Why is torture intrinsically evil but not the death penalty?

[LilyM]

One thing no one has considered:

Someone has to actually perform the torture. Someone has to hear the screams, the sound of another human being pleading for a release from the pain.

What is happening to that person’s humanity over the period of time the torture is implimented? Does not their soul become hardened? In a way that imposing capital punishment wouldn’t harden them.

Tortue is the purposeful infliction of pain. And lot’s of it. That’s the difference.

Also, many experts in the field say that torture is unreliable. Therefore the protective aspects that allow for the death penalty in some cases fall away here.

I would add to the unreliability part. There is a reason that evidence obtained under torture is inadmissible in a court - it is notoriously unreliable and inaccurate.

As for the idea of inflicting torture under some notion of ‘justice’ - well, human justice too is notoriously unreliable. Mistake, madness or malice mean all too frequently that the evidence upon which we base our conclusions as to guilt or innocence is tainted or unsafe. More bluntly, many times the innocent are taken to be guilty. And as with capital punishment, one cannot undo the wrong once one has for whatever reason tortured an innocent party as if they were guilty.

 

[Ender]

Note that the death penalty is justified in rather extreme circumstances, at least as how the paragraph envisions, and only for the purpose of protection against an aggressor. The passage does not condone the death penalty as a means of punishment, because it excludes all possibility of discipline and remediation.

It should be understood that this interpretation is inconsistent with the clear teaching of the Church which was unchanged for nearly 2000 years. It is simply wrong to assert that the Church opposes the death penalty as a means of punishment.*If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millennia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture (notably in Genesis 9:5-6 and Romans 13:1-4). *(Cardinal Dulles)

Torture, on the other hand, is a form of punishment, not of protection. A tortured aggressor can still be an aggressor, and lesser forms of preventing aggression (confinement, imprisonment, exile) should all be looked upon first, as they are with the death penalty.

This is incorrect as well inasmuch as one of the prime reasons for torture is not as punishment but to extort information and the excuse given for using waterboarding (if we accept that this is torture) was to get information necessary for protecting ourselves. In fact, if you believe that we can kill a person in order to protect ourselves then what is the objection to torturing him for the same reason?

Ender

 

[Ender]

Is the Church against punishment entirely? It seems the only reason it ever says any means of punishment are acceptable are to prevent future crime, not to serve justice.

You have identified the biggest problem with the way 2267 is being interpreted: it severs the connection between sin an punishment. It discounts the idea that sinners deserve punishment; it ignores the concern for justice which is the primary objective and justification for all punishment.

And even then it refuses to classify the punishment as punishment, but merely as a deterrent.

I agree that this section of the Catechism is so badly constructed that it is difficult to glean what the Church actually teaches on the subject, nonetheless some of it is there. 2266 states: “The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense.” That is, the most important function of punishment is … retributive justice. That 2267 ignores what was just written does not diminish the significance of that passage. Deterrence, along with rehabilitation and protection, are all valid objectives of punishment but they are also all secondary. Protecting us from future crimes quite obviously does nothing at all to “redress the disorder” caused by a crime already committed.

I really struggle with this. I struggle to find justice in letting evil go unpunished.

Nor does the Church support this idea. This is the idea she supports: “Nothing but sin deserves punishment.” (Aquinas)

And I honestly don’t believe that you should kill a man who killed a man, because that WOULD be an eye for an eye.

From 2266 again: *“Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime.” *That is, the punishment must be proportionate to the crime and in fact the Church had for 2000 years accepted that capital punishment was a proportionate response to the crime of murder.

It seems as if, no matter the circumstances, under Church law, punishment is never justified for the sake of punishment nor for the sake of justice, but is only justified for the sake of protecting other innocence. This honestly makes me angry. It seems so unjust to me. Lord help me understand the justice in this situation.

This is a misunderstanding of Church teaching based on a misunderstanding of 2267. It is justice that demands punishment and puts both an upper and lower range on the type of punishment that is appropriate for different offenses. Even the USCCB recognized this: *“We grant that the need for retribution does indeed justify punishment.” *usccb.org/sdwp/national/criminal/death/uscc80.shtml

What if you cut the hands off of a man who cannot stop stealing things?

Good question. Once the proper understanding of punishment is lost questions like this have no good answers. That should be the first clue that something is wrong with our understanding of Church teaching.

