Catholic view on utilitarianism

[Gorgias]

Trying to wiggle out from making a decision?

Nope. Just not allowing you to dictate an answer on your own personal terms.

The only extra information is that one is a sadistic killer, while the other one a decent person.

Then one does not have sufficient medical information upon which to make a determination. “I like this guy and hate this one” is not a valid, moral approach to the allocation of medical resources, as much as you seem to want it to be.

It is ridiculous that I have to explain all these details.

No; what’s ridiculous is that you continue to expect a rational answer based on irrational premises.

Obviously not every human is equal.

One hopes you find caregivers that perceive you as better than your peers, then. Good luck with that.

Does the catechism provide any actual guidelines to solve a valid ethical dilemma?

You haven’t provided an ethical dilemma. At best, you’ve provided an emotional appeal that you’ve gussied up in the attempt to make it appear to be a question of ethics. “Serial killers can just rot in hell, for all I care” isn’t an approach that fits with Christian ethics.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Removal of the tube satisfies all four of them because the nature of the act, apart from foreseen evil, is morally good.

All well and good.

But we are looking for the reasons Fr. Pacholczyk gives

That’s what you are looking for. I have explained myself sufficiently to counter the claim that my view of the trolley problem inevitably leads to a disagreement over salpingectomy. But if you want my opinion on Fr. Pacholczyk’s explanation, I would say he uses the word “direct” to emphasize the intended action and “indirect” to emphasize the unintended consequence.

Now explain to us how the bystander who throws the switch only indirectly kills the innocent man.

Not me. I am not the one who is trying explain morality in terms of directness and indirectness.
That would be you. You won’t draw me into trying to use your perspective to explain myself. I have explained myself completely in the 4 conditions for double effect, which I will repeat, does not say anything about direct or indirect. So it can’t be that essential a viewpoint.

 

[o_mlly]

Not me. I am not the one who is trying explain morality in terms of directness and indirectness.
That would be you.

No, that would be Fr. Pacholczyk who explains the importance in morality of direct and indirect effects, “We may never directly take the life of an innocent human being." So explain to the good Father his error by explaining how the bystander only indirectly kills the innocent man.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Not me. I am not the one who is trying explain morality in terms of directness and indirectness.
That would be you.

No, that would be Fr. Pacholczyk who explains the importance in morality of direct and indirect effects, “We may never directly take the life of an innocent human being." So explain to the good Father his error by explaining how the bystander only indirectly kills the innocent man.

As I said, he made no error. He used the words to emphasize intention. And he never, as far as I know, commented on the trolley problem.

 

[o_mlly]

As I said, he made no error. He used the words to emphasize intention.

Really, I don’t see the word “intend” in the quote I provided from the good Father.

I do see the word “take” which is not a mental act like intend but a physical act, as in “to seize or capture physically.”

“We may never directly take the life of an innocent human being."

Explain how that works, how you can interpret the sentence to mean something other than what is clearly states.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

As I said, he made no error. He used the words to emphasize intention.

Really, I don’t see the word “intend” in the quote I provided from the good Father.

I do see the word “take” which is not a mental act like intend but a physical act, as in “to seize or capture physically.”

“We may never directly take the life of an innocent human being."

Explain how that works, how you can interpret the sentence to mean something other than what is clearly states.

As I said, I am not going to get into a debate explaining Fr. Pacholczyk’s way of stating things. I told you what I think he meant. You think otherwise. The official Church teaching on double effect can be stated without needing to define those terms, so it really doesn’t matter. It’s all about the 4 conditions stated, which are a lot clearer than your muddy definition of direct vs indirect. And even in terms of that muddy definition, you still have not said how you think the trolley problem is more direct than the ectopic pregnancy problem, as far as the unintended side effect.

 

[o_mlly]

As I said, I am not going to get into a debate explaining Fr. Pacholczyk’s way of stating things. I told you what I think he meant. You think otherwise.

Well, it’s not that I think he meant; it what Father wrote.

Do you not have any authority to back up your assertions? How about George Weigel. Whoops, no he’s also with the good Father.

There’s that word you wish to avoid – “indirect” – as it relates to the Principle of the Double Effect. You should use Catholic sources for citing the principle.

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www.firstthings.com

The principle of double effect in the Church’s moral tradition teaches that one may perform a good action even if it is foreseen that a bad effect will arise only if four conditions are met: …

4) The unintended but foreseen bad effect cannot be disproportionate to the good being performed. …

4) The unintended and indirect death of the child is not disproportionate to the good which is done, which is saving the mother’s life.
George Weigel, a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Roman Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading commentators on issues of religion and public life.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Do you not have any authority to back up your assertions? How about George Weigel. Whoops, no he’s also with the good Father.

