I have one quibble, one criticism, and one question.

The quibble: you write that "the act of taking away must be an act that is morally permissible in itself, but that requires the law only because it cannot otherwise be fairly done." You argue that it is not permissible to take away goods constitutive of human well-being, and you list "life and health, knowledge, work and play, friendship, and others" as examples of goods constitutive of human well-being. By contrast, it is permissible to take away instrumental goods, and you list the autonomy of a person as an example of an instrumental good. This does not seem at all obvious to me. Surely some degree of freedom is constitutive of human well-being, and surely locking someone away in prison takes away an amount of freedom that many of us would find intolerable. So how can you avoid concluding that taking away a significant amount of someone's freedom of movement is morally permissible?

The criticism: you write, "all persons at all times are immune from any intentional use of force." This seems not only to rule out murder in self-defense or in times of war, it also seems to rule out battery in self-defense. I.e., your view seems straightaway to lead to a fairly strong pacifism, which seems to me to be a reductio of your position.

The question: here's a thought-experiment: Cane kills Abel. You discover that by pushing a button you can kill Cane while also bringing back Abel. Does your view rule out pushing the button? (It seems furthermore to rule out killing the BTK killer to restore the lives of all his victimes. Of course, if your view is pacifistic, then this is an obvious consequence of your view, but I suspect I've misread pacifism into your view.)

You claim that it is not morally permissible for the state to take away any goods constitutive of human well-being, while it is morally permissible for the state to take away goods instrumental to human well-being (at least in some circumstances). It seems to me, though, that freedom of movement, which prisoners are deprived of, is not only instrumentally good but also constitutive of human well-being. If I'm right, then it seems your view rules out putting people in prison, which is an unacceptable consequence of your view.

You also claim that "all persons at all times are immune from any intentional use of force." This seems straightaway to lead to a fairly strong kind of pacifism, which would render even non-lethal self-defense morally impermissible. Have I understood your view correctly?

Here's a thought-experiment: imagine the state could restore the lives of all BTK's victims by killing BTK. Would this be morally permissible? (If you're a pacifist, then the answer seems obviously to be no.)

sorry for the double (now triple) post.

If I've followed you correctly, your view in a nutshell is that punishments that take away a constitutive good are wrong, while those that only take away an instrumental good can be legitimate. Arguments that say that there are exceptions to this principle because the state is so great or criminals are so bad do not succeed. Thus capital punishment is wrong, since it is clearly directed at a constitutive right.

Assuming I got that right, I'm concerned about how well the constitutive/instrumental distinction holds up. In addition to taking away autonomy (which many people think of as a constitutive good), incarceration takes offenders away from their families, their friends, their work, their education, many other sources of knowledge, and most opportunities for play. In some cases they have some limited opportunities for alternative sources of work, or contact with their family, or these other goods, and sometimes such opportunities are entirely absent. Is all this really only a violation of instrumental goods? (On preview, this is similar to Bobcat's quibble.)

Approaching the distinction from the other end, suppose that the government kept the offender from getting any medicine, or (to make this even more extreme) any food. If separating a person from his friends, family, job, and money is only taking away instrumental goods, then isn't this as well? But taking away medicine or food produces such a visible, significant, and (at least in some cases) immediate harm to a person's health that it seems artificial to count this as anything other than a violation of a constitutive good.

If there is a way to distinguish constitutive goods from instrumental ones that does a reasonable job of tracking our intuitions about which punishments should be allowed and which should not, then I'd like to hear it. Or maybe you don't expect the distinction to do that much work, and there are just a few kinds of punishments that are ruled out as violations of constitutive goods while other unacceptable punishments can be ruled out on other grounds? If that's the case, I'd still be interested in hearing more about how to set down the constitutive/instrumental boundary, plus at least some suggestion of what's wrong with other unacceptable punishments.

