The Death Penalty: A Compromise
Capital punishment is a very controversial issue. Some would say that, regardless of what evils a person has done, it is not right to kill him, for human life is sacred, and further that there is something especially noxious about the death penalty because it is irrevocable, and if a person is ever wrongly executed there is nothing that can correct this. Others claim that we must take from the criminal something equivalent to what he has taken from his victim and from society, either as a matter or justice or in order to deter future crimes. And there are further concerns that without the death penalty murders will eventually be paroled to kill again.
These considerations may seem irreconcilable, but it strikes me that there is a “third way” one could take on the issue that would do at least a passable job of addressing the concerns of both the pro and anti-death penalty camps. The proposed compromise I have in mind is as follows: Instead of killing convicted murders, we use modern medical science to place them in an induced coma for the rest of their lives. This would respect the inviolability of human life, since we would not kill anyone. Further, if it ever came to light that a person was innocent, then and only then could we awaken them from their coma. On the other hand, from the perspective of the convict his life would be over, since he would spend the rest of it unconscious. This ought to have the same deterrent effect as execution, and since it serves to take away just as much liberty as death, it ought to serve the same retributive purposes. And the risk that a convicted murder would ever be released would be minimal, since the only way the person could ever even be woken up is if their conviction is overturned.
Question for discussion: is this a satisfactory compromise or not? If not, why not? If most people do not find the compromise satisfactory, does that suggest that the considerations given in the first paragraph aren’t at the root of disagreements about the death penalty?
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Well, someone in a coma is unlikely ever to have the ability to continue to insist on their innocence in an active way. There’s a difference worth remembering.
Understand that, in the context of the Anglo-American jury trial system, in pre-industrial societies, juries often personally knew the character of the defendent. Anonymity was much rarer than today.
This is relevant because, as it appears to have become easier in more recent generations for many to escape justice, so to it appears to have become easier for people to be wrongfully but circumstantially convicted of crimes. While our tools are smarter, the contexts in which they have to operate are much more complex, so it seems their accuracy is somewhat decreased.
If there is any truth to that, then before one gets to the Catholic morality issue one can reach the American social contract issue: are you willing to accept the risk of being wrongfully convicted of a capital crime as a cost of the social contract to preserve order? If you are not, you have no business insisting on capital punishment for anyone else. If you are, you can proceed to the next set of moral questions.
The death penalty abolition argument ultimately returns to the dignity of the human person (see appropriate arguments by JPII and elsewhere). My concern is that this punishment has the same effect on human dignity as would, say, a punishment in which someone’s legs were amputated. Vis a vis Thomas Aquinas, the person as an entity is inseparable from their material nature as much as from their soul, and so harming someone’s material nature (say, through physical torture) is as offensive to their dignity as harming their soul (say, through the deliberate exposure to immorality, compelled belief or what the catechism calls ‘moral violence.’)
I would also question the intent of such a punishment. In my view, retributive punishments are not in keeping with the human person because they suggest a God-like right of the state to punish for punishment’s sake. Incapacitation is not related to public safety (someone can be imprisoned for their entire lives with very remote chance of escape), rehabilitation (for obvious reasons) nor deterrence (once again, life imprisonment without parole. The death penalty has been demonstrated to not act as deterrent for similar reasons).
Thoughts?
I suppose I would disagree on all four counts.
Retribution, in my view, is not only a legitimate purpose of punishment but is the primary purpose (I believe the Catechism says as much).
There have been numerous studies in recent years suggesting that capital punishment does deter more than does life imprisonment without parole.
While a person can no doubt be incapacitated so that he could never kill again, making sure that he didn’t have the chance to kill a guard or prison inmate would require a level of isolation approaching what I describe in my post (certainly if you object to putting someone in a coma on grounds of human dignity, you should likewise object to putting them in solitary confinement for life).
As for rehabilitation, in earthly terms it’s true that the death penalty does not aid this (neither does life imprisonment without parole). But in eternal terms it seems to have quite a salutary effect.
Blackadder,
Clever. I’ll have to think about that.
In the meantime, I did want to comment on something Chase said: “The death penaltiy has been demonstrated to not act as a deterrent for similar reasons.”
That is a deeply controversial assertion. See, e.g., this paper by Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermuele.
For example, the Shepherd study (discussed in the paper described above) used the moratorium on the death penalty that was briefly imposed by the Supreme Court to analyze the deterrent effect of the death penalty. This was a good test because it wasn’t a political or economic change that caused the removal and reintroduction of the death penalty. After the moratorium began there was an increase in murder by 9% the next year, and this effect accumulated as the years passed. When the moratorium was lifted there was a decrease of 8%, and this effect accumulated in the second and third years. In RI, in ‘72 and ‘84, there were two state-wide moratoriums, and both times the pattern is consistent. Is this conclusive proof? Of course not. But it is a pretty robust result which tends to indicate that, for whatever reason, the death penalty might have some deterrant effect.
Interesting post BA. I think an important point though is how you define ‘life’. Sure a comatose convict is ‘alive’, but it could be argued that beside basic physiological organ functions you have deprived him of ‘life’ as surely as if you had killed him. I bring this up at the risk of hijacking into the Schaivo affair, but the point seems to me very important to deciding whether your induced coma option is in fact ‘acceptable’.
