Death penalty question

[Ender]

What reasons do the Popes give for preferring it? Do those reasons have a moral character?

Any action taken to achieve a moral objective always involves reasons that have a “moral character”: we are trying to achieve the goals our doctrines set for us. That doesn’t make one choice more moral than another. One choice will in all likelihood be more accurate than another, but the morality of any (reasonable) choice is determined not by the nature of the choice itself but by the intention behind it. This is why even though one choice may be disastrously wrong, there is no moral distinction that allows us to say this choice is more moral than that one.

Ender

 

[Rau]

… One choice will in all likelihood be more accurate than another, but the morality of any (reasonable) choice is determined not by the nature of the choice itself but by the intention behind it. This is why even though one choice may be disastrously wrong, there is no moral distinction that allows us to say this choice is more moral than that one.

Ender

Morality is influenced also by ‘circumstances’, which includes the consequences of actions. Now, you can argue the consequences associated with killing the criminal involve more good than other options, but you can’t ignore this. I believe the Popes are quite conscious of this.

 

[Ender]

Morality is influenced also by ‘circumstances’, which includes the consequences of actions. Now, you can argue the consequences associated with killing the criminal involve more good than other options, but you can’t ignore this.

True. Those choosing option A are hoping for the best result, which is exactly what those choosing Not A are hoping for. The intentions are identical, the outcome is unknowable, and the act itself is not immoral, therefore there can be no moral difference between choosing A and Not A.

Ender

 

[Rau]

True. Those choosing option A are hoping for the best result, which is exactly what those choosing Not A are hoping for. The intentions are identical, the outcome is unknowable, and the act itself is not immoral, therefore there can be no moral difference between choosing A and Not A.

Ender

Not true. To knowingly choose the option with more bad consequence is immoral. It is the balance of good and bad that is to be assessed in the 3rd font of morality. The balance must be good, though I am unclear whether good vs better matters.

 

[Ender]

Not true. To knowingly choose the option with more bad consequence is immoral.

Please, you know I’m not making that argument. I specifically said people on both sides of the debate have the same objective: the best outcome possible. Beyond that I also said the consequences were unknowable. Obviously if I do something I believe will be harmful I have sinned. Can we at least accept that both sides are choosing what they believe is the better option? Is it really that difficult to assume the best about people?

Ender

 

[Rau]

Please, you know I’m not making that argument. I specifically said people on both sides of the debate have the same objective: the best outcome possible. Beyond that I also said the consequences were unknowable. Obviously if I do something I believe will be harmful I have sinned. Can we at least accept that both sides are choosing what they believe is the better option? Is it really that difficult to assume the best about people?

Ender

I’m not suggesting anyone has a wrong motivation. I modified previous post.

 

[LongingSoul]

A growing awareness on the part of whom? Are you suggesting that it has taken the church 2000 years to finally understand fully “the dignity of the human being”, or is it your position that man’s dignity is better comprehended by societies that have accounted for 100 million abortions, aggressively support euthanasia, and have abandoned churches by the millions?

I rather suspect the reverse is true. It is much more likely JPII opposed the use of capital punishment not because of a growing public awareness of man’s dignity but because he saw that modern societies had completely lost any sense of man’s worth and would no longer understand why such a punishment was justified.

Ender

Nope. Evangelium Vitae expresses St JPII’s attitude quite clearly.

Among the signs of hope we should also count the spread, at many levels of public opinion, of a new sensitivity ever more opposed to war as an instrument for the resolution of conflicts between peoples, and increasingly oriented to finding effective but “non-violent” means to counter the armed aggressor. In the same perspective there is evidence of a growing public opposition to the death penalty, even when such a penalty is seen as a kind of “legitimate defence” on the part of society. Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform.

Another welcome sign is the growing attention being paid to the quality of life and to ecology, especially in more developed societies, where people’s expectations are no longer concentrated so much on problems of survival as on the search for an overall improvement of living conditions. **Especially significant is the reawakening of an ethical reflection on issues affecting life. The emergence and ever more widespread development of bioethics is promoting more reflection and dialogue-between believers and non-believers, as well as between followers of different religions- on ethical problems, including fundamental issues pertaining to human life. **

1. **This situation, with its lights and shadows, ought to make us all fully aware that we are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the “culture of death” and the “culture of life”. **We find ourselves not only “faced with” but necessarily “in the midst of” this conflict: we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life.

