Natural Law

[anthony022071]

This thread continues a discussion on another thread about natural law and how it is discerned. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=7207310#post7207310 My position is that natural law exists,that it is created by God and is contituted into man’s conscience,human nature and body,and that it can be discerned through reason. But since it is given by God,it ought to be understood in light of what we know about God and man through Catholic doctrine. When natural law is understood apart from God and his creation of man,it loses its authority as a concept. It becomes merely a matter of common sense,human feeling or sensibility,not divine commandment with judgement attending upon it. In the 17th and 18th centuries,philosophers understood natural law in a deistic or secular way,rather than in the way in which Catholic,scholastic philosophers understood it. They did this because of their dislike for scholastic philosophy,their preference for urbane pagan philosophy (especially Cicero and Seneca) and because the general tendency of the times was toward secularization. They thought that natural law was more credible as something inherent in humanity than as something to which God holds us accountable. But natural law did not really become more credible,it just lost its force as an idea. And in the course of the 19th century,philosophers ceased to take natural law seriously,because they thought along the lines of naturalistic historical process and evolution rather than the doctrine of creation. In the 20th century, anthropologists and scientists explained the moral sense as a product of human evolutionary process.
Even though it is possible to discern natural law through reason alone,it should also be understood in light of the Catholic doctrine of creation,simply because the doctrine is true and it is necessary for a more thorough understanding of natural law.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

anthony
*
Even though it is possible to discern natural law through reason alone,it should also be understood in light of the Catholic doctrine of creation,simply because the doctrine is true and it is necessary for a more thorough understanding of natural law. *

Your point is well taken if you are speaking to the choir. But secularism is rife, and so the only way to reach atheists and agnostics is through common sense and reason. Since they have abandoned both when they rejected the idea of God, it is almost a hopeless quest to reason with them. I am convinced that atheism is rooted not in reason, but in a desire to rebel against a higher authority than our own. Atheism is fundamentally egoistic, since it sets up man as an authority on all things. It is also morally suicidal, since it acknowledges from this that the only real authority in the end is the man with the most battalions. There is no higher authority to whom we can appeal. Ask Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Tse Tung, all atheists.

 

[anthony022071]

Charlemagne,

I agree that atheists and agnostics have abandoned common sense and reason by rejecting God. Their rejection of God has to do with original sin,God’s withdrawl of grace,and the naturalistic way of thinking and viewing the world. To atheists,common sense and reason is naturalistic,and naturalistic explanations are enlightenment. So when believers try to persuade them to believe in God using rational arguments,it sounds to them like logic-twisting. In order to lead atheists to belief,they must be convinced of the irrationality of their naturalistic view of reality. Atheists do not believe in natural law,they only recognize morality based upon their feelings.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

anthony

Atheists do not believe in natural law,they only recognize morality based upon their feelings.

Agreed. The role of feeling in shaping atheistic views is often denied by atheists. They want to make it strictly a matter of intellectual debate. Since they can always answer argument for argument, there is a perpetual standoff. But since they can never really convince anyone else, or even themselves, that intellect can prove there is no God, in the back of their minds all they have to rely on is the desire that there be no God. Why this desire exists may differ from one atheist to another, but the natural law must be overcome, because the idea of a law implies the idea of a lawgiver. Thus natural law is replaced by whim, caprice, desire, call it what you will. But there is no objective base for truth or morals with most atheists. Not even reason can prevail, because one man’s reason is another man’s foolishness.

