I’ve been trying my hand at aphorisms. It seems like a pencil twirling, stare out the window, August thing to do. Here’s one.
A rich irony: diversity is the slogan used by progressives to avoid talking to people they disagree with.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 3:20 PM
August 12th, 2009 | 4:25 pm
Facebook users would recognize aphorisms to be “status.”
August 12th, 2009 | 5:22 pm
C’mon, Rusty, nobody at FT, including you, has ever really tried to answer a hard question I’ve put to them yet. Every article printed here exhibits almost exactly the same political predilections, which are essentially party-line neoconservative. I’ve asked repeatedly about whether this can be made to jibe with the plain sense that tha
How about: “Freedom” is the slogan used by conservatives to avoid talking to people who’ve not experienced much of it?
(I’m not Lichtenberg or Kraus any more than you, regrettably.)
August 12th, 2009 | 7:33 pm
Here’s another aphorism: Some question authority until it answers, at which point the answer is dismissed as “party-line.”
August 12th, 2009 | 7:39 pm
“`Freedom’ is the slogan used by conservatives to avoid talking to people who’ve not experienced much of it?”
Not according to Kris Kristofferson: “‘Freedom’s’ just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Or Bob Dylan: “Freedom, just around the corner from you, but with truth so far off what good what it do.”
August 12th, 2009 | 10:06 pm
I inadvertently hit some key or mouse button that submitted in mid-sentence in my last message. What I was going to ask was how the common congeries of American “conservative” positions jibe with the philosophy of St. Thomas. You, know, the most prominent doctor of the Church? The greatest systematic philosophical and theological thinker in the history of Christendom? Just asking. Citing the authority of some sophist like Weigel is not an answer.
For example, “gun rights”. What would the good saint think of those, given that it was his teaching that no ordinary citizen ever has the right deliberately to take life (even un-innocent life) even in self-defense? A wisecrack or redneck sneer is not an answer to this question.
Gee, Beckwith has some musical taste. Who woulda thunk it. My quote is bettern’ yers. Whoa-oh (Dylan).
This “progressive” is ready to talk seriously whenever you guys are. It’s been a long wait.
August 12th, 2009 | 11:11 pm
Dear H. Teichman: Sorry about my previous wisecrack (although I do think it’s pretty good as an aphorism. Tastes differ, I guess). However, you are misrepresenting Aquinas’s position. What he very clearly states is that it is indeed lawful and just to take a life in self-defense, even on the part of a private citizen. What he says private citizens cannot do is INTEND to take a life in self-defense, since such an intention rules out the principle of moderation in defense. For example, if someone pushes me (let us say), it would be wrong of me to pull out a pistol and shoot that person dead. Even if I were defending myself from attack, I clearly intended to kill the person, without that death being necessary for the purposes of self-defense. If, however, the person were attacking me with a knife, let us say, and I cannot escape, and the intention of the other is my murder, I am justified in killing that person in self-defense. If you want to look all this up, it is in Summa Theologica II-II.64.7. I hope this does not qualify St. Thomas as a “sophist.” Best, Craig
August 13th, 2009 | 12:23 pm
Dear Craig: thanks for the serious reply. Thomas was certainly no sophist.
I have trouble following you here. First you seem to want to separate intention from action and connect it with moderation. Then you admit that when one pulls out a pistol to kill an attacker, one does intend to kill them (at least most of the time), but you fill in a set of circumstances that are supposed to allow or mitigate this intention. I’m afraid I don’t see any textual support for this.
Article 3 of the passage asks “Whether it is lawful for a private individual to take the life of a man who has sinned”. The answer is simply No. Just no, period. There is no qualification based on intention. It is clear, however, that “taking life” here means killing intentionally, I would agree.
At this point we may ask whether someone who carries a gun (i.e. a device whose essential purpose is to make killing easy) around (intentionally) “for purposes of self-defense” can reasonably deny that they used it only to wound and not to kill in some particular case. Intention (this is a point of some serious recent philosophy by Catholics like Anscombe) is not some fugitive ghost state in the mind during an act; rather, it as it were permeates the whole structure of the acts in which it is embedded. If you could just peel away the intention from your acts at will, nothing would be blameworthy.
In any event, we don’t live in the Wild West anymore, thank goodness.
I think it is very hard to argue convincingly, given the whole context of what Thomas says about murder, that something like a “right to bear arms” of ordinary citizens is in fact anything but a fantasy. The problem should at least be acknowledged as such by the American Catholic Right. The Second Amendment, liberally interpreted, cannot just be assumed to be Christian because a lot of “Christians” were brought up with a gut feeling that it is.
The famous “double effect” passage in the Summa that you cite is not a license to strip away intentions that are clearly there as a means of exculpation.
