Edward Feser's Blog

Recently, theologianRobert Fastiggi was interviewed aboutthe topic of the Church and the death penalty by apologist Suan Sonna on hispodcast Intellectual Catholicism.  Fastiggi’s views are the focus of thediscussion, but Sonna, who largely agrees with him, adds some points of hisown.  Their main concern in thediscussion is to try to defend the changes Pope Francis made to the Church’spresentation of her teaching on the subject. 

I appreciatetheir civility, and Fastiggi’s call at the end of the interview for charity indealing with those who disagree.  But theirattempt fails.  Much of what Fastiggi hasto say are reheated claims that I have already refuted in past exchanges withhim, such as the two-part essay I wrote in response to his series on the deathpenalty at Where Peter Is.  (You can find it hereand here.  The essay was reprinted as a single longarticle in Ultramontanism and Tradition,edited by Peter Kwasniewski.)  Fastiggisimply repeats his assertions without acknowledging, much less answering, myrebuttals.  He also makes some new claims,which are no more plausible than the older ones.  Let’s take a look.

A straw man

In anyfruitful discussion of this topic, it must constantly be kept in mind that thereare two questions that need to be clearly distinguished.  First, is the death penalty intrinsicallywrong?  And second, even if it is notintrinsically wrong, is it nevertheless morally better never to resort toit?  To answer “Yes” to the firstquestion is to say that capital punishment ofits very nature, and regardless of the circumstances, is wrong, and thuscan never even in principle be used.  Butsomeone could answer “No” to the first question and still answer “Yes” to thesecond.  To take this view is to say thatwhile in theory the death penalty could be justified in certain circumstances,in practice those circumstances never obtain, at least not today, and that themoral considerations that tell against its use outweigh those that speak infavor of it.

People whocomment on the topic of Catholicism and capital punishment very frequentlyignore this distinction.  The result isthat they often talk past one another and the discussion generates more heatthan light.  Now, at the beginning oftheir conversation, Fastiggi and Sonna are, to their credit, careful to notethe distinction.  But unfortunately, laterin their discussion, they ignore it, and this leads them to attack a straw man.

Inparticular, Fastiggi claims (after the 35 minute mark in the video) that “peoplesay, well, the Church has always taught, always allowed for the [death penalty].”  Arguing against this, Fastiggi cites someFathers of the Church who were against capital punishment, and concludes that “it’salmost like a myth, this 2,000 year old tradition, but if it’s repeated enoughby commentators and writers, then people begin to believe it.”  Similarly, Sonna remarks (around the 45minute mark) that “a lot of people have this impression that the Church, as ifit were this uniform block, this constant unchanging permanent wall, has justconsistently said the death penalty’s fine, you know, go ahead and do it.”  But in fact, he continues, “historically,there was an uneasiness at times with the death penalty.”  Fastiggi and Sonna make a big deal out of thistheme, as if it is a damning point against Catholic defenders of the deathpenalty.

But not sofast.  For here too we need todistinguish two claims, namely:

(1) TheChurch always taught for 2,000 years that the death penalty is notintrinsically wrong.

(2) TheChurch always taught for 2,000 years that the death penalty is not only notintrinsically wrong, but that it is generally a good idea and should be used.

I know ofmany Catholic defenders of capital punishment who have asserted claim (1),including myself.  But claim (1) is by nomeans a “myth.”  It is demonstrably true,as Joseph Bessette and I document in detail in our book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A CatholicDefense of Capital Punishment. Indeed, in hisown book on the subject, E. Christian Brugger, the foremost Catholictheologian who argues against capital punishment – and someone who even claimsthat the death penalty isintrinsically wrong – admits that (1) is true. In fact, even Fastiggi and Sonna appear to concede it.  Fastiggi acknowledges that the Fathers hecites “don’t necessarily challenge the state’s right to [execute],” but merelyargue against exercising that right.  AndSonna admits that “maybe we can’t dispute that the state has the right,technically, to do it.”

By contrast,claim (2) is indeed false, for just the reasons Fastiggi gives.  But I cannot think of a single person who endorsesclaim (2) in the first place.  (CertainlyJoe Bessette and I explicitly acknowledge in our book that some Fathers andpopes held that it was morally better not to resort to the death penalty.)  So, when Fastiggi cites what certain of theFathers say as evidence against a “myth” he alleges many are peddling, he isattacking a thesis that no one in fact holds. It seems otherwise to him and to Sonna only because they ignore thedistinction between (1) and (2).

Misrepresenting John Paul II

Sloppinessof this kind often leads Fastiggi to misrepresent the views of his opponentsand the nature of their disagreement with him. It also leads him to misrepresent a pope he appeals to in defense of hisposition, namely Pope St. John Paul II.  Aboutseven minutes into the video, Fastiggi suggests that the Church now condemnsnot only killing the innocent, but “intentional killing” as such.  He says:

The reason why the Church has now developed her teaching tobe opposed to capital punishment is because it involves intentional killing,and then the question of course of whether or not a murderer loses humandignity and the right to life.  Andreally, the turning point of this was St. John Paul II.  In EvangeliumVitae number 9, he says not even a murderer loses his dignity.

After the 50minute mark, Fastiggi returns to the theme, and says:

I think a leap was made with the understanding that punishingpeople by intentionally killing them is an offense against the inviolability oflife.  The theoretical question is, doesa serious crime take away the right to life? And John Paul II answered that in EvangeliumVitae 9.  That was the breakthrough,that not even a murderer loses his dignity and right to life.

This issleight of hand.  It is true that EvangeliumVitae 9 says that “not even a murderer loses his personaldignity.”  But the encyclical nowheresays that a murderer does not lose his rightto life.  Instead, it speaks of “theabsolute inviolability of innocenthuman life,” “the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being” and again, of “fundamental human rights,beginning with the right to life of every innocenthuman being”; it says that “as far as the right to life is concerned, everyinnocent human being is absolutelyequal to all others”; it teaches that “a law which violates an innocent person's natural right to lifeis unjust and, as such, is not valid as a law”; and it calls for “unconditionalrespect for the right to life of every innocentperson” (emphasis added).  And itexplicitly allows that the execution of those guilty of the gravest offenses ispermissible “in cases of absolute necessity.” That would not be possible if the murderer never loses his right tolife.

It is truethat Evangelium Vitae also says thatbloodless means are preferable where possible because they are “more in line with human dignity” and “more in conformity to the dignity of thehuman person.”  But notice that that doesnot entail that capital punishment is notat all in line with human dignity, only that it is less in line with it. (Compare: To say that Ricky is more talented than Fred does not entailthat Fred is altogether untalented; to say that Ethel is more intelligent thanLucy does not entail that Lucy is altogether unintelligent; and so on.)  So, from the claim that (a) not even a murderer loses his dignity, togetherwith the claim that (b) the death penaltyis less in line with human dignity than milder punishments, it simply doesnot follow that (c) capital punishment isflatly incompatible with the murderer’s dignity, and neither does it followthat (d) the murderer does not lose hisright to life.  Nor, again, does JohnPaul II draw those conclusions.

PerhapsFastiggi would say that John Paul II shouldhave drawn those conclusions, and that in failing to do so he was beinginconsistent.  But there are severalproblems with such a response.  First, itwouldn’t change the fact that John Paul II did not in fact draw them, and thus didnot in fact say the things Fastiggi attributes to him.  Second, for the reasons I have given, theconclusions do not in fact follow logically from John Paul II’s premises, sothat the pope was not being inconsistent. Third, if there are two ways of reading a papal document, in one ofwhich it contains an inconsistency and in the other of which it does not, thesecond is to be preferred.  Hence, forthat reason alone, we should reject Fastiggi’s reading.  Fourth, Fastiggi’s reading would imply thatJohn Paul II was not only not consistent with himself, but also contradictedhis predecessors – such as Pope Pius XII, who taught:

Even when it is a question of the execution of a mancondemned to death, the State does not dispose of the individual's right tolive.  It is reserved rather to thepublic authority to deprive the criminal of the benefit of life when already,by his crime, he has deprived himself ofthe right to live. (Address to the First International Congress on theHistopathology of the Nervous System, 1952, emphasis added)

Certainly,implicitly to accuse one pope (John Paul II) of inconsistency and another pope (PiusXII) of grave moral error is a strange way to try to defend a third pope(Francis)!

In anyevent, Joe Bessette and I provide a very detailed analysis of John Paul II’steaching at pp. 144-82 of our book.  Aswe demonstrate there, when one considers the entirety of the evidence (and notjust the usual cherry-picked phrases Catholic opponents of capital punishmentlike to quote), it is crystal clear that the pope’s teaching was in no way analteration or even development of traditional doctrine, but simply a prudentialjudgment about how to apply that doctrine to contemporary circumstances.  Like so many of our critics, Fastiggi offersno response at all to the arguments we give there, but pretends they don’texist.

Obfuscating on Pope Francis

Beginning atabout 12 minutes into their discussion, Fastiggi and Sonna argue that PopeFrancis has, in any event, not actually taught that the death penalty isintrinsically wrong.  They focus on thepope’s 2018 revision to the Catechism, and suggest that it implicitlyacknowledges that capital punishment is permissible in theory, and simplyteaches that it is inadmissible under current circumstances.

This is adefensible position, as far as it goes. I have always myself acknowledged that the revision can and should beread in such a way that it is not teaching that capital punishment isintrinsically evil.  But that is onlypart of the story.  For one thing, theproblem with the revision is that this is not a natural reading of it.  Therevised text characterizes the death penalty as “an attack on the inviolabilityand dignity of the person.”  On a naturalreading, that seems to imply that capital punishment is intrinsically at odds with human dignity (rather than being at oddswith it only if certain conditionsfail to hold), and thus intrinsicallywrong.  Yes, it need not be read thatway, but magisterial statements should be clearlyconsistent with traditional teaching, not merely consistent with it on astrained reading.

For anotherthing, other magisterial statements made during Pope Francis’s pontificate aremuch harder to reconcile with the traditional teaching.  For example, in a2017 address, the pope asserted that “the death penalty is aninhumane measure that, regardless of howit is carried out, abases human dignity. It is per se contrary to theGospel” (emphasis added).  Theitalicized phrases are most naturally read as claiming that capital punishmentis always and intrinsically wrong.

Some mightreply that this entails only that the death penalty is contrary to the higherdemands of Christian morality, not that it is contrary to natural law.  That would be bad enough, because (as I haveshown elsewhere, such as in thisarticle) the traditional teaching of the Church is that it is not contrary to Christian morality anymore than it is contrary to natural law.

But to makematters worse, the declaration DignitasInfinita, issued by the DDF during Francis’s pontificate,implies that capital punishment iscontrary even to natural law.  For itasserts that “the death penalty… violates the inalienable dignity of everyperson, regardless of the circumstances,” and that this dignity is grounded in“human nature apart from all cultural change.”  The declaration also asserts that humandignity must be upheld “beyond every circumstance,” “in all circumstances,”“regardless of the circumstances,” and so on.  Here there is no wiggle room for saying thatthe document judges capital punishment to be contrary to human dignity only ifcertain conditions are not met.  For itflatly asserts that it violates human dignity “regardless of thecircumstances.”  Nor is there any wiggleroom for saying that the document nevertheless allows in principle for such aviolation of human dignity under certain circumstances (which would be abizarre idea in any case).  For itexplicitly says that human dignity “prevails in and beyond every circumstance,state, or situation the person may ever encounter,” and so on.  The logical implication of all this is thatcapital punishment is absolutely ruled out as always and intrinsically wrong.  And that straightforwardly contradictstraditional teaching.

