Conrado Valido Frederick Knowles English Composition: Response Paper 11 February 2011 The Death Penalty According to David Bruck, “neither justice nor self-preservation demands that we kill men” and I beg to differ. Death penalty is considered as a controversial topic today. Death penalty is the best way to bring justice because it is cheap, it serves as justice for the victims, and it gives a higher regard to the victim’s suffering in the hands of the murderer. Although some people oppose death penalty saying it is immoral and a waste of life, it is still the best way to bring justice to the victims of heinous crimes. Death penalty is the best way to bring justice because it is cheap.
In Sophocles’ Antigone, the main character Antigone chose to disobey Creon’s edict and bury her brother. She did this because she wanted to respect her brother’s dignity and rights as a human being. Antigone states that she would rather be caught betraying her king than betray her dead brother. She shows her loyalty when she states that “I won’t be caught betraying him… I’ll do my duty to my brother.” (Antigone 58-59) After hearing Antigone say this – her sister, Ismene, states that they should not disobey the king and not go through with burying Oedipus. Ismene’s argument was that “we must remember that by birth we’re women, and, as such, we shouldn’t fight with men.” (Antigone 77-78) Antigone with such a passion of honoring her brother states that no matter what, she will follow through with her mission.
Antigone is telling Creon that rather than listen to his man made laws that she would rather follow the higher authority of the God’s. This strong willed nature is what ends up leading to Antigone being sentenced to death. When Antigone chooses to hang herself rather than allow Creon to kill her, she further demonstrates her strong willed nature. Antigone’s unnecessary death clearly shows that she is a tragic character. Creon’s tragic flaw is that he is to prideful.
In addition, the loyalty between Antigone and her brother is unbreakable. Antigone knows the risks that will happen if she buries her brother, so she takes her sister Ismene outside the city walls to discuss her plan. Antigone says, “To give my brother a burial. I'll be glad to die in the attempt,-if it's a crime.”(P.70-71), which means that she is not afraid of anything and is prepared to do whatever it takes, even if it means to die trying, respecting her brother’s spirit so he can be at rest. Antigone is justified in burying her brother because no person should have to rot in the sun and be eaten by animals.
Antigone chose to follow her conscious despite of the consequences. She could have buried her brother in secret but she felt that what she was doing was right and her actions were following the laws of the gods. Her decision to act publicly ended in her death, however she was still satisfied with her decision. Acts of conscience such as Antigone’s should be made public to be affective. If Antigone had decided to keep her actions a secret, Creon would have never lost his family and would have probably stayed a stubborn and unforgiving king.
The Dalai Lama talks about “Compassion”. The way to understand compassion in this situation does not mean forgiveness or to forget what the murderer did and let him free. Here, compassion means to put aside the feelings we have for the one related to us and become impartial to listen to the reasons the murderer has to have killed this person. This impartiality would help us not to follow what The Torah suggests. The Torah suggests the death of a murderer.
Allowing a human life to intentionally be ended disregards the sacredness of human life and has no direct difference to murder despite the intentions to prevent pain. Furthermore, euthanasia would become the first step of a slippery slope whereby value of human life will be depreciated and reduced to economical and personal convenience. However, these farfetched consequences cannot surpass the empathetic argument of mercy on the patient whereby quality of life overrides quantity. The most convincing argument that renders the killing of terminally ill morally permissible is the understanding that all humans possess autonomy. John Stuart Mill argues in (On Liberty (1859), ‘The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which a citizen is amenable to society, is that which concerns others.
Antigone believes that without burying her brother he will not have a good after-life. Antigone even goes as far as burying him twice. Antigone is more admirable in that she is not selfish. She cared for her brother so much that she would go through all this trouble to give him a good after-life. She wanted to marry Haimon but sacrificed this to bury her brother.
With Antigone, she went to meet the needs of her beliefs and she stood up for what she felt was right. She was simply respecting her brother to give him an appropriate burial regardless of the Creon’s
We are going to begin this paper by looking at the opposing side of this topic. Many people on the side against assisted suicides believe that we as a society have a moral duty to protect those that are innocent. Others believe that any laws that sanction assisted suicides on the basis of mercy and compassion would eventually lead to someone making the decision of who lives or who dies, based on how they feel about the worth of another’s life. The biggest argument against the legalizing of assisted suicides in this country is the fact that it is simply against the law. The Supreme Court has not ruled that a person has a fundamental right to die, there for taking of someone’s life is plain and simply