capital punishment

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adrift said:
The OOPS is on your part. I said you cherry pick and you did. You quoted part of 2267 and then I quoted the rest the part you left out. I said you left it out and you did then you cherry picked again this time my post because you did not acknowledge that I was completing what you cherry picked. So I didn’t forget the rest of 2267 as I had quoted your post which contained it. not only that but I acknowledged it. The cherry picking was all yours. 🤷
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Lets go back and review what occurred. First I made a statement précising the essence of 2267 which is in fact that the Catechism says we shouldn’t be executing people at all. It adds conditions based on extreme practical need concerning community safety… but other than that we shouldn’t be executing people at all on principle.

You in turn quoted me adding quotemarks to imply I’ve lifted a direct quote from the Catechism which you called cherrypicking… which was in fact, not the case.

You then directly quoted a truncated paragraph claiming it to be 2267.

You did the cherry picking here, good sir.

The Church and the Catechism clearly denounce use of capital punishment as a principle of law in this day and age. It allows for its practical use in extreme circumstances to protect the community… which it stresses are virtually non-existent in most countries today. There is absolutely no room in that clear teaching, for arbitrary use of the death penalty, not seriously subjected to a moral examination.
 
Rau said:
That says, in essence, CP is not intrinsically evil. Everyone agrees on that point.
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I am not sure that I agree. In fact, I don’t agree with that. Not true. Take for example burning someone alive at the stake. In many cases, those in charge make a mistake and burn someone who is innocent, for example, in the case of St. Joan of Arc. Now torture is taught to be wrong, intrinsically wrong: Torture is fundamentally incompatible with the dignity of the human person, and its practice is absolutely prohibited in all circumstances. But when you burn someone alive at the stake, before she dies, she will have to suffer a hideous and horrific form of torture. Then comes the insight that you have burned the wrong person? Now what? Do you tell her parents, friends and relatives: Oh I am sorry, we made a mistake in burning your daughter alive. Let me give you a big hug and all will be OK? The ten commandments say: Thou shalt not kill. Was it right to tie St. Joan at the stake and burn her alive? Isn’t that a form of torture? Capital punishment is both physical and psychological torture.
 
adrift said:
It says more than it is not intrinsically evil. It supports what Ender has been saying that it is a prudential matter and not dogmatic.
Interesting from the article was the following
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That is its secondary point, expressed just as an assertion. And the assertion seems to be directed specifically at the idea that the times when only CP can protect people from the offender would be “extremely rare, nearly non-existent”. That, clearly, is prudential, and again I think no one disputes that.
 
Tomdstone said:
I am not sure that I agree. In fact, I don’t agree with that. Not true. Take for example burning someone alive at the stake. In many cases, those in charge make a mistake and burn someone who is innocent, for example, in the case of St. Joan of Arc. Now torture is taught to be wrong, intrinsically wrong: Torture is fundamentally incompatible with the dignity of the human person, and its practice is absolutely prohibited in all circumstances. But when you burn someone alive at the stake, before she dies, she will have to suffer a hideous and horrific form of torture. Then comes the insight that you have burned the wrong person? Now what? Do you tell her parents, friends and relatives: Oh I am sorry, we made a mistake in burning your daughter alive. Let me give you a big hug and all will be OK? The ten commandments say: Thou shalt not kill. Was it right to tie St. Joan at the stake and burn her alive? Isn’t that a form of torture? Capital punishment is both physical and psychological torture.
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Good arguments to restrict CP to the circumstances in which the Church teaches it can be acceptable.

By your thinking Tom, all punishment is a form of torture, not just burning alive!
 
Rau said:
Abolish all punishment - Now THAT would be a new doctrine. Would save costs on running prisons too!
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Maybe not ALL punishments. But certainly many that are not needed. Why in the US are prisons begin built more and more while everyone else is tearing them down? Well that’s something to look at anyway. Maybe the US has more morals. Or less.
 
Ender said:
The development in humanity is not so easy to see in a world that has witnessed the slaughter of people in previously unimaginable numbers, but it is not the moral development of humanity that is relevant. Your statement about moral development applies to the church as well, with the implication that the church has only within our own lifetimes come to appreciate the full extent of man’s dignity. I’m pretty sure JPII didn’t expect his statements to be understood as suggesting that he was the first pope to be sensitive to the inviolability of human life and that all his predecessors were deficient in that area.
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I’m not engaging in arguments based on faulty reasoning. I believe it is the result of deficiency in formal scholarship. You continue to use post hoc fallacy and can’t seem to be taught otherwise. “The rooster crows before sunrise, therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise”. “Pope StJPII taught about the inviolability of human life, therefore all his predecessors were deficient in that area”.

I’ll let you be with that strange prison of thought.
 
Rau said:
Abolish all punishment - Now THAT would be a new doctrine. Would save costs on running prisons too!
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Some forms of incarceration are less punishing than others. For example, the prison where Martha Stewart was held is generally thought to be geared much more toward rehabilitation and not so much toward punishment. OTOH, with 70,000 Americans held in the black hole of solitary confinement, questions are being raised about whether solitary confinement is a form of torture prohibited by international norms.
 
Tomdstone said:
Some forms of incarceration are less punishing than others. For example, the prison where Martha Stewart was held is generally thought to be geared much more toward rehabilitation and not so much toward punishment. OTOH, with 70,000 Americans held in the black hole of solitary confinement, questions are being raised about whether solitary confinement is a form of torture prohibited by international norms.
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I think a prison and confinement period is a form of punishment. Rehabilitation to me would be more like being probation and having to complete some rehab. Still in the custody of the state. But not technically confined. Not as much as a prison or jail anyway.

