Research On The Theories On The Abolition Of Death Penalty

Foreign theories on the abolition of death penalty have experienced a long evolution and development from germination to perfection. Strictly, the scattered opinions on the death penalty in the embryonic stage were reservation; however, the idea of respecting life is one of the main bases of later theories on the abolition. Not until Beccaria clearly proposed and demonstrated his view of abolishing the death penalty did these theories begin to take shape with the factor of altruistic humanitarian considered. While on behalf of Bentham, utilitarians expounded their arguments and constructed a systematic abolition theory that based on the principle of utility. Its standpoint that aimed at augmenting the happiness of the community was conformed to the idea of promoting harmony between man and society. Human rights theorists and retributivists went further in improving the theories on the abolition from the ideas of respecting criminals’personality and guaranteeing their human rights. International organizations gradually made it clear that the death penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights by a variety of conventions, protocols and other documents about international, assurance of human rights becoming the core argument of abolishing the death penalty used by international society. Although the theoretical basis of these theories abroad is different, they were deeply influenced by humanism idea and were embedded with the ideas of respecting life, being kind to others and jointly building harmony. The humanism idea has a great effect on foreign movement of abolishing the death penalty. China has not abolished the death penalty, partly because theories are not connection with Chinese cultural concept well. Now, China is in a human-oriented era in economy, culture and politics, which provides a good atmosphere to perfect theories on the abolition of death penalty for China. If China is going to break through the dilemma of reforming death penalty and really on the road to abolish the death penalty, the theories of abolishing death penalty need to be perfect, implementing the ideas of loving ourselves, loving others and loving society. This depends on the establishment of the human-oriented view of respecting of human nature, complying with the humanitarian and revealing of civilization.