Ethics versus rationality

[clem456]

Not always.

Yep. Always opposed to reason.

 

[Usagi]

Just war, however, is covered in the Catechism. It would seem to be that weapons used in a just war are permitted since a just war is permitted. The war against terrorism seems to be a just war, and torture is a weapon if it results in saving the lives of those who are waging the just war.

A just war needs to be just not only in the aims and reasons for going to war (jus ad bello) but also in the policies and tactics followed in prosecuting the war (jus in bellum). The Church condemns the atomic bombing of Japan, for example, despite arguments that it shortened the war and saved lives, because it is immoral to target civilians as a means of coercion even if by doing do you save many lives. The Church does not teach the rightness of “the lesser evil,” but the principle that one may not do evil that good may come of it. Good consequences, even extremely good consequences, do not justify a wicked act.

I still do not understand your reasoning for calling out waterboarding, specifically, as a “weapon of self-defense” rather than a method of torture. Again, how do you think waterboarding achieves its results? It puts a fellow human being in an intolerable physical condition and promises to stop only if he complies. There is no essential difference between that and using thumbscrews or branding irons. The fact that one method causes less lasting harm is actually a plus for the torturer, as it means the method can be used longer without killing or permanently damaging the victim and that it leaves less visible evidence should the torturer later be called to account for his actions.

So, no, not every weapon or tactic is acceptable even in a war for just aims, nor even to save many lives if the chosen action is itself evil. Using a weapon to eliminate a threat, even if it means causing injury or death, is an entirely different moral situation from deliberately causing suffering to a person who is helpless and in your power, even if that person has allies or devices that can still potentially threaten you.

 

[Bradski]

It would not be rational to waterboard all of them if all of them know.

You only need to waterboard one of them to get the information.

Have the other four watch the one getting waterboarded. Maybe one of them would spill his guts to save the other four.

There were no weapons of mass destruction. None of the five knew anything. You just (rationally) tortured a completely innocent young girl whilst making her parents and sisters watch the process.

The father has now vowed vengeance on your so-called civilised society.

Well done, Charles…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=13740896&postcount=9

Thank you. I agree with that post.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

There were no weapons of mass destruction. **None of the five knew anything. **You just (rationally) tortured a completely innocent young girl whilst making her parents and sisters watch the process.

The father has now vowed vengeance on your so-called civilised society.

Well done, Charles…

Silly putty logic.

You said earlier that all five knew the location of the bomb.

Obviously, one does not go about torturing people without some very solid evidence that they know something that can result in the deaths of thousands. So you are saying the perpetrators of 9/ll should not have been tortured if it was revealed they knew the details of an imminent mass attack in Washing D.C. and New York City.

Well done, dude!

Three thousand dead souls will be no doubt thanking you from their graves.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But I don’t understand why you need to see it written down. As a Catholic were you really never taught that when you violate another person, you violate one of God’s children?

Soooo, are you O.K. will taking guns away from policemen so that only criminals will have them? (Sigh)

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Why we accept a set of fixed principals as ethics? What is our criteria? Our accepted principals could be occasionally wrong depending on the situation.

If you mean that we are ethically fallible, I say “Yes, we are”. Of course, we are rationally fallible as well. We should not forget that. Ordinarily, the source of criteria for our ethical behavior is the community to which we belong, due to the usually long experience that a community accumulates. But it is not impossible that a community is ethically wrong in some aspects. Then, some individuals are able to discern how to improve the moral life, and others simply adopt a questioning attitude which promotes changes. What is the origin of such ability? Is it a superior intellectual strength? Is it a finer moral sensitivity? I don’t know yet.

What are our criteria to decide if a moral principle is good or not? It is analogous to the question: “what are our criteria to determine if a rational principle is “right” or “correct”?” There are no criteria! Principles themselves constitute our criteria! But if you ask, “how is it that we can realize if a proposed rational principle is “correct”?”, then my answer would be “because of our rationality”. In the same way, if you ask me “how can we know if a proposed moral principle is good?”, my answer would be, “because we are moral beings”. Nevertheless, I insist: we are rationally and morally fallible.

 

[Bradski]

You said earlier that all five knew the location of the bomb. Obviously, one does not go about torturing people without some very solid evidence that they know something that can result in the deaths of thousands.

I said no such thing. I left it purposely vague.

Your experts in the field have determined that there is ALMOST certainly a weapon of mass destruction somewhere where it can do great harm. There are 5 people being detained and your advisors are certain that one of them knows the details of the weapon. And there is no doubt IN THEIR MINDS that the others would know as well.

There was no certainty that there was a bomb. It was only the opinion of your advisors. You may remember that your country went to war on the opinion of advisors regarding WMDs which turned out to be incorrect. They also had no doubts.

You have been given no evidence. Just opinion. And based on that you are advocating the torture of innocent people. You seem to think that if it turns out that it save lives, it is entirely moral. The question arises, what happens if it turns out to be not justified? A shrug of the shoulders?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I said no such thing. I left it purposely vague.

