評論
打印
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."
人的生命神圣不可侵犯之說是值得研究的。因為另外一些諸如無痛苦致死術和適當的自殺之類的極文明的辦法也決定于我們對這種觀念是否接受。追根尋底的人還想知道：為什么反復講人生不可侵犯呢?我對家庭玩賞動物則毫無興趣，同時我認為把動物置于動物園、實驗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。
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.
而且應該知道，關于神圣不可侵犯之說的這場論爭在英國每年只適用于或可能適用于10個人左右，在美國每年也只適用于50-70人而已，這就是近年來被處死者的平均數字。當然這個數字本身不應該影響我們對這一原則的裁決。因為在道義上來講，對一個人的生殺予奪與對千百萬人的生殺予奪是同等重要的。但是我們應從這個數字中得出一個比較性判斷：在我們考慮死刑造成的恐怖時，我們卻忘記了成千上萬的其他人，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獄里的那些囚犯。
