Beware scientific summaries and abstracts in controversial issues!

It is currently uncertain how much Plan B — the “morning-after” pill, which is a type of emergency contraception — works because of effects that take place after fertilization (i.e. a method ethically completely unacceptable to many, since it would be viewed as destroying a human), rather than (for example) by merely inhibiting ovulation, so that no fertilization takes place.

I pointed out a while back that the scientific papers in this area are being widely misreported. This, alas,  is still continuing. A recent article on Slate by William Saletan (following up on an earlier article) complained about the Vatican’s recent document Dignitatis Personae, where it said:

In order to promote wider use of interceptive methods, it is sometimes stated that the way in which they function is not sufficiently understood. It is true that there is not always complete knowledge of the way that different pharmaceuticals operate, but scientific studies indicate that the effect of inhibiting implantation is certainly present, even if this does not mean that such interceptives cause an abortion every time they are used. …

Saletan complains that “certainly present” is not correct. And if that wording were to be taken in the sense: “utterly beyond question” or “completely verified by a wide range of  studies”, then I would agree with him. However, if it is taken in a sense such as: “current studies point to this”, then I do not.

Saletan points to a 2006 JAMA commentary (i.e. significantly not a peer-reviewed scientific article) which tries to summarize then-current research. This commentary has the same problem as many such commentaries and abstracts: although internal details of the papers referred to are themselves very cautious — because the necessary data doesn’t exist, or only exists in a poorly statistical way — nevertheless the commenter makes it sound as though there are definite conclusions to be found.

For example, the commentary says:

Evidence that would support direct involvement of endometrial damage or luteal dysfunction in Plan B’s contraceptive mechanism is either weak or lacking altogether.

But evidence can be lacking because it has been looked for in many ways, and across many studies, and not found; or it can not exist because the necessary studies are extremely difficult to do, for scientific and ethical reasons, and hence there is simply not much possibility of gathering data. In the current case, it’s the latter. Simply saying “evidence is weak or lacking altogether” fails to represent which situation applies, and thus fundamentally misreports the science. One might just as accurately pick this quote out of the commentary:

women should continue to be informed, as they are now in the Plan B labeling, that its use may affect post-fertilization events

But somehow Saletan fails to pick that quote.

A subsequent 2007 study pointed to evidence that post-fertilization effects are present, and concluded:

Either the actual clinical effectiveness is far lower than has been estimated in the literature to date or mechanisms of action other than ovulation disruption must be contributing
to the clinical effectiveness. In our opinion, both explanations are likely to be contributing to the observed discrepancy between the level of effectiveness that can be attributed to preovulatory effects and the effectiveness reported in clinical trials.

(Alas, also misreported elsewhere.)

Nothing on this is decided, nor is likely to in the near future. Until it is more reasonably decided, beware the summaries and the abstracts.

It seems like the anguished questions around the principle of double effect will never end. Another bout of them has cropped up in the comments on Mark Shea’s blog.

This time it deals with the difference between something being directly intended, and something being indirectly intended. (Of course, many of the commenters don’t realize that this is the issue, and use the word “intend” in ways that seem reasonable to them, but that were never … er … intended by the Church.)

As Pope Paul VI taught, and was repeated by John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor:

it is never lawful … to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order

The careful language immediately tips us off that there is some significant difference between something directly intended and something indirectly intended. What is the difference?

As one of many places to go, we can use Google Books, and dip back into a 19th Catholic text on moral philosophy. After explaining what direct intention means — it is that intention which is the motivation for an act, the thing wished for, the thing desired, the thing wanted, the goal that drives our actions —the author describes what indirect intention is:

But there may be other effects which the agent foresees or can foresee so related to the act, that, though he does not intend them, yet he consents to their taking place, inasmuch as he wills the act which, to his knowledge, is the cause or at least the occasion of these effects. Thus, in ordering a city to be bombarded, a general brings about, however reluctantly, the death of many non-combatants. Such an effect, he is said to permit, or to will indirectly.

As Veritatis Splendor indicates, the absolute prohibition on taking innocent life applies when taking the innocent life is the direct intention.

If you desire to kill an innocent, wish for it, plan for it, are made happy by the thought of one of these deaths, and fail to avoid such a death when there is no cost to avoiding it, then taking the innocent life is your direct intention.

But if you do everything possible to avoid such a death, are dismayed and dejected at the thought of such a death, look for every opportunity of achieving your other goals without causing such a death, and rethink whether your direct goals are even worth such a death, then taking an innocent life is an indirect intention.

This distinction between direct and indirect intention has, in various ways, been in the Church’s mind for a long time (it goes back to Aquinas, and even as far back as 1 Maccabees 6:43-46).

To muddle together direct intention and indirect intention leads only to incorrect conclusions — and quite horrible conclusions.

There is a troubling claim being made over on the Zippy Catholic blog. Consider the case of someone who has chosen to be permanently sterilized (for example, by a non-reversible vasectomy) so that they can have sex, but not children. The claim is being made that even if this person repents, they will never be able to have sex again without sinning. It’s claimed that this follows from various teachings, including Humanae Vitae and Veritatis Splendor.

A long discussion in the comments at that blog hasn’t resolved the matter. But the claim is false, and showing why this is so helps illuminate what a moral decision must always involve.

