tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282781522024-03-14T06:13:49.254+00:00Joseph Shaw's Philosophy BlogUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-89329859795698107962021-02-16T17:32:00.003+00:002021-02-23T20:02:48.795+00:00Tainted vaccines: a reply to Copenhagan and Wolfe<p>It difficult to keep track of all the different hares being started in the debate about the liceity of the COVID-19 vaccines, and this is not an attempt to do so. It is a specific reply to two short treatments of the problem of vaccines developed, tested, or manufactured using cells taken from (or descended from those taken from) an infant who had been killed by abortion.</p><p>These treatments are those by Fr. Michael Copenhagen, <a href="https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/VaccineFrCopenhagen.pdf">here</a>, and by Fr Phil Wolfe, <a href="https://cogforlife.org/fr.phil-wolfe/">here</a>.</p><p><u><br /></u></p><p><u>The agument</u></p><p>Both priests base their arguments on the duty of returning stolen property. The cells of the aborted infant are clearly not the lawful posession of the institutions or researchers making use of them. As noted <a href="https://casuistrycentral.blogspot.com/2021/02/on-tainted-vaccines.html">here</a>, the degree of use made of these cells in the manufacturing process varies, and these authors appear to be principally addressing the case in which they are used most comprehensively; for the sake of argument let that be the test case. Their claim, then, is that since it is wrong to acquire, use, or benefit from stolen property, then it is wrong to take the vaccine; the seriousness of the wrongdoing is compounded by the kind of theft at issue, one which involves the killing of the victim and a lack of respect for his mortuary remains.</p><p>Fr Copenhagan:</p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">The
recipient is an immediate participant in the commission of continuous theft of human remains obtained
through deliberate killing, their desecration through exploitation and trafficking, as well as ultimate
omission to respectfully bury them.</span></p><p>Fr Wolfe:</p><span style="color: #cc0000;">Human tissue obtained in such a manner is not an object of possession, and can never be an object of possession, irregardless if they are producing vaccines for every disease on Earth. The evil use of fetal tissue for someone’s good cannot justify the situation: it is a screaming violation of justice.</span><div><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></div><div><u>Response to the Argument</u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div>1. Is this principle of restitition really at issue? No.</div><div><br /></div><div>The application of the duty of restitituion to this problem is a surprising one. One might think that, if abortion is morally tantamount to the murder of the innocent, the possession of the victim's mortal remains is the least of the problems one is faced with. It is cetainly true that these remains should be respectfully interred, but the question of <i>restitution </i>as such does not really arise, since it seems extremely unlikely that there are any identifiable near relations who would be willing to receive the stolen property. </div><div><br /></div><div>If, again, as I would prefer to say in accordance with the legal tradition of England and Wales, human tissue is <i>never</i> an 'object of possession', and cannot be bought or sold, then the question is not actually one of theft, but simply of the disrespectful taking and using of human issue. This is a moral issue, but if separated from the question of murder, it is not a very serious one. </div><div><br /></div><div>Suppose a thief entered my house and collected some living cells of mine from a bandage I had been using, or a hair follicle in my comb, or cheek cells on my toothbrush, and made off with them in order to develop a line of cells in which to breed viruses for research purposes. I should be entitled to complain, certainly, but as violations of my bodily integrity go, it is at the lower end of the scale.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. Is the duty not to benefit from stolen property absolute? No.</div><div><br /></div><div>Suppose we conceded to Copenhagan and Wolfe that the problem <i>is</i> one of stolen property, the question then is whether the duty not to benefit from stolen property is absolute. Especially in light of the fact that it is for practical purposes impossible to find anyone to whom restitution could be made in this case, does the fact that an item has been stolen at some time in the past mean that one is prohibited from making use of it today?</div><div><br /></div><div>The answer is clearly 'no'. It is perfectly true that stolen goods, even when bought in good faith, must be restored to their rightful owner, but this principle is clearly not intended to apply beyond a certain practical limit. The owner of land who finds treasure buried by a highwayman two hundred years ago is not obliged to trace the descendents of the original owners and return it to them. (In another quirk of the law of England and Wales, it actually belongs to the Crown: though not because it had been stolen, just because it was buried with the intention of recovery.) </div><div><br /></div><div>The suggestion that, if it is clearly impossible to trace the original owners, then it would be morally impermissible for <i>anyone</i> to benefit from the treasure in any way, is, I'm sorry to say, ludicrous.</div><div><br /></div><div>It so happens that I recently discovered that the house I have owned for more than a decade was built on land taken into private ownership under the UK Enclosures Act of 1773. I regard this Act, and even more the way it was applied, as thorougly unjust. Does that mean I should not live in it? What should I do to it? Burn it down? I think many Americans and Canadians have an even more pressing problem, occupying land once belonging to native peoples.</div><div><br /></div><div>An aristocratic English lady who inherited property owned by a religious order until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, before becoming a Catholic, actually brought her problem to the Pope of the time, in a state of some distress. The property was not only stolen, after all, but stolen sacrilegiously and with all manner of circumstantial injustices. He (Leo XIII, I think) told her what anyone endowed with common sense would tell her: calm down! It was a long time ago. [I believe I read this anecdote in <i>Faith and Fortune </i>by Madeleine Beard but I can't lay my hands on my copy right now.]</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><u>The Problem with Tainted Vaccines</u></div><div><br /></div><div>It was not my wish to minimise the seriousness of abortion in the forgoing remarks. On the contrary, I think that the problem with the argument made by Copenhagan and Wolfe is precisely that it distracts our attention from the real problem, the unspeakable crime of abortion, and focuses it instead on the comparitively minor issue of historic theft. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is very surprising that Copenhagan and Wolfe do not focus in the conventional way on the degree of cooperation the potential beneficiaries of the vaccines have with the abortion, the alternatives open to them, and the degree of inconvenience involved in refusing vaccines tainted in this way. I can only assume that their alternative approach is an attempt to circumvent the extremely well-trodden path taken by the Manualist tradition in dealing with such cases, and attempt to create a direct route to connect the end-user of the vaccine with something intrinsically evil.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since this attempt, in my view, fails, we are forced back to the traditional way of analysing the problem. Clearly the conscientious end-user need not intend any statement of support for abortion by accepting the vaccine, and equally clearly the vaccination is only remotely connected with the original abortion. The question is not, then, a black and white matter of intrinsic evil, of actions which can never be done regardless of the consequences, but one in which the closeness of the connection, the seriousness of the original crime, and the 'inconvenience' (in the traditional terminology) of not using it. Remote material cooperation with evil can be licit if avoiding it is seriously difficult.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is not out of softness or lack of zeal that our predecessors in the Faith accepted this conclusion. It is the only possible conclusion one can draw. Refusing to do intrinsically evil actions will occasionally require heroism, but it is always possible. Avoiding all cooperation with evil, even remote material cooperation, in simply impossible. I cannot vote, pay taxes, use the internet, open a bank account, or patronise a large shop, without remote material cooperation with evil: abortion, usury, unjust wars, pornography, slave labour, and so on. We must protest, of course, but even our protests can lose their force if we are protesting about <i>everything.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Just to focus on the world of medicine, the case is often raised of benefitting from Nazi experimnents. Much closer to home, however, and more perhaps grist to the Copenhagan and Wolfe mill, we might ask about the work of the 'resurrection men' who for several centuries supplied medical students with subjects for dissention from freshly dug gaves, especially if the hangman ever slackened in his work. The whole of modern medicine is based on the knowledge built up on the basis of the study of these unfortunates. The very pervasiveness of the problem, however, brings its own, unfortunate, solution. Not benefitting from this work is impossible, and we are not obliged to do the impossible.</div><div><br /></div><div>The degree of cooperation with abortion involved in using tainted vaccines is greater, and the original crime more serious, than the degree of cooperation with grave-robbing involved in using doctors educated in a body of knowledge based on that crime. Furthermore, avoiding this cooperation is not so comprehensively impossible. This is true and I urge readers to take the issue seriously. Nevertheless, it is clearly not the case that taking the vaccine is intrinsically evil, and its licitness will vary according to the circumstances of the end-user.</div>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-67080832231484642642021-02-15T13:22:00.002+00:002021-02-15T13:26:02.437+00:00On tainted vaccinesSince it may be useful to others, I am publishing her a long email reply to a question I received on this question in the context of the COVID vaccine (with very minor tweaks).<br /><br />---------<br /><br />The use of cell-lines from aborted babies in the development of vaccines is sadly of long standing, so the question has been asked, and answered, before. It is as you say a form of cooperation in evil, but it is ‘material’ rather than ‘formal’, and ‘remote’ rather than ‘proximate’.<div> <br />The first distinction is about whether you intend the evil. If you contribute to an abortion by, saying, driving a woman to the clinic, because you want her to have an abortion, that is formal cooperation, and as serious an any kind of involvement. If you fill the car with fuel, knowing what it is for, but just because it’s you job to fill up cars with fuel, it’s ‘material’ cooperation. That can still be serious, but it is a different category.<br /><br />Even material cooperation can be ‘proximate’, that is ‘close’: selling a gun to a known murderer just for the money is close cooperation, it brings you very close to the evil. Paying taxes knowing that some of the money will be used for bad purposes, or buying things in a shop whose owners make donations for bad things, is remote cooperation.<br /><br />We should avoid all cooperation with evil if we can easily do so. We can’t say: we should never cooperate in the smallest way with evil, because that would be impossible. So we make another distinction, about how easy it is to avoid cooperation: between ‘grave’ and ‘slight’ ‘inconvenience’. Grave inconvenience is when, say, your job, and perhaps the welfare of family members, is put in jeopardy.<br /><br />Regardless of the level of inconvenience, <i>formal </i>cooperation in mortal sin is always wrong, because it is itself mortal sin. By intending the sin, we make it our own.<br /><br />With material cooperation, the closeness tells us the level of inconvenience one should be prepared to suffer. One can’t be exact here, but remote material cooperation does not require us to suffer grave inconvenience. Instead one should balance the good to be gained against the evil of the cooperation.<br /><br />You’d find all this in any textbook of moral theology from the old days, and indeed orthodox ones from today.<br /><br />It’s for you to decide how much ‘inconvenience’ changing your job would be, but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has in the past said that the level of cooperation in evil represented by being vaccinated with a vaccine developed from this cell-line is sufficiently remote to allow people to take it in order to secure the good of immunity from a serious disease, but they urged people to protest. It’s not nothing. The Bishops I think have in fact protested.<br /><br />It is a question for each individual how important the good of immunity is in itself. Your question though is also about administering the programme of giving the vaccine, so the question is about the good, to you and others, of this particular job.<br /><br />The old text books used an example of a Catholic type-setter who found himself being asked to set type for a pornographic book. If his family depended on his income, he should look for another job <i>before </i>leaving the present one. In other words, he can put up with this level of cooperation in evil at least in the short term. Whether it is possible to escape even in the longer term depends on other things. Are there any jobs where we will not be asked to cooperate in this kind of thing, that we can actually get? Certainly, there are fewer than there used to be.<br /><br />---------------<br /><br />The major magisterial document on the issue is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Instruction <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><i>Dignitatis Personae</i></a> (2008).<br /><br />Some useful information was included in an article in the <i>Irish Catholic</i> by Dr Helen Watt (she comes to very much the same conclusion as I do):<br /><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">It needs to be said at the outset that foetal cell-lines are not the same as actual foetal parts or tissue. Such tissue was itself sourced from historical abortions: a horrifying practice involving close complicity with those performing the abortion. The tissue was then used many years ago to make various cell-lines that circulate in labs today and are used in developing some vaccines. Although in the case of the HEK 293 cell-line there is <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">some possibility</a> that it may have come from a miscarriage, I will assume that this cell-line too originated, as seems all too likely, from a deliberate abortion.<br />Foetal cell-lines are developed from the original cells or tissue: they do not include any cells of the unborn child. It is also worth noting that where they are used for vaccines, these cell-lines are used not as intended ingredients (even if some fragments of cells remain) but to prepare the vaccine in or e.g. to test it on.<br />The Covid-19 vaccine candidates <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">range</a> from those that did not involve foetal cells at any stage (for example, CureVac), to those that used foetal cells at every stage: design, testing and production (for example, Astra-Zeneca). Other vaccines again (for example, Pfizer) do not use a foetal cell-line in ongoing production, but did use one in confirmatory tests.</blockquote></div>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-35233671091655273862020-02-01T16:42:00.001+00:002020-02-01T16:42:45.786+00:00Talk on consent and sex education<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="282" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jsFey-6CEfI?controls=0" width="500"></iframe>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-72574410864033651852017-07-16T18:56:00.003+01:002021-09-27T14:00:47.540+01:00Response to George Weigel in The TabletI wrote this in early November 2012 as a guest post on The Tablet's blog. It is no longer available there so I re-post it here.<br /><br />Weigal had written an article for The Tablet replying to an earlier one by John Haldane. I discuss these articles <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2012/11/guest-post-on-tablet-blog-and.html">here</a>.<br /><br />----------------------------------------------<br /><br />George Weigal balances his critique of Catholic ‘progressives’ with hard words aimed at Catholic ‘traditionalists’: between us, he says, we represent ‘the tired alternatives of the past 40-plus years [which] have clearly run their course’. Weigal should look in the mirror: his aggressive neo-conservatism (a conservativism without continuity with the past), which he embraced with all the zeal of a convert after his earlier career as a liberal firebrand, has been just as much a fixture of the post-conciliar debate as liberalism and traditionalism. Perhaps neo-conservatism has run its course as well.<br /> <br /> Traditionalism has always been the underdog in this debate, and Weigal’s characterisation of ‘nostalgic traditionalism’ in terms of ‘maniples, lace, and Latin liturgies’, wanting to ‘tighten the constraints’ of ‘Counter-Reformation Catholicism’, demonstrates near-perfect ignorance of the movement as well as a lack of charity, both personal and intellectual.<br /><br /> It is not clear what Weigal means by saying that Liberalism and Traditionalism are ‘caught’ in a moment of history, but his own neo-conservatism rejects the conservative voices of the recent past—Ottaviani, Gerrigou-Langrange, Pope Pius XI—just as must as the progressive voices of the present, and is trapped in a narrow range of time as well as of opinion. Pope Benedict XVI’s condemnation of ‘the hermeneutic of rupture’ was as much a body-blow to them as to progressives. Such is the distaste for the past in this movement that Thomas Aquinas College, described by Weigal as ‘one of the jewels in the crown of higher education in the United States,’[1] actually excludes history from its curriculum. Readers should pause and let that astonishing fact sink in a little.<br /><br />A knowledge of history, of course, is incompatible with the Ultramontanism, of mid-19th Century vintage, which is a central plank of this neo-conservatism. The rejection of Ultramontanism is something which liberal and traditionalist Catholics can agree upon, and although we may jokingly call it ‘the Spirit of Vatican I’, that Council was a disappointment to the more extreme ultramontanists, today as in 1870, who tend to gloss over the important range of authority attributable to papal pronouncements made ex cathedra, in the exercise of their teaching office, on prudential matters, as private doctors, and over breakfast to their friends. <br /> <br /> Bl. John XXIII, Weigal tells us, wanted to establish a ‘new way of being Catholic’. If, as Weigal implies, this included a rejection of the Latin liturgy, he needs to explain away good Pope John’s emphatic insistence on it in his Apostolic Constitution ‘Veterum Sapientia’, promulgated the very year the Second Vatican Council met, 1962. In light of Pope John’s condemnation of those anyone who ‘writes against the use of Latin’ in the liturgy, Weigal’s views might have earned him a spell in the papal dungeon.<br /><br />Weigal’s phrase ‘evangelical Catholicism’ could be an apt description of what Bl. Pope John XXIII had in mind, but it was not an evangelism in discontinuity with the past. The liturgical concerns of traditionlists are in fact echoed persistently by the post-Conciliar popes. Most obviously, there is the problem that if you condemn the past, including the liturgical past, you implicitly condemn yourself: as Pope Benedict wrote, before his election, by such a policy the Church is ‘calling its very being into question’.