List Price: $24.95
Save: $5.18 (21%)

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

This item ships to France. Want it Wednesday, Dec. 13? Order within and choose AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping at checkout. Learn more

Ship to:

France

Buy Used

$16.86

+ $3.99 shipping

Used: Like New | Details

Sold by SuperBookDeals---

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$15.77
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: SuperBookDeals---

Add to Cart

$21.93
+ Free Shipping

Sold by: BOOK- LAND

Add to Cart

$21.93
+ Free Shipping

Sold by: BOOK- STORE

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment Paperback – May 29, 2017

by Edward Feser (Author),‎ Joseph Bessette (Author)

16 customer reviews

See all 2 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$18.37

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$19.77

$14.99

$16.86

Arrives before Christmas. Choose delivery option in checkout.

The Catholic Church has in recent decades been associated with political efforts to eliminate the death penalty. It was not always so. This timely work reviews and explains the Catholic Tradition regarding the death penalty, demonstrating that it is not inherently evil and that it can be reserved as a just form of punishment in certain cases.

Drawing upon a wealth of philosophical, scriptural, theological, and social scientific arguments, the authors explain the perennial teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate—not only to protect society from immediate physical danger, but also to administer retributive justice and to deter capital crimes. The authors also show how some recent statements of Church leaders in opposition to the death penalty are prudential judgments rather than dogma. They reaffirm that Catholics may, in good conscience, disagree about the application of the death penalty.

Some arguments against the death penalty falsely suggest that there has been a rupture in the Church's traditional teaching and thereby inadvertently cast doubt on the reliability of the Magisterium. Yet, as the authors demonstrate, the Church's traditional teaching is a safeguard to society, because the just use of the death penalty can be used to protect the lives of the innocent, inculcate a horror of murder, and affirm the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures who must be held responsible for their actions.

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed challenges contemporary Catholics to engage with Scripture, Tradition, natural law, and the actual social scientific evidence in order to undertake a thoughtful analysis of the current debate about the death penalty.

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment

$19.77 In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Frequently bought together

Total price: $49.06

Buy the selected items together

This item:By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment by Edward Feser Paperback $19.77
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser Paperback $15.70
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser Paperback $13.59
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Edward Feser

18

Paperback
$15.70
John C. Rao

6

Paperback
$19.95
Thomas Joseph White…

12

Paperback
$14.99
Peter Kwasniewski

32

Paperback
$19.95
George Neumayr

55

Hardcover
$18.36
The Rev. James W.…

14

Paperback
$13.82

Special offers and product promotions

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Based primarily on the natural law, this excellent and much-needed book will be valuable to Catholics and readers of any faith who ask why capital punishment is justified." --J. Budziszewski, Ph.D., University of Texas

"At long last, we have a serious and intelligent look at all aspects of the death penalty its causes, its justification, its consequences for the victim, the criminal himself, and for civil society." --James V. Schall, S. J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

"An illuminating study of a subject often clouded by emotions. An essential read for anyone who wants to understand this thorny subject."
Robert Royal,President, Faith and Reason Institute

"The arguments in this book have clarified many of the contentions of this critical issue in my mind." --Fr. Robert A. Sirico, President, The Acton Institute

About the Author

Edward Feser is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California. Called by National Review "one of the best contemporary writers on philosophy," he is the author of The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, Aquinas, Scholastic Metaphysics, and many other books and articles.

Joseph Bessette is a Professor of Government and Ethics at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in Southern California, and also teaches in the Dept. of Politics and Policy at the Claremont Graduate University. He has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago. Prior to arriving at CMC, Bessette worked nine years in criminal justice.

Paperback: 424 pages
Publisher: Ignatius Press (May 29, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1621641260
ISBN-13: 978-1621641261
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 16 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #51 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Ethics
- #129 in Books > History > World > Religious > Religion, Politics & State
- #139 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Church & State

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars

5 star

4 star (0%)

3 star (0%)

2 star

1 star (0%)

Write a customer review

See all 16 customer reviews

Rated by customers interested in

What's this?

Religion & Spirituality Books

4.7 out of 5 stars

Christian Books & Bibles

4.7 out of 5 stars

Reference Books

5.0 out of 5 stars

Is this feature helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Amazon Customer

Never have I been so tempted to read an entire ...

June 11, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Never have I been so tempted to read an entire work of philosophy or social science in one sitting. (I forced myself to stretch out the reading to two days.) Bessette and Feser put forward a cogent defense of the death penalty and systematically dismantle every objection against it.

While the work takes the Catholic faith as a given, everyone would benefit from reading it. The philosophical section gives lucid words and arguments to the intuitions of the vast majority of Americans and is, moreover, exhaustive, taking on some four or five others schools of thought. The analysis of the deterring effect of capital punishment in the social science section is alone worth the price of the book.

If you're not Catholic, buy a copy for yourself. If you're Catholic, buy one for yourself and one for your bishop.

0Comment 25 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

Louise Adler

The book shows why the death penalty comes from God.