Abortion having become a quick, clean, surgical procedure where the reality is hidden from general view is perhaps more easily understood as tolerable to the secular society than times where poverty, starvation, orphanage life, child labour/slavery and other abuses of children were tolerated. We are so much more aware today of the equality of all people and their rights to basic support and opportunities. Noone could honestly deny that as a society we have made huge leaps and bounds in awareness of our responsibilities to each other including those we don’t even know. We understand the ‘common good’ in a much broader sense than even basic support and safeguards for children were non existent.

The death penalty in the light of this knowledge is regarded as feeding the culture of death that continues to support abortion. This is the view of the Church expressed publically as the voice of moral direction. That’s her vocation on earth.

 

[BartholomewB]

Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform.

As I said in an earler post (#263), Evangelium Vitae was written in the pre-9/11 era. The crimes referred to here are the usual kinds of homicide in western societies: a jealous wife or husband, an armed robbery, other murders for financial gain, turf wars between drug gangs, and so on. Muslim terrorism is a new kind of crime that was not foreseen in the 1990s.

 

[Rau]

As I said in an earler post (#263), Evangelium Vitae was written in the pre-9/11 era. The crimes referred to here are the usual kinds of homicide in western societies: a jealous wife or husband, an armed robbery, other murders for financial gain, turf wars between drug gangs, and so on. Muslim terrorism is a new kind of crime that was not foreseen in the 1990s.

Does this suggest you would support a decision by States to reserve Capital Punishment for murderous acts committed by Muslim terrorists (or similar)?

 

[LongingSoul]

As I said in an earler post (#263), Evangelium Vitae was written in the pre-9/11 era. The crimes referred to here are the usual kinds of homicide in western societies: a jealous wife or husband, an armed robbery, other murders for financial gain, turf wars between drug gangs, and so on. Muslim terrorism is a new kind of crime that was not foreseen in the 1990s.

It’s perhaps the case that you are an American and looking at the world through that lens… but it is a fact that crimes against humanity on even greater scales have been a consistent feature of the world for a very long time. 9/11 was certainly horrific but there is definitely the element of greater media coverage and unexpectedness that gives that horrible event an aura of being the worst event that has ever happened to a society.

That I would back with saying that St JPII, Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have all given commentary over the years since 2001 with* increasing* objection to the death penalty rather than pulling it back in any way. So much so that Pope Francis in a recent comment says that *"All Christians and people of good will are thus called today to struggle not only for abolition of the death penalty, whether it be legal or illegal and in all its forms, but also to improve prison conditions, out of respect for the human dignity of persons deprived of their liberty. " *

 

[BartholomewB]

It’s perhaps the case that you are an American and looking at the world through that lens… but it is a fact that crimes against humanity on even greater scales have been a consistent feature of the world for a very long time. 9/11 was certainly horrific but there is definitely the element of greater media coverage and unexpectedness that gives that horrible event an aura of being the worst event that has ever happened to a society.

That I would back with saying that St JPII, Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have all given commentary over the years since 2001 with* increasing* objection to the death penalty rather than pulling it back in any way. So much so that Pope Francis in a recent comment says that "All Christians and people of good will are thus called today to struggle not only for abolition of the death penalty, whether it be legal or illegal and in all its forms, but also to improve prison conditions, out of respect for the human dignity of persons deprived of their liberty. "

No, I am not American and I live in a third-world country. Your sneering suggestion that I am “looking at the world through that lens” is offensive, foolish, and juvenile.

 

[Rau]

No, I am not American and I live in a third-world country. Your sneering suggestion that I am “looking at the world through that lens” is offensive, foolish, and juvenile.

I saw nothing sneering, offensive, foolish or juvenile in her remark. I am not American either. Your response seems unwarranted.

 

[Ender]

I saw nothing sneering, offensive, foolish or juvenile in her remark. I am not American either. Your response seems unwarranted.

Her remark is dismissive of the opinions of Americans who disagree with her solely because they are American. At the very least that is a foolish argument, and it is appropriate to label it as such.

Ender

 

[Rau]

Her remark is dismissive of the opinions of Americans who disagree with her solely because they are American. At the very least that is a foolish argument, and it is appropriate to label it as such.

