For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his
soul? –Mark 8:36
While inferior in most ways to a printed journal, there are things unique
to the internet that I do enjoy about this weblog. Chief of these is the
conversation that follows the initial posting of an essay. When writing for
Caelum et Terra, the magazine, I did not think twice if a bit of
writing did not generate a letter to the editor. When writing for Caelum et
Terra, the online entity, however, if a post does not spur a vigorous
discussion I think I must have done something wrong. Indeed, I must resist the
temptation to be deliberately provocative.
But there is one recurring response in these conversations that has long
bothered me and which I would like to now address.
That is, when we, the usual suspects, are offering our various
philosphical, theological or prophetic critiques of some act or other, sooner or
later someone demands that the critic produce some sort of practical policy
statement: "So; you think torture is wrong. Just how do you propose to
effectively interrogate suspected terrorists?" Or "So you think warfare which
kills large numbers of civilians is immoral? Do you have an efficient strategy
for victory that you do consider moral?"
Usually the response to these demands is a restatement of general moral
principle, which seems to confirm the challenger’s opinion that these Caelum et
Terra wise guys have no real-world answers and little right to criticize.
In fact this misses the point.
This is a place for cultural, moral, and political commentary and
conversation. It is not a public policy center or a think tank.
The one who offers philosophical or theological analysis- or the more
direct and intuitive prophetic witness- is bound by fidelity to reason or to the
Word of God. He is not necessarily bound to prescribe means to achieve worldly
ends, however noble. He needs to be faithful to his vocation, not necessarily to
aspire to the vocation of others.
Was Moses to be dismissed if he could not offer an economic model that
would minimize the social disruption that freeing the Hebrew slaves would
effect?
Was John the Baptist to be ignored as irrelevant if he could not offer
Herod’s paramour marital counselling?
It is, however, the obligation of those whose vocations involve public
responsibility for the common good- or the common defense- to make sure that
both their ends and the means chosen to attain those ends are in conformity to
the moral law.
This may mean rethinking things rather thoroughly and creatively and it
may, perhaps, even mean at times acknowledging that ther may be no moral means
to achieve a particular good end.
Note that I am not in principle admitting this to be true; indeed it seems
evident to me that evil means reap evil, if unintended, ends. Sin begets sin,
violence begets violence. Think of the near century-long playing out of the
ramifications of World War I: the resentment of the German people led directly
to World War II, and we are only beginning to see the results of the destruction
of the Ottoman Empire and the subjegation and division of the Muslim world that
followed that war.
To choose sinful means is often the first choice of sinful man, and it
always comes back to haunt him.
To paraphrase Chesterton yet again, perhaps virtue has not been tried and
found wanting; rather it has not been tried.
But what if we admit for the sake of argument that sometimes victory over
some evil cannot be attained without resorting to evil means?
We are Catholics, and thus not seperatists who believe that the Church
exists in a different dimension than "the world". Nevertheless we admit that
there remains in the end a tension between Church and World, between the City of
God and the CIty of Man.
By nature holistic, Catholics believe that faith forms culture and informs
political and social life.
At the same time we acknowledge the primacy of the spiritual.
Our Lord did not guarantee us success in this life, and if the choice in
fact must be made between some worldly end, however noble, that can only be
attained by evil means, and failure, there is only one choice to be made.
—Daniel Nichols
Hello Dan,
I find your blog after searching recently for commentary on David Schindler’s rather well known analysis of the depradations Catholic social teaching has endured over the years
at the hands of those Catholic neo-conservatives who have claimed for themselves, oddly enough, the mantle of “orthodoxy”. It is, of course, an “orthodoxy” that couldn’t
quite manage opposition to the Bush Regime funding of certain embryonic stem-cell research in 2001 and has systematically opposed the clear guidance of Rome as to morality of the Iraq and Lebanon violence. Theirs is an “orthodoxy” born of a now thoroughly discredited pure naturalism and sharing every inch in its anachronistic barrenness. You point, and rightly so, to the sense of having a lack of policy or program specific alternatives to the morally vacuous advocacy of your antagonists and in doing so I suspect one might find underneath no inconsiderable Schindlerian influence. We seek in all things the form of God the Son and He has nothing whatsoever in common with policies and programs. Neither should we. Love is rather a moment to moment thing, a derivative of a kind of waiting for the Lord and something whose specifics Christ discloses much in the fashion of one’s being shown a movie one frame at a time. Policies and programs have to do with ideologies and one’s insisting on their being provided with a prioritization of the ideological. Love has to do with Christ. Sounds as though you’ve made your decision. So have I.
John Lowell
John- Though we have lost touch over the years since I returned to the Midwest, I count Dr. Schindler among my friends and we once had many long talks on the neoconservative threat to Catholic social teaching.
I only regret in the 90s that, preoccupied with the Catholic neocons, I paid so little attention to the wider neocon global agenda, which we are now seeing unfold before us…
Mr. Nichols,
If you’re referring to the recent exchange with Martha Hayes, the problem was in there being a false dichotomy. On the one side was listed intrinsically immoral methods of torture, and on Mrs. Hayes side was exasperation at the apparent continual denial of any possible means of acting in self defense.
The discussion would have been far more construction, ( and need I add, entertaining), if you had offered a solution by listing other methods of torture for extracting information which are morally legitimate. For instance the rack, the use of which does not violate the moral law. Mrs. Hayes obviously didn’t see the solution, so in charity, why not list acceptable means of torture?
Further, I think you’re in error in surmising that the “usual suspects” don’t in most instances produce “real world answers”. In fact it’s in the applications to principles, i.e. “real world answers” where I almost invariably find myself in objection.
This applications occurs first in the explanations of the principles, with the explanations having an underlying unsaid worldview which is invariably at odds with concrete reality. (There’s a reason romanticism never trickled down to the lower orders, it was beyond their means, and so likewise are generally are the unsaid “real world answers”.
Secondly, when actual “real world answers” are offered, they likewise partake of this same unobtainable romanticism. A romanticism which would be so bad in itself but for the threats of foisting them on the lower orders who suffer them already at the hands of town planner etc. whose concepts on the common good sends one running over to Lew Rockwell for protection. Not out of agreement with Mr. Rockwell but in relief of knowing he won’t at least cause further grief.
And lastly, redundancy is also a common occurrence among the “usual suspects” For instance, repeating the argument that modern warfare cannot be fought without violating just war doctrine doesn’t prove it so. While cluster bombs may be disproportionate when dropped among combatants in an otherwise civilian environment, they are not necessarily disproportionate when dropped in an enemy encampment in the desert. Your argument may have validity when it comes to guerrilla warfare within civilian environments, or in the modern treatment of civilians and civilian infrastructure as combatants, but repeating the argument is little more than redundant and by being redundant gives the impression that there are no solutions which do not violate the moral law. Thus by implication the redundancy by being redundant does act as offer a “real world answer”.