First, two things to note about the precise teaching of Humanae Vitae: it does not teach that choosing to engage in sex that is non-procreative is necessarily morally wrong. But, precisely, it does teach that to choose to do something that changes a sexual act into a non-procreative act is wrong – an actual act must be chosen that is intended to make the sexual act non-procreative. This act can take place before, during, or after the sex. It is choosing an act that makes the sex non-procreative that is an evil choice, and not merely the choice to engage in non-procreative sex.

(In support of this precision, we can see that the CDF, in a pronouncement in 1977, ruled that it was permissible for a sterile person to marry — consistent with the idea that just by engaging in non-procreative sex someone has not necessarily chosen a moral evil.)

If someone chooses do something to become sterile, so that they will not have children, then — as taught in Humanae Vitae —  they have made an evil choice. In this case, choosing the act that makes them sterile is the evil choice. Or, as a different example, if someone chooses to wear a condom during sex, they have also made an evil choice. In that case, choosing to wear the condom during sex is the evil choice, since it makes the act non-procreative.

In each case, for a moral evil to occur, a choice had to be freely made. In the two examples, the person chose to become sterile, or chose to wear the condom.

But now consider the case of someone who chose to make themselves sterile some time previously, but has subsequently genuinely repented of that decision. When he later engages in sex, does he commit a moral evil contrary to Humanae Vitae? No, because he is not freely choosing to do anything that causes that later sex act to be non-procreative. To point to what is contrary to Humanae Vitae, one must point to an actual choice that makes sex non-procreative. The man did make such a free choice back in time, which was wrong. But in later sex, even though the sex is non-procreative, there is no later choice of an act that makes the sex non-procreative.

Without a choice being free, it does not have the possibility of being a moral choice, whether evil or good.

(One objection that needs to be covered: since the action of the repentant man is the same as that of an unrepentant man, then one might conclude that both must sin, since intentions and circumstances make no difference to the morality of the act in question (which is an intrinsic evil). But this doesn’t take into account that the repentant man and unrepentant man do not have the same capability for choosing freely. Whether a choice is free is something distinct from intentions and circumstances.)

As a follow-up to my previous posting, I am commenting on the relevant parts of the Pope's statement on providing food and water to those in a persistent vegetative state (PVS):

I cordially greet all of you who took part in the International Congress: "Life-Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas".

I quote this because it sets the scene for what caused the Pope's statement to come about — the treatment of those in a PVS.

I feel the duty to reaffirm strongly that the intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being do not change, no matter what the concrete circumstances of his or her life. A man, even if seriously ill or disabled in the exercise of his highest functions, is and always will be a man, and he will never become a "vegetable" or an "animal".

I.e. those in a PVS have just as much human dignity and intrinsic value as any one-day old child, or any Pope, or any blogger.

The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery.

That is the primary teaching contained in the Pope's statement as it applies to those in a PVS. It is exceptionally clear.

Then, two secondary statements are made, so as to clear up some confusions in this area. For some have said, in effect: "Surely the provision of food and water to those unable to do it for themselves is a medical act, and should be considered as one of the possible medical acts that may or may not be given to those in a PVS?" And the Pope says:

I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act.

Which settles that. And note that this secondary statement applies to more than just those in a PVS.

And then some have, in effect, said: "Surely the provision of food and water is sometimes an extraordinary act, not normal care, and thus not always morally obligatory." And the Pope clarifies the issues here, saying:

Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality …

Which says that the provision of food and water (provided that the purposes of food and water are actually being achieved) is always ordinary care, and thus morally obligatory. And this applies to more than just those in a PVS.

… which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.

And to give an example as it relates directly to those in a PVS, the Pope indicates the purposes ("finality") of food and water as being to provide nourishment (so as to maintain life and health) and to prevent suffering (which the removal of food and water would cause). So long as the food and water is achieving some of its purpose, it is ordinary and morally obligatory care.

Over at Vox Nova, a blogger somehow manages to de-clarify the clear teaching of the Pope as it relates to the nutrition and hydration of of those in a persistent vegetative state (such as was Terry Schiavo).

The Pope's statement on this can be read here, and it is worth looking at how the blog posting manages to make such a clear statement somehow less clear:

Pope John Paul II weighed in on this issue in May 2004. In a short allocution, he argued that…

The Pope was teaching, not arguing.

But this statement should be interpreted not as some new innovation…

But it doesn't really matter if it was an innovation — it isn't something at odds with previous teaching, and it provided great clarity in a potentially confusing area.

One implication of the pope's statement is that the case for withdrawing tubes from patients in persistent vegetative states may be less clear than for other cases…

On reading the Pope's statement, the exact opposite is the case: for patients in a persistent vegetative state, it is perfectly clear that removal of nutrition/hydration is not permissible.

Note also the two conditions listed by the pope: providing nourishment, and alleviation of suffering. It could be argued that Terry Schiavo was not suffering.

I cannot for the life of me see that the Pope was intending to state that both conditions had to be fulfilled for food and water to be allowable. Food and water are provided so as to keep the body alive, and to prevent suffering due to lack of food and water. Both are needs. (And if Schiavo were not suffering, this would be even less reason to remove food and water.)

