Question about the two-fold (double) effect

[Blue_Horizon]

They did not right this to explain why something can be moral, but rather why it is not.

Of course. Asked and answered.

You seem to have lost the point of our discussion which was:
(a) things are more complicated than you first indicated… the question at hand is about more than masturbation (where THE PODE rightly cannot be applied to justify therapeutic ejaculation).
Your responses indicate you agree with me on this point.
(b) You believe the Church clearly teaches that even non pleasurable frottage is also intrinsically evil, seriously grave matter always, a mortal sin.

Well it may well be - but “intrinsically disordered” does not quite get there.
Killing is also “intrinsically disordered” … but not always and everywhere a sin, not even a mortal sin.

So have another go… you haven’t yet completely closed the case from what I can see.

Why be offended

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Material sin involves of an act that is wrong, though the perpetrator is protected from guilt by ignorance that it is indeed wrong.

You seem to have shifted position if you are now acknowledging:

• the act in question is disordered;
• disordered acts are materially sinful.

1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

If you read up on what formal sin describes you will discover our views are compatible.

 

[Rau]

You seem to have lost the point of our discussion which was:
(a) things are more complicated than you first indicated… the question at hand is about more than masturbation (where THE PODE rightly cannot be applied to justify therapeutic ejaculation).

They are exactly as I have put them. You raised PODE - I’m glad you’ve come to the right conclusion on that.

(b) You believe the Church clearly teaches that even non pleasurable frottage is also intrinsically evil, seriously grave matter always, a mortal sin.

I don’t even know what non-pleasurable frottage is. I’m quite sure it’s not what one does to produce a semen sample at the IVF clinic or in the doctor’s office. I know these are acts with evil moral objects and varying intentions.

If you wish to propose another act to acquire a semen sample, I agree such may exist which is entirely moral.

 

[Rau]

If you read up on what formal sin describes you will discover our views are compatible.

Then you have concluded that the act in question is in actuality a wrong act, and some may be not culpable because they did no know. I’m happy with that. All persons should continue attempts to discover the truth.

 

[SHoJjhmou]

You seem to have lost the point of our discussion which was:
(a) things are more complicated than you first indicated… the question at hand is about more than masturbation (where THE PODE rightly cannot be applied to justify therapeutic ejaculation).
Your responses indicate you agree with me on this point.
(b) You believe the Church clearly teaches that even non pleasurable frottage is also intrinsically evil, seriously grave matter always, a mortal sin.

Well it may well be - but “intrinsically disordered” does not quite get there.
Killing is also “intrinsically disordered” … but not always and everywhere a sin, not even a mortal sin.

So have another go… you haven’t yet completely closed the case from what I can see.

Why be offended

Intrinsically evil actions (murder) are always sinful, regardless of circumstance or intention.

Murder is always sinful; can be venial sin, but always sinful.

Killing does not equal murder by the way… killing is when you either accidentally cause the end of an innocent person’s life (venial sin or possibly not sinful, I don’t really know ) or when you end the life of someone mortally endangering an innocent person (can be yourself).

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Rau you’ve gone a little petulant and this umbrage is impairing your ability to maturely argue the point in good faith.

Have a good weekend.

 

[Rau]

Rau you’ve gone a little petulant and this umbrage is impairing your ability to maturely argue the point in good faith.

LOL

 

[polytropos]

My question is about the 4th requirement:

1. there must be a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect. At least the good and evil effects should be nearly equivalent.

How do you measure the goodness of an action, so that you can know if it’s goodness is as equally good as the bad action?

For example, what if a doctor tells a man he has to masturbate in order to fix a serious health problem?

Would it be considered a mortal sin or not? How do you measure if the action of fixing the serious health issue is good enough to outwiegh the mortal sin?

In the case you give, the man should not masturbate; but that’s because it violates a different requirement of PDE (evil means). It’s also grave matter. The evil that you are weighing against the good will never be the evil of an action, because (by the other criteria) you cannot commit an evil act in order to achieve some good end.

