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Inquiry
Guest
Because space made it easier to highlight the fundamental problem with your argument. One you are still avoiding.
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o_mlly
Guest
Not avoiding at all. To get the correct answer, start a new thread.
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Inquiry
Guest
It is not a new topic. It is a response to you in this thread. At this point you are just underscoring how much of a problem it is for you by dodging so hard.
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o_mlly
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Read the OP. It’s a new topic.
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Inquiry
Guest
It’s relevant to what we are talking about. Read your own post.
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o_mlly
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“We” weren’t talking about anything.
If you have an insight regarding a Catholic principle that you think I have misstated then by all means post away. Otherwise, you first.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
The bystander does not act morally to push the wheelchair in front of the madman because he is using the death of the one in he wheelchair as the means of preventing the deaths of others. This is not allowed by double effect because the evil outcome can never be the means by which good is done. This is unlike the trolley problem in which the evil outcome of the one man being struck by the trolley is not the means by which the five are saved. This is most easily seen by considering what would happen if the one man were not there and if the person in the wheelchair were not there. In the trolley case, the bystander could throw the switch, same as before, and save the five. The death of the one is not needed. But in the case of the madman and the shotgun, if the one in the wheelchair were not there, the bystander would not have that option. So they are very different.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
The part Ender left out was:Ender:
Why did you not quote all of CCC#2269 as I did? My post clearly referred to the sentence you conveniently chose not to quote. ???
This also does not apply to the trolley problem because the man on the track was already in mortal danger, being tied to a track. And there was grave reason to act. And the bystander certainly would have untied the one man on the track, if he could. There is no issue of “refusing help.”
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Ender
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The sentence I omitted does not alter the one I cited. It is an additional restriction, not a caveat on the one just expressed, and that is the point: the restriction that we may not intend to indirectly bring about a person’s death is not lifted because he is already in danger.
The pilot faces exactly the same choice: do nothing and let the plane kill a large number of people, or reroute the plane so that fewer people are killed. In both cases the actor is making a choice of who is going to die. There is no moral difference whatever between sending a trolley at someone and sending a plane.
The bystander chooses to reroute the trolley. The pilot chooses to reroute the plane. In both cases someone will die who would have lived had no action been taken. That the pilot has several choices and the bystander only one in no way changes that nature of their actions.
Consistency would require you to condemn the pilot as well as the bystander as there is no reasonable way to morally distinguish their actions.
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o_mlly
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Looks like it’s the “No Fly” list (again).
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Welcome to the club, @Inquiry! I have been on o_mlly’s “ignore” list for quite some time, and because of that, o_mlly is totally unaware the responses I have been giving. It is really rather an advantage to have my responses go unchallenged, and I quite enjoy it.
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o_mlly
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Of course it doesn’t. Such a inconsistency in the catechism would be scandalous.
And, does not your bystander indirectly will to kill the innocent one? Yes, it appears he does. We covered this many posts ago. As I recall, you were not familiar with the moral understanding of indirect (there’s that inconvenient word again) willing in moral theology. I gave a citation.
I posted CCC#2269 as a clarification to your broad claim noting that neither the inverse or converse were true but, in fact false. Persons not in danger have natural rights to remain so.
Au contraire, there is a moral difference which you ignore. As I wrote, your pilot is acting to mitigate the bad effects of a present physical evil. Your bystander chooses to commit a moral evil.
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Elf01
Guest
Ok, you think it moral to target someone only if they are already at risk of dying.
I disagree there. In the future it may become possible to save the baby and the mother would still live. It’s immoral because it targets the baby. My old rule of thumb works here. If the tube was going to rupture for any other reason the treatment would not be appropriate.
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
The pilot is acting to mitigate the bad effects of the present physical evil of the plane running out of gas. The bystander is acting to mitigate the present physical evil of a trolley headed toward five people tied to the tracks. Still the same thing.Ender:
Au contraire, there is a moral difference which you ignore. As I wrote, your pilot is acting to mitigate the bad effects of a present physical evil. Your bystander chooses to commit a moral evil.
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Paddy1989
Guest
The time factor can really dictate how culpable and perhaps even remove it if someone is not aware of what is being done. For example in the trolley problem being given only seconds to act instead of minutes means someone is not able to rationally asses the situation and may act out of impulse to save lives, very different than assessing and therefore intentionally choosing to commit an evil act.Paddy1989:
This is not quite analogous. For one thing, telling a lie to save a Jew violates the “Means” condition of double effect. The lie is exactly the means by which the Jew is saved, and not merely a consequence. This is unlike the trolley problem where the death of the one man on the tracks is NOT the means by which the five are saved.
By the way, the moral analysis of the “lying to save a Jew” problem can be justified on entirely different grounds. It can be argued that the Nazi looking for the Jew does not have a right to that truth. But that is for a different argument.
Maybe not as culpable, but certainly culpable, for this is a very clear case of doing evil so that good may come of it. The only mitigating factor would be the lack of time to consider what one is doing so that one is not fully aware of the morality of what he is doing. But if he had plenty of time to think about it, and still did it, he would be very culpable for pulling the trigger, regardless of the circumstances.
As for the lying to the Nazi scenario, yes the Nazi wouldn’t be entitled to the truth but then how should one respond? I’ve heard a few unrealistic answers by individuals such as replying to the Nazi ‘‘and why would i hide any Jews’’ so technically this type of answer they give isn’t lying. These type of answers are nonsense and so out of touch with reality, obviously from individuals who fortunately have never been faced with such a traumatic scenario. What would happen almost in all cases is that faced with the interrogation from the Nazi at the door someone without thinking to avoid death of themselves and others would instantly lie, they would not retreat into their own minds to try and formulate an answer that technically isn’t lying when there is a scenario where every second delayed suspicion increases ten fold. Any hesitation in ones answer such as trying to formulate an answer that technically isn’t lying could lead to an indirect admission to the interrogator.