<br /><br />Secondly, the ancient liturgy has positive evangelical value. In 1964 Pope Paul VI warned religious superiors that if they abandoned the sung Latin Office, they would lose vocations,[2] a warning whose prescience is now evident. Why this might be so was explained by Bl. John Paul II, who praised the liturgical continuity preserved in the Eastern churches: ‘Today we often feel ourselves prisoners of the present. It is as though man had lost his perception of belonging to a history which precedes and follows him.’[3] Even more important, the liturgy of the East, like that of the Western past, is something whose appeal goes beyond just the intellect. Bl. John Paul II went on: ‘The lengthy duration of the celebrations, the repeated invocations, everything expresses gradual identification with the mystery celebrated with one’s whole person.’[4]<br /><br />This point is taken up and applied to liturgy in general by the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam. Words are not enough, particularly today: indeed, as Pope Paul noted, ‘Modern man is sated by talk’[5] <br /><br />The power of the ancient liturgy to move hearts, as well as minds, is increasingly acknowledged by liberal thinkers, as well as traditionalists, as the recent lecture of Prof. Tina Beattie made clear: she wrote<br /><span style="color: #990000;"><br />‘Today, the theology and liturgy of the Catholic Church is less ‘cluttered,’ less mystical, and less comprehensive in its spiritual scope. Its tight, clear focus is far more ‘rational’ but far less whole.’</span><br /><br />This is not, in fact, an isolated case. Members of what we might call the ‘Pickstock school’ has combined a recognition of the value of the ancient liturgy with a number of positions more at home in theological liberalism than traditionalism. We can argue about those other positions, naturally: the point here is simply that the traditional liturgy has come back into the debate as a live option.<br /><br />Again, the division between traditionalists and conservatives, once neuralgic, is being broken down by a new generation of scholars and seminarians who are willing to consider the question of the liturgy, and the associated theological issues, on their merits, particularly in the light of Pope Benedict’s writings. It is George Weigal, in fact, who appears to be stuck in the past, a past in which an attack on traditionalism was a compulsory element in any conservative argument, to avoid accusations of ‘disobedience to Vatican II’.<br /> <br /> If Weigal wants to know how far, in fact, we have moved on, he should spend a little time with the seminarians, not only of the Traditional Orders, but of the secular seminaries of England and Wales, and America, and ask them what they think of the Extraordinary Form. He will perhaps be shocked to discover how many are planning to say it themselves when they are ordained. This is the future, Professor Weigal: wake up and smell the coffee.<br /><br />[1] Address to Thomas Aquinas College, 2006<br />[2] Apostolic Letter, ‘Sacrificium Laudis’, 1964.<br />[3] Apostolic Letter Orientale Lumen (1995) 8<br />[4] Orientale Lumen 11<br />[5] Evangelii Nuntiandi 42Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-49714366152620016192016-10-13T21:12:00.001+01:002016-10-13T21:13:33.208+01:00Worries about ChestertonThis is a 'book review' I wrote in 2011 for the now-defunct '<a href="http://faithinthehome.blogspot.co.uk/">Faith in the Home</a>'. Chesterton's influence in the Church continues and I thought it would be good to put this out there somewhere.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: normal;">‘Orthodoxy’
by G.K. Chesterton (first published 1908; Baronius Press edition, 2006)
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by Joseph Shaw</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
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It’s not often I review a book which has been published for more than a
century, but at this time of rising Chestertonian revivalism, with
Chesterton studies, Chesterton institutes, and reprints and references
constantly appearing, it is as well to take stock of what is going on on
planet ‘GCK’. Contrary to my own expectations, I am not very enthusiastic
about what I see. Rather than trying to give a balanced assessment of GKC’s
overall work, which would be a monumental task, let me list some of my
misgivings, based on this one work.<span style="font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As
GKC himself notes, this is not a conventional work of apologetics (p160),
although it is frequently described as one. Rather, it is an account of his own
philosophy, by way of the considerations giving rise to it. Along the way
various prejudices and arguments against Christianity are addressed, but
the only positive reasons given for belief are either personal or social: that
Christianity fits neatly into his own Romantic imagination, or that
widespread belief in it is better for society, particularly in promoting
the interests of the downtrodden. These are not, of course, reasons for
believing that Christianity is actually true; they are simply reasons for
wishing it were true (or being glad that it is). The view that one ought to
believe what it would be useful to believe is Pragmatism, and that of course is
totally opposed to the objective view of truth at the heart of Orthodox
Christianity. Does GKC realise that there is a problem here? There is no
indication that he does. So this is the start of my worries about GKC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My
second major problem is GKC’s enthusiasm for democracy. He is a great supporter
of democracy, because he believes in the wisdom of the ‘ordinary’ man.
He tells us, however, ‘there is one thing I have never from my youth
been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where
people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed
to tradition.’ (p47) As I read the passages in the book on this topic I
began to realise that GKC is being perfectly honest: one of the biggest,
most influential, and most dangerous currents of thought for the
previous two centuries is something he just fails to understand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My
dear GKC, if you were alive I could easily enlighten you. As to ‘where’
the idea comes from the locus classicus is J-J Rousseau, and it works like
this. Whereas most Europeans up to the 17th Century were governed day to
day by laws and institutions which represented the continuation of
immemorial traditions, such as marriage and property, laws forbidding
theft and incest, and processes of conflict resolution, Rousseau called
these ‘chains’, and thought that we could all be ‘free’ if we followed the
dictates of pure reason. Since all men have a rational faculty, this could
be done by a system in which everyone could vote for startling new laws
and institutions, and throw off the shackles of the old. These votes would
of course be unanimous, because pure reason would always come to the same
conclusions, and we could all bask in the knowledge that each law was in
accordance with our personal will, and not, like the old traditions,
imposed from without. The only exception would be if some people’s
reason was impeded by selfishness; they would need the guidance of the
more enlightened citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This
is simply a secular political version of the Protestant rejection of
tradition in religion. Luther said that each man could get the truth
directly from God, via the pages of Scripture. Everyone, consulting
Scripture, would naturally agree, since Scripture is an infallible presentation
of Divine Revelation, unless they were impeded by moral turpitude; given
the danger of turpitude getting in the way, people needed to be led by a
cadre of properly drilled Lutheran ministers. The great thing was that
either way they would get the truth direct, or nearly direct, from source,
and all those complicated traditions, which come between the Christian and the
source of all religious truth, could be thrown away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Is
it really possible that GKC didn't understand this argument? His failure
to understand it would explain not only his remarks about democracy, but
the strange soft spot he harboured for the French Revolution, which was
directly inspired by Rousseau’s ideas. There may be some connection with
the tribal allegiance he had towards the Whig party. Be that as it may,
while democratic institutions are not necessarily Rousseauist, GKC’s
failure to understand the origin and drift of the democratic ideology
as Rousseau had formed it unfits him as a commentator on a wide range
of topics. What you don't understand you cannot, effectively, oppose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My
third major problem is this. A major part of GKC’s Romantic imagination, which
attracted him to Christianity, was his ‘wonder’ at created things. This is
often brought up in treatments of GCK’s thought, and Orthodoxy has extended
discussions of it. GKC repeatedly says, against scientific rationalism, that
things could easily have been different, and that really it is quite miraculous
that even quite ordinary things around us exist as they do. He applies this
general view both to physics, saying that it is astonishing that the sun should
rise each morning, and only does so thanks to God, and also to morality, saying
that the basic principles of human action could so easily have been completely
different (in a chapter appropriately title ‘The Ethics of Elfland’).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It
tells us a lot about the state of Catholic education in the 20<sup>th</sup>
Century that this attitude of GKC has apparently never troubled his Catholic
supporters—either of his own day or of ours. GKC’s view here is based, whether
he realises it or not, on the twin Protestant principles (usually regarded as
rather extreme, on the scale of Protestantism) of Occasionalism (the heat from
the fire may be the occasion for the bread toasting, but really it is God
making it toast), and Divine Command Ethics (the obligation not to kill doesn’t
follow from the objective moral importance of human life, but merely from the
fact that God has chosen to forbid killing). These views were established in
conscious opposition to the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, and the
Aristotelian tradition which he incorporated into Catholic thought, holds that
while God can certainly intervene miraculously into the physical world, and can
certainly create new obligations for us by issuing commands, there is
nevertheless such a thing as a ‘law of nature’, in physics and morality alike. This
gives us, in the natural world, the important distinction between the natural
and the miraculous, and in morality between Natural Law and Divine Law. Both
distinctions seem to have disappeared in GKC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I
have given three examples of GKC being apparently influenced by anti-Christian
or specifically anti-Catholic currents of thought, apparently without his
knowledge or comprehension. He does not necessarily endorse these ideas; if
they were laid out clearly, it is probable that he would reject them. The
problem is that he doesn’t see them, and their influence on the general thought
of the 20<sup>th</sup> Century, clearly. His work embeds them, and in that way
promotes and perpetuates them. In this way he is similar to many popular
writers of course, and this is partly why popular writers have to be treated
with caution, and tend not to have long-term influence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My
conclusion is that the great enthusiasm for Chesterton to be found among
Catholics today is troubling. He obviously has his virtues, otherwise he would
not be as popular as he is; he has lots of good things to say, and says them in
a highly engaging way. I am myself a great fan of his poetry and the Fr Brown
books; he often seems to get to the heart of the matter. But at the end of the
day GKC is not a profound thinker, and worse than that he does not have
reliably Catholic instincts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">‘Orthodoxy’
was, in fact, written long before he became a Catholic, but it is constantly
reiterated that despite this is it is Catholic in spirit. No, it is not: its
spirit can be identified as combining Romanticism, Evangelical Protestantism, and
political Liberalism. The Romanticism brings the reverence for tradition. The
Evangelical Protestantism brings the awe-struck attitude towards God and
Creation. The political Liberalism brings a concern for the poor. In these
respects these things have affinities in Catholicism, but that doesn’t make
them Catholic, even in combination. On the contrary, they make GKC vulnerable
to some of the most dangerous trends in modern thought: Romanticism encourages
Pragmatism, an attitude of wishful thinking which even Evangelical Protestants usually
reject. Evangelical Protestantism brings in Occasionalism and Divine Command
Ethics, an attitude of anti-rationalism which even Political Liberals usually
reject. And Political Liberalism brings in a democratic ideology which
undermines the very respect for Tradition fostered by Romanticism. GKC has not
purified his respect for tradition of wishful thinking, he has not purified his
wonder and gratitude for creation of anti-rationalism, and he has not purified
his concern for the poor of the democratic ideology. Catholics, by contrast,
must do these things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-15565978998453203042016-10-03T15:15:00.002+01:002016-10-06T23:05:39.619+01:00Swinburne on sexual moralityThe <a href="http://edwardfeser.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/christina-van-dyke-owes-richard.html">extraordinary and unprofessional</a> reaction to Prof Richard Swinburne's paper at the SCP Midwest conference just over a week ago stimulates me to want to do what a lot of people appear to think <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2016/10/richard-swinburne-homosexuality-and.html">should not</a> be done: to engage with the issues Swinburne raises, and the arguments of his paper, philosophically. In a rather brief form, I'm going to do that here.<br />
<br />
Swinburne divides moral principles into different categories, which we can call the precepts of Natural Law, and precepts of Divine Law. The latter are only binding because God has commanded them; the former are part of the nature of things, necessary moral truths as they apply to the circumstances of the world we live in. This distinction is common to Aquinas and Scotus, but Scotus puts more of the familiar moral principles of the Decalogue into the category of Divine Law, saying that (a) God had <i>good reason</i> to command what he did, but also that (b) God <i>could have</i> commanded differently, <i>even without changing physical creation.</i> Thus, whereas a Thomist might think that the obligation to honour our parents might work rather differently if human nature was such that we never knew who our parents are (and were born like turtles, out of eggs buried on the beach), a Thomst does not think that God could have told us to ignore our parents <i>given how humans actually grow up.</i> A Scotist thinks that all the precepts of the 'Second Tablet of the Law', from 4th to 10th Commandments (on the Latin/Catholic numbering), could have been different if God had so willed, even given human nature as it is.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Swinburne does not go as far as Scotus in shunting obligations into the category of Divine Commands, but he does want to put a great deal of sexual morality into that category of Divine Commandss, including fornication, contraception, and homosexual relations. He doesn't address the question of universality of these obligation, but it would seem from his discussion that he thinks the obligations are universally applicable despite coming from commands. Scotus did so, saying that all the precepts of 10 Commandments are written on our hearts - although this is logically posterior to God's decision to command them. (Everyone presumably agrees that there are <i>also</i> divine commands which are not universal in application, such as the dietary laws of the Law of Moses, the command to Abraham to go to Canaan, and so on.)<br />
<br />
Swinburne then looks for possible reasons why God <i>would</i> have made such commands, saying that if there were no good reasons, this would undermine the claim that God really had commanded them. He looks for such reasons in terms of promoting good things among humans, such as stable family life, optimum conditions for the raising of children, and individuals' happiness.<br />
<br />
These are the arguments which caused the controversy, since they necessarily raise disputed issues about whether people would be better off if they don't drift into a homosexual lifestyle and self-understanding. Some of Swinburne's critics seem to regard these arguments as standard Christian arguments for Swinburne's conclusions, but of course they are far from being so. In terms of familiar positions, Swinburne's Scotist position stands between a Protestant rejection of Natural Law (I mean, a rejection by some strands of the Protestant tradition), and a Thomist position. Whereas the former would see no need to look for <i>reasons </i>the divine commands, and focuses solely on <i>evidence</i> for the commands (are they, for example, unambiguously in the Bible?), the latter does not see these kinds of issues as about divine commands, whether well-motivated or arbitrary, and instead seeks an explanation of why morality works as it does by a consideration of human nature.<br />
<br />
Swinburne makes a brief consideration of such arguments, but finds them lacking. The example he considers is from the teleology of human sexual organs. As someone more sympathetic to Thomism, I would suggest that this is somewhat superficial argument. It is not just that human sexual organs are (in some sense) designed to work heterosexually, but that there are profound considerations of the <i>meaning</i> of human sexuality which militate in favour of monogamy, and against divorce, adultery, fornication, and homosexual sexual activity as well.<br />
<br />
These considerations don't lend themselves to the kind of neat argument Swinburne is trading in, in his paper, but very briefly I will sketch the vision of human sexuality which has emerged from the Catholic tradition, particularly over the last century or so. Sexual union is clearly connected (in terms of <i>tendencies</i>) with procreation, and particular efforts have to be made, in particular cases, to sever that connection. It is also connected with emotional intimacy and attachment. That these things go together makes sense, since small human children are entirely helpless, and it is convenient, to say the least, that the relationship which brought them into being is also a partnership which can provide them with the things they need for their physical and emotional development. Given the emotional and relationship implications of sexual activity for the <i>couple,</i> since sexual intimacy has this connection with emotional intimacy etc., it clearly goes against the grain for sexual intimacy for it to be divorced from monogamous and committed relationships: viz, taken outside marriage.<br />
<br />
There is plenty more to be said in the same vein, but I will leave it at that as a sample of the kind of argument which can be made. It may not seem that this kind of argument could furnish us with an efficient and clear-cut argument of the obligations of traditional sexual morality, but that is not, in fact, its job. We know about the obligations of sexual morality from the Natural Law in our hearts, and from Revelation. Whereas Swinburne wanted to see some evidence that these rules would have been chosen by a rational and benevolent God, what I need to see is that they make sense in relation to human nature. In both cases, we're not providing <i>evidence </i>for the precepts, but providing a <i>background </i>for them, and in my case the background is not one even approaching rational <i>justification</i>, but of <i>coherence.</i><br />
<br />
