Term Paper on "Aristotle, Teleology, & The Death Penalty Capital"

/>taking his or her life. But there can be a second interpretation of the

ethical issue of capital punishment and that is that the end of capital

punishment is the prevention of a crime in the first place. Thus according

to teleology, capital punishment could be considered to have two different

ends. As an ethical issue, capital punishment is a much deeper issue than

simply molding a bronze statue, which is the end to the Aristotelian

example. Much can be left up to interpretation, and therefore a deeper

look at the two possibilities for capital punishment viewed from the

Aristotelian viewpoint on causality and teleology. If the end product is

necessary to explain the event, then there are two ways to explain capital

punishment. Capital punishment is capital and thus death is the final

result. But also, punishment implies punishment for doing something wrong

and thus the punishment is intended to prevent something from being done

wrong in the first place, and that is a second possible end.

However, both of these ends are based on the assumption that the

capital punishment, or killing someone, is doing something other than

killing someone. In fact, both of these arguments are for the same end and

this creating some kind of good or doing something right through capital

punishment. Consider the four causes when relating to this depiction of

capital punishment. The first cause is the 'material' cause, or that of

which the final product is created. In the case of this example of capital

punishment, the material cause is a crime, or a criminal person, as the

person that has violated law is will be the one that will be altered

through the process of capital punishment. The formal cause is the

punishment, or a punished person. It is what will be. It will be a

punishment for somebody that violates a law that offers capital punishment

as a possible punishment for what has been done wrong. Just like a bronze

statue is the formal cause of an Aristotelian example, the punishment is

the form cause of capital punishment. The efficient cause or the cause of

the change to a punishment is whatever causes the capital punishment. This

is not the electric chair or the injection needles, but the law and judge's

decision which causes the capital punishment. Lastly, the final end for

capital punishment is to prevent crime and punish those who commit crime.

According to this model, committing a certain crime will lead to capital

punishment. Therefore the end will result in fewer crimes and lesser

trouble because the fear or threat of capital punishment will deter the

breaking of laws in the future.

There exists a second model which looks at capital punishment from a

very different perspective. It is similar to the first, but is less

abstract and understands the process of the death penalty on a much more

superficial level in that it does not assume that punishments prevent crime

or that people are punished from a crime. The material cause of this

perspective is a person. It is a person that will be acted upon to reach

the final end. The formal cause of what it will be is a dead person. Just

like when bronze is a material cause and the form of what it is to be a is

a state of the statue, a person as a material cause will take the form of a

dead person after facing capital punishment. The efficient cause in this

model is what will be the source of the change. The source of the change

in this model is the method of execution or the act of killing another

person. It is not the law that is doing the punishing, but a process which

is doing the killing. The final cause of the capital punishment is death

to the person.

In comparing these two conclusions in an application of Aristotle's

causality, both seem to fit the model. The second view, however, is much

more accurate because the final end is what really happens. Somebody is

killed and a dead body is the result. In the first example, it is

subjectively imposed that the end will be a reduction of a criminal

activity. Both these models fit the definitions applied by Aristotle, but

the nature of teleology means that there is no bias and that the end is all

that matters. The processes of the causes create an end result. Having an

understanding such as the first model implies ends that are not necessarily

correlated to the means. For example, in the bronze statue example it is

art which is the efficient cause and not the man. The man is the one that

creates the statue, but it is art that allows the statue to be created.

Similarly, with the death penalty example it is not the law and threat of

capital punishment or the crime committed that means one will be sentenced

to capital punishment that kills a person or sentences him or her to death.

Rather, it is man or the electric chair or the killer that allows the

death to be possible. Using Aristotle's teleology to understand capital

punishment helps one to understand that there is not necessarily causality

between the threat of punishment and preventing crime, but there is one end

that is for sure resulting from capital punishment and that is the killing

of a living person and a living person ending up as a dead person.

In the end, it is the second model which shows that capital

punishment is immoral that I most agree with because it is the only

guaranteed result from capital punishment. The second model is undeniable.

There will be a living person, who will be acted upon, and who will be

subjected to a man killing him, and it will result in death. This is the

end of the actual process. Any other reasoning is what we believe to be

happening but it is not actually proved to be the case. There is no

evidence according to Aristotle's logic that capital punishment is

preventing crimes and punishing people. Punishment is not necessarily even

man's role and measuring punishment is impossible. Furthermore, punishment

can be considered to be outside of man's domain and the role of God and God

is not subject to these laws or an end because God is above and beyond

nature. While this is getting into a different argument, the final cause

of capital punishment is death. We may say we kill someone to punish them

or act as a deterrent towards future crimes, but when someone is put to

death it is in order to kill him or him. Other reasons are not validated

according to teleology.

Aristotle has created a highly complex, yet highly effective system

to understand the causes of that what exists in nature. As capital

punishment exists in nature, it can therefore be evaluated according to

Aristotle's theories on teleology. The issue at stake is whether capital

punishment, as an ethical issue, is right or wrong. Although that is

highly simplifying the issue, it must be determined whether the ends of

capital punishment achieve its intended goals. This is, of course,

assuming that capital punishment is intended either to deter criminals from

violating laws and/or to punish those that commit crimes. From an outside

perspective, it seems natural that capital punishment does achieve its

ends. Surely there must be somebody out there who refrained from

committing some heinous act and breaking the law in… READ MORE