United States And European Relations Research Paper

United States And European Relations - Research Paper Example They perceive that the source of terrorism lies in the economic, social and political discriminations that are prevalent on the southern seaside of the Mediterranean and as such can only be addressed through a broad structure that hits at the deepest causes of terrorism. During the time that the Soviet Union crumbled, the members of the European Union no longer saw possible North-South conflicts or nuclear threats. Instead, they saw various south-south conflicts and series of new transnational risks such as illegal trafficking of arms, drugs and even persons; terrorism connected to numerous religious issues; immigration. EU further believes that European security should be less focused on military conditions instead to social and political development of Mediterranean. In the United States, the FBI is a part of vast criminal justice machinery tasked with maintaining legal and political order. They deal with terrorism based on how they perceive acts related to it. According to the FBI , â€Å"Terrorist acts are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping and occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.†

The USA and World War 1 Essay Example for Free

The USA and World War 1 Essay In this essay I am writing about why the USA got involved with World War 1 and why they did not join the League of Nations. I am going to find what provoked the Americans to get involved with the war and who it was that provoked them to do so. I will also state what the Americans gained from World War 1. One of the reasons that the USA got involved with the war was because the Germans sunk an American ship, which was shot by a Torpedo at about 2:15pm on the starboard side, about 1900 people died. Following this, is a brief description of what happened and how many peopled suffered from this brutal attack, and some might call it cowardly, and frankly I agree with them. On 7 May 1915, the Lusitania was in the dangerous waters off the southern coast of Ireland. Although the Cunard Archives indicate that Captain Turner took the necessary precautions, other sources indicate the Captain failed to follow directives to sail in a zig-zagging fashion and did not travel these waters at top speed in order to conserve fuel. It should be noted, also, that no military escort was provided even though the Germans had been quite explicit in their threats against British shipping. At approximately 2:15pm a torpedo struck the Lusitania on the starboard side between the third and fourth funnels. This strike was followed by another explosion of uncertain origin. The Lusitania sank bow first, in a manner similar to the Titanic. Unlike the Titanic, however, the Lusitanias rapidity of sinking stopped people getting to the lifeboats but there were very few lifeboats on the ship anyway. Given the nature and design of the submarine, the German U-boat made no attempt to rescue anyone. Kapitanleutnant Schwieger noted in his diary that the ship would not last long, and that he could not fire another torpedo at the people trying to save themselves. Following the sinking of the Lusitania, American public opinion began to turn against the Germans. The incident was the beginning of the end of unrestricted U-boat activity in the Atlanic. The Germans also planned to support Mexico so they could gain land from America and that made the Americans want to get involved in the war so the Germans could not help/make a Mexican Revolution. The Germans sent a Zimmerman note to the Mexicans to say that they would help them if the Germans won the war, But luckily the Americans latched on to this quickly and went to help Britain against Germany. The two other reasons that made America get involved with the war are both what we call a long term cause. The first of those reasons is Wilson made peace proposals which he promised to America that he would bring peace to the world, and helping Britain win the war would stop all the fighting and there would be peace in the world. The second long term cause is if Britain didnt win the war America would lose a lot of money. Because America loaned Britain $4 billion and if Britain lost the war America would not get their money back. But if Britain won the war then America would get all their money back with interest. Plus helping Britain win the war would attract a lot more people to move there because they would feel as they are safe and cant be hurt, and that would make the US economy better. Why didnt America join the League of Nations? They didnt join them because U.S. Senate rejected the League of Nations and the entire treaty. Republicans who favoured isolation (the irreconcilables) spurned the treaty. Conservative Republicans, disliked the treatys provisions for joint military actions against aggressors, even though such action was voluntary. They demanded a change, but Wilson refused to compromise. Overestimating his reputation and refusing to consider Republican reservations, Wilson remained stubborn. Stubborn and exhausted, the president campaigned for the treaty until he collapsed with a stroke. The United States never joined the League of Nations, started in 1919, and signed a separate peace treaty with Germany in 1921. In my opinion I think America were a very clever country because they knew exactly what they were doing when they loaned out the money to Britain, because they knew that if they got involved in the war against Germany, Germany really didnt stand a chance and America would get all the money back with interest. But on the other hand I do think they should have joined the League of Nations, I dont think Wilson should have been so stubborn about it all. But Wilson is his own man and who am I to argue with him, he won the war for Britain in my point of view, and I have just got a gut feeling he was one step ahead of everyone else. I think Germany was a very devious country but never the less they had the guts and determination to battle Britain and the USA. But after the war they didnt just fall on the floor and give up they got back up on there feet and got on with there lives and 20 years on they start World War 2!! As for Britain, you cant really fault them, they won the war, and Britain made new Allies that would help them in the near future. So Britain gained a lot from the war as did America, but as for Germany, who is going to bring the pride back to their country so they can hold their heads high and be proud to be a German, maybe the name Adolf Hitler springs to mind..

Internet :: essays research papers

This isn’t perfect but it is a good start Who is supposed to be the watchdog on the net? This question will raise the temperature in almost any room. The government already has to many regulations on lots of things, who wants Uncle Sam’s hand in the web. Some of the regulations that are applied are there for specific reasons. Those protect the people before the damage to say a young child posing for porn can be done. Those people that would be trying to regulate the Internet could be going after those sick, pathetic petafiles that float around in the child chat rooms.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In my opinion, the parents should be the ones that are responsible for what their children view on the Internet. The net itself can be very valuable if used as a tool for learning. In the group Families Against Internet Censorship, they understand the concept of parental filtering (Censorship 2000). One of the families uses primarily the Internet to home-school their children. When a child signs on to the web, he or she has almost infinite resources right at the ends of their fingertips. Where else can you maximize the worlds resources from inside the comforts of home. I know that a young teenager can productively use this information. I have been using the net for about eight years for my reports and personal knowledge quests. My father would check on me every now and again to make sure I was on task. Not only was he keeping what I viewed pg13, he was helping me use different search engines and being my troubleshooter until I could surf the web by myself. Lots of the children now days are just tuned loose with a computer and not checked on until suppertime or bedtime. With that much freedom come temptation, this leads to the children looking up porn, explosives, or something else that their parents would not want them to look at.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In my opinion, pornography should be allowed on the Internet as long as it is within legal bounds that are already established. I personally do not sit up all night trying to see some naked body in a freaky position. Nevertheless, I do not have a problem if my neighbor looks at pornographic material all day long as long as he does not pressure me with it. You never know where an online neighbor is from.

Malaria in Cuban Children and how it differs from children in US

Malaria is a disease cause by a parasite that is transmitted from one person to another by the bite of an Anopheles mosquito. These are female mosquitoes that are most persistent in the tropics and sub-tropic parts of the world Such as Africa Asia and USA Symptoms of malaria may include headache, chills, muscle ache, fever, and malaise. Malaria’s early development stages resemble those of flue which only develop between 6-8 days after being bitten by an infected mosquito. It is estimated that 40% of the world population is at risk of malaria and that it claims an estimated one million lives annually (World Health Organization 1989). Malaria can e prevented through the use of anti-malaria drugs, use of treated mosquitoes nets, oiling others (http://www.cigna.com/healthinfo/hw119119.html). Malarial cases are rare in the US as compared to Cuba. This is because Cuba is a tropic country whose majority population lives below the poverty line. Hence cannot afford basic medication or preventive measures such as the use of mosquito’s nets. On the other had malaria infection in the US is detected mostly among travelers and hence rare. Malaria affects all segments of the population but most severely children, women, and people living with emergency cases such as HIV/ AIDS. Malaria in children causes complications such as paralysis, recurrent fewer, Anemia, blindness, epilepsy and cerebral malaria. If not well treated malaria can affect the subsequent health and development of child; For instance it is estimated that 7% of Cuban children who survive cerebral malaria are left with permanent neurological problems such as spastics, blindness, speech problem and low concentration which affects their performance in school. This has been adverse due to inadequate treatment brought about by poverty; forces people to prescribe their own medication, lack of drugs and expertise in hospitals. (http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/elitedeals/disease.htm). Malaria effects on pregnant women are higher in Cuba than the US. For instance only 35 cases were reported in the US in 2000 while more than 10, 000 cases were reported in Cuba. Malarial medications are limited for pregnant women and also children. These infections can lead to death of a woman and her fetus – unborn fetus may get the disease from the mother; thus for this reason pregnant women should not travel to areas where they can get the disease. Some of the adverse effects of malaria during pregnancy include increased chances of still birth, intrauterine growth, retardation and low birth weight of less than 2500 grammes.( http://www.traveldoctor.info/diseases/1.html ) A malarial infection varies depending on someone’s body immunity. For this reason the elderly and those with emergency diseases such as HIV/AIDS are severely affected as their levels of immunity are low, hence increases their chances of infection. Malaria prevalence in Cuban children is high than in the US. This is because of the weak health infrastructure of the country, civil unrests and the widespread resistance to malarial drugs among other causes. However, Malaria infection reduced by 9.0% in 2000 in the US due to change in disease transmission and increased / effective use of anti-malarial chemoprophylaxis. Poverty in Cuba has increase child infection as majority cannot afford basic prevention measures such as mosquito nets, clearing of bushes, and oiling of stagnant water. In addition houses in the rural areas are built of mud unlike the US, which allows mosquitoes to freely enter and leave the houses. In conclusion malaria effects are more severe in Cuban children than in America children as America children have access to free medication and can afford basic preventive measures. On the other hands Poverty of most households and inadequacy of drugs inhibits complete treatment of malaria in Cuban children which affect these development. REFERENCES http://www.traveldoctor.info/diseases/1.html http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/elitedeals/disease.htm Maria, G.(2007) Malaria. Retrieved February 25, 2008 from http://www.cigna.com/healthinfo/hw119119.html         

Montana 1948 Essay

The story of Montana 1948 tells of a certain struggle which the Hayden family experiences. Larry Watson uses different techniques and language to convey ideas about how powerful the Hayden family is, especially the grandfather Julian and how he alone can do pretty much as he pleases. The story is told from the perspective of a twelve year old boy David. However, it is written many years later which gives the reader a bigger insight into David’s view of what went on. Many themes are raised throughout the novel and many techniques are used to convey different ideas about certain events which are portrayed in the text, one of these being racism. Racism is one of the main themes which is portrayed in the text and is the very reason behind all that happens to the Hayden family throughout the whole ordeal. There are also many different ways in which racism is portrayed throughout the text, some of the characters are for it while others are against it. Watson uses characterisation to convey different ideas throughout the text about racism. He shows how the characters feel about racism, an example is when Julian and Wes are talking about Frank’s treatment of the Indian women, it is when Wes finds out that Julian has known all along about what Frank does to his patients. Julian says ‘You know Frank’s always been partial to red meat. ’ This is a realisation for both the reader and Wes because they find out that Julian shares exactly the same view of the Indian people as his son, thinking of them as animals. Racism is also portrayed in other ways throughout the text. Wes never directly says that he hates the Indian people, but he often hints at the fact that he doesn’t fully approve of them. ‘Nevertheless, he believed Indians, with only a few exceptions, were ignorant, lazy, superstitious and irresponsible. Although these words are not as direct or harsh and Wes doesn’t treat them nearly as bad as Julian and Frank, it is still an indication that Wes is partially racist towards the Indians. Another idea which Watson uses throughout the text to convey the idea of Racism is how Marie Little Soldier acts when Frank goes to the Hayden’s house to treat her when she is sick. She becomes terrified and demands that someone be in the room with her when Frank is there. This behaviour represents how all of the Indian women would have felt either before or after Frank visited them. It is Marie’s fear alone that informs the reader of how little respect Frank has for the Indians and gives a clear picture of how racist he is towards them. Furthermore, Watson uses other characters to give evidence of racism throughout the story. Julian and Frank both think very lowly of the Indians and these characteristics lead them to making actions and decisions which are racist. This is most evident with Frank because the actions he takes are the worst, he is the one commits the raping of the women when he supposed to be treating them as a professional. This racism is not displayed just by Frank however, it is the people around him who provide further evidence that there is racism in the story. Julian and Wes are good examples as they do not use the power which they hold to help resolve the situation or seek Justice. Julian has known about the crimes which Frank commits on his patients and does nothing about it because he thinks of the Indians in the same way, he believes that it is okay to treat them in that way just as Frank does. ‘What the hell am I supposed to think? Screwing an Indian. Or feeling her up or whatever. You don’t lock up a man for that’. Wes also shows support for the racism because of how he deals with Frank and his crimes. Even though he is the Sherriff and it is his job to put Frank behind bars, he refuses to and instead locks him in the basement of his own house, ‘He’ll have to meet his punishment in the hereafter’. Watson also uses characters in the text who are against racism and do not engage in it. David and Gail are the two characters who represent this. They are both strongly against racism and discrimination, this is evident throughout the story and is often the result of conflictions and arguments between the fellow family members. David and Gail have this view because they are the most distant from Julian. Gail was married into the family and therefore had her own views about racism before she was subjected to Julian’s beliefs and David has grown up in a house where his Mum does not believe in racism and his Dad works for the law and therefore knows what is right and wrong. It is because of this that Wes is always stuck in the middle, because he is constantly listening to both sides of the argument and this is why he is forced to arrest Frank but never puts him in jail, because he never fully decides in what he believes in. From reading this text the reader gains a detailed insight to the life of the Hayden family and the tough time which they go through. The reader is informed of what it was like living in Montana in 1948. From what the landscape looked like, to the social issues which took place such as racism and discrimination against certain groups of people. Watson uses the characters to convey the idea of racism between the white and Indian people. It is these characters techniques which gives the reader a perspective of what it was like through the eyes of a twelve year old boy.

