Is it OK to kill an innocent person to bring about a higher good?

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bobzills said:
Well wait. Is it OK to commit suicide to bring about a higher good? I thought that suicide was wrong? Are you not committing suicide if you agree to jump in the water? If you are collectively agreeing that on drawing lots, one person will jump in the water, then are you not going along with agreeing to the suicide of that one person? Or are there exceptions?
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“No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for a friend.”

A famous quote indeed.

The example of one Maximilian Maria Kolbe should also inspire people. Look him up!

God bless
 
Well wait. Is it OK to commit suicide to bring about a higher good? I thought that suicide was wrong? Are you not committing suicide if you agree to jump in the water? If you are collectively agreeing that on drawing lots, one person will jump in the water, then are you not going along with agreeing to the suicide of that one person? Or are there exceptions?
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No it doesn’t neccesarily follow, it would be similar to the people who jumped of the Twin towers with the hope of surviving the collapse of the towers. Be careful, the situation must be extraordinary and the person does not bring that situation upon himself, the situation must fall upon the person, in other words you can’t deliberately kill yourself in a normal situation, and neither can you go searching for an extraordinary situation to kill yourself, it must naturally fall upon the person, and there is the critical decision made. Note, the intention must be one of survival not of death. A suicidal person does not intend to live/survive but a person who decides to jump off the craft never willingly decided to fall in the state that he/she are in, it happened outside thier will. If they decide to jump, they must be doing it with the intention of surviving even if death seems probable since they don’t poistively will death. If a person sees the oppurtunity to commit suicide on the craft then that would be a sin if they meet the 3 requirements of a mortal sin.
 
cerad said:
Killing the person would really be a waste. Better to chop off one limb at a time and use it as a food source. As long as the person stays alive then the meat will be nice and fresh.
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Do these characters have anything they could use to electrocute or poison the sharks ? How big are the sharks ? If they are very young, maybe they can be killed without trouble. Or outswum - especially if dry land is not too far away.​

 
cerad said:
Now that’s not very nice. I would have expected that Catholics would be very comfortable with cannibalism.
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cerad,

Off topic, I know, but you managed to miss the mark twice with one shot, once semi-deliberately, and once unwittingly.

Whatever you might think about the Eucharist, I think you probably know enough that we don’t think it is cannibalism. So, you missed the target there, but deliberately for humorous effect.

But, even were there some sort of truth to the comment about the Eucharist being cannibalism (which there is not) you would have made a serious blunder in thinking that Catholics would be comfortable with it. Comfort is for your couch. 👍

Perhaps you would have done better to have said Catholics would accept it. In the sense the rational man accepts the lion in the jungle – only a fool is comfortable with it. 😛

VC
 
bobzills said:
Of course, our first answer to this is no. It is not OK to kill an innocent person. But we have heard of some exceptions, such as self-defense. But in that case, the person is not innocent, but guilty of trying to kill you. But consider the following scenario:
Your cruise ship has sunk and you and ten other people are now in a small lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Unfortunately, the lifeboat has a capacity of ten people, and it will sink soon with all eleven people on board unless one person gets off. And the water around you is infested with hungry man eating sharks, so the first person to leave the lifeboat for the water will surely die. Now the captain has a gun with one bullet. It is no good for the captain to give up his life since he is the only one with the necessary navigation skills to save everyone else in the lifeboat by guiding the boat to safety. It would not work if the captain were to use the one bullet to kill a shark, because there are literally tens of them swarming around the boat. So should he then let the boat sink and then all eleven will die, being eaten by the sharks, or should he use his bullet to kill one innocent person and get him or her off the boat to save the remaining ten? In this last case, who should be chosen to die?
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If I am not on the boat:
-volunteers should be called for to sacrifice themselves.
-if no-one volunteers, just kill a random person(except the captain) to save the 10.

If I am on the boat:
-I ask for a painless death - to be shot in the head.

I see that a lot of people are avoiding the dilemma by going “outside the box” as the OP put it, e.g. suggesting that they could swim to shore.

to me, the most important thing is to save the most amout of people (10).
 