In the sci-fi show B5 from the 90′s they had replaced capital punishment with ‘the death of personality’, where a convict literally had their entire personality (memories, thoughts, identity) ‘erased’ by a telepath, and were re-implanted with a benign personality ‘created’ for them. They were then sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in public service ‘to benefit the society harmed by your actions’ (some at least ended up in Benedictine monasteries, ‘adopted’ by the Orders, who saw this as a way of ministering to the criminals by giving them lives of service) Most fascinating to me was the fact that the showed portrayed the 23d century characters as equally conflicted about whether or not this was ‘humane’, with some as repelled and denouncing it as repugnant as if you were killing them, while others said it was ‘too good for ‘em’. Somehow I think this was an extremely realisitic portrayal and I think even were your ‘induced coma’ option viable, it would not ‘solve’ the issue.
RM
On a side note I have often wondered about the ‘deterrent effect’ of punishments, since I would assume it is a rare criminal indeed who commits a crime expecting to be caught, and therefore worried about the potential punishment. I would assume most criminals don’t particularly want to got to jail either — are they not ‘deterred’ by that? I think mostly they either a) think they won’t get caught, or b) in the ‘heat of the moment’ they’re not thinking about the consequence. Either way, the severity of the potential punishment is irrelevent. It would perhaps be limited to a small subset of the somewhat rarer cases of calculated, premeditated murder.
I would expect the ‘margin’ (that is, the number of people who deliberately decide not to commit a crime primarily because it might result in a death penalty) to be small enough to raise the question of whether or not the ‘deterrant effect’ is ‘worth’ the moral price paid by authorizing state-sanctioned murder.
RM
I think deterance is poor grounds to make the argument just because one can come up with numerous examples of states without the death penalty that have substancially lower murder rates than states that do have the death penalty. This is just within the US. For an example, compare the murder rates in Texas and Wisconsin.
As to your ‘solution’, it doesn’t solve the problem of violating human dignity. Even if we are to go to the time of burning heretics, the social goal was for the person to see heaven.
“I think deterance is poor grounds to make the argument just because one can come up with numerous examples of states without the death penalty that have substancially lower murder rates than states that do have the death penalty. This is just within the US. For an example, compare the murder rates in Texas and Wisconsin.”
Correlation is not causation. Texas and Wisconsin presumably have vastly different economic and social conditions which might be responsible for this discrepency. That’s what made the Shepherd study so interesting – it examined the effect of the death penalty in a fairly controlled and impartial way.
CCC 2266:
While I understand a reading of the passage which supports retribution (certainly I’ve heard that argument before), I don’t think the Catechism would quite hold retribution in mind for the American context. Note that the section opens with the notion that the primary purpose is prevention of harm, and then addresses “redressing the disorder caused” with an aim towards expiation or atonement. The high rate of recidivism in the US suggests that atonement isn’t precisely being achieved, nor are we preventing much in terms of future harm. The problem with justifying retribution (indeed, justifying retribution exclusively) is it leads to a justice system like ours in which prisoners are just shuffled in and out of prison with no eye to aims other than being “tough on crime.”
Evidence on deterrence aside, the death penalty’s violation of a fundamental right prevents it from being justified (just as abortion could never be justified as a means for reducing overpopulation).
As Vladimir Solovyov pointed out in his study on the death penalty, one could look at crime rates in times when the death penalty was common, and crime rates once it has been abolished, in lands such as England. What you note is that in the abolishing of the death penalty or its lessening of use did not give rise to an increase in crime. Therefore, he found this as strong evidence against even the so-called deterrence aspect of the death penalty.
Listless Lawyer,
I would likewise argue the Shepard Study is evidence of correlation not equalling causation. I don’t see how you would presume Texas and Wisconsin would be so different in economic and social contexts. But for the sake of argument, assume we know this to be the case. Would it not make more sense to attempt to make Texas more socially or whatever factor one discerns like Wisconsin than advocate that Wisconsin should implement the death penalty to have fewer murders?
(1) Why do we need a “third way”? What is wrong with Church teaching as it stands?
(2) As others have said, how does this accord with human dignity?
(3) Where does the core goal of rehabilitation feature?
My initial reaction is that the coma approach is actually _less_ in keeping with human dignity than execution. (Indeed, I would hold the same of the mind-wiping in the B5 episode that RobertM mentioned — which was definitely one of the best episodes in an overall very good show.)
While I could be convinced (and indeed have half convinced myself) that the death penalty is applied poorly enough (as in not consistently and not quickly enough after conviction) in the US that it should be abolished if it cannot be reformed — it seems to me that it is more in keeping with human dignity to give someone convicted of a capital crime a chance to repent, and then return him to his Maker for judgement than it would be to put someone in an artificially induced coma to “protect society”.
But then, I would tend to hold with the traditional teaching that retributive justice is indeed central to punishment.
Robert,
You’re right that people rarely commit a crime think they are going to get caught. But this doesn’t show that the threat of punishment doesn’t deter, since the people who are deterred don’t commit the crimes.
MM,
My guess, given the last sentence of BA’s post, is that his “third way” is meant primarily as a thought experiment given with the intent of clarifying and getting at the root of the issues involved in the death penalty debate. As such, I don’t think BA is trying to get around Church teaching. Rather, this would be an attempt at conceptual clarification with the intent of perhaps moving the debate in new and positive direction.
Henry & Mr. Forrest,
I can understand being skeptical of the ability of any study to establish that use of the death penalty does or doesn’t deter at a greater rate than other forms of punishment. But if one is going to consider such studies as evidence, then presumably rigorous and unsystematic studies (such as the Shepard study) should be given more credence than unsystematic and rigorous ones (such as Solovyov’s study and the Texas vs. Wisconsin example).
