President
Trump has reversed the Pentagon’s recently announced decision to livestream the
execution of Nidal Hasan. He made the
right choice. While Hasan deserves
capital punishment, it is immoral to make a vulgar spectacle of executions. In
an article at Public Discourse I explain why,
drawing on insights from the Fathers of the Church and St. John Henry Newman.
Pete Hegseth is basically a call of duty player
ReplyDeleteHeh. I suppose Crusader LARP is relatively common amongst immature teens, no?
DeleteI completely agree with your reasoning Prof, Great article, I think perhaps you could have also mentioned Augustine in this regard, but it is a well written article overall.
ReplyDeleteI myself had contributed a similar sort of argument with respect to various modes of punishment in this regard ,at the blog a year ago , at the time as well I was wondering what you make of it, it pertains to the punishment of rectal feeding employed by the CIA,
"
I suppose one key point that often is neglected in this debate but deserves attention is the mode of capital punishment. I think you addressed this once briefly in your article Augustine on Capital Punishment. Interested readers can check it out. It's a great article.
I think it would strengthen the case for the death penalty by pointing out why certain methods of punishment we find too gruesome for our times.
For example to show that a punishment like rectal feeding is intrinsically evil is quite difficult. But I think Fr Brian Harrison in article has a good general argument against it where he mentions that torture could attract sexual perverts. I think it can also facilitate tendencies like a lust for violence and domination over other people (This similar to what Augustine thought about gladiator fights)
One could expand on it by pointing out that in our times such things could easily go viral on video camera due to the widespread prevalence of such technology and the general tendency to record things for the sake of views , guards themselves could do it or could be bribed to do and the overall effect on society would be to lend legitimacy a kind of legitimacy to such disordered desires.
Couldn't a similar argument be made against the death penalty? I would say it can be made against certain methods but not all.
For example , to apply a classical natural law analysis, the rectum is responsible for expelling waste from the body, waste which ought not to be discharged anywhere but in its proper place as it is disease prone, foul smelling etc. By nature this is one of those act which requires that the person have control over that faculty such as to avoid stinking up a place. That is why it's one of the first activities that is introduced to us as kids and that old people feel embarassed to ask for assistance as they lose motor control.
Any action rectal feeding or anything else involving the rectum, exercises a kind of control or degree of power over an individual that is extremely unusual, and this would legitimise such kind of lust for control. I mentioned how things go viral.
In contrast something like choking (hanging) or lethal injection represents a degree of control that is mundane, it could of course be something that triggers people's lust for violence but at the same time something like a choke hold is a routine part of formal martial arts and self defence or subduing a criminal, it can be classified as something that a person ought to know precisely for the purposes of self defence.It's something that already is very common in society and thus death by hanging or lethal injection wouldn't "by itself" involve facilitating the promotion of disordered tendencies. It's an act that is already mainstream Someone with a disordered attraction to it could just as easily come across it in other places. In contrast , the vitalization of a punishment like rectal feeding is what would make a fringe act mainstream and thus ought to be prohibited.
Hi Norm, it seems you missed it, but there was a sentence or two in there about Augustine.
DeleteAlso, you might find of interest my recent Postliberal Order article on Anscombe, wherein I discuss her view (which I agree with) that degrading methods of execution are immoral even though execution itself is not.
Yes Prof
DeleteMy bad , I missed it.
Extremely sorry.
And Yes Prof I read that article,
And obviously I would concur.
Do you think my analysis here was decent though ?
No worries, Norm. And yes, I think your analysis is correct. I'd add that it's not merely external effects that are relevant (such as such punishments tending to make the one inflicting them perverse or sadistic). There's also Anscombe's point that any method of punishment that tends to obscure the offender's nature as a rational creature is immoral. Torturous methods like the ones you're describing would fall under that category.
DeleteYes Prof
DeleteI agree although, it's often hard to say at which point in such punishments would it be subversive of rationality or where they lose their volition , such punishments were common in the middle ages. So I try to stick with prudential reasons.
Anyways Thank You Prof .
Hope all is well. Please do consider my last comment at your second post on craige, it would be really helpful to me in putting forth certain arguments for God. Cheers
Great post, Ed. I particularly liked the quote from St. John Henry Newman. The post stirred my conscience with respect to movies and TV, too. Do I delight in a villain receiving their due rather than hoping and feeling sad they missed their opportunity for redemption? And do those experiences condition my attitudes towards real people?
ReplyDeleteThanks Kiel! (And I will respond to your other message soon!)