Sonna, atleast, appears to acknowledge that the traditional teaching cannot bereversed.  So, if he is going to beconsistent, he will have to admit that these statements issued during Francis’spontificate are problematic – that they are poorly formulated at best, anderroneous at worst (which is possible in non-ex cathedra magisterial statements).

Parallel doctrinal reversals?

Fastiggi isanother story.  At around 40 minutes in,he says: “But hasn’t the Church definitively taught that the death penalty isallowed?  No, it hasn’t.”  And earlier, at around 25 minutes in, he saysthat “even if the Church has not yet, maybe someday she’ll say it’sintrinsically immoral, but because it had been accepted for so long we don’tneed to say that right now.”

But Fastiggiis simply mistaken.  When all therelevant evidence is taken account of, it is manifest that the doctrine thatthe death penalty is not intrinsically wrong has been taught by both scriptureand the Church in an irreformable manner. I set out some of this evidence in along Catholic World Report articlefrom some years back, and Joe Bessette and I do so in greater depth in ourbook.  Fastiggi says nothing even toacknowledge, much less answer, these arguments. He merely begs the question against them.

Fastiggialso says that even if the Church does not hold that the death penalty isintrinsically wrong, it doesn’t follow that its teaching against it is merely aprudential judgment which Catholics need only respectfully consider but notnecessarily follow.  For the Church hasthe authority to prohibit even certain practices that are not inherentlywrong.  Fastiggi gives the example ofcremation, which was for a long time prohibited by the Church but now ispermitted under certain circumstances.  Healso cites polygamy and divorce, which were tolerated under the old covenantbut have been forbidden under the new covenant.

Fastiggi isright about that much, but these facts don’t suffice to show that the Churchcan do more than issue a non-binding prudential judgment against use of thedeath penalty.  The reason is that it isthe state and not the Church which has the responsibility and right undernatural law to do what is necessary to ensure the safety of the community.  This is why, after setting out the criteriafor fighting a just war, the Catechism goes on to say that “the evaluation ofthese conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment ofthose who have responsibility for the common good” (2309).  In other words, the Church can teach that awar is just only when the cause is just, there is a serious chance of success, noother options are likely to work, and so on. But the Church does not have the expertise or authority to determine howthese criteria apply in a particular case. For example, it does not have the relevant expertise to determinewhether some option other than war would suffice to repel an aggressor in aparticular case, or whether a certain military strategy is likely tosucceed.  These are matters of prudentialjudgment, and it is the state rather than the Church that has the right andresponsibility to make that judgment.

But the sameapplies, mutatis mutandis, to capitalpunishment.  The revision to thecatechism claims, for example, that modern systems of imprisonment aresufficient to protect others against the most dangerous offenders.  But the Church has no more expertise on thatsort of issue than it does on military strategy.  If government officials have good empiricalreason to believe that the death penalty saves lives – for example, if theyhave evidence that it has a significant deterrent effect, or that it is neededto protect prison guards or other prisoners from the most violent offenders –then they have just as much a right under natural law to utilize capitalpunishment as they do to fight a just war. 

This sort ofreasoning does not apply to cremation, which is why it is not an interestingparallel to the case of capital punishment. The examples of polygamy and divorce also do nothing to help Fastiggi’scase, and not just because (unlike capital punishment) the state does not needto keep them open as options in order to do its job of protecting society.  There is also the following glaringdisanalogy: The New Testament explicitly forbidsdivorce and clearly opposes polygamy too, as has the Church ever since.  But the New Testament explicitly allows capital punishment (e.g. inRomans 13), as has the Church ever since. Cremation, polygamy, and divorce thus offer no precedent for an absoluteprohibition on capital punishment.

Fastiggi andSonna suggest other alleged doctrinal reversals that they think provide aprecedent for a reversal on capital punishment. But they are all bad analogies that provide no support whatsoever forsuch a reversal.  For example, Fastiggipoints to the fact that theologians were once free to disagree about theImmaculate Conception, but later the Church made a dogmatic pronouncement onthe matter so that such legitimate disagreement is no longer possible.

The problemwith this purported analogy should be obvious. To teach that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong would directlycontradict what the Church had consistently taught for 2,000 years and what shehad always understood scripture to teach. Proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception involved nothingremotely like that.  In particular, it inno way involved the Church contradictingsome doctrine she had previously taught.

Fastiggialleges that there is also a parallel between capital punishment and the caseof torture.  He contrasts a passingremark on the subject from Pope Innocent I, which left its use open, with themore recent teaching of the Church condemning torture.  Here too the alleged parallel isspurious.  The Church holds thatscripture cannot teach moral error, and she has for two millennia acknowledgedthat scripture repeatedly sanctions capital punishment.  But there is no such scriptural sanction fortorture.  The Church has also for twomillennia herself consistently and clearly taught that capital punishment canunder certain circumstances be licit, to the point of including this doctrinein major teaching documents such as the catechisms of Pope St. Pius V and PopeSt. John Paul II.  The teaching was alsoendorsed by the Fathers (even those who opposed the use of capital punishmentin practice), has been consistently affirmed by the Church’s greatesttheologians (including many Doctors of the Church), and routinely endorsed inapproved manuals of moral theology.  Noneof this can be said of torture. 

Fastiggi andSonna also suggest that the development of the Church’s teaching on slaveryprovides a precedent for a change on capital punishment.  But this alleged parallel too is phony.  For one thing, here too Fastiggi and Sonnamuddy the waters by ignoring long-established and crucial distinctions.  For the word “slavery” is ambiguous.  What most people think of when they hear thisterm is chattel slavery, whichinvolves claiming ownership of another human being in the way one might own ananimal or inanimate object.  The Churchdoes indeed teach that this is intrinsically evil, but she has never taughtotherwise.  Indeed, she has condemnedthis practice for centuries (as I document in my book All One inChrist: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory).  

There are,however, less extreme forms of servitude that the Church has taken to be atleast in theory not unjust.  Inparticular, there is penal servitude,which is forced labor in punishment for a crime.  The idea here is that if the state can, inpunishment for a sufficiently grave crime, take away an offender’s liberty fora prolonged period of time (even for life), then it can also require him towork.  And there is indentured servitude, a prolonged period of labor without paymentas a way to repay a debt or in exchange for some benefit.  The idea here is that if someone canlegitimately enter a work contract, or have his wages garnished in order to paya debt, then by extension he can make himself a servant in order to pay a debt.

The troublewith these practices is that in concrete circumstances they are fraught withmoral hazard, and were often used to rationalize what amounted to chattelslavery (such as when captives taken in war were enslaved on the spuriousgrounds that they were guilty of the offense of fighting an unjust war, andthus could be forced into penal servitude). Hence, moral theologians settled on the view (quite correctly, I wouldsay) that when all relevant moral considerations are brought to bear, it isclear that they ought flatly to be banned altogether.

There isalso the consideration that in scripture, slavery is merely tolerated as aninstitution that happened to exist, rather than put forward as a positivegood.  By contrast, the death penalty is not merely tolerated, but in some casesis positively sanctioned (not only in the Mosaic law, but in other contextssuch as Genesis 9 and Romans 13).

So, when allthe distinctions are made, the argument that “the Church reversed herself onslavery, so she can reverse herself on capital punishment” falls apart.  There was no such reversal, and thus noprecedent for a reversal on capital punishment.

Magisterial credibility

This bringsus to Fastiggi’s remarks about Genesis 9 and Romans 13, where he repeats claimsthat I have already refuted in my previous exchange with him.  And once again, he simply ignores rather thananswers the objections I raised there.  Idirect the interested reader to thatearlier essay of mine.  (Inparticular, see the sections titled “Genesis and the death penalty” and “TheMosaic Law versus the Gospel?”)

Fastiggiacknowledges that, in the instruction DonumVeritatis, the Church affirms that Catholics have the rightrespectfully to raise questions about deficient magisterial statements and askfor clarification.  He says that thisnevertheless gives Catholics no right to “dissent” from the teaching of theChurch.  I agree with him about allthat.  But Fastiggi seems to think thatit rules out the sort of respectful criticisms that I and others with therelevant expertise have raised.  It doesnot, and I have many times given arguments that show that it does not.  These arguments too are ones that Fastiggisimply ignores rather than tries to answer. 

For example,the criticisms I have raised with respect to the 2018 revision of the Catechismhave nothing to do with “dissenting” from some teaching of the Church.  Rather, the whole point is that the teachingis unclear – that it is far from obvious exactlywhat it is that Catholics are being asked to assent to.  True, the revisiondeclares that the death penalty is now “inadmissible.”  But the trouble is that the force of this teaching is notobvious.  Ihave argued that there are only two ways to read it.  On the one hand, it might be read as claimingthat the death penalty is intrinsicallywrong and thus “inadmissible” in an absoluteand unqualified way.  The problem isthat this would contradict scripture and tradition, and thus amount to adoctrinal error (something that can occur in non-ex cathedra statements). Moreover, even Fastiggi and Sonnaacknowledge that this is not the right way to read it.

But when wetake account of all the relevant considerations (both from within the documentand from the larger tradition of the Church), the only other way to read it isas saying that the death penalty is “inadmissible” unless certain conditions hold (such as that resort to it is necessaryin order to protect society).  And ifthis is the case, then the teaching amounts to a non-binding prudentialjudgment.  For the “unless” part is notsomething concerning which the Church has any special authority.  For example, whether capital punishment has asignificant deterrence effect, and whether modern prison systems really doafford the means of protecting others from all violent offenders, are empiricalmatters of social science, not matters of faith or morals. 

For sevenyears now, Fastiggi and I have been arguing about this issue, and in all thattime I have never gotten a clear answer from him about what a third possibleinterpretation would look like.  In anyevent, if someone asks me “Do you dissent from the teaching of the revision ofthe Catechism?” my answer is “No, I do not dissent from it.  I assent to it, and interpret it in the onlyway I know of that makes sense – namely, as a non-binding prudentialjudgment.”  I also say, however, that therevision is badly formulated and potentially misleading.  And I have every right respectfully to raisesuch a criticism, by the norms set out in DonumVeritatis.  Fastiggi and others maycontinue to yell “Dissent!” but yelling is all they would be doing.  I have yet to hear an actual argument showing that my positionamounts to dissent.

Iacknowledge that my criticism of DignitasInfinita goes beyond this.  Here, Ithink we have a document that is not merely ambiguous, but very hard (at best)to defend from the charge of flatly contradicting scripture and tradition andthus being erroneous.  But if someone hasa plausible way of reconciling it with scripture and tradition, I’m allears. 

Even if itis indeed in error, however, this is possible in non-ex cathedra documents. Indeed, Fastiggi himself is implicitly committed to this thesis.  For, again, he holds that the Church couldend up teaching that capital punishment is intrinsically immoral.  And if that were correct, it would followthat for two millennia, the Church got things gravely wrong on matters of basicmoral principle and biblical interpretation. That is a very radical claim, and indeed far more radical than anything I have said.  If I am right, then one pope has gottenthings wrong about capital punishment. If Fastiggi is right, then every previouspope who has taught on this topic has been wrong, as have the Fathers andDoctors of the Church (and indeed scripture itself).  Fastiggi likes to paint views like mine asextreme, but in fact it is his viewsthat are extreme. 