His article uses “direct” once and “indirect” once. Both of them are for emphasis, not for qualification. In the second one he couples “indirect” with “unintended”, which was my point all along. The first one is with “direct” abortion, but it is again only for emphasis, as there is no such thing as an indirect abortion that is intended. If the concept is so necessary, the 4 conditions I posted could not be sufficient since they don’t refer to the concept of directness itself.

 

[Gorgias]

I don’t dictate the answer.

C’mon… you’re attempting to dictate an answer that’s based on an approach that says “decide merely on your opinion of a person’s value to society.” Sorry… I’m not gonna play that game, nor am I gonna let you get away with claiming that this makes me non-responsive.

The question was, who will be saved, and WHY? What does the catechism say?

“Love your neighbor. Do good to those who hate you.”

Really? Is it not an ethical question to decide whom will you save?

Nope. Not when you base it purely on the question of whom you like better. In that context, either choice is immoral.

Since you are unwilling to give a straight answer

I’ve given you straight answers. Many times. It’s simply that you just don’t like the answers.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

OK, then ‘reduced culpability’. This implies that there is less blame associated with one action rather than the other.

I’m good with that.

See! You’re better with Catholic theology than you ever imagined!

Then I really fail to see what the problem is. In some views, the trolley problems amounts to: ‘Throwing the switch is wrong, therefore you can’t do it’. So five die instead of one. But bring in the degree of culpability, with which it appears that you have no problem, and the situation becomes: ‘Throwing the switch is wrong…but not as wrong as letting 5 people die’. There is less culpability.

And I have to take you to task on the Dahmler v Mother T question based on that. If you asked each what would they do with lives if saved and one said ‘carry on murdering and raping’ and the other said ‘minister to the sick’ then you don’t need much more information than that. By your own account, there woukd be less culpability in choosing one over the other.

The frustration bubbling along in these type of threads is that so many people make a stand on what is right and wrong and then take it to another level and say that you can’t act at all. When any reasonable person can see the glaringly obvious answer (the treatment goes to Mother T) you paint yourself into a corner and spend more time avoiding the question than discussing the implications.

 

[francisca.chapter3]

I think utilitarianism is more about exploitation: use people to benefit some in unfair manner.

Whereas double effect is used to discern an action that gives both good and bad effect.

In ectopic pregnancy, both doctor & patient do not get economic benefit from the death of the child. Yes the mother’s life is saved, but that is not a form of exploitation.

Utilitarianism is about using people to get economic benefit in unfair manner. The word economic benefit could be in the form of money or complements, awards, pleasure, any other compensation, through unfair process/ transaction, or or even coercion to do something/ give up something.

For example organ transplant sourced from poor foreign labours who are made desperate so they are cornered with little choice in order to get them selling their kidney to buy air ticket home. The authorithy in charge of foreign labour gets good record because in the surface it looks as if these labours has no problem coming in to the country and going out after their term of service is done. The health department get good record of many successful kidney transplant cases solved. It looks good for everybody on the surface, it looks like there are no problems at all statistically.

The modified trolley problem that use modified example of family members (children) versus stranger, has modify the case from utilitarian situation to self defense situation. If a person has no other choice but to run over the stranger to safe his children, he is not a utilitarianist.

If all of them are strangers, and he choose to runover the less number thinking he will get pat on the shoulder by doing that, then he is a utilitarianist. Utilitarianism use people anonymously (don’t care who they are) to get benefit for himself (in this case pat on the shoulder). If he did it simply because he had no choice, he get no economic benefit from this, then he is not a utilitarianist.

 

[Gorgias]

But bring in the degree of culpability, with which it appears that you have no problem, and the situation becomes: ‘Throwing the switch is wrong…but not as wrong as letting 5 people die’. There is less culpability.

No, that’s not the “less culpability” argument. It’s more like “throwing the switch is wrong. Full stop. However, it might be the case, in a particular real-life situation, that the culpability of mortal sin does not attach.”

By your own account, there woukd be less culpability in choosing one over the other.

No. Allowing one to die is as wrong as allowing the other to die.

When any reasonable person can see the glaringly obvious answer (the treatment goes to Mother T) you paint yourself into a corner

I’m not seeing that. Any particular life is as valuable as any other particular life. The value of life isn’t dependent on one’s acts. It’s a life.

