Daniel Day Lewis and Euthanasia

[claymcdermott]

So, in the film version of The Last of the Mohicans, Hawkeye, far from the scene and with no other way to help, shoots Heyward as he is being burnt at the stake by Magua, in order to spare Heyward the suffering. Now, the average viewer sees this as morally permissible - probably morally required.

This raises an interesting question: while it is not analogous to our contemporary euthanasia debate, is it impermissible under every conceivable circumstance to kill someone to spare that same person suffering? It seems here that our Catholic talk of “not prolonging the dying process,” since Heyward certainly would have died within hours, seems applicable here - but generally we say this when talking about cessation of treatments which would, well, “prolong the dying process,” rather than the proactive killing of an innocent human being. But do we put too much importance on act vs inact? I have always thought we did.

Anyway, we do kill innocent human beings in war. By this, I mean enemy combatants (“privileged state belligerents,” not terrorists) are considered to be innocent soldiers who receive the same treatment we hope ours do. The Civil War is a good example. One side is right; one side is wrong, but we don’t treat either side’s individual combatants as evil.

If there is a different principle in effect for war, might that apply in this case, wherein to stop an innocent person’s suffering, one kills an innocent person (who probably appreciates it here)? With the “probably appreciates it here” thing, we can still maintain our traditional notion that collateral damage cannot be intentional.

I don’t know; what do you all think? I wonder mostly because I have always been a big believer in casuistry and double effect, and “don’t commit the smallest evil to achieve the greatest good,” but this presents a challenge. I suppose it does not present a challenge to double effect if we discover a new principle like, “When a person will die soon, and will be tortured to death, there is nothing morally wrong with sparing them the torture by shooting him.” But this is pretty ad hoc.

A lot of questions are raised here anyway, haha. Hopefully the anti-thought brigade does not come out.

 

[lmelahn]

So, in the film version of The Last of the Mohicans, Hawkeye, far from the scene and with no other way to help, shoots Heyward as he is being burnt at the stake by Magua, in order to spare Heyward the suffering. Now, the average viewer sees this as morally permissible - probably morally required.

This raises an interesting question: while it is not analogous to our contemporary euthanasia debate, is it impermissible under every conceivable circumstance to kill someone to spare that same person suffering? It seems here that our Catholic talk of “not prolonging the dying process,” since Heyward certainly would have died within hours, seems applicable here - but generally we say this when talking about cessation of treatments which would, well, “prolong the dying process,” rather than the proactive killing of an innocent human being. But do we put too much importance on act vs inact? I have always thought we did.

Neither Hawkeye’s action in the film, nor any kind of mercy killing, is morally permissible, because it is intentional killing: in essence, murdering someone, so as to ease his suffering. You are right in saying that it matters little whether the killing is accomplished by action or inaction, so long as killing is intentional.

For example, in the sad case of Terry Schiavo, she was killed by depravation of nutrition and hydration. (To put it in plain language, she was starved to death.) That act was, in a way, a kind of inaction, but the intention was clear: to procure her death.

Anyway, we do kill innocent human beings in war. By this, I mean enemy combatants (“privileged state belligerents,” not terrorists) are considered to be innocent soldiers who receive the same treatment we hope ours do. The Civil War is a good example. One side is right; one side is wrong, but we don’t treat either side’s individual combatants as evil.

If there is a different principle in effect for war, might that apply in this case, wherein to stop an innocent person’s suffering, one kills an innocent person (who probably appreciates it here)? With the “probably appreciates it here” thing, we can still maintain our traditional notion that collateral damage cannot be intentional.

The key thing is that killing can never be intentional, under any circumstances. That holds true, even in the case of legitimate self-defense, legitimate application of the death penalty (which the Church still holds to be licit, at least in theory, under some circumstances), and in cases like just war.

Why is that? It can be tricky to grasp, but the basic idea is that, in those cases, the action that is intended is something other than killing. For example, it could be stopping an aggressor, preventing a very dangerous criminal from committing more crimes, or preventing the advance of an enemy army (assuming that conducting the war is itself just).

I don’t know; what do you all think? I wonder mostly because I have always been a big believer in casuistry and double effect, and “don’t commit the smallest evil to achieve the greatest good,” but this presents a challenge. I suppose it does not present a challenge to double effect if we discover a new principle like, “When a person will die soon, and will be tortured to death, there is nothing morally wrong with sparing them the torture by shooting him.” But this is pretty ad hoc.

No, I don’t think that is a tenable principle. We must never desire or indend evil like that. Also, we are not responsible for the evil perpetrated by others.

A lot of questions are raised here anyway, haha. Hopefully the anti-thought brigade does not come out.