DeleteDo I delight in a villain receiving their due rather than hoping and feeling sad they missed their opportunity for redemption?
DeleteI don't see the problem: The people who Newman describes in Rome who prayed for the conversion of the sinner, and rejoiced to hear word of his repentance, were not praying for him to evade his just punishment, and indeed he received his punishment after repentance. The just executioner, as explained by Aquinas, wills the death of the sentenced criminal, and also wills his repentance. He does not reverse his will and refuse to execute when the criminal rejects the opportunity to repent. Rather, he goes forward with it. The difference is that he wills the execution not finally and formally for the sake of the evil being suffered by the condemned, but finally for the sake of good, i.e. justice. There's nothing wrong with willing that justice be accomplished, even if in the form of due punishment.
I respect your opinion Edward.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, do you think public executions were wrong? Or do you think something about broadcasting online is uniquely conducive to sadism/flippancy etc…?
Or do you think something about broadcasting online is uniquely conducive to sadism/flippancy etc…?
DeleteHi Terilien
From what I understand (and also agree with), Prof would probably lean towards the latter.
His Twitter responses seem to indicate as such which is also about the only place you could probably go to get a response these days as a matter of convenience , they don't really happen here anymore.
But yeah Prof has very admirably stated his position
"As I've said over and over now, it's not public execution per se that is the problem, but livestreaming and online culture, which of their nature will make a circus of the event."
https://x.com/FeserEdward/status/2108979975970070598
"The idea that the motive is remotely like the Catholic one described by Newman below is naive at best, but that is really neither here nor there. What matters is that livestreaming and the online culture in general will make of any execution the circus of "impiety and profaneness" condemned by Newman, even if the motives were the best:"
https://x.com/FeserEdward/status/2108799910631919755
Hope that helps Terilien
Thanks norm.
DeleteI think Prof is being rather naive in assuming that "online culture" is unique in this respect. What records we have of historical public executions show that a carnival-like atmosphere has nearly always prevailed around them. It seems, unfortunately, to be the way humans are.
DeleteWhat records we have of historical public executions show that a carnival-like atmosphere has nearly always prevailed around them.
DeleteExcept for the ones Newman describes in detail, which were quite sober and intent on spiritual matters.
What this demonstrates is that the situation that tells us a public execution is prudent or imprudent is based on the details of that specific society and how it has been trained to deal with the moral need for just punishments. In the CURRENT environment of the internet, a livestream execution will attract many grotesque behaviors, activities that are gravely evil, and therefore it would be immoral. If a whole society had instead been trained with the sensibilities and practices described by Newman, it is not impossible that the shown execution might evoke the same degree of people being thoughtful for the criminal's eternal soul, and praying for him, except it would include a vastly larger such body of people praying for him. It is not intrinsic to the medium as such that it must lead to shallowness, degradation, voyeurism and other evils. But these are certainly a significant risk generally, and a practical certainty in these times.
An area of common agreement between us. I know that we disagree on the death penalty, but regardless of that, it is clear that much harm and no gain arises from making a spectacle of executions. They desensitize the public to violence, inspire fear of the ruling regime, and provably have basically no effect (or worse, counter-productive effects) as deterrents to crime. Most serious crimes occur either because of necessity (such as having no better options for a good life, mental illness, drug addiction, etc) or as crimes of passion (which cannot effectively be deterred in any case, because people rarely reflect before they commit crimes of passion - that's what makes them crimes of passion to begin with). Conversely, criminals who know they will get the death penalty now have an incentive to do *anything*, no matter how vile, to avoid being caught, leading to even worse crime. That's admittedly more of a general argument against the death penalty rather than the public death penalty, but public executions add an extra perverse incentive - the criminal now has a grand platform to give a last speech or performance on, one last moment in the spotlight. Even if they aren't allowed to speak, the odds of them becoming a martyr or cause celebré are drastically higher now. In fact, for certain types of criminals (say, school shooters, ideological fanatics), public execution could actually be an *incentive* to commit violent crime, as it would ensure them an immortal legacy and promote their cause long beyond their death. In fact, this is one of the primary reasons why the failed 1916 Rising in Ireland ended up succeeding in the end, because the brutality of the British Crown's executions of its leaders turned public sentiment towards the Revolutionary movement.
ReplyDeleteI find your posts so interesting. You have such a revulsion from the death penalty but on the other hand you are so dismissive and sneering towards humanity and things that make humans human. I simply can't trust what you actually say. Because I believe that what you actually say is simply to be difficult, a contrarian. I think you have a nature antipathy towards so much of humanity that these other stances that you take are disingenuous.