The factthat he presents them politely and under the guise of obedience to themagisterium doesn’t change that one whit. It is the content of the viewsthat matter, and the content is radically subversive of the credibility of theChurch, because it implies that the Churchmay have been gravely in error about a matter of natural law, the demands ofthe Gospel, and the proper understanding of scripture for her entire historyuntil now.  And if she could be thatwrong for that long, what else might she be wrong about?

At about onehour and three minutes into the interview, Fastiggi says, with no sense ofirony: “There has to be trust in the Holy Spirit’s guidance of themagisterium.  And that’s what I findmissing in many of these papal critics. They don’t trust the Holy Spirit.” Yet Fastiggi is the onesuggesting that the magisterium may have, for two millennia, consistently erredabout a grave matter of natural law, Christian morality, and scriptural interpretation.  Fastiggiis the one suggesting that the Holy Spirit might have permitted this.  But what is more likely – that that is thecase, or that a single pope (Francis) issued a badly formulated catechismrevision and permitted the DDF to slip a doctrinal error into a declaration?  I submit that, if the Holy Spirit truly isguiding the magisterium, the scenario I posit is manifestly more plausible thanthe one Fastiggi is positing.

The realityis that the critics do trust in the HolySpirit’s guidance of the magisterium. They trust that the Holy Spirit would not have allowed the Church to bethat wrong for that long about something that important, so that it must bethose who now contradict the past magisterium who are mistaken.  This has always been theoretically possible,because the Church has always acknowledged that non-definitive exercises of themagisterium can fall into error.  Indeedthis has in fact happened before in the case even of papal teaching, as the famousexamples of popes Honorius I and John XXII illustrate.  And Fastiggi’s own position entails it.  If, as he insists, it may turn out that twomillennia of past teaching of the magisterium on capital punishment was wrong,then it follows logically that it is also possible that it is instead PopeFrancis’s statements on the subject that are wrong.  And as I have shown elsewhere (hereand here),the Church has also always affirmed that there can be cases where the faithfulmay respectfully criticize the magisterium, even a pope, for teaching contraryto the tradition.

What Fastigginever seems to appreciate is that his approach damages the credibility of themagisterium by appearing to saddle it with what, in logic, is known as a “NoTrue Scotsman” fallacy.  Suppose I say“No true Scotsman would be an empiricist,” and you respond “But David Hume wasan empiricist!”  And suppose I reply “Well,then David Hume must not really havebeen a true Scotsman,” and that I insist that everybody has for 250 years beenmisinterpreting all the evidence that seems obviously to show that he was anempiricist.  Needless to say, this wouldnot lend me or my thesis any credibility at all, but would do precisely theopposite.  It would reveal me to beintellectually dishonest and unwilling to look at the evidence objectively.

Now, theFirst Vatican Council declared that “the Holy Spirit was promised to thesuccessors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known somenew doctrine.”  The Second VaticanCouncil stated that “the living teaching office of the Church… is not above theword of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on.”  Pope Benedict XVI taught that the pope “mustnot proclaim his own ideas… he is bound to the great community of faith of alltimes, to the binding interpretations that have developed throughout theChurch's pilgrimage.”

But theliceity in principle of the death penalty has for two millennia beenconsistently taught by the Church, and has for two millennia been understood bythe Church to be the teaching of scripture, which is the word of God.  Hence, for a pope to teach that the deathpenalty is intrinsically immoral would manifestly be a case of attempting to“make known some new doctrine.”  It wouldmanifestly be a case of putting himself “above the word of God” instead of“teaching only what has been handed on.” It would manifestly be a case of attempting to “proclaim his own ideas”rather than being “bound to the great community of faith of all times.”

Fastiggi,however, takes the view that if a pope were to teach such a thing, then the conclusionwe should draw is that the liceity in principle of capital punishment mustafter all not really ever have beenthe teaching of scripture; that it must not reallybe a “new doctrine” but somehow implicit in what scripture and the Church havealways taught; that it must not reallyafter all have been among “the binding interpretations” to which a pope mustconform himself.  And that is likedogmatically insisting that Hume must not reallyhave been a true Scotsman after all.  Itgives aid and comfort to Protestant and skeptical critics of Catholicism, whoargue that the Church’s claim to continuity with scripture and tradition is asham – that at the end of the day, the popes will just teach whatever they likeand then arbitrarily slap the label “traditional” on it.

It may bethat Fastiggi is not sufficiently sensitive to this problem, whereas I havealways emphasized it, in part because of the differences in our academic andintellectual contexts.  Fastiggi is atheologian teaching at a seminary, the primary job of which is the formation ofpriests.  And it seems that he writespretty much exclusively for Catholic audiences. I’m a philosopher teaching at a secular college, who often writes onmatters of apologetics.  And my writingis directed as much to the general public as it is to fellow Catholics.  When Fastiggi sees Catholics criticizing evenobviously deficient magisterial statements, even in a respectful and well-informedway, his instinctive reaction appears to be: “It’s unseemly for Catholics to bedoing that, no matter what the pope says! Just keep quiet, and trust providence to sort it out.”  When I see Catholics tying themselves inlogical knots trying to defend obviously deficient magisterial statements, myinstinctive reaction is: “Those are manifestly terrible arguments, you’remaking Catholicism look ridiculous!  Justfrankly admit that there’s a problem, and trust providence to sort it out.”  What Fastiggi and I agree about is thatprovidence will sort it out, but we disagree about what form this might takeand what role respectful criticism of deficient magisterial statements can play.

At the endof the day, though, such psychological speculations are not what matter.  What matters is what the evidence ofscripture, tradition, and the entiretyof the magisterial history of the Church (not just the last few years of it)have to say.  And as I have argued, thatevidence tells decisively against Fastiggi’s position.

In a new essay at Postliberal Order, I argue thatburning the flag as an expression of contempt for one’s country is contrary tothe virtue of piety, is something we therefore have no right to do undernatural law, and may, in principle, therefore be outlawed by the state.  I also argue that the Supreme Court was, in Texas v. Johnson, mistaken in claimingthat a right to burn the flag is implied by the U.S. constitution.

Daily Nous has reportedthat John Searle has died.  Searle wasone of the true greats of contemporary philosophy, having made huge and lastingcontributions to several of its subdisciplines, but especially to philosophy ofmind and philosophy of language.  His workhad an enormous influence on me in my undergrad and graduate studentyears.  His books Minds, Brains, and Science , Intentionality:An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind , Speech Acts, and The Rediscovery of the Mind wereespecially formative.  And his uncommonlylucid style was the main model for my own approach to philosophicalwriting.  I had the pleasure of meetingand talking to him on several occasions, and Steven Postrel and I interviewedhim for Reason magazine overtwenty-five years ago.

Searle wasfamously self-confident, but he had a sense of humor about it.  In the Q and A session after a talk I gave ata conference we were both at, he strongly took issue with the Aristotelianism Iwas defending.  After the session I toldhim I was surprised he was not more open to Aristotelian arguments, given thearticle his colleague Alan Code had contributed to a festschrift on Searle,arguing that there were important parallels between Searle’s views andAristotle’s.  With a twinkle in his eye,he replied: “Oh yeah, I remember that article. I thought he made Aristotle sound pretty good!”

I’ve had afair amount to say about Searle’s views in various places, most recently in mybook ImmortalSouls.  Some readers might findof interest a couple of papers wherein I engage with his views in depth: “Why Searle Is a Property Dualist” and “FromAristotle to John Searle and Back Again: Formal Causes, Teleology, andComputation in Nature.”

Searle sufferedenormous harm to his personal reputation and career in the last years of hislife.  Most who know of this have onlyheard one side of the story.  There isanother side to it, which is given by his longtime secretary Jennifer Hudin inan email that has been publishedat Colin McGinn’s blog.

What I cansay with certainty is that philosophy is in debt to his work, and that I ampersonally in great debt to it.  Though Iwas never formally his student, it feels as if one of my teachers hasdied.  Requiescat in pace.

I am by nomeans a free speech absolutist.  In an article atPostliberal Order a coupleof years ago, I set out the natural law position on the issue, noting that theteleology or final cause of our rational and communicative faculties entailsnot only a broad range of freedom of expression, but also definite limits.  There can be no natural right to expressionthat is positively contrary to whatis good for us given our nature as rational social animals.  However, that by no means entails that justany old limitation on free speech imposed in the name of a good cause is a goodidea, or even justifiable in principle.

I won’trepeat here everything I said in the earlier article, but the relevantprinciples are as follows.  Naturalrights, in general, exist for the purpose of facilitating the realization ofthe ends toward which our nature directs us. In the case of our rational and communicative powers, that end is thediscovery and dissemination of what is true and good.  We have a natural right to speech thatfacilitates this end.  And while thatentails that there is no right to express erroneous or bad ideas as such, it nevertheless does allow fora wide range of freedom to express even ideas that happen to be erroneous or bad. The reason is that, given the limitations on our cognitive powers, weare bound to fall into error sometimes, and the normal means of correctingthese errors is the give and take of discussion and debate.  Furthermore, those who would censor erroneousand bad ideas are (since they are no less human than anyone else) themselves prone to error, and thereforemay end up censoring true and good ideas.

There is apresumption, then, in favor of free expression, precisely because itfacilitates the natural end of our rational powers.  However, not all forms of expression areprotected by this presumption, because not all forms of expression haveanything to do with our rational powers. For example, pornography does not appeal to our rationality and in noway contributes to discovering truth or to debate by which we might root outerror.  It appeals instead to ourappetites, and in a way that corrupts them. In particular, it fosters and even habituates sexual desire that isdisordered in its intensity and its objects. It thereby corrupts sexual morals, and thereby weakens the institutionof the family, the foundation of all social order.  Accordingly, pornography is in no wayprotected by the natural right to free speech.

There arealso ideas which not only happen to be erroneous or bad, but have a tendency positively to frustrate the pursuit oftruth and the living of good lives. Examples would be views that deny the very reality of truth or goodnessas objective features of the world. Since the purpose of the right to free expression is to safeguard thepursuit and dissemination of what is true and good, it can hardly protectspeech that denies the very reality of the true and the good.  Hence there can be no natural right topromote such ideas.  There may undercertain circumstances be good prudential reasons to tolerate them, but not because suppressing them would be inherentlyunjust.

The case for (certain kinds of)censorship

Which formsof expression should the state prohibit, then? To start with the least controversial examples, it should prohibit libelousand slanderous speech, and speech that directly incites violence against someindividual or group.  

Thatpornography should be outlawed is now a more controversial claim than it usedto be, but it should not be controversial. From a natural law point of view, this is not a difficult case atall.  Pornography should simply bebanned.  To be sure, there are materialsconcerning which one can make a case for toleration (for example, novels ormainstream movies that are not pornographic works but do have salaciouscontent).  But this is not so where straightforwardlypornographic materials are concerned. (Naturally, the argument for this claim presupposes the general naturallaw account of sexual morality.  I’maware that not every reader will accept that account, but my point is that ifone accepts it, together with the natural law account of the foundations ofnatural rights, the case for outlawing pornography is obvious.  I’ve defended the natural law approach tosexual morality inother writings.)

In aforthcoming article at Postliberal Order,I argue that governments have a right under natural law to prohibit flagburning, understood as a public expression of contempt for one’s country.  On the one hand, such a prohibition in no wayfrustrates expression of or debate about any idea (since any idea that could beexpressed by burning the flag could be expressed instead in words).  And on the other hand, showing such publiccontempt for one’s country offends against the virtue of piety, and candestabilize the social order by encouraging others to have a similarcontempt.  But whether a particulargovernment should actually exerciseits natural right to ban this particular form of expression is a matter forprudential judgment and depends on circumstances.