BA
Solovyov’s work is on many levels; however, his point is that one can look to history as an example. As civilization has moved away from the death penalty, you would expect a rise in crime (if its value of deterrence was true, whether or not one thinks its use of deterrence is moral). As he explains, the situation is actually quite different. If anything, it looks like crime rates were higher in times with high use of death penalty; now one say the absolute # of crimes is higher because of the number of people, the % or rate is lower. I think looking at it in this way is much better than a small sample in a small area in a small amount of time, which tries to universalize particulars far more.
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.”
The catechism on the death penalty seems to approve its use to protect the common good. It also seems not to find this absolutely contrary to the dignity of the person. This because the CCC sees that non-lethal punishments are “…more in conformity with the dignity to the dignity of the human person.” Perhaps they are saying that what is non-lethal is certainly more in conformity to human dignity than the death penalty which is not in conformity at all. But it doesn’t seem so. This given the argument that follows that the death penalty should be “…rare, if not practically non-existent” not on the basis that it violates human dignity, but rather because current penal conditions are such that resort to the death penalty are not “…absolutely necessary” to protect the common good.
The Church does not teach that it is acceptable to use the death penalty for retribution. It teaches that it is acceptable (but only in RARE cases) in order to protect society.
I’m with MM. No “third way” is necessary, especially a third way between the two suggestions you cite in this post. The second claim (“that we must take from the criminal something equivalent to what he has taken from his victim and from society”) is simply out of bounds for the Catholic.
“As civilization has moved away from the death penalty, you would expect a rise in crime”
Not really. As crime declines, the necessity of recourse to the death penalty also declines, so we shouldn’t be surprised if the two fall in tandem.
If you are using the death penalty as a deterrence, you would expect its use would also work to deter crime. You would also expect its removal from use — not because of less crime, but because of states finding it immoral to use it, would then have a rise in crime. In this way, not only has its use ended as a result of “less crime” but also, for those who use it even today, far less reasons for its use are found acceptable, and in those crimes which it is no longer used, one would expect a rise in such crime, because the deterrent (if it is such) is gone.
BA, that’s correct, I made the point more as a statement on the supposed rationale behind the ‘deterrent’ argument, not as a way to validate any metrics.
I also find it interesting that the Shepard study apparently indicated that adopting the death penalty actually resulted in an increase in murder rates in many states unless it was applied at a certain ‘threshold level’ of frequency. Does this mean the ‘brutalization effect’ on society (as she calls it) is the immediate effect, and is only offset/countered by an increase in executions? Does the S&V study analyze the interplay of this feedback loop? Are the murders ‘deterred’ at a high level of execution the ones ’caused’ by the introduction of the low level of executions? How do we know?
Overall I think I’m more in agreement with HK on this one. And Darwin, yes that was one of the stand-out eps in a very solid show.
RM
“Deterrence” is also not an acceptable reason to use the death penalty from a Catholic point of view.
Michael
Right, deterrence isn’t. And the Solovyov quote is good for that (although I could go far more with it than I did, since he goes into great length on this point. I just wanted to also point out how, if one accepted ends as justifying the means (I do not), it also shows the ends is not occuring with the means.
I think the phrasing Darwin used with regard to sending a criminal “back to his maker” gets to the heart of the problems associated with retributive punishment: a consistent ethic of life asserts that God is the only being in the universe who ought decide whether a human being lives or dies. As Catholics, we believe in the infinite power of God’s forgiveness and must also believe with allotting individuals any time God will give them to recant. It is one of the splendid mysteries of God’s love and redemption that even people who have committed horrible violent crimes can repent and do wonderful work for gospel nonviolence even on death row (Tookie Williams comes to mind).
I believe that we are called as Christians to a literal interpretation of Paul and God’s command in Romans 12:19 to “leave room for the wrath of God” and allot Him sole power over vengeance.
It seems to me that one of the difficulties in the modern discussion of the death penalty is that many people have no sense that there could be a difference between “revenge” and “retributive justice”. Perhaps there is a better word than “retributive” but what I’m reaching for is a sense that there are consequences that justice demands to an action.
Now clearly, this demand is not absolute. Mercy is, in a Christian sense, perhaps more important even than justice. And so I certainly would not say that someone guilty of a capital crime “must” be killed. But while it seems to me that the case of a truly repentant criminal would be a very good time to exercise mercy, I am not clear that repentance necessarily means that there is no further point in punishment. (After all, as Catholics we believe that even after having repented of our sins we must expiate them, in Purgatory if necessary — much to the scandal of our Protestant brethren who believe that repentance is all that is necessary.)
It seems to me that Henry and Michael perhaps put themselves rather on the modern fringe of the spectrum of historical Church teaching in regards to punishment by asserting that retributive justice (if we may allow the term) has no place in the consideration of punishment. Certainly, though, that does seem to be the trend of current moral thinking. At times I wonder if this trend is in part inspired by the materialist culture around us — which recoils from anything which is seen as final in the sense that capital punishment is, because it does not see a world beyond our own.
Thinking through all that, I think that clarifies for me a bit what I find unfitting about Blackadder’s hypothetical: It seems to me that the idea of the punishment coma violates human dignity more than (or at least as much as) capital punishment, in that it seems to redefine the manner of life given by God to the person, rather than simply taking it away whole. At the same time, it seems to me that it does not actually represent a case of clear retributive justice in the way that capital punishment does.
Now to take it one further: Would not true life imprisonment, in such conditions as to make it truly impossible for the criminal to escape or to hurt other prisoners or guards, actually be morally much different from the hypothetical suggested? (Realistically, after all, even violent criminals are often kept in conditions where escape is possible and they pretty often do succeed in injuring or killing fellow prisoners or guards.) In other words, should we perhaps accept that if we are to forgo the death penalty we do in fact do so at somewhat more danger to society than if we used it?