…For instance the rack, the use of which does not violate the moral law….
Dude! Welcome back!
On a totally irrelevant note, can I recommend “Come Rack! Come Rope!” by Robert Hugh Benson. This novel about a recusant priest in Elizabethan England makes you positively *want* to be hung, drawn and quartered.
I read it just a few weeks back, and all the discussions of CIA torture remind me of it.
Hung, maybe. D&Q, no. I’m like the Flannery O’Connor character: “She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”
Maybe Mr. Salazar would demonstrate for us how the rack is a moral torture technique. I hadn’t known it was.
By the way, Francesca, I recently finished reading Come Rack Come Rope to my children. I thought how I would have preferred a simple beheading.
I’d actually be interested to hear if they racked people because some theologian had said this was morally permissible.
And I thought Mr. “Salazar” had left the building after I revealed his true identity.
Guess I should brace myself for another round of surrealistic Thomism.
Q: What is a fundamentalist Thomist?
A: Someone who will debate whether it is licit to torture a slave suspected of usury.
Perhaps this has been said, but if one is going to critique actual policies and actions, then one cannot claim to be merely discussing ideas and principles when asked to present alternatives.
Jeff,
What is being critiqued is an objective behavior. One can safely assume that a policy whether announced or secreted is formulated with the intention actually of carrying it out. In eschewing the provision of alternative formulations, those offering the critique justifiably are held harmless until their own behavior is a known quantity.
John Lowell
When one of the critics on this blog asks (usually) Daniel, Christopher or myself, what we would do in such and such a case since we do not approve of torture, bombing of civilians, offensive wars, etc., the implication is (it seems to me) that if we don’t come up with some effective alternative, then our criticism is silly. But this is assuming that there is some sort of requirement for us to be successful in this world. It’s as if a bank robber were to ask me, “What’s your method for getting rich? If you don’t have one, then you must accept mine.”
Critiquing the morality of certain policies doesn’t require the suggestion of others. If I say a policy is wrong, my judgment is not right or wrong based on my ability to suggest an alternative to that policy. The first is a moral judgment, the second requires an expertise in a certain field. Tom’s example of the robber is apt. I may be able to see that thievery is immoral; but I may not be particularly skilful in determining which activities are lucrative and which are not. Likewise, a judgment that torture is immoral, which depends on an understanding of the moral law, is different from a knowledge of the various ways one can obtain information from supposed terrorists.
A moral philosopher is not an intelligence agent, and an intelligence agent is not a moral philosopher. The second can answer questions as to means and their effectiveness; the first can answer questions as to whether those means are morally licit.
Mr. Stork writes : “It’s as if a bank robber were to ask me, “What’s your method for getting rich? If you don’t have one, then you must accept mine.””
An example much closer to Caelum et Terra home:
It’s as if someone who buys clothing for her children woven by electrical looms were to ask Mr. Stork, “Which method of weaving do you use to cloth your children?” To which Mr. Stork replies, “my children are clothed with cloth woven by hand”.
Which is tantamount to Mr. Stork using a method which is unobtainable romanticism, and without applicability to the lower orders who are pressed as it is to afford clothing made the modern electrical way.
As Mr. Stork writes : “looms and sewing machines powered by foot-driven pedals are . . excellent examples of technology truly serving man. In contrast to electric machines, they do not necessitate all the involved apparatus for producing and transmitting electricity, including possible bad health effects of transmission wires. And is the reason we use electric sewing machines sufficiently serious for all this? Is pushing a pedal with one’s foot really so difficult that we have to call into being the whole electricity-producing complex?”
Mr. Salazar,
Are you trying to get this conversation off topic? Or perhaps you misunderstand the whole point of Tom Storck’s post?
And where is your justification of the rack as a moral means of torture? You stated with such assurance that it is a moral means — but I think many are perhaps unconvinced. Please shed some light on this question.
And, one more thing, Mr. Salazar…
Are you really Franklin Salazar as Mr. Nichols claims you’re not? Or are you really Tony Montanaro? Or are you sometimes Mr. Salazar and other times Mr. Montanaro? It’s really discomforting to think you are not who you are, or you are who you are not, or something like that.
I can assure you that I am Christopher Zehnder — I think.
Mr. Zehnder writes : “Are you trying to get this conversation off topic?”
If my intention was to get this conversation off topic I would have responded to your queries on torture because your queries are off topic. But as you will note, I intentionally didn’t respond so as to not take the conversation off topic.
Further, as Mr. Stork writes: “the implication is (it seems to me) that if we don’t come up with some effective alternative, then our criticism is silly. But this is assuming that there is some sort of requirement for us to be successful in this world.”
Which is to miss the point of the criticism, (with some exceptions), against the “usual suspects”. The criticism isn’t because alternatives are not proffered, but because the alternatives proffered are not viable alternatives.
Arguing that success in this world is not required rings callus when people’s lives and happiness are at stake. A callus position expected from selfish narcissistic libertarians, but not from Catholics. Arguing for pacifism to the girl next door while she’s being raped just doesn’t cut it. So likewise with arguing that warfare in self defense of our families cannot be waged because it violates just war doctrine / as if that ends the discussion and fathers must just sit there and take it while their daughters are ravaged.
The word that comes to my mind when presented with such callus arguments is they’re a bunch of simplistic pie in the sky crap.
I answer that, Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will: nevertheless they should be compelled by the faithful, if it be possible to do so, so that they do not hinder the faith, by their blasphemies, or by their evil persuasions, or even by their open persecutions. It is for this reason that Christ’s faithful often wage war with unbelievers, not indeed for the purpose of forcing them to believe, because even if they were to conquer them, and take them prisoners, they should still leave them free to believe, if they will, but in order to prevent them from hindering the faith of Christ.
On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received. (ST, II-II, 10, 8)
Mr. Salazar,
Though this is I suppose a small point, you consistently misspell, and have almost always misspelled, my last name. I recall pointing this out to you once before.
Mr. Lowell writes : “those offering the critique justifiably are held harmless until their own behavior is a known quantity.”
But it is a known quantity. The weight of the baggage carried may not be fully known, (being it falling often in the category of worldview and understanding of principles), but the wisdom cast by the “usual suspects” is most certainly not of the pristine, untainted and unadulterated weightless aether it’s being argued to be.
____________________
Mr Zehnder writes : “Critiquing the morality of certain policies doesn’t require the suggestion of others. If I say a policy is wrong, my judgment is not right or wrong based on my ability to suggest an alternative to that policy. The first is a moral judgment, the second requires an expertise in a certain field. Tom’s example of the robber is apt.”