As I noted, the area suffers from a grave lack of clarity.

As described by the blogger, surely so. But not if the Pope's statement is read as teaching.

Or could it [nutrition and hydration] have been seen as extraordinary treatment, given that she was suffering from severe brain damage and was not cognizant of her surroundings?

Anyone reading the whole of the Pope's teaching statement could not realistically be left in doubt about the answer to that question.

The hymn America the Beautiful seems to be controversial when sung within a Catholic church. But it is hard to discern why:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America contains many good things; it would be hard to contest that. And if it were contested, I could simply look out of my window and see them for myself.

America! America!

Here some seem to think that the words mean that the hymn is addressed to something non-existent thing that is an idol. But it's simply addressed to people in America.

God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

After setting out some of the good things it possesses, the writer now implores God to give grace as well to America. It's a hymn. It's a prayer. Although all those physical things mentioned at the beginning of the hymn are genuinely good, but they need to be completed, crowned, by what is most important: complete brotherhood throughout the country. And it is God that is the source of that.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!

Like good verse, more than one thing is referred to here: both the westward trek (by foot, or wagon, or train) in America's history — but, but more importantly, also the repeated voices calling for freedom ("stern", "stress", "beat").

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

But again, appeal is made to God. Flaws still exist: souls lack self-control: freedom must be embedded in the people. This is not a perfect America, and it needs God.

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife.
Who more than self the country loved
And mercy more than life!

Gaining freedom may require sacrifice, and the writer refers to John 15:13.

May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

But still God is needed to refine what good is possessed, so that success is defined as nobleness (a personal quality, and not an external possession), and gains are not physical or financial, but measured by God.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!

And here the writer looks forward past any success that may be had in this world, to a future Heavenly city ("beyond the years", "undimmed by tears" as in Rev 21:1-4).

God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

Again the writer refers through but past any history of discovery in America, and asks for God-given paths through all the wilds that still exist in thinking.

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life !

Both wars are referred to, the Revolutionary and the Civil; sacrifices for freedom.

God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

And still the writer asks for flaws to be fixed, and a selfish America to be given grace.

Who could walk away from such sentiments? Would they not walk away from both America and the Church?

(Written July 4th 2007, within sight of Pike's Peak, and within sight of the amber waves, purple mountains, and fruited plains, by someone not in the slightest American.)

The cafeteria model of Catholicism (i.e. look at the line-up of official teachings, pick up just the ones that look tasty to you, and leave the rest untouched behind the counter) is radically flawed. It's all dessert and no vegetables: flawed because since it's through the Church that salvation arrives to us,  picking and choosing like that risks missing out some substantial part of what is intended for us — perhaps something eternally valuable. We need salvation because we are the problem, and possess no solution unless it is given to us.

The Catholic social doctrine on immigration is not well understood by many. Likely that is for lack of reading, and not for any lack of writing by the Church. This present post prompted by a flawed posting in the blog The Cafeteria is Closed, but the same flawed idea could be found in many other places.

The flaw is the excessive regard for the sovereignty of a nation. The laws made by a nation are not important above all, but are themselves subject to moral requirements. The complaints made by The Cafeteria is Closed are about the ignoring of the law:

It's not the immigration policy that has created "a large underclass", it's the ignoring of the immigration policy that created it. Ignoring by, in no particular order, a) government, which doesn't have the balls to enforce the border, b) business, that continues to knowingly hire illegals and c) illegal immigrants who disrespect American sovereignty.

What's complained about in the above list of complaints is evidently law-breaking. But not even the slightest attention is paid as to whether the law is itself fully just. Because if the law is not just, then obedience is not required — in fact, for a well-formed conscience, disobedience may sometimes be required.

So we must at least ask the question: are there occasions in which a person morally must move to a different country, even if the accepting country has a law against it? What circumstances could lead to this?

Think of the fundamental unit of society: the family. The family has basic necessities: they must be fed, housed in decent conditions, given medical attention, educated, allowed to worship freely, and be protected by the law. If a family lives somewhere on the earth at point A, lacks some basic necessity, and can solve the problem by moving to point B without depriving some other family of these basic necessities, then it is just for it to move. It would be unjust to prevent the move. (Catechism #2241).

If country B has a law against such a move, then it is an unjust law. More so if country B has an excess of resources. That country has created an underclass. Those who move in order to satisfy basic necessities — which is a just move — are placed by their adoptive country in a contradictory position: their move is just, but their status is illegal.

Both the law and the requirements of migrants must be taken into account. Dessert and vegetables.

As far as I can tell, the blogger Morning's Minion (MM), on the blog Vox Nova (for example, here and here), is one of many that have not grasped all of the teaching in (e.g.) the encyclical Veritatis Splendor. He says:

Take abortion and torture, two instrinsically evil acts. If one chooses torture instead of abortion on the grounds that it is the "lesser evil", then one is engaging in the kind of proportionalism condemned by John Paul in Veritatis Splendour.

Firstly, one can never choose to perform any evil, under any circumstances. So, one can never perform abortion, and one can never perform torture. Choosing one over the other still leaves an evil act being performed: whichever act is chosen, it is still evil, and no appeal to proportionalism is needed to see this.