 

[anthony022071]

anthony022071

I don’t see how that follows. The pagan philosophers used reason alone to discern the tenets of natural law because they did not know and believe the Jewish scriptures. The Christian theologians and philosophers used both philosophical reasoning as well as the scriptures to discern the tenets of natural law because they were influenced by pagan philosophers. The scriptures do not spell out exactly how God’s laws for man,or what is natural and fitting for man (like the need to give and receive affection and to have physical freedom),are inscribed upon the human body and mind,or how his dominion and attributes are manifested in nature. That is for curious philosophers to discover through observation and philosophical reasoning,and there is much more to be said about those things than has been said.

john21652

Yes you are right. However I think we are arguing around the same idea. My point was that in places like ancient Greece and Rome, the Natural Law was well and truly under development and it was so happeneing in the absence of The Ten Commandments, the Bible, and later, Christianity. However, since Aquinas, there is a very widely held beleif that the Natural Law has a totally Theological basis. That is not correct, because of the very ancient recognition and development of Natural Law. Natural Law predates Christianity, which is actually an argument in its favour. Along came men of the ilk of Grotius and others who showed that God (theology) could be taken out of the arguments for the validity or otherwise of Natural Law and even when that was done, Natural Law could still be verified and still stood up as a basis for a rational, coherent moral philosophy. Not only did it stand up to scrutiny without a theological underpinning, but it was quite obious that it existed!! In other words, you could kill off God by argument, but you couldn’t kill off Natural Law! They were doing this because secularists were beginning to mount arguments against Natural Law that began with demolishing the theological foundations of Natural Law. This was particularly so when Bentham and Mill espoused their Utilitarian philosophies.

We ought to make a distinction between natural law as a concept that developed in intellectual history and as something that really exists. Natural law,as a concept,does have a theological basis,since the theological basis (God) is there. Even though natural law was recognized before Christianity and perhaps even before Moses,this does not take away from the fact that the theological basis was always there to be discovered.

Natural law did not stand up to scrutiny in the long run. It was abandoned by most of the prominent philosophers of the 19th century along with the traditional belief in God and the doctrine of creation. The natural law of some of the 18th century philosophers was based upon human sensibility and common sense,which is not a secure or authoritative foundation for the belief in natural law. The same is true with Kant’s “categorical imperative”. 18th century notions of sensibility and common sense were useless to philosophers like Hegel,Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

anthony

*Natural law did not stand up to scrutiny in the long run. It was abandoned by most of the prominent philosophers of the 19th century along with the traditional belief in God and the doctrine of creation. The natural law of some of the 18th century philosophers was based upon human sensibility and common sense,which is not a secure or authoritative foundation for the belief in natural law. The same is true with Kant’s “categorical imperative”. 18th century notions of sensibility and common sense were useless to philosophers like Hegel,Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. *

All this is very interesting but what is the point of it? Hegel, obscure as he is, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either in the long run. And except for a few pithy insights, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche can hardly be said to qualify as practitioners of common sense. I would not be the least bit impressed by their rejection of natural law, as both of them seem to me to have suffered from abnormal psychological quirks so pronounced as to make their judgments on any subject suspect. No wonder at all that Hitler was so drawn to Nietzsche and his idea of the Superman.

Every great idea, like the shores of the sea, has its recurring high and low tides. The natural law principle, if it has suffered decline and neglect in the last two centuries, is due to be revived in a world that desperately needs to restore common sense in law, politics, economics, psychology, and morality. We are sinking in the swamp of collective subjectivism, and only the returning triumph of natural law is the lifeboat that can save us.

 

[anthony022071]

All this is very interesting but what is the point of it? Hegel, obscure as he is, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either in the long run. And except for a few pithy insights, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche can hardly be said to qualify as practitioners of common sense.

My point was that the deistic and secularized views of natural law did not hold up well with the decline of belief in God among intellectuals. Natural law needs to be understood as being given by God and as something to which God holds us accountable.

 

[John21652]

My point was that the deistic and secularized views of natural law did not hold up well with the decline of belief in God among intellectuals. Natural law needs to be understood as being given by God and as something to which God holds us accountable.