Providing a justification for fundamental moral principles is notoriously difficult, and I hardly think a sensible response is to say that there are no moral principles. Rather, what the Catholic tradition offers is what I would describe as a coherent and satisfying understanding or vision of human nature, human needs and aspirations, and the moral law.<br />
<br />
I rather think that I might have got away with an argument along these lines at an SCT meeting, which does not even need to single out homosexuality as an example. The irony is, of course, that it is far more radically opposed to a sexually liberal development than Swinburne's. For on a Swinburnian or Scotist view, it is not so unnatural to wonder if, since it is a matter of Divine Command as opposed (as Swinburne puts it) to the acts in question being 'intrinsically wrong', there might be exceptions, that it might apply to some people at some times and not to others, and that the virtue called for among humans in response is not <i>purity,</i> understood as a sensitivity to the shameful and sordid nature of disordered sexuality, but simply <i>obedience</i> <i>to God</i>. This last point is particularly worrying, since it sets the scene for the observation that we can show obedience by obeying what we merely <i>imagine</i> God commands to be, at which point we are in danger of losing the content of morality altogether: though that would require another argument.Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-38619633364344677632016-06-29T11:15:00.002+01:002016-06-29T11:15:55.663+01:00Review of Francis Kamm, The Moral Target, in the Philosophical QuarterlyIn this review I give a brief critique of Frances Kamm's reliance on ethical intuitions in her discussions.<br />
<br />
It concludes:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;">The untangling of such confusions and distortions is not the work of sociologists, but of philosophers. It means that, rather than take for granted each intuition in a train of argument, we must take up the task of analysing, explaining, clarifying and systematizing our moral thinking, and setting our intuitions into some historical context. Given the audience of a piece of work, it can be perfectly reasonable to take certain assumptions for granted. On the other hand, ‘this seems right’ is seldom a sufficient reason to prefer one option to another, when anything important is at stake.</span><br />
The whole review can be read <a href="http://pq.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/06/27/pq.pqw047.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=0S5ozT2Fz5hMTYv">here</a>.Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-33376868091239950552016-04-26T17:03:00.001+01:002017-03-29T22:28:26.178+01:00In response to the Beattie petition on the Polish Abortion Law<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">An
‘<a href="http://www.icmica-miic.org/about-us/2013-06-04-16-36-42/europe/poland/12024-open-letter-to-polish-bishop-conference.html">Open Letter</a>’ or petition has been publicised calling on the Catholic Bishops
of Poland to withdraw their support for a legislative initiative to criminalise
all abortion. The signatures are arranged in alphabetical order, but the second
name, Tina Beattie, Professor of Catholic Studies at Roehampton, is one of the
very few which will be widely recognised, and it will be convenient to refer to
the document as ‘the Beattie Petition’. The text, purporting to come from
signatories who ‘respect the Church’s moral stance against abortion’, is a
disgraceful, but wholly unsuccessful, attempt to justify a failure to protect
the unborn. It’s central contention, that abortion is not always an act of
injustice towards innocent life deserving of legal protection, cannot overcome,
and only ignore, Pope St John Paul II’s powerful declaration the Church’s
infallible teaching on abortion, in his 1995 Encyclical <i>Evanglium vitae</i> §57:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Therefore, by the authority which
Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the
Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing
of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine, based upon
that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart
(cf. Rom 2:14-15), is reaffirmed by Sacred Scripture, transmitted by the
Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Before
analysing the Petition, it is well to consider what legislation can hope to
achieve on the subject of abortion. The answer is simple: the criminalisation
of abortion will reliably suppress the openly practiced, legal abortion
industry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Abortion’s
proponents, including the Beattie Petition, invariably argue that ‘driving
abortion underground’ is of no benefit, but this is far from being the case.
Most obviously, in times and places where abortion has been illegal, but where
the availability of illegal abortion has been widely known, and efforts to
stamp out illegal abortion far from vigorous, the number of abortions actually
carried out has been very small compared with the number performed when
abortion has been decriminalised, even under apparently restrictive legal
regimes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">There
are in addition three other important benefits of criminalisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">First,
the abortion industry’s legal existence creates permanent pressure for the
easing of restrictions on abortion, by its support for political campaigning in
favour of abortion; similarly, its existence acts as an advertisement of its
services, even if some forms of open advertisement are not permitted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Second,
the abortion industry, as countless examples from around the world have
demonstrated in recent years, has scant regard for the legal limitations under
which it is supposed to operate, or for the safety of its clients. Indeed, it
is also a fallacy, exposed in the most painful manner by recent criminal
convictions in the United States that, unsafe and even illegal abortions, with
poorly trained abortionists and in unsanitary conditions, necessarily disappear
when abortion is legalised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Third,
the existence of legal abortion is corrosive to the ethos of the medical
profession, whose training and practice is obliged to take account of abortion
as a supposedly legitimate procedure. In practice, where abortion is legal and
hospitals carry it out, administrators will put pressure on practioners to
perform this unpopular procedure, and will ensure that it is included in
medical training. A section, at least, of the medical profession will, often
against their will, necessarily become involved in abortion, and its putative
legitimacy will have to be taken into account in any discussion of medical
ethics, undermining a proper understanding of the role of the doctor in
relation to his or her patients, in the tradition of the Hippocratic Oath and
of Catholic teaching on the Natural Law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">II<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
central contention of the Beattie petition bears on another benefit of
criminalisation, which is the most important of all: its effect on women in
crisis pregnancies. The Petition claims:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We appreciate the complex ethical
challenges involved in any intentionally abortive act. However, we also believe
that our Catholic faith calls us to be attentive to suffering in all its forms,
and to respond with trust in the mercy, forgiveness and compassion of God when
faced with with [sic] profound moral dilemmas that offer no clear solution. In
situations where abortion is deemed necessary – such as those currently
permitted under Polish law – we believe that access to early, safe and legal
abortion is essential. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
cases currently permitted by Polish law are those where a pregnancy is the
result of rape; where the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy; and
where the unborn child is severely disabled or terminally ill. It is these
cases alone which will be affected by a complete ban, and which are addressed
by the Beattie Petition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It
is difficult to see ‘mercy, forgiveness, and compassion’ at work in the
decision to abort a disabled or sick child, particularly when the serious
psychological and physical dangers abortion, compared with childbirth, has for
mothers. Abortion is the preferred answer, rather, of a medical and social
system which would rather not be burdened by the task of supporting mothers and
their children in these difficult circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">When
a child is conceived in rape, the motivation of the rape victim and her friends
and family in seeking abortion is easy to understand. It is equally clear,
however, that it can never be a healing choice for a mother to consent to the
destruction of her own child. The testimony of many women to the psychological
trauma caused by abortion does not encourage the view that abortion is an easy
way out for victims of rape.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
Petition focuses, instead, on the case of mothers whose health in endangered by
continuing a pregnancy. In this case, the question arises of whether, in the
context of modern medicine, such cases actually occur. The 2012 Dublin
Declaration on Maternal Health states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As experienced practitioners and
researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion – the
purposeful destruction of the unborn child – is not medically necessary to save
the life of a woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This
has been signed by more than a thousand medical practioners. The Declaration
clearly distinguishes, as the Catholic moral tradition does, and as laws
restricting abortion typically do, between abortion, as a procedure aiming at
the death of an unborn child, and the medical treatment of a pregnant mother
which may endanger the child’s life. In the Catholic tradition, as in the law,
the latter can often be legitimate, taking account of the seriousness of the
threat to the mother, the possibility of alternative treatments, and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">III<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
Beattie Petition appeals to the tragic circumstances implied in each of these
cases, with the implication that offering the possibility of abortion is the
compassionate thing to do. For a mother in a crisis pregnancy, in some cases
traumatised by rape, in other cases seriously ill, or struggling to come to
terms with the news that her child is severely disabled, the offer of abortion
is not a compassionate intervention. When offered, perhaps with the
encouragement of doctors or family members, it will generally present itself as
a recommendation. Like all medical recommendations, it will in such
circumstances require a special strength of character to resist it,
particularly when accompanied by the implied threat: if you don’t abort, the
baby will remind you of the rape, the baby will be disabled, the baby will kill
you: claims which will not necessarily be true. Such recommendations may be
accompanied by pressure, of a subtle or not so subtle kind, from partners or
family members, who may for a variety of reasons prefer the baby not to exist. The
open door to abortion will distract the attention of all involved from the
alternative possibilities: of accepting the unique and sacred character of the
child’s life, and of coming to terms with the problems implied by the pregnancy
with the support of doctors, family members, and where appropriate the state.
Offering abortion to mothers in these cases can, in practice, be hard to
distinguish from dispatching them down a pathway of convenience for others, a
pathway in which the complications of a crisis pregnancy are swept aside, and
the mother is left to cope with the trauma of abortion instead, a trauma the
existence of which the advocates of abortion, like the signatories of the
Beattie Petition, do not wish even to acknowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It
is precisely in these tragic circumstances, more so than in cases where
abortion is motivated by apparently frivolous considerations, that the reality
of abortion is apparent, as an injustice not only to the unborn, but to the
mother. Legal abortion opens up the most vulnerable women of all to pressure to
consent to a crime against their unborn child, and against themselves. The
criminalisation of abortion, as proposed today in Poland, is a step towards the
protection of women and the unborn alike.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">IV<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Two
other claims of the Beattie Petition should briefly be considered. First is the
claim that abortion could be reduced by greater availability of contraception:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Finally, there is a body of
evidence to show that the best way to prevent abortion is to respect women’s
human dignity and freedom of conscience with regard to reproductive decisions,
by guaranteeing access to reliable methods of birth control.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Such
evidence as is commonly cited is far from decisive, however; what is widely
observed and agreed is that the majority of women seeking abortion had been
using contraception. The connection between a contraceptive culture and the
demand for abortion was set out by Pope St John Paul II in <i>Evangelium vitae </i>(1995) §13. It is strange, in any case, that this
claim should be thought to have bearing on the cases of pregnancy resulting
from rape, or where abortion is suggested because an unborn child is disabled,
or the pregnancy is supposedly a danger to the mother’s life. However rare or
common such cases may be, reliable contraception is not going to prevent them
arising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
second claim is the alleged relevance of religious freedom, and <i>Dignatatis humanae</i>, the Declaration on
Religious Liberty of the Second Vatican Council, §2. This section deals with
the freedom to profess religious beliefs. Any understanding of religious
freedom must distinguish between the manifestation of beliefs in harmless ways,
and the alleged manifestation of religious beliefs in ways which are unjust to
others, particularly others who are do not, or cannot, consent to this
treatment. What is unjust must, in turn, necessarily be assessed objectively. <i>Dignitatis humanae</i> makes precisely this
distinction, in §7, and ignoring this fact is an indication of a lack of
intellectual integrity in the Beattie Petition: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The right to religious freedom is
exercised in human society: hence its exercise is subject to certain regulatory
norms. In the use of all freedoms the moral principle of personal and social
responsibility is to be observed. In the exercise of their rights, individual
men and social groups are bound by the moral law to have respect both for the
rights of others and for their own duties toward others and for the common
welfare of all. Men are to deal with their fellows in justice and civility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As
a matter of fact, the Second Vatican Council directly addressed the issue of
abortion, in the Dogmatic Constitution <i>Gaudium
et spes,</i> §51, which stressed the obligation to <i>guard</i> against what is a <i>crime,</i>
and not just a private sin:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">For God, the Lord of life, has
conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life in a manner which
is worthy of man. Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be
guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable
crimes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
Beattie Petition also includes an appeal to ‘the call to mercy and compassion mercy’
of Pope Francis. The petitioners can find no comfort, however, in the Holy
Father’s most recent publication, the Post-Synodal Exhortation <i>Amoris Laetitia</i> (2016) §83:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So great is the value of a human
life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the
mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision
to terminate that life, which is an end in itself and which can never be
considered the “property” of another human being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-55692769726459642932016-02-27T16:20:00.000+00:002016-04-29T11:06:26.022+01:00Nuns in the Congo: non-authoritative, but trueThe Pope referred to the famous case of the 'Nuns in the Congo' in the latest <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-pope-francis-in-flight-interview-from-mexico-to-rome-85821/">aeroplane interview</a>. The case is about nuns who, fearing rape, take some kind of contraceptive pill. Pope Francis' exact purpose in making the reference was unclear, but not nearly unclear enough for the Vatican spokesman <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-vatican-affirms-pope-was-speaking-about-contraceptives-for-zika">Fr Lombardi</a>, who relived his triumphs in <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/678376/vatican-plays-down-pope-condom-comments">obscuring the teaching</a> of Pope Benedict XVI on the dangers of condoms for people with AIDS, and in throwing sand into the eyes of everyone trying to make sense of Pope Benedict's remarks about <a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/vatican-statement-benedict-xvi-and-condoms">male prostitutes</a> using condoms.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, <a href="http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351240?eng=y">Sandro Magister</a> seems to have uncovered the history of the 'Nuns in the Congo' discussion, which wasn't what pretty well everyone had assumed up to now, claiming that Pope Paul VI said nothing on the subject. Rather, it had simply been discussed by some theologians under Pope John XXIII.<br />
<br />
Being a moral philosopher rather than a historian or, for that matter, a mind-reader, I think the contribution I can best make here is to explain why the Nuns in the Congo case is important, regardless of whether Pope Paul VI or any other pope authorised any ruling about it.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>It should be obvious that the <b>non-contraceptive use of devices</b> or chemicals designed with contraception in mind is not necessarily wrong. Blowing condoms into balloons; using the Pill to control menstruation, and so on. Condoms are not intrinsically evil; it depends on what you do with them. What the Magisterium has also taught, for a long time, is that <b>doing or omitting certain actions <i>with the intention</i> that conception will not take place</b>, is not necessarily wrong either. If a couple don't think it prudent to conceive at a given moment, and choose accordingly to abstain from the marital act, this is permissible (assuming they have good reasons for doing this: I'm going to ignore this issue from here on, but have discussed it <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2015/06/what-is-contraceptive-mentality.html">here</a>).<br />
<br />
What is wrong is (<b>Pius XI</b>) is the<span style="color: #990000;"> 'frustration of the natural act'</span> with regard to its procreative potential, or to <span style="color: #990000;">'deprive it </span>[sc. the marriage act]<span style="color: #990000;"> of its natural force and power'.</span> (<i>Casti conubii </i>1930)<br />
<br />
<b>Paul VI</b> needed to emphasise that a pill taken hours or days before or after the sexual act was still wrong: it didn't need to make a difference, like a condom, to the act considered as physical behaviour. So he put it slightly differently: he condemned <span style="color: #990000;">'any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.' </span>(<a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html"><i>Humane vitae</i></a> (1968) 14)<br />
<br />
