Capital Punishment

[PatrickKen]

So God comitted a moral evil when he commanded that capital punishment be done in Israel? Is that really what you think?

God cannot be morally evil. The Church says that Capital Punishment, if absolutely necessary for the protection of the people, is allowable but that in modern times the circumstances are such as to make Capital Punishment and option that should rarely, if ever be resorted to

 

[Ender]

The only qualification is that the issue has to be examined by the treatment of the Pope and the Bishops of the present era…not searching the past. The role of continuity rests that of the Magisterium.

Whether it is military service, usury, or capital punishment…one will come to a wrong conclusion if one simply looks to the early Church for the former term, the medieval Church for the middle term, or prior to the World Wars of the 20th century for the latter term.

It is true that one should not look only at the traditional teaching of the church. Tradition does not stand alone, but then neither does the Magisterium. As the Second Vatican Council said:…sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others. (Dei verbum #10)
Regarding the teaching on capital punishment, all are deeply intertwined with it.If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millennia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture (notably in Genesis 9:5-6 and Romans 13:1-4). (Dulles)
That “contradicting the teaching of Scripture” part would seem to put a limit to what one would expect of a Magisterium.

Ender

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I have never held that every murderer should be executed. The proper response to a particular crime is decided by the particular circumstances of the crime so that the punishment accords with conditions in every respect. There are certainly legitimate (proper) reasons why a murderer should, or should not be executed.

Ender

Trying to understand what you mean by proper? Do you mean moral?

You seem to be saying that if a crime and its circumstances allows for just execution then not to do so is to thwart full justice and so is always and everywhere immoral?

If you allow that “less proper” responses are also satisfactory then the Magisterium seems to be saying the execution is in fact always immoral.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Mental gymnastics Blue. JP II nominated those killings which are intrinsically evil, and Dulles remarks on the wisdom of that statement. It is desperate hope to argue the word “innocent” is not necessary, but JP II “wasn’t sure” and Dulles was just wrong. At the very least it is clear that one view has direct magisterial support, and your view - a personal proposition - does not. Of course, this does not interfere with your assessment that your view might be “very advanced, or very wrong”.

Rau this is just impartial logic.
If I say that sex with another man is disordered and leave it at that I am not giving my son permission to do unnatural things with sheep or melons. Now that would be mental gymnastics on my sons part (and you re JPII).

Invoking the PODE is always affirming the licitness of an indirect intention re the material disorder chosen. e.g. the Congo Nuns can be explained adequately on this conventional basis. They did materially contracept but only indirectly chose to do so. Their primary intention was to defend their procreative integrity as unmarried dedicated women.
It seems the Church judged that a proportionality (ie indirect intention) argument could apply in this situation and the material good protected was indeed greater than the evil chosen.

It seems that carrying a loaded gun to protect chastity may not have been proportionate as killing is a greater material evil than rape … at least for a religious who traditionally are to treat the counsel not to kill (ie indirect killings) as a commandment.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

It is true that one should not look only at the traditional teaching of the church. Tradition does not stand alone, but then neither does the Magisterium. As the Second Vatican Council said:…sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others. (Dei verbum #10)
Regarding the teaching on capital punishment, all are deeply intertwined with it.If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millennia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture (notably in Genesis 9:5-6 and Romans 13:1-4). (Dulles)
That “contradicting the teaching of Scripture” part would seem to put a limit to what one would expect of a Magisterium.

Ender

And who finally decides what is contradicting Scripture when there is both ambiguity in Scripture and less than full consensus or applicability in the Fathers and Doctors re more current problematics?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Two points.

It is clear to me that St. JPII further developed the Church’s teaching on the moral use of capital punishment. The only question is whether his development of doctrine is consistent with Tradition. In my reading, this is true. Tradition demonstrates a continuum of delimiting the state’s moral use of this penalty.

Why did EV leave any window that allows the moral use of capital punishment? Because he teaches the universal Church, the pope recognizes that not all societies possess incarceration capability suitable to protect their citizenry and that those societies which do have such capability may lose it. In both cases, a bloodless means may not be available.

Agreed. And while this looks like an a posteriori prudential judgement which leaves open a principled theoretic right to CP… it doesn’t for the old retributive justice justification argument of Ender or the old divine right of kings (Rau?).

