lunedì 23 ottobre 2017

1 - By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment
Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette
Last annotated on Saturday October 21, 2017
179 Highlight(s) | 149 Note(s)
Yellow highlight | Page: 17
1 Natural Law and Capital Punishment
Note:1@@@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Page: 17
Natural law in Catholic moral theology
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 17
the universal, practical obligatory judgments of reason, knowable by all men as binding them to do good
Note:DEF DI LEGGE NATURALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 17
the ends or final causes
Note:CIÒ CHE CI ILLUMINA NELLA SCOPERTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 17
human teleology”.
Yellow highlight | Page: 17
not man-made,
Note:NATURALE..1 REQ...

Yellow highlight | Page: 18
it is not supernatural but is distinct from the order of grace
Note:NATURALE... 2 REQ

Yellow highlight | Page: 18
That is by no means to say that God is irrelevant to natural law.
Yellow highlight | Page: 18
pagan thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle.
Note:I PRIMI PROMULGATORI

Yellow highlight | Page: 18
The official teaching of the Catholic Church also strongly affirms natural law and natural theology.
Note:LA MORALE CATTOLICA

Yellow highlight | Page: 20
Traditional natural law theory
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 21
“the Thomistic doctrine of natural law” historically favored by the Church.
Yellow highlight | Page: 21
traditional natural law theory is committed to an essentialist metaphysics
Note:ESSENZIALISMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 21
and it is teleological insofar as it holds that natural substances have final causes
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 21
the early modern philosopher David Hume famously argued that conclusions about what ought to be the case (statements about value) cannot validly be inferred from premises concerning what is the case (statements of fact).
Note:LA CONCEZIONE RIVALE..FALLACIA NATURALISTICA

Yellow highlight | Page: 21
“naturalistic fallacy”,
Yellow highlight | Page: 22
Traditional natural law theorists tend to speak, not of value, but of the good,
Note:VALORE E BENE

Yellow highlight | Page: 23
There are certain ends that any organism must realize in order to flourish as an organism
Note:I CONIGLI HANNO 4 ZAMPE... E CHI NE HA 3?

Yellow highlight | Page: 24
Nature wants us to eat so that we will stay alive,
Note:MANGIARE È BENE

Yellow highlight | Page: 25
Desires are nature’s way of prodding us to do what is good for us,
Note:DESIDERI

Yellow highlight | Page: 25
“natural” does not mean merely “statistically common”,
Note:NO STATISTICA NO GENETICA... SI CAUSA FINALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 25
It has instead to do with the final causes
Note:cccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 27
Moral obligation
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 27
“good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided”
Note:IL PRECETTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 27
metaphysics is not essential to seeing that this first principle is correct;
Note:INESSENZIALITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 28
But that metaphysics can help us to understand
Yellow highlight | Page: 28
good action is just that which is “in accord with reason”,
Note:RAZIONALISMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 29
eternal law, which is essentially the order of archetypes or ideas
Note | Page: 29
OLTRE LA LEGGE NATIRALE... ALTRE DUE

Yellow highlight | Page: 30
human law, which is the set of conventional or man-made principles
Note:TERZO TIPO

Yellow highlight | Page: 30
Finally there is divine law, which is law given directly by God, such as the Mosaic Law.
Note:TERZO TIPO

Yellow highlight | Page: 30
morality is in principle knowable to a significant extent even to the atheist,
Note:ATEI

Yellow highlight | Page: 31
With ethics as with natural phenomena, however, it by no means follows that reference to God is absolutely unnecessary.
Note:DIO E ETICA

Yellow highlight | Page: 32
Natural rights
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 33
Now, it is part of that nature that we are social animals,
Note:SOCIETÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 33
For example, as Philippa Foot writes, “Like lionesses, human parents are defective if they do not teach their young the skills that they need to survive.”
Note:ESEMPIO DI VIOLAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 33
But an obligation on the part of a person A toward a person B entails a right on the part of B against A.
Note:DAI DOVERI AI DIRITTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 34
The most basic natural right is the right to do what we are obligated to do
Note:IL DIRITTO FONDAMENTALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 34
a right not to be killed.
Yellow highlight | Page: 34
“the rights of all men are limited by the end for which the rights were given”;
Note:DIRITTO E FINE

Yellow highlight | Page: 35
teleological foundation
Yellow highlight | Page: 35
As Aquinas emphasized, that the natural law morally prohibits something does not suffice to show that governments should legally prohibit it.
Note:LAICITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 35
The idea of a “natural right to do wrong” is an oxymoron.
Note:OSSIMORO

