Moral Absolutism

[WanderAimlessly]

With all the talk about Moral Relativism, I thought it would be nice to have a discussion on Moral Absolutism. Found this definition out on Wikipedia:
Moral absolutism is the position that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act. It is a subset of moral objectivism, and stands in contrast to situational ethics, which hold that the morality of acts depends on the context of the act.

Full Article
The page goes into further detail and includes on of its proponets as Immanuel Kant.

I keep saying that I am an absolutist, but I do not know if completely reconcilable with Catholic Doctrine (especially when it come to Kant).

PF

 

[AlanFromWichita]

WanderAimlessly:

regardless of the context of the act.

Right away I noticed this “regardless of the context of the act.”

That, I believe is strictly at odds with Chruch teachings on many issues, where context is all the difference as to whether it is moral or venial.

For example, same exact act, done in the context of ignorance can be a venial sin, while the same act, done in a fully informed fashion and specificaly with defiant attitude, is a mortal sin.

Is that not what the Church teaches? The severity or venial/mortal depends all upon the mental state of the actor who performed the ostensibly “objectively immoral” act.

This state of mind which cannot be humanly judged, even by the sinner, in an absolute and objective manner?

For these reasons I assert judgments on morals cannot be objectively performed even in accordance to absolute teachings of the Church, thereby any claim to be implementing “moral absolutism” in any given case and coming to a personal judgment, is in error. You can proclaim the truth, and suspect all you want, but you cannot objectively judge so unless you’re worse than the US government supposedly is, you should at least be given the presumption of innocence by any other sinner (brother). Since you can never be judged guilty on an objective basis, this means that it behooves us to maintain a constant presumption of innocence toward all of our brothers.

That is, unless they hurt me or my loved ones or scare me enought that I’ll have to hurt them in self defense. Then it won’t be judgment of their morality, but an attempt to prevent them from doing their damage for which I might have to kill them for (not that I want to but maybe all I can do is shoot them) but for which I still cannot judge.

Remember JPII forgave the dude who shot him. Isn’t there a rule that shooting a pope is like on some special list of Extra Bad Sins? Who knows if the shooter was objectively guilty of mortal sin, but if he was, JPII did not hold him bound to it. We can take a lesson from him when we hold each other bound to our unfortunate assumptions just because they said a harsh word to us.

Alan

 

[tmn379]

AlanFromWichita:

Right away I noticed this “regardless of the context of the act.”

That, I believe is strictly at odds with Chruch teachings on many issues, where context is all the difference as to whether it is moral or venial.

A good example where context will dictate the morality of an action is in the intimate relations between a man and woman… The action itself is held as moral good by the church, but only in the proper context, else it is a grave moral wrong… However, the culpability of the persons involved will depend on their knowledge of what is right and their intent.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

tmn379:

However, the culpability of the persons involved will depend on their knowledge of what is right and their intent.

That’s one thing I never quite got was “culpability.”

If a person commits an act that is a mortal sin based on their knowledge and intent, sometimes I hear it said it is only mortal if they meet the criteria. Other times, I hear that it is objectively mortal, but they may not be culpable. Is this confusion-speak, or is it I who doesn’t understand it?

Sometimes I hear an act is objectively evil (or “destructive” even) but that it may not be a mortal sin. In other words, it was not a mortal sin but someone got hurt anyway. For example, and abortion is objectively evil, but I’m not clear whether it is objectively mortal sin without objective culpability necessarily, or what.

Honestly I’m not that concerned with the terminology, but I often wonder if the terms aren’t actually thrown around rather casually for the uncertain to avoid being painted into a logical corner of some sort.

A cynical view would be that all this lingo allows much subjectivity, but depending on the context we can vary the way we word it to make it sound more or less evil. I trust this isn’t the case, but that’s one way that I can imagine someone responding to the type of confusion I have over those terms.

Alan

 

[john_doran]

AlanFromWichita:

If a person commits an act that is a mortal sin based on their knowledge and intent, sometimes I hear it said it is only mortal if they meet the criteria. Other times, I hear that it is objectively mortal, but they may not be culpable. Is this confusion-speak, or is it I who doesn’t understand it?

