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Perhaps killing in self-defense would be a natural evil that a human could commit. The moral act in question is the act of self-defense, and the destruction of another human life would be an unfortunate side effect.

The core question for moral acts is what is being willed. In the case of murder, the intent is to destroy another person's life. In the case of self-defense, the intent is to protect oneself from danger by the means necessary to the circumstance.

Perhaps another example of natural evil would be a circumstance in which one gives money to a beggar on a street corner out of good will. The beggar then goes and spends the money on cigarettes. The consequence of that gift is damage to the recipient's lungs via smoking, but that was not the intent of the gift, so I don't think we could say the original moral act of the gift was evil.

Jac 2y ago

What a perfect example of the change of outcome based on context and intention. Let’s modify the situation to be that you see a beggar smoking and give him a pack of cigarettes. There is no doubt that the outcome will be damage to the recipient’s lungs, and also the temporary cessation of the symptoms of addiction to cigarettes. The same act is kindness if intended to alleviate the pain of withdrawal, and cruelty if intended to provide a means of progression toward the awful symptoms associated with dying of emphysema.

Regarding killing in self defense, the death should always be an unintended consequence of stopping dire personal harm, but I do believe that for many many reasons, some of them treatable mental illness, but unfortunately untreated, there are humans who will harm you and must be prevented from doing so. I have experienced farm animals made mean by abuse that had the will to harm. This doesn’t make them evil, it simply makes them damaged biological machines that don’t function properly in a communal environment, exceptionally similar to human suffering mental illness that makes them dysfunctional in a cooperative community, but a contender in a wilderness survival scenario. To apply a holy vs evil dichotomy to these scenarios is to delegitimize context no? Are all soldiers who have killed in combat guilty of murder?

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MichaelJ 2y ago

Your elucidation of the scenario with the beggar and cigarettes brings to light another dimension in moral questions. We can consider a moral act by the contents of the act itself and by a person's intentions in making the act. Given the addict a pack of cigarettes that will fuel his addiction and speed the decline of his health is an act that is bad in its content; it is the giving of a poison "gift." Even if the giver has good intentions, the act itself is still bad, and good intentions don't change the nature of a bad act.

To apply this to the question of self-defense, the act in question is the preservation of life, and the intention is to protect oneself rather than to do harm. Thus, the act is good (self-preservation is generally a good thing), and the intentions are good, or at least not bad (no harm is directly wished on the assailant), so the act is good. The last piece is the means by which the act is carried out. If a means of self-defense is available that does not destroy the life of the assailant, that would obviously be better, but if no other means is available, then killing the attacker would be morally justified. Again, we could probably say that it is a necessary natural evil.

We can apply similar logic to soldiers in combat. Leaving aside the question of just war for the moment, most soldiers go into battle seeking to defend their country from a perceived evil; thus they have good intentions (defense of the innocent). Very often, when battle is joined, the individual soldiers will be concerned with protecting themselves and their comrades, so again, the content of the act is preservation of life. The means used (killing enemy soldiers) are evil, but in many cases the overall act is probably still morally justified. If some of these elements were different, however, I think it would be reasonable to consider a soldier in combat to be guilty of homicide or murder, depending on circumstances. In practice, however, we tend to give soldiers a pass precisely because wars are sufficiently complex that it is impossible to analyze the contents of every individual act, and many of the soldiers themselves likely do not even understand the moral considerations of each individual act they take on the battlefield.

Do you believe that humans have free will? If so, to what extent? You appear to chalk up a lot of the bad things that happen to nature (resource scarcity) or nurture (mental illness) rather than to human will. What sorts of actions do you think individuals are responsible for?

Jac 2y ago

Paragraph I and III are in direct conflict here. I sympathize with the predicament, it is a problem that can likely only be solved by leaving the arena for a more inclusive view.

Yes, I believe humans have absolute free will and complete culpability for the outcomes of their decisions in spite of the intentions. Having come from an abusive nuclear family, I know how destructive good intentions and “love” can be. A megalomaniac mother only wants the best for her child, but the intent doesn’t change the experience for the child. Paragraph one is a prime example of destructive love. Do you care for the beggar? Really? Or do you care more about copping a superior attitude while you lecture the beggar about his self destructive choices? Walk a mile in his shoes, and even if you find the behavior unjustified, learn to be quiet and accommodate a human in need without judgement.

Yes, soldiers get a pass from us, but how does that matter on the deity stage? Who are we to excuse behavior on god’s behalf? Because we deem it justified, thou shall not kill doesn’t matter any more to god? Did Jesus hand down some special clause about justified killing? I’m not being facetious here, just asking legitimate questions.

MichaelJ 2y ago

Alright, this is good, you're making me think deeply about this, and I appreciate it. Let's get into the qualities of moral acts some more.

To put more precisely part of what's already been discussed, there are three parts to a moral act: the object, the circumstances, and the end. The object is the thing acted upon, the end is the reason for which the act is done, and the circumstances are the conditions of the action, such as place, time, and so on. The object and end determine typically determine the moral quality of the act, but circumstances can, at times, modify that.

To apply that precisely in the case of the beggar, the end of giving the beggar cigarettes may be good or bad, depending on the giver's intentions. The object of the act, that is, giving the beggar cigarettes, is bad because cigarettes are harmful to the beggar's health. Therefore, that action is bad.