Both encyclicals make it clear that <b><i>abstinence </i>with the intention of not begetting children</b>, even when the abstinence is targetted at moments when the woman is fertile, does not necessarily contravene the moral law. This of course is what has led to the development of more accurate methods of determining fertility with a view to 'Natural Family Planning' (NFP). You don't have to be an enthusiast for NFP, however, to see that any other ruling by these Popes would have been impossible. It would be absurd to say that couples are <i>obliged </i>to engage in the marital act when there is a war, plague, or famine raging and they are concerned about what will happen to the baby.<br />
<br />
This means that an<b> <i>intention not to have a baby</i> is not intrinsically immoral</b>. What is intrinsically immoral is <b>this intention <i>coupled with</i> the intention to engage in a sexual act</b> (as opposed to <i>not</i> engage in such an act). To clarify, a couple using NFP will not engage in the marital act <i>with the intention of not conceiving. </i>That intention wouldn't make sense, because they have not done anything in relation to that act which will impede its leading to conception. Rather, the acts which they perform with an intention <i>not to conceive</i> are, in fact, <i>ommissions</i> to engage in the marital act at this or that time. There is no marital act whose 'natural force and power' towards procreation has been deliberatly frustrated by the couple; it is just that the potential marital acts which would have the most efficacious 'force and power' don't take place at all.<br />
<br />
But if what is intrinsically wrong is the combination of these two intentions, or, as Pius XI describes it, to 'frustrate the natural act', then not only is abstinence permissible, but so is the use of contraception, <i>even with the intention that it prevent conception,</i> <b>if</b> there is <i>no intention to engage in a sexual act</i>. This would normally be nonsensical, but it could be at issue with cases of rape.<br />
<br />
A big caveat is needed at this point, that the <b>contraceptive method at issue must be contraceptive in the strict sense</b>. If there is a danger that it will prevent the development or implantation of a fertilised ovum then it is a very different story, so I don't think this reasoning can be applied to the 'Morning After Pill,' and it doesn't look like it could be applied to the conventional Pill either. But there are many ways one can try to frustrate conception, and <i>in principle</i> this would be morally licit other things being equal.<br />
<br />
In fact this conclusion was reached by Catholic ethicists long before <i>Humanae vitae,</i> and even before John XXIII. It is a commonplace of the old theological manuals that a victim of rape could, <i>with the intention of frustrating conception,</i> wash out the rapist's seed. This would <i>not</i> be permissible (at least, not with that intention), where the sexual act had been consensual, that is, intended by the woman.<br />
<br />
This is all very technical stuff. I put it out here not because it sheds any light on what Pope Francis said on that aeroplane (long may it rust), but because in their frustration many Catholic commentators are making a great deal out of the fact that the 'Nuns in the Congo' case has never been authoritatively taught. This may well be true, but the theological consensus about the case is not a reflection of modernist corruption; nor yet is it an opening towards more exceptions and a hollowing out of the teaching on contraception.<b> It follows from the moral principles which make up the teaching on contraception</b>. The denial of the need for there to be an intention to engage in a sexual act, as well as an intention to prevent conception, to make up the intrinsically immoral 'contraceptive intention', would lead not just to pastorally inconvenient consequences, but morally absurd ones.<br />
<br />
Related posts: questions about NFP <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2015/06/what-is-contraceptive-mentality.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2014/10/the-problem-with-nfp-industry.html">here</a>; on Pope Benedict's views on the use of condoms by (male?) prostitutes, <a href="http://casuistrycentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/pope-on-condoms-some-conclusions.html">here</a>; on whether condomistic intercourse is always wrong <a href="http://casuistrycentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/luke-gormally-replies-to-rhonheimer.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://casuistrycentral.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/rhonheimers-mistake.html">here</a>.Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-43378646234695497092015-09-03T15:07:00.000+01:002017-06-01T17:49:00.261+01:00The narrative of victimhood: transsexuality<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nVxm-Dv9rFw/VehNI70Q4qI/AAAAAAAADR0/4uF61scQ9pc/s1600/fallon%2Bfox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nVxm-Dv9rFw/VehNI70Q4qI/AAAAAAAADR0/4uF61scQ9pc/s320/fallon%2Bfox.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fallon Fox, born a man, competes against women in<br />
Mixed Martial Arts, and <a href="http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/transgender-mma-fighter-destroys-female-opponent/">does pretty well</a>...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've just noted <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2015/09/transsexual-lifestyle-not-in-accord.html">on my other blog</a> that living as a transsexual has been categorised by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as incompatible with the Faith. This is about the argument in favour of tolerating or promoting this lifestyle.<br />
<br />
The transsexual phenomenon is not entirely new, but it is taking on a new form and become a <i>cause celebre</i> with astonishing speed. From a common-sense point of view it seems sheer lunacy: people can now simply claim to be the sex opposite to that indicated by their biology, and have this assertion officially recognised, with or without any medical diagnosis or intervention (not that either would make any real difference).<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
The radicals who have promoted the social acceptance of transsexuality in this sense have followed the strategy used in a number of other successful campaigns to change attitudes. In the cases of contraception, abortion, IVF, euthanasia, and drug use the appeal is made to a victim group disadvantaged by a old law or attitude, and opponents of change are accused of lacking compassion. Drug users are perhaps the least sympathetic of the proposed victim groups, which is why the legalisation of drugs has been a harder struggle, but the efforts by the liberal media to portray them as charming and harmless are all the more evident.<br />
<br />
The other obstacle to the success of the strategy is the existence of a rival group of victims. These are most obviously identifiable in the case of abortion, which is why liberals can't stand depictions of the 'clumps of cells' removed in abortion as they really are: looking like babies. The narrative of people being victimised by an archaic law or attitude is thrown into doubt when it turns out that the proposed new practice simply victimises another set of people. The debate then has to focus on which set of victims has priority.<br />
<br />
I'm focusing here on the structure of the arguments, not on their soundness. In the real world, there are real victims and real oppressors. Presenting people as such, however, does not make them so.<br />
<br />
Considering this victim/ oppressor narrative is a very crude way of looking at the debates. In reality pro-lifers, for example, argue that women who are pressured into abortion, or who are hoodwinked into thinking of it as having no psychological consequences, are also victims. But the media like dealing with these simple narratives, and their opponents, to be successful, have to find a way to derail the narrative decisively. They need to be able to show, with a simple word or image or heart-felt example, that the victim vs. heartless oppressor story is the wrong way around. That Robin Hood is robbing the poor to keep himself rich, say. Pro-lifers haven't managed this yet, though attitude trends suggest they may be <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/126581/generational-differences-abortion-narrow.aspx">making progress</a>.<br />
<br />
The most spectacular example of a derailment, of a victim/ oppressor story being turned around, is is with paedophilia: or, as some of its proponents like to call it, 'intergenerational sex'. Right into the 1990s attempts were being made to establish it as a story about harmless paedophiles being oppressed by outmoded laws and attitudes. The most harmful thing to do to children was to tell them (or agree with them) that sexual contact with adults was wrong, we were told. It was the children's stories which turned it around. It was impossible, in the end, to brush aside their testimony.<br />
<br />
A good example of a contested narrative is prostitution. Are those who use prostitutes victims or oppressors? Amnesty International has decided that they are victims: they should be able to exploit the desperation of women forced into prostitution to their heart's content. Most feminists take the opposite view: men who pay for consensual sex with professional sex workers should be hounded. I've been surprised at the strength of the pro-prostitution narrative, which has led to a degree of civil war among progressives, but I don't think it can last. The awfulness of the reality of <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/if-you-think-decriminalisation-will-make-prostitution-safe-look-germanys-mega">decriminalised prostitution in Germany</a> throws a bucket of cold water over the idea that clients are (when subjected to penalties) the victims.<br />
<br />
The lack of a rival group of victims makes IVF and contraception particularly hard to oppose. On the other hand, the establishment of the disabled as a rival victim group in the case of euthanasia has seriously complicated efforts to promote it.<br />
<br />
In the case of the debate about transsexualism, the liberal promoters of the idea naturally depict the transsexuals as victims and anyone not playing along with it as heartless oppressors. The victimisation consists of not allowing the transsexuals to do what they want to do. The problem the liberals face in this case is a ready-made rival group of victims: women, many of whom have no desire to share their <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/forcing-girls-to-share-a-bathroom-with-a-gender-confused-boy-is-abuse/">changing facilities</a>, loos, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/nov/14/transgender-mma-fighter-fallon-fox-joe-rogan">competitive sports</a> with people who are biologically male. Liberals have found themselves attacking these women in most extreme terms, but these victims are not going to go away, and unlike unborn babies, they can speak for themselves.<br />
<br />
We live in interesting times, as the saying is. I wouldn't like to bet on it, but it may be that the liberals have bitten off more than they can chew with this one. Screaming 'bigot', at seventeen-year-old girls who don't want to shower in front of a biological male, is only going to get you so far.<br />
<br />
(For a taste of the debate about what Americans so charminly call 'rest rooms', search for 'lila perry' on Twitter. To see the gloves really come off, search for 'terf'. It stands for 'trans excluding radical feminist'.)Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-3926125703006204672014-03-13T14:21:00.002+00:002014-03-13T14:21:13.540+00:00Conference on Human Nature<h1 style="background-color: white; color: rgb(96, 96, 96) !important; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 40px; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 50px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<a href="http://bioethics.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=52d122c9c334d962d37215d34&id=72a7297665&e=e826fa7033" style="color: #6dc6dd; font-weight: normal; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 24px;">Conference on Saturday 3rd May</span></a></h1>
<h2 style="background-color: white; color: rgb(64, 64, 64) !important; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 26px; letter-spacing: -0.75px; line-height: 32.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<strong>Human Nature: Biology, Ethics and Theology</strong></h2>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
<strong>With Rev Prof Nicanor Austriaco OP</strong><br />Associate Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Providence College<br />Visiting Research Fellow, Anscombe Bioethics Centre<br /><br />Fr Austriaco will present two papers on recovering natural inclinations and disinclinations in biological and ethical discourse, looking at how biological dis/inclinations relate to the Virtues, Natural Law and Original Sin.<br /><br />Respondents<br /><strong>Dr Joost Banneke (Clinical Psychology) </strong><br /><strong>Rev Dr Robert Gay OP (Biology, Bioethics)</strong><br /><strong>Dr Simon Kolstoe (Biomedical Chemistry, Research Ethics)</strong><br /><strong>Rev Dr Richard Conrad OP (Chemistry, Dogmatic Theology)</strong><br /><br />10.30-4pm, at Blackfriars Hall OX1 3LY<br /><br />Please register online <a href="http://bioethics.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=52d122c9c334d962d37215d34&id=803a0fde5e&e=e826fa7033" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">HERE</a>.<br />Or via <a href="mailto:admin@bioethics.org.uk" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">admin@bioethics.org.uk</a> / <wbr></wbr>01865 610212<br /><br />Registration is £10 (includes lunch)</div>
Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-40571106341702090262013-10-03T17:40:00.001+01:002016-05-09T11:51:49.958+01:00A paradox of Utilitarian thinking: the uselessness of terror bombingUpdate: another book on this subject, looking at a wider range of bombing campaigns, comes to the same conclusion: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801483115?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0801483115&linkCode=xm2&tag=thewaspos09-20"><i>Bombing to Win</i> by by Robert A. Pape</a><br />
<br />
It is a fact that, in principle, Utilitarianism cannot be self-defeating. Since it does not specify a particular strategy or set of means to achieve its goal (the greatest possible good), any strategy or set of means which failed would be rejected.<br />
<br />
In practice, Utilitarian agents are self-defeating with depressing regularity. The most powerful and ruthless people who seek some good regardless of the constraints of common-sense morality seem almost always to end up creating far more harm than good - even in their own terms. No one could be more calculating and unimpeded in pursuit of a goal than the great dictators of the last couple of centuries, but, despite the oceans of blood they spilt, their imperial or ideological projects came, in the end, to nothing. In some cases they had thoroughly misguided goals; in others, their disregard for conventional morality created a reaction which eventually defeated them. Both show the dangers of Utilitarianism in practice: it encourages the idea they you can dream up your own vision of the good and then promote it with complete disregard for the collateral damage - having worked out first, to your own satisfaction, that this damage will be less than the good you will bring about. Such calculations are invitations to self-delusion, not to say megalomania.<br />
<br />
One enduring debate among historians is the value, or lack of it, of one of the greatest crimes committed by the Allies in the 2nd World War, of conventional area bombing. I was interested to see a new book on the subject, which concludes that the huge resources devoted to this would have been better used elsewhere, from the point of view of winning the war as quickly as possible: that is to say, even leaving aside the horrendous carnage it created of non-combatants.<br />
<br />
The case of the nuclear bombing of Japan is even more controversial as to its effectiveness, though even more straightforwardly criminal in its targeting of civilians.<br />
<br />
Here are some quotations from the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21586520-damning-verdict-bombing-campaign-europe-during-second-world-war-costly?frsc=dg%7Ca">Economist's review</a>.<br />
<br />
<strong style="border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945.</strong><span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"> By Richard Overy. </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Allen Lane; 852 pages; £30.</em><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;">The failure of Germany’s first big bombing campaign against Britain, following the allies’ unexpectedly sudden collapse in France in 1940, was in some ways typical of what came later in confused ends and inadequate means. Two things above all ensured that all the early attempts at strategic bombing (whether by the Germans, the British or the hopelessly ill-equipped Italians) were far less effective than anyone had expected.<br /><br />The first was the near impossibility, given the technology then available, of landing a meaningful concentration of bombs near any target other than a large city; in 1941 only one in ten Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers got within five miles of their targets in the Ruhr valley. The second was the unforeseen resilience of well-organised societies to withstand bombing without suffering either moral or economic collapse. Shelter was found for people who had lost their homes, repairs to infrastructure were quickly made and industrial production temporarily shifted if necessary. Although more than 40,000 people died during the eight months of the Blitz and in London about 1m homes were damaged or destroyed, there were no riots and war production increased steadily. People suffered, but the majority got used to it.<br /><br />Despite this experience, Britain’s Bomber Command under the brutally single- minded Arthur Harris, never doubted that “area bombing”, a euphemism for attacking cities indiscriminately. And he never lost his belief that if you killed enough German workers you would win the war. Yet even when the RAF in 1942, closely followed by the US Army Air Force, began to put together the famous “thousand bomber” raids that were supposed to “knock Germany out of the war”, German war production continued to ramp up and the Nazi regime never came remotely close to losing political control.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">...</span></div>
<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span><span style="color: #990000;">Mr Overy’s final verdict, however, is damning. He argues that “strategic bombing proved in the end to be inadequate in its own terms for carrying out its principle assignments and was morally compromised by deliberate escalation against civilian populations.” Nor has it left any real legacy. It was rapidly rendered redundant by the overwhelming but (since 1945 at least) unusable destructive power of nuclear weapons. More recently, bombing has come full circle. Precision-guided munitions now allow Western air forces to hit military targets while leaving even nearby civilians often largely unscathed—the precise opposite of what prevailed during the second world war.</span>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-2401096628953600212013-10-01T16:35:00.002+01:002016-02-04T11:25:34.444+00:00Carts and Horses in John HaldaneThe Philosophical Quarterly has just published my review of John Haldane's <i>Reasonable Faith</i>; they kindly inform me that I can make it available to all on-line if I pay them £3,000. Thanks, but no thanks.<br />
