The abortion memo

[Rau]

It doesn’t matter why one supports allowing abortions beyond 20 weeks, that position is immoral because it permits an action (abortion) that is intrinsically evil. It is not justifiable for any reason.

There are laws or absences of laws that legally “permit” other intrinsic evils. Is it immoral (for Catholics) not to act to “rectify” this situation?

Is the corollary of your statement that gaps in law which “permit” intrinsically evil acts must be actively closed, or those (Catholics) failing to close them act immorally?

Imagine a bill is put forward tomorrow (were it possible) that would render all abortions illegal and subjecting all participants to a just punishment (proportional to the crime). Would it be immoral (for a Catholic) to argue: “That bill does not have the support of the people - it will do more harm than good - we should not pursue it at this time.”?

 

[robertmidwest]

Look at column 2 of the chart.

Trump 71 yo male. Odds of dying the next year: 2.7%

RBG 84 female. Odds of dying in the next year: 6.6%.

Trump has the advantage.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Everything you have said here also applies to abortion, doesn’t it? If not, please point out which specific statement you have made here is not true for abortion.

Everything I said applies to every political issue, including abortion. I really don’t understand what you are objecting to.

Because you said abortion etc., were exceptions to this rule in post 21.

 

[lmachine]

Trump 71 yo male. Odds of dying the next year: 2.7%

RBG 84 female. Odds of dying in the next year: 6.6%.

Trump has the advantage.

What a strange thing to say. Yes, it is very likely Ginsburg will die before Trump. I don’t know how much of an “advantage” that is if both are expected to live past the end of Trump’s term.

 

[Ender]

There are laws or absences of laws that legally “permit” other intrinsic evils. Is it immoral (for Catholics) not to act to “rectify” this situation?

Not necessarily.

Is the corollary of your statement that gaps in law which “permit” intrinsically evil acts must be actively closed, or those (Catholics) failing to close them act immorally?

Not necessarily.

Imagine a bill is put forward tomorrow (were it possible) that would render all abortions illegal and subjecting all participants to a just punishment (proportional to the crime). Would it be immoral (for a Catholic) to argue: “That bill does not have the support of the people - it will do more harm than good - we should not pursue it at this time.”?

That is a more nuanced position that might well be worth discussing. It is not, however, what this discussion has been about.

 

[Rau]

The “Not necessarily” responses also suggest the issue is more nuanced that your earlier assertions suggested.

 

[Ender]

Because you said abortion etc., were exceptions to this rule in post 21.

No, I didn’t. I’ve been trying to frame the argument as clearly as possible, and while I am not surprised when you don’t agree with me I am surprised when you appear not to comprehend what I’m saying.

It should not need to be said (and therefore I didn’t bother saying it) that our solutions to problems cannot include an evil action. Thus my point about stealing a battery to fix your neighbor’s car, but the fact that you can choose an evil fix does not make fixing your neighbor’s car a moral problem. That simply abuses the meaning of words.

This is why I don’t consider most social (political) issues to be any more of a moral consideration than car repair. Some few issues, however, involve choosing an immoral act that is intrinsic to the choice. I may be for or against building a wall, but I may not be for or against allowing abortion because supporting the building of a border wall is not intrinsically evil, while supporting abortion is.

The “exception” of abortion is to the observation that most political issues are not moral issues.

 

[Ender]

The “Not necessarily” responses also suggest the issue is more nuanced that your earlier assertions suggested.

Be specific. I can’t respond to general implications.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The “exception” of abortion is to the observation that most political issues are not moral issues.

OK, I thought you implied that abortion is an exception to this:

There is only one moral choice involved in most issues: do we want to honestly solve the problem or not? Once that choice is made, there are virtually no moral questions left for the vast majority of political concerns.

Right? Because if abortion were an exception to this, the way you would show it was an exception would be to demonstrate that there is more than one moral choice involved in the abortion issue. This statement says there is only one.

 

[robertmidwest]

What a strange thing to say. Yes, it is very likely Ginsburg will die before Trump. I don’t know how much of an “advantage” that is if both are expected to live past the end of Trump’s term.

Look the foot note a for column 2.

a Probability of dying within one year.

RBG is 3 times more likely to die in the next year than Trump.

 

[Ender]

Because if abortion were an exception to this, the way you would show it was an exception would be to demonstrate that there is more than one moral choice involved in the abortion issue. This statement says there is only one.

There are always two (primary) considerations that determine the morality of an act: the intent, and the object (the action taken). For most political issues it it the intent alone that determines whether the proposal is moral or immoral. This is why I said that once we have chosen our position with a good intent (honestly try to fix the problem), we don’t face any more moral choices (assuming it to be obvious we can’t steal our neighbor’s battery to solve our problem).

There are, however, a set of issues that involve intrinsically evil objects so that even if the choice is made with a good intent this is not sufficient to justify the choice. There is a second concern: it is the nature of the object chosen, not the intent, that makes the choice immoral.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Because if abortion were an exception to this, the way you would show it was an exception would be to demonstrate that there is more than one moral choice involved in the abortion issue. This statement says there is only one.

