Thursday, September 23, 2010
Ashtiani and Lewis: Is there any difference?
Last week, we examined the case of Sakineh Ashtiani, the Iranian woman convicted for adultery and sentenced to execution by stoning. Tonight, at 9 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, Teresa Lewis is scheduled to die by injection. Lewis, 41, was condemned to death for plotting the 2002 killings of Julian Lewis and his son, Charles “C.J.” Lewis, to collect insurance money. Her two conspirators, the men who fired the deadly shots, were sentenced to life terms. The U.S. Supreme Court and Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) both have declined to halt the execution.
Lewis is, apparently, borderline mentally retarded and his defender argues that was manipulated by a smarter conspirator.
Lewis's case has generated as much international attention as Sakineh Ashtiani's case. The European Union asked this month to governor McDonnell to commute her sentence to life, citing Lewis' mental capacity.
Furthermore, Iranian President Ahmadinejad have accused Western media of having a double standard in reporting Lewis execution, compared to the coverage of Sakineh Ashtiani.
Is there any difference between the two after all?
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I think there is a major ethical difference between the cases. I think ethically speaking, murder is always wrong and the most serious violation of a person's rights from a rule based ethical system like Kant. In contrast I think adultery/cheating is just a form of lying which is a moral wrong, but not as serious a moral rule/taboo as killing someone. Therefore, I believe the death sentence for the woman in Iran is much more severe than the woman in Virgina, even if she had mental problems she plotted to kill not one but two people for money. So to me the cases are not equal.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Vlad comments, their is a stark contrast in the two cases, and the two women have been treated differently in the media. With that aside the moral violation here is apparent in both cases, Teresa Lewis, regardless of her mental state, committed a crime, which she received a reasonable punishment, that being jail. I have a moral and personal objection to the Death Penalty, moral everyone has the right to life, and the death penalty is in clear moral violation of that right. In both cases a women is put to death, which is morally wrong; however, there is no difference in the wo cases though from my point of view, both women violated laws in their respective regions, and they both suffered the morally wrong reprecutions of those actions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Vlad that the cases are not equal but I also believe that the death penalty of the Virginia women is too sever since she did not in fact kill the victims her self and she didn't physically force the people who did to do it. I believe it is wrong to give her a punishment stronger then that of what the actual killer got. The maximum punishment she should have been eligible to get is what ever the highest form of punishment the shooters got anything above that is unfair and unjust.-----Arnaldo
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that there is a major difference between the two cases. In Lewis's situation, she was accused of conspiring to kill two innocent men, whereas Sakineh Ashtiani was sentenced to death because she committed adultery. Although in both instances the women were wrong, there is a difference in the level of severity. This said, I don't believe either should receive the death penalty. Lewis did not actually kill the two men, but rather helped plan it due to her lacking "mental capacity". And even though Sakineh Ashtiani did something morally unacceptable in her culture, death by stoning is completely too harsh of a punishment. It can also be seen partially as a form of torture. Both women committed morally wrong crimes but the death penalty for each is definitely too strong a consequence. Both instances should be reviewed and have less severe punishments.
ReplyDelete-Kevin Linnane
These two cases are definitely different in terms of their moral situations. While what Ashtiani did was not right morally speaking because she cheated, her crime was different from the murder committed by Lewis. Lewis ended two people’s lives that cannot be brought back. Even though she is borderline mentally disabled, it does not take away from the fact that she consciously made the decision to kill. However, if one were to look at the two cases purely in terms of law, the cases are not different because both women committed crimes that were “illegal,” and thus both broke the law. Though here in the United States, a woman would not be sentenced to execution for adultery, in Iran, this is an acceptable course of action taken by the law. However, most Americans or people who do not normally live under these types of laws would call this inhumane and harsh. Another question arises; does the punishment fit the crime? I would argue in the case of Ashtiani, no. The punishment is not fitting to the crime because I do not believe that death, the ending of someone’s life, under any circumstance should be permissible let alone for a crime that did not physically hurt anyone.
ReplyDeleteThe Teresa Lewis case poses an interesting moral dilemma. I believe that anyone who commits murder should be given the Death Penalty as a consequence. It is a logical punishment because it is "an eye for an eye". However, the fact that Teresa Lewis is mentally retarded makes the situation much different. Do the moral rights and wrongs of mentally healthy people also apply to people with mental illnesses? How can we know what their moral basis is considering their mental condition? Some philosophers would argue that Lewis is not quite a "rational being" due to her illness, and therefore moral duty does not apply to her. The same concept applies to young children as well. In this case, Lewis should not be given the Death Penalty. Instead, she should receive more intensive treatment for her mental illness.
ReplyDeleteThe previous comments posted by others mention how Ashtiani's crime was "less severe" than Lewis' crime. I do not think that it is possible to make this comparison. Given the fact that Lewis lives in the U.S. and Ashtiani lives in Iran, it is obvious that the women live in completely different cultures. Both cultures have different laws and norms. Just because adultery is considered to be "less severe" than murder in the U.S. doesn't mean that it is considered to be less severe than murder in Iran.
Personally, given my upbringing in American culture, I believe that Ashtiani's punishment is too severe for her crime. However, I am unsure of my position on Lewis' case, given that her mental capacity to make moral judgments is in question.