Ender

 

[Mumbles140]

[/INDENT] This is incorrect as well inasmuch as one of the prime reasons for torture is not as punishment but to extort information and the excuse given for using waterboarding (if we accept that this is torture) was to get information necessary for protecting ourselves. In fact, if you believe that we can kill a person in order to protect ourselves then what is the objection to torturing him for the same reason?

Ender

I am totally against torture as a moral good, or even morally neutral, but if you are going to make the case for it, the case for punishment is where your energy should go. Because then, the torture is used as a way to curb criminal behavior, which is how imprisonment, rehabilitation/therapy, and the death penalty are used. However, when used to obtain information, it is solely for the benefit of the authority, rather than for the criminal, and that dives head first down Machiavelli’s “the ends justify the means” slope - which we all know to be a morally wrong position.

 

[Ender]

Punishment is something every Christian abhors to apply, and it should be revolting to him to witness.

This is a misunderstanding of what punishment is. It is in fact the debt demanded by justice and it is surely not something to abhor. We may be distressed by its necessity but we cannot close our eyes to the fact that it is necessary and just. It would in fact be unjust not to punish (certain circumstances notwithstanding).*“God does not delight in punishments for their own sake; but He does delight in the order of His justice, which requires them.” *(Aquinas)

Punishment is a cleansing, or making right, not a vector to destruction for it’s own sake. The Church implies a default that never extinguishes life, provided, his living is not a threat to others. The CC states this should be a rare occurrence.

The problem with this interpretation is that it conflicts with what the Church has taught for 2000 years. Is it more reasonable to believe that the Church was simply wrong for two millennia … or that 2267 represents a prudential suggestion about how capital punishment should be employed in today’s world?

The Church defines the parameters in which we can think. Now, we can only think of the justification for capital punishment in terms of imminent threat to society.

The problem with this idea is that it requires us to ignore her teaching on justice. Protection is a secondary objective of punishment. How is it that a secondary objective can justify something you claim is not justified by the primary objective?

Most of these responses do not address society’s oft forgotten final responsibility, and that is to ensure condign punishment (forget the CC paragraph) is applied.

Forget the CC paragraph? In any event, condign means* [just, deserved*] which is the point I’ve been making. No suggestion has yet been made that capital punishment for the crime of murder is either unjust or undeserved.

Ender*

 

[Ender]

I am totally against torture as a moral good, or even morally neutral, but if you are going to make the case for it, the case for punishment is where your energy should go. Because then, the torture is used as a way to curb criminal behavior, which is how imprisonment, rehabilitation/therapy, and the death penalty are used. However, when used to obtain information, it is solely for the benefit of the authority, rather than for the criminal, and that dives head first down Machiavelli’s “the ends justify the means” slope - which we all know to be a morally wrong position.

I am not making a case for torture; I am making a making a case for logical consistency. If you claim that it is morally acceptable to kill someone to achieve security then on what basis can you claim it is not morally acceptable to torture someone for the same reason?

Ender

 

[FaithBuild18]

Ender,

Thank you. I think your mind is clear, and your logic is sound. I am absolutely delighted that the Church is logical, and absolutely delighted that my desire for justice, and thus belief in punishment, is not a figment of my imagination implanted by evil, nor some sort of sick blood lust, but burns in my mind because it is just.

Torture is another issue, but my interest in it is waning, for I am simply relieved to know that my inspiration of justice was implanted by angels and not demons.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I am not making a case for torture; I am making a making a case for logical consistency. If you claim that it is morally acceptable to kill someone to achieve security then on what basis can you claim it is not morally acceptable to torture someone for the same reason?

Ender

The Church teaches that torture is an affront to the dignity of the human person. Capital punishment, when done properly, is not. The executioners take considerable effort to preserve that dignity throughout the process. While security is a good and desirable goal, the Church teaches that even such goals may not be achieved by evil means. So there really isn’t a logical inconsistency in the Church’s teaching.

Furthermore, on a more prudential level, a strong case can be made that torture is less effective at achieving security than capital punishment. Besides, as you have often pointed out, it is not about protecting society. It is about retributive justice.

 

[Ender]

I am absolutely delighted that the Church is logical, and absolutely delighted that my desire for justice, and thus belief in punishment, is not a figment of my imagination implanted by evil, nor some sort of sick blood lust, but burns in my mind because it is just.

