高級(jí)英語(yǔ) Advanced English(張漢熙) 第二冊(cè) 13.In Favor of Capital Punishment

In Favor of Capital Punishment

Jacques Barzun

1 A passing remark of mine in the Mid-Century magazine has brought me a number of letters and a sheaf of pamphlets against capital punishment. The letters, sad and reproachful, offer me the choice of pleading ignorance or being proved insensitive. I am asked whether I know that there exists a worldwide movement for the abolition of capital punishment which has everywhere enlisted able men of every profession, including the law. I am told that the death penalty is not only inhuman but also unscientific, for rapists and murderers are really sick people who should be cured, not killed. I am invited to use my imagination and acknowledge the unbearable horror of every form of execution.

2 I am indeed aware that the movement for abolition is widespread and articulate, especially in England. It is headed there by my old friend and publisher, Mr. Victor Gollancz, and it numbers such well-known writers as Arthur Koestler, C.H.Rolph, James Avery Joyce and Sir John Barry. Abroad as at home the profession of psychiatry tends to support the cure principle, and many liberal newspapers, such as the Observer, are committed to abolition. In the United States there are at least twenty-five state leagues working to the same end, plus a national league and several church councils, notably the Quaker and the Episcopal.

3 The assemblage of so much talent and enlightened goodwill behind a single proposal must give pause to anyone who supports the other side, and in the attempt to make clear my views, which are now close to unpopular, I start out by granting that my conclusion is arguable; that is, I am still open to conviction, provided some fallacies and frivolities in the abolitionist argument are first disposed of and the difficulties not ignored but overcome. I should be glad to see this happen, not only because there is pleasure in the spectacle of an airtight case, but also because I am not more sanguinary than my neighbor and I should welcome the discovery of safeguards – for society and the criminal – other than killing. But I say it again, these safeguards must really meet, not evade or postpone, the difficulties I am about to describe. Let me add before I begin that I shall probably not answer any more letters on this arousing subject. If this printed exposition does not do justice to my cause, it is not likely that I can do better in the hurry of private correspondence.

4 I readily concede at the outset that present ways of dealing out capital punishment are as revolting as Mr. Koestler says in his harrowingvolume, Hanged by the Neck. Like many of our prisons, our modes of execution should change. But this objection to barbarity does not mean that capital punishment – or rather, judicial homicide – should not go on. The illicit jump we find here, on the threshold of the inquiry, is characteristic of the abolitionist and must be disallowed at every point. Let us bear in mind the possibility of devising a painless, sudden and dignified death and see whether its administration is justifiable.

5 The four main arguments advanced against the death penalty are: 1) Punishment for crime is a primitive idea rooted in revenge; 2) capital punishment does not deter; 3) judicial error being possible, taking life is an appalling risk; 4) a civilized state, to deserve its name, must uphold, not violate, the sanctity of human life.

6 I entirely agree with the first pair of propositions, which is why, a moment ago, I replaced the term capital punishment with “judicial homicide.” The uncontrollable brute whom I want put out of the way is not to be punished for his misdeeds, nor used as an example or a warning; he is to be killed for the protection of others, like the wolf that escaped not long ago in a Connecticut suburb. No anger, vindictiveness or moral conceit need preside over the removal of such dangers. But a man’s inability to control his violent impulses or to imagine the fatal consequences of his acts should be a presumptive reason for his elimination from society. This generally covers drunken driving and teen-age racing on public highways, as well as incurable obsessive violence; it might be extended (as I shall suggest later) to other acts that destroy, precisely, the moral basis of civilization.

7 But why kill? I am ready to believe the statistics tending to show that the prospect of his own death does not stop the murderer. For one thing he is often a blind egotist , who cannot conceive the possibility of his own death. For another, detection would have to be infallible to deter the more imaginative who, although afraid, think they can escape discovery. Lastly, as Shaw long ago pointed out, hanging the wrong man will deter as effectively as hanging the right one. So, once again, why kill: If I agree that moral progress means an increasing respect for human life, how can I oppose abolition?

8 I do so because on this subject of human life, which is to me the heart of the controversy, I find the abolitionist inconsistent, narrow or blind. The propaganda for abolition speaks in hushed tones of the sanctity of human life, as if the mere statement of it as an absolute should silence all opponents who have any moral sense. But most of the abolitionists belong to nations that spend half their annual income on weapons of war and that honor research to perfect means of killing. These good people vote without a qualm for the political parties that quite sensibly arm their country to the teeth. The west today does not seem to be the time or place to invoke the absolute sanctity of human life. As for the clergymen in the movement, we may be sure from the experience of two previous world wars that they will bless our arms and pray for victory when called upon, the sixth commandment notwithstanding.

9 “Oh, but we mean the sanctity of life within the nation!” Very well: is the movement then campaigning also against the principle of self-defense? Absolute sanctity means letting the cutthroat have his sweet will of you, even if you have a poker handy to bash him with, for you might kill. And again, do we hear any protest against the police firing at criminals on the street – mere bank robbers usually – and doing this, often enough, with an excited marksmanship that misses the artist and hits the bystander? The absolute sanctity of human life is, for the abolitionist, a slogan rather than a considered proposition.

10 Yet it deserves examination, for upon our acceptance or rejection of it depend such other highly civilized possibilities as euthanasia and seemly suicide. The inquiring mind also wants to know, why the sanctity of human life alone? My tastes do not run to household pets, but I find something less than admirable in the uses to which we put animals – in zoos, laboratories and space machines – without the excuse of the ancient law, “ Eat or be eaten.”

11 It should moreover be borne in mind that this argument about sanctity applies – or would apply – to about ten persons a year in Great Britain and to between fifty and seventy-five in the United States. These are the average numbers of those executed in recent years. The count by itself should not, of course, affect our judgment of the principle: one life spared or forfeited is as important, morally, as a hundred thousand, But it should inspire a comparative judgment: there are hundreds and indeed thousands whom, in our concern with the horrors of execution, we forget: on the one hand, the victims of violence; on the other, the prisoners in our jails.

12 The victims are easy to forget. Social science tends steadily to mark a preference for the troubled, the abnormal, the problem case. Whether it is poverty, mental disorder, delinquency or crime, the “ patient material” monopolizes the interest of increasing groups of people among the most generous and learned. Psychiatry and moral liberalism go together; the application of law as we have known it is thus coming to be regarded as an historic prelude to social work, which may replace it entirely. Modern literature makes the most of this same outlook, caring only for the disturbed spirit, scorning as bourgeois those who pay their way and do not stab their friends. All the while the determinism of natural science reinforces the assumption that society causes its own evils. A French jurist, for example, says that in order to understand crime we must first brush aside all ideas of Responsibility. He means the criminal’s and takes for granted that of society. The murderer kills because reared in a broken home or, conversely, because at an early age he witnessed his parents making love. Out of such cases, which make pathetic reading in the literature of modern criminology, is born the abolitionist’s state of mind: we dare not kill those we are beginning to understand so well.

13 If, moreover, we turn to the accounts of the crimes committed by these unfortunates, who are the victims? Only dull ordinary people going about their business. We are sorry, of course, but they do not interest science on its march. Balancing, for example, the sixty to seventy criminals executed annually in the United States, there were the seventy to eighty housewives whom George Cvek robbed, raped and usually killed during the months of a career devoted to proving his virility. “it is too bad.” Cvek alone seems instructive, even though one of the law officers who helped track him down quietly remarks: “As to the extent that his villainies disturbed family relationships, or how many women are still haunted to another living soul, these questions can only lend themselves to sterile 　conjecture.”

14 The remote results are beyond our ken, but it is not idle to speculate about those whose death by violence fills the daily two inches at the back of respectable newspapers – the old man sunning himself on a park bench and beaten to death by four hoodlums , the small children abused and strangled , the family terrorized by a released or escaped lunatic, the half- dozen working people massacredby the sudden maniac , the boatload of persons dispatched (v.) by the skipper, the mindless assaults upon schoolteachers and shopkeepers by the increasing horde of dedicated killers in our great cities. Where does the sanctity of life begin?

15 It is all very well to say that many of these killers are themselves “children,” that is, minors. Doubtless a nine-year-old mind is housed in that 150 pounds of unguided muscle. Grant, for argument’s sake, that the misdeed is “the fault of society,” trot out the broken home and the slum environment. The question then is, what shall we do, not in the Utopian city of tomorrow, but here and now? The “scientific” means of cure are more than uncertain. The apparatus of detention only increases the killer’s antisocial animus . Reformatories and mental hospitals are full and have an understandable bias toward discharging their inmates. Some of these are indeed “cured” – so long as they stay under a rule. The stress of the social free-for-all throws them back on their violent modes of self-expression. At that point I agree that society has failed – twice: it has twice failed the victims, whatever may be its guilt toward the killer.

