TUTTO In Defense of Flogging Peter Moskos

In Defense of Flogging

Peter Moskos

Last annotated on Monday September 4, 2017

75 Highlight(s) | 77 Note(s)

Yellow highlight | Location: 12

crazy idea

Yellow highlight | Page: 1

There are 2.3 million Americans in prison. That is too many. I want to reduce cruelty, and flogging may be the answer.
Note:CRUDELTÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 2

Given the choice between five years in prison and ten brutal lashes, which would you choose?
Note:DOMANDA.

Yellow highlight | Page: 4

Taking away a large portion of somebody’s life through incarceration is a strange concept, especially if it’s rooted not in actual punishment but rather in some hogwash about making you a better person (more on that later). But what about prison itself? Prison is first and foremost a home of involuntary confinement, a “total institution” of complete dominance and regulation.
Note:PRIGIONE... UNA DEFINIZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 5

even if you’re adamant that flogging is a barbaric, inhuman form of punishment, how can offering the choice be so bad? If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. So what’s the harm in offering corporal punishment as an alternative to incarceration?
Note:OFFRIRE UNA SCELTA COME PASSO INTERMEDIO

Yellow highlight | Page: 6

Prisons don’t work, but unfortunately neither does traditional opposition to them. Without more radical debate, preachers for prison reform will never be heard beyond the choir. There is no shortage of ideas on such things as rehab, job training, indeterminate sentencing, restorative justice, prison survival, and reentry.
Note:LA PRIGIONE NON FUNGE... L UNICO MODO CHE I RIFORMATORI HANNO PER ESSERE ASCOLTAT DAI CONSERVATORI

Yellow highlight | Page: 7

Flogging may indeed be barbaric, but maybe barbarism has a bad rap.
Note:LA CATTIVA REPUTAZIONE DELLE BARBARIE

Yellow highlight | Page: 8

I don’t want to add caning to an already brutal system of prison; instead, I propose an alternative to incarceration, what might be called “flog-and-release.”
Note:ALTERNATIVA NON AGGIUNTA... SIA CHIARO

Yellow highlight | Page: 9

Ten lashes, a little rubbing alcohol, a few bandages, and you’d be free to go home and sleep in your own bed.
Note:DI COSA PARLIAMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 9

Consider the case of Aaron Cohen, a New Zealander arrested with his drug-addicted mother for possessing heroin in Malaysia.
Note:UN CASO IN MALAYSYA

Yellow highlight | Page: 10

It’s just incredible pain. More like a burning—like someone sticking an iron on your bum. . . . Afterwards my bum looked like a side of beef. There was three lines of raw skin with blood oozing out. . . . . You can’t sleep and can only walk like a duck. Your whole backside is three or four times bigger—swollen, black and blue. I made a full recovery within a month and am left with only slight scarring. Emotionally, I’m okay. I haven’t had any nightmares about that day, although I’m starting to dream about the prison.
Note:TESTIMONIANZA. 6 FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 10

you’d be led into a room where an attending physician would conduct an examination to make sure you’re physically fit enough to be flogged, that you won’t die under the intense shock of the cane.
Note:PRE VISITA

Yellow highlight | Page: 11

The punishment would not be a public spectacle but would not be closed to the public. There would be perhaps a dozen spectators, including bailiffs and other representatives of the court, a lawyer, a doctor, perhaps a court reporter, and maybe a few relatives of both parties, including the victim.
Note:SPETTATORI

Yellow highlight | Page: 11

the guard takes down your pants and adds a layer of padding over your back (to protect vital organs from errant strokes), the flogging would begin.
Note:IL PARAPALLE X PROTEGGERE ORGANI VITALI

Yellow highlight | Page: 12

the skin at the point of contact is usually split open and, after three strokes, the buttocks will be covered with blood. All the strokes prescribed by the court . . . are given at one and the same time, at half minute intervals. . . . . The stroke follows the count, and the succeeding count is usually made about half a minute after the stroke has landed. Most of the prisoners put up a violent struggle after each of the first three strokes. Mr. Quek [the prison director] said: “After that, their struggles lessen as they become weaker. At the end of the caning, those who receive more than three strokes will be in a state of shock. Many will collapse, but the medical officer and his team of assistants are on hand to revive them and apply antiseptic on the caning wound.”
Note:SINGAPORE

Yellow highlight | Page: 13

once they’ve patched you up, you’d be allowed to leave the courthouse a free man—no striped pajamas, no gangs, no learning from other criminals, no fear. You’d never have to find out what the inside of a prison is like.
Note:I VANTAGGI DELLE FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 15

The prison-abolition movement seems to have died right after a 1973 Presidential Advisory Commission said, “No new institutions for adults should be built, and existing institutions for juveniles should be closed,” and concluded, “The prison, the reformatory and the jail have achieved only a shocking level of failure.” Since then, even though violent crime in America has gone down, the incarceration rate has increased a whopping 500 percent.
Note:LA CONTRADDIZIONE: IL CARCERE FALLISCE MA SI COSTRUISCONO PIÙ CARCERI

Yellow highlight | Page: 16

To understand the uselessness of incarceration—to appreciate just how specious the connection between increased incarceration and decreased crime really is—consider New York City. Not only did New York drastically cut crime, it did so while incarcerating fewer people.
Note:UTILITÀ DEL CARCERE... L ESEMPIO DI NY

Yellow highlight | Page: 17

Better policing and massive immigration—not increased incarceration—contributed to New York’s crime drop. In the 1990s the NYPD got back in the crime prevention game: Drug dealers were pushed indoors, and crack receded in general. Also, police focused on quality-of-life issues, the so-called “broken windows.” At the same time more than one million foreign immigrants moved to New York City. Whether due to a strong work ethic, fear of deportation, traditional family values, or having the desire and means to emigrate in the first place, immigrants (nationwide and in New York City) have lower rates of crime and incarceration than native-born Americans. Astoundingly, today more than one in three New Yorkers are foreign born. Although policing in New York City deservedly received a lot of credit for the city’s crime drop, strangely, few people credit immigrants and almost nobody seemed to notice the winning strategy of “decarceration.”
Note:LE SOLUZIONI DI NY

Yellow highlight | Page: 18

From 1970 to 1991 crime rose while we locked up a million more people.
Note:PERIODO 70 91