-Claire Smith
What every classmate has blogged on this subject I completely agree with. Teresa Lewis and Sakineh Ashtiani both committed crimes that were ethically wrong, which makes these two cases similar. However, Lewis was accused of conspiring for two deaths, while Ashtiani committed adultery. Even though they were both ethically wrong, they both do not deserve the death penalty. The death penalty, which is murder, is ethically wrong, and it is unfair to take another person’s life. The fact that Lewis did not even commit the murder and she still receives the death penalty while the ones who committed the murder do, seems very unreasonable. On a personal level I do believe the death penalty does not help society whatsoever, and in this case the criminals are being wrongly persecuted. On top of this, the fact that Lewis may be mentally challenged does seem to make the death penalty more wrong. Cultural differences does play a major role in the difference between these two cases, but they are definitely not equal and both do not deserve the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of the previous comments, and I strongly agree with Claire. In the Lewis case, I am unsure as to where I stand because of her mental illness. However, she did make the decision to end two lives. If she can decide the value of the lives of others and arrange their deaths, then I believe that one has to right to judge the value of her life and sentence her to death.
ReplyDeleteIn the Ashtiani case, I do not think that a death sentence is fitting for her crime. While she did break the law and adultery is extremely unacceptable in her culture, such a torturous execution is not deserved. She did not physically hurt anyone, and does not deserve to have her life taken from her. If we compare this case to the Lewis case, I find it even more unfair that men who actually committed murder have life sentences whereas Ashtiani is put to death.
Both women committed a morally wrong crime and broke the law. Because of one woman's culture and the other's mental capacity, there is gray area as to what the consequences should be. Looking at it from my perspective, respective to my culture, Ashtiani should not have beens sentenced while Lewis' crime is much more deserving of execution.
From the normative side killing is wrong so the punishment is wrong because they are killing her. However, in order for society to progress we need set punishments to deter future acts, which are deemed unacceptable. From a Kantian standpoint they would kill her as a warning to help prevent future murders. Meaning that it is society’s duty to continue and to do so they need to set up rules and punishments first. From the utilitarian side they would not kill Lewis since of the five people involved three are dead. When the execution goes through four of the five will be dead. If utilitarian’s were omniscient they would of killed her before she conspired to murder her family with only one out of the total five dying. Using lethal injection is supposedly painless and would be the humane and descriptive execution.
ReplyDeleteAlso I think that comparing the west to iran is irrelevant since they are still living in the past. Since they are backwards and their methods are also backwards making no reason to even bother comparing the two societies. Stoning is an archaic method of execution. It is a long and horribly painful experience. The method is barbaric, outdated, and any society that allows it is in need of revolution. Dictator ahmadinejad is also a very unethical person and is a hindrance of society.
Now if we entirely scroll back and look at the two crimes and ignore the cultures from a rawlsian view there is a major discrepancy. The first crime of murder, which is on an entirely different level than adultery is a severe crime. Where in adultery there is no loss of life only trust. People lie all the time and adultery is also a lie. Execution for a lie is outrageous.
These Lockean and Libertarian principles that you are attempting to uphold are just as unjust and unrealistic as this so-called “welfare queen” image that you are trying to conjure. This is why contemporary American society looks to the Rawlsian model for nearly all things, not simply in taxation policies. However, as we are talking of taxes, and not of other things, I am advocating these taxes be raised as just because in this day and year, we have a budget deficit in excess of 1.2 trillion. This, as I’m sure you know from economics, is bad for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI would write more, but as of now I have two midterms to study for. Good luck to you on yours and everyone else on theirs!
-Jonathan AuYeung
TD, I agree, a utilitarian would not advocate “super-taxing” the rich, but this is on the grounds of being economically unfeasible, based on the simple logic that given by the famous Laffer Curve, but that is a whole other class entirely. However, to claim that being rich would ever be “burdensome” is empirically untrue. Under the Truman Administration, the top marginal tax rate was 71%, while under Eisenhower’s it was 92%; economically, as I stated, these were horrible decisions, but the quality of living for the affluent remained virtually unchanged. The trickle-down theory in which you are trying to advocate also empirically fails. As noted by another one of Paul Krugman’s articles, Where’s My Trickle, following the Bush tax cuts, “Corporate profits rose 72 percent from the second quarter of 2003 to the second quarter of 2007. The real income of the richest 0.1 percent of Americans surged by 51 percent between 2003 and 2005,” while “Wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated: the real hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers, the most widely used measure of how typical workers are faring, were no higher in July 2007 than they were in July 2003.”
ReplyDeleteYou have also missed the point of my post entirely. My claim was that for one person to claim 100% of their successes. Certainly, your innovation and business savvy should justly be credited to you, but the common denominator for your success is not SIMPLY you, but the social institutions that are around you. Things such as how healthy your workers are as determined by institutions of public health, how intelligent and capable your workers are to handle what you need them to do is determined by education, the value of the dollar that you hold determined by a successfully run and stable economy, the interest rates set by the central bank which effects your ability to borrow and invest – which also effects levels of unemployment which goes right back into how stable the economy is, the very laws which the government institutions upholds to allow you to safely conduct your business, etc., etc., etc., I could go on, once again, for days, but the ultimate point being it is not only you that is the factor, but the society in which you grew up in. For one person to claim all of their successes, and to not give back to the social structure around you – it is not the others who are then looking to be handed out to, it is you who becomes the freeloader.
These Lockean and Libertarian principles that you are attempting to uphold are just as unjust and unrealistic as this so-called “welfare queen” image that you are trying to conjure. This is why contemporary American society looks to the Rawlsian model for nearly all things, not simply in taxation policies. However, as we are talking of taxes, and not of other things, I am advocating these taxes be raised as just because in this day and year, we have a budget deficit in excess of 1.2 trillion. This, as I’m sure you know from economics, is bad for everyone.
I would write more, but as of now I have two midterms to study for. Good luck to you on yours and everyone else on theirs!
-Jonathan AuYeung