Anthony, Natural Law does not need God to exist and to be still discernable by by human beens. Answer this question. Why did a belief in Natural Law arise in the first place in the absence of a belief in God? Plato and Aristotle weren’t Catholics. Neither was Cicero! The Stoics weren’t either, but they did figure out that some type of divine providence lay behind it all. If there was a decline in the beleif in Natural Law, it can be tied to the rise in urbanism, Think of the massive social changes that had taken place up to the time someone really tried to punch a whole in Natural Law theory. That person was Jeremy Bentham. His pleasure and pain calculus and his beleief that human relations were a ‘fictitious entity’ were the antithesis of Natural Law theory. He was a philosophical radical and a product of his times. Unfortunately, his Utilitarian ethics infiltrated governments and it is only now being realised just how savage moral relativism can be with its illogical outcomes.

 

[John21652]

Here’s a way to test your natural moral compass. A scenario which is a true story -

The Warsaw Ghetto Doctor In the late summer of 1942, 22 year old Adina Blady Szwajger was working as a doctor at Warsaw’s Children’s Hospital. It was no ordinary summer, though. Some 18 mnonths earlier, the Nazi occupiers of Poland had shut the gates on Warsaw’s Jewish population creating what is now known as the Warsaw ghetto. As a result, Szwajger had for at least a year worked in conditions of almost unimaginable suffering as the hospital filled with children dying of starvation and tuberculosis. In her memoir, she talks of “famished skeletons” lapping up the slops of a spilled soup pot from the floor; and of the attempt to live a “principled life” in circumstances of the utmost moral depravity.
But in August 1942, it became impossible to go on. The Germans had begun to round up the Jewish population, loading them into cattle trucks and shipping them off to the death camps, where their fate was to meet a grisly end. By this point, the hospital was no longer functioning as a hospital - there were “no children’s wards, just the sick, the wounded and the dying everywhere.”

           The moment which came to define Szwajger's life arrived when the Nazis turned up                 at the hospital, and began the brutal process of shutting it down. A nurse begged                 Szwajger to end her elderly mother's life: "Doctor...I can't do it. I beg you, please.                 I don't want them to shoot her in bed, and she can't walk." Dr. Szwajger administered                 morphine, first attending to "families of staff." Then she went to the ward which                 housed the smallest infants, and one by one gave each child a lethal dose. "Just                 as, during those two years of real work in the hospital, I had bent down over the                 little beds, so now I poured this last medicine into those tiny mouths...And downstairs,                 there was screaming because the...Germans were already there, taking the sick from                 the wards to the cattle trucks." She told the older children "that this medicine                 was going to make their pain disappear...So they lay down and after a few minutes                 - I don't know how many - but the next time I went into that room, they were asleep."
                          Adina Szwajger took the lives of her young patients as the final act of what she                 saw as her duty of care, in order to spare them ignominious and certain death at                 the hands of the Nazis. But, of course, the infants and children did not and could                 not have consented. The issue, then, is whether she did the right thing. Was she                 morally justified in taking the lives of her patients in order to save them from                 their fate at the hands of the Nazis?

Was Adina Szwajger morally justified in taking the lives of her young patients?

 

[anthony022071]

Anthony, Natural Law does not need God to exist and to be still discernable by by human beens. Answer this question. Why did a belief in Natural Law arise in the first place in the absence of a belief in God?

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6U.HTM

I. The Natural Moral Law

1954 Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good.

The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:

The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.5

1955 The “divine and natural” law6 shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. the natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature:

Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring.7

The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.8

1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:

For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense … To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.9

1957 Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.

1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;10 it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. the rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies:

Theft is surely punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface.11

1959 The natural law, the Creator’s very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.

1960 The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error."12 The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.

 

[John21652]

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6U.HTM

I. The Natural Moral Law

1954 Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good.

The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:

The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.5

1955 The “divine and natural” law6 shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. the natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature:

Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring.7

The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.8

1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:

For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense … To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.9

1957 Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.

1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;10 it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. the rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies:

Theft is surely punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface.11

1959 The natural law, the Creator’s very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.

1960 The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error."12 The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.

Anthony, you posted this in response to a post of mine you quoted. However, your posting of this does not in any way, shape or form, answer the question I posted.

