Death penalty question

[Blue_Horizon]

Oh, and all this time I thought learning what the church taught was a good thing.
Ender

Ender the epistemological problem here is this: by what criteria does an intellectually lone autodidact objectively know whether he has actually “learnt” in the first place.
(Or as Jesus was want to say “you hear but do not understand, look but do not see…”)

How does such a one know for sure he has correctly grasped what he thinks he sees the Church as teaching?

Your solution to this unspoken epistemological issue, as has been noted by another good-willed contributor here, is in fact a Protestant solution.
That is, direct personal inspiration by the HS of your own private interpretation of the written text (in your case not just the Bible but any allegedly authoritative ancient docs you can cherry pick).

The massive problem with this Protestant approach is that dead men’s writings (which are in fact further ambiguated by translation) cannot stand on their hind-legs and tell the reader to his face they are raping the meaning.
And of course, those living authors who could do so you would ignore as “new”, “unauthorative” … or prudential only.

This is a typical BlackSwan rationalisation unworthy of a mature, deep thinker who must be self-aware of his own limitations in handling the “truth” before trying to play the definitive truth teacher to others.
I hope you had a look at the Black Swan link I provided.

In this sense yes I say your thinking is intellectually shallow.
And when this epistemological approach causes you to cherry pick both authors of your liking and partially quote balanced authors whom you present as fully backing your position … well yes that is intellectually dishonest.
Please not I did not say personally dishonest - you are completely unaware of what you are doing intellectually.

If you were my apprentice and you kept using my favourite, expensive chisel (which I sharpen each morning before coming to work) as a screw-driver I would observe the same.

Not all of us old bastards are on Catholic Answers simply to give the sort of robotic black and white answers to life that some are seeking here.
The best answers are never black and white - and they are always personal.

Whether you get angry and take it personally … or grasp an opportunity to better cultivate your talents and self-awareness from some-one a little further along the road than you who is actually trying to help …is entirely your decision to make.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I have to interject here that Ender cherry picks from the essay of Cardinal Dulles as well. He has never properly addressed the passages regarding retribution in that essay that limit it to the symbolic re-enactment of Gods justice that is honoured by conforming to the States authority and mandate to serve primarily the common good in administering justice.

Retribution. In principle, guilt calls for punishment. The graver the offense, the more severe the punishment ought to be. In Holy Scripture, as we have seen, death is regarded as the appropriate punishment for serious transgressions. Thomas Aquinas held that sin calls for the deprivation of some good, such as, in serious cases, the good of temporal or even eternal life. By consenting to the punishment of death, the wrongdoer is placed in a position to expiate his evil deeds and escape punishment in the next life. After noting this, St. Thomas adds that even if the malefactor is not repentant, he is benefited by being prevented from committing more sins. Retribution by the State has its limits because the State, unlike God, enjoys neither omniscience nor omnipotence. According to Christian faith, God “will render to every man according to his works” at the final judgment (Romans 2:6; cf. Matthew 16:27). Retribution by the State can only be a symbolic anticipation of God’s perfect justice.

firstthings.com/article/2001/04/catholicism-amp-capital-punishment

A interesting insight, so it seems Card Dulles is more balanced that I first considered.
I am not sure how this affects his overall approach, eg his reading CCC2267.
Anyways, his comment above seems like a prudential approach rather than a principled one wrt Retrib Justice.

 

[LongingSoul]

A interesting insight, so it seems Card Dulles is more balanced that I first considered.
I am not sure how this affects his overall approach, eg his reading CCC2267.
Anyways, his comment above seems like a prudential approach rather than a principled one wrt Retrib Justice.

I’ve read his First Things essay over and over and its quite a chaotic experience. He is obviously highly conflicted and it is more an exercise in ‘musing’ than a theological treatise. He attempts to explain the move to abolition of capital punishment in Europe and elsewhere as a sign general moral deficiency in those cultures… which comes across as a bit precious to Europeans and the rest of us. Is he one of those Americans who think they are the actual ‘seat of Peter’? A superior Catholic race? I don’t know.

That whole reliance of ‘prudential judgement’ is amusing too when you consider that since the Church affirms that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil, it naturally implies that it can either be good or evil depending on how it serves human justice in relation to the different eras. That means that their *support *of it in the past is also a ‘prudential judgement’.

The essay was written in 2001… 14 years ago… and since then, the Church has strengthened incrementally in its opposition to it, to the point that recently Pope Francis insists that Catholics are obligated to reject it. I really think it needs a have a big cross through it and binned at this stage.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Are insults to be considered the new debate form? You condemn me for cherry picking Dulles’ view even as you berate me for parroting what he says. Which is it? If I’m repeating what he said how is that cherry picking? I assume you understand that that phrase means taking something out of context, so since you have made that allegation why don’t you show all of us that Dulles actually meant something other than the short phrase I excerpted? I’ll help you out by providing the surrounding verbiage so you won’t even have to look it up, and I’ll highlight the part I have focused on so others can determine for themselves if your charge against me has any validity.

The United States bishops, for their part, had already declared in their majority statement of 1980 that “in the conditions of contemporary American society, the legitimate purposes of punishment do not justify the imposition of the death penalty.” Since that time they have repeatedly intervened to ask for clemency in particular cases. Like the Pope, the bishops do not rule out capital punishment altogether, but they say that it is not justifiable as practiced in the United States today.

