Tom's criticism of Sally's argument on capital punishment

The answer is: yes and no.  Yes, this criticism is directly attacking premise 1, the claim that certain people deserve to die (for the acts they have committed).  In a real context, one would want to Tom to spell out why he denies that anybody deserves to die, but at least the criticism is directly responsive in this sense.

The interlude about finding root causes may be entirely reasonable, but is non-responsive.  In fact, it is somewhat misleading, as it suggests that those who support capital punishment are against this kind of study.  But Sally might agree that we should allocate resources for determining what might lead certain people to become the kind of persons who are capable of such atrocities.
 

Return to Exercise on Argument Analysis
Return to the Philosophy 120 home page