Catholic view on utilitarianism

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Shoving him is a human act. It is a form of minor assault.
Then add that to the evil inherent in activating the switch which is what is actually going on.
we shouldn’t be able to bypass difficult moral dilemmas through cheap tricks)
Those who think the killing of the one is some kind of secondary or ancillary consequence of saving the 5 do exactly that. It and the saving are 2 sides of the same coin - they are so tightly bound together.
And here it is again. Why do you count the Doctor as treating her body (only) but not pulling the switch as saving the five (only)?
The switch action directly attacks the one. The knife is used justly notwithstanding the inevitable knock-on consequence.
 
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Freddy:
And you are trying to say that one is moral and the other is not. That you would pull the one lever and kill the man but not pull the other. And kill the man.
Some killing is not immoral and some killing is. I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of ever more contrived structures. We have all the scenarios needed to expose the differences among posters.
Then a think we have a winner here. You consider them both to be immoral. As you realise that the slightly revised trolley problem is really no different from the original one. Pull a lever - sacrifice one for five. And likewise you realise that the revised problem is no different from the surgeon example.

Something of a quandry.
 
Posters who claim the bystander may act must separate the evil effect as proceeding from the act itself. The mental gymnastics to do so are sometimes entertaining but never convincing.

Their arguments rely on the errors of Proportionalism (5 to 1 makes it OK, as long as the 1 is not me) and Consequentialism (there is no intrinsically evil act). We’re in an imaginary case, no one really does evil. But apply the same consequentialist logic to real moral decisions Catholics and others make using this casuistry to rationalize evil acts.

Example:
  • Moral object: Take a pill to adjust my hormonal levels to insure the best education for my child.
  • Intent: Educate the child.
  • Circumstances: Income stream will not be disrupted because of unwanted pregnancy. Little Billy will more likely get his Harvard degree w/o student debt. Sexual activity maximized. No more children conceived.
Presto! Artificial contraception is no longer intrinsically evil. The unintended, indirect and tolerated evil consequence of the artificial contraception, like the death of the innocent one on the track, is relegated to the circumstance font solely because of a good intention.

And if the artificial contraception fails and a child is conceived, the moral groundwork is established to rationalize a direct abortion. Just bury the death of the innocent child as an unintended, tolerated, indirect evil effect somewhere in the circumstance font.
 
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That would be an impressive analysis if you had managed to get any part of my argument correct.

Proportions have nothing to do with it. Saving five by directly killing one is always wrong. Saving five by indirectly killing one may be permissible. The only thing remotely proportional is that your goal has to be sufficiently grave to justify indirectly killing someone.

Consequentialism has nothing to do with it. Saving five by directly killing one is always wrong. Saving five by indirectly killing one may be permissible. There is nothing that can justify directly killing an innocent. Indirectly killing is a different matter. The question is about directness.
 
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Inquiry:
we shouldn’t be able to bypass difficult moral dilemmas through cheap tricks)
Those who think the killing of the one is some kind of secondary or ancillary consequence of saving the 5 do exactly that. It and the saving are 2 sides of the same coin - they are so tightly bound together.

And again, you won’t show why. You assert, but you won’t give us the basic explanation of why. Don’t just call it a cheap trick. Explain.
And here it is again. Why do you count the Doctor as treating her body (only) but not pulling the switch as saving the five (only)?
The switch action directly attacks the one. The knife is used justly notwithstanding the inevitable knock-on consequence.
I know you think this. You’ve said it several times. Why? Give us the the reasons so that we may use them to analyze other situations.
 
That would be an impressive analysis if you had managed to get any part of my argument correct. … The question is about directness.
?

As I wrote:
Posters who claim the bystander may act must separate the evil effect as proceeding from the act itself. The mental gymnastics to do so are sometimes entertaining but never convincing.
Effects which proceed from the act itself are direct effects. What part of your argument do you think I did not get correct?
 
