Edward Feser's Blog, page 16

The Catechism and Capital Punishment: A Reply to Annett

Some yearsback, in my article “Threequestions for Catholic opponents of capital punishment,” I arguedthat Pope Francis’s statements on the death penalty cannot plausibly be read ina way that would make assent to them binding on Catholics.  This week, in anarticle at Where Peter Is,Tony Annett offers a reply.  Let’s take alook.

Criticizing Catholic teaching?

Let me startout by saying that I appreciate Annett’s attempt seriously to respond to thearticle.  In the years since it waspublished, I have found that its critics almost always simply dismiss itsconclusion without addressing the arguments for that conclusion, or at bestraise objections that obviously beg the question.  Though I don’t think his own objectionssucceed, I give Annett credit for trying to do better than that.  Many readers will be aware that Annett is asparring partner of mine on Twitter, and that our exchanges are sometimesheated.  So I also appreciate that heresponds here in a civil manner.

Having said that,it is unfortunate that Annett misrepresents my position from the get go (evenif, I am happy to allow, inadvertently). He characterizes my article as “criticizing Catholic teaching on thedeath penalty.”  That is notcorrect.  By “Catholic teaching” Annettpresumably has in mind teaching that theChurch requires the faithful to assent to. I do not criticize, and would not criticize, any such teaching.  My article addresses the question whether PopeFrancis’s thoroughgoing abolitionist position vis-à-vis the death penaltyactually is in fact a teaching to which Catholics must assent, or is instead aprudential judgment which they must consider respectfully but are not bound toassent to.  I argue that it is the latter,and that there is no other plausible way to read it when all the relevant evidence is considered.

I realizethat Annett disagrees with me about this. That’s fine, he has every right to try to make the case that I ammistaken.  But charity and justicerequire him to represent my position accurately before criticizing it. 

On Twitter,Annett routinely characterizes all disagreement with the pope’s statements oncapital punishment as “dissent.”  Now, Iam no less opposed than Annett is to dissent from Catholic teaching.  But the Church has made clear that not allcriticism of statements that come from the Magisterium constitutes“dissent.”  The document DonumVeritatis, issued during the pontificate of Pope St. John PaulII, acknowledges that in exceptional cases “it can happen… that a theologianmay… raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contentsof magisterial interventions.”  Thedocument elaborates as follows:

When it comes to the question ofinterventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterialdocuments might not be free from all deficiencies.  Bishops and their advisors have not alwaystaken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of aquestion…

If, despite a loyal effort on thetheologian's part, the difficulties persist, the theologian has the duty tomake known to the Magisterial authorities the problems raised by the teachingin itself, in the arguments proposed to justify it, or even in the manner inwhich it is presented.  He should do thisin an evangelical spirit and with a profound desire to resolve thedifficulties.  His objections could thencontribute to real progress and provide a stimulus to the Magisterium topropose the teaching of the Church in greater depth and with a clearerpresentation of the arguments.

Donum Veritatis then goes on explicitly to say thatthis sort of respectful criticism “mustbe distinguished” from “dissent” from the Church’s binding teaching.

In anotherarticle, I examine DonumVeritatis in greater detail, along with other relevant teaching fromCatholic tradition.  I show that“dissent” is essentially about trying to subvertthe traditional teaching of the Church, so that those who defend continuity with traditionalirreformable teaching cannot justly be accused of dissent when they merely askthe Magisterium more clearly to reaffirm such teaching.  I also show that the Church allows criticismof deficient magisterial statements to be made publicly under certain conditions. 

I won’trehash all of that here.  Again, see thatearlier article (as well as a couple of follow-up pieces, oneof which discusses in greater detail Aquinas’s teaching on thissubject, and theother of which discusses Pope Francis’s own repeated acknowledgmentthat certain kinds of criticism of popes can be legitimate).  The point for present purposes is thatnothing that I have said about Pope Francis’s teaching on capital punishmentamounts to “dissent.”  All of it fallswithin what Donum Veritatis and othertraditional teaching allow to be within the range of legitimate criticism ofmagisterial statements.

Indeed, Ihave not even accused Pope Francis of doctrinal error, even though that is inprinciple possible when popes are not speaking ex cathedra.  What I havesaid is that some of his statements on the topic of capital punishment are tooimprecise, or ambiguous, or fail to address all the relevant considerations, orare otherwise potentially misleading.  Ihave also said that the change he has made to the Church’s presentation of herteaching on capital punishment is prudential in nature – something Annett seemsto agree with (as we’ll see below).

Now, noting thata prudential intervention lacks sufficient clarity, or fails to address all therelevant aspects of an issue, or is otherwise deficient, is something that Donum Veritatis explicitly says can be legitimate and does not amount to “dissent.” Hence it is unjust for Annett to characterize my position as “dissent”or as “criticizing Catholic teaching.”  Ihave said nothing except what the Churchherself allows to be within the permissible range of debate.

At the veryleast, even if Annett thinks I am wrong about that too, the burden is on him actually to make the case that I amwrong about it.  And that entails that heneeds carefully to read and consider the arguments I have given in articleslike the ones just linked to, and show that I am wrong about what the Churchpermits in the way of criticism of magisterial statements.  Unless he does that, he is simply committingthe fallacy of begging the question by asserting that my position amounts to“dissent.”

A false binary?

So much forpreliminaries.  Let’s turn now to Annett’sobjections.  The main point of contentionconcerns the pope’s 2018 revision to section 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which now reads:

Recourse to the death penalty on thepart of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered anappropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeitextreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is anincreasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after thecommission of very serious crimes.  Inaddition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penalsanctions imposed by the state.  Lastly,more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the dueprotection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive theguilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, inthe light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it isan attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works withdetermination for its abolition worldwide.

Endquote.  There’s a lot that can be saidabout this, as we’ll see.  But the firstquestion to ask concerns the force of the statement that “the death penalty isinadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of theperson.”  As I say in the article towhich Annett is replying, there are two ways to read it.  First, one could read it as claiming that thedeath penalty is always and intrinsically wrong, and thus ruled outabsolutely and in principle.  Or second,one could read it as claiming that while the death penalty is not always and intrinsically wrong,current circumstances support the judgment that it should no longer ever beused. 

As I went onto argue in the article, if the first interpretation is correct, then therevision to the Catechism would contradict the consistent and irreformableteaching of scripture and 2,000 years of tradition that capital punishment canbe legitimate at least in principle.  Inthat case, it would amount to a straightforward doctrinal error (which ispossible when popes are not speaking excathedra) and should not beassented to. 

On the otherhand, if the second interpretation is correct, then the revision to theCatechism amounts to a prudential judgment – an application of doctrinalprinciple to concrete circumstances in light of certain empirical assumptions,such as assumptions about what methods of punishment are sufficient today toprotect society.  In that case, aCatholic need not assent, because theMagisterium has no special expertise with respect to the empirical assumptionsin question.  For example, the empiricalquestion of whether all governments today are in fact capable of protectingtheir citizens without ever resortingto capital punishment is simply not something about which popes or otherchurchmen have any special knowledge.  (I’ll return to this point below.)

To this lineof argument, Annett objects that “this distinction between intrinsic evils andprudential judgments is problematic and offers a false binary.”  Now, one would naturally expect from thisremark that Annett would propose a thirdalternative reading of the revision to the Catechism – a reading on which it isneither teaching that capitalpunishment is intrinsically evil norproposing a prudential judgment about its applicability today.

Oddly,though, Annett proposes no such third alternative reading.  What he does instead is, first, to point out thatnot everything that is intrinsicallywrong is gravely wrong, whereas some prudentialjudgments do concern grave moralmatters.  Now, Annett is right about thatmuch, but I never denied it.  Forexample, I have never claimed that all and only intrinsically wrong acts are gravelywrong acts.  And I have never deniedthat prudential judgments can concern matters of grave moral importance.  So Annett is just attacking a straw man here.