In coming to this prudential conclusion, the magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine remains what it has been: that the State, in principle, has the right to impose the death penalty on persons convicted of very serious crimes. But the classical tradition held that the State should not exercise this right when the evil effects outweigh the good effects. Thus the principle still leaves open the question whether and when the death penalty ought to be applied. The Pope and the bishops, using their prudential judgment, have concluded that in contemporary society, at least in countries like our own, the death penalty ought not to be invoked, because, on balance, it does more harm than good. I personally support this position.
​

Ender what are you even on about.
You don’t seem to understand what “cherry picking” means nor what I just asked of you here.

But it is good you supplied full text, however when doing so it is standard practice to name the author, the book/page Title, page and year of publication at the end of the quote.

Quote: BlueH
I am certainly saying 2267 has further elucidated the fact that retr justice theory can no longer be claimed, by some, to be a “stand-alone” principle justifying State Executions.

No, actually 2267 says nothing whatever about retribution (or rehabilitation or deterrence). It speaks only of the defense of society, which is a problem because this is only a secondary objective of punishment, or is it your understanding that this has been upgraded to the primary objective?
You made an assertion about what 2267 said about the theory of retributive justice which I rejected by countering that 2267 ignores the question of justice entirely.

Lets look at the text then:
“2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude…recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.”

You are the one who keeps saying traditional teaching holds the primary object of the Death penalty is retributive justice do you not?
Therefore 2267 is indeed referring to Retrib Justice and clearly making its applicability conditional on fulfilling a second objective - namely CommonGood/Self-Defence as a matter or principle.

Now we have a teaching that shows this age old intuitive concern against modern day State Executions is well founded, and on a matter of a principle other than retribution (and prudential judgements only related to RetribJust such as to having the right man or retrib proportionality (eg bloodless means).

In fact it can override the applicability of the primary principle (retribution) AS A MATTER OF DEFINITION and therefore many modern day State Executions may not even be worthy of the name “Capital Punishment” because the definition is not fulfilled.
This is new, and at the **level of principle **- yet also in harmony with the past.

The prudential aspect is still here but has been widened by this change at the level of principle. eg we must now make judgements wrt State Self-Defence proportionality (not retrib justice proportionality) and other considerations re the Common Good.
This is necessary because we must now determine, in any given case, that this conditionalising principled second object has been met. All the recent Popes, and many Catholics, have held that this 2nd principle/object is rarely met.

This clarifying of the linkage between these principles does not make CP intrinsically evil.
Noone is saying that here.
But because there have been developments in linking the justifying objects together more strongly (a bit like Marriage having two ends now not just the traditional one) … it is much harder to prudentially judge today that all required conditions have been fulfilled.​

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’ve read his First Things essay over and over and its quite a chaotic experience. He is obviously highly conflicted and it is more an exercise in ‘musing’ than a theological treatise. He attempts to explain the move to abolition of capital punishment in Europe and elsewhere as a sign general moral deficiency in those cultures… which comes across as a bit precious to Europeans and the rest of us. Is he one of those Americans who think they are the actual ‘seat of Peter’? A superior Catholic race? I don’t know.

That whole reliance of ‘prudential judgement’ is amusing too when you consider that since the Church affirms that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil, it naturally implies that it can either be good or evil depending on how it serves human justice in relation to the different eras. That means that their *support *of it in the past is also a ‘prudential judgement’.

The essay was written in 2001… 14 years ago… and since then, the Church has strengthened incrementally in its opposition to it, to the point that recently Pope Francis insists that Catholics are obligated to reject it. I really think it needs a have a big cross through it and binned at this stage.

Yes I think this is a fair and relatively objective reading of Dulles and, in my more limited reading, I have observed most of it the same as you.

I like the insight you had in your second point, you well put into words something I too had in my mind I didn’t quite know how to express.

And yes Dulles reads more like a musing not a Dogmatic treatise…and I see that to his credit because it is a conflicted subject! If someone comes out too dogmatically on this topic I don’t care what position they have taken … it will likely have significant holes .

 

[Rau]

…That whole reliance of ‘prudential judgement’ is amusing too when you consider that since the Church affirms that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil, it naturally implies that it can either be good or evil depending on how it serves human justice in relation to the different eras. That means that their *support *of it in the past is also a ‘prudential judgement’.

That Punishment must serve justice is, I contend, a necessary but not sufficient measure of its acceptability. Above all else, whatever is done, it must be moral. In saying this (the recurring theme of my contribution to this thread), I assume that the Church’s Moral Theology applies to States as much as it does to us as individuals.

The Popes have in effect declared that killing the criminal is a moral course only when it is judged necessary to protect the community, and they conclude that’s a rarity because the penal system is adequate for that purpose. But they don’t seem to have addressed whether or not a custodial sentence can be a Just punishment for a heinous crime. Of course, this is not to suggest that execution is not just - but I would have thought that establishing the justness of alternative punishments ought to be incorporated into their treatment of the subject, given its traditional prominence.

 

[LongingSoul]

That Punishment must serve justice is, I contend, a necessary but not sufficient measure of its acceptability. Above all else, whatever is done, it must be moral. In saying this (the recurring theme of my contribution to this thread), I assume that the Church’s Moral Theology applies to States as much as it does to us as individuals.

The Popes have in effect declared that killing the criminal is a moral course only when it is judged necessary to protect the community, and they conclude that’s a rarity because the penal system is adequate for that purpose. But they don’t seem to have addressed whether or not a custodial sentence can be a Just punishment for a heinous crime. Of course, this is not to suggest that execution is not just - but I would have thought that establishing the justness of alternative punishments ought to be incorporated into their treatment of the subject, given its traditional prominence.

This is just my speculation of course… but I think that will eventually come in the form of the Church saying that the death penalty nowadays is unjust. To try and make a list of what crime deserves what penalty is impossible. It’s changed so dramatically over the course of history.