16 As in all great questions, the moralist must choose, and choosing has a price. I happen to think that is a person of adult body has not been endowed with adequate controls against irrationally taking the life of another, that person must be judicially, painlessly, regretfully killed before that mindless body’s horrible automation repeats.

17 I say “irrationally” taking life, because it is often possible to feel great sympathy with a murderer. Certain crimes passionnels can be forgiven without being condoned. Blackmailers invite direct retribution. Long provocation can be an excuse, as in that engaging case of some years ago, in which a respectable carpenter of seventy found he could no longer stand the incessant nagging of his wife. While she excoriatedhim from her throne in the kitchen- a daily exercise for fifty years— the husband went to his bench and came back with a hammer in each hand to settle the score. The testimony to his character, coupled with the sincerity implied by the two hammers, was enough to have him sent into quiet and brief seclusion .

18 But what are we to say of the type of motive disclosed in a journal published by the inmates of one of our Federal penitentiaries ? The author is a bank robber who confesses that money is not his object: My mania for power, socially, sexually, and otherwise can feel no degree of satisfaction until I feel sure I have struck the ultimate of submission and terror in the minds and bodies of my victims … It’s very difficult to explain all the queer fascinating sensations pounding and surging through me while I’m holding a gun on a victim, watching his body tremble and sweat … This is the moment when all the rationalized hypocrisies of civilization are suddenly swept away and two men stand there facing each other morally and ethically naked, and right and wrong are the absolute commands of the man behind the gun.

19 This confused echo of modern literature and modern science defines the choice before us. Anything deserving the name of cure for such a man presupposes not only a laborious individual psychoanalysis , with the means to conduct and to sustain it, socially and economically, but also a re-education of the mind, so as to throw into correct perspective the garbled ideas of Freud and Neitzsche, Gide and Dostoevski, which this power-seeker and his fellows have derived from the culture and temper of our times. Ideas are tenacious and give continuity to emotion. Failing a second birth of heart and mind, we must ask: How soon will this sufferer sacrifice a bank clerk in the interests of making civilization less hypocritical ? And we must certainly question the wisdom of affording him more than one chance. The abolitionists’ advocacy of an unconditional “let live” is in truth part of the same cultural tendency that animates the killer. The Western peoples’ revulsionfrom power in domestic and foreign policy has made of the state a sort of counterpart of the bank robber: both having power and neither knowing how to use it. Both waste lives because hypnotized by irrelevant ideas and crippled by contradictory emotions. If psychiatry were sure of its ground in diagnosing the individual case, a philosopher might consider whether such dangerous obsessions should not be guarded against by judicial homicide before the shooting starts.

20 I raise the question not indeed to recommend the prophylactic execution of potential murderers, but to introduce the last two perplexities that the abolitionists dwarf or obscure by their concentration on changing an isolated penalty. One of these is the scale by which to judge the offenses society wants to repress. I can for example imagine a truly democratic state in which it would be deemed a form of treason punishable by death to create a disturbance in any court or deliberative assembly. The aim would be to recognize the sanctity of orderly discourse in arriving at justice, assessing criticism and defining policy. Under such a law, a natural selection would operate to remove permanently from the scene persons who, let us say, neglect argument in favor of banging on the desk with their shoe. Similarly, a bullying minority in a diet, parliament or skupshtina would be prosecuted for treason to the most sacred institutions when fists or flying inkwells replace rhetoric. That the mere suggestion of such a law sounds ludicrous shows how remote we are from civilized institutions, and hence how gradual should be our departure from the severity of judicial homicide.

21 I say gradual and I do not mean standing still. For there is one form of barbarity in our law that I want to see mitigated before any other. I mean imprisonment. The enemies of capital punishment – and liberals generally – seem to be satisfied with any legal outcome so long as they themselves avoid the vicarious guilt of shedding blood. They speak of the sanctity of life, but have no concern with its quality. They give no impression of ever having read what it is certain they have read, from Wilde’s De Profundis to the latest account of prison life by a convicted homosexual. Despite the infamy of concentration camps, despite Mr. Charles Burney’s remarkable work, Solitary Confinement, despite riots in prisons, despite the round of escape, recapture and return in chains, the abolitionists’ imagination tells them nothing about the reality of being caged. They read without a qualm, indeed they read with rejoicing, the hideous irony of “Killer Gets Life”; they sign with relief instead of horror. They do not see and suffer the cell, the drill, the clothes, the stench , the food; they do not feel the sexual racking of young and old bodies, the hateful promiscuity , the insane monotony, the mass degradation, the impotent hatred. They do not remember from Silvio Pellico that only a strong political faith, with a hope of final victory, can steel a man to endure a long detention. They forget that Joan of Arc, when offered “life”, preferred burning at the stake. Quite of another mind, the abolitionists point with pride to the “model prisoners” that murderers often turn out to be. As if a model prisoner were not, first, a contradiction in terms, and second, an exemplarof what a free society should not want.

22 I said a moment ago that the happy advocates of the life sentence appear not to have understood what we know they have read. No more do they appear to read what they themselves write. In the preface to his useful volume of cases, Hanged in Error, Mr. Leslie Hale, M.P., refers to the tardy recognition of a minor miscarriage of justice – one year in jail: “The prisoner emerged to find that his wife had died and that his children and his aged parents had been removed to the workhouse. By the time a small payment had been assessed as ‘compensation’ the victim was incurably insane.” So far we are as indignant with the law as Mr. Hale. But what comes next? He cites the famous Evans case, in which it is very probable that the wrong man was hanged, and he exclaims: “While such mistakes are possible, should society impose an irrevocable sentence?” Does Mr. Hale really ask us to believe that the sentence passed on the first man, whose wife died and who went insane, was in any sense revocable? Would not any man rather be Evans dead than that other wretch “emerging” with his small compensation and his reasons for living gone?

23 Nothing is revocable here below, imprisonment least of all. The agony of a trial itself is punishment, and acquittalwipes out nothing. Read the heart-rending diary of William Wallace, accused quite implausibly of having murdered his wife and “saved” by the Court of Criminal Appeals – but saved for what ? Brutish ostracism by everyone and a few years of solitary despair. The cases of Adolf Beck, of Oscar Slater, of the unhappy Brooklyn bank teller who vaguely resembled a forger and spent eight years in Sing Sing only to “emerge” a broken, friendless, useless, “compensated” man – all these, if the dignity of the individual has any meaning, had better have been dead before the prison door ever opened for them. This is what counsel always says to the jury in the course of a murder trial and counsel is right: far better hang this man than “give him life.” For my part, I would choose death without hesitation. If that option is abolished, a demand will one day be heard to claim it as a privilege in the name of human dignity. I shall believe in the abolitionist’s present views only after he has emerged from twelve months in a convict cell.

24 The detached observer may want to interrupt here and say that the argument has now passed from reasoning to emotional preference. Whereas the objector to capital punishment feels that death is the greatest of evils, I feel that imprisonment is worse than death. A moment’s thought will show that feeling is the appropriate arbiter . All reasoning about what is right, civilized and moral rests upon sentiment, like mathematics. Only, in trying to persuade others, it is important to single out the fundamental feeling, the prime intuition, and from it to reason justly. In my view, to profess respect for human life and be willing to see it spent in a penitentiary is to entertain liberal feelings frivolously. To oppose the death penalty because, unlike a prison term, it is irrevocable is to argue fallaciously.

25 In the propaganda for abolishing the death sentence the recital of numerous miscarriages of justice commits the same error and implies the same callousness : What is at fault in our present system is not the sentence but the fallible procedure. Capital cases being one in a thousand or more, who can be cheerful at the thought of all the “revocable” errors? What the miscarriages point to is the need for reforming the jury system, the rules of evidence, the customs of prosecution, the machinery of appeal. The failure to see that this is the great task reflects the sentimentality I spoke of earlier, that which responds chiefly to the excitement of the unusual. A writer on Death and the Supreme Court is at pains to point but that when that tribunal reviews a capital case, the judges are particularly anxious and careful. What a left-handed complimentto the highest judicial conscience of the country! Fortunately, some of the champions of the misjudged see the issue more clearly. Many of those who are thought wrongly convicted now languish in jail because the jury was uncertain or because a doubting governor commuted the death sentence. Thus Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard, Jr., convicted of his wife’s murder in the second degree is serving a sentence that is supposed to run for the term of his natural life. The story of his numerous trials, as told by Mr. Paul Holmes, suggests that police incompetence, newspaper demagogy, public envy of affluence and the mischances of legal procedure fashioned the result. But Dr. Sheppard’s vindicator is under no illusion as to the conditions that this “lucky” evader of the electric chair will face if he is granted parole after ten years: “It will carry with it no right to resume his life as a physician. His privilege to practice medicine was blotted out with his conviction. He must all his life bear the stigma of parolee, subject to unceremonious return to confinement for life for the slightest misstep. More than this, he must live out his life as a convicted murderer.

26 What does the moral conscience of today think it is doing? If such a man is a dangerous repeater of violent acts? What right has the state to let him loose after ten years? What is, in fact, the meaning of a “life sentence” that peters out long before life? Paroling looks suspiciously like an expression of social remores for the pain of incarceration , coupled with a wish to avoid “unfavorable publicity” by freeing a suspect. The man is let out when the fuss has died down; which would mean that he was not under lock and key for our protection at all. He was being punished, just a little –for so prison seems in the abolitionist’s distorted view, and in the jury’s and the prosecutor’s whose “second-degree” murder suggests killing someone “just a little,”

27 If, on the other hand, execution and life imprisonment are judged too severe and the accused is expected to be harmless hereafter- punishment being ruled out as illiberal- what has society gained by wrecking his life and damaging that of his family?

28 What we accept, and what the abolitionist will clamp upon us all the more firmly if he succeeds, is an incoherence which is not remedied by the belief that second-degree murder merits a kind of second degree death; that a doubt as to the identity of a killer is resolved by commuting real death into intolerable life; and that our ignorance whether a maniac will strike again can be hedged against by measuring “good behavior” within the gates and then releasing the subject upon the public in the true spirit of experimentation.

29 There are some of thoughts I find I cannot escape when I read and reflect upon this grave subject. If, as I think, they are relevant to any discussion of change and reform, retain as they do on the direct and concrete perception of what happens, then the simple meliorists who expect to breathe a purer air by abolishing the death penalty are deceiving themselves and us. The issue is for the public to judge; but I for one shall not sleep easer for knowing that in England and American and the West generally a hundred more human beings are kept alive in degrading conditions to face a hopeless future; while others- possibly less conscious, certainly less controlled- benefit from a premature freedom dangerous alike to themselves and society. In short, I derive no comfort from the illusion that in giving up one manifest protection of the law-abiding, we who might well be in and of these three roles- victim, prisoner, licensed killer- have struck a blow for the sanctity of human life.

(from an American radio program presented by Ed Kay)

第十三課為死刑辯護(hù)

雅克巴贊

《中世紀(jì)》雜志上刊載了我隨便講的一番話后，許多反對(duì)死刑的信件和小冊(cè)子向我飛來(lái)。這些信件，有的是對(duì)我的觀點(diǎn)表示遺憾，有的是對(duì)我的觀點(diǎn)給予斥責(zé)。他們要我承認(rèn)自己不是愚昧無(wú)知就是麻木不仁，責(zé)問(wèn)我是否知道面臨著一場(chǎng)世界性的廢除死刑的運(yùn)動(dòng)，而且這場(chǎng)運(yùn)動(dòng)已經(jīng)得到了包括法學(xué)家在內(nèi)的各界有識(shí)之士的廣泛支持;他們說(shuō)將人處死既無(wú)人道又違背科學(xué)。因?yàn)闊o(wú)論是強(qiáng)奸犯還是殺人犯，其實(shí)都是病人，對(duì)他們應(yīng)當(dāng)給予醫(yī)治而不應(yīng)該處死。他們要我認(rèn)真地思考并認(rèn)識(shí)到將人處死的任何形式所引起的恐懼都是不堪容忍的。

的確，這場(chǎng)廢除死刑的運(yùn)動(dòng)已遍及世界，而且已宣傳得深入人心，尤其在英國(guó)更是如此。這場(chǎng)運(yùn)動(dòng)的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者就是我的老友兼出版商維克托·高蘭茲先生，還有阿瑟·凱斯特勒、CH羅爾夫、詹姆斯·艾弗里·喬伊斯、約翰·巴里爵士等一批享有盛名的作家。國(guó)內(nèi)外精神病學(xué)界的人士都傾向于采取治病救人的方針，而且許多自由派報(bào)紙，譬如《觀察家報(bào)》就極力地主張徹底廢除死刑。在美國(guó)，至少有25個(gè)州級(jí)協(xié)會(huì)、一家全國(guó)性協(xié)會(huì)以及一系列教派在為此目的而努力，其中最引人注意的是教友派和主教派。

如此之多的英才賢士群起支持一項(xiàng)善意的提議，當(dāng)然會(huì)使任何敵對(duì)的一方望而卻步。為了闡明我的觀點(diǎn)(盡管我的觀點(diǎn)目前幾乎不得人心)，我得申明我的結(jié)論是可以爭(zhēng)辯的，也就是說(shuō)，我仍愿意服從真理，但條件是首先必須澄清廢除派論點(diǎn)中的某些謬誤和強(qiáng)詞奪理之言;這些問(wèn)題必須解決，而不能置之不理。若能做到這些，我當(dāng)然非常高興。這不僅是因?yàn)榭吹綗o(wú)懈可擊的事實(shí)乃一件樂(lè)事，而且是因?yàn)槲也⒉槐葎e人更好殺戳;我很希望能看到有既能維護(hù)社會(huì)又能保護(hù)罪犯(而不是將罪犯處死)的好辦法，但我要重申，這些辦法必須能切實(shí)解決我將要談到的一些問(wèn)題，而不能對(duì)此回避或拖延。在開(kāi)始之前我還要補(bǔ)充說(shuō)明一句：我或許再不會(huì)答復(fù)有關(guān)這個(gè)使人們反應(yīng)強(qiáng)烈的問(wèn)題的任何來(lái)信。如果這篇公開(kāi)發(fā)表的文章還不能證明我的論點(diǎn)的話，那么，匆匆往復(fù)的私人信函也不可能起什么作用。

首先我愿意承認(rèn)，置人于死的現(xiàn)有方式是令人震驚的，就象凱斯特勒先生在《絞刑》一書(shū)中所描寫(xiě)的那樣慘不忍睹。與我國(guó)許多監(jiān)獄的情況一樣，我們的行刑方式也應(yīng)當(dāng)改變。但是，反對(duì)野蠻并不意味著死刑--確切地說(shuō)是按法律處死--應(yīng)該廢除。在開(kāi)始探究這一問(wèn)題時(shí)，我們就發(fā)現(xiàn)這種一下子就得出荒謬結(jié)論的做法是廢除派的一個(gè)特征。這種做法必須全面予以禁止。我們應(yīng)該記住，有可能設(shè)計(jì)一種無(wú)痛苦、迅速而又威嚴(yán)的處死方式，并檢驗(yàn)一下對(duì)這種方式的執(zhí)行是否合理得當(dāng)。

提出反對(duì)死刑的四個(gè)主要論點(diǎn)是：(1)對(duì)犯罪的懲罰是在基于報(bào)復(fù)的一種原始觀念;(2)死刑并不起威懾作用;(3)審判上的失誤可能導(dǎo)致濫殺無(wú)辜之危險(xiǎn);(4)文明國(guó)家應(yīng)名符其實(shí)，對(duì)神圣不可侵犯的人生只能是維護(hù)而不容許褻瀆。

我完全贊同前兩個(gè)論點(diǎn)，這就是為什么剛才我用"按法律處死"來(lái)代替"死刑"這個(gè)字眼的緣故。我認(rèn)為剔除無(wú)法無(wú)天的惡棍，既不是為了懲罰其罪行，也不是為了殺雞嚇猴，而是為了保護(hù)他人的安全才將其處死，就象前不久在康涅狄格州郊區(qū)殺死逃出的那只惡狼一樣。靠憤怒的情緒、復(fù)仇的心理或道德觀念來(lái)處決這類(lèi)禍害是行不通的。如果一個(gè)人既不能控制他的暴力沖動(dòng)，又不能顧及他的行動(dòng)所導(dǎo)致的致人于死的惡果，那么就有充分理由將他從社會(huì)中淘汰。這種暴力沖動(dòng)一般包括在公路上酗酒開(kāi)車(chē)，青少年在公路上駕車(chē)追逐以及其他不可救藥的瘋狂的暴力行為，而且還可以擴(kuò)大到(下文我將要提出的)一些的確毀滅人類(lèi)文明道德基礎(chǔ)的其他行為。

但是，為什么要把人殺掉呢?我很相信那些證明殺人犯并沒(méi)有因自己可能被處死而罷手的統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)字。首先是因?yàn)闅⑷朔竿且恍斆У臉O端利己主義者，想不到自己也可能被殺。其次是偵察必須完全可靠，才能對(duì)那些盡管提心吊膽但仍以為能逃出法網(wǎng)的狡猾的罪犯起到威懾作用。第三，正如肖伯納早就指出過(guò)的，殺一個(gè)不該殺的人和殺一個(gè)該殺的人具有同樣的威懾效果。這樣，人們不禁又要問(wèn)：為什么非要置人于死地不可呢?既然我認(rèn)為道德上的進(jìn)步就意味著越來(lái)越尊重人的生命，我又怎能反對(duì)廢除死刑呢?

