Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law Part 11

_Readings_.--St. Thos., _Contra Gentiles_, iii., 119; 2a 2ae, q. 81, art. 4, in corp.; _ib_., q. 81, art. 7 _ib_., q. 84, art. 2: _ib_., q.

85, art. 1, in corp., ad 1, 3; _ib_., q. 91.

SECTION II.--_Of Superst.i.tious Practices_.

1. Superst.i.tion is the abuse of religion. It is superst.i.tion, either to wors.h.i.+p false G.o.ds, or to wors.h.i.+p the true G.o.d with unauthorized rites, or to have dealings with wicked spirits, whether those spirits have once animated human bodies or not. Of the first head, the only avowed instance within our civilization is the Positivist wors.h.i.+p of the _Great Being_, that is, of the collective Worthies of Humanity, if indeed it amounts to wors.h.i.+p. The second head might have been meditated by Archbishop Cranmer with advantage, when he was drawing up the Edwardine Ordinal. Under the third head comes Spiritualism, which we shall here not discuss in detail, but merely indicate certain principles upon which it must be judged.

2. "There is nothing superst.i.tious or unlawful in simply applying natural agencies to the production of certain effects, of which they are supposed to be naturally capable.... We must consider whether there is a fair appearance of the cause being able to produce the effect naturally. If there is, the experiment will not be unlawful: for it is lawful to use natural causes in order to their proper effects." (2a 2ae, q. 96, art. 2, in corp., ad 1.) But this we must understand under two provisos. First, that the "fair appearance"

spoken of be not opposed by a considerable force of evidence, whether of authority or of reason, tending the other way: for in this matter, which is not a mere matter of legality, it is not permissible to run risks of becoming familiar with G.o.d's enemies. Secondly, that the cause, though natural, be not morally prejudicial. Not even a natural cause, brandy for instance, may be used to all its effects. Thus for the mesmeric sleep, though that should be proved to be purely natural, yet the weakening of the will thence ensuing, and the almost irresistible dominion acquired by the operator over his patient, render it imperative that such a remedy should not be applied without grave necessity, and under an operator of a.s.sured moral character.

3. St. Thomas continues in the place last quoted: "Wherefore, if there is no fair appearance of the causes employed being able to produce such effects, it needs must be that they are not employed to the causation of these effects as causes, but only as signs, and thus they come under the category of preconcerted signals arranged with evil spirits."

The modern Spiritualist is only too forward to avow his understanding with the unseen powers; but he will have it that the spirits that he deals with are good and harmless. We must prove the spirits by the general effects of their communications--whether they be in accordance with the known laws of morality, and the a.s.sured teachings of religion, natural and revealed. Also we must consider, from what we know from approved sources concerning G.o.d, and His holy angels, and the spirits of the just, either already made perfect, or still suffering for a time, whether they are likely to respond to such signs as Spiritualists commonly employ. Also we must not ignore, what revelation tells us, of an "enemy," a "father of lies," who "changes himself into an angel of light," and who is ever ready, so far as it is permitted him, to eke out curiosity, folly, and credulity, such as he found in Eve.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 93; _ib_., q. 95, art. 4, in corp.

SECTION III.--_Of the duty of knowing G.o.d_.

1. Religious wors.h.i.+p is bound to its object, and cannot possibly be fixed in the hearts of men and the inst.i.tutions of society, if the object be doubtful and fluctuating. False religion has often been set off with elaborate and gorgeous ceremonial, which has been kept up even after the performers had come to see in all that light and l.u.s.tre a mere vain and unsubstantial show. Such were the rites of Roman polytheism, as enacted by augurs and pontiffs, the colleagues of Cicero and Caesar. But though that wors.h.i.+p was maintained, and even augmented, for political purposes, without a creed, yet never could it have arisen without some creed, however mistaken, earnestly held of old. A firm interior conviction is the starting-point of all outward wors.h.i.+p. But if the modern living wors.h.i.+pper is without creed and conviction; if he be a scoffer at heart, or at least a doubter; what a hollow, horrid skeleton thing is his religion,--all the more horrid, the grander its dress! That is not wors.h.i.+p, but mummery.

2. If then to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d is a duty, as we have proved, it is a duty likewise to know G.o.d. This supposes that G.o.d is knowable, a fact which it does not lie within the province of this work to prove. To an unknown G.o.d, all the wors.h.i.+p we could render would be to build Him an altar, without priest, prayer, or sacrifice, and so leave Him in His solitude. G.o.d is knowable by the _manifestation_ of His works (Rom. i.