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Here, nevertheless, is a teaser quote.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">Haldane notes the description of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, as suggesting that we should look again at notions of personal identity and post-mortem survival which allow temporal gaps in existence (p7). Haldane goes on to explore these issues in Chapter 11 (pp145-159). What is puzzling is the suggestion that we take as a starting point in philosophy a datum—if it is a datum—of Revelation. The standard Thomist approach is that philosophy deals with matters of Natural Reason, leaving Revelation to Theology: Philosophy is by definition the exercise of reason without the explicit aid of Revelation, and its role is to establish the conceptual ‘Nature’ which is perfected by Grace. Christian Philosophers have the task of showing the coherence of Christian beliefs without appeal to their supernatural origins, for the benefit of critics who do not accept those origins, and in areas such as Metaphysics and Mind it engages at ground level with non-Christian thought. Thomists might add further that the correct understanding of Scripture requires a complete theological education and the supernatural virtue of Faith. From this perspective, the argument that, since in contemporary philosophy more or less anything can spark a philosophically fruitful debate, we might as well raid the pages of the Christian Scriptures, is not altogether flattering, and may be imprudent. For those who take the Christian contribution to Philosophy seriously, Scripture is not just one more possible source of interesting ideas, along with </span><span style="color: #990000;">Dostoyevsky or the study of the neurology of autism.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">"Reasonable Faith. By JOHN HALDANE. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010. Ppx + 197. Price £25.99.)"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Philosophical Quarterly, Vol 63, Issue 253, start page 830 </span>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-56642513979261745772012-03-02T09:10:00.000+00:002012-03-02T09:10:12.213+00:00Infanticide: coming to a hospital near you<a href="http://thatthebonesyouhavecrushedmaythrill.blogspot.com/2012/02/it-sounds-ridiculous-but-this-is-how-it.html">The Bones</a> has a good post about the way the eugenicists float 'shocking' ideas, wait for the fuss to die down, and then impose the reality. They get people used to the idea of contraception, abortion, screening for the disabled, euthanasia, by endless debate, and their chums in the media are always on hand to keep the defenders of the status quo on the back foot. The matter is never settled until they get their way; when that happens, suddenly it is very settled indeed, one might think it was handed down from the Almighty, the fuss they make about 'attacks on abortion rights' and so on.<br />
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<a href="http://bks2.books.google.co.uk/books?id=_14H7MOw1o4C&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=curl" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://bks2.books.google.co.uk/books?id=_14H7MOw1o4C&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=curl" /></a>This procedure is aided enormously if the response of Catholics is not to oppose the evil with arguments from Natural Law, but to beg to be allowed to shelter Catholic institutions and Catholic medics from having anything to do with it. The progressives are always willing to make this concession to win the main issue, after which they can remove our precious protections at their leisure. This has happened so often now it would be tedious to list the cases, but it started with Cardinal Heenan reining in opponents of abortion in exchange for a 'conscience clause' which in the long term has proved totally worthless.<br />
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There is another aspect of the progressive strategy which is worth highlighting. The <a href="http://www.cmq.org.uk/CMQ/2012/Contents-Feb-2012.html">Catholic Medical Quarterly</a> has just published a short paper of mine, which the editor commissioned, on the widely used medical textbook by Beauchamp & Childress. This was first published in 1979, and is now in its fifth edition. It is a truly appalling book, a disgrace to academia, deriving not from serious moral philosophers but a self-regarding group of 'applied ethics' people who find it very easy to get grants and sell books without actually thinking anything through clearly.<br />
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The Catholic Medical Quarterly very decently lets people download pds of articles, and you <a href="http://www.cmq.org.uk/CMQ/2012/Feb/double_effect.pdf">can read mine here</a>. One very striking thing about the Beauchamp and Childress approach is that they encourage medics to view every decision as a matter of balancing considerations. Not, as you might imagine, medical pros and cons to a proposed treatment, or anything as sensible as that, but 'on the one hand, Kantian ethics would suggest option (a); on the other, the patient wants (b); and then again my feeling is that we should go for (c).' This describes what may indeed be the reasoning of a medic with absolutely no ethical formation; Beauchamp and Childress want to keep medics that way, even after they've done a course in 'medical ethics'. Instead of making a decision on the basis of a coherent account of ethics which is itself subject to rigorous debate, they want medics to balance innumerable such accounts against each other and against inchoate feelings and even social pressure.<br />
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The genius of this account is that it can disguise the victory of materialism and utilitarianism indefinitely. One of the most powerful arguments against these theories is that they have extreme implications which are completely implausible. Murder five innocent people to save six? Cause great pain to one to save a large number from pin pricks? Give extra food to an indolent epicure while ignoring the needs of contented paupers? Instead of confronting these cases and concluding that Utilitarianism is simply wrong, Beauchamp and Childress say: keep it in the background, just balance it against your intuitions. So as time goes on, and healthy moral intuitions are undermined by relentless Utilitarian propaganda, not least in medical ethics courses, it can continue its relentless advance. The unthinkability of contraception, abortion, IVF, screening, euthanasia, and infanticide disappear one after the other because it hasn't been made sufficiently clear that the only reason to ignore these traditional moral prohibitions is a moral theory, Utilitarianism, which no sane person would actually adopt, without massive and arbitrary conditions, in real life.Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-48259344603996023192011-11-02T10:18:00.005+00:002011-11-02T11:04:43.206+00:00Non-Directive Counselling: what I have learntLast evening I presented one of two papers on NDC at a seminar on the subject organised by the Anscombe Centre, and took part in the discussion. I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account of proceedings, or reveal the identities of anyone (I don't know if they'd mind or not), but I will sumarise what I think I learnt from a very interesting evening.<div><br /></div><div>As the seminar was attended by a number of people from counselling organisations (or organisations which do counselling inter alia), as well as a number of moral philosophers, we were able to try in a sustained way to get to grips with each others' angles on the subject. The counsellors (as I might call them for convenience) were naturally not used to the kinds of questions we raised; nor were the philosophers especially well-informed about counselling. The first thing which emerged was that, as far as I could see, the existence of moral problems of the type we were raising had not occurred to the counsellors as a group before (or: before the thing blew up in the Catholic press a few months ago). Handling a counselling session to minimise cooperation with evil, or consent by silence to evil, was not part of their training. As Catholics they naturally had some instincts on these matters, but these things had never been formalised, and although they went into counselling with considerable professional training, ethics from a Catholic point of view did not form part of that. In this, of course, they are in the same boat as doctors, though one might have hoped for something better from organisations with strong links to the Church.</div><div><br /></div><div>They were able to clarify for us some of the protocols they use and how these relate to the kinds of moral problem which I outlined. The answers to the question 'Can an NDC counsellor volunteer information?' and the question 'Can an NDC counsellor answer a question about his own moral view?' were both a clear 'no': nor would any of the counsellors present allow themselves to break the rules of NDC in an emergency situation.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, some of them did say that they would aim to steer the conversation in particular directions, that they looked out for 'pro-life clues' and so on. If some kind of information would make a difference, in the counsellor's judgement, he would steer the client into asking for it.</div><div><br /></div><div>This might look as though the rules of NDC were being kept in letter but not in spirit, but it also emerged that other organisations, including pro-abortion organisations, would regard the provision of information as not infringing NDC at all. Their approach would be to make sure that the client had a full set of options to consider. The pro-life counsellors would not set out options unasked: one reason for this which was discussed is that if you give pro-life options, it would seem that you had to give options involving abortion as well. Something a bit like a Socratic questioning method, of getting the client to see for herself, and to ask for herself the necessary questions, is used instead.</div><div><br /></div><div>In addition to this, one counsellor pointed out that it would be impossible for a counsellor not to convey a certain amount about his own preferences by tone of voice, body language and so on. (Thinking about this afterwards, it occurred to me that this was much less the case with counselling over the phone.)</div><div><br /></div><div>My argument in my paper was to the effect: NDC may well work in some cases, and indeed be the best approach in some cases, or for some of the time in a case, but a counsellor must be ready either to switch into a more interventionist mode of operating, or refer the client on to a more interventionist type of counselling, if the counsellor judges that a good outcome depends upon it. I pointed out in my paper that such a procedure was perfectly normal in ordinary counselling. However, the counsellors present were very resistant to this suggestion, and it is clearly not a way of doing things they are used to.</div><div><br /></div><div>They used two arguments against it. One was that becoming more interventionist would undermine the rapport with the client. If this were true then it would never bring about a better outcome; but equally if it were true then other counselling organisations, who tell their counsellors to switch into a more interventionist mode when the client is suicidal, would have noticed. And indeed if being interventionist never worked then all the other kinds of therapy, other than NDC, would never work, and that seems rather an extravagant claim.</div><div><br /></div><div>The other is that any deviation from NDC would be found out and referrals from GPs and the like would dry up. In the case of one counselling group represented at the meeting at least, the organisation's business model depends on strict adherence to the rules for this reason. Against this it should be pointed out that there are other business models: you can advertise and get your clients that way, and non-NDC pro-life counselling groups do just that. More fundamentally, this argument does not look to me like a justification for close material cooperation in a grave evil.</div><div><br /></div><div>My preliminary conclusion from the discussion is this. One the one hand, despite saying they would never break the NDC rules, and their reluctance to move the client on to other forms of counselling, pro-life NDC counsellors can find ways of getting the client to ask for necessary information, can steer the conversation in a pro-life direction, and so on: so there are more resources for ensuring a good outcome (and avoiding cooperation in evil) than might appear at first.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, when push comes to shove, and in the admittedly unlikely case when a word in season would make all the difference, pro-life NDC counsellors will stick to a strict interpretation of the rules and remain silent. I have yet to see a sufficient moral justification for that, but no doubt the debate will continue.</div>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-57285175887515723632011-09-28T12:21:00.001+01:002011-09-28T12:21:33.559+01:00Why I was wrong about Triple EffectFrances Kamm has proposed something called 'Triple Effect', in which an agent can bring about a desired effect, which is essential for his overall plan, without intending it. She says this shows we can use something as a means which we do not intend. I agreed with her analysis, though I said it should not be called a means of the agent. <br /><br />Kamm's examples. The party: I will only throw a party if I don't expect there to be a lot of clearing up. I think my guests will do the clearing up for me, so I throw the party on that basis. But I don't intend that they clear up. <br /><br />Looping Trolley: I can direct a trolley away from one set of people tied to the track only the basis that lives will be saved overall. In fact there are even more people tied to the alternative track. But luckily (?) there is a very fat man tied to the track as well, who will stop the trolley before it gets to these latter people. I can direct the trolley in that direction without intending the squashing of the fat man. <br /><br />These have some plausibility, particularly the party example (or so it seemed to me), but I have realised that this approach is subject to powerful counterexamples, like this one. <br /><br />The wicked uncle. My uncle is very rich and very wicked; a whole community is suffering under his exploitative sway. I fancy scratching my finger on the trigger of a loaded gun I am pointing at him, which will obviously go off and kill him. Normally such finger-scratching would be wrong, because the unintended effect of killing an innocent (non-aggressor) would outweigh the good of relieving my itch in this way. But in this case the good consequences of his death far outweigh the badness of the death in itself. So the balance of non-intended consequences is actually positive. <br /><br />Now this seems absurd, and if we allow this then any action with overall good consequences which violates a deontic constraint (a common-sense moral prohibition like 'don't kill the innocent) could be done with a little morally irrelevant posturing. So the moral structure of deontic constraints would effectively collapse into Consequentialism.<br /><br />The case is indeed absurd because when I say that the good consequences of the action make it morally possible to do, I am taking cognizance of them in a way which implies that I intend them. One intends things which motivate one to act as one does. The good consequences of the death are motivating me, in part, and I would nit act without them; thus I must be intending the death of the uncle as well, as a means to my intended end.<br /><br />What I failed to see was that on Kamm's examples the agent must be intending the good foreseen results because they are essential to his plan. If he did not expect them then he'd have to call it off, and he'd better make sure they happen, by adapting the plan if necessary. They are indeed his means, but by the same token they are intended.<br /><br />This admission also effect another example I came up with: the railway enthusiast. He is so keen on railways that he wants to build one really as an end in itself. Someone points out that railways are dangerous things and people are bound to be killed in accidents in the years after it is built. This seems to rule out the project. Then someone else points out that railways are safer than roads and by shifting traffic away from roads it will have an overall positive effect on the number of accidental deaths. I DID say that the enthusiast can proceed with the building with no intentions about accidental deaths, happy in the knowledge that the balance of unintended consequences is positive. I NOW say that since the improved overall safety is essential to the moral viability of the project he must intend it, if only as a means to the end of building a railway. <br /><br />Changing my position in this way brings underlines the principle found in many discussions of the Principle of Double Effect, that the good consequences of an action must not flow causally from the bad foreseen side effects. At least, if the bad side effects are such that it would be wrong to intend them, one cannot justify the action on the basis of further, good, effects which flow from them, for to do this is to bring them, and the bad cause of them into one's intentions.<br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone<br />Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-24460280918536479072011-07-14T15:09:00.008+01:002011-07-21T10:17:24.994+01:00The ethical problems of non-directive counsellingUpdate: for the latest episode in the story, see <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2011/07/fame-at-last-life-and-non-directive.html">here</a>.<br /><br />There has been a <a href="http://www.lovingit.co.uk/2011/07/life-non-directive-abortion-counselling.html">flurry</a> of <a href="http://ccfather.blogspot.com/2011/07/non-directive-abortion-counselling.html">interest</a> in <a href="http://carolinefarrow.com/2011/07/14/catholic-life-support/">this topic</a> on the <a href="http://ccfather.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-on-non-directional-counselling.html">Catholic blogs</a>, since LIFE, the pro-life charity, has got accreditation for its counsellors as conforming to the 'non-directive' style favoured by the secular counselling industry. The hope of the organisation that using non-directive counselling (NDC) will win the organisation acceptance by, and influence in, government, and even funding, is not entirely without foundation. But non-directive counselling is very controversial in Catholic ethics, and I have seen no serious defence of LIFE's stance.<br /><br />What are the problems?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Practical</span>. 1. It is claimed that non-directive counselling works. The claim is very hard to substantiate since the counsellor normally does not know what the ultimate outcomes are. We can't hold this against the method, but the claim that its effectivness is a knock-down argument in favour of it won't wash either.<br /><br />2. The suggestion that the alternative to LIFE's NDC is to say to clients what you want them to conclude at the end of the counselling, at the beginning. This is the reverse of the truth. People going to LIFE counsellors know that they are going to a pro-life group - the name rather gives it away. They then get no guidance at all from the counsellor. The alternative is to use a more neutral name, start the counselling very softly-softly, and then introduce some important facts into the discussion: notably what abortion is, what the alternatives are. This is the approach taken by other pro-life groups, and they are just as adamant as LIFE that this approach works.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Psychological.</span> NDC is a horse from the 'values clarification' stable established by Carl Rogers and others. Rogers found that he could get 1950s university students to pull themselves together simply by repeating back to them their own statements. This obviously worked because the students for the most part had very clear, and fairly old-fashioned, values from their upbringing. It has a very different effect on people today who come from a pretty values-free background in the first place. Indeed, it is favoured today as part of a package with the idea that all decisions are equally valid, there are no objective moral principles, and so on, and it is really hard to see why anyone who is not a moral subjectivist would give NDC a second glance.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Funding</span>. James Preece <a href="http://www.lovingit.co.uk/2011/07/why-are-the-bishops-fundraising-for-life.html">raises the question</a> of why Catholics are being asked to fund LIFE's counselling. This is a good question because NDC counsellors are not supposed to allow their own values to influence their counselling. It follows that pro-life NDC counsellors will be no different, and no better from the point of view of outcomes, than pro-abortion NDC counsellors. Why, then, does LIFE think it is important to expand its band of counsellors? Why not let non-aligned or even pro-abortion groups pay for it? Just let people ring the Samaritans.