The death penalty - right or wrong

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CelticWarlord:

My concern is always that if one innocent is put to death by mistake

This is of course a very valid concern, but there are risks to the innocent for not executing the guilty as well, and those risks are actually fairly significant. I think it is fair to ask how many murders from recidivist killers are you willing to tolerate to avoid the risk of executing one innocent man?

We have the ability to incarcerate individuals. Problem solved.
The morality of this issue has not changed. Temporal circumstances have changed.

The focus of our moral evaluation has not changed:
“Human life is sacred”.
This is where you are losing focus. If you debate morality as if it were only about prohibitions, you go in circles.

 

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Tis_Bearself:

Your response is not reflecting common sense.

I will try to be clearer. If executions are forbidden because “pro-life means pro-all life” then why would killing in war and in self defense not also be forbidden for the same reason? How can we justify some killings but not others if we are to be “pro-all life”?

Because when someone is coming at you and your family with a knife you can’t incarcerate them.
This is not super complicated.

“Human life is sacred”. An aggressor is threatening human life. You must protect human life.
If you had the option of talking that aggressor out of his violent action, you do that. Normally that’s not an option. So you have to kill the aggressor to protect innocent human life.

These evaluations can be excruciatingly difficult in things like just war.

 

[Ender]

We have the ability to incarcerate individuals. Problem solved.

No, that was my point: the problem is not solved. Do you have any idea how many murders are committed each year by killers who were not executed as punishment for their first murder? Since 1976 when SCOTUS reinstated the death penalty, even the most ardent opponents can identify only 8-10 individuals who were even possibly innocent. That’s over a period of 40 years. There as many innocents murdered by recidivist killers each year.

Now I will grant that coming up with that statistic is difficult, but here is a Bureau of Justice Statistics paper (pg 8) from 2002 that says this:

Within 3 years…1.2% of the 1,443 persons who had served time for homicide were rearrested for a homicide.

This was based on data from only 15 states but was calculated to represent about 2/3 of the total population of released prisoners. Doing the math this works out to about recidivist 9 murders per year, and this doesn’t include any of the various repeat murders that are committed by prisoners themselves or the murders that are committed on their behalf.

So: while the possibility exists that an innocent person has been executed, recidivist murders are not a theoretical possibility. It’s a measurable quantity. This is why I asked how many murders you are willing to tolerate to avoid the possibility of executing an innocent person?

 

[Ender]

These evaluations can be excruciatingly difficult in things like just war.

How can this be difficult? If “pro-life means pro-all life” then what’s the problem? It’s binary: killing is allowed in some circumstances or it is forbidden in all, but if it is allowed in some circumstances then one can hardly hold that “pro-life means pro-all life”. It sounds like a debate about whether all means all.

 

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goout:

We have the ability to incarcerate individuals. Problem solved.

No, that was my point: the problem is not solved. Do you have any idea how many murders are committed each year by killers who were not executed as punishment for their first murder? Since 1976 when SCOTUS reinstated the death penalty, even the most ardent opponents can identify only 8-10 individuals who were even possibly innocent. That’s over a period of 40 years. There as many innocents murdered by recidivist killers each year.

Now I will grant that coming up with that statistic is difficult, but here is a Bureau of Justice Statistics paper (pg 8) from 2002 that says this:

Within 3 years…1.2% of the 1,443 persons who had served time for homicide were rearrested for a homicide.

This was based on data from only 15 states but was calculated to represent about 2/3 of the total population of released prisoners. Doing the math this works out to about recidivist 9 murders per year, and this doesn’t include any of the various repeat murders that are committed by prisoners themselves or the murders that are committed on their behalf.

So: while the possibility exists that an innocent person has been executed, recidivist murders are not a theoretical possibility. It’s a measurable quantity. This is why I asked how many murders are you willing to tolerate to avoid the possibility of executing an innocent person?

(I wasn’t addressing the mistaken execution of innocents, that issue is tangential, I think you conflated my post)

So we need to do a better job of incarcerating criminals, not kill them because we are incapable of that.
Many times, moral evaluations are excruciatingly simple, the implementation is excruciatingly difficult.

Human life is sacred. The Church recognizes that truth. That is non-negotiable, and it’s the source good that informs these moral evaluations.

 

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goout:

These evaluations can be excruciatingly difficult in things like just war.

How can this be difficult? If “pro-life means pro-all life” then what’s the problem? It’s binary: killing is allowed in some circumstances or it is forbidden in all, but if it is allowed in some circumstances then one can hardly hold that “pro-life means pro-all life”. It sounds like a debate about whether all means all.

You have never been to battle, have you.
Once again the good (which you deny evidently)
“human life is sacred”

If an attacker is coming at you and your family with a weapon, you defend them. You are protecting human beings from an attacker.

 

[Canvas]

How can we justify some killings but not others if we are to be “pro-all life”?

Think about what you are asking. If you kill or are causing death, it better be for a morally sound reason, such as self defense, protecting your family or your nation from an attack (just war).

