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BlackFriar
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You’ve been in these discussions long enough to know it’s shorthand for life imprisonment as a reasonable alternative is available.
Scholars raise concerns over Pope Francis remarks on how doctrine develops
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BlackFriar
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Murder is a sub class of killing is it not.
Murder is intrinsically evil, the superset is not.
See prior post #141
Murder is intrinsically evil, the superset is not.
See prior post #141
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Rau
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Then express the view it’s immoral in that circumstance.
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OneSheep
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For discussion’s sake, I am more interested in your view than I am in reading a book (I have a pile of unread ones next to my bed!
). CCC2267 lines out when the DP is still appropriate, but it seems to me that 2267 has more to do with apprehending a murderer or simple defense.Here is a line of thought: Is it 100% sure that, for example, a serial murderer will never escape prison? No, nothing is 100% sure. So, since the possibility exists that such a person escape prison, then he should be put to death so as not to endanger society.
Problem is, what does killing the person say about the value of life? It says that our lives are deemed of no value by our bad actions. In addition, vengeance should never be a part of such a penalty, but it is extremely difficult to separate vengeance from a cruel punishment that does nothing to rehabilitate the person or “redress the disorder”, that is, to foster conversion.
We come back to “Ye reap what ye sow”. If we sow an effort to rehabilitate and foster conversion, we will reap mercy. If we sow cruelty and vengeance, this we will reap. Use of the death penalty is understandable given the recoil we have toward murder, but its use is unwise, in the long haul, and unmerciful.
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Cthompson
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I am curious. Can you expand upon this concept? Where would you draw the line for animal rights?
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Spyridon
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I believe animals should be treated as good as possible, pets should not be abandoned, euthanasia should only be used as a last resort, animals for meat or food should be treated as humanely as possible and slaughtered in the quickest least painful way.
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HarryStotle
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I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.
Murder is the intentional and unjustifiable killing of an innocent person, I.e., a person who does not deserve death.
Capital punishment is not murder. Ergo it is part of the “superset,” not part of the “sub class” you call murder.
As you admit, the superset “killing” is not intrinsically evil.
Therefore, this is not an argument to make capital punishment intrinsically evil.
Your logic is seriously flawed.
For it to work, you have to assume capital punishment is unjustifiable, but that is precisely what you need to prove before you can claim it is always unjustified.
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BlackFriar
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I did, “modern CP”, apologies if you need it spelled out in full every time.
You accept murder is shorthand for a direct killing of the innocent don’t you?
Why can’t the same additional sub defining of “killing” be done by speaking of “modern CP”.
And yes both are subsets of killing (which is not intrinsically evil), and both are reasonably said to be intrinsically evil.
Just as F1 seems to reasonably hold.
All perfectly sensible even if you disagree.
You accept murder is shorthand for a direct killing of the innocent don’t you?
Why can’t the same additional sub defining of “killing” be done by speaking of “modern CP”.
And yes both are subsets of killing (which is not intrinsically evil), and both are reasonably said to be intrinsically evil.
Just as F1 seems to reasonably hold.
All perfectly sensible even if you disagree.
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BlackFriar
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Somebody explain to Aristotle he isn’t very Aristotle here.
I didn’t say modern CP was murder.
I am providing an example of how a subclass of a neutral superclass may logically be IE.
Therefore “modern CP”, a subclass of “CP”, a subclass of “killing” … may well be IE.
I didn’t say modern CP was murder.
I am providing an example of how a subclass of a neutral superclass may logically be IE.
Therefore “modern CP”, a subclass of “CP”, a subclass of “killing” … may well be IE.
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HarryStotle
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Not sure what you are getting at here. You seem to be arguing that no punishment (not even imprisonment) whatsoever should be used because punishment does nothing to rehabilitate the perpetrator and is, therefore, ineffectual in fostering conversion.
Then you argue that the death penalty is “unmerciful” and sows only “cruelty and vengeance,” so it seems to me that what you are left with is to do nothing about evil-doers except leave them be and only show good will towards them.
Aren’t you presuming that evil doers are really good at heart and, given the time and freedom, will somehow, somewhere, some why, see the error of their ways and become good? What if you are wrong on that and those intent upon being evil will simply take full advantage of the opportunity to destroy everyone who gets in their way to do as they will?
