Non-theistic foundation of morality?

[inocente]

I believe I have the interpretation of that passage correct.

The Beatitudes are often interpreted incorrectly. Those who can be meek (or any other of the Beatitudes) are only so because they are first blessed. All goodness comes from God. God blesses us in order to radicalize us to do His will which is to die to the self. Love God first, neighbor second – whether that neighbor is one’s father, mother, daughter, son or self.

True but the passage doesn’t mean Jesus came to incite insurrection and discord. It’s just an inevitable consequence of His coming that some sons follow Him, some fathers don’t, etc.

I thought we did, too. In consequentialism the only object is to maximize outcomes.

How doth that differ from what you said?

*Well, this is interesting logic. Are you claiming that because the catechism says ***twice ****: “The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm” means that this teaching is not reinforced but eliminated?

How did you get to that? I’m not a pacifist, I’m just reading what’s written.

CCC 2321 is a one-liner bullet point summary of CCC 2263, 2264, 2265, 2266 and 2267. The authors’ wouldn’t have bothered writing 2263-2267 if they intended that one-liner to be sufficient. Bombing people is too grave to be decided by a one-liner. Look instead at what it summarizes and you’ll find you have to meet the condition that “those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community”. You’re not repelling aggressors by bombing a theater so you don’t have the right to use arms.

I’m just typing. The bomber is acting to make an “unjust aggressor … unable to cause harm.”

So read on to the next sentence of CCC 2265: “For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.” You are not repelling aggressors.

I’m still only typing. The bomber is rendering an unjust aggressor’s capacity to do harm. The bomber is also killing discriminately and is justified in doing so. Now, if the bomber sets a nuclear device in a 300 seat theater, then a minimum force principle should come into the moral equation.

Since you agree here that you know the bomb will kill indiscriminately, and since you have no case for self-defense as you are not repelling aggressors, CCC 2268 forbids direct and intentional killing.

-]You’re not going to like this, but that’s another “Bradski.”/-] I posted that suicide, the intended killing of oneself, is immoral always and everywhere (intrinsically evil). For his act to be moral, the bomber may not intend his own death but may accept it as the unintended but tolerated bad effect.
The bomber may morally do either.

Look up the definition of suicide attack and you’ll see that it doesn’t mean the attacker wants to commit suicide, it means an attack in which the attacker knows he will die. No one said he wants to end his life.

Who said I’m an expert? The authority of our catechism is in its footnotes. i.e. Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Teaching of the Magisterium. By citing the Catechism, as I do frequently, I recognize the work as my authority, not me.

Then you agree with CCC 12.

That’s absolutely correct. But the Lord did not say all that is required is an attitude adjustment.

Correct, as long as we remember that Jesus is concerned with the spirit of the law not just the letter of the law: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” - Matt 23

And surely we can agree than morality ought to be about justice, mercy and faithfulness rather than merely not breaking a set of terms and conditions.

Yes, such sniping is awful. One should reject such temptations immediately.

Yes. One should certainly cite their source(s) of authority. Listeners should be on notice: "“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves (Mat 7:15).

Though I think in most cases where Christians interpret their source of authority wrongly, there’s no conspiracy, they mean well enough. It’s just that sometimes they forget the source of their authority. “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind” (Phil 2).

 

[e_c]

Having to do a you-said-i-said is a bit tiresome.

You said “Throwing someone off a boat is, in itself, morally neutral after all.”

I said “Can’t see how throwing someone off a boat can ever be morally neutral unless perhaps (a) they have consented to being thrown and (b) you have a high degree of certainty that they will come to no harm and (c) you do all in your power to keep them from harm until safely back on the boat. Why do you say it’s morally neutral?”

You said “Also, pushing someone off a boat is not always wrong. Therefore, in itself, it’s at least morally neutral.”

I said “Killing someone is not always wrong. That doesn’t make the act of killing morally neutral. I’m being told that pushing someone off a lifeboat far from land is morally neutral. Of course it isn’t.”

You said “Make the distinctions, pick up on the subtleties, and be sure you respond to what is actually said.”

That’s the entire conversation. There are no subtle distinctions. Pushing someone against his will off a lifeboat far from land is never morally neutral. It’s either good if done to try to save him from a greater danger, or else it’s evil. Never morally neutral.

The distinctions and subtleties are all present throughout the larger conversation. But it seems you don’t understand what it is for something to be morally neutral.

