07 Nov 2009
“ [The] reply is as old as man; it is called the law of retaliation. Whoever has done me harm must suffer harm; whoever has put out my eye must lose an eye; and whoever has killed must die. This is an emotion, and a particularly violent one, not a principle. Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature. If murder is in the nature of man, the law is not intended to imitate or reproduce that nature. It is intended to correct it. ”
— Albert Camus (b. November 7, 1913), in his anti-capital punishment essay, “Reflections on the Guillotine”
» posted at 4:28pm
