Intrinsic Evils
A gem by David Cloutier:
It should be repeated again and again: “intrinsic” is not a word that denotes gravity.
This. A thousand times, this. An “intrinsic evil” is simply an evil that cannot be justified in any circumstance; it’s not a category of the most socially harmful actions. The Church calls masturbation an intrinsically evil act. Now something like war may not be an intrinsic evil, but war–even a so-called just war–harms people’s lives and the social order in ways graver than what the 13-year-olds of the world are doing under their covers, even if you accept what the Church says about self-stimulation of the genital organs.
Cloutier follows by saying, “Nowhere can it be shown that the teaching authority of the Church on morals is limited to moral absolutes, or that moral absolutes constitute the most serious or grave threats in any given society.”
Thank you.
According to its own self-understanding, the Church has limits to its teaching authority–it can speak authoritatively on principles of faith and morals, but not so to how they must be applied because their application involves interpreting the concrete situation, which stands outside its area of competence. Nevertheless, these principles pertain to more than just “intrinsic evils,” actions that cannot be justified under any circumstance. Acts that result in poverty or pollution may be morally acceptable in some circumstances, but that possible acceptability is no reason for the Church to keep its mouth shut about these evils.
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Keeping the “oracle in the Vatican’s” “mouth…shut” has always been the ploy of vicious, power-hungry Machiavellian politicians who would, to prosecute their wars or enrich their tribe, squeeze the poor to death.
“We must kiss his feet, in order to bind his hands,” said Richelieu. Reminds one of George W. Bush’s papal audiences or Romney’s salivating over John Paul II’s supposed diatribes against “socialism,” doesn’t it?
Certainly gravity and intrinsicness are not the same thing, but I would question the notion that any intrinsic evils can be identified independently of recognizing their gravity. The problem with Cloutier’s argument at this point is that it clearly involves an equivocation: it assumes that evils can be grave only in one way, when this is obviously false. It still remains true that things that are intrinsic evils may not be the most grave threats to a particular society, but this is just one kind of gravity: masturbation is identified as grave (e.g., CCC 2396). It’s just that the conditions of society that would have to obtain for it to be gravely harmful to the social fabric itself are, shall we say, not the most likely to obtain. There’s no reason whatsoever, though, to think that nothing is grave unless it harms the social fabric.
When you are talking about evil, intrinsic does indeed indicate gravity. It is true, though, that gravity doesn’t of itself imply intrinsicness, which is a different claim, and it is true that some kinds of intrinsic evil are not socially grave.
It also seems to me, incidentally (and it is very incidental to anything in your post), that Cloutier is completely misreading Bishop Morlino, who isn’t conflating “intrinsic” and “most fundamental”; rather, he first identifies a collection of most fundamental issues and then says that they all have to do with intrinsic evils. Likewise, Bishop Morlino doesn’t say that private property is an absolute right; nor does his argument require it, since he is merely talking about fundamental issues and intrinsic evils. The notion that talking about fundamental issues and intrinsic evils means we are talking about absolute rights is Cloutier’s own conflation, not Morlino’s, and is quite a serious conflation in its own right. (Which is not to say Bishop Morlino’s argument doesn’t have its flaws; for instance, it’s certainly false to say that “A Catholic conscience can never take exception to the prohibition of actions which are intrinsically evil”, as both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas — to give just two of many examples — give arguments against claims precisely of this sort.)
When you are talking about evil, intrinsic does indeed indicate gravity. It is true, though, that gravity doesn’t of itself imply intrinsicness, which is a different claim, and it is true that some kinds of intrinsic evil are not socially grave.
Well, intrinsic evils are also grave evils, but the word intrinsic doesn’t denote gravity, or perhaps better put, indicate how grave the evil is. Given the context, I take Cloutier to be responding to the notion that intrinsic evils are the worst evils or the evils Catholics should be most concerned about when voting or otherwise acting in the political sphere.
