We are now in the midst of the Republican presidential primary. I have been paying attention to the various candidates and their political positions and am thoughtfully considering which of the candidates I will support in the GOP presidential primary. The winner of the Republican presidential primary will take on the Democratic Presidential nominee and possibly a Third Party candidate. The voters will then have to make the decision with their consciences of whether and for whom to vote.
While voting in and of itself is not intrinsically evil are people (catholics) who vote for pro-abortion politicians because of their stances on other social issues consequentialists? That is, are they implicitly, and perhaps inadvertently, accepting a consequentialist moral philosophy?
Consequentialism is the belief that the consequences are the one defining element that determines the moral value of any action. Consequentialists exclude the fact of the intrinsic ethical character of actions which precipitate their ends. They deny that actions have a moral weight of their own.
To put the question more succinctly, is it intrinsically evil to vote for politicians who support the right to choose abortion?
To address an anticipated criticism – namely, the claim that since it is not intrinsically evil to vote, it therefore cannot be intrinsically evil to vote for this person or that one, I reply as follows:
While voting in and of itself is morally neutral we as Catholics have an obligation to avoid voting for someone in particular who supports an intrinsic evil such as abortion. Our pontiff has made it known that there are certain issues which are non-negotiable. Voting per se is not intrinsically evil. But to vote is to vote for someone. No one casts a generic ballot with no name on it. That would not even be a vote at all. So generic voting is a mere abstraction, not an act. The act is always voting for this person or that one. Therefore the choice to vote for a particular candidate may be intrinsically evil depending on the candidate and his or her positions. Abortion is one of the aforementioned non-negotiables. It is intrinsically evil. Voting for someone who supports abortion (especially if there is a moral alternative) necessarily entails supporting abortion, an intrinsic evil. Therefore voting for someone who supports abortion as a “right” is intrinsically evil.
Now you know what I think. Where do you stand?
[...] A Little Philosophy: Voting and Consequentialism [...]
Somebody better tell Nancy Pelosi about this.
Well, Nancy Pelosi in my opinion is one of those Catholic politicians who has had plenty of opportunity to change her abortion position to follow the Church’s position and avoid causing scandal so I think she should have been excommunicated by now. I also think that had this happened this would have sent a message to the laity.
I think there must be a distinction between “voting for someone who supports abortion as a right”, and “voting to have abortion made a right”. The latter would certainly be evil, the former I’m not so sure, since it would not necessarily lead to the latter. Maybe you could persuade me.
For the record, I personally would never vote for a pro-abortion candidate. But I do want to give those who would, the benefit of the doubt for having good intentions.
The problem is for years people have been given the benefit of the doubt when voting for a pro-abortion candidate. Those voting can always use the excuse that “they’re not voting for the person because of their position on abortion but in fact because they agree with the person on another issue” but where has this gotten us today? Where will this get us in the future? This has only enabled the pro-abortion agenda and allowed thousands of innocents to be murdered. If this type of mentality when voting continues when will we ever stop abortions?
But you’re changing your argument now, aren’t you? Before you said it’s intrinsically evil to vote for a pro-abort candidate, now it seems like you’re arguing on pragmatic or consequentialist grounds.
In any event, I’m not sure how much difference it has made that otherwise pro-life people have voted for pro-abortion candidates. How many candidates have won on the basis of those votes alone? I imagine they are a tiny proportion of the overall electorate. I submit that by and large, pro-abortion candidates win because of the votes of pro-abortion voters, combined with those of voters who are indifferent on abortion but like the candidate for other reasons.
Second, voting has only a distant relation to the continuing legality of abortion. I agree that every little bit helps, and that’s why I would never vote for a pro-abort candidate. But I think it’s just too tenuous a connection to accuse such voters of committing intrinsically evil acts.
But you’re changing your argument now, aren’t you?” I guess I did. If one supports a candidate who supports abortion, regardless of the other reasons given for supporting that candidate, isn’t that person in effect supporting an Intrinsic evil as a consequence of voting for a candidate who supports the killing of innocent human life?