Yellow highlight | Page: 35
In the Hobbesian “state of nature”, everyone has a “right” to do anything
Note:POSIZIONE OPPOSTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 36
why we should attribute even conventional rights to the weakest members of society
Note:UN PROBLEMA X I CONTRATTUALISTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 36
Contractarians have offered various responses to these difficulties, which typically involve inventive appeals to various less obvious ways in which the strong might benefit from leaving the weak alone,
Note:RISPOSTE CERVELLOTICHE

Yellow highlight | Page: 36
“Free-riding individuals of a species whose members work together are just as defective as those who have defective hearing, sight, or powers of locomotion.”
Note:X I TOMISTI NESSUN PROBLEMA

Yellow highlight | Page: 37
Punishment
Note:tttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 37
The goodness of punishment
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 37
for Aquinas it is an error to identify happiness with pleasure or unhappiness with pain.
Note:FELICITÀ E PIACERE

Yellow highlight | Page: 37
realization of the ends
Yellow highlight | Page: 37
Nature has attached pleasure to certain goods
Yellow highlight | Page: 39
inordinate indulging of our own will or the inordinate securing of pleasure
Note:IL CRIMINE COME DISORDINE

Yellow highlight | Page: 39
following from the will—
Note:LA RADICE DEL MALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 39
“equality of justice” will be restored by answering an offender’s overindulgence of his will with the infliction of something that is contrary to his will.
Note:LA PUNIZIONE COME RIEQUILIBRIO

Yellow highlight | Page: 40
punishment is inherently good
Yellow highlight | Page: 40
the tendency to punish is a virtue, so long as it is motivated by justice,
Note:VIRTÙ DELLA GIUSTIZIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 40
odd to contemporary ears to call vengeance a virtue,
Note:VENDETTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 41
tendency to confuse the abuse of vengeance with vengeance itself.
Yellow highlight | Page: 41
Prummer’s Handbook of Moral Theology classifies “revenge” as among the “virtues related to justice” while condemning “cruelty or savagery”
Note:VENDETTA E CRUDELTÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 43
The principle of proportionality
Note:tttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 43
punishment ought to be proportional to the offense.
Note:PRINCIPIO RETRIBUTIVO

Yellow highlight | Page: 44
not merely a quantitative, but also a qualitative matter.
Note:PROPORZIONALITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 44
a natural correlation between goodness and pleasure, on the one hand, and evil and pain on the other.
Note:PROPORZIONALITÀ COME ESTENSIONE DI UNA CORRELAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 46
The purposes of punishment
Note:ttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 46
restoration of what Aquinas calls “the equality of justice”
Note:RETRIBUZIONE... RIPRISTINO DI UN EQUILIBRIO

Yellow highlight | Page: 46
retribution,
Yellow highlight | Page: 46
correction
Note:ALTRI OBBIETTIVI

Yellow highlight | Page: 46
deterrence
Yellow highlight | Page: 46
incapacitation
Yellow highlight | Page: 46
restitution
Yellow highlight | Page: 46
Psychiatrist Karl Menninger
Note:CNTRO LA RETRIBUZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 46
Ramsey Clark,
Yellow highlight | Page: 46
for the natural law theorist, retribution is not only a legitimate
Yellow highlight | Page: 47
other functions of punishment themselves become problematic in the absence of retribution.
Note:L ARGOMENTO FORTE x LA RETR

Yellow highlight | Page: 47
extremely mild punishments for major crimes or extremely harsh punishments for minor crimes.
Note:PARADOSSO DETERRENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 47
The concept of Desert is the only connecting link between punishment and justice.
Note:LEWIS

Yellow highlight | Page: 48
someone guilty even of a minor and nonviolent offense could in principle be taken into custody indefinitely, for as long as we think it will take us to cure him.
Note:ALTRO PARADOSSO

Yellow highlight | Page: 48
Catechism of the Catholic Church endorses the primacy of retribution:
Note:CATECGISMO E PRIMATO

Yellow highlight | Page: 49
Public authority
Note:tttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 52
Capital punishment
Note:tttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 52
The death penalty and retributive justice
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 52
1. Wrongdoers deserve punishment.      2. The graver the wrongdoing, the severer is the punishment deserved.      3. Some crimes are so grave that no punishment less than death would be proportionate in its severity.      4. Therefore, wrongdoers guilty of such crimes deserve death.      5. Public authorities have the right, in principle, to inflict on wrongdoers the punishments they deserve.      6. Therefore, public authorities have the right, in principle, to inflict the death penalty on those guilty of the gravest offenses.
Note:L ARGOMENTO PER LA PENA DI MORTE