19); and where He is pleased to speak, by the _revelation_ of His word. Apart from revelation--and, under a certain order of Providence, G.o.d might have left us without revelation--we should study our Creator as He is made manifest in the world around us, in the existence of perishable things, in the order of the universe, in the region of things eternally possible and knowable, in moral truths, in the mental life and conscience of man. Philosophy would be our guide in the search after G.o.d. Men with less leisure or ability for speculation would acquiesce in the p.r.o.nouncements of philosophers on things divine; and, in the hypothesis which we are contemplating, Providence would doubtless arrange for the better agreement and harmony of philosophers among themselves. Their trumpet would not send forth so uncertain a blast, were that the instrument, in the counsels of G.o.d, whereby the whole duty of religion was to be regulated. As it is, we know better than philosophy could teach us: for G.o.d hath spoken in His Son.

_Readings_.--_C. Gent_., i., 4; 1a 2ae, q. 91, art. 4, in corp.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE DUTY OF PRESERVING LIFE.

SECTION I.--_Of Killing, Direct and Indirect_.

1. In a hilly country, two or three steps sometimes measure all the interval between the basins of two rivers, whose mouths are miles apart. In the crisis of an illness the merest trifle will turn the scale between death and recovery. In a nice point of law and intricate procedure, the lawyer is aware that scarcely more than the thickness of the paper on which he writes lies between the case going for his client or for the opposite party. To rail at these fine technicalities argues a lay mind, unprofessional and undiscerning. _Hair-splitting_, so far as it is a term of real reproach, means splitting the wrong hairs. The expert in any profession knows what things to divide and distinguish finely, and what things to take in the gross. Moral Science in many respects gives its demonstrations, and can give them, only "in the way of rough drawing," as Aristotle says. ([Greek: pachulos kai tupo], _Ethics_, I., iii., 4.) But there are lines of division exceeding fine and nice in natural morality no less than in positive law. The student must not take scandal at the fine lines and subtle distinctions that we shall be obliged to draw in marking off lawful from unlawful action touching human life.

2. _It is never lawful directly to kill an innocent man_. Understand _innocent_ in the social and political sense, of a man who has not, by any _human act_ (_Ethics_, c. i., n. 2, p. 1) of his own, done any harm to society so grievous as to compare with loss of life. To kill, or work any other effect, _directly_, is to bring about that death, or other effect, willing the same, _either as an end desirable in itself_, as when a man slays his enemy, whose death of its own sheer sake is to him a satisfaction and a joy, or _as a means to an end_, as Richard III. murdered his nephews to open his own way to the throne.

We must then in no case compa.s.s the death of the innocent, either _intending_ it as an _end_, or _choosing_ it as a _means_. The a.s.sertion is proved by these considerations. To kill a man is to destroy the human nature within him: for, though the soul survives, he is man no more when he is dead. Now to destroy a thing is to subordinate that thing entirely to your self and your own purposes: for that individual thing can never serve any other purpose, once it is destroyed. The man that is killed is then subordinated to the slayer, wholly given up, and as we say, _sacrificed_, to the aims and purposes of him who slays him. But that ought not to be, for man is a _person_. Body and soul in him make one person, one personal nature, which _human personality_ is destroyed in death. Now it is the property of a person to be what we may call _autocentric_, referring its own operations to itself as to a centre. Every _person_--and every intelligent nature is a person [Footnote 17]--exists and acts primarily for himself. A _thing_ is marked off from a _person_ by the apt.i.tude of being another's and for another. We may venture to designate it by the term _heterocentric_. A person therefore may destroy a thing, entirely consume and use it up for his own benefit.

But he may not treat a person as a thing, and destroy that, either for any end of pleasure that he finds in destroying it, or in view of any gain or good, whereunto that destruction serves him as a means.

[Footnote 17: The exception apparent in the Incarnation is not relevant here.]

3. In the above argumentation account has not been taken of G.o.d, to whom for His sovereign dominion all created personalities stand in the light of _things_, and may be destroyed at His pleasure. But account has been taken of the State, to which the individual is subordinate as a citizen, but not as a man and a person. It is permitted no more to the State than to the individual ever to destroy the innocent _directly_.