The loss of an understanding of the need for justice is probably the greatest problem with the way 2267 is commonly interpreted. We punish people for their crimes because they deserve it and because it is the only way to settle the account.
*
**the act of sin makes man deserving of punishment, in so far as he transgresses the order of Divine justice, to which he cannot return except he pay some sort of penal compensation, which restores him to the equality of justice *(Aquinas)

I am simply relieved to know that my inspiration of justice was implanted by angels and not demons.

If not angels, at least the Angelic Doctor:

If we speak of legal justice, it is evident that it stands foremost among all the moral virtues*, for as much as the common good transcends the individual good of one person. *(Aquinas)

Ender

 

[Ender]

The Church teaches that torture is an affront to the dignity of the human person. Capital punishment, when done properly, is not. The executioners take considerable effort to preserve that dignity throughout the process.

There are of course a number of valid objections you can raise about my comments but not so many if you keep them in context. I am not making a stand alone argument. I am responding to an argument someone else has made and I’m trying to show that my conclusion, while it is surely wrong, is logically consistent with the premises he has set forth. So, if the conclusion is wrong but the logic is valid it can only mean that a premise is wrong … which is what I’m trying to show. Take your comment for example. 2267 states that lesser punishments are “more in conformity to the dignity of the human person”. Nonetheless, even though the death penalty does not conform to human dignity … it is still allowed. Why may we not conclude that the same is true of torture? Again, I make this argument not because I accept its conclusion but because if it is logically consistent then it shows that a premise is wrong.

While security is a good and desirable goal, the Church teaches that even such goals may not be achieved by evil means. So there really isn’t a logical inconsistency in the Church’s teaching.

There is no logical inconsistency in the Church’s teaching only because the common interpretation of 2267 is not what she teaches. 2267 is being interpreted to mean that people may be executed not as deserved punishment for their crimes but solely to protect society. If that is true then either killing you to ensure my safety is not evil or … that understanding of 2267 is incorrect.

Besides, as you have often pointed out, it is not about protecting society. It is about retributive justice.

Well, yeah. I never said my interpretation was logically inconsistent. I’m saying the other guy’s is.

Ender

 

[Windmill]

Ender,

One problem with the application of the passages on Capital Punishment and “the dignity of the human person” is a lack of understanding of dignity itself. Human dignity (apart from grace) has been so over-emphasized that some implicitly believe that God is not justified in damning a soul to Hell. Isn’t Hell (an eternal capital punishment) an affront to human dignity?

Here’s the key: when a person commits a grave sin, they forfeit their human dignity by making themselves like beasts who have no reason or intellect. They go against their conscience and embrace selfishness, hedonism, evil, or the like.

Also, human nature, apart from Grace, has the stain of original sin and is incapable of attaining holiness or the Beatific Vision. IOW, we need to be careful about elevating human nature, itself, to the level of holiness. Apart from Grace, mankind is lost. It is an act of God in the individual’s life that brings him true spiritual dignity. It is not some inherent holiness in humanity itself.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

while it is surely wrong, is logically consistent with the premises he has set forth.

Which specific premise are you claiming is wrong? That the Church teaches torture is an intrinsic evil? Or some premise about capital punishment?

 

[Contarini]

as others have said, “torture” is subjective. Violence is not.

That makes no sense. People have asserted that torture is subjective, but they are wrong.

You do a pretty good job in this post, I think, of showing that torture isn’t subjective. When you inflict pain and suffering in order to extract information (or a confession), that’s torture. It’s no more subjective than violence.

But it also requires that the bad effect not be a means of attaining the good effect. This is where the argument fails. No matter what way you look at it, the bad effect is the means.

Agreed.

Ugh. I guess I just have to suck it up and grow in spirit. The only way I can see torture being justified in this situation is if the bad effect that I listed is not truly a bad effect, which is actually what I was begging to ask in an earlier post. Is it actually evil to inflict pain and suffering on a guilty person, especially when the pain and suffering is significantly less than the pain and suffering he has caused in the lives of others? This is the fundamental question I need answered.