But Mr. Zehnder, when you give the ratio of 1/10 when discussing proportionality in warfare you are taking on the burden of acting as expert in the field under discussion. The argument given is according to prudence which assumes not only knowledge of th principles but also practical knowledge, i.e. expertise. In fact, most arguments on this blog rarely end at balancing principles against objective acts. And even when they appear to, there is always present worldview lurking in the background.
____________________________
Sorry Mr. Storck, I’ll pay more attention. I know you’re rather sensitive on the spelling.
Welcome back from your hiatus Mr. Salazar.
Part of the problem in this whole debate has been conflating motive with intention. This has been done to establish grounds for arguing double effect.
Take your rape victim example. Throwing a grenade on top of your daughter to kill the assailant and consequently your daughter is clearly not a rational response and is not double effect.
The most frustrating thing for me in this whole debate is the counter-argument that you must wish to do nothing about your daughter’s rape. I’ll be honest and say, “No! I don’t want a grenade thrown on my daughter to kill the assailant!” Take a baseball bat to his head for crying out loud! To put this in a foreign policy perspective, “No I will not condone the intentional slaughter of 1000 innocents to kill 100 bad guys!” While 10:1 is completely arbitrary, certainly there has to be a point when the facts themselves can allow us to make a priori assumptions or even allow someone to enjoy prima facie advantage.
As no one here has suggested absolute pacifism; ie, nonresistance to personal violence, I wonder what the point of Mr “Salazar”s” post is. It is no more apt than his hand loom analogy. Nor is the mention of a 10/1 proportion a claim to any sort of expertise; it is merely noting the obvious: that this is surely unjustifiable.
“All who are actively engaged in the unjust aggression of war are, from the standpoint of natural law, true combatants, whether they wear the uniform of the armed forces or not. It is not necessary to shoot off a gun, in order to be counted among the ‘combatants.’ All civilians who take an active part in promoting the unjust war, even if they bear no arms, are unjust aggressors and as such can lay no claim to immunity from attack, because they must be reckoned among ‘combatants’ just as truly as soldiers and sailors in uniform. The term ‘combatants,’ therefore, embraces all persons belonging to the military forces of the aggressor nation and all civilians taking an active part in the war effort. All these persons are subject to attack. The only persons not subject to attack are those civilians who are not actively engaged in any way in the war; they are the only non-combatants in the rue sense of the word.
To be more specific. Among the ‘combatants’ belong all members of the armed forces, whether tor not they belong to combat units; all persons in military training and those called to the colors; all government officials; and all civilians employed in the war effort. Among the latter, it is obvious belong all war workers in factories making ammunition, planes, guns, tanks, trucks, cars, clothes, or anything else that serves as equipment for the armed forces; all who actively assist in the making and operating of transportation services on land or sea or in the air, in so far as they are used to transport personnel or materials for the prosecution of the war; all employed in radio, telephone, telegraph, or any means of communication connected with the war; all who grow, process, and supply foodstuffs are active participants in the unjust aggression and as such subject to military attack. Immune from attack, then, are those civilians who are truly non-combatants, that is to say, all men, women, and children not actively connected in any way with the unjust war. IN view of the nature of modern warfare, it will readily be seen that a large portion of the civilian population belongs to the category of ‘combatants’ subject to military attack.” (Bittle, O.F.M. Cap, Man and Morals, 1950)
Mr. Nichols writes : “As no one here has suggested absolute pacifism; ie, nonresistance to personal violence, I wonder what the point of Mr “Salazar”s” post is.”
Among the “usual suspects” there’s a disposition to look favorably with romanticist eyes towards those who do advocate absolute pacifism which gives understanding to the “usual suspects”‘ inclination to close avenues of self defense while turning around and pretending to be objective by claiming not to have expertise and thus unable to comment.
Does Mr. Storck have expertise which causes him to advocate hand looms, but lacks equal expertise in regard to warfare so that he’s unwilling to even venture a solution? Seriously, could his ventured solution concerning warfare be possibly less in touch with reality than his advocation of hand looms as the primary method of obtaining cloth? Mr. Storck says he is not under obligation to suggest alternatives to bank robbers, fair enough, but he’s certainly glad enough to suggest alternatives, such as hand looms which in the light of day appear just a bit ‘silly’.
Further, as Mr. Forrest points out, 10/1 ratio is not a principle but a deduction according to prudence, I was simply pointing out that Mr. Zehnder was not arguing for principle per se in weighting the balance.
Mr. “Salazar” wrote: “Does Mr. Storck have expertise which causes him to advocate hand looms, but lacks equal expertise in regard to warfare so that he’s unwilling to even venture a solution? Seriously, could his ventured solution concerning warfare be possibly less in touch with reality than his advocation of hand looms as the primary method of obtaining cloth? Mr. Storck says he is not under obligation to suggest alternatives to bank robbers, fair enough, but he’s certainly glad enough to suggest alternatives, such as hand looms which in the light of day appear just a bit ‘silly’.”
A question: What statement of mine on hand looms are you referring to? I don’t recall making one, certainly not recently.
Mr. Storck askes : “What statement of mine on hand looms are you referring to”
The Problem of Technology by Thomas Storck Caelum et Terra Vol.2 no.1 Winter 1992
http://www.caelumetterra.com/cet_backissues/article.cfm?ID=9
About the Journal Caelum Et Terra
Mr. Salazar, or Pseudo-Salazar,
When did I give the 10/1 ratio?
Thank you. This is what I wrote: “It seems to me that looms and sewing machines powered by foot-driven pedals are again excellent examples of technology truly serving man. In contrast to electric machines, they do not necessitate all the involved apparatus for producing and transmitting electricity, including possible bad health effects of transmission wires. And is the reason we use electric sewing machines sufficiently serious for all this? Is pushing a pedal with one’s foot really so difficult that we have to call into being the whole electricity-producing complex? Moreover, when considering technology we must look not just at the devices themselves, but at the attendant economic organization necessary for it: the grouping of men into large cities so that we can have large factories, the transportation facilities (and the factories necessary to make them), the use of natural resources, not to mention the financial arrangements necessary to make all this work. Non-electric machines are simpler and can more likely be produced locally than machines run by electricity. Every town or village could have a forge and small machine-shop to produce the simpler machines, but complexity feeds bigness which in turn feeds more complexity and so on.”
I don’t remember whether at the time that I wrote this I thought that hand-powered looms should be used exclusively, but I certainly thought they were a better and more appropriate kind of technology, and I still do. Whether they could reasonably replace entirely power-driven looms, I don’t know. Off hand, I can’t think of any reason why that would be absurd. Certainly it would involve a profound reorganization of society. People are always saying, We can’t do such and such, we can’t turn the clock back. Belloc pointed out that this is a result of Calvinism, with its denial of free will.
