It is doctrinal matter… This is a legitimate development by which the essential meaning of Church’s teaching on capital punishment remains in tact, but is deepened (as your Cardinal Ratzinger quote states)
Dulles, among others, sees it differently.
Doctrine is not dependent on “present-day historical circumstances”, which - according to Ratzinger - this position is.
Question 1. In this concrete example, I believe one may prudently judge that the prison system does not have the capability to protect society from this prisoner. The death penalty is applicable to this prisoner for any subsequent murders.
If capital punishment was held to the same standard as an individual’s right to self defense, then it would never be justifiable. That a person may use deadly force in protecting himself or others does not exclude him from the one restriction on such action: he must not intend to kill. Given that the entire objective of the death penalty is to terminate the life of the felon it can hardly meet the requirement that the death be unintended.
No, neither the state nor the individual may ever morally intend to terminate life. I think you confuse the two fonts of intention and object. Society and the individual may and must intend self-defense as the end in view. And both, as St. JPII, taught, may only use the lethal act as a last resort to save innocent lives, i.e. to protect society.
So,if the state may never intend to terminate life morally, how do you reconcile the Church’s view (historically) that the death penalty was proper and right?Ender:
No, neither the state nor the individual may ever morally intend to terminate life. I think you confuse the two fonts of intention and object. Society and the individual may and must intend self-defense as the end in view. And both, as St. JPII, taught, may only use the lethal act as a last resort to save innocent lives, i.e. to protect society.
Recall, (as shown above) the notion was proffered as outside Church teaching and logically follows only from strict justice. In justice, one cannot take what one has no right to take. As the state did not give life, the state has no right in justice to take life. The state has no right in justice to take life but, like the individual, the state has an obligation to preserve life. Therefore, the right to end another’s life must always involve self-defense, the preservation of innocent life.
Yet this is precisely what the State does in an execution, and the individual is forbidden to do this:
What is lost in this approach is any concept of justice: that a person may justly be executed only if he deserves to die. In this new approach that question is not even considered. This perspective would allow us to execute a person before he has even committed a crime so long as we reasonably believe he is a threat.
This denies the church’s teaching on the authority of the magistrate.
St. Thomas emphatically does not agree.
St. Thomas describes intention, the subjective font, from the perspective of the individual at the moment the lethal act is committed. The individual may commit this lethal act only with the intention to defend innocent life. The state, as taught in EV, may also only commit this lethal act when bloodless acts are insufficient to defend against an unjust aggressor.
That is the very point: in justice, the state does not have right to take what it has not given. God is the author of life. Only God has the right to intend to take life. The self-defender, individual or state, may take a life but may never intends to do so. One must separate the fonts of object from intent to understand this point.
This perspective, as has always been true, allows an individual to commit a lethal act when mortally threatened by an unjust aggressor. Likewise, this perspective allows the state when mortally threatened by an unjust aggressor to commit a lethal act if bloodless means are not otherwise able to do so. The parallels are identical. The “reasonably threatened” predicate to a lethal act has always been true. Nothing new in that.
Please re-read the first sentences of my posts in this thread. I argue in other threads from Church teaching. I believe you owe a response in that thread. Please reply there to my last post on the Church teaching. I defend my position here from strict justice, not Church teaching. However, both bring one to the same conclusion on the use of the death penalty.
This is a little like arguing that putting a gun to a person’s head and pulling the trigger is not murder so long as your intention was only to move your finger. The intention of the executioner is the death of the prisoner.
This is not something the church has ever taught.
Doesn’t it give you even a moments pause to know that this is directly contrary to what the church teaches now and has always taught?
Do you have any conception of what happens in a war? How is a soldier justified in intentionally killing an enemy if it is forbidden to intend to kill?
Let’s see if this is true. Nikolas Cruz was a clear threat to his community, a threat recognized by the public, the police, and even the FBI. The state of Florida may well be justified in executing him, but no one would argue that a private citizen had the right to execute him prior to his act yet your position permits no distinction between what the state may do and what is legitimate for the citizen.
I don’t know what you refer to. Be specific and I will respond.
The intent is subjective. Therefore, you cannot impute the intent of another. If the executioner intends anything other than to protect society then the executioner is out of order.
Again, this argument is not based on church teaching. What the church teaches or does not teach is not relevant to the argument per se. But even your citations support that the conclusion of the philosophical argument is the same as the theological argument: Only self defense justifies the taking of a life.
Define the criteria for one being a “clear threat” such that another may use lethal force. I think absent an actual violent act preceding such a judgement you will come up with a list to which your own name may be applied. So much for the Cruz analogy.