Leiser Rejects the Idea That the Death Penalty Constitutes a Denial

question 11

Multiple Choice

Leiser rejects the idea that the death penalty constitutes a denial of the criminal's worth and dignity. Just the reverse, argues Leiser. He argues that the death penalty, based on retributivism, actually affirms the offender's dignity and worth because it treats him or her as a fully responsible person. In the last part of the essay Leiser discusses the limits of the death penalty.
-According to Leiser, capital punishment is

• A) cruel and unusual punishment.
• B) sometimes justified.
• C) an affront to human dignity.
• D) inconsistent with contemporary moral standards.

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Definitions:

Continuity

A Gestalt principle of perception; the tendency to perceive things as simply as possible with a continuous pattern rather than with a complex, broken-up pattern.

Depth Perception

The visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions, enabling the estimation of distances.

Contiguity

The state of being close together in time or space, often used in psychology to describe how stimuli or events are associated through their proximity.

Figure-Ground Relationships

A visual perception principle that describes how people distinguish between an object (the figure) and its surrounding area (the ground).