That is correct.
puh-leeze. if, by reading that, one doesn’t recognize “FTFY”, or gets the idea that I’m correcting MAGA’s statement – rather than attempting to make others think he said something he didn’t – then the thin-skinned-ness and 'net-meme tone-deafness around here is growing…
Again: I’m not. I’m arguing against the assertion that it fits, in this case.
There’s another dimension to the example that you’re missing, however:
Nevertheless I was cited by the moderators for doing exactly what you did. So take it as a friendly warning.LeafByNiggle:
puh-leeze. if, by reading that, one doesn’t recognize “FTFY”, or gets the idea that I’m correcting MAGA’s statement – rather than attempting to make others think he said something he didn’t – then the thin-skinned-ness and 'net-meme tone-deafness around here is growing…
My question was directed not to you but to MAGA-huelye who seemed to be arguing against double effect, but maybe I misunderstood.
It’s not an oxymoron (tall dwarf etc). The aggression is potential. The threat of aggression (which it poses) is a real threat. Read what I write.Wozza:
This oxymoron shows how muddled your thinking is. Dishonest, ignorant and muddled. Go troll somebody else.
Thank you for your post Gorgias.
I you spent less time declaring other people’s intellectual shortcomings and more time listening to what people are saying your posts would be much less caustic to read.Elf01:
First, @leafbyniggle’s fundamental misunderstanding of the moral object in the human act misleads him/her to attempt to justify throwing the switch by the double effect, comparing tubal pregnancy to the trolley, and euthanasia to salpingectomy.
No, it is onefold. To divert the trolley from the track that would kill 5 people. Killing the one on the other track is no more the moral object than the killing of the baby because of the sudden lack of nutrients and warmth. They are the same.
Not really. Salpingectomy interrupts nature and replaces it with the very unnatural condition of an excised tube sitting on a cold operating room table. That is not letting nature take its course.
The point of the cancerous womb example was in contrast to your description of the tubal pregnancy in which you made a major point about the baby being in an unnatural place where it could not possibly survive. The fact that you render exactly the same judgement about the cancerous womb shows that this particular factor (the baby being in an unnatural place) was not essential to the moral decision-making. In fact, there is every possibility that if the cancerous womb were left alone, the baby might develop enough to be successfully delivered by C-section, even if the resulting cancer eventually kills the mother. So your excuse that the baby could not survive anyway in a tubal pregnancy is also a red herring. So how do you decide when removal of a cancerous womb is moral? How big does the cancer have to be? Huh?
No, that is not fair. The death of the one man on the track is not the means to save the other 5 like the death of the embryo is the means of saving the mother in salpingostomy.
I disagree there. If there was a way to save the baby the mother would still survive.
Physically it is a direct attack on the baby but morally it does not count as a direct attack on the baby, because without removing the fallopian tube, both mother and baby would die.
Even when all things have been considered, it is still possible for system A and system B to produce different decisions.LeafByNiggle:
Because it is unnecessary, dishonest and misleading. One is faced with an ethical dilemma. One is expected to do the “right thing”. How to arrive at a decision? By examining ALL the details, the intent, the available means, and ALL the circumstances. Once all that has been taken into consideration, one puts it through the “machine” of the ethical system, and arrives at the conclusion. It is possible that the ethical system of “A” will arrive at a different solution than the ethical system of “B”, and then we have a disagreement. But unless EVERYTHING is considered, there can be no coherent solution.
The concept of “intrinsically evil” is a valid one. But it is narrower than o_milly will admit. It only applies when the act itself, regardless of context, is evil. And there are such acts. Abortion, properly understood, is one such intrinsic evil. But abortion is not what is done when a diseased tube is removed because the child is not attacked with the intention of killing the child. Letting the trolley hit the one man on the track is not an intrinsic evil.
The principle of double effect is consistent with what you are describing, which still leaves me scratching my head trying to figure out why you are arguing against something that supports your view.
Well, then I must admit to having adopted the Catholic ethical system. And it is through the lens of that system that I evaluation moral decisions.LeafByNiggle:
Yes, of course. But since there is no objective way to measure one ethical system against another one, it remains subjective. There are dozens of ethical systems out there.
You do not have to be aware of every possible scenario to conclude - under the assumptions of particular ethical system - that a specific act is intrinsically evil.
OK, fair enough, if you believe that. Thank you for explaining your thinking.
I think the introduction of the concept of “direct” vs “indirect” into this discussion has been to confuse rather than to clarify, because we can’t seem to agree on what “direct” means.LeafByNiggle:
I disagree there. If there was a way to save the baby the mother would still survive.
Where I struggle is seeing why removing an organ with a baby who cannot survive outside his or her mothers body in it is not a direct attack on the baby.
You see? The words “direct” and “indirect” are unnecessary, and are therefore a confusing factor in the discussion.
The act is directed at the diseased organ, not the baby.
No, your understanding of the moral object of the human act as being dependent on either the mere physical act or on the intention of the actor is in error. I have given you the authoritative citations but you either do not read or you do not understand what you read. Until you get the fundamentals about the fonts of morality correct, further exchanges will be fruitless.
Read the thread title. Does the OP ask for your view? No. Nor are you able to disagree with what you do not understand.
My remarks are direct. Errors in this thread posted as authentic Catholic moral theology ought not be tolerated. The church struggles against such heresies. To wit in this thread are the miss-applications of the double effect principle that promote situation ethics, proportionalism and consequentialism. These are anti-Catholic ethical systems.