Ends not justifying means

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thistle said:
The UN definition of torture:

The basic definition of torture is that contained in the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment:

“… ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”

What is waterboarding? Waterboarding is a form of torture that involves the use of water to coerce a prisoner or detainee into a confession. The victim is tied to an inclined board that positions the head lower than the feet. A piece of cloth is then secured over the victim’s face. Water is poured over the cloth, and the victim begins to experience difficulty breathing. Waterboarding proves particularly effective in that fear of asphyxiation often leads the victim to panic and beg for the torture to cease.

Anyone who even has half a brain can see that waterboarding IS a form of torture.
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Point of information: It also sometimes kills its victims.
 
I haven’t thought that the end could justify the means; but then I started reading OT and the story about Joseph and his brothers. The committed a serious crime against the dignity of the human person by abusing him and selling him into slavery. Upon their reuniting they beg forgiveness but he says that none is necessary. That God had intended for it to happen, that they were simply essentially to the tools for him to be sold into slavery so that he could rise up the amongst the Egyptians so he could in the end save the world from the famine to strike the lands.
This to me appears to be a case biblically where the end justifies the means, does someone have another way of looking at this passage, as I think it’s pretty clear cut?
The brothers hadn’t intended to do good, but evil; God turned the evil to something great. How can we know God wouldn’t turn something evil to great?
 
thistle said:
If you torture him you are committing a mortal sin.

Also you are making a big assumption. First that he will talk under torture and second that if he does he will tell the truth.
It is a proven fact that the truth is often not told under torture.
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It depends on what you mean by torture. To go to an extreme like cutting of fingers or starving a person, then yes, that would be wrong. Take for instance water boarding, which is the method of torture that is most debated today. Nobody can definitively use the CCC to tell us that is always a mortal sin. There are no lasting side effect, physical or mental.

The point is that the “ends” is not proportionate to the “means”, you cannot say that it always applies. For example, Lying is wrong. It is one of the ten commandments. But if you are faced with a situation where lying will save a persons life, it is permissible to do so.

Go back to the days of Nazi Germany. If a German was found hiding a Jew from the German army, that German could be killed. So a German soldier comes to the door and asks if there are any Jews inside. What would you say?
If you tell the truth, that Jew is going to be put in a concentration camp and will die. If you lie, which is morally wrong, you can save the life of the Jew.
 
“An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (St. Thomas Aquinas); hence, THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS.
 
Limbo said:
I don’t think you are in a position to decide to interpret how God “punishes” ANYONE, in particular “the Jews,” unless you have been given a divine revelation. (Most of us have not). Straight talk, but not offensively intended: I believe you need to think carefully about humility, religion in general, and Christianity in particular.
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Have you ever read the OT sometimes, it gives great clarity on the subject. I’m in a better position then you, 4 post wonder, trying to cut down a regular member from the get go…

You should learn to shut the lips, open the ears, and take your issues out on yourself, not others. I often wonder why people consider opinions that are not their own, or beyond their capacity to understand, and turn them into petty insults as being remotely Kosher. I don’t interpret your views or values as anything else, other then you have a chip on your shoulder and would rather take it out on me, or anybody else for that matter rather then dealing with your own petty problems.
 
PeterMuz said:
For example, Lying is wrong. It is one of the ten commandments. But if you are faced with a situation where lying will save a persons life, it is permissible to do so.

Go back to the days of Nazi Germany. If a German was found hiding a Jew from the German army, that German could be killed. So a German soldier comes to the door and asks if there are any Jews inside. What would you say?
If you tell the truth, that Jew is going to be put in a concentration camp and will die. If you lie, which is morally wrong, you can save the life of the Jew.
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If it is permitted it is NOT due to the intention. The Church is very clear that the a good intention or circumstance can not make an intrinsic evil into a good. PERIOD.

If it is permitted…it would have to be due to the nature of the ‘to lie’ as an object.
Perhaps it is then not a lie for some reason…rather it is something else.

Or it is just that yes it is a lie…but it would be venial sin …and the circumstances CAN then REDUCE the culpability even further…so that it is a very very very slight sin.

one that God ‘understands’ (given our fallen world…our weakness and difficulty with making up a good mental reservation…and he knows the evil that we overcame)…and one that is wiped away in a second with the mere raising of the heart to God…

Catechism:

1754 The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary elements of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They can also diminish or increase the agent’s responsibility (such as acting out of a fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the moral quality of acts themselves; they can make neither good nor right an action that is in itself evil.

vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a4.htm#II
 
Limbo said:
Point of information: It also sometimes kills its victims.
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not the form the US used.

ewtn just had a writer on the world over a week or so ago defending that it was not T

i leave it to the Church to figure out 😉
 
prodigalson12 said:
Have you ever read the OT sometimes, it gives great clarity on the subject. I’m in a better position then you, 4 post wonder, trying to cut down a regular member from the get go…

You should learn to shut the lips, open the ears, and take your issues out on yourself, not others. I often wonder why people consider opinions that are not their own, or beyond their capacity to understand, and turn them into petty insults as being remotely Kosher. I don’t interpret your views or values as anything else, other then you have a chip on your shoulder and would rather take it out on me, or anybody else for that matter rather then dealing with your own petty problems.
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No offense was intended, just straight talk. You are the author of your own words, no one else. Again: none of us are in a position to interpret how God “punishes” ANYONE without having had a divine revelation. As to your being a veteran member of this forum, and me a recent member, that has no bearing on the issues we are discussing. Lastly, you had better ask “the Jews,” (as you referred to them), what they might think of your interpretation of God “punishing” them. You might receive some answers that surprise or even shock you.
 