<br /><br />Or is LIFE and its supporters hinting that their counsellors are more likely to get pro-life outcomes than others? If that is true, their accreditation for NDC should be taken away.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Moral</span>. It is a principle of moral and civil law that silence implies consent. Silence is one of the 'Nine ways of being an accessory to another's sin' in many examinations of conscience. To speak more formally, it is evidently a way of cooperating materially in evil. Material cooperation can be justified in some cases, but this cooperation is close, not remote, and the evil is extremely grave. The justification would have to take the form of an overwhelming good that would be attained, or evil avoided, by the silence, in relation to the chance of non-silence doing any good.<br /><br />So this would be justified: stifling one's protest about the brutality of the concentration-camp guard would clearly save many people from serious suffering; voicing it would anyway do no good; and no-one is going to imagine that you approve of the brutality anyway (there is no chance of scandal). At first glance, LIFE's supporters have a mountain to climb to show that LIFE counsellors are in that kind of situation.<br /><br />So can we have an argument, please?Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-49593424301184330792011-03-08T14:44:00.003+00:002011-03-08T15:33:03.864+00:00Another Prussic problem<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> 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Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0mm; mso-para-margin-right:0mm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0mm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;">Alexander Pruss has put forward some very troubling counter-examples to the solution Frances Kamm gives to the 'Loop' case. Since I follow Kamm, at least in outline, these are problem cases for me too.<br /><br />Rather than summarise all that here readers can <a href="http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2011/02/mints-cats-double-effect-and.html">see Pruss</a> for themselves. Here is a response - though not, at the moment, a solution.<br /><br />Case 1. Jim the railway enthusiast is keen to build a railway between two large cities. His motivation is simply that he loves railways. A safety expert tells him, however, that over 50 years there are likely to be 50 deaths on this railway, if built. Jim is sad because this appears to show that it would be wrong to build it: 50 deaths is a high price to pay for his dream of a gleaming new railway. However, the expert quickly adds that the railway will divert traffic from the roads, and since railways are generally safer than roads the number of lives saved will be, say, 55.<br /><br />Jim is happy again: it seems that these two unintended side-effects of his project don't just cancel each other out, but leaves him with a modest credit balance.<br /><br />Case 2. Benny the blackmailer tells Jill that unless she kills one person (Charlie) he, Benny, will kill two other people (all these victims are innocent with nothing much to distinguish them). Jill knows it would be wrong to intend the death of an innocent even to save two lives. Instead, she points her gun directly at Charlie's head, and, with the intention of giving her trigger finger some much-needed exercise, pulls the trigger. She knows, of course, that Charlie will be killed as a result of this, but whereas this would normally be an act of terrible recklessness, she knows that the unintended side-effect of Charlie's death will be more than off-set by the saving of the two other innocents.<br /><br />What we need to bear in mind with Pruss's cases, which are like my Case 2, is that while it seems that in these cases something is going horribly wrong, the plausibility of the reasoning in Case 1 and others like it is perfectly ok. Not just ok, in fact, but it is essential that we are able to off-set side-effects if we are to engage in any large-scale action: government policies on transport, education, health and so on will invariably generate 'winners and losers' and we balance these out to see if the policy is permissible. If we are to stop Jill's line of reasoning we must show that it is different from that of Jim. Case 1 shows that Kamm's original insight ('triple effect') remains correct.<br /><br />So how are they different?<br /><br />1. Jim could intend the good results if he wishes; Jill could not, because if she did she would have to intend the evil means to them. Put another way, the good results <span style="font-style: italic;">come from</span> the evil results for Jill, but not for Jim.<br /><br />2. Jill is acting much more immediately than Jim, on persons she can identify. She is more closely involved in the evil of innocent deaths.<br /><br />3. The trivial goods Jill and others like her are intending could be achieved in other ways, which do not bring about such drastic harms. We might ask: what is Jills' intention in doing it <i>this way</i>? The answer would be: to take advantage of the favourable balance of unintended side effects available in this exact situation.<br /><br />I'm not happy with any of these three differences, as the basis for allowing Jim's reasoning and ruling out Jill's.<br /><br />On 1: Jim could intend the good results, but as stipulated he doesn't. This will often be the case with the leaders of large-scale projects. Again, consider the 'butterfly effect': by turning over in bed, we may cause a hurricane in New Zealand. We don't need to worry, however, because we are just as likely to be <i>preventing</i> a hurricane in New Zealand. We don't need to go to the trouble of intending the good possible results of our careless actions in order to take advantage of their neutral overall effects; we just note (in response to objections) that we aren't making things any worse.<br /><br />2. It has been noted before that having identifiable victims can have an effect on our intuitions. It surely can't have an effect on the truth of the matter. The identifiable victims in the Jill case partially explains our distaste for her reasoning, but I'm not ready to bite the bullet and say that, therefore, what she does is ok.<br /><br />3. We might we say: Jill's intention in exercising her trigger finger with a loaded gun pointed at Charlie with the safety catch off is to capture the positive balance of side-effects, which would not be captured in any other way. Similarly, we always adapt our plans in order to avoid disastrous side-effects. If someone tells you that simply by travelling from A to B via C you may spread a deadly disease from C to B, then you don't go via C, you go via D instead. So Jill can exercise her finger with the gun pointed another way, unloaded etc. etc. but if she does that a disastrous result arises: two innocents are killed by Benny. Instead, she gains her trivial good in a way which won't have this disastrous result, but a less disastrous one, that of Charlie dying.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;">My feeling right now is that there is a moral difference between the cases, but I can't identify a principled explanation for it.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"></p>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-4333561177495293432011-03-01T18:52:00.001+00:002011-03-01T18:53:57.891+00:00Intending harms: some thoughtsFollowing the Double Effect conference organised by the Anscombe Centre, I've been thinking about what it means to intend harms. 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unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Subtle Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="32" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Intense Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="33" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Book Title"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="37" name="Bibliography"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="39" qformat="true" name="TOC Heading"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0mm; mso-para-margin-right:0mm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0mm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There are a range of ways of understanding what constitutes intending a harm, which corresponds to different ways of understanding intention as a whole. A preliminary characterisation of harm would include pain, loss of function, and loss of opportunities for good.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">An agent intends any harm he knowingly brings about.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">If an agent intends a physical effect which is a harm to the patient, then he intends the harm which is constituted by that physical effect.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">If an agent intends a loss of function (etc.) to the patient, then he intends the harm constituted by the loss of function.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">If an agents intends that the patient by harmfully effected by something, then he intends that harmful effect.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">To illustrate:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">A.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Spraying mosquitoes: Adam sprays an area from an aeroplane to kill disease-carrying mosquitoes, in the knowledge that a small number of people will suffer a painful allergic reaction to the spray.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He intends harm under (1) but under none of the others.</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">B.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Beatrice uses the body of Duncan to cushion the fall of Edith from a ladder. Beatrice intends Duncan to absorb the impact of Edith’s fall, a physical event which is harmful to Duncan.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Beatrice intends harm to Duncan under (1) and (2) but not (3) and (4).</span></i></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">C.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Freddie tapes up Georgina’s mouth and nose to prevent her using up oxygen on a stricken submarine. </span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Freddie intends to harm Georgina under (1), (2) and (3), but not (4)</span></i></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="">D.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Henry the government official is impervious to requests for help for those suffering from an epidemic. Irene infects him with the disease, in the hope that his own suffering will prompt him to change his policy.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Irene intends to harm Henry under all the definitions.</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Counterexamples.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It is easy to show that definition 1 is too wide.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0.0001pt 18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Justin knows he will suffer some pain and stiff limbs after his exercise routine, but he is not motivated by bringing about these harms, he is motivated by the desire to get fit. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0.0001pt 18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0.0001pt 18pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Contrary to definition (1), Justin does not intend the harm, since intention is tied to reasons for action and motivation. Which is to say, intending something which <i style="">brings about</i> a harm is not the same as intending a harm.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It is harder to show if any of the other definitions are too narrow, since here the question is of whether it should be said that what the agents bring about <i style="">is</i> a harm, or (like Justin’s exercise) that it merely bring a harm about.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Craniotomy: is reducing the size of the baby’s head <i style="">ipso facto</i> harming the baby, or does it merely bring about harm to the baby? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Fat Man: is using the Fat Man to stop the trolley (to soak up the trolly’s kinetic energy) <i style="">ipso facto</i> harming him, or does it merely bring a harm about?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In the exercise case, the causation of harm by the agent is direct and inevitable; it is clear that it is not intended, however, since it is clearly besides the point of Justin’s practical reasoning (though it is accepted as a side-effect of what he does): it is neither an end nor a means. In Craniotomy the death of the baby is beside the point in the same way, but the physical modification of the head is not beside the point: it is intended.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> I am inclined to say: This bodily modification is not merely a cause of a harm, it is something which is undesirable in the same way that a loss of function is undesireable, that is, in and of itself. I am harmed if my limbs or organs are radically pushed out of shape; it not merely the case that having them radically pushed out of shape will cause me a harm, rather it <i style="">is </i>a harm to me. If this is right, then definitions 3 and 4 are too narrow.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> This is supported by intuitions such as this. If we were to define theft in terms of intentions, then it might be ‘to intend of another the loss of property rightfully his’. The intention of something which will probably <i style="">lead </i>to a loss of property is not theft: such as taking on a weaker opponent in a game of skill, with a wager. On the other hand the harmful nature of the loss of property does not have to intended: the thief need not intend the victim to suffer grief or want, for example. All the thief needs to intend, to intend a theft, is an objective transfer of goods from the victim to himself. One way of explaining why this is wrong is to say that although the thief may not intend that the victim be harmed in terms of grief or want, taking someone’s goods harms him <i style="">ipso facto.</i> The thief intends something which <i style="">is</i> a harm, even if he does not intend the victim’s harm as a separable objective.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Again, we are harmed when cheated, betrayed, or libelled, because those things are bad things when they happen to us. Agents who intend those bad things to happen to others are intending harms to happen to their victims. They may not, in fact, care about the victims’ well being; that may be indifferent to them, whereas they have some other end in view for which cheating and so on is a useful means. Nevertheless, they intend to harm insofar as they intend these bad things to happen to their victims, since these bad things are harms.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Looking at it in this way suggests that a wide definition of harm is needed: harms include not only loss of function, but the compromise of physical or material wellbeing. Causing the loss of wellbeing in this wide sense is not necessarily wrong, but it will normally be wrong if it is intended as an end or a means.</span></p>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-4011810436816218852011-01-31T11:04:00.005+00:002011-02-01T11:49:52.193+00:00The problem of state neutrality, againMy attention has recently been drawn to a new organisation, the English Defence League. I'm very hazy about what it is all about* but one paragraph in the <a href="http://englishdefenceleague.org/content.php?136">mission statement</a> caught my eye.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">We also recognise that Muslims themselves are frequently the main victims of some Islamic traditions and practices. The Government should protect the individual human rights of members of British Muslims. It should ensure that they can openly criticise Islamic orthodoxy, challenge Islamic leaders without fear of retribution, receive full equality before the law (including equal rights for Muslim women), and leave Islam if they see fit, without fear of censure. </span><br /><br />Is this something Catholics would want to push forward, or be concerned about?<br /><br />As I've <a href="http://casuistrycentral.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-told-you-so.html">blogged before</a>, it is a principle of liberal political theory that what is allowed in the 'private sphere' is determined by principles of public justice. So if members of a particular religion treat each other in a way which conflicts with these principles, then they are subject to the rigour of the law. If the principles of public justice being applied are correct, then there could be no objection to this; the problem is that those principles are contested, and that different religious groups disagree with the standard liberal ones.<br /><br />In recent years, two developments have taken place which are in conflict with each other, and the conflict is becoming increasinly clear, even though both developments have been promoted for a long time by the same political groups, broadly speaking the Left.<br /><br />1. The principles of public justice have become increasinly demanding. Government agencies have increasingly seen it as their remit to change minds and behaviour: to give a couple of examples, they have been concerned about the upbringing of children (for example, the campaign against corporal punishment), about the rules governing private clubs and associations (for example, on the equal treatment of women, or on smoking). We have seen an increasing impatience on the part of government agencies with churches which do not admit women or homosexual activists to the various forms of ministry.<br /><br />2. There has been an increasingly evident policy of allowing certain groups to run themselves by their own rules. The two best examples of such groups are Muslims and homosexuals. So the laws on actual bodily harm cannot be applied to those engaged in masochistic sexual acts; the laws on public decency cannot be applied against homosexuals in public parks. Prosecutors are reluctant to look into the public, let alone the intramural or private, acts of Muslim activists who use threats or incite others to hatred or violence. And most famously, Sharia courts have been recognised as forums for arbitration, and as such their decisions have status in English law.<br /><br />In practice the two tendencies have been able to co-exist by the principle that public principles of justice cannot be enforced against anyone who can shout 'homophobe!' or 'Islamophobe!' at their accusers. There has long been a principle that they cannot easily be enforced against those who can should 'racist!', which can be tough on black victims of domestic violence, but with Islam we have a group which can make maximum use of this concession, which therefore takes on enormous political implications. For as a religion Islam is in a position to create ghettos in the historical sense: <a href="http://standpointmag.co.uk/the-mole-janfeb-11-a-stranger-in-my-own-land-anonymous-inner-city-birmingham-muslim-gangs">areas of cities</a>, for example, where the law of the land is not enforced, but where the rules are set and enforced by community leaders.<br /><br />(To the question Why has the Left promoted two developments in such clear opposition to each other?, the answer is to be found in the books of the 'New Left' and their predecessors. Basically, (1) is their essential agenda; (2) is tactical: it is simply a way of weakening the strongest institutions in society which oppose the essential agenda. Since those institutions are often Christian, they can be weakened by insisting on privileges for other religions, and on groups such as militant homosexuals who are irreconcilably opposed to Christianity. It is actually no surprise that as the tactical value of these other groups decline, and the possibility that non-Christian institutions, including Islamic ones, will start to assert themselves against the liberal agenda on social attitudes, the Left will turn on them without mercy.)