Principles of cooperation with evil

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I am having trouble understanding the principles of cooperation with evil. Could someone give me the title of a book which treats this subject thoroughly?

Let us examine a case. A Catholic physician is asked by a patient to prescribe contraception. The doctor does not want to prescribe it but does to avoid to the serious trouble that would inevitably result. What kind of cooperation is this? Is it immediate or mediate material cooperation with evil? Please provide an argument for your answer.
 
You are walking down a street and witness two men beating up a child. Fearing the trouble that may come from interfering with this evil you are cooperating with that evil by walking away.

There has always been trouble for people who do not cooperate with evil.

If the physician knows that contraception is evil he is obligated to follow his conscience.
 
HelenRose said:
You are walking down a street and witness two men beating up a child. Fearing the trouble that may come from interfering with this evil you are cooperating with that evil by walking away.

There has always been trouble for people who do not cooperate with evil.

If the physician knows that contraception is evil he is obligated to follow his conscience.
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How about answering my question? What kind of cooperation does the physician commit? And what reasons do you give for that answer?

What book or resource did you read on the principles of cooperation with evil?
 
PermanentMarker said:
How about answering my question? What kind of cooperation does the physician commit? And what reasons do you give for that answer?

What book or resource did you read on the principles of cooperation with evil?
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Okay. It is “direct cooperation with evil” compounded with sins of greed and cowardliness. Direct cooperation because the evil action goes directly from the doctor’s hand-written prescription to the patient’s hands to be used by the patient. Greed and cowardliness kicks in because he is afraid of losing money and/or status. The source: Page 1 of “HelenRose’s Little Book of Common Sense”
 
HelenRose said:
Okay. It is “direct cooperation with evil” compounded with sins of greed and cowardliness. Direct cooperation because the evil action goes directly from the doctor’s hand-written prescription to the patient’s hands to be used by the patient. Greed and cowardliness kicks in because he is afraid of losing money and/or status. The source: Page 1 of “HelenRose’s Little Book of Common Sense”
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Helen, I do not mean to single you out, but you should be more humble and acknowledge your ignorance of at least this area of moral theology. These are serious questions that demand sound answers - answers that draw from sound moral theology, not from “HelenRose’s Little Book of Common Sense.” I want to learn about the principles of cooperation with evil. You are not helping.

Anyone else? Is the doctor guilty of formal cooperation or material cooperation? And, if material, is it immediate or mediate?
 
It is not formal cooperation, because he does not share in the malice of intent, but is rather merely providing what is physically necessary for the sinful act to occur.

That being said, material cooperation can only be justified when the action itself (not the sinful action, but the action of our subject) is morally good or at least neutral. The question becomes one of whether there are legitimate uses for the object being sold or distributed. A person materially cooperating is not necessarily liable for another person’s sin if there is no obvious reason the distributor of an object would believe it to be misused. A person who distributes objects whose clear purpose is to carry out an objectively sinful act, then there material cooperation cannot be justified. There are certainly some forms of contraception which are designed specifically to carry out a sinful act.

The next distinction to look at is whether the material cooperation is proximate or remote. In this case, it is very proximate. Proximate unjustified material cooperation is a very serious matter, and since the sin being cooperated in is objectively gravely sinful, it makes the cooperation potentially gravely (as in mortally) sinful as well.
 
Katholish, can you tell me if the cooperation is immediate or mediate?

Can you recommend a good book on the principles of cooperation?
 
PermanentMarker said:
I am having trouble understanding the principles of cooperation with evil. Could someone give me the title of a book which treats this subject thoroughly?

Let us examine a case. A Catholic physician is asked by a patient to prescribe contraception. The doctor does not want to prescribe it but does to avoid to the serious trouble that would inevitably result. What kind of cooperation is this? Is it immediate or mediate material cooperation with evil? Please provide an argument for your answer.
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I am more familiar with the terms “formal” and “material” cooperation. Normally, if a physician prescribes something, he intends the person to take it, which would make it formal cooperation in the intent to take the pill. However, I can see how a physician might simply be providing a piece of paper to keep his or her job on account of a newly passed law requiring him to write these things or a threat from his partners in practice or whatnot, and not intend the patient to take the pill.

Formal cooperation is forbidden. Material cooperation can sometimes be done and sometimes not.

So, it depends on what you had in mind when you said the “doctor does not want to prescribe it”. If you meant he was reluctant to prescribe it, but decided to anyway because he wanted her to take the pill so that she wouldn’t get pregnant again to avoid complications in pregnancy, then this is formal cooperation, because although reluctant, he still intends her to take it to render any relations she has infertile. Such a doctor would carefully tell her the rules for taking it and would hope she carefully followed the rules for how to have the pill be effective.