Darwin underlines some of the issues I would bring to the table regarding absolute life terms without the possibility of parole – they certainly do not seem to be in keeping with forgiving seventy-seven times as the Gospels call us to do. However, while a life term to a totally repentant criminal may present some obstacles vis a vis their dignity, it still allows the prisoner to exercise other aspects of their dignity: creative expression, perhaps meaningful work, most importantly life. That’s why the death penalty ought be treated as a truly hypothetical right of the state, and tragic under any circumstance.
I do indeed believe in purgatory, and the need to expiate for our sins upon death. However, I agree with Aquinas that the state is unable to judge “hidden internal movements.” If we accept that executing a repentant person is unjust, then we accept an inability to execute anyone because of our inability to judge their repentance. Because God can judge our internal thoughts, He is the final and true arbitrator of justice.
I agree that it is hypothetically possible to produce a regime in which retributive punishments do not constitute revenge. However, the name of retribution has allowed our justice system to diverge far from justice in allowing punishments that are punitive, discriminatory or serve state interests that do not get back to righting a wrong or protecting the public. Since a prison term oriented towards rehabilitation or public safety has an incidental element of retribution in it, it seems that is the most retributive we can get without crossing another line.
If we believe that purgatory is the place for the expiation of sins, from where do we as a civil society gain the authority to force expiation ourselves, on our time rather than God’s time? Is that not, to a certain extent, playing God?
It seems to me that Henry and Michael perhaps put themselves rather on the modern fringe of the spectrum of historical Church teaching in regards to punishment by asserting that retributive justice (if we may allow the term) has no place in the consideration of punishment. Certainly, though, that does seem to be the trend of current moral thinking.
I guess you can say Henry and I are part of the “trendy modern fringe” of “current moral thinking.” Just make sure you put JPII and the universal catechism there as well.
In addition, find whatever synonym of “retribution” that suits you. It still will not jive with the Church’s “current, trendy” judgment.
Thinking through all that, I think that clarifies for me a bit what I find unfitting about Blackadder’s hypothetical: It seems to me that the idea of the punishment coma violates human dignity more than (or at least as much as) capital punishment, in that it seems to redefine the manner of life given by God to the person, rather than simply taking it away whole.
How truly bizarre your thinking is.
How truly bizarre your thinking is.
Maybe you could refute what DarwinCatholic said rather than simply make fun of him? It has been made clear time and time again that this kind of comment behavior is unacceptable.
Darwin – Please note, that by saying that I find your thinking on this issue “bizarre,” I do not mean to make fun, but only to say that I find your thinking bizarre. But at the request of SB, I will point out to you how bizarre it is that you think putting someone into a coma might constitute “playing God” “more than (or at least as much as)” killing someone.
I also think “playing God” language has become pretty meaningless.
Darwin
I would ask you — how “modern” is modern? Seriously, you will find the points I say going back quite far. Of course, one does know that the number of people who understood these points were less in earlier times, but with the development of Christian understanding often is like this; at one time it was quite common to be quite indifferent to life issues at all.
And it is here which I find something else odd. To call people interested in life and the dignity of the human person — materialistically influenced. What?! The Gospel of Life is materialistic? I guess only in the way anti-Gnosticism must be materialistic – that there is an affirmation of the body and bodily life and the integrity of the human person includes their material side.
Hence, as Solovyov says — “Death, they say, is not the end of existence; the human soul lives even beyond the grave, death is only a transition, not at all having an absolute meaning, and so forth. But if the end of visible, earthly existence is so unimportant, then why does murder horrify you to such a degree? And if, despite life beyond the grave, there are grounds for being horrified by murder, then is it permissible to repeat it under the worst conditions possible? If you, in fact, view death so lightly, then regard murderers more lightly, and if they disturb you so, then be wary of imitating them in this life under the pretext of its continuation beyond the grave.” V. Soloviev, Politics, Law, and Morality. trans. Vladimir Wozniuk (New Haven: Yale, 2000), 181.
Henry,
You say: “If you are using the death penalty as a deterrence, you would expect its use would also work to deter crime. You would also expect its removal from use — not because of less crime, but because of states finding it immoral to use it, would then have a rise in crime.”
If the death penalty deters, then one could say that a society that has the death penalty will have less crime over a given period than it would have had without the death penalty. It doesn’t follow, though, that crime would rise if the society abandoned the death penalty, since plenty of other factors go into the crime rate. The recent studies have tried to isolate any possible deterrence effect from any other factors, whereas Solovyov (as I understand it, I haven’t read him on the point) is just taking an impressionistic look at the broad sweep of history.
Chase,
If we accept that executing a repentant person is unjust, then we accept an inability to execute anyone because of our inability to judge their repentance. Because God can judge our internal thoughts, He is the final and true arbitrator of justice.
See, I guess that’s the hold up: I’m not sure if I qaccept that executing a repentent person is unjust. It seems to me clear that it would be better to use mercy in that situation, but if it is acceptable to hold that execution is the proper punishment for certain crimes, I’m not sure how the question of whether or not the criminal has repented comes into it. Indeed, historically it has been the place of the Church to try very hard to make sure that criminals _do_ repent before being executed, for their eternal good.
Michael,
I guess you can say Henry and I are part of the “trendy modern fringe” of “current moral thinking.” Just make sure you put JPII and the universal catechism there as well.
In addition, find whatever synonym of “retribution” that suits you. It still will not jive with the Church’s “current, trendy” judgment.
…
How truly bizarre your thinking is.