If it’s not always wrong, then it could be “not wrong” and rather be good or indifferent. When you start whittling away at acts - such as taking the circumstances which are proper to “murder,” like the agent is a private citizen, and bracketing them - you are left with increasingly few intrinsic evils. “Killing” in itself is morally neutral, because it is not always wrong. Nor is it in itself necessarily praiseworthy. So, if it’s not intrinsically praiseworthy (excluding bad intentions), and it isn’t intrinsically evil, then it is neutral. “Murder” is a specific kind of killing involving proper circumstances which surround it - the agent is a private citizen, for instance. This turns the act of killing into murder. “Murder” is now what the moral agent actually DOES. These circumstances have essentially changed what his action is - they have changed the object. Under different circumstances, the object could be something else, like the discharge of one’s office as public executioner, even though the “material” of the action remains identical.

Pushing someone off a boat is easier to see.

This gets to the heart of the issue I was harping on… It was a helpful question. Thanks.

 

[inocente]

The distinctions and subtleties are all present throughout the larger conversation. But it seems you don’t understand what it is for something to be morally neutral.

If it’s not always wrong, then it could be “not wrong” and rather be good or indifferent. When you start whittling away at acts - such as taking the circumstances which are proper to “murder,” like the agent is a private citizen, and bracketing them - you are left with increasingly few intrinsic evils. “Killing” in itself is morally neutral, because it is not always wrong. Nor is it in itself necessarily praiseworthy. So, if it’s not intrinsically praiseworthy (excluding bad intentions), and it isn’t intrinsically evil, then it is neutral. “Murder” is a specific kind of killing involving proper circumstances which surround it - the agent is a private citizen, for instance. This turns the act of killing into murder. “Murder” is now what the moral agent actually DOES. These circumstances have essentially changed what his action is - they have changed the object. Under different circumstances, the object could be something else, like the discharge of one’s office as public executioner, even though the “material” of the action remains identical.

Pushing someone off a boat is easier to see.

This gets to the heart of the issue I was harping on… It was a helpful question. Thanks.

Thanks. You’re using “morally neutral” to mean something other than what I’ve met before, where in moral relativism it claims that no act is inherently good or evil. The opposite of CCC 1749 which can be read as denying any possibility of neutrality - “Human acts … are either good or evil”.

 

[e_c]

Thanks. You’re using “morally neutral” to mean something other than what I’ve met before, where in moral relativism it claims that no act is inherently good or evil. The opposite of CCC 1749 which can be read as denying any possibility of neutrality - “Human acts … are either good or evil”.

The Catechism is speaking about acts in practice. “Neutral” is only a theoretical category. Once a “neutral act” is really committed, it is evaluated as good or bad. Anything that is not tainted by evil in some way is then called “good.”

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Non-theistic foundation of morality, while they may be necessary among atheists and agnostics, are inadequate and untrustworthy because they have not the imprimatur of God. Consensus cannot be trusted, because consensus can be wrong. Conscience cannot be trusted, because conscience can be corrupted. Compulsion cannot be trusted because those who compel may be evil. Only God can be trusted. It’s our national motto, “In God we trust” and when it ceases to be our national motto, hardly anyone can be trusted. The center will not hold and things will fall apart. They are falling apart even as we speak. Only those who have plucked out their own eyes will fail to admit it.

 

[o_mlly]

True but the passage doesn’t mean Jesus came to incite insurrection and discord. …

In the interest of staying on topic, "Non-theistic foundation of morality?,” I suggest that if either one of us wishes to pursue the sidebar topics that have drifted into this thread, one starts another thread.

Here’s the moral dilemma restated:

… “Placing a bomb in a crowded theater” with no other information is certainly on the face of it an evil act.
However, in a just war, placing a bomb in a theater crowded with unjust aggressors … would be morally permissible assuming the other criteria of the DE are met.

Question: Does theistic morality offer a more compelling argument than non-theist morality e.g., consequentialism, to determine the morality of this act?

CCC 2321 is a one-liner bullet point summary of CCC 2263, 2264, 2265, 2266 and 2267. The authors’ wouldn’t have bothered writing 2263-2267 if they intended that one-liner to be sufficient…

So read on to the next sentence of CCC 2265: “For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.” You are not repelling aggressors.

It seems you would like in error to assign an overriding weight to the Catholic teaching that those in a just war have the “right to use arms to repel aggressors" compared to the teaching that those in a just war have the "right to render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm.”

But that is not so. The two teachings are complimentary, not contrary, one to the other. The former authorizes ***defensive ***actions and the latter authorizes ***offensive ***actions against an unjust aggressor. Your interpretation would subordinate or eliminate the legitimate use of offense to end an unjust war. That is not the teaching.

Since you agree here that you know the bomb will kill indiscriminately, and since you have no case for self-defense as you are not repelling aggressors, CCC 2268 forbids direct and intentional killing.

I did not agree (and I wish you stop misquoting me a la “you-know-who”) that the bomber kills indiscriminately. I said exactly the opposite and made the typeface bold so one could not miss it! ???

… The bomber is rendering an unjust aggressor’s capacity to do harm. The bomber is also killing discriminately and is justified in doing so.

