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Ethics & the Death Penalty & Abortion

Ethics is a discipline that is open-ended, reflective, and a critical intellectual activity, as John Ladd indicates. It has a theoretical side in the development of its principles and a practical side in the application of those principles to real issues and real cases. A moral theory is finally adapted by an individual and should demonstrate a sufficient degree of comprehensiveness and consistency to be valuable. Several moral theorists have offered their view both of what a consistent ethic should entail and of how it might be applied to specific situations. The framework for a consistent ethic of life is offered by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, and this will be considered in the light of other views and applications to be tested one against the other.

Bernardin first writes about the death penalty and does so in terms of what he calls a consistent ethic of life, derived in large part from Catholic social teaching. He says that such teaching is based on two truths bout the human person--human life is sacred, and human life is social:

Because we esteem human life as sacred, we have a duty to protect and foster it at all stages of development, from conception to death, and in all circumstances. Because we acknowledge that human life is also social, society must protect and foster it (Bernardin 60).

The taking of a human life is a momentous event precisely because that life is sacred, and traditional Catholic precepts allow the taking of human life in particular situations by way of exception to the general rule. Such instances would include self-defense and capital punishment. Bernardin says that recently the presumptions against taking human life have been strengthened, however, based on a view of the many ways in which life is threatened today. The methods by which people are killed have not changed, but what has changed is the context in which these issues arise and the manner in which a new context shapes the conte...

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Ethics & the Death Penalty & Abortion. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:02, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702529.html