The only principled basis that now remains is self defence … which in most countries calls for incarceration not death in practise as you observe.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

This argument simply rephrases your original assertion: if the killing is valid it is indirect, and if it is invalid it is direct. What it doesn’t do is explain how the intent of the mobster - which is to kill a particular person - differs from the intent of the executioner, which is also to kill a particular person.
The death of the prisoner is neither more nor less sought as an end in itself than the death of a mob informant. Neither is killed just for the sake of killing. In the former case it is an act of just retribution, in the latter it is an act of unjust retribution, but the reason - the intent - is identical, and it isn’t clear how one can be declared indirect and the other direct simply because one is just and the other is not.

Ender

I do not understand what your practical goal is with these questions exactly.
Mine is to provide a principled approach to moral analysis that is more true to the actual intentions and choices and realities involved in particular cases. It will unlikely lead to different moral judgements.

Thus people do engage in material contracepting or killing (and even can be said to “choose” so) even when these are not the “acts of contraception/killing” that the Church proscribes.
Indirect intention means the actual object chosen is the good primarily intended regardless of appearances.

Thus a legitimately medicated person may have engaged in an immoral “act of killing” (though partly or fully non culpable) when in a road rage at a pedestrian he presses the accelerator instead of the brake - because indirect intention is not in play. Attenuated direct intention is in play.
However when he kills an intruder in his house there is no immoral “act of killing” (inculpable or otherwise) … it is a praiseworthy “act of self defence.”
Yet he did also choose to kill which remains a material evil that he did do.

 

[Ender]

God cannot be morally evil. The Church says that Capital Punishment, if absolutely necessary for the protection of the people, is allowable but that in modern times the circumstances are such as to make Capital Punishment and option that should rarely, if ever be resorted to

It is more accurate to say that the catechism implies that capital punishment is allowed only when it is necessary for protection, but there are some problems with that assumption, primarily the fact that protection is only a secondary end of punishment, and it is the primary objective, not a secondary one, that must (when reasonable) be satisfied. The primary end is retributive justice, and while an argument can be made that LWOP satisfies that requirement, it would be nice if justice was at least recognized as the priority.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Trying to understand what you mean by proper? Do you mean moral?

Certainly for an act to be proper it must be moral. In this case I mean no more than the best choice for the circumstances.

You seem to be saying that if a crime and its circumstances allows for just execution then not to do so is to thwart full justice and so is always and everywhere immoral?

Only if it is understood that what constitutes a just execution is not only the justness of the penalty for the crime, but also its impact on the entire community. According to Dulles, JPII opposed capital punishment because he perceived that it did more harm than good. If that is so then it would be unjust to apply it regardless of its justness in regard to the crime being punished.*if it is evident that the infliction of punishment will result in more numerous and more grievous sins being committed, the infliction of punishment will no longer be a part of justice. *(Aquinas ST II-II 43 7 ad 1)
That said, if there is no ancillary harm to the community, what is the argument that we should not apply a penalty we have all agreed is just?

If you allow that “less proper” responses are also satisfactory then the Magisterium seems to be saying the execution is in fact always immoral.

I simply don’t believe that can ever happen. The acceptance of capital punishment is so deeply embedded in church doctrine that I don’t believe it can ever be removed.

Ender

 

[Ender]

And who finally decides what is contradicting Scripture when there is both ambiguity in Scripture and less than full consensus or applicability in the Fathers and Doctors re more current problematics?

Scripture doesn’t seem all that ambiguous.

2260* …For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning… Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image. *
*The Old Testament always considered blood a sacred sign of life. **This teaching remains necessary for all time.
***​

Regarding the lack of complete unanimity between the Fathers (I am unaware of any Doctor of the Church who has spoken against capital punishment), if that is the criterion then it would cast doubt on any number of doctrines. The church has never suggested that everybody be right about everything every time. The fact that the acceptance of capital punishment was so universal for so long a time ought to indicate the significance of that teaching.
*There are certain moral norms that have always and everywhere been held by the successors of the Apostles in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Although never formally defined, they are irreversibly binding on the followers of Christ until the end of the world. Such moral truths are the grave sinfulness of contraception and direct abortion. Such, too, is the Catholic doctrine which defends the imposition of the death penalty. *(Fr. John Hardon)
Ender

 

[Ender]

Agreed. And while this looks like an a posteriori prudential judgement which leaves open a principled theoretic right to CP… it doesn’t for the old retributive justice justification argument of Ender or the old divine right of kings (Rau?).