<br /><br />In looking at this situation it is hard to know whether Catholics should be more worried about the increasingly aggressive public principles of justice, the increasingly aggressive assertion of independence by Islamic groups, or the likely outcome of the clash between the two. Already there has begun a <a href="http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/">backlash within the Left</a>, which has belatedly realised that it has created a phenomenon it cannot control, and which has very little in common with the Left in terms of social attitudes. The promoters of the backlash would instinctively insist on a more rigorous enforcement of the principles of public justice, and the more they are worried about the social practices of Islam the more they will want to make those principles intrusive and demanding.<br /><br />For this reason my sympathy has to some extent always been with the Muslims. They are attempting to live according to the principles of their religion in the midst of a culture highly hostile to those principles. It is not their fault that concessions have been made to them which has created an anomaly in the law. When I see secularists turning their sights on Muslims, I know that attacks on the Catholic Church will follow, if only to demonstrate that the secularists are even handed.<br /><br />Allowing a community to live according to its own rules, within some limits, is actually quite a widespread historical phenomenon. Jews are the prime example of people who both wanted to have their own rules, and were permitted to have them by the state, as a community within a community, from the Temple tax enforced on the diaspora in the time of Our Lord to the original 'geto' of Renaissance Venice. There is nothing wrong with a group living by its own rules, if these rules conform to correct public principles of justice. What we are faced with today is a unreasonable set of public principles, on the one hand, and a set of group rules which include (or tolerate) cultural practices which are contrary to perfectly reasonable public principles.<br /><br />If Muslim women are forced to marry, for example, this is of course unacceptable. What worries me is that the public policy makers who may, in time, be forced to recognise this point think that it is unacceptable that Catholic girls do not have instant access to abortion. The much less well-developed Catholic ghetto, in which we have our own schools and hospitals run on Catholic principles, is already under ferocious attack. We should beware of giving ammunition to our attackers.<br /><br />That is not a principled response, however. A principled response would be this: the primary focus of Catholic political engagement must be with arguing for a better set of public principles of justice. Only in this way will we be able to defend our own institutions, and only in this way will the political problem of Islam become tractable: the process of polarisation between heavy-handed liberal public principles and radicalising Islam can be put into reverse.<br /><br />What this amounts to is the persistent attempt to make <a href="http://casuistrycentral.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-catholic-apologetics-doesnt-work.html">public principles Catholic</a>. That is to say, we should work for the conversion of England.<br /><br />*The EDL appears to be a far-right group. Extremist groups claiming to combat certain aspects of left-wing ideology, without any connection with a broadly based social conservatism or religion, is a tradition which goes back at least to the anti-clerical royalists of the French Revolutionary era. It includes Muarass, Mussolini, the Nazis, and more recently the Pim Fortuyn movement, in varying degrees of nastiness. <br />Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-9208136505683640392011-01-08T12:17:00.009+00:002011-01-27T15:49:48.493+00:00Rhonheimer's mistakeI have been reading <a href="http://jesus-logos.blogspot.com/2010/12/reply-to-open-letter-of-l-gormally-by.html">Fr Martin Rhonheimer's reply</a> to Luke Gormally, and it seems to me that he is making a demonstrable mistake. This is of interest since he is a rigorous and in many ways an impressive writer. This is my analysis.<br /><br /><br />Rhonheimer’s argument against Luke Gormally:<br /><br />1. Rhonheimer’s (R’s) argument is based on the idea that the sexual acts forbidden by the Natural Law are to be understood in terms of the intentions of the agent.<br /><br />2. R points out (correctly) that in order to show that the use of an anovulatory pill is (normally) wrong, Humanae Vitae (HV) had to rule that it is the contraceptive intention of the user which is key: thus, the use of the Pill is wrong iff the user intends to impede conception.<br /><br />3. This R contrasts with arguments frequently met with in the tradition before Humanae Vitae, which make use first and foremost of the notion of ‘unnatural acts’.<br /><br />4. R points out that since in outward behaviour sexual acts contracepted using the Pill appear less deformed than sexual acts contracepted using a condom, this appeared to some ‘Revisionist’ theologians to leave an opening for the Pill to be used licitly as a form of contraception. This was countered by HV as described (2).<br /><br />5. R claims that HV’s more developed expression of why contraception is wrong should be used in relation to condoms (and presumably any other form of contraception): these are wrong iff there is a contraceptive intention.<br /><br />6. R expresses the relationship between the contraceptive intention and the traditional language of unnatural acts by saying that sexual acts are unnatural if they are done with a contraceptive intention. Again, they are contrary to chastity if they are done with a contraceptive intention.<br /><br />7. On the other hand, R says that it does not make sense to say that acts are contrary to chastity because they are unnatural, if there is no contraceptive intention. This limitation of the prohibition of Natural Law to acts done with a contraceptive intention, R claims, is something revealed by HV in light of the personalistic approach of Gaudium et Spes, though it is also in accord with the long-standing tradition of understanding moral acts in terms of the intentions with which they are done.<br /><br />Thus R writes:<br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">I am aware that, as you [Gormally] wrote in your letter, your “critique did not rest on any claim that the use of a condom is necessarily contraceptive” but rather on the argument that condomistic intercourse “is an essentially non-reproductive sexual behaviour.” You perhaps can accept what I say about contraception, but you want to distinguish – from any form of contracepted acts – those acts which in addition are behaviourally essentially non-reproductive and therefore “against nature.” In my view "Humanae vitae" has rendered obsolete this distinction.</span><br /><br />Response:<br />Rhonheimer seems to me correct in points 1-4. Point 7 is demonstrably false. It has an obvious counter-example in (heterosexual) sodomy: as the Church teaches, acts of sodomy are illicit under Natural Law regardless of the intention with which they are done. These acts need not be motivated by a contraceptive intention; they may have many intentions. It is quite clear however that sodomy carried out with the intention of pleasure, for example, is wrong, even within marriage.<br /><br />It is not, of course, forbidden as mere outward behaviour. Bodily movements over which the will has no control for one reason or another are not subject to moral appraisal. The prohibition refers to acts chosen and intended. Rhonheimer correctly says that contraceptive intentions make acts wrong; in the case of sodomy, it is the intention to enagage in a complete sexual act <span style="font-style: italic;">in vase indebito </span>which make acts wrong. In the case of murder it is the intention to kill.<br /><br />On Rhonheimer’s argument it may seem puzzling that acts with sodomistic intentions are contrary to the virtue of chastity. Why should they be? The argument in Humanae Vitae about the unitive and procreative aspects of sexuality underpins the claim that acts with a contraceptive intention are contrary to chastity; what argument is there in the case of acts with a sodomistic intention? There is no need, however, to seek arguments in HV for what all Catholics at the time of HV and before and since have taken for granted, the wrongness of sodomy; one can look at the previous tradition. This tradition, framed in terms of unnatural acts and teleology, is not, contrary to Rhonheimer, abrogated by HV, which was seeking a new argument to explain a case to which the old arguments did not so clearly apply.<br /><br />That, however, is a problem for Rhonheimer, not for his opponents. It is enough to say that Gormally’s argument seeks to identify condomistic sex as a form of sodomy (so there is a question of the exact definition of sodomy), and that Rhonheimer’s response denies that sodomy is intrinsically wrong. Whether or not Gormally is correct (and while his argument is compelling we will ultimately have to await a clarification from the magisterium), Rhonheimer must be wrong, since the illicit nature of sodomy is far too deeply embedded in the tradition of the Church to be considered a fallible teaching (see Romans 1:24-27).<br /><br />Postscript: The condemnation of heterosexual sodomy is implicit througout the Tradition, though the focus is generally on homosexual acts. In the modern era sodomy is clearly defined as anal intercourse (or any intercourse 'in vase indebito'), regardless of the sex of the participants, and of course regardless of the further intention of the act, and this is clearly condemned in all the manuals of moral theology. Here are a two examples of the condemnation of sodomy (clearly in the sense just described) by the Magisterium.<br /><br />1. A friend has found the following in the classic 'Contraception' by Noonan: <span>"On 3 April 1916, [the Sacred Penitentiary] declared that when a husband wished to commit 'a sodomitic crime', he must be resisted by his wife and she could not cooperate 'even to avoid death' as the act would be 'against nature' on the part of both. The Penitentiary expressed 'great astonishment' that some priests had taken a milder view. (Decisiones Sanctae Sedis, p.35)" (p. 514, fn.136, John T. Noonan, Contraception, Mentor-Omega, New York, 1965)<br /><br />2. The 1917 Code of Canon Law includes sodomy among the sexual sins for which the laity are to held 'infames'</span><br />Can. 2357. par. 1. Laici legitime damnati ob delicta contra sextum cum minoribus infra aetatem sexdecim annorum commissa, vel ob stuprum, sodomiam, incestum, lenocinium, ipso facto infames sunt, praeter alias poenas quas Ordinarius infligendas iudicaverit.<br /><br />There are parallel norms dealing with clerics (2358 & 2359).Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-7894215064552843012010-12-20T19:14:00.002+00:002010-12-20T19:16:26.796+00:00Luke Gormally replies to RhonheimerI can't find this online in a convenient form, though it appeared <a href="http://www.cfnews.org.uk/CF_News_1699.htm#31">here</a> (scroll down). It deserves a wider audience.<br />------------------------------<br /><p align="center"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);font-size:180%;" >An open letter to Fr. Martin Rhonheimer by Luke Gormally</span></span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >Dear Fr Martin,</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >I hope you may agree that the time has passed when it would be appropriate to resume the private and friendly email exchanges we had in 2004/2005. Your recent interventions, published by Sandro Magister and 'Our Sunday Visitor', following the observations of Pope Benedict about the use of condoms as a prophylactic measure, amount in effect to renewed public advocacy of your point of view. That point of view originally found public expression in an article in 'The Tablet' (10 July 2004) about which you say: 'I was informed that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, had no problem with it or its arguments'.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >It is unclear what is strictly implied by this statement. Are we to assume that the Congregation formally considered your article in the light of advice from its consultors and agreed there was no problem with it? Many will think that that is what your statement implies. And if they do, then a viewpoint which I continue to think profoundly subversive of the Church's teaching on sexual ethics will appear to have acquired authoritative endorsement. There is clearly an urgent need now for the Congregation publicly to clarify its position.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >A significant body of moral theologians and moral philosophers submitted some time ago a detailed critique of your position to the Holy See. It is a pity that that critique is not in the public domain and that I am the person identified as a principal critic of your position. Though I lack the distinction of many of your critics, the public prominence I have been given inclines me in face of the renewed advocacy of your position to reiterate the principal points of the critique which I advanced in 2005.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >As you know, my critique did not rest on any claim that the use of a condom is necessarily contraceptive. Acknowledging that, however, does not mean that the teaching of 'Humanae vitae' is irrelevant to this debate, for section 12 of that encyclical states a quite basic principle of the Church's sexual ethic. It is that there is 'an inseparable connection - established by God and not to be broken by human choice - between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning which are both inherent in the conjugal act'. If the exercise of sexual capacity is to be chaste it should be marital, and to count as marital it must be reproductive type behaviour, ''per se' apt for the generation of offspring' (Canon 1061). Any type of behaviour which 'qua' behavioural performance is of its nature inapt for the generation of offspring cannot be the bearer of 'procreative meaning'. It cannot therefore unite a couple in the way proper to marriage. Intercourse with a condom is of its nature inapt for the generation of offspring. It is a minimal condition of intercourse being of the reproductive kind that a man ejaculates into his wife's reproductive tract. It does not make sense to say that a couple engaging in intercourse with a condom intend marital intercourse. One can intend only what is in principle realisable, and marital intercourse is not realisable through behaviour of a non-reproductive kind.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >What seemed to me radically subversive about your position in 2004 (with which the CDF 'had no problem') is the claim that provided a couple have a prophylactic rather than contraceptive intent in engaging in condomistic intercourse their intercourse is marital. That amounted to saying that essentially non-reproductive type behaviour can be marital, a thesis that is inconsistent with the basic norm of chaste sexual behaviour. Though in your OSV interview you say that you did not at the time 'sufficiently take into account' the kind of objection I have stated to your position, you also say you remain unsure whether this objection is compelling. And it is significant that your reason today for not encouraging a couple to use a condom is because of what you take to be required by the virtue of justice (that 'one abstain completely from dangerous acts') and not at all because of what is required by the virtue of chastity ('I would not think their intercourse to be what moral theologians call a sin 'against nature' equal to masturbation or sodomy').</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >Condomistic intercourse as essentially non-reproductive sexual behaviour is precisely what moral theologians call a sin 'against nature'. And sins 'against nature' are more deeply contrary to the virtue of chastity than simple fornication. It seems to me that you misinterpret the motives of those who object to the idea that it would be better for an adulterer, a fornicator or a prostitute to wear a condom in having intercourse, as you propose. What is at issue is not a concern to tell people how to perform intrinsically evil acts. It is rather a concern not to endorse the 'common sense', worldly wisdom, which you seem to endorse in circumstances in which people cannot be persuaded to embrace chaste behaviour. For your admirable desire to persuade people 'to abstain from immoral behaviour altogether' will hardly be advanced by representing as preferable 'sins against nature' which are more deeply corrupting of a person's sexual dispositions.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >A concern for justice is indeed important in sexual relationships but the claims of justice ought never to be secured at the expense of subverting other moral dispositions. That is the very least that is implied in the ancient thesis of the unity of the virtues.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >We should be clear what is meant by that rather vague phrase 'humanising sexuality'. It cannot be taken to mean, if it is to be consistent with the Church's teaching, persuading people to make their sexual activity the expression of just any kind of 'loving concern' for others. It means converting them to a chaste way of life, which surely requires that one is unambiguous about the need to abstain from sexual activity outside marriage and within marriage to engage only in such sexual intercourse as is 'inseparably unitive and procreative in its significance'.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >I have addressed this open letter to you in the hope that a brief presentation of a counter-position to yours will serve to bring home the need for an authoritative clarification of the issues. For the CDF's apparent endorsement of your 2004 article is troubling.</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >With kind regards and all good wishes,</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >Yours sincerely,</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >Luke Gormally</span></p> <p align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >London, December 15, 2010</span></p>Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-48126443483622177302010-11-25T17:15:00.003+00:002016-02-23T15:03:18.626+00:00The Pope on condoms: some conclusionsThe Pope's remarks on condoms have generated a tidal wave of blogging by orthodox Catholics eager to counter the absurd reporting by the secular media.<br />
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It is pleasing to see that a consensus quickly formed around the basic meaning of the text: one might call this the <span style="font-weight: bold;">'less evil, not justified'</span> response. This is what <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2010/11/pope-on-condoms.html">I said</a> myself; <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/11/23/guestview-did-the-pope-%E2%80%9Cjustify%E2%80%9D-condom-use-in-some-circumstances/">Fr Joseph Fessio</a>'s illustration, of muggers putting pads onto the metal bars they use to club their victims has attained some currency, as has <a href="http://www.catholicworldreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220%3Apope-benedict-on-condoms-in-qlight-of-the-worldq&catid=53%3Acwr2010&Itemid=70">Janet Smith</a>'s example of using an unloaded gun to rob a bank.<br />
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I've seen it said that the Holy Father was really talking about the mentality of the individual using the condom, rather than the objective moral status of the act. The subjective state of the agent is clearly in the spotlight, but while it is possible the Pope had in mind a subjective improvement without a objective improvement, the most obvious interpretation would involve both. (A subjective improvement without an objective one might happen if the agent took a step towards making his action more morally acceptable in a completely wrong-headed way, a way which did not, in fact, make the act more acceptable. Such as a murderer deciding to ask Odin to take his victims to Valhalla before despatching them.)<br />
