Hypothetical Situation

[kafka]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1759121' date='Jan 23 2009, 02:14 AM']the moral exercise thing, i think that's why folks are willing to say "let em all die". they stick their heads into this cloud of theory and forget the common sense.
i'm sure most people would in that situation, engage in deception, if they could get away with it, good christian people, even many who say they wouldn't. the reason, i'd argue, is cause they know it's the right thing to do. i know what the populace would do isn't indicative of truth, but in this case i think it does. not that my observation answers a whole lot given who knows when the populace is right or not. but

i do recognize that you were saying 'it's a moral exercise' just to point out that God would never put us in that situation, and he'd do something else to stop it etc, but that as a scenario that's possible, it's worth entertaining and that we should 'do the right thing' in that scenario.
if God hasn't directly intervened to fix the situation, though, we have to fix it ourself, we are God's instruments, after all, that's how he's arguably doing it.

just a fundamental, normative, disagreement, i guess.[/quote]
its a disagreement based on moral relativism, e.g. most people, even good Christians would do this in a this given situation (even though what they are doing is wrong), therefore it is the right thing to do. Even if you argue that it is common sense, common sense does not override moral principle since men's common sense may be clouded by concupiscence and the influence of sinful society and go against the moral law written in intellect and free will. There are places in the world where people think it is common sense to commit abortion to prevent overpopulation.

No, God promulgated the moral law by creating intellect and free will. Nothing can override this.

I really see no good point in your argument, I dont even sympathize with it.

[Aloysius]

the point is that if you let the ends determine what your means should be, you can justify a whole lot of stuff that is bad AND you have no idea what the ends will really be. this hypothetical says we know for sure what will happen if we do this or that thing... but in real life, we never know.

there are common sense approaches to justifying various acts by actually finding something in the action itself which makes the action not immoral, ie by altering the action rather than justifying the action by the ends you assume will come of it.

if one believes in final justice, one understands that one's actions are not to be done because of what they will accomplish one way or the other, but because they are right or wrong in and of themselves. if a mad man had a bomb that could destroy the whole earth and he demanded of you that you kill an innocent person in cold blood or else he will press the button and set off the bomb, the Christian knows that he cannot save the world and lose his soul; he must let the world be completely destroyed rather than do an act which is so immoral. Why? Because he has faith in the final judgement, the final justice; that all things come out right in the end.

where do you draw the line? you seem to justify lying to save millions of lives, would you justify killing innocents who had nothing to do with anything to save millions of lives? it's a damnable philosophy of life which is practically (even if not theoretically) a denial of final Divine justice.

anyway, the more detailed explanation of why dishonesty here is wrong is that human beings cannot be used as means to an end. in misrepresenting the votes of these people, you are using them as tools and denying their inherent dignity as persons. you can honorably meet them on a battlefield to stop them from doing evil, but you cannot use them as tools; people are ends in and of themselves and deserve to be treated as such and no one has the right to use them by lying about their vote.

manipulating people in this way is wrong. morally, you must confront them and treat them with the dignity they deserve; because of their dignity and human freedom, they have the right to come out in support of evil and if/when they do, you do not manipulate and lie to stop them from succeeding, you honorably meet and oppose them face to face. to do anything less is cowardly regardless of the results you get.

[Jesus_lol]

the road to hell is paved with good intentions. thats all i got on these twisted hypothetical situations.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' post='1759158' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:49 AM']the road to hell is paved with good intentions. thats all i got on these twisted hypothetical situations.[/quote]
I'm really mean when it comes to unlikely hypothetical situations.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i mean, as a technical point, i'm not sure the means is even evil to begin with. normally it would be, but if God desires it to be done, i doubt it's wrong to begin with.
you're not selling your soul to save the world, so that's not a problem. if anything, you'd be selling your soul, in letting the world die, in an attempt, even if genuine, at doing the right thing. i'm reminded of the beginning of matthew when the pharasees were dissing jesus for his miracles on the sabbath etc, and he pointed out how they nullify the world of God for the sake of their traditions. the tradition here being 'the end enver justifies the means' etc line of thinking. i'm sure some of those pharisees were genuine, too.

asking the question rhetorically 'if it's okay here, where does it end?' isn't answering the question. it's not saying why it's wrong to 'justif the means sometimes'. life doesn't have to have clear answers for everything, clear answers in principle is all that matters.
see, i don't think arguing that the end sometimes justifies the means is even relativisic. the principles are clear, the factors are clear, applying them might not be. there's surely a right or wrong answer, even if humans make the wrong choice. that's how many things are, even in catholic theology.
it's clear here, it might not be clear elsewhere as Al said, i recognize. if there's less certainty in another problem, of the result, you have to consider that too. it's all part of the equation. mistakes will be made, but if good judgment is used, more often than not, you'll be fine.