The only principled basis that now remains is self defence … which in most countries calls for incarceration not death in practise as you observe.

What are the objectives of punishment, and which is the primary objective? If you respond “redressing the disorder caused by the offense” then explain what that phrase means.

Ender

 

[Ender]

I do not understand what your practical goal is with these questions exactly.

The question is the intent of the actor, what distinguishes direct from indirect intent, and how that distinction differentiates between those committing a just versus an unjust execution. You’ve made the point that an execution is an example of indirect intent. That does not seem possible to me so I am probing the question trying to resolve it.

Indirect intention means the actual object chosen is the good primarily intended regardless of appearances.

I would think even by this definition indirect intention would be the end intended, regardless of whether it was good or evil. If I understand this, if I commit act A to achieve end B, the end would be my direct intention while A would be an indirect intent. Is this how you mean it?

However when he kills an intruder in his house there is no immoral “act of killing” (inculpable or otherwise) … it is a praiseworthy “act of self defence.”
Yet he did also choose to kill which remains a material evil that he did do.

Except for an act of self defense to be valid he cannot intend to kill, even if he knows his action will lead directly to the death of the intruder. A person may not choose to kill in self defense. It is my argument that a person may choose to kill in both war and capital punishment.

Ender

 

[Rau]

…That said, if there is no ancillary harm to the community, what is the argument that we should not apply a penalty we have all agreed is just?

All harm needs to be considered, and if the balance of good vs evil is positive we judge the act moral. There is also a duty to consider the options available. We discard any where harm exceeds good. And it would seem the to choose the option where the favourable balance of good over bad is maximized. This identifies 2 circumstances where one might credibly oppose CP:

• 1 where we are obligated to avoid it;
• 1 where we pass over it to choose a greater good.

 

[Rau]

Except for an act of self defense to be valid he cannot intend to kill, even if he knows his action will lead directly to the death of the intruder. A person may not choose to kill in self defense. It is my argument that a person may choose to kill in both war and capital punishment.

It is true that one must not want as an end the aggressor’ death. So if one’s actions (whatever they may be) end the threat, one must not persist. But does this forbid one choosing as means (of self-defence) an act which by its very nature has as proximate end the death of the aggressor, where such act seems warranted? I believe it does not.

 

[Rau]

Below I correct typographical errors in the original post#192…

All harm needs to be considered, and if the balance of good vs evil is positive we judge the act moral. There is also a duty to consider the options available. We discard any where harm exceeds good. And it would seem the greater good to choose the option where the favourable balance of good over bad is maximized. This identifies 2 circumstances where one might credibly oppose CP:

• 1 where we are obligated to avoid it;
• 1 where we pass over it to choose a greater good.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

The Church says that Capital Punishment, if absolutely necessary for the protection of the people, is allowable but that in modern times the circumstances are such as to make Capital Punishment an option that should rarely, if ever be resorted to

Precisely.

As Pope Saint John Paul II said when he visited the United States before the Great Jubilee 2000…

*The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. . . . I renew the appeal I made . . . for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.

—Pope John Paul II Papal Mass, St. Louis, Missouri, January 27, 1999*

 

[Rau]

What have I missed?

Your responses to Post #125 and #130 do not address the very specific issues put to you, some of which would provide an opportunity for you to also answer Ender’s request for you to explicate the direct/indirect issue, rather than simply re-assert it in varying language.

 

[Ender]

It is true that one must not want as an end the aggressor’ death. So if one’s actions (whatever they may be) end the threat, one must not persist. But does this forbid one choosing as means (of self-defence) an act which by its very nature has as proximate end the death of the aggressor, where such act seems warranted? I believe it does not.

So long as there is no reasonable alternative, I believe one may choose in an act of self defense something that will clearly cause death. What is forbidden is deliberately killing the attacker if a non-fatal option is available. This is a clear case of double effect, but double effect does not apply to capital punishment.

Ender

 

[Rau]

So long as there is no reasonable alternative, I believe one may choose in an act of self defense something that will clearly cause death. What is forbidden is deliberately killing the attacker if a non-fatal option is available.

