{"id":4361,"date":"2018-08-06T14:23:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T14:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/08\/06\/does-capital-punishment-infringe-the-unalienable-right-to-life\/"},"modified":"2018-08-06T14:23:19","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T14:23:19","slug":"does-capital-punishment-infringe-the-unalienable-right-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/08\/06\/does-capital-punishment-infringe-the-unalienable-right-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Capital Punishment Infringe the Unalienable Right to Life?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul J. Griffiths in Against Capital Punishment<\/a> gives the following argument against C. P.:<\/span><\/p>\n

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The U.S. is a constitutional democracy, committed in theory to serve and protect the inalienable rights of its citizens, who are also its sovereigns. Those inalienable rights include the right not to be killed. A sovereign authority that permits or requires itself to alienate that right from any one of its citizens, for whatever reason, performs an incoherent act. It arrogates to itself the right to make exceptions to the universal economy of rights it theoretically serves, and thus makes itself sovereign over the economy of rights it is supposed to recognize, acknowledge, and serve. Dictatorships can coherently do this; constitutional democracies can\u2019t. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here is my pithy formulation of the argument. It is logically contradictory to maintain both that (1) the right to life is a unalienable and thus inviolable natural right logically antecedent  to the state and its constitution, and<\/em> that (2) the state has the right to violate the right to life as a punishment for certain crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Edward Feser in Hot Air vs. Capital Punishment: A Reply to Paul Griffiths and David Bentley Hart<\/a>  is not impressed with Griffiths' argument:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Then there is Griffiths\u2019 claim that, at least in the American context, when the state executes an offender it \u201cperforms an incoherent act.\u201d How so? Because, says Griffiths, the American system is \u201ccommitted in theory to serve and protect the inalienable rights of its citizens\u201d and \u201cthose inalienable rights include the right not to be killed.\u201d But there are at least four serious problems with this argument. First, it proves too much. While it is true that the Declaration of Independence refers to \u201cunalienable rights,\u201d and includes the right to life among them, it also includes the right to liberty<\/em>. Hence, Griffiths\u2019 argument, followed out consistently, would entail that in the American context the state performs an \u201cincoherent act\u201d even when it imprisons<\/em> offenders, and indeed when it inflicts any punishment at all, since all punishments in some way or other infringe on an offender\u2019s liberty. Presumably Griffiths would not want to do away with the entire system of criminal justice. In that case, though, he cannot consistently appeal to the Declaration as a justification for abolishing capital punishment, specifically.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, precisely because Griffiths\u2019 interpretation would have such absurd consequences, it is hardly plausible to suppose that Jefferson and Co. meant for the term \u201cunalienable\u201d to be understood the way Griffiths understands it. Surely what they had in mind is the idea that an innocent <\/em>person cannot have his basic human rights taken from him by the state. A guilty<\/em> person, however, forfeits his rights by virtue of his offense, and for all Griffiths has shown, this can include the right to life no less than the right to liberty. (Indeed, the same generation that gave us the Declaration of Independence enacted capital punishment laws in every one of the original thirteen states and in the First Congress. The Bill of Rights itself recognizes that citizens may be deprived of \u201clife, liberty, or property\u201d as long as there is \u201cdue process of law.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, it is in any case far from obvious that the presence of these words in the Declaration would make the American system \u201cincoherent\u201d even if we accepted Griffiths\u2019 interpretation of them. For while the Declaration expresses certain widely shared moral<\/em> ideals, it does not follow that they have, simply by virtue of being in the Declaration, any legal <\/em>or constitutional <\/em>significance. While an explicit or implicit contradiction in the law itself<\/em> would plausibly ground a judgment to the effect that there is \u201cincoherence\u201d in the U.S. system of criminal justice, a mere reference to widely shared and vaguely defined moral sentiments hardly provides a compelling argument.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourth, what matters ultimately is not what the Declaration says, but what natural law reasoning actually establishes. And what it establishes, as we argue in the book, is that an offender can forfeit his right to life, just as he can forfeit his right to liberty. Human law, including the American system of criminal justice, is answerable to natural law, not the other way around.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Feser 1 – Griffiths 0.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul J. Griffiths in Against Capital Punishment gives the following argument against C. P.: The U.S. is a constitutional democracy, committed in theory to serve and protect the inalienable rights of its citizens, who are also its sovereigns. Those inalienable rights include the right not to be killed. A sovereign authority that permits or requires … Continue reading “Does Capital Punishment Infringe the Unalienable Right to Life?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}