i don't see how there's no sympathy to my argument, considering i'd be saving millions of people? how heartless are you people, or anyone who'd say that? there should at least sympathy to the desire to save millions of lives.....
i mean, i think what all you guys are saying is outrageous and ludcris, really,insane, idiotic etc. but, i do respect it cause of your respect for truth.
i recognize i could, theoretically be wrong, too.
but i'm pretty sure if anyone would be sinning in this hypothetical, it's the person who wouldn't save millions of people. doing the pharisee thing. it's mind boggling there's pepole so cold and rigid as to let everyone die...

Edited January 23, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

relativism, to me, is when someone says "A should not kill B" "C is in the exact same circumstance as A, in regards to mental state, knowledge, nature, nuture, etc, but whether C should kill someone in the exact position of B, is up for grabs, not necessited by the fact that A should not kill B." or, arguing that whether either of them should or shouldn't kill is not something that can be answered, cause truth is arbitrary and is what they feel like, etc.

to me, that's relativism. i'm still respecting truth, even 'absolute truth'.
what you guys are arguing is just rigidity, not aboslute truth (arguably). you'd be like the guys who say, 'it says thou shalt not kill therefore, ya can't self defend or engage in a just war. hey that's what it says, are we relativistic?'
when i said 'arguably' 'to me', i wasn't disrespecting absolute truth, i'm just recognizing i could be wrong about what the truth is... i'm not denying that it's absolute, though.
i say things like 'i think' 'to me' a lot, and i know what people think when they read that, esp religious folks round these parts. i was a catholic once who even thought similar to that, anytime anyone syas 'i think' etc it's just flower talk. (i do still think that, but only when it's something like i said earlier, 'i think what A should do is unknowable etc')

Edited January 23, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

when the hypo is that an innocent person must die so millions will live, i'm more sympathetic, but i still say it's right to let them die.

here, in this hypo, though, it's not even a matter of justifying th means in such a tough way. the only people you're depriving of a vote, are people who'd be for murder, and they are essentially be the murderers. we can kill in self defese, or kill an attacking would be murderer for another person's self defense, so why is it wrong here?
i mean, so many here say voting for an abortionist candiddate is essentiarlly partiaking in the crime. (i would argree if the liklihood of change is high) they even say that when the liklihood is small. so why is it wrong to stop the person who's the accomplise in the crime? it's not.

i do have a shred or two of doubt regarding the 'ends means' stuff i say, given that the orthodox christian understanding is that it's never justified. but in this situation, i'm not sure it's even wrong to begin with in any sense of the word, traditionally, even.

i do recognize people will say 'thou shalt not kill' has to be read into, cause self defense etc is okay to do, so it can't mean what it says or appears to say etc. but, i'd argue that these loopholes grew out of tradition, and so can the tradition of common sense exceptions to 'the ends means' issue.
i mean, there's folks who says it's okay to lie to justify the means, as if there's a principle that allows it. 'they're not entitled to know' (some just say all you can do is mislead, but not actuall lie, it's a split within the theoglogy camps) that's tradition alone if i ever saw it. it could be as easily said 'they don't deserve their vote' 'they don't deserve to live' or whatever. point being, people are just against my way of thinking, because it's unorthodox, that's all. 'if i'm going to side with anyone, i'll go with aquanis, not dairygirl'.
there's lots of things that are wrong, per tradition, as i said earlier, though.

[eagle_eye222001]

Bad ending.........but rigging would be wrong in of itself....so I don't see a way out of it.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i don't think we are gonna agree on the larger qeustion of 'ends mean'. but, i'd like others to say how they think rigging the election isnt essentially self defense of another person.
i mean, it's essentially the same thing is it not?
if i have a detonator and am walking up to the person who will trigger it as soon as i get to them, it's not wrong to shoot me. if i'm saying 'you can allow others to kill each other' i'm still the accomplice.

[Aloysius]

well i did steer this into the more basic principal that we ought to be willing to see terrible material consequences even on the caliber of the death of every person on the planet rather than do one act which is immoral in and of itself. I could see the justification for the rigging being that one does not have the moral right to vote for such evil and thus to intercept their vote, a vote which would be tantamount to murdering, might be justifiable NOT because of the ends but because they have no moral right to kill through a ballot box.