I have never taken it upon myself to write about warfare, except sometimes on its moral aspects. As for economics and technology, I know a bit more about these areas than warfare, so Mr. S’s comparison does not, I think, hold up.
I wonder how Bittle OFM.Cap would suggest distinguishing the children of war support personnel as well as other innocent civilians when bombing a city? To do this one would need smart bombs, indeed.
And is not the civilian character of infrastructure to be taken into account? If infrastructure is basically civilian but also used for military purposes, does the latter fact render its character purely military? Would not the fact that it may be necessary to the life and welfare of innocent civilians give it as much a claim to inviolability as its military character supposedly does to attack — especially if the civilian is its primary character?
Mr. Zehnder asks : “When did I give the 10/1 ratio?”
http://caelumetterra.typepad.com/blog/2006/08/between_pacifis.html#comment-21392403
One doesn’t need to distinguish “the children of war support personnel as well as other innocent civilians when bombing a city” because the intention is to destroy the military target, not kill the innocent. Basically, the moral evil of the unjust aggression is “incomparably greater” (Man and Morals) than any physical evils that result from repelling the aggressor.
But a city is not a military target. It does not come into being with the war. It is essentially a non-military entity.
Mr. Salazar,
If you would only learn to read carefully, you would note that the 10:1 ratio in the post you reference was couched in a quotation from a previous post not my own. I did not set down the ratio as determinative of anything.
Mr. Zehnder,
You’re correct, I shouldn’t have attached the ratio to you, I was going by memory and thought I remembered you using the ratio. Nevertheless, the point of you discussing proportionality in the manner as to take on the burden of expertise stands.
Mr. rjp,
Forgive me, I was tired and did not read your last post correctly. I would agree if a child died as a truly incidental result of the bombing of a true military target, then this would not necessarily be immoral — that is, of course, if one is using means that are proportional to the target.
If someone used a sledge hammer to kill a spider on my car’s windshield, I think I would be justified in thinking that the shattered window was not an incidental effect of his arachnophobic-inspired assault. Likewise, if one destroys a neighborhood to eradicate a military target within it, then the destruction of the neighborhood and its inhabitants is not incidental but the proper effect of the action. The per se target is the neighborhood, the incidental target is the military thing within it, since it is being destroyed as part of a larger whole. And since the neighborhood is civilian in character, the proper target is civilian, not military.
As for the statement, “the moral evil of the unjust aggression is ‘incomparably greater’ (Man and Morals) than any physical evils that result from repelling the aggressor,” I would say that an intentional destruction of civilian sectors is not merely a physical evil but a moral evil. It is, indeed, unjust aggression, since it targets those who to be held inviolate. One has the right to repel unjust aggression, but not with any and all means.
I think it is important to consider the words of the Second Vatican Council in this connection. “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”
Mr. Storck,
I don’t think it was ever in doubt that you see yourself as having expertise in the one field and not in the other.
Your comments on hand looms versus electrical looms was nothing more than a convenient means of demonstrating how strongly influenced the “usual suspects” are by a worldview very much out of touch with the common man. Both in terms of his own perceptions, (is there any doubt how the common man would react to the advocation of hand looms?), and in terms of the common man’s actual needs. I leave to the readers to imagine the frightful consequences of handlooms and similar means of production becoming de rigueur.
Mr. Salazar,
The question of proportionality in war requires the expertise of ethics. I will not make bold to say whether or not I have that expertise. But I have studied such things. What I have not studied is the panoply of intelligence techniques — what have been used and how successful they have been. The lack of knowledge of the latter does not preclude a lack of knowledge of the former.
It is possible to critique the morality of a particular measure without knowing what might be the alternatives to that measure or whether there even are alternatives to it. This was precisely Tom Storck’s point with the robber example. One may be able to determine that robbery is immoral without being able to give any counsel on how to attain riches through other means.
This is the basic argument that has been offered. It is the whole burden of the reply to Mrs./Miss Hayes. You do not answer it by challenging the “credentials” of those who offer it. We may be incompetent to address ethical questions, but that is another topic of discussion entirely.
Mr. Salazar,
I would suggest that advocating the abolition of artificial contraception is evidence “of how strongly influenced the ‘usual suspects’ are by a worldview very much out of touch with the common man.” Of course, this is not to say the worldview in question is at all wrong. Since when is the common man of any particular time the standard of the truth of any “worldview”? And as to the the common man’s actual needs — it may be that under the current order of society certain technologies have been rendered necessary, but that is not to prove that a “worldview” that would suggest another order of society where these technologies might not be as necessary or necessary at all is false. What is is not necessarily good.
I will only note further that you do not refute Tom Storck’s statements vis-a-vis this discussion by bringing up what he may have said about handlooms. We’re not discussing technology but the possibility of certain moral judgments. Even if Storck’s “worldview” is wrong, this doesn’t mean his particular remarks in this discussion are wrong. You would do better to address the particular points made with refutations that are to the point.
Mr. Zehnder,
If the target to be destroyed is a military target then it is already not indiscriminate. And yes, if a whole neighborhood has to be destroyed (unintentionally) in order to destroy the military target, then it is moral to do so. Bittle, in Man and Morals, allows the bombing of cities because of the factories in them that have some military value.
The point of my posting the passage from Man and Morals was to show that in modern warfare far fewer people are “innocent civilians” then would otherwise be thought.
Cardinal Newman said somewhere that a single deliberate venial sin was a greater evil than the destruction of the whole world. I’m prety sure there are very, very few people in the modern world who would agree with him; which just goes to show how far the Catholic way of looking at things has disappeared.
Just for the record it is my opinion the 1st and 2nd Iraqi wars (were) are immoral, illegal and unnecessary.
Fr Bittle, OFM Cap? Ironic that a Franciscan would outline a way of rendering almost anyone earning a living as some sort of combatant. Fr Schall, SJ, pulled a similar trick in the 80s to “prove” that nuclear war was not unjust as there really are no innocent members of a totalitarian society. “Jesuitical” gets its connotation from such nonsense.
But then Fr Groeschel, CFR, once said that the world is full of dumb Jesuits, rich Franciscans, Dominicans who can’t preach, and Salesians who hate children…
The 10/1 ratio is used as that is a good estimate of the number of civilian to military casualties in every war since WWI. I use it as evidence for the thesis that modern warfare is inherently immoral, as the last two popes have suggested.
And since when is Mr Salazar/Montanero a democrat?
