Parr Center Talk: Russ Shafer-Landau

Russ Shafer-Landau, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, works in metaethics and moral theory. He is the author of The Fundamentals of Ethics (Oxford, 2012) and its companion volume,  The Ethical Life (Oxford, 2012) written to introduce people to moral theory. Other publications include Moral Realism — A Defense  (Oxford, 2005), and Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? (Oxford, 2004). He is also the editor of the widely used Reason & Responsibility  (Cengage, 2010),  Ethical Theory  (Blackwell, 2007) and co-editor, with Terence Cuneo, of The Foundations of Ethics (Blackwell, 2006).

“The Morality of the Death Penalty”

One way to try to make progress on resolving issues about the morality of the death penalty is to ask what purposes it is supposed to serve. I survey the most prominent such purposes, and argue that these fail to adequately justify capital punishment. But I also consider some of the most popular arguments on behalf of abolishing capital punishment, and show that they are not as strong as many of their supporters have thought.

Pizza will be served.