What aboutthe expression of ideas that positively frustrate the pursuit of what is trueor good?  Here the clearest cases concerncontexts where such ideas might influence the young – who, because they aremore ignorant and inexperienced, and governed more by feeling than reason, areleast likely to be able to see what is wrong with such ideas.  Hence, consider cognitive or moral relativisttheories that deny the reality of truth or goodness as objective features ofthe world.  Or consider theories that areinherently subversive of the social order and pit one group against another,such as Nazism, Marxism, and Critical Race Theory.  Or theories which promote gravely disorderedsexual desires, and thus inculcate sexual vice in the young and destabilize thefamily.  It is simply common sense thatthere cannot be a right to teach such ideas to young people, such as highschoolers (let alone even younger children). The state may and ought to prohibit the dissemination of such ideas inprimary and secondary education.

Things aremore complicated where higher education is concerned.  Certainly the state should in no way andunder no circumstances actively promotesuch evil ideas in any context, including higher education.  But what about merely tolerating them?  Here thereis no “one size fits all” answer, and much depends on the judgment ofprudence.  There can be specialcircumstances where the state has an interest in rooting out such ideas.  For example, you would not want to toleratehaving many Critical Race Theorists on the faculties of the military academies,because their ideas are positively subversive of allegiance to the country thatwarriors are supposed to be protecting. 

The case against (other kinds of)censorship

But policingacademia in general is much trickier.  Governmentregulators are highly unlikely to be sufficiently good judges of ideas, giventhe people who would be appointing them. Liberal politicians tend to be suckers for every idiotic academic fadthat comes down the pike, while conservative politicians tend to be philistines. Any regulation of academic discussioncoming from either left-wing flakes or right-wing yahoos would be ham-handed atbest and do much more harm than good. Hence in a university context it is, in general, best to combaterroneous ideas through the give and take of free debate.

Somethingsimilar can be said of public debate in the world beyond academia, especiallyin a pluralistic society like the U.S. whose constitution and political culturehave long idealized the free exchange of ideas (even if, in practice, notalways doing so consistently or well).  Whenit comes to bad ideas concerning political philosophy, public policy, and thelike (as opposed to defamatory speech, incitement to violence, pornographic expression,and the like), it is better to fight them through the give and take of debaterather than through censorship. 

The COVID-19pandemic vividly illustrated how dangerous it can be for even intelligent andwell-informed people with good intentions to try to police such speech.  One side tried, in the name of public health,to shout down critical discussion of policies that imposed severe costs onmillions yet whose scientific and moral justifiability was far fromcertain.  The other side, rightly alarmedat this, overreacted by too willingly embracing crackpot medical ideas andconspiracy theories.  The first side thencondemned this overreaction, arrogantly oblivious to its own responsibility forcausing it.

In thiscase, preemptively shutting down debate was especially unreasonable given howpoorly understood the virus was at first, and how draconian and untested werethe methods employed for dealing with it. But even in the case of matters that are very well understood, it isgenerally a bad idea to try to suppress dissent by force of law.  Human beings are, by nature, rational animals.  True, they very commonly use their rationalpowers badly, and are prone to all sorts of error and irrational thinking.  But because they are rational animals, they are,naturally, prone to accept ideas only when they can see why they are reasonableand have a choice about whether to embrace them.  They do not react well to having forced on them ideas they don’tunderstand or agree with, even when those ideas happen to be correct and resistanceto them is unreasonable.  For the sake ofsocial harmony, then, there is a strong presumption against censoring public discussionand debate over matters of policy, political philosophy, and the like.

In theory,there are cases where this presumption can be overridden.  But I would suggest that a necessary conditionfor such censorship is that it meets all of the following criteria:

1. It should concern expression that isinherently contrary to the common good, and in particular that attacks theprerequisites of living together as a community of rational animals.

Again, Iwould argue that examples of expression that meet this condition include: libelousor slanderous speech; the incitement of violence against particular individualsor groups; pornographic expression; direct assaults on the virtue of piety,such as public actions intended to foster contempt for one’s country; ideasthat challenge the very reality of truth or goodness; and ideologies thatpromote social conflict by demonizing entire groups of human beings, or which directlypromote grave vices such as sexual immorality. (This list is meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive.)  As I have said, there may be pragmaticreasons why a government should tolerate such errors, but it cannot be wrong inprinciple to suppress them.

Now, thepoint is that these sorts of expression are directassaults on the good of individuals and societies.  Defamatory speech, by destroying one’sreputation, can make it extremely difficult or impossible to engage in everydaysocial life (by securing employment, for example).  This is even more obviously true of speechthat causes others to live under the threat of violence.  A culture that is so awash in pornographythat even children have easy access to it will inevitably inculcate widespreadand deeply ingrained sexual vice, which is contrary to both our social nature(since it destabilizes the family) and our rational nature (given that, asAquinas teaches, sexual vice has an even greater tendency than other vices doto blind the intellect).  Theproliferation of ideas that promote hatred of one’s country or of large groupsof one’s fellow citizens radically undermines social harmony.  And so on.

Contrastthese examples with the following: disagreements over particular policyproposals (concerning taxation, immigration, health care policy, foreignpolicy, or the like); disagreement with or dislike of some particularindividual politician or political party; disagreements about particular moralissues or matters of political philosophy (of the kind that always inevitablyarise in political debate, journals of opinion, the classroom, etc.); disagreementsabout particular matters of empirical fact, concerning current events, history,science, etc.; and so on.

These sortsof disagreements, even when heated, are a normal part of social and politicallife and in no way intrinsically atodds with the good of individuals or societies. And even when erroneous opinions about such matters result from outrightdeception or intellectual dishonesty, they rarely strike at the very roots ofthe social order.  Moreover, it is in anycase simply unrealistic to suppose that government can, in general, effectivelyseparate such lies out from the honest mistakes and exaggerations human beingsare commonly prone to.  Hence these arematters where government should notinterfere with speech, but rather let error be corrected via the give and takeof free debate.

2. It should clearly be motivated by service to the common good, rather thanthe narrow interests of some particular party or leader.

The pointhere is that it is not good enough for a policy of censorship actually to havesound reasons in its favor.  It must be motivated by those reasons, and bewidely perceived as having such a motivation. Even the best policy is likely to backfire if it is widely perceived tobe motivated instead by corruption or a personal grudge on the part of someleader, or by an attempt by one party or ideology to silence reasonable dissent.

This doesnot mean that every single citizen has to think the policy has a goodmotivation.  That would, of course, be anunrealistically stringent standard.  Buta critical mass of the population has to be able to see it that way.  Think of the way that, in wartime, the bulkof the population often gives the government the benefit of the doubt wherecertain censorship is concerned, because it knows that certain matters have tobe kept secret for the sake of national security.  Certainly this was true in the days of WorldWar II, for example. 

Of course, thingsare different now, and distrust of governmental authority is much higher.  But that makes it even more important (not less) for a critical mass of the population tobe able to believe that a censorship policy is at least intended to serve the common good rather than some narrow personalor partisan interest.  From the point ofview of natural law, the whole point of suppressing certain kinds of expressionis to preserve the social order and the common good.  Hence a policy that will, in practice, tendonly further to divide an already highly polarized society can hardly bejustified on natural law grounds.

For thesereasons, even when a policy of censorship has good arguments in its favor, itshould in general not be pursued except by leaders known for the utmost probityand statesmanship.  Otherwise it islikely to do more harm than good.

3. It should be calmly and carefullythought out, not impulsive.

Censorship,like war, is so grave in its consequences that even when it is justifiable, itshould never be resorted to lightly.  Hence,a policy of censorship should never be implemented except after careful and dispassionatestudy.  Major events that trigger strongemotions (such as the rapid spread of COVID-19 in early 2020 and the recentassassination of Charlie Kirk) often lead to calls for censorship.  But censorship policies proposed under suchcircumstances are the least likely tobe justifiable, because they result more from emotion than reason.

4. It should as far as possible beimplemented in general rules, rather than in ad hoc directives or otherexercises of discretionary power.

This conditionis a corollary of the second and third conditions.  Where some individual or agency has arbitrarypower to censor speech, it is far more likely that such censorship will resultfrom the passions of the moment than careful and dispassionate analysis, andthat it will reflect personal or partisan interests rather than be directed tothe common good.  There is also theconsideration that social order requires predictability, and thus the rule oflaw rather than governance by whim.

In light ofthese criteria, what should we think of recent Trump administration policiesthat have been characterized as exercises in censorship?  The answer is that it depends on whichpolicies we are talking about.  In thecase of eliminating federal funding for DEI programs, rooting “woke” ideologiesout of the military academies, and the like, I would say that these measuresare all justifiable.  One might quibbleover details of implementation, but the basic policies are sound, because theseideas are poisonous and divisive and should have no influence on, or supportfrom, government.  

But thingsare very different with some of what has been said and done over the lastcouple of weeks, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.  Attorney General Pam Bondi has spoken of“going after” those who engage in vaguely defined “hate speech,” and of prosecutingprinting businesses that refuse to print Charlie Kirk posters.  While ABC was in my view correctto suspend Jimmy Kimmel for an unjust and inflammatory remark, it did so in partunder threat from FCC chairman Brendan Carr, whose action hasbeen compared by Republican Senator Ted Cruz to that of a mafia boss.  President Trump has suggested that becausethe negative press coverage he has received is in his view excessive, it is “nolonger free speech” and “illegal.” 

Theseremarks and actions are foolish and irresponsible.  They are bad in themselves, because theyclearly do not meet the criteria set out in 1- 4 above.  They also threaten to discredit the goodthings the Trump administration is doing, because they give its enemiesammunition by lending plausibility in the public mind to the tiresome charge of“fascism.” 

Defenders ofthe administration will point out that left-wingers who promoted “cancelculture,” cheered Trump’s being kicked off of social media, suppressed speechduring the pandemic, etc. have little standing to complain.  That is correct.  But it is also irrelevant.  It’s a cliché to say that two wrongs don’tmake a right, but it is also true. Statesmanship requires doing whatever possible to repair social divisions,not exacerbating them further in the interests of getting revenge on those whofirst caused them.

All of my readerswill no doubt have been following the horrific and heartbreaking news of the assassinationof conservative activist Charlie Kirk and its aftermath.  As those who follow me on Twitter/X know, I havehad a lot to say about the matter there. One of Twitter’s advantages over traditional blogging is that it is moreconducive to running commentary on unfolding events.  But because some readers of this blog are noton Twitter, it seems appropriate to comment here as well.

When major andshocking events occur, there is, of course, a tendency for people to respondmore emotionally than rationally, and to overinterpret their significance.  But it seems to me that two general pointscan safely be made about the current situation.

The first isthat Kirk’s murder has vividly illustrated how dangerous and destructive of socialorder are the ideologies that have in recent decades come to have such apervasive influence in academia and the culture more generally.  This is evident not only from the so-called “anti-fascist”motivations of the shooter, but the approval of this murder shown by adisturbing number of people on the left side of the political spectrum (thesame people, it seems, who also lionized the murderer of United Healthcare CEOBrian Thompson). 

In anarticle at Postliberal Order lastyear, I argued that “woke” ideologies are, in spirit, essentially revivals ofthe toxic and antisocial Manichean heresy which, in various guises, occasionallyspread like a pestilence through medieval Europe.  Much of the political violence we have seenin recent years, such as the riots of the summer of 2020 and the assassinationsof Thompson and Kirk, illustrate just how dangerous these ideologies are.  Their influence within academia and thebroader culture must be thoroughly extirpated, root and branch.