If you instead meant what I said in the first paragraph, then the physician would be thrilled if she just threw the prescription away after she walked out of the office. Such a doctor is likely only materially cooperating. But that may well still be wrong and not allowable. It depends. There are various conditions for when we can materially cooperate. For example, scandal is still not a good thing, and the act of being willing to write the prescription runs a truly high risk of scandal, based upon the trust relationship between patient and doctor. If the problem is your partners in practice wanting to fire you so you choose to risk leading many trusting souls into sin, well, that trade-off is very likely not a fair thing to do.

If you would like to read a theology textbook on this topic, you can read The Way of the Lord Jesus, by Germain Grisez, which is now online in three volumes. To see a discussion about contraception and doctors, you need question number 67 in volume three. The website is here.twotlj.org/index.html

If you want instead to read just about cooperation, choose volume 1 and pick chapter 12 question G. The volumes are listed in a bar across the top of the webpage.

FIREFOX/MOZILLA warning. The website I suggest does not play well with the firefox browser. Use Internet Explorer.
 
I would also recommend Germain Grisez as the previous poster has done as a text.

And like the previous poster, I would say that the distinction between immediate and mediate cooperation seems less precise than those of formal/material and remote/proximate, because in this case it depends on what exacting the doctor is prescribing. If there are legitimate uses for the product, than it would be mediate, if the product is designed for only one evil purpose, than it would be immediate and not permissible.
 
The answer above by Katholish reminds me that I ought to clarify how I interpreted PermanentMarker’s question. He/She asked about being asked to prescribe contraception. That is different from prescribing a pill for a decent medical purpose, but knowing the pill has the side effect of reducing fertility. I answered for prescribing contraception.

The pill (or whatever) may be considered to have more than one reason to prescribe it. I was not discussing those other reasons to prescribe, since the requested prescription was for contraception in the original post.
 
Katholish said:
I would also recommend Germain Grisez as the previous poster has done as a text.

And like the previous poster, I would say that the distinction between immediate and mediate cooperation seems less precise than those of formal/material and remote/proximate, because in this case it depends on what exacting the doctor is prescribing. If there are legitimate uses for the product, than it would be mediate, if the product is designed for only one evil purpose, than it would be immediate and not permissible.
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I think I see your argument, but I am not sure if it accords with what I have read on immediate material cooperation. From what I understand, immediate material cooperation occurs when one directly participates in the evil act of another. For example, a nurse directly and physically involved in the aborting of a fetus from the mother’s womb is guilty of immediate material cooperation. A doctor prescribing contraception to a patient, though, does not, by that fact alone, participate in the contraceptive sex of his patient. This is why I think my case involves mediate material cooperation. That is a tentative opinion, though.

Pug, yeah, the doctor in my example does not share the intent of his patient. His motivation for making the prescription to keep his job.

I will be doing some more reading on this.
 
Hey, everyone. I have bought several books on ethics and moral theology that include discussions on the principles of cooperation with evil. I am disappointed that their discussions are so short! Two or three pages are not enough to cover such a large topic. I am also frustrated that there seems to be no uniform account of these principles. Each theologian treats of them differently.

Does anyone know of a much more thorough resource?
 
I would also like to ask a few more questions:

-What is implicit formal cooperation?
-What is immediate material cooperation?

They seem, to me, to be the same thing.
 
PermanentMarker said:
I am having trouble understanding the principles of cooperation with evil. Could someone give me the title of a book which treats this subject thoroughly?

Let us examine a case. A Catholic physician is asked by a patient to prescribe contraception. The doctor does not want to prescribe it but does to avoid to the serious trouble that would inevitably result. What kind of cooperation is this? Is it immediate or mediate material cooperation with evil? Please provide an argument for your answer.
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The Magisterium teaches that there are three fonts (sources) of morality:
  1. intention
  2. moral object
  3. circumstances
    If an act has three good fonts, the act is morally-permissible; it is not a sin.
    If an act has one or more bad fonts, the act is a sin; it is at least objectively immoral.
This basic principle of ethics applies to cooperation with evil. Explicit cooperation occurs when the person committing a cooperative act intends to cooperate with whatever is sinful in the act of the other person. So explicit cooperation is based on the first font: intention.

Formal cooperation occurs when the cooperative act is inherently directed toward the moral object of assisting the intrinsically evil act of the other person in attaining its evil moral object. So formal cooperation only occurs when the act of the other person is intrinsically evil. And since formal cooperation has an evil moral object, the cooperative act is also intrinsically evil. Formal cooperation is based on the second font: the moral object. Formal cooperation is never moral.

