tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post7450846085386802119..comments2024-03-19T16:00:07.955+11:00Comments on The Social Pathologist: Double trouble with double effect.The Social Pathologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-3872270905796481032007-08-29T22:01:00.000+10:002007-08-29T22:01:00.000+10:00Your Holiness! A second visit!...you seem to be us...Your Holiness! A second visit!<BR/><BR/><I>...you seem to be using the word "object" to refer to the goods obtained and the evils avoided. Please notice that I refer to these as "consequences".</I><BR/><BR/>You would be correct in that interpretation if that is how I meant it, but I am afraid your Holiness that that would be an incorrect reading, due more to my sloppy writing rather than your objectivity.<BR/><BR/>I do not need to remind you Your Holiness, that the moral quality of an act is contingent on its conformity with God's Law and not on its consequences. As I see it; the will, operating through the potentiality of human actuation, directs this potentiality towards some end: It's object. Now this object--or state --has its moral quality determined by its conformity to the Divine will. I hope this clarifies matters.<BR/><BR/>Seeing that you have ear of the Saints, I would ask you put a good word in for me, so that by God's will, I can illuminate the minds of my opponents.The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-86528117953426240832007-08-29T12:14:00.000+10:002007-08-29T12:14:00.000+10:00The moral object of an act concerns itself with th...<I>The moral object of an act concerns itself with the moral quality of what is bought about by the act, ...</I><BR/><BR/>My son, you seem to be using the word "object" to refer to the goods obtained and the evils avoided. Please notice that I refer to these as "consequences".<BR/><BR/>May God Bless You.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-25256353588854712852007-08-29T09:02:00.000+10:002007-08-29T09:02:00.000+10:00JP II, of happy memory; Greetings. Thank you for r...JP II, of happy memory; Greetings. <BR/><BR/>Thank you for restating and reaffirming my position on the matter. I look forward to your esteemed colleague Benedict issuing a document on the doctrine of double effect, for the benefit of those "with intellectual holes to fill." Greeting also to Father Hardon, who also concurs with us and who offered his support.<BR/><BR/>My opponent is a man of good will and I pray that his understanding of double effect will be clarified. He fails to see that an action can have a good and evil effect intrinsic in its actuation and that the Catholic tradition has always allowed such acts provided they satisfied the appropriate criteria.<BR/><BR/>My opponent seems to think that because a double effect involves an intrinsic evil, it is morally not permissible. Yet how would surgery be permissible; for is not pain an intrinsic evil? After all, isn't freely choosing to inflict pain on someone torture? Both he and I agree that it is illicit.<BR/><BR/>It is a shame that this gulf has come between us, for he has many good things to say, I hope you will put a few good words in with the Master for him, I will try as well.<BR/><BR/>Please feel free to drop in whenever, and greetings to your co-contributor. You're always both welcome.The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-55336297274048336012007-08-29T02:55:00.000+10:002007-08-29T02:55:00.000+10:00[T]here exist false solutions, linked in particula...[T]here exist false solutions, linked in particular to an inadequate understanding of the object of moral action. <BR/><BR/>[Proportionalism], by weighing the various values and goods being sought, focuses rather on the proportion acknowledged between the good and bad effects of that choice, with a view to the "greater good" or "lesser evil" actually possible in a particular situation. <BR/><BR/>The teleological ethical theories (proportionalism, consequentialism), while acknowledging that moral values are indicated by reason and by Revelation, maintain that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behaviour which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and in every culture, with those values.<BR/><BR/>Such theories however are not faithful to the Church's teaching, when they believe they can justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of behaviour contrary to the commandments of the divine and natural law. These theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral tradition.<BR/><BR/>In order to offer rational criteria for a right moral decision, the theories mentioned above take account of the intention and consequences of human action. Certainly there is need to take into account both the intention — as Jesus forcefully insisted in clear disagreement with the scribes and Pharisees, who prescribed in great detail certain outward practices without paying attention to the heart (cf. Mk 7:20-21; Mt 15:19) — and the goods obtained and the evils avoided as a result of a particular act. Responsibility demands as much. But the consideration of these consequences, and also of intentions, is not sufficient for judging the moral quality of a concrete choice. The weighing of the goods and evils foreseeable as the consequence of an action is not an adequate method for determining whether the choice of that concrete kind of behaviour is "according to its species", or "in itself", morally good or bad, licit or illicit. The foreseeable consequences are part of those circumstances of the act, which, while capable of lessening the gravity of an evil act, nonetheless cannot alter its moral species.<BR/><BR/>The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the "object" rationally chosen by the deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis, still valid today, made by Saint Thomas.126 In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person. The object of the act of willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behaviour. <BR/><BR/>The reason why a good intention is not itself sufficient, but a correct choice of actions is also needed, is that the human act depends on its object.<BR/><BR/>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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com