Conscience and ignorance: too much moral subjectivity?

[fakename]

In Catholicism conscience, as far as I know, ought to be followed no matter the cost. At the same time, even probable opinion, justifies one in making one choice rather than another. Ignorance also exempts one from any moral responsibility from doing wrong.

Do these rules practically make morality subjective and relative? After all, few people really “know” in the strict sense, that any particular action they take is the right one. Therefore, since matters of opinion ought to be free, then any action is basically unobjectionable.

Invincible ignorance is also a wide-spread phenomena (for even Catholics usually don’t know a thing about their religion nor about the Catholic view of ethics). And how could they, since even their own instructors usually don’t know either? And in general one may say that virtually all societies w/o Christian backgrounds are invincibly ignorant if even Christian countries are so. Therefore again, people are not responsible and so hardly deserving of punishment.

Indeed some people think that by doing wrong, they are therefore “following their conscience” and from there, ignorance “carries the ball” so to speak, to the same conclusion (namely, that most people do not deserve blame or praise for their actions).

To conclude then, don’t these rules imply all these conclusions? And if they do, then how do some go to heaven and others not? Obviously it must have something to do with original sin? If these conclusions do not follow then why?

 

[ProdglArchitect]

In Catholicism conscience, as far as I know, ought to be followed no matter the cost. At the same time, even probable opinion, justifies one in making one choice rather than another. Ignorance also exempts one from any moral responsibility from doing wrong.

Do these rules practically make morality subjective and relative? After all, few people really “know” in the strict sense, that any particular action they take is the right one. Therefore, since matters of opinion ought to be free, then any action is basically unobjectionable.

Invincible ignorance is also a wide-spread phenomena (for even Catholics usually don’t know a thing about their religion nor about the Catholic view of ethics). And how could they, since even their own instructors usually don’t know either? And in general one may say that virtually all societies w/o Christian backgrounds are invincibly ignorant if even Christian countries are so. Therefore again, people are not responsible and so hardly deserving of punishment.

Indeed some people think that by doing wrong, they are therefore “following their conscience” and from there, ignorance “carries the ball” so to speak, to the same conclusion (namely, that most people do not deserve blame or praise for their actions).

To conclude then, don’t these rules imply all these conclusions? And if they do, then how do some go to heaven and others not? Obviously it must have something to do with original sin? If these conclusions do not follow then why?

There are a couple of problems with this. The first is that you say people cannot really “know.” the Truth, the second is that people are automatically indefensibly ignorant simply because they don’t know.

To the first point: This is faulty in Catholic thinking. God gave us souls, and imprinted Natural Law on them. It is through natural law that our morality and conscience are derived. Therefore, being as every human being has been imprinted with natural law, every human being is capable of knowing the truth through honest reflection, thought and study.

Having the capacity to form free opinions does not free you from the obligation to act morally, just as having free will does not free us to reject God. We are capable of doing so, but there are consequence to be had for such actions. Similarly, my opinions may lead me to believe that abortion is morally admissible, but that doesn’t make it so.

And the second: Invincible ignorance only attaches when a person is incapable of knowing the Truth, either through some cultural limitation (i.e. extreme social stigma and threat of death for even learning about another faith), some mental limitation (mentally handicapped people will sometimes have indefensible ignorance applied simply because they are not capable of comprehending the nature of right and wrong), or have had some grievous incident occur in your life which makes it impossible for you to believe (I don’t really know much about that last one).

You give the example of Catholics’s having indefensible ignorance because their teachers do not know. This does not hold up. Even if their teachers do not know, the full information is available to them in the Catechism, from their priests (who hopefully know and work to educate the lay people), or from one of a million resources online. Based on this, their ignorance isn’t so much a forced state as a choice, at which point is looses it’s classification of indefensible.

People who do wrong because they are “following their conscience” are still doing wrong, and if they would truly stop and think about it rather than allowing their conscience to be overrun by their own opinions, they would realize this. This manner of thinking would mean that I can murder a person because I thought it was the right thing to do, and you can’t do anything about it -because- I thought it was the right thing to do. There is still an objective truth that tells us that murder is wrong, therefore we are subject to the consequences regardless of our personal opinions. (Instances of mental defect are special cases, in such an instance a person is incapable of knowing if an action is right or wrong, and are therefore likely not subject to the same consequences.)

