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“How to Kill Someone Without 'Killing' Him: Antiphon, Augustine, Aquinas on Homicide”
Date: Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Ft. Howard Theater, Bemis International Center, St. Norbert College
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Joel Mann, Ph.D.
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Joel Mann, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Philosophy and Classical Studies
In a letter to Publicola, St. Augustine writes that it is
not permissible to kill another in self-defense. As St. Thomas Aquinas notes in
his Summa Theologica, many subsequent
Christian thinkers concur with Augustine on the grounds that it is never right to
commit a sin to save “the life of the body.” Aquinas, however, appears to
accept this piece of doctrine only with qualification, arguing that in some
cases of self-defense it is permissible to perform an act that causes another’s
death.
Over the last few centuries, Catholic and secular
philosophers alike have fashioned what they term “the doctrine of double
effect,” which attempts to justify the decision to cause harm to others in
pursuit of some good. Aquinas usually is credited with devising the doctrine,
which has exerted strong influence on a range of issues in Catholic social
thought. The eminent philosopher and Catholic thinker G.E. Anscombe, however,
denies that the doctrine of double effect can be found in Aquinas. Indeed,
recent work on the ancient Greek sophist Antiphon suggests that Aquinas does
not abandon Augustinian doctrine in favor of double effect so much as attempt
to put a classical Greek “twist” on a fundamental Christian principle.
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