Oklahoma Execution Botched

[Peter_Plato]

It is frequently argued that capital punishment is an offense against man’s dignity, but the real offense against his dignity is not holding him morally responsible for his actions. Animals are not morally responsible for their actions, but man is.
Ender

You must read Feser’s recent post on Aristotelian morality.

This paragraph, I think, hits the core of your point above.

…on the traditional A-T natural law account of rights, **rights essentially follow from duties. It is because I have an obligation to pursue what is good for me given my nature that I have a right to pursue it; rights are safeguards to our ability to fulfill our obligations under natural law. **Hence if a creature cannot intelligibly be said to have obligations, it cannot intelligibly be said to have rights. (To forestall a potential objection, this does not entail that human fetuses and infants cannot have rights. While qua fetuses or infants they are not yet capable of understanding or following obligations, they are nevertheless immature instances of creatures of the kind which can do so. Similarly with severely brain damaged people – they are damaged instances of a kind of creature which can understand and follow obligations. Non-human animals, by contrast, cannot understand or carry out moral obligations even when mature and in good working order. For A-T, it is the mature and normal instance of a kind that determines what is natural and good for the kind in general.)

 

[Ender]

You must read Feser’s recent post on Aristotelian morality.

That is an interesting, well written article; thanks for pointing it out. He made another point about morality in general with which I fully agree, which, although not relevant to this thread, is nonetheless significant.
*The trouble, from the A-T point of view, is in interpreting evolution and human nature within a naturalist metaphysical framework. For given such a framework, there can be no irreducible teleology in nature, and therefore (as I argued in my opening post) there can be at most only “as if” teleology (as opposed to either “intrinsic” or “derived” teleology). And if it is only “as if” teleology exists (if I can channel Alicia Silverstone in Clueless), then it can be only “as if” natural goodness exists, and thus only “as if” morality exists. **Morality can in this case be at most a useful fiction.

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Ender

 

[Peter_Plato]

That is an interesting, well written article; thanks for pointing it out. He made another point about morality in general with which I fully agree, which, although not relevant to this thread, is nonetheless significant.
The trouble, from the A-T point of view, is in interpreting evolution and human nature within a naturalist metaphysical framework. For given such a framework, there can be no irreducible teleology in nature, and therefore (as I argued in my opening post) there can be at most only “as if” teleology (as opposed to either “intrinsic” or “derived” teleology). And if it is only “as if” teleology exists (if I can channel Alicia Silverstone in Clueless), then it can be only “as if” natural goodness exists, and thus only “as if” morality exists. **Morality can in this case be at most a useful fiction.
**
Ender

The “as if” description of teleology is borrowed by Feser from John Searle’s distinction of three types of intentionality which is discussed more in length on this post:

edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2014/04/a-second-exchange-with-keith-parsons.html#more

An excerpt may help.

… consider a distinction between kinds of teleology inspired by John Searle’s distinction between intrinsic intentionality, derived intentionality, and as-if intentionality. Derived intentionality is the sort that the ink marks and sounds we call words have. The meaning or intentionality of words is real, but in no way intrinsic to the ink marks and sounds themselves. Instead it derives from the intrinsic or “built-in” intentionality of thought. As-if intentionality is what is in play when we describe things as if they had intentionality, e.g. when you say of a marble you’ve dropped that it “wants” to roll away. Of course, it doesn’t really want to roll away, because it is not the sort of thing that can want anything. As-if intentionality is not really intentionality at all, but just a useful fiction.

 

[djames99]

Huh?

The post.abive this post quoted abive Catholics.

It did not mention Americans. Unless you think Catholics equals Americans.

The U.S. is the nation where your two parameters apply, and therefore is the point of my post.