Ender

At worst, she suggested that perhaps the statement of one American was unduly colored. There are posts on this thread more disrespectful than that one.

 

[LongingSoul]

No, I am not American and I live in a third-world country. Your sneering suggestion that I am “looking at the world through that lens” is offensive, foolish, and juvenile.

I’d be interested to know which third world country you come from that identified 11/9/01 as the worst humanitarian disaster that the Popes had to consider in formulating their position on the death penalty. I was just stating an objective fact which is that non Americans although horrified and shocked by that event, are aware that it is not the only horrible humanitarian tragedy that has happened on the globe. Others have occurred that have not garnered the same media coverage as that.

 

[adrift]

I’d be interested to know which third world country you come from that identified 11/9/01 as the worst humanitarian disaster that the Popes had to consider in formulating their position on the death penalty.

I have gone back through the thread and cannot find anyone saying this. Perhaps I missed it can you give me the post?

I was just stating an objective fact

Where did you get this fact? Or is it just your opinion that was unfounded?

which is that non Americans although horrified and shocked by that event, are aware that it is not the only horrible humanitarian tragedy that has happened on the globe. Others have occurred that have not garnered the same media coverage as that.

You are actually giving more support to his position

Do the conditions that St John Paul observed in the 1990s, and from which he drew the conclusion that the time had come to discontinue the death penalty, still prevail in our own day? Arguably, they do not. There has been a significant change in the kind of violent crime that society needs to protect itself against. The change came, of course, on September 11, 2001. Muslim terrorism on a worldwide scale is a new reality that St John Paul II could not possibly have foreseen when he issued Evangelium Vitae.

He didn’t say that it was the “only” tragedy" you are the one who is saying that. You made an arrogant ignorant assumption which instead of backing off of you plod ahead.

 

[LongingSoul]

I have gone back through the thread and cannot find anyone saying this. Perhaps I missed it can you give me the post?

BartholomewB suggested that Pope StJPII was reacting to a certain type of world that only knew ‘minor’ violence such as he demonstrates by this post…

As I said in an earler post (#263), Evangelium Vitae was written in the pre-9/11 era. The crimes referred to here are the usual kinds of homicide in western societies: a jealous wife or husband, an armed robbery, other murders for financial gain, turf wars between drug gangs, and so on. Muslim terrorism is a new kind of crime that was not foreseen in the 1990s.

He is saying that he would possibly change his mind in the light of the event, 9/11. That strongly suggested to me that BartholmewB is not fully aware of the type of soulless violent dictators and horrible humanitarian crimes that have existed around the globe since time began. Jealous wives, armed robberies, turf wars while they are terrible crimes… Pope StJPII was well aware of other humanitarian crimes of the calibre of Islamic terrorism.

He didn’t say that it was the “only” tragedy" you are the one who is saying that. You made an arrogant ignorant assumption which instead of backing off of you plod ahead.

The tragedies he listed as having influenced the experience of JPII didn’t reflect tragedies of the scale of 9/11 that have absolutely happened in the lifetime of JPII and throughout the Church’s long history.

 

[adrift]

BartholomewB suggested that Pope StJPII was reacting to a certain type of world that only knew ‘minor’ violence such as he demonstrates by this post…

Please go back and reread his post with a more open mind. He isn’t saying what you are saying here. He never said he only knew “minor” violence BUT the world was more or less at peace.

 

[Rau]

Please go back and reread his post with a more open mind. He isn’t saying what you are saying here. He never said he only knew “minor” violence BUT the world was more or less at peace.

Is anyone seriously arguing that the moves of 3 Popes to see the end of the death penalty is predicated on a particular direction of the ebb and flow of the level of conflict in the world? That these Popes might have failed to perceive that it could ebb back the other way?

No, they are not naive. They are simply telling us that there is more “good” in acts of punishment that are bloodless than in those which are not.

 

[Ender]

They are simply telling us that there is more “good” in acts of punishment that are bloodless than in those which are not.

What they are telling us is that they would prefer that capital punishment not be used because they see it as counter productive. They believe it is better for societies not to use it based on the outcomes they foresee and the negative influence they believe it has. Their position is arguably correct, and if it is then the good comes from making a right decision. It does not come from it being a morally superior choice.

Ender