Let’s see, Satan, being quite intelligent, should then see the error of his ways, if left alone in due time, and someday wake up to the error of his ways and straighten himself out, because “If we sow an effort to rehabilitate and foster conversion, we will reap mercy.”
I suppose that depends upon whether any darnel has been surreptitiously sown by “the enemy” among the wheat seeds, I.e., that only what we ourselves have sown will be what is reaped. There may be other sowers sowing all kinds of nasty things in the same ground.
I suggest you watch (and re-watch as many times as necessary) this treatment of the humanitarian theory of justice by CS Lewis on what happens when mercy is divorced from a proper understanding of justice and just desert.
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HarryStotle
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I suppose if you think building subclasses is as capricious as slapping a label on a “group” without so much as offering any definition at all, then perhaps your argument works.
What exactly defines “modern CP” other than it is “modern?” Do you suppose that, alone, would make it immune to critique?
You still need to argue that “modern CP” is actually IE rather than merely that “it may well be.”
And the very existence of your entire sub-classification “modern CP” is contingent upon showing that whatever you toss into it is, indeed, IE.
The thing about IE is that something can only be IE if there are no LOGICALLY POSSIBLE (and not merely contingent) conditions under which it is permissible.
The word “modern” itself is in flux. What is “modern” today is not so modern tomorrow. Ergo, to ground the logic of something being “inherently” the case on the contingency of existing conditions does not adequately fulfill the logical requirement for inherency, i.e., IN ITSELF, rather than dependent upon something else.
Your argument, undressed, is to say capital punishment is “inherently evil” if jailing is optimal, if the process of justice is perfect, the concept of humanitarian justice is correct, and if whatever other possible contingencies we could possibly imagine that might make it NOT inherent don’t exist, then it is “inherently” evil.
You seem to be destroying the very concept of “inherent,” and then shoring up what remains with a few deliberately placed, but rapidly splintering, props.
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BlackFriar
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If you can say something understandable in one sentence I can respond.
I get it you don’t like the idea of the Pope formulating a new definition of something intrinsically evil. But it is not a logical fallacy to do so.
Modern CP is clearly chosen in substantially different conditions from traditional CP whether we like it or not.
I am not hung up on the new name, call it whatever you like.
Aeroplane “blackboxes” aren’t black either. What does it matter?
I get it you don’t like the idea of the Pope formulating a new definition of something intrinsically evil. But it is not a logical fallacy to do so.
Modern CP is clearly chosen in substantially different conditions from traditional CP whether we like it or not.
I am not hung up on the new name, call it whatever you like.
Aeroplane “blackboxes” aren’t black either. What does it matter?
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HarryStotle
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Just perhaps the fact that you don’t understand is reason for questioning whether you have the capacity to defend your claim that “modern CP” is inherently evil.
Traditional views on CP included everything you want to isolate in your definition of “modern CP” which is why traditional CP was understood to be permissible. Conditionals have always existed that made CP not inherently evil, now you simply want to dismiss all those conditionals and claim "IF THOSE CONDITIONS DON’T EXIST (“modern times”) THEN CP IS INHERENTLY EVIL.
How could CP be inherently evil, if it’s “evilness” is contingent upon a whole bunch of conditions not existing? That is the very definition of NOT being inherently evil.
I will try to restate the argument in another way, but I don’t have time at the moment.
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OneSheep
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I’m not sure how you read that from what I said, Harry. Imprisonment can indeed rehab, depending on what happens in the prison.
There is a place for punishment. In addition, incarceration protects society.
I think the rest of your post was built upon these first two misunderstandings of the position I stated.
Do you observe that people have a gut-level reaction to destroy a person who destroys others? If so, this is our conscience, is it not, compelling one to punish?
Do you agree that we very naturally hold something against murderers?
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BlackFriar
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Well there is a hole to drive a bus through.
Which F1 and prior Popes already have.
I get it you believe different.
Me, I agree with the Pope.
This is not a matter of apriori logic much as you wish it to be.
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BlackFriar
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Indeed, the only person likely able to Execute in charity is God.
Like plutonium all killing, theoretically just or not, eventually contaminates individuals and States over time to the point of sin.
It is rightly said that vengeance belongs only to God…his alleged kingly representatives are very weak and vulnerable representatives.
There is a reason priests may never kill or be hanging judges.
There is no place in God’s Kingdom on earth for many things tolerated as unfortunately necessary in the fallen temporal order … including divorce and CP. Thou shall not kill.
