The morality of an act: CCC 1756 and CCC 2263

[Jaaanosik]

Does this explanation help you see the error you are making? I’ll cut and paste it because I’m not sure you are reading the links offered to help you understand it.

unav.es/cdb/dhbapmoralact2c3.html

You do not get it, do you?
The natural law is telling us that the most fundamental good, end (telos) of a human being and human nature is existence/life.
Therefore cutting a limb is intrinsically evil because it is violating existence/life; it’s affecting it in a negative way.
This is as objective as it can get. There is nothing subjective or relativistic in it.

 

[Jaaanosik]

Are there any authorities among theologians that you regard as reliable??

Please, show me one that would say the mutilation is not intrinsically evil.

 

[Rau]

Please, show me one that would say the mutilation is not intrinsically evil.

What do define as mutilation? The mere use of the knife? Did you not read the explanation of amputation I referred to you?

But more important - Are there any theologians supporting your view that evil can be done for a wider good cause? Is there a Church that has “nailed” moral theology to your liking, noting you reject the Catholic position?

 

[Jaaanosik]

What do define as mutilation? The mere use of the knife? Did you not read the explanation of amputation I referred to you?

But more important - Are there any theologians supporting your view that evil can be done for a wider good cause? Is there a Church that has “nailed” moral theology to your liking, noting you reject the Catholic position?

I never said that the evil can be done.
One may do good even though an evil is a consequence; that’s the double effect in a nutshell. This is what 2263 says and I agree with it.

… and this is from your #2 post of this thread:
3. circumstances (including consequences); eg. I live; aggressor dies.

Are you not saying the same thing?

 

[Rau]

I never said that the evil can be done.
One may do good even though an evil is a consequence; that’s the double effect in a nutshell. This is what 2263 says and I agree with it.

… and this is from your #2 post of this thread:
3. circumstances (including consequences); eg. I live; aggressor dies.

Are you not saying the same thing?

NO, I’m not. A bad outcome is not evil per se!

:banghead:

 

[Jaaanosik]

NO, I’m not. A bad outcome is not evil per se!

:banghead:

An aggressor dies but did not die by a natural death. It’s obvious a killing happened. Killing is intrinsically evil because it violates the most fundamental good of a human being.

You call that just a bad outcome now? Nice words gymnastics.
If you do not stick to basics of the natural moral law then we are done.

 

[Rau]

An aggressor dies but did not die by a natural death. It’s obvious a killing happened. Killing is intrinsically evil because it violates the most fundamental good of a human being.

You call that just a bad outcome now? Nice words gymnastics.
If you do not stick to basics of the natural moral law then we are done.

A murder, however, which is intrinsically evil, may not have occurred. What was willed when the victim retaliated? As explained many times, murder is possible within the circumstances and Intentions of defending oneself. And a moral act in the same circumstances may see the death of the assailant.

Unlike methotrexate injection, death resulting from an act of self-defence is not, must not, be a product of the will. Look at the double effect principal. The act would be immoral if (but not only if):

• the agent willed the death of the other; or
• required the death to give rise to the (presumably good) Intention.

“We may not do evil for a good Intention”.

The latter bullet is not so different to the first - it serves in the tool of PDE to clarify that relying on death to give rise to the Intention is, in fact, to will the death.

I remind you that I am in line with the Church and moral theologians at large on this. From where comes your understanding of moral theology?

And I apologise for prior flippant post with the head bashing…

 

[Jaaanosik]

A murder, however, which is intrinsically evil, may not have occurred. What was willed when the victim retaliated? As explained many times, murder is possible within the circumstances and Intentions of defending oneself. And a moral act in the same circumstances may see the death of the assailant.

Unlike methotrexate injection, death resulting from an act of self-defence is not, must not, be a product of the will. Look at the double effect principal. The act would be immoral if (but not only if):

• the agent willed the death of the other; or
• required the death to give rise to the (presumably good) Intention.

“We may not do evil for a good Intention”.

The latter bullet is not so different to the first - it serves in the tool of PDE to clarify that relying on death to give rise to the Intention is, in fact, to will the death.

I remind you that I am in line with the Church and moral theologians at large on this. From where comes your understanding of moral theology?