The word ‘intrinsic’ certainly doesn’t, but that’s merely because it’s a neutral word indicating a mode of whatever follows it. But something’s being evil for intrinsic reasons does indicate gravity. One might as well say that calling a problem ‘intrinsically insoluble’ doesn’t tell us anything about how serious it is as a problem, because ‘intrinsic’ doesn’t mean ‘impossible’. That’s true, in the sense that intrinsicness in general doesn’t necessarily indicate an impossibility, but ‘intrinsically insoluble’ does in fact indicate that the problem is impossible to solve. It just doesn’t tell us why the thing is insoluble, and therefore what sort of impossibility we are talking about. Intrinsicness in general doesn’t indicate gravity, but intrinsicness of evil does. It just doesn’t tell us why the thing is evil, and thus doesn’t tell us what kind of gravity is involved.
I think you are still glossing over Cloutier’s equivocation. If we ask how grave something is, there is no single answer to this, because there are many different ways a thing can be grave, and no reason to think they are all along a single dimension. Likewise, there really is no such thing as a ‘worst evil’, full stop, just worst evils in this or that way. I do agree that Cloutier means ‘socially grave’; but, again, this makes his argument irrelevant to Bishop Morlino’s, unless we are for some reason deciding to read the logical structure of the Bishop’s argument entirely backwards.
Yes, all intrinsic evils are grave evils. Neither Cloutier nor I deny this. You’re quibbling over the meaning of a statement without considering the context: too many Catholics are under the impression that intrinsic evils are the only grave evils the Catholic Church should speak on and the only issues that should figure much into how Catholics vote. Its for this reason that he and I stress the distinction between intrinsic and grave.
Bishop Morlino specifically listed “socialism” as one of the supposedly intrinsic evils. At that point, I wondered why anyone (except possibly a die-hard partisan) would take his comments seriously.
Kyle,
On the contrary, I’m taking quite seriously the context of Cloutier’s comments: Cloutier is talking specifically about Bishop Morlino’s comments, and while he may assimilate it to what “too many Catholics” do, that’s not what he’s actually talking about. (Your comments, of course, are contextually different; my only criticism of them is that I think it’s in fact quite important to recognize that things may be grave in very different ways, and that in not doing so you’re making one of the mistakes made by the people you are criticizing, just zigging with it where they zag.)
Ron,
Perhaps because rejecting comments out of hand for no other reason than a particular word-choice — not for their logical incoherence, or empirical incorrectness, but simply because for one word that they chose, and without any close look at how they use it — is irrational?
Cloutier has the right idea, even if I don’t think he succeeds in going about it the right way: if you are going to not take people seriously, it had better because they can be seen to be unreasonable in some way once they’ve been properly understood, and not because you’ve refused to look at them closely enough to see if there’s anything genuinely worth taking seriously.
Kyle,
Perhaps a better way to clarify would be to say that my criticism of you and of Cloutier is not the same: Cloutier is clearly not distinguishing properly ways in which something can be grave, in part because he oddly reads Morlino backwards; and I think you are not clearly distinguishing ways in which something can be grave, even though it’s relevant, by putting the matter in terms of whether sins are graver than others.
As Michael Sean Winters often says: masturbation is intrinsically evil, driving under the influence is not.
“Now something like war may not be an intrinsic evil, but war–even a so-called just war–harms people’s lives and the social order in ways graver than what the 13-year-olds of the world are doing under their covers, even if you accept what the Church says about self-stimulation of the genital organs.”
On the other hand, the commission of a gravely, intrinsically sinful act is a direct danger to souls, whereas a just war isn’t.
“Acts that result in poverty or pollution may be morally acceptable in some circumstances, but that possible acceptability is no reason for the Church to keep its mouth shut about these evils.”
Agreed.
Thank you for this, Kyle. You have helped to clarify my frustration with the kind of argument that goes something like: the Church says X is intrinsically evil whereas Y is contingent, therefore X is always graver than Y – and by extension, any concerns about Y can be easily dismissed, and/or all Catholics must admit that Y is not really that bad, on the grounds that it does not equal X.
Julia:
You’re right, that’s obviously fallacious reasoning. It’s not that X is always graver than Y, in the sense of being more gravely sinful, since when Y is sinful it’s gravely sinful. It’s that X is always sinful and Y may or may not be. Therefore, we know that X must always be avoided, whereas determining whether Y has to be avoided is dependent on an analysis of the circumstances.
