The justice driven motivation questions

The justice driven motivation questions
151. (A) Various justifications may be given for the death penalty in order to defend
it, but the primary motivation for having it in the first place is as a way for justice to be
done on the worst of crimes, in order for the law to officially recognize them as the
worst possible and requiring the ultimate penalty in order for justice to be done.
152. (B) The death penalty is not necessarily the result of criminals not getting a fair
hearing, so the requirement that those accused of crimes be treated fairly in court is not
a criticism of the death penalty. If the death penalty is just, then it will in fact be a result
of guilty defendants who deserve it getting a fair hearing in court.
153. (A) The defense of capital punishment that says that it is needed in order to deter
violent crime is motivated not by justice, but by preventing crime in the first place.
154. (D) One objection to capital punishment says that it is inconsistent to carry it
out in order to condemn murderers, because if the taking of life is an ultimate moral
evil, then taking life to punish murder is self-contradictory by defeating its own
motivation.
155. (B) The hypocrisy objection to capital punishment assumes that all taking of life
is murder, whereas it is not necessarily inconsistent to punish unjust taking of life
(murder) by a taking of life, if capital punishment is itself a just punishment for mur-
der. If the hypocrisy objection were accepted, then other types of punishment would
have to be condemned as well just for their taking away something valuable from the
person being punished.
156. (C) One objection to capital punishment says that we should not exercise the
death penalty at all because of the risk of executing the innocent. But this does not
address the main motivation for the death penalty, which is that it is needed in order
to carry out justice for the most serious crimes. A more direct criticism of the death
penalty would address the central motivation for the death penalty itself and show that
it is actually unjust even when those who receive it are guilty.
157. (D) One justification for capital punishment says that it should be carried out in
order to provide an example and deter further crime. This justification is not concerned
with justice, so whether or not capital punishment is justified against those who receive
it is not directly relevant to the deterrence justification.
158. (B) The justice-driven motivation for capital punishment is itself just concerned
with redressing wrongs—that is, recognizing that some crimes such as murder violate
the ultimate value—by giving the ultimate punishment for those crimes. (D) is one
particular version of this motivation, but not all justice-related motivations for capital
punishment need be concerned with proportional justice.