Commentary: The death sentence can never be justified on either moral or practical grounds. How far do you agree with this?

In tackling this question, it is vital to have a strong stand and to provide appropriate examples to justify our stand. The explanation of key words such as death sentence should also be explained with illustration of when it is issued. This would give a rough idea to the readers of the seriousness of issuing death sentence.

The author initially states that death sentence is justifiable on a practical basis but later on she says it is not justifiable. Although it seems contradicting, it shows how death sentence can and cannot be justified on a practical basis under various circumstances. Thus the issue of implementing death sentence is analysed well with examples. On dealing with what is meant by “justified” it is important to quote some issues to illustrate during when it can be justified and/or otherwise. For example, the death sentence can be justified if it can be a successful deterrent measure. However, it must be taken into account that a person planning to murder someone can be stopped by other things such as his values and conscience other than the fear of being hanged which is instilled by the death sentence. This is can be clearly seen from the author’s argument that crime rates have fluctuated greatly with and without the ban of death sentence.

Some people consider the death penalty unfair because it lacks uniformity in its implementation as said by the author. For example, killing someone may result in hanging of the guilty in Arab countries but for the same crime the punishment maybe less severe in more liberal countries like America. Furthermore, people who want revenge may support the implementation of death penalty. They might argue that it’s an eye for an eye. So there is nothing morally wrong in issuing death sentence. Like the author, it can be rebutted that we have no right to kill anyone let alone do it in the name of Law and that we have to respect basic human rights and respect life. This also depends on the type of crime and the criminal in concern. For example, if it is a hard core criminal who refuses to change and continues on with his atrocious behavior, then there is no point in letting him loose again by imprisoning him months or years. It is better to hang him to ensure the safety of others. Furthermore, if such hard core criminals are not punished severely it would just encourage low rated criminals to continue committing crimes.

I cannot agree that death penalty is justified on practical basis because it does not result in the society seeing lesser crime rates as argued by the author. This is because more than 80% of the countries have banned capital punishment like death penalty because it seems not to be working. Even in countries like Iraq where death sentence was re-implemented again, the crime rates have been increasing rather than diminishing clearly indicating that death sentence is NOT a successful deterrent measure.

Thus, death penalty is justified and not justified on practical and moral grounds depending on the circumstance.

Link :
http://sultanasperspectives.blogspot.com/

Social Responsibility VS Unlimited Freedom of Expression

Singer believes that freedom of expression is essential to any democracy and therefore should not be limited. On the other hand, Szilagyi believes that more focus should be placed on social responsibility.In the context of Singapore’s multi-racial society, where there is cultural and religious pluralism, which author’s view do you think should be adopted?

Singapore is more of a cosmopolitan country with people of different races and religions living
under one roof. As such, there are lots of differences in our beliefs, lifestyles, views and opinions. However we are able to appreciate the differences among us and create a single identity - Singaporean - which binds us together. Since the separation of Singapore from Malaysia, there have been no local demonstrations or racial riots like the ones of the past. However, we cannot refute the fact that people in Singapore are affected by religious conflicts happening elsewhere in the world. For example, the caricatures on Prophet Mohammed caused tensions in our homeland that the prime minister had to address the issue to reemphasize that we cannot afford any racial conflicts as they are detrimental to Singapore’s growth and prosperity.

Thus we can evidently see that issues, especially sensitive ones that deal with the uniqueness among us in our religion and race, affect us directly even if they occur in another part of the world. Therefore, we cannot afford to compromise with our peace and tolerance which is likely to happen if freedom of expression is allowed in Singapore regardless of any frontiers. We can conclude that Singaporeans are tolerant people but we cannot assume that they remain tolerant even in the face of tensions among us because Singapore has not met such difficult and critical situations since its independence. We can recall the imprisonment of two guys a few months ago for their remarks made against the Muslims in their blogs.

Why were the guys arrested? Why didn’t the government close its eyes to that incident by saying its freedom of expression? Why didn’t the media publish the remarks as well since we are talking about freedom of expression without limits in here? There is just one main reason for this which is Singaporeans should never involve in a mass suicide attempt by starting a racial riot. For this reason, the government in Singapore has a control over our freedom of expressions. If our words and actions are going to be national threats, we cannot expect the government to give us a green signal to carry on with our actions. Especially in our society, no matter how thickly bonded we might be, if a remark insults any group of people among us, its going to create troubles for our nation as a whole. Thus Singaporeans should adopt freedom of expression keeping in their minds their limits and the consequences of their actions. This is where social responsibility comes in.

Singaporeans should have social responsibility. They should not hold illegal discussions or make offending remarks publicly about any race or religion or about anyone for that matter. What I mean here by publicly is through the media. Media should also hold social responsibility in the sense that it should hold high-quality discussions with due respect for everyone. It should never take freedom of expression into its hands like the Danish paper which continued to publish the cartoons on Prophet Mohammed insisting that its publication was justified under freedom of speech principles without considering the consequences of its actions which aggravated the conflicts between Muslims and people of other races. Thus Singapore should adopt social responsibility in lieu of unlimited freedom of expression in order to maintain the progress of the nation.

Reference:Article entitled 'Free speech, Muhammad and the Holocaust' by Peter Singer

www.project-syndicate.org

Zsofia Szilagyi International Herald Tribune
Article entitled :Publishing those cartoons was a mistake
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2006