Just War principles are, according to the CCC:

In this regard Just War doctrine gives certain conditions for the legitimate exercise of force, all of which must be met:

"1. the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

1. all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
2. there must be serious prospects of success;
3. the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition" [ CCC 2309].

 

[Ender]

So we need to do a better job of incarcerating criminals, not kill them because we are incapable of that.

OK, but why should they be incarcerated? What is the purpose of punishing them that way?

Human life is sacred. The Church recognizes that truth.

Clearly I agree with this, but it is ironic that this claim is given as the explanation for why the life of the guilty should be spared when it appears in Scripture as the explanation for why the life of the guilty is forfeit.

Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.

Human life is sacred because it is made in God’s image, and because of that someone who illegitimately takes a life forfeits his own.

 

[Ender]

You have never been to battle, have you.

My arguments stand or fall on their own merit. Nothing in my background improves or diminishes them.

Once again the good (which you deny evidently) “human life is sacred”

Why on earth would you assume this? The positions I have taken are nothing more than what the church has taught for 2000 years. I’m not the one with the variant opinion here.

“It is lawful to kill when fighting in a just war; when carrying out by order of the Supreme Authority a sentence of death in punishment of a crime; and, finally, in cases of necessary and lawful defense of one’s own life against an unjust aggressor.” (Catechism of Pius X)

This is the eternal teaching of the church, and I accept it. How can believing what the church teaches mean I reject the idea that human life is sacred?

 

[Ender]

Think about what you are asking. If you kill or are causing death, it better be for a morally sound reason, such as self defense, protecting your family or your nation from an attack (just war).

This is absolutely true, and the church has given three morally sound reasons, not just the two you list.

Q. 1276. Under what circumstances may human life be lawfully taken?
A. Human life may be lawfully taken:

1. In self-defense…
2. In a just war…
3. By the lawful execution of a criminal… (Baltimore Catechism)

 

[Canvas]

and now the Church has said that #3 is no longer admissible.

Done.

 

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and now the Church has said that #3 is no longer admissible.

Done.

Right.
“Human life is sacred”. The Church’s moral teaching has this as it’s focus. That hasn’t changed.

By the lawful execution of a criminal… (Baltimore Catechism)

God does not serve the Baltimore Catechism. The BC teaches people in a given time and a given place.

 

[BlueMaxx]

Pope Francis has changed the text of the Catechism to declare the death penalty as inadmissible . ‘Thou shalt not kill’ applies to everyone, even one who has committed murder. It is probably in our human natures to want capital punishment because of a desire for revenge . But, we are all sinners. And how can it be moral and ethical to hire an executioner to take another’s life? It does nothing to bring back the life of the victim .

The text is actually רָצַח, thou shalt not “murder” not “kill”…and they hold two separate meanings.

 

[graciew]

PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION TWO
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

CHAPTER TWO
“YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF”

ARTICLE 5
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT

You shall not kill.54

Cathecism.
‘Nough said

 

[Ender]

and now the Church has said that #3 is no longer admissible.

“Inadmissible” is an ambiguous term. If executions are now intrinsically evil, which is what everyone assumes is meant by inadmissible, why wasn’t it proclaimed that way? Why are executions inadmissible? Because they are unwise or because they are intrinsically evil?

It is disturbing that people are comfortable with the idea that church teaching is so fluid that a doctrine having as good a claim as any to being infallibly taught, can simply be reversed overnight by papal edict.

God does not serve the Baltimore Catechism.

I suspect that was the position put forth by every single catechism the church has ever produced. It was also the virtually unanimous position of the Fathers and Doctors, and of every pope until this one.

The BC teaches people in a given time and a given place.

Really? Morality changes with time and place? That’s not what the church teaches. Shall we no longer believe this as well?

1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history

 

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The BC teaches people in a given time and a given place.

Really? Morality changes with time and place? That’s not what the church teaches. Shall we no longer believe this as well?

1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history

Who said the moral law is not immutable?
The problem here is, you don’t really understand what the moral law is.

“Human life is sacred”.

 

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1750 The morality of human acts depends on:

• the object chosen;
• the end in view or the intention;
• the circumstances of the action.

The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the “sources,” or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.

[1751] The object chosen is a good toward which the will deliberately directs itself. It is the matter of a human act. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by conscience.

 

[Ender]

The problem here is, you don’t really understand what the moral law is .

“Human life is sacred”.

If your position is correct then no one in the church prior to Francis understood the moral law either. You comfortable with that?

 

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goout:

The problem here is, you don’t really understand what the moral law is .

“Human life is sacred”.

If your position is correct then no one in the church prior to Francis understood the moral law either. You comfortable with that?

You need to connect the dots.

show us where the Church did not uphold the sanctity of human life, and see that as the end of the moral law.
Please be specific.
You will resort to statements of morality that addressed the states of affairs at various times, but that doesn’t support your accusation that the Church has changed essential moral teaching.
Keep in mind what morality is and what it is not. The CCC clearly expresses that as posted above.

 

[BlueMaxx]

“the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.”

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

So…technically the Church does still hold it is acceptable in certain situations…

Kind off a schizophrenic situation…but it boils down to a “bloodless” way to deal with the transgressor…