When MM refers to "the lesser evil", this is the principle that a lesser evil can sometimes be tolerated, provided it occurs as the unintended and indirect consequence of directly choosing a greater good (or avoiding a greater evil). It may be that MM is only intending to cover that case. But what is that case?

A classic example: an out-of-control train is traveling down a track which will shortly fork into two directions. The driver can choose to go left, with the result that one innocent person will be killed. Or the driver can go to the right, with the result that ten innocent people will be killed. Moral theology allows that the driver can deliberately choose to go to the left.

This is sometimes called "choosing the lesser evil" (one person dies rather than ten), but this can be a very misleading terminology. It is much clearer to call it "choosing the greatest possible good". By going to the left, the driver is choosing to save ten innocent people — and saving people is a good thing to do. The driver's choice in going left is good. The choice does imply that one innocent person will die, but this is unintended, indirect, and the chosen good is proportionately larger than the foreseen evil.

It's in this sense that one can choose a lesser evil over a greater one — provided the lesser evil is unintended, indirect, and occurs through some kind of force (in the same way that the train was out-of-control).

MM goes on:

But if the act of voting itself is not intrinsically evil, and you do not share in the intent to either abort babies or torture people, then proportional considerations can come into play.

Before looking at what proportionate reasons there might be, it is well to consider that fact that the support for abortion can potentially include three intrinsic evils:

1. it encourages abortions to actually be carried out;
2. it fails to put into place the protection of the innocent from murder;
3. it proclaims that an evil is a good.

MM then says:

a legitimate prudential judgment could well be to support the pro-abortion candidate on the grounds that he or she would not affect any increase in abortion

While that would take into account reason (1) given above, it does nothing to avoid the evils of (2) and (3).

The Catholic Answers website deals with various kinds of Catholic apologetics, and one of its resources is a Voter's Guide, which has occasionally been controversial. For example, a posting on the new blog Vox Nova recently complained about the Guide, though those complaints were rather outdated,  since they were aimed at what a version of the Guide used to say a few years ago (in 2004), rather than at the current version of the Guide — which has been significantly modified since that time. Nevertheless, it is worth looking at the current Guide, since it is not without problems.

The Guide picks five "non-negotiable issues" to highlight: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual marriage. Clearly, those are important issues, but why those five issues, and not others? The reason the Guide gives is that those issues involve intrinsic evils. Actions are intrinsic evils if there is no moral way of choosing to perform them, whatever the circumstances or intentions. Thus, it is never possible to choose to vote for these intrinsic evils to be performed, and the Guide suggests ranking politicians according to their position on these issues, and selecting a vote depending on the ranking.

But the Guide's method of selecting issues is based on secondary principles, rather than on what is primary. A primary principle would have to be:

So, when selecting a candidate to vote for, first the issues should be sorted into those which are a matter of opinion, and those which are a matter of conscience.

 For example, if one candidate is in favor of building two hospitals and three schools, and the other is in favor of building three hospitals and two schools, then in most circumstances it would be a matter of opinion as to which is the best policy. You wouldn't be thinking to yourself: "Well I better decide which is truly the right policy, else I will be sinning."

However, for those who have a Catholic conscience, if one candidate is in favor of permitting abortion, and the other is not, then the choice is simple: the pro-abortion policy is unacceptable, since it is an intrinsic evil, and you would certainly be sinning to favor that policy. And likewise for all intrinsic evils.

But it's not just intrinsic evils which can affect our consciences, and allow us to choose between proposed policies. Some policies can be evil, even though they are not intrinsically evil.

For example, a government is permitted to collect taxes, even if those taxes are applied unequally to people — this is not an intrinsic evil. But if a politician suggested a policy of taxing only poor people, it could be opposed, in conscience, as being unjust.

So, since non-intrinsic evils can also be opposed to our conscience, it is entirely right to also include them in our considerations of who to support, along with intrinsic evils.

Once the issues have been sorted into those of opinion, and those of conscience, we must then follow our conscience, and use issues of conscience to rank candidates. To the extent that the Guide does not make allowance for non-intrinsic evils that may affect our consciences, it gives incomplete advice.

The Catholic Church has declared that torture is intrinsically — always — wrong. But it is not totally clear what constitutes torture, and what does not. The subject regularly crops on on places like Mark Shea's blog, which has still not come up with a useful definition. Instead, Mark offers four suggestions for coming up with a definition (so that he doesn't actually define torture, but indirectly offers places that a definition might be found):

Try a dictionary

Well the Oxford English Dictionary offers the following as a definition: "The infliction of severe bodily pain, as punishment or a means of persuasion". That has problems: what does "severe" mean? Different people might legitimately have different subjective opinions about that, and that is incompatible with the notion of torture being something intrinsically wrong.

Consult the Geneva Conventions

But who were the people who came up with the Geneva Conventions, and why should we trust them?

Ask a cop. They have regulations which govern their treatment of prisoners.

Which cops?

Check the Army Field Manual on how to treat prisoners.

Which army, and which version of which manual, and why?

I'm of the opinion that Mark considers the definition of torture as something requiring only a limited amount of common-sense, and consequently that attempts to ask for something more precise are symptomatic of a wish to evade awkward questions about political and practical conduct. He may be right about that for some people, but not for all. In which case the lack of a definition hurts his cause (which is in fact my cause, since we share the Church's cause, and belief in its teaching). I'm extremely dubious that his approach is capable of coming up with a definition that is an intrinsic one, and not merely subjective.

