Aristotle And Confucius Maintained An Ethical Position On...

Both Aristotle and Confucius maintained an ethical position concerning capital punishment. While we can safely assume Aristotle believed capital punishment is appropriate under certain circumstances, Confucius generally argued against the death penalty. Nevertheless, both ethical viewpoints find some common ground where capital punishment can be justified. Aristotle s theory of justice offers an outline for a system of justice, of which the death penalty for appropriate crimes is acceptable. His underlying assumption is that right and wrong are defined by the actions and values held by the virtuous and the depraved people in a society. He beilieved that people come to understand the concepts of justice and injustice by observing those in society considered to be just or unjust. The ultimate authority for truth are the virtuous individuals who analyze and act in ways that resonate with rationality, according to Aristotle. Therefore, Aristotle looked to the ways virtuous people behaved as justification for his claims. Aristotelian justice is known as justice through rectification, and operates on the basis of the following six assumptions: 1. People existing in society are in possession of certain goods. (What constitutes as a good is debatable, but assumed to represent needs, as in Abraham Maslow s â€Å"Hierarchy of Needs†.). 2. If a person takes goods from another person, then it requires principled justification or the consent from the person of whom the goods were taken. 3.