Agreed.

So this in my view is choosing death “as a means” in service of the end. Choosing death not because it is desired in itself, but because it is the only means to serve the good end.

If we can directly choose this act (the death), then it is not a morally evil act. Is it not morally evil because the act is “indirect”, or because the aggressor is not “innocent”? I note we may not directly choose death of an innocent no matter how great the good that we seek to serve. Innocence or not makes a difference.

It seems to me the self-defense scenario of choosing death is no less direct than the act of killing in CP; [there is a difference in how it may play out though. In CP we must have a death, in defense not so. A disabled aggressor no longer warrants death as a means of self defense.]

It is also true that we may choose an act that is good (for some good end), though with an unfortunate consequence for an innocent - and in this case we recognize a double-effect. We never wanted the innocent to die. Arguably we never wanted our aggressor to die either - but it seemed unavoidable, and we were permitted to pursue precisely his death. Something we can’t do to an innocent.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I would think even by this definition indirect intention would be the end intended, regardless of whether it was good or evil.

No. Technically “intended” without qualification usually means a “direct intention”.

Intention, judgement, purpose, choice, decision show that even colloquially we can mean subtly different things by these words. Some of these will be what a moral theologian might call a “direct intention”, others may well be an “indirect intention”.
Sometimes we ourselves may not be exactly sure of the difference at the time and nor will a judging outsider always be able to reasonably determine which prevails.
Your ends/means approach is not always adequate either as sometimes the subordination of one to the other is not temporally or even logically clear even at the level of principle.
For example most have difficulty clearly demonstrating that death is not the means to self-defence, contracepting is not the means to achieving some repulsion of a rapist by the Congo nuns and removing 1cm of fallopian tube that just happens to have a living embryo inside (ie killing) is not the means to saving the mother.

If I understand this, if I commit act A to achieve end B, the end would be my direct intention while A would be an indirect intent.

As above it is not the case.
B would clearly be a direct intention always.

However there seems to be no reason why A could not also be directly intended and the two acts are actually two distinct acts (though related) and able to be fully analysed independently.
When indirect intention is involved there is only one single moral act: the direct intention targeting the object/matter font and the indirect intention targeting the circumstances font.

I would agree that we may well just be talking about different principled ways of analysing any deed that involves mixed “matter” (usually one is disordered and the other not) and deciding whether it is immoral or not.

I just did that for you with the mob execution.
I came to the same conclusion as you would have but by a different path.
And it is more consistent with where the Magisterium is at than your approach.

Except for an act of self defense to be valid he cannot intend to kill, even if he knows his action will lead directly to the death of the intruder.

What does “intend” actually mean.
It is clear to me the abstract “intent” of moral theologians is quite a different reality from what we mean by that word when applied to particular dramatic concrete situations. It of course has little directly to do with a conscious feeling.
Thus a just defender may well feel that he directly chose and intended the death of his assailant - yet did not actually do so in the manner a moral theologian would qualify as “direct intent”.

A person may not choose to kill in self defense.

As I just opined, it seems clear to me that in practice just defenders often do choose to kill (just as Congo Nuns did choose to contracept) yet this choosing still may not be what moral theologians mean by a “direct intent”. It may be indirect intent all the same and therefore permissible to kill.

It is my argument that a person may **choose **to kill in both war and capital punishment.

I think we understand that.
Yet I suggest reflecting on my above statement in reverse … you may think this choosing is what theologians mean by “direct” but it may in fact not be.
If retributive justice (punishment) is the primary type of intent then I would tend to think it is indeed direct (and therefore the execution rendered immoral always and everywhere).
However if some of the other purposes of CP motivate the judgement (protection of the common good, rehab of the crim) then the choosing may well be indirect even if it looks deliberately intended killing.

The Magisterium, by even a face value reading, appears to deny that one may directly intend the death of the deserving criminal regardless of what you regard as allegedly consistent prior tradition.
Yes it still allows the possibility of CP in principle, but it doesn’t any longer seem to support either:
(a) that it may in principle be done with direct intent (ie purely as retributive punishment, an end in itself); OR
(b) that in modern times justifying circumstances exist to make such just (based on PODE principles again implying only indirect intention is acceptable - ie for the reform of the criminal or protection of the common good).