So far as I can tell, the CCC and John Paul II lie somewhere in between the two of us, in that it would appear that both give a clear place to retributive punishment, (“Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense.” CCC 2266) however I think it would be fair to say that both the CCC and more so John Paul II lean rather more towards your sensibility in regards to rehabilitation than I do.
As for bizarre — I might prefer “medieval” if you’re willing to use that as an imprecation, but I’m willing to wear it given where it’s coming from. ;-)
Henry,
Well, Soloviev was writing in the late 1800s and hanging around with Tolstoy, so that’s certainly about as modern as one can get. I must admit, though I can see the sense in which he appeals strongly to you in that and in the longer quote you posted separately, his thought strikes me as rather circular in a “too clever by half” sort of way, though I think he’s making some very valid points via that exercise.
While I’d want to think about it more than even one of my marathon-length comments allows, it seems to me that there is an element of tension involved. I would agree that the knowledge that this life is not all there is means that earthly justice does not need to be absolute. It is our knowledge of God and of the immortality of the soul which makes mercy make sense to us.
So I’d agree that Christianity gives us the motive and duty to temper earthly justice with mercy. But to the extent that we have traditionally held that the exercise of earthly justice by earthly societies is not out of keeping with Christian moral teaching, our knowledge that death is not final should help us to understand that if the workings of that justice impose execution, that executions is itself not final.
To call people interested in life and the dignity of the human person — materialistically influenced. What?! The Gospel of Life is materialistic?
Well, if you define the Gospel of Life as including an absolute prohibition of capital punishment because ‘killing is always wrong’, then some odd contradictions are going to crop up — because Church teaching _is not_ that ‘killing is always wrong’. But to be clear: I didn’t say that it was materialistic, but that for many of us (and I do not consider myself an exception) our conceptions of mercy and justice have been formed by a materialistic, post-enlightenment society.
Darwin
So many things which you put in your post 1) fails to respond to what I say 2) creates a false presentation of the debate and 3) shows your ignorance on the topic at hand.
Let’s start with Solovyov. Do you really want to say he was Tolstoyian? Really? Do you know how much he wrote contra-Tolstoy, even making the anti-Christ someone who resembles Tolstoy? Second, 19th century is modern in one sense of the word (I wanted to know what you meant by the term), but his ideas are clearly not modern in the “21st century” way; but if you are suggesting he is modern in that he lives in the middle of the time of “modernism” fine. But he is not himself not a modernist; in fact, he was a severe critic of the way philosophy developed since the Enlightenment.
Second, let’s look at the issue of the death penalty. You would do well to be more honest with what others have said. No one has said there is an absolute prohibition on the death penalty. However, its use has always been qualified, and sometimes its use has never met those qualifications, and in modern times, it is rare for it to be met in Western nations.
Now will you actually deal with the point instead of engaging ridicule? Show me a comprehension of what the human person is about, and the problem of death. Until you do, your own comments help justify — abortion.
There’s no point in talking about justice, even retributive justice, if we don’t talk about mercy. Let’s listen to the Church’s teachings on justice, in JPII’s words:
“justice, if separated from merciful love, becomes cold and cutting . . . there is no justice without forgiveness.”
“there is no contradiction between forgiveness and justice. Forgiveness neither eliminates nor lessens the need for the reparation which justice requires, but seeks to reintegrate individuals and groups into society, and States into the community of Nations.”
“Properly understood, justice constitutes, so to speak, the goal of forgiveness. In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy as its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury or insult.”
And JPII summarizes for us:
“The penal system cannot be reduced to a simple retributive dynamic or some sort of institutional vendetta. The pain inflicted by prison only makes sense if, while asserting the demands of justice and discouraging crime, it also serves the renewal of the inmate, offering the one who erred a chance to reflect and to change his life, and then to be reinserted into society with full rights.”
Justice and mercy can never be separated. I’d suggest that the Church is teaching us that reparation is a better word to use than retribution, though both result in a just punishment of the offender, and both redress the harm caused to society.
Henry,
I had read about Soloviev that he knew Tolstoy and had influenced Tolstoy, and also Dostoyevski (so he could influence the good writers too!). However, I hope I did not come off as trying to pidgeon-hole him as being himself a follower of Tolstoy. Certainly, you know far more about him than I do.
I’m sorry if it appeared that I was engaging in ridicule. That was not my intention.
Further, I’m sorry if you think that I’m engaging in strawmanship — in that case it may go back a couple rounds in the conversation. As I recall the thread was that I said I thought that Christians in our current culture sometimes took on the materialist belief that death is the worst thing possible, and that this influences their view of capital punishment. You in turn demanded whether I was saying that the Gospel of Life was materialist. To that I responded that if one took the Gospel of Life to include an absolute prohibition of capital punishment because killing should never be deliberately inflicted, then certainly many contradictions would crop up.
In regards to that whole sub-thread, my point is essentially that often in explaining the sacredness of life, we take on the implicity (and materialistically derived) assumption of our culture that death is the worst thing (being final) in order to explain to people why things such as abortion, euthenasia, etc. are wrong. Generally, this is a very effective apologetic method, and certainly, I think we’re better off forgoing abortion, euthenasia, capital punishment and war if the only alternative is thinking that all four are okay. However, the fully balanced Christian understanding has always been that the taking of innocent life is wrong, but that in certain circumstances such as the just exercise of capital punishment by civil authority, self defense, just war, etc. the taking of life may be morally acceptable.
The main thing I would like to emphasize, however, is that according to a traditional Catholic understanding (as reflected in the CCC section that I quoted) retributive justice _is_ an important element of the earthly exercise of justice.
And if you can somehow explain to me how my posts above justify abortion, I’d certainly appreciate it.