You have given us the Catholic view of Natural Law. What do you say to Fred Nurks who comes along and says “That’s piffle. I don’t beleive in your God. I am a Utilitarian and its ethical principles are what’s right for me. What’s more, I am a gay man and sometimes I go for sex with my dog. I am a good and honest Utilitarian and I think your natural law is bunkum, dreamt up by catholic nutters who want to rule every one.”
No good posting what you have posted for Fred Nurks. How will you convince him, Anthony? Certainly not by posting any more Catholic doctrine.

“Furthermore”, says Fred Nurks, “In that example above, I think those sailors did the right thing in killing and eating that kid.” Now, Anthony, can you give us a Natural Law answer, even drawing from what you have posted from the catechism, to that scenario and refute the Utilitarian. Use ‘God’ and Fred will throw your argument overboard in a blink.

 

[4Horsemen]

Was Adina Szwajger morally justified in taking the lives of her young patients?

No. It is wrong to do that which is morally evil, even to obtain a moral good.

 

[anthony022071]

Anthony, you posted this in response to a post of mine you quoted. However, your posting of this does not in any way, shape or form, answer the question I posted.

You have given us the Catholic view of Natural Law. What do you say to Fred Nurks who comes along and says “That’s piffle. I don’t beleive in your God. I am a Utilitarian and its ethical principles are what’s right for me. What’s more, I am a gay man and sometimes I go for sex with my dog. I am a good and honest Utilitarian and I think your natural law is bunkum, dreamt up by catholic nutters who want to rule every one.”
No good posting what you have posted for Fred Nurks. How will you convince him, Anthony? Certainly not by posting any more Catholic doctrine.

You asked “Why did a belief in Natural Law arise in the first place in the absence of a belief in God?” The answer is that God has written the natural law upon the human heart and conscience. So even people who do not believe in God or natural law still have a sense of God’s laws for human behavior,although it is obscured by original and personal sin. An atheist may not want to believe that his sense of personal morality has to do with natural law,but it does. To have conscience is to have a sense of right and wrong,which comes from God. If he will not believe in God,then there is little possibility of convincing him of natural law,since morality has been explained as a matter of sensibility and a result of human evolution.

One of the quotes that the Catechism uses is from Cicero:
“For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense … To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.” 9

“Furthermore”, says Fred Nurks, “In that example above, I think those sailors did the right thing in killing and eating that kid.” Now, Anthony, can you give us a Natural Law answer, even drawing from what you have posted from the catechism, to that scenario and refute the Utilitarian. Use ‘God’ and Fred will throw your argument overboard in a blink.

Killing an innocent person can never be the right thing to do. What would be right about it? The survival of the sailors is a separate thing from the act of killing an innocent person. If it is right to kill an innocent person,why would it be right for his killers to live? What is right about anyone continuing to live?

 

[John21652]

You asked “Why did a belief in Natural Law arise in the first place in the absence of a belief in God?” The answer is that God has written the natural law upon the human heart and conscience. So even people who do not believe in God or natural law still have a sense of God’s laws for human behavior,although it is obscured by original and personal sin. An atheist may not want to believe that his sense of personal morality has to do with natural law,but it does. To have conscience is to have a sense of right and wrong,which comes from God. If he will not believe in God,then there is little possibility of convincing him of natural law,since morality has been explained as a matter of sensibility and a result of human evolution.

One of the quotes that the Catechism uses is from Cicero:
“For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense … To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.” 9

Killing an innocent person can never be the right thing to do. What would be right about it? The survival of the sailors is a separate thing from the act of killing an innocent person. If it is right to kill an innocent person,why would it be right for his killers to live? What is right about anyone continuing to live?

If you go here you can read the judgement of the Queen’s High Bench.

THE QUEEN v. DUDLEY AND STEPHENS.

1884 Dec. 9.

LORD COLERIDGE, C.J., GROVE AND DENMAN, JJ. POLLOCK AND HUDDLESTON, BB.

