Capital punishment, human life value, moral condemnation, personal gain, injustice, poverty, social responsibility, Victor Hugo, Last Day of a Condemned Man
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Abstract
Extract
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Abstract
A deliberative discourse against condemning people to death for personal financial gain, highlighting the dangers of such practices and the importance of valuing human life.
Extract
[...] You condemn others by condemning yourself morally and in the other world. I abhor the fact that you grant yourselves powers to which you have no right to serve your individual interests. Subsequently, some wash their hands of it but rejoice if the culprit has committed a crime that has affected them. It is only justice and a way to join the useful to the pleasant, according to them. And as the law of talion in chapter 21 of the book of Exodus evokes: 'But if harm comes, you will pay quickly for life, eye for eye, so tooth for tooth.' This storm can therefore turn against you, because if you dare to be blinded by money, you will certainly cause your own downfall. [...]
[...] Believe me, this aberration will only create a dystopian world where injustice will reign, including a disloyal and inhuman people. They could sell their relatives, like the felonious brothers of Joseph, so that family ties would be broken. And the population would become savage, exempt from peace. We therefore have a responsibility in the face of this plague that must never occur. I ask you to listen to your heart and think intelligently. Any reasonable person knows that we cannot take a life to serve our personal interests. [...]
[...] So what do human lives matter if it can allow us to enrich ourselves? But let's suppose that common opinion is convinced that the deceased can give chance to the living, like the lottery, then the condemned to death would increase unfairly. And an unjust justice would be drawn for each of us, which would engender a gargantuan danger since this condemned person is part of a loving family. Imagine your suffering parents condemned to death because of the neighborhood, solely to acquire a significant amount that will dissipate like the dust created by the Divine. [...]