Mr. Zehnder writes “Since when is the common man of any particular time the standard of the truth of any “worldview”? And as to the the common man’s actual needs — it may be that under the current order of society certain technologies have been rendered necessary, but that is not to prove that a “worldview” that would suggest another order of society where these technologies might not be as necessary or necessary at all is false. What is is not necessarily good.”
A world where man and beast are the de rigueur means of locomotion, is a world where men or children tan leather by stomping about in vats of dog feces. And a world where other means of production are of equal sophistication. And where what we now have at our fingertips will become unobtainable whether it be home libraries, pastels for drawing or soft fabrics and indoor plumbing. If that is the world some Caelum et Terra readers along with Mr. Storck want, they’re welcome to have at it. But I’m reminded of Bill Buckley’s reference to New York phone directory versus the Harvard faculty; and horse sense of the common man versus who? The ususal suspects?
Mr. Zehnder writes : “We’re not discussing technology but the possibility of certain moral judgments.”
But it is also a world where self defense is without doubt in vain because the enemy will not be marching on the town’s arrows and muskets with weapons of similar sophistication . A world where the distinction between absolute pacifism and resistance to evil is rendered moot by enemy tanks and gunship helicopters.
And thus technology is not accidental to the discussion because there are consequences when choices in technology are advocated. Such as when plows pulled by beasts of burden are advocated.
Mr. Nichols writes : “Our Lord did not guarantee us success in this life, and if the choice in fact must be made between some worldly end, however noble, that can only be attained by evil means, and failure, there is only one choice to be made.”
Fair enough, but self defense is not accidental to a man’s duty towards his family. Which in turn means equipping himself as necessary to fulfill his duty while taking care to not violate the moral law.
My dear sirs,
I just could not resist. Franklin Salazar, who is NOT my husband Tony Montanaro, was kind enough to send me an email informing me of his being labeled (libeled?) as such here on your website. I find it amazing that Tony is remembered here so well, when, by his own account, he has not been involved with C&T since the early nineties, and never here on the website. That you all remember his commentary well enough to find it helpful to use his name as a weapon is beyond amusing. He and I are happily using our technology to homeschool our six Catholic children here in Virginia, and have had no interest in Caelum et Terra or the Catholic Agrarian movement in around thirteen years, I believe. Upon arriving here, imagine my suprise to find in conversation, Franklin, a former college mate of Tony’s (Tony graduated from TAC in ’82) discussing matters with Christopher, a former college mate of mine (I graduated in ’88), and Dan, a gentleman whose acquaintance we were fortunate enough to make in the early nineties. Who’d a thunk it?!
Regarding your current conversation, I will not attempt to jump in in the middle. I will, however, beg your forgiveness for quoting my own father, Peter DeLuca, who told me once that the reason he gave up relative fame and fortune to found an obscure college in the middle of the Los Padres National Forest, was because Ron McCarthur and Mark Berquist convinced him that, “Ideas have consequences.”
There is room for disagreement among Catholics in these areas, gentlemen, but no room for lack of charity. Mr. Nichol’s, we wish you, as we always have, only the best.
Mr. Nichols,
“Fr Bittle, OFM Cap? Ironic that a Franciscan would outline a way of rendering almost anyone earning a living as some sort of combatant”
Anyone earning a living that contributes to the unjust agression. What’s wrong with that thinking?
And this was in 1950 – before VII, so I imagine a consensus of theologians at that time. Bittle also seems to rely heavily on Aquinas.
So far in these posts you’ve managed to insult Thomists, Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Salesians, but have offered nothing to counter what Bittle says in the passage I quoted.
Unless you can come up with a better argument than “nonsense” I am inclined to believe Bittle and Schall are right, and you are wrong.
No, I only insulted dumb Jesuits, rich Franciscans, Dominicans who can’t preach, and child-hating Salesians; ie, those who ironically betray their vocations.
Schall and Bittel, et el, defend the slaughter of vast numbers of innocents, guilty only of having been born in a society that an enemy deems unjustly aggressive (who is the aggressor in Iraq?). Or being the child of someone in the wrong society.
Modern weapons have rendered notions justifying collateral civilian damage ridiculous.
And Mrs. Montanero, if that really is you, sorry about joking about Tony; if you only knew what we have tolerated from Mr. “Salazar”, whoever he is, you’d understand the need for occasional humor.
(I mean, the rack as justifiable? Women as inferior beings? Etc….)
Readers of the magazine had no way of knowing that the Montaneros and I knew each other socially, and our relations were always cordial.
My dear Dan,
It certainly is me. I do hope you and your family are well, and I obviously do not agree with the idea of women being inferior beings. I can’t weigh in, however without seeing the whole argument for myself. I do hope you are enjoying life in the midwest. I am not offended, only amused, at your taking my husband’s name in vain. I assure you that, being married to a very superior sort of woman (well, perhaps one lacking in humility), he is not of the opinion that females are inferior beings. I was, more than anything, amused that three men whom we have had the privelege of knowing at different points during our lives have all found enough in common (other than cordial relations with the Montanaros) to run across each other on the web.
Do stop by if you are ever back in Va (and that goes for you other two as well).
With much affection,
Cyndi
The threads Mr. Nichols inaccurately refers to are the following:
http://caelumetterra.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/sunday_night_jo_2.html
http://caelumetterra.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/guest_post_more.html#comments
Mr. Salazar,
Our discussion of the moral judgments in question is purely in relation to the world as it is, with all its technology, good and evil. So the question of fitting versus unfitting technology, here, does not apply. It has no bearing on the question.
Mr. rjp,
But a neighborhood is not a military entity; it is dwelling for a civilian population, not a camp. This seems so obvious it should not need stating. Because combatants might live in a neighborhood does not render it something other than it is. To destroy an entire neighborhood to kill the combatants within it would be to fail to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. The same goes for an entire city, or country.
Your reasoning would allow the use of nuclear weaponry to destroy whole regions. Is this really your position?
As for Bittle stating a theological consensus — he did not. Following World War II, the great Cardinal Ottaviani, prefect of the Holy Office, opined that a just war was no longer possible because of the sheer destructive power of modern weaponry. In his Christmas Message for 1940, Pope Pius XII said, “We feel obliged nonetheless to state that the ruthless struggle has at times assumed forms which can be described only as atrocious. May all belligerents, who also have human hearts moulded by mothers’ love, show some feeling of charity for the sufferings of civilian populations, for defenseless women and children, for the sick and aged, all of whom are often exposed to greater and more widespread perils of war than those faced by soldiers at the front!
We beseech the belligerent powers to abstain until the very end from the use of still more homicidal instruments of warfare; for the introduction of such weapons inevitably results in their retaliatory use, often with greater violence by the enemy. If already We must lament the fact that the limits of legitimate warfare have been repeatedly exceeded, would not the more widespread use of increasingly barbarous offensive weapons soon transform war into unspeakable horror?”