SAT Score Chart Raw ScoreConversionto Scaled Score

SAT Score Chart Raw ScoreConversionto Scaled Score SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips You may be wondering how your SAT score is determined. Where does that score of 200-800 on each section of the SAT come from? What does your SAT score mean? Or, maybe you're familiar with the concept of raw scores, but you don't know how your raw score is converted into a scaled score. Hopefully, this article will answer your questions and clear up any confusion. In this post, I'll clarifythe difference between raw scores and scaled scores and provide charts that show theSAT raw score conversion to scaled score. Furthermore, I'll explain why the data from these SAT score charts can be helpful to you in your SAT preparation. What Is a Raw Score? Your raw score for each section is calculated from the number of questions you answered correctly and incorrectly. For every question you answer correctly on the SAT, you receive one point. For every question you answer incorrectly on the SAT, you receive minus  ¼ point, with the exception of grid-ins in the Math section, for which you receive zero points for wrong answers. For every question you skip on the SAT, you receive zero points. The maximum raw score varies for each section. For Critical Reading, there are 67 questions; therefore, the max raw score is 67. For Math, there are 54 questions; the max raw score is 54. For Writing, there are 49 questions and 1 essay. The maximum multiple-choice raw score is 49 and the maximum essay score is 12. What Is a Scaled Score? The scaled score is the score from 200-800 you receive on each section of the SAT. Your scaled score is determined from the raw score through a process that the College Board calls equating. Equating â€Å"ensures that the different forms of the test or the level of ability of the students with whom you are tested do not affect your score. Equating makes it possible to make comparisons among test takers who take different editions of the test across different administrations.† Therefore, your scaled score is not dependent on the difficulty of the test or the skill level of the students who take your edition of the test. The College Board doesn’t release its formula for equating, but it does periodically release scoring charts to convert raw scores to scaled scores. The scoring charts change slightly for each edition of the test, but they remain somewhat consistent. Why Is This Data Important? How Can It Help You? From your target scaled score, you can get a rough idea of how many questions you need to answer correctly on each section to reach your goal. For example, if you want to get a 750 on Critical Reading, you need to get a raw score of about 62. Therefore, you can only get about 4 questions wrong or omit 5 questions to reach your target score.Having this knowledge can inform your guessing and study strategies. If you’re aiming for a 600, focus on the easy and medium level difficulty questions. To get a 600 in Reading, you only need a raw score of about 46 out of 67. This means that you can skip 12 questions, get 7 wrong, and still get a 600. Therefore, if your target score is a 600, don’t waste time on the most difficult, time-consuming questions. You can skip the hardest 20% of questions and still reach your target score. Also, you'll see that the math curve is very harsh. For most tests, you have to answer every single question correctly to get an 800. Finally, the essay has a big impact on your Writing score. It counts for almost â…“ of your Writing score. If you get a multiple-choice raw score of 45 and an essay score of 12, your scaled score is about a 760. If you get the same raw score, but an essay score of 7, your scaled score is about a 670. If you can master the SAT essay, you’ll be well on your way to reaching your Writing goal. Raw Score to Scaled Score Conversion Charts Belowis a sample SAT conversion chart released by the College Board. Remember that SAT scorecharts change for each edition of the test, but the changes are usually not that drastic. For example, a raw score of 46 in Math converted to a scaled score of 660 on the January 2010 and 2011 editions of the SAT. However, in May 2011 and 2009, a 46 in Math converted to a 680. Critical Reading Raw Score Scaled Score 2014 Percentile 67 800 99 66 800 99 65 800 99 64 790 99 63 770 99 62 760 99 61 740 98 60 730 97 59 720 96 58 700 96 57 690 95 56 680 94 55 670 92 54 670 92 53 660 91 52 650 90 51 640 89 50 630 86 49 620 84 48 620 84 47 610 82 46 600 80 45 600 80 44 590 78 43 580 75 42 570 73 41 570 73 40 560 70 39 550 67 38 550 67 37 540 64 36 530 61 35 530 61 34 520 57 33 520 57 32 510 54 31 500 51 30 500 51 29 490 48 28 480 44 27 480 44 26 470 41 25 460 37 24 460 37 23 450 35 22 440 31 21 440 31 20 430 28 19 420 25 18 410 22 17 410 22 16 400 19 15 390 17 14 380 15 13 380 15 12 370 13 11 360 11 10 350 9 9 340 8 8 330 7 7 320 5 6 310 5 5 300 4 4 290 3 3 270 2 2 260 2 1 240 1 0 220 1 -1 210 1 -2 or below 200 Charts are fun. Math Raw Score Scaled Score 2014 Percentile 54 800 99 53 790 99 52 760 97 51 740 96 50 720 95 49 710 94 48 700 93 47 690 92 46 680 90 45 670 89 44 660 87 43 650 86 42 640 84 41 640 84 40 630 82 39 620 80 38 610 77 37 600 75 36 590 73 35 590 73 34 580 71 33 570 68 32 560 66 31 550 62 30 540 59 29 540 59 28 530 56 27 520 53 26 510 50 25 500 46 24 490 44 23 480 41 22 480 41 21 470 37 20 460 34 19 450 31 18 440 28 17 430 25 16 420 22 15 420 22 14 410 19 13 400 17 12 390 15 11 380 13 10 370 11 9 360 9 8 350 8 7 330 6 6 320 5 5 310 4 4 290 2 3 280 2 2 260 1 1 240 1 0 220 1- -1 200 -2 and below 200 Charts are really fun. Writing Essay Score Raw Score 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 0 49 800 800 800 790 770 750 740 720 710 700 680 670 48 800 800 780 760 740 720 710 690 680 670 650 640 47 790 770 760 740 720 700 690 670 660 640 630 620 46 770 750 740 720 700 680 670 650 640 630 610 600 45 760 740 720 710 690 670 650 640 630 610 590 580 44 740 730 710 700 670 660 640 620 610 600 580 570 43 730 720 700 680 660 640 630 620 600 590 570 560 42 720 700 690 670 650 630 620 600 590 570 560 550 41 710 690 680 660 640 620 610 590 580 560 550 540 40 700 680 670 650 630 610 600 580 570 550 540 530 39 690 680 660 640 620 600 590 570 560 550 530 520 38 680 670 650 630 610 600 580 560 550 540 520 510 37 670 660 640 630 610 590 570 550 540 530 510 500 36 660 650 630 620 600 580 560 550 530 520 500 490 35 660 640 620 610 590 570 550 540 530 510 490 480 34 650 630 620 600 580 560 550 530 520 500 490 480 33 640 620 610 590 570 550 540 520 510 490 480 470 32 630 620 600 580 560 540 530 510 500 490 470 460 31 620 610 590 580 550 540 520 500 490 480 460 450 30 610 600 580 570 550 530 510 500 480 470 450 440 29 610 580 570 560 540 520 500 490 480 460 440 430 28 600 580 570 550 530 510 490 480 470 450 440 430 27 590 570 560 540 520 500 490 470 460 440 430 420 26 580 570 550 530 510 490 480 460 450 440 420 410 25 570 560 540 530 500 490 470 450 440 430 410 400 24 560 550 530 520 500 480 460 450 430 420 400 390 23 560 540 520 510 490 470 450 440 430 410 390 380 22 550 530 520 500 480 460 450 430 420 400 390 380 21 540 520 510 490 470 450 440 420 410 390 380 370 20 530 520 500 480 460 440 430 410 400 390 370 360 19 520 510 490 480 460 440 420 410 390 380 360 350 18 520 500 480 470 450 430 410 400 390 370 350 340 17 510 490 480 460 440 420 410 390 380 360 350 340 16 500 490 470 450 430 410 400 380 370 360 340 330 15 490 480 460 450 430 410 390 370 360 350 330 320 14 490 470 450 440 420 400 380 370 360 340 320 310 13 480 460 450 430 410 390 380 360 350 330 320 310 12 470 460 440 420 400 380 370 350 340 330 310 300 11 460 450 430 420 400 380 360 350 330 320 300 290 10 460 440 420 410 390 370 350 340 330 310 290 280 9 450 430 420 400 380 360 350 330 320 300 290 280 8 440 430 410 390 370 350 340 320 310 300 280 270 7 430 420 400 390 360 350 330 310 300 290 270 260 6 420 410 390 380 360 340 320 310 290 280 260 250 5 410 400 380 370 350 330 310 300 280 270 250 240 4 400 390 370 360 340 320 300 290 270 260 240 230 3 390 380 360 350 330 310 290 280 260 250 230 220 2 380 370 350 330 310 290 280 260 250 240 220 210 1 370 350 340 320 300 280 260 250 240 220 210 200 0 350 340 320 300 280 260 250 240 220 210 200 200 -1 330 320 300 290 270 250 230 220 200 200 200 200 -2 310 300 280 270 250 230 210 200 200 200 200 200 -3 310 290 280 260 240 220 210 200 200 200 200 200 Writing Scaled Score 2014 Percentile 800 99+ 790 99 780 99 770 99 760 99 750 98 740 98 730 98 720 97 710 96 700 96 690 95 680 94 670 93 660 92 650 91 640 89 630 88 620 86 610 84 600 82 590 80 580 78 570 76 560 74 550 71 540 68 530 65 520 62 510 59 500 56 490 53 480 49 470 46 460 42 450 39 440 35 430 32 420 29 410 25 400 22 3901 19 380 17 370 14 360 12 350 10 340 8 330 7 320 6 310 5 290 4 280 3 270 3 260 2 250 2 240 2 230 1 220 1 210 1 200 What's Next? Now that you've seen the SAT score chart, find out what's considered a good and bad SAT score. Also, find out how many questions you can miss to get a perfect SAT score. Want to improve your SAT score by 240 points?We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Het Reservaat

Het Reservaat Recensie: Het reservaat "“ Ward Ruyslinck Het boek gaat over een maatschappij, die volledig ingericht is op effici «ntie. Alles moet economische en sociale welvaart bevorderen. Zo niet, dan is het strafbaar. Hieronder vallen ook dingen als dichten en muziek. Ook religie is verboden. Basile Jonas is een leraar Nederlands op een school. Hij schrijft af en toe in zijn vrije tijd gedichten. Er ontstond een probleem doordat een meisje uit zijn klas naar haar vader stapte omdat hij een van zijn gedichten in de klas voorlas. Daarvoor moest hij voor de rector verschijnen. Deze vondt dat totaal ongepast. Een leraar moet het goede voorbeeld vormen, en gedichten zijn niet bevorderlijk voor de economische en sociale welvaart. Dat was nog niet het allerergste. Hij haalde een leerling van hem naar binnen, die alleen buiten liep. Daarna speelde hij een stuk op zijn viool voor haar. Daarna begint er een langdurige en voor hem moeilijke rechtzaak.Matteo Basilà ¨Basil heeft niks in te brengen. Alles is van hem bekend, elk detail, en ze weten hem overal op te pakken. Het zijn allemaal feiten, en hier heeft Basil een hekel aan. Hij vindt dat het niet om de feiten gaat, maar op de voorspiegeling van de feiten. De toon van het boek is somber. Basile heeft geen enkele kans tegen de hele maatschappij. Het is  ©Ã‚ ©n tegen iedereen, en iedereen tegen  ©Ã‚ ©n. Uiteindelijk wordt hij ontvoerd en in een soort observatieterrein gezet. Dit is een afgeschermd terrein voor alle onaangepaste lieden in de maatschappij, en hier worden wetenschappelijke testen op hun gedaan. Men probeert te onderzoeken waarom Basile zo is. De proefpersonen worden niet langer daar gehouden dan strikt noodzakelijk is. Daarna worden ze ge «limineerd. Het reservaat wordt door de directeur aan Basile weerspiegeld als een paradijs dat speciaal voor een paar bevoordeelden in de maatschappij was gecre «rd. Verder in het boek lees je dat Basile uiteindelijk officieel gestorven blijkt te zijn aan een ziekte. Maar er zijn mensen die twijfelen of dat niet op de grens tussen misdaad en wetenschap ligt.Ward Ruyslink gaat op bijzondere wijze het gevecht aan tegen de steeds harder wordende samenleving. Mensen worden steeds harder, minder romantisch, en meer gericht op winst en effici «ntie. Hij schreef dit boek in 1964. Toen al werd de maatschappij zo beschouwd, en daar is weinig aan veranderd. Ook de hippies hebben daar weinig tot niks aan kunnen doen. De maatschappij is doelgericht, en is ingesteld op zichzelf. In het begin van het boek noemt hij het een ziekte, het Americanisme. Ik denk dat hij daarop doelt dat dit in Amerika al verder is dan in Europa. Persoonlijk vind ik het boek een beetje een slap aftreksel van "1984"  van George Orwell. Ook daar word een "Big Brother"  maatschappij voorgesteld, een totalitaire maatschappij zonder persoonlijk bezit, met enkel en alleen het algemeen nut dat de dictator bepaalt. In de tijd dat Ward Ruyslink het boek schreef was ook de koude oorl og volop aan de gang. De USSR werd steeds groter, en net als Orwell was Ruyslink doodsbang voor dat dit in Europa en Amerika ook zou gebeuren, alleen op een veel subtielere manier, niet angstaanjagend, maar heel erg geniepig. In Orwell's boek gaat het op een veel snellere manier, in het Reservaat gaat het op een geleidelijkere manier, de totalitaire staat is er langzaam gekomen. Er hangen ook posters van "De Cobra"  in Basile's stad, de denkbeeldige dictator, die door de maatschappij zelf in stand gehouden wordt. De Cobra wordt daarop afgebeeld met kinderen, om te laten zien hoe goed het systeem wel niet werkt. Het systeem lijkt ook voor de meeste mensen goed te werken. Mensen die zelf totaal niet creatief zijn, die zonder "˜nutteloze' dingen kunnen. Mensen die "˜anders' zijn kunnen hun hun creativitei niet meer kwijt, en nemen het op tegen de kudde, wat natuurlijk een onmogelijke taak is.Het reservaat is een boek dat niet heel erg makkelijk te lezen is, omdat het niet inge deeld is in hoofdstukken. Een hoofdstukindeling maakt een boek overzichterlijker, en je krijgt een idee waar je bent. Ook vondt ik het begin van het boek niet echt geweldig. Je word ineens in het diepe gegooid, zonder dat je direct doorhebt wat er nou eigenlijk aan de hand is. Daarna wordt het boek wat duidelijker, je krijgt door wat er aan de hand is, waarom het zo is en hoe het zo gekomen is. Het is een redelijk spannend boek, omdat je je blijft afvragen hoe Basile's strijd tegen de maatschappij zal eindigen. Als Basile in het reservaat, of "Rijkskolonie Paalberg"  zit, begint het boek wat saaier te worden. Je hebt nog de hoop dat hij zal ontsnappen, maar je merkt dat het einde nabij is, hij heeft zijn strijd geleverd. De ontknoping is een beetje teleurstellend, hij wordt afgemaakt alsof het een proefdier is.