And I apologise for prior flippant post with the head bashing…

1. 
   *]What is the intrinsically evil moral object of the murder?
   ]You should stick to 1756 and defended it. But you say: "… within the circumstances and Intentions of defending oneself. *" how come? Unless you agree that there is no moral object without the first stage - analysis of the act when intentions, circumstances, consequences, … are inseparable.
   *] must not, be a product of the will - is cutting a limb during amputation product of the will or not? Please, no more nonsense. The basic natural moral law. Cutting of a limb is an intrinsically evil moral object otherwise mutilation would not be an intrinsically evil act.

 

[Rau]

1. 
   *]What is the intrinsically evil moral object of the murder?
   ]You should stick to 1756 and defended it. But you say: "… within the circumstances and Intentions of defending oneself. *" how come? Unless you agree that there is no moral object without the first stage - analysis of the act when intentions, circumstances, consequences, … are inseparable.
   *] must not, be a product of the will - is cutting a limb during amputation product of the will or not? Please, no more nonsense. The basic natural moral law. Cutting of a limb is an intrinsically evil moral object otherwise mutilation would not be an intrinsically evil act.

1. 
   I don’t know what it is that you are debating, or how it supports the idea that ends justify means, or how it supports the idea that killing a baby to save a mother could be other than exactly that.

 

[Jaaanosik]

I don’t know what it is that you are debating, or how it supports the idea that ends justify means, or how it supports the idea that killing a baby to save a mother could be other than exactly that.

The thread started with discussing the 1756 and a murder specifically. We are on page 5 and maybe I missed it but I have not seen you to clearly state what is the moral object of a murder and why in relation to the natural moral law.

Where did I say that the end justifies means?
All this time I am saying that one may do good even though an evil is a consequence. That’s the double effect assuming there is more good than evil in the consequences and there is no other avenue left to do good only the one with evil being one of the consequences.

Is cutting a limb during amputation product of the will or not?

 

[Rau]

…but I have not seen you to clearly state what is the moral object of a murder and why in relation to the natural moral law.

Where did I say that the end justifies means?
All this time I am saying that one may do good even though an evil is a consequence. That’s the double effect assuming there is more good than evil in the consequences and there is no other avenue left to do good only the one with evil being one of the consequences.

The murder question has been addressed multiple times in this and prior thread, and also by LongingSoul but I suspect she left the thread after you were insulting towards her.

Real world acts are assessed. The moral object of a methotrexate injection given to a woman with ectopic pregnancy is murder. That is what that act is about. The baby’s death is willed, and from that (and only that) the mother heals. You are ok with that because you say the moral object is otherwise. But actually, you justify the means (murder) based on the end (saving the mother).

Bad consequences are permissible if on balance they are not bad. But you can’t do intrinsic evil - the act’s moral object must not be evil. Hence, murder can never be done, regardless of Intention and Circumstances.

I am all talked out on this subject, and regrettably no one else is participating, so I’ll exit this thread at this point.

 

[LongingSoul]

An aggressor dies but did not die by a natural death. It’s obvious a killing happened. Killing is intrinsically evil because it violates the most fundamental good of a human being.

Deaths come about in different ways. Through someones act of will to bring about the death. Through an accident where no intention to kill existed. Or incidentally, where the a person willed some other outcome that didn’t involve death even though the possibility might have existed. That would be like an act of self defense against an aggressor where a person is acting to save their own life and the others death is incidental to that. Or even an act of trying to save someone which results in their death such as a surgeon cutting someone open to cure some ill leading to the death of the patient.

You call that just a bad outcome now? Nice words gymnastics.
If you do not stick to basics of the natural moral law then we are done.

Deaths which happen via accident or incidentally to a good act, could be termed ***natural ***evils and results in certain bad outcomes. It is the particular act of will to intentionally and voluntarily kill that makes the death a ***moral ***evil. That is an evil outcome and an intrinisically evil act we call murder. ‘Intrinsically’ evil refers to the moral value of the act of killing and is directly related to the actors inner motive towards the other.

 

[Jaaanosik]

The murder question has been addressed multiple times in this and prior thread, and also by LongingSoul but I suspect she left the thread after you were insulting towards her.