The answer is quite simple: in torture the pain and suffering are not inflicted as a judicial punishment but in order to attain an end extrinsic to the person on whom the suffering is inflicted. (I’m not a fan of inflicting pain and suffering as a judicial punishment, but this is a separate issue.) It may be that the torture will be in some spiritual sense “good” for the person being tortured. But that’s extrinsic to the purpose of the torture itself.

It’s a clear answer. You just don’t like it, for reasons I find confusing.

EDIT: Also, we have to define what torture is.

You’ve heard a definition. You just seem to prefer muddle, even when earlier in the post you state the issue with admirable clarity.

Why? Why the desperate desire to defend torture? When did torture suddenly become one of those things that good Christian people are supposed to protect and support? This is one of the most disturbing developments in the modern ideology that still claims the noble name of “conservatism.”

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Here’s the key: when a person commits a grave sin, they forfeit their human dignity

That’s not an orthodox or traditional position. It ignores the patristic distinction between image and likeness. You can lose the likeness through sin; you can’t lose the image.

Your position has the monstrous consequence that one is free to abuse and mistreat persons in a state of sin in any way one wishes.

Edwin

 

[djames99]

When Christ came we became justified through Faith and no longer by the Old Law which included such things as retribution and burnt offering. Now Christ wants us to have Faith in what he instructs. Christ taught us that mercy and penance are at the root of the new Religion he started, and that we are all fraternally family. He wishes us to put away the old ways and forgive “seventy time seven times”.

The common good now has a caveat when it deals with dispensing punishment for crimes. St. Paul instructs that punishment must include closure,(2Cor2,6). In Mathew and elsewhere Christ gives us a window on how cases should be dealt. His instruction makes emphasis on quick settlement. Why quick settlement if he does not wish an end to a conflict and focuses only on the offender as does the Old Law.?. Now we note the victim has a duty and is required to play his part to cooperate and ensure a speedy closure.

We will note a common theme runs through Christ’s instructions when dealing with justice, and that is he speaks of the offender and victim in common carrying out a task to achieve an end. No longer is there a focus on processes dealt on the offender. We receive an image of two people hand in hand climbing the staircase to our Lord.

Now Christ, through his Magisterial, instructs us to relent in capital punishment, so that he can reinforce his theme, and give the offender the opportunity to redeem himself by allowing God decide the offender’s future. Immediately, what is not of the New Law becomes unjust. We will note nothing new. It is the same wonderful theme that we have the honor to relive in our readings of the New Testament.

We must now not allow our hearts to be hardened as we have seen so many times in the examples of the Old Law, but to allow ourselves to be justified in Faith by trust. We must now LIVE Corinthians,Romans,Acts by setting examples and spreading the news.

 

[Windmill]

That’s not an orthodox or traditional position. It ignores the patristic distinction between image and likeness. You can lose the likeness through sin; you can’t lose the image.

Your position has the monstrous consequence that one is free to abuse and mistreat persons in a state of sin in any way one wishes.

Edwin

Not so. When we grievously sin, God is justified in condemning us upon our death in an unrepentant state. Our “dignity” as human beings is not inviolable by God, from whom and by whom we receive that dignity through Grace. God justly judges us as beastly. Our private sins are known to Him, and so the condemnation comes from Him.

As to notorious grave sins that affect the good of the state and society, the Church has always said that the State reserves the right to exact capital punishment for capital offenses. However, this is a right reserved to the State, not individuals like you or I. Also, it is for capital sins, not simply sins that are grave.

As to your distinction between image and likeness, I would like to hear more, but I still maintain that overemphasis of our dignity has led to erroneous conclusions regarding the nature of Divine Grace and our lack of supernatural.

As to the claim that my statement is not traditional, Aquinas himself stated in the Summa:

By sinning man departs from the order of reason, and consequently falls away from the dignity of his manhood, in so far as he is naturally free, and exists for himself, and he falls into the slavish state of the beasts, by being disposed of according as he is useful to others” (ST, II-II, Q. 64, a.2)

 

[mbrislawn]

Torture, on the other hand, is a form of punishment, not of protection. A tortured aggressor can still be an aggressor, and lesser forms of preventing aggression (confinement, imprisonment, exile) should all be looked upon first, as they are with the death penalty.

Incarceration, or exile, is a psychlogical form of punishment.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Our “dignity” as human beings is not inviolable by God, from whom and by whom we receive that dignity through Grace. God justly judges us as beastly. … overemphasis of our dignity has led to erroneous conclusions regarding the nature of Divine Grace and our lack of supernatural.