From what I have read in the past Catholics makeup a significant portion of voters. Plus, I think (If I remember correctly but I’ll have to check this out) if the number of Catholics hadn’t supported Obama he would not have been elected president. It is more probable than not that if McCain had been elected Pres. the two justices replaced would have been conservatives replacing liberals versus liberals replacing liberals and this could have affected whether Roe v. Wade was overturned or at least restrictions could have been put in place.
Teresa:
You write, “If one supports a candidate who supports abortion, regardless of the other reasons given for supporting that candidate, isn’t that person in effect supporting an Intrinsic evil as a consequence of voting for a candidate who supports the killing of innocent human life?”
It’s not necessarily that, no. That was the point of my original comment: Voting for a person who expresses pro-abortion views is not the same as voting for a pro-abortion law. If you vote for him *because* he intends to vote for pro-abortion laws, then I would consider it an intrinsically evil act.
I think someone could vote for a pro-abortion politician and justify it using the principle of double effect. The principle requires the following:
· The intended act must be good in itself. The intended act may not be morally evil.
· The good effect of the act must be that which is directly intended by the one who carries out the act. The bad effect that results from the act may be foreseen by the agent but must be unintended.
· The good effect must not be brought about by using morally evil means.
· The good effect must be of equal or greater proportion to any evil effect which would result.
· Acts that have morally negative effects are permissible only when truly necessary, i.e., when there are no other means by which the good may be obtained.
Suppose someone voted for Obama for the purpose of, say, ending the war in Iraq. But voting for Obama could also conceivably have the effect of delaying the outlawing of abortion. However, we don’t know for sure whether Obama can take any action which would delay the outlawing of abortion. Therefore that mere possibility may be an acceptable side-effect of voting for Obama for the purpose of ending the war in Iraq.
It could be argued that it meets all the requirements of double effect:
The act is good in itself: voting is a good thing, and so is ending the war in Iraq;
The good effect — ending the war — is that which is directly intended by the one casting the vote;
The potential bad effect — possibly delaying the outlawing of abortion — is foreseen but not intended, and in any event is uncertain to occur;
The good effect — ending the war — is not brought about using morally evil means;
The good effect — ending the war — is of equal or greater proportion to the possibilty that the outlawing of abortion could be delayed — I admit this point is debatable, but a point in its favor is that there is very little certainty that abortion will ever be outlawed in any event, whereas ending the war in Iraq is quite doable by a President who is determined to do it;
There is no other means by which the good — ending the war — may be obtained, than by electing a President who is committed to doing so.
You may disagree with this argument, but I think there’s no question that it is a debatable point, and one on which reasonable people may disagree. That being the case, it can’t be instrinsically evil to vote for a pro-abortion politician.
My personal opinion is that it is bad to vote for pro-abortion politicians. I wish the bishops could stand up and say with certainty that voting for a pro-abort politician is intrinsically evil. But I don’t think they can, because it’s not cut-and-dried, and I think that’s why they don’t.
Now, as to withholding communion from pro-abortion politicians, I think we’re on more solid ground. I think they definitely should not be given communion until they publicly recant any public pro-abortion statements they may have made. I think the bishops’ failure to enforce this kind of interdict is due to lack of courage, or sense, or faith — at least, I assume it must be one of those things, because I can’t, for the life of me, think of any way to justify it.
But while abortion is an intrinsic evil supporting the Iraq War is not. That is a matter of prudential judgement. So, I’m not quite sure the principal of double-effect would apply.
“Voting for a person who expresses pro-abortion views is not the same as voting for a pro-abortion law.”
But the problem is that the person who supports that politician who will vote for the pro-abortion law is in effect aiding and supporting an intrinsic evil. Unfortunately the politicians we vote for are the only ones who can support or oppose a law so that’s why who you support is very important.
Teresa:
You write, “But while abortion is an intrinsic evil supporting the Iraq War is not. That is a matter of prudential judgement. So, I’m not quite sure the principal of double-effect would apply.”
But we’re not comparing the Iraq War with abortion. We agree that the latter is intrinsically evil and the former is a matter of judgment. All I’m saying is that according to double effect, you can do something that may result in a foreseeable evil under certain circumstances.