Apply the principles:
*
The moral object of the act:* Plant on bomb in a theater in which a large number of the unjust aggressor’s combatant soldiers will be in attendance in order to mitigate the unjust aggressor’s capaccity to do harm. Morally good.
The intent of the bomber: To mitigate the unjust enemy’s capacity to do evil. Morally good.
*Circumstances: * The number of non-combatants is substantially less than the number of combatants.
Foreseeable consequences:

• Unjust aggressor combatants will probably die. Moral evil.
• Non-combatants will probably die. Moral evil
• The unjust enemy’s capacity to do evil will be mitigated. Moral good.
• A greater number of innocents will probably live than unjust combatant who will die. Moral good.
• Bomber will probably live. Moral good.

Double Effect Principles -
Act: Morally good.
*Intention of Actor: * Morally good.
*Proportionality: *Positive - good effects equal or are greater than evil effects.
Good effects proceeds from evil effects: The mitigation of the enemy’s capacity to do evil does not proceed from the deaths of the non-combatants or the bomber.

The contrast between the Terror Bomber and the Strategic Bomber is often viewed as the least controversial pair of examples illustrating the distinction between intention and foresight that underlies the principle of double effect. The judgment that the Terror Bomber acts impermissibly and the Strategic Bomber acts permissibly is widely affirmed.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/

Look up the definition of suicide attack …

If one defines “suicide attack” in such a way that the attacker only expects rather than intends to die then the attack may be moral. The other principles, of course, withstanding.
However, the convention use of the phrase “suicide attacker” is more akin to mass murderer. The suicide attacker’s preferred targets have often been non-combatants and the attacker’s intent is to terrorize.

Then you agree with CCC 12.

Of course, I’m Catholic. Note the word “primary” and not “exclusive” is used as the descriptor for the use of the Catechism in CCC#12.

Correct, as long as we remember that Jesus is concerned with the spirit of the law not just the letter of the law: …

He’s concerned with both. The Decalogue still applies. Rules do not deny grace. (Separate thread needed.)

And surely we can agree than morality ought to be about justice, mercy and faithfulness rather than merely not breaking a set of terms and conditions.

Morality, as system of values and principles of conduct, is most certainly about justice. One must delineate the values and the principles that render some acts moral and other acts immoral.

 

[Bradski]

Non-theistic foundation of morality, while they may be necessary among atheists and agnostics, are inadequate and untrustworthy because they have not the imprimatur of God. Consensus cannot be trusted, because consensus can be wrong. Conscience cannot be trusted, because conscience can be corrupted. Compulsion cannot be trusted because those who compel may be evil. Only God can be trusted. It’s our national motto, “In God we trust” and when it ceases to be our national motto, hardly anyone can be trusted. The center will not hold and things will fall apart. They are falling apart even as we speak. Only those who have plucked out their own eyes will fail to admit it.

How do you know if something is God’s will? I keep asking this, but no-one appears to know.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

How do you know if something is God’s will?

Which “something” are you talking about? Morality?

 

[Bradski]

Which “something” are you talking about? Morality?

The whole thread is about morality, Charles. What do you think I meant…

And you have listed all the ways we cannot know if something is good or not but have only offered ‘trust God’ as a means.

So tell me how you know what God wants? When you have a moral problem, how does God tell you the correct answer?

No-one has ever given an answer to this.

 

[IWantGod]

The whole thread is about morality, Charles. What do you think I meant…

And you have listed all the ways we cannot know if something is good or not but have only offered ‘trust God’ as a means.

So tell me how you know what God wants? When you have a moral problem, how does God tell you the correct answer?

No-one has ever given an answer to this.

I think, deep down, we all know that at least some things are truly wrong to do, even if we only learn the hard-way.

As far as understanding divine moral law.

There are two ways to figure out what is right or wrong

1. Revelation of God’s nature.
2. Understanding God’s nature and our relationship with that nature, which takes discernment, meditation and prayer.

Without these two factors, we have only our conscience, our gut reactions, and our reasoning processes.

 

[Tandem]

So tell me how you know what God wants? When you have a moral problem, how does God tell you the correct answer?

No-one has ever given an answer to this.

Not just that… but God always supports the views of the poster. God always uses the apologist as his mouth piece.

 

[e_c]

Not just that… but God always supports the views of the poster. God always uses the apologist as his mouth piece.

Nobody has ever believed that what he holds as true to be untrue. This is what you have implicitly claimed. Which is not an insight.