Material cooperation occurs when the cooperative act assists the sin of the other person in its circumstances. Material cooperation is moral or immoral based on an evaluation of the consequences of the cooperative act. If the reasonably anticipated bad consequences morally outweigh the reasonably anticipated good consequences, then the third font of circumstances is bad and the act is a sin.

To be moral, a cooperative act cannot be explicit or formal. Material cooperation is only moral when it is implicit (no intention to cooperate with whatever is sinful in the act of the other person), and not also formal cooperation, and the bad consequences do not outweigh the good consequences.

“A Catholic physician is asked by a patient to prescribe contraception. The doctor does not want to prescribe it but does to avoid to the serious trouble that would inevitably result.”

He does not want to prescribe the contraception, so he does not intend to cooperate with the sin of the other persons. The cooperative act is not explicit cooperation.

The sin of the other person is intrinsically evil, and the act of the physician in prescribing the contraceptive is inherently directed at helping the other person accomplish the moral object of their sin: to contracept sexual acts. So the cooperative act is formal cooperation, is intrinsically evil, and therefore always immoral.

– Ronald L. Conte Jr.
 
I would like to know, Ron, where you are getting your definitions. The distinctions you make in presenting the principles of cooperation in evil make a lot more sense than other presentations I have seen, though I may have some disagreements with you pending further examination. I would like to know which texts you have been using.

Regarding my specific example, though, I would like to point out a possible error you made in your analysis. Contraception is not inherently ordered toward an evil end. That would mean that prescribing contraception is per se always evil, and that simply is not the case since contraception could be used for totally legitimate purposes (e.g., acne). In this way, contraception is much like a firearm. Yes, it has a potentially evil end, but not an *inherent * one. I am not sure, though, how this distinction affects your analysis.

EDIT: It is unlikely, though, that the patient will keep silent about how the contraception will be used for contraceptive sex. But even if the patient does keep silent, the doctor has a probable knowledge that it will be used for contraceptive sex. This factor seems to complicate things. Just thought I would throw that out there.

As I said, your particular presentation of these principles is very intriguing to me. The ones I have seen are somewhat different, especially in how “formal cooperation” is define. I am going to take a look at this more closely, and I will get back to you with questions.
 
PermanentMarker said:
I would like to know, Ron, where you are getting your definitions. The distinctions you make in presenting the principles of cooperation in evil make a lot more sense than other presentations I have seen, though I may have some disagreements with you pending further examination. I would like to know which texts you have been using.

Regarding my specific example, though, I would like to point out a possible error you made in your analysis. Contraception is not inherently ordered toward an evil end. That would mean that prescribing contraception is per se always evil, and that simply is not the case since contraception could be used for totally legitimate purposes (e.g., acne). In this way, contraception is much like a firearm. Yes, it has a potentially evil end, but not an *inherent *one. I am not sure, though, how this distinction affects your analysis.

As I said, your particular presentation of these principles is very intriguing to me. The ones I have seen are somewhat different, especially in how “formal cooperation” is define. I am going to take a look at this more closely, and I will get back to you with questions.
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I believe you are equivocating. Prescribing a homone to treat a disease is not prescribing contraception, even if the hormone can be used as a contraceptive. As such this does not support your argument that contraception is not inherently a sin (evil).
 
davidv said:
I believe you are equivocating. Prescribing a homone to treat a disease is not prescribing contraception, even if the hormone can be used as a contraceptive. As such this does not support your argument that contraception is not inherently a sin (evil).
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I think we are using different senses of the word contraception. When I use the word in the example, I am referring to birth control pills of some kind or another. But these pills are not inherently ordered toward an evil end since they could be used for other ends which are entirely legitimate. This is why the firearm analogy is apt.
 
Ron, one question that immediately came to mind about your presentation of the principles is why it is missing the common distinctions of immediate/mediate and proximate/remote material cooperation. Is their absence intentional on your part, and what do you think of them?
 
PermanentMarker said:
I think we are using different senses of the word contraception.When I use the word in the example, I am referring to birth control pills of some kind or another. But these pills are not inherently ordered toward an evil end since they could be used for other ends which are entirely legitimate. This is why the firearm analogy is apt.
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Agreed to a point. Pills, as with all inanimate objects, are inherently amoral. The intent and circumstance of their use are what cause their use to be moral or immoral. In context with your OP, this distinction is important.

When the intent is moral, say to treat a disease, and the circumstance requires a particular pill, the use is moral. Conversely if the intent is immoral, the use of a pill is immoral.
 
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