By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment

by Edward Feser, Joseph Bessette

The Catholic Church has in recent decades been associated with political efforts to eliminate the death penalty. It was not always so. This timely work reviews and explains the Catholic Tradition regarding the death penalty, demonstrating that it is not inherently evil and that it can be reserved as a just form of punishment in certain cases.  Drawing upon a wealth of philosophical, scriptural, theological, and social scientific arguments, the authors explain the perennial  teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate—not only to protect society from immediate physical danger, but also to administer retributive justice and to deter capital crimes. The authors also show how some recent statements of Church leaders in opposition to the death penalty are prudential judgments rather than dogma. They reaffirm that Catholics may, in good conscience, disagree about the application of the death penalty. Some arguments against the death penalty falsely suggest that there has been a rupture in the Church's traditional teaching and thereby inadvertently cast doubt on the reliability of the Magisterium.  Yet, as the authors demonstrate, the Church's traditional teaching is a safeguard to society, because the just use of the death penalty can be used to protect the lives of the innocent, inculcate a horror of murder, and affirm the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures who must be held responsible for their actions. By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed challenges contemporary Catholics to engage with Scripture, Tradition, natural law, and the actual social scientific evidence in order to undertake a thoughtful analysis of the current debate about the death penalty.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Catholic, Politics, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity

420 pages, Paperback

Published May 10, 2017

About the author

Edward Feser is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California. He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California at Santa Barbara, an M.A. in religion from the Claremont Graduate School, and a B.A. in philosophy and religious studies from the California State University at Fullerton.

Called by National Review “one of the best contemporary writers on philosophy,” Feser is the author of On Nozick, Philosophy of Mind, Locke, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, and Aquinas, and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Hayek and Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics. He is also the author of many academic articles. His primary academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind, moral and political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion.

Feser also writes on politics and culture, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective. In this connection, his work has appeared in such publications as The American, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Claremont Review of Books, Crisis, First Things, Liberty, National Review, New Oxford Review, Public Discourse, Reason, and TCS Daily.

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and six children.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough. I have not researched this topic to form an opinion and went off the statements from the USCCB. I am glad to have heard about this book. Feser has compelling arguments for capital punishment and I appreciate his hard work in putting this book together. I would say that my stance on capital punishment is to not abolish it so that justice can be served in cases where the death penalty is merited.

You cannot throw the capital punishment argument in with abortion. Abortion is a moral evil that takes away the right to life. With capital punishment, if a person is convicted of a crime worthy of the death penalty because they took a life, then the death penalty holds human dignity for the victim, their family and the person who committed the crime.

[booklady]

'It’s true that recent popes have questioned the wisdom of using the death penalty. Pope Francis has even altered the Catechism to read that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” (CCC 2267) But this is his personal view. In the Old Testament, God Himself prescribes death for certain crimes. And a long series of the pope’s predecessors would have argued the opposite: holding people responsible for grave acts is, in a way, an affirmation of their human dignity as moral actors.' -From A Little Clarity on Some Big Questions, an article by Robert Royal of "The Catholic Thing".

[David McClamrock · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors (Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bessette) make many valuable points: Catholics are not required to favor the abolition of the death penalty; the Church has consistently taught that capital punishment is legitimate in principle; many arguments against the death penalty are weak, ill-founded, or even downright stupid; a large measure of prudential judgment, not subject to authoritative pronouncements by the Church, is involved in the decision whether the death penalty should or should not be applied in particular cases. They convincingly argue that absolute opposition to the death penalty is neither wise nor beneficial. Pope Francis and the American bishops would benefit from considering the best of these authors' arguments, if they wished to do so.

If only the authors had stopped after presenting only their best arguments. Alas, they didn't. Many arguments in favor of the death penalty are also weak, ill-founded, or even downright stupid, and these authors don't omit them; instead, they present them at length. A basic presupposition of their less satisfactory arguments appears to be that some crimes are so bad that "no punishment less than death" amounts to proportionate retribution. Had they merely said some crimes are so bad that "even death is not too severe a punishment," they would have strong support from Catholic teaching including that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who allegedly supports their position. But they fail to acknowledge that, according to St. Thomas, proportionate retribution sets only a maximum--not a necessary minimum--of deserved punishment. Indeed, this is precisely why justice is consistent with mercy according to St. Thomas [S.T. I, Q. 21, A. 3 ad 2 & A. 4 ad 1]: "God acts mercifully, not indeed by going against His justice, but by doing something more than justice; thus a man who pays another two hundred pieces of money, though owing him only one hundred, does nothing against justice, but acts liberally or mercifully. The case is the same with one who pardons an offence committed against him, for in remitting it he may be said to bestow a gift. . . . Even in the damnation of the reprobate mercy is seen, which, though it does not totally remit, yet somewhat alleviates, in punishing short of what is deserved." The necessary minimum (when there is one) is set not by proportionate retribution, but primarily by the need to defend human life and society against those guilty of serious crimes.

It would be well worth going through this book in detail to separate the good arguments, which are typically well supported by ascertainable Church teaching, from the bad ones, which are not. I may even get around to doing it myself sometime. There are actually a fair number of good arguments in this book, and they deserve to be much more widely considered than it seems they have been in the recent past. But the book is seriously marred by the bad arguments and the pro-death-penalty zealotry of the authors, which is no more justifiable than the anti-death-penalty fanaticism that others present as the authentically Catholic position.

I gave the book a "3" rating on balance, despite the serious flaws that in themselves would deserve a "1," because it actually deserves a "5" in some respects--especially in thoroughness of research and presentation of many (though not all) relevant Catholic teachings.

[Etienne OMNES · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'était la toute première défense chrétienne de la légitimité de la peine de mort, et elle est très convaincante! Edward Feser fait un excellent travail de philosophe et théologien, et le co-auteur Joseph Bessette donne un arrière plan juridique et politique très intéressant, qui ancre dans la réalité. A eux deux, ils réduisent à néant l'opposition chrétienne à la peine capitale (et une bonne partie de l'opposition séculière aussi).

Cependant, le livre est spécifiquement écrit pour les catholiques, et cela lui donne parfois des faiblesses à ce qui fait sa force: un protestant lira avec profit le chapitre 1 et la première moitié du chapitre 2, ainsi que le chapitre 3. En revanche, les discussions de droit canonique et de politique intra-romaine sont inutiles et inintéressante pour lui (mais pas pour un lecteur romain!). Une bonne lecture, et même indispensable pour tous ceux qui étudient le sujet!

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fully support the message of this book..

There is a hell and to say there should not be Capital Punishment leads some to blow off the reality of hell.

Reflection/analogous?:
Many are called few are chosen.
Jesus healed 10 leapers. One came back to say thanks. [Other nine in hell?]
Saint Peter had no problem with the death penalty - Read Acts:5.

[Maxime N. Georgel · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai lu de bonnes parties de ce livre en préparation d'un article sur la récente modification du catéchisme et sur Fratelli Tutti.

Feser doit être bien troublé pour expliquer la situation actuelle et son débat avec Wedgeworth sur le Sola Scriptura mériterait d'être poursuivi avec cet élément.

[Alan Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A distinct point of view, but valuable for the research and history.

[Mike Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great