The other side of this is that secular commentators should be barred from writing things like, “Archbishop Windbag things same sex marriage is more intrinsically evil than war! Why should we listen to him?”
John, secular commentators are not known for reporting on the writings in journals of moral theology. There would be no problem with them throwning around the term if it wasn’t thrown at them in the first instance.
BTW, doesn’t war in fact come closer to an instrinsic evil than same sex marriage?
Maybe it would be simpler – and clearer ! – to :adopts ugly but useful neologism: re-conceptualise ethical terminology. It seems very odd to leave a rapist unexcommunicated, while excommunicating the doctors who end the pregnancy caused by him. There was a lot of comment about the case in which this happened a while ago.
A further problem with this way of talking – apart from its being essentialist & static – is that it may be a useful tool for ethical analysis; but it sounds remote from *Christian* ethics. One does not need to be Christian, or to bother with Christ at all, in order to think about ethics in this way. But shouldn’t Christian ethical thought be distinctively Christian ?
In the time shortly after the 2004 elections, I saw quite a bit of commentary in this vein, especially since I live in St. Louis, where Cardinal Burke was archbishop at the time, and was probably the leader in the “intrinsic evil” type of thinking (which per Kyle’s top post, I think was a bit misguided, and has had consequences through today, where so many debates turn into a game of “pin the intrinsic evil on my adversary”). I blogged about this at the time (http://johnmcg.blogspot.com/2005/01/burke-for-bush-post-dispatch-columnist.html)
In essence, these commentators repeated the error of treating the word “intrinsic” as if it were an intensifier, then calling the bishops absurd for claiming that same sex marriage was “more intrinsically evil” than war.
To answer the last question, the Church’s view is that same sex marriage is always wrong, and war is not always wrong. I understand that especially the first in a bit controversial. However, I would say that war is a graver matter than marriage law.
I’m just intrigued by the choice of “same sex marriage” as in intrinsic evil, both the proposition itself and the particular choice of naming that rather than saying “sodomy” or “homosexual acts” are an intrinsic evil. Is the act of contracting with the state a same sex marriage an unquestionably intrinsic evil apart from any act of sodomy?
After all, Catholics are required to obtain a civil divorce before the Tribunal will even consider an annulment petition. But is not divorce an intrinsic evil? Is sodomy MORE evil when done inside a civil union? The civil marriage is an additional evil act on top of sodomy? A sodomizer would be doing fewer evil acts by sodomizing outside of a civil marriage?
And even a part from that, why do we not speak first of the personal act rather than the public policy proposal? Isn’t this a cause of the unfortunate politicization of Church life?
I chose that one because that is the one McClellan chose for his critique, and the one that critics of the bishops tend to be most incredulous about, again with the error of thinking “intrinsic” is an intensifier rather than a categorical descriptor.
Those critics likely choose this one for the reasons you mention, and also because same sex marriage does not directly harm another, so the idea that it is “worse” than war or capital punishment seems absurd.
Why is divorce not treated on all fours with S-SM ? Surely, if they are both intrinsically evil, they must be rejected with equal firmness, and regarded with the same horror ? The very fact that civil divorce is (1) very common & (2) not thought of as a big deal surely makes it even more requisite to condemn it with unsparing vigour.
The Mag. by its own logic cannot say, that pf two intrinsically evil acts, one is to be condemned severely, but the other ignored. So why are there no Marches against Civil Divorce ? No excommunications of politicians who are “pro-civil divorce” ? No withholding of the Eucharist from people who are obviously God-hating, Church-hating, liberal monsters ? Is the CC afraid of human disapproval ? Surely not. Even if it is, what is that compared to the judgement of God, Who is Alone to be feared ? It should be courageous & consistent, and condemn the IE of civil divorce, regardless of the consequences.
Rat-biter,
Have there been those things for same sex marriage? What politician has been excommunicated for favoring same sex marriage? When was there a march against same sex marriage? From whom has the Eucharist been withheld for favoring same sex marriage?