 

[lmelahn]

Just to add another thought:

In the Last of the Mohicans, note how killing Heyward is a means to achieve an end. The shooter is consenting to the death per se, to use the technical term.

In the other cases (legitimate defense, death penalty, just war, etc.), the death of the persons is in no way desired.

Note that this is not a clear-cut application of the principle of double effect, because in this case the death caused is not simply collateral damage. Rather, it is a question of the adherence of the will to the evil: is it possible to do this act and not want, in any way, the death to occur? In the case of Hawkeye, no; in the other cases, yes.

 

[claymcdermott]

I think I disagree with you on what double effect is, what specifically I wrote, what the definition of “death penalty” is (possibly), and whether it is necessarily Church teaching that intentional killing is always wrong. I actually think we disagree on whether you yourself, in fact, believe that it is wrong to intentionally kill in some circumstances given some of your other statements – but in the Spirit of God, I suppose this may be a less appropriate forum for the type of conversation I am looking for.

If anyone can see why I disagree with our fellow Christian’s internal logic here, I will let them fight with you.

That green guy is great isn’t he?

 

[thistle]

Neither Hawkeye’s action in the film, nor any kind of mercy killing, is morally permissible, because it is intentional killing: in essence, murdering someone, so as to ease his suffering. You are right in saying that it matters little whether the killing is accomplished by action or inaction, so long as killing is intentional.

For example, in the sad case of Terry Schiavo, she was killed by depravation of nutrition and hydration. (To put it in plain language, she was starved to death.) That act was, in a way, a kind of inaction, but the intention was clear: to procure her death.

The key thing is that killing can never be intentional, under any circumstances. That holds true, even in the case of legitimate self-defense, legitimate application of the death penalty (which the Church still holds to be licit, at least in theory, under some circumstances), and in cases like just war.

Why is that? It can be tricky to grasp, but the basic idea is that, in those cases, the action that is intended is something other than killing. For example, it could be stopping an aggressor, preventing a very dangerous criminal from committing more crimes, or preventing the advance of an enemy army (assuming that conducting the war is itself just).

No, I don’t think that is a tenable principle. We must never desire or indend evil like that. Also, we are not responsible for the evil perpetrated by others.

That is simply not true.

In war when you kill the enemy it is intentional. You don’t close your eyes and hope you wound him!!
In a case of self defence if you deem the only way to defend yourself/family is lethal force then killing the aggressor is intentional.

Both are permitted by the Church and do not contradict any Church teachings.

 

[lmelahn]

That is simply not true.

In war when you kill the enemy it is intentional. You don’t close your eyes and hope you wound him!!
In a case of self defence if you deem the only way to defend yourself/family is lethal force then killing the aggressor is intentional.

Both are permitted by the Church and do not contradict any Church teachings.

I think we agree in substance, but perhaps I did not explain what I meant by “intentional.”

When I say that killing is “intentional,” I mean that the person who does the killing actually desires the death of the victim. That kind of action can never be justified for any reason–it is what we call “homicide” or “murder.”

In the case of self-defense, the person who is defending himself (or his family, or whoever) desires to stop the aggressor. If he could do it without killing, he would. (At least, that is the correct attitude.) Likewise for the executioner, and the soldier (in those cases where a killing is justified, obviously).

In those cases, the person doing the killing may be fully aware that he is going to kill someone (that is obvious in the case of the death penalty), but he is only doing it because he is constrained to do so, in order to protect himself or third parties; however, he would rather the person not die. (At least, if he is acting as he should.)

 

[lmelahn]

I think I disagree with you on what double effect is, what specifically I wrote, what the definition of “death penalty” is (possibly), and whether it is necessarily Church teaching that intentional killing is always wrong. I actually think we disagree on whether you yourself, in fact, believe that it is wrong to intentionally kill in some circumstances given some of your other statements – but in the Spirit of God, I suppose this may be a less appropriate forum for the type of conversation I am looking for.

If anyone can see why I disagree with our fellow Christian’s internal logic here, I will let them fight with you.

That green guy is great isn’t he?

I don’t mind if people disagree with me.

However, you piqued my curiosity, and so I went ahead and re-read the article in the Summa theologiae that is quoted in the Catechism (II-IIae, q. 64, a. 7).

Thus, I have to concede that, according to Aquinas, the case of self-defense does fall into double-effect. (That is interesting, because in the manualistic tradition, we are usually taught that the bad effect must not be a means to obtain the good effect, and self-defense seems to violate that principle.)

(So, I am willing to be humble and eat my words, just this once .)

However, I think that my understanding of “intention” is the same as that of Aquinas: it means what the will adheres to or desires. He says, at the beginning of the corpus:

Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention . Now moral acts take their species * according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental (per accidens*), as explained above. Accordingly the act of self-defense may have two effects, one is the saving of one’s life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor.

