OUTLINING
Not all students see how they'll be using rational critique. Not all
students understand why it's so important. The crucial nature of this
skill doesn't become evident until we begin to discuss organizational
strategies. How will you develop an outline for your paper? You'll take
a position. You'll begin by stating the arguments of your opposition,
in order of ascending or descending importance. After you explain in
detail what your opponents have to say, you'll systematically refute
or modify as many of these points as you can. Then you'll state
additional points in your favor, and close. THEREFORE, YOU LOSE THE
ENTIRE STRUCTURE AND MUCH OF THE CONTENT OF YOUR PAPER IF YOU HAVE NOT
DEALT ADEQUATELY WITH YOUR OPPOSITION.
The strategy we're talking about is called pro-con or point-counterpoint
debate. Not every issue can be discussed according to a simple
point-counterpoint formula. But you should learn this formula first,
because most outlines either follow this formula or adapt it in some
way to deal with more than two possible proposals or positions. Below
is a sample point-couterpoint outline for a paper with a thesis that
defends the death penalty.
THESIS: I favor the death penalty for three reasons.
1. It satisfies the mind's natural sense of just retribution for the
taking of life.
2. It offers some consolation to some of the victims of terrible crimes.
3. Contrary to what death penalty foes say, there's no good reason not
to kill killers.
Many death penalty foes say that we shouldn't resort to the ultimate
punishment unless we can prove that knowledge of its use deters criminals
from killing. I disagree. For one thing, it may be impossible to get
honest feedback from criminals about what would or would not deter them;
therefore, we need not trust their word on this score. In fact we can't
really use American criminals to assess the deterrent value of the death
penalty because there are too many problems with our law enforcement and
judicial systems. These problems may mean that American murderers don't
fear the death penalty because they don't believe, until the last possible
moment, that they'll be caught and convicted and the death penalty will
actually be applied.
OUTLINE
I. Those who oppose capital punishment do so for one or more of the
following four reasons.
A. Some people say it's cruel and unusual punishment, which would
make it unconstitutional.
B. They also say that the Christian religion and many other world
religions forbid killing. Since executon of criminals is
offensive to the religious beliefs of many Americans, honoring
their objections is important to the preservation of religious
freedom in America.
C. They also say that public execution serves no purpose other
than revenge, and that society should not seek this sort of
revenge for the following reasons:
1. They point out that it won't bring back the dead
victims of crime.
2. They worry that it may encourage vigilante justice,
especially in the underpoliced neighborhoods of the
urban poor or in rural areas with few police. The more
convicted murderers we execute, so they say, the more
people will be tempted to take the law into their own
hands by killing those the system didn't catch or
convict.
3. They fear that public execution leads to a general
coarsening of society.
4. They add that some ethnic groups are over-represented
in the criminal ranks. These are the same ethnic
groups that have historically been unpopular in
America. So, death penalty foes conclude, executing
these people in large numbers could encourage racism
and even racial hate crimes.
5. Finally they argue that by encouraging the hatred
of criminals, capital punishment discourages us from
trying to understand them or trying to understand the
roots of crime itself.
D. Death penalty foes also say that the threat of the death
penalty does not keep criminals from committing
violent crimes and does not make them less likely
to resort to murder in committing these crimes.
1. In the U.S., they say, states that don't have capital
punishment have no higher a murder rate than states
that have it.
2. They note that many countries like Sweden and
Denmark have no capital punishment and also have
little or no violent crime.
3. They believe the threat of the death penalty may
make a criminal more likely to kill his victims,
not less likely to do so. If a criminal knows that
society punishes violent crimes harshly, they argue,
he has more incentive to try and evade punishment
altogether by eliminating witnesses. This
consideration may outweigh any thought of lessening
his sentence by keeping his victims alive.
4. By assuming that the threat of capital punishment
would serve to deter a person thinking about murder,
death penalty foes say, we falsely assume that most
murderers are reasonable people who think about what
they're doing. On the contrary, the majority of people
on death row for committing murder in the U.S. have
been diagnosed as mentally retarded, mentally ill,
or both. They don't reason the way we would because
they can't reason the way we would.
II. There are serious problems with all of these arguments opposing
capital punishment.
A. Killing another person is not always a cruel or unusual thing
to do.
1. No society has ever considered ALL taking of human
life to be unacceptable cruelty. To demand that we
do so would set a standard of benevolence so high
that it might make it difficult for us to perserve
social order.
a. We could never declare war, or even martial
an army if attacked.
b. We couldn't shoot someone in self-defense.
c. We coldn't legalize any act of abortion or
euthanasia, regardless of circumstances.
d. We couldn't execute even those criminals who
had the potential to escape and continue
killing innocent people.
2.Especially in modern times in America, we have
always sought the most humane ways of executing
criminals. The currently favored method, lethal
injection, is indistinguishable from the procedure
pet owners use to euthanize their most dearly
loved animals--and sometimes even their own relatives
who are terminally ill.
B. Society is not bound to make laws that are in keeping
with the beliefs of any one religion, or of religions
in general.
1.There's a parallel with censorship laws here.
Society is not bound to censor books or movies
that offend people of a certain religion.
2.There are some religions that believe any punishment of
criminals is wrong. Indeed, mainstream Christianity
holds that criminals should be released from all
punishment if they say they are sorry, promise they
won't kill again, and say that they now accept Jesus
as their savior. Many criminals use just this
strategy to shorten their prison sentences and/or
evade capital punishment. We don't listen to them
becaue a religiously pluralistic society should not
be obliged to accept a Christian minister's word that
a person is safe because of his repentance. And we
certainly don't open up all our prisons and release
all criminals onto the streets because some religions
say we should.