August 13th, 2009 | 2:17 pm
I’m no expert on Thomas, nor have I ever owned a gun (did fire a .22 couple of times in defense against a brooding tin can), but I think, H. Teichman, that you are misrepresenting the intentions of those who defend the “right to bear arms.” I suspect that very, very few who lawfully carry a gun do so with the intent to kill another person. The gun is there for emergencies, a safeguard against difficult circumstances that one hopes would never arise. Just as one does not have a pacemaker implanted in the hopes of having a heart attack, so most do not carry a gun with the intent to use it.
Now, obviously, there is a great moral difference between using a gun to kill a person and using a pacemaker to save a life, but your argument seems to hinge on the concept of intent. I simply raise the point that one can posses a device with a particular essence and yet hope, even intend, to never exploit that essence.
August 13th, 2009 | 3:25 pm
Dear H.T.: I agree with your last comment: Aquinas is not trying to strip away intentions. In II-II.64.7, he argues that if one has the intention to kill another, and uses self-defense as the pretext, that is wrong. However, if the intention is a legitimate and moderate self-defense, and the end result is killing another, that is permissible. This also entails something with which I do not think you will agree, but which Thomas clearly states: that it is not wrong to abandon moderate self-defense in favor of the more aggressive, under pressure of circumstances. That is, in some cases killing another in self-defense is the most rational response, and is not anti-Christian.
Article 3, which you cite, is referring to a private individual acting as a sort of executioner and killing another who has done wrong, or “sinned,” against the community. You are correct that Aquinas is completely against this, as am I and everyone else on this website.
The right to bear arms can be problematic and can certainly be subject to regulation. However, I don’t think Aquinas can be conscripted easily into that argument. If anything, he seems to me to be more in favor of self-defense even to the point of killing. In many cases, that could well entail bearing arms.
Best, Craig
August 13th, 2009 | 3:26 pm
P.S. It just struck me as funny, how far away from the initial post this conversation has drifted.
August 13th, 2009 | 3:29 pm
Let me put this as simply as I can, for the moment. Let us assume that we grant that Thomas is right that it is *fundamentally wrong* to kill deliberately (for an ordinary citizen under a rule of law), even when under deadly attack by criminals, or whatever. This is what he states.
Then how can it be a *fundamental general citizen’s right* to bear weapons that make it *easy* to kill, whether deliberately or not (people are frequently killed by accident in gunfights)?
August 13th, 2009 | 4:00 pm
H.T., I don’t see how you can read Article 7 and reach the conclusion that “it is *fundamentally wrong* to kill deliberately (for an ordinary citizen under a rule of law), even when under deadly attack by criminals.” Given that he states (via the NewAdvent.org translation) “Accordingly the act of self-defense may have two effects, one is the saving of one’s life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one’s intention is to save one’s own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in ‘being,’ as far as possible.” I don’t see how you get from “not unlawful” to “fundamentally wrong.” I suspect some clarification on that point would go a long way toward my understanding your position.
There’s a big difference between Article 3 and Article 7 and that’s the tense of the initial offense. As Mr. Payne has reiterated, Article 3 talks about one who “has sinned”–note the tense: past. Article 7 describes how one may react when one’s life is *presently* imperiled. I may not presume to privately execute justice against one who has *done* evil, but, within certain bounds, it is certainly my right (even responsibility) to prevent one from *doing* evil.
Furthermore, the possibility that the exercise of a particular right may lead to objective evil can hardly be entertained as a serious objection to the existence of the right itself. Otherwise, freedom of speech would have to be curtailed immediately.
August 13th, 2009 | 4:12 pm
Sorry, as Craig notes, I did get rather off the original topic. But I think issues of life and death are very important, so:
One final quote from Thomas, in Section 8, which Craig wants to construe as (sort-of) encouraging killing in self-defense under certain circumstances:
“Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense in order to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s. But as it is unlawful to take a man’s life, except for the public authority acting for the common good, as stated above (Article 3), it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense, except for such as have public authority…”
Note the rather weak phrase “it is not necessary for salvation” that one should *avoid accidental killing* in a truly desperate situation in the course of taking *moderate means* of saving onesself, which according to the context do *not involve intentional killing*. There is no “escalation” to allow deliberate killing here. How does shooting someone fall into the category of moderate means?
The last statement here is bald and uses the stronger phrase “not lawful”: “it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense, except for such as have public authority…”
I would just like some self-proclaimed members of the Culture of Life to actually think about the plain sense of these passages for a change. Just recognize at least that there is a *problem* for the gun-rights position. There is at the very least a strong tension between the letter (and spirit) of what Thomas says and the rhetoric of the NRA.
Care to weigh in here Rusty? You’re the professional theologian.
August 13th, 2009 | 4:58 pm
Sorry, but I’m with TimC. I think the obvious problem here is simply a misreading of Aquinas.
When Aquinas says “it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense,” he has already divided between the action of killing, which is at times lawful (for example, when one is under mortal attack) and the INTENTION of killing. If I am under mortal attack and kill someone, I am not the one who intends the killing; the attacker intends the killing, and I intend self-defense. My self-defense may involve the death of the attacker, if necessary. Killing the attacker is not “moderate,” but as Aquinas says, sometimes the moderate defense may be abandoned in order to preserve one’s own life, since self-preservation takes precedence over self-moderation.
