Do you need to know who is bad before you work with them?

[itsjustdave1988]

…Say, that I want to meet someone. By virtue of that someone existing and being in the place where I want him to be in order to meet him, he is helping me meet my end of meeting him. Now life is a succession of such ends (life is me wanting to go to x location, or to do y thing, or meet z person…).

I disagree that this is what “life” is. It is not merely a “succession” of events strung together. Nor is it true that the events which happen previously necessarily have a causal linkage to other such events afterwards. A can cause B. Or A and B could occur, and have no causal relationship. In other words, it is a real possibility that if A didnt’ happen, I could have done B anyway. I believe you are assuming a necessary causality when that may not be the case.

Also, in as much as someone helps one end of mine, he helps my other ends (End: I want to meet this guy and then, go to watch a movie).

I don’t agree. One end my be unrelated to another end. I may want bagels this morning, and so I go get bagels. I may want toast the next morning. Whether or not I actually attain “toast” does not necessarily depend upon my having attained “bagel” the previous day.

In this latter example the guy meets the first end, and this causes me to accomplish the last end.

I disagree. It could also be that you never met the first guy, but still you accomplished the last end. A causal relationship very much depends upon the circumstances.

But if this last end is bad then the first guy helps my end by having met me.

Again, this makes no sense. Meeting someone a year ago may or may not have no causal relationship to my actions later in life. You’ve not established a necessary causal linkage, but simply presumed it.

But we all know we’re sinners so all the meetings and such that we make are causes of evil.

This is fallacious reasoning. It doesn’t follow from the premises.

Furthermore, we may also know God, we may also know others who encourage virtue. Yet, such knowlege may be merely “informative,” that is, having no influence upon my future acts. Or, it may progress from merely “informative” to “performative,” having an influence upon future act. For example, merely meeting the women who eventually became my wife, allowed me to know that she existed. There was a real possibility that this knowledge may have remained merely “informative”, as it did with many other people I’ve met in my life. Yet, when I went beyond merely informative knowledge of her existence, but instead “got to know” my future wife even more, that’s when my knowledge of her became “performative,” having an influence on my willful act, causing me to love.

I’m still not sure what you are trying to understand, or why these questions have any import. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the reasoning you presented misses the mark.

 

[fakename]

I disagree that this is what “life” is. It is not merely a “succession” of events strung together. Nor is it true that the events which happen previously necessarily have a causal linkage to other such events afterwards. A can cause B. Or A and B could occur, and have no causal relationship. In other words, it is a real possibility that if A didnt’ happen, I could have done B anyway. I believe you are assuming a necessary causality when that may not be the case.

I don’t agree. One end my be unrelated to another end. I may want bagels this morning, and so I go get bagels. I may want toast the next morning. Whether or not I actually attain “toast” does not necessarily depend upon my having attained “bagel” the previous day.

I disagree. It could also be that you never met the first guy, but still you accomplished the last end. A causal relationship very much depends upon the circumstances.

Again, this makes no sense. Meeting someone a year ago may or may not have no causal relationship to my actions later in life. You’ve not established a necessary causal linkage, but simply presumed it.

This is fallacious reasoning. It doesn’t follow from the premises.

Furthermore, we may also know God, we may also know others who encourage virtue. Yet, such knowlege may be merely “informative,” that is, having no influence upon my future acts. Or, it may progress from merely “informative” to “performative,” having an influence upon future act. For example, merely meeting the women who eventually became my wife, allowed me to know that she existed. There was a real possibility that this knowledge may have remained merely “informative”, as it did with many other people I’ve met in my life. Yet, when I went beyond merely informative knowledge of her existence, but instead “got to know” my future wife even more, that’s when my knowledge of her became “performative,” having an influence on my willful act, causing me to love.

I’m still not sure what you are trying to understand, or why these questions have any import. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the reasoning you presented misses the mark.

Well, I could continue to argue, but I think that your view is still somewhere closer to the truth. I guess we could conclude that say entering a business transaction with people who you don’t know are bad, is okay? I still don’t know about it though, if this is a real conclusion of moral principle then no one is worth living with since no one is unequivocally morally good -everyone has a venial sin.

 

[fakename]

Any responses?

 

[The_Old_Medic]

Who did Jesus choose to associate himself with? Did he ONLY choose to work among the perfect? Or, did he seek out the sinners, in order to present the Word of God, to forgive them and to lead them to salvation?

Jesus associated with sinners of every kind. That is one of the reasons why the Scribes and the Pharisees to a large degree rejected him and his teachings. He associated with prostitutes, tax collectors, the physically disabled (who the Jews believed got that way because of sin), adulterers, and just about any other type of sinner you could possibly imagine.

One of his final actions, before he gave himself up to death, was to forgive a sinner, and guarantee that person a place in heaven. He chose to die between two very serious sinners.

If working among the sinners of this world was good enough for Jesus, I suspect that it is good enough for us. In fact, if you are unwilling to work with sinners, you are rejecting the words of Jesus, and demonstrating that you have literally no understanding of the term “Christian”.

 

[fakename]

Who did Jesus choose to associate himself with? Did he ONLY choose to work among the perfect? Or, did he seek out the sinners, in order to present the Word of God, to forgive them and to lead them to salvation?

Jesus associated with sinners of every kind. That is one of the reasons why the Scribes and the Pharisees to a large degree rejected him and his teachings. He associated with prostitutes, tax collectors, the physically disabled (who the Jews believed got that way because of sin), adulterers, and just about any other type of sinner you could possibly imagine.

One of his final actions, before he gave himself up to death, was to forgive a sinner, and guarantee that person a place in heaven. He chose to die between two very serious sinners.

If working among the sinners of this world was good enough for Jesus, I suspect that it is good enough for us. In fact, if you are unwilling to work with sinners, you are rejecting the words of Jesus, and demonstrating that you have literally no understanding of the term “Christian”.

Yeah, I want to believe you, but I guess I have some hang-ups. That is, how does your solution mesh with not cooperating with evil? I mean not helping sinners is the ultimate in non-cooperation with evil. If a sinner invited me to eat, would it be cooperating or non-cooperating to go? Obvious the former, so why go -why further the sinner, if you will?

 

[davidv]

Yeah, I want to believe you, but I guess I have some hang-ups. That is, how does your solution mesh with not cooperating with evil? I mean not helping sinners is the ultimate in non-cooperation with evil. If a sinner invited me to eat, would it be cooperating or non-cooperating to go? Obvious the former, so why go -why further the sinner, if you will?

I think that in order to go further, you need to define what you mean by cooperate. As it stands it appears that your definition is not the same one the Church uses when defining moral culpability.

 

[fakename]

I think that in order to go further, you need to define what you mean by cooperate. As it stands it appears that your definition is not the same one the Church uses when defining moral culpability.

I agree. Cooperate appears to mean “furthering the ends of”. And"ends" means “the purposes of”. So to not cooperate w/evil to me, means thwarting the ends of evil people.

It’s contradictory. So how does the church mean it?

 

[fakename]

Any responses?

 

[fakename]

Thread bump

 

[itsjustdave1988]

…I guess we could conclude that say entering a business transaction with people who you don’t know are bad, is okay?..

It may be, or may not be. If ignorance is due to neglect of something we ought to know, than we may be culpable for ignorance. Ignorance itself may be a sin, as ST. Thomas Aquinas taught. Whether we culpably cooperate with evil or not depends upon three things: 1) act itself, 2) the intention, and 3) the circumstances. The answer I provided here (#17) describes the ethical principles necessary to answer the moral implications.