我之所以反對(duì)廢除死刑是因?yàn)槲艺J(rèn)為爭(zhēng)論的核心問(wèn)題就是有關(guān)人的生命的問(wèn)題，我覺(jué)得廢除派的論點(diǎn)是矛盾的、狹隘的，是不堪一擊的。廢除派用一種溫文爾雅的口吻宣傳著所謂人生的神圣，好像只要把它說(shuō)成是一種絕對(duì)的東西就能使一切還有點(diǎn)道德意識(shí)的反對(duì)者緘默不語(yǔ)?？墒谴蠖鄶?shù)的廢除派都是那些把年收入的一半用于制造戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)武器以及以研究完備的殺人手段為榮的一些國(guó)家。對(duì)于那些十分明顯地將國(guó)家武裝到牙齒的一些政黨，一些善良的人們競(jìng)也毫不猶豫地贊成。在今日西方，祈禱人的生命絕對(duì)神圣不可侵犯似乎既非其時(shí)，亦非其地。至于這場(chǎng)運(yùn)動(dòng)中的教士，根據(jù)過(guò)去兩次世界大戰(zhàn)的經(jīng)驗(yàn)我們可以確信，一經(jīng)召喚，他們便會(huì)為軍隊(duì)祝福，為勝利祈禱，管他什么第六條圣誡。

"哦，我們意指的生命不可侵犯是就國(guó)內(nèi)而言的。"好極了，那么你們這場(chǎng)運(yùn)動(dòng)還要反對(duì)自衛(wèi)的原則嗎?所謂人的生命絕對(duì)不可侵犯，就是聽(tīng)任殺手對(duì)你為所欲為，你即使手邊有個(gè)火鉗也不可用來(lái)還擊，因?yàn)檫@樣你可就是殺人。再者，我們何曾聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)這樣的抗議：警察在街頭向罪犯--通常不過(guò)是一些搶劫銀行的匪徒--開(kāi)火時(shí)，一些子彈擊中行路人，而不是那神通廣大的匪徒。廢除派所謂人的生命神圣不可侵犯，并不是什么深思熟慮后的主張，只不過(guò)是一個(gè)口號(hào)而已。

人的生命神圣不可侵犯之說(shuō)是值得研究的。因?yàn)榱硗庖恍┲T如無(wú)痛苦致死術(shù)和適當(dāng)?shù)淖詺⒅?lèi)的極文明的辦法也決定于我們對(duì)這種觀念是否接受。追根尋底的人還想知道：為什么反復(fù)講人生不可侵犯呢?我對(duì)家庭玩賞動(dòng)物則毫無(wú)興趣，同時(shí)我認(rèn)為把動(dòng)物置于動(dòng)物園、實(shí)驗(yàn)室及空間儀器中的做法也并不值得贊美，除非以"要么吞食，要么被吞食"的古老法則作為借口。

而且應(yīng)該知道，關(guān)于神圣不可侵犯之說(shuō)的這場(chǎng)論爭(zhēng)在英國(guó)每年只適用于或可能適用于10個(gè)人左右，在美國(guó)每年也只適用于50-70人而已，這就是近年來(lái)被處死者的平均數(shù)字。當(dāng)然這個(gè)數(shù)字本身不應(yīng)該影響我們對(duì)這一原則的裁決。因?yàn)樵诘懒x上來(lái)講，對(duì)一個(gè)人的生殺予奪與對(duì)千百萬(wàn)人的生殺予奪是同等重要的。但是我們應(yīng)從這個(gè)數(shù)字中得出一個(gè)比較性判斷：在我們考慮死刑造成的恐怖時(shí)，我們卻忘記了成千上萬(wàn)的其他人，但我們一方面忽視了那些暴力行為的受害者，另一方面也忽視了監(jiān)獄里的那些囚犯。

受害者往往容易被忽視。社會(huì)科學(xué)總是對(duì)那些被認(rèn)為是罪犯精神有毛病、不正常或有問(wèn)題的案件給予優(yōu)先考慮，無(wú)論是貧困，是精神失常，是過(guò)失，還是罪惡，這種"病情資料"始終是一批批越來(lái)越多的最寬宏大量和最有學(xué)問(wèn)的人的興趣所在。精神病學(xué)和道德自由主義密切配合，于是我們所熟悉的執(zhí)法問(wèn)題開(kāi)始被視為社會(huì)工作的一種歷史序曲，而社會(huì)工作終究會(huì)將它完全取而代之?，F(xiàn)代文學(xué)作品也充分地表明了這種觀點(diǎn)。這些作品只關(guān)心所謂精神上的混亂，而把那些從不貪占他人錢(qián)財(cái)、不捅朋友一刀的人斥之為中產(chǎn)階級(jí)。自然科學(xué)的決定論始終強(qiáng)調(diào)犯罪行為是由社會(huì)本身造成的說(shuō)法。例如，一位法國(guó)法律學(xué)家說(shuō)：為了了解犯罪，我們必須首先去掉一切責(zé)任觀念。他所指的是要免除罪犯的責(zé)任，而把責(zé)任推向社會(huì);殺人犯之所以殺人，是因?yàn)樗砷L(zhǎng)于一個(gè)破裂的家庭，或反之，是因?yàn)樗?dāng)小小年紀(jì)便目睹了父母的性行為。那些在現(xiàn)代犯罪文學(xué)作品中令人產(chǎn)生惻隱之心的案件，造成了廢除派這樣一種心理：我們可不能將那些正在開(kāi)始為我們真正理解的人殺掉。

此外，如果我們看看這些不幸者的犯罪記錄，就會(huì)知道誰(shuí)是受害者…還不是那些忙于事務(wù)，反應(yīng)遲鈍的普通人嗎?當(dāng)然我是為他們感到難過(guò)的。但遺憾的是。他們并不能引起日益發(fā)展的科學(xué)的研究興趣。比較一下：在美國(guó)一年有六七十名罪犯被處死，僅喬治·科威克一人為了顯示自己的男子氣概，在幾個(gè)月內(nèi)就搶劫和強(qiáng)奸了七八十名婦女，并常常將她們殺死。"這太殘忍了!""至于他所犯下的罪行破壞了多少人的家庭關(guān)系、有多少婦女對(duì)那從未向別人透露的遭遇仍舊心有余悸，以及諸如此類(lèi)的問(wèn)題，就只能付諸毫無(wú)結(jié)果的推測(cè)了。"即使一位協(xié)助追捕科威克的司法官這樣溫和地評(píng)論著，但似乎只有科威克才能對(duì)人有所啟發(fā)。這些犯罪行為所造成的惡果遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)了我們所能知道的范圍。有時(shí)間，推究一下每天各大報(bào)末版所刊登的因暴力致死的人們的情況是值得的：一位在公園長(zhǎng)椅上曬太陽(yáng)的老人被四個(gè)惡棍活活打死，幾個(gè)小孩受欺負(fù)后被勒死，幾個(gè)路上行走的中年婦女被強(qiáng)奸后又被殺死，一家老小被放出或逃出的精神病人騷擾得不能安寧，六七個(gè)正在于活的人被突如其來(lái)的殺人狂屠戳殆盡，整船的船員被船長(zhǎng)全部殺死，一些大城市里的教師和店員遭到了越來(lái)越多的殺人慣犯的瘋狂襲擊。在這種情況之下，所謂人生的神圣又何從談起呢?

誠(chéng)然，這些殺人犯中不少是沒(méi)有達(dá)到法定年齡的"孩子"。無(wú)疑，這些人頭腦簡(jiǎn)單，身軀龐大，有一身無(wú)法自控的力氣。為辯論起見(jiàn)，我們姑且承認(rèn)這些犯罪行為是"社會(huì)的過(guò)錯(cuò)"，提出家庭破裂和貧困環(huán)境所迫之理由。那么問(wèn)題在于，不是在未來(lái)的"烏托邦"城市里，而是此時(shí)此地我們?cè)撛趺崔k。所謂"科學(xué)的"醫(yī)治手段是很不可靠的，拘留機(jī)構(gòu)和設(shè)施只能助長(zhǎng)殺人犯反社會(huì)的氣焰。教養(yǎng)院和精神病院均已滿(mǎn)員，所以它們想讓它們的"住客"離開(kāi)的原因是可以理解的。這些住客中有些人是真正"治愈"了--因?yàn)閷?duì)他們加強(qiáng)了管制。如果強(qiáng)調(diào)社會(huì)可以自由行事，就會(huì)使他們舊惡復(fù)發(fā)，照舊用暴力來(lái)表現(xiàn)自己。這樣，我可以說(shuō)社會(huì)又一次失敗了，它至少又一次對(duì)不起受害者，不管它對(duì)殺人者應(yīng)負(fù)什么責(zé)任。

