Vi-Vi

"A Defense of the Death Penalty" by Louis Pojman is a somewhat, in my opinion, confusing and contradictory article. While the author does well to address the opposition in the "Objections" section, the author also seems to address the opposition throughout the entire article. This does not serve the purpose that I believe was intended and only serves to confuse the reader. This and the many hypotheticals and ideal situations which are nearly, if not entirely, all impossible to achieve make the thesis of the article somewhat difficult to follow throughout the entire piece.

The article does well to address the opposition in order to form a more complete argument and assert the authors certainty that their viewpoint is the correct viewpoint, however, at some points, addressing the opposition can muddle the original point. For example, on page 109 the author says "The death penalty is such a fitting response to evil." in the context of the punishment needing to fit the crime and the idea that murder/rape/serial crime are crimes heinous enough to justify their lives, however 2 pages later the author goes onto explain how, "The death penalty is a humane punishment." This to me seems very contradictory, as the first argument seems to imply that a heinous act requires heinous consequences but the second seems to imply that we should consider the death penalty as it is humane or kind to the recipient of the punishment. How can the punishment be both fitting of the heinous acts and humane at the same time? Should we consider the humanity of the punishment if we argue that those receiving the punishment have none themselves? These questions go unanswered by the author and only leave me, as the reader, vaguely bewildered. 

Another example, and this one somewhat more egregious, the article mentions several times the varying statistics and unreliability of data that supports the idea that the death penalty deters crimes, but then in the conclusion the author states that the death penalty should be extended to other types of crimes, including white collar or corporate crimes, because the death penalty would help deter these crimes from happening. How can the author state this so definitely after reiterating the point that there is no concrete evidence that the death penalty actually deters crimes? The reiteration of this point seems counterintuitive if the point of the article was to reach this specific conclusion. 

Finally, the hypotheticals, one of the first of which is the what if situation that asks "[What if] every time someone intentionally killed an innocent person he was immediately struck down by lightening [?]". Obviously this is impossible and a flawed analogy. Whereas the hypothetical implies some sort of divine intervention where the person involved is definitively guilty, the real world criminal justice system does not function so efficiently. The real world criminal justice system depends on sufficient evidence and a jury of one's peers to decide whether or not a defendant is actually guilty of a crime. If such divine intervention were possible and the real world was full of absolutes, then this scenario would make sense, however seeing as perfection is not a real world achievable dream, this analogy serves no real purpose.

The article, while presenting many good points, ultimately only serves to confuse the readers through the authors odd use of counterpoint address and muddled metaphors.