Yellow highlight | Page: 18

One reason prison doesn’t reduce crime is that many prison-worthy offenses—especially drug crimes—are economically demand-motivated. This doesn’t change when a drug dealer is locked up.
Note:RAGIONI DEL FALLIMENTO... MOLTI CRIMINI SONO DEMAND DRIVEN

Yellow highlight | Page: 19

Prison reformers—and I wish them well—tinker at the edges of a massive failed system. I’m all for what are called “intermediate sanctions”: House monitoring, GPS bracelets, intensive parole supervision, fines, restitution, drug courts, and day-reporting centers all show promise and deserve our full support. But we need much more drastic action. To bring our incarceration back to a civilized level—one we used to have and much more befitting a rich, modern nation—we would have to reduce the number of prisoners by 85 percent.
Note:RIFORMISTI

Note | Page: 19

IL RIFORMISMO NON INCIDE

Note | Page: 20

OBBIETTIVO 85%

Yellow highlight | Page: 20

We could legalize and regulate drugs and also get soft on crime, but that’s also not likely to happen anytime soon.
Note:DEPENALIZZAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 20

we could offer the lash in exchange for sentence years, after the approval of some parole board designed to keep the truly dangerous behind bars. As a result, our prison population would plummet. This would not only save money but save prisons for those who truly deserve to be there: the uncontrollably dangerous.
Note:PRIGIONI A CHI SE LE MERITA

Yellow highlight | Page: 21

Bernard Madoff, famously convicted in 2009 for running a massive Ponzi scheme, is being incarcerated and costing the public even more money. Why? He’s no threat to society. Nobody would give him a penny to invest. But Madoff did wrong and deserves to be punished. Better to cane him and let him go.

Note | Page: 21

CHI NN PUÒ RIPETERE IL CRIMINE... PRIMO CANDIDATO ALLE FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 21

imagine being the victim of a violent mugging. The last thing you remember before slipping into unconsciousness is the mugger pissing on you and laughing. Such things happen. Luckily, police catch the bastard, and he is quickly convicted. What should happen next? What if there were some way to reform this violent criminal without punishing him? In Sleeper, Woody Allen’s futuristic movie from the 1970s, there’s a device like a small walk-in closet called the “orgasmatron.” A person goes in and closes the door, lights flash, and three seconds later, well . . . that’s why they call it the orgasmatron. Now imagine, if you will, a device similar to the orgasmatron called the “reformatron.” It’s the perfect rehabilitation machine for criminals.
Note:X CAPIRE L IMPORTANZA DELLA PUNIZIONE RETRIBUTIVA... INTROSPEZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 22

The cured criminal thanks God, kisses his baby’s mother, and walks out of the courtroom a free man to go home, relax, and think about job possibilities.
Note:c

Yellow highlight | Page: 22

the concept is disturbingly lacking in justice.
Note:ccccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 23

even among those who know the death penalty does not deter crime, support for the death penalty still runs three to one. Deterrence and punishment are separate issues. Punishment is about retribution.
Note:PENA DI MORTE

Note | Page: 23

LA DETERRENZA NON È GIUSTIZIA... ESEMPIO PENA DI MORTE

Yellow highlight | Page: 23

In an ironic twist, we designed the prison system to replace flogging. The penitentiary was supposed to be a kinder and gentler sentence, one geared to personal salvation, less crime, and a better life for all.
Note:L OBIETTIVO INIZIALE DEIL SISTEMA PUNITIVO

Yellow highlight | Page: 24

Before we had prisons, harsh confinement was used alongside corporal punishment. But such incarceration generally had another purpose, such as holding a person until trial, or until a debt was paid. Confinement was a means to an end:
Note:DAPPRIMA FU PUNIZIONE.... IL RINCHIUDERE ERA SOLO UN MEZZO... RETRIBUZIONE FUNZIONE PRIMARIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 27

Today we know that prisons are not hospitals for the criminally ill (though prisons do house many mentally ill people, to horrible effect). At the time, however, many people hoped that we could purge criminality from a person’s system. The mantra of reformers became “treat not the crime, but the criminal.”
Note:I PRIMI RIFORMISTI... PRIGIONE COME OSPEDALE... CACCIARE IL DEMONE E RIEDUCARE... IL CARCERE DIVENTA NECESSARIO

Yellow highlight | Page: 28

Cesare Beccaria, an Italian politician and philosopher, came up with the idea of deterrence in his 1764 Essay on Crimes and Punishments. Beccaria transformed theories of criminality. Contrary to popular beliefs, Beccaria posited that the Devil himself did not actually possess criminals. Instead, said Beccaria, people have free will to act rationally
Note:BECCARIA: STOP PRIGIONE OSPEDALE E VIA PRIGIONE DETERRENZA... SECONDA CORRENTE RIFORMISTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 28

Despite the difficulties of putting Beccaria’s theories into practice, these notions of deterrence and crime prevention form the basis of what is now known as the classical school of criminology.
Note:SCUOLA CLASSICA DI CRIMINOLOGIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 29

In America the British system of execution and harsh flogging gave way to what was supposed to be a softer and reforming system of penitentiaries.
Note:IL RIFORMISMO COMINCIA LA SUA MARCIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 30

Based on Howard’s vision, a small jail in Wymondham, England, was rebuilt in 1787 on the principles of hard labor, solitary confinement, and penance (hence the name “penitentiary”).
Note:I RIFORMISMI CONVERGONO: RIEDUCAZIONE CALVINISTA E DETERRENZA BECCARIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 31

So in 1787 the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons was established by Quaker-raised Benjamin Rush. The Society condemned the jails and public punishments of its time, proposing that isolating prisoners in solitary cells would be more effective than flogging. The key to this belief is a firm and paternalistic conviction that crime is a moral disease.
Note:RIFORMISTI: CONDANNA DELLA PUNIZIONE PUBBLICA... ALTERNATIVA: PENITENZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 32

Bentham’s Panopticon, written the same year Rush established the Prison Society, offered “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example . . . all by a simple idea in Architecture!”
Note:BENTHAM E LA SORVEGLIANZA DEI PENITENTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 36

With a half loaf of bread a day for weeks, this “humane” replacement to flogging literally starved men into submission.
Note:COSA HA RIMPIAZZATO LA FRUSTATA?… BUONE INTENZIONI FINITE MALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 40

The goal, prison commissioners said, was to keep prisoners so isolated that if they were in prison on election night, they wouldn’t know who was president of the United States
Note:ISOLARE ISOLARE ISOLARE

