Case 8:

Electric Chair
Background
In 1880, most of the states
execute capital punishment
generally by hanging
In 1881, a dentist and former
stembot engineer Dr. Albert
Southwick sees an elderly drunk
touch terminals of an electrical
generator in Buffalo, New York
He is amazed at how quickly
and apparently painlessly the
man is killed and describes
episode to friend State Senator
David McMillan
Then in 1887, Thomas Edison
conducts a demonstration in
West Orange, New Jersey, in
which he kills large numbers of
cats and dogs by luring the
animals onto a metal plate
wired to a 1000 volt AC
generator.
The first person executed by
the electric chair is William
Kemmler, on August 6, 1890, in
Auburn Prison. The first
application of current is botched
and Kemmler does not die until
the second time.
Background

Electrocution was thought to cause a swifter, more

acceptable death. But officials found that the
electrical flow frequently arced, cooking flesh and
sometimes igniting prisoners postmortem
examinations frequently had to be delayed for the
bodies to cool and yet some prisoners still
required repeated jolts before they died.
 1
Case Statement

Should the electric chair

be used to execute
prisoners?
Theodore Berstein
Retired University of Wisconsin professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Spent 30 years studying the effects of electricity
on the human body
Published articles about accidental and legal
electrocutions, hes become one of the major
figures in the late chapters of the electric chairs
story.
Recruited by defense attorneys, he acts as an
expert witness to describe electrocutions failings.
Theodore Berstein

Most executioners knew little to nothing about

biomedical engineering and electrical currents
Electrocution backers believed that victims died
immediately and painlessly, but in practice,
according to Bernstein, death by electricity is
hardly so clean or quick.
 Utilitarianism
Basis of Value: pleasure or happiness
Principle of Action: Choose the
action that maximizes total positive
value with less total negative value for
everyone affected
Utilitarianism disapproves of punishment that is
administered as a way to make the criminal pay for his
crime. Instead, the role of punishment is to prevent any
future crime by inflicting fear of punishment and by either
reforming the criminal or protecting him from society. In a
nutshell, every law and decision that is made should
produce the best results for the greatest number of people.
According to the Utilitarian theory, the death penalty is not
meant to provide justice by taking an eye for an eye.
Although this form of punishment is not supposed to be
retributive by nature, it is, however, meant to deter many
criminals from committing murder.
From this perspective, the taking of one life is justified if it
prevents the taking of other, innocent lives. If judged that
the consequence of permitting the criminal to live may
result in more murder, then the death penalty would be
considered an appropriate punishment in that particular
case.
Kantian Ethics
Basis of Value: purity of will
Principle of Action: never disrespect
the fundamental value of rational
beings
To analyze the morality of death penalty from Kants point
of view, moral actions need to be defined. Kant suggests
that acting in order to satisfy someone self-interest is
morally unacceptable.
To illustrate that, if someone kills another person to
revenge or for any other reason, this action is immoral. In
the other hand, if the government applies death penalty on
someone because he killed another person, this action is a
moral one because the state doesnt act in regard to its
self-interest but to protect its citizens from this criminal.
 Courses of Action

COA 1 COA 2 COA 3

Yes, continue using Yes continue using No, completely stop
the electric chair as the electric chair but using the electric
it is. devote time and chair for execution
resources to
improve the chair so
that it satisfies the
concerns of the
people against the
functionality of the
chair
 Roles
of
Conflic
t
Roles of Confllct

Socially, the fact that the Professionally, making

chair doesnt fulfill its changes to the chair to
purpose of executing in a increase its efficiency
painless and instant way would cost more and will
heats up arguments to not require time to train
use the chair personnel to operate and
handle the chairs properly
 Roles of Conflct

The conflict is to Neglect the Not to use the

decxide if it suffering of the chair at all
would be better person being
to imprve the executed
char enough so Not to spend
that the money and
concerns are resources
satisfied
Significant
investment in
terms of money
and resources
are needed
 By using the electric chair:

Positive Negative
Society can feel Depending on your
more secure view, it is morally
knowing that wrong to kill a
there will be one person
less delinquent It can be seen as
There will be one an inhuman way to
less person to kill a person
worry about in Misuse of the
jail equipment can
In some way, actually cause
 By not using the electric chair:

Positive: Negative
Moral More crimes
No families in Need more
the society will space in jail
suffer from In some way,
seeing their money should be
relative die spent as well
Society may
think that the
government will
require to
Conflict Resolution
Utilitarian Perspective

A Utilitarian would evaluate the possible

consequences of each COA.
Give them a numerical value according to
its positive or negative outcome and
multiply by a percentage of probability of
actually happening
Give a +10 to the best case scenario and
a -10 to the worst case scenario
Kantian Perspective

Would pick COA 3: Not to use the Electic

Chair at all
Remembering the Principle Action of
Kantian Ethics, we can say that taking
someone elses life would completely
violate this theory