Moreover,Annett says that he is “willing to concede that the death penalty might not beintrinsically evil.”  And after notingthat “prudential judgements… could entail gravely evil acts,” he says thatwhile “in some past societies, it might have been simply impossible toconstrain the malefactor without recourse to the death penalty,” today “thisargument no longer applies.”  Thatindicates that he thinks that the revision to the Catechism does after allamount to a prudential judgment.  Butit’s a prudential judgment about a matter of grave moral importance.

In thiscase, though, Annett has not shown that I have proposed “a false binary.”  On the contrary, he implicitly concedes thatthere really are, after all, only two ways to read the revision to the Catechism– namely, either as claiming that the death penalty is intrinsically evil, oras making a prudential judgment to the effect that it is no longer needed today– and he opts for the second reading rather than the first.

The “falsebinary” charge, then, is incorrect, and a red herring.  On closer inspection, Annett’s real objectionseems to be that while there are indeed only two alternative readings of therevision to the Catechism – and the second, “prudential judgment” reading isthe correct one – nevertheless, Catholics are bound to assent to thisprudential judgment.  Why?  Because it concerns a matter of grave moral importance.

But now wehave another problem with Annett’s argument, which is that it is a non sequitur.  He is implicitly assuming that if aprudential judgment concerns a grave moral matter, then it follows that assentto it is binding on Catholics.  And thatis not true.  Indeed, the Church herself has told us that that isnot true.

St. John Paul II on war, capitalpunishment, and prudential judgments

To see this,let’s take a look at the teaching of Pope St. John Paul II on matters of war,capital punishment, and prudential judgments. This teaching is not only important in itself, but crucial for properlyunderstanding the teaching of Pope Francis. For as Annett himself emphasizes, Francis’s teaching is meant as an extension of John Paul II’s teaching.  Annett thinks that this supports theconclusion that Catholics are obligated to assent to Francis’s teaching.  What he does not realize is that it actually undermines that conclusion, andreinforces the view that Pope Francis’s teaching is a prudential judgment thatneed only be respectfully considered but not assented to.  For John Paul II’s teaching on capitalpunishment was itself clearly merely prudential and non-binding.  And that is true even though it concerned matters of grave moral importance.

Considerfirst what Pope John Paul II had to say about the topic of war.  The Catechism he promulgated reasserts theChurch’s traditional just war teaching, which states that a war can bejustified only under certain conditions – that it is necessary to defendsociety against lasting, grave and certain harm by the aggressor, that there beserious prospects of success, and so forth (section 2309).  This much is a matter of doctrinal principleto which Catholics are obligated to assent. But what about questions concerning whether some particular war meetsjust war criteria?  For example, whoseresponsibility is it to determine whether a particular war really is necessaryto defend society against an aggressor, or whether it has a serious chance ofsuccess?  Here the Catechism states:

The evaluation of these conditionsfor moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who haveresponsibility for the common good. 

Public authorities, in this case,have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary fornational defense. (sections 2309-2310)

It is notchurchmen, then, but public authorities – government officials, militaryleaders, and the like – who have the right and responsibility to apply just warteaching to concrete circumstances.  Why?  Because they, and not churchmen, are the oneswith the relevant competence.  Forexample, popes have special competence to issue the moral teaching that a warcan be just only if it has a serious prospect of success.  But they do not have any special competence to determine whether someparticular war is likely to succeed.  Forexample, their office does not give them any special knowledge about whichmilitary tactics are the most effective ones, what the enemy’s troop strengthis and how able its commanders are, and so on. 

Notice thatthis remains true even though churchmen might, like anyone else, have opinionsabout such matters.  Pope John Paul IIcertainly had opinions about specific wars, having famously opposed the IraqWar, for example.  But even though hestated his opposition publicly, repeatedly, and in strongly moralistic terms,Catholics were not obligated to agree with him, as the Church made clear at thetime.  For example, Cardinal Ratzinger,the pope’s chief doctrinal officer (and later to become Pope Benedict XVI) said,of John Paul II’s opposition to the Iraq War, that the pope “did not imposethis position as doctrine of the Church.” Similarly, Bishop Wilton Gregory, then president of the United StatesConference of Catholic Bishops, stated atthe time that “people of good will may and do disagree on how tointerpret just war teaching and how to apply just war norms to the controvertedfacts of this case.”

Now, inhindsight one could certainly argue that the pope and other churchmen whocriticized the Iraq War were in the right. But that doesn’t change the fact that their prudential judgment on thismatter was not binding on Catholics.  Andthat is true even though it concerned a matter of grave moral importance.  The Church herself teaches, in the Catechism,that despite the grave moral importance of matters concerning war, it is governingauthorities, and not churchmen, who have the responsibility to apply just warcriteria to concrete circumstances.  Andconsequently, the Church herself also acknowledged that the pope’s condemnationof the Iraq War, despite being a prudential judgment about a grave matter (andindeed, a judgement that in hindsight was arguably correct), was not somethingthat Catholics were obligated to assent to.

Hence Annett is simply mistaken to suppose, as heimplicitly does, that the gravity of the subject matter of a prudentialjudgment suffices to make assent to it binding on Catholics.

But iscapital punishment different?  Are papalprudential judgments on that topicbinding on Catholics in a way prudential judgments about the application ofjust war theory are not?  No, there is nodifference.  And once again, the teachingof the Church under Pope John Paul II makes this clear. 

For onething, that there is no difference clearly follows from the relevant generalprinciples.  John Paul II famously heldthat in modern circumstances, capital punishment should be used only “if thisis the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against theunjust aggressor” (as the 1997 version of section 2267 of the Catechism putit).  Otherwise, the Catechism says,non-lethal means should be used.  But howdo we know whether non-lethal means are sufficient to protect people fromunjust aggressors?  Is that somethingabout which churchmen have any special competence?  Clearly, it is not, any more than they haveany special competence of a military kind. To know whether non-lethal means are adequate, we need to know, forexample: whether capital punishment has any significant deterrence value;whether all modern prisons throughout the world are secure enough to preventthe escape of dangerous offenders; whether other prisoners can be kept safefrom murderous ones; and so on.  Theseare empirical matters which require expertise in social science, law, criminaljustice, and the like.  Popes are no moreexperts in these areas than they are experts in military strategy and tactics.

In the verynature of the case, then, the question of whether capital punishment is stillneeded today is not something about which popes could issue a binding judgmentany more than they could issue a binding judgment about whether some specificwar meets just war criteria.  By parityof reasoning with the case of applying just war theory, the final determinationof whether resort to capital punishment is ever needed must lie, not withchurchmen, but with “the prudential judgment of those who have responsibilityfor the common good,” namely “public authorities” (to borrow the language theCatechism uses when addressing the application of just war principles).

Moreover,the Church herself explicitly said duringthe pontificate of John Paul II that the cases are parallel. 

The Ratzinger memorandum

This bringsus to an important document that Catholic opponents of capital punishmentroutinely ignore.  During the 2004 U.S.presidential election, the question whether Catholic politicians who supportabortion or euthanasia should be denied Holy Communion became a hot buttonissue.  Some suggested that if thesepoliticians were denied Communion, then Catholic politicians who supportedcapital punishment or the Iraq War should be denied it as well.

