Catholic view on utilitarianism

[o_mlly]

The principle of the double effect has four principles. All four must be met to permit the act as moral.

Now, those who erroneously think that the moral object of an act is always singular and always conditioned by the actor’s intent must deny the importance of one or more the necessity of all four principles. Think about it.

 

[Inquiry]

Small comment about the article. The second procedure, as I understand it, still targets the part of the tube the baby is implanted in, not the baby itself. If that is the case, it is as licit as the first procedure. The amount of tube removed should have no bearing on the act, it only matters if the target switches to the baby itself.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

The difference is immaterial, because that is the very difference that is used to justify euthanasia.

“Directly causes a death that would not otherwise occur” is the justification for euthanasia?

Yes. Because a death is an event, not just a fate. If it were just a fate, then you could say that everyone is going to die some day. Therefore it is never true to say “a death that would not otherwise occur”. Every death (when viewed as an ultimate fate) is going to occur. But as it is, a death is an event tied to a moment in time. A death that occurs today at the hands of a gunman is not the same death as the death that occurs next month from a heart attack. So if a man is shot to death and the coroner discovers the man had an embolism and was going to die in a few weeks anyway, that would not a fact that could be used to mitigate the gunman’s culpability. If it is wrong to kill someone who seems healthy, it is also wrong to kill someone who is on death’s door. There is no moral reason for taking the baby’s precarious state into account.

And here’s another thing to consider about the tubal pregnancy. Today’s technology has no was of rescuing the baby from its situation. But what about tomorrow? I don’t mean some far future time. I mean literally the day after today. What if we find out on October 3rd that there has been a major breakthrough and a means has been found for removing the baby from its current place in the tube and relocating it to its proper place in the uterus and causing it to attach as in a proper pregnancy? But the tubal excision was done on October 2nd. Too late.

The purpose of switching the trolley was not to kill the one man on the tracks. The death of the one man on the tracks was not the means by which the others were saved. Therefore it is a licit act.

You were doing so good right up till there!

There are two moral objects: “save the five” and “doom the one”. The death of the one actually is the proximate end of the act, and therefore, it is counted among the moral objects of the act. Therefore, it is not a morally licit act.

Then why isn’t the starving of the baby the proximate end of the act of cutting the supply lines for food?

 

[Gorgias]

Unless you are making the claim that the foreseeable evil of an act must be an intended result of the act, that doesn’t work here.

No. I’m making the argument that one of the stipulations in double effect is that the object must be morally good or indifferent. “Killing the one” is not morally good or indifferent, therefore, the action is immoral.

In that scenario his death is definitely the proximate end of the action.

Nah… it’s just more clearly the case. Same thing holds in both the original formulation and this one.

If the choice would be “allowing your whole family to be mowed down by that trolley, OR redirecting it to kill one unknown stranger” that would be a different problem.

Only for a consequentialist or a utilitarianist. A person who believes in an objective morality would answer “they’re both evil and morally illicit acts”.

Hey, by the way… they’re both evil and morally illicit acts. .

You keep on “forgetting” the point: “losing two lives, which you could save”.

Nope – you keep forgetting to finish the sentence: “losing two lives, which you could save by murdering a bystander.” That’s why it’s immoral.

Again, if you only have ONLY two “evil” options, you MUST choose one of them.

I posit that we have a third option, which is not evil: don’t touch the lever; don’t participate in murder.

If it is wrong to kill someone who seems healthy, it is also wrong to kill someone who is on death’s door. There is no moral reason for taking the baby’s precarious state into account.

The doctor is obligated to choose a therapy which will save his patients (the mother and the baby), both of whom are in mortal danger. He is unable to save the baby. He chooses a therapy which will save the mother. End of story.

What if we find out on October 3rd that there has been a major breakthrough

Then on October 4, it would no longer be morally licit to excise the tube around the baby. Up through October 3, when it was still not an option, the doctor could not morally put both his patients at risk of death by deferring to take action.