By no means doI deny that there are also serious problems on the right end of the politicalspectrum.  On the contrary, Ihave argued that Manichean tendencies can also be seen on the right, in,for example, the QAnon movement.  Some ofthe recent political violence has also come from the right, as in the case ofthe January 6 riot and the assassinations this June of Democratic Minnesotastate legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband.  Right-wingers have also sometimes been guiltyof ugly responses to violence against left-wingers, as in the case of theattack on Paul Pelosi.  In no way doesthis entail positing some “moral equivalence.” Let the blame be parceled out in whatever unequal way you like – 60/40or 70/30, say, instead of 50/50 – the fact is that there is bad behavior onboth sides.

All thesame, I would argue that the problem is more fundamentally on the left than onthe right, because the cultural left more thoroughly dominates majorinstitutions – academia, journalism, pop culture, and so forth.  This is why the moral and cultural center ofgravity has in recent decades moved steadily leftward (as the decline ofreligious belief, traditional sexual morality, and the like illustrate).  The right has in some ways reacted badly to this,but precisely because it has been in a position of greater weakness and thusgreater desperation.  Nor, in my view, doesrecent GOP electoral success show otherwise. I would argue that that mainly reflects dissatisfaction with Democraticexcess and incompetence rather than any revival of cultural conservatism.  Indeed, it occurred precisely as the GOPitself movedleftward on moral and cultural issues.

But thisbrings me to my second point, which is that as bad as things are for moral andreligious conservatives, they are nevertheless not as bad as too many on the right pretend.  In the days since Charlie Kirk was murdered,many hotheads on social media have suggested that we are now essentially in astate of civil war and ought to respond accordingly.  This is foolish and dangerous talk, and nottrue to the facts.  In reality, despitethe evil things too many “rank and file” left-wingers have been saying aboutKirk’s assassination, most of the leading voices on the left have stronglydenounced it, often in ways that show real human solidarity with their rivalson the right (some examples I’ve called attention to on Twitter being Bernie Sanders, Cenk Uygur, and Tim Robbins). 

Not only asa matter of justice and charity, but also for the good of the country and of one’sown soul, it is crucial not to fall into the trap of pretending that all peoplewhose political views are contrary to one’s own are monsters, or that theyotherwise basically all think alike.  Real life is more complicated than that.  It is crucial to acknowledge this reality,and to work with all men of good will to bring down the political temperaturewhile this is still possible.  For as badas things are now, an actual civil war, or any level of political violenceapproximating it, would be incalculably worse.

In recentmonths, the bitterness of current U.S. politics – and especially the stubborninsistence of too many on fighting ideology with counter-ideology, lawfare withcounter-lawfare, and so on – has often brought to my mind Thucydides’ accountof the civil war in Corcyra, in his Historyof the Peloponnesian War.  We have,thank God, not descended to the level of violence he describes.  But the mentalityhe describes, which led to that violence, is all too disturbingly evident.  I’ll end this post with some relevantpassages, a warning from antiquity that we ignore at our peril:

Civil war ran through the cities… And they reversed the usualway of using words to evaluate what they did.  Ill-considered boldness was counted as loyalmanliness; prudent hesitation was held to be cowardice in disguise, andmoderation merely the cloak of an unmanly nature.  A mind that could grasp the good of the wholewas considered wholly lazy.  Sudden furywas accepted as part of manly valor…  Aman who expressed anger was always to be trusted, while one who opposed him wasunder suspicion...  In brief, a man waspraised if he could commit some evil action before anyone else did, or if hecould urge on another person who had never meant to do such a thing.

Family ties were not so close as those of the politicalparties, because party members would readily dare to do anything on theslightest pretext…  To take revenge wasof higher value than never to have received injury...

Those who led their parties in the cities promoted theirpolicies under decent-sounding names: “equality for the mass of citizens” onone side, and “moderate aristocracy” on the other.  And although they pretended to serve thepublic in their speeches, they actually treated it as the prize for theircompetition; and striving by whatever means to win, both sides ventured themost horrible outrages and exacted even greater revenge, without any regard forjustice or the public good…  The citizenswho remained in the middle were destroyed by both parties, partly because theywould not side with them, and partly for envy that they might escape in thisway.

Thus was every kind of wickedness afoot throughout all Greeceby the occasion of civil wars...  Peoplewere sharply divided into opposing camps, and, without trust, their minds werein strong opposition.  No speech was sopowerful, no oath so terrible, as to overcome this mutual hostility...  For the most part, those of weakerintelligence had the greatest success, since a sense of their own inferiorityand the subtlety of their opponents put them into great fear that they would beovercome in debate or by schemes due to their enemies’ intelligence…

Those who attacked… primarily out of zeal for equality… werethe most carried away by their undisciplined passion to commit savage andpitiless attacks…  Human nature, havingbecome accustomed to violate justice and laws, now came to dominate lawaltogether, and showed itself with delight to be the slave of passion, thevictor over justice, and the enemy of anyone superior.  Without the destructive voice of envy, yousee, people would not value revenge over reverence, or profits over justice.  When they want revenge on others, people aredetermined first to destroy without a trace the laws that commonly govern suchmatters, though it is only because of these that anyone in trouble can hope tobe saved.  (Book 3, PaulWoodruff translation, at pp. 139-43)

Floridagovernor Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo haveannounced that they will be ending all mandatory vaccination in thestate.  President Trump has criticized themfor this, saying that “some vaccines… should be used otherwise some people aregoing to catch [diseases] and they endanger other people.”  I have long supported DeSantis and have been criticalof Trump, but on this issue Trump is right and DeSantis is wrong. 

That is byno means to say that all mandatory vaccinations are defensible.  As Ihave argued, the Covid shot should never have been mandatory.  But it goes way too far to claim, as Ladapodoes, that all mandatory vaccination as such is “immoral” and amounts to “slavery.”  The truth lies in the middle ground positionthat while there is a moral presumption against a mandate, in some cases thatpresumption can be overridden and it can be licit for governments to requirevaccination.  Sweeping statements ofeither extreme kind are wrong, and we need to go case by case.

The relevantnatural law principles are straightforward. Human beings are by nature social animals.  The primary context in which we manifest our socialnature is the family, but we do so also in larger social orders, and ultimatelyin the state, which, as Aristotle and Aquinas teach, is the only complete andself-sufficient social order.  Now, thecommon good of the social order is higher than private goods.  As Aquinas teaches, “the good of one man isnot the last end, but is ordained to the common good” (Summa Theologiae I-II.90.3).  Again, he writes: “The common good is the endof each individual member of a community, just as the good of the whole is theend of each part” (Summa Theologiae II-II.58.9), and “thecommon good transcends the individual good of one person” (Summa Theologiae II-II.58.12).

By no meansdoes this entail an absorption of families and individuals into some collectivistblob.  The natural law principle ofsubsidiarity requires as a matter of justice that central authorities do notinterfere with lower level social orders (such as the family) when the latterare capable of providing for their own well-being.  At the same time, subsidiarity also requiresthat central authorities do step inwhen a social order at some level cannot,on its own, secure its well-being.  Andsuch authorities can compel citizens to do what is necessary for the commongood when there is no other way to achieve it.

For example,as the traditional Thomistic natural law theorist Thomas Higgins writes: “Note laws of compulsory military service.  In time of war or grave danger of war theyare gravely binding because they then express the Natural Law commandingcitizens to preserve the State” (Man asMan: The Science and Art of Ethics, p. 520).  This is so even though, as Higgins goes on toacknowledge, such laws can under some peacetime circumstances be contrary to thecommon good.  He even argues that acitizen could in such a case licitly try to avoid being drafted, as long as hedoes not use immoral means to do so.

This exampleillustrates a point the importance of which cannot be overstated.  To say that the state has a right under somecircumstances to compel certain behavior simply does not entail giving it ablank check to do with citizens whatever it likes.  That is a straw man to which too many aredrawn today, because of the individualism and excessive hostility to authority thattends to characterize American politics on both the left and the right. 

In any case,the general principle stated by Higgins has also been expressed by themagisterium of the Catholic Church.  Oflaws requiring military service during a national emergency, Pope Pius XIItaught:

If, therefore, a body representative of the people and agovernment – both having been chosen by free elections – in a moment of extremedanger decides, by legitimate instruments of internal and external policy, ondefensive precautions, and carries out the plans which they consider necessary,it does not act immorally.  Therefore aCatholic citizen cannot invoke his own conscience in order to refuse to serveand fulfill those duties the law imposes. (Christmas message of December 23,1956)

Now, ifthere can be circumstances wherein the state can licitly compel citizens torisk dying in battle for the sake of the common good, then it follows a fortiori that there can also becircumstances wherein the state can compel citizens to be vaccinated for thesake of the common good.  In both casesthe end is the same, namely to prevent the deaths of large numbers of one’scountrymen.  And in the case ofvaccination, the risk to the individual who is compelled is less serious thanthe risk imposed on those drafted into military service.

The Churchherself has indicated that it can be licit for states to requirevaccination.  As Roberto de Mattei hasnoted, “on 20 June 1822, in the Papal States, the Cardinal Secretary of State,Ercole Consalvi, issued a decree which instituted a Central VaccinationCommittee for inoculation throughout that territory” (On the Moral Liceity of the Vaccination, p. 55).  In 2005, during the pontificate of PopeBenedict XVI, the Pontifical Academy for Life saidthe following about the benefits of universal vaccination:

The severity of congenital rubella and the handicaps which itcauses justify systematic vaccination against such a sickness.  It is very difficult, perhaps evenimpossible, to avoid the infection of a pregnant woman, even if the rubellainfection of a person in contact with this woman is diagnosed from the first dayof the eruption of the rash.  Therefore,one tries to prevent transmission by suppressing the reservoir of infectionamong children who have not been vaccinated, by means of early immunization ofall children (universal vaccination).  Universalvaccination has resulted in a considerable fall in the incidence of congenitalrubella.

The documentgoes on to note that when parents refrain from vaccinating children againstGerman measles, there is

the danger of Congenital Rubella Syndrome.  This could occur, causing grave congenitalmalformations in the foetus, when a pregnant woman enters into contact, even ifit is brief, with children who have not been immunized and are carriers of thevirus.  In this case, the parents who didnot accept the vaccination of their own children become responsible for themalformations in question.

OrthodoxCatholic moral theologians have thus defended the liceity of requiringvaccination, when this is necessary for the common good.  In their book Life Issues, Medical Choices: Questions and Answers for Catholics,Janet Smith and Christopher Kaczor note that “vaccines have virtuallyeradicated some childhood diseases common in decades past, such as polio,measles, tetanus, smallpox, whooping cough, and diphtheria” (p. 154).  And they observe that when parents haverefused these vaccines for their children, the result has sometimes been arecurrence of such diseases.  Theyacknowledge that vaccines carry some risk, and that there can be cases whereexemptions are reasonable.  But nevertheless,they argue:

Rather than risk the outbreak of a disease that could kill orseriously harm many, individuals are reasonably expected to undergo somepersonal risk.  In order to reduce risksfor the whole community – especially those who are particularly susceptible toharm, such as children too young to be vaccinated and those who cannot bevaccinated for health reasons – it is reasonable and just for otherwise healthymembers of the community to submit themselves to the small risks of vaccines…The Church teaches that we are all members of the body of Christ and that weare brothers and sisters in the Lord. Thus, we all have a serious obligation to seek the common good andsometimes to put ourselves and our children at some reasonable risk for thewell-being of others. (pp. 153-54)

In recentdays, some on Twitter/X have nevertheless claimed that the Church teaches that vaccinationcannot ever be mandatory.  One argumentalong these lines appeals to the following statement made by Pope Pius XI in CastiConnubii:

Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies oftheir subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no causepresent for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with theintegrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason.

