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I don't know why you make an exception for war but not the judicial death penalty.

Yeah most death penalty cases are massively more justified than most modern wars, especially from the perspective of the individuals involved.

How so?

Could you defend your claim if the exception for war was confined to non surrendering enemy combatants? After all, I did not take the comment on "except war" to envisage the slaughter of civilians or execution of POWs.

I mean if it was a just war I don’t disagree, but people on both sides of every modern war I can think of deserved to die a lot less than people who commit whatever sort of crime still lands you on death row these days (with the possible exception of the actual leadership in a small number of those wars but still not many).

I think it is fair to assume they meant a just war. At least, that would have been my starting assumption. This concept also has a rich literature in Catholic history, fwiw. The question of whether most modern war qualifies as just feels like a separate question that is out of scope for the present discussion, though I don't disagree with you.

How nice to see that in truth, we have the three of us all found ourselves - at least at a high level - in agreement.

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