Again, as for carrying weapons, that may be a matter of prudence. There certainly may be people who legally carry handguns and are just itching for the chance to use them–but that is exactly why Aquinas divides up the permissible and wrongful exercise of lethal force according to one’s intention. TimC’s final paragraph is precisely on point here.
What if someone shoots another lawfully and with justification in self-defense, but secretly derives great pleasure out of the shooting? Well, as Aquinas states elsewhere, not all moral sins, even serious ones, can be or should be legally outlawed.
Best, Craig
August 13th, 2009 | 5:10 pm
H. Teichmann,
I’ve had similar thoughts about gun control, but after reading some gun owner forums I changed my mind. Guns are primarily used to intimidate an attacker. If someone waves a knife at you, pull out your gun. You win, and without even pointing it at him. I remember going to a large, well-known gun store and firing range in a town I used to live in. The clerk said that some of their regulars had had to brandish their guns in self-defense–but nobody he’d known had ever had to fire one.
Actually shooting at someone is very rare. I agree that it’s a tough moral issue, and I wouldn’t want to have to do it myself. But I don’t think you’re right in assuming that the only reason one would carry a gun is to shoot it.
August 13th, 2009 | 5:20 pm
H.T.
Statements of the sort “I would just like [people who disagree with me about issue X] to actually think…” are hardly of the kind that indicate one is arguing in good faith. It is possible, you know, for thinking people to disagree. Furthermore, the claim that anyone is “(sort-of) encouraging killing” in this discussion is also a sign of disingenuous engagement. I challenge you to find any statement that can support this charge.
Again, you seem to think that because a putative right can be abused, it ceases to be a right for that reason. But you have yet to demonstrate this in any way. Even if you could show that Thomas is completely barring all attempts at self-defense, it does not logically follow that he has refuted the possibility of the right to bear arms. One may indeed have a right, but that right does not confer legitimacy on every exercise of that right. Such is the right to bear arms.
August 13th, 2009 | 5:48 pm
Ok, guys. I think we’ve run this into the ground. Thanks sincerely for the civil discussion, anyway.
Craig, I recommend you get a copy of G.E.M. Anscombe’s Collected Philosophical Papers, Vol. III. There are a number of passages therein about the proper understanding of the “doctrine of the double effect” and how it relates to intention and how it has been abused (by Catholics). I’ll quote some of one of them (pp. 58-59; one really needs to read the whole passage):
“Catholics, however, can hardly avoid paying at least lip service to that law [the law against killing the innocent, with respect to the atomic bombings of Japan]. So we must ask: how is it that there has been so comparatively little conscience exercised on the subject among them? The answer is: double-think about double effect. …It is nonsense to pretend that you do not intend to do what is the means you take to your chosen end. Otherwise there is absolutely no substance to the Pauline teaching that we may not do evil in order that good may come.”
This is from the greatest original Catholic philsopher of recent times. As I say, you need to read the whole thing.
One man’s reading is another man’s misreading. That’s why Sola Scriptura is nonsense.
It sure is a good thing that Christian moral theology doesn’t actually REQUIRE anything much of us (except avoiding abortion and masturbation and suchlike sexual stuff). We can go on being good American pagans, and good Christians too, by golly, most of the time.
August 13th, 2009 | 7:37 pm
Just one more comment, and then I promise I’ll be out of here: H.T., I agree with Anscombe’s general remark on the atomic bombings (I like her, too, by the way). But the atomic bombings may be thought of as wrong based on Aquinas’s general just war theory, since they were primarily civilian targets. How that particular example fits into our discussion of bearing arms, I am not sure, except that perhaps you are saying that anything (evil) can be justified by appealing to the (good) ends?
But that is not what Aquinas is doing, I think. He is simply saying that self-defense should be proportionate to the level of the attack against which one is reacting. And he makes allowance for that level of self-defense to rise even to killing one’s attacker.
What Thomistic principles might indicate about the atomic bombings of Japan, I’ve already mentioned. But these events don’t work as analogies if they are applied to self-defense or to the bearing of arms for self-defense.
When I was on the road a lot more (job-related driving), I used to carry a table leg in my back seat, just in case (an “equalizer,” you might say). I never used it and was never in a threatening situation. But it was there. The fact of its presence did not tempt me to use it—even though I was willing to do so.
I might even agree with you that American culture is overly gun-obsessed. I’m just saying that I do not think Aquinas’s principles jibe with the specific argument you are saying. That does not mean you are necessarily wrong in your views–just that I do not think they are Thomas’s views.
Interesting discussion. Thanks, and I might see you again elsewhere. Best, Craig
August 13th, 2009 | 7:41 pm
Aphorism: “One’s interest in a philosophical discussion and the necessity of one’s involvement in that discussion are both directly correlated to the amount of pressing work one is supposed to be doing elsewhere.” Bye, everyone!
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