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InternationalInstitute of Anthropology
Lolita Nikolova, PhD
Created: August 16, 2009.
Last updated: August 16, 2009.
Death penalty: Neutral, Pro or Anti Lolita Nikolova, Argosy University, Salt Lake City, Utah Death penalty is one of the social practices that always creates a controversial opinion, even in ourselves. In this response I will share how my personal opinion had evaluated and where I am today. For the first time I began thinking about death penalty when came to the USA. In Europe and especially in Bulgaria, this topic was not popular. But here, in the USA, I even watched on TV the execution of a guy, who had turned down a huge building in East. Some of the relatives of the victims even watched the execution although there was a movement to save the life of the young male. Later, I also read that there are cases when the death penalty victimized innocent people. It looks like, this is also an area of social activities, which depends on people and many people act subjectively according to their own interest and not according to the societal ethical and legal norms. Since the war is one of the most popular activities in human history, killing somebody is in fact just a reproduction of thousand and millions of human history. Killing as a strategy embedded in people and they can kill physically or psychologically for so many reasons. It is in people’s social memory and how the society reacts on killing is extremely important problem. Initially, as an European, I very strongly opposed the death penalty. My understanding was that we, the society, are responsible for what has been going around and the people with crimes that require death penalty in fact are children of this society. Then, we need to change the society and not to punish somebody, since with respect to society, we, all people, are children of this society. Today I think philosophically on the same issue. The reason is that punishment is way that helps the social reproduction. The death penalty itself is a relief for the relatives of the victims, but also a lesson for the society. It is more a moral than a legal category. Does the death penalty stop the crime? No, but at the same time, we do not know how it really influences the society. However, even the question of life is a philosophical question, because so many commit to suicide and often ones who kill also commit to suicide. We need to look at death penalty as a historical category that depends on the development of society. Since we are members of this society, if it helps the humanistic social reproduction, than, it should exist. But we never should forget, for instance, that our society is visible and invisible, so some people can become victims of the death penalty without being guilty. External links: Amnesty International USA http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/page.do?id=1011005 Death penalty: Discussion (with external links) Death penalty information center http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ Dictionary: death penalty http://www.answers.com/topic/death-penalty |
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