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All these quotes basically amount to "I'm against killing people" usually with a reason amounting to one of the following: - Killing is bad - Killing constitu
by omginternets 10y ago
All these quotes basically amount to "I'm against killing people" usually with a reason amounting to one of the following:
- Killing is bad
- Killing constitutes revenge
- Killing is unbecoming of society
- Killing is disturbing
Yes, they're from great thinkers, but on their own they don't constitute much of an argument, nor are they particularly elucidating.
The devils advocate might respond:
- pleasant dissuasion is oxymoronic
- what is justice without revenge?
- there's value in symbolism (a hornets nest of an argument, I willingly admit, but one that I think is nonetheless undervalued)
- the disturbing nature of killing has little to do with anything
- we recognize that lethal force is legitimate in self-defense, so clearly some intentional killing is acceptable. This is at odds with the sweeping condemnation of killing in the selected quotes.
- the comparison of capital punishment to murder is fallacious since the former is done with careful attention to impartiality (in principle, anyway)
- the state is founded on the monopoly of violence
I'm as French as you are, cher ami, but there are few things I cherish less about our country than our penchant for empty grandiloquence (exhibit A: Bernard Henri Levi). Appeal to authority does not a strong argument make; just because Victor Hugo said it doesn't make it true. It also pays to remember that many of the individuals you cite are reacting to a very different brand of capital punishment: the kind in which people were tortured in the public square.
To be clear, these intellecutals do have interesting things to say on the subject, but a handful of quotes does little to advance the debate. What we have here are just pretty words, I'm afraid.
- lloeki 10y ago> To be clear, these intellecutals do have interesting things to say on the subject, but a handful of quotes does little to advance the debate Obviously, but I could not translate a whole body of work on the spot, therefore I had to take shortcuts so as to give a few pointers for the interested audience. The whole process was a saga in and of itself, and Badinder's eloquent discourse on 17 sept 1981 goes more in depth, interestingly counterpointed by Maurice Barrès's one in 1908 in a paperback[0]. Again, the tip of the iceberg, but hey, we got to start somewhere before digging deeper. [0] ISBN 978-2757815021, seems available on amazon.com for a couple of bucks, apparently also in English
- conradfr 10y agoBernard Henri Levi is a simpler case as you just have to think and do the opposite of what he professes.
- omginternets 10y agoTo be honest I included it just as a clin d'oeil But he is emblematic of the cultural trait in question, I think.
- mxvzr 10y ago> what is justice without revenge? Justice. Sentencing is here to take criminals away from the rest of society, in order to protect the latter rather than punish the former.
- omginternets 10y agoI'm glad you were able to close the case on one of the oldest philosophical problems in existence. I'm glad it was that simple.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mxvzr 10y agoI was hoping a Frenchman would recognize that I was merely paraphrasing one of Hugo's main arguments against capital punishment, developed in his preface of Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné, rather than "close the case on one of the oldest philosophical problems in existence".
- omginternets 10y agoAnd? Presumably you're paraphrasing him to imply that his argument is correct.