對(duì)于一切重大問(wèn)題，德育家必須作出抉擇，而且這抉擇需要付出代價(jià)。我恰恰認(rèn)為，如果一個(gè)成年人對(duì)自己沒(méi)有適當(dāng)?shù)目刂屏Γ呛翢o(wú)理性地毀奪他人的生命，那么對(duì)這個(gè)沒(méi)有理智的人，在他重復(fù)其機(jī)械性的恐怖行動(dòng)之前，就必須通過(guò)法律迫不得已地將他無(wú)痛苦地處死。我之所以說(shuō)"毫無(wú)理性地"毀奪人命，是因?yàn)闅⑷朔竿赡艿玫揭恍┤说膽z憫，某些激怒之下的犯罪行為雖然不會(huì)免于追究，但可能得到寬大處理。敲詐者會(huì)受到直接的懲罰。長(zhǎng)期的挑釁可以作為殺人的借口，就像幾年前一樁引人注目的案件中，一個(gè)70多歲、受人尊重的木匠對(duì)其妻子無(wú)休止的嘮叨忍無(wú)可忍時(shí)那樣。妻子坐在廚房的寶座上責(zé)罵他--50年來(lái)每天都是這樣--丈夫走到他的工作臺(tái)前，雙手各拿一把錘子回來(lái)跟她算帳。對(duì)木匠的證詞以及從兩把錘子中所得出的他的忠誠(chéng)足以將他送入安靜的隔離室少住些時(shí)日。

然而，對(duì)于我們聯(lián)邦的某所監(jiān)獄所出版的一家刊物的一篇文章所披露的另一種犯罪動(dòng)機(jī)，我們又該說(shuō)些什么呢?那篇文章的作者是一個(gè)銀行搶劫犯，他在供詞中聲稱(chēng)搶錢(qián)并不是他的真正目的：

"我對(duì)于社會(huì)地位、性生活及其他事物的追求達(dá)到了狂熱的程度，我覺(jué)得只有當(dāng)我能使我的受害者的身心都因極度的恐懼而完全被征服時(shí)，我的這些欲望才能得到滿(mǎn)足。……不知為什么，每當(dāng)我拿著槍對(duì)準(zhǔn)別人，看到她渾身發(fā)抖、面上冷汗直冒的樣子時(shí)，我總會(huì)感到自己身上洋溢著一種說(shuō)不出的痛快。……因?yàn)樵谶@樣的時(shí)刻，文明社會(huì)的種種虛飾傾刻間蕩然無(wú)存，只有兩個(gè)人面對(duì)面站在那里，道德上的偽裝全被撕去，是非曲直完全取決于持槍者的裁判。"

這種現(xiàn)代文學(xué)和現(xiàn)代科學(xué)混亂不清的反響決定了我們面臨的選擇。要真正算得上是治愈了這樣一個(gè)人，必須有這樣的先決條件：社會(huì)上和經(jīng)濟(jì)上有能力進(jìn)行和堅(jiān)持長(zhǎng)期艱苦的個(gè)人精神分析，并對(duì)其思想進(jìn)行重新教育。這種教育是為了使這個(gè)權(quán)力追求者及類(lèi)似的人對(duì)從我們時(shí)代的文化和特征中得來(lái)的、被歪曲了的弗洛伊德和尼采、吉德和陀思妥耶夫斯基的思想有一個(gè)正確的看法。思想是很頑強(qiáng)的，并使感情得以延續(xù)。如果心理上和思想上沒(méi)有一次再生，我們就要問(wèn)：還要多久，這個(gè)患者就會(huì)為了使文明不那么虛偽而又犧牲一個(gè)銀行職員?我們當(dāng)然要對(duì)再給他一次機(jī)會(huì)是否明智提出疑問(wèn)。主張廢除死刑者宣傳的無(wú)條件的"讓別人活"，實(shí)際上是激勵(lì)殺人者的那種文化傾向的一個(gè)部分。西方人民在國(guó)內(nèi)和外交政策上對(duì)權(quán)力的厭惡，已使國(guó)家成為銀行搶劫犯的某種相對(duì)稱(chēng)的東西。二者都有權(quán)，又都不知如何使用。二者糟踏生命都在于對(duì)混雜的思想著了迷和陷于矛盾的感情而不能自拔。如果精神病學(xué)家在診斷這種病例時(shí)，對(duì)自己的診斷確有把握，那么哲學(xué)家也許應(yīng)考慮一下，為了防止這種危險(xiǎn)的著迷，是否應(yīng)在槍殺開(kāi)始前，就由法院將此人處死。

我提出這樣一個(gè)問(wèn)題的用意決不是主張要對(duì)那些可能成為殺人犯的人還在他們沒(méi)有機(jī)會(huì)作案之前就預(yù)先實(shí)行處決。我的目的只是要由此引出最后兩個(gè)復(fù)雜的問(wèn)題。這兩個(gè)復(fù)雜問(wèn)題曾由于廢除派一心只想到要改變孤立的懲罰方式而被忽略或混淆了。其一是社會(huì)所需的對(duì)應(yīng)予以懲罰的犯法行為的量刑標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。比方說(shuō)，我就可以想象有這樣一個(gè)真正的民主國(guó)家，在這個(gè)國(guó)家里任何在法庭或?qū)徸h會(huì)上滋事?lián)v亂的行為都會(huì)被定為叛逆罪，處以死刑。制訂了這種法律的目的是為了使人們意識(shí)到會(huì)議秩序的神圣性。在裁定是非、評(píng)估得失及解釋政策的過(guò)程中必須保證辯論有秩序地進(jìn)行。有了這樣的法律，那些不是盡力以理服人而是動(dòng)輒就脫鞋子拍桌子的人就會(huì)被自然淘汰掉，永遠(yuǎn)沒(méi)有機(jī)會(huì)再占席位了。同樣，在國(guó)會(huì)、議會(huì)或其他最高立法機(jī)關(guān)中若出現(xiàn)少數(shù)以拳代口、認(rèn)力不認(rèn)理的強(qiáng)橫不法分子的話，他們也會(huì)因叛逆罪而被起訴。只要一提出這樣的法律就會(huì)使人們覺(jué)得荒唐可笑。這種情形恰好說(shuō)明，我們的社會(huì)距離真正的文明還很遙遠(yuǎn)，因此，也就只能朝著擺脫嚴(yán)刑峻法的目標(biāo)逐步前進(jìn)。

我說(shuō)的逐步前進(jìn)并不意味著停步不前。我認(rèn)為在目前的刑罰方式中確實(shí)有一種是極其殘酷的，必須優(yōu)先予以緩解。我這里提的是監(jiān)禁。那些反對(duì)實(shí)行死刑的人--他們多半為自由主義鼓吹者--似乎以為只要他們能逃避流血的罪責(zé)，任何其他法律上的后果都盡可不計(jì)。他們只顧癡談人的生命的神圣性，根本不管那究竟是一種什么樣的生命。從王爾德的《慘痛的呼聲》到最近由一個(gè)同性戀者所作的對(duì)獄中生活的描述，他們似乎都沒(méi)有讀過(guò)，盡管事實(shí)上他們也可能都讀過(guò)。盡管集中營(yíng)的聲名已人人皆知，盡管有查爾斯·伯爾尼先生寫(xiě)的《單獨(dú)監(jiān)禁》這樣一部影響突出的大作，盡管我們知道監(jiān)獄中常常發(fā)生犯人暴動(dòng)、越獄逃跑、再度被捕并重新入獄這樣的事實(shí)，廢除派卻絲毫想象不出被關(guān)在牢籠里究竟是個(gè)什么樣的滋味。對(duì)于報(bào)刊上出現(xiàn)的"殺人犯免受死刑"這種觸目驚心的特具諷刺意味的語(yǔ)句，他們讀來(lái)不僅毫無(wú)不安的感覺(jué)，反而為之歡呼雀躍;不僅不感到恐怖，反而會(huì)如釋重負(fù)般地長(zhǎng)吁一口氣。對(duì)于牢房中的囚室、整訓(xùn)、囚服、臭氣以及飯食究竟是個(gè)什么樣子，他們沒(méi)有親眼看到，更沒(méi)有親身體驗(yàn)過(guò);對(duì)于老少囚犯因長(zhǎng)期缺乏性生活而受到痛苦折磨，對(duì)于發(fā)生在監(jiān)獄里的令人憎惡的亂交行為，對(duì)于單調(diào)的引人發(fā)瘋的獄中生活，對(duì)于監(jiān)獄中存在的群體墮落行為和無(wú)力發(fā)泄的仇恨心理等等，他們都毫無(wú)感覺(jué)。他們不記得西爾維奧·佩利科曾經(jīng)說(shuō)過(guò)的話：只有堅(jiān)強(qiáng)的政治信仰和對(duì)最后勝利的美好希望才能使人的意志堅(jiān)強(qiáng)得足以忍受長(zhǎng)期的監(jiān)禁。他們也忘記了當(dāng)圣女貞德被給予"求生"的選擇時(shí)，她寧愿燒死在火刑柱上。廢除派的想法也不知怎么的會(huì)那樣與眾不同。他們竟然會(huì)驕傲地稱(chēng)贊那些殺人犯往往都可以變成的"模范囚犯"。似乎這既不是一種用詞上的矛盾，也不是自由社會(huì)里不該出現(xiàn)的一種典型。