I suggested an approach to an actual definition before, and would like to tune it further. I start from this principle:

It is always morally wrong to inflict pain on someone that is not to their direct benefit.

To clarify this (particularly the word "direct"), we need to consider some hypothetical cases:

• Suppose I vaccinate someone against a disease via a painful injection.  Can that be allowable? Surely so, because the direct result is that the person has received a chance of not getting the disease.
• Suppose I give someone a unwilling painful injection, with its only purpose being the intention of subsequently giving them $1000 as compensation. Is that allowable? No, because there is no direct link between the $1000 and the pain. (You could give them the $1000 without the injection, or you could change your mind after the injection.)
• Suppose I put someone in prison (after a just verdict) as punishment for a crime. Is that allowable? Yes, because it directly gives them the opportunity of redressing (in various ways) the disorder caused by the offense.

What then is torture? It would be the morally-wrong infliction of severe pain.

But doesn't such a definition leave itself open to the objection that "severe" isn't defined, and would be subjective? No, because in this case "severe" doesn't determine whether the action is morally wrong; even such actions below the level of severe are morally wrong.

The role of conscience

Besides torture being wrong, the Church has also taught (in Veritatis Splendor) that attempts to coerce the spirit are always wrong. This means attempts to coerce a person into acting against his conscience. In ordinary secular matters of crime, this is hardly ever of significance — criminals rarely steal because their conscience tells them to.

But during wars, it is much more common for conscience to be an issue. It is not unheard of for both sides in a war to be convinced that they are fighting because it is morally right to fight. In such cases, it is much easier to offend by an attempt at coercion. If I say to someone convinced of the rightness of their cause: "If you tell me your army's plans, I will give you a house and money," then I am wrongly attempting to coerce them to act against their conscience. Such cases do not get the attention necessary, though they are currently very relevant.

Although many posts have referred to issues of prudential judgment — especially as it relates to issues of politics, war, and capital punishment — few of them are especially clear about exactly what prudential judgment is.

To begin with: what is prudence? As is usual, if Aquinas has something to say on the matter, it will be particularly helpful. He says that prudence is "right reason as applied to action". Prudence is a practical matter, an application of good reasoning as to which actions should be undertaken in particular circumstances. Prudence does not consider the goals of our actions, but rather the means by which we will achieve those goals.

In general, prudence may involve the use of ordinary pragmatic reasoning. If the weather forecast is for heavy rain, it may be prudent to have an umbrella handy. That is prudence as applied to a pragmatic problem. But also — depending on the issue — moral reasoning may be involved. That is because prudence is right reasoning, and correct reasoning must always be based on the right morals. Thus it is never prudent to consider immoral means to achieve any goal.

In general, the use of prudence may involve combining both pragmatic and moral reasoning. If the forecast is for rain, it is not prudent to steal an umbrella, since protecting the body at the expense of harming the soul is never prudent. Right reasoning would see that though the body is protected for a short time against the rain, this is insufficient reason to harm the eternal soul.

Does the Church make prudential judgments? Certainly. Very many. Some examples:

• in the exercise of canon law, both pragmatic and moral reasoning is involved. At a marriage tribunal, where the validity of a marriage is being determined, the Church is using right reasoning  both in defending a marriage bond if it exists (moral reasoning), while also investigating the pragmatic circumstances of the marriage (for which, perhaps a psychologist or a doctor is consulted, not for their moral opinion but for their pragmatic opinion).
• even more commonly, prudential judgments are made in sacramental confessions. The priest may listen to the pragmatic circumstances surrounding a potential sin, and then make a ruling as to whether it is a sin or not.

So, with this full sense of prudential (involving both pragmatic and moral reasoning), the Church certainly makes prudential judgments, and Catholics can be required to assent to those rulings.

It is sometimes claimed that though the Church has the ability to require Catholics to assent to moral rulings, it has not authority to require them to assent to pragmatic rulings. While there is a sense in which this is true, there is a sense in which it is false. Hence some disentangling is needed.

It is true that the Church has some areas on which her opinion is not authoritative. For example, deciding on the chances of rain tomorrow is left to a meteorologist, not the Pope, since it is a purely pragmatic issue. In contrast, what kinds of killing are wrong is a moral matter, over which the Church has authority to make moral rulings.

But (as we have seen in the bullet list above), the Church may make use of pragmatic reasoning prior to making a moral ruling. That kind of combined reasoning is not purely pragmatic, and can come under the authority of the Church.

The #2267 death penalty controversy

A timely example: controversy has recently arisen over a particular prudential judgment that can be found in the Catechism (#2267):

Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

 There is an argument there, of the form:

1. Do not apply the death penalty unless it is necessary for the safety of society;
2. It is very rare for the condition in (1) to be true;
3. Therefore, the application of the death penalty will be very rare.

