The death penalty was one of the issues that I actually had thought about and formed an opinion on before discussing. As I've stated in previous blogs, I believe that matters of life and death should not be decided by humans; matters of life and death should be in the hands of God alone. The death penalty is the issue with possibly the least grey area involved. With abortion, there are other factors, like when life beings. With human cloning there are even more complications, just by the nature of what cloning entails. But as far as the death penalty goes, it's pretty easy to tell where I stand. In my opinion, the death penalty is the most hypocritical concept I have ever heard. Killing someone who has killed someone proves nothing.
I brought this up in class, but I do have a personal philosophy on the death penalty. It isn't really based on anything; I didn't hear it from anybody or base it off any philosopher's viewpoints, but to me it makes perfect sense anyway. If you believe in the death penalty, you should believe in it strongly enough to be able to carry out the execution yourself. If you can't, then you shouldn't have to have somebody else to it for you. But if you can carry it out, then you are equal to who you seek to kill. If you think about it, they killed probably because they thought he/she was a bad person. And if you kill them as punishment, that is the exact same thing.
I don't really know what other skills or knowledge assist in deciding your stance on these moral issues other than to explore the views of other people and cultures. After educating yourself fully, then decide for yourself which corresponds best to your personal principles.
This week I commented on Dan's blog.
http://danwilson22-dansblog.blogspot.com/