To clarifythe matter, Cardinal Ratzinger, who was then Prefect of the Congregation forthe Doctrine of the Faith, sent a memorandum titled “Worthinessto Receive Holy Communion: General Principles” to then-CardinalTheodore McCarrick, who was at the time the archbishop of Washington, D.C.  (McCarrick has, of course, since beendisgraced and defrocked, though that is irrelevant to the present issue.)  Ratzinger noted that the cases are not at allparallel, writing:

Not all moral issues have the samemoral weight as abortion and euthanasia.  For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on theapplication of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would notfor that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive HolyCommunion.  While the Church exhortscivil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercyin imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take uparms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment.  Theremay be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging warand applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion andeuthanasia.

Noticeseveral things about this teaching.  Asis well known, Pope St. John Paul II held that the cases where capitalpunishment is necessary to protect society are “very rare, if not practicallynonexistent” (as the 1997 version of the Catechism puts it).  Indeed, the pope made even strongerstatements at other times, calling the death penalty “cruel and unnecessary”and calling for its outright abolition. All the same, Ratzinger acknowledged that “there may be a legitimatediversity of opinion even among Catholics about… applying the death penalty,”and indeed that a Catholic in good standing could even be “at odds with theHoly Father” on the subject.  He couldnot have said that if assent to the pope’s position was obligatory.  And notice that this is true even though thepope’s prudential judgment concerned a matter of grave moral importance, andwas put forward publicly, repeatedly, and in stern moralistic terms.

Note alsothe reference to “civil authorities,” and how war and recourse to capitalpunishment can in some cases be permissible despite the fact that the Churchurges such authorities to seek peace and exercise mercy on criminals.  The clear implication is that it isultimately civil authorities who havethe responsibility to make a prudential judgment about whether capitalpunishment is necessary, just as they have the responsibility to determinewhether war is necessary.

Now onTwitter recently, Annett dismissed the memorandum as merely “aprivate opinion of Joseph Ratzinger.” But this is clearly not the case. Ratzinger was writing, not as a private theologian, but precisely in hisofficial capacity as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. And he was writing to a fellow bishopprecisely to clarify for him a matter of Church doctrine and discipline.

Furthermore,the passage from the memo quoted above was incorporated almost verbatim into aUSCCB document written by Archbishop William Levada (who would latersucceed Ratzinger as head of CDF).  Thepurpose of this document was precisely to clarify for Catholics the same issuesRatzinger aimed to clarify in his memo. And the fact that a USCCB document incorporates the passage in questionobviously indicates that it has doctrinal weight, and is not merely Ratzinger’spersonal opinion.  It is worth addingthat E. Christian Brugger, who is the preeminent opponent of capital punishmentamong Catholic theologians, acknowledges in the second edition of his book Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic MoralTradition that the memo was written by Ratzinger “as prefect of the CDF” (p.xxviii).

Now, keep inmind that as head of CDF, Ratzinger’s job was to be Pope St. John Paul II’sdoctrinal spokesman.  Hence he was anauthoritative interpreter of the pope’s teaching on the issue of capitalpunishment.  Since he explicitly saidthat there could be “a legitimate diversity of opinion” about the matter evenamong faithful Catholics – and indeed, that faithful Catholics could even be“at odds with” the pope on the matter – it follows that Pope John Paul II’sposition that capital punishment is no longer needed was not somethingCatholics are obligated to agree with.

This bringsus back to Pope Francis.  For the maindifference between John Paul’s teaching and Francis’s teaching is that theformer allowed that there may still be rare cases where capital punishment isneeded in order to protect society, whereas the latter denies that.  Even Pope Francis’s appeal to the “dignity ofthe person” is not novel, because Pope John Paul II made the same appeal whencriticizing capital punishment.  Forexample, the 1997 edition of the Catechism says that non-lethal means ofdealing with offenders are preferable because they are “more in conformity withthe dignity of the human person.”

Now, JohnPaul II’s view that the cases where capital punishment are still needed toprotect society are “very rare, if not practically nonexistent” was of its verynature a prudential judgment concerning matters of social science, law,criminology, etc. about which popes have no special expertise.  For that reason, as Cardinal Ratzinger madeclear, Catholics were not obligated to agree with that judgment.  But Francis’s view that non-lethal means arein every case sufficient to “ensure the due protection” of society is also, ofits very nature, a prudential judgment concerning matters of social science,law, criminology, etc. about which popes have no special expertise.  So, how can Catholics be obligated to assentto the latter view any more than they were obligated to assent to theformer?  What the Ratzinger memorandumsays about John Paul’s teaching applies mutatismutandis to Francis’s teaching.

Development of doctrine?

Annettclaims that Pope Francis’s revision to the Catechism involved a “development ofdoctrine,” one that reflects an “unfolding understanding of the nature of humandignity.”  It is this development, Annettsuggests, that underlies the pope’s moving beyond John Paul II’s allowance forcapital punishment in rare cases to an absolute prohibition of the penalty.

But exactly how does the purported doctrinaldevelopment support this revision?  Theclaim cannot be that this unfolding understanding of human dignity showscapital punishment to be intrinsicallywrong (and thus “inadmissible” for thatreason).  Again, that would contradictthe consistent and irreformable teaching of scripture and 2,000 years oftradition.  And again, Annett himselfexplicitly says that he is not claiming that capital punishment isintrinsically wrong.

LikeFrancis, John Paul II also appealed to respect for human dignity, yet stillstopped short of an absolute prohibition. The reason is that John Paul II allowed that there may be rare caseswhere capital punishment is still practically necessary.  Francis denies this.  But again, that is a prudential judgmentgrounded in empirical claims about modern prison facilities and the like.  There is nothing in the notion of human dignity as such that entails thatsuch-and-such a prison system is effective.

So, it isunclear exactly how a purportedly better understanding of human dignityjustifies the change from John Paul II’s teaching to Francis’s.  Nor does Annett explain how it does.  He just assertsthat it does, and repeats phrases like “human dignity” and “dignity of theperson” as if the repetition by itself sufficed to show that capital punishmentwas somehow a special affront to human dignity.

Sometimes itis claimed that, whatever one thinks of Pope Francis’s revision, Pope John PaulII’s teaching on capital punishment already marked a development ofdoctrine.  But as Joseph Bessette and Ishow in our book ByMan Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment,that is not the case.  At pp. 144-82 ofthe book, we offer a detailed and systematic analysis of all the relevantmagisterial texts issued during John Paul II’s pontificate.  We show that John Paul II’s change to previousteaching was entirely prudential innature and in no way doctrinal. 

To be sure,it is sometimes claimed that John Paul II made it a matter of doctrinal principle that capitalpunishment could never even in theory be used except when strictly necessaryfor the defense of society.  But we showthat the pope’s confining of the use of capital punishment to the defense ofsociety was itself a prudential judgement,not a doctrinal principle.  And theChurch has confirmed this.  After Evangelium Vitae was issued and it wasannounced that John Paul II would be updating the Catechism in light of it, Fr.Richard John Neuhaus inquired with Cardinal Ratzinger about whether thisamounted to a doctrinal revision.  As thecardinal said in reply in a letter published in First Things in October 1995, “the Holy Father has not altered the doctrinal principles which pertain to this issue asthey are presented in the Catechism, but has simply deepened the application ofsuch principles in the context of present-day historical circumstances.”

As we alsoshow in the book, such an alteration would itself contradict the teaching ofscripture, the Fathers, and previous popes, which clearly holds that it can be legitimate at least in principleto use capital punishment even forpurposes other than the defense of society. For example, several scriptural passages (such as Genesis 9:6, Numbers35:33, and Deuteronomy 19:11-13) teach that it can be legitimate simply for thepurpose of securing retributive justice. That does not entail that that is by itself a good enough reason toresort to capital punishment in modern circumstances.  But since the Church holds that scripturecannot teach moral error, it follows that it cannot possibly be intrinsically wrong to inflict the deathpenalty simply for the sake of retribution.