Chris,

I agree wholeheartedly with your criticisms of the two Thomistic arguments you cite. I also agree that it is always wrong for human beings to aim at the death of another human being. Yet, I defend capital punishment as permissible (although I am not an enthusiastic supporter). How is this possible? Because I believe that the state, in executing a murderer, is simply acting as an agent of God. St. Paul describes the state as wielding "the sword" (a means of execution) as the "minister of God". Just as it is not, properly speaking, my pastor who baptizes or absolves, but God acting through him, so it is not strictly speaking the executioner, but God himself, who executes convicted murderers. This is so even when someone is unjustly executed. An unjust execution is of course a profound instance of injustice, but not a homicide.

Although I mention Romans 13 in support of my claim, I would argue that it can be established by natural reason as well. Although the officers of the law are human beings, the actions of the law are not human actions, but actions of natural justice, which use human officers as its agents.

Blar and Bobcat,

Thanks for your comments – they are very helpful. Here are responses to three issues the two of you raise. The three issues are: whether autonomy/freedom really is unlike the other goods I’ve listed as constitutive of well being; whether reducing autonomy by incarceration is also tantamount to damaging the other goods; and whether the view is pacifistic.

First, I’d want to distinguish between autonomy as freedom-of-movement and freedom-to-do-as-one-pleases, on the one hand, and free choice on the other hand. While I don’t think free choice is itself as basic good, it is partly constitutive of the instantiations of some goods, such as friendship. It is intrinsically fulfilling to have friends and to be a friend, but being a friend requires a free choice for it to be real friendship.

On the other hand, one is less likely to have friends if one is not mobile enough to leave the house, but mobility is not a part of friendship, it is merely instrumental. Being less mobile is likely to impinge upon your ability to pursue many of the goods, e.g., if you can’t get to the library, or to church. Mobility in this sense is an aspect of freedom-of-movement and freedom-to-do-as-one-pleases. It is this sort of freedom that I am saying is instrumental in a way clearly distinguishable from the basic goods. So it is not in itself impermissible to restrict such freedom in various cases – as responsible parents do with their children regularly.

Now so restricting freedom inevitably restricts the scope of the options one has for free choices, and likewise the scope of options one has for participation in other basic goods such as knowledge and health. But that is not to say that such restriction is a deliberate damaging of those goods. Of course it might be: I might lock my kid in a closet precisely to prevent him from having any friends, or learning to read. But it needn’t be: I can restrict his freedom in order to protect him from something (the bombs falling around us) or to punish him. The limitations on his pursuit of other goods will be side effects, not the intended means or ends of what I do. (Side note: I actually think that prisons should make it more, rather than less possible, for criminals to pursue the basic goods in certain ways – through libraries, chapels, and such like.)

I’m not a pacifist, but the view articulated definitely has significant consequences for ius in bello and, I think, for ius ad bellum. The former is easier to see: soldiers must not intend the death of enemy combatants; rather the use of force, even lethal force, is to be approached the way Aquinas understood lethal force in self-defense – the killing is outside one’s intention. And I think this means that military action against a sovereign state can only be permissible for defensive purposes, in the absence of a legal authority that makes military police action possible.

Probably not wholly adequate answers, but a start. Cheers,
CT

ps: no to killing to restore life; but since that is not possible in any world we will ever live in, it does not bother me too much...

Rob,

Thanks – that’s a very interesting and helpful comment. I’d like to respond at greater length, but want to think more about it. But here are a couple initial thoughts.

First, there is a big difference between baptism and, not just execution, but any act of the state. The former is sacramental, the latter not; divine life is dispensed through the one, but not the other. But if so, then, while I agree that God himself acts in the person of the minister who baptizes, this must means something quite different from saying that the public authority acts as a minister of God. Otherwise, the view would seem to radically inflate the nature and value of the state and its ministers.

Second, much of what Paul says in that passage seems like it could be said of me in my relation to my children. “All authority is from God” – true of parental authority, as is the claim that in properly carrying out my parental duties, including the exercise of authority, I am acting as a servant of God. Nor do I bear the sword in vain – true, I don’t have a sword, but I punish, within the realm of the reasonable. And Paul’s text does not need, it seems to me, to be interpreted as saying more than this. I certainly don’t deny that the use of force is necessary to apprehend and punish criminals. So, with Paul, I could say that the state bears the sword, but without indicating that the state may execute. And that societies must have authorities seems a matter of the natural law and thus “from God;” as is the need for those authorities to act for the common good, and thus be servants of God.