Thus, for example, in certain circumstances you can perform surgery to save the life of a mother, even if it may result in the death of the child in her womb. You can’t directly and deliberately kill the child, but you can do something that results in the child’s death as a side effect, so long as you are pursuing something good and pursuing it through non-evil means, etc. By the same token, in the Iraq War it may be morally licit to drop a bomb knowing that some non-combatants may be killed, so long as you are not deliberately targeting them but are targeting a legitimate military target, etc.
So, using the same criteria, I’m arguing that you can vote for a candidate who has expressed pro-abortion views, so long as you are voting for some legitimate reason and not with the intention of promoting abortion. In this case it seems even less risky than the bombing or the surgery example above, since in those cases you can be pretty sure someone is going to die as a result of your actions; whereas linking a single vote to the actual death of a particular fetus is an extremely tenuous proposition.
I totally get the whole idea of double-effect I was just a little confused as to how a war would relate to voting for politician who is pro-abortion with having the principle of double-effect intermingled into it all.
My point is/was that when someone supports a pro-abortion candidate regardless of the reason they are in effect accepting an evil (intrinsic evil) along with a possible good. But usually one is a matter of prudential judgment while the other -abortion- is an intrinsic evil so how can that prudential judgement outweigh the intrinsic evil – the killing of a human life?
“So, using the same criteria, I’m arguing that you can vote for a candidate who has expressed pro-abortion views, so long as you are voting for some legitimate reason and not with the intention of promoting abortion.”
The problem is that may not be the person’s intention but that is what the person is ultimately doing by voting for a pro-abortion candidate. They are enabling the occurrence of innocents deaths.
While ending a war is the ultimate or desired end there are just wars and unfortunately in wars civilians have usually been caught in the crossfire. The accidental killing of civilians in and of itself does not make the war unjust or wrong. This is sad but usually inevitable. And while ending a war is debatable and the time for when one should end this or that war the abortion issue is not a debatable topic as far as it being the killing of innocent human life and it being an intrinsic evil.
I don’t know whether you saw this or not but I thought that I would pass it along – http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/04/catholic-bishops-abortion-should-guide-2012-election-vote/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lifenews%2Fnewsfeed+%28LifeNews.com%29
I think this is a step in the right direction.
While in the abstract it is true that the intrinsicity of evil in an intrinsically evil act is not based on its consequences, and that continuing to speak of consequences puts the point in danger of being lost, I also can’t help but feel that, when it comes to certain intrinsically evil acts, such as abortion, any choice that in any way supports, promotes, or protects that choice from legal sanction or the prohibition it justly deserves and that a society that wishes to value human life with the protection of the law should have and enforce, changes the meaning of that choice and causes it to take on some of that intrinsic evil. This is a basic, intuitive moral feeling. Those who cannot see it in relation to abortion may see the point better if the choice were to vote for someone who favors the re-legalization of slavery or holds a “personally-opposed-but” attitude toward the holocaust (e.g. – “I am not pro-Jew-extermination, but I do defend the freedom of choice for any sovereign nation to implement a Final Solution of its own if it so chooses.”) It is obvious that no one should vote for the pro-legalized slavery candidate or the candidate who is pro-choice on genocide no matter what the reason is. No one should support such a candidate no matter how good he is on other issues. I can’t help but feel that a vote for such a candidate, regardless of the reason, takes on the burden of some of the intrinsic evil of the act that the candidate is supporting by default (by not rendering the bare minimum appropriate opposition that any civilized person should render).
Kevin:
I don’t disagree with you at all. I just can’t go as far as Teresa in saying that a vote for a pro-abortion candidate is intrinsically evil.
Further, I think the Pope and bishops must agree, otherwise they would be making unequivocal statements to that effect rather than “urging” Catholics to make abortion the highest consideration. As a bishop, you don’t “urge” people to “strongly consider” not committing intrinsically evil acts.
Teresa:
I agree, that’s a step in the right direction. I think Dolan is already having a good effect on the USCCB. Thank God!
Agellius: Yes, Dolan is having a good effect on the USCCB.