So, theclaim that Pope Francis’s revision to the Catechism amounts to a development ofdoctrine cannot be defended by appeal to its connection with John Paul II’steaching.  For again, John Paul II’steaching was itself not a development of doctrine.  If Annett denies this, I direct him to pages144-82 of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed,where he’ll find the evidence laid out. I’d be happy to listen to any objections he’d raise against thearguments we set out there.

Annett makesanother problematic claim about the development of doctrine when he says that “thecorrect hermeneutic is to read past teaching in light of current teachingrather than vice versa.”  This ismisleading at best.  It is true that theMagisterium is the authoritative interpreter of scripture and tradition.  But that does not entail license to teachjust anything, as the Church herself has repeatedly insisted.  For example, the First Vatican Council teaches:

For the Holy Spirit was promised tothe successors of Peter not so that theymight, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by hisassistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelationor deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.

and

That meaning of Holy Scripture mustbe held to be the true one, which Holy mother Church held and holds, since itis her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of HolyScripture.  In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone tointerpret Holy Scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against theunanimous consent of the fathers.

Similarly,the Second Vatican Council teaches:

[T]he living teaching office of theChurch… is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly,guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully.

And PopeBenedict XVI taught:

The Pope is not an absolute monarchwhose thoughts and desires are law.  Onthe contrary: the Pope's ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and tohis Word.  He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himselfand the Church to obedience to God's Word, in the face of every attempt toadapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.

This entailsthat while the Church can settle disputes over scriptural interpretation, shecan never teach something contrary toscripture, or contrary to the wayscripture was understood by the Fathers of the Church or to what the Church hastraditionally held scripture to mean.

This is onereason why the Church cannot ever teach that capital punishment is intrinsicallyevil.  For as Joe Bessette and Idemonstrate in By Man Shall His Blood BeShed, scripture clearly and consistently teaches that capital punishmentcan be legitimate in principle, the Fathers unanimously understood scripture toteach this, and the Church has always understood scripture to teach this.  This teaching is thus irreformable.

As such, thetraditional teaching puts constraints not only on what the Church may currentlyteach, but on how to interpret whatthe Church currently teaches.  Forexample, if some recent magisterial statement seems, when considered in isolation, to teach that capitalpunishment is intrinsically wrong, but couldinstead be interpreted in a way that is consistent with capital punishment not being intrinsically wrong, then the latter interpretation must prevail.  In that way, current teaching must, contraryto what Annett says, be read in light of past teaching. 

That is byno means to deny that we must also read past teaching in light of currentteaching.  It means that Annett is posinga false choice when he says that we must read the past in light of currentteaching “rather than” the other way around. It’s not a matter of “rather than,” but of “as well as.”  But where there is any outright conflict orappearance of such a conflict, it is indeed past teaching that mustprevail.  That is not only theimplication of the statements from Vatican I, Vatican II, and Benedict XVIquoted above, but also the teaching of the Church’s great theologians of thedevelopment of doctrine, St. Vincent of Lerins and St. John Henry Newman.

Problems with the revision to theCatechism

Now, one ofthe problems with the 2018 revision to the Catechism is that some of what itsays does seem, at least consideredin isolation, to contradict past teaching. In particular, it does so when it quotes a remark from Pope Francis tothe effect that the death penalty “is an attack on the inviolability anddignity of the person.”  This statementseems, given its unqualified formulation, to be saying that the death penaltyis intrinsically, or of its very nature,an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.  And thus it seems, at least when consideredin isolation, to be saying that the death penalty is intrinsically wrong.

To be sure,the statement does not have to beread that way.  Given the larger context,it can be read instead as teaching that the death penalty is contrary to humandignity if certain conditions on its useare not met.  And that is indeed theway I think it should be read.  As I havesaid, I do not claim that the pope has taught doctrinal error on this point,but rather that he has spoken without sufficient precision.  And he has a record of doing so.  In thearticle Annett is responding to, I call attention to other examples,such as Pope Francis’s once quoting approvingly a line from Dostoevsky to theeffect that “to kill a murderer is a punishment incomparably worse than thecrime itself.”  Taken at face value, thisstatement is manifestly absurd, and certainly contrary to scripture and thetraditional teaching of the Church.

No doubt thepope was here speaking with rhetorical flourish rather than literally.  And perhaps that is also the case with theline quoted in the revised passage of the Catechism.  But when teaching on doctrinal matters, popeshave a grave duty to speak with precision,especially in documents likeCatechisms.  Hence it is perfectlylegitimate, in light of the norms outlined in Donum Veritatis, respectfully to criticize the 2018 revision of theCatechism for failing to do so.

Anotherproblem with the revision to the Catechism concerns its prudential judgement tothe effect that “effective systems of detention have been developed, whichensure the due protection of citizens” without ever having to execute offenders. This is far from obviously true. Indeed, I would argue that it is false.

There areseveral relevant considerations here. First, the Catechism simply assumes, without argument, that capitalpunishment has no deterrence value.  Butthat is a question of social science, not theology.  And social scientists disagree on the matter,with many holding that the death penalty doesin fact deter when offenders know there is a good chance they really will beexecuted if they commit a murder.  JoeBessette and I set out the evidence in our book, and defend the claim thatcapital punishment has significant deterrence value.

Now if thatis correct, then innocent lives areendangered by abolishing capital punishment, in which case the Catechism’sprudential judgement that “due protection of citizens” can be achieved withoutcapital punishment is mistaken.  Ofcourse, whether the death penalty really does deter is controversial.  But the point is that, of its nature, this isnot a matter of theological principle but rather an empirical question aboutwhich churchmen have no special expertise.  

Anotherimportant consideration is that some offenders remain threats to the lives ofothers even when effectively imprisoned. Organized crime leaders can order murders from behind prison walls.  Some imprisoned murderers kill prison guardsor fellow prisoners.  And if capitalpunishment is entirely off the table, then they have no incentive not to do soif they are already in prison for previous murders.  Then there are those sentenced to life in prisonwho escape from prison.  What is toprevent them from killing while on the run, if the threat of capital punishmentdoes not hang over them?  For theyalready face a resumption of their life sentences if recaptured. 

Having theoption of threatening offenders with capital punishment also gives theprosecutor an invaluable tool for convincing them to plea bargain.  And this can save innocent lives if thecooperation of such offenders helps police catch other murderers.  Then there is the fact that it is simply nottrue that systems of imprisonment sufficient to protect citizens exist everywhere in the world.  Yet the revision to the Catechism does not acknowledgethis.  It simply speaks of abolishingcapital punishment worldwide, full stop, rather than abolishing it when and where it is safe to do so.

Naturally, acritic of capital punishment might try to develop responses to thesepoints.  But again, they are not mattersthat can be settled by appeal to abstract theological principle.  Like the question of how to apply just war theoryto particular cases, determining whether capital punishment is still necessaryto protect citizens requires a prudential judgement about matters that popesand bishops have no expertise about.  Andas with the application of just war theory, the decision must ultimately bemade by the public authorities who have the responsibility for protectingcitizens, not churchmen.  This is why theRatzinger memorandum acknowledges that “there may be a legitimate diversity ofopinion even among Catholics” about capital punishment.  It is simply not the sort of thing the Churchcan reasonably foreclose public debate about. 

Finally, Iwould argue that it is in any event a bad idea to insert prudential judgmentsinto the Catechism, and especially to keep changing them (as the Catechism’sstatement on the death penalty has now been changed two times).  It confuses the average person, who typicallydoes not understand the difference between matters of doctrine and prudentialapplications of doctrine, and therefore wrongly comes to think that the Churchhas changed or could change the longstanding teaching of scripture andtradition.  This makes it seem in turn asif everything the Church teaches might be “up for grabs.” 