The Judges state that

Now, except for the purpose of testing how far the conservation of a man’s own life is in all cases and under all circumstances, an absolute, unqualified, and paramount duty, we exclude from our consideration all the incidents of war. We are dealing with a case of private homicide, not one imposed upon men in the service of their Sovereign and in the defence of their country. Now it is admitted that the deliberate killing of this unoffending and unresisting boy was clearly murder, unless the killing can be justified by some well-recognised excuse admitted by the law. It is further admitted that there was in this case no such excuse, unless the killing was justified by what has been called “necessity.” But the temptation to the act which existed here was not what the law has ever called necessity. Nor is this to be regretted. Though law and morality are not the same, and many things may be immoral which are not necessarily illegal, yet the absolute divorce of law from morality would be of fatal consequence…To preserve one’s life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it.

They go on to give their verdict, which is

It is therefore our duty to declare that the prisoners’ act in this case was wilful murder, that the facts as stated in the verdict are no legal justification of the homicide; and to say that in our unanimous opinion the prisoners are upon this special verdict guilty of murder

The good Natural Law argument is that the ends don’t justify the means. The Utilitarian would have gladly sacrificed the boy to save the lives of the others.

 

[John21652]

Here’s a more complicated ethical issue.

The Runaway Trains

Two locomotives are hurtling out of control down adjacent tracks, Track A and Track B. The locomotive on Track A is some thirty metres or so in front of the locomotive on Track B. Neither of the locomotives can be stopped.

You have a big problem. You’re stuck, with two work workmates, a little way down from the locomotive on Track A. Unless it derails, which is possible, but extremely unlikely, the locomotive on Track A is going to hit and kill you all. You can’t get off the track (there’s wire fencing separating you from the embankment on one side and Track B on the other).

However, there is one thing you can do to save your own life and the lives of your two workmates: you can press a button in a control box that will divert the locomotive so that it crosses over to Track B just before it reaches you. But there’s a problem. Another member of your workgang is stuck on Track B adjacent to you. He is facing an identical situation: he can’t get off the track, and is almost bound to be struck by the locomotive on Track B. He does not have access to a control box, so there’s no way he can prevent the locomotive on Track B from striking and killing him. The only way he gets out of this alive is if Locomotive B derails, which is possible, but extremely unlikely.

So this is the situation. If you divert the locomotive on Track A so that it runs down Track B, you will save your own life and the lives of your two workmates, but only at the expense of the life of a third workmate who is stuck on Track B, since you will inevitably cause the locomotive to hit him. However, it is also true that it is overwhelmingly likely that he is going to die anyway, since he has no way of avoiding being hit by the second locomotive that is already running down Track B.

So the question is would you be morally justified in diverting the locomotive?

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I am an empath, and I can see myself in a few of these situations. They will keep me up with nightmares tonight.

I read about one female doctor who was rounded up by the Nazis for being a Jew. While she was interned in a camp, she aborted many babies for other women. The Nazis were performing hideous experiments on pregnant women, and torturing babies that they cut from the womb. She felt that she was preventing worst harm and pain to the mothers as well as the infants.

After the war she became an ob doctor. She said she felt a little more “forgiven” by God for every baby she brought into this world. She said she had felt horrible by what she felt like she had to do during the war, and was tormented by the memories. She never, ever commited an abortion again, and was most pro-life to the end of her days.

These are terrible things that we humans sometimes have to make choices with. Sometimes it is extremely hard to follow a law that says one cannot do a wrong to prevent a worse wrong. But I believe in a merciful God, Who will look at our souls when we ask Him for forgiveness.

 

[4Horsemen]

I am an empath, and I can see myself in a few of these situations. They will keep me up with nightmares tonight.

I read about one female doctor who was rounded up by the Nazis for being a Jew. While she was interned in a camp, she aborted many babies for other women. The Nazis were performing hideous experiments on pregnant women, and torturing babies that they cut from the womb. She felt that she was preventing worst harm and pain to the mothers as well as the infants.

After the war she became an ob doctor. She said she felt a little more “forgiven” by God for every baby she brought into this world. She said she had felt horrible by what she felt like she had to do during the war, and was tormented by the memories. She never, ever commited an abortion again, and was most pro-life to the end of her days.

