Assignment
Teaching the Article: Jeffrey H. Reiman, "Civilization, Safety, and Deterrence"
• Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is 1) to practice the skills of interpreting a philosophical text and 2) to apply those and other philosophical skills to the real-life problem of the death penalty.
• Skills: This assignment will help you practice the following skills:
A. Recognize the structure of an argument
B. Identify premises, including implicit premises
C. Identify core phrases or terms
D. Recognize and assess objections to an argument
E. Synthesize arguments and intuitions to produce a judgment about a real-life problem
• Knowledge: This assignment will help you gain the following knowledge:
A. Implicit assumptions in argument reconstruction and criticism.
Task: This assignment asks you to develop a presentation outline for teaching Jeffrey H. Reiman's article, "Civilization, Safety, and Deterrence." After reading the article, answer the following questions, building each answer into the structure of an outline.
A. What is Reiman's overall aim or thesis for his article?
B. Reiman quotes van den Haag's "common sense" argument that the death penalty is a better deterrent than life in prison. Reconstruct this argument.
C. What are Reiman's four objections to van den Haag's argument?
D. Review each of the previous questions. How does Reiman compare or contrast with previous authors/articles? Where applicable, add a note to each section of your outline.
E. Do you have new or lingering questions about Reiman's article? What questions might your peers have?