Again, thesecriticisms of the revision to the Catechism in no way constitute “dissent” frombinding Catholic teaching.  They areentirely within the range of the respectful criticism that Donum Veritatis acknowledges to be permissible.  And to those faithful Catholics whorespectfully raise criticisms of deficient magisterial statements, Donum Veritatis offers the followingreassuring words:

For a loyal spirit, animated by lovefor the Church, such a situation can certainly prove a difficult trial.  It can be a call to suffer for the truth, insilence and prayer, but with the certainty, that if the truth really is atstake, it will ultimately prevail.

Hazony and Gottfried on wokeism and Marxism

Right-wingersoften characterize wokeism as a kind of Marxism, and left-wingers routinelydismiss the characterization as a cheap smear that reflects ignorance ofMarxist theory.  Who is right?  In his book Conservatism:A Rediscovery , Yoram Hazony argues that there is indeed asignificant link between wokeism and Marxism. Paul Gottfried respondsat Chronicles, arguingthat the similarities between the two have been overstated.  Let’s take a look at their arguments.

It isimportant to emphasize at the outset that the question isn’t whether there aresignificant differences between wokeism on the one hand, and the ideas of Marxhimself and the key Marxist thinkers who came after him on the other.  No one denies that there are.  The question is rather whether wokeism isbest thought of as a species of Marxism, or at least whether the similaritiesare significant enough that the comparison with Marxism illuminates rather thanobfuscates.

Here it is crucialto understand the relationship of both movements to liberalism.  The broad liberal tradition from Locke toMill to Rawls is individualist, emphasizing as it does the rights and libertiesof individuals, their basic equality, and their consent to being governed as aprecondition of government’s legitimacy. Hazony notes that the Marxist critique of liberalism emphasizes theinadequacy of this individualism to make sense of real political life.  For Marxism, liberalism is blind to humanbeings’ tendency to form social classes, and to the inherent tendency of oneclass to oppress another and to utilize the state for this purpose.

Wokeism,Hazony points out, takes over this central Marxist theme and simply replaceseconomic status with race, sex, sexual orientation, and the like as the keys todemarcating oppressed and oppressing classes. Where the traditional Marxist focuses on the conflict betweencapitalists and the proletariat, the wokester speaks instead of “whitesupremacy” versus people of color, “patriarchy” versus women,“heteronormativity” versus LGBTQ, and so on. But the emphasis on group identity rather than individualism carriesover from Marxism and marks a break with liberalism.  Furthermore, Hazony points out, wokeism’sdisdain for norms of rational discourse and inclination to cancel and censoropponents rather than engage their arguments differs from the liberaltradition’s idealization of free debate.

Gottfriedacknowledges that all of this is true enough as far as it goes.  He also acknowledges that there is in thehistory of Marxism a precedent for wokeism’s turn to obsessing over race andsex rather than economic class – namely the “Critical Theory” of the FrankfurtSchool, as represented especially by the work of Herbert Marcuse.  All the same, he judges that Hazony andothers overstate the connection between wokeism and Marxism, and fail toappreciate wokeism’s connection to liberalism.

For onething, in the twentieth century, liberalism began to soften its individualism,with universal suffrage and the welfare state marking a turn in a stronglyegalitarian direction.  In recentdecades, and before wokeness took center stage, mainstream liberals had alsoalready themselves become more intolerant of dissent and unwilling rationallyto engage the arguments of their critics. Though many liberals now complain of woke intolerance, the wokesterssimply walked through a door that liberals had themselves opened.

For anotherthing, Marxists of a more old-fashioned stripe had no truck with the directiontaken by the Frankfurt School, much less the obsessions of the wokesters.  Indeed, they could be as censorious of thisdirection as any social conservative. Moreover, during the Cold War, communist countries were often asconservative on matters of sex and family as Western society, or indeed evenmore so.  Nor were communist societies prone,as wokeism is, to destroying loyalty to country or to a general nihilism.  Marxism also put a premium on science andrationality, at least in theory.

Then thereis the fact that wokeism has allied itself to capitalism in a way Marxism couldnot.  Capitalists and corporations havenot simply embraced wokeism out of fear but, Gottfried argues, have found it intheir interests to embrace it.  For it isthe poor and the working class rather than the rich who suffer from theidiocies of woke public policy, and corporations can absorb the costs of suchpolicies whereas their smaller competitors are destroyed by them. 

Finally,while the narrative of oppressor and oppressed is indeed a feature of Marxism,it is also, Gottfried points out, a feature of the rhetoric of fascism andNazism.  And in all three cases, heclaims, what we have is a modern and secularized variation on the ancientbiblical distinction between the righteous and those who persecute them.  So, that a narrative of oppression is centralto wokeism does not suffice to make it in any interesting way Marxist, any morethan these other views are Marxist.

Hence, Gottfried’sview is that in order to understand wokeism, it is more illuminating to studyits origins in the breakdown of liberalism than to look for parallels withMarxism.

What shouldwe think of all this?  I am myself inclinedto what might be a middle ground position between Hazony and Gottfried, thoughperhaps the differences between us are more matters of semantics and emphasisthan anything deeper than that.  On theone hand, when writing on these matters myself I have not characterized wokeismas a species of Marxism, but rather havemerely noted that there are Marxist influences on wokeism and parallels betweenthe views.  On the other hand, whileGottfried makes some important points, I think that the influences andparallels are more important and illuminating than he seems to allow.  I think he also overstates the differences.

For example,Gottfried contrasts Marxism’s notional commitment to science and reason withthe irrationalism of wokeism.  But on theone hand, wokesters in general do not explicitlyreject science and reason any more than old-fashioned Marxism did.  On the contrary, they typically claim thatscience supports their views (about gender, for example).  To be sure, these claims are bogus and the “science”pure ideology tarted up in pseudoscientific drag.  But the same thing was true of Marxist claimsto scientific respectability.  (Lysenkoism,anyone?)

Moreover,though the Marxist theory of ideology was claimed to be part of a scientific accountof social institutions, in practice its “hermeneutics of suspicion” tends tosubvert rather than facilitate rational discourse.  Criticisms of Marxism get dismissed a priori as mere smokescreens for thevested interests of capitalists, just as criticisms of wokeism get dismissed a priori as mere smokescreens forracism, patriarchy, homophobia, etc.  Thenthere are the parallels many have noted between the mass hysteria of wokeism(manifested in Twitter mobs, cancel culture, and the riots of 2020) and Mao’sCultural Revolution.

To be sure,the postmodernist influences on wokeism are a point in favor of Gottfried’sview that there is an important difference at least in theory between traditional Marxism and wokeism in their attitudestoward reason and science.  But the recordof actual Marxist and woke practice (whichGottfried himself appeals to in making his case) supports the judgment thatthey are less far apart on this score than Gottfried supposes.

The samething is true where the other differences Gottfried describes are concerned.  Yes, during the Cold War, communist countrieswere far more socially conservative than any wokester could tolerate.  But that was in spite of Marxist theory, not becauseof it.  Engels, after all, famouslyattacked the traditional family and the bourgeois moral order.  And Marxist theory emphasized internationalworker solidarity over national loyalties, even if this is not how thingsworked out in practice.  Even thealliance between corporations and wokeism finds a parallel in actual Marxist practice,in the Chinese Communist Party’s adoption of capitalist means to socialistends. 

Then thereis the fact that woke theorists explicitly acknowledge the Marxist tradition asamong the influences on them.  Forexample, Critical Race Theorists acknowledge such influence, especially that ofAntonio Gramsci (even if there are, of course, also differences withMarxism).  And Gottfried himselfacknowledges the parallels between wokeism and the neo-Marxist FrankfurtSchool.