Perhaps my answer here can be summed up as this: everything that exists rightly, or that is done rightly, manifests the will of God. Even natural occurrences do. But God does not will that they all be done in the same way, or mean the same thing, or bear the same relation to him. So the falling of the apple, the carrying out of the work of the state, and the death and rebirth in Christ that takes place in baptism are all done “by God”, but according to their own laws and with their own significance. The law governing the state is the moral law, and by that law, it seems to me, there is no good argument for capital punishment.

I’ll think more about it however – thanks much.
CT

One response, one request for clarification.

Response: you say that freedom-of-movement, freedom-to-do-as-one pleases, and free choice are all instrumental goods. None of these is good in itself, but all are instrumentally necessary to achieve certain intrinsic goods (e.g., friendship). It seems to me, though, that a certain kind of freedom is not necessary for self-respect, but constitutive of (at least part of) self-respect. I draw this notion from Kant, but I think he articulated a common intuition. My appreciation of my own agency comes not just from its use as a means to get certain goods; it also comes from the fact that my agency allows me to rise above nature. Indeed, agency is the ability to resist certain of my desires and my ability to act on reasons. This is surely an intrinsic good, perhaps the only intrinsic good. I'm not sure that you disagree with me; perhaps you agree, but think that it isn't damaged by taking away someone's freedom of movement. But I would argue that one's freedom of movement and freedom to do what one pleases (within certain limits) are also goods that seem intrinsically good. It's just good to be able to go where one wants and to be able to satisfy an innocent desire because one wants to. And it seems as though taking away that ability amounts to the prevention of one's enjoyment of one kind of intrinsic good.

Request: could you say more about how your view doesn't amount to pacifism? You appear to think it different from pacifism because on your view you're allowed to kill someone so long as the killing of the person is not what you intend (e.g., it's permissible for soldiers to kill enemy combatants, so long as they do "not intend the death of [the] enemy combatants"). But I have trouble with the doctrine of double effect, of which this is an instance, for it seems to me that if you know what you're doing, you can't help but to intend the death of the soldier. Now, you might wish you could defuse the threat he poses using non-lethal means; but if you know such a wish is otiose, and you intend to defuse the threat, and the only way available to you to defuse the threat he poses is by killing him, then it seems as though you must intend to kill him. Is this kind of killing permissible, and if not, how does a soldier avoid it?

I'm not quite sure I understand how you see retribution functioning in the punishment of the murderer. If we accept your agrument and take death off the table as a punishment, does that mean that retribution, in at least some cases, cannot be satisfied? Or do you believe that less than death can satisfy retributive justice in the case of a murderer?

Bobcat writes “Indeed, agency is the ability to resist certain of my desires and my ability to act on reasons. This is surely an intrinsic good, perhaps the only intrinsic good. I'm not sure that you disagree with me; perhaps you agree, but think that it isn't damaged by taking away someone's freedom of movement.”

I agree with the first sentence. I would further agree, as I think Bobcat would, that it is because human beings are agents – beings capable of freedom and reason -- that we are persons worthy of respect. But intrinsic goods of the sort I am concerned with in this post, like life or knowledge, just are the reasons for which we, as free and rational creatures, can act. They are our most fundamental reasons for action. And free choice and reason aren’t goods of that sort. We want to protect them, yes, since they are capacities fundamental to our nature, and to our ability to further actualize that nature. But one does not act for the sake of free choice the way one reads a book to gain knowledge, or takes medicine to improve one’s health.

Rather, one makes free choices in initiating many of the actions aimed at benefiting from such goods. (Not all – one can be benefited by medicine given to one when one is unconscious. But for some goods, like integrity, one must make a free choice to benefit.) I don’t try to bring about he state of affairs “making a free choice” because that is good, but bring about that state of affairs in attempting to bring about some other state of affairs that I view as good, such as the state of affairs of being fifteen pounds lighter, or better read in the classics.