The bishops have made abortion the central point of voting which means giving that issue more weight than other issues such as those related to helping the poor and how a candidate prefers to help the poor – more or less government intervention – so I think this is as far as they could go without telling the laity who they should vote for. I think telling the laity who they can and can’t vote for would have the opposite effect so I think the bishops making abortion the most important issue was a good call on their part to discourage the laity from supporting an intrinsic evil by voting for a pro-abortion candidate.
Teresa:
Agreed. : )
[...] A Little Philosophy: Voting and Consequentialism – Teresa Rice, Catholibertarian [...]
What about the charging of interest? That is also a sin, an intrinsic evil (Ezekiel prescribes death for it) and ALL politicians support this sin. They all get money from the usurers, and do their bidding!!!! These politicians are allowed to take communion in our churches!!!!
Abortion is evil; it’s not the only thing that is evil.
Chad,
My husband and I were just discussing the sin of usury a couple of days ago. After my discussion with my husband I was under the same impression as you about the charging of interest being usury but It seems that it is not as clear cut as saying that “all charging of interest is a sin”. It’s a bit more complex than that.
The Fifth Lateran Council said this regarding usury: “For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk” (Session X).
“Thus, usury is not “charging interest on a loan.” Usury is profiting from something which produces nothing, without any effort. Depending on the circumstances, this could apply to money, bushels of wheat, widgets or other goods. To better understand the Church’s teaching on usury as it relates to money, we must understand how money was viewed and functioned before we had competitive markets.”
Like I said, the definition of usury is complex. After looking at the Catholic Encyclopedia on this issue I have decided that after I do a bit more research I will do a post on usury.
Here is one article in which I found some information on usury:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/usury.html
Sounds to me like landlords and certain kinds of investors and traders could certainly be called usurers as well. And of course the issue is complex, and cases vary. But God gave us good moral sense to be able to tell when something is just wrong, and there’s a lot of wrong stuff going on today, with a great deal more frequency than abortion; if Catholics of all kinds paid one eighth of the attention and energy that is given to abortion to usury, there could be a genuine change in the national dialogue just as there is now on abortion. It is wonderful that you and your husband had this talk. I mean no offense to you, but the article seems like pure sophistry to me. Money is still useless when it’s idle!! Nothing has changed in that regard. If you put a stack of money under your pillow it doesn’t grow overnight; only when put in motion can it generate a return. Money in the bank or in a fund is not “idle” (although people who make their income entirely from these gains may very well be.) And if returns must be risk free to be usurious (as my reading of the article implies) then even the most blatant and obvious cases of usury can be defended since there is no such thing as a sure return. Yes, we need to be discriminating and discerning about what is usury and what isn’t, but in my opinion the writer of this article put his finger on the scale, so to speak.
Thanks for replying.
-=Chad=-
[...] [...]
It was nice to read your post. Thank you for posting this piece!
Voting for someone who supports abortion (especially if there is a moral alternative) necessarily entails supporting abortion, an intrinsic evil.
That is so intellectually shallow. If a candidate for Register of Deeds is pro-choice, am I supporting abortion by voting for her?
My point is that if people keep on voting in a consequentialist manner, accepting an intrinsic evil while voting for some other position they agree with it is going to be hard to end that intrinsic evil. In addition by voting in this manner one is enabling the problem or that intrinsic evil whether intended or not to be in existence. I mean do you think it would have been okay to vote for Hitler if someone believed he had a positive idea while knowing what type of evil he was supporting? I see this as being essentially the same with abortion. There have been many more abortions, persons killed, since 1973 than people were killed under Hitler. Abortion is a non-negotiable issue, unlike many other issues in the political sphere which are prudential.
I was really talking about Congress when I wrote this. But, if I knew that the person who was a candidate for Register of Deeds was pro-abortion I would not vote for her. If she votes to keep abortion legal then you played a role in allowing her to cast that vote, whether you agree with that vote or not.
I’m not judging how you vote, but the accusation you make of others as to what the meaning of their vote is. Ultimately how we end evils through political action is a private decision of each faithful person. That needs to be respected. There might be general points, but there are far too many varitables to be judging others.