When someone kills another, not all such actions are intrinsically evil. For example, the accidental killing of one person by another would not amount to an act of intrinsic evil. Nonetheless, all unjustified acts of killing another are intrinsically evil. Thus, the act of abortion is intrinsically evil.
Not all wars are intrinsically evil (even if all wars contain evil). One can, under right circumstances, using the right means, engage in a defensive war. But all unjust wars, because they are unjust, include unjustified acts of one person killing another.
Therefore, all unjust wars are intrinsically evil.
I think this “intrinsically evil” talk (which is now enshrined in the Faithful Citizenship material) is doing more harm than good. In the popular mind, the term “intrnsic” means something like what Catholics used to call “mortal,” as in “mortal sin” rather than “venial sin.” Thus, abortion is deemed “mortal” whereas destroying the environment or paying starvation wages is “venial.”
Of course, the Catechism doesn’t restrict the “intrinsic” label to actions most Catholics would regard as having the same moral gravity as abortion. As I recall, not only contraception but masturbation are also discussed as “intrnsically” (i.e., by their very nature) wrong.
But the Catholics who go on and on about “intrinsic” wickedness don’t bring that up because their real goal is to make it seem as if social-justice concerns–which they dismiss as matters of “prudential judgment”–aren’t all that important anyhow.
Ron
I agree; whether or not something is intrinsically evil or not does not determine the amount/quality of evil if something turns out to be evil. But I see too many people saying, “War is not intrinsically evil” and “abortion is.” What they forget is that abortion is a specific kind of killing, and killing is not “intrinsically evil.” They would have to compare war with killing, and unjust war with abortion, if they want to do the comparison they do. But they don’t. It is, of course, done for the sake of rhetorical argument. And, as I made in an earlier post this week, there are many intrinsic evils; when a few are mentioned, they are not to be seen as an exhaustive list, or the worst possible evils.
“500. A war of aggression is intrinsically immoral. ”
– Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church
Nate
Right. I am just trying to help people who make categorical mistakes understand that very point.
Henry, I think there’s a lot more analysis to be done in regards to “unjustified killing”. What could possibly justify the intentional taking of a human life. The Catholic Church (and the double-effect rule) say: nothing. But what is intentional?
Philosophical tracts aside, I know intentional killing when I feel it. When I put a human being in my rifle sight and I squeeze the trigger, and the human falls, I’ve killed with intention. I chose him, I fired at him, I killed him. There was nothing accidental or unintentional about it. I aimed at his heart (center mass), I used a weapon designed to kill, and I have trained for years to kill. I intended to kill him, and I did kill him. Maybe I had other intentions too (stopping terrorism, winning a war, helping my buddies, whatever), but those other intentions don’t matter.
Is it possible for modern soldiers to kill without having any intention to kill? Perhaps if a soldier felt forced to squeeze the trigger, despite their intentions, then perhaps such a soldier could claim that they had no intention to kill that man. But could you win a war with such an army of hesitant soldiers? I doubt it. They would probably fire their weapons only in extreme cases of clear and direct necessity, and only then under extreme emotional distress.
For a Christian whose conscience was empowered by the Holy Spirit, they would never feel compelled to shed other’s blood. They would feel compelled to shed their own blood.
All unjust anythings are intrinsically evil.
Since some wars can be just, I would argue that the Iraq was is extrinsically evil, evil in its circumstances rather than its object. But evil is evil, and that’s what many people seem to have a hard time following.
True, MM, I cannot follow the Catholic church on why it’d be evil to abort a fetus in order to save the mother but not evil when you can concoct a ‘dual effect’ method. The ectopic pregnancy Catholic ‘solution’ of cutting out the tube/part of it where the fetus is versus taking out the fetus is patently absurd and no Inquisition could force me to believe otherwise. A friend of mine left the Catholic church when she had an ectopic pregnancy and was told of the Catholic ‘option’. For the sake of principle, health and fertility are endangered. Rules made by men, and celibate ones at that. And the very laypeople who trumpet that are frequently found supporting ‘unjust’ wars. The kindest Catholics I’ve encountered were usually the ones who are ‘dissenters’.