Now I don’t think the capacity is damaged in restricting one’s freedom to do as one pleases, although the scope of options one might otherwise have had is limited. So it is intelligible to think of this as a restraint on my will, but not damage to it. Of course one might punish someone by removing some part of their brain, precisely to make it impossible for them to make free choices. That would be to damage their physical and moral integrity, and wrong for that reason.

On double effect: there are plenty of cases where one knows that what one is doing leads to X, but does not intend X: my medicine makes me nauseous, my jogging wears away my sneakers, my reading hurts my eyes. So I disagree that “if you know what you are doing, you can’t help but intend X” where “know what you are doing” means “know the causal outcomes of you action, rather than “know what you intend, which would be tautological.

So one can know that a causal outcome of leaping on a grenade is one’s death, but do it in order to save one’s comrades, yet not intend one’s death in order to save one’s comrades. Similarly, one could shoot an enemy soldier to prevent him from carrying out the threat he poses to one’s nation, knowing that he might die, but without intending his death. And of course, one could also shoot to kill, in order to prevent him from carrying out the threat he poses, just as one could jump on the grenade intending to end one’s life. It is a matter of one’s will whether one plans to achieve one’s end – saving the country or one’s comrades – by killing, or by repelling the soldier, or blocking the blast with one’s body.

A final point. I think the tradition of “common morality” – the tradition that holds that the moral law is knowable by natural reason, and that holds that the beings who can know that law are privileged and protected – as ends in themselves, to use Kantian language – is deeply conflicted over whether the justification for acceptable uses of force is to be given in terms of double effect, on the one hand, or special facts about the killer or killee, on the other. The former view operates from a much stricter conception of the value of the person, which I think is true to the heart of common morality.

These remarks barely scratch the surface of an adequate response to Bobcat's excellent questions.
CT

Christopher,

Thanks for your question. I guess I wonder how we became so certain that death was what retributive justice *required* for the murderer. We don't think that crimes must be punished with identical actions inflicted upon criminals in other cases. Rapists are not raped. I don't mean this to be flippant at all, but why is it that this crime must be symmetrically punished? Is it unjust *not* to punish a murderer with death? It seems to me that there is just a lot flexibility in how we punish even very grave claims; so ruling out one possibility as immoral does not mean we can no longer do the justice we are capable of (any more than, by ruling out rape or torture as punishments for rapists and torturers, we make justice impossible in such cases).

Cheers,
CT

Dr. Tollefsen,

I think I agree with you as regards crimes short of murder, such as rape. I understand you to mean that while we do not impose rape as a punishment, we use other punishments (imprisonment and fines) to create a roughly equivalent punishment. If that is in fact what you mean, I am in agreement so far. But it does seem to me that murder is a crime of such degree that nothing short of death can balance it. Even if we were to imprison the murderer for life, in solitary confinement, and with the minimum of food, water, and other reesources needed to survive, the punishment is still not equal to the crime. The murderer, after all, can still take pleasure in the life of the mind, or of simply living, which he has denied his victim. It seems to me to be like the case of a man who steals $1,000 from me, and is compelled to pay back $900. He may feel that the effort of the theft was not worth $100, but surely it is clear that he is $100 "ahead". Justice has not been done, at least not in the degree which it ought.

Of course, we do accept these sorts of injustices from time to time. Consider the case of the serial killer. To be truly just we should do the equivalent of killing him once for every murder he committed. Since we are unable to do so, we accept partial justice in this case by only killing him once. And of course, if it is licit to refuse to torture, it may also be licit to refuse to kill, but that is a different thing than claiming that justice can be truly done without resort to deadly force.

Best,
Christopher

"why is it that this crime must be symmetrically punished..."

That, of course, goes both ways. If one accepts, as I do, that deterrence is a goal of punishment, then it is perfectly acceptable to punish crimes asymmetrically in the opposite direction (i.e. more harshly than the crime itself).

As for elevated claims of metaphysics, on the one hand, one can just as easily point to the rejection of them as inspiring much worse horrors (e.g., Heidegger). On the other hand, I find the notion that "every human being is radically equal in nature" to be an elevated (and questionable) claim of metaphysics. Finally, I'd say that speaking as a pagan, it's a bit like the pot calling the kettle black for those of religious faith to be denigrating the elevated claims of metaphysicians.