3.Despite the great importance we place on religious
freedom, America has many laws restricting its
application in special circumstances. For example,
practioners of the Native American Church may not use
peyote in their sacred ceremonies, as they always did
until the 1990s. Christian Scientists and Jehovah's
Witnesses may not prevent their children from having
blood transfusions or organ transplants if doctors
say these procedures are medically indicated, even
though these sects regard those procedures as the moral
equivalent of cannibalism. And we all know what
happened in 1993 at the Branch Davidian Compound in
Waco, Texas, when allegations of child abuse were
enough to launch an ATF attack on a religious commune.
C. It can't be known what "real purpose" public execution serves,
but even if that "real purpose" is revenge, society has a
right to seek revenge. Revenge is just a derogatory word
for an idea that might be better termed "justice" or "fairness."
1. It won't bring back the dead victims of crime. But
it's a well-documented fact that the families of
victims often experience an increased sense of peace
and well being when those who killed their loved
ones are no longer alive.
2. If executions encourage vigilante justice, especially
in neighborhoods that are under-policed, then what we
must do is bring justice and safety to those
neighborhoods by policing them better and offering
them better legal services. How can we use our
failure to control crime in these neighborhoods as
an excuse for being more lenient with the criminals
who commit it? That makes no sense at all.
3. We don't have "public executions" in our society.
We do execute people, but with as little display
as possible. Most of the display that sometimes
accompanies these executions is created by those
who oppose the death penalty, not by those who
support it. At any rate, these executions certainly
can't "coarsen" society as much the crimes that merit
the death penalty today.
4. It's true that some ethnic groups are over-represented
in the criminal ranks, and that those already inclined
to hate those groups may use our toughening stance
toward crime as an excuse to vent racial hatred. But
the answer to that problem is to educate the public
about the nature of violent crime in America today.
In that case, no American will be able to forget that
the same ethnic groups that are over-represented in
the criminal ranks are also over-represented in the
ranks of the victims of crime. That should discourage
mindless racism, not encourage it.
5. In any case, capital punishment need not and should
not encourage us to hate criminals. You can just as
easily argue that the real reason for our hatred of
violent criminals is the pent-up resentment we feel
as a consequence of years of public suffering at the
hands of an insensitive court system. For decades,
that system made no allowance for the feelings of
victims and made no serious attempt to right the
wrongs done by criminals. We feel rage when criminals
are not appropriately punished. We have no reason to
feel rage when they are.
D.Arguments suggesting that the death penalty does not deter
violent crime are misleading. These arguments distort
the real picture of violent crime in America today
by suggesting that we know more about murders and
murderers than we really do.
1. Some states that don't have capital punishment
are also states with a more rural population and
a low crime rate to begin with, like Wisconsin.
So comparing their murder rate to that of Texas
or Illinois might be highly misleading. This is
especially true if all you want to say is that
their murder rate is lower even though they don't
have capital punishment. Their murder rate would
obviously be lower with or without capital punishment
because the murder rate in America is always higher
in dense urban areas that these states lack. Besides,
there ARE areas in which the absence of the death
penalty is correlated with an unusually high murder
rate. A good example is Washington D.C.
2. Most modern nations with no death penalty are
also nations in which violent crime is extremely
rare. Often they're countries in which lethal
weapons, especially guns, are also rare. It's absurd
to say that our laws should be the same as theirs
despite our markedly different environment. That
would be like saying Floridians don't need hurricane
insurance because they don't need it in Kansas.
3. It's true that in America today, criminals often
fear leaving witnesses to their crimes more than
they fear the death penalty they might get for
killing those witnesses. But that's a sad commentary
on our inability to catch and convict criminals due
to our grossly inadequate and underpaid police
force. Criminals know that more than 80 % of
"stranger murders" in America are never solved unless
witnesses exist. If we had a police force that knew
what was going on in neighborhoods and who was
considered a danger to the community, that might not
be the case.
4. It's true that a shockingly high proportion of death
row inmates are mentally retarded or mentally ill.
But this does not prove that all of America's
murderers are mentally retarded or mentally ill.
a. Maybe it proves that the mentally retarded
and mentally ill are more likely to get caught
or less likely to be able to afford high-priced
lawyers. We must remember that our murder rate
reflects crimes that are never solved as well
as those that are. We have no way of knowing
who all the unconvicted killers are, or how
they reason.
b. Also, maybe our modern mental health system
labels as "mentally ill" people who are not
so desperately ill that they can't exercise
moral judgment or self-restraint. We can
assume that well-adjusted functional adults
don't chop people up with an ax. So it
shouldn't surprise us that doctors say those
who do so are crazy. Of course they are. But
how crazy is crazy? And from a moral
standpoint, what does "crazy" mean?
III. It now appears that there's no reason not to execute some of
society's most violent criminals. But what additional factors
make the death penalty a good idea?
A. It cuts down the cost of running prisons.
B. It benefits less violent inmates by improving the quality
of the environment they must live in.
C. It might enhance the self-respect and sense of responsibility
of less violent inmates by demonstrating that we do
differentiate between them and those who are far more ruthless
and depraved than they are.
D. It reduces the risk to society that a truly dangerous person
will be released to kill again.
E. It gives the person sentenced to die the opportunity to redeem
himself by going to his own death with courage and an enhanced
sense of moral responsibility. It's not impossible that
executions could be administered respectfully, without
resentment, with the dignity of last rites and final
confessions. Despite our adversarial court system, some
executions are already like that. An example is the death of
convicted ax-murderess and born-again prison minister Carla
Fay Tucker. Many lobbied against her execution. But the truth
is that she became an inspirational public figure because and
only because of her public death. Without that, she would have
looked like just another unemployed druggie who claimed to have
found God to get off the hook.
Return to 112 Syllabus.
Return to 111 Syllabus.