Then why isn’t the starving of the baby the proximate end of the act of cutting the supply lines for food?

It is. The difference is that the doctor doesn’t create the mortal danger for the baby, and is unable to save him. The guy at the switch is the one who lines up the single guy for death, and he absolutely is able to keep the guy from being squished!

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

If it is wrong to kill someone who seems healthy, it is also wrong to kill someone who is on death’s door. There is no moral reason for taking the baby’s precarious state into account.

The doctor is obligated to choose a therapy which will save his patients (the mother and the baby), both of whom are in mortal danger. He is unable to save the baby. He chooses a therapy which will save the mother. End of story.

End of story? Not quite. The story you just told, word for word, could just as well be a description of methotrexate.

Then why isn’t the starving of the baby the proximate end of the act of cutting the supply lines for food?

It is. The difference is that the doctor doesn’t create the mortal danger for the baby, and is unable to save him.

I highlighted “the” in your statement above. It implies there is only one mortal danger. But in fact the baby is faced with two mortal dangers. One of them is some indeterminate time in the future when the tube would rupture. This is not the doctor’s fault. The other mortal danger is the doctor cutting his food supply. This danger is the doctor’s fault.

 

[Gorgias]

End of story? Not quite. The story you just told, word for word, could just as well be a description of methotrexate.

Do I really have to re-state the entire argument each time, or else be accused of arguing for something I’m not arguing? Is that the point that we’ve reached in this discussion?

It implies there is only one mortal danger. But in fact the baby is faced with two mortal dangers. One of them is some indeterminate time in the future when the tube would rupture. This is not the doctor’s fault. The other mortal danger is the doctor cutting his food supply. This danger is the doctor’s fault.

And I’m talking about the former. The doctor is searching for a way to treat his patients (plural).

 

[Ender]

The Church teaches the final end, as in all things, is a will conformed to God’s will. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity with the true good.

This is not in dispute. The question is whether the object is immoral, not whether the morality of the object specifies the act.

I asserted earlier that there was one and only one proximate end; a point that seems to be in contention. Perhaps this will settle it:

One and the same act, in so far as it proceeds once from the agent, is ordained to but one proximate end, from which it has its species: but it can be ordained to several remote ends, of which one is the end of the other. (Aquinas ST I-II 1 3 ad 3)

Other things flow from throwing the switch (remote ends), but the proximate end (singular) is to reroute the trolley. This being so, I don’t see any strength to the argument that the object in this case is immoral. Given that the intent is good (save the five), and the object is not immoral it would seem the act is itself good.

If one of the proximate ends …

There can be only one…

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

End of story? Not quite. The story you just told, word for word, could just as well be a description of methotrexate.

Do I really have to re-state the entire argument each time, or else be accused of arguing for something I’m not arguing? Is that the point that we’ve reached in this discussion?

No, you just have to show how the story you told does not apply to methotrexate. I know why it doesn’t apply, but the reasons involve facts outside of your brief “story”, which refutes your claim of “End of Story”. Obviously more need to be told about that story to exclude methotrexate, therefore the story cannot be ended where you ended it. What I would add to the story is that the operation is licit because the killing of the baby is not the means of saving the mother and not because the baby was also in jeopardy. The fact that the baby was also in jeopardy was irrelevant to the decision being made. It would have been made the same way if the baby was not in jeopardy, but only the mother was.

It implies there is only one mortal danger. But in fact the baby is faced with two mortal dangers. One of them is some indeterminate time in the future when the tube would rupture. This is not the doctor’s fault. The other mortal danger is the doctor cutting his food supply. This danger is the doctor’s fault.

And I’m talking about the former. The doctor is searching for a way to treat his patients (plural).

Then don’t say “the doctor doesn’t create the mortal danger”, because he does create one of the dangers.

 

[Inquiry]

Inquiry:

Unless you are making the claim that the foreseeable evil of an act must be an intended result of the act, that doesn’t work here.

