Capital punishment debate: Dr. Feser and Msgr. Swetland

[Rau]

…Rather, it becomes clear the purpose of such a pattern of behaviour is simply to obfuscate.

In such a case, those people who have not seen this pattern of behaviour, repeatedly demonstrated, deserve to be warned of the deceit.

On the other hand, providing provision to repeat in yet another thread the **false assertions **that appear in other threads, when the objections were well and already repeatedly raised only, merely have the effect, to use again the very handy English expression, “of feeding the troll.”

Don - you continue in the vein I identified above. Accusation and condemnation, with no substantiation. And in the next paragraph - you try to excuse and justify that mode.

There is no point to saying to someone “You must not **distort **this and here is a detailed explanation why” when in fact they **have been doing it unabashedly **and over vociferous objection since 2007…and the next thread proceeds as if all begins ex nihilo.

That’s an interesting argument to explain your non-contribution in favour of an approach of making accusations. Which is all you’ve done here.

One might think from your post that Ender has been on a campaign - initiating “the next” thread after thread on CP. How many threads has Ender started on CP? By my count: 0. He has contributed to many however, and he has been (based on my observation) broadly consistent, which is not in itself a basis for condemnation.

 

[IWantGod]

I’m not sure that i can agree with an eye for an eye type of justice system.
If somebody has been locked up, and is no-longer a fret to the community, are we really justified in killing that person on the grounds that they too have killed someone?

Are we not lowering ourselves with that kind of mentality?

 

[Ender]

Why is that a problem exactly?

Will you only accept their legitimacy if you can personally understand how they are consistent with past teaching?

A reasonable interpretation of Pope Francis’ comments is that capital punishment is now intrinsically evil. Is that how you understand them?

So here’s the problem: if he is not making that claim then opposition to capital punishment remains prudential, and his comments cannot be understood as meaning what they seem to imply, but if that is his claim then he flatly contradicts the teaching of all of his predecessors as well as that of the latest catechism. So you tell me: what do his comments mean?

Ender

 

[Ender]

How contemptible. Let us be quite clear. Monsignor Swetland is a Doctor of Theology and he is a Prelate of Honor of His Holiness. He is addressed Monsignor.

I was responding to a post from Blue Horizon, and simply used the same address in my response as (s)he used. Perhaps if you had condemned us both your observation would seem more reasonable and less personal.

As for your request to me, no. I don’t entertain mere theatrical requests from the sort who would be evicted, for cause, from a theological lecture hall of the institutions where I taught.

You have made some extremely serious and unpleasant accusations against me. I challenged you to substantiate them. I am prepared to defend my comments; you seem less prepared to defend yours.

Having read through actually too many of your posts, I invite readers to look at them for themselves, by a simple use of the search feature. They will find an excellent demonstration of “agenda posting.”

If you mean I post comments about capital punishment on capital punishment threads, I plead guilty. Why is this a problem?

Such ploys of deceit as well as academic dishonesty that are to be found throughout your posts, which are moreover against the Church’s living Magisterium,.are nothing short of abominable.

Justify your allegations or have the courtesy to stop making them. Insults do not constitute a rebuttal to my arguments.

Ender

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I was responding to a post from Blue Horizon, and simply used the same address in my response as (s)he used. Perhaps if you had condemned us both your observation would seem more reasonable and less personal.

From your post #12 you seemed to refer to “Msgr” Swetland as “she” in the last paragraph even though you stated he/she was a priest (female Anglican?).
I was therefore confused by the title Msgr and has no idea what it meant.
Not knowing his/her actual gender or title I therefore simply referred to the author as Swetland. I actually had no idea who the good person is…other than someone taking a fairly valid theological position even if hyperbolised somewhat in the press or in order to set in relief what he/she opposed

All very innocuous on my part Ender.

On rereading your post in hindsight “she” looks to have meant mother Church.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I was responding to a post from Blue Horizon, and simply used the same address in my response as (s)he used. Perhaps if you had condemned us both your observation would seem more reasonable and less personal.

You have made some extremely serious and unpleasant accusations against me. I challenged you to substantiate them. I am prepared to defend my comments; you seem less prepared to defend yours.

If you mean I post comments about capital punishment on capital punishment threads, I plead guilty. Why is this a problem?

Justify your allegations or have the courtesy to stop making them. Insults do not constitute a rebuttal to my arguments.

Ender

Ender you would defend black being white and white being black if it served your purposes.
Give it up, the good Professor is essentially correct.

You distort and bend every text you touch to your anti Papal, intellectually rigid and pseudo-traditional version of Christianity and novice Catholics need to hear the more balanced and nuanced other side from formally educated CAF members and their credentials and so decide for themselves.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

A reasonable interpretation of Pope Francis’ comments is that capital punishment is now intrinsically evil. Is that how you understand them?