As for who gets to go to heaven and who doesn’t. we don’t know, so there’s little point in guessing about it. We believe that God has revealed the Truth to us, and by living that Truth we will go to Heaven. That’s all we can really say on the subject, because we’re not God. We can make all the assumptions and statements we want, but they have no affect on the reality of the situation.

 

[hicetnunc]

Thanks for the very interesting post, fakename.

Have you ever come across a little book by Pope Benedict called On Conscience? It’s perhaps one of the best treatments of the subject going (available from Ignatius here, ignatius.com/Products/OC-H/on-conscience.aspx).

It is true that conscience is binding. St Thomas even says that we are obliged to obey an erring conscience.

However, an important distinction needs to be kept in mind: even though we are bound to obey an erring conscience—and in this sense conscience is ‘supreme’—we are also bound to properly inform our conscience. So while someone must follow his conscience, he is also responsible for the deformity of conscience, if this has come about through lack of formation, intellectual honesty, and the like. It’s a bit like getting in a car and driving drunk: once you are drunk, you have less control over your actions and the will is impaired. But one is still responsible for allowing himself to get into this state in the first place.

Pope Benedict’s great little book talks about the moral obligation one has to inform the conscience and that conscience is not autonomous from truth and the moral law.

Pax

 

[davidv]

In Catholicism conscience, as far as I know, ought to be followed no matter the cost. At the same time, even probable opinion, justifies one in making one choice rather than another. Ignorance also exempts one from any moral responsibility from doing wrong.

Do these rules practically make morality subjective and relative? After all, few people really “know” in the strict sense, that any particular action they take is the right one. Therefore, since matters of opinion ought to be free, then any action is basically unobjectionable.

Invincible ignorance is also a wide-spread phenomena (for even Catholics usually don’t know a thing about their religion nor about the Catholic view of ethics). And how could they, since even their own instructors usually don’t know either? And in general one may say that virtually all societies w/o Christian backgrounds are invincibly ignorant if even Christian countries are so. Therefore again, people are not responsible and so hardly deserving of punishment.

Indeed some people think that by doing wrong, they are therefore “following their conscience” and from there, ignorance “carries the ball” so to speak, to the same conclusion (namely, that most people do not deserve blame or praise for their actions).

To conclude then, don’t these rules imply all these conclusions? And if they do, then how do some go to heaven and others not? Obviously it must have something to do with original sin? If these conclusions do not follow then why?

I believe you have expressed both false premises as well as invalid logic in coming to the conclusion.

1. 
   *]Ignorance does not exempt one from moral responsibility except in the most extreme circumstances (false premise)
   *]The objective nature of the morality of the act is independent on whether someone knows it or not (non sequiteur)
   *]Opinion may be freely formed, but this does not guarantee their correctness (non sequiteur)
   *]Do you have any data to support your claim of widespread invincible ignorance? (possible false premise)
   
   These errors are sufficient to show that you have presented an invalid argument, which leads to a questionable and likely incorrect conclusion.

 

[fakename]

There are a couple of problems with this. The first is that you say people cannot really “know.” the Truth, the second is that people are automatically indefensibly ignorant simply because they don’t know.

To the first point: This is faulty in Catholic thinking. God gave us souls, and imprinted Natural Law on them. It is through natural law that our morality and conscience are derived. Therefore, being as every human being has been imprinted with natural law, every human being is capable of knowing the truth through honest reflection, thought and study…

And the second: Invincible ignorance only attaches when a person is incapable of knowing the Truth, either through some cultural limitation (i.e. extreme social stigma and threat of death for even learning about another faith), some mental limitation (mentally handicapped people will sometimes have indefensible ignorance applied simply because they are not capable of comprehending the nature of right and wrong)…

This whole situation then rests on what counts as “invincible ignorance”. I will present some examples of ignorance and will argue that these are both common and invincible (some happened to me).

(1) A mom says that masturbation is okay to an eight-year-old. The eight year old has never been told anything else nor does he have any reason not to trust his mother plus it seems intrinsically obvious that masturbation is okay. One cannot say that his ignorance is invincible. And what one does in childhood, one is in adulthood so the moral responsibility is nil to very small.

(2) the whole culture and its leading authorities say that conscience is all-important (first amendment), that all opinions are valid (freedom of speech), that we should not have a monarchy (goes against the Catholic teaching that no gov. is inherently evil), etc. All these cultural presumptions logically go against Catholicism so right there, there is cultural impediment towards forming one’s mind.