Thank you, Kurt! My thoughts exactly.
I don’t think a civil contract or a particular semantic labeling of it can be called evil (and certainly not intrinsically) apart from certain sexually immoral acts.
I’m not entirely comfortable with using the label “marriage,” but as a supporter of civil partnerships (regardless of label), I think most people know it’s about “the living room” and not particularly about “the bedroom.”
As your (somewhat hilariously cutting, actually) rhetorical questions make clear, it’s hard to say a gay marriage is intrinsically evil when you don’t even believe that gay marriage actually exists at all. As long as it is just a particular civil arrangement and not making a deliberate mockery of the Sacrament, I find it hard to define what exactly is even being called problematic in these cases except under a (perhaps unwarranted) assumption about sexual activity (even though the law has no “sexual activity” litmus-test for granting partnerships).
Forgive me if I’m getting too basic for the general level of conversation here. But can anyone talk about exactly where we need to draw the line? I understand that Catholics may dissent from magisterial teaching on prudential matters, since the Church has no special competence in judging the best way to solve problems in concrete situations. On the other hand we may not simply disregard magisterial judgments in this regard. Is it correct to say that we must respectfully consider magisterial judgments as to concrete situations, but are not bound to agree with or submit to them?
For example, the U.S. bishops conference said of the Iraq war that Catholics might disagree as to whether or not we should go to war, notwithstanding that the Pope had spoken out against it. (See http://old.usccb.org/sdwp/peace/stm31903.shtml)
Thus if the bishops say that the proposed Ryan budget does not meet certain moral criteria, am I not free to disagree with that assessment after giving it due consideration?
Is this basically it, or am I missing something?
I would say that you remain bound by the moral criteria and the onus shifts to you to justify your support in terms of those criteria. I don’t think you get a prudential judgment pass on the applicability of moral principles. More importantly, if you find yourself disagreeing with the Church on every issue where prudential judgment is permissible, perhaps you ought to ask whether you are really trying to think with the mind of the Church (and Christ) or trading in your Christian convictions for the sake of ideological or partisan convenience.
In the case of our war against Iraq, the question was not whether pre-emptive warmaking, also known as ‘unjust aggression,’ is illicit – it is – but whether the facts in that particular case met the test or not. Prudential judgment, in other words, doesn’t allow policymakers to do whatever they want to do.
Mark:
“I don’t think you get a prudential judgment pass on the applicability of moral principles.”
Thanks for that explanation. I agree, the leeway is as to the facts and interpretation of the concrete situation, not as to the moral criteria. And since you are considering acting against the moral direction of the shepherds of the Church, naturally you would want to make sure you are on solid ground before doing so.
Although frankly, it’s hard to take my political opinions too terribly seriously, when a single vote has so little concrete effect, and only in a very indirect manner, and I have so little time and attention available with which to educate myself on the issues and their actual concrete implications. Which is why I think it’s justifiable to based one’s vote on whether or not a candidate gets it right on the most basic moral principles. Someone who can’t see that baby-killing should be illegal, has got some serious moral and intellectual blinders on, in my view.
Someone who can’t see that baby-killing should be illegal, has got some serious moral and intellectual blinders on, in my view.
I would agree. Fortunately, neither candidate has said that “baby killing should be legal.” Deo Gratias. We do have a Republican candidate who says some interesting things about rape, however.
We do have a Republican candidate who says some interesting things about rape, however.
I’m curious what value you believe this adds to the conversation.
I should have written the above com better. Neither major party presidential candidate has said “baby killing should be legal.” The Republican candidate I was referencing later is Congressman Akin (R-MO), a GOP Senate candidate. It was not intended to be a reference to Governor Romney.
One of the Oriental Catholic bishops in the US condemned the war severely, and forbad the faithful subject to him to tale part in it. Kudos to him ! His letter is on the Net somewhere.
His Grace, the Most Rev. Dr. John (Botean), Bishop of Canton for the Romanians of North America.
The Church calls masturbation an intrinsically evil act.
This is a bit like abortion, intrinsically evil but only in the sense the Church means ie a procured abortion and not, for example, an operation necessary to save the mothers life.
