Fallacies in an Argument

Fallacies in an Argument The essay “ Death” written by an anonymous author; presented in the text Read, Reason, Write published in the year 2008, is an example of a fallacious argument.
In “Death” the author endorses the death penalty as a viable option for New York. This essay was written as a rebuttal to the editorial titled “New York on the Brink” that was posted in the Washington post it suggested that New York should not advocate the death penalty as law. The author argues that the death penalty is required in order to maintain justice for the “innocent people” within a society. There is some suggestion made by the author that death is a fair punishment for those who kill the “innocent people”. With-out the death penalty the author is adamantly believes that the victims of murderous crimes will not receive true justice. I disagree with the authors reasoning because most of this argument is fallacious. Amidst the author’s over-generalization on what is suggested to be a problem among the “Innocent” and the “Murders”, there is very little clarification on what constitutes an innocent person from a criminal. The author gives faulty reasoning in stating that “the death sentence is obviously a moral and political issue” this statement falls under the category of begging the question. I found that the majority of the authors reasoning were based upon the fallacy of Ad-populum. In order to derive emotion from its audience the author implies that the benefits of having a fair system of crime and punishment the “killers” must be killed and the “innocent” will be protected. The author concludes that when “people start to open their eyes and realize that it is a life and death word out there” is how society can work for the betterment of humanity. This is a fasle-delema people have other options on how they want live their life besides living or dying. I conclude that “Death” is not a very convincing argument and it is based on more emotion than evidence. I disagree with the author’s use of fallacious writing methods, and I feel a stronger argument could have been achieved if more facts had been included. Comparative data on states with death penalty laws verses states without the death penalty. Documented court cases and solid statics involving death penalty would have also helped this arugment.Most of all the author ignores a lot of evidence in order to support the idea that death penalty is a working institution with-out flaws.

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