In general, though, I believe there is no formal set of rules dictating how to apply the proportionality criterion of PDE. The right judgment of which evil effects are proportionate to the good is that made by the man who possesses the virtue of prudence (prudentia, phronesis).

Sometimes people write as though the proportionality criterion is basically a consequentialist weighing (sum up the pre-moral goods and evils and see what comes out on top). I don’t think any such weighing is possible. (That’s much of the reason why consequentialism ought to be rejected.) Elizabeth Anscombe once provided an example that, I think, suggests why: Suppose that an emergency room is healing a single person. Then five crash victims are brought in; the resources can be directed away from the single person, who would then die, to the five. This would save the five but result in the death of the one.

The other criteria of PDE are fine here. Redirecting resources is not grave matter. The death of the single person is not means to saving the others. (If he managed to survive without the resources, the others would not therefore fail to be saved.) But are we required to redirect the resources? Anscombe suggests that we are not. Is the death of five proportionate to the saving of one? She suggests that it might be, since we don’t owe any of the particular people our limited resources. We could redirect the resources, but we don’t have to.

I think that such things have to be recognized. In other cases, the proportionality criterion will be violated, as if what was at stake in redirecting the resources was not five lives, but $50. Saving that money is not proportionate to the death of one; we don’t know this by any calculation on the values of their lives, but it is something that the virtuous man should recognize.

 

[SHoJjhmou]

In the case you give, the man should not masturbate; but that’s because it violates a different requirement of PDE (evil means). It’s also grave matter. The evil that you are weighing against the good will never be the evil of an action, because (by the other criteria) you cannot commit an evil act in order to achieve some good end.

In general, though, I believe there is no formal set of rules dictating how to apply the proportionality criterion of PDE. The right judgment of which evil effects are proportionate to the good is that made by the man who possesses the virtue of prudence (prudentia, phronesis).

Sometimes people write as though the proportionality criterion is basically a consequentialist weighing (sum up the pre-moral goods and evils and see what comes out on top). I don’t think any such weighing is possible. (That’s much of the reason why consequentialism ought to be rejected.) Elizabeth Anscombe once provided an example that, I think, suggests why: Suppose that an emergency room is healing a single person. Then five crash victims are brought in; the resources can be directed away from the single person, who would then die, to the five. This would save the five but result in the death of the one.

The other criteria of PDE are fine here. Redirecting resources is not grave matter. The death of the single person is not means to saving the others. (If he managed to survive without the resources, the others would not therefore fail to be saved.) But are we required to redirect the resources? Anscombe suggests that we are not. Is the death of five proportionate to the saving of one? She suggests that it might be, since we don’t owe any of the particular people our limited resources. We could redirect the resources, but we don’t have to.

I think that such things have to be recognized. In other cases, the proportionality criterion will be violated, as if what was at stake in redirecting the resources was not five lives, but $50. Saving that money is not proportionate to the death of one; we don’t know this by any calculation on the values of their lives, but it is something that the virtuous man should recognize.

Just wanted to comment about Anscombe’s example.

I think that what she is saying is gray, but correct.
It’s correct b/c you are only morally obliged to give ordinary means to people to ensure their survival (water, food, common medicines). If the workers at the ER were keeping one person alive by a feeding tube or an aspirin (doesn’t make much sense but…) then it would be sinful for them to deny that to the person and the PDE wouldn’t apply.

If they were keeping the person alive through extraordinary means, then they wouldn’t be morally obliged to keep him alive anymore and they could help the other five people in grave/serious condition.

Compare that to ending the life of an innocent person who has contracted a disease that could wipe out mankind. Ending that person’s life would be IMMORAL because it is sinful to deliberately end the life of an innocent person (grave matter too), as well as the bad effect producing the good…even despite the good and bad effect being “proportional” (I don’t think it is proportional but I’m just pointing out that even if this condition was fulfilled it would still be immoral) and the good effect being intended.