Tietjen said:
Well, first a lifeboat that has a max person limit may very well support 1 additional individual. Secondly, if the lifeboat does not support that 1 extra person then it is not up to the captain to decide who goes overboard. I’ll volunteer as I have had a good life and would leave this world with nothing left undone. Of course at about the same time I jump overboard, I’ll be hoping that a school of tuna swims by and heads further out to sea causing the sharks to follow. 😃
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Unfortunately, you would probably end up in hell since your confidence in your own ‘good’ would leave you unjustified in God’s sight. However, if God were pleased to deliver your soul from Hell, then just prior to thrusting your life to the sharks, He would move you to beat your breast and cry out, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.”
 
Highwayhound said:
“No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for a friend.”

A famous quote indeed.

The example of one Maximilian Maria Kolbe should also inspire people. Look him up!
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This is good advice.
LumenGent said:
No it doesn’t neccesarily follow, it would be similar to the people who jumped of the Twin towers with the hope of surviving the collapse of the towers. Be careful, the situation must be extraordinary and the person does not bring that situation upon himself, the situation must fall upon the person, in other words you can’t deliberately kill yourself in a normal situation, and neither can you go searching for an extraordinary situation to kill yourself, it must naturally fall upon the person, and there is the critical decision made. Note, the intention must be one of survival not of death. A suicidal person does not intend to live/survive but a person who decides to jump off the craft never willingly decided to fall in the state that he/she are in, it happened outside thier will. If they decide to jump, they must be doing it with the intention of surviving even if death seems probable since they don’t poistively will death. If a person sees the oppurtunity to commit suicide on the craft then that would be a sin if they meet the 3 requirements of a mortal sin.
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I think that you have given here a good explanation of the situation when one has to put his life on the line to save another… The intention in such an extreme case is all important in determining the morality of dying to save the lives of others.
 
Wild_Boar said:
Unfortunately, you would probably end up in hell since your confidence in your own ‘good’ would leave you unjustified in God’s sight. However, if God were pleased to deliver your soul from Hell, then just prior to thrusting your life to the sharks, He would move you to beat your breast and cry out, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.”
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I would thank you kind brother to leave my judgment in the hands of my creator. I would not judge your eternal destination because I am not God and God alone judges the hearts of His creations.

When I said that “I have had a good life” that was not saying that I judged myself good. I meant sir, that I have lived a full life. I have married and experienced love. I have raised my children and watched as they became adult Catholic men and productive citizens. I have experienced privilege as well as suffering and all along the way I praised God for allowing me to be a part of His creation.

Why are you here passing judgement and assuming the worst of men? Have faith little brother, God loves you too. 😉
 
mlchance said:
If the act is an evil one, good intentions don’t change the act into a good one.

– Mark L. Chance.
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As an abstract rule, you are correct. However, we are in a hypothetical in which the act is defined – pushing him off the lifeboat – which is not an intrinsically evil act. Therefore, the morality of the act – good or evil – is determined by its effects (objects), intent and circumstances.

That one effect of the act is the saving of human life is sufficient to determine the act potentially good. That the good effect outweighs the bad effect is sufficient to retain the potential of a goodness of the act. That the actor intends the good effect is sufficient to determine the act, in fact, morally good.

Peace,
O’Malley
 
bobzills said:
Well wait. Is it OK to commit suicide to bring about a higher good? I thought that suicide was wrong? Are you not committing suicide if you agree to jump in the water? If you are collectively agreeing that on drawing lots, one person will jump in the water, then are you not going along with agreeing to the suicide of that one person? Or are there exceptions?
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So…Christ committed suicide by allowing himself to be sacrificed on the cross?
 
Contarini said:
I’m not quite sure what you mean by that. In the light of the first sentence, the second sentence seems to be saying that an action directed toward a good end should not be labeled evil. That is consequentialism and is in my opinion a serious moral error (the Catholic Church agrees with me, I’m quite sure). I agree that the intention makes a huge difference–hence my use of the word “lesser.”

It seems to me that forcing someone else to sacrifice his life, even indirectly, is at least questionable. Perhaps I should have said “less clearly evil,” but my point was that even if it is evil it is not direct murder and thus of lesser gravity (because your intention is not to kill the person but to save everyone else, and it’s always possible that the person might somehow survive).

Edwin
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No, this is not an application of the teleological theories of “consequentialism” or “proportionalism” both of which are condemned by the Catholic Church because both systems hold that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behavior. (See *Vertitas Splendor *p75.)

The act is morally good meeting the principles of the double effect. Perhaps, because one focuses only on the bad effect which is permitted, one misses the goodness inherent in the good effect which is intended.