Sometimes I hear an act is objectively evil (or “destructive” even) but that it may not be a mortal sin. In other words, it was not a mortal sin but someone got hurt anyway. For example, and abortion is objectively evil, but I’m not clear whether it is objectively mortal sin without objective culpability necessarily, or what.

it’s not “actions” (understood as bits of physical behaviour) that are objective moral evils, but rather the intentions that motivate them. it’s not so much what we do, but why we do it.

abortion defined as something like “the killing of a fetus”, is no more an objective moral evil than any other act of killing. what makes abortion wrong is the *intent *to end the life of the baby (or the unreasonable acceptance of the death as a side-effect of the action one intentionally commits).

in the same way, it’s possible to perform an action that isn’t “objectively” wrong, but with a state of mind that makes it wrong for the person committing the action. for example, if i am sure that jay-walking is gravely wrong, and i do it anyway, then i am guilty of mortally sinning, despite the fact that i am wrong about the gravity of the act.

i think this is a rather typical and unfortunate confusion.

 

[TAS2000]

Guys (and/or gals). You have it a bit confused here. The ACT is what is evil or not, moral or not. The consequences are what is “relative” to the circumstances. If the person were insane, or brainwashed, under the influence, whatever, affects their consequences (punishment/reward). Not the act itself. And you also can’t just limit the act to something like “killing” (very obvious) or even “intentional killing” (not so obvious). For example. Murder is evil, it is intential killling. But killing in defense of one’s life may also be intentional, but not evil. (or it may be). The circumstances define the ACT (murder is NOT self defense) but do not define it’s morality.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

OK, it sounds like I have two main ideas:

One, an act is a mortal sin based on certain (humanly but not Godly) subjective criteria.

The other, an act is a mortal sin based on the act itself, but the sinner may not be culpable, or be considered “guilty” or something.

Why do we have this two tier approach? I’m not trying to change church doctrine, for sake of discussion could we not simply classify an evil or dangerous act as such, and then claim that the alleged perpetrator either is or is not responsible for that damage?

Something like that. In other words, what I want to know when I sin, is did I do something slightly wrong I need to fix or improve, or something mortally wrong I must confess?

I’m not sure that there is any practical implication to the non-adademic whether I am guilty but not culpable, or just not guilty in the first place? Am I punished for sins that I am not culpable for but that I have inadvertently committed? If not, then I just don’t see how they can be sins. Mortal sins, objectively, of mortal implies state of mind. Something just doesn’t add up for this anal-retentive math teacher.

Alan

 

[john_doran]

AlanFromWichita:

OK, it sounds like I have two main ideas:

One, an act is a mortal sin based on certain (humanly but not Godly) subjective criteria.

The other, an act is a mortal sin based on the act itself, but the sinner may not be culpable, or be considered “guilty” or something.

there is no such thing as the latter.

AlanFromWichita:

Why do we have this two tier approach?

we don’t. an act is sinful only to the extent that the intention motivating the act is sinful. period.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

john doran:

there is no such thing as the latter.

we don’t. an act is sinful only to the extent that the intention motivating the act is sinful. period.

If I were allowed to opine on what makes sense to me, I’d agree with you. The opposite opinion seems to exist, if only in my personal perception, but unless I see convince evidence to the contrary I think I’ll go with this model.

It does not bother me if others wish to add words for academic reasons, as long as we aren’t changing the basic issues.

The next question is, when we declare war, should it be against a group of people or nation, such as terrorists or Iraq, or should it be against inanimate objects and concepts, such as drugs, immorality, and terror. How would the strategies differ? If we are to fight something, should it be an idea, a spirit, a tendency, a person, does it depend on the circumstance? Seems a little off so I’ll quit now…

Alan

 

[TAS2000]

try this Alan…

The ACT is neither mortal sin or not. The ACT can be morally wrong, but not be morTal, based on the individual’s circumstances.

Moral and MORTAL are two seperate things.

 

[kev7]

The truth never changes

The truth is absolute!

What kind of idiot would you have to be to think otherwise?

for example.

0+1 = 1

that is true

the problem is that we don’t always know what the equation is.

but when we listen to the word of christ we do.

