Justice or Revenge

News:  Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev found guilty

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/US/verdict-reached-boston-marathon-bombing-trial/story?id=30116338

Date: April 8

This week was condemned guilty the perpetrator of the Boston Marathon attacks, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The jury reached unanimous verdict after two days and eleven hours of deliberations. He was accused of killing three people, including a child, and wounding 264 others in the attack occurred near the finish line of the competition on April 15, 2013[i].

Tsarnaev, 21, faces 30 criminal charges and 17 of them carry to the death penalty. The same jury must now decide whether to sentence him to death or sentence him to life imprisonment without parole[ii]. The young of Chechen origin, is also accused of shooting and killing a police three days after the bombing at the finish line of the marathon. The two home-made bombs, made with pressure cookers and nails, were made by Tsarnaev in retaliation for US military campaigns in Muslim countries[iii].

We all know that the offender must be tried and serve a sentence. Weren’t they guilty of doing what their ethical and moral values suggested? Why are religious beliefs the reason that justify the aggressor? Where and how could faith and feelings be evaluated?

When a person is killed or violently attacked, the attacker is also attacking the society and individual ethical and moral values. It's an ethical dilemma accusing the aggressor without understanding his cultural and subjective history but it is also a moral dilemma to ignore the effects that particular action had in a group of innocent people. Through the studies of ethical relativism we encounter that no culture has a wrong set of rules. They believe what they want to believe and they follow what their majority deems is right within their own culture[iv].

The moral is constituted by rules, positions, or consensus by which is governed and judged the behavior of a human being in society and ethics is the development and individual exercise of those behaviors[v]. But, what is more important in this case? Where is the limit of fair judgments? Is the death penalty the best option? And will death penalty truly deem justice over the given acts?

I merely want to express my opinion and open the debate as I don't right answers to these questions.

---

[i] Eligon, J., & Cooper, M. (2013, April 15). Blasts at Boston Marathon Kill 3 and Injure 100. Retrieved April 12, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/explosions-reported-at-site-of-boston-marathon.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[ii] Claffey, J. (2015, April 9). Does Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Deserve the Death Penalty? Retrieved April 12, 2015, from http://patch.com/massachusetts/lexington/should-boston-marathon-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-get-death-penalty-0

[iii] Valencia, M., & Wen, P. (2015, April 8). Dzhokhar Tsarnaev found guilty of Boston Marathon bombings - The Boston Globe. Retrieved April 12, 2015, from http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/04/08/tsarnaev-jury-begins-second-day-deliberations/t7KplwR18hH1RSuX1BQohM/story.html

[iv] Rosenstand, N. (2013). The moral of the story: An introduction to ethics (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill

[v] Moral - definition in the American English Dictionary - Cambridge Dictionaries Online (US). (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2015, from http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/american-english/moral?q=Moral