These are terrible things that we humans sometimes have to make choices with. Sometimes it is extremely hard to follow a law that says one cannot do a wrong to prevent a worse wrong. But I believe in a merciful God, Who will look at our souls when we ask Him for forgiveness.

Pardon me, but don’t you think that an abortion is actual and physical torture for an unborn baby? In fact, it is the ultimate torture. Read up on the different forms of abortion. But I do empathize with the doctor who felt she was doing a moral good. I’ve considered the situation in another way. What if I were protecting my family from a gang of viscious criminals outside and knowing that it was only minutes before they’d enter and rape and murder? Should I kill my family? Or try to continue in efforts to shoot the villains even though I am outnumbered 10-1?

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

Pardon me, but don’t you think that an abortion is actual and physical torture for an unborn baby? In fact, it is the ultimate torture. Read up on the different forms of abortion. But I do empathize with the doctor who felt she was doing a moral good. I’ve considered the situation in another way. What if I were protecting my family from a gang of viscious criminals outside and knowing that it was only minutes before they’d enter and rape and murder? Should I kill my family? Or try to continue in efforts to shoot the villains even though I am outnumbered 10-1?

I DO think that abortion is actual, physical torture for an unborn baby! I have been part of the pro-life movement since 1973. I do know the most horrible and awful ways that we can kill our own children. Please do not consider me naive.

I believe this doctor would have performed the abortions as humanely and as painlessly as possible. Her object was to spare the babies the slow, excruciating experiments and torture the Nazis would have performed. Prehaps you have read about Dr. Josef Mengele and the horrendous things he did.

As to your second situation, I cannot say with all honesty what I would actually do. However, as a mother and grandmother, I think I might kill my own family, to spare my children or grandchildren the absolute horror of being raped and murdered, or worse, having them watch each other be raped, tortured, and killed. There are some things in this life that are worse than death. Then I would pray to God that He have mercy on my soul for having taken such actions, and allow myself to be the one raped and tortured in their place.

I cannot lie to all of you, and claim I would be a perfect Christian Catholic in any of these horrible situations. I am a human being, with all the flaws that came with the Fall of Man.

I have had my son nearly die in my arms, choking to death, from anaphylactic shock, and I still sleep with a light and the radio on, to stave off the nightmares more than 10 years later. I have nightmares about aborted babies and horrible dreams about situations like you have described. I am not naive, just sensitive.

When I was a child, my family was in a very dangerous, potentially fatal situation, with only my father to get us out of it. My mother made a decision that we would all die together, if that were our fate, rather than undermine my father’s confidence that he could get us out. Now, was she wrong for risking her children in that way?

 

[4Horsemen]

I DO think that abortion is actual, physical torture for an unborn baby! I have been part of the pro-life movement since 1973. I do know the most horrible and awful ways that we can kill our own children. Please do not consider me naive.

I believe this doctor would have performed the abortions as humanely and as painlessly as possible. Her object was to spare the babies the slow, excruciating experiments and torture the Nazis would have performed. Prehaps you have read about Dr. Josef Mengele and the horrendous things he did.

As to your second situation, I cannot say with all honesty what I would actually do. However, as a mother and grandmother, I think I might kill my own family, to spare my children or grandchildren the absolute horror of being raped and murdered, or worse, having them watch each other be raped, tortured, and killed. There are some things in this life that are worse than death. Then I would pray to God that He have mercy on my soul for having taken such actions, and allow myself to be the one raped and tortured in their place.

I cannot lie to all of you, and claim I would be a perfect Christian Catholic in any of these horrible situations. I am a human being, with all the flaws that came with the Fall of Man.

I have had my son nearly die in my arms, choking to death, from anaphylactic shock, and I still sleep with a light and the radio on, to stave off the nightmares more than 10 years later. I have nightmares about aborted babies and horrible dreams about situations like you have described. I am not naive, just sensitive.

