Obeying one's superior

[Alindawyl]

I once more refer you to paragraph 1868 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:

• by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
• by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
• by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
• by protecting evil-doers.

If you wish to consider obeying orders which have an evil intent to be perfectly fine provided you don’t personally share the evil intent, you are free to hold that belief despite the fact that you know evil will come about because of your voluntary cooperation.

That’s not a conversation I would want to have with God when my time comes.

 

[KEVIN_WILCOX]

Mum used to kill snails by giving them flying lessons. If they couldn’t handle the landing it wasn’t her problem. Political correctness taken to extremes.
If I’m throwing a grenade, or dropping a bomb on someone, or firing a gun at someone, it’s not my fault if they are injured. I’m only throwing a grenade, dropping a bomb or firing a gun.
It’s the explosion or the bullet which causes the injury, or the person who can’t handle it. It’s not my responsibility.

 

[Areopagite]

Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:

• by participating directly and voluntarily in them;

I agree there is a level of cooperation in another’s sin that is evil. But not all cooperation in sin is sinful. I’m not making this up. In my example, I would say that the soldier is not participating directly in the sin.

• by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;

The obedient soldiers is definitely not ordering, advising, or praising the command of the officer. Is he approving it? Depends what you mean. What does that mean? He could not approve of the intent, but does that translate that he should disobey? It’s not clear.

• by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;

But does the soldier have an obligation to hinder this order once it’s made? What constitutes an obligation in this case? He could tell the officer that he shouldn’t have that intent, but is there anything else he is required to do?

• by protecting evil-doers.

Does this apply here?

That’s not a conversation I would want to have with God when my time comes.

That’s great. But you might be scrupulous in this case. You still haven’t clearly demonstrated that such a thing would be evil.

Mum used to kill snails by giving them flying lessons. If they couldn’t handle the landing it wasn’t her problem. Political correctness taken to extremes.
If I’m throwing a grenade, or dropping a bomb on someone, or firing a gun at someone, it’s not my fault if they are injured. I’m only throwing a grenade, dropping a bomb or firing a gun.
It’s the explosion or the bullet which causes the injury, or the person who can’t handle it. It’s not my responsibility.

Once again, what’s your point?

 

[Areopagite]

I can’t find a coherent explication of the details regarding material cooperation in evil that I need. Let me know if anyone finds anything.

And one thing to remember with the example: the commander’s order to bomb the enemy installation is objectively good and has strategic significance. However, you find out the commander gave the order to bomb that particular installation because he wanted to kill his wife (who happened to be in there … for whatever reason).

Now, it is conceivable that any other commander could have given the exact same order but with good intent. It is objectively moral and of strategic importance. You yourself see that everything is in order on that level, and you perhaps would have given the order yourself if you had been the commander. But all of a sudden, you’re suppose to not carry out the order? … Just because your officer has a messed-up motivation behind it, even though he might have issued the order anyway if he had a good intent. Does this really matter?