| Home | Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3 | Vol. 4 | Other Works | Grisez & Colleagues | Purchase | Contact |
|
Governmental Killing Those who believe “Thou shalt not kill” is a divine commandment have generally agreed that it absolutely forbids intentionally killing the innocent. But most have thought it allows public authorities to intend the death of people convicted of various crimes and of enemies in a justified war. By mid-summer 1964, Grisez was convinced that any and every intentional killing of a human individual is wrong, and during the next two years he gathered material for two books, one on abortion and the other on nuclear deterrence. In the fall of 1966 he judged that the book on abortion was the more likely to save lives, and he began work on it. Still, in Abortion: The Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments and “Toward a Consistent Natural Law Ethics of Killing” (available here), Grisez held that even those exercising public authority can rightly bring about the death of a human individual only if it will be the side effect of an action intended to prevent a grave evil. His mature view on this matter is best summarized in The Way of the Lord Jesus, volume two, Living a Christian Life (available here), and footnotes 34 and 40 in that summary refer to the most important of his previous treatments of the matter.
“Vietnam: A Radical View” Until 1967, Grisez accepted the claim by the government of the United States that a defensive war was necessary in Vietnam. When his students at Georgetown University began asserting that the war was immoral, he pointed out that their conviction required them to refuse to serve if they were drafted and to accept the consequences, no matter how grave. During 1967, Grisez became convinced that the United States was not only using morally unacceptable methods of making war in Vietnam but was using its nuclear deterrent to terrorize the Soviet Union and other potential enemies, and that this overarching terrorism undercut the morality of the American struggle against its Communist adversaries. On that basis, Grisez believed that neither of the two most widely supported foreign and military policy options regarding the war in Vietnam was sound, and that only a radical alternative that included ending the nuclear deterrent was morally acceptable. Still, he thought that the United States, having committed itself to the defense of anti-Communist Viatnamese, could not rightly abandon them, and therefore should protect them indefnitely within a defensible enclave around Saigon. In December 1967, Grisez articulated these views in a public lecture delivered at Georgetown University. Subsequently, he submitted that manuscript for publication to many, mostly Catholic, periodicals. Although some editors manifested interest in his views by sending him extensive counterarguments, none accepted the piece for publication. He makes the lecture available here copyright © 1967, and reserves the right to make and distribute copies for sale. But he hereby grants everyone the right to print out and distribute without charge copies of the work provided the source is identified and both the preceding account of the nature of this work and this copyright information are included.
“The Death Penalty—Should It Be Abolished?” In May 1974, Mr. John Cosgrove, Director of the Division of Urban Affairs of the United States Catholic Conference—the organization of the Catholic Bishops of the United States then dealing with public policy matters—told Grisez that the bishops were considering making a statement on capital punishment, and invited him to prepare a draft document on that subject. Grisez responded in a letter on 12 June, proposing an outline of a treatment of the matter, and on that basis was commissioned both by Mr. Cosgrove and by Bishop Ernest Unterkoefler, who had been appointed chairman of a Subcommittee on Capital Punishment of the Conference’s Committee on Social Development and World Peace. Although Grisez was able to devote full time to preparing the draft, he had only one month to do so, and he was working at his home, then in Regina, Canada, where library facilities were limited. For these reasons, the draft he mailed on 10 July was in some respects imperfect, and he sent Mr. Cosgrove a covering letter listing steps needed to perfect it. After considering Grisez’s draft, the Subcommittee on Capital Punishment, in accord with a suggestion he made, had a brief summary of it prepared by his friend, Russell Shaw, then employed by the Conference. That summary was submitted to the entire body of U.S. bishops, who considered it at their November 1974 meeting; they rejected it by a vote of 119 to 103 with three absentions as an inadeqaute expression of their reasons for opposing capital punishment. Later that day, they agreed by a vote of 108 to 63 to a simple statement: “The U. S. Catholic Conference goes on record in opposition to capital punishment.” Grisez here makes his draft on the death penalty available copyright © 1974, and reserves the right to make and distribute copies for sale. But he hereby grants everyone the right to print out and distribute without charge copies of the work provided the source is identified and both the preceding account of nature of this work and this copyright information are included. Grisez also here makes available both his letter outlining the draft (12 June) and his covering letter on submitting it (10 July) copyright © 1974, and reserves the right to make and distribute copies for sale. But he hereby grants everyone the right to print out and distribute without charge copies of these items provided the source is identified and both the preceding account of the nature of these letters and this copyright information are included. Six years later, the Catholic bishops of the United States adopted a statement on capital punishment with the express purpose of promoting the abolition of the death penalty but with arguments that implied its moral unacceptability in principle. The Latin and the definitive English editions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (see 2263–67), issued in 1997, teach that the death penalty is morally unacceptable unless it is the only possible way of defending human lives against unjust aggressors.
