Think about it this way. If the same rule were applied to science then we’d get nowhere. Everyone who wanted to be a scientist would have to start from scratch and run every experiment to prove what is considered established in order to make new discoveries.
I absolutely agree here. It would not be reasonable of me to expect myself to have to explain
everything I take to be true. Sometimes a certain level of trust in authorities who know what they’re doing is necessary. I don’t know how exactly Einstein knew that travelling at a speed close to that of light would cause time dilation, for example, but considering that his findings have stood the test of one of the most rigorous standards of determining truth (scientific inquiry), I have reason to think that he was right.
The problem is, I don’t think that that is applicable to morality. A strong moral conscience is something that all humans have both the duty and the right to have. A parent may be justified in telling a child to do things “because I said so”, but I think most adults are intelligent enough to be able to understand certain objective moral philosophies like desire utilitarianism. I think that if every fairly intelligent human being knew exactly why certain behaviors are harmful and others are helpful, the world would be a much better place, since the people who normally commit senseless crimes would have no (or at least weaker) reasons to do so. Obviously, if you teach a teenager why smoking is bad for you, s/he won’t do it if s/he is even moderately sensible. Perhaps the same methods of persuasion and education could be used to modify people’s beliefs about the consequences of their actions, and, hence, their morality. That’s what desire utilitarianism is all about. A bright man named Alonzo Fyfe has written an entire book full of essays about the subject.
Also this standard might work for you. You are obviously a smart person. I’ve mentioned the child. But what about the simple minded adult? They dont have the capacity to reason through these things the same way you can. It would be wrong to expect a simple minded person to use their reason to get as far as the brilliant thinker. An obligation for intelligent people is to uphold the system that provides morals for the simple minded. Rebellion against the system is bad in as much as it encourages those without the skills to reason properly to reject the only authority that would keep them in check.
Maybe it’s just false modesty speaking, but I think you aren’t giving most adults enough credit. If there are that many “simple-minded adults”, perhaps we can change that. The educational system - at least below the university level - does a poor job of instructing young people in some of the most important issues in life, ethics most of all. Sure, most schools have a code of ethics and use discipline on students who do not follow that code, but most of them also do not provide students with even a basic understanding of why that code is the way it is. Children are just taught, “XYZ is bad, ABC is right, and that’s the end of it”.
But that isn’t the end of it, and I think that, if more educators become open to the idea that ethics may be both objective and independent of religion, our society may be able to teach future generations what the “end of it” really is. Instead of teaching kids how to speak languages that they probably will completely forget by the time they enter high school and have to learn those languages over again, we should be teaching about strong ethical foundations. Making those foundations secular helps because - and this will sound strange coming from an atheist - some young former Christians become atheists and jump to the conclusion that morality is as much of a myth as the virgin birth story. I have heard testimonies of this, although I did not go through it myself. By teaching young people that morality is about more than just following Jesus, this problem will be overcome, among others.
That might seem like a good reason to condemn Catholic morality. But lets change the situation. Would it be wrong to enslave a human being if that slave’s work could feed ten thousand people? We can then keep reducing the number down to one person. Most people, including atheist moralists, would probably say that slavery is always wrong. If it turns out not to be intrinsically wrong then we need to re-institute it to the benefit of mankind.
It seems to me that the difference between these two situations is that, in the second one, there is no reason to think that the slave-to-be’s consent must be compromised. If you try to enslave a person, s/he will most likely resist and demand consent in the matter. So you could give the slave-to-be the freedom to choose in this matter. I cannot conceive of a real-world situation in which asking for the slave-to-be’s consent would be impossible. That cannot be said for the first situation; there are any number of circumstances in which a potential murder victim for the sake of the many would be impossible to consult in the matter.
In short, I honestly do not have an answer to your hypothetical, but the main issue I have with Catholic morality is that it would condemn killing one innocent for the sake of the many even if the innocent person were to give his/her consent. “Intrinsic value” is not dependent on consent. The value of consent that I see in a moral code is that respect for consent respects a right that, if compromised, could result in total anarchy. I think that there are some situations in which it is morally justified to compromise consent for the sake of the many, but those are a minority and are often not applicable to the real world, where consent is easy to obtain.
) bit of evidence the other, the final determining factor, I posit, is the will…
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