(3) priests never talk about transubstantiation, CCD didn’t (don’t know if it does), priests don’t explain Church teaching, etc. So rhetorically it seems to Catholics that the Church is in favor of whatever happens to be the case.

(4) one can argue that Catholics should seek information out for themselves but this goes against common sense: (1) if we have to learn ourselves, then why do we have a magisterium or a hierarchy? (2) A guy who comes home tired from his construction job is simply not going to want to read about Church teaching. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says about avoiding neglect: "Much depends on the value to be attached to the phrase “moral diligence”. It is not easy to state it in any set formula, unless it be this, that it is the diligence which prudent persons are accustomed to bringing to bear upon the settlement of like matters. This notion may be set forth more in detail by the following considerations:

The moral diligence required does not mean that a person is to have recourse to every conceivable expedient.
It does imply that the endeavours made by an agent, to set himself right, should be such as are exacted by the seriousness of the business involved, as well as bear a proper ratio to his capacity and resources."

Therefore I say, that since people in general do not have the capacity to understand the Church’s doctrines (few understand the Summa fully or understand the badly worded encyclicals fully) or the resources to do so (there are many encyclicals with many pages and people don’t have the prior knowledge needed to even interpret the doctrines correctly (for the doctrines are based in medieval and classical ideals, whereas modern men are trained in natural science and practical arts), and since most prudent men will probably do no more research then watch the news or read a newspaper, then most people can be more or less excused from their ignorance.

(4) finally, most people don’t even know about the encyclicals (protestants, Buddhists, etc. don’t). And the encyclicals are the most well-known and popular extracts of Catholicism. So much less will they know any obscure sources. The Catechism presents similar problems and is of both uncertain authority and uncertain meaning.

From my reply here, one can gather the substance of my replies to the other posts. Except for this addendum: I never said that opinions were right just because they are opinions. Also I never said that people do not know truth but only that as a practical matter they generally do not. For instance, how do I know that writing this is a good thing? there could be other good or better things I could be doing (praying, perhaps). I simply don’t have proof that what I am doing is so ideal. And the same can be said for any everyday thing. If I go to the bookstore I don’t calculate out and deduce that it is better than any other option I just “have faith” that it is. But faith is not proof so it is essentially opinion (epistemologically worse in fact). And even take prosecuting a murderer. I don’t necessarily “know” that he is the murderer, because the fact that he is a murderer is based on facts that are themselves uncertain: his state of mind, the intent of the act, the events leading up to the killing, whether or not the evidence was tampered with, etc. The more individual a thing is, the less certain it is.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

A couple points:

1. Morality (by which I mean that aspect of Eternal Law relating to how we should behave) is objective.
2. A sin is a purposeful transgression of morality.

From New Advent: "This [moral evil, what I am calling sin to distinguish it from objective morality] may be defined as a privation of conformity to right reason and to the law of God. Since the morality of a human act consists in its agreement or non-agreement with right reason and the eternal law, an act is good or evil in the moral order according as it involves this agreement or non-agreement. When the intelligent creature,** knowing God and His law, deliberately refuses to obey***, moral evil results. "*

The sinfulness of an act depends on the extend to which we disobey that which we know we should obey.

This can lead to some confusion resulting from word choice. I’ll try to be consistent in this post anyway.

fakename:

Do these rules practically make morality subjective and relative? After all, few people really “know” in the strict sense, that any particular action they take is the right one. Therefore, since matters of opinion ought to be free, then any action is basically unobjectionable.

Sin is subjective insofar as it depends on the disposition of the sinner, but morality (taken in the sense that I used above) is certainly not. And sin is not as subjective as you imply.

First, morality is simply part of reality, and quiet a bit of reality is obvious. If you drop a hammer it falls. Smashing someone’s brains out because they looked at you funny is wrong (though there are disabilities that prevent even this level of recognition of reality). It can be understood.

So it is false that few people really know. Most people know lots of things about morality, and presumably a lot of people think they know things to be true that are actually false. The only time we need quotes around “know” is when the person is wrong. The uneducated tribesman in the middle of the desert who has not had the time to think it out in detail knows that homosexual activity is wrong even if he could not prove it to a philosopher. A particular philosopher studies arguments, misunderstands them and mucks up the reasoning and comes to “know” that homosexual activities are acceptable.

