Associate Level Material
Critical Analysis Forms

Fill out one form for each source.

Source 1 Title and Citation: Capital Punishment is Unjust | Kavanagh, John. "Capital Punishment Is Unjust." Problems with Death. Ed. David A. Becker. Detroit: Green haven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Killing Persons, Killing Ethics." America (July 1997). Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. |

1 | Identify the principal issue presented by the source. | Is capital punishment unjust? | 2 | Identify any examples of bias presented by the author. If none exist, explain how you determined this. | I found this statement made by the author to be bias, "There comes a point when a human being has forfeited all claims to being human. Who knows when? But that lump of flesh has ceased to be human and has become a cancer on the body of society and must be killed to help cure the whole." These views are bias being that human beings cannot forfeit being human. We are all born into a certain race, gender, and heritage we can learn others but we will always be what we were born to be and that’s human. | 3 | Identify any areas that are vague or ambiguous. Explain your reasoning. | I found this statement to be vague and ambiguous “There comes a point when a human being has forfeited all claims to being human. Who knows when? But that lump of flesh has ceased to be human and has become a cancer on the body of society and must be killed to help cure the whole”. It is unclear to what it is the author is trying to say. | 4 | Do you find the source credible? Explain your reasoning. | I find this source to be informing but I find it not credible and this is why. The author gave many examples and listed many names that may have knowledge regarding this topic but he did not quote or list enough information that I could deem as credible. | 5 | Identify and name any rhetorical devices used by the author. Explain your reasoning. | The statement listed lead me to think stereotyping was one of the rhetorical devices used by the author. “From ancient days to our own, this has been done. Non-Greeks were once labeled "barbarians," non-Chinese were "foreign devils," Chinese were "gooks," Germans were "Huns," Jews were "sub-human" in the Nazi primers given to the Hitler Youth, criminals were "vermin," fetuses were "blobs of protoplasm," the comatose were "vegetables," Africans were "savages," Communists were "monsters," capitalists were "pigs," British were "thugs," the Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) were "moral animals," blacks and women were "property," amerinds were "brutes."Of course, these were all humans, despite the efforts at depersonalization. This is still considered a form of stereotyping grouping people together because of their race. Stereotyping is a generalization or an assumption about all the members of a group that is based on an image of those in the group. | 6 | Identify and name any fallacies used by the author. Explain your reasoning. | I found the author had used the misplaced burden of proof fallacy. Someone commits the Misplaced Burden of Proof fallacy when they are making a claim they should have to prove, but they act like the burden of proof falls on the other person. I could not tell who the author was Kavanagh or someone else it was hard for to assert the viewpoints. I also thought the author used the strawman fallacy. “We commit the STRAWMAN fallacy when, instead of attacking (or defending) the claim we are supposed to address, we attack or defend a different claim altogether”. The author also gave these three questions to answer while you are reading which had nothing to do with capital punishment being unjust. These are the following questions: 1. What are some of the examples of depersonalization provided by Kavanagh? 2. What is the "limit situation in ethics," according to the author? 3. How does Kavanagh view the right to defend oneself? | 7 | State one argument made by the