As far as ‘just wars’ are concerned, I find the term problematic. While there are many wars where both sides have no just reasons, there can only be one just side. So, the question, was WW II just always needs to be amended by the nation one is talking about.
As I’ve argued before (see my comments to MM’s Kevorkian post) the intrinsic evil talk is problematic because intrinsic is a formal, not an evaluative term. Fornication is as intrinsically evil as murder-for-hire, though one is more evil than the other. The evaluation is inevitable and cannot be limited to the intrinsic structure of both acts. Catholics use intrinsic to mean “most” evil and that _forecloses_ serious moral analysis.
That said, intrinsic is a real term with a real meaing.
And I would argue that in fact _any_ evil act has an intrinsically evil aspect, as it must — by being evil — have some aspect of essentially evil motivation and purpose.
“War” in the abstract is not intrinsically evil, fine. That is essentially meaningless.
When one starts war out of boredom, to make oneself feel big, to scare people and seize power, to imply that your rivals are wimps, to make money, etc., that _has_ to be an intrinsically evil act. The entire act is, internally, evil from start to finish. Dick Cheney and George Bush’s actions vis a vis Iraq are intrinsically evil. Certainly the participation of many young men in the war is _not_ evil in this way. But this nothing to diminish the intrinsically evil nature of Bush/Cheney’s depraved acts.
G Alkon, it’s almost like a banner some carry, as if it were reason to celebrate – our guy is evil, sure…but not INTRINSICALLY evil.
Not to mention that equivocating ESCR and esp. early abortions with the Holocaust etc. is patently absurd. Hardly anyone actually believes it’s as horrible. It reminds me of PETA with its chicken farm / Holocaust poster.
Nate
I agree that analysis needs to be done on what is “unjustified killing.” I think one of the things which needs to be done, and is often ignored, is assume all killing is unjustified, and the one who killed has to make the justification; and even then, there are issues of guilt or lack of guilt, issues of quality of the evil, and the like, which are all too often ignored.
Who would argue that an unjust war was not intrinsically evil? The problem lies in that there can be a legitimate plurality of opinions about whether a specific war is unjust. There lies the loophole through which many people willingly slip. I am not interested in closing this “loophole,” but at the same time there is a real problem with Catholic using it to evade forming their consciences about particular wars.
As to the category of “intrinsic evil,” moral theologians have long seen a difficulty in the term itself; it is useful and if understood proper, it allows for a significiant point in moral discussions, but in reality, it is easily misconstrued to a dualistic view of good/evil. It ignores that all in acts of evil, there is some good which is being willed; but the good is not sufficient and often, misplaced. Like heresy is an exaggeration of a truth at the expense of others, an act of evil wills some good, but exaggerates that one good at the expense of others, others which are greater and more proper to the situation. (St Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, is a classic exposition on this point).
Good grief, is this going to be yet another thread where Gerald Naus rehashes his spiel on abortion and then finishes off by admonishing Catholics that it is *their* “abortion one-trick-pony act” that is getting tiresome?
If you want to use irony effectively, Gerald, try finding a way of not becoming your own punchline.
I agree with blackadderiv’s comment: “All unjust anythings are intrinsically evil.” Hence. the use of the word “unjust” simply makes the original post entirely cryptic.
Henry’s later comment that, “in acts of evil, there is some good which is being willed”, confuses the evil of an act with the evil of the will. As Veritatis Splendor indicates, an intrinsic evil cannot be ordered to God, no matter the circumstances or will of the actor. So, even if an intrinsically evil act is performed entirely accidentally, without ever being the choice of anybody’s will, it still remains an act that is, and causes, evil. And the fact that the will always chooses things that appear good to it (e.g. Gen 3:6) does nothing to change the evil of an intrinsic evil — though it may affect the moral blame assigned to the actor.