Real world acts are assessed. The moral object of a methotrexate injection given to a woman with ectopic pregnancy** is murder**. That is what that act is about. The baby’s death is willed, and from that (and only that) the mother heals. You are ok with that because you say the moral object is otherwise. But actually, you justify the means (murder) based on the end (saving the mother).

Bad consequences are permissible if on balance they are not bad. But you can’t do intrinsic evil - the act’s moral object must not be evil. Hence, murder can never be done, regardless of Intention and Circumstances.

I am all talked out on this subject, and regrettably no one else is participating, so I’ll exit this thread at this point.

I agree, it’s better if we stop.
The CCC 1756 is clear and if you do not understand it then I don’t know…

There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit** by reason of their object**; such as blasphemy and perjury,** murder** and adultery.

A murder is an act, it’s not a moral object.

 

[Jaaanosik]

…
‘Intrinsically’ evil refers to the moral value of the act of killing and is** directly related to the actors inner motive** towards the other.

You are going against CCC 1756: There are acts which, in and of themselves,* independently of** circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery.*

 

[LongingSoul]

You are going against CCC 1756: There are acts which, in and of themselves,* independently of*** circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery.

Yes but don’t you see we are specifically speaking of ‘acts’… ‘acts’ specifies the mechanism of the human will to bring an event about. The object of the act by itself includes ‘the act done through human desire’. Killing along can’t qualify as an object since if someone is killed by a falling tree or cancer, there was no human desire involved. That was just a random death uninvoked by any human act. That death has no player to whom it was an object. Basically an object can only be seen by the eyes of a human conscience… not just by human eyes.

The object of murder is ‘the killing of someone, willed by another’. The whole thing stated specifies the object. That willing of the act, first began with an intention. Maybe a good intention even like not wanting to see a dying person suffer. But the intention whether good or bad is irrelevant to the wills choice to kill. The circumstances are a secondary aspect that contribute to the quality of the intention. For example the circumstance here is that a person has a terminal illness and will be dead soon anyway. That circumstance, leads to the intention which is ‘ending the persons pain’. The intention is a noble and natural one. Then the will to act follows the intention. The will to act chooses either to take the life of the person away… or to direct effort towards taking away the pain with pain relief. Those are two opposite choices that the will makes in response to the intention. The object of one act of will is the killing of the patient desired. The object of the other act is the relief of pain in the patient desired. Both can have the same intention and the same circumstances… but the object desired by the will is very, very, different. One is intrinsically evil. Murder.

If you read the link I’d pasted on the other page (and the many links posted by Rau) it clearly warns against problem that you are having.

The point of view sustained by St. Thomas and his commentators, as well as that of Veritatis Splendor, can be denominated objective morality (51). The meaning of the expression comes to be the following: objective morality is that which sustains that the acts of the will are determined by their object, that is, by the quid of the action they produce, **since the decision of the will with reference to the action being carried out here and now is what bears the greater part of the action’s morality **(52); and there are objects (quids of the act of the will) which it will always be evil to try or choose, because they cannot be ordered to God nor to true good of man (53). Objective morality or the objective moral order is a fixed reference for the good of the conduct, reference which occurs in all voluntary acts.

In this respect, the relatively frequent confusion of associating the fixity of the objective moral order with the fixity of material reality has to be avoided. On this view, the immutability of the moral order would be derived from physical actions: certain physical actions would always be evil and moral principles would be immutable because physical reality with its intrinsic laws is immutable (54). **Perhaps this confusion is due to the other, mentioned above, between the moral object and the physical realization of the action.**As can be inferred from the previous discussion, the immutability of the moral order is not derived from the physical realities which the elections of the acting subject deal with, but rather they are derived from the natural laws internal to the acting subject: the action’s execution is posterior to the subject’s decision, which is good or bad before being executed. For this reason it is impossible to derive moral laws from physical actions. The expression “objective moral law” refers to the natural law interior to the acting subject.

unav.es/cdb/dhbapmoralact2c3.html

That’s what you’re doing. You are confusing the “moral object and the physical realization of the action”. The physical realisation of the action ie. the death of the person… isn’t an ‘object’ unless it includes the will of the killer that made the physical realisation of the action. The death as the object of a human desire. The act that brought about the physical realisation. These are the elements that expose the moral object.