4. An effect is brought about _indirectly_, when it is neither _intended_ as an _end_ for its own sake, nor _chosen_ as a _means_ making towards an end, but attaches as a circ.u.mstance concomitant either to the end intended or to the means chosen. The case of a circ.u.mstance so attaching to the means chosen is the only case that we need consider here in speaking of _indirect_, _concomitant_, or _incidental_ effects. The study of these incidents is of vast importance to the moralist. Most cases of practical difficulty to decide between right and wrong, arise out of them. They are best ill.u.s.trated in the manner of killing. That one matter, well worked out, becomes a pattern for other matters in which they occur.

(_Ethics_, c. iii., s. ii., p. 31.)

5. A man is killed _indirectly_, or _incidentally_, when he perishes in consequence of certain means employed towards a certain end, without his death being willed by the employer of those means, or in any way serving that agent to the furtherance of the end that he has in view. If a visitor to a quarry were standing on a piece of rock, which a quarryman had occasion to blast, and the man fired the train regardless of the visitor, the latter would be _incidentally_ killed.

Now incidental killing, even of the innocent, is not under all circ.u.mstances unlawful. Where the end in view is in the highest degree important, the means may be taken thereto, provided always that such an issue as the shedding of innocent blood be not itself the means discerned and elected as furthering the end: for no end however urgent can justify the employment of any evil means. (_Ethics_, c. iii., s.

ii., nn. 3, 13, pp. 32, 36.) Suppose in the instance just given the quarryman saw that, unless that piece of rock where the visitor stood were blown up instantly, a catastrophe would happen elsewhere, which would be the death of many men, and there were no time to warn the visitor to clear off, who could blame him if he applied the explosive?

The means of averting the catastrophe would be, not that visitor's death, but the blowing up of the rock. The presence or absence of the visitor, his death or escape, is all one to the end intended: it has no bearing thereon at all.

6. We must then distinguish between _means_ and _circ.u.mstances_. The means help to the end, the circ.u.mstances of the means do not. When the end is of extreme urgency, circ.u.mstances may be disregarded: the means become morally divested of them. So I have seen an island in a river, a nucleus of rock with an environment of alluvial soil. While the stream was flowing placidly in its usual course, the island remained intact, both rock and earth. But when the water came rus.h.i.+ng in a flood, which was as though the island itself had gone speeding up the river, the loose matter at its sides was carried away, and only the central rock remained. The ordinary flow of the river past the island, or the gentle motion of the island up-stream, keeping all its bulk, represents a man acting for an end to which reason attaches no great importance. He must then take a diligent review of all the circ.u.mstances that have any close connection with his action, to see if there is any that it would be wrong for him to will directly. And if there is, he must abstain from willing it even indirectly: that is, he must abstain from doing the action, which cannot be done without that objectionable circ.u.mstance attending it. On the other hand, the floating island being towed rapidly up-stream, with its loose sides falling away, portrays the condition of one acting for a purpose of imperative urgency: he considers the means to that end, and if they are good, he concentrates his will upon them and uses them, disregarding, or even deploring, but nowise willing or being responsible for, the evil concomitants which go with those means, but do not make for his end. Thus it is, that a circ.u.mstance which in ordinary cases goes to make the adoption of certain means reasonable or unreasonable, comes, in a case of great urgency, to weigh for nothing in the balance of reason, owing to the extreme and crying reasonableness of the end in view. Nor is this the end justifying the means, for that unhappy circ.u.mstance is never a means to the end.

(_Ethics_, c. iii., s. ii., n. 8, p. 34.)

7. To ill.u.s.trate by a diagram:

[Ill.u.s.tration:

C ( ) U | | A-----------------------------------E( )V ]

A, the _agent_, a bead on a wire, can move only on the line AE, that alone being the line of means to the end.

EV, _reasonableness of end in view_, attracting A.

UC, the amount of moral evil which the _untoward circ.u.mstance_ would involve, if it were willed directly. This UC repels A, tending to jam it on the line AE, which is absolutely rigid.

AE, remoteness, difficulty, and uncertainty of the end in view.

AU, remoteness of untoward circ.u.mstance from means chosen, which A is just in the act of taking. Then, for lawful action, the reasonableness required in the end in view is represented by the variation--

[Ill.u.s.tration: UC . AE EV *varies* ------- AU ]

We observe that when AU is zero, while UC . AE remains a finite quant.i.ty (representing an appreciable evil), then EV becomes infinite: that is to say, when the distance, difference, or distinction between the evil circ.u.mstance and the means comes down to nothing at all, and the evil thing actually is the very means taken, then an infinite urgency of end in view would be requisite to justify the using of that means: in other words, no end possible to man can ever justify an evil means.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q.64, art. 6; Cardinal de Lugo, _De Just.i.tia et Jure_, disp. 10, n. 125.