10 Fascinating Facts About Ladybugs

10 Fascinating Facts About Ladybugs Who doesnt love a ladybug? Also known as ladybirds or lady beetles, the little red bugs are so beloved because they are beneficial predators, cheerfully chomping on garden pests such as aphids. But ladybugs arent really bugs at all. They belong to the order Coleoptera, which includes all of the beetles. Europeans have called these dome-backed beetles by the name ladybirds, or ladybird beetles, for over 500 years. In America, the name ladybug is preferred; scientists usually use the common name lady beetle for accuracy. 1. Not All Ladybugs Are Black and Red Although ladybugs (called Coccinellidae) are most often red or yellow with black dots, nearly every color of the rainbow is found in some species of ladybug, often in contrasting pairs. The most common are red and black or yellow and black, but some are as plain as black and white, others as exotic as dark blue and orange. Some species of ladybug are spotted, others have stripes, and still others sport a checked pattern. There are 4,300 different species of ladybugs, 400 of which live in North America. Color patterns are connected to their living quarters: generalists that live pretty much anywhere have fairly simple patterns of two strikingly different colors that they wear year round. Others that live in specific habitats have more complex coloration, and some can change color throughout the year. Specialist ladybugs use a camouflage coloration to match the vegetation when theyre in hibernation and develop the characteristic bright colors to warn off predators during their mating season. 2. The Name Lady Refers to the Virgin Mary According to legend,  European crops during the Middle Ages were plagued by pests. Farmers began praying to the Blessed Lady, the Virgin Mary. Soon, the farmers started seeing beneficial ladybugs in their fields, and the crops were miraculously saved from the pests. The farmers began calling the red and black beetles our ladys birds or lady beetles. In Germany, these insects go by the name Marienkafer, which means Mary beetles. The seven-spotted lady beetle is believed to be the first one named for the Virgin Mary; the red color is said to represent her cloak, and the black spots her seven sorrows. 3. Ladybug Defenses Include Bleeding Knees and Warning Colors Startle an adult ladybug and a  foul-smelling hemolymph will seep from its leg joints, leaving yellow stains on the surface below. Potential predators may be deterred by the vile-smelling mix of alkaloids  and equally repulsed by the sight of a seemingly sickly beetle. Ladybug larvae can also ooze alkaloids from their abdomens. Like many other insects, ladybugs use aposematic coloration to signal their toxicity to would-be predators. Insect-eating birds and other animals learn to avoid meals that come in red and black and are more likely to steer clear of a ladybug lunch. 4. Ladybugs Live for About a Year   David Bithell/Getty Images   The ladybug lifecycle begins when a batch of bright-yellow eggs are laid on branches near food sources. They hatch as larvae in four to 10 days and then spend about three weeks feeding up- the earliest arrivals may eat some of the eggs that have not yet hatched. Once theyre well-fed, theyll begin to build a pupa, and after seven to 10 days they emerge as adults. The insects typically live for about a year. 5. Ladybug Larvae Resemble Tiny Alligators  © Jackie Bale/Getty Images If youre unfamiliar with ladybug larvae, you would probably never guess that these odd creatures are young ladybugs. Like alligators in miniature, they have long, pointed abdomens, spiny bodies, and legs that protrude from their sides. The larvae feed and grow for about a month, and during this stage they often consume hundreds of aphids. 6. Ladybugs Eat a Tremendous Number of Insects Bill Draker/Getty Images   Almost all ladybugs feed on soft-bodied insects and serve as beneficial predators of plant pests. Gardeners welcome ladybugs with open arms, knowing they will munch on the most prolific plant pests. Ladybugs love to eat scale insects, whiteflies, mites, and aphids. As larvae, they eat pests by the hundreds. A hungry adult ladybug can devour 50 aphids per day, and scientists estimate that the insect consumes as many as 5,000 aphids over its lifetime. 7. Farmers Use Ladybugs to Control Other Insects Because ladybugs have long been known to eat the gardeners pestilent aphids and other insects, there have been many attempts to use ladybugs to control these pests. The first attempt- and one of the most successful- was in the late 1880s, when an Australian ladybug (Rodolia cardinalis) was imported into California to control the cottony cushion scale. The experiment was expensive, but in 1890, the orange crop in California tripled. Not all such experiments work. After the California orange success, over 40 different ladybug species were introduced to North America, but only four species were successfully established. The best successes have helped farmers control scale insects and mealybugs. Systematic aphid control is rarely successful because aphids reproduce much more rapidly than ladybugs do. 8. There Are Ladybug Pests You may have personally experienced the effects of one of the biological control experiments that had unintended consequences. The Asian or harlequin ladybug (Harmonia axyridis) was introduced to the United States in the 1980s and is now the most common ladybug in many parts of North America. While it did depress the aphid population in some crop systems, it also caused declines in native species of other aphid-eaters. The North American ladybug is not endangered yet, but its overall numbers have decreased, and some scientists believe that is the result of harlequin competition. Some other negative effects are also associated with harlequins. In late summer, the ladybug gets ready for its winter dormancy period by dining on fruit, specifically ripe grapes. Because they blend in with the fruit, the ladybug gets harvested with the crop, and if the winemakers dont get rid of the ladybugs, the nasty taste of the knee bleed will taint the vintage. H. axyridis also like to over-winter in houses, and some houses are invaded in each year by hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of ladybugs. Their knee-bleeding ways can stain furniture, and they occasionally bite people. 9. Sometimes Masses of Ladybugs Wash Up on Shores Near large bodies of water all over the world, massive numbers of Coccinellidae, dead and alive, occasionally or regularly appear on the shorelines. The largest washup to date happened in the early 1940s when an estimated 4.5 billion individuals were spread over 21 kilometers of shoreline in Libya. Only a small number of them were still alive. Why this occurs is still not understood by the scientific community. Hypotheses fall into three categories: ladybugs travel by floating (they can survive afloat for a day or more); the insects aggregate along shorelines because of a reluctance to cross large bodies of water; low-flying ladybugs are forced ashore or into the water by windstorms or other weather events. 10. Ladybugs Practice Cannibalism If food is scarce, ladybugs will do what they must to survive, even if it means eating each other. A hungry ladybug will make a meal of any soft-bodied sibling it encounters. Newly emerged adults or recently molted larvae are soft enough for the average ladybug to chew. Eggs or pupae also provide protein to a ladybug that has run out of aphids. In fact, scientists believe that ladybugs will deliberately lay infertile eggs as a ready source of food for their young hatchlings. When times are tough, a ladybug may lay an increased number of infertile eggs to give her babies a better chance of surviving.

( Create a topic based on source provided ) Essay

( Create a topic based on source provided ) - Essay Example Roosevelt become so famous for. The introduction is very telling of the way the President views the American populace and his overall reliance on their support to accomplish the goals he sets out. Obama’s speech begins, â€Å"Good evening. Tonight I want to talk to you about the debate we’ve been having in Washington over the national debt – a debate that directly affects the lives of all Americans† (Obama, 2011 p. 302). By reaching out to the people and speaking with them as equals as well as presenting to them the struggles and hardships that government faces, FDR was able to gain the buy-in of the populace and became one of the most beloved presidents in American history. President Obama follows the same approach in this speech. Additionally, in these first few lines, the President is both able to lay out the topic at hand and paint a very clear picture of the issue as it relates to each and every American on both sides of the political spectrum. Additi onally, by making use of the first person plural pronoun we throughout the speech, the President is further able to quietly show the combined and shared burden that each and every citizen has with relation to the actions that the government partakes. Another powerful technique that the speech employs is even though the topic at hand is deadly serious and has the potential to affect the future lives and welfare of Americans well into the next several decades, the President is slow to ascribe blame to either party. Says Obama, â€Å"Because neither party is blameless for the decisions that led to this problem, both parties have a responsibility to solve it† (Obama, 2011 p. 303). This powerful admission that he does not intend to ascribe blame gains the trust of the audience and commands their respect as the issue is further explained. One drawback that the speech has is that it does not provide anything resembling equal time to the two ways forward the

Literary Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Literary Analysis - Essay Example To be educated is to be well informed. Education assumes that it is a lifetime development not only in sixteen years of training, but also throughout an individual’s life. Therefore, this paper seeks to highlight different characteristics of education basing on Jon Spayde’s definitions. It also reviews his book on education and training. To be educated involves being well acquainted with what is learnt. This normally takes place and is developed throughout the networks we make in the world. A strong education, according to Spayed, is one that is acquired through the best combination we can make in school, online exploration, poetry classes and salon (Spayde, 1998, p.66). Education should also entail learning and exploring ideas and skills outside classroom. To be educated hence involves to be equated with a preparation for competitiveness. Multiculturalists believe education has become a battle line. Therefore, it is through education and being educated where we duke ou t frequently with the angry neo-traditionalists. To be educated is to be adequately prepared for the contemporary world and the ever-advancing knowledge and science and technology (Spayde, 1998, p.67). Spayde believes firmly that not all the classical American generation have doubt about the education matters. There are two types of education and these include formal and informal forms of education. Formal education is the inner core of being educated. It was a serious boundary between those we consider well educated and the least educated. Talking about being educated, therefore, involves class. Class has brought into existence superiority and power in the modern society. Jon Spayde, in his book, expresses different definitions and ideas people hold on education. Spayde asserts that education consists of life experiences. People have to discover equilibrium between a self-learning and an academic education. Spayde advocates for education that comprises of virtue such as integrity, co-operation and responsibility (Spayde, 1998, p.57). A school education may not prepare an individual for the real world, but self-education ensures. Nevertheless, John Spayde feels that a school education has particular worth. He also explains that class and education are about power. Spayed claims, in his book, that education must be both life and academic experiences (Spayde, 1998, p.67). This idea is strongly supported by his colleagues who also assert that a definite focus should be put on education. His answers, therefore, fulfil all his implicit promises. He believes that technology runs the modern world and that everybody should embrace technology. Additionally, Spayde asserts that technical training will soon become out-dated anyway. Miles Harvey, a journalist, believes that debates on teaching are downhearted to a time concern. Learning is time consuming and that is why most people are only interested in learning and focusing on particular academic disciplines. According to Elizabeth Sutton Lawrence, the self-education goes as early as during the Greek times. The vision and goals of California state university Monterey Bay is being academic community plural model where all respect one another during the learning process for a mutual benefit (Spayde, 1998, p.68) This was known as in-the-street education where the early Greek education was brought largely from the experiences in the market places. Socrates met and dared his students in the

Business Model Generation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business Model Generation - Essay Example One of them includes the platform for socialization by individuals. Most individuals use Facebook to socialize by connecting to new people around the globe, getting new connections and ideas from other online friends. Creation of such platform has enhanced Facebook use. The Facebook platform is also used by most organizations for advertising & product promotion of their products. They use the platform to create awareness of the new product in the market or increase the clientele for the new products already in the market. Customer Relationships This involves the connections between the organization and their clients. It highlights that individuals get involved in Facebook and how the Company wins their spirit to continue holding them (Lillqvist & Salminen, 2015). One way in which individuals join Facebook is through creating a personal account and updating a profile. This process is free, and therefore individuals can easily access it. The Facebook facility is easily available and ac cessible from individuals comfort through their phones; computers and tablets.The services provided by the Company are also very favorable and affordable besides being of variety. The Partnerships These are other sites that work in partnership with the Facebook Company in creating a larger platform for activities. These partnerships help increase the client base and provide opportunities that help connections and ability to share. Individuals can connect through LinkedIn and share ideas through Facebook.

Aspect Hypothesis in Relation to Languages Essay

Aspect Hypothesis in Relation to Languages - Essay Example In addition to this, the types and sub types of aspect hypothesis will be established and for each, several examples of inherent, as well as, grammatical aspects in English and Arabic will be provided. A further explanation will be offered to clarify on why the chosen examples, in addition to, how these examples relate to each other.Considering the literal Arabic (Ø §Ã™â€žÃ™ Ã˜ µÃ˜ ­Ã™â€°, al-Fusha), the research of the findings of the research conducted by Barber indicates that the verb is constituted by two aspect tenses (532). These constituents include both the perfective as well as the imperfective. However, there are quite a number of controversial disagreements among the grammarians and, as such, they do not agree as to whether a distinction should be viewed as distinction in aspect or tense or even both. In English, what is considered as the past verb ((Ù Ã˜ ¹Ã™â€ž Ù…Ø §Ã˜ ¶Ã™Å , fi'l maadiy) is used to denote a particular verb (Ø ­Ã˜ ¯Ã˜ «, hadath), which was comple ted a long time ago or even in the near past (Barber 536). However, it indicates nothing regarding the relation of this event that took place in the past to the present status. One of the best examples to illustrate this is the phrase† he arrived† (ÙˆØ µÃ™â€ž", wasala). The phrase was a clear indication of the arrival occurring in the past (Ayres 29). However, it does not provide any sort of information regarding the present status of the person who has arrived (Altman 589). It may be that the person stayed around or he turned and left. In addition to this, the phrase does not indicate.