There are always two (primary) considerations that determine the morality of an act: the intent, and the object (the action taken). For most political issues it it the intent alone that determines whether the proposal is moral or immoral. This is why I said that once we have chosen our position with a good intent (honestly try to fix the problem), we don’t face any more moral choices (assuming it to be obvious we can’t steal our neighbor’s battery to solve our problem).

There are, however, a set of issues that involve intrinsically evil objects so that even if the choice is made with a good intent this is not sufficient to justify the choice. There is a second concern: it is the nature of the object chosen, not the intent, that makes the choice immoral.

I see. With abortion it is not sufficient if someone simply has a good intent to honestly try to solve the problem of abortion. Their efforts can still be immoral if they do not go about solving the problem in the right way.

 

[dvdjs]

According to CBS news RBG is already past her life expectancy.

Average life expectancy is a statistic associated with a population, not a characteristic of an individual.

RBG is 3 times more likely to die in the next year than Trump.

Nope.

 

[robertmidwest]

Nope.

explain column 2 if you disagree.

 

[dvdjs]

explain column 2 if you disagree.

If we are comparing specific individuals then information about the individuals should be used to assess likelihood of mortality, not averages over a population.

 

[robertmidwest]

If we are comparing specific individuals then information about the individuals should be used to assess likelihood of mortality, not averages over a population.

I am using the same chart Lmachine used.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If we are comparing specific individuals then information about the individuals should be used to assess likelihood of mortality, not averages over a population.

That’s true.

But I have had some occasion to work with annuity companies for lawyers in facilitating structured settlements, and it’s kind of surprising how little difference a lot of health conditions make that you would think would make a lot. Yes, there are terminal conditions and all, and underlying health conditions do matter. But generally speaking, even fairly serious health conditions don’t make anywhere near as much difference in life expectancy as one would think they would.

 

[Ender]

I see. With abortion it is not sufficient if someone simply has a good intent to honestly try to solve the problem of abortion. Their efforts can still be immoral if they do not go about solving the problem in the right way.

Exactly, and this limitation is true of a very small set of political issues.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

I see. With abortion it is not sufficient if someone simply has a good intent to honestly try to solve the problem of abortion. Their efforts can still be immoral if they do not go about solving the problem in the right way.

Exactly, and this limitation is true of a very small set of political issues.

So, for instance, if someone were to try to solve the abortion problem by killing abortion doctors, that would be the “wrong way,” whereas if someone were to vote for pro-life political candidates or open a crisis pregnancy aid center, that would be the “right way.”

But this could be said of many other issues as well. If someone were to solve the problem of world hunger by stealing food from grocery stores to give out to the poor, that would be the “wrong way” but donating from their own wealth would be the “right way.” Your example of helping a friend with a dead car battery is of the same sort. It shows that merely having the intention to solve a problem is not sufficient for the act to be moral. Therefore there are more moral questions to a political issue beyond “should we solve it?”

 

[HarryStotle]

Yes, it does. For most political issues there is no moral difference in opposing positions inasmuch as neither side supports something that is intrinsically evil. For the issues I listed above, however, one position is immoral regardless of the reason one takes it.

It is not immoral to be for or against DACA, for or against a higher minimum wage, for or against Obamacare. It is immoral, however, to be for abortion, and the just concluded vote against making abortions illegal after 20 weeks was an immoral position, regardless of ones reason for opposing the measure.

It is not a necessary condition for a political issue to be a moral one that it involve an “intrinsic evil.”

Those are simply the easy ones to resolve, at least for moral individuals.

All other political issues are moral questions at ground, but the facts are difficult to discern with regard to deciding which moral principles would come into play and how to prioritize, in a morally warranted way, the “goods” at stake.

That does not mean these political questions are not moral questions at heart.

Personally, I am skeptical of anyone who claims that political questions have nothing to do with morality because that divorces those questions from having a moral resolution and moves them into the realm of resolution by some other method – purely ideological, purely economic, purely pragmatic, etc.

Speaking of scary.

As CS Lewis pointed out, if there really were malevolent witches with the supernatural power and willfulness to corrupt and destroy whole communities and the only way to stop them was by burning, well those “facts” might just be sufficient to justify witch burning. What the promoters of witch burning got wrong were the basic facts of seeing witches where there were none and deciding that their innocent neighbors were such evil creatures.

A modern critic of witch-burning might insist that it is always wrong to burn any living things, even those that are supernaturally evil and bent on destroying your entire society, but then that “principle” would have to be argued as THE absolute moral principle by which such questions are ultimately decided.

A simple law regarding, say, parking fees can only be fair and just if it is ultimately grounded in the well-being and just treatment of everyone in the community. These are, ultimately, moral considerations decided by weighing moral priorities.