To apply this precision to the case of a soldier in a war, the objects and ends can be all over the place. Let's suppose the end, or intent, on the soldier's part is to defend his country. This is a good end. Let's take as an object firing a gun at an enemy. That is a bad object, however, in a particular circumstance, the soldier may be firing the gun at an enemy because it is the only means of achieving the end of defending his country. In this case, the extremity of the circumstances make the action morally good, if resulting in an unfortunate natural evil. The key here is extreme circumstances are required to make such an act morally good.

Extrapolating out to the scale of, say, a whole war, I think it is understandable that we typically give soldiers a pass, but that doesn't mean we necessarily should. However, greater responsibility lies in the leaders who order their soldiers into battle, to conduct a just war, that is, one oriented towards defense against an unjust aggressor, conducted as a last resort, and using the minimum violence necessary to repel the unjust aggression.

Zooming out again, the commandment is "thou shalt not kill." Killing as a moral act consists of a specific object, end, and circumstance. In the case of home defense or a just war, the type of moral act is defense, rather than killing. It's a very fine distinction, and thus the use of violence, even when it seems justified, always treads a very thin line, morally speaking. That's why violence should be avoided whenever possible.

I know I retreaded a bunch of ground, but I think it was good for the discussion and for my own understanding to put all this as precisely as possible. I hope I addressed some of your big-picture questions as well, from your last paragraph.

MichaelJ 2y ago

Also, full disclosure, I 100% referenced the Summa to refresh myself on some things and to make sure I could express the points I was trying to make with sufficient clarity.

https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2018.htm

mark tyler 2y ago

People are really good at convincing themselves that their side in the war is the morally good side. “Defending one’s country” or one’s people. Just look at Russia and Ukraine or Hamas and Israel. This effect needs to be taken seriously when thinking through some planned violence. The “bad guys” are usually thinking the same thing you are.

MichaelJ 2y ago

Exactly right, and more often than not, both sides in the war are morally wrong. That's why war is a grave evil that should be avoided at all costs. War is always a last resort when every other reasonable option has failed.

Jac 2y ago

The example that comes to mind is Silent Night, sung on a WWII battlefield in English and in German together by men who killed each other the next morning.

gray 2y ago

There's a similar story from WWI where both sides left the trenches and had a party in no man's land.

Jac 2y ago

To address the case of the beggar, why is smoking bad? I might look at some food you like to eat and conclude it is bad for your health, if I give you a food you like that I think might cause you to live a few fewer days, is that a bad act if my only aim is to accommodate what you like and respect your choices? What if my opinion of the food is completely wrong? We are all going to die, and every day we make choices that move that date closer or further away from our present. Perhaps you feel guilty giving the beggar some cigarettes, I think it is reasonable to consider guilt an unsuitable compass for good and bad acts. If I smoke cigarettes and I share with the beggar, same outcome, or end and object, but very different circumstance. This might be why the Bible calls on you to not pass judgement. Ergo, intent and outcome is the only suitable metric to measure a good or bad act in that order of magnitude, as good intent often results in bad outcomes. The opposite is also true, though happens less frequently. Comment on the war part to follow. As always, I enjoy this dialogue and hope you do too.

MichaelJ 2y ago

Given a well-formed conscience, guilt is actually a pretty good guardrail against bad acts. The intellect has to be the ultimate guide, but the gut feeling of guilt can kick in and give us a warning when we don't have time to deliberate.

For what it's worth, I don't personally think smoking is the worst thing. It's damaging to the health, yes, but so are a lot of things, including, say, alcohol and sugar. Arguably, smoking, drinking, and sweets also have their benefits as well. The key is moderation. The bigger problem with the cigarette addict isn't that he is engaging in a damaging habit, rather, the bigger problem is that he is an addict, that is, he is unable to moderate the habit. The same applies to the drunkard: his enjoyment of drink isn't the problem so much as his inability to control it.

This is why I am so convinced of the value of virtue ethics. Assuming our instincts are relatively healthy (not always the case, they can become damaged), then it is generally good to partake in that which we enjoy. However, partaking in excess, or rejecting the good altogether, are bad extremes. Enjoying a drink or two on occasion with friends, for example, is a good act, done for a good purpose, done in moderation, and with a positive outcome. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day by yourself is an act done in excess, with a negative outcome. Maybe smoking a single cigarette on occasion, in a social setting, could be a good act. There are always a lot of factors to consider.

Obviously there are cases where the act in question is more serious by nature, such as murder. Having a smoke could, perhaps, go either way, but some acts, I think are always wrong.

Jac 2y ago

Is assuming the beggar who spends money you gave him on cigarettes to be an addict an unjustified judgement on your part? This is a slippery slope that gets impossible to navigate from some arbitrary self appointed high ground. I personally think we should tend to our own affairs, you know the spec of sawdust in your eye vs log in your eye thing. 😏 I think there are circumstances where murder is justified, eg. If I positively identified a man raping my wife or daughter, people who I know and trust to not be deceptive, I would kill the offender with my hands and feel fully justified in putting a bad animal to sleep either immediately or in a pre-meditated painful way. Is this a scenario where satan and hell finally find their justified function in Christian dogma? In wrath and revenge?