But thisdoes not entail that vaccination can never be mandatory.  For one thing, Pius was not addressing thequestion of vaccination in this passage, but rather the topic of forcedsterilization and other bodily mutilations. Vaccination does not involve mutilation of the body, so inferring fromhis remark that mandatory vaccination is illicit is simply a non sequitur.  For another thing, the argument would provetoo much.  You might as well say thatPius XI’s remark absolutely rules out ever forcing citizens to serve in themilitary.  But that would contradict theteaching of his successor Pius XII, which I cited above.

Anotherargument appeals to the2020 statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith onCovid-19 vaccination, which says that “practical reason makes evident thatvaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it mustbe voluntary.”  But there are twoproblems with this argument.  First, itignores the fact that this document is not addressing the morality ofvaccination in general, but only the morality of Covid-19 vaccination inparticular.  The reason is that many Catholicswere concerned that the Covid vaccines were linked to fetal tissue research ina way that made them morally problematic. The point of the document was to inform Catholics who were inclined totake the vaccine that they could do so in good conscience, while at the sametime making it clear to those who were uncomfortable with doing so that theywere not obligated to do so.  All of thisis clear from the larger immediate context of the line quoted above:

Both pharmaceutical companies and governmental healthagencies are therefore encouraged toproduce, approve, distribute and offer ethically acceptable vaccines that donot create problems of conscience for either health care providers or thepeople to be vaccinated.

At the same time, practical reason makes evident thatvaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it mustbe voluntary.  In any case, from theethical point of view, the morality ofvaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one's own health, but alsoon the duty to pursue the common good.  In the absence of other means to stop or evenprevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially toprotect the weakest and most exposed.  Thosewho, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with celllines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by otherprophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for thetransmission of the infectious agent.  Inparticular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot bevaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable.(Emphasis in the original)

Note thereferences to “the epidemic,” “vaccines produced with cell lines from abortedfetuses,” and the encouragement of pharmaceutical companies and governments toproduce alternatives “that do not create problems of conscience.”  What the document is addressing is whether the vaccines that were developed in order todeal with Covid-19, specifically, ought to be mandatory. 

Moreover,the CDF statement does not actually say even that Covid-19 vaccination absolutely must in every case bevoluntary.  What it says is that “vaccinationis not, as a rule, a moral obligationand that, therefore, it must bevoluntary.”  The claim is that as a rule (in other words, in general)it is not an obligation.  But that leavesit open that there could nevertheless be particularcases where it would be a moral obligation (for example, for hospital workers,perhaps).  And it leaves it open that in those particular cases vaccinationshould be mandatory rather than voluntary. But again, the CDF document is in any case addressing the Covid-19situation in particular rather than vaccination in general.  So it is not inconsistent with the point I’vebeen making.

I hasten toemphasize that that point is a very narrow one. I am arguing here only that the extreme claim that mandatory vaccinationis always and intrinsically wrongcannot be justified on grounds of natural law theory and Catholic moraltheology.  That does not by itself showthat any particular vaccine mandate is a good idea, all things considered.  One has to go case by case and make a prudentialjudgment based on the relevant empirical evidence.  But appeal to simplistic slogans like “Mybody, my choice” can provide no short cut.

Negativetheology (also known as apophatic theology) is the approach to understandingthe divine nature that emphasizes that what we know about God is what he is notrather than what he is.  One might takethe strong view that all of ourknowledge of God’s nature is negative in this way, or the weaker position thatmuch (but not all) such knowledge is negative. The medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) is amongthe most famous of negative theologians. He takes the stronger position. More precisely, his view is that when we predicate something of God, weare describing either his effects in the world of our experience, or the divinenature itself, and in the latter case we must understand our predications in apurely negative way.

For example,suppose we say that God is merciful toward the righteous and takes vengeance onthe wicked.  For Maimonides, the rightway to understand this is as saying that God causes the righteous to berewarded and the wicked to be punished. It is a statement about the effects of God’s actions, not about thedivine nature itself.  Or suppose we saythat God is omnipotent.  For Maimonides,this should be understood as a statement to the effect that there are in God nolimitations of the kind that constrain the power of created things.  It is a statement about the divine nature,but only about what is not true ofit, rather than a positive attribution. 

In hisfamous The Guide of the Perplexed,Maimonides defends Aristotelian arguments for the existence of a divine firstcause.  He also defends the doctrine ofdivine simplicity, according to which God is in no way composed of parts.  It is in light of this fact about the divinenature, says Maimonides, that we can see that our knowledge of it can only benegative.  He argues as follows:

It has been proved that God exists by necessity and that Heis non-composite… and we can apprehend only that He is, not what He is.  It is therefore meaningless that He shouldhave any positive attribute, since the fact that He is is not something outsideof what He is, so that the attribute might indicate one of these two.  Much less can what He is be of a compositecharacter, so that the attribute could indicate one of the parts.  Even less can He be substrate to accidents,so that the attribute could indicate these. Thus there is no scope for any positive attributes in any waywhatsoever.  (Book I, Chapter LVIII, atp. 80 of theabridged Rabin translation)

Let’s unpackthis.  In this passage, it seems,Maimonides tries to show that divine simplicity all by itself entails anexclusively apophatic theology.  Howso?  Start with the point he makes in themiddle of the paragraph, concerning the proposal that to speak of a divinepositive attribute “could indicate one of the parts” of God.  Obviously this would be ruled out by divinesimplicity, which denies that God has any parts.  Nor, as he says at the end of the passage,could a positive attribute be an accident inhering in the divine substrate,because divine simplicity also rules out any distinction in God betweensubstrate and accidents.

The thirdoption Maimonides considers and rules out is the proposal that a divinepositive attribute might be identifiable with either “the fact that He is” or “whatHe is” – that is to say, with either God’s existence or his essence.  The idea here seems to be that someone whothinks we can predicate positive attributes of God might suppose that God’sexistence is a positive attribute distinct from his essence, which we canpredicate of that essence; or that God’s essence is a positive attributedistinct from his existence, which we can predicate of that existence.  And the trouble with this proposal,Maimonides says, is that given divine simplicity, there is no distinctionbetween God’s essence and his existence. They are one and the same thing.

Theargument, then, seems to be that these three proposals would be the only waysto make sense of positive divine attributes, but all three are ruled out bydivine simplicity; therefore, as he concludes at the end of the passage, “thereis no scope for any positive attributes in any way whatsoever.”

The readermight wonder, though, exactly why we should regard these three as the onlyoptions.  Some remarks Maimonides makesearlier in Book I of the Guide indicatethe answer.  In Chapter LI, he writes:

It is thus evident that an attribute must be one of twothings.  Either it is the essence of thething to which it is attributed, and thus an explanation of a term… Or theattribute is different from the thing to which it is attributed, and thus anidea added to that thing.  Consequentlythat attribute is an accident of that essence. (p. 67)

It is nothard to see why Maimonides would deny that God has attributes in the secondsense, for that would be ruled out by the thesis that there is, given divinesimplicity, no distinction in God between substrate and accidents.  But what about attributes in the first sense,that is to say, an attribute understood as “the essence of the thing to which it is attributed, and thusan explanation of a term”?  And whatexactly does Maimonides mean by this?

Heillustrates the idea with the example of asserting that “Man is a reasoninganimal.”  When we predicate of man theattribute of being a reasoning animal, we are really just picking out theessence of man, and thereby giving an “explanation of [the] term” (i.e. theterm “man”).  The attribute in this caseis nothing different from the essence or nature of the thing to which we areascribing the attribute.  To predicate ofGod a positive attribute in this sense, then, would be to explain the meaningof “God” by stating the divine essence. Yet Maimonides says that even here, “this kind of attribute we rejectwith reference to God” (p. 67).  Why?

The subsequentchapter of the Guide, Chapter LII,indicates the reason.  Suppose we try todefine God, in something like the way we define man as a reasoning animal.  This, Maimonides says, would imply that Godhas “pre-existing causes,” which as first cause he cannot have (p. 68).  How so? Maimonides’ meaning here seems to be this.  When we define man as a reasoning animal, weare identifying him as belonging to a certain genus (namely, animal) and as set apart from otherthings in that genus by a differentia (namely, reasoning).  Now, in a sense,animality and rationality are thus priorto man, and thus they are causes, of a sort, of his being.  Since God is uncaused, then, he cannot bedefined in terms of a genus and a differentia.  (Again, this seems to me to be what Maimonidesis getting at, though he doesn’t spell it out in the relevant passage inChapter LII.) 

Maimonidesthen says that another thing we might be doing when predicating an attribute ofsomething in the sense of defining it is describing it in terms of part of its essence.  We do this, for example, when we say that man is an animal.  But this too cannot be what we’re doing inthe case of God, because given divine simplicity, there are no parts to God’sessence.

Thus does Maimonidesclaim to show that we can say nothing positive about the divine nature.  But some readers may think he would stillneed to say more in order to make the case.  And they would be right.  For consider Aquinas’s alternative position.  Like Maimonides, he strongly affirms divinesimplicity, holds that we cannot strictly define the divine essence, and takesmuch of our knowledge of God’s nature to be negative.  But he rejects the extreme claim that we cansay nothing positive about him. 

Aquinasargues that Maimonides’ position does not adequately account for talk aboutGod’s goodness, wisdom, and the like.  He notes that the view that attributing goodness to God is really just a wayof saying that God is the cause of good things cannot explain why we say thatGod is good but not that God is a physical object – for, after all, God is thecause of physical objects too.  Aquinascontinues:

When we say, “God is good,” the meaning is not, “God is thecause of goodness,” or “God is not evil”; but the meaning is, “Whatever good weattribute to creatures, pre-exists in God,” and in a more excellent and higherway.  Hence it does not follow that Godis good, because He causes goodness; but rather, on the contrary, He causesgoodness in things because He is good. (SummaTheologiae I.13.2)

To be sure,this is not because there is some common genus to which God and other goodthings belong.  Nor does Aquinas think wehave a clear idea of the nature of God’s goodness.  Nor, given divine simplicity, does he thinkthat God’s goodness is distinct from his wisdom or his power or any of hisother attributes.  Still, when we saythat God is good, we are in Aquinas’s view saying something positive about him,and something literally true.

How can thisbe?  The answer has to do with Aquinas’sfamous view that not all literal language is either univocal or equivocal, butthat some is analogical, and thatthis is the case with predications of the divine attributes.  When we say that God is good, we are notsaying that he is good in exactly the same sense in which we are good (which wouldbe to use “good” in a univocal way), nor are we saying that he is good in somecompletely unrelated sense (which would be to use “good” in an equivocalway).  We are saying that there issomething in God that is analogous towhat we call “goodness” in us, even if it is not exactly the same thing.

Maimonideswould disagree.  For him, when we applyto God’s nature the same terms we use to describe created things, we speakequivocally.  This is true even when wesay that God exists, for God “shares no common trait with anything outside Himat all, for the term ‘existence’ is only applied to Him as well as to creaturesby way of homonymy and in no other way” (TheGuide of the Perplexed, Book I,Chapter LII, at p. 70).