DeleteThe last public execution in the USA was in 1936.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.wkms.org/history/2025-10-15/20-000-people-watched-a-black-man-hang-in-owensboro-90-years-ago-a-new-book-looks-at-why
In most states, when someone is sentenced to death, the victim's family is allowed to watch. If someone murdered my mother, I would delight in watching her killer die.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly a christian sentiment.
DeleteYes, and the allowing of public viewers to gratify the desire for vengeance would be a viscous thing by this account. Whether one believes this is correct or a point against the theory is another matter.
DeleteConversely, it would be understandable if by standards of vengeance one might prefer to swing the sword themselves.
For Christians and Jews who take the Bible seriously: I wonder what we should say of the Torah's design that the witnesses to the evil crime, and on whose testimony rested the conviction against him, should be the first to throw the stone to begin the execution? Arguably: that they should take great care in testifying to the truth, because if not their (eventual) participation in the execution would be effectively murder, for which they themselves would be subject to death. But also that the event of the execution, being not only done (in public) in the community, but BY the community, provides certain public goods? Possibly.
Delete
DeleteTalmid, QA Police,
My older brother is a retired homicide detective. He has shown me photographs of murdered children and elderly women. That was years ago and those images still haunt me. The criminals who did that are monsters. If my mother or child were murdered, I would delight in the death of the monster who did it. I don't care if that's not a Christian sentiment.
@Anon
DeleteThis world is quite a dark place, the "valley of tears", as we pray.
As a mentioned in another comment on this page, i can understand your sentiment quite well, i'am not better than you. I alsl don't think i could do your brother work.
But grace is capable of upgrading nature to a level it could never reach, so we should strive for more. Will we reach it in this life? Hardly, but it is the call from Christ.
@Anon,
DeleteThat is your call, it just doesn’t fit with Ed’s reasoning about the death penalty. If you don’t share his premises you won’t get his conclusions.
Would you consider an individual justified in having executed the perpetrators of such crimes though? This is not a “gottya”—if there is such a thing as “just satisfaction of vengeance” which your statements imply then why is it the reserve of the State.
I wonder on Natural Law basis whether a society which has blood feuds and vendetta systems is permissible, that is where there are legal mechanisms by which individuals can enact justice against one another. These ideas have dirty association in the West though I’m not sure that isn’t just a prudential thing as societies we know of with such things don’t work well/mix them with immoral claims about hereditary guilt. But the State monopoly on violence or capacity to execute wrongdoers* is something we take too much for granted.
*By using the term “execute” one might claim that this represents a legal judgement in principle beyond the individual. Yet if a society grants said individual right to pursue that vendetta, if it says “that man has slain your daughter, take up your sword, go forth to find and slay him,” then it has made a legal judgement in favour of it..
You don't understand, QAP. I didn't say I would personally execute the killer. I said that if allowed to watch the execution, as many states allow, I would take satisfaction/delight in seeing his execution so that justice was meted out to him. Blood feuds or vendettas are outside the legal system. I am not for that, and again referencing my detective brother, he actually arrested (and the state prosecuted) a man who killed his wife's killer after a judge freed him on a technicality.
DeleteI was asking why on the account you suggest someone should be unwilling to do so. You appear to be suggesting that your psychological response about revenge and satisfaction represent some ethical truth. That such vendettas are outside of a given legal system is irrelevant to whether they are in principle licit in the same way as the death penalty itself being outside of the legal system of many countries.
DeleteMore broadly for natural law accounts:
DeleteImagine the classic Wild Western scenario in which a violent criminal is wanted “dead or alive.” Is it immoral if someone were to intentionally kill that individual? But the person doing so is acting under sanction of the law even if they are a private rather than public individual, in that one could say they are acting as an employee or contractee of the state. That they’re acting for financial interest is no argument against for even the Headsman of the Papal States, when such a position existed, got paid a wage.
I do not support capital punishment in modern societies save in utterly extraordinary circumstances of sociological breakdown, but I do wonder if there are some actions which give such scandal as to warrant it. I am not talking about the crimes of private individuals, no matter how terrible or perverse, but those who commit or commission atrocities at a civilisational level—in the past I am sure these would have fallen in the category of “tyrants.” Apparently, and there may be many readers who know more, there was a discussion about this at the Nuremberg Trials and even then it was ultimately thought to be too contrary to human dignity.