TD 5 MGT 491 Integration and Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

TD 5 MGT 491 Integration and Reflection - Essay Example This approach chains HR systems to staff’s assisting actions. Two widely discussed prototypes of HR systems with well-defined objectives include the compliance and commitment systems. These systems can impact organizations in different ways. Compliance system, staff is monitored and controlled by a set of rules and regulations. This is assumed to motivate and benefit them. Employees are seen as an unnecessary expense and are kept to a minimum to cut on costs and improve efficiency. Adherence to company’s goals is achieved by setting well specified rules and procedures. Commitment systems, on the other hand, is focused on the employee wellbeing. Employees are seen as capable and highly motivated. The employees are required to act in ways favorable to the collectivity. In this system however, there is a thin line between self and others as employees’ behaviors’ are geared towards getting ahead and obtaining benefits from the organization as a collectivity.(Kevin, Hettie, & Randall, 2011) I would advise the senior management to choose the commitment system which is broadly mutual rather than the compliance system which is control oriented and market driven. Employees are necessary for an organization to flourish therefore, goal oriented relationships between employees and the organization is necessary. With the commitment system in place, the employees’ specific contributions can be assessed and fully realized as there will be full acceptance of the organization’s target unlikely to be achieved through a set of rules and regulations as used in the compliance system. A compliance system focuses on trends in market prices while commitment HR system will focus on sustaining a communal sharing which will enhance team work and yield better results for the organization and therefore commitment HR system is the better

Health Care in United States Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Health Care in United States - Term Paper Example United States of America and Italy are two very different countries; the major differences are in culture of the people living in these countries. There are major differences in how doctors in these countries deal with pain management. The process of child birth is the most beautiful process and thoroughly enjoyed and cherished for the parents. Every precious thing comes at a hefty price, the hefty price is the pain suffered by the mother in this whole process. The mother undergoes the experience of tremendous pain in this whole process of giving birth. This paper is going to examine the methods adopted by the doctors to handle the pain which is suffered during the whole process. These methods will be examined as they are carried out in two countries namely, methods in Italy and methods in United States of America. "Peridural anesthesia is an effective technique for providing analgesia during labor and delivery. The fact that it is not at all widely used in Italy can be ascribed to the lack of technical knowledge among health-care providers and the lack of information available to pregnant women." (Epidural Analgesia, 29 November 2008). Peridural anesthesia's main function is to reduce the pain which occurs during childbirth, in order to perform surgeries the doctors inject Peridural anesthesia in the spinal column with the help of a needle or a tube in a patient. The same reduces the pain significantly and it is used in many countries. "Epidural anesthesia is an attractive alternative to general anesthesia for a person who has medical complications that might make it difficult to tolerate or recover from general anesthesia." (Epidural Anesthesia) Italy is an exceptional country and does not follow the technique of regional anesthesia during childbirth and the method is almost obscure in the southern parts of the country. Most of the surgeons in Italy consider general option over regional anesthesia, they firmly believe in the notion that general anesthesia is relatively much safer than regional anesthesia. It is believed by many surgeons in Italy who handle the case of childbirth that the use epidural anesthesia gives rise to neurological complications. This perception of the surgeons in Italy is challenged by many, "According to Koll (1) out of 1541 reports of injury following anesthesia, more than half of the 227 cases of neurological damage were related to general anesthesia. In another survey conducted by INSERM (France), 19 accidents (6 of which were fatal) were reported, accounting for 0.43% of 4430 administrations of spinal anesthesia. In this last survey approximately 70% of the patients were elderly and therefore, pr esented a higher risk of complications. A survey in our hospital reveals 2 non-fatal accidents related to 6690 administrations of spinal anesthesia. Therefore, the rate of complications for spinal anesthesia in our hospital is 0.02%. These data show that the number of serious complications related to spinal techniques is not higher than that of general anesthesia." (Epidural Analgesia). There are various risks involved in the use of Peridural anesthesia, when anesthesia is used on a patient who has never been examined before, the anesthetic risk in that particular case rises to alarming high levels on the contrary it is found that the

TD 5 MGT 491 Integration and Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

TD 5 MGT 491 Integration and Reflection - Essay Example This approach chains HR systems to staff’s assisting actions. Two widely discussed prototypes of HR systems with well-defined objectives include the compliance and commitment systems. These systems can impact organizations in different ways. Compliance system, staff is monitored and controlled by a set of rules and regulations. This is assumed to motivate and benefit them. Employees are seen as an unnecessary expense and are kept to a minimum to cut on costs and improve efficiency. Adherence to company’s goals is achieved by setting well specified rules and procedures. Commitment systems, on the other hand, is focused on the employee wellbeing. Employees are seen as capable and highly motivated. The employees are required to act in ways favorable to the collectivity. In this system however, there is a thin line between self and others as employees’ behaviors’ are geared towards getting ahead and obtaining benefits from the organization as a collectivity.(Kevin, Hettie, & Randall, 2011) I would advise the senior management to choose the commitment system which is broadly mutual rather than the compliance system which is control oriented and market driven. Employees are necessary for an organization to flourish therefore, goal oriented relationships between employees and the organization is necessary. With the commitment system in place, the employees’ specific contributions can be assessed and fully realized as there will be full acceptance of the organization’s target unlikely to be achieved through a set of rules and regulations as used in the compliance system. A compliance system focuses on trends in market prices while commitment HR system will focus on sustaining a communal sharing which will enhance team work and yield better results for the organization and therefore commitment HR system is the better

Topic of your choice but i have a request can you send your topic Essay

Topic of your choice but i have a request can you send your topic choice by thursday a.m. I have to turn in topic thursday in c - Essay Example Excited and enthusiastic would describe my mood at the time of assessment. My first task was to test my endurance and meant that I had to run two kilometers in twenty-five minutes. Me run! My enthusiasm for fitness instantly decreased by 30% upon visualizing myself running around the block in the midday sun, dying for water and collapsing less than half way around. Nevertheless, once I realized I would be running on a treadmill I decided to give it a go. I felt quite pleased with myself to start and thought that the task would not be so difficult after all. After ten minutes however, I was not going as fast as I needed to finish the length in the allotted time, so the speed was increased. That was the end for me. I had to stop. I felt my heart was in my mouth and if I took one more step I would send it into oblivion. Strength was the next assessment area, and after composing myself from the endurance catastrophe I keenly ventured into my next venture, for after all I considered mysel f to be quite strong and able to lift a few weights. My enthusiasm instantly nose-dived by a further 50% on finding that I was not lifting weights but doing push-ups and sit-ups.

Grapes of Wrath Essay Example for Free

Grapes of Wrath Essay In Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote about the Joads and their forced migration from Oklahoma to California. They were forced to leave their simple farming life because of the Great Depression. Through the struggles of the members and friends of the Joads, Steinbeck was able to portray an undesirable, yet accurate picture of America in the early twentieth century. Thus, this story is considered as one of the most powerful social novels in human history. But, Steinbeck did not just describe the country where he lived. In the later part of the novel, Steinbeck crafted a political message that is intended to change the present and unacceptable state of America. In Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin wrote a series of essays about the experiences, thoughts, and struggles of an African-American deep in the heart of Europe. The collection of essays appears to be a rite of passage for Baldwin who did not want to be labeled as a Negro writer, but simply an American writer. But, through the series of essays, Baldwin wove together his own political message, which wanted to radically shift the point of view of society about what America is all about. In both pieces of literature, it can be found that the written works of art are not just mere expressions of the authors’ creativity. This is because a simple creative expression is wandering and aimless. The written art is similar to a powerful sword that can be wielded to effect political and social changes, but this figurative sword obeys the authors’ personal views that are derived from their personal experiences. Despite the personal basis of the authors’ opinions, the political nature of the written art is needed in societies that are thrown in the midst of division and conflict because the political nature of written art serves as a guiding beacon of light, both for the ordinary citizens and for the political leaders. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath has many interpretations that originate from varying perspectives, such as religious, economic, social, political, and personal. The same could be said of Baldwin’s Nobody Knows My Name. Different and numerous interpretations of literary works are acceptable because that is the nature of all literary works and the authors could not be confronted and asked to choose which interpretation is the most accurate. It is probable that Steinbeck purposely wove a novel that is a mosaic of several messages. And it is also probable that Baldwin delved into different issues and each essay in the said collection might be about more than one perspective. But, in comparing the novel and the essay collection, the two perspectives that will be analyzed are the similar personal and the political beliefs of the authors about the American society. Both Steinbeck and Baldwin see a divided American society. In Steinbeck’s novel, the division is between the rich and the poor. This division is felt sharply in the Great Depression when the rich and powerful preyed on the desperation of the poor people. The reputed rich grape vineyards in California became attractive to the Joads and other poor people who are suffering the pangs of hunger due to the poor harvest. The house was dead, and the fields were dead† (Steinbeck, 135). The family chose to uproot themselves and went to California. But, the vineyards did not deliver the promise of providing enough food security for the people. Instead, the Joads toiled hard, day and night, but remained poor, oppressed, and discriminated. In Baldwin’s essay, the division is between the Blacks and the White. The Civil War has ended but the discrimination against the Black Americans remained. Many Americans gave lip service to the concept of equality and assimilation, but it is far more difficult to remove the generations-old dogma of Blacks being an inferior race. Hoping to achieve the desired state of equality, the Blacks fought by excelling in the fields of sports, music, and literature. But this was not enough. Instead, the Blacks continued to endure discrimination. The nature of the division that was described by Steinbeck may not be exactly the same as the division described by Baldwin. But the division and the conflict are strongly felt. And because of the presence of the conflict, America is not united. Unfortunately, there are more conflicts that exist other than the conflict between people of different races and people who come from different socio-economic status. There are conflicts based on gender, education, and sexual orientation. â€Å"The tensions of American life, as well as the possibilities, are tremendous† (Baldwin, 11). But what could be the long-term implications of having a divided country? Both Steinbeck and Baldwin predicted that the present divisions in America would lead to overwhelming wrath that might destroy society. In Steinbeck’s novel, the poor finds that many of their opportunities are kept away from them or wasted away by the rich and powerful. â€Å"The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back †¦ in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath† (Steinbeck, 477). It is suggested that the travels of Steinbeck revealed to him the desolate state of his country and the increasing resentment of the poor. In Baldwin’s essay Fifth Avenue, Uptown: a Letter from Harlem, he described the rotting and festering social situation of Harlem, the corner of the world where he grew up. Baldwin drew upon his experiences and observations when he was still living in Harlem to create this essay that depicts the oppression that the Whites wielded through the police. The policemen â€Å"represent the force of the white world the black man corralled up here, in his place† (Baldwin, 57). The Blacks have began to realize that they were being discriminated and that the basic right to human dignity was been taken away from them through the selfish and callous way that the Whites treated them in the past decades. But, instead of being apologetic, the Whites, being the majority, demanded assimilation. It would be inevitable that the Blacks would feel resentment. And with resentment, there would be a burgeoning anger. Steinbeck and Baldwin are personally aware of the negative effects of the existing conflicts in their societies. They knew that anger would be fermented. There is a limit to the patience of the people who are being oppressed. What then should Americans do with the existing conflicts in their country? Both Steinbeck and Baldwin personally believed that there must be a radical political change in the country, but for any radical change to happen, there should also be a radical change within each individual American. In Steinbeck’s novel, there were many characters that underwent changes throughout the story. However, the character that underwent the most radical change was Rose of Sharon, who, after suffering from the loss of her own child, has agreed to nurse an old man. â€Å"Then she lay down beside him. He shook his head slowly from side to side. Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast† (Steinbeck, 619). This last scene in Steinbeck’s novel often elicits a violent reaction from readers. But, upon reflection, it was the most humane act of all. The violent reaction occurred simply because many readers are trapped within the bounds of society’s conventions. Without these conventions, the readers will be rid of preconceptions that prevent them from reaching out to other people. Without preconceptions, the division between the poor and the rich would eventually disappear. In Baldwin’s essays, the personal change that he wanted to obtain is to prevent the self from following the tides of anger that will sweep and destroy the country. Thus, instead of wearing the easy cloak called Negro writer, he chose to create a new one, the American writer. He found that the American writers of his time lack the sense of purpose that a literary artist should have. This is because the American writer, similar to the many readers of Steinbeck, is trapped by conventions of society. Baldwin believes that unless the American writer â€Å"is released from the habit of flexing his muscles and proving that he is just a regular guy that he realizes how crippling this habit has been† (Baldwin, 6). If all Americans will remove the concept of race from their minds, they will find that there is no Negro problem after all. The concept of effecting an individual change prior to achieving a wider social change evolved primarily from the personal experiences of the authors and from their observations. These were distilled to create the plot of the novel and the subject of the essays. As influential authors, were Steinbeck and Baldwin ethically appropriate in creating literary works that came from their personal experiences and personal political beliefs? The answer is an affirmative. The literary artist must take his own personal history, distill truth from his experiences, and use his insights responsibly by sending a political and social message to the rest of the world.

