死刑的正当性再思——交往主义刑罚理论背景下的考察

Rethinking the Legitimacy of Death Penalty from the Perspective of Communicative Theory of Punishment

传统上人们对死刑的正当性主要从经验和理性两个层面来加以论证。前者立足历史与现实维度,后者主要立足报应主义和威慑论的维度。而交往主义刑罚观为死刑正当性的思考提供了新的维度。在交往主义视阈中,刑罚是社会共同体、犯罪人和被害人参与的三方道德对话。社会共同体通过刑罚与犯罪人进行交往,目的是促进犯罪人悔悟,改造犯罪人,促进犯罪人与被害人和解。显然死刑无法满足上述目的,故交往主义刑罚体系中死刑难以获得正当性。交往主义刑罚理论虽不尽完美,但从政治哲学层面审思死刑正当性,仍给人们深刻启示。

Traditionally Death penalty has been justified from experiential and rational aspects. The former is based on the dimensions of history and reality while the latter is mainly on retribution and deterrence theory. Communicative punishment theory,however,provides a new perspective. It perceives the punishment as a moral dialogue among social community,the perpetrators and victims. Social community communicates with criminals through punishment to help criminals with repentance,reformation and reconciliation with victims. The death penalty clearly cannot fulfill the above objectives and hence it is hard to justify the legitimacy of death penalty. Though the theory itself is not perfect,it still sheds light on rethinking of death penalty from the perspective of political philosophy.