SECTION II.--_Of Killing done Indirectly in Self-defence_.

1. On the question, whether it is lawful for one man to kill another in self-defence, St. Thomas writes (2a 2ae, q. 64, art. 7):

"There is nothing to hinder one act having two effects, of which one only is within the intention [and election] of the doer, while the other is beside his intention [and election, that is, is neither intended as an end nor elected as a means].... From the act therefore of one defending himself a twofold effect may follow, one the preservation of his own life, the other the killing of the aggressor.

Now such an act, in so far as the preservation of the doer's own life is intended, has no taint of evil about it, seeing that it is natural to everything to preserve itself in being as much as it can.

Nevertheless, an act coming of a good intention may be rendered unlawful, if it be not in proportion to the end in view. And therefore, if any one uses greater violence than is necessary for the defence of his life, it will be unlawful. But if he repels the violence in a moderate way, it will be a lawful defence: for according to the Civil and Canon Laws it is allowable _to repel force by force with the moderation of a blameless defence_. Nor is it necessary to salvation for a man to omit the act of moderate defence in order to avoid the killing of another; because man is more bound to take thought for his own life than for the life of his neighbour. But because to kill a man is not allowable except by act of public authority for the common good, it is unlawful for a man to intend [that is, elect and choose as a means] to kill another man in order to defend himself, unless he be one who has public authority, who intending [electing] to kill a man in order to his own defence, refers this to the public good."

2. The right then of self-defence even to the shedding of blood involves a mere exercise of indirect killing for a proportionably grave cause. The cause in question is the defence of your own life, or your friend's, or of some other good or possession that can weigh with life, as the honour and inviolability of your person, or a large sum of money. This must be in present danger of being taken away otherwise than in due course of justice. The danger must be present, and even imminent, not prospective. The right of self-defence even to the grievous harming of the aggressor, endures only while the danger from him is imminent, not when it is past, or the evil is already done. The right supposes no moral obliquity, no formal injustice on the part of the aggressor: he may be a madman making for you with a drawn sword.

Nay further, not even _material_ injustice--that is, the quality of an act which would be _formally_ unjust, if only the agent knew what he was about--is required. All that is requisite is that your life, or something equivalent to life, be threatened, _not in due course of law_.

3. The essential idea of self-defence is that of stopping a trespa.s.ser, one who, however innocently, is going about to trench on that good which you have a right to maintain and reserve to yourself.

It is then no act of authority that you perform, but the dealing of one private person with another. Indeed, the party stopped is hardly regarded as a person: no account is taken of his demerits: he is regarded simply as an abridger and diminisher of what you have a right to preserve intact. You stop a man as you stop a horse, only with more regard to _the moderation of a blameless self-defence_, not using more violence than is necessary here and now to preserve what you have to preserve.

4. The stopping, unfortunately, has often to be done in a hurry: there is no time to wait: for the next moment, unless you act promptly, it will be all too late, or all to no purpose, to act at all. Being done in a hurry, it has to be done in a rough-and-ready way, with such instruments as are to hand: you cannot afford to be nice about the means, carefully purifying them, and shaking off the dust of objectionable circ.u.mstances. Now to stop a man in mid career all on a sudden, to render him powerless where he was about to strike, motionless in the direction whither he was about to go, and that in an instant, is of common necessity a rude treatment, very dangerous to him who experiences it, and under some conceivable circ.u.mstances hopelessly fatal. Still the fatality--in plain words, the death of the aggressor--is not _directly willed_. It is neither _intended_ as an _end_, nor _chosen_ as a _means to an end_. It is not welcomed as an end and desirable consummation: on the contrary, it is put up with most reluctantly as coming from your act: for you, a private individual, have no right to will and effect the death of any man, however guilty, as will be proved hereafter. It is not chosen as a means: for, formally as his death, it is no means to your end, which was the averting of all present danger to your right. For that it was enough to _stop_ the trespa.s.ser; and you chose the means as a _stopping_ means, not as a _killing_ means. True, in stopping him you killed him, but you did not kill him to stop him. You struck him to stop him: that your blow was a mortal blow, was a circ.u.mstance which you did not choose and could not help. All killing then in self-defence is indirect.