 

[LucyEm]

CCC 1756:* It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.*
CCC 2263: *The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.”
*
The most fundamental good of a person is existence/life. Killing is an evil act that violates that. These two paragraphs mention murder that is an intrinsically evil act.
According to the CCC 1756 a morality of intrinsically evil acts is always wrong regardless of the intentions and circumstances.
The CCC 2263 says there are occasions when circumstances bring an agent into more complicated scenario when the double effect principle has to be explored. The intention of the agent changes how the morality of an act is being accessed.
How can we resolve this apparent conflict?
The only way is to realize that there are two types of intentions; an intention that motivates the agent to do something/to achieve a goal **and the intention to choose a moral object **that’s going to be used to achieve the goal. The end result is that the intention to use a different moral object redefines the act. That’s how a self-defense is morally OK because the intention is to choose good moral object and even if a killing happens it’s not intended and therefore it cannot be considered as a murder.

Having said that, the same logic has to be applied to saving woman’s life during ectopic pregnancies. A surgery in order to save a woman is intended good moral object; embryo dying after removal from the tube is not intended, therefore this is not an abortion.

Here is an example of an ‘inverted’ double effect principle. To procreate is intrinsically good but it cannot change a morality of a rape.

Hi

We’ve been studying ethics and morality at College including the Catholic principles (3 fonts, double-effect, etc.)

I don’t think the 2 clauses are in conflict as I understand it. The intrinsic evil is killing “on purpose”. 1756 just says that there are some acts that are always wrong (such as “killing on purpose” - all acts which “kill on purpose” - are called murder).

The “Intention” of the agent doesn’t change that. Why they decided to “kill on purpose” doesn’t matter.

We went through the Catholic position on ectopic pregnancy. In some ways, its pretty weird, because the result you get by following the treatment allowed by Catholics seems to be a worse outcome than you could get by a simpler procedure. But I think the thinking does actually hang together. They are OK with removing a piece of tube because - as you say - there was no “killing on purpose”. And this was the treatment the mother actually required. They disagree with the others methods because they require the doctor to “kill (the baby) on purpose”. So that would be murder.

I can understand the way you talk about “2 kinds of intentions”, though that’s not how we had it explained to us. The “second” intention was really thought of more as intrinsic to the act (the end ‘willed’ right there in the act). Sort of what the act does. I guess you’re thinking of it like this using a self-defence example:

• I have Intention to protect myself
• I use a gun and decide I want to kill the attacker - so now I have an “intention” to kill.
• I shoot, he dies.

I suppose you can think of it like that, but we still get the same answer don’t we - that I killed on purpose, so it’s murder, motivated by self-defence. This is totally different to shooting the gun not wanting to kill - even if the guy does die.

I did read all this thread before I posted. Honestly, in some parts, I’m a little unsure what all the disagreement was about!! A lot of the time, people seem to be saying the same thing! All the way up to and including post #38, I think you guys seem to be saying pretty much the same thing but debating about which word is better, say, “murder” or “killing”. But what happened at Post #39 and #40?? That’s where you say the tube removal and the methotrexate are morally the same?

The reason we were told that that methotrexate is not allowed is because it is like the self-defence example above. The methotrexate is given to kill the embryo (which leads to the mum’s medical problem resolving). So that’s an abortion - totally different to what you described above with the tube removal. But in Post #39/#40 you say they are both morally no different and that the metho case is not murder because of the Intention to save the mum. That led onto another poster saying you want the ends to justify the means - which seems to be kinda right??

Your rape example seems a bit funny too. Rape is evil. Which part of rape do you see as including the good of “procreation” - I would say it is only the moment of conception and beyond. Everything before that was like an assault and had no right to occur and the woman would have every right to stop it, pulling “it” out, (even chopping it off! Lol), and treatment in hospital to prevent a conception if possible.

 

[LucyEm]

Do you believe that killing the baby by cutting the tube is any different? Cutting the tube kills the baby and it does not improve a chance of the mother to have another baby. This harms her even more. So the cutting kills and harms. More evil than good.