So here’s the problem: if he is not making that claim then opposition to capital punishment remains prudential, and his comments cannot be understood as meaning what they seem to imply, but if that is his claim then he flatly contradicts the teaching of all of his predecessors as well as that of the latest catechism. So you tell me: what do his comments mean?

Ender

I am saying that the current level of Papal statements on the matter can be not unreasonably
understood as the evoution and arising of a new moral precept, just as happened in HV in the 1960s with new and well defined statements re contraception.

That is, some types of CP are intrinsically evil. And in the C21st those forms are mainstream in First World Countries.

Why do you have a problem with that theological hypothesis?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The “defence” inherent in penal systems is broader than we think of “self-defence”. The punishment of effective confinement delivers a multi-faceted defence:

• it neutralises the criminal such that any proclivity to offend is nullified;
• it dissuades the criminal from re-offence when (if) freedom is regained;
• it may rehabilitate the criminal (arguably over and above defence);
• it dissuades others who might be inclined to act in the manner of a criminal;

I am not sure what you mean by the prison system failing. If the prisoner is confined for life (and neither escapes nor causes harm in prison) - is that regarded as (sufficient for) success? Or must the last point above - which goes to the impact on others in society - also have to be judged?

So, when we refer to effective “bloodless alternatives” to CP - can we say that a secure prison system is always that? Or is that debatable? AFAIK - CP is not usually regarded as achieving greater deterrence.

It is clearly debatable and a true prudential decision (that is what the proviso " effective" means) over which the wise may differ.

What would not seem debateable or a prudential judgement is whether, if such effective means are agreed to exist, CP is therefore intrinsically evil under such conditions. That universal is commonly known as a derived moral precept, straight from natural law. Self evident to the wise, needing to be taken on faith by the laity.

One might say this universal moral precept was “prudentially” determined by the Magisterium…but being a universal intellectual moral judgement formulated by the faculty of “synderesis”, rather than a particular intellectual judgement/conclusion of an act of individual “conscience” (involving a particular prudential judgement that effective bloodless means was available as the minor premise), that would not really seem to be correctly put.

That appears to be the face value of the current Papal position that has been evolving for the last 3 reigns.

 

[Wesrock]

Isn’t this to heavy?

The Church does teach that under certain conditions the state may rightly use capital punishment, scriptures and tradition agreement, so maybe those who carry out such sentences are doing their job and may be considered just when they stand before God.

There’s a movement among Catholics to say that the death penalty is and has always been intrinsically evil, prudential judgments or no, level of society be darned that it has not once in all of human history been just, nor could it ever be just.

 

[Wesrock]

Feser’s main quibble, I should add from checking up his blog now and then, is with those who say that the death penalty has forever and always been intrinsically evil and unjust whatever the circumstances. His position (outlined in his new book which I have not yet read) is that declaring this would not be a development of Church teaching, but a complete reversal and contradiction, and that it differs from the slavery example.

The idea of it being a prudential decision as to whether or not a country should use or outlaw it, he accepts. I’m sure he’d debate when its prudential, but that’s a spearate point.

 

[Wesrock]

Sorry for triple posting, but just wanted to note that listening to this reminds me of why I hate verbal debates, because you can’t really sit down with the other person and really iron out the nitty gritty details, and figure out what the more fundamental areas of disagreement are. I get this anxiety in my chest at all the talking past each other, the missing the points, the misunderstandings.

 

[Ender]

Here we go again with your over simplified, extreme black and white always and every-case interpretations of what is in fact a conditional and carefully nuanced statement by ABishop Chaput.

Lets replay what he actually said:
“The death penalty is not intrinsically evil.”

I am unable to find nuance in simple declarative statements. So let’s go back to what Pope Francis said: do you interpret his comments to mean that the death penalty is now intrinsically evil in contradiction to what Archbishop Chaput said? How are we to understand the pope’s comments?

There exists a sub class of CPs that are legitimate. He does not name the details that make them legitimate. These acts are always legitimate if the unmentioned details/circumstances are present.

There are no “classes” of capital punishment. There are instances where it is justifiable and instances where it is not. The question is straightforward: can capital punishment be justified when it is not necessary to for protection? This goes back to the point I keep returning to: what is the primary objective of punishment? If it was protection then an argument could be made that, absent the need for protection, capital punishment is not justified, but as we have seen, protection is only a secondary objective. As a matter of justice the severity of the punishment must (absent prudential considerations) be commensurate with the severity of the crime. It is justice that makes the death penalty the presumptively appropriate punishment for (at least) murder, as the severity of the crime is not conditioned by the question of protection.

So when one understands AB Chaput to be asserting that: “CP is normatively illegitimate (intrinsically evil)” …

I admit that the logic here is too subtle for me. Chaput stated flatly that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil, and you have deduced he really meant that it (normatively) is. It is no wonder the logic of my arguments gains no traction with you.

It is slowly formulating/asserting a universal moral precept and if the conditions are met then the faithful are to accept that the action would be objectively evil no questioning possible sorry - just like contraception in Humanae Vitae in the 1960s.

Are you saying here then that Archbishop Chaput was mistaken when he said that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil, and again when he stated the church cannot claim that it is without repudiating herself?

Ender

 

[Ender]

I have to ask, do you mean “the inadmissibility of carrying out the death penalty” in the west in the 21st century Or the inadmissibility of carrying out the death penalty in the 21st century all over the world?

I ask because many westerners assume that the conditions that exist in Europe and america ask exist every where, it doesn’t. Capital punishment may be inadmissible in today’s Europe doesn’t necessary make it inadmissible in many African countries.

My position is more generic: objections to capital punishment are prudential, not moral. While there may be valid practical objections to its use there are no new moral objections. Its use today is as moral as it has been in the past: if it was moral then it is moral now.

The question of whether it is a good or bad practice in a practical sense is prudential, and is one about which a difference of opinions is legitimate.

Ender

 

[Wampa]

Sorry for triple posting, but just wanted to note that listening to this reminds me of why I hate verbal debates, because you can’t really sit down with the other person and really iron out the nitty gritty details, and figure out what the more fundamental areas of disagreement are. I get this anxiety in my chest at all the talking past each other, the missing the points, the misunderstandings.

I agree fully. An in-person debate with less of a time constraint probably would have been a much fuller exploration of the issues. Both men IMO made their strongest points when making a stand-alone point. When they tried to respond directly to each other’s points, I thought it fell apart fairly quickly. I too think they did not get down to the fundamental areas of disagreement; it was almost as if they were, at times, arguing different “resolutions” (in debate-speak).

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I am unable to find nuance…

I admit that the logic here is too subtle for me.

If only you really acknowledged that and could believe that people may be better theologically educated and more astute than you … and accordingly defer (eg the recent Popes) or at least accept other views may be objectively correct re what constitutes Church teaching. But no, the only correct view you will allow is your own .

What do they call that arrested intellectual development when a child always looks at the tip of an adult pointing a finger rather than the object pointed at?

There are no “**sub-**classes” of capital punishment.

Are there sub-classes of killing (manslaughter, lethal self-defence, murder)? Nah.
That’s too sensible (or nuanced/subtle) to believe .

 

[Don_Ruggero]

If only you really acknowledged that and could believe that people may be better theologically educated and more astute than you … and accordingly defer (eg the recent Popes) or at least accept other views may be objectively correct re what constitutes Church teaching. But no, the only correct view you will allow is your own .

What do they call that arrested intellectual development when a child always looks at the tip of an adult pointing a finger rather than the object pointed at?

You have said it very well.

I would only add it is not simply the recent Popes, and the statements from the Holy See but also what emerges from the College of Bishops on the inadmissibility of employing the death penalty. That is actually the more remarkable issue. I have witnessed this so beautifully unfold across now more than 40 years. It is actually a profound joy to behold this particular manifestation of the guidance of the College by the Paraclete.

 

[Ender]

The issue of the death penalty and whether it is morally admissible is a matter that is the province of

• Theologians and periti, in so far as they can counsel and assist the successors of the Apostles
• The Magisterium of the Church.

When you say that capital punishment is no longer morally admissible do you mean by that that it is now to be considered intrinsically evil?

Ender

 

[Ender]

You distort and bend every text you touch to your anti Papal, intellectually rigid and pseudo-traditional version of Christianity and novice Catholics need to hear the more balanced and nuanced other side from formally educated CAF members and their credentials and so decide for themselves.

Substantiate your charge with an example. If I distort every text I cite you should have no end of examples as I cite more sources in defense of my position than anyone else. It would seem that the real problem is not that I distort what my sources say but that I can find so many citations that support the arguments I make your only rebuttal is to claim they didn’t mean what they so clearly said. The citation from Archbishop Chaput being an excellent example of this.

Ender

 

[Ender]

I am saying that the current level of Papal statements on the matter can be not unreasonably understood as the evoution and arising of a new moral precept, just as happened in HV in the 1960s with new and well defined statements re contraception.

That is, some types of CP are intrinsically evil. And in the C21st those forms are mainstream in First World Countries.

Why do you have a problem with that theological hypothesis?

It is nothing more than an assertion with no argument to support it and it simply ignores the problems, and what seem to me contradictions, that arise from such a position.

Ender

 

[Don_Ruggero]

When you say that capital punishment is no longer morally admissible do you mean by that that it is now to be considered intrinsically evil?

Ender

You have asked this question now multiple times, in threads across years I might add, and you have received the answer…and you have received it repeatedly.

Your posing the question, yet again, is nothing more than a charade. And that reminds me of the Lord’s admonition about where not to cast pearls.