There was no certainty that there was a bomb. It was only the opinion of your advisors. You may remember that your country went to war on the opinion of advisors regarding WMDs which turned out to be incorrect. They also had no doubts.

You have been given no evidence. Just opinion. And based on that you are advocating the torture of innocent people. You seem to think that if it turns out that it save lives, it is entirely moral. The question arises, what happens if it turns out to be not justified? A shrug of the shoulders?

And what happens if it turns out that you have saved thousands of lives?

Do you give ten thousand lashes with a leather whip or a wet noodle?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I said no such thing. I left it purposely vague.

In post #40 you said this:

“There are 5 people being detained and your advisors are certain that one of them knows the details of the weapon. And there is no doubt in their minds that the others would know as well.”

You left nothing “purposely vague.”

 

[inocente]

Soooo, are you O.K. will taking guns away from policemen so that only criminals will have them? (Sigh)

Non sequitur, policemen don’t use their guns to torture people.

You’ve seen that you’re totally against your own Church (and btw other churches and other religions) on waterboarding.

You’ve seen that you’re totally against all 185 nations which ratified the UDHR. Waterboarding has also been ruled in breach of the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and George W Bush and others could still face trial for crimes against humanity.

Waterboarding is immoral by all accounts, religious and secular. Might be time to give up the anger and bravado, and listen instead to that still small voice of the Holy Spirit, the voice of love, mercy, reason and grace.

 

[clem456]

And what happens if it turns out that you have saved thousands of lives?

Do you give ten thousand lashes with a leather whip or a wet noodle?

The principles of morality must be applied.
Some of these analyses can be real tough.
It is a tough thing to justify torture.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Waterboarding is immoral by all accounts, religious and secular. Might be time to give up the anger and bravado, and listen instead to that still small voice of the Holy Spirit, the voice of love, mercy, reason and grace.

That will not be a comforting thought when hundreds of nuclear weapons are dropped all over the world because no one had the nerve to take on the perpetrators of the final Armageddon by torturing them into submission.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It is a tough thing to justify torture.

And sometimes a tougher thing not to justify torture as a weapon of self defense.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Non sequitur, policemen don’t use their guns to torture people.

You’ve seen that you’re totally against your own Church (and btw other churches and other religions) on waterboarding.

In your post that I answered you were talking about violence pure and simple, not torture.

Tell me where the Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns waterboarding.

That would be most interesting because it once advocated burning at the stake.

 

[Usagi]

And sometimes a tougher thing not to justify torture as a weapon of self defense.

We may not do evil that good may come of it.

We may, if necessary, take a morally good or neutral action that will have both good and evil results, provided the good is at least proportionate to the evil and the good does not directly result from the evil.

But torture is not a morally neutral action. We may not ever choose evil, even if we foresee good results. The end does not justify the means in Catholic morality.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But torture is not* a morally neutral action. We may not ever choose evil, even if we foresee good results. The end does not justify the means in Catholic morality.

War is an evil. We may, cording to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, choose to engage in a just war with all weapons at our disposal that are commensurate with the end to be obtained.

Waterboarding is not torture for torture’s sake. It is torture for the sake of relieving the sufferings of potential victims, just as any surgeon (before the invention of anesthetics) knew that the torture of sawing off people’s limbs was an act of compassion for the sake of saving people’s lives.

Certainly, in all possible instances, the end does not justify the means, unless there is no other means to achieve the end.

A man desperately needs sex. He decides to rape a woman. End does not justify means.

A man needs food to live. No one will give him any. He decides to steal food or he will die of starvation. End justifies means.

The end sometimes justifies the means, sometimes does not. It is not a universal principle, just as war is evil, but a just war is not evil.

 

[davidv]

War is an evil.

No it is not. Else there would no thing called a just war.

We may, cording to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, choose to engage in a just war with all weapons at our disposal that are commensurate with the end to be obtained.

I think this represents a warped description of the Church teaching on just war. In particular the “…all weapons…” part.

Waterboarding is not torture for torture’s sake. It is torture for the sake of relieving the sufferings of potential victims, just as any surgeon (before the invention of anesthetics) knew that the torture of sawing off people’s limbs was an act of compassion for the sake of saving people’s lives.

Certainly, in all possible instances, the end does not justify the means, unless there is no other means to achieve the end.

A man desperately needs sex. He decides to rape a woman. End does not justify means.

A man needs food to live. No one will give him any. He decides to steal food or he will die of starvation. End justifies means.

The end sometimes justifies the means, sometimes does not. It is not a universal principle, just as war is evil, but a just war is not evil.

 

[o_mlly]

…
A man needs food to live. No one will give him any. He decides to steal food or he will die of starvation. End justifies means. …

I believe a taking of property from one who does not have a reasonable right to own it is not stealing.

CCC #2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one’s disposal and use the property of others.

The end can never justify the means.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I believe a taking of property from one who does not have a reasonable right to own it is not stealing.

CCC #2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and* urgent necessity ***when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one’s disposal and use the property of others.

The end can never justify the means.

I think perhaps inadvertently you have just made my case?

Waterboarding is justified by “urgent necessity,” just as stealing another’s food may be justified by "urgent necessity. "