Whether one “knows” or just knows only depends on if one is right. (Again, morality is objective. Much like mathematics - many of my calculus students know that the derivative of sin x is cos x, but few could prove it, whereas many of my students have fallen prey to bad algebra and “know” that (x+x^2)^2 is x^2+x^4.)

So it is not true that no one really knows what is right.

Furthermore, with perhaps the exception of some people who are extremely disabled, we all know that we should do our best to figure out what is right and what is wrong until we are reasonably certain that what we “know” to be true is in fact true.

So a person who merely isn’t sure about the morality of an issue and so just does whatever he feels like may or not be sinning in his actions relating to that issue, but if he fails to do his best to figure out what objective morality requires, then he (probably) is.

So a person may be off the hook for one morally wrong action (which is not the same as saying the action is not objectionable, only that the person is not guilty of sin), but if he fails to refine his understanding of morality to the best of his reasonable ability, then he may very well be guilty of sinning by willfully persisting a state of moral immaturity.

Which basically means that it’s no good to say “opinions ought to be free”. This may be acceptable when it comes to what color of shirt to wear, but when it comes to morality, the rule is “opinions ought to be right.”

 

[Iron_Donkey]

In reply to your addendum only (I may try to more thoroughly read and respond to the rest shortly)

From my reply here, one can gather the substance of my replies to the other posts. Except for this addendum: I never said that opinions were right just because they are opinions. Also I never said that people do not know truth but only that as a practical matter they generally do not. For instance, how do I know that writing this is a good thing? there could be other good or better things I could be doing (praying, perhaps). I simply don’t have proof that what I am doing is so ideal. And the same can be said for any everyday thing. If I go to the bookstore I don’t calculate out and deduce that it is better than any other option I just “have faith” that it is. But faith is not proof so it is essentially opinion (epistemologically worse in fact). And even take prosecuting a murderer. I don’t necessarily “know” that he is the murderer, because the fact that he is a murderer is based on facts that are themselves uncertain: his state of mind, the intent of the act, the events leading up to the killing, whether or not the evidence was tampered with, etc. The more individual a thing is, the less certain it is.

1. It is not morally necessary that one spend every single moment doing the most morally praiseworthy thing that one can. Therefore it is not necessary to calculate whether going to the bookstore is the absolute best thing I can do, but only if it is acceptable in and of itself, and if I have other things which I am required to do, have not done, and have such precedence that putting them off until after I go to the bookstore would be bad (dumping a bucket of water on a flaming child, for example).
2. Our moral knowledge does not have to be perfect, but just as perfect as it can be given the time and reasonable effort we can apply. Think of it as jury duty - you have a certain amount of evidence to use to come to a reasonable conclusion. Your job is to come to a conclusion and act on it, and to do your best to make sure that conclusion is correct. But if you did so, and then new evidence is presented later that makes it appear that you were wrong, you are not held accountable for that - but if you see this evidence and (somehow) make the same wrong decision again, then you will be.

 

[fakename]

A couple points:

1. Morality (by which I mean that aspect of Eternal Law relating to how we should behave) is objective.
2. A sin is a purposeful transgression of morality.

From New Advent: "This [moral evil, what I am calling sin to distinguish it from objective morality] may be defined as a privation of conformity to right reason and to the law of God. Since the morality of a human act consists in its agreement or non-agreement with right reason and the eternal law, an act is good or evil in the moral order according as it involves this agreement or non-agreement. When the intelligent creature,** knowing God and His law, deliberately refuses to obey****, moral evil results. "

The sinfulness of an act depends on the extend to which we disobey that which we know we should obey.

This can lead to some confusion resulting from word choice. I’ll try to be consistent in this post anyway.

Sin is subjective insofar as it depends on the disposition of the sinner, but morality (taken in the sense that I used above) is certainly not. And sin is not as subjective as you imply.

First, morality is simply part of reality, and quiet a bit of reality is obvious. If you drop a hammer it falls. Smashing someone’s brains out because they looked at you funny is wrong (though there are disabilities that prevent even this level of recognition of reality). It can be understood.

So it is false that few people really know. Most people know lots of things about morality, and presumably a lot of people think they know things to be true that are actually false. The only time we need quotes around “know” is when the person is wrong. The uneducated tribesman in the middle of the desert who has not had the time to think it out in detail knows that homosexual activity is wrong even if he could not prove it to a philosopher. A particular philosopher studies arguments, misunderstands them and mucks up the reasoning and comes to “know” that homosexual activities are acceptable.