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HarryStotle
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That would be an assumption rather than an argument. Indeed, God uses secondary causes – even imperfect ones – to carry out his will.OneSheep:
Indeed, the only person likely able to execute in charity is God.
Besides, execution isn’t about the state of the person doing the executing, it is about the one being executed.
If execution is just and proper, the motives or state of the executioner are irrelevant and have nothing to do with whether the one being executed SHOULD BE executed. Red herring.
The question still remains whether God is just when he wills the execution of murderers, either “in charity” or otherwise. Clearly you seem to imply that God, the one perfect in charity does himself at times will the execution of murderers. If God wills the execution of murderers in some cases, then it would be just to execute them in those cases.
What is right and just for God, then, CANNOT be wrong for anyone else, in principle.
Even if that is the case, it does nothing to answer the question of whether murderers ought to be executed. Should only impeccable individuals be judges, lawyers, rule makers or police officers? Imagine what that will do to the justice system. Only the perfectly innocent left to carry out justice? Not many of those to fill the great number of positions.
We weren’t talking about the priestly class doing the executing, we were speaking of those charged with keeping the peace and executing justice. Again, should only the impeccable be charged with that duty? It would seem to leave the responsibility entirely unfulfilled. Of course, that happens when utopian ideals become the standard for the fallen world as if things will just magically be better once everyone decides things will be better. Good luck with that.
And murderers, I suspect, do not abide in God’s Kingdom on earth. Which begs the question of what ought to be done to protect and secure the existence of all those who are, as yet, at the gates of that kingdom? Should they just be left unprotected, so that the murderous demons can just “have at them” while we go on pretending the Kingdom has fully arrived and pretend away the evil that still obviously exists?
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Rau
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The sub defining of killing you speak of comes from the divine law - the adequacy of prisons is, on the other hand, personal judgement.
I don’t believe the analogy you propose works as cleanly as you propose (even if you disagree).
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BlackFriar
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Popes cannot discern or define universal secondary precepts applicable for modern situations?BlackFriar:
The sub defining of killing you speak of comes from the divine law - the adequacy of prisons is, on the other hand, personal judgement.
I don’t believe the analogy you propose works as cleanly as you propose (even if you disagree).
Please don’t tell me contraception is a purely divine utterance.
Even fornication is borderline.
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HarryStotle
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A current Pope CANNOT, I repeat CANNOT, alter the authoritative dogma decided by the big-T Tradition of the Church. That puts into jeopardy entirely the claim that any pope (past, present or future) sits on and rules ex Cathedra, from the infallible chair of Peter, safeguarded by Jesus himself. What you are basically claiming is that God said one thing in the past and says another and opposite thing today. What about tomorrow? Will he go back to the way it was or change things entirely again?
I won’t trust the off-hand opining of a couple of anonymous Internet gurus to decide what ought to be Church dogma based on incomplete and very likely errant logic, psychology, morality and spiritual discernment.
The words “inherently evil” carry with them a heavy burden of proof and cannot be contingent on circumstances, I.e., modern vs past. Inherently evil means that no possible (past, present or future) circumstances exist that would permit the act. If it was permitted conditionally in the past, those same conditions could possibly exist in the present or future. Therefore, the act is NOT inherently evil because there exist conditions (even if those conditions don’t currently obtain) according to which the act would be permissible.
The idea of “modern CP” does absolutely nothing to change that situation. And if it does, then it would serve to simply reinforce that the permissibility of the act is conditional on circumstances, thus proving it cannot be inherently evil.
I won’t trust the off-hand opining of a couple of anonymous Internet gurus to decide what ought to be Church dogma based on incomplete and very likely errant logic, psychology, morality and spiritual discernment.
The words “inherently evil” carry with them a heavy burden of proof and cannot be contingent on circumstances, I.e., modern vs past. Inherently evil means that no possible (past, present or future) circumstances exist that would permit the act. If it was permitted conditionally in the past, those same conditions could possibly exist in the present or future. Therefore, the act is NOT inherently evil because there exist conditions (even if those conditions don’t currently obtain) according to which the act would be permissible.
The idea of “modern CP” does absolutely nothing to change that situation. And if it does, then it would serve to simply reinforce that the permissibility of the act is conditional on circumstances, thus proving it cannot be inherently evil.
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