Yellow highlight | Page: 56
The death penalty and the other purposes of punishment
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 57
But if retribution is a necessary aim of punishment, is it also sufficient?
Note:NECESSARIO E SUFFICIENTE

Yellow highlight | Page: 57
Aquinas stresses especially the value of capital punishment in incapacitating
Note:PER TOM PM HA ANCHE DETERRENZA E INCAPACITa

Yellow highlight | Page: 59
a further benefit of capital punishment is that, precisely because of its supreme gravity, it can uniquely reinforce our sense of the transcendent source
Note:ALTRO BENEFICIO DI PM

Yellow highlight | Page: 59
enhance the dignity of the criminal law,
Yellow highlight | Page: 60
To “excite horror” of such crimes
Yellow highlight | Page: 60
reinforce within society a horror of especially heinous crimes
Yellow highlight | Page: 60
proclamation: that murder is intolerable.
Yellow highlight | Page: 61
Replies to some common objections
Note:tttttttt Ob DELL INCOERENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 61
1. “Capital punishment violates the right to life.”
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 61
capital punishment contradict themselves by advocating the death penalty for murderers.
Note:OBIEZIONE DELL INCOERENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 61
it is wrong to kill an innocent person.
Note:PRECISIAMO.. FORSE CHE NN ESSERE SEQUESTR IN UNA CELLA NN È N DIRITTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 63
2. “Capital punishment is an affront to human dignity.”
Note:ttttttttt OB DELLA DIGNITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 63
it might be argued, along Kantian lines, that capital punishment treats an offender purely as a means
Note:OB DI KANT

Yellow highlight | Page: 63
But imprisonment and other punishments also involve interfering with a rational agent’s freedom.
Note:PRIMA RISPOSTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 64
Kantian concerns about the dignity of persons could just as well (and indeed, we think more plausibly) be said to tell in favor of capital punishment.
Note:DANDO QUEL XHE SI MERITA NOI NN LO TRATTIAMO COME UN BOMBO

Yellow highlight | Page: 65
3. “Capital punishment erodes respect for human life.”
Note:tttttttttt OB DEL CICLO

Yellow highlight | Page: 65
even if murderers deserve to die, we only perpetuate the “cycle of violence” if we kill them.
Note:IL CICLO DELLA VIOLENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 65
it would be a good objection to any other punishment. It is like saying that imprisoning kidnappers further erodes respect for human freedom,
Note:PRIMA RISPOSTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 66
4. “Capital punishment is motivated by vengeance.”
Note:TTTTTTTTTT OB DELLA VENDETTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 66
Words such as “vengeance”, “revenge”, and so forth are ambiguous.
Note:LA VENDETTA È UNA VIRTÙ

Yellow highlight | Page: 66
an animus against punishment as such. When I gingerly introduced the subject of Hell,
Note:CONTRO L INFERNO

Yellow highlight | Page: 67
If punishment is never retributive, the human race in all countries and ages has been the sport of a strange illusion.
Note:LA STRANA ILLUSIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 70
5. “Capital punishment does not deter.”
Note:TTTTTTTTT OB DETERRENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 70
Steven Goldberg
Yellow highlight | Page: 70
if] the death penalty deters, it is likely that it does so through society’s saying that certain acts are so unacceptable that society will kill one who commits them; the individual internalizes
Note:LE VIE CHE SEGUE LA DETERRENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 70
James Fitzjames Stephen:
Yellow highlight | Page: 71
Hundreds of thousands abstain from it because they regard it with horror.
Note:NN PER CALCOLO MA X TABÙ

Yellow highlight | Page: 71
it is not fundamental.
Note:DETERRENZA FUNZIONE SECONDARIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 71
Social opprobrium
Yellow highlight | Page: 72
Even if we do not know whether the death penalty deters, we should still “bet” that it does. For if it does deter and we fail to make use of it, then this failure will result in the deaths of innocent people,
Note:MEGLIO AMMAZZARE UN COLPEVOLE CHE UN INNOCENTE

Yellow highlight | Page: 72
good a priori reasons
Yellow highlight | Page: 73
6. “Capital punishment removes the possibility of reform.”
Note:tttttttttt OB DELLA TABULA