Paul
You need to carefully read what I said. I said the term is useful — when interpreted properly; I pointed out, however, it is often used dualistically which is also true. The point is to understand what intrinsic evil is — it is not “pure evil.” There is no such thing as “pure evil.” But people often act is this is the case when talking about intrinsic evil.
Thus, once again, one must understand what evil is (or is not — and that is the point, evil is not). Then we must ask, what makes something to be said to be evil, and if it is intrinsic or not (that is, as you say, is it an act which always ends with evil); that is not the same (as you also say) of the guilt involved; again, my point is how people deal with the term, intrinsic, as if it is a nature (evil can have no nature).
Magdalena
Who would argue an unjust killing is not an intrinsic evil? The problem lies in that there can be a legitimate plurality of opinions about whether a specific killing is unjust. There lies the loophole through which many people willingly slip. I am not interested in closing this “loophole,” but at the same time there is a real problem with Catholic using it to evade forming their consciences about particular killings.
Of course, this would explain why some Catholics think abortion is itself questionable whether or not it is unjust in specific circumstances, and try to find reasons from “the common good” to “personal good” to justify it, similar to how many Catholics will try to abuse just war teaching. When you begin to define abortion as unjust killing, and look for why it is unjust, you will find the same kinds of loopholes and arguments one group uses to justify wars which can’t be justified will allow some to justify killing (abortion) which should not be. The same kinds of arguments can be made.
Which is why I pointed out when people say “But wars are not intrinsically evil” as a way to avoid the obvious, it is ignoring what categories parallel each other: abortion and unjust war, killing and war.
Henry, you say many things which we are in complete agreement about. But I still maintain that (where you said, about intrinsic evil: “It ignores that in all acts of evil, there is some good which is being willed”) it makes it sound as though the concept of intrinsic evil is for that reason somehow problematic, or unhelpful. But the whole purpose of the concept of intrinsic evil is to point out which actions are evil, regardless of anyone’s will. That’s not a problem or a difficulty — it’s the purpose of the concept.
Paul
Evil in which regards? Again, the point is there is no essential evil, and that is how people often read intrinsic evil. More important, there are often equivocations going on as to the meaning of evil, even when discussions of intrinsic evil come up. So what does it mean that the actions are evil other than the result will always be an imbalance, that it will never be anything but an improper good. Yet this does not mean there cannot be, nor will not be, some form of good behind the will, and that if you break down the action, you can’t find some mistaken good ending up there.
Nonetheless, the point is — that mistaken good is not the proper end, and in an intrinsic evil action, it will always be the case that action X will lead to an end which continues the corruption of reality.
One of the things that I find confusing about the concept of intrinsic evil is that often intention seems to be involved. A lie is intrinsically evil, and even a white lie is at least a minor evil, and yet apparently it has never been decided one way or another whether lying to someone in extremly poor health when the truth might kill them is wrong. And is it wrong to be an undercover policeman or a spy, in which you must lie all the time? I am assuming not.
Murder is intrinsically evil, but not all killing of human beings is murder, and reasons and intentions play a huge role.
So far, I find it a confusing and useless concept. Of course, I am not a moral theologian or anything close.
I disagree.
CCC 1756: It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.
If we describe an act as an “unjust act” it implies that the action can be done in a just way. An intrinsic evil is always gravely illicit by reason of its object.
Abortion is intrinsically evil because the object of the act is always gravely illicit under all circumstances. War is not gravely illicit under all circumstances.
Here’s a question regarding intent and intrinsic evil. Contraception is intrinsically evil, including the use of the pill. However, women are permitted to take the pill for medical conditions such as endometriosis, as long as they don’t do it with “contraceptive intent,” and there is no requirement that they refrain from sex. So taking the pill without contraceptive intent and having sex is licit, and taking the pill with contraceptive intent and having sex is illicit. I can’t see any difference between the two cases at all, except intent. And yet one is intrinsically evil and the other isn’t.