Perseus,

Thanks. But I did say "evelated claims of the metaphysics and morals *of the state*" -- I have no problem with metaphysicians (some of my best friends, etc....) and I have no problem asserting what are probably in some sense metaphysical claims like "all persons are radically equal." But persons are substances, states are artifacts -- they are created by persons, exist for persons, are constituted by persons, and do not have a separate or independent existence from persons. They are less than -- metaphyscially and morally -- persons. It is inflation of the metaphysical and moral status *of the state* in the opposite direction from this that I object to.
Best,
CT

Dr. Tollefsen,
"Dignity is a matter of what we are, not of what we do, and although we can fail to live up to the demands of our nature, it cannot be taken away from us, and we cannot lose it."

Although I appreciate this sentiment, if not balanced by other considerations it looks like it would corrupt the cohesion of society. A society is based on conflicting degrees of consensus and coercion related to common perceptions of justice and power.

The jury is still out, (which contrary to your argument *is* composed of innocent bystanders), on how strong the deterrence effect of capital punishment really is. Societies that have done away with it have not reported any social upheavals. So I am not opposed to getting rid of capital punishment, just to one of the reasons you offer for it.

On the other side of the fence, this statement by Dr. Koons could benefit from more explanation, "An unjust execution is of course a profound instance of injustice, but not a homicide." Whether it is acting as a rights bearer (i.e. self-defense), or as an agent of some other entity, I find it difficult to imagine how the state avoids the moral comparison to murder.

Dr. Tollefsen,

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the claim, "human beings are worthy of respect because they are (or will be [fetuses], or once were, and may soon be again [people asleep or in comas]) agents capable of recognizing and obeying the moral law from the motive of duty to the moral law," although I'm certainly quite sympathetic to it. The reason I'm not a full-throated advocate of it is because I can't quite figure out how to move from: "human beings are agents capble of ..." to "human beings are worthy of respect." I suspect it has to do with the content of the moral law that human beings are capable of recognizing and following, although I don't know how to specify that content, and I don't know how to derive that content from such basic capacities as, say, rationality and freedom. In a nutshell, I'd like to be a Kantian but I'm not sure that his system rests on an adequate foundation.

That said, let me move away from autonomy. I agree with you that incarceration cannot eliminate or even damage autonomy, if autonomy is construed as the ability to direct onself according to reasons. And I'm even starting to be swayed--somewhat, not entirely--to conclude that freedom of movement is an instrumental good. But if freedom of movement is only an instrumental good, I'm tempted to think that some other things on your list--life in particular, but perhaps also knowledge--are also only instrumental goods. Being alive allows you to get a lot of the goods you want, and that are good to have; knowing stuff allows you to get a lot of goods you want and that are good to have (though in the case of knowledge, it does just seem good to know some stuff--not that 65+57=122, but the derivation of the Categorical Imperative, for example).

So here's a question: could you describe for me how it can be true both that life is an intrinsic good and freedom of movement is an instrumental good? Also, along these lines: it might be that we take medicine for the improvement of health, but why do we care abuot our health? One answer might be "because we want pleasure," but even that answer seems to me to presume that I deserve to get pleasure; if I hate myself then the fact that something will give me pleasure won't seem like a reason to attain it. Instead, I think (it might be that) the reason to take medicine is because it will improve your health, it's important to improve your health because being healthy is needed to have some kinds of pleasure and to complete certain of your projects, and that the reason it's important to have some kinds of pleasure and complete you projects is because you are a being worthy of care and respect (I get this insight from Stephen Darwall, though I take full responsibility for how I've here put it to use).

As for the double effect stuff, you write:
---
there are plenty of cases where one knows that what one is doing leads to X, but does not intend X: my medicine makes me nauseous, my jogging wears away my sneakers, my reading hurts my eyes. So I disagree that “if you know what you are doing, you can’t help but intend X” where “know what you are doing” means “know the causal outcomes of you action, rather than “know what you intend, which would be tautological.