Larry1700 said:
Someone with **half **a brain might think waterboarding is torture. However, if they use their **entire **brain (i.e., use logical reasoning, instead of just emotion), **they will understand that that the UN is not the final arbiter regarding moralilty, **because they realize that the UN also believes abortion is an acceptable form of population control.
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Neither is the US!!

It is clear to all that waterboarding is a form of torture except those who want to justify their cruel ways to obtain information.
 
Limbo said:
No offense was intended, just straight talk. You are the author of your own words, no one else. Again: none of us are in a position to interpret how God “punishes” ANYONE without having had a divine revelation. As to your being a veteran member of this forum, and me a recent member, that has no bearing on the issues we are discussing. Lastly, you had better ask “the Jews,” (as you referred to them), what they might think of your interpretation of God “punishing” them. You might receive some answers that surprise or even shock you.
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10% of the currently, call themselves Jews these days are believers in their faith of their ancestors…

Want to talk facts, or keep on going with speculation?
 
Getting tired of this stuff. Neither you, nor the church, nor anyone who has not had a divine revelation can say what God does or does not do to punish anyone, in particular those you have called “the Jews.” (Not Haitians either, as one famous Evangelist did recently). It is beginning to sound like you might have a problem about those you call “the Jews.” Do you? If this forum is a place for people like that, I’ll bid adieu to it shortly.
 
thistle said:
Neither is the US!!

It is clear to all that waterboarding is a form of torture except those who want to justify their cruel ways to obtain information.
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I never said that the U.S. is the final arbiter of morality. The original post asked about the Church’s teaching, not the teaching of the U.N. or the U.S.

The leaders of every nation have to make decisions to protect their citizens. There’s a paragraph in the CCC which addresses that, but I don’t have the time to look it up now. Those leaders will, of course, have to answer to God regarding those decisions, and I would not ever want to be in their shoes to have to make those extremely tough decisions.

I do know this – if I were president, and I knew that a terrorist we had just captured had information about an upcoming attack, and I didn’t authorize interrogation which would extract that information – **not including mental or physical torture as the CCC stipulates **-- and hundreds of people died because of my decision, then I would feel greatly responsible for their deaths.

The best analogy I ever heard was this: If the police caught a criminal who was involved in the abduction of your daughter, would you want them to waterboard him to find out how they could get her back?

Look, it’s obvious that you’re not going to change my mind, nor am I going to change yours. I have to assume that we both want to come down on the side of Church teaching, and we disagree on the interpretation. It all comes down to whether or not waterboarding meets the CCC’s criteria for mental/physical abuse, and I just can’t see how it does, seeing that our own soldiers are subjected to it and are apparently okay thereafter.

I’m not going to post anything else on the subject, due to other time commitments, but I’ll pray for wisdom for you, and I hop you’ll do the same for me.
 
thistle said:
The Church teaching is very clear that the end does NOT justify the means. You cannot do evil even if the intent is to achieve good.
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I don’t agree with this. If you could go back and kill hitler, thus preventing WW2 and tens of millions of lives, you shouldn’t do it because killing is evil and the ends don’t justify the means. That is BS imo.
 
prodigalson12 said:
The moral thing as a human would be not to use evil to achieve a good result, which is the bottom line.
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This is VERY debatable, and something I don’t agree with. Do what causes the greater good. I am more of a utilitarian myself.
 
Ends not justyfying means? Well I agree in principle but in practice… if there is a terrorist squad out to destroy Vatican City during a conclave and kill all the Cardinals and their leader is caught and only torture will make him reveal his plans and thus save the Catholic Church, wouldn’t most of us Catholics make an exception to the rule?
 
hellopeople said:
This is VERY debatable, and something I don’t agree with. Do what causes the greater good. I am more of a utilitarian myself.
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So, what exactly is the greater good for any given situation, is that something you have mastered some how? I rely upon God in this area to know, which is why his ways can be justified, even using something at current, seemingly harsh to us humans, the greater good comes out because he is all knowing. We clearly are not, which then makes you think, do you really know what you are doing, is going to produce the greater good, and there are no possible other ways of achieving the same thing without having to go to those resorts?
 
hellopeople said:
I don’t agree with this. If you could go back and kill hitler, thus preventing WW2 and tens of millions of lives, you shouldn’t do it because killing is evil and the ends don’t justify the means. That is BS imo.
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What if Hitler’s death meant someone even worse was in charge of Germany during WW2? Someone who was able to develop nuclear weapons faster? What if killing Hitler galvanized the army in Germany and gave them the resolve to win the war? Intending to do good, the person who committed evil may perpetuate an even greater evil.

Your rationale is the same as that of the man who killed Dr. Tiller, the abortionist. 🤷 Was that justified?
 
Okay, it can be morally justifiable to lie, much like it can be morally justifiable to kill. If someone is about to kill your family member and the only way you can stop that is to kill him, you can. If the only way to stop him is to lie to him, you can. Your intention is not to lie, it is to save the persons life.

The principle of double effect applies here. Look it up
 
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