People defend abortion as “self defense” and if you add it with your “well, the soul continues after death” response, it could easily turn to the same kind of qualification used for the death penalty. It’s something many people do not get –the whole promotion of life requires a consistent ethic; what I see so often is people will separate life issues, and apply a logic in one case which they would oppose in the other.
But you and I both know that the logic of self defense does not work in regards to abortion — while it does in regards to real situations of self defense.
Also, I think you’re misunderstanding my argument. I’m not saying that capital punishment is okay because, hey, at least the soul lives on. What I am saying is that the Church has historically taught that capital punishment is a just punishment in certain circumstances, and that what has caused many people to argue against that teaching in modern culture is a belief that death is something so terrible that it can never be justified.
Now, we agree that capital punishment is just in certain circumstances, so I’m not sure why you’re going after me on that. So far as I understood it, your complaint was that it was only justifiable to protect society from the criminal (which may not be necessary in modern society), not as a legitimate exercise of retributive justice.
Blackadder,
I am a strong believer in the justice of the death penalty, but I’m intrigued by your proposal. It does approximate the retributive justice of execution better than life imprisonment does.
The one thing your proposal does not (by design), is make its punishment final. This is a positive if it allows you to partially fix mistakes. Its also a negative if it allows grandstanding politicians or journalists or a later society contemptuous of justice to undo the punishment.
On the other hand, justice delayed is justice denied. The long drawn out capital punishment appeals process are an affront to justice in my opinion (and also reduce the retributive effect). One advantage of your proposal is that it could be implemented immediately on sentencing (though the criminal would have to be woken up from time to time to consult with his attorneys). This is such an enormous advantage that it outweighs any other flaws I see in your proposal.
Also, the more immediate the punishment the greater the possibility of deterrence.
Adam – Check your thinking on this issue against the teaching of the Church. The God you worship (I assume) was a victim of the death penalty.
Darwin:
The Christian believes the justice system is imperfect, just as any human creation since the Fall is. God’s justice is the only perfectly equitable and virtuous kind. We assert, in our declaration of a universal ethic of life, the notion that two beings equal in God’s creation do not have the right to kill each other; indeed, we even assert that human beings do not have the moral authority to kill themselves, that the right to kill is something given a superior being.
I can’t see a way of justifying the death penalty in this context without giving a government authority somewhere in between the human being’s and God’s. If that is true, then where does this authority come from? We certainly can’t argue divine right for any heads of state (with the one exception). We wouldn’t give the state authority to violate other rights which are inferior to the right of life like the right to free exercise of religion or the right to ownership in accords with the common good.
To choose to execute someone for taking one type of life over another is to somehow argue that the sin of taking particular lives is worse than others. If it is equally as sinful to kill a teacher as a police officer, why should one be executed for the latter and not the former? I believe that your unwillingness to follow through on the death penalty in the former circumstance suggests the inherent injustice of applying the penalty at all.
Chase,
First, of all, I appreciate your thoughtful and careful discussion. This is an issue on which I continue to actively think out my position, and so reasonable discussion of this kind is very helpful.
Addressing your points:
I definitely agree that from a Christian perspective any earthly justice system is imperfect.
I’m not certain if I agree with your formulation of the “universal ethic of life”. Certainly, no human being has the right to kill another simply because he wants to. However, there are certain circumstances (self defense, just war) in which it is clearly taught that killing (though never killing simply for the sake of killing) is justified and moral.
Moving to your second paragraph, I suppose I should go review, but it has always been my understanding that the Church teaches that the authority of civil leaders _does_ come from God — not in the sense that God specifically appoints a given person to authority, but in the sense that all true authority comes from God.
In regards to the right to life versus lesser rights, I’m a bit uncomfortable with the whole concept of “rights” in a moral or religious context, but taking it for the moment: It seems to me that to assert an absolute right to life (which capital punishment would be a violation of) is to assume one’s answer: Is the right to life absolute, or is it given up when one commits certain grave crimes? After all, we see someone as giving up his right liberty when he commits a crime and is imprisoned. Also, I’m not sure how we would square that conception of the “right to life” with the Church’s teaching that capital punishment _is_ justified in certain circumstances, though those circumstances may not be present in modern societies.
On your last paragraph, I just want to clarify that if I suggested at some point that capital punishment should result from killing people of some professions but not others, I certainly didn’t mean to. (I understand that in some areas killing a police officer is a graver crime than killing a civilian, but I don’t think I agree with that.) If one were to make a distinction between murders that were capital crimes and others that were not, it seems to me that the only acceptable moral one would be between levels of malice and intention. Thus, someone who killed another in the heat of a bar fight might not be held to have committed a capital crime, while someone who killed his aged parents in order to get his inheritance might be executed. Also, I wouldn’t necessarily hold that only murder was punishable by execution. Certain very grave violations of human dignity (such as violent rape or torture) I could possibly see as being capital crimes.
Now that said, the way that capital punishment is generally administered in the modern US is not very much to my liking, in that it is used rather sporadically, the usual methods of execution are overly dehumanizing, and there is far more time than seems just between conviction and execution. So given that, I don’t necessarily have a problem with not having the death penalty in the US. (And my experience has been that opposing abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment simultaneously in the US is a very fruitful way of driving home the sacredness of life.) My purpose is not to argue for it in specific as used in the US, but that it is not necessarily wrong. I think that if we had a more just, more Christian society, we would be more capable of administering the death penalty justly than we are here and now.
MJI, I’m no Catholic and, imho, execution is only a just punishment for murderers and the like. The Christ I worship was no murderer.
Christ was unjustly executed, true. He was also unjustly tried. Should we abolish trials?
