Immanuel Kant tried to justify the capital punishment as follows: If, however, he has committed murder he must die. Here there is no substitute that will satisfy justice. There is no similarity between life, however wretched it may be, and death, hence no likeliness between the crime and the retribution unless death is judicially carried out upon the wrongdoer, although it must still be freed from any mistreatment that could make the humanity in the person suffering it into something abominable. 2 But even he, as a rigorous proponent, makes reasonable limitations for mothers who kill their illegitimate children. This was not due to reasons of humanity but rather to his concept of retribution: a child that is born outside the law (for the law is marriage) is outside of its protection; therefore its annihilation can be ignored. Even the death penalty could not remove the disgrace of an illegitimate child. He dismisses Beccaria's (Cesare Beccaria Philosopher and Lawyer 1738-1794) arguments as overly compassionate. 3
2 Immanuel Kant The Metaphysics of Morals translated by Mary Gregor (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991) p 142. 3 Kant, above n 2, p 144. best wishes from Kyra Home http://kyraclaydon.de/ C.V. http://kyraclaydon.de/9.html Pop! http://kyraclaydon.wordpress.com/ ______________________________________________________ GRATIS für alle WEB.DE-Nutzer: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT! Jetzt freischalten unter http://movieflat.web.de _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