These pointsdo not entail that wokeism is a childof Marxism, exactly, but that does not mean it is not a relation of some othersort – a brother or a cousin, say.  And notingfamily relations of those kinds can be illuminating too.  Eric Voegelin famouslyargued that Marxism, National Socialism, and other modern politicalideologies are best understood as variations on Gnosticism.  Ihave argued elsewhere that wokeness, too, is best understood as a kind ofGnosticism.  And Ihave also argued that the parallels between woke ideas about race andNational Socialism are no less striking or disturbing than their parallels withMarxism.  That does not mean that wokeism justis a kind of National Socialism, anymore than it just is a kind of Marxism. It is its own thing, not quite the same as either of those noxious worldviews.  But it is no less irrational, and potentiallyjust as dangerous.

Furtherreading:

Howto define “wokeness”

Counteringdisinformation about Critical Race Theory

TheGnostic heresy’s political successors

WokeIdeology Is a Psychological Disorder

Socialismversus the Family

Adventuresin the Old Atheism, Part IV: Marx

AllOne in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory

What is a Law of Nature?

Some timeback I gave a lecture at Fermilab on the topic “What is a Law of Nature?”  I’ve posted the text of the lecture atmy main website.  You can watch thevideo of the lecture either at the Fermilab websiteor at YouTube.

All One in Christ on EWTN Live

Recently Irecorded an interview about my book  AllOne in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory  forthe television program  EWTNLive with Fr. Mitch Pacwa.  The show airs today – at 5 pm Pacifictime, again at 10:30 pm, and then tomorrow morning (Thursday) at 7 am.  The recording will be available for viewinglater at the show’s website and at YouTube.

Talking philosophy and natural theology

Recently, onthe Thomistic Institute’s Off-Campus Conversations program, Fr. Gregory Pineand I had a discussion about Aquinas’s Five Ways, their metaphysicalpresuppositions, and the moral and spiritual preconditions of doing philosophywell.  You can watch it at YouTube orlisten to it atSoundcloud.

Strawson on free will and interpersonal relationships

In hisclassic paper “Freedomand Resentment,” P. F. Strawson addresses the question of whatdifference the widespread acceptance of determinism would make to our everydayways of dealing with each other.  Hejudges that our commonsense conception of human behavior is too deeply rootedin our nature to be dislodged even in such a scenario.  As in Strawson’s other work, he urges attentionto details of ordinary experience that are ineliminable but often overlooked byrevisionist systems of metaphysics.

Strawsondistinguishes between what he calls the participantreactive attitudes that are the norm in interpersonal relationships, andthe objective attitude that can inexceptional cases supplant it.  Let’sbegin with the first set of attitudes, which can be understood by reference tothe different ways we can harm or benefit each other, and the different ways wereact to these different harms and benefits.

Consider twooccasions, one in which someone deliberately pushes you, and the other in whichsomeone pushes into you by accident (as a result of tripping, say).  The physical harm caused to you might be thesame in either case.  But the first person’saction will generate in you a feeling of resentmentthat the latter person’s will not.  Orconsider a case where you are stranded and a stranger gives you money for cab fare,and also a case where you are stranded and find some money that someone haslost and with which you can pay for a cab. The benefit to you will be the same in either case, but the first willproduce in you a feeling of gratitude thatthe second will not.

Actions thatproduce in you a feeling like resentment do so because you take it that whatmoves the other person to perform them are factors like malevolence, rudeness,indifference, contempt, or an intention to insult.  Actions that produce in you a feeling likegratitude do so because you take it that what moves the other person to performthem are factors like kindness, goodwill, affection, and esteem. 

Consideralso forgiveness.  Strawson notes that this presupposes that theaction being forgiven was indeed appropriately met with resentment, but thatthe guilty party acknowledges this and repudiates the action.  The forgiving person accepts this repudiationon the part of the offender and, in turn, cancels the resentment.

Resentment,gratitude, and forgiveness are “participant reactive attitudes” insofar as theyinvolve reacting to other human beings as fellow participants in a commoninterpersonal form of life.  We see eachother, not as impersonal forces, but as rational agents having various beliefs,desires, and other propositional attitudes (as philosophers call them), asacting on the basis of these and thus subject to moral and rational appraisal,and as, accordingly, to be held responsible for the things we choose to do ontheir basis.

Within thisgeneral framework, various specific kinds of relationships exist – between familymembers, friends, lovers, colleagues, those who have some interest in common(such as a political cause or hobby), those we deal with temporarily in chanceencounters (such as a grocery store employee or a clerk at the post office),and so on.  The nature of theserelationships determines the specific expectations we have of people, the waysthey might offend or please us, etc.  Butthey are all variations on the same basic theme of regarding others as fellowpersons or rational agents, to whom it is appropriate to take the variousparticipant reactive attitudes.

Now, focusingon resentment in particular, Strawson says that there are, within thiscommonsense framework for dealing with others, two sorts of cases where resentmentat another person’s action can be removed or at least mitigated.  First, there are the cases where, after morecarefully considering the matter, we make judgments of the kind expressed insentences like “He didn’t mean to,” “He didn’t know,” “He couldn’t help it,” “Hehad no alternative,” and so on.  Wethereby absolve the person of responsibility. However, Strawson emphasizes, this is not because we judge that the participant reactive attitudes(resentment, gratitude, forgiveness, etc.) are not after all applicable to theperson.  On the contrary, we believe thatthey are in general applicable to him,that he is a fellow member of the community of rational agents.  Rather, we simply judge that in theparticular case at hand, the attitude of resentment is not after allappropriate.  For though we initiallysupposed that the person’s action was the result of ill will, we later come tojudge that it was not.

Second, though,there are cases where we drop the attitude of resentment because we judge thatthe other person is deranged, or acting under compulsion, or that “He wasn’thimself,” or that he is just a small child. In other words, we attribute the person’s behavior to psychological abnormalityor immaturity, and for that reason judge that he does not bear the sort ofresponsibility required in order for an attitude of resentment to bereasonable. 

Now in thissort of case, Strawson says, we do nottreat the person in question as a normal fellow member of the community ofrational agents, to whom it is appropriate to take the participant reactive attitudes.  Here is where the “objective attitude” comesin.  It involves not dealing with anotherin the ordinary interpersonal way, but instead as something to be managed, treated, cured, handled, trained, controlled, orthe like.

Think of theway we regard wind or rain that damages the house, or a stray neighborhood catthat leaves its droppings on the lawn.  Wemight get angry at these things, but we don’t literally resent them, because we don’t conceive of them in the personalterms that alone could make such an attitude intelligible.  Nor, for the same reason, do we literallyfeel gratitude toward wind and rainthat pass without leaving damage behind, or a cat that does its businesssomewhere other than the lawn.  We manage or control a situation involving wind, rain, or a cat, rather thandealing with them the way we would a fellow member of the community of rationalagents.

When we takewhat Strawson calls the “objective attitude” to another human being, we dosomething similar.  We judge that theperson has fallen from normal interpersonal capacity (in the case of severe psychologicalabnormality) or that he hasn’t yet risen to it (in the case ofimmaturity).  And thus we see hisbehavior as something to manage or control rather than to feel resentment,gratitude, forgiveness, etc. toward.

Now, supposebelief in determinism became widespread in society, rather than something thatonly intellectuals thought much about. It might seem that the result would be the disappearance of the participantreactive attitudes.  For those attitudespresuppose responsibility, and determinism might seem to undermine the viewthat people are responsible.  But Strawsonthinks that while it may be possible in theory to abandon the participantreactive attitudes, in practice it could never happen. 

