Reasoning in hard cases: principles, intentions and consequences

Program / Course 22: Christian Ethics / Lesson 6.4

What you will learn

• Describe casuistry, the method of reasoning from cases, and its history.
• Explain the principle of double effect, the doctrine of intrinsic evil and the role of intention.
• Compare duty-based, outcome-based and virtue-based reasoning in a hard case.
• Apply a step-by-step method to a case while naming the points of reasonable disagreement.

The big idea

Hard cases test moral theories. Christian traditions have developed tools for them: casuistry, which reasons from clear cases to unclear ones; the principle of double effect, which distinguishes what is intended from what is foreseen; and the idea that some acts are wrong whatever the consequences. Outcome-based thinkers reply that consequences must count more. A careful reasoner asks about the facts, the act, the intention, the circumstances, the alternatives and the person’s character, and recognizes that conscience must still make the final judgment.

Key terms

Casuistry

Reasoning from paradigm cases to resolve doubtful ones. The term has also been used critically for clever excuses, but its serious form is a method of careful judgment.

Double effect

A principle that permits an act with a good effect and a foreseen but unintended bad effect, under four conditions.

Intrinsically evil act

In Catholic teaching, an act that by its nature is always wrong, whatever the intention or circumstances, such as murder or rape.

Proportionalism

A Catholic school of thought, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, that held that the morality of an act depends on weighing goods and harms. Pope John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor (1993) criticized it.

Consequentialism

The family of theories that judge acts by their results. Utilitarianism is the best known form.

Deontology

Ethics based on duties and rules that bind whatever the results, as in Kant.

Moral dilemma

A situation in which every option seems to involve a wrong. Philosophers dispute whether true dilemmas exist.

Background

Moral rules are easy to state and hard to apply. A mother must steal bread to feed her children. A doctor must choose between saving a mother or a child. A hostage-taker threatens to kill a prisoner unless a lie is told. Ethicists use such cases to test principles. The Christian tradition has long taught that conscience must judge in concrete situations, guided by principles and the example of wise people. Paul says that each should be fully persuaded in his own mind (Romans 14:5), and that those who doubt and act against conscience sin (14:23).

In the Middle Ages and early modern period, confessors needed to advise penitents on difficult cases, and a literature of casuistry arose. Jesuits and Dominicans wrote detailed manuals. Blaise Pascal’s Provincial Letters (1656) satirized some Jesuit casuists as lax, which gave the word a bad name, although many casuists were careful, and Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin’s book The Abuse of Casuistry (1988) argued for the value of the method. Protestant thinkers also developed case reasoning, as in Puritan writers such as William Perkins. Modern bioethics often uses case discussion in ways that echo this heritage.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Intention, act and circumstances

Aquinas held that the morality of an act depends on its object (what is chosen), its end (the intention) and its circumstances. A good intention does not make a bad act good, and a good act with a bad intention is spoiled. The Catechism states that the object, the intention and the circumstances are the three sources of morality. Intention is not only a private feeling but the aim that a person chooses. A person who bombs a city to terrorize the population intends something different from one who bombs a munitions factory and foresees but regrets civilian deaths, though critics question whether the difference holds in every case.

Christian tradition rejects the maxim that the end justifies the means, which Paul rejects in Romans 3:8, speaking of those who say, let us do evil, that good may come. The tradition also does not say that consequences do not matter. Prudence, a cardinal virtue, requires attention to what is likely to happen and to proportion.

Step 2: The principle of double effect

The principle is usually given four conditions. The act itself must be good or morally neutral. The bad effect must not be the means by which the good effect is obtained. The agent must intend only the good effect and merely tolerate the bad. And there must be a proportionate reason for allowing the bad effect. Classic applications include giving pain relief that may shorten life, removing a cancerous uterus in a pregnant woman and military action that foresees civilian casualties.

Critics raise objections. Some say that the line between intending and foreseeing is thin, because a person who knows a result is certain is in some sense choosing it. Others say that the principle is applied inconsistently or used to excuse harm. Defenders reply that intention matters morally, as in the difference between a surgeon whose patient dies and a murderer, and that proper application requires care about each condition. Philosophers from many backgrounds, such as Philippa Foot who discussed the trolley problem, have examined the principle.

Step 3: Absolute prohibitions and consequences

Catholic teaching holds that some acts are intrinsically evil and may never be done, whatever the circumstances, among them the intentional killing of the innocent, torture and rape. Veritatis Splendor (1993) defended this against proportionalist views that all acts must be weighed by their consequences. The argument is that if there are no absolute limits, anything may be justified, and that human dignity requires protection from being used as a means. Other traditions, including Orthodox and many Protestants, hold that certain acts are always wrong in practice while sometimes expressing the point in the language of command or of love. Anabaptists and others hold a similar absolute rejection of killing.