Just thinking about this one a bit more. My first reaction to the Catholic way of treating ectopic pregnancy was just what you wrote at the end of the above - after the dust settles, we have a dead baby **and **mother with a damaged tube. Wouldn’t the meth have resulted in less harm? I guess it would have! Some of the ethical analyses we had to read on this scenario focussed on what results in the least harm just as you say.

But then I’m thinking - how does the doctor (or mum for that matter) get to choose a procedure that exactly “kills the baby on purpose” ? If a parent brought Siamese twins into the doctor’s surgery, could the treatment program (for whatever analogous complaint…) ever be “let’s kill that one”? I don’t think so. But it could be to operate on one twin to correct some problem there, even knowing that there’s gonna be a bad consequence (maybe death) for the other. [This could get mind-boggling if the medical issue was symmetric LOL!!..which one to operate on!!]

If you can choose to kill on purpose one person, because the death of that person will bring the good result to the other one, isn’t that exactly “ends justifying means”?

The tube operation results in the baby’s death too. But there was no “killing on purpose”. The only “on purpose” thing done was to stop the tube bursting/bleeding or whatever it does. I can see a bit of an argument that you shouldn’t even do that operation, but I guess it is acceptable because it (the baby’s death) was not “on purpose” - it was not the thing that saved the mum. So the doctor never used that death as the means to the end. It was the removal of the tube, with the baby’s death being a side-effect.

I can really see the perspective that says all these jumping through hoops are crazy given we still end up with a dead baby. Does the baby object to being killed “on purpose” with the metho, any more than the “consequential death” he incurs due to the tube surgery? I don’t think so. But, I suppose that’s where God and the dignity of persons comes into the thing. People are special - it’s not moral to kill them “on purpose” in general, and not in the special circumstances of ectopic pregnancy either.

Well, that’s how I see it. And the ethicist papers that described it that way were the ones that seemed to be the most convincing.

 

[LucyEm]

Yes but don’t you see we are specifically speaking of ‘acts’… ‘acts’ specifies the mechanism of the human will to bring an event about. The object of the act by itself includes ‘the act done through human desire’. Killing along can’t qualify as an object since if someone is killed by a falling tree or cancer, there was no human desire involved. That was just a random death uninvoked by any human act. That death has no player to whom it was an object. Basically an object can only be seen by the eyes of a human conscience… not just by human eyes.

The object of murder is ‘the killing of someone, willed by another’. The whole thing stated specifies the object. That willing of the act, first began with an intention. Maybe a good intention even like not wanting to see a dying person suffer. But the intention whether good or bad is irrelevant to the wills choice to kill. The circumstances are a secondary aspect that contribute to the quality of the intention. For example the circumstance here is that a person has a terminal illness and will be dead soon anyway. That circumstance, leads to the intention which is ‘ending the persons pain’. The intention is a noble and natural one. Then the will to act follows the intention. The will to act chooses either to take the life of the person away… or to direct effort towards taking away the pain with pain relief. Those are two opposite choices that the will makes in response to the intention. The object of one act of will is the killing of the patient desired. The object of the other act is the relief of pain in the patient desired. Both can have the same intention and the same circumstances… but the object desired by the will is very, very, different. One is intrinsically evil. Murder.

If you read the link I’d pasted on the other page (and the many links posted by Rau) it clearly warns against problem that you are having.

The point of view sustained by St. Thomas and his commentators, as well as that of Veritatis Splendor, can be denominated objective morality (51). The meaning of the expression comes to be the following: objective morality is that which sustains that the acts of the will are determined by their object, that is, by the quid of the action they produce, **since the decision of the will with reference to the action being carried out here and now is what bears the greater part of the action’s morality **(52); and there are objects (quids of the act of the will) which it will always be evil to try or choose, because they cannot be ordered to God nor to true good of man (53). Objective morality or the objective moral order is a fixed reference for the good of the conduct, reference which occurs in all voluntary acts.