ReplyDeleteOf course the same problems of viewer sadism and voyeurism would rear their heads. The proper attitude would to take it as punishment for crimes against the human race, and the very idea of the human race, so abhorrent we must turn our face away. Say a prayer for the ultimate salvation of their souls yes but in these world turn away.
(Yes, regular posters will probably guess what I am talking about)
I am not talking about the crimes of private individuals, no matter how terrible or perverse, but those who commit or commission atrocities at a civilisational level—in the past I am sure these would have fallen in the category of “tyrants.”
DeleteI would argue that the crimes of those convicts of grave crimes, who commit the (further) crimes of threatening juries or judges, who torture other prisoners or keep other prisoners enslaved by violence and threat of more inside the prison, who intimidate prison guards by threatening their families, or who bribe judges and police, so undermine the justice system that (a) they present a major gap in the position that prisons are sufficient to keep society safe from such criminals; and (b) that these JUST ARE examples of atrocities that threaten on a civilizational level, and should be met by the death penalty.
@Tony,
DeleteI would not say those individuals are acting at a civilisational level in that they are not acting as representatives of a civilisation/state*. The sadistic prison gangleader is different I’d claim in kind from the dictator who builds prisons for evil usage; as the latter is literally inverting the idea of positive law which is in some way supposed to represent natural law.
I realise one major confusing factor to this distinction would be officials within an otherwise legitimate state who subvert it to grievously immoral ends from within. There is I suspect a distinction between speaking with state authority and speaking as the state.
*The individuals you mention still might warrant the death penalty, it’s the difference in kind I’m trying to get at.
I think there is a moral problem with declaring something morally permissible or advisable, yet insisting that it must be kept from public view – the reality is there are likely some (even many) people who would vote for capital punishment, but whose consciences would be troubled by it to the point of changing their vote if they were allowed and encouraged to watch the thing for which they were voting. If you are supporting something by avoiding confronting your own conscience on the matter, I think that's a prima facie argument that you are doing something wrong, apart from the debate over the substance of the thing you are supporting.
ReplyDeleteNow, of course, there are some things which nobody thinks are immoral, but which ought to be kept from public view – showering, toileting, the marital bed. But historically, nobody viewed executions as belonging to that category as a general rule (the occasional exceptions were largely a privilege afforded to high status individuals); the idea that they should generally be private is a modern innovation which nobody advocated before the late 18th century, or practically implemented until the 19th. Many historians think it played a significant role in maintaining support for the death penalty, by enabling the bourgeoisie to avoid being confronted with the bloody reality of it.
Feser doesn't argue against public executions in general in the article.
Delete"Many historians think it played a significant role in maintaining support for the death penalty, by enabling the bourgeoisie to avoid being confronted with the bloody reality of it."
DeleteEh. Maybe. The bourgeoisie had been fine with it up until that point, so I personally don't know if I think that's a plausible theory. But maybe I'm wrong, it wouldn't be the first time. Out of curiosity, do you have the names of any of the historians who argue for this? I'd be interested in checking out their works, at least a bit.
Something may be not intrinsically evil but yet be unadvised or imprudent to carry out given particular circumstances and natural ways of human behaviour.
DeleteEh. Maybe. The bourgeoisie had been fine with it up until that point, so I personally don't know if I think that's a plausible theory.
DeleteThat's just what I was thinking, EXE. Something other than the mere fact of the gruesomeness of an execution must be a major factor in turning a large portion of the populace off to the death penalty, given how much it was not just tolerated but actively enjoyed by huge swathes of the populace (both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat). I suspect that one of those factors is that between 1850 and 2000, life had become so tame that people rarely if ever saw a death directly anymore: most people now die in the hospital, usually at old age, or in ICU or the ER under the immediate attention of professionals, and generally people simply lost a kind of basic sensibility of how death is natural in this world.
Tony,
Delete1/2
I guess that might be part of the reason, but I'm not feeling particularly convinced. The best data I have (Our World In Data, which appears to be sourcing from the UN) suggests that child mortality rates didn't significantly decrease until after 1900, with a further rapid plunge after 1950 (granted, our data for pre-1900 is probably rather unreliable, but it's what we've got to work with). Prior to the Edwardian era, global child mortality rates hovered around the low 40% range. Even in more advanced countries like the United States, it seems to have been in the 15-20% range. It didn't fall to what we would consider "modern" levels until about 1950. (As an aside, infant mortality is one of the perennial evils that we have done tremendous work in eliminating. A hundred years ago, 15% was considered normal even for a developed, wealthy economy. Nowadays, the country with the *highest* rate is Niger, a desperately poor, landlocked African dictatorship - and it's only at 11-12%.)