Some people just aren’t realistic, these things HAVE happened not just in Nazi Germany but in the likes of Rwanda with the Tutsi and Hutu and Ireland with the Irish and British and even forced to lie out of coercion which if they are Catholic hopefully they seek reconciliation but as for how culpable they are, because their deeds are done out of coercion could not be defined by you and me as there are other factors to consider.
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whichwaytogo47
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But you changed who was killed as a result of the action, thus it’s potentially immoral.
You cannot justify killing one in order to save five. You make a decision - either you keep course which means you kill five or you change course which means you kill one. Neither is morally superior or inferior. And is it a person who’s driving the train or an engineer who pulls a switch?
If you dodged the five people and didn’t know about the one, it was a moral superior decision as the one was incidental. But if you know about both the 5 and the 1, it’s not morally superior.
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
I never claimed it was morally superior, only that it wasn’t morally inferior.LeafByNiggle:
But you changed who was killed as a result of the action, thus it’s potentially immoral.
You cannot justify killing one in order to save five. You make a decision - either you keep course which means you kill five or you change course which means you kill one. Neither is morally superior or inferior. And is it a person who’s driving the train or an engineer who pulls a switch?
If you dodged the five people and didn’t know about the one, it was a moral superior decision as the one was incidental. But if you know about both the 5 and the 1, it’s not morally superior.
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Paddy1989
Guest
If it hasn’t been reported before this scenario also seems to be identical to operating on an ectopic pregnancy compared to abortion. With the operation the objective is to remove the organ with the intent to save the mothers life knowing that there may be consequences such as the baby’s life being lost however if it were possible the baby somehow survived the abortion the act would still be considered a success as the intentional objective is to remove an organ to save a life. With abortion the objective is to kill the baby with the intent to save the mothers life and is only considered successful when the baby has been killed, the intentional objective is to kill a life to save another, anyone can see the difference.
With the trolley problem the objective is to pull the lever with in the intent of saving five lives however knowing that this may lead to more lives being lost as a consequence. With double effect one may commit a morally neutral act (pulling the lever) with good intentions knowing that there may be forseen and unintended evil or good consequences as long as the good is proportionate or outweighs the bad. The pulling of the lever, a neural act with the good intention of saving five lives foreseeing the unintended consequences of the result in the loss of one life is permissible just as it’s permissible not to act.
Some have tried to compare this to another scenario of forcing you to shoot one person or fifty other people die, even if those fifty were family members and the one you were told to shoot dead was a criminal. The squeezing of the trigger to intentionally end one’s life to save your family is not permissible, some may argue that squeezing a trigger is morally neutral which it is but if your intent is to end another life just to save many it is not permissible. The trolley problem differs because your intention is to save five lives, it’s just that the death of one life is an UINTENDED consequence of that action
With the trolley problem the objective is to pull the lever with in the intent of saving five lives however knowing that this may lead to more lives being lost as a consequence. With double effect one may commit a morally neutral act (pulling the lever) with good intentions knowing that there may be forseen and unintended evil or good consequences as long as the good is proportionate or outweighs the bad. The pulling of the lever, a neural act with the good intention of saving five lives foreseeing the unintended consequences of the result in the loss of one life is permissible just as it’s permissible not to act.
Some have tried to compare this to another scenario of forcing you to shoot one person or fifty other people die, even if those fifty were family members and the one you were told to shoot dead was a criminal. The squeezing of the trigger to intentionally end one’s life to save your family is not permissible, some may argue that squeezing a trigger is morally neutral which it is but if your intent is to end another life just to save many it is not permissible. The trolley problem differs because your intention is to save five lives, it’s just that the death of one life is an UINTENDED consequence of that action
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Paddy1989
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Even more interestingly with double effect lets say the trolley problem was reversed and one person was going to die and if you pulled the lever it would save one person but killed five then even though the object pulling the lever is neutral, and even though your intentions are good it would not be permissible because the bad consequence would outweigh the bad.
HOWEVER lets say that one person is your wife or husband and the other five are convicted serial killers then perhaps culpability comes into play as one’s bias will have a heavy influence on their decision, circumstance dictate culpability and this circumstance may create a very different outcome which the person may not be culpable for, not as much as the scenario where all people involved where strangers and unrelated to the person behind the lever. Circumstance’s have created scenarios where unfortunately good people have done bad things, every scenario being different their culpability will rely on many factors. That is not to say whether it is right or wrong but rather circumstance’s dictate the gravity which one is responsible for sin whether it be mortal or perhaps not
HOWEVER lets say that one person is your wife or husband and the other five are convicted serial killers then perhaps culpability comes into play as one’s bias will have a heavy influence on their decision, circumstance dictate culpability and this circumstance may create a very different outcome which the person may not be culpable for, not as much as the scenario where all people involved where strangers and unrelated to the person behind the lever. Circumstance’s have created scenarios where unfortunately good people have done bad things, every scenario being different their culpability will rely on many factors. That is not to say whether it is right or wrong but rather circumstance’s dictate the gravity which one is responsible for sin whether it be mortal or perhaps not
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whichwaytogo47
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That’s fair. I can concur with that and if not, at least agree to disagree.
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