 Objection is sometimes made that though (1) is a moral ruling, since (2) is a pragmatic judgment, the conclusion offered in (3) cannot amount to something that requires the assent of Catholics, since it relies on a pragmatic judgment. This is not correct. As we have seen in the bulleted list towards the beginning of this post, the Church is (and always has been) capable of making rulings based partly on a pragmatic assessment of particular circumstances. The kind of argument given in #2267 of the Catechism is of the same type, and (given its clear authority expressed by placing it both in an encyclical and the Catechism), requires assent — in the same way that rulings made in confession, and marriage-tribunal rulings require assent.

Fact and law and the Jansenists

A related kind of challenge to Church teaching, as described in the prior section, has been seen before in Church history. In summary: In the 17th century a Jansenist had written down in a book some teachings. The Pope read the book, and presented a list of condemned propositions he found in the book. To evade condemnation of the book, the Jansenists replied by claiming that while all the Pope's moral condemnations were of course completely correct, the condemned propositions were not actually to be found in the book, and furthermore (since the Jansenists really, really did not want the book to be condemned) that reading and understanding a book was only a pragmatic matter, and thus was not something that the Pope had authority to rule on.

The Pope replied by authoritatively asserting that he really did have the ability to read and understand a book, and the subsequent power, if necessary, to condemn a book specifically.

(This is not some kind of strange historical vignette. A very similar issue rose about a decade ago.)

The Church's social doctrine

Why care about #2267? Because the Church has a rather large amount of social doctrine that has been extremely poorly understood or adapted into the actions of lay Catholics (despite the fact that a Pope has ruled that the Church's social doctrine is a part of its moral theology). If #2267 is rejected as "merely pragmatic", rather than a teaching that should be assented to, there is the risk that some or all of the Church's social doctrine may be treated similarly. This would be a
disaster.

A recent article by Stephen Bainbridge in TCS Daily goes into some of the teaching of the Catholic Church on the death penalty, but does not really clarify things quite fully enough. For example, he says:

…the Catechism does not ban the death penalty per se. Instead, it leaves open room for the exercise of prudential judgment with respect to the question of whether, in a particular case, "bloodless means" will not be "sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons."

But that is not a sufficient summary of what is left up to prudence. For the Catechism also says:

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.

So, if someone should come up with a prudential judgment that all, or most, murderers should receive the death penalty, that would not be a legitimate use of prudence, since it would be a judgment radically at odds with the one that the Catechism teaches. The exercise of prudential judgment on this issue is thus not left wide open, but constrained by the teaching of the Catechism.

Bainbridge also says:

Cardinal Renato's pronouncements on Saddam's execution reflect his own prudential judgment, but they need not be regarded as Magisterial teachings to which the faithful are obliged to give religious assent. Instead, faithful Catholics may exercise their own prudential judgment on that issue.

Bainbridge's complaint as it relates to Cardinal Martino's pronouncements on the death penalty — where Martino had said that "no one can give death, not even the state"— is that it appears to contradict Church teaching. Now (putting aside the amazing issue as to whether Bainbridge is in fact accusing Martino of teaching against the Church, or merely coming up with some prudential judgment that Bainbridge happens to disagree with) we can look a little further into the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where it deals with the case where someone may have to be killed as a matter of self defense:

Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason.

Where someone must be killed as a matter of self-defense (which is the only reason for capital punishment allowed by the Catechism), the outcome is not a choice that has been placed in the hands of the state, but something where choice has been taken away by the actions of the aggressor. So indeed, it is not up to the state to freely choose whether to give the death penalty or not, since it is the actions of the aggressor which may necessitate the penalty. The quote from Martino is quite defensible as a part of Catholic teaching.

In reply to a follow-up here, another posting on Sacramentum Vitae raises a rather large number of issues, but I will confine myself to replying only to what seem to me to be the substantial ones. Michael says:

Now I had also asserted that Aquinas justified the "torture" as well as the execution of heretics. Paul naturally asked me to document that assertion; and of course I can't, because Aquinas never said anything about it. Yet the torture of heretics was not exactly uncommon in his day and was quite well known to Aquinas. And so my statement is really the conclusion of an argument from silence, whereby I take Aquinas' silence as consent. Admittedly, that kind of argument is pretty weak.

I asked for a reference for that assertion because I had never seen Aquinas write anything on torture, nor had I seen a quote from him mentioned in any of the numerous postings around the blogs when torture was being discussed. The issue that my question flagged is not one that requires making any kind of estimate — weak or otherwise — of what it was that Aquinas might have thought about torture. It was that your posting would give the ordinary reader the impression that Aquinas had indeed written something on this topic, and that this writing had stated that "obstinate, public heretics should be tortured". But in fact, as you say, he wrote nothing about torture, and the ordinary reader would come to the wrong conclusion about Aquinas if they accepted the statement at face value.

Also in relation to Aquinas:

it must be admitted that the Church's teaching about capital punishment has developed in the direction of much greater strictness about it. As Cardinal Dulles makes clear, that development occurred only in the latter half of the 20th century. Aquinas, for instance, wrote that …if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good, since "a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump" (ST IIa-IIae, q. 64, a. 2).