Yellow highlight | Page: 48

Martinson’s national fame came later, with a multiauthored, 735-page tome rather academically titled The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment: A Survey of Treatment Evaluation Studies
Note:NOTHING WORKS

Yellow highlight | Page: 48

His 1974 Public Interest article on the subject, “What Works?,” became known in policy circles as “Nothing Works!”
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 49

Like many reformers, Martinson just wanted effective rehabilitation. But unlike many reformers, Martinson was brutally honest about existing failures.
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 50

even societies that gleefully hurt others rarely if ever placed a human being in a cell for punishment.
Note:NEANCHE LE SOCIETÀ PIÙ CRUDELI HANNO MAI PRODOTTO PRIGIONI

Yellow highlight | Page: 51

Prison is an insidious marriage of entombment and torture. Not only are inmates immured in prison, they are also subjected to never-ending physical and mental agony.
Note:TOMBA E TERTURA

Yellow highlight | Page: 52

Approximately one in twenty prison inmates say they’ve been sexually assaulted
Note:SEX ASSAULT

Yellow highlight | Page: 54

Without gang protection or a long-term committment to solitary confinement, the danger of sexual assault is ever-present.
Note:GANG PROTACTION

Yellow highlight | Page: 56

If you’re stuck in prison, why wouldn’t you take drugs? What else are you going to do?
Note:DROGHE E ALTRI ABUSI

Yellow highlight | Page: 61

In jail people naturally fulfill the role expected of them. Consider Philip Zimbardo’s notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.
Note:AD OGNUNO IL SUO RUOLO

Yellow highlight | Page: 62

Of the more than seven hundred thousand prisoners released each year, two-thirds are rearrested within three years, and half end up back in prison.
Note:RECIDIVA DI MASSA

Yellow highlight | Page: 62

Part of the problem is that not only do prisons not “cure” crime, they’re truly criminogenic:
Note:CURA CRIMINOGENA

Yellow highlight | Page: 67

It’s a sad day when the best-case scenario after getting out of jail is being homeless—but this is reality.
Note:DA CARCERATO A BARBONE... SE VA BENE

Yellow highlight | Page: 77

The survival of mass incarceration can be traced, in no small degree, to the same kinds of economic pressures that once drove slavery itself. Incarceration is a business.
Note:L AFFARE DELLE CARCERI

Yellow highlight | Page: 79

In truth, private prisons rarely save much money. The savings that do exist come mostly from labor; the average pay in private prisons is three-quarters of that found in public prisons.
Note:IL RISPARMIO DEI PRIVATI

Yellow highlight | Page: 86

we have adapted prisons to confine our mentally ill,
Note:UNA SOLUZIONE AI MALATI MENTALI

Yellow highlight | Page: 92

Sometime in the past few decades we seem to have lost the concept of justice in a free society. Now we settle for simple efficiency of process.
Note:MENO EFFICIENZA PIÙ GIUSTIZIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 93

Although the prison system is unarguably broken, many people have yet to acknowledge that the problem is the system itself and not just the way it’s run.
Note:MOLTI INSISTONO A VOLER SALVARE IL SISTEMA

Yellow highlight | Page: 94

No matter how tough we get, because prisons do not punish in a comprehensible manner, incarceration will never satisfy the public’s legitimate desire for punishment.
Note:LA PUNIZIONE DEL CARCERE È INCOMPRENSIBILE

Yellow highlight | Page: 99

If prisons are broken, then so, too, is prison reform.
Note:RIFORME IN PANNE

Yellow highlight | Page: 109

In twenty-first-century America, could we have court-sanctioned flogging? It’s unclear, but it’s not currently prohibited. The Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on the matter, and until it does, we should assume it’s constitutional.
Note:FRUSTARE È COSTITUZIONALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 111

To flog with consent is key.
Note:PARTICOLARE DEL CONSEENSO

Yellow highlight | Page: 113

If you think flogging lets people off too easily, we could debate the appropriate number of lashes.
Note:TROPPO POCA DETERRENZA? DISCUTIAMO IL NUMERO DELLE FRUSTATE

Yellow highlight | Page: 114

Violence may seem an unsavory alternative to prison, but punishment must by definition hurt in some way, be it emotionally, psychologically, monetarily, or physically. Punishment must cause pain.
Note:ALA VIOLENZA VFISICA VI FA PAURA? IPOCRITI!

Yellow highlight | Page: 114

Physical violence has the advantage of being honest, inexpensive, and easy to understand.
Note:VIOLENZA FISICA... ONESTA ECONOMICA E FACILE DA CAPIRE

Yellow highlight | Page: 124

Along with a fondness for cricket and warm beer, the British exported the lash throughout their colonial empire (though we’ve moved on to baseball and cold beer).
Note:FRUSTATE IN STILE IMPERO... GLI ESPORTATORI

Yellow highlight | Page: 125

Both Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Committee criticize flogging as cruel, degrading, and contrary to human rights law.
Note:FRUSTARE... ATTO CONTRO I DIRITTI UMANI

Yellow highlight | Page: 129

At this point the more open-minded reader may like pain as punishment but dislike the symbolism and messiness of flogging.
Note:SOSTANZA E SIMBOLO

Yellow highlight | Page: 129

A machine, perhaps much more than a person, could guarantee consistency of pain
Note:RICORSO ALLE MACCHINE?

Yellow highlight | Page: 130

Consider this 1898 New York Times account of an “electric spanking chair”
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Page: 135

Flogging is indeed very harsh, but it’s not torture—not
Note:NO TORTURA

Yellow highlight | Page: 138

Flogging is refreshingly transparent and honest.
Note:ONESTÀ.... PER QS MEGLIO EVITARE LE MACCHINE

Yellow highlight | Page: 143

Immediacy, proportionality, transparency, and choice are all critical components
Note:COMPONENTI CRITICHE DELLA PENA CORPORALE #####

Yellow highlight | Page: 144

Some offenders do need to be incarcerated and kept away from society. But for the vast majority of criminal suspects, flogging would be a viable option.
Note:FILTRARE I CRIMINALI... SOLO ALCUNI SONO ADATTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 147

Flogging is not a slippery step toward amputation, public stoning, or sharia law. This is not the first step on a path to hell.
Note:ATTENZIONE AL.PIANO INCLINATO

Yellow highlight | Page: 153

the moral qualms, the spattered blood, lawsuits, policy details, and a certain retrograde feeling to the whole proposition.
ELEMENTI TRASCURATI

Cattolici e pena di morte

Chi pensa che sia legittimo punire il criminale e allo stesso tempo che la punizione debba essere proporzionale al danno procurato con quel crimine, allora non puo’ pensare alla pena di morte come a qualcosa di intrinsecamente illegittimo. Punto.