No. I’m making the argument that one of the stipulations in double effect is that the object must be morally good or indifferent. “Killing the one” is not morally good or indifferent, therefore, the action is immoral.

Inquiry:

In that scenario his death is definitely the proximate end of the action.

Nah… it’s just more clearly the case. Same thing holds in both the original formulation and this one.

You are confusing the act and its foreseeable effects. Absent any people on any tracks, diverting the trolley is morally neutral. Murdering someone by shoving them off a bridge is morally evil. The former is only illicit when context creates foreseeable evils. That is to say it passes condition 1 but may fail the other three. The latter is always illicit. It fails on the very first condition.

The doctor is obligated to choose a therapy which will save his patients (the mother and the baby), both of whom are in mortal danger. He is unable to save the baby. He chooses a therapy which will save the mother. End of story.

This is not the doctrine of double effect. There are still things the doctor cannot do even if the baby is already going to die.

It is. The difference is that the doctor doesn’t create the mortal danger for the baby, and is unable to save him. The guy at the switch is the one who lines up the single guy for death, and he absolutely is able to keep the guy from being squished!

This distinction doesn’t work. If that were the case then if a second trolley was going to hit the single man an hour later, his death at the wheels of the first trolley would no longer be the proximate end of your choice. That’s incoherent. His death is either the proximate end of your actions or it isn’t. The existence of a second trolley shouldn’t change it.

 

[Gorgias]

Perhaps this will settle it:

Ahh, nice point. Keep reading, though:

It is possible, however, that an act which is one in respect of its natural species, be ordained to several ends of the will: thus this act “to kill a man,” which is but one act in respect of its natural species, can be ordained, as to an end, to the safeguarding of justice, and to the satisfying of anger: the result being that there would be several acts in different species of morality: since in one way there will be an act of virtue, in another, an act of vice. … Consequently there is no reason why acts which are the same considered in their natural species, should not be diverse, considered in their moral species, and conversely.

Considered as a mere physical act, the ‘end’ of the action of the arm is “pushing the lever”. However, considered in terms of the morality of the act, there may be more than one end, and these ends can be “diverse” – in other words, “saving the five” is morally acceptable, while “killing the one” is not.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

 

[Elf01]

Bystander → throws switch → directs trolley at innocent man → squish. Where is the indirection? If you claim the act only indirectly causes the innocent man’s death then what is the direct cause? The innocent man on the track was in no peril before the bystander’s act.

I’ve responded to that multiple times. Your last sentance is interesting though. Do you, like Gorgias think removing the tube is moral because the baby will die anyway?

If you see no difference then I submit it is logically inconsistent to think that tubal excision is immoral but the bystander throwing the switch is moral. ???

I don’t think it’s immoral. I’m making the same argument to you. If throwing the switch is immoral then so is removing the tube.

The reason I believe removing the tube is moral is because it would be the correct treatment if the baby was not there.

The same is true of the trolley problem. While the circumstances are different I do think that examining the good effect only scenario points to the object.

 

[Gorgias]

Absent any people on any tracks, diverting the trolley is morally neutral.

Yeah, but that’s not the case here, in the trolley problem, so… not morally neutral.

If that were the case then if a second trolley was going to hit the single man an hour later, his death at the wheels of the first trolley would no longer be the proximate end of your choice.

No. You’re conflating two acts as if they were one. That’s why it seems incoherent to you.

In any case, I disagree with your assertion: even if another trolley were to come by, the killing of the guy by flicking the switch would still be the proximate end.

Do you, like Gorgias think removing the tube is moral because the baby will die anyway?

I really wish you’d quit misrepresenting what I’m saying. I mean, should I start asking you “when did you stop beating your wife, BTW?”…?

 

[Ender]

The “moral object” isn’t just an event that occurs; it’s the actual result of the decision that a moral actor makes, based on the operation of his will.

So, the moral object cannot merely be “a lever got switched”; the moral object must be what happens because that physical event took place – in this case, the moral object is “an otherwise unthreatened innocent was killed”. (What makes the trolley problem so interesting is that there are two moral objects – “five saved” and “one killed”!)

