Chorus: Human Rights and Criminal Justice Essay

Submitted By hbpooopy7
Words: 4046
Pages: 17

boss ac
I affirm

I value morality

The standard is consequentialism for 1 reason

First The state controls the criminal justice system - The government is forced to resolve conflicts in protecting rights. Consequentialism is the only way to do so:

John Hasnas [associate professor of business at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, visiting associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. and Ph.D. in Legal Philosophy from Duke University]. "From cannibalism to caesareans: two conceptions of fundamental rights." Nortwestern University Law Review 89 (1995): 900

But consider now that if the government is required to resolve conflicts of rights, it must first determine which of the interests underlying the conflicting rights is of greater moral significance. What basis does the government have for making such valuejudgments? As we have previously seen, the only ethical theory that is definite and simple enough to serve as a practical political morality is utilitarianism. The government is comprised not of philosophers, but of practically-minded lawyers, economists, statisticians, and other social scientists who are neither trained in nor familiar with the vagaries of moral philosophy. Whether politician, bureaucrat, or judge, virtually all government officials have been trained that when their actions are not constrained by people's rights or other Constitutional barriers, their duty is to attempt to produce the greatest good for the greatest number, i.e., to promote general utility.

Moreover look to a comparing worlds paradigm.. Furthermore, In the affirmative world retribution doesn't exist. The resolution doesn't' specify any value so I value rehab at a 100 percent This is logical because if one system is failing and the other is succeeding then the government will stick with the one that is succeeding. Also, evaluate all a priori arguments before all other arguments .

Retribution- Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers punishment, if proportionate, to be the best response to crime. When an offender breaks the law, s/he thereby forfeits or suspends her/his right to something of equal value, and justice requires that this forfeit be enacted.

Rehabilitation-
The assumption of rehabilitation is that people are not permanently criminal and that it is possible to restore a criminal to a useful life, to a life in which they contribute to themselves and to society. A goal of rehabilitation is to prevent habitual offending, also known as criminal recidivism. Rather than punishing the harm out of a criminal, rehabilitation would seek, by means of education or therapy, to bring a criminal into a more normal state of mind, or into an attitude whih would be helpful to society, rather than be harmful to society.

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Punishment K
A. The negative in advocating retribution equates punishment with justice
According to DPH

When we look at the way this kind of "justice" works it is clear that the dominant theme is punishment and vengeance. The focus is not so much on righting the wrong or restoring balance, but rather to have an eye for an eye, a life for a life and exchange suffering for more suffering. As Mahatma Gandhi famously said "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". "Justice" that is served as revenge is not justice at all. It is just a perpetuation of evils justice was supposed to right in the first place. Instead of restoring balance vengeance simply swings the pendulum in the other direction. Given that so much of the world's justice system is operating on the basis of vengeance there truly is very little true justice in the world indeed.
B. Punishment cannot uphold justice – it ignores the needs of the victim and the criminal
Liggio
Punishment (the deliberate harming of the criminal) creates problems by misdirecting attention to hurting the criminal rather than helping the