The Catechism defines:
Which is rather different to the Holy Office opinion quoted in Denzinger which even condemned masturbation to obtain semen samples to treat syphillis.
The lack of nuance in a lot of current intrinsic evil discussion is worrying.
God Bless
No Chris, you are misunderstanding the (admittedly ambiguous) English translation.
The definition of “masturbation” is not defined in terms of Intent, as if it’s only wrong to do it for pleasure (but if you have some other reason like obtaining a semen sample it’s okay). No, that’s not correct.
The definition is defining a moral object in itself, not relative to intent like that.
“In order to” should be understood as “in the manner ordered towards” causing pleasure or “in such a way as to” cause pleasure. This is clearer in the provenance of the Latin theological terminology used. It’s not about whether pleasure is the intented end, but about whether it’s the moral object which is the sort of stimulation that causes pleasure (even if pleasure is not the specific intent).
War is intrinsically evil and the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching condemns violence categorically. There might be a right to non-violent defense under certain strict conditions but there is no right to deliberately use violence or to kill.
The disconnect between the tacit acceptance of wars which are clearly unjust and the over-inflation of claims to intrinsic evil do great damage the Church’s credibility as a witness to Christ.
God Bless
But Chris, in that case, how come the CC has allowed it or sanctioned or blessed war ? If it is IE, then that would mean it would have been sinful to fight Hitler. The Magisterium cannot require the subjugation of all Europe to a bloody & ferocious tyrant. Not then, or ever. Such a position would play into his hands, and amount to abandoning his victims to death and torment. It would be an utterly unChristian position.The Mag. has no authority to require us to do evil. [Kerberos BTW :handwave:]
“The disconnect between the tacit acceptance of wars which are clearly unjust and the over-inflation of claims to intrinsic evil do great damage the Church’s credibility as a witness to Christ.”
## Yup :(
Present company excepted, Cloutier and the gang over at CMT are the best thing going in the Catholic blogosphere. Consistently high quality, genuinely Catholic stuff over there. Put it on your reading list!
I agree with what you is said in this post, Kyle, but I also think it’s sort of a red herring.
I don’t think people are claiming “intrinsic” evil means “more” evil, generally.
When people “disagree” with the bishops on things like a particular military action or economic or healthcare plan etc etc…it’s not because they think these things are bad but “not so bad” and thus tolerable. It’s because (at least, I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt) they think that the conditions for making these conditionally (as opposed to intrinsically) evil things evil have not, in fact, been met.
Yes, an unjust war may be worse than masturbation. But presumably the people supporting it aren’t supporting it because they believe it is unjust “but not so bad,” but rather because they DO believe it meets the conditions for a just war.
For example, the condemnation of “pre-emptive” war is rather ambiguous. Surely a country does not have to wait until it is attacked to defend itself, if it judges that attack is imminent. If I see a guy loading his gun and have good knowledge its in preparation for killing me later, I can try to grab the gun away from him if a good opportunity emerges. I don’t have to wait until he’s actually fired at me. No morality requires us to be sitting ducks like that. A remote threat may not be enough, but a proximate threat is. Intended aggression is already aggression. It a neighboring country is building a huge eye-of-Sauron laser tower right next to our border, and we know it’s with the intent to blast us out of existence as soon as it’s built…we can destroy the laser tower. We don’t have to wait until one of our cities is already destroyed.
So, in the Iraq War for example, the debate wasn’t “War isn’t ‘intrinsically’ evil, so we can do it,” but rather “I believe this war is just/I don’t believe this war is just”…it was a debate about whether the alleged threat was proximate (which could justify defensive action) or remote (in which case it would not, as pre-emption like that is not allowed). And that’s a question of facts. I believe the idea of a proximate threat from Iraq was ludicrous. But other people may have legitimately seen things otherwise.
Such a simple truth, and yet it has taken a long time for it to become fully clear in my mind. I pray that others will come to understand it.
You guys really think masturbation is evil? let alone intrinsically so? Unless you want to do battle on natural law you really have to laugh this one off.