善终、凶死与杀人偿命善终——中国人死刑观念的文化阐释
尚海明善终、凶死与杀人偿命善终——中国人死刑观念的文化阐释
Good Death, Violent Death and a Life for a Life
期刊名称：《法学研究》
期刊年份：
作者：尚海明
单位：西南政法大学人权研究院
中文关键词：善终;凶死;杀人偿命;死刑观念;文化阐释
英文关键词：good death;violent death;a life for a life;death penalty concept;cultural explanation
中文摘要：
一个民族的死刑观念与其文化对生死的定义密切相关，中国人的杀人偿命观念建立在中国文化对生命的独特理解之上。受祖先崇拜的影响，生活于祖荫之下的传统中国人追求善终，认为遭遇凶死之人将因无法善终而成为冤死之鬼作祟人间，由此，冤魂难眠意识成为中国民众追求杀人偿命的重要动因。在现代中国，善终与凶死观念的弱化让中国人的杀人偿命观念呈现出松弛的趋势，但冤魂难眠意识仍激励着部分被害人亲属在命案中寻求以命抵命。同时，即便在死刑和解中，杀人偿命作为一种基本准则，也仍然是支配性的公正标准。在大多数民众仍认可杀人偿命的情况下，将死刑废除或者命案中死刑立即执行判决数量逐年减少作为死刑改革的目标，极有可能因悖离民众的价值认同而导致法律与社会的断裂。
英文摘要：
A nation's death penalty concept is closely related to the definition of life and death in its culture, and the Chinese concept of "a life for a life" is based on the unique understanding of life in Chinese culture. Influenced by ancestor worship, the traditional Chinese people living under their "ancestral patronage" pursue a good death, and believe that those who have suffered a violent death would become a ghost that haunt the world. The belief that the ghost of one who was wrongly put to death or was murdered could never rest has motivated Chinese people to pursue a life for a life. In contemporary China, with the weakening of the belief in the concepts of good death and violent death, Chinese are attaching less importance to the notion of a life for a life. Nevertheless, the belief that wronged ghosts could never rest still motivates some relatives of the victim in murder cases to seek death penalty for the murderer. Today, a life for a life, as a basic principle, is still the dominant standard of justice, even in death penalty settlement, in China. Different from the principle of "life for a life" that most Chinese accept, the mainstream idea in the law circle is that the death penalty, as the product of backward culture, should be abolished. Meanwhile, since the Supreme People's Court took back the power to review death sentences in 2007, there has been a major change in China's policies on death penalty and strict control of the number of death sentences has become a very important task of Supreme People's Court. Under the condition in which the principle of a life for a life is still adhered to by most people, making the abolition of the death penalty or gradual reduction of the number of execution of death sentence in murder cases as the target of the reform of the death penalty system may deviate from public values and cause the breakdown of the linkage between law and society.
全文阅读： 点击下载
