Title:
A matter of deep personal conscience: the Canadian death-penalty debate, 1957-1976
Creator:
Kropf, Joel
Date Created:
2007
Degree Awarded:
Master of Arts
Subjects:
Capital punishment Capital punishment Moral and ethical aspects Capital punishment Public opinion Public opinion Canada
Geographical Focus:
Canada
Supporting Materials:
n/a
Description:
| This thesis explores the public debate in Canada concerning the death penalty during the two decades preceding its abolition in 1976, with a particular focus upon the role that the prevailing moral culture of the day played in shaping debate rhetoric. Some of the best existing scholarship reveals that the instrumentally and procedurally focused aspects of many Canadians’ thinking in the third quarter of the century helped significantly to facilitate the eventual abolition of capital punishment. This study, however, highlights the wide range of ways in which debaters’ discourse, including discourse with an instrumentalist flavour, resulted from or conveyed their moral perspectives. Both the nature of debaters’ moral assumptions and the manner in which they were communicated suggest that moral ideas to which some Canadians sought to assign transcendent status possessed a weakened cultural credibility during this period, while moral perspectives animated by perceptions or expectations of progress exercised important cultural influence.
Source
Preferred Citation:
Kropf, Joel. 2007. "A matter of deep personal conscience: the Canadian death-penalty debate, 1957-1976", Department of History, Carleton University
Link to this page:
https://cuhistory.github.io/grads/items/hist_134.html
Rights
Rights:
Copyright the author, all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.