When I was a child, my family was in a very dangerous, potentially fatal situation, with only my father to get us out of it. My mother made a decision that we would all die together, if that were our fate, rather than undermine my father’s confidence that he could get us out. Now, was she wrong for risking her children in that way?

Peggy in Burien,

I certainly don’t mean to make light of your pro-life convictions. I just want to get to the basic moral/ethical issues involved. Maybe God allows differences of opinion as long as we have the same goal of trying to help our families and our fellowmen, but I don’t know. Although there are absolutes, He considers our culpability regarding our actions and choices. Here’s the way I see it.

Seeing the doctor was concerned about the fate of the unborn children in their mothers’ womb that they not suffer the excruciating pain from torture and experiments of the Nazi’s (and rightly so IFshe knew specifically that was the case), why did the good doctor not consider the terrible torture the women would have to go through as well and kill them before they could suffer excruciating pain? Or was she ordered to kill the babies or be killed herself, but she chose the easier way out? I don’t know her motives, of course, but if the logic is taken to its end, we could say, she (anyone sympathetic) should have killed all the Jews, and others, going to be used as experiments? Or not knowing who was scheduled for the gas chambers or torture, should she euthanize all, although not all would be chosen for torture. That’s the reasoning behind the “culture of death”, the pro-choicers who want to prevent unwanted babies suffering from want and abuse (even though they don’t know in advance just what these children may or may not suffer). Also, we don’t know how God may play a role in minimizing suffering. To me it looks like the doctor was playing God. Whether she realized it or not is another question.

As for your family situation, I can’t comment on that because I don’t know the situation, but I would say that it’s imperative to save someone rather than consider someone’s
“confidence.” But, like I said, I can’t judge anyone’s actions. All I can do is give my opinion.

 

[4Horsemen]

Here’s a more complicated ethical issue.

The Runaway Trains

Two locomotives are hurtling out of control down adjacent tracks, Track A and Track B. The locomotive on Track A is some thirty metres or so in front of the locomotive on Track B. Neither of the locomotives can be stopped.

You have a big problem. You’re stuck, with two work workmates, a little way down from the locomotive on Track A. Unless it derails, which is possible, but extremely unlikely, the locomotive on Track A is going to hit and kill you all. You can’t get off the track (there’s wire fencing separating you from the embankment on one side and Track B on the other).

However, there is one thing you can do to save your own life and the lives of your two workmates: you can press a button in a control box that will divert the locomotive so that it crosses over to Track B just before it reaches you. But there’s a problem. Another member of your workgang is stuck on Track B adjacent to you. He is facing an identical situation: he can’t get off the track, and is almost bound to be struck by the locomotive on Track B. He does not have access to a control box, so there’s no way he can prevent the locomotive on Track B from striking and killing him. The only way he gets out of this alive is if Locomotive B derails, which is possible, but extremely unlikely.

So this is the situation. If you divert the locomotive on Track A so that it runs down Track B, you will save your own life and the lives of your two workmates, but only at the expense of the life of a third workmate who is stuck on Track B, since you will inevitably cause the locomotive to hit him. However, it is also true that it is overwhelmingly likely that he is going to die anyway, since he has no way of avoiding being hit by the second locomotive that is already running down Track B.

So the question is would you be morally justified in diverting the locomotive?

This is another sticky situation. There is a webpage about the trolley problem and various versions that get stickier and stickier.

In this case, my opinion is that the moral law would prevent the people on Track A from knowingly allowing the death of the person on Track B even to save themselves. Even if they are almost 100% sure the person on B would be killed by another train. It would be an overt act of commission that is morally wrong.

However, there may have been a greater good to save the others on Track A if the person with the switch were far apart from the others further down the track. The the intention could be to save the co-workers on A, so the diversion of the train to B may be considered the principle of the “least harm.”

God looks at our hearts, our intentions. If the choice in mind is merely to save our own lives (Track A), we might pay attention to the gospel that says, “He who would lose His life for My sake, shall find it.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem