What determines a moral issue?

[Grace_and_Glory]

What distinguishes moral issues from non-moral questions? For example, I know that the precepts of the OT law do not apply to Christians unless they are moral commandments. That’s why “honor thy mother and father” still applies, but abstaining from pork does not. How do we determine which issues there are moral issues? For another example, a professor once said that one way to see if something is a moral decision or if it is immoral is to apply that to everyone and see what would happen. So, if everyone lied, society would disintegrate. He applied this to homosexual acts and said that if everyone engaged in homosexual acts society would die out. Someone in the class asked why celibacy isn’t immoral, because if everyone were celibate, the human race would also die out. The professor responded that celibacy wasn’t a moral issue. How do we make that distinction?
For me, I can say that I trust the Church’s judgment on things, but this explanation obviously won’t convince someone who doesn’t accept the Church’s teaching. Furthermore, it would satisfy my own intellectual curiosity to find out the answer.

 

[mosher]

Grace and Glory:

What distinguishes moral issues from non-moral questions? For example, I know that the precepts of the OT law do not apply to Christians unless they are moral commandments. That’s why “honor thy mother and father” still applies, but abstaining from pork does not. How do we determine which issues there are moral issues? For another example, a professor once said that one way to see if something is a moral decision or if it is immoral is to apply that to everyone and see what would happen. So, if everyone lied, society would disintegrate. He applied this to homosexual acts and said that if everyone engaged in homosexual acts society would die out. Someone in the class asked why celibacy isn’t immoral, because if everyone were celibate, the human race would also die out. The professor responded that celibacy wasn’t a moral issue. How do we make that distinction?
For me, I can say that I trust the Church’s judgment on things, but this explanation obviously won’t convince someone who doesn’t accept the Church’s teaching. Furthermore, it would satisfy my own intellectual curiosity to find out the answer.

All acts have a moral character.

 

[Catholic2003]

Grace and Glory:

He applied this to homosexual acts and said that if everyone engaged in homosexual acts society would die out.

By this logic, bisexuality is okay because if everyone were bisexual then the human race could still reproduce.

 

[mosher]

Catholic2003:

By this logic, bisexuality is okay because if everyone were bisexual then the human race could still reproduce.

Right, this is why the principle that the Professor was using is incorrect. It is a principle introduced by Emmanuel Kant and is supported by his relaivism and in a way positivism.

Issues of morality are directily related to metaphysics because we know the morality of the act if it is directed toward the good and hence teleologically directed to the final end or final good.

 

[Pug]

mosher:

All acts have a moral character.

Could you elaborate, mosher? In general, I don’t assign much worry about acts that were not voluntary or that I perceived no alternatives. I don’t think a moral choice enters the picture until you have a voluntary choice of some sort.

Of course, actions can still be material sins or cause harm or whatnot, even if they weren’t culpable.

I guess I figure if it starts to rain outside, I just go shut the windows in the house. No thought required most of the time. Yes, it was an action. Yes, it had purpose. But no, it wasn’t really a moment of moral decision for me because it didn’t cross my mind to think of not doing it, I just did it. No decision. I might not even realize I’m doing it if I am on the phone at the time. I’d just walk around the house still talking, yet shutting the windows.

 

[mosher]

In response of elaboration:

Let me add that there are two types of acts.

1. Acts of Man
2. Human Acts

Acts of man are what you would consider involuntary I would suggest that blinking or breathing are acts of man. These acts do not require the will to make a judgment. However Human acts are actions that require an act of the will. Anytime the will in involved there is a moral consequence. Sometimes today we don’t think of the little things as having a moral consequence however the paradigm that is used is that all acts have an end and if that end is not ordered to the good then they are in some way immoral to a lesser or greater degree. There are no such things as an amoral willed act.

The principle used to make sure that we are doing things in a moral way we follow the premise that all things must be used in accord with their nature. While one would say that opening a can of coke with a fork does not have a serious consequence it can damage the fork or it could slip and cut the operner because that is not what it is made for but is made for eating. The question on the level of moral consequece is depended upon the matter that the act involves. The matter can range from trite to grave and it is grave matter that involves the most serious consequences. So, if this is taken to a theological level something like opening a can of coke with a fork is not something we confess but stabbing a person with a fork is something that we confess. So, somethings that we do while not being directed to the good are not serious others are. However, for the question at hand we are not necessarily concerning ourseves with gavity but rather if all human acts have a moral consequence then the answer is affirmative for the above reasons.

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

Anytime the will in involved there is a moral consequence.

I don’t want to be argumentative, but I don’t understand this. What if I choose, in an act of will, to write with a purple marker instead of a green marker? I do this deliberately, but I wouldn’t say that there is a moral consequence.

Thanks for bearing with me.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Grace And Glory,

Hmmm.