E’ da qui che parte la difesa della pena di morte fatta dal cattolico Edward Feser.

Si parte ricordando le tre funzioni della pena: 1) far giustizia 2) correggere 3) produrre deterrenza…

… Traditionally, the aims of punishment are threefold: retribution, or inflicting on a wrongdoer a harm he has come to deserve because of his offense; correction, or chastising the wrongdoer for the sake of getting him to change his ways; and deterrence, discouraging others from committing the same offense…

Ma “fare giustizia” resta la funzione fondamentale…

… it also means that retribution— inflicting a harm that is deserved— must always be part of any act of punishment, even if it is not the only part….

In altri termini: se una pena giusta non puo’ correggere, noi la applichiamo lo stesso. Se una pena giusta non produce deterrenza, noi la applichiamo lo stesso.

D’altro canto: se una pena ingiusta corregge, noi la evitiamo. Se una pena ingiusta crea un’adeguata deterrenza, noi non la applichiamo.

Per questi motivi possiamo concludere che la funzione retributiva è la funzione fondamentale.

La punizione giusta è proporzionale alle colpe…

… Now, what a wrongdoer deserves as punishment is a harm proportionate to his offense…

A volte la proporzionalità è impossibile, ma non per questo il principio si estingue…

… Sometimes inflicting such punishments would be impossible (a mass murderer cannot be executed multiple times), or would do more harm than good…

La proporzionalità impossibile deriva da un limite intrinseco alla severità delle pene materialmente comminabili, il che rende evidente il perché la sua presenza non sia limitante nel nostro caso: chi si oppone alla pena di morte lo fa perché la ritiene troppo severa, non troppo poco severa.

Alcuni fanno notare che la precisione nella proporzionalità è sempre dubbia, ma anche qui il principio non è scalfito…

…Even if it were claimed that a single murder would not merit it, it is not difficult to imagine crimes that would. Ten murders? Ten murders coupled with the rape and torture of the victims? Genocide? If wrongdoers deserve punishment and the punishment ought to be proportional to the offense, then at some point we are going to reach a level of criminality for which capital punishment is appropriate at least in principle…

Se un omicidio non vi basta per infliggere la pena di morte, optate pure per dieci omicidi, il principio della sua legittimità resta.

Il fatto che la pena di morte sia legittima in principio non significa che sia opportuna in pratica…

… Obviously, questions might be raised about whether capital punishment is advisable in practice, even if it is allowable in principle…

I cattolici che si oppongono alla pena di morte lo fanno in nome della salvaguardia della dignità umana…

… appeals to what he calls the “Essential Dignity View” of human beings, according to which “human beings… possess dignity, or excellence, in virtue of the kind of being they are… On this basis, Tollefsen concludes that “it is always wrong intentionally to kill a human person,”… Tollefsen notes that a defender of capital punishment might claim that a guilty person has lost his dignity. But the defender certainly need not say this…

Chi si oppone dice: “chi è a favore implicitamente afferma che il colpevole non ha più una sua dignità umana”.

Sbagliato. Al contrario, considerare il colpevole una persona libera e responsabile implica l’affermazione della sua dignità. Solo gli animali, infatti, non sono punibili…

… On the contrary, to regard a person as deserving of punishment is implicitly to affirmhis dignity as a human being, for it is to acknowledge that he has free will and moral responsibility, unlike a robot or a mere animal…

Il cattolico che si oppone si chiede: ma cosa merita la pena di morte?…

… Tollefsen also suggests that there are difficulties in determining which offenses merit capital punishment…

Qui siamo di nuovo sul tema della precisione: poiché è impossibile essere precisi, si sospenda il giudizio.

Ma ce lo si puo’ chiedere anche avendo in mente 15 anni di carcere, eppure questo non delegittima il carcere…

… We do not need to settle the question of whether an embezzler deserves fifteen years in prison or only ten in order to know that imprisonment as such can be a legitimate punishment…

Altra obiezione cattolica: come possiamo essere per la pena di morte e contro l’aborto?

Innocenza e colpevolezza della vittima fanno la differenza, è abbastanza evidente…

…What is intrinsically wrong is the intentional killing of an innocent human being. That is why, contrary to what Tollefsen insinuates, those who oppose abortion and euthanasia but support capital punishment are perfectly consistent in their thinking…

Tirando le somme, chi si oppone alla pena di morte ha solo un modo per farlo: rinnegare la proporzionalità della pena…

…The crimes of serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, or of genocidal dictators like Hitler or Stalin, are obviously far worse than those of someone guilty only of (say) a single, painless murder or treason. Given the principle of proportionality, then, they merit a harsher penalty. Of course, in practice, such a penalty might be impossible to inflict: there is no way to execute a Bundy or a Hitler more than once. Hence, in practice, a sadistic mass murderer may end up receiving the same punishment as someone guilty of a single murder. On Tollefsen’s view, however, the worst of these offenses ought never, even in principle, to be punished more severely than the others; they do not entail a penalty proportional to their gravity…

In caso contrario, l’esito è l’incoerenza…

… In short, the legitimacy of punishment entails desert, and desert entails proportionality; hence, to deny proportionality is implicitly to deny desert, and thus to deny the legitimacy of punishment. Though Tollefsen affirms the legitimacy of punishment explicitly, he denies it implicitly insofar as he denies the principle of proportionality…

Eppure l’oppositore rivendica il fatto che ci siano atti intrinsecamente immorali…

… Rape, he correctly notes, is “intrinsically wrong” and thus “not available as an option for punishment…

Noi non stupriamo lo stupratore. Perché?

Vediamo più da vicino il caso dello stupratore…

… Rape, however, essentially involves several harms— there are the humiliation and bodily harm inflicted on the victim, but there is also the sexual perversion and sadism by which the rapist harms his own character. Now to indulge in such sexual perversion and sadism is intrinsically immoral; and therefore rape is intrinsically immoral, even if carried out as a punishment… the principle of proportionality… it implies, at most, only that a rapist deserves the humiliation and bodily harm he has inflicted on others…

Lo stupratore danneggia una vittima (stupro) e anche se stesso (perversione), la proporzionalità riguarda il primo danno, non il secondo; se nel punire in modo proporzionale il secondo effetto è evitabile, è giusto evitarlo: per questo non stupriamo lo stupratore ma ricorriamo ad altre pene che preservano la proporzionalità senza indulgere nella perversione e quindi creare ripercussioni spiacevoli su chi punisce. Nel caso dello stupro è possibile agire in questi termini. Al contrario, nel caso della pena di morte, la rinuncia ad infliggerla è una rinuncia alla proporzionalità.