I agree that the object is not merely the physical action; what we’re disagreeing over is the meaning of “proximate”. Here is (I think) the legal definition (these definitions are from Wiki…, which I deplore, but in this case accept as probably reasonable)

In a legal sense, the term proximate cause refers to a thing that happened to cause something else to occur .

I think this definition accords with your position. This next one, however, is the one I think best agrees with JPII’s use:

A proximate cause is an event which is closest to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result.

The observed result is that the trolley goes left instead of right. The proximate cause for it is that the switch was thrown. That is the object.

So, the moral object cannot merely be “a lever got switched”; the moral object must be what happens because that physical event took place – in this case, the moral object is “an otherwise unthreatened innocent was killed”

The moral object includes both the physical act (throw the switch) and the proximate end. There is only one proximate end and it refers to the immediate effect of the act, not all the effects that flow from the act.

It seems to me this is the only way to justify the operation, the object of which is the removal of that part of tube containing the fetus. That object is not immoral because it removes the tube; that is the observable, immediate consequence of the act, and would be exactly the same whether that section contained a fetus or not. The death of the fetus would be immoral if the legal definition of proximate cause was used, because it flows necessarily from the operation, but it is in fact moral because it satisfies the PODE and the object itself is not immoral (since the death is not part of the object).

 

[Elf01]

I really wish you’d quit misrepresenting what I’m saying. I mean, should I start asking you “when did you stop beating your wife, BTW?”…?

Well can you explain why removing the tube is moral without referring to the fact that the baby will die shortly anyway?

 

[Ender]

Ahh, nice point. Keep reading, though:

Well, I had read that part too, at which point I just noted that I was reading Aquinas and shouldn’t necessarily expect to fully understand everything. “It is possible…that an act…be ordained to several ends of the will.” I don’t think this contradicts what he just said; that really should go without saying. I think he’s moved on to a different issue. Before he was describing the proximate end, here he is discussing "ends of the will" so this doesn’t seem in any way to modify his earlier comment. Also, I think his definition agrees exactly with the way JPII used the term.

 

[Inquiry]

Inquiry:

Absent any people on any tracks, diverting the trolley is morally neutral.

Yeah, but that’s not the case here, in the trolley problem, so… not morally neutral.

Again showing that you are confusing the action and it’s foreseeable effects.

In any case, I disagree with your assertion: even if another trolley were to come by, the killing of the guy by flicking the switch would still be the proximate end.

That wasn’t my assertion. My assertion was that the proximate end should not change based on if there were another trolley. The killing of the man is either the proximate end in both or it is the proximate end in neither. I will admit to misreading one line of yours, so I thought you were saying it was sometimes one and sometimes the other.

Your real words actually create another problem though. If the proximate end (that is, the intended effect) of cutting the tube is the death of the baby, then cutting the tube is never licit. It doesn’t matter that the baby is going to die anyway, intending to kill it always fails the right intent condition of double effect.

This is why it is so important to not confuse foreseeable effects with the action itself. Because you are conflating the two you are stuck making arguments that some actions are okay because you can’t save the baby anyways. But that’s irrelevant to double effect. Not one of the conditions changes if the baby was going to die anyways.

It is only when you correctly separate the action from it’s conditional effects that you can correctly apply double effect. 1) Removing a damaged/injurious organ is at the very least morally neutral. 2) The death of the baby is foreseeable but not intended (i.e. not the proximate end). 3) Removal of the tube that was going to bleed out was what saved the mother’s life, not the death of the baby. 4) The life of the mother is proportional to the life of the child.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

You are wrong - that is NOT the third option, it is the second option. If you don’t touch the lever, you actively participate in the death of the people on the trail. And the fact that you personally did not cause the mechanical failure does no exonerate you from being the causative agent in the death of the five people.

