Comments on: Obama’s skepticism and the morality of embryonic stem cell research

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:18:36 +0000

Some interesting digs at the Catholic Church here:

A Lutheran pastor explains how the murdered abortion provider could have been a Christian in good standing with his church and faith community — and how the politics of abortion is tied to the history of racism.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religionandtheology/1559/on_religion%2C_abortion%2C_and_politics%3A_dr._george_tiller%27s_christian_ethics/?page=entire

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:56:44 +0000

Maybe, then, the inauguration of a tradition of Just Abortion Theory or Just Murder of Abortionists Theory is in order.

By: Kleiner

Kleiner — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:28:35 +0000

Not a bad question, Rob, and I am probably not treating it with adequate care (I hear rumblings upstairs so I think my nap break from kids is over).
I am not a pacifist, and neither is the Catholic moral tradition (though both I and the Catholic moral tradition have pacifistic tendencies since warranted violence will be quite rare). So why is this murder still unjustifiable? I’d appeal to just war theory. In this case, the action fails because – at least – it was not waged by a legitimate authority. Of course, I don’t think the US government could rightfully execute abortionists either. Though this would not be intrinsically evil (abortion and capital punishment are different here), it would be cruel and unnecessary.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:07:50 +0000

But wouldn’t that make the “pro-life” cause an instance or application of pacifism? How could any use of lethal force be justified if it can’t be morally justified on behalf of the utterly defenseless “unborn”?

If the “unborn” possess the same inviolable dignity as ourselves, our spouses, children, and fellow citizens, then how could it ever be morally legitimate to pick and choose among this series any others on behalf of whom it would be moral to intentionally kill, if it’s not so on behalf of the most defenceless and innocent of them all?

By: Kleiner

Kleiner — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:46:06 +0000

I am not a utiitarian- the ends don’t justify the means. The blogger you link to argues that morality would seem to demand vigilante killings, but his mistake is to presume that morality properly understood is consequentialist.
I don’t consider anyone who murders to be a part of a pro-life movement properly understood. The pro-life cause is based on the inviolable dignity of every human person, period. While George Tiller will have plenty to answer about when he faces the Lord (and that is his affair, not mine), his murder was a tragic violation of basic principles of justice.

I have seen Lake of Fire, but not Palindromes. I’ll put it on my list.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:06:09 +0000

Not sure where else to pose this question, but I’m genuinely curious as to how Kleiner would address it:

Who is the better, truer member of your movement? The man who murdered serial “baby killer” George Tiller? Or [...] (comparative) moderates, who reject the use of violence to save the innocent?
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/linker/archive/2009/05/31/a-question-for-pro-lifers.aspx

Also, just wanted to mention two highly relevant films which don’t pander to (my) left-wing pieties on this subject:

Lake of Fire ( –an outstanding documentary canvassing the entire spectrum of attitude towards abortion; and I think it features Tiller)
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/lakeoffire

Palindromes ( –in addition to dramatizing liberals’ most formidable opponent [the anti-choicer who practices, rather than merely pays lip service to, adoption, features a splendid soliloquy on fatalism and the illusion of free will)
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/palindromes

By: Kleiner

Kleiner — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:04:58 +0000

I think of conscience as a kind of attunement. A conscience can, then, be more or less attuned to moral realities. Conscience does not mean mere feeling, and my own conscience is strangely not my own. It is in and through the conscience that the Other speaks. This is where the exterior is interiorized.

Of course all sorts of things can go wrong in the formation of a conscience. Bad examples, false beliefs about man and the good, enslavement to various passions, lack of charity, etc. Even ‘ostensibly serious’ pursuers of the good can be prone to such things.
But there is an even sneakier danger – what can destroy the proper formation of conscience is also regarding the conscience as autonomous. Rather, the conscience is principally marked by its heteronomous quality – it speaks for the Other! So an ‘ostensibly morally serious person’ who begins with a disordered notion of conscience (and of human nature generally) – that the individual conscience is autonomous – is prone to moral error. In other words, I don’t think conscience (or religion, for that matter) is private, I think it is public and the inner life has to be sorted out corporately (I am, after all, Catholic and not Protestant, and I take it this is the real divide between the two). I have an almost thoroughly sacramental attitude, including in my philosophy.