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The text we have been discussing has presented a moving target, however, as successive things have been revealed about it: first, the problem of the translation of the key term (a <span style="font-style: italic;">male</span> prostitute, in the original German), and then the Vatican Spokeman's claim that the Pope told him it would make no difference if the prostitute were male or female. This kind of thing undermines attempts to defend the Holy Father while increasing the confusion and opportunity for mis-reporting in the secular media.<br />
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Insofar as there is a real issue here, it is this: <a href="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2010/11/popecondoms-iii-division-at-vatican.html">as is well known</a> there is an argument that condoms could be used, not for contraceptive purposes, but to stem the spread of disease, such as AIDS. Since this obviously would not come under the Church's prohibition of contraception, we have to look elsewhere for a reason to condemn it, if we are to do so. A number of reaons have in fact been put forward, but they have not found their way into magisterial statements. The matter is one of open debate, though it has been pretty clear that the rejection of condoms is the 'safer' opinion, the one 'favoured' by the Church. I've <a href="http://casuistrycentral.blogspot.com/2006/05/condoms-and-aids.html">discussed it in some detail</a> myself.<br />
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In the classic case, the married couple where one party has AIDS, the reasons for condemning condom use are clear and overwhelming. It would be an insane risk for them to have marital relations, even with a condom: taking such a risk would be wrong for each of them. The Church's condemnation of duelling comes to mind: you shouldn't risk your life or health unnecessarily.<br />
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Would it be better to use a condom rather than not, in marital relations, in this context? That depends on the second argument, which is that there is a problem with 'condomistic intercourse'. Intercourse using a condom is, according to this argument, is not natural intercourse, because there is a barrier between the parties. It is akin to sodomy.<br />
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The argument has been made influentially by important Catholic experts, including William Hay and <a href="http://www.faith.org.uk/publications/Magazines/Mar06/Mar06MarriageAndTheProphylacticUseOfCondoms.html">Luke Gormally</a>. It has a pedigree in the debate before the invention of the contraceptive Pill: since it was common to say that contracepted sex (using a condom) was unnatural, and distorted the marital act, when the Pill came out its supporters said that it had the advantage of not distorting the act in itself in the same way. (It was quickly pointed out that the use of the Pill for contraceptive purposes was intrinsically wrong in itself, of course.)<br />
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In the context of this second argument it may make a difference whether the prostitute in the Pope's example was engaged in homosexual acts or ordinary sex. If the former, the second argument wouldn't apply. That's why I said that while the use of a condom might be a step in the right direction for a rent-boy (like padding the iron bar one uses to bludgeon people unconscious), it wouldn't <span style="font-style: italic;">necessarily</span> be so for a female prostitute.<br />
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The words of the Vatican Spokesman, Fr Lombardi, suggest that the Pope did not, in fact, use the example of a male prostitute having this kind of argument in mind. If the case of male (understood as homosexual) prostitutes and female ones are equivalent, and in both cases there is a 'step towards moralisation' being made in adopting condoms, then it would seem that there is not a problem with non-contraceptive use of condoms. This is what is exciting some liberals inside and outside the Church.<br />
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But we are going far too fast. Let's list the caveats.<br />
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1. Even if the second argument against the prophylactic use of condoms is rejected, the first argument remains. It is still obviously true that having sex knowing one has HIV is subjecting one's partner to a significant risk of contracting an incurable deadly disease, even with a condom. Such an act is obviously wrong - for married couples and prostitutes alike.<br />
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2. Fr Lombardi's version of the Pope's views is not incompatible with the second argument, for two reasons. First, it may be that, while condomistic sex is worse than non-condomistic sex (inside marriage, and outside marriage), subjecting one's partner to the high risk of contracting AIDS is worse than subjecting one's partner to a lower risk of AIDS. If the difference of moral badness between the latter is of greater import than the difference of moral badness in the former, then we may have made some small progress by moving from high-risk non-condomistic to lower-risk condomistic sex. A parallel might be a murder who uses a knife rather than a hand-grenade: it is a more painful method to kill but has less risk of maiming bystanders.<br />
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3. Fr Lombard's version is not incompatible for the second reason that the Pope may simply not have this second argument against condomistic sex in mind. This is an answer to a journalist's question, after all, and it may be that if the Pope were asked 'what about this argument about condomistic sex?' he'd say something different. What this is clearly NOT is a rejection of the argument that condomistic sex is not natural: the Holy Father simply isn't considering the matter.<br />
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4. Related to the last point, we are simply miles and miles away from an authoritative statment. We start with a book containing the words of the Holy Father in his capacity as a private theologian. Naturally, this is of interest in understanding the Pope's public acts but it isn't an official commentary on them, still less does it rival them. Then we have to understand that this is an interview: whereas in his book 'Jesus of Nazareth' the Pope laboured over multiple drafts and composed each sentence with care, in this book he speaking entirely off the cuff. While we might imagine that there was some editing this is a completely different type of publication. Finally, we have the words of Fr Lombardi, who has no brief either in moral theology nor as a spokesman for the Pope. No one can speak for the Pope - as Fr Lombardi himself has emphasised. And we are at liberty to <a href="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2010/11/popecondoms-i-can-we-disagree.html">disagree with him</a> in any case.<br />
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One can understand the temptation, on the part of those who don't like the arguments against the prophylactic use of condoms, to seize on the Pope's remarks (and Fr Lombardi's), but they simply don't do what the liberals need them to do: to make it possible for the Church to allow or promote condoms to combat AIDS. The only uses of condoms the Holy Father has referred to remain immoral. Any tension between his reasoning and the argument about condomistic sex being unnatural remains ambiguous.<br />
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Perhaps the Holy See will clarify the Church's teaching. This may well have been delayed, as <a href="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2010/11/popecondoms-iii-division-at-vatican.html">Fr Tim Finnigan suggests</a>, by the fear of the headlines it would generate. But anyone with an eye to the direction of the debate over the last 40 years (and longer) would be foolish to assume that a clarification would generate headlines like 'Pope softens line on condoms'. Much more likely, in my view, would be headlines like 'Pope hardens line on condoms'. It is probable that a clarification would endorse the argument on condomistic sex, and inconceivable that it would say that that condoms were permissible as a prophylactic for a married couple.<br />
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Postscript: <a href="http://spuc-director.blogspot.com/2010/11/jack-valero-and-austen-ivereigh-need.html">John Smeaton</a> has an interesting selection of Church statements condemning contraception <span style="font-style: italic;">outside marriage, </span>which is an important side issue. Even in immoral sexual relations, it makes it worse to use contraceptives. Furthermore, the Holy Office said in 1854 that sex with a condom is <span style="font-style: italic;">intrinsically evil</span>, without reference to a contraceptive intention.Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-1822904709160324612010-11-22T12:41:00.002+00:002010-11-25T18:59:03.847+00:00The Pope on Condoms: from the Anscombe Bioethics CentreThe Pope on AIDS and condoms<br /><br />What the Pope said:<br />Peter Seewald: On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican's policy on Aids once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all Aids victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church's traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church's own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.<br />Pope Benedict: The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on Aids. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim.<br />Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many Aids victims, especially children with Aids.<br />I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering.<br />In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.<br />As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work.<br />This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man's being.<br />There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.<br />That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.<br />Peter Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?<br />Pope Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.<br />(From The Light of the World London: CTS, 2010, pages 117-119]<br /><br />Commentary from the Anscombe Bioethics Centre:<br /><br />This is a significant and thoughtful passage, but one could be misrepresented or misunderstood. Hence it is important to be clear about what Pope Benedict is saying and what he is not saying.<br /><br />1) The first thing the Pope says is that the fundamental response of the Church to the HIV crisis should be to guide, to support and to accompany the victims - and “she is second to none in treating so many AIDS victims, especially children with AIDS.” [Indeed in 2001 it was estimated approximately 25% of all AIDS care worldwide was provided by Catholic organisations]. Unfortunately this key message of the Pope may well be lost in what follows but an attempt should be made to repeat it, at least to those more sympathetic in the media who may report it.<br /><br />2) Secondly, in relation to condoms and AIDS prevention the Pope reiterates that, “we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms”. To make the point he considers “the so-called ABC Theory”. While the Western media have never taken abstinence or fidelity seriously in the approach to AIDS, the predominant approach of secular AIDS education programmes in Africa and elsewhere is A-B-C: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom so that condom is the third line of defence (or as the Pope says, as “a last resort”) not the starting point. Furthermore, a fixation with condoms can also lead to the “banalization of sexuality” against which the Pope urges a “humanization of sexuality”.<br /><br />3) Thirdly, (and this is what has been the focus of media attention) the use of a condom could be “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility”. This is indeed a dramatic statement because it is the first time that a Pope has said something positive, albeit in a very qualified sense, about the decision to use a condom to prevent infection. The example he uses is deliberate – a male prostitute, one whose activity is far from the Church’s teaching and is far from a humanized sexuality, and whose actions are already non-procreative. In this case the decision to use a condom could be a “first step” in a moral development – recognising responsibility for others and for oneself – taking care of others and of oneself. What should be clear is that this first step should not be the last step: that someone in this degrading and dangerous situation needs to find a different way of living altogether. But nevertheless, the decision to try to limit the danger of infection (for oneself and for others) can be a first step in a positive moral development.<br /><br />Note what is not being said here. The Pope is not saying that the use of condoms is in itself moral or virtuous. Nor is he saying that their use can be “justified” on pragmatic grounds as a policy of AIDS prevention. He explicitly denies both of these moves. The use of condoms is “not… a real or moral solution”. Hence the Pope is not endorsing the arguments of some moral theologians that the use of condoms to prevent infection is objectively justified as a ‘lesser evil’ or by ‘double effect’. Rather, the Pope assumes that the use of condoms in not objectively good but that it might nevertheless represent for some person a subjective and partial move towards the good, “a first step” (the Pope repeats the phrase “ein erster Schritt”) on the way towards greater moral understanding. The Pope is thus considering an individual and thinking of his moral development. He is not suggesting that such an act might be objectively morally justifiable.<br /><br />How significant is this statement? It is the first time that a Pope has said something positive, albeit in a very qualified sense, about the decision to use a condom to prevent infection. It is also a remarkable statement in terms of its tone and for what is not said. The Pope does not say that condoms are ineffective or that they are likely to make things worse. Indeed he says they are sometimes used with “the intention of reducing the risk of infection” which gives the impression that, in an individual case, they may actually reduce the risk. He is clear that condoms on their own are not the “solution”, and that “much more needs to be done”. But he does not deny that condoms might reduce infection rates in some circumstances. He even states that they might represent a subjectively positive moral step in some individual cases, if it is just a first step on a longer moral journey.<br /><br />It is very likely that this statement by the Pope will be represented as a change of Vatican policy towards condoms and HIV. However, the Pope is not here addressing the question of institutional policy but is addressing a question of moral theology. He is asking whether in some cases the decision to use a condom might be a positive moral step. Some theologians may well argue that this paves the way for a new Vatican policy of at least tolerating the distribution of condoms: which it may to some extent. But this is more than the Pope explicitly says and to move too quickly to further possible implications is to risk losing the significance of what the Pope is actually saying.<br /><br />A fixation with the policy on condoms is precisely what the Pope wants us to move on from. No such policy can be a “solution” if it is not part of a broader humanization. Nevertheless, what the Pope has done, without denying any part of traditional teaching is to call attention to a case of someone for whom the decision to use a condom is “a first step in the direction of a moralization”. Thus in some cases the decision to use a condom could be positive, at least in a subjective and partial way. But the Pope has said this in the hope of redirecting people away from fixation on condoms. This is why he calls it “a first step” a step that calls for further steps, towards faithfulness and the humanization of sexuality, that is towards the ‘A’ and the ‘B’ of ‘A-B-C’.<br /><br />Pope Benedict starts by calling attention to the need for solidarity and accompaniment with victims and to the tremendous work the Church is doing in this regard. People may not hear this point, but it is perhaps more likely to be heard in the context of this passage because of the tone of the passage as a whole. As the Pope made an impression in his visit to Britain as much by his tone as by his words, so the tone of these words will also give an impression.<br /><br />Dr David Albert Jones<br />Anscombe Bioethics Centre, 21 November 2010<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhoneJoseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28278152.post-33594197051228289132010-08-15T21:01:00.004+01:002011-02-28T17:39:05.667+00:00I told you so!This week, we read the <a href="http://www.cfnews.org.uk/CF_News_1664.htm#30">following news item</a>:<span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);">Judge Walker's ruling overturned Prop. 8, an amendment to California's constitution approved by voters in November 2008 that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.</span></span> <p style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);" align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >Walker's written decision listed as its 77th finding of fact: 'Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.'</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);" align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >In a list of supporting citations, the ruling quoted a 2003 document issued by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), <i>'Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons.</i>'</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);" align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >'Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts as 'a serious depravity,'' is the first CDF phrase quoted in Judge Walker's decision.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);" align="left"><span style=";font-family:Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:100%;" >The document was signed in 2003 by the CDF's prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who was elected to the papacy in 2005.</span></p>Some time ago I argued <a href="http://casuistrycentral.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-catholic-apologetics-doesnt-work.html">on this blog</a>:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">It has now dawned on people that barriers to individuals pursuing their conception of the good are maintained not only by an oppressive state, but by employers and school teachers: including the Church as an employer and including Catholic teachers in Catholic schools. It has also dawned on people that a general atmosphere created by the expression of certain attitudes can be a barrier: notably racist and homophobic attitudes. It is beginning to dawn on people that the expression of the Church's teaching, by the Pope or by an ordinary Catholic in the street, creates just such an atmosphere, in which some people feel intimidated from pursuing their conception of the good (and doing so in accordance with the universally accepted conception of justice).</span><br /><br />Catholics need to wake up to this kind of argument. It cannot be opposed by appeals to the separation of Church and State, or the rights of individuals to pursue their own conceptions of the good. These arguments cannot vindicate conceptions of the good which oppress others.<br /><br />Instead Catholics needs to take a step back and provide some arguments that their conception of the good does NOT oppress anyone. The only way to do this is by pointing out that the way liberals choose their conceptions of the good is based on a superficial and unsatisfying materialism, and that the Catholic vision of the world is actually TRUE.<br /><br />We have to stop trying to live alongside the secularists, and start trying to convert them.Joseph Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com0