As to the claim that my statement is not traditional, Aquinas himself stated in the Summa:

By sinning man departs from the order of reason, and consequently falls away from the dignity of his manhood, in so far as he is naturally free, and exists for himself, and he falls into the slavish state of the beasts, by being disposed of according as he is useful to others” (ST, II-II, Q. 64, a.2)

I agree with Contraini that your interpretation of human dignity is incorrect. The dignity of the human person is not a private possession that belongs to the individual, and violating that dignity is not merely an offense against that individual. Instead that dignity belongs to God because it is His image that is being violated and it is against Him that the offense is committed when that person is tortured. God has not “lost interest” in his image just because that person has sinned, even sinned greatly. While it is true that person may condemn himself by turning from God, he nevertheless still bears the holy image, even in his condemnation. So it is God that we are honoring when we respect the dignity of His image in all people here, not the people themselves. Therefore there is no excuse for denying that dignity in the face of sins committed by the ones who bear that image.

 

[Windmill]

I am more concerned with capital punishment in my statements, not torture. That’s a separate issue.

The right to life is not inherent in man’s mere existence, but rather, it derives from his moral goal. Man’s worth derives from his ordination to values that transcend temporal life, and this goal is built into his spirit inasmuch as it is an image of God. Although the goal (Heaven) is absolute and the image indelible, man’s freedom means that by a fault he can descend from that dignity and turn aside from his goal. The philosophical justification for penal law is precisely an axiological diminution, or shrinking in worth, on the part of a person who violates the moral order and who, by his fault, arouses society to some coercive action designed to repair the disorder. Those who base the imposition of penalties merely on the damage done to society, deprive penal law of any ethical character and turn it into a set of precautions against those who harm society, irrespective of whether they are acting freely or compulsively, rationally or irrationally. In the Catholic view, the penal system exists to ensure that the crime by which the delinquent has sought some satisfaction or other in defiance of the moral law, is punished by some corresponding diminution of well-being, enjoyment, or satisfaction. Without this moral retaliation, a punishment is merely a utilitarian reaction which indeed neglects the dignity of man and reduces justice to a purely materialistic level.

Human dignity is something built into the natural structure of rational creatures but which is elicited and made conscious by the activity of a good or bad will, and which increases or decreases within that order of being.

We need to be careful about equating “dignity” which we can fall from and “image” which is indelible. One is worth, the other is nature. When you say “violating that dignity is not merely an offense against that individual [but against God]” you run into a problem with concepts such as self-defense. If a victim is being unjustly attacked and their life endangered, he would be violating “the dignity of man” by killing his attacker in self-defense. Not so, because the attacker, in choosing to unjustly attack, has descended from his dignity as a human. You also run into the confusion of equating offenses against man with offenses against God because you are equating their dignities. The next step is to equate their natures, and then we run into pan-theism. God is infinitely worthy, man is not. People are not gods, and they do not have God’s nature. An offense against human dignity is not an offense against God’s dignity (worth).

Maybe a better way for me to phrase it is how we “descend” from that dignity rather than say we “forfeit” it. However, when we are talking about capital punishment, where a person can be justly executed for grievous wrongs, we are talking about serious falls from “dignity”.

 

[kentuckyliz]

In most modern societies, there is the actuality of being able to lock up a serial killer, cop killer, kidnapper-murderer, rapist-murderer (capital crimes type murderers) securely for life without parole, for the protection of law-abiding citizens.

Remember, this is a fairly recent development! Through most of human history, this wasn’t true. Capital punishment was the only way to truly protect the human community. It is perhaps still true of some more continuing primitive societies today that don’t have access to the technologies that can imprison a dangerous person for life with total security for the community. The CCC states that this is rare.

Do not think that the death penalty is only OT. In the NT, with the directly infused wisdom Paul had from God, he supports the power of the state in inflicting the death penalty. (The sword is used for death, not floggings.) Romans 13:1-7 He is also saying this within the context of telling the faithful that they have no fear of the state if they live according to their faith, because they will do what is good and right.

Evangelium Vitae is marvelous - we had a parish study group on it when it came out. Written by a man who had seen it ALL…Blessed John Paul II the GREAT!!!