Werner Herzog’s ‘Into the Abyss’

Conversations with death row inmate Michael Perry and those affected by his crime serve as an examination of why people – and the state – kill (IMDB).

In class we talked about Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss. The discussion questions are below if you click on the image.

into the abyss

For your review it would be great if you engage with the big questions the film poses rather than just critique the methods/techniques used in its production. In your answer you might like to include:

  • Your opinion(s) about the legitimacy of capital punishment
  • Your reasons for it
  • Some arguments and points made by different philosophers (especially Bentham and Kant)
  • Some mention of the case of Carla Faye that Captain Allan mentions
  • Some religious view points
  • A detailed and reasoned explanation as to which opinions you agree/disagree with and exactly why

The following might help:

Screen shot 2015-06-12 at 10.04.58

Screen shot 2015-06-12 at 10.07.20

 

Help with difficult Kant Readings…

Updated: Even more detail….

This is really a bit of an experiment, and it’s not finished… It’s basically the specified Kant readings with some commentary for anyone that’s finding it all a bit hard to follow… please comment if it’s useful.

If I get enough positive feedback I’ll go through and do the Nozick and Utilitarianism readings too…

Click on the image to download the pdf file.