There are, I presume, reasonable arguments against the death penalty. You aren’t making them.
Darwin,
My understanding of the public safety exception to the rule in the Catechism is that it only applies when the right to life of others might be in direct danger (i.e. if someone in custody will kill again) and even then when every alternative option is exhausted. That is why the text treats it as the hypothetical of hypotheticals. It doesn’t follow from that exception that either a) capital punishment can be justified in a society which has spent money on effective systems of imprisonment or b) that justified capital punishment is anything other than a tragic consequence of circumstance. I can’t extrapolate from that exception a positive assertion of justice for the penalty.
I think once you start validating the death penalty in non-murder cases, even the retribution argument goes away in the sense that it seems an unequal punishment for the crime. In ordinary societies, such a justification quickly becomes conflated with state interests (we do, after all, execute people for treason, at least when the state feels the need to).
I would say as regards our hypothetical just Christian state – wouldn’t that state necessarily have to apply the Christian mercy you’ve discussed previously? I tend to agree with Nate that if we believe Christian mercy is a valid / logical way of looking at the world, then it should also bear fruit in our notions of justice. Maybe it is the New Covenant which makes the death penalty immoral.
Adam: I think the point that Michael is driving home comes to the violent nature of a society in which the death penalty exists. We can certainly gain from Christ’s passion a notion that societies of bloodlust a) execute non-murderers (indeed, execute for basically being a revolutionary) and b) are willing to forego punishments for the Barrabuses in order to make their point. In light of “whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me,” we may gain some ground being able to see the presence of Christ even in murderers by virtue of their human nature.
Societies in which automobiles and trains exist are also violent in nature. So also are societies in which soldiers exist, or in which police exist, or in which imprisonment or any kind of judicial process exist. Every society in which the human heart exists is violent by nature. Should we outlaw humanity?
Certainly I agree that the passion shows us that some societies have or will have executed people for reasons other than murder, revolution among them, and that those deserving of death will sometimes be freed for political reasons. Why we need to refer to the passion in particular to prove this I do not know. Human history is full of abuses of all kinds.
It is precisely because murderers are men, made in the image of God, that their murders should be punished. If they were animals, the question of punishment would not arise. Certainly they should be offered the opportunity to confess their sins and repent before they receive earthly justice. It is not at all clear to me that lifelong imprisonment better accomplishes this end than execution, or that this should be the overriding consideration. Perhaps this is one objection to Blackadder IV’s proposal, though, that the prospect of being in a coma doesn’t focus one’s mind on eternity as well as imminent execution does, while at the same time denying the murder the chance of repenting over the long conscious years in prison. So to the extent that repentance is a goal of our penal system, perhaps Blackadder IV’s coma proposal does not accomplish that.
P.S. I am not so sure, actually, that I would classify Christ as a revolutionary. In the tepid, meaningless sense, of one who wants to change things, sure. But I see no reason to believe he waanted to violently overthrow the political order.
There are, I presume, reasonable arguments against the death penalty. You aren’t making them.
You’re right, I’m not making them. I presume them, i.e. the ones the Catholic Church makes against the death penalty.
Every society in which the human heart exists is violent by nature.
This is a question of Christian anthropology. Humans are violent by nature? Are you sure?
P.S. I am not so sure, actually, that I would classify Christ as a revolutionary. In the tepid, meaningless sense, of one who wants to change things, sure. But I see no reason to believe he waanted to violently overthrow the political order.
Christ was certainly a revolutionary, but more revolutionary than any human revolutionary. Particularly in his refusal of violence.
I would certainly strongly affirm Michael’s assessment that Christ was all the more revolutionary for His refusal of violence and that the Passion was, in many ways, the most perfect act of nonviolent sacrifice.
In the story of the stoning of the adulteress, Christ halts an execution with the words “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” It is indeed precisely because of our violence, brought into human nature because of original sin (after all, a murder was the first sin preceding the original one documented in Genesis) that eliminates the moral authority of human beings to kill. Only He without sin (God) can execute such an authority.
Justice and mercy are not conflicting virtues – indeed, by definition, there is no such thing as a conflicting virtue. If there is no such thing as an action which is merciful but not just, there’s no such thing as an action which is just without being merciful.
Precisely because of our violence
Imprisonment and, in fact, any kind of legal process is also violent. Government is violent. Self-defense is violent. If the black drop in the human heart makes us morally unfit to justly do violence it makes us morally unfit to justly do violence, period, and we should let anarchic criminal gangs enslave or kill or rape us as our Christian witness. That’s not a completely stupid position for a christian, but its not one I share.
Justice and mercy are not conflicting virtues, et.
Splendid. It follows, therefore, that hanging murderers is merciful.
To my mind a non-violent revolution is a contradiction in terms, but if you define revolution differently suit yourselves.
To my mind a non-violent revolution is a contradiction in terms, but if you define revolution differently suit yourselves.
That’s precisely why Jesus’ revolution is the most revolutionary of all. I’m not surprised that it escapes you; it escapes many people.
I heartedly disagree with the notion that punishment or even imprisonment are inherently violent. Governments have as their legitimate aim punishments for crimes: they have the authority to arrest, try, convict and sentence offenders who break laws that are in accordance with the natural law. While there are certainly violent abuses of all of those methods, there’s nothing about them that’s inherently violent.
My discourse about justice and mercy was primarily directed at Darwin, who I think ought consider not dividing those concepts. Its precisely, however, the fact that hanging a murder or killing a criminal is never merciful that it is never just. Our noses wrinkle at the phrase “mercy killing” with regards to euthanasia because we find the words contradictory. If mercy is a virtuous part of justice, than “just killing” carries the same connotation.