Though, one can look at that and see only that Aquinas wrote in one set of circumstances, and current Church teaching has taken into account that fact that the techniques available to society have altered: specifically (as Evangelium Vitae says) "as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system". Because of his particular social circumstances Aquinas saw the necessity of keeping safe from dangerous and infectious people (i.e. those threatening the lives of society) as being satisfied only by their execution. But we have access to different methods. Aquinas simply does not take our possibilities into account — it would be science-fiction for him. But the fact that cutting off from society can be necessary, and the given reasons for that cutting off from society, have not changed. And in that way there is no contradiction between Aquinas and current teaching. (Take away such a penal system and techniques as we have, and what Aquinas says could become operational again.)

[Aquinas] position invokes a certain notion of social harm, such that prevention of such harm sometimes suffices to justify the death penalty. One must admit that if, as I concede, the Church's developed teaching today is binding, he went too far with that definition. Without it, he would not have justified the execution of heretics, in an era when heresy was a civil crime, as well as certain other kinds of criminals; yet as Dignitatis Humanae makes clear enough, the Church today clearly rules out the death penalty for heretics even in a Catholic state.

But Dignitatis Humanae does not absolutely rule out the death penalty for heretics. Religious rights are not absolute, but — as Dignitatis Humanae makes clear — still contingent on "just public order". If that were breached, penalties could be applied up and including the death penalty, provided that the heretics had performed actions genuinely deserving of death, with no possibility of protecting society otherwise. That may be extremely unlikely in modern circumstances, as the Pope makes clear. But circumstances can change.

I had criticized something written by Robert T. Miller in First Things, on the grounds that Miller makes an unqualified claim that empirical claims made by the Church about the state of the world can never require more than respect from Catholics. Michael thinks it obvious that:

The context of Miller's remarks make clear that he is speaking of empirical judgments in the political arena that can be reasonably disputed.

And having read Miller's remarks numerous more times, I cannot agree with Michael. If Miller is limiting his claims only to such judgments as can be "reasonably" disputed, that immediately raises the question as to what criteria Miller is using to decide whether a particular claim is reasonable or non-reasonable. But Miller never answers that question. He does indicate that intrinsic evils can't be reasonably disputed (because they plainly don't depend on empirical circumstances at all). But beyond that he gives no criteria for deciding on reasonableness.

Look at these sentences in the Catechism (#2267), that Miller quotes:

Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”

And what Miller says about them is this:

The first two sentences concern morals, but the third sentence is an empirical claim about the state of the world and so is not about morals. The first two sentences are thus, at the very least, doctrina catholica, which Catholics must accept with a religious submission of will and intellect. The third sentence, however, is not; it need only be respected and considered in forming one’s conscience.

It is plain that Miller's stated criteria is to look at a sentence in the Catechism, and if it is an empirical claim about the state of the world, then he would see that its only claim on the conscience of Catholics is that they "respect" and "consider" it. He simply gives no other criteria. However, the criteria Miller gives can't possibly apply to all empirical claims since (as I said in a previous post) that would remove the Church's canonical authority to make empirical claims about things like (e.g.) the validity of sacraments, and have that decision received by the faithful with religious assent (which is more than just respect). So what Miller writes is logically wrong. It could be the case that Miller himself says something like, in effect: "But I also intended that …". But there is, as far as I know, nothing like that.

As written, Miller's article can't be correct — you can't just look at a sentence in the Catechism and decide that if it is only an empirical claim about the state of the world then it need only be deserving of respect. That's false. Now Michael seems to propose that Miller must obviously have some other criteria in mind that limits what he says only to "reasonably disputable" claims. But I see nothing in Miller to indicate that he thinks this, and Michael also does not say what this extra criteria might be (though he seems to implicitly admit that it must exist).

Michael goes on to say:

almost the entire dispute among Catholics these days about particular instances of capital punishment hinge on whether that sentence [ed. the third sentence from the Catechism, as quoted above] is (a) true; (b) whether or not true, binding on Catholics in the sense of requiring "religious submission"; and (c) if binding, whether its application to specific cases by Church officials is also binding in that sense. Now I believe (a) and (b) and have made that clear before. So the only point of contention is when an affirmative answer to (c) is warranted.

We are in agreement on (a) and (b). As for (c), it's too open-ended a question, and I think an answer can only be given when the specific circumstances are given.

Addressing me, Michael also says:

… [Paul] seems to take for granted that the only sort of social harm that could conceivably suffice, in certain circumstances, to justify capital punishment is lethal, physical aggression by the convict himself.

But I had said nothing that limited the harm to just that. What kinds of harm to society by the aggressor did the Pope have in mind? Evidently, whatever kinds that would be prevented by placing the convict in prison — else the Pope's prudential judgment quoted above would not make any sense. (For example, if the convict's words were somehow a threat to the lives of society, keeping him incommunicado in prison would prevent this. If necessary because of circumstances, he could also be shipped to a far-distant location, or an unknown one. Modern techniques allow all kinds of possibilities, if the will is there.)

Whatever "harm" might mean, it cannot be legitimately be a definition that would be incompatible with the Pope's prudential decision.

As for what Michael quotes Cardinal Dulles saying here, it in fact goes a long way towards supporting what I have been saying. Here is the relevant paragraph from Dulles:

Capital punishment is obviously an effective way of preventing the wrongdoer from committing future crimes and protecting society from him. Whether execution is necessary is another question. One could no doubt imagine an extreme case in which the very fact that a criminal is alive constituted a threat that he might be released or escape and do further harm. But, as John Paul II remarks in Evangelium vitae (EV 56), modem improvements in the penal system have made it extremely rare for execution to be the only effective means of defending society against the criminal.