So one can know that a causal outcome of leaping on a grenade is one’s death, but do it in order to save one’s comrades, yet not intend one’s death in order to save one’s comrades. Similarly, one could shoot an enemy soldier to prevent him from carrying out the threat he poses to one’s nation, knowing that he might die, but without intending his death.
---
I guess the nub of the issue is what you mean by "intending X"; this is, of course, the subject of a lifetime's worth of work, or maybe a few years' work if you're Anscombe, but I'd still like you to take a go at it.

Let's take the case of the grenade. You know that if you leap on the grenade, you will (almost certainly) die, but you will (probably) save your comrades' lives. Why do you jump on the grenade? You do it because you want to save your comrades' lives. Do you want to die? No. Do you know that jumping on the grenade will probably bring about your death? Yes. So what do you intend? Is it your contention that you intend, in this case, only to save your comrades' lives, because that is, in this case, the state of affairs whose realization you are after, or the goal you mean your action to secure?

To paraphrase an example from Eleonore Stump, imagine my daughter tramples on my rose garden, despite my having repeatedly told her not to. Imagine I know that the only way my daughter will appreciate the harm she did to me is if I cause her harm. I'd like her to appreciate the harm she did to me so that she can understand what it means to harm a person, and why persons are valuable. So: do I intend to harm her, or just to bring about the state of affairs where she's got a better attitude? What if literally the only way she's going to get a better attitude is if she experiences pain? Do I intend the pain in that case?

A clarification for Step2: if the state is acting as the agent of a non-human entity, then its killing of a human being doesn't count as a _homicide_ (which is, by definition, the killing of one human being by another). The crucial question is the metaphysical one: does the state consist of human beings, is it an artefact created by human beings, or is it neither of these?

If human beings are political animals, then it makes no sense to think of the state as entirely a human artefact (although certain features of the state may be artefactual). Moreover, if the state is a natural feature of human life, that it cannot simply be identified with those human beings who happen (as a matter of historical contingency) to occupy its offices.

On this Aristotelian assumption, the state is in a different ontological category from human beings. Therefore, it is a non sequitur to apply the moral principles that govern homicide to the death penalty.

Thanks for the reply Dr. Koons,
Here is my counter argument: If human beings are musical animals, then it makes no sense to think of music as entirely a human artifact. Moreover, if music is a natural feature of human life, it cannot simply be identified with those who happen to play it.

But in fact, we do identify music with those who are playing it. If a beloved anthem of yours is being ruined by a horribly out of tune musician, do you not personally blame him for the corruption?

Further, when we speak of murderous tyrants like Saddam Hussein, should we actually be referring to him as an unjust head of state?

It seems to me to be like the case of a man who steals $1,000 from me, and is compelled to pay back $900. He may feel that the effort of the theft was not worth $100, but surely it is clear that he is $100 "ahead". Justice has not been done, at least not in the degree which it ought.

Christopher, I think that this example confuses more than it illuminates. The man who stole $1000 really is "ahead" $100 if he only has to pay back $900, since he got $1000 from his crime and even after his punishment he still has $100 more than he did before his crime. But the murderer who receives a punishment less than death is not really "ahead". He did not gain a life when he took someone else's. Any punishment that he receives will put him "behind" (though the murdered person will be even farther "behind" unless the punishment is death). Rather than the thief, he is more like the man who destroys $1000 worth of property but only has to pay back $900. In a way, this is an injustice, since the person whose property was destroyed only gets back a portion of what he had. But in the same way, no punishment can do justice to a murderer, since nothing can be given back to the murdered man. In this respect, the harshest punishment does no better than the most lenient.

Still, there is an intuition that pretty much everyone has that the punishment should match the crime. But it is not clear that this intuition represents an inviolable principle of justice, such that any punishment that is not as bad as the original crime is not truly just. Does justice really demand that we pile as much suffering on the guilty man as he piled on to his victims? Why is it so essential that this particular abstract scale be balanced? We at least recognize cases - rape being an obvious one - where it makes sense for the punishment to be different in kind from the original crime, and I'm not sure why it's so important that the amount of harm in the punishment be the same as the amount of harm involved in the crime. There are almost no cases in life where the benefits or harms that a person receives are equal in magnitude to the benefits or harms that he has caused for others, and while this can be somewhat unsettling (hence the attraction of ideas like karma), I don't see why it is a cause for enormous concern or why we should be especially concerned when the context is crime and punishment.