Yellow highlight | Page: 73
especially powerful by Catholic opponents of the death penalty.
Note:STRANO FASCINO

Yellow highlight | Page: 73
the good that might be afforded the offender if he is not executed has to be balanced against the evil that others might suffer
Note:MORS TUA VITA MEA

Yellow highlight | Page: 73
He might repent of his evil in the time remaining
Note:PENTIMENTO SEMPRE POSSIBILE

Yellow highlight | Page: 73
Many criminals are, after all, only hardened in evildoing by their time in prison
Note:LA PRIGIONE NN TI MIGLIORA

Yellow highlight | Page: 74
the prospect of imminent execution can actually facilitate an evildoer’s repentance.
Note:PENTIMENTO FACILITATO

Yellow highlight | Page: 74
A wrongdoer cannot truly be rehabilitated until he comes to acknowledge the gravity of his offense. But the gravity of an offense is more manifest when the punishments for that offense reflect its gravity—
Note:LA PM COME AIUTO A PENTIRSI

Yellow highlight | Page: 74
if a potential murderer is deterred by the prospect of capital punishment from committing a horrendous crime in the first place, then we have, as it were, preemptively “reformed” him.
Note:DETERRENZA COME PENTIMENTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 75
7. “Who are we to think we have the authority to take someone’s life.”
Note:ttttt OB AUTOEITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 77
8. “An innocent person wrongly executed cannot get his life back.”
Note:ttttttt OB DELL INNOCENTE

Yellow highlight | Page: 77
it obviously has no force in cases where there is no room for doubt about guilt,
Note:LASCIA INTOCCHI MOLTI CASI

Yellow highlight | Page: 77
a similar objection could be raised against other harsh punishments.
Note:SECONDA RISPOSTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 77
Third, if the death penalty has deterrence value, then we also risk the lives of innocent people if we do not have capital punishment.
Note:TERZA RISP

Yellow highlight | Page: 78
Rival ethical theories
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 78
Kant on capital punishment
Note:ttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 78
If [someone] has committed a murder, he must die. In this case, there is no substitute that will satisfy the requirements of legal justice.
Note:ANCORA PIÙ SPIETATO

Yellow highlight | Page: 79
There is nothing in the traditional natural law theorist’s position that entails that we must execute offenders who deserve death.
Note:PIÙ SPIETATO

Yellow highlight | Page: 79
Consequentialism and proportionalism
Note:tttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 79
The utilitarian theories of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
Note:PADRI

Yellow highlight | Page: 79
Consequentialist arguments could be given and have been given both for capital punishment and against it. Bentham was against it; Mill supported it.
Note:NEUTRALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 80
“forward-looking”
Note:QUEL CHE CONTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 80
there is no limit in principle to what we might do either to the guilty or to the innocent.
Note:PARADOSSO DELLE CONSEGUENZE

Yellow highlight | Page: 80
New Natural Law theory (NNLT)
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Page: 80
its proponents do seek to be faithful to the Magisterium
Note:TRATTASI DI CATTOLICI

Yellow highlight | Page: 81
NNLT proponents, by contrast, tend to endorse the Humean fact-value dichotomy.
Note:LA DIFFERENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 81
“ought” cannot be derived from an “is”.
Yellow highlight | Page: 81
metaphysical analysis of human nature.
Note:CIÒ CHE SI RESPINGE

Yellow highlight | Page: 81
not endorse Hume’s verdict in his Treatise of Human Nature that “the rules of morality. . . are not conclusions of our reason.”
Note:MA SI NEGA LA CONCLUSIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 81
NNLT tries to solve this problem by recourse to a theory of practical reason.
Note:ALTERNATIVA PROPOSTA: LA RAGIONE PRATICA

Yellow highlight | Page: 81
reason oriented towards action, grasps as self-evidently desirable
Note:SENSO COMUNE

Yellow highlight | Page: 81
life and health; knowledge and aesthetic experience; skilled work and play; friendship; marriage;
Note:ESEMPI

Yellow highlight | Page: 82
“agent-centered”.
Note:LA NUOVA TEORIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 82
“third-person”,
Note:LA TRADIZIONE PROIETTATA ALL ESTERNO

Yellow highlight | Page: 82
agent knows
Note:NEO NATURALISMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 82
goods are self-evidently
Note:PROSPETTIVA RINNOVATA

Yellow highlight | Page: 82
“subjective”
Note:SOGGETTIVITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 82
“subjective” in the sense that it is from the agent’s introspection
Note:INTROSPEZIONE KANTIANA

Yellow highlight | Page: 82
self-evident
Yellow highlight | Page: 82
One implication of this is that what Tollefsen calls the good of “harmony with God” cannot be regarded as higher than other basic goods such as “friendship”,
Note:IMPLICAZIONE IMBARAZZANTE?