This is even more difficult to understand than the difference between most types of contraception and NFP, and many would say they don’t see a difference there, either.
“1751 The object chosen is a good toward which the will deliberately directs itself. It is the matter of a human act. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by conscience.
1752 In contrast to the object, the intention resides in the acting subject. Because it lies at the voluntary source of an action and determines it by its end, intention is an element essential to the moral evaluation of an action. The end is the first goal of the intention and indicates the purpose pursued in the action. The intention is a movement of the will toward the end: it is concerned with the goal of the activity. It aims at the good anticipated from the action undertaken. Intention is not limited to directing individual actions, but can guide several actions toward one and the same purpose; it can orient one’s whole life toward its ultimate end. For example, a service done with the end of helping one’s neighbor can at the same time be inspired by the love of God as the ultimate end of all our actions. One and the same action can also be inspired by several intentions, such as performing a service in order to obtain a favor or to boast about it. ”
The object which the will moves towards is different in the situations your proposed. An object is what we actually are choosing to do, the intent is what we hope doing this will accomplish. When we say that evil can not be done for a good outcome, it means an evil object (I choose to lie) can not be done for a good intent (so as to bring about some good, say, not hurting someone’s feelings).
I believe you actually gave two separate situations:
In one, the object is the (actual) good of treating some medical condition. In this one, the person chooses to treat some valid medical condition. The intent (basicly, what we want to happen) is to ease suffering, improve health, or some other valid medical reason.
In the other, the object is the (perceived, disordered) good of contraception. In this one, the person chooses to prevent conception and shut God out. What is their purpose/intent? It may be “to live the lifestyle I desire” or to “have sex with whomever” or some other reason still. Rarely it may even be “to prevent contraception and to force God out of these things.” In which case the person would be in deep deep moral doo-doo.
Of course, it’s been a while since I’ve wrestled with formal ethics, so I might be a bit wrong.
LCB,
It still seems to me that everything depends on intentions. Maybe it would help if someone could mention an act that was evil but not intrinsically evil. I am still trying to understand the case of the use of condoms in the case of a married couple where one of them is infected with HIV. There would be no contraceptive intent. Condoms could be used solely to prevent transmission of the virus, in the same way that the pill could be used for treating endometriosis. So far it seems to me that the principle that every sexual act must be open to the transmission of life is one that, in most cases I can think of, an observer could judge without knowing anything about the thoughts of the persons involved. If a condom is being used, the couple’s thoughts don’t matter. But if the pill is being used, everything depends on intentions.
There are all kinds of good reasons why a couple might use contraception for nonselfish reasons. Suppose the mother is undergoing chemotherapy or some other drug treatment that would be a terrible danger to an unborn child. Or suppose the couple chooses to use the pill for the exact same reason other couples use NFP.
I still don’t get it.
Henry said: “So what does it mean that the actions are evil other than the result will always be an imbalance, that it will never be anything but an improper good. Yet this does not mean there cannot be, nor will not be, some form of good behind the will”
Though, one has to steer away from that turning into a form of consequentialism. So one has to be careful that the “result” of any action doesn’t merely end up being some kind of casual balance-sheet of good and bad consequences. This can be done by making sure that the consequences include internal, personal effects. Someone freely wishing for an intrinsic evil has already introduced evil into their own person, utterly regardless of what may causally happen as a consequence of making that choice.
David Nickol said: “Maybe it would help if someone could mention an act that was evil but not intrinsically evil.” A type of act is intrinsically evil if there is absolutely no way whatsoever of knowingly choosing to do it without sinning. For example, adultery. Most other kinds of actions may be evil or not, depending on the circumstances. For example, going into a stranger’s house and taking money would usually be an evil thing to do, unless one were literally starving to death, and needed the money to buy food.