我剛才說(shuō)過(guò)，那些熱衷于提倡終身監(jiān)禁的人們似乎未能領(lǐng)會(huì)我們相信他們讀過(guò)的東西。甚至連他們自己所寫(xiě)的東西他們似乎也未認(rèn)真讀過(guò)。身為英國(guó)議會(huì)議員的萊斯利·黑爾先生在他的那部案例集《誤殺》的前言中曾提到過(guò)一件為有關(guān)方面承認(rèn)的輕微的誤判--一年的監(jiān)禁："該犯出獄時(shí)，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己妻子已經(jīng)作古，幾個(gè)兒女及年邁的雙親都被送到了濟(jì)貧院，及至一小筆"補(bǔ)償金"發(fā)到手時(shí)，這位遭誤判的可憐人已經(jīng)神智失常，無(wú)可挽救了。"在這一點(diǎn)上，我們完全同意黑爾先生的看法，同他一樣對(duì)法律感到憤慨。但接下來(lái)他就舉出了著名的伊文思案件，在這一案中很可能殺錯(cuò)了人，于是他驚呼："既然會(huì)發(fā)生這種錯(cuò)判，難道社會(huì)還應(yīng)當(dāng)強(qiáng)制推行無(wú)可挽回的刑罰嗎?"難道黑爾先生真的要我們相信對(duì)其妻子身死、本人被逼瘋的那個(gè)人作出判決在任何意義上是可以挽回的嗎?難道人們不是寧愿像伊文思那樣一死了之而不愿自己成為那位拿著一點(diǎn)補(bǔ)償金"出獄"，但卻完全失去繼續(xù)生活愿望的不幸者嗎?

下面提到的所有案例都是無(wú)法挽回的，尤以監(jiān)禁為最。受審的折磨本身就是一種懲罰，即使審訊后無(wú)罪釋放也絲毫不能抵消受害者所受的痛苦。請(qǐng)讀一讀威廉·瓦雷斯那令人腸斷的日記吧。說(shuō)來(lái)令人難以置信，他曾被控謀殺了自己妻子，后來(lái)經(jīng)刑事案件上訴法庭才"得救"--但得救了又怎樣呢?還不是遭受眾人冷眼，在孤獨(dú)絕望中茍活幾年而已!阿道夫貝克案件、奧斯卡斯萊特案件，還有涉及那位以莫須有罪名被當(dāng)成偽造犯，在星星監(jiān)獄中呆了八年，出獄后變成一個(gè)身體傷殘、無(wú)親無(wú)故、領(lǐng)到"補(bǔ)償"的廢人的布魯克林銀行出納員的案件--如果說(shuō)個(gè)人的尊嚴(yán)還有什么意義的話，所有這些案件中的受害人還不如在入獄之前就一死了之。在法庭審訊殺人犯時(shí)，辯護(hù)律師往往會(huì)對(duì)陪審團(tuán)這樣說(shuō)：與其這樣"饒他一死"，還不如干脆賜他一死。這話的確不錯(cuò)。假如是我的話，我會(huì)毫不猶豫地選擇去死而不愿去坐牢。倘若這種選擇權(quán)被廢除的話，終有一天會(huì)有人以人的尊嚴(yán)的名義來(lái)要求享有這種特權(quán)。要我相信廢除派目前的觀點(diǎn)，除非等到他們自己能有機(jī)會(huì)在囚室里呆上一年出獄之后。

持公正態(tài)度的旁人可能會(huì)在這兒打斷我的話，指出我的論點(diǎn)已由說(shuō)理變成感情用事了。反對(duì)死刑的人認(rèn)為死是最大的罪孽，而我則覺(jué)得坐牢比死更可怕。只要稍稍動(dòng)點(diǎn)腦筋想一想，我們就會(huì)意識(shí)到，感情正是最合適的仲裁者。一切關(guān)于對(duì)與錯(cuò)、文明與野蠻、是與非的說(shuō)理、推論都是以感情為基礎(chǔ)的，就像數(shù)學(xué)一樣。不過(guò)，在試圖說(shuō)服別人時(shí)，重要的是應(yīng)該揀選出最本質(zhì)的感情，最重要的直覺(jué)，由此進(jìn)行公平合理的推論。依我看來(lái)，一個(gè)人既主張尊重人的生命又愿意容許人的生命被消耗在牢獄中，那簡(jiǎn)直是在輕率地玩弄自由主義感情。如果反對(duì)死刑是因?yàn)樗挟愑谝话愕谋O(jiān)禁，是不可挽回的，這純屬一種荒唐的推理。

廢除派在宣傳廢除死刑的主張時(shí)列舉了大量錯(cuò)判案件。他們列舉這些案件時(shí)犯了判案時(shí)同樣的錯(cuò)誤，并表現(xiàn)出同樣的冷漠態(tài)度：現(xiàn)行法律制度的弊病并不在刑罰方面而在于易出現(xiàn)差錯(cuò)的司法程序方面。在所有案件中該判死刑的案件所占比率不過(guò)千分之一，甚至更少。有誰(shuí)會(huì)一想到這些案件可能是"可以挽回的"錯(cuò)案就感到欣慰呢?案件的錯(cuò)判只能說(shuō)明現(xiàn)行的陪審制度、有關(guān)獲取犯罪證據(jù)、提出起訴及進(jìn)行上訴等一系列程序的具體規(guī)定和辦法有必要加以修改，這才是我們面臨的重任。對(duì)這一點(diǎn)缺乏認(rèn)識(shí)，就是我前面曾提到的那種主要由對(duì)反常事物的特別敏感而引起的感情作用的反映。一個(gè)記者在報(bào)道死刑和最高法院的情況時(shí)總是極力指出，每當(dāng)法庭復(fù)審死刑案件時(shí)法官們就會(huì)特別不安而謹(jǐn)慎小心。這對(duì)我們國(guó)家最高司法當(dāng)局的法律道德是一種多么言不由衷的贊頌之辭!幸而在那些為遭錯(cuò)判的人辯護(hù)的人們之中有些人對(duì)這一點(diǎn)看得更明白。許多被認(rèn)為遭錯(cuò)判的人現(xiàn)在之所以能蹲在監(jiān)獄里受活罪，不是因?yàn)榕銓張F(tuán)持有異議就是因?yàn)橹蓍L(zhǎng)感覺(jué)有可疑之處而將死刑減輕為監(jiān)禁。塞繆爾·H謝潑德醫(yī)生殺妻一案就是這樣被定為二級(jí)謀殺罪(即誤殺--譯者注)，被判終身徒刑的。據(jù)保羅.霍姆斯先生記述的有關(guān)他那一案件的多次庭審經(jīng)過(guò)告訴人們：是警方的無(wú)能、報(bào)紙的煽動(dòng)、公眾對(duì)于富豪的妒忌及法律程序中的一些紕漏等因素的作用導(dǎo)致了最后的結(jié)局。但謝潑德醫(yī)生的辯護(hù)人對(duì)于這位免受電椅之苦的"幸運(yùn)兒"，如果能在十年之后獲得假釋后所要面臨的情況并不抱任何幻想。"那樣也并不能給他恢復(fù)從醫(yī)生涯的權(quán)利。他的行醫(yī)資格早已隨著他的判刑定罪而被取消了。他必將終生蒙受假釋犯的惡名，只要再小有過(guò)失，便可隨時(shí)不經(jīng)審訊被送回監(jiān)獄。更糟的是，他得帶著殺人犯的罪名終其_生。"

今天的道德觀念究竟在起一種什么樣的作用呢?假如一個(gè)人是個(gè)很可能重犯其暴力行為的危險(xiǎn)分子，國(guó)家有什么權(quán)利在十年后將他釋放出來(lái)呢?如果"終身監(jiān)禁"在其生前就早已結(jié)束，那"終身監(jiān)禁"的真正含義是什么呢?假釋表面上看起來(lái)似乎表現(xiàn)了社會(huì)對(duì)身受囹圄之苦者的同情，同時(shí)又反映了當(dāng)局想避免因公然釋放嫌疑犯而引起"公眾的不滿(mǎn)"的愿望。所以，一旦眾議平息下來(lái)，人犯也就放掉了。這樣，他也就根本沒(méi)有受到為了公眾的安全而設(shè)置的枷鎖的束縛。他確實(shí)受過(guò)懲罰，但只是一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)的懲罰--因?yàn)樵趶U除派、陪審團(tuán)及檢察官們的反常觀點(diǎn)看來(lái)，監(jiān)獄本來(lái)就是這么回事。他們所謂"二級(jí)謀殺"似乎是說(shuō)罪犯雖殺了人，但只是殺了"一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)"。

從另一方面來(lái)講，既然死刑和無(wú)期徒刑被認(rèn)為過(guò)分殘酷，而又可預(yù)期被告人在今后對(duì)社會(huì)不會(huì)有什么危險(xiǎn)--懲罰作為一種狹隘意識(shí)的反映已沒(méi)有存在的必要--那么，破壞他和他一家人的生活對(duì)社會(huì)又能帶來(lái)什么好處呢?