[dairygirl4u2c]

here's someone else smart who thinks like me. (since i don't get many backers as these debate boards are largely solidly traditionally catholic)
he used my 'torture as self defense' line of reasoning that i've used before.
i remember hte best Al has ever argued per that, ie why it's okay to kill in self defense but not other things... and all he's ever said was "the river runs red" or something about how it's traditionall yteh case that ya can kill. seems pretty arbitrary to me. at least against bad guys.

[quote]I agree that an intrinsic evil cannot ever be rendered morally acceptable by intentions or circumstances. Hence, if torture is an intrinsic evil then torture is always immoral.

What I tried to explain while being brief about it is that I can envision scenarios in which the act of inflicting pain on an individual would have the appearance of torture but would really be a different species of moral act and could be morally permissible. That was the point of the "ticking time bomb" scenario.

Two different species of moral acts can have very similar appearances: say I shoot another human being with my handgun and kill him. Was that a moral or immoral act? You would correctly state that you need to know more in order to make a judgment. If the man I killed was completely innocent and my shooting and killing him were voluntary and directly willed, then I have committed murder; an intrinsically evil act. If the man I killed was gravely and imminently threatening my innocent life or someone else's innocent life and I shot and killed him out of necessity to stop the attack, then I have acted in self defense; a morally permissible act. Two acts, similar effects, similar appearances, different species, different moral judgments.

The "ticking time bomb" scenario could, in my judgment, render an act that has the appearance of torture to be an act that has the species of self defense, just as shooting and killing a man can have the appearance of murder while being the species of self-defense. In a "ticking time bomb" scenario, what looks like torture might not really be torture, in which case the infliction of pain would not be an intrinsically evil act even though it superficially appears to be.

However, in order to avoid the rationalizations and errors of consequentialist or proportionalist moral reasoning (as you describe in the "24" scenario in which Jack rapes a terrorist's daughters), the justification of inflicting pain would have to be done under the something like the following conditions:

1. There is an impending grave attack that will harm or kill innocent people, and there is insufficient time to evacuate them (the "ticking time bomb" scenario).
2. Person(s) are in custody who are participants in the impending attack. Such persons refuse under standard interrogation techniques to provide information that will disarm or neutralize the impending grave attack.
3. There is moral certainty (no "hunches", but also no need for absolute certainty) that the person(s) in custody are both responsible for the attack and have the ability to stop it. In other words, the person(s) in custody are the assailants and could halt the attack if they chose to.

Not having the time or space to flesh it out more, I believe those three conditions are sufficient to clarify that I would not approve of Jack (in the "24" scenario) raping the terrorist's daughters because the daughters are presumably uninvolved in the attack.

However, provided that the three conditions above are satisified, I believe the application of pain to the terrorist himself (not to anyone who is not responsible for the attack) for the purpose of extracting information that would disarm or neutralize an impending grave attack would be morally permissible because the infliction of pain would be in the species of self-defense, not in the species of torture. The attack is, in a sense, underway but you could prevent it with the right information. Yet the right information is in the terrorist's mind and he is not releasing it voluntarily. It will take force, violence, the infliction of pain to extract the life-saving information.

The action of an attacker's hand, holding a knife that he is threatening to use to harm someone else (an attack in progress, but not yet carried out), might be stopped by pleading with him to stop the motion of his arm; but the circumstances might require the use of violence -- perhaps ever lethal force -- to prevent the attacker from carrying out his attack.

Similarly, the action of an attacker's mind, remaining silent about information on how to defuse a ticking time bomb that he has armed (an attack in progress, but not yet carried out), might be stopped from carrying out the attack by pleading with him to divulge the information; but the circumstances might require the use of violence to extract the information and prevent the attacker from carrying out his attack.

You wrote, "That's the issue to get clear on first, before you move on to the murkier particulars: you can't do a per se evil no matter what is at stake, no matter what is the projected benefit. If the only choices are commit a rape or lose a city, you lose the city. End of story. So if torture is intrinsically evil, you can't do it even to save the city, the planet or the species. If only some forms of torture are intrinsically evil, then it is only those that absolutely cannot be done, etc."

I hope I have clarified that I do not support the consequentialist or proportionalist reasoning that you identify.