 

[Philip_P]

Very few people, I suspect, truly consider themselves relativists, but rather claim some form of absolute moral certainty. The disagrements come in interpretation.

Take Kev7s post above, for instance. He says that 0 + 1 = 0, and that this is absolutely true. Certainly a true statement.

However, what if we add some context to the equation, and say you have 0 oranges and 1 apple. Then we could ask, how many pieces of fruit do you have? The answer is 1, for 0 + 1 = 1, as Kev so astutely pointed out for us.

What if, instead, we ask, how many oranges do you have?
The answer is 0. 0 + 1 = 0 in this case.

It depends on what you think the question is and what you’re counting. If two people are looking at the same thing, but asking different questions, they can both arrive at answers that are contradictory and yet both correct.

Of course, life is not a math problem. Look at the “Why Truman dropped the bomb” thread. People are arguing passionately on both sides as to the morality of nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I doubt any of the participants thinks of him or herself as a moral relativist, though they probably see those opposing them as such.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

I’d like to know how Truman felt after the bombs were dropped. Did he feel that he had done absolutely the morally right thing? Or did he feel that his chances of getting elected on his own merits were immeasurably improved?

 

[tmn379]

TAS2000:

Guys (and/or gals). You have it a bit confused here. The ACT is what is evil or not, moral or not. The consequences are what is “relative” to the circumstances. If the person were insane, or brainwashed, under the influence, whatever, affects their consequences (punishment/reward). Not the act itself. And you also can’t just limit the act to something like “killing” (very obvious) or even “intentional killing” (not so obvious). For example. Murder is evil, it is intential killling. But killing in defense of one’s life may also be intentional, but not evil. (or it may be). The circumstances define the ACT (murder is NOT self defense) but do not define it’s morality.

I don’t agree. Circumstances can define an action’s morality. The most obvious example I can think of would be marital relations… Before the wedding, morally evil; after the wedding, morally good. All that has changed is the context of the act. The act itself has not changed (at least not in a physical sense).

In my mind, most actions are morally neutral (but not all). It’s an action with its context and the intent of the involved parties that gives an action its moral nature. Murder is not an action. It’s an action with a whole boatload of context and intent rolled into a fairly small word. Shooting a gun is an action, but without any context you can’t make any judgement about the morality of the act. Did I shoot a duck for my dinner? Was I shooting at a target and missed an accidentally struck a bystander? Was I shooting the burglar who broke into my house? etc…

 

[kev7]

tmn379:

I don’t agree. Circumstances can define an action’s morality. The most obvious example I can think of would be marital relations… Before the wedding, morally evil; after the wedding, morally good. All that has changed is the context of the act. The act itself has not changed (at least not in a physical sense).

In my mind, most actions are morally neutral (but not all). It’s an action with its context and the intent of the involved parties that gives an action its moral nature. Murder is not an action. It’s an action with a whole boatload of context and intent rolled into a fairly small word. Shooting a gun is an action, but without any context you can’t make any judgement about the morality of the act. Did I shoot a duck for my dinner? Was I shooting at a target and missed an accidentally struck a bystander? Was I shooting the burglar who broke into my house? etc…

All actions come from what is in a persons heart. If your actions are morally neutral then that is all that is in your heart. You are not hot or cold but luke warm… God will spit you out of his mouth.

 

[TAS2000]

You don’t get it.

can’t just limit the act to something like “killing” (very obvious) or even “intentional killing” (not so obvious). For example. Murder is evil, it is intential killling. But killing in defense of one’s life may also be intentional, but not evil. (or it may be). The circumstances define the ACT (murder is NOT self defense) but do not define it’s morality.

The ACT is not simply “sex”. The act in question is adultery (wrong) and marital union (right, assuming both partners are agreeable, etc.)

without any context you can’t make any judgement about the morality of the act

EXACTLY!!! The ACT is defined by the circumstances, the morality is not. You have to properly define the ACT before you can make the moral judgement. Also, the morality doesn’t depend on the consequences, or vice versa. An ACT may be morally wrong, but the person who commits the act may not be able to understand, and therefore is not culpable as much as someone who fully understood what they were doing, and the consequences.

 

[kev7]

was it not Pilate that asked jesus, “What is truth?” before he had him crusified?

