Abstract
A reflection about capital punishment starting from the first volume of Jacques Derrida’s seminary La peine de mort, recently edited by the Galilée publishing house. We will analyse and we will question at the same time the reasons of the supporters of the death penalty – in the philosopher’s opinion the highest expression of the exceptionality of the sovereignty – and the reasons of the abolitionists, whose arguments – first of all the one about cruelty – are, according to Derrida, still extremely weak. We will highlight the deconstructability of the current reasoning for and against the capital executions, in view of an absolute, categorical, unconditional condemnation of the death penalty.