I further hope I have clarified the limited scenario in which I believe an act that appears to be torture would actually have the species of self defense and thus would be morally permissible.[/quote]

Edited January 24, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1759456' date='Jan 23 2009, 06:12 PM']well i did steer this into the more basic principal that we ought to be willing to see terrible material consequences even on the caliber of the death of every person on the planet rather than do one act which is immoral in and of itself. I could see the justification for the rigging being that one does not have the moral right to vote for such evil and thus to intercept their vote, a vote which would be tantamount to murdering, might be justifiable NOT because of the ends but because they have no moral right to kill through a ballot box.[/quote]

props

[kafka]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1759298' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:16 PM']to me, that's relativism. i'm still respecting truth, even 'absolute truth'.
what you guys are arguing is just rigidity, not aboslute truth (arguably). you'd be like the guys who say, 'it says thou shalt not kill therefore, ya can't self defend or engage in a just war. hey that's what it says, are we relativistic?'[/quote]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1759317' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:55 PM']here, in this hypo, though, it's not even a matter of justifying th means in such a tough way. the only people you're depriving of a vote, are people who'd be for murder, and they are essentially be the murderers. we can kill in self defese, or kill an attacking would be murderer for another person's self defense, so why is it wrong here?
i mean, so many here say voting for an abortionist candiddate is essentiarlly partiaking in the crime. (i would argree if the liklihood of change is high) they even say that when the liklihood is small. so why is it wrong to stop the person who's the accomplise in the crime? it's not.[/quote]
I think you are (albeit unclearly) trying to create a whole new scenario which raises some good questions.

What you might be referring to here is an act of open political warfare perhaps even civil war.

Nihil Obstat laid out his hypothetical in very general terms so it is difficult to speak in particulars. If the agent would change the existing votes e.g. tamper with them or rig them namely change them in a secret way to change the outcome of an election, it would still be falsification, fraud, corruption, etc. The overall act in and of itself no matter what the intentions or consequences are would still immoral.

Now, lets say the agent (the moral agent namely the person himself and the entire party he represents) set out to destroy or intercept votes as an act of open political warfare (much like a nation would destroy an opposing military target in the act of open war) with the good intention of overthrowing the potential evil dictator and his party. This would be a different scenario which must be analysed in a whole new set of circumstances.

In this scenario, the moral agent's intention is good, he/they desire to rescue religion, innocent life, order, etc. The act of destroying or intercepting existing votes, would be morally neutral (unlike rigging or tampering them in deception). Therefore. the overall act of the agent would default to the third font, namely the good consequences must outweigh the bad in order for the overall act to be moral.

In such a situation would the good consequences outweigh the bad? Or in other words (in this hypthetical case) would the agent have enough resources to solidify good over the potential bad consequences, thus making this act of destroying or intercepting the evil votes of many be morally good? I doubt it. The act of destroying votes in an overwhelmingly evil nation, evil enough to vote in majority for an overwhelmingly evil dictator would sooner or later be found out and then a whole new set of consequences would potentially ensue such as civil war, lose of innocent life, etc. In the act of destroying the votes themselves, chances would be that lives of the evil opposing party would have to be taken. It would be civil war. One could argue that the moral agent's lives would be forfeit anyway or many million other innocent lives would be forfeit, since the evil dictator would eventually snuff out their lives, since they stand in opposition of him and what he stands for, and he would eventually promulgate his evil laws (killing millions). Yet in this wildly hypothetical case, I think it would be more honorable to die as Christ-like martyrs than to die fighting for a cause with dubious moral certainty and outcome.

This whole scenario really would need to be considered in a real circumstance and not the abstract circumstance of this thread. It would be a difficult judgment of the prudential order.

I just created a miniparticular-hypothetical from Nihil Obstat's more general hypothetical, and I guess the moral of this post is that if we want to get more particular with moral/ethical cases than more particular parameters need to be set up in order to come to a more accurate moral/ethical conclusion.

[kafka]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1759298' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:16 PM']to me, that's relativism. i'm still respecting truth, even 'absolute truth'.
what you guys are arguing is just rigidity, not aboslute truth (arguably). you'd be like the guys who say, 'it says thou shalt not kill therefore, ya can't self defend or engage in a just war. hey that's what it says, are we relativistic?'[/quote]
The commandment is "thou shall not murder" the unjust taking of innocent life, e.g. abortion. Killing another in the act of self-defense or in a just war is a substantially different moral act than murder itself.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i agree specifics are needed to really talk effectively.

what i gathered from your theories though, is that it's okay to kill in self defense, but it's not okay to engage in fraud or deception etc, in self defense. and you didn't really say why other than to assume that the one is okay but the other isn't. ie, why self defense killing isn't justifying the means, but lying is etc.
'hitler says he's going to kill someone. he hasn't killed them yet, but has killed before, and it's not an emergency situation in the sense of an imminent danger. you have a gun. he's surrounded by soliders so you can't capture him. hyou know that even if not imminent, he's going to kill lots of people. do you shoot him? assume that in your calculation, shooting him would cause some chaos, but surely be effective given how pivital hitler was as a leader" why is it wrong to shoot him, but not lie to him, or deceive him (or, i'd argue, torture, or at least borderline enhanced methods) etc?

Edited January 25, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c