Glucosamine/Chondroitin Essay -- essays research papers

Do you know what the dietary supplement glucosamine/chondroitin is, does or can do? Do you know what the side effects are or if there are any? Do you know how it’s made or what it’s derived from? I didn’t think so, so that’s what I am here to tell you. I was playing lacrosse one day when I made a sudden move and that’s when it all went down hill. I tore the cartilage in my knee, the meniscus - a piece of cartilage that acts as a cushion - to be exact. A few days later I was talking to my Aunt Marie, a podiatrist, when she mentioned the dietary supplement glucosamine/contortion. First, let’s brake it down. What is glucosamine? Glucosamine is an amino sugar that is produced naturally in our bodies. Glucosamine can also be found in the shells of shellfish. Glucosamine is necessary for the construction of connective tissue and healthy cartilage. It is the building block of proteoglycans, which are large protein molecules that act like a sponge to hold water thereby giving connective tissue elasticity and cushioning effects. It also provides a buffering action to help protect against impacts that could cause damage to the surrounding area. Glucosamine helps to form tendons, ligaments, skin, nails, bones, mucous membranes, and other body tissue. Many studies have been put together to determine whether it effectively supplements our bodies’ glucosamine needs. Studies have shown that it can replace what the body can not produce. For example in one study, oral glucosamine stimulate...

Blakes View of the Church, Government, and God :: William Blake Poetry Poems Essays

Blake's View of the Church, Government, and God William Blake 1757-1827 was born is Soho, London. He lived in London throughout most of his life and during his life witnessed many things that affected him. While walking through London Blake had a long time to think. He acknowledged that England was a very rich and powerful country and then wondered why poverty was still in existence. Blake did not go to school but he was taught at home using references from the Holy Bible. Blake was highly critical of the church the government and God because he thought that they could do more to end poverty; he was also critical of the injustices that were exposed upon society. He was a very religious man; he had a great deal of influence from the Holy Bible. He believed that the soul was split up into two halves, good and bad. He created four visions from which he saw the world. After witnessing the poverty and inequalities that were in London Blake translated them into highly meaningful and significant poetry. He also displayed his thoughts as forms of art; Blake was a keen artist and worked as an engraver in Westminster Abbey. Blake did not enjoy seeing poverty but what he hated seeing the most were children or babies having to face the harsh realities. He believed them to be signs of innocence and was disgusted when they were exploited. â€Å"I have no name†¦ Joy is my name†¦ Sweet joy befall thee.† These are lines taken from Blake’s poem Infant Joy; they clearly display Blake’s love of children. The poem is showing a new born baby who is happy and full of life. The first sentence where the baby has no name could mean that the baby could not be placed into any category of visions. At present the baby is in two fold visions which is where it could move into three fold vision and live a good life with education and happiness. Alternatively the baby could move into single vision which is a harsh life where the baby would be repressed. The baby then calls itself joy so that it can be happy and live a joyful life. The last line shows that the mother is wishing the baby a life full of joy. This poem, Infant Joy, has been taken from a collection of poems called ‘Songs of Innocence. ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience’ are two collections of poems that were written by Blake. They are Blake’s most famous poem collections and they only found popularity after his death. Blake uses examples of contrast in his work, from his vision we can

Fun, Family and Flashbacks Essay

The beauty of photographs is that they can frame one single split-second moment of your life to help you remember good times. The rest of the story on how you got to the picture or what happened after becomes history and remains a flitting memory that may or may not be triggered to resurface once the photograph is again seen. One such precious instant happened when I was eight years old†¦ an age where I used to find so much delight in simple things such as a photography session with my brothers. My eyes in the picture are sparkling with laughter at all the trouble my mom had to go through for this snapshot. It was nearly father’s day and my mom thought a great secret gift would be a professionally shot picture of all three of us children. As soon as lunch was over, she quickly packed all of us up and we went to this posh photo studio. While waiting for our turn, she excitedly dressed us all up in such fine and neatly pressed clothes (as if the wrinkles would be noticeable on film). My hair was combed probably more than one hundred times over just to make sure no single strand would go astray out of her plan. As we were passing the time till our photo opportunity, mom would keep our energy up by making us practice different kinds of poses and smiles. A few more minutes passed and my mom was already getting impatient with all the excitement. Alas! The photographer came up to my mom just to tell her that there seemed to be something wrong with the camera and that he could not take our pictures at that moment. Horrified and panicky due to the unexpected long time of having to wait for a useless chance to get some shots professionally done, my mom swiftly packed all of us up at once and went home. We wanted to laugh at mom’s dismay over the problems of this great idea of hers but we knew better than to irk her even more. As soon as we got home, she quickly brushed us up and with quick thinking, got our own camera to make her own snapshots instead. It was not hard for us to smile as we knew the pains she was going through just to keep her hand still on the camera button. We all knew that our father was about to arrive in just a few minutes and her panic was with cause. After some quick clicks, she quickly made us dress up into our play clothes again and had us do some wrestling matches just to erase the more than 100 times brushed up look she gave our hair. This was one of the most enjoyable memories of my life yet the camera was only able to show three children with smiles on their faces†¦everything else precious was left for us to relive in our own imaginations.

Boston Consulting SWOT Analysis Essay

Boston Consulting Group has clearly defined that their biggest asset is their people. The group offers an extensive training and summer internship program to prepare the interested, highly experience and motivated future consultant of Boston Consulting. The group offers services in 43 countries and their experienced and trained pool of consultants come from a diversity of experiences and culture. Boston consulting also assures their clients that a collaborative work team is the one priority. Strategic Planning Boston Consulting Group believes in strategic planning as a whole, meaning with their client involved. The group strives on strategic planning and is their biggest driven agenda with entering a new client. The group does not operate on policies of templates and redundant reorganizing of the company. They welcome ideas and creative suggestions for an effective strategic planning. Every client is different in culture and operations. In every client the group searches for new ideas and works with the collaborative approach to its client for strategic success. The group believes that working day to day and side by side with the client allows a higher output of productivity and achieving company goals. This approach also gives us the consulting group a greater experience of their industry and allows for venturing in other market growths for the client and fosters other learning experiences for our consultants. The firm creates a five-year plan for its clients and assists in every step to implement the plan through operational planning. Stakeholders As presented in the SWOT analysis one of our external stakeholders include outside businesses and the general business population. The group also provides pro bono work for many non-profit agencies and provides consulting advice such as in the high technology area and also advice to implementation assistance. The firm also specializes in the turn around approach that  implements the operational and strategic planning. This will allow for a quicker response for companies that need immediate assistance and assist with company growing pains. Once the strategic plans are identified and agreed upon an operational plan is put in place to roll out and go live on implementing the plan for company successes, quick results, and goals completed. Company and clients successes greatly impact the internal stakeholders as well. Other ideas and experiences are obtained throughout the reorganization of a company or even its restructure. All parties involved leave the completion with gained knowledg e and a sense of satisfaction once an operational plan is completed. Conclusion Once voids in a company has been identified and focused on it allow for the firm to recommend other ideas for the company for continued future success and even other joint ventures if any. In conclusion, Boston consulting group was #8 on the Fortune 100 list of best companies to work for and # 3 in 2014. Employees have identified the company’s culture as busy, flexible and ever changing. A place for new and extensive ever-moving assignments all over the world. The company has worked in China and focused on the studies in operations and strategy, to overcome challenges in the China operations. Benchmarks and global strategies were discussed in this study. It is the second of four in a series of special reports on China by The Boston Consulting Group and Knowledge@Wharton. Listed below is an image of their SWOT analysis. Part of the weaknesses of the SWOT analysis is the tough competitors, which in Boston consulting groups case is McKinsey and Bain. Strengths Weaknesses BCG focuses on assisting companies with and efficient and effective business strategy and planning BCG has been unsuccessful to international markets  1st company to be awarded as the â€Å"Best place to work for† Tough competition from other consulting groups means market share is limited Employees have a diverse experience for the robust skill set for the job Opportunities Threats Getting into international business and evolving new concept there rather than sticking only strategy Stiff competition from existing consulting industry players Their green initiatives can create a new opportunity of consultation for them Companies are not setting up their own knowledge and training centers in house. Also larger companies are setting up their own training and knowledge center in house to avoid high consulting fees. However the training and experience will never compare to the actual employees that have years of hands on past experiences or and extensive education background. Boston consulting group continues to strive for the best and grow in more countries and work with a larger diversity in its near future. As #3 in the list of Fortune 500 companies for 2014, BCG will continue to excel in all areas of corporate America and its ever-changing business industry and current challenges. The company and its leaders also provide many business publications for their clients and the general public. Clients and employees alike have found great relationships, learning experiences and continued healthy relationships with Boston consulting group. Reference http://www.bcg.com/about_bcg/default.aspx. (2014). Boston Consulting Group. Retrieved from http://www.bcg.com/about_bcg/default.aspx The Boston Consulting Group SWOT Analysis, (2014). Boston Consulting Group SWOT Analysis, 1-7