Outcome-based thinkers, including some Christian ones such as Joseph Fletcher in Situation Ethics (1966), held that love alone is the rule and that any act may be right if it serves love. Most Christian ethicists criticized this as too loose, noting that love needs content and that people deceive themselves. Between the extremes lie views that accept strong presumptions against certain acts while admitting tragic exceptions, such as Reinhold Niebuhr’s, or that see moral conflicts as leaving moral residue, a sense of regret even when the right course is taken.

Step 4: A method for hard cases

A practical method, used in various forms, runs as follows. First, gather the facts, including what is uncertain. Second, identify the moral questions and the values at stake: life, truth, justice, loyalty, promise. Third, find the relevant principles, rules and Scripture, and ask how the traditions have reasoned in similar cases. Fourth, consider the options, including ones that avoid the dilemma. Fifth, examine intentions and likely consequences, asking who is affected, especially the weak. Sixth, test the judgment by consulting others, praying and asking what a wise and loving person would do. Seventh, decide, and act with humility, ready to learn.

The method does not remove disagreement. People can follow it honestly and arrive at different conclusions, because they weigh facts or values differently. Conscience is bound to follow its best judgment, though it must be formed and can err. The traditions also hold that after a hard decision, repentance, forgiveness and trust in God’s mercy remain open. Part of moral maturity is knowing which cases are truly hard and which are hard only because a person wishes to avoid a clear duty.

1. What are the facts, and which of them remain uncertain?
2. What exactly is the act, and what is the intention behind it?
3. Is a bad effect a means to the good, or a foreseen side effect?
4. Does the case involve an act that the tradition holds is always wrong?
5. What are the likely consequences for all affected, especially the vulnerable?
6. What would a wise and loving person do, and who could be asked?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic moral theology teaches that the morality of an act depends on its object, intention and circumstances, that some acts are intrinsically evil, and that double effect governs cases of foreseen harm. Conscience must be formed by Scripture and the church’s teaching. Catholic moralists debate the interpretation of these principles, as in the disputes with proportionalism.

Orthodox

Orthodox moral theology is less systematic. It emphasizes the guidance of a spiritual father, the use of economy in applying canons to persons, and the purification of the heart as the basis of discernment. Hard cases are handled by pastoral judgment in light of the canons and the saints, not by detailed principles.

Protestant

Protestants range from those who stress clear commands applied directly, as in much evangelical ethics, to those who stress contextual love and responsibility, as in Bonhoeffer and, in a different way, Fletcher. Reformed casuistry, such as Perkins’s, was detailed, and Lutheran and Anglican traditions also had guidance for conscience. Many Protestants rely on prayer, counsel and the Spirit’s leading.

Secular and scholarly

Secular ethics offers duty-based, outcome-based and virtue-based approaches, and modern bioethics uses case-based reasoning. Philosophers use thought experiments such as the trolley problem to examine the difference between doing and allowing and the role of intention. Empirical studies show that intuitions about such cases differ by culture and context.

Why it matters

A moral education that deals only with easy cases will fail when real difficulties come. Learning to reason in hard cases builds judgment, humility and honesty about what a person is doing, and it shows what the traditions have in common as well as where they diverge. It also guards against two errors: moral rigidity that ignores consequences and moral flexibility that excuses anything.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Is there an act you believe should never be done whatever the consequences? How do you defend that?
2. Does the difference between intending and foreseeing seem convincing to you? Why or why not?
3. Who could be trusted to advise in a hard moral decision, and why?
4. How do you tell the difference between a truly hard case and an excuse?

Independent assignment

Working through a hard case

In your notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Choose a hard case, such as one in this lesson or one from your reading. Apply the seven-step method to it, noting the facts, the values, the principles, the options, the intentions and consequences, the advice that would be sought, and a tentative decision. Then say how a duty-based, an outcome-based and a virtue-based thinker would differ, and name the point on which reasonable people would disagree. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.

Further study

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read Question 64 of the Second Part of the Second Part, Article 7, on killing in self-defense, the source of the double effect tradition.
• Blaise Pascal, Pensées Read selectively for Pascal’s reflections on reason, the heart and moral judgment.
• Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read the section on the morality of human acts and the formation of conscience.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Virtue Ethics Read to compare virtue reasoning with duty and outcome reasoning.
• Romans 3:8 Let us do evil, that good may come.
• Romans 14:23 Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
• Proverbs 11:14 In the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
• James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.