For onething, he notes, accepting determinism would not entail abandoning attitudes like resentment for the usualreasons we cancel our resentment against another person.  Again, there are two such reasons.  First, we might judge that the person wasafter all acting out of goodwill rather than ill will.  But accepting determinism would hardly leadus to conclude that all people are really after all always acting out of goodwill!  It would not entail that anytime anyone doesanything, it’s because he didn’t know any better, didn’t mean it, etc.  Second, we might judge that a person waseither psychologically abnormal or immature and thus not responsible.  But accepting determinism would hardly leadus to conclude that all people are after all psychologically abnormal orimmature!  So, again, determinism would notentail that we should extend our usual reasons for denying that someone isresponsible for an action to allpeople and all actions. 

Strawson’spoint here seems to be that it is the context of our ordinary participantreactive attitudes that gives senseor intelligibility to our decisionnot to hold someone responsible.  And thatcontext makes the denial of responsibility the exception rather than the rule. What we cannot plausibly do is extend this denial of responsibility sothat it becomes the rule rather than theexception.

Strawsonalso suggests that to abandon the participant reactive attitudes would entail alevel of “human isolation” that we are simply incapable of bearing.  Imagine trying consistently to adopt theobjective attitude across the board to all human beings and all their actions –seriously regarding them as if they were like the wind, rain, or neighborhoodcat, something to be managed or controlled rather than sincerely reasoned with,grateful or resentful toward, etc.  Itwould be like trying to think of them on the model of an AI device (Alexa orSiri) or an ATM machine rather than a real human being.  Moreover, to be consistent you’d need to takethis attitude toward yourself aswell.  This is psychologically impossibleand would lead to a mental breakdown if seriously attempted.  The participant reactive attitude simply goestoo deep in human nature, no less than eating, sleeping, perceiving, andwalking do.  It is, Strawson says, notsomething we can simply choose either to accept or reject.

To expand onStrawson’s point, we might note that the participant reactive attitude goes so deep that it is evident even in the behaviorof those who deny the reality of free will, and indeed even in the very act ofdefending this denial and drawing implications from it.  For example, those who claim (quitemistakenly) that neuroscience or some other scientific finding shows freewill to be illusory try to convince people who disagree, sometimes accuse themof intellectual dishonesty if they resist, may express contempt for them andtheir purported ignorance, etc.  None ofthis is consistent with the denial of free will.  If people don’t have free will, then whileyou may speak to them as if you arereasoning with them (as you might with a dog or an AI like Alexa), you cannotreally do so.  Nor can you blame them forremaining unconvinced by your arguments if they are simply unfree in everythingthey think and do, including in their persistence in believing that they arefree.

Those whoclaim that free will is illusory also often take this to entail that we shouldabandon the notion of responsibility and, consequently, the institution ofpunishment.  But as Strawson’s analysisimplies, to give up the participant reactive attitudes would entail abandoning farmore than just that.  We would also haveto give up attitudes like resentment, gratitude, and forgiveness, along withpraise and blame of any kind, any attempt to reason with others, and soon.  Again, to be consistent we wouldhave to adopt the “objective attitude” wholesale, treating others and ourselvesas things to be managed or controlled, just as we would the wind and rain, adog, an ATM machine, or the like.  Thereis nothing special about punishment,specifically, that makes it intelligible why we would give that up but keep most of the other aspects of the participant reactiveattitude.  It all goes, or none of itdoes.  And as Strawson says, it simply isn’tpossible for it all to go.

Exactly whatare the metaphysical implications of Strawson’s analysis?  It could be taken in different directions.  For example, one could (though I certainlywould not) interpret it in a compatibilistway, holding that we are free as long as we do what we want to do withoutexternal compulsion of the ordinary kinds, but where this does not rule out ourwants being themselves determined.  Onecould take it in a Kantian direction, holding that it shows that we must ofnecessity think of ourselves as if weare free, but where this falls short of a metaphysical demonstration that wereally are free.  Or one could take it to provide theingredients for such a demonstration, an argument to the effect that denyingfree will is ultimately incoherent. 

I am partialto the latter approach, though demonstrating the reality of free will is atopic for another time.  (In fact it isone of the many topics addressed in the book on the soul that I am working onand hope at last to finish by the end of the summer.)

All One in Christ on Bookmark Brief

Recently Irecorded interviews about my book AllOne in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory for the television programs EWTN Liveand EWTN Bookmark.  They will be aired in the coming weeks, but apreview of the Bookmark interview hasalready appeared on Bookmark Briefwith Doug Keck.  You can view it here.

McCaig and Reilly on All One in Christ

At Twitter, Bishop Scott McCaig kindly recommends my book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory .  He writes:

A devastating critique of CRT and a clear Catholic response to the evils of racism.  A real eye-opener!  The incompatibility of CRT with the Faith, its numerous logical errors, and it’s deeper entrenching of racism into societal fabric could not be clearer.  Please read.

In the Winter issue of the Claremont Review of Books, Robert R. Reilly kindly reviewsthe book.  From the review:

Feser’s [book] is an important rejoinder, delivered in an accessible way for a wide audience, not just specialists and Catholics…

In his chapter on “Philosophical Problems with Critical Race Theory,” he exposes the myriad logical fallacies in CRT’s central arguments.  He takes no prisoners.

For those who have not paid attention to the pronouncements of CRT’s academic exponents, Feser’s chapter on “What is Critical Race Theory?” is eye-opening.  On the evidence he presents, CRT seems to be little more than a giant tautology…

This book deserves a wide audience.  Its powerful arguments will empower the reader to confront CRT insanity, help roll it back, and prevent its further advances.

The philosophy of capital punishment

My essay “The Justice of Capital Punishment” appears in The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Punishment , edited by Matthew C. Altman.  You can view the anthology’s table of contents and other information about it at the publisher’s website. 

Putnam on reason, reductionism, and relativism

Naturalism holds that what is real is what can be accounted for in terms acceptable to science.  More or less the orthodoxy in contemporary intellectual life, naturalism is a purportedly less crude descendent of what was traditionally known as materialism.  For the materialist, matter alone is real, so that anything that is both real and seems to be different from matter (mind, for example) must somehow really be material after all.  In modern times, matter is often conceived of on the model of particles in motion, so that “materialism” connotes the idea that everything real is really nothing but particles in motion. 

Not all naturalists would put things that way, because the “special sciences” (i.e. everything other than fundamental physics) make reference to entities that, it is widely acknowledged, cannot be smoothly reduced to collections of particles.  Hence for many naturalists, something is real if it can be fitted into the ontology of at least some special science or other, even if not strictly reducible to the particles recognized by fundamental physics.  Hence, when philosophers speak of the project of “naturalizing” this or that phenomenon (mind, moral value, or whatever), what they mean is showing that it can be accounted for in terms of the concepts recognized by some science. 

The late, great Hilary Putnam made an influential contribution to the project of naturalizing the mind with his version of functionalism.  But in his later work he grew highly critical of this project.  One example among many would be his essay “Why Reason Can’t Be Naturalized,” which is available in his Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3.  To be more precise, what he criticizes in this essay is the view that our capacity for knowledge, specifically, can be naturalized.  (In other work, he developed important criticisms of naturalistic theories of other aspects of the mind, such as his own earlier functionalist theory and naturalistic theories of intentionality.)

Putnam’s specific targets in this essay are evolutionary epistemology, Alvin Goldman’s reliabilism, W. V. Quine’s naturalized epistemology – and, most interestingly, cultural relativism, which he perceptively characterizes as a kind of naturalism. 

Against evolutionary epistemology, Putnam objects that natural selection favors survival value rather than truth or even rational acceptability, and that there is no essential connection between the former and the latter.  A belief could be true or rational and yet be the opposite of conducive to survival, and it could facilitate survival while being false and contrary to canons of rationality.  Hence appeal to natural selection cannot suffice to explain our capacity for knowledge.  Variations on this sort of objection have been developed by Alvin Plantinga and others, and I have discussed it elsewhere (for example, hereand here).

