Question : “The aim of punishment is to defend the moral law and to do justice to criminal.” Discuss.
(2015)
Answer : Moral Law is a system of guideline for behaviour. These guidelines may or may not be part of a religion, codified in written form, or legally enforceable. For some people moral law is synonymous with the commands of a divine being. For others, moral law is set of universal rules that should apply to everyone. Whenever a person commits wrong and violates moral law thus shaking conscience of the society, the state intervenes and inflict ....
Question : Analyse the statement with reasons that “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
(2014)
Answer : When a person gains power over other persons–political power to force other persons to do his bidding when they do not believe it right to do so–it seems inevitable that a moral weakness develops in the person who exercises that power. It may take time for this weakness to become visible. In fact, its full extent is frequently left to the historians to record, but we eventually learn of it. It was Lord Acton, the ....
Question : Which theory of punishment, retributive or restorative, do you recommend and why?
(2014)
Answer : Retributive justice is a systematic infliction of punishment justified on grounds that the wrongdoing committed by a criminal has created an imbalance in the social order that must be addressed by action against the criminal.Restorative justice is a systematic response to wrongdoing that emphasizes healing the wounds of victims, offenders and communities caused or revealed by the criminal behavior.When restorative justice is applied beyond the domain of criminal justice, such as in the areas of ....
Question : Can we say that racial supremacy is the main reason for genocide? Give reasons for your answer.
(2014)
Answer : According to Article II of the Genocide Convention, genocide is defined as any one of a number of acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. We can identify four types of motives behind genocide:
Ongoing conflict between groups is costly. Feuds and tit-for-tat revenge violence may be drawn out for long periods of time (perhaps centuries). People lose their lives, property ....
Question : Does corruption have not only amoral dimension but also an economic dimension?
(2013)
Answer : We must acknowledge morality is an essential foundation of law. Governments are reflective of the societies they serve. Even with strong law enforcement and preventive measures, there will still be those tempted by corruption, and those willing to corrupt.
We must come to recognition, personally and culturally, that corruption is not just a violation of law, not just an economic disadvantage, and not merely a political problem, but that it is morally wrong. Apart from it ....
Question : Can capital punishment be justified? Answer with reference to the theories of punishment.
(2011)
Answer : Conventionally, three types of theories are taken into consideration while awarding punishment to the criminals. They are (1) Retributive Theory (2) Preventive Theory (3) Reformative Theory.
According to the retributive theory, the purpose is to seek revenge. It is based on the notion “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. This theory clearly supports capital punishment.
The preventive theory states that the aim behind the punishment is to set an example to the ....
Question : If capital punishment is legally awarded, and then no ethico-political consideration should subvert it. Express your opinion for or against.
(2010)
Answer : There may be a number of incontrovertible arguments against the death penalty. The most important one is the virtual certainty that genuinely innocent people will be executed and that there is no possible way of compensating them for this miscarriage of justice. There is also another significant but much less realized danger here. The person convicted of the murder may have actually killed the victim and may even admit having done so but does not ....
Question : List the various sanctions permitting genocide & clearly bring out the ethical counter-arguments against each.
(2010)
Answer : Sanctions permitting genocides are many and people or groups committing such heinous crimes try to authenticate it by putting up so many reasons. Most of these reasons revolve around social, economic, political, ethnic and racial considerations. But all these grounds for sanctioning the genocide are baseless and self styled notion to validate such mass murder. For genocide to happen, they put forward certain preconditions. Foremost among them is a national culture that does not place ....
Question : “You are not punished for stealing the sheep, but you are punished so that no sheep is stolen,” Discuss as to which theory of punishment the statement belongs.
(2009)
Answer : This statement is related to the theory of deterrence. Punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant or aversive on a person or animal or property, usually in response to disobedience, defiance, or behaviour deemed morally wrong by individual, governmental, or religious principles. In common usage, the word “punishment” might be described as “an authorized imposition of deprivations of freedom or privacy or other goods to which the person otherwise has a right, or the ....
Question : Is capital punishment, in your view, ethically justified?
(2009)
Answer : Support for the death penalty varies widely, and it can be a highly contentious political issue, particularly in democracies that use it. In many parts of Asia where it is maintained including Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia the death penalty appears to have large amounts of public support and there is little public movement to abolish it. In countries where it has been abolished, debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders, though few countries ....
Question : ‘Punishment rules all creatures; punishment preserves them all.’