David Nickol said: “Suppose the mother is undergoing chemotherapy or some other drug treatment that would be a terrible danger to an unborn child.” Despite all you may have been told by the world, giving up sex is a fairly mild suffering, and would be the only reasonable non-selfish response to such a dire situation.
LCB
1) If one wants to engage issues, you can start with the Catechism but if you end with it (which is what you seem to do) you will probably not even understand the Catechism when dealing with technical/difficult questions.
2) Hence, as I have already said, the problem is categorical. Nate, for example, points that wars of aggression are intrinsically evil.
Genus: killing, war; Species: abortion, war of aggression. But arguing not all of a genus is intrinsically evil (not all wars are) does not mean a specific species is not.
Paul
Right, one must not be consequetionalist. But the problem of the consequentialist is that they think the perverted good is good enough. Indeed, they will work with an incorrect understanding of intrinsic evil, using it as essential evil (which is wrong), and then show “see, there is good in my position, therefore it’s not intrinsically evil.”
For example, going into a stranger’s house and taking money would usually be an evil thing to do, unless one were literally starving to death, and needed the money to buy food.
Paul,
As far as I can determine, theft is considered intrinsically evil, but the definition of theft is as follows:
2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner.
It would not be theft to take another’s food while starving, since this would not be against the reasonable will of the owner (unless he was starving as well, and didn’t have enough food for himself). So the exceptions are built in to the definition.
Likewise, murder is intrinsically evil but is not merely “the taking of a human life,” but rather the unjust taking of a life, or the taking of an innocent life. Murder is certainly one of the gravest sins, and yet the definition of murder excludes executions, self-defense, and killing in war. Again, the exceptions are built in to the definition.
It seems that it is only in sexual and reproductive matters that intentions don’t matter. You can kill or steal with good intentions, but you can’t use the pill as a contraceptive.
I don’t think it’s possible to make a blanket statement, applicable to all individuals, about what a minor matter it is to give up sex. (Now to the unmarried and to widows, I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do, but if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire. ) For a married couple in which the wife is undergoing treatment for, the sexual aspect of their relationship might bring significant comfort to both. But God forbid that a woman struggling to survive cancer and unwilling to conceive a child that would be killed by her treatment should engage in a sexual act that is not open to the transmission of life!
David Nickol,
Humanae Vitae says: “excluded is 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.”
So, intention enters into the definition there, too. But you are (like so many) falling into the “fallacy of intention”. In the case of HV, any level of intention is sufficient to go against it. It is not sufficient to state some long-term goal, and claim that is one’s only intention, while ignoring other intentions that may unavoidably precede it.
So if someone becomes sterile after an operation to remove testicular cancer, HV permits that operation — provided one would have the same operation whether or sex were contemplated at some point after the operation. But the same operation for the purposes of contraception would not be permitted. Some level of intention does count.
The case of wearing a condom to prevent AIDS transmission also fails to pass the test of HV. While one can entirely truthfully state that there is a goal to prevent the transmission of AIDS, it’s also the case that the knowing removal of sperm during an act of sex is what is intended. And that goes against HV. The two intentions occur simultaneously, and one cannot pick one intention only.
David Nickol said: “But God forbid that a woman struggling to survive cancer and unwilling to conceive a child that would be killed by her treatment should engage in a sexual act that is not open to the transmission of life!”
Rather than possibly murder a human being (and, after all, that is what the issue is, despite all the syrupy violin music playing in the background), one should choose a small amount of suffering. Saint Paul has said “better to marry that to be on fire”. He would have regarded it as obvious that it is “better to be on fire than to murder”.
Paul,
I believe you are incorrect in stating that HV rules out the use of condoms to prevent transmission of HIV. So far, it is an open question, otherwise how could it be under study?
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Church-u2019s-View-On-Usage-Of-Condom-16842-1/
Could you please explain how murder is involved in the situation I described? There could be no moral objection to a pregnant woman undergoing chemotherapy to save her life, even if it risked the life of the fetus. In fact, a woman with cancer of the uterus may have surgery that will, as a side effect, kill the fetus, and that is perfectly licit within Catholic thought. I can think of no principle that would forbid a woman undergoing chemotherapy to risk pregnancy.