“Radical Thoughts on Nuclear Deterrence” At their November 1980 meeting, the Catholic bishops of the United States, motivated especially but not only by concerns about nuclear deterrence and the balance of terror, adopted a proposal to issue a pastoral letter on war and peace. Early in 1981, Archbishop John Roach, then President of the United States Catholic Conference, appointed a committee chaired by Archbishop Joseph Bernardin to prepare a draft that would be considered by the bishops. When he convened the first formal meeting of that committee in July 1981, Bernardin, before any inquiry or discussion, set out paramaters for the project that precluded coming to the conclusion that the United States’ nuclear deterrent was morally unacceptable. When Grisez heard what the bishops were doing, although working hard to complete the first volume of his Way of the Lord Jesus, he again began to research nuclear deterrence. By late April 1982, he completed a brief moral-theological treatment of the deterrent, and sent copies of it to various bishops and others. The Department of Theology of Mount St. Mary’s College sponsored his presentation of the paper as a public lecture on 27 April. Grisez makes the lecture available copyright © 1982, and reserves the right to make and distribute copies for sale. But he hereby grants everyone the right to print out and distribute without charge copies of the work provided the source is identified and both the preceding account of nature of this work and this copyright information are included. In July, the Most Rev. John J. O'Connor, then an auxiliary bishop of the Military Ordinariate and a member of the committee Bernardin headed, asked Grisez to provide a commentary on the first draft of the pastoral, and he of course did so.
“If the Present United States Nuclear Deterrent Is Evil, As the second draft of the pastoral was being prepared in the late summer and fall of 1982, it seemed likely that it would adopt the position, promoted by certain theologians who dissented from Catholic teaching, that the deterrent, although an evil means, can rightly be maintained to forestall the bad consequences of giving it up. Grisez drafted a concise paper showing the incoherence of that view and arguing that the committee should not accept it. Besides sending out copies of his paper, he published it in the newsletter of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. This article is copyright © The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, 1982; all rights reserved.
“The Moral Implications of a Nuclear Deterrent” This article is a revised version of the preceding one. It was written before but appeared after the second draft of the pastoral became public in November 1982. The article is copyright © The Center for Christian Studies, 1982, all rights reserved. After the second draft of the pastoral appeared, Bishop O'Connor invited a few other bishops and several scholars, including Grisez, to a consultation in New York on 14 December 1982. Perhaps partly as a result of that consultation, the final version of the pastoral, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response (3 May 1983), avoided openly relying on the assumption that intending to prevent a great evil can justify the supposedly lesser evil of choosing to kill the innocent. John Finnis and Joseph Boyle agreed with Grisez that the pastoral had fudged the moral issue, and in the spring of 1984 they began work on a book-length treatment of the nuclear deterrent being maintained by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France: Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism, which was published in 1987 by Oxford University Press. Their critique of the published pastoral is on pages 160–61, 166, 172–74, and 340 of that book.
“Capital Punishment and an Appellate Judge’s Responsibilty” On 19 August 1998, Grisez received a telephone call from a Catholic judge serving in a United States federal appellate court who regularly dealt with death penalty cases, among others. Advised by a priest, perhaps a confessor, to consult Grisez, the judge sought a clarification of recent developments in the teaching of the Church about the death penalty and the bearing of that teaching on his professional responsibility. Grisez prepared a ten-page memorandum on the matter and met with the judge for two hours on 21 August to discuss it with him. Grisez makes that memorandum available copyright © 1998, and reserves the right to make and distribute copies for sale. But he hereby grants everyone the right to print out and distribute without charge copies of the work provided the source is identified and both the preceding account of nature of this work and this copyright information are included. The judge agreed with Grisez that the death penalty cannot be imposed without intending the death of the convict, but he regarded himself as morally justified in intending the death of convicted criminals. He seemed unwilling even to consider the possibility that he should regard the teaching of the Church on this matter as the appropriate norm for forming his conscience.
“Thoughts on the Appropriate Response to Terrorism” Within a few weeks after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, Grisez drafted a brief memorandum of his thoughts regarding the appropriate response by the United States, which he sent to some bishops and many other people. He also distributed it to the members of the Catholic Theological Society of America through that organization’s website. From comments that came to his attention, the memorandum seemed to be well received. Grisez makes the memorandum available copyright © 2001, and reserves the right to make and distribute copies for sale. But he hereby grants everyone the right to print out and distribute without charge copies of the work provided the source is identified and both the preceding account of nature of this work and this copyright information are included. |