Objective morality, Relative morality, or No morality...?

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Ender:
Well … without meaning to be nasty
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I don’t mean to pick on you but you sometimes come across as being somewhat rude and dismissive.
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Ender:
The Church teaches that some acts are always immoral even if the intent and the circumstances are moral.
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I think you will find that each of these acts that has some sort of “qualifier” within its definition. FREX;

“Fornication” is sex outside of marriage.
“Theft” is the secret taking of another’s property *against the reasonable will of that other. *
“Abortion” is any act intended to terminate a pregnancy
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Ender:
She does not teach that every immoral act “ALWAYS have some evil iintention or circumstance inherent within thier definition.”
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Show me one that doesn’t.
 
Ender,

BillP makes a good point here. There are certain circumstances that when added to a neutral human act fundamentally change that act into a different act. In this way, the circumstances and intentions (conditions) become a part of the object. A good example is the sexual act. The sexual act is in itself a human act and therefore by definition morally neutral. It is only when we align that act with right reason and view it in light of a condition (married/non-married) that the act is morally good or evil.

Circumstances as you are defining them would be what Aquinas called particular conditions. Circumstances as BillP is explaining are principal conditions and are identified as a part of the object itself. It is indeed a very precise point, but it is an important one nonetheless.
 
Sorry, Ham.

I was adding to a post back in the beginning suggesting that this guy was a troll.

I apologize for any offense I have caused, and for any lack of charity on my part.

Num 6:24-26
 
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Ruthie:
Sorry, Ham.

I was adding to a post back in the beginning suggesting that this guy was a troll.

I apologize for any offense I have caused, and for any lack of charity on my part.

Num 6:24-26
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No offense whatsoever. And certainly no lack of charity on your part! I was just confused…unfortunately, that’s not a rare thing for me!
 
Troll or not the issue is an important one for today. I speak to many people every day and I find this attitude that morality is defined by the individual or the social group often. The problem is that a lot of people today exhault experience to a degree that it should not hold. A lot of people define their reality by their experience. The problem with this is that many times the subjective experience is not the same as reality. An example that I give is the man who is color blind. His experience of color is not consistent with reality, yet it is his true experience. Because of this over emphasis of experience and the fact that we each experience reality in a subjective way then all things are viewed through this subjectivity. Because of this morality becomes exclusively a subjective issue and loses its objective nature. So the real question that we must ask ourselves is how do we go about moving society to belive in reality as such again instead of their individual experience of reality.
 
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Ham1:
There are certain circumstances that when added to a neutral human act fundamentally change that act into a different act. In this way, the circumstances and intentions (conditions) become a part of the object.
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As I quoted in my earlier post, the circumstances and intentions are two of the three elements that determine the morality of an action. The third component is what is being debated: there are actions that of themselves are always immoral regardless of the intent and the circumstances. At least, that is what the Church says. The disagreement is not with any opinion of mine but with the Church’s understanding of moral behavior.

Ender
 
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Ender:
As I quoted in my earlier post, the circumstances and intentions are two of the three elements that determine the morality of an action. The third component is what is being debated: there are actions that of themselves are always immoral regardless of the intent and the circumstances. At least, that is what the Church says. The disagreement is not with any opinion of mine but with the Church’s understanding of moral behavior.

Ender
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Bingo! Well said.
 
When one does an action, that action alters the doer. What?

The Pinocchio principle: we become what we do. One does good actions and one becomes “more of a child of God.”

One does evil actions; one becomes a “donkey.”

Evil or good actions alter us.

Evil hardens our hearts.

Good enlivens our heart.

Evil is not extrinsic.

Good is not extrinsic.

I call it the Pinocchio principle.

I call it the Dorian Gray principle.

I call it the Pharaoh principle.

I call it the hardened one’s heart principle.

I call it the child of God principle.

Our moral actions, good or evil, are not recorded in a book, but in our soul.
 
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Ender:
As I quoted in my earlier post, the circumstances and intentions are two of the three elements that determine the morality of an action. The third component is what is being debated: there are actions that of themselves are always immoral regardless of the intent and the circumstances. At least, that is what the Church says. The disagreement is not with any opinion of mine but with the Church’s understanding of moral behavior.

Ender
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I agree completely that there are acts which are inrtinsically immoral. And I agree that moral acts contain three components.

My statements above regarding circumstances needs to be clarified. There are circumstances which along with object and intention form the three components of a moral act. There are also circumstances (or perhaps more appropriately conditions) which become a part of the object itself. This is the case with intrinsically evil objects. They in some sense include a “condition” which specifies that object as fundamentally disordered. An example of this is adultery. The object is not “sexual relations”, the object in this case is “sexual relations with another’s spouse.” It is this condition which defines the object as intrinsically immoral. In this sense the condition here is no longer a circumstance as one of the three parts of the act, but rather is a part of the object itself.

I hope this helps to clarify what I was saying.
 
Also, the issue of circumstance cannot change something that is immoral to being moral. Circumstance can only mitigate culpability. An act that is evil is always evil as such and can never be the opposite just as an act that is good can never be evil.

This is different than situation ethics which among other things makes the claim that the circumstance determines the morally negative or positive quality of the act.
 
Laws are statements of the consistencies nature displays in the properties and functions of matter and energy.
Laws are statements of the consistencies of human nature displayed by our thoughts, choices, passions (emotions) and actions.

As love increases, our hate decreases.
As sexual control increases, our lust decreases.
As drunkenness increases, our rational thought decreases.
As prudence increases, our foolishness decreases.
As gratitude increases, our envy decreases.
As friendliness increases, our cantankerousness decreases.
As our courage increases, our fear decreases.
As our patience increases, our anger or irascibility decreases.
As our truthfulness increases, our dishonesty decreases.
As our faith increases, our disbelief decreases.
As our hope increases, our despair decreases.
As two become more equal to one, then they both become
more like each other. As husband and wife become more
like God, they become more “one”. If “B” is equal to “A,” and
“C” is equal to “A.” Then “B” and “C” are equal to each other.

Law of Drunkenness: drunkenness and rational thought are inversely
proportioned. The more intoxicated one becomes the less rational thought one has. (Cf. irrational anger and irrational jealousy also deplete rational thought)

Law of Love: love and hate are inversely proportioned. The more one loves the less one will hate. The law of love is a law that has extra-mental reality. In fact, the law of love has more reality than the law of gravity.

Law of Truth: truth and dishonesty are inversely proportioned. The more one is dishonest the less one is truthful.

Law of Patience: patience and irascibility are inversely proportioned. The more one’s patience grows the less impatient.

Law of Love and Happiness: to the degree in which one loves one will be happy. Happiness and charity are directly proportioned.

The laws of love and justice really do exist. In fact, they have more being than the law of gravity.
 
I’ll put this into as few words as possible…

MORALITY IS OBJECTIVE. GUILT/CULPABILITY IS SUBJECTIVE.

An action is either moral (praying), neutral (walking), or immoral (murder).
Personal guilt/culpability depends upon your own knowledge about the true nature of the action.

Example: A fanatical Moslem might truly believe that his suicide attack is moral…but his believing it does not make it so. It is immoral. However, he might not be held fully accountable for that action before God, especially if he was honestly doing his best to live a good life.
 
There is a real law of drunkenness. It is more real than the physical laws that humans discover and name.

Law of Drunkenness: drunkenness and rational thought are inversely
proportioned. The more intoxicated one becomes the less rational thought one has. (Cf. irrational anger and irrational jealousy also deplete rational thought)
 
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Ender:
The third component is what is being debated: there are actions that of themselves are always immoral regardless of the intent and the circumstances. At least, that is what the Church says. The disagreement is not with any opinion of mine but with the Church’s understanding of moral behavior.
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the church also says that one cannot commit a mortal sin without satisfying three conditions:
  1. grave matter;
  2. full knowledge;
  3. deliberate consent.
and if that’s true, then whether or not it makes any sense to say that there are actions that are intrinsically evil apart from the intention of the actor, you can be sure that one isn’t necessarily guilty of committing those actions.
 
john doran:
the church also says that one cannot commit a mortal sin without satisfying three conditions:
  1. grave matter;
  2. full knowledge;
  3. deliberate consent.
and if that’s true, then whether or not it makes any sense to say that there are actions that are intrinsically evil apart from the intention of the actor, you can be sure that one isn’t necessarily guilty of committing those actions.
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No. You can always say a person is guily of committing a serious offense if they in fact did so. However, sometimes a person who commits a serious offence is not guilty of mortal sin because they did not have full knowledge of full consent of the will.
 
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LatinCat:
No. You can always say a person is guily of committing a serious offense if they in fact did so. However, sometimes a person who commits a serious offence is not guilty of mortal sin because they did not have full knowledge of full consent of the will.
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what did i say?
 
Given the nature of those acts which are objectively and intrinsicly evil, it’s difficult to imagine that a person of sound mind who commits such an act would not meet the criteria for mortal sin.
 
vern humphrey:
Given the nature of those acts which are objectively and intrinsicly evil, it’s difficult to imagine that a person of sound mind who commits such an act would not meet the criteria for mortal sin.
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perhaps. what are some examples of intrinsically evil acts? in what does the evil consist?
 
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