Bill
 
Tomdstone said:
Some forms of incarceration are less punishing than others. For example, the prison where Martha Stewart was held is generally thought to be geared much more toward rehabilitation and not so much toward punishment. OTOH, with 70,000 Americans held in the black hole of solitary confinement, questions are being raised about whether solitary confinement is a form of torture prohibited by international norms.
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Well the US is a sovereign nation. If there are for example UN treaties out there that say solitary is torture and the US is not a signor. It doesn’t legally apply to the US. The UN is more like a forum. Treaties have to be constitutional too to be valid. You can’t for example, treaty away 1st amendment rights. That would be an unconstitutional treaty and would have no legal weight.

Bill
 
billcu1 said:
Well the US is a sovereign nation. If there are for example UN treaties out there that say solitary is torture and the US is not a signor. It doesn’t legally apply to the US. The UN is more like a forum. Treaties have to be constitutional too to be valid. You can’t for example, treaty away 1st amendment rights. That would be an unconstitutional treaty and would have no legal weight.

Bill
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there is a legitimate question about whether solitary confinement is excessively harsh.
 
billcu1 said:
Maybe not ALL punishments. But certainly many that are not needed. Why in the US are prisons begin built more and more while everyone else is tearing them down? Well that’s something to look at anyway. Maybe the US has more morals. Or less.
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I agree with you that penal systems - in general - are overly weighted to punish and under-weighted to reforming.
 
LongingSoul said:
Lets go back and review what occurred.
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Post 114 was an accurate review.
First I made a statement précising the essence of 2267 which is in fact that the Catechism says we shouldn’t be executing people at all. It adds conditions based on extreme practical need concerning community safety… but other than that we shouldn’t be executing people at all on principle.
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You cherry picked your quote and you repeat here your false claim that we shouldn’t be executing people at all. Rare is not the same thing as all. You come to this erroneous statement because you ignore all of 2267 which states that it is the traditional position that the state has the right to execute.
You in turn quoted me adding quotemarks to imply I’ve lifted a direct quote from the Catechism which you called cherrypicking… which was in fact, not the case.
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Reread you will find that the quotes was to indicate your statement. In other words, I was showing I was quoting you.
You then directly quoted a truncated paragraph claiming it to be 2267.
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Again reread. I didn’t claim that, I said that you left out part of the paragraph which I then quoted. Since I quoted your post there was no need to repost it. It really a deceit on your part to say that I was only quoting a part when I obviously quoted your post and said that you left out a part. Since I was telling you what you left out it should not be expected that I would repost what I already had quoted.
You did the cherry picking here, good sir.
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Nope! Nice try but it doesn’t work. Since you didn’t quote the whole paragraph to begin with then you try to turn it to say that I didn’t. So the cherry picking was all yours unless you can show me in the post that you actually quoted the whole not just your, how did you phrase it?, truncated response.
The Church and the Catechism clearly denounce use of capital punishment as a principle of law in this day and age. It allows for its practical use in extreme circumstances to protect the community… which it stresses are virtually non-existent in most countries today. There is absolutely no room in that clear teaching, for arbitrary use of the death penalty, not seriously subjected to a moral examination.
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It is a prudential matter and not dogmatic as you are want to make it. As I stated, there are If statements which make the teaching wide open for the moral use of the death penalty.

In brief in the catechism, which is a recap, only says
2321 The prohibition of murder does not abrogate the right to render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Legitimate defense is a grave duty for whoever is responsible for the lives of others or the common good.
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Rau said:
That is its secondary point, expressed just as an assertion. And the assertion seems to be directed specifically at the idea that the times when only CP can protect people from the offender would be “extremely rare, nearly non-existent”. That, clearly, is prudential, and again I think no one disputes that.
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LongingSoul and Tomdstone I believe disputes it.
 
adrift said:
LongingSoul and Tomdstone I believe disputes it.
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The contentious question is whether protecting the community from the criminal is the only justification to kill the criminal. It’s about balance of consequences. Is that a prudential or doctrinal statement?
 
Rau said:
The contentious question is whether protecting the community from the criminal is the only justification to kill the criminal.
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No, this is not the only justification. Not only is it not the only justification it is not any justification. Of itself it does not justify capital punishment. As an example, Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to prison, but had he survived his 11 year sentence he would have been released to continue his criminal activities. Executing him would have clearly have better protected the community, but surely we all agree that he should not have been executed for tax evasion. This is the point: protecting the community from the criminal does not justify killing him.
It’s about balance of consequences. Is that a prudential or doctrinal statement?
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I think it’s an inaccurate statement. The morality of an act is not determined by the consequences; that is far from the only consideration. Is justice merely a matter of consequences?

Ender
 
Ender said:
No, this is not the only justification. Not only is it not the only justification it is not any justification. Of itself it does not justify capital punishment. As an example, Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to prison, but had he survived his 11 year sentence he would have been released to continue his criminal activities. Executing him would have clearly have better protected the community, but surely we all agree that he should not have been executed for tax evasion. This is the point: protecting the community from the criminal does not justify killing him.
I think it’s an inaccurate statement. The morality of an act is not determined by the consequences; that is far from the only consideration. Is justice merely a matter of consequences?

Ender
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When the act is not intrinsically evil and the Intention is good, morality is ALL about the balance of consequences. There is nothing left but that.
 
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