This can be a thorny issue if you really get down deep into it. See, for instance: Indifferent Acts in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Mosher lays out admirably the distinction between Acts of Man and Human Acts. But in your example of the marker you are certainly describing a Human Act, because you are deliberating or choosing. Taken in the abstract the choice of marker color is “morally indifferent” or morally neutral. Mosher might point out that you always have to use the marker in concrete circumstances, like perhaps while your foot is on fire , and by using the marker in this circumstance it is morally bad, as being disordered.

But the choice of marker, in nuetral circumstances, could be seen as a morally indifferent act.

Aquinas has a question, Whether Any Act is Indifferent in its Species? in which he says:

Wherefore if the object of an action includes something in accord with the order of reason, it will be a good action according to its species; for instance, to give alms to a person in want. On the other hand, if it includes something repugnant to the order of reason, it will be an evil act according to its species; for instance, to steal, which is to appropriate what belongs to another. But it may happen that the object of an action does not include something pertaining to the order of reason; for instance, to pick up a straw from the ground, to walk in the fields, and the like: and such actions are indifferent according to their species.

By which I take his distinction to mean that voluntary acts (Human Acts) may also be subdivided into “pertaining to the order of reason” or not, and given his examples your choice of marker would *not *“pertain to the order of reason”.

Am I just complicating things more? We are treading in deep waters, but perhaps we don’t need to.

 

[mosher]

To translate what Verbum Caro said in the above post for those in Rio Linda County ::lol:: what he means is that it is the use of the marker that is the act and the type of marker is not relavent unless there are mitigating circumstances such as the use of one type of marker would not be correct for some good reason then it is not the color of the marker that is immoral but it is the choosing to violate that good reason that is immoral.

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

Verbum Caro and Mosher, thanks. I’m glad to know that this is an issue that can be complicated, because I was worried that it was ridiculously simple and I was too dumb to figure it out.

I guess part of the problem is that it seems so common-sense to me that certain actions fall into the realm of morality, while others are morally neutral, that it’s hard for me to explain why some actions are moral choices and others are not.

I looked up something else by St. Thomas Aquinas, and that seems to help with how to distinguish the moral precepts of OT law from judicial and ceremonial precepts:

The moral precepts, distinct from the ceremonial and judicial precepts, are about things pertaining of their very nature to good morals. Now since human morals depend on their relation to reason, which is the proper principle of human acts, those morals are called good which accord with reason, and those are called bad which are discordant from reason. And as every judgment of speculative reason proceeds from the natural knowledge of first principles, so every judgment of practical reason proceeds from principles known naturally, as stated above (94, A2,4): from which principles one may proceed in various ways to judge of various matters. For some matters connected with human actions are so evident, that after very little consideration one is able at once to approve or disapprove of them by means of these general first principles: while some matters cannot be the subject of judgment without much consideration of the various circumstances, which all are not competent to do carefully, but only those who are wise: just as it is not possible for all to consider the particular conclusions of sciences, but only for those who are versed in philosophy: and lastly there are some matters of which man cannot judge unless he be helped by Divine instruction; such as the articles of faith.
It is therefore evident that since the moral precepts are about matters which concern good morals; and since good morals are those which are in accord with reason; and since also every judgment of human reason must needs by derived in some way from natural reason; it follows, of necessity, that all the moral precepts belong to the law of nature; but not all in the same way. For there are certain things which the natural reason of every man, of its own accord and at once, judges to be done or not to be done: e.g. “Honor thy father and thy mother,” and “Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal”: and these belong to the law of nature absolutely. And there are certain things which, after a more careful consideration, wise men deem obligatory. Such belong to the law of nature, yet so that they need to be inculcated, the wiser teaching the less wise: e.g. “Rise up before the hoary head, and honor the person of the aged man,” and the like. And there are some things, to judge of which, human reason needs Divine instruction, whereby we are taught about the things of God: e.g. “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything; Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

My problem would, again, be in explaining this to other people. For example (an example given in an ethics class), most people would judge that one should not lick the carpet. This is an action which is obviously not in accord with reason, but would it be considered morally wrong?

Once again, thank you. I suppose this confusion is what results when I take an ethics class at a public university.

 

[mosher]

Grace and Glory:

My problem would, again, be in explaining this to other people. For example (an example given in an ethics class), most people would judge that one should not lick the carpet. This is an action which is obviously not in accord with reason, but would it be considered morally wrong?

Once again, thank you. I suppose this confusion is what results when I take an ethics class at a public university.

Yes I think that the efficient cause of your confussion is the ethics class at your public university.

The action described is of minor degree but is immoral because of the effects it could have. In this instance the act of licking the carpet while possibly benign may have the consequence of sickness. The moral axiom of acting according to reason is similar to using things in accord with their nature. In this case it is not the nature of the carpet to be licked but to be walked on and the like. In this case the virtue that is offended by this action is the virtue of prudence.