CST, Anthropology, and Retribution

I take Vince's points (below) that placing "too much emphasis on changing the underlying assumptions of our interlocutors may prevent us from dealing with injustice head-on" and that "we should be doing more than talking; we also should be acting." As he quite rightly says, anthropological reflection should lead us to "confront structures of injustice through a radical commitment to Christian love and the common good, grounded in the God-given dignity of the human person."

Still, while I would not want to defend abstract anthropological reflection, divorced from all action, for its own sake, I would emphasize that there is the problem of identifying, before confronting, "structures of injustice." And, this process of identification, if it is going to be authentically Catholic, needs to proceed against the backdrop of Christian anthropology. I'm inclined to think that we are called just as clearly to witness to this distinct anthropology -- which is not, it should be emphasized, the anthropology of liberal individualism and autonomy -- as we are to confront structures of injustice. After all, these structures of injustice themselves proceed from, in many instances, un-Christian anthropological premises (See, e.g., the "mystery passage" in Planned Parenthood v. Casey).

Vince also raises an important point about CST and the criminal law. He observes that "our weak sense of the common good makes it easy to isolate and dehumanize criminals, which has produced a system of criminal justice grounded in retribution as opposed to rehabilitation and reintegration." Now, I suspect that Vince and I agree almost entirely about the many problems with our system of criminal justice. That said, I do not think that CST-based reflection should lead us to be critical of "retribution," properly understood. It seems to me that "retribution" -- which should not be equated, as it too often is, with "revenge" -- remains the proper justification and end of punishment. As CS Lewis once wrote, retributive theory is likely more consistent with a commitment to the dignity and agency of persons than other criminal-law models.

Unfortunately (in my view), the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' document, "Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration (2000), seems to misunderstand "retribution," and to equate it with "vengeance." Therefore, it goes on to state that "our society seems to prefer punishment to rehabilitation and retribution to restoration thereby indicating a failure to recognize prisoners as human beings." In Evangelium vitae, though (par. 56), John Paul II confirms that "the primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is 'to redress the disorder caused by the offence.' Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfils the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people's safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated." This notion of "redressing the disorder", and this insistence on "punishment" as a "condition" for "regain[ing] the exercise of . . . freedom," strikes me as a better, and Catholic, understanding of "retribution." This understanding does not support or yield, for example, excessively harsh or degrading punishments, mandatory minimums and "three stikes" laws, etc. It reminds us, though, that the same notion of "human dignity" that should constrain us when we punish also requires us to recognize other persons' agency, and therefore, sometimes, to punish.

Rick