So, for something like 2/3rds of the time period in question, most people would probably have either experienced or known someone who experienced the death of a child. Additionally, this period also oversaw the birth and growth of industrial-scale warfare, the invention of things like Mass Mobilization, Total War, industrial and bureaucratic developments enabling for the first time the organization of armies whose strength numbered in the millions, not to mention the devastating new forms of killing technology, from the Maxim Gun to Mustard Gas to the Atom Bomb. And despite advances in medicine, devastating plagues and illnesses like the Spanish Flu of 1920 weren't gone yet either. So it seems to me that there was quite a lot of publicly-visible death available to most people, in fact, in many cases far worse carnage than their ancestors would have known, who never knew the horror of a Somme or a Stalingrad.
Tony
Delete2/2
My suggestion focuses more on broader cultural and material changes. It seems like part of the motivation for ending public executions was the Victorians' sense of propriety - public executions were rowdy public spectacles, and it seems like the Victorians came to eventually think that such events caused more criminality than they prevented (they were a heaven for pickpockets, ironically - so clearly those criminals weren't being deterred!). There was also concern that the whole thing was becoming disorderly and leading to rioting, or perhaps inspiring sympathy for criminals and revolutionaries, which would again make it counterproductive.
The second point is the ideals of the Enlightenment, which were generally (though not universally) hostile to the death penalty and especially to public executions. Cesare Beccaria argued as early as 1764 that the death penalty was:
"the war of a nation against a citizen ... It appears absurd to me that the laws, which are the expression of the public will and which detest and punish homicide, commit murder themselves, and in order to dissuade citizens from assassination, commit public assassination.[3]"
-Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments"
Voltaire argued:
""Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.""
-Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique
Jeremy Bentham argued:
"The general object which all law have, or ought to have in common, is to augment the total happiness of the community.… But all punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil. Upon the principle of utility, if it ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in as far as it promises to exclude some greater evil. (XIII. I, ii.)"
-Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
As these ideals gradually became more common, executions became correspondingly less common. Oops, I need a third post...ehe, I got a bit wordy, it seems.
Tony
Delete3/2 (oops!)
One final datapoint that I'd like to bring to attention is that our analysis of this topic in this time period tends to focus on the Anglosphere. It's true that Britain during the 19th century experienced an extensive dismantling of its death penalty, with it becoming rarer and rarer. HOWEVER, there's a very crucial bit of context we need to keep in mind: Britain during this period was *coming down from a period of exceptionally harsh brutality*. Between 1688-1815, the British Parliament vastly expanded the number of crimes that carried a sentence of hanging, mostly for the purposes of protecting the property of the wealthy. The number of Capital Offenses quadrupled from 50 to 200, including things as small as cutting down a tree on another man's private property (especially royal property) or "grand larceny" (which is a massive exaggeration, this crime was defined as stealing more than one shilling worth, which was not that much money even then; it's about 5% of a week's wages for a skilled laborer - some back-of-the-envelope math suggests this is in the ballpark of $30-40 in modern money).
This legal code was so vicious that it was nicknamed "The Bloody Code". In this regard, Britain was very much the outlier in Europe - France, for instance, carried out far fewer executions. During the 18th century, London carried out an average of 30 executions per year, while Paris only carried out 5 or 6. (This figure excludes the Reign of Terror during the Revolution, which was a short-lived outlier and not representative of general trends). Keep in mind that the 30 executions figure was *in spite* of judges and juries often exercising discretion and commuting sentences to things like being shipped to the colonies. There were just *that many* capital offenses.
https://www.journal18.org/issue12/britain-empire-and-execution-in-the-long-eighteenth-century/
So, what I'm getting at is that it is quite logical to think that the gradual dismantling of capital punishment in the 19th century Anglosphere was largely a come-down from a lengthy period of excessively *high* brutality, inspired by both pragmatic and Enlightenment principles, rather than a result of people growing soft or unused to death.
Dr. Feser, I agree with your article. It is interesting to me that I arrived at the same conclusion (anti-livestreaming) using parallel secular reasons to what you wrote. Not only is the online culture often very toxic, but I would add one point. If one looks at the very short list of the countries that currently have public executions (e.g., Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Somalia), I don't think the United States of America should want to be on that list.