Whether one “knows” or just knows only depends on if one is right. (Again, morality is objective. Much like mathematics - many of my calculus students know that the derivative of sin x is cos x, but few could prove it, whereas many of my students have fallen prey to bad algebra and “know” that (x+x^2)^2 is x^2+x^4.)

So it is not true that no one really knows what is right.

Furthermore, with perhaps the exception of some people who are extremely disabled, we all know that we should do our best to figure out what is right and what is wrong until we are reasonably certain that what we “know” to be true is in fact true.

So a person who merely isn’t sure about the morality of an issue and so just does whatever he feels like may or not be sinning in his actions relating to that issue, but if he fails to do his best to figure out what objective morality requires, then he (probably) is.

So a person may be off the hook for one morally wrong action (which is not the same as saying the action is not objectionable, only that the person is not guilty of sin), but if he fails to refine his understanding of morality to the best of his reasonable ability, then he may very well be guilty of sinning by willfully persisting a state of moral immaturity.

Which basically means that it’s no good to say “opinions ought to be free”. This may be acceptable when it comes to what color of shirt to wear, but when it comes to morality, the rule is “opinions ought to be right.”

I agree that what is morally wrong is partly objective but if people do a bad thing without intending it, then why would we call that person morally bad? And this reasoning can extend to a whole society.

On knowledge, I believe that knowledge only comes from having a perfect demonstration of the thing you believe (as per Prior and Posterior Analytics). But I believe that belief or strong opinion can be established without a demonstration. But in matters of opinion there is hardly any irrevocable reason why a thing ought to be one way or another. And that’s what I mean by too much subjectivity: if people mostly have just opinions then people can choose homosexuality (or anything else) or not, but there is no demonstration showing that they shouldn’t so the choice made is not fully measured by objective criteria. Further the choice made is changeable and one cannot commit oneself to it.

Perhaps a closer examination of probabilism is necessary.

Note: calculus students may “know” or think they know calculus. To the extent this is true either they have proof or sophistical proof. But the vast majority probably “know” it by rote. But simple repetition is not proof, and a sign of this is that calculus is easily forgotten after school whereas things that people really know are not easily forgotten.

 

[fakename]

In reply to your addendum only (I may try to more thoroughly read and respond to the rest shortly)

1. It is not morally necessary that one spend every single moment doing the most morally praiseworthy thing that one can. Therefore it is not necessary to calculate whether going to the bookstore is the absolute best thing I can do, but only if it is acceptable in and of itself, and if I have other things which I am required to do, have not done, and have such precedence that putting them off until after I go to the bookstore would be bad (dumping a bucket of water on a flaming child, for example).
2. Our moral knowledge does not have to be perfect, but just as perfect as it can be given the time and reasonable effort we can apply. Think of it as jury duty - you have a certain amount of evidence to use to come to a reasonable conclusion. Your job is to come to a conclusion and act on it, and to do your best to make sure that conclusion is correct. But if you did so, and then new evidence is presented later that makes it appear that you were wrong, you are not held accountable for that - but if you see this evidence and (somehow) make the same wrong decision again, then you will be.

Good point.

 

[davidv]

I agree that what is morally wrong is partly objective but if people do a bad thing without intending it, then why would we call that person morally bad? And this reasoning can extend to a whole society.

On knowledge, I believe that knowledge only comes from having a perfect demonstration of the thing you believe (as per Prior and Posterior Analytics). But I believe that belief or strong opinion can be established without a demonstration. But in matters of opinion there is hardly any irrevocable reason why a thing ought to be one way or another. And that’s what I mean by too much subjectivity: if people mostly have just opinions then people can choose homosexuality (or anything else) or not, but there is no demonstration showing that they shouldn’t so the choice made is not fully measured by objective criteria. Further the choice made is changeable and one cannot commit oneself to it.

Perhaps a closer examination of probabilism is necessary.

Note: calculus students may “know” or think they know calculus. To the extent this is true either they have proof or sophistical proof. But the vast majority probably “know” it by rote. But simple repetition is not proof, and a sign of this is that calculus is easily forgotten after school whereas things that people really know are not easily forgotten.

No person who commits a sin should be called morally bad, because it is not true. Each of us is made in God’s image and likeness and no sin can change this. Since you cannot legitimately label someone bad, you cannot assume that moral wrong is partly subjective.