This is nota dispute I will explore here.  Sufficeit for present purposes to note that while Maimonides writes as if the controversyover whether God has positive attributes hinges on whether or not one acceptsdivine simplicity, that is not in fact the case.  Rather, it hinges on whether or not oneaccepts that we can truly speak of God in analogical terms.

Relatedposts:

Dharmakīrtiand Maimonides on divine action

Tugwellon St. Albert on negative theology

McCabeon the divine nature

LaoTzu’s negative theology

Satantempted Christ to avoid the cross, and offer us instead the satisfaction of ourappetites, marvels or wonders, and political salvation – exactly what modernmarket economies, science, and liberal democracy promise us.  In mylatest essay at Postliberal Order,I discuss Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s analysis of the diabolical, and the lightit sheds on the character of the modern world.

According tothe conception of scientific method traditionally associated with FrancisBacon, science ought to begin with the accumulation of observations unbiased byany theoretical preconceptions.  The ideais that only such theory-neutral evidence could provide an objective basis onwhich to choose between theories.  Itbecame a commonplace of twentieth-century philosophy of science that this idealof theory-neutral observation is illusory, and that in reality all observationis inescapably theory-laden (to usethe standard jargon).  That is to say,even to describe what it is we observe, we cannot avoid making use oftheoretical assumptions about its nature, circumstances, and so on.

NorwoodRussell Hanson’s 1958 book Patternsof Discovery is commonly cited as a classic expression of thisview.  And one way Hanson repays study isthat his treatment makes it clear that theory-ladenness does not by itself haverelativistic implications, contrary to what one might suppose from simplisticaccounts of contemporary philosophy of science.

To be sure,it can at first glance seemotherwise.  As Hanson emphasizes, thereis a sense in which different observers operating with different backgroundassumptions can be said to see different things.  One microbiologist looking through amicroscope at what’s on a certain slide might see a cell organ, while anothersees a bit of foreign matter that resulted from the staining process.  One seventeenth-century astronomer looking atthe sun at dawn sees it move through the sky, while another sees the earth moving relative to the sun.  And so on.

Many wouldreply that in reality, they do seethe same thing, but simply draw different inferences from it.  The assumption here is that there are two things going on, a visual experienceon the one hand, and a separate act of interpretation of that experience on theother.  But this, as Hanson influentiallyargued, is an illusion.  One way thisillusory assumption is sometimes spelled out is by taking two perceivers tohave the same sort of retinal image, or the same physiological state, but thenimposing different interpretations on it. The problem here, as Hanson notes, is that a visual experience is simplynot the same thing as the having of a retinal image or other physiologicalstate:

Astronomers cannot be referring to these when they say theysee the sun.  If they are hypnotized,drugged, drunk or distracted they may not see the sun, even though theirretinas register its image in exactly the same way as usual.  Seeing is an experience.  A retinal reaction is only a physical state –a photochemical excitation. Physiologists have not always appreciated the differences betweenexperiences and physical states.  People,not their eyes, see.  Cameras, andeye-balls, are blind.  Attempts to locatewithin the organs of sight (or within the neurological reticulum behind theeyes) some nameable called ‘seeing’ may be dismissed… there is more to seeingthan meets the eyeball. (pp. 6-7)

Another waythe mistaken assumption in question is often spelled out is in terms of “sense-data.”  The idea here is that the two observers havesimilar sense-data – describable, say, as their being “both aware of abrilliant yellow-white disc in a blue expanse over a green one” (p. 7) – andthat they then assign different interpretations to these sense-data.  But this is simply not a correct descriptionof how visual experience goes in the normal case.  Consider the famous Necker cube example (Fig.1 in the image above).  If shown such animage and asked what he sees, a perceiver might simply say “That’s an icecube,” or “That’s an aquarium,” or “That’s a wire frame,” or any number ofother things.  Context will likely play alarge role in determining his answer. For example, if the cube is part of a larger image that looks like a Scotchglass, he’s obviously more likely to describe it as an ice cube than as anaquarium.  The point though, is thatthere are clearly cases in which the way he’d describe his experience is as“seeing an ice cube” – as opposed, say, to “seeing a set of lines, and thengoing on to interpret it as an ice cube.” 

Of course,there can be cases in which theperceiver says the latter rather than the former.  In thosecases there are two things going on, the experience and then a separateinterpretation of it.  But there are not two things going in the ordinarycase.  There’s just the one thing goingon, seeing an ice cube.  Similarly, inthe case of the two astronomers, one of them might describe his perceptualexperience as “seeing the sun move” and the other as “seeing the earth move,”and with each of them there is just the one thing going on rather than anexperience together with a separate act of interpreting it. 

Of course,the first astronomer would (as we now know) in this case be mistaken about what he sees.  But that is irrelevant to the point, which isthat the content of his experience iscorrectly captured in the description “seeing the sun move,” rather than thedescription “seeing a yellow-white disc in a blue expanse” etc.  Here too we can certainly imagine eccentriccases in which what a perceiver sees could accurately be described in that oddway – for example, if the perceiver had no idea of what the sun is.  But obviously that is not what is going onwith a normal adult, let alone an astronomer. And if some astronomer did “react to his visual environment with purelysense-datum responses – as does the infant or the idiot – we would think himout of his mind.  We would think him not to be seeing what is around him” (p.22).

Then thereis the fact that, even when we are dealingwith oddball cases like this, they still involve the application of concepts within the perceptual experience itselfrather than in some separate act of interpretation.  We characterize the experience in terms of “ayellow-white disc” rather than “the sun,” but the characterization is internalto the experience rather than tacked on to it. As Hanson writes:

The knowledge is there in the seeing and not an adjunct ofit.  (The pattern of threads is there inthe cloth and not tacked on to it by ancillary operations.)  We rarely catch ourselves tacking knowledgeon to what meets the eye.  (p. 22)

Moreover, ifperceptual experiences did notincorporate such knowledge, we would not be able to do with them the things wedo in fact do, and which science and common sense alike require us to be ableto do with them – namely, draw inferences from them and otherwise relate themto our larger body of background knowledge, including the scientific theorieswe test by way of perceptual experience. To quote Hanson again:

Significance, relevance – these notions depend on what wealready know.  Objects, events, pictures,are not intrinsically significant or relevant. If seeing were just an optical-chemical process, then nothing we sawwould ever be relevant to what we know, and nothing known could havesignificance for what we see.  Visuallife would be unintelligible; intellectual life would lack a visualaspect.  Man would be a blind computerharnessed to a brainless photoplate. (p. 26)

This sort ofobservation is, of course, a longstanding part of modern critiques of naïveempiricism, from Kant’s dictum that “percepts without concepts are blind” toWilfrid Sellars’ attack on “the myth of the given.”  And again, at first glance it might seem toentail a kind of relativism.  If what we perceivealways reflects what we know (or take ourselves to know, anyway), but differentperceivers have different bodies of knowledge (or of what they take to beknowledge), how can they ever perceive the same things?

But Hansonalso makes it clear why such a relativistic conclusion does not follow.  To say that there is a sense in whichdifferent observers may see different things – as in the examples involving theobject under the microscope, the sun at dawn, or the Necker cube – does notentail that there is not also a sensein which they see the samething.  Suppose two people are looking atthe cube and one says “That’s an ice cube!” whereas the other says “That’s anaquarium!”  It’s not as if there is nothing about which they agree.  We can imagine the conversation continuing:“Do you at least agree that there are lines there?”  “Of course!” Here too what they take themselves to know is intrinsic to theexperience rather than being tacked on in a separate act ofinterpretation.  But in this case it is shared knowledge. 

As Hansonwrites, “if seeing different things involves having different knowledge andtheories about x, then perhaps thesense in which they see the same thing involves their sharing knowledge andtheories about x” (p. 18).  Disagreement takes place against a deeperlevel of agreement.  Indeed, unless therewere some level of agreement (atleast concerning what exactly the disputeis about) there couldn’t be a disagreement in the first place.  As Donald Davidson would later argue, even tomake sense of what another person is saying as language (whatever he issaying in that language), we need to be able to tie his utterances to aspectsof a shared environment, which entails shared beliefs about thatenvironment.  Anticipating sucharguments, Hanson notes that error is the exception rather than the rule: “Wemay be wrong, but not always – not even usually.  Besides, deceptions proceed in terms of whatis normal, ordinary.  Because the worldis not a cluster of conjurer’s tricks, conjurers can exist” (p. 21).

Thetheory-ladenness of perception thus by no means entails relativism orskepticism.  For it doesn’t entail thatdisagreement between observers need be total or even massive, or that all ormost of our perceptual judgments might be in error.  Indeed (and to go beyond what Hanson himselfsays), it is consistent with holding that there is some level of theory, some very general way of carving up the basicstructure of the world, that is common to all observers and which we cannotcoherently deny to be a reflection of reality. 

Another keyinsight from Hanson is that the role languageplays in the theory-ladenness of observation:

There is a ‘linguistic’ factor in seeing, although there isnothing linguistic about what forms in the eye, or in the mind’s eye.  Unless there were this linguistic element,nothing we ever observed could have relevance for our knowledge… For what is itfor things to make sense other than for descriptions of them to be composed ofmeaningful sentences? (p. 25)

Part of thishas to do with the general and essential connection in human beings betweenthought and language, a topic I examine in some detail at pp. 91-103 and 245-56of my book Immortal Souls.  Our being rational animals – that is to say,animals capable of grasping concepts, putting them together into propositions,and reasoning logically from one proposition to another – goes hand-in-handwith our having a language with the semantic properties and combinatorial structurehuman languages have. 

Hanson’spoint also has to do in part with the thesis that certain specific ways ofconceptualizing the world are impossible unless certain specific forms of linguisticrepresentation are first in place.  Theexamples he emphasizes have to do with how the formation of certain concepts inphysics was possible only after certain mathematical techniques had beendeveloped.  (I had occasion to discuss inapost from a few years ago the way the invention of novel systems of symbolsmakes possible new ways of conceptualizing things.)

In anyevent, it is crucial to emphasize that here too we are not talking about somethingentirely separable from and tacked on to perceptual experience.  Rather, having a linguistically expressible contentis something inherent to distinctivelyhuman perceptual experience, at least in a mature and normal human being.  In human experience, conceptual and sensorycontent are fused, two aspects of onething rather than an aggregate of a purely intellectual state (as in anangel) and a purely sentient state (as in a non-human animal).   

It mayilluminate things to consider the Thomistic view that as a rational animal, ahuman being has a single soul that grounds both his intellectual and sensorypowers, rather than distinct rational and sensory souls.  As Aquinas says in Disputed Questions on the Soul, “the sentient soul in man is noblerthan that in other animals, because in man it is not only sentient but alsorational” and again, “the sentient soul in man is not a non-rational soul butis at once a sentient and rational soul” (Article XI, at p. 147 of the Rowan translation).  If this were not so, then (the Thomistargues) a human being would not be a single substance, but a mash-up of twosubstances (as human beings are on Descartes’ account).

