DESCRIPTION: John Finnis (born 1940) is an Australian lawyer and philosopher, one of the most prominent contemporary theorists of natural law. He is Professor Emeritus of Law and Philosophy of Law at the University of Oxford and Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. This article contains a philosophical analysis and assessment of the moral position on capital punishment expressed in the latest statements of the Catholic Church on this subject. In response to the easily inferable denial, contained in paragraph 304 of the papal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, that there are moral norms without exceptions, this article (1) recalls and confirms the thesis of philosophical and doctrinal tradition that such norms do exist. It then (2) outlines what it means to identify the type of act based on its object; (3) briefly considers three successive and different versions of the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty; and (4) draws attention to the noteworthy but rarely discussed non-pacifist teaching of the Catechism against all intentions to kill, even in a just war. "The document cited in the newly formulated para. 2067 of the Catechism, and in the Congregation’s for the Doctrine of the Faith covering letter of 1 August 2018, is a speech delivered in 2017 by the same Pope who issued sec. 304 of Amoris Laetitia. So it is no surprise that the theological or moral reasons proposed for the change in 2067 do not articulate the ground or grounds that, I have been suggesting to you, could truly authenticate a development of doctrine excluding capital punishment as intrinsece inhonestum: that by reason of its object – the intending of death as a means – capital punishment is contrary to that respect for human life which is implicit in God’s absolute lordship over life and death. This pair of documents do arouse or reinforce serious misgivings because they focus almost exclusively on human dignity, as if that provided for our rights and duties not simply (as it does) an indispensable presupposition and ground, but rather a quasi-map identifying the very sense or ratio of those rights nd tracing their content and boundaries (the morally relevant kind of chosen acts excluded by those rights)" (p. 31-32).
Table of contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Inspiration from Anscombe. 3. Catechism’s teaching. 4. Human dignity and the intention of the acting person. 5. Development of the Catholic Church’s moral doctrine. 6. Conclusion.
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