He was referring, of course, to the bombing of World War II, long before Dresden and Hiroshima/Nagasaki. If entire cities and lands were valid military targets, then how could he lament that the “limits of legitimate warfare have been repeatedly exceeded”? You will note, too, he was appealing to all belligerents, not just the Axis.
Mr. Zehnder,
The only dog I have in this fight and the only argument I have been making is in pointing out that the “usual suspects” are influenced by an attraction to romanticism, and thus have an underlying worldview which is invariably at odds with concrete reality.
An attraction which is demonstrably at odds with reality when seen in light of their views on technology and its concomitant consequential social order.
An attraction which further causes the “usual suspect”, (at the frustration and consternation of others), to sit on high above mere mortals and sing without apparent empathy or mercy “Our Lord did not guarantee us success in this life”.
Mr. Salazar,
I and others have offered reasons for our views on modern warfare. Your broad characertizations go nowhere to refute what has been said. Your argument basically comes down to this: “you all are a bunch of unrealistic romantics in regards to technology, therefore whatever you say about warfare is unrealistic romanticism.” This is no refutation, only name calling.
I believe you are incapable of actually addressing any of the particular arguments given in this thread or earlier ones in regards to warfare; and instead of keeping silence, as modesty would suggest, choose instead to descend to playing the urchin who calls names and chucks stones at a safe distance. I’m sure you can find better ways to spend your time than by engaging in such sophomoric antics.
Mr. Zehnder,
Consensus does not mean unanimity, though I admit I was only guessing that Bittle’s position was by 1950 the generally accepted one. It would take too much time for me to research the question so I abandon the claim.
Bittle does opine that “atomic” weapons (no hydrogen bomb yet?) could be used far from civilian centers.
I think you don’t understand the principle of double effect sufficently: the intention is not to harm the civilians that may be in the area, but only to kill the combatants and/or destroy their war-making capability. Of course it is a horrible evil that many innocent people may die, but the culpability for this evil belongs to the unjust aggressor. Incidently, Bittle also states that the country fighting the just war may be the first to attack, an argument that came to the fore in Iraq – whether a “pre-emptive” war may be just.
My principles may sound harsh but in practice I believe the only war the US should have fought in the 20th century was Vietnam, and WWII after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And even then there are some who think that that horrible president FDR goaded Japan into the attack.
Vietnam??? Sad to say I was drafted during Vietnam. I am amazed and baffled that someone is still defending the US involvement in that horrific war!!
Mr. Zehnder writes : “Your argument basically comes down to this: “you all are a bunch of unrealistic romantics in regards to technology, therefor”
No, the romanticism is not just in regards to technology. As I previous mentioned, your romanticism in regards to technology is simply a nice example. Because it so recognizably bizarre and the consequences from it are so obvious.
Just how deep and broad this romanticism runs is rather difficult to say, but no matter the situation posed on Caelum et Terra, the undercurrents of romanticism are always present.
A romanticism which, as I mentioned previously, disposes the “usual suspects” favorably towards pacifism. I know Mr. Nichols admires pacifism because he has said as much on this blog. This romanticist disposition appears to be the cause of why the “usual suspects” are so zealous in attempting to prove immoral all avenue of self defense. And perhaps why they are equally zealous on not attempting to look for other avenues.
Mr. Zehnder writes: “I and others have offered reasons for our views on modern warfare. Your broad characertizations go nowhere to refute what has been said. “
A refutation was never my intent. As I said, my only dog in the fight is, (or was, as far as this thread is concerned), in looking into the reason why the “usual suspects” approach the issues in the way they do.
A romanticist approach which also appears to be the reason why Mr. Nichols can so zealously write: “are you thinking, with Mr. Gotcher, that a 10:1 ratio is acceptable so long as the civilians were not the “real” targets?” after Mr. Horton’s numerous protestations to the contrary. A zealotry seen numerous time previously where the worst is always assumed.
I think you don’t understand the principle of double effect sufficently: the intention is not to harm the civilians that may be in the area, but only to kill the combatants and/or destroy their war-making capability.
Repeat after me: What we intend is what we do.
One can never intend evil. When you bomb a neighborhood, your intention is to bomb that neighborhood. The neighborhood is that which is inclusive of it. The presense of a military target within the neighborhood does not change the fact that it is a neighborhood. One’s intent is what one will directly accomplish.
Secondly, threat is not a theoretical term. A threat is an active and present danger. To argue that Iraq was such is sophistry. Whether it had the potential to be such or to aid people who would be such is an academic question and is not pertinent to determining the morality of our actions.
M. Z. Forrest,
“Repeat after me: What we intend is what we do.”
This is proof you not only don’t understand the principle of double effect sufficiently well, but that you don’t understand it at all.
Mr. Montana,
“I am amazed and baffled that someone is still defending the US involvement in that horrific war!!”
More horrific than the war of the North against the South? More horrific than WWI?
What would ease your amazement and bafflement? I’ll try this: it was a just war, at least until Kennedy and his henchman killed Diem. It was probably more of a just war than the American Rebellion agaist England.
While I plead guilty to romanticism, and am not in the least tempted by the sort of cold-eyed intellectualism that allows Frs Bittle and Schall to so callously treat human life, what is unrealistic about noting that we are talking about human beings here, not robots or mere statistics?
To commit an act that is going to, foreseeably and inevitably, result in mass death and then claim that that is not one’s intention is mere sophistry. If you are going to commit an act with foreseeable consequences, then you are willing those consequences.
I think “rjp” stands for “Real Jihadist Philosopher”. After all, Mr Bin Laden would tell you that those working in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon would hardly count as innocents, and the passengers on the planes were mere collateral damage. Indeed, bin Laden has used the same rationale that Americans use for Hiroshima, quite consciously appealing to the same consequentialist logic.
Cynthia- Thanks for not being offended by our humor at your husband’s expense. But we don’t take his name in vain: he had the distinction of having sent more critical (some would say “cranky”) letters to the editor than anyone else, after all…
As for Vietnam, the stated reason for going to war in that unfortunate country was to stop the supposed march of Communism. But as the Domino Effect did not happen, it is hard to justify it in light of history.
We seem to be stuck in italics…
It appears rjp appears to be the guilty party. This should resolve it.
Your deft use of logic has overwhelmed me rjp, and I now realize that I haven’t a clue what double effect is. Thank you for that wonderful public service.
Wasn’t there a military recruiting office in the World Trade Center? And didn’t the financial center of New York contribute to the United States economy, allowing our government to provide aid to the state of Israel? The argument above from Mssrs. Salazar and p would suggest that New York (certainly the World Trade Center) WAS a legitimate target for anyone “at war” with the United States.
I have a very hard time seeing Father Bittle’s position quoted above as consonant with the Catholic tradition on just war and its conduct. (On the other hand, I think this might have gone differently if recent Islamic terrorism had continued to be treated as crimes rather than as acts of war…)
Mr. Mierzejewiski writes: “The argument above from Mssrs. Salazar and p would suggest that New York (certainly the World Trade Center) WAS a legitimate target for anyone “at war” with the United States.”
Please note, You have my position absolutely dead wrong. If anything, I suspect you will find me considering the “usual suspects” to be rather weak in their defense of noncombatants.
I AM glad. My apologies.
A pregnant woman has cancer. It is forseen that chemotherapy will kill the baby. Yet the intention is to cure the cancer. The baby dies during the treatment. Is this abortion? Of course not. The intention was to cure the mother. Was it licit to give her chemo? Of course. Yet, Mr. Nichols and M.Z. Forrest would have to disagree saying it was abortion and it was immoral to treat the mother with chemotherapy. Now, it would be heroic virtue for the mother to abstain from treatment, and she always has this choice. But no one (generally) is obligated to use heroic means.
Mr. Nichols,
“I think “rjp” stands for ‘Real Jihadist Philosopher'”.
That should be “Realist…”
Just kidding. I’ve already stated my opposition to every war the US has been involved in during the last 200+ years except 2, and WWII was and remains doubtful.
Suppose we had stayed out of WWII completely and Hitler had conquered the Soviet Union and all or most of Europe, and Japan had consolidated its control of China. Would things have been worse than they were under Stalin and Mao (Stalin is reported to have killed 50 or 60 million people, and Mao perhaps 80 or a hundred million)?
I almost never post any opinions on any blog but my own, and there I mention about a 100 reasons for not doing so (basically: it is impossible to change anyone’s opinion about anything).
Then, I found this by Orestes Brownson, “Every good deed done, every pure thought breathed, every true word spoken, shall quicken some intelligence, touch some heart, inspire some noble soul. Nothing true or good is ever lost. No brilliant example ever shines in vain. It will kindle some fire, illumine some darkness, and gladden some eyes. Be active, be true, be heroic, and you will be successful beyond what you can hope.”
Incidentally (dictionary.com tells me incidently is obsolete), Brownson was the first to say, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Around 1870, I believe.
rjp,
The four conditions of double effect:
1) The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.
2) The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may merely permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect, he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary.
3) The good effect must flow from the action at least as immediately (in the order of causality, though not necessarily in the order of time) as the bad effect. In other words, the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise, the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.
4) The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect. In forming this decision many factors must be weighed and compared, with care and prudence proportionate to the importance of the case. Thus, an effect that benefits or harms society generally has more weight than one that affects only an individual; an effect sure to occur deserves greater consideration than one that is only probable; an effect of a moral nature has greater importance than one that deals only with material things.
Source
You keep skipping condition #2 to goto condition #4. Condition #2 is not premised on condition #4; rather condition #4 is premised on condition #3 and so on and so forth.
Doh! Now I’m not closing italics.
One more time.
Test
M. Z. Forrest,
Afraid I don’t see why bombing a military target that destroys the surrounding civilian infrastructure (and kills innocent people) is “skipping condition #2.” Please explain when you have time.
Frs Bittle and Schall represent the sort of abstraction that in the end is murderous.
Maclin once commented to me that when things degenerate into endless Thomistic quarreling on this weblog that it seems “cold”; ditto for treating real human casualties as abstractions.
Assume you have a choice of actions that involve effects a and b, and your desire is for effect a. If your available actions are such that either a and b occur or neither a nor b occur, you move on to step 3. If however the choice allows you to discriminate a and b, and you choose an action that fails to discriminate a and b, then you have intended both a and b. In other words, you will both effects.
Proportionately (step 4) enters once it has been established ‘b’ isn’t being chosen to fulfill ‘a’ (step 3) – choosing evil so that good may come. Once that has been established we can evaluate the comparative good versus evil.
Mr. Nichols,
How do you judge when it is appropriate to know the truth and when it isn’t? By it’s level of abstraction? Thomistic “quarreling”, at least in the case of St. Thomas, was simply a search for truth; that’s why the dialogic character of his “summary” of theology and most of his other works.
Here is more heartburn for you: I answer that, With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.
On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but “after the first and second admonition,” as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death. For Jerome commenting on Gal. 5:9, “A little leaven,” says: “Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold, lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria, but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was laid waste by its flame.” (ST II-II, 11, 3)
As for bin Laden fighting a just war against the US: 1) he’s a private individual and hasn’t the authority to declare war or gather people to fight a war. 2) he was the unjust aggressor, not the US. 3) etc.
Now, the leader of Iraq (if he escapes hanging), might have an argument.
I don’t think it’s entirely fair to identify St. Thomas or Thomism with “endless…quarreling.” John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan, was the one known as the “subtle doctor.” He made distinctions much more fine than St. Thomas ever did.
Mr. rjp,
You write, “Afraid I don’t see why bombing a military target that destroys the surrounding civilian infrastructure (and kills innocent people) is “skipping condition #2.”
I don’t mean to steal Mr. Forrest’s thunder, but if you are intending to destroy a military target and use means that are truly proportional to that end, and innocent deaths result, then you do you have a possibe case of double effect. Here the direct target is the military target, not the civlians.
If, however, you use means that are proportionate to destroying an entire neighborhood or city in which the military target sits, then the direct target is not the military target but the neighborhood or city. You are destroying the military entity by destroying the city or neighborhood. The destroyed neighborhood or city is not an incidental effect of your action, but the necessary and per se effect. This is not an example of double effect, which requires the evil effect to be an indirect result.
A possible example: a doctor who has to remove a tumor on a leg, say, can do a local surgery to remove the tumor, or he can amputate leg. If gangrene results from the removal of the tumor and affects the leg so that it would need to be removed, this would be an incidental result of the removal of the tumor.
However, the loss of the leg, in the case of the doctor amputating it to get at the tumor, would not be an incidental result of the removal of a tumor. It would be the proper and necessary result of the doctor’s action, given the means used. If anything, the removal of the tumor would be incidental, since it is being removed through the removal of the leg.
Mr. Nichols, in the post opening this thread, said, “At the same time we acknowledge the primacy of the spiritual.” I assume “primacy of the spiritual” includes reference to morality.
