Reflections on Capital Punishment

“Monsieur le bourreau, encore un moment. ”

—Madame du Barry, under the guillotine

“Everyone has the right to life. …”

—Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations

Human life is inviolable. It is given to us, but it does not belong to us alone. We do not know what life is. We know only that it is entrusted to us for a few decades and that it ends without our knowing why.

As we do not know the ultimate meaning of human existence, we cannot reason about the usefulness of life as such, but only about the usefulness of given forms of existence. Therefore, it is wrong to look for reasons to justif...