http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/23/davis.scheduled.execution/?iref=hpmostpop
]]>I agree with you that killing another person means you hold his body and life (your example of killing in self defense is clear). But I think the point is that killing a person in COLD BLOOD, when it poses a treat to nobody is a claim over his body and life.
]]>I don’t agree with the death penalty, but I don’t think accepting it means that your body and your life belong to the State, any more than accepting a self-defense killing means that the attacker’s body and life belong to the victim, or accepting life imprisonment means that the criminal’s body and life belong to the state.
Accepting the right to take a life in certain circumstances doesn’t have to say anything about who the life ultimately belongs to in a general sense. At most, it means that the life is forfeit and belongs to another party in those specific circumstances. And even that may be too strong a way of putting it. It could just mean that, while your life always belongs to you, that fact matters less than some other facts or some other goal in those particular circumstances.
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