July 22, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book was a God send for me, literally. In 1992 I converted to Catholicism and always felt cradle Catholics knew more than myself about the church. I believe firmly in the death penalty and know that the Holy Scriptures support that belief and always have. No one of any religion can say the scriptures are wrong and still believe in God-what would be the point? Without the Bible you could pick and choose whatever you decided to believe, it could even be an atheistic treatise-take your pick.

Catholics are constantly telling me that a Catholic can not support the death penalty and still be a true Catholic and take communion. Naturally this is disturbing to me since the scriptures say otherwise and the Catholic Church definitely follows the scriptures. When I saw, By Man shall His Blood Be Shed, advertised I immediately ordered it and devoured it like a starving lady.

This book has restored my faith in the Church and helped me to see that strong Catholics now and through the ages knew God did not expect mankind to live amongst horrific murderers; that have done deeds no one could ever imagine a human being would or could do. This book explains to all reasonable folks that life is in the blood and God made know the sacredness of life from the beginning of time. My thanks goes to Mr. Feser and Mr. Bessette for researching and writing this book. May God bless their effforts.

0Comment 15 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

Charles Schmidt

Capital Punishment is a dish best served hot, unlike revenge, which is best served cold

May 28, 2017

Format: Paperback

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed is a comprehensive, fair and cogent evaluation of the morality of the death penalty from a Catholic point of view. Anyone who is interested in the question of whether capital punishment is moral should read this outstanding book.

The main thesis is that the main purpose of capital punishment is justice, and that capital punishment is not revenge. In other words, capital punishment when properly applied is moral. The difference between justice and revenge is that (1) justice is done by an appropriate authority based on a fair and reasonable trial by impartial judges and juries, and (2) the motive for the punishment is not hatred, but a reasonable conclusion that the death penalty is deserved.

One of the other cogent points is that forgiving someone for a horrible crime doesn’t mean they don’t have to incur their deserved punishment.
The authors, Edward Feser and Joseph M Bessette, have done a superb job in debunking claims that many innocent people in the United States have been unjustly executed; the actual number of innocent people executed in the last 30 years or so is close to zero.

The sections on the deterrence value of capital punishment does a good job of evaluating the evidence and concluding that, while statistical analyses are mixed, the reasons for the difficulties can be understood, and that commonsense and anecdotal evidence strongly suggest that capital punishment does indeed have a deterrent value.

One unexpected bonus in this book is a refutation of David Hume’s “naturalistic fallacy”, in which he claims that one can’t derive an “ought” from an “is” – in other words, there are not objective values, but only made-made subjective values. Feser points out that from the viewpoint of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, where everything in the world has an essence and a purpose, values are real and objective and one can derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.

And another unexpected bonus is a one paragraph summary on page 26 of Thomas Aquinas’s evaluation of various candidates for what is the highest good and the source of true happiness.

As the authors point out, one of the basic principles of the natural law is to ‘do good and avoid evil.’ They also point out another principle of the natural law – ‘pursue truth and avoid error’ – which the authors have done on the subject of capital punishment in a superb fashion. By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed does justice to the topic.

0Comment 26 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

Most recent customer reviews

Five Stars

Great

Published 1 month ago by TA

Worth reading in this time of proposed modification of doctrine

A trenchant history of Catholic doctrine on the death penalty, particularly timely given the present Pontiff's, somewhat contradictory, comments on the same.

Published 1 month ago by Matthew

Five Stars

Clearly written and reasonable explanation.

Published 2 months ago by Todd E. Brown

TOO MANY BIG WORDS. CONCLUSION IS TOO SHORT

It is best read by an academic type of person. I have a dictionary nearby but still it's difficult to read and comprehend and sift down . . .Read more

Published 2 months ago by c anzalone

As the 5-stars would indicated I recommend this book to those seeking the objective truth that ...

By Man Shall His Blood be Shed is an outstanding critique of the obligation to maintain the necessity of the death penalty as well as always assuring the option for mercy. Mr.Read more

Published 2 months ago by A. F. Cieszkiewicz

A Rare "Must-Read"

This is the clearest, most thorough explanation of both the levels of the teaching authority of the Church and the consent (or lack-there-of) required of Catholics to it.Read more

Published 2 months ago by Amazon Customer

Very logical defense of death penalty.

Dr. Feser presents a very carefully argued position for the death penalty. But you get far more in this book, an excellent presentation of traditional Catholic ethics.Read more

Published 3 months ago by John ONeill

Five Stars

Well written and details both sides of this issue.

Published 3 months ago by Bill Ryan

This is just the book I needed!

Finally, a book to help me reconcile my tradition-bound adherence to a religion founded by a falsely executed innocent man with the primitive authoritarianism of my conservative...Read more

Published 4 months ago by 3Kittehs

Five Stars

An outstanding work of scholarship. A courageous defense of the authentic magisterium. -Robert Graffio, J.C.L.

Published 4 months ago by Robert

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment

Set up a giveaway

Buy New

$19.77

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

or

or