[ La Peine Capitale Encore en Question: Une Perspective Existentialiste ]
Volume 16, Issue 1, June 2015, Pages 95–102
Pascal Ally Hussein1
1 Department of English and African Culture, Institut Supérieur Pédagogique of Bukavu, P.O. Box 854, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Original language: French
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
More than five decades after the publication of Camus' Reflections on the Guillotine (1957), capital punishment continues to wreak havoc around the world, the scene where fanatics and abolitionists confront each other. The fanatics have always supported this punishment on the ground of its supposed deterrent power and/or of its supposed social utility. As to the abolitionists, they oppose this punishment in the name of: the sacredness of every human being (human rights activists); the risk of putting to death innocent people, and the prudence to avoid irreversible punishments, as well as the inability of death sentence to be really deterrent. This article extends the abolitionist argument, but from an existentialist perspective, denouncing the absurdity of sentencing to death a being-for-death and calling into question the juridical status conferred on capital punishment. It argues that, as all humans are sentenced to death from conception, death penalty is only a futile and cruel act, and that, as death sentence aims at the annihilation rather than the moral reformation of the criminal, it does not deserve any juridical status.
Author Keywords: lawful punishment, retributive theory, deterrent theory.
Volume 16, Issue 1, June 2015, Pages 95–102
Pascal Ally Hussein1
1 Department of English and African Culture, Institut Supérieur Pédagogique of Bukavu, P.O. Box 854, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Original language: French
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
More than five decades after the publication of Camus' Reflections on the Guillotine (1957), capital punishment continues to wreak havoc around the world, the scene where fanatics and abolitionists confront each other. The fanatics have always supported this punishment on the ground of its supposed deterrent power and/or of its supposed social utility. As to the abolitionists, they oppose this punishment in the name of: the sacredness of every human being (human rights activists); the risk of putting to death innocent people, and the prudence to avoid irreversible punishments, as well as the inability of death sentence to be really deterrent. This article extends the abolitionist argument, but from an existentialist perspective, denouncing the absurdity of sentencing to death a being-for-death and calling into question the juridical status conferred on capital punishment. It argues that, as all humans are sentenced to death from conception, death penalty is only a futile and cruel act, and that, as death sentence aims at the annihilation rather than the moral reformation of the criminal, it does not deserve any juridical status.
Author Keywords: lawful punishment, retributive theory, deterrent theory.
Abstract: (french)
Plus de cinq décennies après la publication de Réflexions sur la Guillotine (1957) de Camus, la peine capitale continue à faire des ravages à travers le monde, scène où s'affrontent les fanatiques et les abolitionnistes. Les fanatiques ont toujours défendu cette peine pour son prétendu pouvoir dissuasif et/ou pour sa prétendue utilité sociale. Quant aux abolitionnistes, ils s'opposent à cette peine au nom de la sacralité de tout être humain (activistes des droits humains), du risque d'exécuter des innocents et de la prudence d'éviter des châtiments irréversibles, ainsi que de l'impuissance de la peine capitale à être vraiment dissuasive. Cet article prolonge l'argument abolitionniste mais à partir d'une perspective existentialiste, dénonçant l'absurdité de condamner à mort un être-pour-la-mort et remettant en question le statut juridique conféré à la peine capitale. Il soutient que, les humains étant tous condamnés à mort dès la conception, la peine capitale n'est qu'un acte futile et cruel, et que, comme la peine capitale vise l'anéantissement plutôt que le redressement moral du criminel, elle ne mérite aucun statut juridique.
Author Keywords: peine légitime, théorie distributive, théorie dissuasive.
How to Cite this Article
Pascal Ally Hussein, “Questioning Death Penalty Again: An Existentialist Perspective,” International Journal of Innovation and Scientific Research, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 95–102, June 2015.