Against and for Capital Punishment

SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? ACTS, OMISSIONS, AND LIFELIFE TRADEOFFS Cass R. Sunstein* and Adrian Vermeule** Many people believe that the death penalty should be abolished even if, as recent evidence seems to suggest, it has a significant deterrent effect. But if such an effect can be established, capital punishment requires a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment.The familiar problems with capital punishment— potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew—do not require abolition because the realm of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a sharp distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context because government is a special kind of moral agent.The widespr ead failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs potentially involved in capital punishment may depend in part on cognitive processes that fail to treat â€Å"statistical lives† with the seriousness that they deserve. The objection to the act/omission distinction, as applied to government, has implications for many questions in civil and criminal law. INTRODUCTION†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 704 I. EVIDENCE †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 10 II. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: MORAL FOUNDATIONS AND FOUR OBJECTIONS †¦ 716 A. Morality and Death†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢ € ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 717 B. Acts and Omissions †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 719 1. Is the act/omission distinction coherent with respect to government?†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 720 * Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, the University of Chicago Law School, Department of PoliticalScience, and the College. ** Bernard D. Meltzer Professor of Law, the University of Chicago. The authors thank Larry Alexander, Ron Allen, Richard Berk, Steven Calabresi, Jeffrey Fagan, Robert Hahn, Dan Kahan, Andy Koppelman, Richard Lempert, Steven Levitt, James Liebman, Daniel Markel, Frank Michelman, Tom Miles, Eric Posner, Richard Posner, Joanna Shepherd, William Stuntz, James Sullivan, and Eugene Volokh for helpful suggestions, and Blake Roberts for excellent research assistance and valuable comments.Thanks too to participants in a work-in-progress lunch at the University of Chicago Law School and a constitutional theory workshop at Northwestern University Law School. 703 SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 704 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 2. Is the act/omission distinction morally relevant to capital punishment? †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 724 C. The Arbitrary and Discriminatory Realm of Homicide†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 728 D. Preferable Alternatives and the Principle of Strict Scrutiny†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 32 E. Slipper y Slopes †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 734 F. Deontology and Consequentialism Again†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 737 III. COGNITION AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 740 A. Salience †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 741 B. Acts, Omissions, and Brains†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 741 C. A Famous Argument that Might Be Taken as a Counterargument †¦.. 743 IV.IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE PROBLEMS †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 744 A. Threshold Effects (? ) and Regional Variation †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 745 B. International Variation †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 745 C. Offenders and Offenses †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 746 D. Life-Life Tradeoffs and Beyond†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 747 CONCLUSION †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 48 INTRODUCTION Many people believe that capital punishment is morally impermissible. In their view, executions are inherently cruel and barbaric. 1 Often they add that capital punishment is not, and cannot be, imposed in a way that adheres to the rule of law. 2 They contend that, as administered, capital punishment ensures the execution of (some) innocent people and also that it reflects arbitrariness, in the form of random or invidious infliction of the ultimate penalty. 3 Defenders of capital punishment can be separated into two different camps.Some are retributivists. 4 Following Immanuel Kant,5 they claim that for the most heinous forms of wrongdoing, the penalty of death is morally justified or perhaps even required. Other defenders of capital punishment are consequentialists and often also welfarists. 6 They contend that the deterrent 1. See, e. g. , Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 309, 371 (1972) (Marshall, J. , concurring). 2. See Stephen B. Bright, Why the United States Will Join the Rest of the World in Abandoning Capital Punishment, in DEBATING THE DEATH PENALTY: SHOULD AMERICA HAVE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT? 52 (Hugo Adam Bedau & Paul G. Cassell eds. , 2004) [hereinafter DEBATING THE DEATH PENALTY]. 3. See, e. g. , James S. Liebman et al. , A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995 (Columbia Law Sch. , Pub. Law Research Paper No. 15, 2000) (on file with authors). 4. See, e. g. , Luis P. Pojman, Why the Death Penalty Is Morally Permissible, in DEBATING THE DEATH PENALTY, supra note 2, at 51, 55-58. 5. See IMMANUEL KANT, THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAW: AN EXPOSITION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF JURISPRUDENCE AS THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT 198 (W.Hastrie trans. , 1887) (1797). 6. Arguments along these lines can be found in Pojman, supra note 4, at 58-73. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 705 effect of capital punishment is significant and that it justifies the infliction of the ultimate penalty. Consequentialist defenses of capital punishment, however, tend to assume that capital punishment is (merely) morally permissible, as opposed to being morally obligatory.Our goal here is to suggest that the debate over capital punishment is rooted in an unquestioned assumption and that the failure to question that assumption is a serious moral error. The assumption is that for governments, acts are morally different from omissions. We want to raise the possibility that an indefensible form of the act/omission distinction is crucial to some of the most prominent objections to capital punishment—and that defenders of capital punishment, apparently making the same distinction, have failed to notice that according to the logic of their theory, capital punishment is morally obligatory, not just permissible.We suggest, in other words, tha t on certain empirical assumptions, capital punishment may be morally required, not for retributive reasons, but rather to prevent the taking of innocent lives. 7 The suggestion bears not only on moral and political debates, but also on constitutional questions. In invalidating the death penalty for juveniles, for example, the Supreme Court did not seriously engage the possibility that capital punishment for juveniles may help to prevent the death of innocents, including juvenile innocents. And if our suggestion is correct, it relates to many questions outside of the context of capital punishment. If omissions by the state are often indistinguishable, in principle, from actions by the state, then a wide range of apparent failures to act—in the context not only of criminal and civil law, but of regulatory law as well—should be taken to raise serious moral and legal problems. Those who accept our arguments in favor of the death penalty may or may not welcome the implicat ions for government action in general.In many situations, ranging from environmental quality to appropriations to highway safety to relief of poverty, our arguments suggest that in light of 7. In so saying, we are suggesting the possibility that states are obliged to maintain the death penalty option, not that they must inflict that penalty in every individual case of a specified sort; hence we are not attempting to enter into the debate over mandatory death sentences, as invalidated in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978), and Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976). For relevant discussion, see Martha C.Nussbaum, Equity and Mercy, 22 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 83 (1993). 8. Roper v. Simmons, 125 S. Ct. 1183 (2005). Here is the heart of the Court’s discussion: As for deterrence, it is unclear whether the death penalty has a significant or even measurable deterrent effect on juveniles, as counsel for the petitioner acknowledged at oral argument. . . . [T]he absence of evidenc e of deterrent effect is of special concern because the same characteristics that render juveniles less culpable than adults suggest as well that juveniles will be less susceptible to deterrence. . . To the extent the juvenile death penalty might have residual deterrent effect, it is worth noting that the punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is itself a severe sanction, in particular for a young person. Id. at 1196. These are speculations at best, and they do not engage with the empirical literature; of course, that literature does not dispose of the question whether juveniles are deterred by the death penalty. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 06 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 imaginable empirical findings, government is obliged to provide far more protection than it now does, and it should not be permitted to hide behind unhelpful distinctions between acts and omissions. The foundation for our argument is a significant bod y of recent evidence that capital punishment may well have a deterrent effect, possibly a quite powerful one. 9 A leading national study suggests that each execution prevents some eighteen murders, on average. 0 If the current evidence is even roughly correct—a question to which we shall return—then a refusal to impose capital punishment will effectively condemn numerous innocent people to death. States that choose life imprisonment, when they might choose capital punishment, are ensuring the deaths of a large number of innocent people. 11 On moral grounds, a choice that effectively condemns large numbers of people to death seems objectionable to say the least.For those who are inclined to be skeptical of capital punishment for moral reasons—a group that includes one of the current authors—the task is to consider the possibility that the failure to impose capital punishment is, prima facie and all things considered, a serious moral wrong. Judgments of thi s sort are often taken to require a controversial commitment to a consequentialist view about the foundations of moral evaluation. One of our principal points, however, is that the choice between consequentialist and deontological approaches to morality is not crucial here.We suggest that, on certain empirical assumptions, theorists of both stripes might converge on the idea that capital punishment is morally obligatory. On 9. See, e. g. , Hashem Dezhbakhsh et al. , Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data, 5 AM. L. & ECON. REV. 344 (2003); H. Naci Mocan & R. Kaj Gittings, Getting Off Death Row: Commuted Sentences and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment, 46 J. L. & ECON. 453, 453 (2003); Joanna M. Shepherd, Deterrence Versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment’s Differing Impacts Among States, 104 MICH. L. REV. 03 (2005) [hereinafter Shepherd, Deterrence Versus Brutalization]; Joanna M. Shepherd, Murders of Passion, Exe cution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment, 33 J. LEGAL STUD. 283, 308 (2004) [hereinafter Shepherd, Murders of Passion]; Paul R. Zimmerman, Estimates of the Deterrent Effect of Alternative Execution Methods in the United States, 65 AM. J. ECON. & SOC. (forthcoming 2006) [hereinafter Zimmerman, Alternative Execution Methods], available at http://papers. ssrn. com/sol3/papers. cfm? abstract_id=355783; Paul R. Zimmerman, State Executions, Deterrence, and the Incidence of Murder, 7 J. APPLIED ECON. 63, 163 (2004) [hereinafter Zimmerman, State Executions]. 10. See Dezhbakhsh et al. , supra note 9, at 344. In what follows, we will speak of each execution saving eighteen lives in the United States, on average. We are, of course, suppressing many issues in that formulation, simply for expository convenience. For one thing, that statistic is a national average, as we emphasize in Part IV. For another thing, future research might find that capital punishment has diminishing retu rns: even if the first 100 executions deter 1800 murders, it does not follow that another 1000 executions will deter another 18,000 murders.We will take these and like qualifications as understood in the discussion that follows. 11. In recent years, the number of murders in the United States has fluctuated between 15,000 and 24,000. FED. BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES tbl. 1 (2003), available at http://www. fbi. gov/ucr/03cius. htm. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 707 consequentialist grounds, the death penalty seems morally obligatory if it is the only or most effective means of preventing significant numbers of murders; much of our discussion will explore this point.For this reason, consequentialists should have little difficulty with our arguments. For deontologists, a killing is a wrong under most circumstances, and its wrongness does not depend on its consequences or its ef fects on overall welfare. Many deontologists (of course not all) believe that capital punishment counts as a moral wrong. But in the abstract, any deontological injunction against the wrongful infliction of death turns out to be indeterminate on the moral status of capital punishment if the death is necessary to prevent significant numbers of killings.The unstated assumption animating much opposition to capital punishment among intuitive deontologists is that capital punishment counts as an â€Å"action† by the state, while the refusal to impose it counts as an â€Å"omission,† and that the two are altogether different from the moral point of view. A related way to put this point is to suggest that capital punishment counts as a â€Å"killing,† while the failure to impose capital punishment counts as no such thing and hence is far less problematic on moral grounds. We shall investigate these claims in some detail.But we doubt that the distinction between state a ctions and state omissions can bear the moral weight given to it by the critics of capital punishment. Whatever its value as a moral concept where individuals are concerned, the act/omission distinction misfires in the general setting of government regulation. If government policies fail to protect people against air pollution, occupational risks, terrorism, or racial discrimination, it is inadequate to put great moral weight on the idea that the failure to act is a mere â€Å"omission. No one believes that government can avoid responsibility to protect people against serious dangers—for example, by refusing to enforce regulatory statutes—simply by contending that such refusals are unproblematic omissions. 12 If state governments impose light penalties on offenders or treat certain offenses (say, domestic violence) as unworthy of attention, they should not be able to escape public retribution by contending that they are simply refusing to act.Where government is conce rned, failures of protection, through refusals to punish and deter private misconduct, cannot be justified by pointing to the distinction between acts and omissions. It has even become common to speak of â€Å"risk-risk tradeoffs,† understood to arise when regulation of one risk (say, a risk associated with the use of DDT) gives rise to another risk (say, the spread of malaria, against which DDT has been effective). 13 Or suppose that an air pollutant creates adverse health effects 12.Indeed, agency inaction is frequently subject to judicial review. See Ashutosh Bhagwat, Three-Branch Monte, 72 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 157 (1996). 13. See generally RISK VERSUS RISK: TRADEOFFS IN PROTECTING HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT (John D. Graham & Jonathan Baert Wiener eds. , 1995) (considering â€Å"risk-risk tradeoffs† on topics such as DDT, the use of estrogen for menopause, and clozapine theory SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 708 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 ut also has health benefits, as appears to be the case for ground-level ozone. 14 It is implausible to say that, for moral reasons, social planners should refuse to take account of such tradeoffs; there is general agreement that whether a particular substance ought to be regulated depends on the overall effect of regulation on human well-being. As an empirical matter, criminal law is pervaded by its own risk-risk tradeoffs. When the deterrent signal works, a failure to impose stringent penalties on certain crimes will increase the number of those crimes.A refusal to impose such penalties is, for that reason, problematic from the moral point of view. It should not be possible for an official—a governor, for example—to attempt to escape political retribution for failing to prevent domestic violence or environmental degradation by claiming that he is simply â€Å"failing to act. † The very idea of â€Å"equal protection of the laws,† in its oldest and most literal sense, attests to the importance of enforcing the criminal and civil law so as to safeguard the potential victims of private violence. 5 What we are suggesting is that to the extent that capital punishment saves more lives than it extinguishes, the death penalty produces a risk-risk tradeoff of its own—indeed, what we will call a life-life tradeoff. Of course, the presence of a life-life tradeoff does not resolve the capital punishment debate. By itself, the act of execution may be a wrong, in a way that cannot be said of an act of imposing civil or criminal penalties for, say, environmental degradation.But the existence of life-life tradeoffs raises the possibility that for those who oppose killing, a rejection of capital punishment is not necessarily mandated. On the contrary, it may well be morally compelled. At the very least, those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that th e failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life—and must, in our view, justify their position in ways that do not rely on question-begging claims about the distinction between state actions and state omissions, or between killing and letting die.We begin, in Part I, with the facts. Raising doubts about widely held beliefs based on older studies or partial information, recent studies suggest that capital punishment may well save lives. One leading study finds that as a national average, each execution deters some eighteen murders. Our question whether capital punishment is morally obligatory is motivated by these findings; our central concern is that foregoing any given execution may be equivalent to condemning some unidentified people to a premature and violent death.Of course, social science can always be disputed in this contentious domain, and spirited attacks have been made on the recent studies;16 hence, we mean to for schizophrenia). 14. See Am. Trucki ng Ass’ns, Inc. v. EPA, 175 F. 3d 1027, 1051-53 (D. C. Cir. 1999). 15. See RANDALL KENNEDY, RACE, CRIME, AND THE LAW (1997). 