In this respect, the relatively frequent confusion of associating the fixity of the objective moral order with the fixity of material reality has to be avoided. On this view, the immutability of the moral order would be derived from physical actions: certain physical actions would always be evil and moral principles would be immutable because physical reality with its intrinsic laws is immutable (54). **Perhaps this confusion is due to the other, mentioned above, between the moral object and the physical realization of the action.**As can be inferred from the previous discussion, the immutability of the moral order is not derived from the physical realities which the elections of the acting subject deal with, but rather they are derived from the natural laws internal to the acting subject: the action’s execution is posterior to the subject’s decision, which is good or bad before being executed. For this reason it is impossible to derive moral laws from physical actions. The expression “objective moral law” refers to the natural law interior to the acting subject.

unav.es/cdb/dhbapmoralact2c3.html

That’s what you’re doing. You are confusing the “moral object and the physical realization of the action”. The physical realisation of the action ie. the death of the person… isn’t an ‘object’ unless it includes the will of the killer that made the physical realisation of the action. The death as the object of a human desire. The act that brought about the physical realisation. These are the elements that expose the moral object.

WOW!! That is an awesome explanation! I wish I could write with clarity like that. :bowdown: My GPA would be at least a point higher. LOL

 

[Jaaanosik]

Yes but don’t you see we are specifically speaking of ‘acts’… ‘acts’ specifies the mechanism of the human will to bring an event about. The object of the act by itself includes ‘the act done through human desire’. Killing along can’t qualify as an object since if someone is killed by a falling tree or cancer, there was no human desire involved. That was just a random death uninvoked by any human act. That death has no player to whom it was an object. Basically an object can only be seen by the eyes of a human conscience… not just by human eyes.

The object of murder is ‘the killing of someone, willed by another’. The whole thing stated specifies the object. That willing of the act, first began with an intention. Maybe a good intention even like not wanting to see a dying person suffer. But the intention whether good or bad is irrelevant to the wills choice to kill. The circumstances are a secondary aspect that contribute to the quality of the intention. For example the circumstance here is that a person has a terminal illness and will be dead soon anyway. That circumstance, leads to the intention which is ‘ending the persons pain’. The intention is a noble and natural one. Then the will to act follows the intention. The will to act chooses either to take the life of the person away… or to direct effort towards taking away the pain with pain relief. Those are two opposite choices that the will makes in response to the intention. The object of one act of will is the killing of the patient desired. The object of the other act is the relief of pain in the patient desired. Both can have the same intention and the same circumstances… but the object desired by the will is very, very, different. One is intrinsically evil. Murder.

If you read the link I’d pasted on the other page (and the many links posted by Rau) it clearly warns against problem that you are having.

The point of view sustained by St. Thomas and his commentators, as well as that of Veritatis Splendor, can be denominated objective morality (51). The meaning of the expression comes to be the following: objective morality is that which sustains that the acts of the will are determined by their object, that is, by the quid of the action they produce, **since the decision of the will with reference to the action being carried out here and now is what bears the greater part of the action’s morality **(52); and there are objects (quids of the act of the will) which it will always be evil to try or choose, because they cannot be ordered to God nor to true good of man (53). Objective morality or the objective moral order is a fixed reference for the good of the conduct, reference which occurs in all voluntary acts.

In this respect, the relatively frequent confusion of associating the fixity of the objective moral order with the fixity of material reality has to be avoided. On this view, the immutability of the moral order would be derived from physical actions: certain physical actions would always be evil and moral principles would be immutable because physical reality with its intrinsic laws is immutable (54). **Perhaps this confusion is due to the other, mentioned above, between the moral object and the physical realization of the action.**As can be inferred from the previous discussion, the immutability of the moral order is not derived from the physical realities which the elections of the acting subject deal with, but rather they are derived from the natural laws internal to the acting subject: the action’s execution is posterior to the subject’s decision, which is good or bad before being executed. For this reason it is impossible to derive moral laws from physical actions. The expression “objective moral law” refers to the natural law interior to the acting subject.

unav.es/cdb/dhbapmoralact2c3.html

That’s what you’re doing. You are confusing the “moral object and the physical realization of the action”. The physical realisation of the action ie. the death of the person… isn’t an ‘object’ unless it includes the will of the killer that made the physical realisation of the action. The death as the object of a human desire. The act that brought about the physical realisation. These are the elements that expose the moral object.