Evidently Dulles has a very similar understanding of "harm" to mine — harm that would occur if the aggressor was not confined to prison. There is no support for a wider understanding of "harm" than that.

Michael Liccione at the Sacramentum Vitae blog has replied to my previous posting, and his reply needs addressing here, since it did not quite seem to meet the points I raised. So, I suspect that I should say more around certain issues, to try to clarify them. Michael summarizes my posting as:

Paul insists that Catholics must submit to judgments such as Martino's, which certainly reflects the Pope's.

I am not sure how Cardinal Martino has entered this discussion. He was not mentioned in the posting by Robert Miller that I was replying to, nor did I mention him in my reply, nor was I particularly thinking of anything he himself had said. In fact, my reply had two aims: firstly, to counter Robert Miller's claims about the Church's role in the judgment of circumstances, and secondly to better describe Catholic responses to prudential claims such as the ones made about capital punishment by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, also to be found in the Catechism.

It seems to me that Miller's argument can be split into two parts. The first part is (and these are not his actual words, but my summary of them): "Suppose that the Church authoritatively teaches that when action A is performed under circumstances C, then it is sinful. Then a Catholic must assent to that moral statement." So far, no problem. But he follows this up with: "But judging whether the circumstances C actually hold is a prudential judgment that the Church has no special authority for. So the Church's opinion on whether circumstances C do actually hold must be given respect, but it's never required to give it more than respect." And it is this part that is problematic — the first sentence is ambiguous, and the second sentence is false.

To counter Miller's very general claim, it is (following the rules of logic) only necessary to come up with some particular scenario in which the Church's prudential judgment must be given more than respect. Such a scenario can be seen by referring to the CDF document referred to in the previous posting. There is says, in relation to teachings which do necessitate the religious submission of will and intellect (which is certainly more than respect):

A proposition contrary to these doctrines can be qualified as erroneous or, in the case of teachings of the prudential order, as rash or dangerous and therefore "tuto doceri non potest".

Hence, there are some teachings of the prudential order (i.e. which require judgment of circumstances) which require more than respect. Hence Miller's claim fails.

The CDF document does say something about how a Catholic can decide which teachings of the prudential order require a religious submission of intellect and will:

one can point in general to teachings set forth by the authentic ordinary Magisterium in a non-definitive way, which require degrees of adherence differentiated according to the mind and the will manifested; this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression.

Since the prudential judgment that the necessity for capital punishment is nowadays "very rare, if not practically non-existent" has been made both in the encyclical of a Pope, and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it easily satisfies such a requirement.

If that were not enough, then there is always the Instruction On The Ecclesial Vocation Of The Theologian , which says:

in order to serve the People of God as well as possible, in particular, by warning them of dangerous opinions which could lead to error, the Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements. It often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent.
The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the Magisterium on matters per se not irreformable must be the rule.

And that is also more than just respect.

Michael also provides two quotes from then-Cardinal Ratzinger:

There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty

But that simply does not say that all such opinions are legitimate (which is the sense that many seem to take it in).

And:

if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion

That says that disagreeing with the Pope is not, by itself, sufficient reason for being unworthy — but it does not say that there are no grounds for being unworthy. For example, suppose someone disagreed with the Pope on the necessity for some particular abortion — we would not have to investigate the circumstances before immediately concluding that they were wrong. But if they disagreed with the Pope on the necessity for some particular execution, we would have to investigate the the circumstances to see if it was a legitimate disagreement. But not all disagreements are legitimate. (To a give a concrete example: suppose some ruler made the decision that only poor people could be executed. It would be wrong to regard that as a legitimate prudential disagreement with the Pope.)

Michael also says:

Yet Paul's argument is a simple non-sequitur. From the fact that the Church must, in some cases, make empirical judgments in the course of making prudential judgments that call for religious submission, it does not follow that the empirical judgments of her duly constituted leaders today in all cases, and therefore the cases of war and capital punishment, call for such submission.

As I indicated above, the reason for finding any occasion on which an empirical judgment still necessitated religious submission was so as to destroy the generality of Miller's argument. The argument is certainly not a non-sequitur when viewed as it was intended. (And it seems that you implicitly agree that Miller's argument is not as general as he claims.)

And:

For example, supposing that the circumstances today which would warrant capital punishment are very rare, they might not be quite so rare as Pope John Paul II believed.

Even if so, that would not be grounds for negating a necessity for religious submission.

And:

The argument Paul gives to the contrary would work just as well as an argument that Catholics in the Middle Ages and beyond were obligated to render religious submission of intellect and will to the proposition, maintained by Thomas Aquinas and applied by many popes, that obstinate, public heretics should be tortured and/or executed as a necessity for the common good.

I am not aware of anywhere that Aquinas says that heretics should be tortured. Could you supply the exact reference? Aquinas did defend the execution of heretics, but did this in the context of the defense of society (a teaching which is still accepted by the Church), and not having access to today's penal techniques, he did not particularly take into consideration other defenses. (Actually, I don't understand what your counter-example is intended to demonstrate.)