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Should people accused of a criminal offence retain anonymity?
Point 1: The legal process must be free from bias. The nature of the legal process is a
dialectic process where the prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The
defence must either cast doubt or prove innocence outright. This requires; evidence, facts,
law and precedent. It would be anti-ethical to allow public prejudice to affect legal process.
- Objectivity of the court is a priority and must be maintained at all times. It can
only be degraded by the general knowledge of the accused’s identity and can
never be served by it. The accused must only be tried by a court and never by
mob or media..
Point 2: any action by a public body ought to be in the service of the public interest. It is in
the public interest to seek the perpetrator of a crime, as it is to punish those found guilty
and to publish their names so that they may be known as criminals to the public whom they
offended. It is hard to see how the publication of an accused person’s identity can serve the
Public good.
- In the event that they are innocent, the accused will be forever the subject of
suspicion and may suffer from members of the public who are not satisfied by
the outcome of the trial. But in the event that they are guilty, then their guilt will
be published, and the public will then and only then learn the details. This is not
suggesting that criminal cases ought to be tried in secret courts as people close
to the accused should be able to observe the proceedings.
Point 3: accused must be given the general right to privacy. Legally speaking a man
acquitted 100 hundred times is an innocent as a man never prosecuted at all. But the public
rarely considers things from a legal perspective. Public are quick to judge and often liable to
punish and therefore the legal system is required to carry out due process and prevent the
miscarriage of justice. In some cases, the accused have been killed prior to their trials e.g.
Lee Harvey Oswald.
Conclusion: innocent until proven guilty. Only if guilty does it serve public interest. This
would preserve the objectivity of the court and the dignity and rights of the accused.
In the future, should parents be able to choose the sex of their children?
Intro: near future it will almost certainly become possible to control the process by which a
female embryo becomes a male. The question to exercise this control will primarily be a
legal and moral one. Essay will argue that parents of a child do have such a moral right and
should not be prohibited from this. Moral right should be argued from two sources; one
rooted in law and the other in the circumstances of pregnancy.
Point 1: in most advanced economies the life of the embryo is in the hands of its
progenitors. Legally, it is permitted that up to a certain stage, a pregnancy can be
terminated. Thus, it is established that a child is born by the consent of its parents and not
by the stipulation of the law. Since the embryo is neither a full human or a citizen of any
, LNAT Essay Plans
state, its legal status is ambiguous. Abortions are not considered to be murder, but the
killing of a pregnant women counts as two murders.
- This legal ambiguity rises from the limited role a government plays in the
reproduction process. Thus, an individual chooses to an enormous degree the
traits of their offspring, being able to select mates with established traits and
choosing to pass them on. Adding to this the ability to choose the child’s gender
would not infringe on any individual’s legal rights and would be entirely
consistent with current legal controls on reproduction.
Point 2: physical nature of the pregnancy. An embryo is part of its mother’s body, with none
of the organs necessary to sustain life independently and even participating in the same
blood supply. Therefore, the right of the mother to have control over her own body extends
to the embryo.
- Individuals have the unalienable natural right to intermingle their DNA with the
DNA of other people, which is outside of the remit of the state. Where the horror
lies would be the presumption that the state knows better and directs the mixing
of its citizens.
Point 3: it is legally permitted to circumcise a child without its consent. Just as a child may be
indoctrinated into a religion or affected by the prejudices held by its parents and their
beliefs. It may appear immoral and perilous to make decisions about the future of a child to
which it cannot consent, yet the peril of extending the control to the state is greater.
Should the display of religious symbols in schools be banned?
Intro: distinction between private and public schools. Argue that religious symbols ought to
be prohibited in public but not in private schools.
Point 1: In no way does the display of religious symbols serve to accelerate the task of
educating and equipping children with specific skills in this sophisticated economy. The
government has a moral duty to preserve the society which elects it by educating children to
an appropriate standard. One can easily be educated to the same standards without
religious symbols.
Point 2: we must beware the moral hazard posed by the alliance of the Church and the
State. Any placement of a religious symbol in a public institution is done with the implicit
consent or direction of the state. This display is effectively an endorsement before all the
students of the principles of the religion the school has chosen to display. This would
establish in the eyes of the students a form of religious hierarchy, where the religion
endorsed by the state is seen as supreme, with the others relegated to tolerance in the best
cases and persecution in the worst.
The solution would be to display all religious symbols as a means of avoiding show a
preference to prevent the hierarchy and supremacy of one religion. However, each
individual sees their religion as the only correct one so to have all religions would also cause
some form of conflict. Therefore, state should distant itself from religion for education.
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