Altro argomento degli oppositori: la vita è un bene primario…

… while “instrumental goods” such as “liberty and money” may be taken away from an offender in punishment for his offense, a “basic or intrinsic” good such as human life cannot be…

Risposta: la libertà forse no? Cos’è una vita senza libertà?…

… After all, life by itself can’t be what gives human beings their dignity; plants and non-human animals also have life, and yet Tollefsen would not deny that it is legitimate to kill them… Tollefsen regards this liberty as a “merely instrumental” good, the taking away of which is not contrary to human dignity!… Given that it is our capacity for rationality and free choice that affords us our special dignity, liberty of action would seem to be no less basic and intrinsic a good than life is…

Altra obiezione: ma se uccido non posso “correggere”…

… The reader writes: I would think that even if the retributive goal of punishment would prescribe death for the perpetrator, capital punishment could still be (and, I think, is) illegitimate in theory, let alone in practice, because it neutralizes the second goal of punishment, rehabilitation. It is in this sense -- neutralizing the possibility of rehabilitation -- that capital punishment seems to me to most completely attack the dignity of the criminals in that it robs from them any possibility of making amends for their crimes…

Risposta, la compatibilità non è richiesta, qui si rinvia al discorso della funzione retributiva come funzione primaria: noi incarceriamo anche gli incorreggibili…

… punishment has three purposes– retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence– does not entail that each of these purposes must be realized in a given act of punishment in order for that act to be morally legitimate. For example, we may justly imprison a recidivist thief even if we know from experience that he is extremely unlikely to change… the fact that a given act of capital punishment may not fulfill all of the ends of punishment does not by itself suffice to make that act morally illegitimate…

E poi: a volte, è proprio infliggendo una pena proporzionale che il colpevole prende atto della gravità delle proprie colpe…

… Second, while there is obviously a sense in which capital punishment can prevent rehabilitation, there is also a sense in which it actuallyfacilitates rehabilitation. How so? Consider first that 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… In short, a society in which capital punishment is at least on the books– in which it is at least officially acknowledged that those guilty of the worst crimes are deserving of death, even if that penalty is never in fact inflicted– is a society more likely to foster rehabilitation, not less likely… Moreover, merely having the death penalty on the books may be insufficient to convey the gravity of the worst crimes. An actual execution now and again may be necessary convey this gravity, and thus to facilitate rehabilitation…

Questo non significa che l’opera riabilitativa non sia un buon motivo per limitare l’uso della pena di morte.

Altra obiezione: con la pena di morte facciamo un’altra vittima, il boia…

… your article appears to forget the person responsible for carrying out the punishment, the executioner. I thought that you were headed in this direction when you mentioned not inflicting rape on rapists; it seems to me that, from a purely retributive perspective, the rapist might deserve rape. And the most compelling reason for not raping him is the effect on the humanity of the person responsible for carrying out the punishment. Similarly, throughout history, we have sought ways to minimize the effects of execution on the executioner…

E’ una variazione sul tema dello “stupro” affrontato sopra: giusto tenerne conto, finché non si pregiudica il principio di proporzionalità della pena…

… Capital punishment is just the taking of someone’s life, where the person has lost his right to that life. There is no additional factor involved that would give the act anything of the moral character of murder, in the way that raping a rapist would involve acts that have part of the moral character of rape…

Per esempio, il caso della tortura…

… What if we merely tortured the rapist, leaving the sexual aspect out…

Lecita in via di principio ma pericolosa e da evitare sempre poiché si puo’ farlo senza pregiudicare la proporzionalità della pena…

… I would say that he does deserve it, but I would agree that we should still not inflict such a punishment on him. Why not? The reason is that the moral hazards involved in such a practice are too great. Human beings naturally tend to recoil at inflicting pain on others or causing them bodily damage. The reason nature has given us such feelings is that it is, in general, good for us to avoid inflicting pain…

La pena di morte ci desensibilizza? Anche le operazioni chirurgiche, se è per questo…

… Since capital punishment is no more inherently wrong than surgery or police work are, neither is desensitizing oneself to executing the guilty any more inherently wrong than desensitizing oneself to performing heart surgery…

Passiamo ad un tema più psicologico: perché molti cattolici oggi si oppongono alla pena di morte?

Recentemente una seconda visione della legge naturale ha preso piede anche nel mondo cattolico (John Finnis ne è il maggior artefice)…

… On the one hand, there is what we might call the "traditional" or "classical" natural law theory, one of the key assumptions of which is that ethics crucially depends on certain traditional metaphysical theses, such as realism about universals (of the sort historically associated with Plato and Aristotle), a belief that there are final causes in nature, and so forth. On the other hand, we have what has come to be known as the "new natural law theory," which tries to reconstruct a broadly natural law approach to ethics without appealing to any of these metaphysical assumptions… John Finnis… For the “new natural law” approach, it isn’t that determining the content of morality crucially depends on knowing whether there really is a God or whether we really have immortal souls… rather, what is crucial is that we have a need for religious fulfillment of some broadly defined sort…

Secondo questa visione i precetti etici valgono indipendentemente dalla realtà metafisica sottostante.

I cattolici che si oppongono alla pena di morte credono in Dio ma scollegano la sua esistenza da molte riflessioni morali che conducono.

E’ possibile farlo, sia chiaro, ma imprudente poiché la cosa ha conseguenze impreviste, se non sul piano logico, su quello psicologico.

In particolare, se una vita terrena viene vista senza la sua dimensione ultraterrena potrebbe assumere un’ importanza persino eccessiva inducendo a giudizi distorti…

… Now if the “new natural law theory” is poorly interpreted as strictly entailing hostility to capital punishment, it is, as I suggested earlier, not too hard to see why its advocates might nevertheless be tempted to such hostility. If you limit yourself in your moral reasoning to this-worldly considerations, it is not surprising if you might inadvertently come to overestimate the value of life in this world… Life in this world cannot be a basic good, at least not in the sense required for Chris’s argument, if its point is preparation for life in the next world…

E’ un paradosso ma il materialista finisce per sovrastimare la vita umana: è tutto quel che ha!

