glandula or kernel large and fair enough. (Lockhorst, 2013)[ii] Furthermore, Descartes idea has been rejected based on the fact that the attributes linked to the mind are simple responses to neurological and chemical stimulus in the brain. An example can be the use of any drug. Although the mind is supposed to be an independent entity from the body, when any sort of chemical/drug is ingested it can alter the mental state, though most of the time, it also alters your body as well. Same analogy applies if the patient suffers some physiological damage to the brain; it will yield physical consequences and changes in motor coordination. Although the bridge between the mind and the body may not lay at the pineal gland, a clear distinction between these two properties has been done in the past and it should not be neglected the fact that according to Descartes the single most important characteristic of the human nature is consciousness and not the soul as the human essence, our ability to think and rationalize our thoughts. As in all, although Descartes dualism theory is not infallible and it fails to thoroughly explain how exactly the connection between body and mind works, it does satisfy the purposes of explaining why would the mind be something different from the body via means of his very simple, yet logical arguments. Descartes went as far as creating what it is called a trialistic distinction where he unites and acknowledges the possibilities of the existence of the mind, the body and the union of the latter as a third state. References [i] Descartes, Meditation VI Canvas excerpt. [ii] Lokhorst, G.-J. (2013, September 18). Descartes and the Pineal gland. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/

Big Brook :: Personal Narrative Fishing Essays

Big Brook â€Å"When you leave this place, you will always remember the nights fishin’ up on Big Brook,† my father once told me. And to this day I have never forgotten my experiences up on that little tributary of the Namakagon River in northern Wisconsin. My father always dreams of the old days when he would go out with a creel over his shoulder and catch a meal of fish. Work takes too much of his time now, but I remember the times we would go up to Big Brook after work and spend the last hours before the sun set fishing our favorite holes in hopes for a big trout to bite. I remember this now, many years later, but my memories are still perfectly clear. We would get home from work, dad would say, â€Å"Alright, I am goin’ up to Big Brook, if ya wanna come with, I am leavin’ in five.† This was our cue, my brothers and I would drop everything we were doing, grab our rods, and head out to the garden to pick a handful of worms. The garden was always the best spot for the worms; they seemed to love the dark rich soil and always grew the biggest. Even though we dug them every week, there would always seem to be more the next time we went out. When we arrived at the meandering stream, Dad would say, â€Å"Alright, I get the first 100 yards downstream, everything else is open season for you all to fight about.† My brothers would usually get the section just upstream, cause they were bigger, and I didn’t have much say in the matter. So there we were, all the guys in the family on the river, my father heading to his favorite spot, my brothers marching upstream together, and I left to make my way downstream, through the blackberry brush to the beaver pond. When I left the river to walk downstream all the difficulties from the day were left behind. I walked through a grove of aspen, and looking under a clump of brush I saw a cottontail rabbit, but he knew, if he didn’t move I wouldn’t see the little guy; so I passed quietly, in hopes not to scare him. As I walked I would be occasionally wafted with the smell of wild roses, or the smell of fresh air that would blow through the trees.

Positive Case for Compatibilism and the Free Will Problem

The concept of free will has been a point of contention for philosophers for several decades. One of the reasons for these diverging viewpoints is the debate on how exactly to define the word free. It would be misleading to attribute any one exclusive idea to the concept.However it is agreed neutrally that it is an exercise of an individual’s behavior in order for him to take moral responsibility for his actions. A person who takes on his moral responsibility is one who can chose to make decisions that are morally right or wrong. Thus, the blame or reward for the outcome of the decision falls squarely on his shoulders. It is understood that free will is an essential component of these decisions.Conceptually it can be understood how the pre-determined nature of the universe can casually affect our decisions to such a point where free will is no longer applicable. However the theory of compatibilism states that free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive. That they can exist together without conflict, that an individual can exercise free will when faced with pre-determined factors. This topic will analyze, synthesize and evaluate arguments related to the problems associated with the concept of free will and how compatibilism offers a solution to these problems (McKenna, 2004).In order to understand how compatibilism acts as a solution to the free will problem it is first important to understand that there are several concepts used attributed to free will. When these concepts are conjoined to others they invariably create several contradictions. In order to avoid these problems it is important to consider the classic formulation of free will which informs us of then several key factors associated with it. The first is that the individual has a choice to act in more than one way in a situation.However any action taken by an individual qualifies as an event with various causes that effect the individual’s decision. Thus, the cause is casually determined and the individual cannot act in any way other than what is pre-determined by these factors. It should be noted that the existence of free will is tantamount upon the fact that the individual has no extraneous source compelling him to act. Rather all his decisions making is contingent upon his own compulsion to follow his decisions in the face of alternate possibilities. It is only in such a case that freedom to assume moral responsibility exists (McKenna, 2004).John Martin Fincher is a philosopher who is responsible for refining the viewpoint that suggested that decisions which constitute the free will of an individual can be affected by a number of reasons. This proves why certain people can have different reactions to the same situation and rules out those individuals who have compulsive or neurotic behavior.The refined viewpoint by Martin Fincher is known as the reasons-responsiveness theory which states that even though there are considerations which may affect the d ecisions of an individual. The decision made it can still be considered to be an individual free will since the choice made is rationally based according to the factors affecting the individual (McKenna, 2004).Another concept attributed to Compatibilism is P.F Strawson’s concept of moral responsibility. This is similar to Hume’s concept and says that the practice of holding an individual morally responsible for his or her own actions is formed on the basis of both emotional and societal structures. He said that the existence of these critical responses is part of human nature defined by our basic emotional natures and cannot be abandoned, thus the fact that determinism affects our moral responsibility does not hold ground.However in certain cases an individual can choose to give up their moral judgments in favor of rationalizing the individuals actions can exist as well but only in the cases where the actions gains favors or losses to human life (Kane, 2002 p. 516-521) .There are of course objections to the theories of compatibilism. One of the principle arguments for incompatibilism comes from Carl Ginet. The argument given by him states that the power of an individual to affect change does not extend to factors such as those of nature that are by their very nature unchangeable.And if a certain fact affects a person directly and the consequences of that fact exist than the person will be affected by the consequences of that fact as well. Thus in the face of these facts determinism becomes true and since no one can change the facts that cause the situation, no one can affect the future (McKenna, 2004).

Collective Action Problem Essay

Problem Statement: – Competitors Coca- cola and Pepsi-cola have to decide whether or not to offer discount pricing. Matrix:-    Pepsi – cola    Coca- cola Pricing Strategy Discount price Regular price Discount price $4b,   $2b $8b,   $1b Regular price $2b,   $5b $6b,   $4b * b means billion    Description: – Both companies can choose one outcome by offering a discount price or a regular price. The payoff for each firm depends upon the pricing strategies of both firms.     For coca- cola the worst case scenario is $2 billion payoff when it offers regular prices while Pepsi-Cola charges discount prices. Similarly, for Pepsi- Cola the worst case scenario is $1 billion. Solution: – A dilemma is involved because each party would like to have maximum benefits by offering the discount and hoping that the other doesn’t.   The only secure means both companies have of avoiding meager profits is to offer discount prices. The ideal scenario would have been when both were offering regular price as they would have earned $6 billion (Coca- cola) and $4 billion (Pepsi-Cola). But, it’s difficult to trust each other and thus, they both go for the conservative strategy and settle down for profits of $4 billion and $2 billion for Coca-cola and Pepsi-Cola respectively.