Death Penalty: Good or Bad?
The death penalty is the execution of a prisoner, which is given by the state, for the prisoner’s punishment. The death of a prisoner is an end to the prisoner’s future actions whether it is another criminal offense or a new start in our society. Many arguments, both for and against it, have been strongly opinionated on the death penalty. Dead Man Walking, by Tim Robbins, is a play written about it. In this play, a criminal, Mathew Poncelet, is ordered the death penalty while a nun, Sister Prejean tries to save him from this punishment. Throughout the play, we experience various views about the death penalty which leads into two general categories of principles: deontological and teleological. Each category of principle is depended on the perspectives of the victim’s families and neutral bystanders.
The deontological principle is based on morality. Morality is a belief in what is right and what is wrong. These morals are not based upon its consequences. If a moral absolutist believes lying is wrong, in a given situation, he would have to give the location of his money to a thief if the question was asked by a thief. Morality does not actually have an absolute right and wrong, it varies amongst each individual in what they believe in. An example would be the teachings of the Old Testament principle of, “An eye for an eye...” This saying is right according to some individuals and wrong to some others. Deontological principles are based on the beliefs of an individual who classifies a situation as right or wrong.
In Dead Man Walking, there were several examples of deontological based views about Mathew Poncelet’s execution. One example of this would be from the victim’s father, Clyde. Clyde defames Poncelet by saying, “This is not a person. This is an animal. No, I take that back. Animals don’t rape and kill their own kind. Matt Poncelet is God’s mistake…” (P.46) Clyde strongly believes that Poncelet is “God’s mistake.” He does not like Poncelet for what Poncelet has done. Moving back to another quote from Clyde, he says when he saw Poncelet that, “A policeman was right near me. I could’ve taken his gun and shot him [Poncelet], right there. I could’ve killed him [Poncelet] that day. I should have. I’d be a happier man today.” (P.46) Clyde obviously wants revenge for Poncelet killing his child. He believes in this action [note how he says, “I should have.”] He feels it is right but in other’s view, such as Sister Prejean’s, this is not right. Clyde’s example of a view from the deontological principle shows a view for Mathew Poncelet’s execution. An example of a view, using the same principle, against Mathew Poncelet’s execution would be from Sister Prejean. She is a nun who tries to save Poncelet from his execution by following her own morality based reasonings. A quote from her perspective on this execution is that, “I try to follow the example of Jesus, that every person is worth more than his worst act.” (P.46) Sister Prejean has a morality based off Jesus’ teachings or in other words, religion-based, which is a common way to learn the deontological principles. She follows this example and throughout the book, she tries everyway to fight against the execution even though everyone was against her. Both examples were based on individuals’ beliefs of what is right and what is wrong.
Each of these examples puts the reader onto a less powerful view on Poncelet’s execution. I believe that the reader would feel empathy toward Clyde’s example because he has lost his child to this murderer who is still alive for ending an innocent person’s early life. While, Prejean’s example shows a more morality based view from religion, which I believe most people are into, in which it also applies to human sense’s, that even though Poncelet did something bad, he is still worth more than that and therefore should not be executed. These deontological views are really based on people’s beliefs and should not have affected the audience if they already have strong beliefs for one side or the other.
The teleological principle is based on consequences. People view things in this matter to attain exactly what they want (or close to it). If they do not want to get their money stolen, it is best to hide it. There are reasonings of how if a person does not want something, they will not do what they don’t want them to do. There are other views for eliminating the chaos creators for the best of the society (to remain in peace). These teleological principles are meant for those who care less about morality based reasons and more on the consequential side.
There are also several examples of teleological based views about Mathew Poncelet’s execution. One of these examples is based on the society portrayed from the television’s point-of-view. It actually starts off with Mathew Poncelet being interviewed and he says, “Hitler was a leader. I admire that he got things done. Like Castro. He got things done, man. Now maybe Hitler went a little overboard with some of his killin’ but he was on the right track about Aryans being the master race.” Hitler is publicly known as an evil person who no one should follow and the fact that Poncelet admired Hitler for getting things done and being right about Aryans being the master race totally contradicts the society’s view. The television shows afterwards Poncelet’s face and the date of his execution to give a positive side to Ponclet view which is to execute a man who does not follow society’s belief. The teleological based part of this is that the society is this “positive side.” The society wants to remain in peace and therefore reasoned themselves into thinking that if this man was executed, his action and belief would not spread any further. Although it seems like if the society wants him to be executed, who would want him to still be alive? The answer would be Sister Prejean who managed to squeeze out a teleological based view for fighting against the execution. Toward the end of the play where Poncelet was about to be executed, Prejean argues about Poncelet’s execution. She says, “Killing people who kill people to show that killing is wrong…” does not make any sense. The reason for the execution of Poncelet was to show that murderers could be sentenced to death and therefore never kill anyone. In Prejean’s view, this execution contradicts the whole teaching of how killing is wrong. The government is killing someone legally to show that killing someone is wrong. What would the consequences of this action be?
I believe that each of these teleological based views show a consequential side to this execution. The society’s view would generally call the reader to action and help the society eliminate villains from the society. Whereas Sister Prejean’s view would raise some questions about executions and therefore giving more thought into whether or not executing criminals would send out a positive message. These reasons seem to give a beneficial effect to the society and individuals themselves. Therefore, I believe that teleological principles would give a more satisfying result to the public.
Tim Robbins, the writer of this play, seemed to have given more examples of deontological principles than teleological principles. I have seen a lot of repetitions of examples relating to the saying of “an eye for an eye” which basically means revenge. But, in general, the execution of a man usually affects the morality of the issue more than it affects the consequences of the issue. How would executions affect individuals in the society? But on the other hand, how would executions affect people’s beliefs?
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