I don’t know if any of this responds to your point, I am just trying to unpack my notion of conscience (as much for me as for you). I think (and I believe the Church teaches) that one ought to follow one’s own conscience at all times – even when it contradicts the Church teaching. However, from the Catholic point of view such a situation already discloses the extent to which conscience is thought of as private and distinct from the tradition it has inherited. My focus here is on following rather than leading, listening rather than demanding. In other words, one TRUSTS the Church Magisterium. I don’t have any ready-to-hand evidence that the Church teaching is authoritative, I just believe it. (I have officially taken off my philosopher’s cap now!). I have plenty of anecdotal instances of Church moral teachings being confirmed by reason, but again I think they are mostly confirmed in the heart. In any case, I think the Tradition speaks ahead of me rather than thinking that the Tradition plays catch-up (retroactive designations).

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:40:41 +0000

…a morally serious person will have worked out the nature and good of man on her own. It just so happens, that others have already worked it out and articulated those findings in the teachings of the Church Tradition.

So, what about people whose ostensibly serious pursuit of the nature and good of man results in substantive disagreement with the teachings of the Church Tradition? It seems that either (1) moral seriousness and the Church are not essentially coincident, or (2) moral seriousness is a retroactive designation conferred by eventual coincidence with Church Tradition.

By: Kleiner

Kleiner — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:06:23 +0000

Again, I think you misstate what ought to be the right relationship with the teaching authority of the Church. The Church imposes nothing, she only proposes. In a sense, one need not even refer to the teaching authority of the Church on moral matters. The Church says – follow your well-developed moral conscience. It just so happens that whatever a well-developed moral conscious would say is in fact what the Church teaches.
In other words, there is no rejection here of the personally developed and intellectually serious moral attitude. Moral views are not ‘made true’ in light of corresponding to the Church teaching. Rather one gets normative matters right by getting serious about the nature of man and the good of man. This should be done in ‘the inner life of the subject’. Now, what that ‘inner conscience’ will say about moral matters will end up conforming with objective norms (natural law, etc) and what the Church teaches, but it is not ‘made true’ by corresponding with the Church.
For example: If I want my daughter to learn how to best make a souffle, I will encourage her to practice and experiment. Over time, she will discern truths regarding souffles (that whisking egg whites in a copper bowl, for instance, makes the eggs fluffier). Now, the tradition already has borne out that truth (ask expert chefs) and there is an objective fact of the matter. But for her to be a good cook, there is something useful in her sorting this out for herself rather than appealing to a pre-set list of (albeit true) deontological rules of cooking. Same goes for moral formation – a morally serious person will have worked out the nature and good of man on her own. It just so happens, that others have already worked it out and articulated those findings in the teachings of the Church Tradition.

Great Bergman quotation. And it makes for some progress for us. If we are both convinced that there are ‘other worlds’, then our question can cease to be the traditional ‘atheist-theist’ debate and can instead become a question about ‘the Other’ (to use pomo lingo). Who is the Other, how do we relate to the Other, and – most importantly – how does the Other reveal itself to us? To me, human beings are this question – the relationship between the immanent and the transcendent (if I may be permitted the metaphysical jargon).

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:55:45 +0000

As I’ve indicated in other posts, I’m extremely skeptical that reasoning and reasons go very far towards explaining how we’ve actually arrived at our moral views ( –instead, I think they are largely post hoc self-deceptions for which we, both as individuals and as society, have much to thank and curse). But it does seem to me more intellectually serious to think of oneself trying to get normative matters right in terms of how things are, in contrast to doing so in terms of correspondence to an entity supposed to be an independent normative source.

That’s an interesting anecdote. Bach is an essential part of my daily subsistence, but the pathos for me is almost precisely contrary to yours: a consoling reassurance of godlessness.

Bergman got it right, I think, in his reply to a Bishop in 2005:

“I believe in other worlds, other realities. But my prophets are Bach and Beethoven, they definitely show another world.”

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/movies/news/article_1028000.php/Swedish_director_Ingmar_Bergman_believes_in_Bach_and_Beethoven