I don’t think you quite understand what “cause” means. Or what “active” means. Look them up in a dictionary and then get back with us. Calling it “causitive agent” instead of simply “cause” is an attempt to avoid the meaning without abandoning the implication of the meaning. Maybe the word you are looking for is “culpable?” But it would be hard to even establish that word as describing a bystander who did nothing.

Actually, my view is in between yours and Gorgias. Each of you think only one option is licit. I think both options are licit.

 

[Latin]

I believe the Church teaching on this subject is good but the flaw is in the application of the subject.

Let’s see the teachings of Ronald L. Conte, Roman Catholic theologian on the subject:

“The three fonts of morality are (1) intention, (2) moral object, (3) circumstances.

For the act of pulling the lever:

The intention is to save four lives. The death of the one innocent is not intended. So the first font is good.

The circumstances are that, if you pull the lever, four lives are saved and only one is lost. So the reasonably anticipated good consequences morally outweigh the bad, making the third font good.

But three good fonts are needed for any act to be moral. The font of the moral object is what will determine the morality of this act, since the other two fonts are good.

This act has two moral objects. The concrete act of pulling the lever switches the trolley from one track to another. This switch is inherently ordered to save four lives, which is a good moral object.

But it is also inherently ordered toward killing one innocent, which is an evil moral object.

When an act has more than one object, any evil in the object makes the act intrinsically evil, despite other good moral objects.

Since the act of pulling the lever is intrinsically evil, it cannot be done, not even to save a thousand lives.”

.
I believe the flaw in Ronald L. Conte’s article is, he failed to notice:
The three fonts of morality is tailor-made to the acts of a single agent.

But in the hypothetical story of the trolley are TWO AGENTS acting not one agent.
.
Agent A: The trolley/ The person who organized it.

(2) Moral object: To kill and the killing is already in motion, the killing cannot be stopped.
This is an evil moral object by agent A.
.
Agent B: The bystander.

(1) Intention: To save four lives. The death of the one innocent is not intended. So the first font is good.

(3) If he pulls the lever, four lives are saved and only one is lost.
So the reasonably anticipated good consequences morally outweigh the bad, making the third font good.
.
The two agents shares the three fonts of morality.

Ronald’s flaw in the article is, he credited agent A’s evil act to agent B and made agent B’s evil act.

The three fonts of morality is tailor-made to the acts of a single agent, if two agents shares the three fonts of morality we have to judge the agents acts separately.
.
God bless

 

[Latin]

Actually, my view is in between yours and Gorgias. Each of you think only one option is licit. I think both options are licit.

If I would be the bystander and if I would not pull the lever, I would feel (5 – 1 = 4) the blood of four innocent people are on my hands!!!

I might add, I’m a Catholic and I love Catholic Theology, in particular Soteriology.

God bless

 

[o_mlly]

These quotes confirm your repeated position that the moral object of an act that has multiple effects both good and bad is singular and conditioned by the actor’s primary or desired effect.

I agree that intent cannot be fully separated from the object, but I think there is an intent inherent in the object that is different than that which defines the intent font.

That intent is part of the object

The object includes an intent

The object font, however, includes its own intention.

The proximate end of the bystander’s act is redirecting the trolley away from the five.

Saving the five is the intent. It is why the object (throwing the switch to redirect the trolley) was selected. The proximate end is to redirect the trolley; that is literally what throwing the switch does

The first two fonts of morality – moral object and intent – are respectively objective and subjective. The moral object is independent of any particular actor, i.e., it is objective. The intent font is dependent on a particular actor, i.e., it is subjective.

Your analysis would make the moral object subjective which is contrary to the teaching:

CCC#1752 In contrast to the object, the intention resides in the acting subject.

In your analysis, the moral object would be one thing for an actor who intended to save the five and another thing for an actor who intended to kill the innocent one thus making the moral object not objective, as the catechism teaches, but subjective and dependent on the intent of a particular actor.

Further, imposing onto the moral object font a subjective condition that ignores foreseeable bad effects would have the sad outcome of furthering the cause that seeks to justify direct abortions.