On the question of whether “punishment” is a legitimate concern of the justice system, I think this story provides an interesting set of facts. There is no possible rehabilitative purpose here – so is punishment still justified?
As a matter of Christian hope, there is always the potential of rehabilitation, no matter how heinous the crime. As I’ve previously mentioned, Tookie Williams, who was executed by California about two years ago, was a notorious gang leader who committed multiple homicides and became a champion for gang peace agreements and nonviolence while in prison. While I wouldn’t see fit to let him go (there are still deterrence elements important in his continued imprisonment), I think the world lost a great asset upon his state-sponsored death.
It is clear in your story, Listless, that imprisoning the woman in such a way as she would not have regular visits with her husband and children or (God forbid) executing her would have devastating consequences on a group of family members who never committed a crime. Everyone is loved; even the most offensive criminals have innocent people who love them and who are unfairly asked to assume the burden of a punishment alongside the offender.
Don’t be daft, MJI. Semantic differences are semantic differences, that’s all. You might as well say that I don’t sufficiently appreciate Jesus because I’m thinking he’s not the world’s greatest mass murderer, little realizing that the totally impressive thing about his mass murders is that no one was killed.
Chase,
is it your notion that people voluntarily go to prison and remain there? Believe me, government would cease to function were there no violence involved. And its not just imprisonment. At the root of every legal process lies the hidden threat of violence. Its not always so hidden, either. The sheriff’s men serve writs of replevin (i.e., take items of property in satisfaction of judgments) with their hands on their unbuttoned holsters. If our policemen and soldiers were not willing to use guns, fists, handcuffs, bars, and batons in extremis society would dissolve. Either you have some cloud-cuckoo definition of violence or you have a cloud-cuckoo understanding of society.
I quite agree with you that its nonsense to act as if a killing were merciful because it is just. I am glad to have persuaded you that there are such things as actions which are just without being merciful and vice versa.
Cloud cuckoo is pitching it a bit strong. At least with respect to the semantic issue, ‘idiosyncratic’ would better capture my meaning.
You haven’t convinced me that there’s justice without mercy because, were I convinced, I would have to reject either justice or mercy as a virtue. I don’t have the ability to hold a cognitive dissonance long enough to believe that the aims of one virtue can possibly be contrary to the aims of another.
Semantic differences are hardly inconsequential. A revolutionary is someone who brings about a radical change in thought and action. Christ’s love promotes such a change; indeed, it promotes changes perfectly oriented toward virtue, making Christ the perfect revolutionary. That Christ’s message rejects violence in the beatitudes, at the stoning of the adulteress (which is, I mention again, an explicit refutation of executions) and in the sacrifice of the Passion ought lead you to reconsider what exactly is supposed to be virtuous about violence.
A revolutionary is one who seeks to violently overthrow the political order. Your definition of revolutionary is at root a metaphorical one. Christ was not a revolutionary. Semantic differences are unimportant; right-thinking people do not make others an offender for a word.
I quite agree with you about the beatitudes, the stoning, the refusal in the passion to resist and all that, which is why it is a feasible though wrong-headed Christian position to eschew all use of force altogether, including for self-defense, imprisonment, law enforcement, civil actions, etc. What you cannot do is to use Christ’s refusal to use violence in self-defence, e.g., as evidence that killing in self-defense is OK but killing to do justice on the evildoer is not.
Either justice and mercy are not coterminous or punishment must be merciful or punishment must be unjust. Pick one.
I’m happy to use Christ’s unwillingness to use violence as an exemplar, but the examples I provide have a further end: specific condemnations of the violent actions of others which Christ made and which get to this question.
I don’t believe that violence is an inherent part of the definition of revolution, but if we’re to talk about order, Christ overthrows every order that isn’t directed towards Him. Among those orders is the order of violence. I would venture to say this is why so many pre-Constantinean martyrs died because they were pacifists and unwilling to fight in the Roman army.
Again, I believe justice and mercy are coterminous just like any other virtues in that the terminus is the natural law and by extension God. My point is that we use mercy to get to justice and that therefore our notion of mercy must coincide with justice.
Obviously, we’re going to have a hard time resolving this so long as we have competing notions of who Jesus of Nazareth really was. But borrowing the phrase “What would Jesus do?” I cannot begin to even suppose that He would throw the switch on an electric chair. Its not in keeping with His character, its not in keeping with the Gospels. The person who flips that switch ultimately commits a murder, independent of whether the state orders him to. If the state’s law compels or incentiveizes even that one person to act in a way Christ wouldn’t, then the law is unjust.
“Who Jesus of Nazareth was”
Here’s the problem. I would have said “who Jesus of Nazareth *is*” because in my mind the divine character includes the things God does or has promised to do throughout history and scripture. This includes a fair amount of killing. Even in Christ’s mortal life we have the violent incident of the moneychangers. Capital punishment of murders isn’t murder any more than killing in self-defense isn’t murder and in some circumstances I would see capital punishment not only as morally permitted but morally compulsory. Murderers *ought* to be executed. If we must be *merciful* in our treatment of murders than, as you say, our notion of mercy must be made to coincide with justice.
Capital punishment of murders isn’t murder any more than killing in self-defense isn’t murder and in some circumstances I would see capital punishment not only as morally permitted but morally compulsory. Murderers *ought* to be executed.
You simply are not thinking with the Church.
You simply are not reading the thread. I’m not a Catholic. I think your notions of what Catholicism requires look suspiciously like MichaelJIafratism, but I don’t have anything invested in the notion. If the Catholic Church says that executing murderers is unjust, than the Catholic Church is wrong.