16. See Richard Berk, New Claims About Executions and General Deterrence: Deja SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 709 outline, rather than to defend, the relevant evidence here.But we think that to make progress on the moral issues, it is productive and even necessary to take those findings as given and consider their significance. Those who would like to abolish capital punishment, and who find the social science unconvincing, might find it useful to ask whether they would maintain their commitment to abolition if they were firmly persuaded that capital punishment does have a strong deterrent effect. We ask such people to suspend their empirical doubts in order to investigate the moral issues that we mean to raise here.In Part II, the centerpiece of the Article, we offer a few remarks on moral foundations and examine some standard objections to capital punishment that might seem plausible even in light of the current findings. We focus in particular on the view that capital punishment is objectionable because it requires affirmative and intentional state â€Å"action,† not merely an â€Å"omission. † The act/omission distinction, we suggest, systematically misfires when applied to government, which is a moral agent with distinctive features.The act/omission distinction may not even be intelligible in the context of government, which always faces a choice among policy regimes, and in that sense cannot help but â€Å"act. † Even if the distinction between acts and omissions can be rendered intelligible in regulatory settings, its moral relevance is obscure. Some acts are morally obligatory, while some omissions are morally culpable. If capital punishment has significant deterrent effects, we suggest that for government to omit to impose it is morally blameworthy, even on a deontological account of morality.Deontological accounts typically recognize a consequentialist override to baseline prohibitions. If each execution saves an average of eighteen lives, then it is plausible to think that the override is triggered, in turn triggering an obligation to adopt capital punishment. Once the act/omission distinction is rejected where government is concerned, it becomes clear that the most familiar, and plausible, objections to capital punishment deal with only one side of the ledger: the objections fail to take account of the exceedingly arbitrary deaths that capital punishment may deter.The realm of homicide, as we shall call it, is replete with its own arbitrariness. We consider rule-of-law concerns about the irreversibility of capital punishment and its possibly random or invidious administration, a strict scrutiny principle that capital punishment should not be permitted if other means for producing the same le vel of deterrence are available, and concerns about slippery slopes. We suggest that while some of these complaints have Vu All over Again? , 2 J. EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUD. 03 (2005); see also Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A Critical Review of New Evidence: Hearings on the Future of Capital Punishment in the State of New York Before the New York State Assemb. Standing Comm. on Codes, Assemb. Standing Comm. on Judiciary, and Assemb. Standing Comm. on Correction, 2005 Leg. , 228th Sess. 1-12 (N. Y. 2005) (statement of Jeffrey Fagan, Professor of Law and Pub. Health, Columbia Univ. ), available at www. deathpenaltyinfo. org/FaganTestimony. pdf [hereinafter Deterrence and the Death Penalty].For a response to Fagan’s testimony, see generally Shepherd, Deterrence Versus Brutalization, supra note 9. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 710 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 merit, they do not count as decisive objections to capital punishment, because they emb ody a flawed version of the act/omission distinction and generally overlook the fact that the moral objections to capital punishment apply even more strongly to the murders that capital punishment apparently deters.In Part III, we conjecture that various cognitive and social mechanisms, lacking any claim to moral relevance, may cause many individuals and groups to subscribe to untenable versions of the distinction between acts and omissions or to discount the lifesaving potential of capital punishment while exaggerating the harms that it causes. An important concern here is a sort of misplaced concreteness, stemming from heuristics such as salience and availability. The single person executed is often more visible nd more salient in public discourse than any abstract statistical persons whose murders might be deterred by a single execution. If those people, and their names and faces, were highly visible, we suspect that many of the objections to capital punishment would at least be shaken. As environmentalists have often argued, â€Å"statistical persons† should not be treated as irrelevant abstractions. 17 The point holds for criminal justice no less than for pollution controls. Part IV expands upon the implications of our view and examines some unresolved puzzles.Here we emphasize that we hold no brief for capital punishment across all contexts or in the abstract. The crucial question is what the facts show in particular domains. We mean to include here a plea not only for continuing assessment of the disputed evidence, but also for a disaggregated approach. Future research and resulting policies would do well to take separate account of various regions and of various classes of offenders and offenses. We also emphasize that our argument is limited to the setting of life-life tradeoffs— in which the taking of a life by the state will reduce the number of lives taken overall.We express no view about cases in which that condition does not holdâ⠂¬â€for example, the possibility of capital punishment for serious offenses other than killing, with rape being the principal historical example, and with rape of children being a currently contested problem. Such cases involve distinctively difficult moral problems that we mean to bracket here. A brief conclusion follows. I. EVIDENCE For many years, the deterrent effect of capital punishment was sharply disputed. 18 In the 1970s, Isaac Ehrlich conducted the first multivariate 17. Lisa Heinzerling, The Rights of Statistical People, 24 HARV.ENVTL. L. REV. 189, 189 (2000). 18. Compare, e. g. , Isaac Ehrlich, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death, 65 AM. ECON. REV. 397, 398 (1975) (estimating each execution deters eight murders), with William J. Bowers & Glenn L. Pierce, The Illusion of Deterrence in Isaac Ehrlich’s Research on Capital Punishment, 85 YALE L. J. 187, 187 (1975) (finding Ehrlich’s data and methods unreliable). A good over view is Robert Weisberg, The Death SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 711 egression analyses of the death penalty, based on time-series data from 1933 to 1967, and concluded that each execution deterred as many as eight murders. 19 But subsequent studies raised many questions about Ehrlich’s conclusions—by showing, for example, that the deterrent effects of the death penalty would be eliminated if data from 1965 through 1969 were eliminated. 20 It would be fair to say that the deterrence hypothesis could not be confirmed by the studies that have been completed in the twenty years after Ehrlich first wrote. 21 More recent evidence, however, has given new life to Ehrlich’s hypothesis. 2 A wave of sophisticated multiple regression studies have exploited a newly available form of data, so-called â€Å"panel data,† that uses all information from a set of units (states or counties ) and follows that data over an extended period of time. A leading study used county-level panel data from 3054 U. S. counties between 1977 and 1996. 23 The authors found that the murder rate is significantly reduced by both death sentences and executions. The most striking finding was that on average, each execution results in eighteen fewer murders. 24 Other econometric studies also find a substantial deterrent effect.In two papers, Paul Zimmerman uses state-level panel data from 1978 onwards to measure the deterrent effect of execution rates and execution methods. He estimates that each execution deters an average of fourteen murders. 25 Using state-level data from 1977 to 1997, H. Naci Mocan and R. Kaj Gittings find that each execution deters five murders on average. 26 They also find that increases in the murder rate result when people are removed from death row Penalty Meets Social Science: Deterrence and Jury Behavior Under New Scrutiny, 1 ANN. REV. L. & SOC. SCI. 151 (2005). 19.See Ehrlich, supra note 18, at 398; Isaac Ehrlich, Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Additional Evidence, 85 J. POL. ECON. 741 (1977). 20. For this point and an overview of many other criticisms of Ehrlich’s conclusions, see Richard O. Lempert, Desert and Deterrence: An Assessment of the Moral Bases of the Case for Capital Punishment, 79 MICH. L. REV. 1177 (1981). 21. See id. ; Weisberg, supra note 18, at 155-57. 22. Even as this evidence was being developed, one of us predicted, perhaps rashly, that the debate would remain inconclusive for the foreseeable future. See Adrian Vermeule, Interpretive Choice, 75 N.Y. U. L. REV. 74, 100-01 (2000). 23. See Dezhbakhsh et al. , supra note 9, at 359. 24. Id. at 373. 25. Zimmerman, Alternative Execution Methods, supra note 9; Zimmerman, State Executions, supra note 9, at 190. 26. Mocan & Gittings, supra note 9, at 453. Notably, no clear evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment emerges from L awrence Katz et al. , Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence, 5 AM. L. & ECON. REV. 318, 330 (2003), which finds that the estimate of deterrence is extremely sensitive to the choice of specification, with the largest estimate paralleling that in Ehrlich, supra note 18.Note, however, that the principal finding in Katz et al. , supra, is that prison deaths do have a strong deterrent effect and a stunningly large one—with each prison death producing a reduction of â€Å"30-100 violent crimes and a similar number of property crimes. † Id. at 340. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 712 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 and when death sentences are commuted. 27 A study by Joanna Shepherd, based on data from all states from 1997 to 1999, finds that each death sentence deters 4. 5 murders and that an execution deters 3 additional murders. 8 Her study also investigates the contested question whether executions deter crimes of passion and murders by intimates. Although intuition might suggest that such crimes cannot be deterred, her own finding is clear: all categories of murder are deterred by capital punishment. 29 The deterrent effect of the death penalty is also found to be a function of the length of waits on death row, with a murder deterred for every 2. 75 years of reduction in the period before execution. 30 Importantly, this study finds that the deterrent effect of capital punishment protects African-American victims even more than whites. 1 In the period between 1972 and 1976, the Supreme Court produced an effective moratorium on capital punishment, and an extensive unpublished study exploits that fact to estimate the deterrent effect. Using state-level data from 1977 to 1999, the authors make before-and-after comparisons, focusing on the murder rate in each state before and after the death penalty was suspended and reinstated. 32 The authors find a substantial deterrent effect: â€Å"[T]he data indicate that murder rates increased immediately after the moratorium was imposed and decreased directly after the moratorium was lifted, providing support for the deterrence hypothesis. 33 A recent study offers more refined findings. 34 Disaggregating the data on a state-by-state basis, Joanna Shepherd finds that the nationwide deterrent effect of capital punishment is entirely driven by only six states—and that no deterrent effect can be found in the twenty-one other states that have restored capital punishment. 35 What distinguishes the six from the twenty-one? The answer, she contends, lies in the fact that states showing a deterrent effect are executing more people than states that are not. In fact the data show a 27. Mocan & Gittings, supra note 9, at 453, 456. 8. Shepherd, Murders of Passion, supra note 9, at 308. 29. Id. at 305. Shepherd notes: Many researchers have argued that some types of murders cannot be deterred: they assert that murders committed during arguments or oth er crime-of-passion moments are not premeditated and therefore undeterrable. My results indicate that this assertion is wrong: the rates of crime-of-passion and murders by intimates—crimes previously believed to be undeterrable—all decrease in execution months. Id. 30. Id. at 283. 31. Id. at 308. 32. Hashem Dezhbakhsh & Joanna M.Shepherd, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Evidence from a â€Å"Judicial Experiment,† at tbls. 3-4 (Am. Law & Economics Ass’n Working Paper No. 18, 2004), available at http://law. bepress. com/cgi/viewcontent. cgi? article=1017&context=alea (last visited Dec. 1, 2005). 33. Id. at 3-4. 34. Shepherd, Deterrence Versus Brutalization, supra note 9. 35. Id. at 207. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 713 â€Å"threshold effect†: deterrence is found in states that had at least nine total executions between 1977 and 1996.In states below th at threshold, no deterrence effect can be found. 36 This finding is intuitively plausible. Unless executions reach a certain level, murderers may act as if the death penalty is so improbable as not to be worthy of concern. 37 Shepherd’s main lesson is that once the level of executions reaches a certain level, the deterrent effect of capital punishment is substantial. All in all, the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its â€Å"apparent power and unanimity. 38 But in studies of this kind, it is hard to control for confounding variables, and reasonable doubts inevitably remain. Most broadly, skeptics are likely to question the mechanisms by which capital punishment is said to have a deterrent effect. In the skeptical view, many murderers lack a clear sense of the likelihood and perhaps even the existence of executions in their states; further problems for the deterrence claim are introduced by the fact that ca pital punishment is imposed infrequently and after long delays.Emphasizing the weakness of the deterrent signal, Steven Levitt has suggested that â€Å"it is hard to believe that fear of execution would be a driving force in a rational criminal’s calculus in modern America. †39 And, of course, some criminals do not act rationally: many murders are committed in a passionate state that does not lend itself to an all-things-considered analysis on the part of perpetrators. More narrowly, it remains possible that the recent findings will be exposed as statistical artifacts or found to rest on flawed econometric methods.Work by Richard Berk, based on his independent review of the state-level panel data from Mocan and Gittings, offers multiple objections to those authors’ finding of deterrence. 40 For example, Texas executes more people than any other state, and when Texas is removed from the data, the evidence of deterrence is severely weakened. 41 Removal of the appa rent â€Å"outlier state[s]† that execute the largest numbers of people seems to eliminate the finding of deterrence 36. Id. at 239-41. 37.Less intuitively, Shepherd finds that in thirteen of the states that had capital punishment but executed few people, capital punishment actually increased the murder rate. She attributes this puzzling result to what she calls the â€Å"brutalization effect,† by which capital punishment devalues human life and teaches people about the legitimacy of vengeance. Id. at 40-41. 38. See Weisberg, supra note 18, at 159. 39. See Steven D. Levitt, Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not, 18 J. ECON. PERSP. 163, 175 (2004). 0. See Berk, supra note 16; Deterrence and the Death Penalty, supra note 16, at 6-12. 41. Berk, supra note 16, at 320. It has also been objected that the studies do not take account of the availability of sentences that involve life without the possibility of paro le; such sentences might have a deterrent effect equal to or beyond that of capital punishment. See Deterrence and the Death Penalty, supra note 16. A response to Berk can found in Shepherd, Deterrence Versus Brutalization, supra note 9. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 714STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 altogether. 42 Berk concludes that the findings of Mocan and Gittings are driven by six states with more than five executions each year. Berk, however, proceeds by presenting data in graphic form; he offers no regression analyses in support of his criticism. These concerns about the evidence should be taken as useful cautions. At the level of theory, it is plausible that if criminals are fully rational, they should not be deterred by infrequent and much-delayed executions; the deterrent signal may well be too weak to affect their behavior.But suppose that like most people, criminals are boundedly rational, assessing probabilities with the aid of heurist ics. 43 If executions are highly salient and cognitively available, some prospective murderers will overestimate their likelihood, and will be deterred as a result. Other prospective murderers will not pay much attention to the fact that execution is unlikely, focusing instead on the badness of the outcome (execution) rather than its low probability. 44 Few murderers are likely to assess the deterrent signal by multiplying the harm of execution against its likelihood.If this is so, then the deterrent signal will be larger than might be suggested by the product of that multiplication. Levitt’s theoretical claim assumes that prospective murderers are largely rational in their reaction to the death penalty and its probability—standing by itself, a plausible conjecture but no more. As for the recent data, it is true that evidence of deterrence is reduced or eliminated through the removal of Texas and other states in which executions are most common and in which evidence of deterrence is strongest. 5 But removal of those states seems to be an odd way to resolve the contested questions. States having the largest numbers of executions are most likely to deter, and it does not seem to make sense to exclude those states as â€Å"outliers. †46 By way of comparison, imagine a study attempting to determine what characteristics of baseball teams most increase the chance of winning the World Series. Imagine also a criticism of the study, parallel to Berk’s, which complained that data about the New York Yankees should be thrown out, on the ground that the Yankees have won so many times as to be â€Å"outliers. This would be an odd idea, because empiricists must go where the evidence is; in the case of capital punishment, the outliers provide much of the relevant evidence. Recall here Shepherd’s finding, compatible with the analysis of some skeptics, that the deterrent effect occurs only in states in which there is some threshold 42. Berk, supra note 16, at 320-24; Shepherd, Deterrence Versus Brutalization, supra note 9. 43. On bounded rationality in general, see RICHARD H. THALER, QUASI-RATIONAL ECONOMICS (1991). 44.See Yuval Rottenstreich & Christopher K. Hsee, Money, Kisses, and Electric Shocks: On the Affective Psychology of Risk, 12 PSYCHOL. SCI. 185, 188 (2001); Cass R. Sunstein, Probability Neglect: Emotions, Worst Cases, and Law, 112 YALE L. J. 61 (2002). 45. See Shepherd, Deterrence Versus Brutalization, supra note 9. 46. Id. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 715 number of executions. 47 But let us suppose, plausibly, that the evidence of deterrence remains inconclusive.Even so, it would not follow that the death penalty as such fails to deter. As Shepherd also finds in her most recent study,48 more frequent executions, carried out in closer proximity to convictions, are predicted to amplify the deterrent signal for both ration al and boundedly rational criminals. We can go further. A degree of doubt, with respect to the current system, need not be taken to suggest that existing evidence is irrelevant for purposes of policy and law.In regulation as a whole, it is common to embrace some version of the precautionary principle49—the idea that steps should be taken to prevent significant harm even if cause-and-effect relationships remain unclear and even if the risk is not likely to come to fruition. Even if we reject strong versions of the precautionary principle,50 it hardly seems sensible that governments should ignore evidence demonstrating a significant possibility that a certain step will save large numbers of innocent lives.For capital punishment, critics often seem to assume that evidence on deterrent effects should be ignored if reasonable questions can be raised about the evidence’s reliability. But as a general rule, this is implausible. In most contexts, the existence of legitimate qu estions is hardly an adequate reason to ignore evidence of severe harm. If it were, many environmental controls would be in serious jeopardy. 