The basic idea of reliabilism is that a belief is rational if it was produced by a reliable method for arriving at beliefs.  Against this, Putnam deploys the following example.  Suppose, he says, that the Dalai Lama is infallible on matters of faith and morals, so that any beliefs accepted on the basis of his authority would be produced by a method that is 100% reliable.  Suppose further that one of the beliefs a person adopted this way was the belief that the Dalai Lama is infallible on matters of faith and morals.  Obviously, this person’s belief would in that case have been adopted on the basis of circular reasoning.  But reliabilism would have to conclude that it is nevertheless rational, because it would have been produced by a reliable method.

Quine’s naturalized epistemology, Putnam says, entails the elimination of all normative notions from the theory of knowledge (even if Quine later resisted this characterization).  It abandons considerations about what we are justifiedin believing, warranted in asserting, have a good reason to think, etc. and simply focuses on how we do in fact happen to come to believe whatever we do.  But consistently to eschew normative notions would require also abandoning the notion of truth itself.  Hence a consistent naturalized epistemology would have to deny that any position is true, including naturalized epistemology itself.

Naturally, Putnam says much more than this about these views, but most interesting, again, is what he says about cultural relativism.  Cultural relativism holds that there are no criteria of truth, justification, rationality, etc. that transcend one’s culture (or one’s language, or one’s historical epoch, or what have you).  What is true, justified, rational, etc. relative to one culture’s standards will not be true, justified, rational, etc. relative to another’s.  And that is all that can be said.  To ask “But which culture’s standards are the right ones?” would presuppose that there is some neutral or objective higher-level standard by reference to which the standards of different cultures could be judged, and that is precisely what the cultural relativist denies.  We cannot get outside our cultures and adjudicate between them from some culture-independent point of view.  If it seems that we can, that is itself merely because we are looking at things from the point of view of a culture that believes in culture-transcendent standards.

Putnam suggests that this is essentially just another variation on naturalism, even if it is not often recognized as such.  He writes:

Cultural relativists are not, in their own eyes, scientistic or ‘physicalistic’.  They are likely to view materialism and scientism as just the hang-ups of one particular cultural epoch.  If I count them as ‘naturalized epistemologists’ it is because their doctrine is, none the less, a product of the same deference to the claims of nature, the same desire for harmony with the world version of some science, as physicalism.  The difference in style and tone is thus explained: the physicalist’s paradigm of science is a hard science, physics (as the term ‘physicalism’ suggests); the cultural relativist’s paradigm is a soft science: anthropology, or linguistics, or psychology, or history, as the case may be.  That reason is whatever the norms of the local culture determine it to be is a naturalist view inspired by the social sciences, including history. (p. 235)

Putnam notes that the most important cultural relativists often deny that they are cultural relativists.  He cites Richard Rorty and Michel Foucault as examples of thinkers whose views he thinks in fact entail cultural relativism even if they do not characterize them that way. 

As Putnam emphasizes, cultural relativism simply cannot be rescued from the charge of incoherence.  Even to formulate their thesis, cultural relativists need, as it were, to stand outside the perspective of all cultures and claim to observe that there is no culture-transcendent perspective outside of them – which is, needless to say, a self-contradictory exercise.  Or if they consistently eschew such a culture-independent perspective, they will have to conclude that cultural relativism itself is nothing more than the expression of the cultural relativist’s own parochial perspective, which no one else has any reason to take seriously. 

Putnam takes relativism to be “a far more dangerous cultural tendency than materialism” (p. 235).  Neither view can account for knowledge and rationality, but materialism at least tends to pay lip service to them.  Cultural relativism, by contrast, reflects a “deep irrationalism,” and also encourages a frivolous intellectual mindset according to which “the deep questions of philosophy are not deep at all… that philosophy, as traditionally understood, is a silly enterprise” (pp. 235-36).  This is inevitable given that philosophy is ultimately concerned precisely with the objective standards of truth and rationality that relativism rejects.

Developing the point that relativism is incoherent, Putnam notes an interesting parallel with methodological solipsism.  This approach (associated, for example, with Rudolf Carnap’s Der logische Aufbau der Welt) analyzes all reality into constructions out of one’s own experiences.  For example, tables, chairs, rocks, and trees are on this view nothing more than collections of the experiences I have of these things.  This might sound like solipsism full stop – the view that I and my experiences are all that really exist – but the difference is that the methodological solipsist holds that each of us can carry out the same analysis for ourselves, which implies that there are subjects of experience other than oneself.

The trouble, Putnam notes, is that this is incoherent.  If I regard everything as a construction out of my experiences, then it follows that all other people and their experiences are merely constructions out of my experiences.  For example, you are nothing more than a construction out of my perceptual experiences of your body, and your experiences are nothing more than a construction out of my perceptual experiences of you talking about your experiences, behaving in certain ways, and so on.  Hence there really are no other subjects of experience, when the view is worked out consistently.  Methodological solipsism collapses into solipsism full stop.

Now something analogous is true of cultural relativism, as Putnam argues.  At first it seems as if the cultural relativist recognizes a plurality of cultural perspectives and regards them all as equally valid.  But this is an illusion.  For if there are no criteria of truth, justification, rationality, etc. over and above cultural perspectives, then to be consistent, the cultural relativist must regard the criteria of truth, justification, rationality, etc. that characterize his own cultural perspective as the only genuine criteria there are.  For if he is consistent, he will have to hold that he can no more transcend his own perspective than anyone else can.  To be sure, he will note that others have different perspectives, but he will have to regard them as simply mistakenperspectives, because they conflict with his own perspective and, again, he can have no criteria for truth, justification, rationality, etc. other than his own. 

In this way, Putnam concludes, just as methodological solipsism collapses into solipsism without qualification, cultural relativism collapses into cultural imperialism.  The cultural relativist must regard his own perspective as the only correct perspective.  Hence he is not really a relativist at all.

Putnam notes that there are two opposite extreme errors to be avoided vis-à-vis the relationship between reason and culture, and both neglect the fact that reason is immanent to culture in one respect while transcending it in another.  On the one hand, there are those who have too simplistic and exaggerated a view of the independence of reason from contingent cultural and historical circumstances.  Putnam cites logical positivism as an example.  But the cultural relativist goes to the opposite extreme of entirely submerging reason in culture and historical circumstance.  The boring but sober middle ground position is that while our rationality is always exercised in ways that reflect concrete cultural and historical circumstances, it can nevertheless stand back from them and evaluate them critically by reference to criteria that transcend those circumstances.  We cannot coherently deny this.

Though Putnam does not note it, there is a parallel here to the Aristotelian conception of the human intellect and its relationship to our bodily nature.  On the one hand, the Aristotelian rejects the Platonic-Cartesian view that the mind is radically independent of the body, and its concepts built into it independently of experience of the concrete natural world.  Rather, there is nothing in the intellect without prior sensory experience, and even after the intellect is furnished by experience it continually needs the assistance of sensation and mental imagery even when entertaining the most abstract notions.  On the other hand, the Aristotelian rejects the materialist view that human beings are entirely corporeal.  The formation of concepts involves a kind of dematerialization of the mind’s objects, stripping form entirely out of its concrete material embodiment and considering it in isolation.  And the intellect can do this precisely because it is itself an immaterial power.

Though Putnam has himself emphasized the way that the abandonment of the Aristotelian-Scholastic conception of the mind’s relationship to the world poses problems for modern theories of mind, he has also stopped short of advocating a return to it.  But one of its advantages is precisely that it accounts for how reason can be both immanent to and transcendent of culture and history in the ways Putnam has noted.

Related posts:

Putnam on causation, intentionality, and Aristotle

Putnam and analytical Thomism, Part I

Putnam and analytical Thomism, Part II

The absolute truth about relativism