It seems you agree that there is the first stage of identifying what is what in the act analysis. This stage cannot separate intentions, circumstances, consequences, … it has to identify the moral object.

In the second stage the sources of morality are independent and the moral object has to be objective because it represents the objective moral order.
Killing is objective moral object of a murder because it violates the most fundamental good of a human nature - existence/life. This is the natural moral law.

If someone would say that the intentional killing is the moral object of a murder then the object is being linked to a subject doing the action. This is what 1756 says it’s not supposed to happen.
If someone would say that the unjust killing is the moral object of a murder then who made the judgement what is just and what is not just? Is it objective?

This: *"In this respect, the relatively frequent confusion of associating the fixity of the objective moral order with the fixity of material reality has to be avoided.
…
Perhaps this confusion is due to the other, mentioned above, between the moral object and the physical realization of the action. " *
is where it seems you have a problem to understand the physical action - killing is not moral object all the time. In some occasions it’s a consequence.

 

[Jaaanosik]

Hi

We’ve been studying ethics and morality at College including the Catholic principles (3 fonts, double-effect, etc.)

I don’t think the 2 clauses are in conflict as I understand it. The intrinsic evil is killing “on purpose”. 1756 just says that there are some acts that are always wrong (such as “killing on purpose” - all acts which “kill on purpose” - are called murder).

The “Intention” of the agent doesn’t change that. Why they decided to “kill on purpose” doesn’t matter.

We went through the Catholic position on ectopic pregnancy. In some ways, its pretty weird, because the result you get by following the treatment allowed by Catholics seems to be a worse outcome than you could get by a simpler procedure. But I think the thinking does actually hang together. They are OK with removing a piece of tube because - as you say - there was no “killing on purpose”. And this was the treatment the mother actually required. They disagree with the others methods because they require the doctor to “kill (the baby) on purpose”. So that would be murder.

I can understand the way you talk about “2 kinds of intentions”, though that’s not how we had it explained to us. The “second” intention was really thought of more as intrinsic to the act (the end ‘willed’ right there in the act). Sort of what the act does. I guess you’re thinking of it like this using a self-defence example:

• I have Intention to protect myself
• I use a gun and decide I want to kill the attacker - so now I have an “intention” to kill.
• I shoot, he dies.

I suppose you can think of it like that, but we still get the same answer don’t we - that I killed on purpose, so it’s murder, motivated by self-defence. This is totally different to shooting the gun not wanting to kill - even if the guy does die.

I did read all this thread before I posted. Honestly, in some parts, I’m a little unsure what all the disagreement was about!! A lot of the time, people seem to be saying the same thing! All the way up to and including post #38, I think you guys seem to be saying pretty much the same thing but debating about which word is better, say, “murder” or “killing”. But what happened at Post #39 and #40?? That’s where you say the tube removal and the methotrexate are morally the same?

The reason we were told that that methotrexate is not allowed is because it is like the self-defence example above. The methotrexate is given to kill the embryo (which leads to the mum’s medical problem resolving). So that’s an abortion - totally different to what you described above with the tube removal. But in Post #39/#40 you say they are both morally no different and that the metho case is not murder because of the Intention to save the mum. That led onto another poster saying you want the ends to justify the means - which seems to be kinda right??

Your rape example seems a bit funny too. Rape is evil. Which part of rape do you see as including the good of “procreation” - I would say it is only the moment of conception and beyond. Everything before that was like an assault and had no right to occur and the woman would have every right to stop it, pulling “it” out, (even chopping it off! Lol), and treatment in hospital to prevent a conception if possible.

I see “killing on purpose” as killing being the moral object at the end of the first stage analysis when intentions, circumstances, consequences, … are considered.

It’s very similar to the mutilation/amputation. The mutilation is “cutting a limb on purpose”. The amputation is NOT “cutting a limb on purpose” because it’s a consequence of not having other option to save patient’s life even though a doctor cuts a limb willingly without any second guessing with a firm hand.
Cutting a limb is bad, wrong, terrible, evil no matter what but when it’s a consequence of not having other option in saving one’s life it’s morally permitted.