In my various posts I have Bittle’s “the moral evil of the unjust aggression is ‘incomparably greater’ (Man and Morals) than any physical evils that result from repelling the aggressor,”; St. Thomas saying “bodily compulsion” or even “death” can be used against heretics to prevent harm to the faith of ordinary believers; Newman’s saying that a single deliberate venial sin is a worse evil than the destruction of the whole world.
Now, whether those who have posted views which seem to me to value material things (civilian neighborhoods) or even lives of innocent people above rectifying the moral harm done by unjust aggression and restoring the moral good, are wrong or right, certainly they are different than the view of Aquinas, Newman, and Bittle. I wonder why? And I wonder what it means?
Mr. rjp,
It is immoral to directly take the life of the innocent even for very good purposes. Another name for this is murder. I have argued that using means proportionate to destroy a neighborhood or city in order to destroy a military target within it is to directly target civilians, which is forbidden in warfare. It is immoral. One may not do one immoral deed to stop another immoral deed.
In sum, I have argued, deliberate destruction of civilian centers is not simply a physical evil but a moral evil. So I have not preferred physical to moral goods.
The example from St. Thomas is not to the point. Heretics are by definition not innocent when they harm the welfare of others by their heresy. So, to restrain or even execute them would not, on this account, be wrong. However, harming or threatening to harm their wives and children to stop the heretics from spreading their heresy would be to threaten the innocent and so would be immoral. Nor would we be permitted to drop bombs on neighborhoods because they might harbor heretics. This would be to fail to discriminate between the innocent and guilty, which is immoral.
Dan,
You say:
“Maclin once commented to me that when things degenerate into endless Thomistic quarreling on this weblog that it seems “cold”; ditto for treating real human casualties as abstractions.”
And it’s precisely this same kind of hair splitting that has characterized the argumentation of the Reich’s Church types that have identified themselves so closely with the pre-emptive war logic so enduringly foisted-off on Catholics by the principals at First Things as supportably “orthodox”. In genuine discomfort to find themselves on the wrong side of an argument with the Pope, these folks have devolved into practitioners of a strange kind of psychological alchemy, converting reason into rationalization all the while with the clear demands of Love veritably screaming at them. That kind of war Christianity is cold indeed, dead cold as as matter of fact. One wonders if it is still possible to set aside such nit-picking and see through to the form of Christ? Our hope doesn’t consist in reason.
John Lowell
“Maclin once commented to me that when things degenerate into endless Thomistic quarreling on this weblog that it seems “cold”; ditto for treating real human casualties as abstractions.”
“endless Thomistic quarlleing” could only be said by someone who had never read so much as the prologue to the Summa Theologica (much less the entire 3000 pages) where St. Thomas writes, “students in this Science have not seldom been hampered by what they have found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments;”
Tom- I know that Duns Scotus was also a scholastic and prone to endless splitting of hairs; it’s just that two-bit Scotists are so rare these days, while two-bit Thomists abound.
I have respect for St Thomas, but don’t consider him infallible. It is his modern day would-be disciples, the one I call Fundamentalist Thomists, advocating executing heretics and such, that I have no patience for.
Mr Realist Jihad Philosopher: I have indeed read the Summa in its entirety, though that was admittedly long ago and far away.
Now I must ask you: is it licit to torture a slave suspected of usury?
Mr. Nichols,
“Now I must ask you: is it licit to torture a slave suspected of usury?”
Are you asking my opinion or that of St. Thomas?
Off the cuff, I would say, “Nuke him.” But, if its my “considered” opinion you want, I will think about it before replying.
Is this a test to see if I’m a “fundamentalist Thomist” or some other kind of Thomist, or maybe not a Thomist at all?
Nobody claims Aquinas is infallible; he made lots of errors. The problem comes, I think, is that a lot of what he writes is opinion only, and too many take it for a “demonstartion”.
That you would consider the question at all tells me all I need to know. You are, I assume, a graduate of a certain small Catholic college which we do not name around here….
And I misspoke this AM; I wrote off the top of my head, and after I had time to think about it I realized that I had not, in fact, read the Summa in its entirety.
In the early 80s I bought an edition of the Summa, and studied it fairly extensively, but I didn’t read it cover to cover.
Sorry; it was long ago, and a time when I did read a lot of things through that I had missed – the Bible, Shakespeare, etc- but the Summa was not one of the works I covered.
I know, this explains my unenlightened condition.
Though let us note, that near the end of his life St Thomas affirmed the primacy of the mystical.
Mr. Nichols,
“That you would consider the question at all tells me all I need to know. You are, I assume, a graduate of a certain small Catholic college which we do not name around here….”
Think again. I would consider such a question only because you asked. My personal opinion is that torture is always wrong – for any reason, of anybody. I can’t find anything by Aquinas that talks about this particular question.
I did graduate from a small Catholic college, probably one you never heard of: St. Mary’s in Winona, MN; major Mathematics. I have no idea what college you mean, nor do I know what you mean by “around here.” I don’t know where you live.
If I had to say what kind of Thomist I was just to avoid the label “fundmentalist Thomist” I would say in the manner of Josef Pieper, whose books i recommend to all.
Mr. rjp,
The small Catholic college to which Daniel refers is the one I graduated from — Thomas Aquinas in California. “Around here” means this blog. Daniel likes to make sweeping statements about Thomists and TAC graduates. I now just ignore it. He’s just being crotchety.
And, Daniel, don’t be so hard on rjp. I don’t agree with much of what he has said or quoted, but I think he’s an honest disputant. To my mind, he’s behaved like a gentleman and so should be accorded the same respect.
Mr. Zehnder,
Thanks. I don’t think Mr. Nichols was being hard on me. I assumed it was all in fun (mixed in with the more serious stuff).
For those of you who haven’t read Kirk’s Sword of Imagination
(not an exact quote)
Kirk was walking across some Irish mountains along a very narrow path. If he met anyone coming the opposite way, one of the parties would have to backtrack to where the path was wider and they could pass each other. Kirk imagined he met a shotgun toting Irishman in just such a spot. The Irishman asked him, “Be ye Catholic or Protestant?” Kirk thought he would take the tactful way out. “I’m an atheist.” To which the Irishman replied, “Aye. And be ye a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”
rjp- Thanks for recognizing humor when you see it, including my jokes about TAC. You’re alright, however misguide you are :)
Kirk’s joke is a spin on an old joke, that has an Ulsterman with a neutral name (unlike “O’Connor, say, or “Johnson”) being felt out as to his religious identity…
RJP is the man. Such wisdom is seldom seen around here. As for the rest of you, I can hardly believe that Zehnder was graduated from TAC (he must have been nodding off during his reading), and I can only say, in an exact quote from the immortal Bard (Nichols), that “these Caelum et Terra wise guys have no real-world answers and little right to criticize.”