In certi cattolici c’è un ateismo strisciante e un’idolatria della vita biologica fine a se stessa…

… While “new natural law” theorists are certainly not atheists, and while a commitment to theism is not strictly necessary to the moral defense of capital punishment, there does seem to be at least a psychological and sociological connection between hostility to capital punishment and a kind of “practical atheism,”… naturally tends to lead to a desire to extend the natural lifespan, even of murderers, as far as possible and at all costs…

Il concetto di natura umana è mutato nei secoli: per i moderni la vita biologica vale più della vita libera…

… The medievals emphasized individual guilt, and therefore individual responsibility. Moderns minimize or even deny individual responsibility or guilt, dissolving human agency into the nexus of physical causation, obsessing over our “collective responsibility” for this or that, and emphasizing “structural” rather than personal elements of justice and social life…

Da qui una certa ossessione per il concetto di dignità del vivente a prescindere…

… True, the rhetoric of “human dignity” has increased in modern times; indeed, modern people simply won’t shut up about it, even as they kill their own unborn children by the millions and live lives of depravity unimaginable to previous generations. If medieval people talked less about their own dignity, it is because they were more concerned about God’s dignity; if modern people talk more about it, it is because they are more concerned with themselves…

Anche per questo l’insegnamento tradizionale della Chiesa in tema di pena di morte è sempre stato per un’accettazione della sua piena legittimità…

… The constant teaching of the Church has always been, not only that capital punishment is in principle legitimate, but also that it is in principle legitimate precisely as a means of securing retributive justice…

Almeno fino alla svolta di Giovanni Paolo II…

… John Paul II’s views on this subject were a departure from traditional Catholic attitudes, which have always upheld not only the in-principle legitimacy of the death penalty, but also its appropriateness in many practical circumstances…

Una svolta a cui si sono fatte le pulci in modo autorevole…

… “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). I doubt whether the tradition is reversible at all, but even if it were, the reversal could hardly be accomplished by an incidental section in a long encyclical [i.e. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae] focused primarily on the defense of innocent human life. If the Pope were contradicting the tradition, one could legitimately question whether his statement outweighed the established teaching of so many past centuries.” (National Catholic Register March 24-31, 2002)…

… e convincente, se è vero come è vero che l’insegnamento del Papa è stato interpretato dai più solo come “prudenziale”…

… John Paul II’s view must be interpreted as a prudential judgment (with which, again, Dulles happens to agree)– a fallible application of traditional principles to contingent circumstances, not a denial of traditional principles…

In Defense of Capital Punishment edward feser

Notebook per

In Defense of Capital Punishment

edward feser

Citation (APA): feser, e. (2017). In Defense of Capital Punishment [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

---

Parte introduttiva

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 1

In Defense of Capital Punishment by Edward Feser

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 4

If one accepts the legitimacy of punishment and the principle of proportionality, then it is impossible to claim that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong.

Nota - Posizione 5

x MOTTO

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 9

capital punishment can be legitimate, at least in principle.

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 13

Traditionally, the aims of punishment are threefold: retribution, or inflicting on a wrongdoer a harm he has come to deserve because of his offense; correction, or chastising the wrongdoer for the sake of getting him to change his ways; and deterrence, discouraging others from committing the same offense.

Nota - Posizione 17

x LE TRE FUNZIONI

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 17

Retribution is necessarily the most fundamental.

Nota - Posizione 17

LA PIÙ IMPORTANTE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 25

it also means that retribution— inflicting a harm that is deserved— must always be part of any act of punishment, even if it is not the only part.

Nota - Posizione 26

x L UNICA FUNZIONE SEMPRE PRESENTE. CORREZ: CI SONO GLI INCORREGGIBILI. DETERRENZA: CI SONO I CASI UNICI

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 26

Now, what a wrongdoer deserves as punishment is a harm proportionate to his offense.

Nota - Posizione 27

x PROP

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 31

Sometimes inflicting such punishments would be impossible (a mass murderer cannot be executed multiple times), or would do more harm than good.

Nota - Posizione 32

x PROP IMPOSSIBILE... MA X ECCESSO

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 39

Even if it were claimed that a single murder would not merit it, it is not difficult to imagine crimes that would. Ten murders? Ten murders coupled with the rape and torture of the victims? Genocide? If wrongdoers deserve punishment and the punishment ought to be proportional to the offense, then at some point we are going to reach a level of criminality for which capital punishment is appropriate at least in principle.

Nota - Posizione 42

x TEN MURDER

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 45

Obviously, questions might be raised about whether capital punishment is advisable in practice, even if it is allowable in principle.

Nota - Posizione 47

x PRATICA E TEORIA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 53

appeals to what he calls the “Essential Dignity View” of human beings, according to which “human beings… possess dignity, or excellence, in virtue of the kind of being they are;

Nota - Posizione 55

x CHI SI OPPONE SI APPELLA ALLA DIGNITÀ

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 56

On this basis, Tollefsen concludes that “it is always wrong intentionally to kill a human person,”

Nota - Posizione 56

c

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 65

Tollefsen notes that a defender of capital punishment might claim that a guilty person has lost his dignity. But the defender certainly need not say this.

Nota - Posizione 67

x IL COLPEVOLE HA PERSO LA SUA DIGNITÀ

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 67

On the contrary, to regard a person as deserving of punishment is implicitly to affirmhis dignity as a human being, for it is to acknowledge that he has free will and moral responsibility, unlike a robot or a mere animal.

Nota - Posizione 69

x PUNIRE È DARE DIGNITÁ

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 77

Tollefsen also suggests that there are difficulties in determining which offenses merit capital punishment

Nota - Posizione 78

x COSA MERITA PM?

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 79

We do not need to settle the question of whether an embezzler deserves fifteen years in prison or only ten in order to know that imprisonment as such can be a legitimate punishment.

Nota - Posizione 81

x NN NECESSARIO

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 90

What is intrinsically wrong is the intentional killing of an innocent human being. That is why, contrary to what Tollefsen insinuates, those who oppose abortion and euthanasia but support capital punishment are perfectly consistent in their thinking.

