Jan 30 Thu
Can some kind of action be always bad?
In a human act, we must distinguish,
(a) the Object of the Action,
(b) the Intention of the doer, and
(c) other Circumstances and consequences.
Normally, we choose a course of action—a moral object—to achieve an end. Thus, to find if an action is good, we must consider not only the consequences of the act and not only the good intentions but first, the moral object of the act, which is to say: what we are actually doing.
The object of a human act may be good (praying), bad (lying), or indifferent (taking a walk).
Here, though, it is easy to blind ourselves. We try to create “non-moral” categories of acts. A bank robber may justify himself by saying, “I am just putting papers in a bag.” Yet the object of a robbery is not transferring money from one place to another, but its unjust appropriation.
There are concrete acts that are always wrong to choose because their choice entails a moral evil. One may not do evil so that good may result from it. These actions are incapable of being ordered to God because they contradict the good of the person. These are moral objects that the Church calls “intrinsically evil;” they are bad always and per se on account of their very object, without considering the intentions of the doer or the circumstances.
The morality of the object and the intention may not be the same. For example, someone could cheat a client (bad object) to pay his employees’ salaries (good intention), or send a gift (good object) to bribe an official (bad intention).
When the object chosen is in itself indifferent, a good or bad intention makes the action good or bad, respectively.
A good intention makes a good object better. If the object is bad, the action becomes less bad, but never completely good. Thus, it is never licit to do something bad for a good end. “The end does not justify the means.”
A grievously evil intention makes a good object result in a bad action. A bad object becomes a worse action.
Some widespread errors are:
Subjectivism, that reduces morality to the good intentions of the agent, judged by subjective criteria.
A false conception of the Fundamental Option declares, that once the person has chosen the right “fundamental option” or orientation in his life, he would not be accountable for the mortal sins he commits, as long as he does not change his overall attitude.
Consequentialism claims that the morality of an action depends exclusively on the consequences resulting from the choice of action (a technical way of stating that the end can sometimes justify the means).
Proportionalism maintains that the morality of an action can be measured solely by weighing the good effects being sought by the doer and comparing them with the resulting bad effects.
Both, Consequentialism and Proportionalism, maintain that it is impossible to establish a kind of actions that are morally wrong in every circumstance and every culture.
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