(2008)
Answer : In common usage, the word “punishment” might be described as “an authorized imposition of deprivations of freedom or privacy or other goods to which the person otherwise has a right, or the imposition of special burdens because the person has been found guilty of some criminal violation, typically (though not invariably) involving harm to the innocent.”The most common applications are in legal and similarly ‘regulated’ contexts, being the infliction of some kind of pain or ....
Question : Consider why punishment is generally thought to require justification. In this context give your critical and comparative account of the main theories of punishment.
(2007)
Answer : It is helpful in assessing various candidate justifications of punishment to keep in mind the reasons why punishment needs to be justified.
Punishment, especially punishment under law, by officers of the government — is (as noted above) a human institution, not a natural fact. It is deliberately and intentionally organized and practiced. Yet it is not a basic social institution that every conceivable society must have. It is a testimony to human frailty, not to the ....
Question : Describe the tension between consequentialist and retributive theories of punishment. Discuss critically, in this context, the view that argues that since no existing penal system for crime prevention has adequate justification, state punishment cannot be justified; and, therefore, it should be completely abolished.
(2005)
Answer : When and why should we punish? Though easy to state, this question is difficult to answer. Numerous philosophers and legal thinkers have attempted to answer this question, and their answers have lead to a variety of models of punishment. The two most common models are those of utilitarianism and retributivism. In many ways these two models seem to stand in direct opposition to one another. Several interesting and important models arise from attempting to reconcile ....
Question : “No account of human nature can provide a secure foundation for political philosophy”.
(2004)
Answer : Political philosophy begins with the question: what ought to be a person’s relationship to society? The subject seeks the application of ethical concepts to the social sphere and thus deals with the variety of forms of government and social existence that people could live in – and in so doing, it also provides a standard by which to analyze and judge existing institutions and relationships. Political philosophy has its beginnings in ethics: in questions such ....
Question : Discuss the notion of punishment. Consider in this context the importance and implications of the principle of proportionality of punishment, which requires that the severity of punishment be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime.
(2002)
Answer : Each society has its own way of social control for which it frames certain laws and also mentions the sanctions with them. These sanctions are nothing but the punishments. ‘The first thing to mention in relation to the definition of punishment is the ineffectiveness of definitional barriers aimed to show that one or other of the proposed justifications of punishments either logically include or logically excluded by definition.’ Punishment has the following features:
Question : The deterrent theory of punishment has no justification.
(2001)
Answer : One of the primitive methods of punishments believes in the fact that if severe punishments were inflicted on the offender would deter him form repeating that crime. Those who commit a crime, it is assumed, derive a mental satisfaction or a feeling of enjoyment in the act. To neutralize this inclination of the mind, punishment inflicts equal quantum of suffering on the offender so that it is no longer attractive for him to carry out ....
Question : Retributive theory of punishment.
(2000)
Answer : An eye for an eye would turn the whole world blind is a famous saying of Mahatma Gandhi. The most stringent and harsh of all theories retributive theory believes to end the crime in itself. This theory underlines the idea of vengeance and revenge rather than that of social welfare and security. Punishment of the offender provides some kind solace to the victim or to the family members of the victim of the crime, who ....
Question : Some philosophers believe that the task of political philosophy is only conceptualize, to analyze concepts which are typically political, such as justice, equality, right and the like. Some others believe that the task is inescapably normative which requires political philosophers to formulate and defend substantive principles which can serve to answer normative questions concerning different political ideals such as social justice, individual freedom and rights and the like. In the above context state and defend what you think is the proper task of political philosophy.
(1998)
Answer : Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic system and our pattern of family life. Political philosophers seek to establish basic principles that will, for instance, justify a particular form of state, show that individuals have certain inalienable rights, or tell us how a society’s material resources should be shared among its members. This usually ....
Question : Reformative theory of punishment.
(1997)
Answer : The most recent and the most humane of all theories of punishment are based on the principle of reforming the legal offenders through individual treatment. Not looking to criminals as inhuman this theory puts forward the changing nature of the modern society where it presently looks into the fact that all other theories have failed to put forward any such stable theory, which would prevent the occurrence of further crimes. Though it may be true ....
Question : What can be the causes for mass violence? Can mass violence ever be justified on moral grounds? Discuss.
Answer : Violence is a direct or indirect physical attack against an individual. Along with this violence is also a bad psychological behavior. Violence is also a direct or indirect destruction of property. In this definition of violence along with direct or indirect violence, structural violence is also involved, social exploitation, economic exploitation, repression and alienation are structural violence.
This is more harmful than the direct violence. On the basis of region or nature, violence can be divided ....