51 We do not mean to suggest that government should commit what many people consider to be, prima facie, a serious moral wrong simply on the basis of speculation that this action will do some good.But a degree of reasonable doubt need not be taken as sufficient to doom a form of punishment if there is a significant possibility that it will save large numbers of lives. It is possible that capital punishment saves lives on net, even if it has zero deterrent effect. A life-life tradeoff may arise in several ways. One possibility, the one we focus on here, is that capital punishment deters homicides. Another possibility is that capital punishment has no deterrent effect, but saves lives just 7. See id. 48. Id. 49. For overviews of the precautionary principle and related issues, see INTERPRETING THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE (Tim O’Riordan & J ames Cameron eds. , 1994); ARIE TROUWBORST, EVOLUTION AND STATUS OF THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN INTERNATIONAL LAW (2002). 50. See, e. g. , Julian Morris, Defining the Precautionary Principle, in RETHINKING RISK AND THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE (Julian Morris ed. , 2000). 51.Indeed, those skeptical of capital punishment invoke evidence to the effect that capital punishment did not deter, and argue, plausibly, that it would be a mistake to wait for definitive evidence before ceasing with a punishment that could not be shown to reduce homicide. See Lempert, supra note 20, at 1222-24. This is a kind of precautionary principle, arguing against the most aggressive forms of punishment if the evidence suggested that they did not deter. We are suggesting the possibility of a mirror-image precautionary principle when the evidence goes the other way. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN.L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 716 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 by incapacitating those who would otherwise k ill again in the future. 52 Consider those jurisdictions that eschew capital punishment altogether. What sanction can such jurisdictions really apply to those who have already been sentenced to life in prison without parole? Sentences of this sort may take more lives overall by increasing the number of essentially unpunishable withinprison homicides of guards and fellow inmates. 53 Many murderers are killed in prison even in states that lack the death penalty. 4 And if murderers are eventually paroled into the general population, some of them will kill again. Overall, it is quite possible that the permanent incapacitation of murderers through execution might save lives on net. A finding that capital punishment deters—and deterrence is our focus here—is sufficient but not necessary to find a life-life tradeoff. In any event, our goal here is not to reach a final judgment about the evidence. It is to assess capital punishment given the assumption of a substantial deterre nt effect.In what follows, therefore, we will stipulate to the validity of the evidence and consider its implications for morality and law. Those who doubt the evidence might ask themselves how they would assess the moral questions if they were ultimately convinced that life-life tradeoffs were actually involved—as, for example, in hostage situations in which officials are authorized to use deadly force to protect the lives of innocent people. II. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: MORAL FOUNDATIONS AND FOUR OBJECTIONS Assume, then, that capital punishment does save a significant number of innocent lives.On what assumptions should that form of punishment be deemed morally unacceptable, rather than morally obligatory? Why should the deaths of those convicted of capital murder, an overwhelmingly large fraction of whom are guilty in fact, be considered a more serious moral wrong than the deaths of a more numerous group who are certainly innocents? We consider, and ultimately reject, several re sponses. Our first general contention is that opposition to capital punishment trades on a form of the distinction between acts and omissions.Whatever the general force of that distinction, its application to government systematically fails, because government is a distinctive kind of moral agent. Our second general contention is that, apart from direct state involvement, the features that make capital punishment morally objectionable to its critics are also features of the very murders that capital punishment deters. The principal difference, on the empirical assumptions we are making, is that in a legal regime without capital punishment far more people die, and those people are innocent of any 2. See Ronald J. Allen & Amy Shavell, Further Reflections on the Guillotine, 95 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 625, 630-31 (2005). 53. See id. at 630 n. 9. 54. See Katz et al. , supra note 26, at 340. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHME NT MORALLY REQUIRED? 717 wrongdoing. No one denies that arbitrariness in the system of capital punishment is a serious problem. But even if the existing system is viewed in its worst light, it involves far less arbitrariness than does the realm of homicide.Let us begin, however, with foundational issues. A. Morality and Death On a standard view, it is impossible to come to terms with the moral questions about capital punishment without saying something about the foundations of moral judgments. We will suggest, however, that sectarian commitments at the foundational level are for the most part irrelevant to the issues here. If it is stipulated that substantial deterrence exists, both consequentialist and deontological accounts of morality will or should converge upon the view that capital punishment is morally obligatory.Consequentialists will come to that conclusion because capital punishment minimizes killings overall. Deontologists will do so because an opposition to killing is, b y itself, indeterminate in the face of life-life tradeoffs; because a legal regime with capital punishment has a strong claim to be more respectful of life’s value than does a legal regime lacking capital punishment; and because modern deontologists typically subscribe to a consequentialist override or escape hatch, one that makes otherwise mpermissible actions obligatory if necessary to prevent many deaths—precisely what we are assuming is true of capital punishment. Only those deontologists who both insist upon a strong distinction between state actions and state omissions and who reject a consequentialist override will believe the deterrent effect of capital punishment to be irrelevant in principle. Suppose that we accept consequentialism and believe that government actions should be evaluated in terms of their effects on aggregate welfare.If we do so, the evidence of deterrence strongly supports a moral argument in favor of the death penalty—a form of punish ment that, by hypothesis, seems to produce a net gain in overall welfare. Of course, there are many complications here; for example, the welfare of many people might increase as a result of knowing that capital punishment exists, and the welfare of many other people might decrease for the same reason. A full consequentialist calculus would require a more elaborate assessment than we aim to provide here.The only point is that if capital punishment produces significantly fewer deaths on balance, there should be a strong consequentialist presumption on its behalf; any argument against capital punishment, on consequentialist grounds, will face a steep uphill struggle. To be sure, it is also possible to imagine forms of consequentialism that reject welfarism as implausibly reductionist and see violations of rights as part of the set of consequences that must be taken into account in deciding what to SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 03 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 718 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol . 58:703 do. 55 For some such consequentialists, killings are, under ordinary circumstances, a violation of rights, and this point is highly relevant to any judgment about killings. But even if the point is accepted, capital punishment may be required, not prohibited, on consequentialist grounds, simply because and to the extent that it minimizes rights violations. Private murders also violate rights, and the rights-respecting consequentialist must take those actions into account.But imagine that we are deontologists, believing that actions by government and others should not be evaluated in consequentialist terms; how can capital punishment be morally permissible, let alone obligatory? For some deontologists, capital punishment is obligatory for moral reasons alone. 56 But suppose, as other deontologists believe, that under ordinary circumstances, the state’s killing of a human being is a wrong and that its wrongness does not depend on an inquiry into whether the action prod uces a net increase in welfare.For many critics of capital punishment, a deontological intuition is central; evidence of deterrence is irrelevant because moral wrongdoing by the state is not justified even if it can be defended on utilitarian grounds. Compare a situation in which a state seeks to kill an innocent person, knowing that the execution will prevent a number of private killings; deontologists believe that the unjustified execution cannot be supported even if the state is secure in its knowledge of the execution’s beneficial effects. Of course, it is contentious to claim that capital punishment is a moral wrong.But if it is, then significant deterrence might be entirely beside the point. It is simply true that many intuitive objections to capital punishment rely on a belief of this kind: just as execution of an innocent person is a moral wrong, one that cannot be justified on consequentialist grounds, so too the execution of a guilty person is a moral wrong, whateve r the evidence shows. Despite all this, our claims here do not depend on accepting consequentialism or rejecting the deontological objection to evaluating unjustified killings in consequentialist terms.The argument is instead that by itself and in the abstract, this objection is indeterminate on the moral status of capital punishment. To the extent possible, we intend to bracket the most fundamental questions and to suggest that whatever one’s view of the foundations of morality, the objection to the death penalty is difficult to sustain under the empirical assumptions that we have traced. Taken in its most sympathetic light, a deontological objection to capital punishment is unconvincing if states that refuse to impose the death penalty produce, by that 55.Amartya Sen, Rights and Agency, 11 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 3, 15-19 (1982). 56. See Pojman, supra note 4, at 58-59. As noted below, the case of Israel is a good test for such deontologists; Israel does not impose the death penal ty, in part on the ground that executions of terrorists would likely increase terrorism. Do deontologists committed to capital punishment believe that Israel is acting immorally? In our view, they ought not to do so, at least if the empirical assumption is right and if the protection of lives is what morality requires. SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN.L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 719 very refusal, significant numbers of additional deaths. Recall the realm of homicide: for deontologists who emphasize life’s value and object to the death penalty, the problem is acute if the refusal to impose that penalty predictably leads to a significant number of additional murders. In a hostage situation, police officers are permitted to kill (execute) those who have taken hostages if this step is reasonably deemed necessary to save those who have been taken hostage.If the evidence of deterrence is convincing, why is capital punishment so different in principle? Of course, these points might be unresponsive to those who believe that execution of a guilty person is morally equivalent to execution of an innocent person and not properly subject to a recognition of life-life tradeoffs. We will explore this position in more detail below. And we could envision a form of deontology that refuses any exercise in aggregation—one that would refuse to authorize, or compel, a violation of rights even if the violation is necessary to prevent a significantly larger number of rights violations.But most modern deontologists reject this position, instead admitting a consequentialist override to baseline deontological prohibitions. 57 Although the threshold at which the consequentialist override is triggered varies with different accounts, we suggest below that if each execution deters some eighteen murders, the override is plausibly triggered. To distill these points, the only deontological accounts that are inconsistent with our argument are those that both (1) embrace a distinction between state actions and state omissions and (2) reject a consequentialist override.To those who subscribe to this complex of views, and who consider capital punishment a violation of rights, our argument will not be convincing. In the end, however, we believe that it is difficult to sustain the set of moral assumptions that would bar capital punishment if it is the best means of preventing significant numbers of innocent deaths. Indeed, we believe that many of those who think that they hold those assumptions are motivated by other considerations—especially a failure to give full weight to statistical lives—on which we focus in Part III. B.Acts and Omissions A natural response to our basic concern would invoke the widespread intuition that capital punishment involves intentional state â€Å"action,† while the failure to deter private murders is merely an â€Å"omission† by the state. In our view, this appealing and intuitive line of argument goes rather badly wrong. The critics of capital punishment have been led astray by uncritically applying the act/omission distinction to a regulatory setting. Their position condemns the â€Å"active† infliction of death by governments but does not condemn the â€Å"inactive† production of death that comes from the refusal to maintain a system 57.For an overview, see Larry Alexander, Deontology at the Threshold, 37 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 893, 898-901 (2000). SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM 720 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:703 of capital punishment. The basic problem is that even if this selective condemnation can be justified at the level of individual behavior, it is difficult to defend for governments. 58 A great deal of work has to be done to explain why â€Å"inactive,† but causal, government decisions should not be part of the moral calculus.Suppose that we endorse the deontological pos ition that it is wrong to take human lives, even if overall welfare is promoted by taking them. Why does the system of capital punishment violate that position, if the failure to impose capital punishment also takes lives? Perhaps our argument about unjustified selectivity is blind to morally relevant factors that condemn capital punishment and that buttress the act/omission distinction in this context. There are two possible points here, one involving intention and the other involving causation.First, a government (acting through agents) that engages in capital punishment intends to take lives; it seeks to kill. A government that does not engage in capital punishment, and therefore provides less deterrence, does not intend to kill. The deaths that result are the unintended and unsought byproduct of an effort to respect life. Surely— it might be said—this is a morally relevant difference. Second, a government that inflicts capital punishment ensures a simple and direct causal chain between its own behavior and the taking of human lives.When a government rejects capital punishment, the causal chain is much more complex; the taking of human lives is an indirect consequence of the government’s decision, one that is mediated by the actions of a murderer. The government authorizes its agents to inflict capital punishment, but it does not authorize private parties to murder; indeed, it forbids murder. Surely that is a morally relevant difference, too. We will begin, in Part II. B. 1, with questions about whether the act/omission distinction is conceptually intelligible in regulatory settings.Here the suggestion is that there just is no way to speak or think coherently about government â€Å"actions† as opposed to government â€Å"omissions,† because government cannot help but act, in some way or another, when choosing how individuals are to be regulated. In Part II. B. 2, we suggest that the distinction between government acts and omissions, even if conceptually coherent, is not morally relevant to the question of capital punishment. Some governmental actions are morally obligatory, and some governmental omissions are blameworthy.In this setting, we suggest, government is morally obligated to adopt capital punishment and morally at fault if it declines to do so. 1. Is the act/omission distinction coherent with respect to government? In our view, any effort to distinguish between acts and omissions goes 58. Compare debates over going to war: Some pacifists insist, correctly, that acts of war will result in the loss of life, including civilian life. But a refusal to go to war will often result in the loss of life, including civilian life.SUNSTEIN & VERMEULE 58 STAN. L. REV. 703 1/9/2006 10:51:05 AM December 2005] IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MORALLY REQUIRED? 721 wrong by overlooking the distinctive features of government as a moral agent. If correct, this point has broad implications for criminal and civil law. Whate ver the general status of the act/omission distinction as a matter of moral philosophy,59 the distinction is least impressive when applied to government, because the most plausible underlying considerations do not apply to official actors. 0 The most fundamental point is that, unlike individuals, governments always and necessarily face a choice between or among possible policies for regulating third parties. The distinction between acts and omissions may not be intelligible in this context, and even if it is, the distinction does not make a morally relevant difference. Most generally, government is in the business of creating permissions and prohibitions. When it explicitly or implicitly authorizes private action, it is not omitting to do anything or refusing to act. 1 Moreover, the distinction between authorized and unauthorized private action—for example, private killing— becomes obscure when the government formally forbids private action but chooses a set of policy instruments that do not adequately or fully discourage it. To be sure, a system of punishments that only weakly deters homicide, relative to other feasible punishments, does not quite authorize homicide, but that system is not properly characterized as an omission, and little turns on whether it can be so characterized.Suppose, for example, that government fails to characterize certain actions—say, sexual harassment—as tortious or violative of civil rights law and that it therefore permits employers to harass employees as they choose or to discharge employees for failing to submit to sexual harassment. It would be unhelpful to characterize the result as a product of governmental â€Å"inaction. † If employers are permitted to discharge employees for refusing to submit to sexual harassment, it is because the law is allocating certain entitlements to employers rather than employees. Or consider the context of ordinary torts.When Homeowner B sues Factory A over air pollution, a decision not to rule for Homeowner B is not a form of inaction: it is the allocation to Factory A of a property right to pollute. In such cases, an apparent government omission is an action simply because it is an allocation of legal rights. Any decision that allocates such rights, by creating entitlements 59. For discussion of the philosophical controversy over acts and omissions, see generally RONALD DWORKIN, LIFE’S DOMINION: AN ARGUMENT ABOUT ABORTION, EUTHANASIA, AND INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM (1993); Frances M.Kamm, Abortion and the Value of Life: A Discussion of Life’s Dominion, 95 COLUM. L. REV. 160 (1995) (reviewing DWORKIN, supra); Tom Stacy, Acts, Omissions, and the Necessity of Killing Innocents, 29 AM. J. CRIM. L. 481 (2002). 60. Here we proceed in the spirit of Robert Goodin by treating government as a distinctive sort of moral agen