ReplyDeleteA detail that may or may not be relevant: Hasan wants to be executed. He wants martyrdom, and thought it, to arrive at Heaven for having fought the good/just fight, for God, against the Satanic infidels. The more violent his martyrdom, the more visible, the more outrageous, the lower the possibility of escape (and his is nil), the better.
ReplyDeleteThe worst that could be done to him, in his own view, would be to let him live in the condition he is until he naturally expires. To deny him that which he so wants.
Hiw does this complicate the analysis, if at all?
Strangely, it seems to make not executing him crueler.
DeleteI read before than some muslim clerics did find some sucess in dismantling the internal logic of jihadists and so making they change their ways*, if given time it could be a helpful thing before executing him. Doubt it would work, giving his actions, but if it was easy to do it seems better.
*not than arguments can solve the whole terrorism issue, radicalism aways has way more reasons to exist
Great post, that St. Newman quote is beautiful, reminded me of St. Therese history of the killer whose soul she saved!
ReplyDeleteIt must be admited that not only the impulse to livestream the execution but also several punitivist movements and atitudes are deeply uncristian. These discourses that feed on hate and desumanization of the criminal, on generating fear of "honest people", on cruelty disguised of a just desert and other atitudes that would make Niezsche become even more sure of his conclusions are understandable on violent cases, but only with a normal man eye, not of one who knows Christ*.
The saints atitude have no place on the eyes of most today, but it is completely correct. I do not see the death penalty as necessary or desirable nowdays, but they do a very good example here(and one who does break Niezsche legs, but that is his problem).
And, of course, seeing this ridiculous proposal defend by people who are no better than this criminal and by their defenders is just ironic. One can take these folks seriously when they show their necks to the hangman and their fans cheers to that.
*not saying i'am better than these folks, i live in a very violent place and admit than these emotions i know well
"And, of course, seeing this ridiculous proposal defend by people who are no better than this criminal and by their defenders is just ironic."
DeleteThese people didn't murder 13 people. Your argument is pathetic.
Technically, the first sentence is correct, Anon, i give you that.
DeleteThis is a country where postcard invites were sent for lynchings and the entire white community came out to watch Black people get murdered. The past is never far away in America and constantly coming back. It maybe stopped for now but it will happen. It’s barbaric and disgusting, but fully American.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe you.
DeleteTim L, before you say you don't believe someone, you might do a Google search so you won't embarrass yourself.
Deletehttps://eji.org/news/history-racial-injustice-public-spectacle-lynchings/
https://www.truthinphotography.org/lynching-postcards.html
Anon is framing it a certain way to highlight the race issue. There were certainly many, if not the majority of lynchings with racial motivations, but persons of all races faced lynch-mobs in a certain counties at various times. But why restrict the phenomena of lynching to the States when such mob “justice” was occurred throughout history in other countries?
DeleteA worrying fact is that a few of the individuals lynched may even have been guilty of their crimes. Leo Frank comes to mind (who had the added wickedness of trying to frame a black man in a land which was notoriously hostile to black people.) Mussolini I believe is was lynched, Gaddafi faced similar mob murder albeit in an even more gruesome fashion.
One might ask if, given guilt, lynchings are inherently wrong under the Natural Law account, and if so, is it only because private individuals had the temerity to wrest the Sword from Caesar? Being fair I suspect Thomists might say the epistemic bar for such an occurrence is so high that it could only really happen in the ultra rare case of the justified tyranicide.
@OAPolice: Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were made to stand in front of a wall and were shot by partisans. Later on, their bodies and bodies of some of Mussolini's fellow fascists were hung upside down in Milan in a square where partisans had been executed not long before.
DeleteAs for Qaddafi, I always thought he was shot by a henchman in order to save him from a worse fate. But I don't know the facts in his case, just saw the footage that circulated online.
@OAPolice
DeleteYou've got the Leo Frank case backwards. Jim Conley murdered Mary Phagan, and the idea that he was framed by Frank was cooked up by the black press back in 1915 and revived by antisemitic websites in the 21st century.
While Newman argued that executions in the Papal States were more civilized than those in England, executions in the Papal States were still a public spectacle. The Roman public enjoyed seeing justice done.
ReplyDeleteIn the 19th century, Mastro Titta was executioner of the Papal States for over sixty years. When people would see him walking from his neighborhood of Trastevere to the Castel Sant'Angelo, they knew an execution was about to occur and they rushed to the ancient fortress to witness the event. After the deed was done, Mastro Titta would take the severed head in his hand and hold it aloft for the crowd to see.