Morality is a science within theology. Theology is a science too. Sometimes science is hard. In a science, one is proceeding from first principles, which are certain, to conclusions. The in-between is where inductions and experiences come in. In morality, this experience is rooted in anthropology and synderesis… One discerns the telos of this and that faculty after an inquiry into the soul, the body, and the composition of the two. All of this comes after a rigorous inquiry into more basic sciences, especially metaphysics. (FWIW, Aristotle says a person really can’t do metaphysics well until he’s around 35, because it requires so much familiarity with “nature.” And this is one of the basic sciences… with politics and theology at the end.)

Also, in theology we are helped by revelation.

So… there are the building blocks.

The bigger issue is that y’all refuse to think in immaterial terms, always patting Ayer on the back. This is the attitude which leads you to ridicule the idea of learning the will of God through the study of nature.

 

[e_c]

The moral object of the act:* Plant on bomb in a theater in which a large number of the unjust aggressor’s combatant soldiers will be in attendance in order to mitigate the unjust aggressor’s capaccity to do harm. Morally good.
The intent of the bomber: To mitigate the unjust enemy’s capacity to do evil. Morally good.
*Circumstances: * The number of non-combatants is substantially less than the number of combatants.​

If one defines “suicide attack” in such a way that the attacker only expects rather than intends to die then the attack may be moral. The other principles, of course, withstanding.

May I offer my own attempt at breaking it down?

object - killing combatants with a bomb (this is what you are doing to achieve the intention - it therefore excludes the intention, which is delighted in for its own sake… unless you are delighting in the death of those you are attacking, which is called hatred and is a sin)

intention - weakening the opposition (this is the first good which one might delight in that also motivates that action)

circumstances - collateral damage is expected (this is what is relevant - and it remains merely a circumstance because your action is the same whether or not they are there, and your measurement of success or failure has nothing to do with what happens to them… UNLESS you foresee greater damage done to them than to the target, in which case it turns the object into manslaughter or some such sin against justice… it changes what you are DOING, which is the object, without the intention changing at all.)

The issue with a suicide bomber (as an unjust aggressor) isn’t necessarily that he wants to die or expects to die, it’s that he doesn’t mind dying… on top of the unjust attack itself. It compounds the sin.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The whole thread is about morality, Charles. What do you think I meant…

And you have listed all the ways we cannot know if something is good or not but have only offered ‘trust God’ as a means.

So tell me how you know what God wants? When you have a moral problem, how does God tell you the correct answer?

No-one has ever given an answer to this.

Again, we’re back to square one. No more exchanges with you for the time being.

 

[Tandem]

This is what you have implicitly claimed.

Heck, no. I did not claim anything “implicitly”. I “explicitly” claim that apologists assert that their opinion correctly represents God’s view. In other words they say that God personally speaks through their mouth. They also add that God is infinite and as such God is unknowable. How do they reconcile these mutually contradictory assertions - is beyond me.

 

[Aloysium]

Heck, no. I did not claim anything “implicitly”. I “explicitly” claim that apologists assert that their opinion correctly represents God’s view. In other words they say that God personally speaks through their mouth. They also add that God is infinite and as such God is unknowable. How do they reconcile these mutually contradictory assertions - is beyond me.

It’s not beyond you.
It may however be beyond me to explain it, but here goes:
God as the Source of everything is infinite; He is the eternal Wellspring of all that exists.
We will come face to face with Him. However, it should be clear that He will ever remain unfathomable mystery.
God reveals Himself in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Word of God reaches out, making Himself known historically through scripture.
We come to know God through contemplation of holy scripture, also in prayer, in the performance of charitable works, and participation in the sacraments, the mass and the Eucharist.
This is just an outline, but then I don’t think you are serious.

 

[Bradski]

Again, we’re back to square one. No more exchanges with you for the time being.

I think that if you had an answer then you’d give it. ‘I’d rather not comment’ is answer enough.

 

[e_c]

Heck, no. I did not claim anything “implicitly”. I “explicitly” claim that apologists assert that their opinion correctly represents God’s view. In other words they say that God personally speaks through their mouth. They also add that God is infinite and as such God is unknowable. How do they reconcile these mutually contradictory assertions - is beyond me.

Perhaps it is beyond you because of an unwillingness to make distinctions (like between witness and revelation, and between essence and expression, in this quote). In that case, there’s no point to trying. If you are here on CAF to throw wrenches, you’ll have a ball, but it will do nothing good for you. Nobody will be edified, and everyone’s time will have been wasted. But, if you’re willing to extend good will and be more eager to understand what people say than to contradict it or ridicule it, there will be good fruit for you.

 

[Bradski]

The Word of God reaches out, making Himself known historically through scripture. We come to know God through contemplation of holy scripture, also in prayer, in the performance of charitable works, and participation in the sacraments, the mass and the Eucharist.

And if all this gives us 2 people diametrically opposed views, then who has it right?

 

[oldcelt]

And if all this gives us 2 people diametrically opposed views, then who has it right?

The great unanswered…maybe unanswerable question.

John