Nota - Posizione 93

x ABORTO E PM

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 106

Punishment, Proportionality, and the Death Penalty: A Reply to Chris Tollefsen

Nota - Posizione 106

T

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 129

The crimes of serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, or of genocidal dictators like Hitler or Stalin, are obviously far worse than those of someone guilty only of (say) a single, painless murder or treason. Given the principle of proportionality, then, they merit a harsher penalty. Of course, in practice, such a penalty might be impossible to inflict: there is no way to execute a Bundy or a Hitler more than once. Hence, in practice, a sadistic mass murderer may end up receiving the same punishment as someone guilty of a single murder. On Tollefsen’s view, however, the worst of these offenses ought never, even in principle, to be punished more severely than the others; they do not entail a penalty proportional to their gravity.

Nota - Posizione 136

x UNICA VIA DI USCITA: RINNEGARE LA PROP.

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 153

In short, the legitimacy of punishment entails desert, and desert entails proportionality; hence, to deny proportionality is implicitly to deny desert, and thus to deny the legitimacy of punishment. Though Tollefsen affirms the legitimacy of punishment explicitly, he denies it implicitly insofar as he denies the principle of proportionality.

Nota - Posizione 156

x INCOERENZA DELL OPPOSIFORE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 158

Rape, he correctly notes, is “intrinsically wrong” and thus “not available as an option for punishment,

Nota - Posizione 158

x ARGOMENTO OBIETTORE. ATTI INTRINSECAMENTE CORRETTI

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 166

Rape, however, essentially involves several harms— there are the humiliation and bodily harm inflicted on the victim, but there is also the sexual perversion and sadism by which the rapist harms his own character. Now to indulge in such sexual perversion and sadism is intrinsically immoral; and therefore rape is intrinsically immoral, even if carried out as a punishment.

Nota - Posizione 167

x IL CASO DELO STUPRO E DEL CARATTERE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 169

the principle of proportionality

Nota - Posizione 169

c

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 169

it implies, at most, only that a rapist deserves the humiliation and bodily harm he has inflicted on others— just

Nota - Posizione 170

c

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 180

while “instrumental goods” such as “liberty and money” may be taken away from an offender in punishment for his offense, a “basic or intrinsic” good such as human life cannot be.

Nota - Posizione 181

x ALTRO ARG OBBIETTORI. I BENI DI BASE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 185

There may be reasons derived from something other than “life, just in itself,” to destroy life in some cases rather than protect it. Indeed, the principle of proportionality gives us just such a reason.

Nota - Posizione 187

x PROP

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 192

After all, life by itself can’t be what gives human beings their dignity; plants and non-human animals also have life, and yet Tollefsen would not deny that it is legitimate to kill them.

Nota - Posizione 194

x LA VITA E LA DIGNITÀ

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 206

Tollefsen regards this liberty as a “merely instrumental” good, the taking away of which is not contrary to human dignity!

Nota - Posizione 207

x LIBERTÀ E DIGNITÀ

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 208

Given that it is our capacity for rationality and free choice that affords us our special dignity, liberty of action would seem to be no less basic and intrinsic a good than life is.

Nota - Posizione 209

x È LA LIBERTÀ CHE CI DÀ DGNITÀ

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 220

On rehabilitation and execution

Nota - Posizione 220

T

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 230

The reader writes: I would think that even if the retributive goal of punishment would prescribe death for the perpetrator, capital punishment could still be (and, I think, is) illegitimate in theory, let alone in practice, because it neutralizes the second goal of punishment, rehabilitation. It is in this sense -- neutralizing the possibility of rehabilitation -- that capital punishment seems to me to most completely attack the dignity of the criminals in that it robs from them any possibility of making amends for their crimes.

Nota - Posizione 233

x OBBIETTORE: INCOMPATIBILITÀ TRA PM E RECUPERO

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 235

punishment has three purposes– retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence– does not entail that each of these purposes must be realized in a given act of punishment in order for that act to be morally legitimate. For example, we may justly imprison a recidivist thief even if we know from experience that he is extremely unlikely to change

Nota - Posizione 238

x L INCOMPATIBILITÀ NN RILEVA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 239

the fact that a given act of capital punishment may not fulfill all of the ends of punishment does not by itself suffice to make that act morally illegitimate.

Nota - Posizione 241

c

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 241

Second, while there is obviously a sense in which capital punishment can prevent rehabilitation, there is also a sense in which it actuallyfacilitates rehabilitation. How so? Consider first that 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

Nota - Posizione 245

x CONSAPEVOLEZZA COME PREMESSA RIABILITATIVA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 251

In short, a society in which capital punishment is at least on the books– in which it is at least officially acknowledged that those guilty of the worst crimes are deserving of death, even if that penalty is never in fact inflicted– is a society more likely to foster rehabilitation, not less likely.

Nota - Posizione 255

c

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 264

Moreover, merely having the death penalty on the books may be insufficient to convey the gravity of the worst crimes. An actual execution now and again may be necessary convey this gravity, and thus to facilitate rehabilitation.

Nota - Posizione 266

c

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 267

That is not to say that concerns about rehabilitation are not also a serious reason to limit capital punishment.

Nota - Posizione 268

c CONCESSIONE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 279

your article appears to forget the person responsible for carrying out the punishment, the executioner. I thought that you were headed in this direction when you mentioned not inflicting rape on rapists; it seems to me that, from a purely retributive perspective, the rapist might deserve rape. And the most compelling reason for not raping him is the effect on the humanity of the person responsible for carrying out the punishment. Similarly, throughout history, we have sought ways to minimize the effects of execution on the executioner.

Nota - Posizione 283

x ALTRA OB. IL BOIA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 299

Capital punishment is just the taking of someone’s life, where the person has lost his right to that life. There is no additional factor involved that would give the act anything of the moral character of murder, in the way that raping a rapist would involve acts that have part of the moral character of rape.

Nota - Posizione 303

x FATTORI ADDIZIONALI

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 304

What if we merely tortured the rapist, leaving the sexual aspect out

Nota - Posizione 305

x TORTURA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 306

I would say that he does deserve it, but I would agree that we should still not inflict such a punishment on him. Why not? The reason is that the moral hazards involved in such a practice are too great. Human beings naturally tend to recoil at inflicting pain on others or causing them bodily damage. The reason nature has given us such feelings is that it is, in general, good for us to avoid inflicting pain

Nota - Posizione 308

x LECITA MA XICOLOSA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 326

Since capital punishment is no more inherently wrong than surgery or police work are, neither is desensitizing oneself to executing the guilty any more inherently wrong than desensitizing oneself to performing heart surgery

Nota - Posizione 327

x CHORURGIA E DESENSIBILIZZAZIONE. LA DES È ARG IMP. E SE È POSSIBILE GARANTOIRE PROP PER ALTRAVIA È BENE FARLO

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 334

Catholicism, conservatism, and capital punishment

Nota - Posizione 335

T

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 352

natural law and Catholicism

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 352

The upshot of my discussion will be that the natural law and the Catholic tradition both entail a view of capital punishment that is unmistakably conservative (rather than "liberal and progressive," as Chris says his own view is).