現(xiàn)在人們所接受的、而廢除派一旦得勢(shì)必將更加堅(jiān)決地強(qiáng)加于我們的是一堆邏輯上的紛亂，這種紛亂決不會(huì)因下述信念而得以消除：既然有二級(jí)謀殺，就應(yīng)當(dāng)有二級(jí)死罪;如果對(duì)兇手不能完全確定而存有疑問(wèn)的話，只要將死刑減輕為難以忍受的活罪，存疑便解決了;倘若我們無(wú)法預(yù)料一個(gè)殺人狂是否會(huì)再度傷人，那也只需衡量一下他在監(jiān)獄里的"良好表現(xiàn)"，然后以真正的實(shí)驗(yàn)主義精神將他釋放出來(lái)。

以上就是當(dāng)我看到有關(guān)這個(gè)重大問(wèn)題的討論并對(duì)它進(jìn)行思考時(shí)所感到的不可避免的想法。依我看來(lái)，如果這些想法同任何基于對(duì)客觀存在的直接、具體的感受而進(jìn)行的關(guān)于變革和改良的討論不是毫不相干的話，那些認(rèn)為廢除了死刑世界就會(huì)變得純潔的天真的社會(huì)改良主義者們就真是自欺欺人了。這個(gè)問(wèn)題本應(yīng)由社會(huì)全體來(lái)公斷，但我作為社會(huì)的一分子，對(duì)目前的社會(huì)現(xiàn)實(shí)很感不安，因?yàn)槲抑?，在英?guó)、美國(guó)乃至整個(gè)西方通?？傆邪贁?shù)以上的人被迫在極其惡劣的條件下茍延殘喘，所面對(duì)的只不過(guò)是一個(gè)毫無(wú)希望的未來(lái);而另外一些人一～他們可能是頭腦更糊涂，但無(wú)疑是更無(wú)力自控的人--則得到提前獲釋的便宜，這無(wú)論對(duì)社會(huì)還是對(duì)他們自己都只會(huì)帶來(lái)危險(xiǎn)。總而言之，我決不贊賞這樣一種錯(cuò)誤觀念：只要取消一種對(duì)守法的良民顯然起著保護(hù)作用的法律措施，我們這些要么成為受害者，要么成為囚徒或不受約束的殺人兇手的人就算是為維護(hù)人的生命的尊嚴(yán)貢獻(xiàn)出了一份力量。

(摘自James K.Bell，Adrian A.Cohn：《現(xiàn)代修辭》)

詞匯(Vocabulary)

capital (adj.) : involving or punishable by death(originally by decapitation)(罪惡等可處)死刑的(原指可斬首的)

sheaf (n.) : a collection of things gathered together;bundle，as of papers(書(shū)等的)一捆

reproachful (adj.) : full of or expressing reproach，or blame，censure，etc.責(zé)備的;應(yīng)受斥責(zé)的;可恥的

rapist (n.) : a person who has committed rape強(qiáng)奸犯

psychiatry (n.) : the branch of medicine concerned with the study, treatment，and prevention of disorders of the mind，including psychoses and neuroses，emotional and social maladjustments，etc.精神病學(xué)

assemblage (n.) : bringing or coming together;assembly集合，會(huì)合

conviction (n.) : firm or assured belief深信，確信;信服

airtight (adj.) : giving no opening for attack;invulnerable無(wú)懈可擊的;天衣無(wú)縫的

frivolity (n.) : the quality or condition of being frivolous輕率;輕浮;無(wú)聊

sanguinary (adj.) : eager for bloodshed;bloodthirsty嗜血成性的;好殺戮的

concede (v.) : admit as true or valid;acknowledge承認(rèn);認(rèn)以為真

outset (n.) : setting out;beginning;start開(kāi)端;開(kāi)始，起初

harrowing (adj.) : which causes mental distress to;agonizingly painful to the feelings精神痛苦的;煩惱的

barbarity (n.) : cruel or brutal behavior;inhumanity殘暴，野蠻

homicide (n.) : any killing of one human being by another殺人

threshold (n.) : the entrance or beginning point of something入門(mén);開(kāi)始，開(kāi)端

deter (v.) : keep or discourage(a person)from doing something by instilling fear，anxiety，doubt，etc.阻攔;制止;嚇住

sanctity (n.) : saintliness or holiness;the fact or being sacred or inviolable神圣，圣潔;不可侵犯性

proposition (n.) : the act of proposing;something proposed;proposal提議，建議;提案;計(jì)劃

vindictive (adj.) : revengeful in sprat;inclined to seek vengeance;characterized by vengeance有報(bào)復(fù)心的;志在復(fù)仇的;復(fù)仇的

presumptive (adj.) : giving reasonable ground for;belief;based on probability可據(jù)以推定的;假定的

obsessive (adj.) : of causing an obsession or obsessions分神的;被…纏住的

egotist (n.) : a person characterized by egotism自我中心主義者;利己主義者

infallible (adj.) : incapable of error;dependable;reliable;sure不會(huì)犯錯(cuò)誤的;可信賴(lài)的;確實(shí)可靠的

qualm (n.) : a sudden feeling of uneasiness 0r doubt;misgiving疑慮;不安

invoke (v.) : ask solemnly for;beg for;implore;entreat懇求，乞求，請(qǐng)求

notwithstanding (prep.) : in spite of盡管

cutthroat (n.) : a person who cuts throat;murderer兇手;謀殺者

poker (n.) : a bar.usually of iron，for stirring a fire撥火棒;火鉗

marksman (n.) : a person who shoots，esp. one who shoots well射手(尤指神槍手)

euthanasia (n.) : an easy and painless death安樂(lè)死

forfeit (v.) : lose，give up，or be deprived of as a forfeit for some crime，fault，etc.(因犯罪、過(guò)失、失職等而)喪失;被迫放棄，被剝奪

delinquency (n.) : failure or neglect to do what duty or law requires;a fault;misdeed失職，玩忽職守;過(guò)失;犯罪

prelude (n.) : anything serving as the introduction to a principal event，action，performance，etc.;preliminary part;preface;opening序言;序幕

rear (v.) : bring to maturity by educating，nourishing，etc. 撫養(yǎng);培養(yǎng)

criminology (n.) : the scientific study and investigation of crime and criminals犯罪學(xué);刑事學(xué)

virility (n.) : masculine strength and vigor男子氣概

villainy (n.) : the fact or state of being villainous;a wicked，criminal deed邪惡;邪惡行徑;罪行

specter (n.) : a ghost;apparition鬼怪，幽靈

disclose (v.) : reveal;make known透露，泄露;披露;使知道

conjecture (n.) : an inferring，theorizing，or predicting from incomplete or uncertain evidence;guesswork猜測(cè)，推測(cè)，猜想;推理