In some types of infertility, women have no problem ovulating or conceiving. The problem lies in consistent failure of the early embryo to implant. Such a woman may conceive repeatedly, and every time she does, the embryo is destined to die. Are you suggesting that if these women know of their condition, they must abstain from sex?
My real point, in any case, was not to rehash the arguments about HV, but to try and get at exactly what is meant when something is labeled “intrinsically evil.” It seems only in sexual and reproductive matters where the Church totally discounts intentions in asserting that something is intrinsically evil. Shooting a man through the head is not intrinsically evil. It depends on why you do it. Bayoneting people on the battlefield is not intrinsically evil. It depends on whether the war is just. Taking something that doesn’t belong to you is not intrinsically evil. It depends on how desperately you need it. But (according to you and many others), the physical act of using a condom is intrinsically evil even for a married couple, no matter what the intention. I believe you are wrong, otherwise it would have been evil for the Vatican even to study the issue (with live subjects, it appears). But I also am having a real difficulty understanding what the idea of intrinsic evil adds to the discussion of morality, since so much of what is considered intrinsically evil is evil by definition.
David Nickol,
Since the Church’s teaching (e.g. from the Pope, or teaching organizations under the direct approval of the Pope, or the bishops collectively) has repeatedly ruled out condoms as an AIDS-prevention method, it could hardly be called an entirely open issue. The URL you gave is extremely unclear as to what kind of study it actually refers to. In any case, there is some clarification here.
“Could you please explain how murder is involved in the situation I described? There could be no moral objection to a pregnant woman undergoing chemotherapy to save her life, even if it risked the life of the fetus.”
However, the issue you brought up was actually something significantly different from that. You said: “But God forbid that a woman struggling to survive cancer and unwilling to conceive a child that would be killed by her treatment should engage in a sexual act that is not open to the transmission of life!” I.e. that is the case of someone currently not pregnant, who then goes on a type of chemotherapy that will be fatal to any subsequently conceived child, and wishes not to kill that child. Indeed in that case, abstinence avoids the killing of any child.
It’s different if there is a mother who is already pregnant, and later finds that she is prescribed such a course of chemotherapy. In that case, the mother might indeed be able to choose to undergo the chemotherapy.
“In some types of infertility, women have no problem ovulating or conceiving. The problem lies in consistent failure of the early embryo to implant. Such a woman may conceive repeatedly, and every time she does, the embryo is destined to die. Are you suggesting that if these women know of their condition, they must abstain from sex?”
That is again a different case. That type of infertility is not something chosen. The mother is not choosing an act which kills her children.
“Shooting a man through the head is not intrinsically evil.
That’s exactly correct. But if you ask the shooter two questions: “Do you know that shooting someone through the head is virtually certain to kill them?” and “Are you freely choosing to shoot them?” and receive an affirmative answer to both questions, that is sufficient to establish the fact that the killing is intentional, entirely apart from any other intentions or goals that the shooter might additionally have.
One of the “fallacies of intention” is to claim some goal as “the” intention. But in fact, it order to establish a level of intentionality, it is only necessary that the effects of the act are understood, and that the act is chosen.
The problem lies in that there can be a legitimate plurality of opinions about whether a specific war is unjust.
This statement confuses two separate things: 1. The question over whether or not a war is just or unjust; 2. The actual judgment over whether a war is just or not. If a war is unjust, no amount of opinion will change that fact. The real question how do we judge? Well, if justice and injustice are objective values of an act, it seems that a “plurality of opinions” will do nothing to affect those values. So “plurality of opinions” is irrelevant in the objective status of a war. Can we make a moral judgment on war? I suggest that we can in light of very clear criteria. In this case, “plurality of opinion” is nothing but a bunch of true and false judgments. Best to be among those making the true judgment.