A helpful statement, Blar. It does seem that the notion of desert in other contexts is likewise shot through with a degree of convention, approximation, and asymmetry: is the amount that I am paid for my work exactly what is deserved by the work I have done? It is not clear what it would mean to give an affirmative answer here.
CT

Rob,
Like Step2, I don't the follow the inference from "human beings are political animals" to "the state cannot be an artifact." Further, while I agree that the state is in a different (lesser) ontological category than human beings, and while I also agree that states can act in ways that are not reducible to the individual acts of their agents, still, state acts require individual agents, who make their own choices in carrying out that acts of the state. So if the state acts wrongly in executing, then so do its agents -- not necessarily, in all cases, culpably, but potentially so. And some of those acts by individuals, e.g., the carrying out of a purely terroristic bombing against civilians, are surely homicidal.
Cheers,
CT

Bobcat,
Still great questions! Here's but one answer to you last -- hope to get to more later.

On what we intend: we intend in acting to bring about a state of affairs in which we hope to achieve some benefit -- limiting the grenade's lethal blast to save the lives of my comrades. Often, some other state of affairs has to be brought about for the sake of the desired state of affairs: blocking the grenade with my body, which will absorb the blast. This is the means I choose to the intend I desire, and the whole series is what I intend. Where does my death enter into the picture? Not as what I desire, or as that by which I intend to bring about what I desire. But when I shoot myself to ease the pain, my death seems to be the instrumentality by which I bring about pain cessation -- death is intended here.

I actually think that pain can be intentionally inflicted -- this is not always intentional damage to a basic good. And sometimes, as with children, it would be irresponsible not to inflict it. But inflicting pain to the point of physcial, mental or moral damage would be wrong, if the intention was to bring about these kinds of damage, as I think it is in torture.

Best,
CT

Dear Blar,

My apologies for the lateness of this reply; finals were particularly demanding this semester. In the interim, Prof. Feser has made all the points I was hoping to make, and better than I am able, so I will largely defer to his discussion on the subject of retribution. I do, however, want to make a couple of quick points regarding the last sentence in your reply to me.

You wrote, "There are almost no cases in life where the benefits or harms that a person receives are equal in magnitude to the benefits or harms that he has caused for others, and while this can be somewhat unsettling (hence the attraction of ideas like karma), I don't see why it is a cause for enormous concern or why we should be especially concerned when the context is crime and punishment."

The first point is that the inability to produce exact equivalence in retribution (or other aspects of life where these sorts of approximations must be made)has nothing to do with whether or not we ought to make the attempt.

Secondly, you seem to be suggesting that proportionality is irrevelvant for retributive punishment. I honestly can't imagine what retribution means if it is separated from proportionality. Can you explain your view in more detail?

Finally, as to your point about the importance of proportional punishment, I object to your characterization of the issue as relatively unimportant. I would say that it is the primary issue; if you can convince me of the justness of punishing murderers without having recourse to death, at least in principle, then I will join death penalty abolitionists straightaway. As it stands, however, the view of those opposed to capital punishment strikes me as fundamentally unjust.

Best,
Christopher

Dear Sirs,

First of all, I have no objections to see serious criminals to be put to death.

What I however object to is the irreversiability of that punishment.

Convitcted murderers/traitors have been proven to be innocent, despite full due process and otherwise trials.

I don't think we should murder innocent people (in a few cases) and can't offer any conpensation for wrongful conviction i.e. miscarrages of justice. (which are inevitable at any standard of proceedings)

I think that saying sorry to a corpse is a farce and totally repugnat to everything any civilized person can claim to be standing for. You would say sorry to a corpse right? (sarcasm)

This is my only and fully sufficent (for me) objection to the whole concept of capitol punishment.

Save the legal tenent of the state, abolish the death penalty.

/ Slater

What are some reasons for banning the death penalty?