-sterile (adj.) : incapable of producing others of its kind;barren;unfruitful不生育的;貧瘠的;無(wú)成效的

ken (n.) : range of vision or sight;mental perception or recognition;range of knowledge視野;認(rèn)識(shí);理解;了解和知識(shí)范圍

strangle (v.) : kill by squeezing the throat as with the hands，a noose，etc.，so as to cut off circulation of the blood扼死;勒死;絞死

maniac (n.) : a wildly or violently insane person;madman;lunatic瘋子;躁狂者;狂人

boatload (n.) : all the freight or passengers that a boat can carry or contain一船貨;一船旅客

skipper (n.) : the captain of a ship，esp. of a small ship or boat(小船的)船長(zhǎng)

apparatus (n.) : the means or system by which something is kept in action or a desired result is obtained：organization組織;團(tuán)體;機(jī)構(gòu);機(jī)關(guān)

detention (n.) : a detaining or being detained;specifically a keeping in custody，confinement拘留;扣留;監(jiān)禁

animus (n.) : a feeling of strong i11 will or hatred;animosity仇恨，憎惡;敵意;惡意

discharge (v.) : release(a prisoner)from jail，(a defendant)from suspicion，(a patient)as cured，etc.釋放(囚犯);解除(對(duì)被告的)懷疑;允許(病人)出院

inmate (n.) : a person living with others in the same building，now esp. one confined with others in a prison or institution同住者(現(xiàn)尤指同獄犯人，同院病人等)

automation (n.) : the act or practice of using machines that need little or no human control，esp. in place of workers自動(dòng)，自動(dòng)化

passionnel (adj.) : (French)of passion[法語(yǔ)]激怒的

condone (v.) : forgive，pardon。or overlook(an offence)原諒，饒恕;寬恕;赦免

blackmailer (n.) : a person who gets or tries to get blackmail from敲詐者，勒索者

retribution (n.) : deserved punishment for evil done，or，sometimes，reward for good done;merited requital懲罰;報(bào)答

provocation (n.) : an act or instance provoking挑釁;激怒;刺激

nag (v.) : annoy by continual scolding，faultfinding，complaining，urging，etc.(不斷責(zé)罵、挑剔、抱怨、催促而)使人煩惱

excoriate (v.) : denounce harshly嚴(yán)厲譴責(zé)，痛斥，痛罵

score (n.) : a grievance or wrong one seeks to settle or get even for宿怨-舊仇

seclusion (n.) : a secluding or being secluded;retirement;isolation;privacy隔離，隔絕;孤立;隱退

penitentiary n : a prison監(jiān)獄;拘留所

mania (n.) : an excessive，persistent enthusiasm，liking，craving，or interest;obsession;craze狂熱;熱衷

presuppose (v.) : require or imply as a preceding condition以…為先決條件;作為前提

garble (v.) : select，suppress，improperly emphasize，or distort parts of(a story，etc.)in telling，so as to mislead or misrepresent(對(duì)小說(shuō)等)斷章取義;歪曲;篡改

tenacious (adj.) : stubborn;persistent固執(zhí)的;堅(jiān)持的，持久的

advocacy (n.) : the act of advocating，or speaking or writing in support擁護(hù);提倡;辯護(hù)

revulsion (n.) : extreme disgust，shock，or repugnance;feeling of great loathing厭惡，反感

hypnotize (v.) : affect or influence as if by hypnotism;spellblind使著迷，迷住

prophylactic (adj.) : preventive or protective，esp.，preventing against disease預(yù)防性的(尤指預(yù)防疾病)

dwarf (v.) : make small or insignificant使矮小;使無(wú)足輕重

deem (v.) : think，consider，believe想;認(rèn)為;相信

deliberative adj. : of or for deliberating審議的;評(píng)論的;討論的

diet (n.) : a national or local legislative assembly in some countries(某些國(guó)家的)國(guó)會(huì)，議會(huì);地方議會(huì)

inkwell (n.) : a container for holding ink，usually set in the top of a desk，inkstand，etc.(鑲在桌上或墨水臺(tái)上的)墨水池

ludicrous (n.) : causing laughter because absurd or ridiculous;laughably absurd荒唐得滑稽的;荒謬可笑的

mitigate (v.) : make or become milder，less severe，less rigorous or Less painful;moderate(使)緩和;(使)鎮(zhèn)靜;減輕

vicarious (adj.) : shared in or experienced by imagined participation in another's experience(假想身臨其境而)感受的

shed (v.) : cause to flow in a stream or fall in drops流出;流下

infamy (n.) : very bad reputation;notoriety;disgrace;dishonor臭名昭著;丟臉;不光彩;不名譽(yù)

stench (n.) : an offensive smell or odor;stink惡臭，臭氣

rack (v.) : trouble，torment，or afflict折磨，使痛苦

promiscuity (n.) : a state，quality，or instance of being promiscuous，esp. in sexual relations混雜性;雜亂(尤指男女亂交)

impotent (adj.) : lacking physical strength;weak無(wú)力的，虛弱的;衰弱的

exemplar (n.) : a person or thing regarded as worthy of imitation;model;pattern;archetype模范，典范;典型;榜樣

tardy (adj.) : slow in moving，acting，etc.;late，delayed慢的，行動(dòng)緩慢的;遲的，遲到的

miscarriage (n.) : failure t0 carry out what was intended(計(jì)劃等的)失敗;審判錯(cuò)誤;未得到預(yù)期的結(jié)果

irrevocable (adj.) : that can't be undone;unalterable不能取消的，不可廢止的;不可變更的

acquittal (n.) : setting free or being set free by judgement of the court釋放，開(kāi)釋;宣判無(wú)罪，赦免

implausible (adj.) : not plausible似乎無(wú)理的，難以置信的，似乎不可能的

ostracism (n.) : a rejection or exclusion by general consent，as from a group or from acceptance by society排斥;放逐;流放

detached (adj.) : not involved by emotion，interests，etc.;aloof;impartial公正的，超然的，不偏袒的

arbiter (n.) : a person selected to judge a dispute;umpire;arbitrator公斷人，仲裁人

fallacious (adj.) : containing a fallacy;erroneous謬誤的

callous (adj.) : 1acking pity，mercy，etc.;unfeeling;insensitive無(wú)同情心的;無(wú)情的;無(wú)感覺(jué)的

tribunal (n.) : a court of justice法庭，法院

languish (v.) : 1iver under distressing conditions;continue in a state of suffering受折磨，受苦

commute (v.) : change(an obligation，punishment，etc.) to one that is less severe減(刑);減輕(責(zé)任等)

demagogy (n.) : the methods or practices of a demogogue煽動(dòng)，鼓動(dòng)，蠱惑人心的宣傳

mischance (n.) : an unlucky accident;back luck;misadventure不幸事件，不幸;災(zāi)難

vindicator (n.) : a person who clears from criticism，blame，guilt，suspicion，etc.辯護(hù)人，辯白人

parole (n.) : the release of a prisoner before his sentence has expired，on condition of future good behavior(刑滿(mǎn)前的)假釋

stigma (n.) : something that detracts from the character or reputation of a person，group，etc.;mark of disgrace or reproach恥辱，污名

misstep (n.) : a wrong or awkward step;a mistake in conduct失足;失誤，失策

peter (v.[colloq.]) : become gradually smaller，weaker，etc.，and then cease or disappear[口]逐漸枯竭;漸趨消失

remorse (n.) : a deep，torturing sense of guilt felt over a wrong that one has done;self-reproach懊悔，悔恨;自責(zé)

incarceration (n.) : imprisonment關(guān)押，監(jiān)禁

meliorist (n.) : a person who believes that the world naturally tends to get better and，esp.，that this tendency can be furthered by human effort社會(huì)向善論者(一種認(rèn)為社會(huì)自然地向好的方向發(fā)展的理論

短語(yǔ)(Expressions)

give pause to sb./sth : give pause to sb.使某人躊躇不前

例：Her anger gave pause to his further action.她生氣了，這使他不敢馬上采取進(jìn)一步的行動(dòng)。

do justice t0 sth./sb.: treat fairly公平對(duì)待，適當(dāng)處理

例：That subject was so complex that I could not do justice to it in a short speech.這個(gè)主題太復(fù)雜，我無(wú)法在一篇短小的發(fā)言里就把它闡述清楚。

at the outest : in the beginning在開(kāi)始時(shí)

例：Things went well at the Vbly outset.剛開(kāi)始時(shí)一切進(jìn)展順利。

preside over : be the head or director of負(fù)責(zé)，主持，管理

例：She presided over the business of this store.她管理這個(gè)店的業(yè)務(wù)。

to the teeth : be lacking nothing;compIetely全副地，全部地

例："alTned t0 the teeth武裝到牙齒/be dressed to the teeth全副打扮

on the march : on the march在行進(jìn)中，在發(fā)展中

例：Technology is on the march.科技正在發(fā)展中。

beyond one's ken : not within one's range of knowledge超出某人的知識(shí)范圍

例：How can I answer those questions that are well beyond mv ken?我怎么能回答得出那些遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出我知識(shí)范圍的問(wèn)題呢?

trot out : produce;bring out給人看，炫耀，搬出

例：trot out the spokesman to face the press搬出發(fā)言人來(lái)對(duì)付新聞界

peter out : diminish slowly and come to an end;dwindle逐漸耗盡，逐漸終止

例：The storm petered out finally.暴風(fēng)雨最終逐漸平息下來(lái)。。

coupled with : if one thing is coupled with another.they happen or exist together and produce a particular result加上，外加

例：Drought coupled with high temperatures caused the crops to fail.干旱外加高溫使農(nóng)作物歉收了。

strike a blow for : do something to help an idea，belief，or organiza-tion擁護(hù)，為…而戰(zhàn)斗

例：It's time we struck a blow for social equality.是我們?yōu)樯鐣?huì)平等而戰(zhàn)的時(shí)候了。