It is oneorganism, the human being as a whole, who sees something as an ice cube (thereby conceptualizing in the act of seeing) orsees that the earth is moving (therebyhaving an experience with a propositional content expressible in asentence).  And it is in one act thatthese “seeings” are accomplished, rather than in two coordinated acts.  That is perfectly consistent with the obviousfact that we can distinguish between the conceptual and sensory aspects of the one act.  As Hanson writes:

‘Seeing as’ and ‘seeing that’ are not components of seeing, asrods and bearings are parts of motors: seeing is not composite.  Still, one canask logical questions.  What must have occurred, for instance, for usto describe a man as having found a collar stud, or as having seen a bacillus?  Unless he had had a visual sensation and knew what a bacillus was(and looked like) we would not say that he had seen a bacillus, except in thesense in which an infant could see a bacillus.  ‘Seeing as’ and ‘seeing that’, then, are not psychological components ofseeing.  They are logicallydistinguishable elements in seeing-talk, in our concept of seeing. (p. 21)

As theThomist would argue, we can distinguish between a man’s animality and hisrationality, but it doesn’t follow that his animality and rationality aregrounded in two distinct substances only contingently united.  Similarly, we can distinguish between thesensory and conceptual content of a man’s seeingan ice cube or of his seeing that theearth moves.  But it doesn’t followthat there are two acts here, an act of seeing and a distinct, additional actof conceptualizing or interpreting what he is seeing.

It wasannounced last week that Pope Leo XIV will be declaring St. John Henry Newmanto be a Doctor of the Church.  As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes,the Church proclaims someone to be a Doctor on account of “eminent learning”and “a high degree of sanctity.”  Thiscombination makes a Doctor an exemplary guide to matters of faith andmorals.  To be sure, the Doctors are notinfallible.  Their authority is not as greatas that of scripture, the consensus of the Church Fathers, or the definitivestatements of the Church’s magisterium. All the same, their authority is considerable.  As Aquinas notes, appeal to the authority ofthe Doctors of the Church is “one that may properly be used” in addressingdoctrinal questions, even if such an appeal by itself yields “probable”conclusions rather than incontrovertible ones (Summa Theologiae I.1.8).

Indeed,though the Doctors of the Church are not individually infallible, it would beabsurd to suppose that they could allbe wrong on some theological issue about which they are in agreement.  For given their high degree of sanctity, howcould all of them be wrong about somematter of Christian morality?  Given theireminence in learning, how could allof them fall into error on some point of doctrine or scriptural interpretation? Given that they are formally recognizedby the Church as exemplary guides to faith and morals, how could they all collectively lead the faithful intograve moral or theological error?

Consistencywith the consensus of the Doctors has, accordingly, been regarded by the Churchas a mark of orthodoxy in doctrine.  Forexample, in 1312 the Council of Vienne defended a point of doctrine byappealing to “the common opinion ofapostolic reflection of the Holy Fathers andthe Doctors” (Denzinger section 480). Also relevant is Tuas Libenter,in which Pope Pius IX stated:

[T]hat subjection which is to be manifested by an act ofdivine faith… would not have to be limited to those matters which have beendefined by express decrees of the ecumenical Councils, or of the Roman Pontiffsand of this See, but would have to be extended also to those matters which arehanded down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teaching power of the wholeChurch spread throughout the world, andtherefore, by universal and common consent are held by Catholic theologians tobelong to faith…

[I]t is not sufficient for learned Catholics to accept andrevere the aforesaid dogmas of the Church, but… it is also necessary to subject themselves… to those forms of doctrinewhich are held by the common and constantconsent of Catholics as theological truths and conclusions, so certain thatopinions opposed to these same forms of doctrine, although they cannot becalled heretical, nevertheless deserve some theological censure. (Denzingersections 1683-1684, emphasis added)

Here Pius IXheld the consensus opinion of Catholic theologians to have such a high statusthat even if opposed views are not strictly heretical, they nevertheless “deservesome theological censure.”  Now, theDoctors of the Church are the theologians on whom the Church has placed aspecial stamp of approval, putting them forward as models.  It stands to reason that if there is aconsensus among them on some thesisof faith or morals, that is powerful evidence that it must be correct.

Now,consider the topic of capital punishment. Even if we just confined ourselves to scripture, or to the consensus ofthe Fathers of the Church, or to the consistent teaching of the popes down toBenedict XVI, there can be no question whatsoever that the Church has taughtirreformably that capital punishment can be licit in principle.  That is not to deny that some of the Fathersand some of these popes have recommended against using it in practice, but the point is that even theyacknowledged that it is not intrinsicallywrong to inflict the death penalty. Joseph Bessette and I demonstrate this at length in our book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A CatholicDefense of Capital Punishment. I have also done so elsewhere, such as in my Catholic World Report article “CapitalPunishment and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium.” 

All thesame, it is useful to consider what the Doctors of the Church have said on thematter, because they too are in agreement that the death penalty can inprinciple be a legitimate punishment. This would be a powerful argument for the liceity of capital punishmenteven if we didn’t already have scripture, the Fathers, and two millennia ofpapal teaching.  Adding the Doctors tothe witnesses on this matter puts icing on the cake, as it were, highlightingthe futility of thinking that this is a teaching the Church could reverse.  The Doctors who have addressed the topic ofcapital punishment include St. Ephraem, St. Hilary, St. Gregory of Nazianzus,St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Bernard ofClairvaux, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Peter Canisius, St. Robert Bellarmine, andSt. Alphonsus Liguori.  (The earliest ofthese thinkers are, of course, Fathers as well.)  All of them agree that it can be morallylegitimate in principle, even those among them who recommend against using itin practice.  (See the book and articlereferred to above for the details.)

We can nowadd St. John Henry Newman to this consensus. The death penalty was not a topic Newman said a great deal about, butwhat he did say is important.  Forexample, in Lecture 8of Lectures on the Present Position ofCatholics in England, Newman cites the following example of the way apractice can be embodied in the tradition of a nation like England rather than inexplicit law: “There is no explicit written law, for instance, simply declaringmurder to be a capital offence, unless, indeed, we have recourse to the divinecommand in the ninth chapter of the book of Genesis.”  (This statement is from a longer passagefirst written when Newman was a Protestant, which he quotes in order to commenton it.  As he immediately goes on to sayabout the passage, “I see nothing to alter in these remarks, written many yearsbefore I became a Catholic.”)

Newman’sreference here is to Genesis 9:5-6, which states:

For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; ofevery beast I will require it and of man; of every man’s brother I will requirethe life of man.  Whoever sheds the bloodof man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.

Newmanunderstands this passage to be an “explicit written law… declaring murder to bea capital offence,” and one that holds of “divine command.”  Note that this is diametrically opposed to modernattempts to reinterpret this passage as merely a divine prediction that murderwould as a matter of fact lead toretaliation.  For Newman, God is notmerely predicting but indeed commanding that murderers should beslain, and as a matter of punishment.  And here he is, of course, simply reiteratingwhat the traditional understanding always said.

In a seriesof letters to his nephew, Newman addressed questions about whetherthe Church has behaved in an immoral way over the centuries.  Among the points he makes are that one mustdistinguish between, on the one hand, the state’s having the power justly topunish offenders with death, and on the other hand, specific cases where thispower was used in a cruel manner.  Hewrites:

It is on the Inquisition that you mainly dwell; the questionis whether such enormity of cruelty, as is commonly ascribed to it, is to beconsidered the act of the Church.  As toDr. Ward in the Dublin Review, hispoint (I think) was not the question of cruelty,but whether persecution, such as in Spain, was unjust; and with the capital punishment prescribed in the Mosaiclaw for idolatry, blasphemy, and witchcraft, and St. Paul's transferring thepower of the sword to Christian magistrates, it seems difficult to callpersecution (commonly so called) unjust. I suppose in like manner he would notdeny, but condemn, the craft and cruelty, and the wholesale character ofSt. Bartholomew's Massacre; but still would argue in the abstract in defence ofthe magistrate's bearing the sword, and of the Church's sanctioning its use, inthe aspect of justice, as Moses, Joshua, and Samuel might use it, againstheretics, rebels, and cruel and crafty enemies.

Note firstthat Newman says that capital punishment is “prescribed” in the Mosaic law forvarious offenses, and that such killing is to be understood “in the aspect ofjustice.”  This should, of course, be obviousenough to anyone who reads the first five books of the Old Testament, butoccasionally people will suggest that the Old Testament merely permits the death penalty withoutactually commending it.  Clearly, Newmanwould have no truck with such sophistry.

The secondthing to note is Newman’s allusion here to Romans 13: 3-4, which says:

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.  Would you have no fear of him who is inauthority?  Then do what is good, and youwill receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he doesnot bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath onthe wrongdoer.

This hastraditionally been understood as sanctioning capital punishment, and Newmanclearly has this interpretation in mind when he refers to “St. Paul'stransferring the power of the sword” and “the magistrate's bearing the sword,and of the Church's sanctioning its use.” With this passage too, death penalty opponents sometimes proposestrained reinterpretations, but Newman would not agree with them. 

But there ismore to be said.  For note that Newmanrefers, specifically, to “St. Paul's transferring the power of the sword to Christian magistrates.”  This too is part of the traditionalunderstanding, and yet another thing that modern day abolitionists sometimesresist.  For it is sometimes proposedthat, even if the death penalty is licit as a matter of natural law, its use isnot compatible with the higher demands of specifically Christian morality.  Newman would clearly reject this claim aswell.  Again, he holds that St. Paul’steaching authorizes the use of capital punishment for Christian rulers in particular, not merely for states governedonly by natural law.

In short, wenow have the testimony of yet another Doctor of the Church that the liceity ofthe death penalty is the teaching of Genesis 9 and Romans 13, and that thisteaching is a matter of Christian morality no less than of natural law.  This directly contradicts those who claimthat the Church could teach that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong, orthat scripture merely tolerates rather than sanctions it, or that it iscontrary to the higher demands of the Gospel even if it is consistent withnatural law.

Now, Newmanis best known for his theology of the development of doctrine.  Could claims like the ones we’ve just seenhim reject nevertheless be justified by Newman’s own criteria as “developments”of Church teaching on the death penalty? Clearly not, because Newman, like St. Vincent of Lerins (the other greattheologian of doctrinal development), insists that a genuine development cannever contradict past teaching.  Newman writes:

A true development [of doctrine], then, may be described asone which is conservative of the course of antecedent developments being reallythose antecedents and something besides them: it is an addition whichillustrates, not obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought fromwhich it proceeds; and this is its characteristic as contrasted with acorruption… A developed doctrine which reverses the course of development whichhas preceded it, is no true development but a corruption.  (AnEssay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 5)

Suppose yousay “All men are mortal, and Socrates is a man.”  If I add “So, Socrates is mortal,” I havesaid something that can be said to be a developmentof what you said, because it follows logically from what you said.  It addssomething, insofar as it says something you did not yourself say.  But nevertheless, what it adds was alreadyimplicitly there in what you said, and I have simply drawn it out.

By contrast,if I added something like “So, all men are redheads,” I could not be said to have developed what yousaid, because my addition in no way follows from what you said, and indeed hasnothing at all to do with what you said. Even more obviously, if I added either “Some men are immortal” or“Socrates is immortal,” I would not only not have “developed” what you said,but, on the contrary, I would have reversedand contradicted what you said.  Forthe claim that “Some men are immortal” directly contradicts your statement that“All men are mortal.”  And the statement“Socrates is immortal,” though it does not explicitly contradict what you said,does contradict what was implicit inyour remarks.

Similarly,to say that the death penalty is intrinsically wrong, or that it is notsanctioned by scripture, or that it is never permitted by the higher standardsof Christian morality, would contradictand reverse what scripture and tradition have consistently said.  Hence to teach such things would, by Newman’scriteria, not count as a development of doctrine, but rather as what he calls a“corruption” of doctrine that attempts to “correct” rather than corroborate it,and which “obscures” rather than illuminates it.

Newman,then, gives no aid and comfort whatsoever to Catholics who would like adoctrinal reversal on this matter.  Onthe contrary, his words clearly condemn them.