for your edification I will now ramble about the French Revolution
So Maximilien Robespierre was opposed to the death penalty in his early career, and then he went on to back the Terror and OMG MASSIVE CONTRADICTION except not really, becauuuuuuuuse...
Robespierre's argument against the death penalty was that it was unjust for the State to kill people because although an individual might harm other individuals, the State is so much more powerful than any one person that no ordinary criminal can be a threat to its existence. Therefore, if the State uses its immense power to kill a person who was never really a threat to it, and who was so much weaker than it, that is massive overkill and an injustice. Indeed, preventing the powerful from exploiting or trampling on the vulnerable was a major theme of Robespierre's moral and political ideology. It would be just as easy and just as effective, he argues, for the state to imprison the criminal. He says, "Someone who butchers a perverse child whom he could disarm and punish seems monstrous."
HOWEVER, this argument applies to an established State, secure enough in its power that its existence cannot be threatened by the actions of individuals. The French Republic at the time that the Terror started was most emphatically not one such State. It was beset by external enemies, European monarchies who found the notion of a republic offensive (not that guillotining the former King helped all that much), and by internal enemies, monarchist and federalist factions who wanted to destroy the new Republic or alter it in ways that were unacceptable to Robespierre and his allies. It also faced the danger of starvation due to bad harvests and a bad economy, a danger heightened by the actions of panicked individuals who hoarded bread and grain to themselves to eat it or sell it at an inflated price. Robespierre accurately believed that these dangers could actually destroy the nascent Republic, and that the individuals who perpetrated them (hoarders, counter-revolutionaries) were genuinely a threat to the very existence of the State. Perhaps one bread hoarder or one monarchist could not destroy the Republic on its own, but armies of counter-revolutionaries and masses of hoarders, in a country already in danger from foreign armies, were a credible threat. Thus, it did not seem unjust or hypocritical to Robespierre to execute these people, although it was hardly a prospect he enjoyed. (this was also the case with King Louis, whom Robespierre saw as a potential rallying point for French monarchists and foreign enemies.)
I may very well be telling all you French Revolution enthusiasts who may or may not be reading this something you already know, but oh well it happens.
also happy revolutionary new year world! (it is now year 219 on the French Republican Calendar
Robespierre's argument against the death penalty was that it was unjust for the State to kill people because although an individual might harm other individuals, the State is so much more powerful than any one person that no ordinary criminal can be a threat to its existence. Therefore, if the State uses its immense power to kill a person who was never really a threat to it, and who was so much weaker than it, that is massive overkill and an injustice. Indeed, preventing the powerful from exploiting or trampling on the vulnerable was a major theme of Robespierre's moral and political ideology. It would be just as easy and just as effective, he argues, for the state to imprison the criminal. He says, "Someone who butchers a perverse child whom he could disarm and punish seems monstrous."
HOWEVER, this argument applies to an established State, secure enough in its power that its existence cannot be threatened by the actions of individuals. The French Republic at the time that the Terror started was most emphatically not one such State. It was beset by external enemies, European monarchies who found the notion of a republic offensive (not that guillotining the former King helped all that much), and by internal enemies, monarchist and federalist factions who wanted to destroy the new Republic or alter it in ways that were unacceptable to Robespierre and his allies. It also faced the danger of starvation due to bad harvests and a bad economy, a danger heightened by the actions of panicked individuals who hoarded bread and grain to themselves to eat it or sell it at an inflated price. Robespierre accurately believed that these dangers could actually destroy the nascent Republic, and that the individuals who perpetrated them (hoarders, counter-revolutionaries) were genuinely a threat to the very existence of the State. Perhaps one bread hoarder or one monarchist could not destroy the Republic on its own, but armies of counter-revolutionaries and masses of hoarders, in a country already in danger from foreign armies, were a credible threat. Thus, it did not seem unjust or hypocritical to Robespierre to execute these people, although it was hardly a prospect he enjoyed. (this was also the case with King Louis, whom Robespierre saw as a potential rallying point for French monarchists and foreign enemies.)
I may very well be telling all you French Revolution enthusiasts who may or may not be reading this something you already know, but oh well it happens.
also happy revolutionary new year world! (it is now year 219 on the French Republican Calendar