Which has nothing to do with scarce resources.

Aah, but it has everything to do with the argument that asserts “I like this guy and hate that one, and so, I’ll let that one die.”

And this was an example of your “straight answers”, which have nothing to do with the questions.

It certainly does. You just have to think about it a little in order to understand it.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

By your own account, there woukd be less culpability in choosing one over the other.

No. Allowing one to die is as wrong as allowing the other to die.

But that’s not an accurate way of describing the situation. If it was the case that treatment was available for both but you withheld it from one, then I would agree that that would be wrong. You won’t find a doctor anywhere that doesn’t treat someone because ‘they deserve to die’.

But any doctor practicing anywhere is constantly making decisions about where best to spend her time and the available money to obtain the best results. There are even Ethical Commitees serving in any decent sized hospital who literally make life and death decisions. What you are proposing is that they are acting immorally.

That Ethical Commitee, if deciding who gets the life saving treatment will most definately take into account that one person is worth saving and the other most definitely is not. They are not ‘allowing one to die’. They are choosing who lives. That is such a huge difference.

 

[o_mlly]

His article uses “direct” once and “indirect” once. Both of them are for emphasis, not for qualification. In the second one he couples “indirect” with “unintended”, which was my point all along. The first one is with “direct” abortion, but it is again only for emphasis, as there is no such thing as an indirect abortion that is intended. If the concept is so necessary, the 4 conditions I posted could not be sufficient since they don’t refer to the concept of directness itself.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Don’t worry, people. There’s no shark in the water. It was a boating accident. A boat with teeth.

Like the Mayor of Amityville, you ignore facts to prop up your erroneous opinion.

The reason Weigel and Fr. Pacholczyk wrote the killing of an innocent human being must be indirect is because the clear and unambiguous teaching is that “no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being” CCC#2258).

So, what sophistry do you wish to try now to explain how the bystander indirectly kills the innocent one?

 

[o_mlly]

The modified trolley problem that use modified example of family members (children) versus stranger, has modify the case from utilitarian situation to self defense situation.

No, self-defense cases always involves an unjust aggressor. There is no unjust aggressor in the trolley case.

 

[o_mlly]

The teaching seems counter intuitive to a consequentialist. This may be so if the consequentialist believes the highest moral good is human life. But if one sees that minimizing moral evil, the offenses against God, is a higher good then the teaching makes sense.

To elaborate: The non-believers in this thread cannot understand the Catholic teaching prohibiting the direct killing of an innocent human being because they do not believe that the purpose of human life is anything other than extending our temporal life.

Catholic theology identifies the purpose of human life is to achieve union with the Creator through union with Jesus Christ. Implicit in that purpose is the knowledge that human life is immortal, that temporal life is less important than our eternal life. To achieve union with Jesus Christ we must follow his commands as revealed by Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the constant teaching of the Magisterium. If we directly kill an innocent human being then we put our eternal life in jeopardy by separating ourselves from Christ.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

“no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being” CCC#2258).

Nor can one do so indirectly if that is their deliberate purpose and intent. And you still haven’t shown that the trolley problem is more direct

 

[o_mlly]

Nor can one do so indirectly if that is their deliberate purpose and intent.

And your point is?

A good act must be good in all three fonts. All acts evil in intention are immoral. The moral object in the act of the bystander who throws the switch that directly kills an innocent one is intrinsically evil. Nothing else matters, not a second moral object, not the good intention of the bystander.

And you still haven’t shown that the trolley problem is more direct

This comment displays a lack of understanding of Catholic moral principle. The effects of a human act are either direct or indirect, not more or less so.

So, explain how the bystander only indirectly kills the innocent one.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

So, explain how the bystander only indirectly kills the innocent one.

Because the act and intention and purpose was to divert the trolley away from the five.

Now show me how cutting out the tube with the baby in it, knowing that it would physically cause the immediate death of the baby due to starvation and cold is less direct than what I described for the trolley.

 

[o_mlly]

Because the act and intention and purpose was to divert the trolley away from the five.

No, only the intention (which is the same as the actor’s purpose) is to divert the trolley. The moral object is twofold – save five and directly kill one.

You have accepted that both outcomes, one good and one evil, are the moral objects in the tubal excision case. Explain how the direct killing of the innocent one is not also in the moral object of the trolley case.

So then would the moral object of cutting out a fallopian tube be twofold - one to save the life of the mother and two to [indirectly] cause the baby to die … Consistency, please!

Please be rational, that is, be consistent.

So, explain how the bystander only indirectly kills the innocent one.