Yellow highlight | Page: 83
“a theory of natural law without needing to advert to the question of God’s existence or nature or will”
Note:FINNIS

Yellow highlight | Page: 84
NNLT proponent John Finnis regards the political order as having only “instrumental” value, serving to promote the private good
Note:INDIVIDUALISMO … LA SOCIETÀ NN TRASCENDE L NINDIVIDUO

Yellow highlight | Page: 84
Punishment restores the proper distribution of advantages
Note:LA PUNIZIONE X NNLT

Yellow highlight | Page: 85
the offender harms himself by acting unjustly,
Note:NELLA VISIONE DI TOMMASO

Yellow highlight | Page: 85
the intentional killing of a person involves acting directly against the basic good of life.
Note:NNLT CONDANNA LA PENA DI MORTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 85
capital punishment involves such intentional killing,
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 86
owing more to the liberalism and individualism of Hobbes, Locke, and Kant than to the natural law political tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas.
Note:PERICOLOSI LIBERALI

Yellow highlight | Page: 86
excessively subjectivist
Note:CRITICA

Yellow highlight | Page: 87
the NNLT list of basic goods (which varies somewhat from writer to writer) is arbitrary and ad hoc, formulated precisely so as to guarantee that certain desired conclusions will be reached
Note:LA CRITICA PIÙ SERIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 87
1. Does the NNLT in fact entail that capital punishment is intrinsically immoral?
Note:ttttttttttt OB INCOERENZA 1

Yellow highlight | Page: 87
even if we were to accept the NNLT, it is not clear that a condemnation of capital punishment as inherently immoral really does follow
Note:UNA CONDANNA INCOERENTE

Yellow highlight | Page: 87
Finnis at one time defended capital punishment
Yellow highlight | Page: 88
2. Is the NNLT approach to capital punishment coherent?
Note:TTTTTTTTTT

Yellow highlight | Page: 88
the principles of desert and proportionality entail the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. Hence, if the NNLT advocate accepts these principles, he has to accept the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment.
Note:INCOERENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 89
NNLT advocate Christopher Tollefsen has argued that while “instrumental goods” such as “liberty and money” may be taken away from an offender as a proportionate punishment for an offense, a “basic or intrinsic” good such as human life cannot be.
Note:DIFESA NNLT...LA VITA COME BENE SPECIALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 89
Tollefsen asserts that “human beings have intrinsic dignity”,
Yellow highlight | Page: 89
a “sacred or inviolable quality”.
Yellow highlight | Page: 89
life by itself cannot be what gives human beings their dignity; plants and nonhuman animals also have life,
Note:OBOEZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 90
our liberty flows from the rationality and free choice
Note:CIÒ CHE CI DÀ DIGNITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 90
Yet Tollefsen regards this liberty as a “merely instrumental
Note:XCHÈ DARE ALLA VITA PIÙ VALORE CHE ALLA LIBERTA?

Yellow highlight | Page: 91
Tollefsen insists that just punishment, in particular, ought to be construed as political rather than metaphysical.
Note:TOLFSEN... OB DELKA POLITICA

Yellow highlight | Page: 92
The trouble with the traditional natural law position we defend, in Tollefsen’s view, is that it is metaphysical,
Note:ACCUSA DI METAFISICISMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 93
we do indeed deeply disagree with Tollefsen over matters of general political philosophy.
Note:MA IL DISACCORDO È PROPRIO POLITICO.

Yellow highlight | Page: 93
settling these matters is not in fact essential to the dispute
Note:LA METAFISICA È IRRILEVANTE SUL PUNTO PM

Yellow highlight | Page: 94
3. Is the NNLT position on capital punishment compatible with Catholic teaching?
Note:TTTTTTTTTT OB ORTODOSSIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 94
NNLT writers claim that capital punishment is immoral not merely under certain circumstances, but intrinsically immoral, always and in principle immoral. Yet Scripture, Tradition, and the popes not only have never taught this, but have consistently denied it.
ERESIA@@@@@@@@@