Answer the following essay questions. Each response should be approximately 750 words in length (about three typed pages, double-spaced) and should reflect your reading of the assigned materials and your listening to the audiotape or viewing of the video program (as applicable). Mastery of the principles on which your response is based must be evident by your indication of which principle you are using and why you have selected this principle to support your response.
Essay Questions
1.Is there a contradiction between our demand that our children be honest and moral persons and our demand that they be successful? Present the argument that there is a contradiction, and see if you can answer it.
2.Does one who kills another “deserve” to die? Why or why not? Are there circumstances that would change your answer? Make two lists (perhaps using a table with two columns). In one column, list the circumstances in which a killer would deserve to die; in the other, list circumstances in which a killer would NOT deserve to die. Now analyze factors that set the two lists apart, such as:
•Qualities of the killer?
•Previous circumstances or actions of the victim?
•Qualities of the victim?
•Qualities of the intention behind the act?
•Features of the society in which the killing takes place?
•Calculations of the likely consequences of assigning that particular penalty to that kind of act?
•What does the exercise tell you about your tendency to rely on deontological or utilitarian reasoning? What does it tell you about your sense of the sacredness of human life?