Peace,
O’Malley
 
Newbie2 said:
So…Christ committed suicide by allowing himself to be sacrificed on the cross?
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God is governed by His Own rules. We were only made “in His image” and “in His likeness.” We aren’t God photocopies. So, our rules differ.

When God created us to engage in a love relationship with Him here and in Heaven, the logic which is “in and of God” required that we be free to walk away from Him. However, innate in that design is, (temptation + free will) x 0 grace = failure every time. That’s the lesson of the story of Adam and Eve. However, God’s Own perfect justice functionally says, “NO! NO ONE GETS PENNIES FROM HEAVEN! SOMEONE HAS GOT TO PAY FOR THAT SAVING GRACE!” God the Son functionally said, “I WILL! I’LL PAY!” God the Father functionally said, “I LOVINGLY ACCEPT YOUR OFFER, AND LKOVINGLY OFFER YOU TO SUFFER AND DIE TO PAY THE PRICE FOR SAVING GRACE EXACTED BY OUR OWN JUSTICE.”

As a consequence, Christ was born to die.
 
Tietjen said:
When I said that “I have had a good life” that was not saying that I judged myself good. I meant sir, that I have lived a full life. I have married and experienced love. I have raised my children and watched as they became adult Catholic men and productive citizens. I have experienced privilege as well as suffering and all along the way I praised God for allowing me to be a part of His creation.

Why are you here passing judgement and assuming the worst of men? Have faith little brother, God loves you too. 😉
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Oh, I wasn’t making an assumption, I misunderstood you. Sorry for that. I didn’t mean to imply that you were worse than anybody else, but only as deserving of Hell as every other man, save Jesus of course. And that our only hope of knowing that death will usher us into Heaven is in what Christ had done and not ourselves.
 
bobzills said:
The unfortunate situation is that the boat will sink with all eleven on board and everyone will be eaten by the sharks, and the only way to prevent that is to lighten the boat by one person. So, from the answers given here then, the moral solution to this is to let the boat sink and all eleven die, rather than to require that only one person die and the other ten be saved? There seems to be something wrong with this solution of letting all eleven die, although I agree it does seem to be the one which is dictated by appealing to the moral principles we know: We are not allowed to do evil to bring about a higher good.
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The Pharisees framed their argument the same way… why should the entire Jewish people suffer when Rome could be appeased by the death of just one…?
John 18:14

Now Caiphas was he who had given the counsel to the Jews: That it was expedient that one man should die for the people.
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bobzills said:
Well wait. Is it OK to commit suicide to bring about a higher good? I thought that suicide was wrong? Are you not committing suicide if you agree to jump in the water? If you are collectively agreeing that on drawing lots, one person will jump in the water, then are you not going along with agreeing to the suicide of that one person? Or are there exceptions?
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Suicide refers to “despair”, and is the supreme act of selfishness. The scenario on this thread refers to selflessness and sacrifice, and is the greatest act of love, according to Jesus.
 
LumenGent said:
No it doesn’t neccesarily follow, it would be similar to the people who jumped of the Twin towers with the hope of surviving the collapse of the towers. Be careful, the situation must be extraordinary and the person does not bring that situation upon himself, the situation must fall upon the person, in other words you can’t deliberately kill yourself in a normal situation, and neither can you go searching for an extraordinary situation to kill yourself, it must naturally fall upon the person, and there is the critical decision made. Note, the intention must be one of survival not of death. A suicidal person does not intend to live/survive but a person who decides to jump off the craft never willingly decided to fall in the state that he/she are in, it happened outside thier will. If they decide to jump, they must be doing it with the intention of surviving even if death seems probable since they don’t poistively will death. If a person sees the oppurtunity to commit suicide on the craft then that would be a sin if they meet the 3 requirements of a mortal sin.
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I disagree. Jesus explicitly stated that the greatest love is to lay down one’s life for another, and He willingly did it. If someone knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will be shark fodder, yet, he is doing this as an act of love for the others on the boat, he is not intending his survival, but death for the benefit of the others. Jesus didn’t intend to survive the cross - He intended to die. Would you characterize His crucifixion as suicide?

I understand what you are saying by “intent to survive,” but that becomes clouded if the intent is that “others survive”.
 
o_mlly said:
I would rather think that Christ was born to testify to the Truth and having done so, we nailed Him to a tree.

Peace,
O’Malley
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Had Christ only done that, there would be no grace.
 
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