So go ask a philosopher!
A welcome web site that directly relates to the field (although it does not make this claim) is called AskPhilosophers. The panelists there field basic and important questions for many who study crime, criminology and justice issues. If you go to the home page at the link above you see fifty-some categories of topics, including abortion. justice, law, punishment and many others.
The way it works is that web users pose questions to the panelists, who (when they get around to it) answer them. Here are some examples of questions, taken directly from the site:
- In the art category, for example, there is, Can acts of terrorism, as choreographed performances of something, be consider[ed] art?
- In the category of "justice", a panelist responds to the question, Should a society provide support from general funding (e.g., income tax) to individuals whose actions lead directly (and possibly predictably) to their distress...?
- In the area of "suicide" there is a response to, Why do you think suicide is considered "illegal"?
- In the combined category of law and punishment there is an awkwardly phrased question, Is it better to have a criminal justice system that runs the risk of, in every 100 people being acquitted, that 1 will go on to commit a terrible future crime; or one that runs the risk of, in every 100 people being convicted, there being 1 who was innocent?
Certainly the questions, and the answers to them, can be useful in many discussions. Moreover, a teacher (or student) could try posing difficult questions for a given class to the panelists and possibly discuss their response in a classroom setting.
A tricky issue is how to deal with disagreements you may have to answers provided by the panelists. One could ask how people become panelists and how "authority" to provide answers to the questions is constituted. Whatever approach you choose the site could be helpful to you.
Posted by jackson at
06:30 AM