Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
“the case for torture” summary
The case for torture
“the case for torture” summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
“the case for torture” summary
The case for torture
“the case for torture” summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
But somehow, when I present this same basic belief in the context of a secular humanist thrust into the brutal world of criminal justice, it loses its coherence. (Feige 238) Feige cites the criminal justice environment as “brutal,” which has been demonstrated time and time again in the book. He sums up his argument by reminding his audience that there exists no relative glamour in being a public defender: “We public defenders are a strange breed: passionate people spending ourselves in a Sisyphean struggle for justice in a system rigged to crush us” (Feige 268). Exceptionally thankful, then, should all people be for public defenders who spend day in and day out consistently doomed to fail.
In Michael Levin’s “The Case for Torture”, he uses many cases of emotional appeal to persuade the reader that torture is necessary in extreme cases. There are many terms/statements that stick with the reader throughout the essay so that they will have more attachment to what is being said. Levin is particularly leaning to an audience based in the United States because he uses an allusion to reference an event that happened within the states and will better relate to the people that were impacted by it. The emotional appeals used in this essay are used for the purpose of persuading the reader to agree that in extreme instances torture is necessary and the United States should begin considering it as a tactic for future cases of extremity. One major eye catching factor of this essay is the repetitive use of words that imply certain stigmas.
Crime and Punishment in the Elizabethan Era In the Elizabethan Era there was a lot of punishments for the crimes that people did. There were some punishments that people can live through, and there were some punishments that could lead people to death. During this time people just could not kill somebody and just go to prison, you will go down in painful and sometimes slow death.
In Michael Levin's The Case for Torture, Levin provides an argument in which he discusses the significance of inflicting torture to perpetrators as a way of punishment. In his argument, he dispenses a critical approach into what he believes justifies torture in certain situations. Torture is assumed to be banned in our culture and the thought of it takes society back to the brutal ages. He argues that societies that are enlightened reject torture and the authoritative figure that engage in its application risk the displeasure of the United States. In his perspective, he provides instances in which wrongdoers put the lives of innocent people at risk and discusses the aspect of death and idealism.
After arguing the failure of prisons, Mendieta establishes his agreement with Davis’ anti-prison rhetoric without introducing the author, her book, or other various abolitionist efforts, “I will also argue that Davis’s work is perhaps one of the best philosophical as well as political responses to the expansion of the prison system...” (Mendieta 293). The article’s author also assumes that readers are familiar with specific torture tactics used on prisoners,“...the United States is facing one of its most devastating moral and political debacles in its history with the disclosures of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other such prisons…” (293). Mendieta’s act of assuming that readers will already be familiar with Angela Davis and her work, as well as the specific methods of torture used by certain prisons, may cause readers to feel lost while reading the
It pains me to say that I will not have the satisfaction of giving each and every one of those people who escaped or not the credit and appraisal that they so dutifully deserve. No, in this essay I will be focusing on three people, each with their own hardships and their own “imprisonments”, whether those “imprisonments” were literal or not; they deserve to be appraised. All three of these people contrast against each other greatly but, at the same time have immense comparisons. For example, all three of these people are minorities but, only two of them are male.
Capital punishment has long been a heavily debated issue. In his article, “The Rescue Defence of Capital Punishment,” author Steve Aspenson make a moral argument in favor of capital punishment on the grounds that that is the only way to bring about justice and “rescue” murder victims. Aspenson argues as follows: 1. We have a general, prima facie duty to rescue victims from increasing harm. 2.
While analyzing “The Torture Myth” and “The Case for Torture”, it is very clear to see the type of rhetorical appeals used to persuade the audience. Anne Applebaum, the writer of “The Torture Myth” --in context of the decision of electing a new Attorney General--would argue that torture is very seldomly effective, violates a person’s rights, and should be outlawed due to the irrational need upon which physical torture is used. On the other hand, Michael Levin strongly argues that physical torture is crucial to solving every imminent danger to civilians. Levin claims that if you don’t physically torture someone, you are being weak and want to allow innocent people to die over something that could have been simply done.
It is disturbing to learn how people were humiliated and maltreated, and how exquisitely brutal were the devices invented to subdue and discipline people. The reason torture was commonly accepted during the Middle Ages was the lack of police or law enforcement. It was believed that to prevent crime,
Robert Steveson once wrote, “In each two natures are at war - good and evil”, highlighting the struggle between good and evil within people. In the short novel In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Utterson, a lawyer, tries to unravel a mystery of occurrences and connections between a murderous criminal and a renowned doctor. As the story progresses, the complicated relationship between the doctor and the criminal is revealed and exposes the duality of the doctor. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson emphasizes the duality of man through contrasting emotions of virtue and evil causing internal conflict. In Chapter 3, one can balance good and evil, but oftentimes, one tends to lean toward one side rather than another.
Very soon after the implementation of ideas from the Classical School did governments discover one fault with the idea. The Classical School of Criminology did not address the mens rea (intent) of someone’s actions. For example, Beccaria didn’t care if one murdered their brother out of cold blood or if, while sparring with one another, one hit their brother too hard and they died due to brain damage. Either way, the punishment for fratricide needed to be carried out the exact same. Seeing the problem with this, the United States and
Crime and Punishment in the Medieval Period The Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from 476 CE to the 1453 CE. It began with the fall of the Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is divided into three main periods, the Dark Ages, the High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages. To a significant extent the nature of crime and punishment, it was very different between social classes during the Medieval Period. This can be seen through the significant groups that were involved in medieval crime and punishment, the effects of a person’s social class on crime and punishment and the punishments given out to different social classes between the Medieval Period and today.
In Darrow’s closing argument he gives his famed “A Plea for Mercy” to the judge. This plea not only acted as a conclusion to his defense, but it also acted as an introduction the eradication of the death penalty. Darrow uses a mix of ethos, pathos, logos, and other rhetorical devices to impose a merciful effect on his audience in hopes to reduce his clients punishment and the use of capital punishment. Darrow gracefully uses all three appeals when referring to the rise of crime after war “I know that it has followed every war; and I know it has influenced these boys so that life was not the same to them as it would have been if the world had not been made red with blood.
Adolf Hitler’s main move kicked off with the need to do away with the Versailles treaty (n.p, ‘New American Nation’, n.d.). He sued this in his campaign speeches to woe the German nationals. He talked of the toil this had had on its economies as well as frustrating it armament efforts. Upon getting into power in 1933 after being elected as Germany’s chancellor, he did away with any conformity to the treaty (n.p, ‘Hitler Comes to Power,’ n.d.). Germany was up again on its feet economically as well as subsequent armament efforts in a bid to restore Germany to its prior position of being the World’s respected and most powerful super power.
“Retribution” or “Retributive justice” can be defined as “a theory of justice that considers punishment, if proportionate, to be the best response to crime.” (Wikipedia, 2016) Peter Koritansky, philosopher and author made a distinction between two views on retributive punishment in his work entitled “Two theories of retributive punishment: Immanuel Kant and Thomas Aquinas” in 2005 in which he believed that the Thomistic understanding of retribution is superior to that of Kant and this write-up is going to outline the reasons as to why he think this is the case. To illustrate this, it is vital therefore that we understand the Kantian retributivism and Aquinas’s understanding of punishment. Firstly the Kantian retributivism or the theory of retributive by Immanuel Kant suggests that punishment in the form of coercion of force is necessary to establish justice and to punish criminals, he emphasized that “Punishment by a court…can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but that it must always be inflicted upon him for the fact that he has committed a crime”