Capital Punishment

[LucyEm]

To complete that thought…retribution is not an end in itself. Redressing disorder promotes public order. I wonder what more you want CP to achieve?

 

[Ender]

The purposes of punishment are of an earthly nature, most especially CP. They are not a substitute for ultimate fate. You are reaching for an end which is not there. You depart from Dulles now.

Do you agree with Dulles about this?*The purposes of criminal punishment are rather unanimously delineated in the Catholic tradition. Punishment is held to have a variety of ends that may conveniently be reduced to the following four: rehabilitation, defense against the criminal, deterrence, and retribution.
** *If you accept this, which of the four objectives do you consider the primary one?

Ender

 

[Ender]

To complete that thought…retribution is not an end in itself. Redressing disorder promotes public order. I wonder what more you want CP to achieve?

Retribution is synonymous with redressing the disorder…*The third justifying purpose for punishment is retribution or the restoration of the order of justice which has been violated by the action of the criminal. *(USCCB, 1980)
…and the reason for this is that it is a matter of justice. Nor does “disorder” refer to merely order in the streets; it has a deeper meaning.*Corresponding to the moral evil of sin is punishment, which guarantees the moral order in the same transcendent sense in which this order is laid down by the will of the Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. *(JPII, Salvifici doloris)It is the moral order itself that is disturbed.*It is therefore necessary for the full remission and—as it is called—reparation of sins not only that friendship with God be reestablished by a sincere conversion of the mind and amends made for the offense against his wisdom and goodness, but also that all the personal as well as social values and those of the universal order itself, which have been diminished or destroyed by sin, be fully reintegrated whether through voluntary reparation which will involve punishment or through acceptance of the punishments established by the just and most holy wisdom of God, from which there will shine forth throughout the world the sanctity and the splendor of his glory. The very existence and the gravity of the punishment enable us to understand the foolishness and malice of sin and its harmful consequences. *(Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina)
Ender

 

[Rau]

Retribution is synonymous with redressing the disorder…The third justifying purpose for punishment is retribution or the restoration of the order of justice which has been violated by the action of the criminal. (USCCB, 1980)
…and the reason for this is that it is a matter of justice. Nor does “disorder” refer to merely order in the streets; it has a deeper meaning.Corresponding to the moral evil of sin is punishment, which guarantees the moral order in the same transcendent sense in which this order is laid down by the will of the Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. (JPII, Salvifici doloris)It is the moral order itself that is disturbed.It is therefore necessary for the full remission and—as it is called—reparation of sins not only that friendship with God be reestablished by a sincere conversion of the mind and amends made for the offense against his wisdom and goodness, but also that all the personal as well as social values and those of the universal order itself, which have been diminished or destroyed by sin, be fully reintegrated whether through voluntary reparation which will involve punishment or through acceptance of the punishments established by the just and most holy wisdom of God, from which there will shine forth throughout the world the sanctity and the splendor of his glory. The very existence and the gravity of the punishment enable us to understand the foolishness and malice of sin and its harmful consequences. (Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina)
Ender

Ender - do you think man pursues punishment for a reason beyond earthly significance?

 

[Ender]

Ender - do you think man pursues punishment for a reason beyond earthly significance?

In answering this I am making some assumptions about what you mean by the question. I would say first that while most of the actions and intents are specifically directed at the here and now, those actions can have an eternal significance. In the section on “The Debt of Punishment” (ST I-II 87,1) Aquinas said:*In the first place a man’s nature is subject to the order of his own reason; secondly, it is subjected to the order of another man who governs him either in spiritual or in temporal matters . . . . thirdly, it is subject to the universal order of the Divine government. Now each of these orders is disturbed by sin, for the sinner acts against his reason, and against human and Divine law. Wherefore he incurs a threefold punishment; one, inflicted by himself, viz. remorse of conscience; another, inflicted by man; and a third, inflicted by God.
*The magistrate directs his punishments to the temporal order, which is the one he can directly affect. Punishment - retribution - achieves the good of redressing the disorder caused by the sin. It is a matter of justice, of treating a person according to the merit or demerit of his actions.

That said, punishment can have an eternal effect if it is accepted by the sinner. The death penalty specifically will atone for the sin if the criminal accepts it as just. The example of the “good thief” shows this.

One of the reasons retributive punishment is taking on such an unattractive perception is that we are losing our belief that people deserve to be punished for their actions. The only thing that justifies punishment in the first place is the belief that the person deserves it, but if we don’t believe he does deserve it - if we place the blame on society, his upbringing, his nature, etc - then punishment has no basis in justice. It would, however, lead us to treat dangerous people like dangerous animals.

So while our punishments are directed specifically at repairing the disorders caused in the natural world, they can have supernatural implications depending on how they are accepted by the one who endures them.

Ender

 

[Athanasiy]

There is an interesting work of the magnificent French tragedian Victor Hugo, a work which is a protest against the practice of the death penalty. -“The Last Day of a Condemned Man” is a short novel by Victor Hugo first published in 1829. The novel recounts the thoughts of a man condemned to die, the internal experiences of a person sentenced to death … …recommended for reading.
:bravo: