Can someone explain to me why the ends don't justify the means?

[Roscoe_Turner]

**The idea of moral object is one that I find spurious. It separates the morality from the act. **
That’s fine. It explains why you don’t have the skill to correctly understand the English CCC when it is ambiguous in some places.

Given that you strongly disagree with mainstream Catholic Moral Theology … what makes you think that this single, ambiguous CCC article actually backs you up when you know the CCC as a whole is based on the Moral Theology that you reject?

This seems silly and unreasonable.

Just invent your own moral theology and argue from real-world examples - lets drop the pretence that the CCC supports your rejection of mainstream Catholic Moral Theology principles.

Now to your real-world analysis that allegedly stands on its own merits…

You can have an act of self defense that is murderous

Sorry, Catholics would see this as a contradiction in terms.

If an external action (killing someone) was done with the intended purpose of saving oneself with the minimal force necessary then the complete human act is good and it is called an act of self-defence.

If in fact, only known to yourself, you truly intended to murder, then this intention/purpose almost irresistably “incarnates” itself into the visible external act as a disordered use of force far in excess of what was required. This in fact would be one of the ways in which either a jury (or my own conscience) would tell me what my true intent was. That would be called “murder” …though given the object/matter circumstances probably a lesser evil of culpable “homicide” because the attacker is not exactly an “innocent.”

Rage or emotions equivalent to “I am going to do kill you” may accompany an intent/purpose but they are not exactly the same. “I am going to kill you” sounds more like a verbalised intent/purpose and not an emotion of rage/anger. Emotions tend to be more blind and generic and we often don’t know what they mean until afterwards.

If it was the pure rage that drove the killing then, again, if the force was excessive and hence disordered then this act is more like “murder” or “culpabale homicide” but it may not be a fully moral act because of the strong emotion. We would prob still call it “culpabale homicide” but no sin may be imputable due to loss of control.

It separates the morality from the act.
I do not think you are clear in your own mind what either “an act” is or what makes it “moral.”

If I stab you while I am sleep walking… is that a human act … or just the neutral action of a human? Can people also “sleep-walk” with their eyes open during the day in a less obvious sense? If I act under very strong emotion am I really committing fully free human acts?

I do not think you have thought through your self-invented, intuitive morality very far.
The wisest minds in the Church have been doing so for 1000s of years.

If I didn’t understand my Church’s moral theology I would spend a lot of time making sure I actually understood it properly before coming out with the new wheel you are trying to invent here.

You can have an intent to murder that is parallel to the need to defend yourself. Just because you have malicious intent doesn’t mean you don’t need to defend yourself. It need not be verbalized.

If it is choosing the lesser of two evils, it is still contrary to Catholic teaching. If emotion divorces us from culpability adultery could be defended in a similar manor.

Your jabs at me don’t strengthen your argument. I’m not inventing, just critiquing.

 

[Bookcat]

You can have an intent to murder that is parallel to the need to defend yourself. Just because you have malicious intent doesn’t mean you don’t need to defend yourself.

Such is thus sinful. Contrary to the good. Evil has corrupted the act.

One may not intend to murder. Period.

Good night.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You can have an intent to murder that is parallel to the need to defend yourself. Just because you have malicious intent doesn’t mean you don’t need to defend yourself. It need not be verbalized.

If it is choosing the lesser of two evils, it is still contrary to Catholic teaching. If emotion divorces us from culpability adultery could be defended in a similar manor.

Your jabs at me don’t strengthen your argument. I’m not inventing, just critiquing.

I really have no idea what your above somewhat dogmatic and unexplained assertions mean sorry.

RT you are basically a nice guy but a few academic social skills would bring that across better. In no particular order or clarity the following tips may help:

• If you want to debate with people on a Catholic Moral Theology Forum perhaps you need to be very clear from the start that you don’t accept even the basic philosophical tenets of mainstream Catholic Moral theology.
• If above is indeed the case then expect that very few people will probably want to debate with you. Most if us would rather debate within the definitions, philosophic system and received wisdom of the Church because most of us were brought up on that and its what we know best. Your own unique definitions and moral system may well be valid and even interesting…but other than your mates, why should we invest the time and effort to try and understand you.
• Try not to publically and indignantly reject Church tradition/wisdom you personally cannot understand, esp if you are young. It isn’t a sign of intelligence (if not humility) to do so. If received wisdom/tradition seems rediculous then the chances are high you do not really understand it or have been taught poorly.
• Do not expect moral theology to be simple or easy. It is well known that good understanding of what is really meant by the “moral object” of a human act is one of the most difficult subjects in theology of recent times. Libraries have been written on the finer points in the last 100 years.
• You are not the only person to possibly find yourself in the frustrating position of not comprehending Church Moral teaching. Many take the easy option and criticise what they do not really know. A few will try and deepen their understanding by doing courses, even Theology degrees, to better understand their confusing “irrelevent” faith. Some are even on this Forum .
• Try and articulate your insights/problematics with an openness to better understanding mainstream Catholic moral theology. People will be able to dialogue more easily with you and show you angles you may not have not considered.
• try and actually meditate/reflect on what people respond to you instead of shooting from the hip after 30mins of superficial reading so the adrenalin levels stay up.
• Stubbornly arguing from an entrenched position would not seem to be the way to gain more insight either into your own moral thinking nor that of the Church. That looks to be more about seeking ego than seeking truth.

You seem to perceive my responses as “jabs” to strengthen my argument. I do not really care whether you agree with me or not on this topic or any other. I am not trying to prove anything - simply give you a better and applied understanding of how real Catholic moral theology would apply to your armchair scenarios. I accept my exposition may be inaccurate or represent only one Catholic view re the finer points but the moral theology and philosophy of the human person and emotions on which it is based is standard Aquinas. It reflects 7 years of Franciscan/Dominican Catholic University moral philosophy/theology training and 25 years of further reflection on that. What I do care about is helping you improve your chances of getting a fair hearing and more helpful responses to your concerns in threads such as these. If my comments feel like “jabs” I apologise but sometimes that is unavoidable when trying to help.

If you think I have nothing to offer or what I say doesn’t harmonise with you just ignore it.
Good luck.

 

[SentinelofTruth]

RT, could you please stop ignoring my question? You never really gave me a clear answer on the scenario I proposed.
Roscoe Turner:

Aristotle was wrong about pretty much everything except syllogism.

As for you BH, your division between means and ends, as if they are separate things, is counter-intuitive and when you are debating it with people who don’t agree with it, the burden of proof is on you. Also, where do you draw an official line between means and ends and why? You seem to move the divider every time RT proposes a new scenario. And if it’s arbitrary, then why could I just take the doctor scenario and say “the removal of the organs isn’t bad in itself, the death of the one patient is just a side effect and is outweighed by the other effect (the saving of five people)”?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

RT, could you please stop ignoring my question? You never really gave me a clear answer on the scenario I proposed.



As for you BH, your division between means and ends, as if they are separate things, is counter-intuitive and when you are debating it with people who don’t agree with it, the burden of proof is on you. Also, where do you draw an official line between means and ends and why? You seem to move the divider every time RT proposes a new scenario. And if it’s arbitrary, then why could I just take the doctor scenario and say “the removal of the organs isn’t bad in itself, the death of the one patient is just a side effect and is outweighed by the other effect (the saving of five people)”?

I’m not sure what scenario you are talking about.

The killing one to save five, I disagree with because I’m not arguing for utilitarianism.

I see the divorce of the morality and the act just as you describe. “Well removing the organs isn’t bad in itself” is a ridiculous statement because every action has effects. They aren’t independent conceptual things without real word effects.

How about this scenario for good coming from an evil act. What do you call a pregnancy that stems from an act of adultery? Are we to call the child evil? Isn’t the new human life a good?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

If you think I have nothing to offer or what I say doesn’t harmonise with you just ignore it.
Good luck.

I have no problem arguing the merits of the argument. I find it laughable that you find me unqualified to have the conversation. It seems to be your only tack.

 

[SentinelofTruth]

Roscoe Turner:

The killing one to save five, I disagree with because I’m not arguing for utilitarianism.

You’ve said several times that the ends justifies the means. In which case why can one not use the evil means of one death to achieve the good ends of five non-deaths?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

You’ve said several times that the ends justifies the means. In which case why can one not use the evil means of one death to achieve the good ends of five non-deaths?

I don’t think it’s a universal statement. They can and that’s why the catechism lists the exceptions.

 

[SentinelofTruth]

Roscoe Turner:

I don’t think it’s a universal statement.

Interesting.

 

[John_Martin]

The idea of moral object is one that I find spurious.

It separates the morality from the act. It’s not the consequence, and it’s not the intent. It’s the intent to do evil or good.

One example: You can have an act of self defense that is murderous. Take an abused wife. If backed into a corner she could become so angry that their only thought is I want to kill them. Her life may be truly in danger but the intention was to murder the other person with no thought of saving their own life. Hate drove the action. A good was achieved, they saved their own life. In retrospect we can rationalize that it was self defense and a justified killing. In the moment of the act it wasn’t the case.

There are a couple of choices, we have a “good” coming from an evil act. An act of murder saved their life. Or you could say that saving their own life was sinful because it came from an intrinsically evil act, even if it was justifiably self defense from an outside observer, they just weren’t thinking of it that way at the time.

Anger is a “passion”, an emotion, of the irascible appetite. It can partially or fully listen to reason, partially by latching on to the reason’s judgment of the hurt that was experienced, or fully if it listens to reason evaluating a proper “revenge” for the evil (which would not include killing the offender, but bringing them before the legal authorities for accusation and punishment).

Your abused wife did not use the Virtue (the Habit) of prudence, to hold off action until she thought it through, and thus she also did not moderate her anger’s activity to be in line with that reasoning, so that her actions would be acts of the Will rather than acts of the irascible appetite.

There is nothing wrong with anger, nothing wrong with any appetites we have, but as humans, we are gifted with the ability to order our acts of these appetites with our Will, which means thinking about what we are doing.

Now, this particular woman has the ultimate goal of eternal happiness with God, wanting to be a person of virtue, so, even though the society may exonerate her, she still goes to confession with this sin of not moderating her anger in line with reason, but ignoring reason she went to extreme excess and killed her husband.

The act did nothing to aid her in attaining her goal of eternal happiness, but only momentarily relieved temporal distress and sorrow, which might reasonably have been addressed in other fashion.

My dog is barking at me, gotta go let her out.
John Martin

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

The act did nothing to aid her in attaining her goal of eternal happiness, but only momentarily relieved temporal distress and sorrow, which might reasonably have been addressed in other fashion.

It’s a sin full act in your opinion. Which is one way of looking at it but then you have to contend with then the act of saving one’s life, as a secondary act, is also sinful or at least a negative morally.

 

[John_Martin]

It’s a sin full act in your opinion. Which is one way of looking at it but then you have to contend with then the act of saving one’s life, as a secondary act, is also sinful or at least a negative morally.

No, you did not say she was saving her life, only that she was abused.
And she herself admitted to her priest that her act was not from anger moderated (corrected to the correct amount) by reason and therefore anger not governed by a virtuous Will, but her act was from an ungoverned appetite.

Saving one’s life - is that the “end”? or is one’s life in this body a “means to the end” of the soul’s eternal happiness. A Catholic views this physical life as a means, a tool, for aiding the soul attain to the presence of God. If this life is used in ungodly acts, it does not help attain that goal. If this life is “let go of” in doing something virtuously rather than self-protectingly, it has served its use as a means to the end.
If it is held on to because of wanting to keep this life at any cost, it has not helped the final goal of being with God.

John Martin

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

No, you did not say she was saving her life, only that she was abused.
And she herself admitted to her priest that her act was not from anger moderated (corrected to the correct amount) by reason and therefore anger not governed by a virtuous Will, but her act was from an ungoverned appetite.

Saving one’s life - is that the “end”? or is one’s life in this body a “means to the end” of the soul’s eternal happiness. A Catholic views this physical life as a means, a tool, for aiding the soul attain to the presence of God. If this life is used in ungodly acts, it does not help attain that goal. If this life is “let go of” in doing something virtuously rather than self-protectingly, it has served its use as a means to the end.
If it is held on to because of wanting to keep this life at any cost, it has not helped the final goal of being with God.

John Martin

The original scenario was she was in a situation where her life was in danger. She is motivated by anger/hate and wants to kill her abuser. She is right that it is the only course of action but she is motivated by hate. She kills him.

We can look at it as act of murder that saved her life. That is problematic because we have a “good” coming from an evil act. Or you can flip it and say “no murder is sinful no matter what” and the secondary effect of her life being saved also has to be morally bad because it came from an sinful act.

 

[SentinelofTruth]

John Martin:

A Catholic views this physical life as a means, a tool, for aiding the soul attain to the presence of God. If this life is used in ungodly acts, it does not help attain that goal. If this life is “let go of” in doing something virtuously rather than self-protectingly, it has served its use as a means to the end.
If it is held on to because of wanting to keep this life at any cost, it has not helped the final goal of being with God.

Have to say I agree with this.
Roscoe Turner:

The original scenario was she was in a situation where her life was in danger. She is motivated by anger/hate and wants to kill her abuser. She is right that it is the only course of action but she is motivated by hate. She kills him.

We can look at it as act of murder that saved her life. That is problematic because we have a “good” coming from an evil act. Or you can flip it and say “no murder is sinful no matter what” and the secondary effect of her life being saved also has to be morally bad because it came from an sinful act.

She was wrong to shoot the husband because her motive was anger rather than self-defence. If her motive had been to preserve her life so that she could use it to serve God, then it would have been moral.
Also, by the bold highlighted ‘no’ did you mean ‘all’? Because if not then I have absolutely 0 idea what you mean.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Have to say I agree with this.

She was wrong to shoot the husband because her motive was anger rather than self-defence. If her motive had been to preserve her life so that she could use it to serve God, then it would have been moral.
Also, by the bold highlighted ‘no’ did you mean ‘all’? Because if not then I have absolutely 0 idea what you mean.

I was attempting to have it read like a dialog. Needed a comma. “No, murder…”

So it would be a sinful act that had a “good” secondary effect. Or you have to say that it wasn’t good and she would have been better off spiritually, letting her self be killed.

 

[John_Martin]

I was attempting to have it read like a dialog. Needed a comma. “No, murder…”

So it would be a sinful act that had a “good” secondary effect. Or you have to say that it wasn’t good and she would have been better off spiritually, letting her self be killed.

It takes “thinking” about what you are doing to “choose” to face death, and “fortitude”, a virtue infused by God with Grace. Free-will (choice) is not a non-thought out action, but only comes into play if there is consideration of what one might do. Her action was an “impulse of appetite” of anger, not a decision of whether this killing act would be of use in attaining to her ultimate goal of loving God, seeing him face to face, and loving her neighbor (loving her husband would have been accomplished by turning him in to authorities for correction of his inhuman behavior so that the common good would be preserved, and, if he were so disposed, he might re-join relations with people in a “human” way rather than his current “inhuman” way).

She knows this, and so, she confesses it to her Priest, willing to do what is necessary to use the virtues and her reason to moderate her appetites rather than letting them have anything they want.

John Martin

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

It takes “thinking” about what you are doing to “choose” to face death, and “fortitude”, a virtue infused by God with Grace. Free-will (choice) is not a non-thought out action, but only comes into play if there is consideration of what one might do. Her action was an “impulse of appetite” of anger, not a decision of whether this killing act would be of use in attaining to her ultimate goal of loving God, seeing him face to face, and loving her neighbor (loving her husband would have been accomplished by turning him in to authorities for correction of his inhuman behavior so that the common good would be preserved, and, if he were so disposed, he might re-join relations with people in a “human” way rather than his current “inhuman” way).

She knows this, and so, she confesses it to her Priest, willing to do what is necessary to use the virtues and her reason to moderate her appetites rather than letting them have anything they want.

John Martin

That would make it an act of murder with a secondary effect of self defense. How do you square that with no good can come from an evil act? Her life was in danger so she had the right to self defense but that wasn’t her motivation.

 

[John_Martin]

That would make it an act of murder with a secondary effect of self defense. How do you square that with no good can come from an evil act? Her life was in danger so she had the right to self defense but that wasn’t her motivation.

You are concerned about civil legal judgments, where I already granted that she was found “not guilty” of murder in reference to the state’s legal code.

She, however, has a King (Jesus) as a citizen of His Kingdom. And he has his own Law, which regards her interiorly. She knows her King saying, “One who saves one’s life (does whatever it takes to stay physically alive) will lose it, but one who loses one’s life for my sake and the Gospel (living out the Virtues rather than the appetites and turning her husband in to the authorities) will save one’s life.” So, if she does not return (as she does in confession) to seeking His Kingdom and His Justice, she has lost the life she might think she saved in her act of rage and anger.

John Martin

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

You are concerned about civil legal judgments, where I already granted that she was found “not guilty” of murder in reference to the state’s legal code.

She, however, has a King (Jesus) as a citizen of His Kingdom. And he has his own Law, which regards her interiorly. She knows her King saying, “One who saves one’s life (does whatever it takes to stay physically alive) will lose it, but one who loses one’s life for my sake and the Gospel (living out the Virtues rather than the appetites and turning her husband in to the authorities) will save one’s life.” So, if she does not return (as she does in confession) to seeking His Kingdom and His Justice, she has lost the life she might think she saved in her act of rage and anger.

John Martin

I understand what you are saying. She has sinned, she has murdered. If she wants redemption she needs to confess in contrition.

One thing that you are changing about the scenario is: You are saying that she has the option to turn him in to the authorities. That isn’t part of the original scenario.

She is literally backed into a corner, It’s him or her, someone is going to die. Tired of the abuse she gets angry and kills him.

The act of self defense was necessary, one of them was going to die. Because of her anger (she’s not thinking about self defense) she is guilty of murder but the catechism states that self defense is not murder. So in one act we have murder and self defense.

We as the outside observers can land in either camp. We can say it’s one or the other. Self Defense or Murder. There are consistency problems. We have “good” and “evil” resulting from the same act.

I threw this out as well. If no good can come from an evil act. What do you call a child of adultery?

 

[John_Martin]

I understand what you are saying. She has sinned, she has murdered. If she wants redemption she needs to confess in contrition.

One thing that you are changing about the scenario is: You are saying that she has the option to turn him in to the authorities. That isn’t part of the original scenario.

She is literally backed into a corner, It’s him or her, someone is going to die. Tired of the abuse she gets angry and kills him.

The act of self defense was necessary, one of them was going to die. Because of her anger (she’s not thinking about self defense) she is guilty of murder but the catechism states that self defense is not murder. So in one act we have murder and self defense.

We as the outside observers can land in either camp. We can say it’s one or the other. Self Defense or Murder. There are consistency problems. We have “good” and “evil” resulting from the same act.

I threw this out as well. If no good can come from an evil act. What do you call a child of adultery?

I did not change the scene; your original words were: " Her life may be truly in danger". With human courts, the actual act is required before we can say that something will happen, otherwise as humans watching humans, we can only offer conjecture, therefore saying “one of them was going to die” is an impossible statement for a human to know (while possible for God to know).
Thinking about the possibility of death (not the certainty) with “reason” and “considering” possible means for avoiding a “possible evil of death”, provides optional choices to anyone who is using reason. 1. Kill him, 2. Call the police. 3. Run / move out, etc.
You can have no “choices of means to the end of avoiding possible evil of death” if you do not use your reason, but act immediately from an appetite’s first response. You may call it a “good” that she is alive, but she calls it an evil because she recognizes that she did not use her reason to consider and choose an alternative.

As to the “child of adultery”. Adultery (evil) did not cause the child, but sexual union (good) caused the child (good). Evil is the “unreasoned” abuse of a good. The good itself still has effects, but the evil (adultery) also has its effects (such as the possibility of the child suffering a tarnished reputation of being called a “child of adultery”).

John Martin