 

[fakename]

No person who commits a sin should be called morally bad, because it is not true. Each of us is made in God’s image and likeness and no sin can change this. Since you cannot legitimately label someone bad, you cannot assume that moral wrong is partly subjective.

After a certain amount of evidence has been gathered, someone can be called morally bad. Certainly this is true of past and future bad people (the pharaoh from Exodus, the antichrist, etc.).

But also it is true of anyone since judgment deals with everyone and although it is not good to judge, with a certain amount of evidence, it is okay to judge (as seen in the Summa’s article on Judgment).

 

[Iron_Donkey]

"fakename:

I agree that what is morally wrong is partly objective but if people do a bad thing without intending it, then why would we call that person morally bad? And this reasoning can extend to a whole society.

We don’t say that a person is necessarily morally bad ever. We do say that some of the things that a person (or society) does are objectively morally bad. We may also say that under certain conditions such things are sinful and that the person is guilty for doing them if those conditions are present.

But if by “a person is morally bad” you mean “that person objectively ought to behave differently” then we say this because it is true, and if things ought to be different then we ought to try to make them so. Thus we can look at a person’s actions, and know that they are objectively wrong and try to make sure that he knows this, knows that he should behave otherwise, and help him to do so.

But this is not the same thing as judging the state of a person’s soul (see below for summa article). That is outside of our authority. A person may live a life full of objective immorality and have little sin.

However, we must recognize that that “may” is not necessarily very likely. Much of morality is self evident, is written on our hearts and those of us who act in opposition to it do not do so because we think that what we are doing is good but because we want to and are good at pretending to think that what is bad is good while actually knowing the truth.

So we must be aware that in the specific case of a person, the state of a soul cannot be determined, but we must also be aware that immorality does pose a grave risk to the soul, and that this risk is higher where there is more immorality (even if the knowledge of when this risk becomes a certainty is not available to us). Because of this, we have a duty to educate on immorality and try to help people over come it.

It’s much like evangelization really. It may be possible for a person living in what is an objectively immoral state to do so without sinning, but there’s a risk to such a person. Not to mention that objective morality ought to be followed by definition, and so it should be spread quiet independently of consequences for people. We ought to do what is right whether or not a specific case of unknowingly doing what is wrong will send us to Hell.

On knowledge, I believe that knowledge only comes from having a perfect demonstration of the thing you believe (as per Prior and Posterior Analytics). But I believe that belief or strong opinion can be established without a demonstration. But in matters of opinion there is hardly any irrevocable reason why a thing ought to be one way or another. And that’s what I mean by too much subjectivity: if people mostly have just opinions then people can choose homosexuality (or anything else) or not, but there is no demonstration showing that they shouldn’t so the choice made is not fully measured by objective criteria. Further the choice made is changeable and one cannot commit oneself to it.

Then what you mean by knowledge is not what I mean by knowledge. And while we have opinions on morality, that does not make morality a matter of opinion. There are clearly irrevocable reasons that make it (known to be) that a thing ought to be one way or another. These things are part of the Eternal Law, which is presented to us both through Natural Law and Revelation.

That humans often get confused about what the Eternal Law is (and even that part of it that is Natural Law) simply underscores the importance of the teaching mission of the Church. It may also mean that people can commit objectively immoral actions without actually sinning, but dealing with that part of it, beyond acknowledging that it exists, is beyond our competency. Our job is to teach objective morality and to help overcome failures to follow it as best we can. It is God’s job to determine whether or not any given contravention of this Law is in fact enough to damn a person, and we should leave that to Him.

After a certain amount of evidence has been gathered, someone can be called morally bad. Certainly this is true of past and future bad people (the pharaoh from Exodus, the antichrist, etc.).

But also it is true of anyone since judgment deals with everyone and although it is not good to judge, with a certain amount of evidence, it is okay to judge (as seen in the Summa’s article on Judgment).

From the Summa:

I answer that, Judgment is lawful in so far as it is an act of justice. Now it follows from what has been stated above (1, ad 1,3) that three conditions are requisite for a judgment to be an act of justice: first, that it proceed from the inclination of justice; secondly, that it come from one who is in authority; thirdly, that it be pronounced according to the right ruling of prudence. If any one of these be lacking, the judgment will be faulty and unlawful. First, when it is contrary to the rectitude of justice, and then it is called “perverted” or “unjust”: secondly, when a man judges about matters wherein he has no authority, and this is called judgment “by usurpation”: thirdly, when the reason lacks certainty, as when a man, without any solid motive, forms a judgment on some doubtful or hidden matter, and then it is called judgment by “suspicion” or “rash” judgment.