Now, I note that later in in the corpus St. Thomas justifies the death penalty and killing in war on other grounds; namely, that it is the legitimate authority that imposes the sentence of death or orders battle, for the sake of the common good. He seems to think that such killing is intentional and yet justified, because it comes from the state.

In the light of the magisterium of St. John Paul II, I think that we need to correct St. Thomas slightly on this point.

(So much for my humility! )

In reality, I think the justification for the death penalty and war follows double effect (as defined in this article), just like self-defense, because, the state is defending its citizens, either from a dangerous criminal, or from an enemy army, and so there is no reason to say that the killing is intentional (as Aquinas understands the term). That is why John Paul insisted so strongly that the conditions for the death penalty “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”

 

[claymcdermott]

This sounds more curt than I want it to so I hope you know the spirit in which I write it:

See, I think that this is exactly where you are confused; I think you misunderstand the manualist tradition as well. I want to quote you here: “if the “executioner”] could do it without killing, he would.” That makes very little sense. Death is not a theoretically dispensable step in the death penalty process - it is the entire thing. If nobody gets killed on purpose, it is definitionally not the death penalty. There is no “it” to “do.” If the executioner could kill someone without killing him he would? Rhetorical question. You earlier said, “in…death penalty… the death of the persons is in no way intended.” [emphasis added]

You cannot publicly and intentionally kill someone, explicitly stating in a legal document you intend to kill him, without intending to kill him. You dismiss Hawkeye’s action because Heyward’s death is “a means to achieve an end.” So, you get that if you desire to do something because of a larger motive, you still…well…desire that something. If you intentionally kill someone to death, so that you can (as you said) “stop a very dangerous criminal,” you desire to kill that person so that he is killed. Just like if you kill someone so that he is killed in order to spare him suffering, you kill him so he’s killed.

Aquinas’ specific example makes a modicum of more sense, since a legal self defense argument (in my state) requires you not to use undue force, to avoid killing if possible, and if the person is incapacitated, to call an ambulance. So there can be a double effect, because his death is actually unintended for real for realsies - you know it was unintended because you tried to save him. Now if he dies but after he was incapacitated, you try to save him, common law recognizes that you are not at fault (unsurprisingly because common law owes Aquinas). War, especially a war of attrition, not a good example. You are trying to kill people, not wound them. Intentionally killing (with clear and open intent to kill) to prevent criminal recidivism, a slightly less than sensical example.

I think the confusion comes because you explicitly equate homicide and murder. There is a reason that those two words exist, because they mean very different things (in law, in ethics, in English class, in every day usage). These words even have equivalents in the Hebrew language, so that the 5th commandment is accurately translated, “Thou shalt not MURDER” It is simply NOT part of official Catholic teaching that it is never under any circumstances permitted to intentionally kill another human being. Now, you can find important theologians and saints who may say otherwise, and these same saints may get quoted in the Catechism, but that specific position is just not gonna be in there. And as you have defined it, it gets kinda meaningless anyway so it is no great loss.​

Anyway, so sorry if that sounded mean but I wanted to be as clear as possible, and I fear the price may have been bluntness, but read in a jolly Richard Harris voice it is not so bad.

 

[claymcdermott]

Examples of double effect:
Act: I blow up major tank and arms factories.
Motive: to destroy the infrastructure and kill enemy combatants.
Unintended consequence: factory workers and possibly nearby house’s residents die.
Moral proportions: I have saved thousands more lives than inaction would have.

Act: I shoot a home invader in his legs, stomach, and arms with a semiautomatic
Motive: incapacitate invader
Unintended consequence: he might die – which I know is unintended because I call an ambulance
Moral proportions: it was him or me and I have a right to safety, plus justice, plus I protected future victims

Not examples of double effect:
Act: I kill a criminal
Motive: once he’s killed, he cannot murder anymore.
Not necessarily morally wrong, but also not double effect, because all we have is a single effect, and solely from this do the other effects (public safety) flow

Act: I eat a sandwich
Motive: once I have eaten the sandwich, I will be not hungry
Not morally wrong, but exactly as simple as the above. If it is no more simple than having a motive for an action, then it is not double effect; it is what we call, “literally, any voluntary human action.”

Act: Hawkeye kills Heyward
Motive: once Heyward is dead, Magua cannot torture him
Not double effect. Which suggests that double effect does not always sufficiently explain a situation, which is why the only time I used that term I wrote, “I have always been a big believer… in double effect…but this presents a challenge.” I think that you decided that I was offering it as a solution. Which I was not. Double effect makes 0 sense if we hold that homicide is always wrong is my point.