People should really think about this because it says volumes about people who don’t listen to Christ.

 

[tmn379]

TAS2000:

You don’t get it.

You do realize that your two quotes are from different people, yes.
That confused me for a second. Please, be careful about telling people they don’t get it. It’s a rather insulting thing to say, in my opinion.

TAS2000:

The ACT is not simply “sex”. The act in question is adultery (wrong) and marital union (right, assuming both partners are agreeable, etc.) EXACTLY!!! The ACT is defined by the circumstances, the morality is not. You have to properly define the ACT before you can make the moral judgement. Also, the morality doesn’t depend on the consequences, or vice versa. An ACT may be morally wrong, but the person who commits the act may not be able to understand, and therefore is not culpable as much as someone who fully understood what they were doing, and the consequences.

This is what I was afraid of… We don’t actually disagree. I was trying to make the distinction before, but I’ll try to be more explicit. We are using different definitions of act. I use act to mean the physical sequence of events. You are combining the intent, the context and the action itself into one thing. I’m trying to get at the basic unit of morality (sorry, I’m a scientist, it’s what I do).

Maybe an example from the other extreme might help (or maybe not, we’ll see). Can one commit a mortal sin without actually doing anything? If a man harbors hate in his heart for a specific individual while shuffling a deck of cards, he is in all likelihood in a state of mortal sin, but he has not imparted any moral quality to the act of shuffling the deck of cards. So in this case, the action has nothing to do with the sin. So the sinful act is a mental and spiritual one.

I am not in anyway trying to say that morality is relative to the situation. I am saying (and I believe you agreed), that you can’t assess the morality of an action (my definition), without understanding the context and the intent. Which is why we, fallen children of Adam & Eve, do not make imperfect judges, at best.

I’m willing to concede that my definition of ACT is not particularly useful when discussing morality. I can’t come up with a meaningful word (or phrase) that combines the sense of action, context and intent.

But to get back to the original posters point. If we take the definition of “moral absolutism” in the original post. It doesn’t say that all actions must be judged right or wrong without regard to context. Given that I’d say that the teachings of the Church are much closer to be Moral absolutist than any other moral framework.

I would argue that no one makes moral judgements without respect to any context. One can say that someone has done moral evil by committing adultery. But that word implies a bunch of context already. So, in that case, there is no way for a moral absolutist to say that they have made a moral judgement without context. No one can commit adultery with one’s own spouse.

 

[TAS2000]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse, tmn379. I think we do agree on the big points. I also think you might be confusing things by bringing sin into it. MORAL and MORTAL are two seperate things. One is the action, the other is the consequence of the action. The culpability of the indiviual is something seperate from act itself. Also, we have to remember that wikipedia is not an authoritative source, but a user edited one. The full article claims that:

 Moral absolutism regards actions as inherently or inarguably moral or immoral. Moral absolutists might, for example, judge slavery to be absolutely and inarguably immoral regardless of the beliefs and goals of a culture that engages in these practices.

In a minority of cases, moral absolutism is taken to the more constrained position that actions are moral or immoral regardless of the circumstances in which they occur. Lying, for instance, would always be immoral, even if done to promote some other good (e.g., saving a life). This rare view of moral absolutism might be contrasted with moral consequentialism—the view that the morality of an action depends on the context or consequences of that action.

Now, I would personaly have a problem with this. It says that the type of absolutism that you describe, where the action is considered regardless of the context is a rare view, held by the minority, which i do agree with. But then it implys this could be considered the oposite of consequentialism, which I would disgree with. That theory says the morality of an action is only defined by it’s consequences, so in essence, abortion is morally ok as long as there is no punishment for it. I think it would be more correct to say that the opposite veiw would be moral relativism, not consequentialism. (which is a subset of relativism anyway)

 

[Black_Jaque]

Alan,

I didn’t read the entire thread, but thought I’d take a stab at the “culpability confusion”.

The gravity of the sin judges the action. The culpability of the sin judges the sinner. Mortal sin has both gravity and culpability.

So it may not be a good idea to run around saying someone is or isn’t in mortal sin, as that implies a judgement of the person. More accurately, we could describe this or that as being a grave sin.