Reply to Objection 1. In these words our Lord forbids rash judgment which is about the inward intention, or other uncertain things, as Augustine states (De Serm. Dom. in Monte ii, 18)…

 

[fakename]

We don’t say that a person is necessarily morally bad ever. We do say that some of the things that a person (or society) does are objectively morally bad. We may also say that under certain conditions such things are sinful and that the person is guilty for doing them if those conditions are present.

But if by “a person is morally bad” you mean “that person objectively ought to behave differently” then we say this because it is true, and if things ought to be different then we ought to try to make them so. Thus we can look at a person’s actions, and know that they are objectively wrong and try to make sure that he knows this, knows that he should behave otherwise, and help him to do so.

But this is not the same thing as judging the state of a person’s soul (see below for summa article). That is outside of our authority. A person may live a life full of objective immorality and have little sin.

However, we must recognize that that “may” is not necessarily very likely. Much of morality is self evident, is written on our hearts and those of us who act in opposition to it do not do so because we think that what we are doing is good but because we want to and are good at pretending to think that what is bad is good while actually knowing the truth.

So we must be aware that in the specific case of a person, the state of a soul cannot be determined, but we must also be aware that immorality does pose a grave risk to the soul, and that this risk is higher where there is more immorality (even if the knowledge of when this risk becomes a certainty is not available to us). Because of this, we have a duty to educate on immorality and try to help people over come it.

It’s much like evangelization really. It may be possible for a person living in what is an objectively immoral state to do so without sinning, but there’s a risk to such a person. Not to mention that objective morality ought to be followed by definition, and so it should be spread quiet independently of consequences for people. We ought to do what is right whether or not a specific case of unknowingly doing what is wrong will send us to Hell.

Then what you mean by knowledge is not what I mean by knowledge. And while we have opinions on morality, that does not make morality a matter of opinion. There are clearly irrevocable reasons that make it (known to be) that a thing ought to be one way or another. These things are part of the Eternal Law, which is presented to us both through Natural Law and Revelation.

That humans often get confused about what the Eternal Law is (and even that part of it that is Natural Law) simply underscores the importance of the teaching mission of the Church. It may also mean that people can commit objectively immoral actions without actually sinning, but dealing with that part of it, beyond acknowledging that it exists, is beyond our competency. Our job is to teach objective morality and to help overcome failures to follow it as best we can. It is God’s job to determine whether or not any given contravention of this Law is in fact enough to damn a person, and we should leave that to Him.

From the Summa:

(1) On the Summa, judgment is defined/measured by the meaning/nature of knowledge. Because we hold different views of knowledge we will hold different views of judgment. I think that what the Summa says is that we cannot have definitive judgment of the soul’s intentions (for any particular intention is not knowable per se). Therefore we cannot judge a person definitively. Now to judge and to know indefinitively is not to know at all (since IMO, knowledge is 100% certain). Hence one can have strong opinion on whether a person is or is not good but not knowledge -at least that is what I mean. After all, we do judge that we have committed a mortal sin, and that consequently we are bad (as far as we know). So it follows that clearly we must judge our intentions.

(2) As far as the other things you posted go, I would like to ask what proof one has that the natural law is not so easily forgotten and “in the back of one’s mind” so-to-speak? For although I believe in the same conclusion, in my experience the natural law is forgotten and totally erased from people’s hearts. For instance, up until a few years ago, I had almost no idea of the first axiom of the natural law “do good and avoid evil” since I did not know that it was an axiom nor did I know what was meant by “good” and “evil”. But rather people all have more or less and varying degrees of opinion on what is good and evil (pleasure, health, intelligence, wealth, or all of these in differing proportions). So inasmuch as these are natural then yes, the natural law is never totally gone but the first precept of natural law seems totally foreign to most people, and since axioms form the end and basis of all knowledge, lack of a moral axiom seems to imply a lack of moral knowledge (with a capital “K”) and only cements my case that people experience a great deal of moral latitude. For people without formal morality can be excused for their misdeeds. Of course that conclusion seems to conflict with the fact that people are held to higher standards than they would be if my conclusion was true.