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Ender
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79. One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of teleological and proportionalist theories, which holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species — its “object” — the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behaviour or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned. (Veritatis Splendor)
I’m trying to take this through a step by step analysis based on what the church teaches.
1750 The morality of human acts depends on:
- the object chosen;
- the end in view or the intention;
- the circumstances of the action. (Catechism)
If the object is not intrinsically evil then the morality of an act depends on the intention. We should all at least be able to agree that the intent of the person who throws the switch is to save five lives, and the intent is therefore moral, but if the intent is moral and the object is not immoral, on what basis do we assert that the act is immoral?
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Ender
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I just can’t understand this distinction. A single bomb dropped on a factory will simultaneously destroy part of the factory as well as the civilians working in it. The pilot knows civilians will die as a result of his action but he does it any way, and the act is morally justifiable because he does not intend their deaths (and the act satisfies the other PODE criteria).
The person who throws the switch knows one person will die even as five will live, and his action is equally justifiable for precisely the same reasons. You keep saying the switching was “ordered to the death of an innocent”. In what way is that action ordered to death where the bombing is not? What exactly does “ordered to” mean?
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Gorgias
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Clearly.
The operation doesn’t directly kill the child. Rather, a side effect of the operation is what kills the child.
(Think about ectopic pregnancies. If the doctor excises the fallopian tube, then the direct result of the operation is that the woman’s life is saved. The side effect is that the baby will die. Not as a result of the operation, mind you, but subsequent to it and indirectly due to it. On the other hand, it’s possible to provide chemicals to the mother that will kill the child developing in the fallopian tube. This procedure not only directly heals the mother, but does so by directly killing the child. This would be impermissible morally (since the bad effect – the death of the child – is what causes the good effect – the healing of the mother.)
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Ender
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Throwing the switch does not directly kill the person tied to the tracks any more than pulling a fish out of water is the direct cause of its death. If the person was rescued from the tracks in time, or if the trolley was stopped or derailed the person would obviously live. There is equal indirectness in both the trolley case and the operation.
Beyond that, however, in the case of the bombing, that is clearly the direct cause of civilian deaths, yet that action is morally justifiable. Even if your distinction between direct and indirect was accurate in the cases of the operation and the trolley, it does not account for why directly causing the deaths of civilians in a war may be justifiable.
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Gorgias
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Riiiiiiight. And the person who pulls the trigger, that fires the bullet, that kills the person… isn’t the direct cause of their death, either, right?Gorgias:
Throwing the switch does not directly kill the person tied to the tracks any more than pulling a fish out of water is the direct cause of its death.
Agreed. That’s why “just war theory” applies to that case, but not to the trolley case.
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Ender
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How do you distinguish between a side effect and a direct effect? The act of throwing the switch does not kill; it sets in motion a sequence of events that leads to death. The operation does not kill, but it too sets in motion a sequence of events that inevitably leads to death. If the act of switching the trolley directly killed someone then nothing done after the switch was thrown would matter, but that is clearly untrue. As I pointed out, the person could be freed from the tracks in time or the trolley could be stopped. It is not the act which kills but the completion of the sequence of events which inevitably occur after the act is committed.
The principles of just war theory must be consistent with other moral doctrines; they cannot permit acts that are otherwise condemned. If bombing is the direct cause of the death of innocent people then it can be justified only because there are other criteria that justify the act, criteria that are universally applicable.
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o_mlly
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In morality, the adjectives “direct” or “indirect” usually apply as qualifiers to one’s intention; not to the foreseeable events or actual consequences.
In determining the morality of the object (before the act), one must discern the foreseeable events. The foreseeable events are likely to be identical to the act’s consequences but not necessarily so.
All the foreseeable events are equal as matter in the determination of the act’s moral object.
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Ender
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If this is so then the act of switching the trolley is moral because the intention is to save the five lives, and the object of the act is not intrinsically immoral.
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o_mlly
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If the foreseeable events of the act are the killing of one innocent life in order to save four innocent lives then the act is intrinsically evil.
CCC 2269 The fifth commandment forbids doing anything with the intention of indirectly bringing about a person’s death. The moral law prohibits exposing someone to mortal danger without grave reason, as well as refusing assistance to a person in danger.
What is the difference between “exposing to mortal danger” and “causing death”? If the foreseeable event of an innocent person’s death was merely a possibility rather than a probability then the saving of four lives may be considered a sufficient grave reason.
A morally good act must be good in all three fonts – object, intent and circumstance. As stated, this act fails in its object.
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Ender
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You’ve addressed two different criteria as if they were the same. In your comment you speak of “killing”, but the catechism citation speaks to the “intention” of killing. Killing per se is not immoral; the church has been very explicit about that. Nor can you condemn the object of an act by finding fault with the intention behind it. The intention behind the act of throwing the switch is clear: it is to save five lives. The intention is not immoral despite what the consequences are.
No, intention alone does not justify an action, I’m simply saying that in this case neither the intention nor the consequences of this act make it immoral, so the action can be condemned solely on the basis that the object is intrinsically evil.
If the death of an innocent person was a foreseeable consequence of an act, and that death made the act immoral, there would be no way to justify dropping a (normal) bomb on a city, yet that act has been accepted by the church as moral. If the act of dropping a bomb which will inevitably lead to a civilian death is not immoral then how is throwing the switch in the trolley case any different?
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o_mlly
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The bystander in the trolley exercise does not have the license of a defender in a just war. Defenders in a just war may morally use force to mitigate an unjust aggressor’s offensive capability. But that legitimate use of force is subject to principles. And those principles are subject to prudential judgements. In this particular case, the bomber must judge that the civilian deaths foreseen will not exceed the evils eliminated by the bombs – the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/just_war.htm
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o_mlly
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Intention has nothing to do with the object of an act. If the intention is evil then the act is evil.
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BlackFriar
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The two are intimately related, much like soul to body in Aquinas it seems.
I would think that one point of defining the object is to see if it can anchor a good intent. Sometimes we cannot fully define the object without investigating the intent that chose it.
We could not do that if there was not an assumed couvert relationship between the two. Ever tried submerging two shirts in a tub without enough water? Push one down and the other breaks surface!
So if the intent is evil then something in the object must be disordered…though it may not be in the proximate object but another object it is subordinated to perhaps.
All the fonts are interconnected, they arent separate blocks we simply push together. More like 3 shirts in water than three leggos I think.
I would think that one point of defining the object is to see if it can anchor a good intent. Sometimes we cannot fully define the object without investigating the intent that chose it.
We could not do that if there was not an assumed couvert relationship between the two. Ever tried submerging two shirts in a tub without enough water? Push one down and the other breaks surface!
So if the intent is evil then something in the object must be disordered…though it may not be in the proximate object but another object it is subordinated to perhaps.
All the fonts are interconnected, they arent separate blocks we simply push together. More like 3 shirts in water than three leggos I think.
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Ender
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Are you saying persons engaged in war have a license to kill innocents that is denied the rest of us? I agree that actions are subject to principles, the thing is, those principles are universally applicable. If the act of throwing the switch is intrinsically evil because it leads to an innocent death then such action is evil everywhere and at all times, and there is no exemption for soldiers. If, however, the act is not intrinsically evil then there is no basis on which to condemn it.
How does this differ in the trolley case? Did not the person throwing the switch make a prudential judgment that fewer people will die if he overtly acts? If the pilot’s decision to bomb is justified by his judgment then so too is the decision to throw the switch.
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o_mlly
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The bystander does not have a duty to throw the switch. The pilot has a grave duty to defend. If one has the obligation then one also has the right (or license) to act.
2321 The prohibition of murder does not abrogate the right to render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Legitimate defense is a grave duty for whoever is responsible for the lives of others or the common good.
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o_mlly
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If “interconnected” means that the moral object cannot be determined independently from intent then I disagree.
The moral object is the objective component. The intent is the subjective component. The moral object does not change if intent changes. Since one cannot intend an unforeseen event, I agree that intent is dependent on the moral object of an act.
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DetectiveNiko
Guest
From my point of view, in the first scenario botth of the people have their free will limited by some point, its A or B . While in the second scenario its, A or not A by saving B . It seems the same at first, but in the second scenario the other person has their own choice factoring in, while in the others not. Its also highly imossible to find a perfect surgeon in real life, while the first scenario is possible although highly improbbable.
And as some people have suggested, theese are highly dualistic experiments. In real life, we would probbably have people from somewhere else offering organs, or we could take organs from already dead people (Don’t know if thats moral or not ) and if there was a train you could try stopping the train.
And as some people have suggested, theese are highly dualistic experiments. In real life, we would probbably have people from somewhere else offering organs, or we could take organs from already dead people (Don’t know if thats moral or not ) and if there was a train you could try stopping the train.
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BlackFriar
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I dont think one can go far wrong by applying the body soul analogy. In identifying the type of body we are also identifying the type of soul which is hard to verify without a body.
Often we do not have a good perception of the body. (The object is a complicated or hard to discern scenario)…in which case it makes sense to try and discern the soul (the agents intent) to see if that helps.
Aquinas says much the same re some cases of lethal self defence where the only key to murder versus self defence is in the intent of the agent because outwardly it is impossible to judge whether excess force was used or not.
Often we do not have a good perception of the body. (The object is a complicated or hard to discern scenario)…in which case it makes sense to try and discern the soul (the agents intent) to see if that helps.
Aquinas says much the same re some cases of lethal self defence where the only key to murder versus self defence is in the intent of the agent because outwardly it is impossible to judge whether excess force was used or not.
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