You assumed, as you frequently do, that consequentialism and proportionality had anything to do with what I was saying. And you rattled off an irrelevant example of bypassing inherent evil by putting it in a different category. I already agree that if the killing of the one is direct it is an inherent evil. The question is what makes it direct?

Do you get why this is an important question? If we find ourselves in a life or death situation in real life we aren’t going to have the time to say, “Let’s pull up CAF and figure out if @o_mlly thinks it’s direct or indirect this time.” What makes something direct or indirect and why do you seem to apply the labels unevenly? Why is it direct in the Trolley problem, but indirect in the pilot and ectopic problems?
 
An adolescent-like post usually means the poster’s feelings are hurt. After you get over it, read Veritas Splendor on the errors of proportionalism /consequentialism and put up your argument using the Catholic morality analysis format: Moral Object, Intent, Circumstances.

It will become clear to you why your argument parallels the errors of these heresies. In Catholicism, navel-gazing to decide issues of morality just does not work. One has to work; read the encyclical.
 
As per my previous comment: That would be an impressive analysis if you had managed to get any part of my argument correct.
 
The switch action directly attacks the one. The knife is used justly notwithstanding the inevitable knock-on consequence.
Another claim of a difference without support. No matter how many ways this claim is made, it is just an unsubstantiated claim, until support for the claim is given. Hint: saying the same thing in different words is not support.
Their arguments rely on the errors of Proportionalism (5 to 1 makes it OK, as long as the 1 is not me) and Consequentialism (there is no intrinsically evil act).
This is the “attack of the isms.” That is where a generally negative “ism” is applied to a specific instance by mischaractizing that instance.
 
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That would be an impressive analysis …
Thank you.
if you had managed to get any part of my argument …
Like this part?
If the proximate end (that is, the intended effect) …
The “proximate end” is not the “end in view”. JPII explains this clearly in VS as the consequentialist’s error:
[The] object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision … a good intention is not itself sufficient … it often happens that man acts with a good intention, but without spiritual gain, because he lacks a good will.
The failure to see the distinction between willed effects and the intended effect is the source of the consequentialist error. All foreseen effects that are deliberated are voluntary and, therefore, willed in the act even though only one effect may be the end in view, the intended effect.
 
Did you just scan back over a month to find a quote to pounce on just to hide that your recent response didn’t make any sense in the context of our current conversation?

Why?
 
Their arguments rely on the errors of Proportionalism (5 to 1 makes it OK, as long as the 1 is not me) and Consequentialism (there is no intrinsically evil act).
I think that’s true for the those for whom God has no place in their world (hence no role in establishing morality).

But it’s also the case that some Catholics want to latch onto the “it must be good to reduce the death toll” answer if the situation seems it might possibly allow it. “Do I watch this train kill 5 or do I choose someone to kill in their place” gets adjusted to “Do I watch this train kill 5 or do I merely adjust the position of this lever with this unfortunate consequence that the 1 won’t make it”.

When I first encountered the trolley years ago, my first reaction was to pull the lever. Thinking back now, it’s remarkable that I could rationalize that act as directly saving but only indirectly killing! I think the attractive “reduce the death toll” idea clouded my ability to see that the tracks make that interpretation impossible.
 
I know you think this. You’ve said it several times. Why? Give us the the reasons so that we may use them to analyze other situations.
My many many attempts on this thread have not convinced. There are many 3rd party theological analyses of ectopic pregnancy. Examine those to see the difference between direct and indirect. In regard to the trolley, I have explained countless times in what strikes me as plain simple language why the killing of the one is direct. Like me some years ago, it may require time and private study for this to become apparent to those on this thread who see it differently.
 
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I appreciate your candor. I will let you know if my understanding does indeed change over time. As of right now, it still seems to me like there’s a better case for the trolley problem being indirect. For the record, that is not because of some desire to save more people. Saving people is not a numbers game and no amount of lives saved could justify even a single murder. The trolley case just makes more sense as exposing the man to lethal force.
 
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