Nota - Posizione 354

x TESI

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 360

Those who are unfamiliar with recent developments in Catholic moral thought might not realize that there are (at least) two general theories going under the name "natural law" these days, and they are very different.

Nota - Posizione 362

x DUE LEGGI NATURALI

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 362

On the one hand, there is what we might call the "traditional" or "classical" natural law theory, one of the key assumptions of which is that ethics crucially depends on certain traditional metaphysical theses, such as realism about universals (of the sort historically associated with Plato and Aristotle), a belief that there are final causes in nature, and so forth. On the other hand, we have what has come to be known as the "new natural law theory," which tries to reconstruct a broadly natural law approach to ethics without appealing to any of these metaphysical assumptions.

Nota - Posizione 366

x LA DISTINZIONE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 376

John Finnis)

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 391

For the “new natural law” approach, it isn’t that determining the content of morality crucially depends on knowing whether there really is a God or whether we really have immortal souls

Nota - Posizione 392

x MORALE INDIP. DALLA RELIGIONE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 393

rather, what is crucial is that we have a need for religious fulfillment of some broadly defined sort,

Nota - Posizione 393

c

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 409

John Paul II’s views on this subject were a departure from traditional Catholic attitudes, which have always upheld not only the in-principle legitimacy of the death penalty, but also its appropriateness in many practical circumstances.

Nota - Posizione 411

x GPII DEPARTURE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 443

The constant teaching of the Church has always been, not only that capital punishment is in principle legitimate, but also that it is in principle legitimate precisely as a means of securing retributive justice.

Nota - Posizione 445

x INSEGNAMENTO TRADIZIONALE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 450

“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). I doubt whether the tradition is reversible at all, but even if it were, the reversal could hardly be accomplished by an incidental section in a long encyclical [i.e. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae] focused primarily on the defense of innocent human life. If the Pope were contradicting the tradition, one could legitimately question whether his statement outweighed the established teaching of so many past centuries.” (National Catholic Register March 24-31, 2002)

Nota - Posizione 456

x COMMENTI A GOII DULLES

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 458

John Paul II’s view must be interpreted as a prudential judgment (with which, again, Dulles happens to agree)– a fallible application of traditional principles to contingent circumstances, not a denial of traditional principles.

Nota - Posizione 459

x INSEGNAMENTO PRUDENZIALE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 489

The basic argument is actually quite simple. If we accept that people can deserve to be punished for their offenses and that a punishment ought to be proportional to the offense, then it follows that the worse the offense is, the worse is the punishment deserved, and that the worst offenders deserve to get the worst punishments.

Nota - Posizione 491

x RIPETOZIONE ARGOMENTO

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 501

the bumper sticker question “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” assumes falsely that what death penalty advocates (or most people for that matter) think is wrong is “killing people,” full stop, so that they are caught in a contradiction. In fact, what they think is wrong is killing innocent people, people who do not deserveto be killed.

Nota - Posizione 505

x OBIEZIONE: UCCIDERE È SBAGLIATO

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 511

Similarly, to claim that capital punishment is “state-sanctioned murder” or “cruel and unusual” is simply to beg the question, since if the argument just rehearsed works, then the punishment is sometimes deserved, and thus cannot be inherently unjust (which murder is, by definition) or excessive in the way cruel and unusual punishments are.

Nota - Posizione 513

x OBIEZIONE CRUDELTÀ

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 527

Chris claims that since life is one of the basic goods that determine “the parameters of the morally permissible,” it can never be legitimate intentionally to deprive someone of his life.

Nota - Posizione 528

x ARGOMENTO CHRIS

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 532

This in no way entails a denial of the “dignity” of the person executed, contrary to what Chris seems to think. On the contrary, it affirms his dignity by treating him as a free and responsible individual who must be held accountable for what he does, rather than (as is common among death penalty opponents) regarding him as a mere cog in a social machine, less responsible for his own actions than is the “society” that molded him into what he is.

Nota - Posizione 536

x RIP RISPOSTA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 548

Now if the “new natural law theory” is poorly interpreted as strictly entailing hostility to capital punishment, it is, as I suggested earlier, not too hard to see why its advocates might nevertheless be tempted to such hostility. If you limit yourself in your moral reasoning to this-worldly considerations, it is not surprising if you might inadvertently come to overestimate the value of life in this world.

Nota - Posizione 550

x I MATERIALISTI SOVRASTIMANO LA VTA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 556

Life in this world cannot be a basic good, at least not in the sense required for Chris’s argument, if its point is preparation for life in the next world.

Nota - Posizione 558

x VALORE DELLA VITA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 560

While “new natural law” theorists are certainly not atheists, and while a commitment to theism is not strictly necessary to the moral defense of capital punishment, there does seem to be at least a psychological and sociological connection between hostility to capital punishment and a kind of “practical atheism,”

Nota - Posizione 562

x ATEISMO STRISCIANTE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 565

naturally tends to lead to a desire to extend the natural lifespan, even of murderers, as far as possible and at all costs.

Nota - Posizione 565

x L SSESSIONE

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 578

The medievals emphasized individual guilt, and therefore individual responsibility. Moderns minimize or even deny individual responsibility or guilt, dissolving human agency into the nexus of physical causation, obsessing over our “collective responsibility” for this or that, and emphasizing “structural” rather than personal elements of justice and social life.

Nota - Posizione 580

x NATURA UMANA

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 587

True, the rhetoric of “human dignity” has increased in modern times; indeed, modern people simply won’t shut up about it, even as they kill their own unborn children by the millions and live lives of depravity unimaginable to previous generations. If medieval people talked less about their own dignity, it is because they were more concerned about God’s dignity; if modern people talk more about it, it is because they are more concerned with themselves.

Nota - Posizione 591

x RETORICA DELLA DIGNITÀ