![Cultish delusions [1213x1351 - 182KB]](https://pic8.co/sh/qHDfBL.jpg){kind=link}
So would you press the switch or not?
I would press the switch to stop the grinder. Setting aside the fact that 5 seconds is scarcely enough time to discern whether such an oracle is legitimate, it is not for me to decide how and when someone will die, but God. If someone is in danger, and I can save them, I save them, simple as that. Even if they are suicidal.
This is no different from the euthanasia issue, which the Church clearly teaches is immoral. If someone is in pain and wants to die, giving them a needle is formal cooperation in suicide. The issue is more nuanced if the person is only alive by virtue of machines - I don't think the Church teaches there is a moral obligation to force someone to continue living, if they would die by natural means if left alone. And that makes sense to me. It is similar to the contraceptive issue; sex with an infertile wife is fine, and natural family planning is fine (if exercised in the right spirit), but contraception is wrong because it obstructs the natural end of the act. Likewise, enabling a natural death is fine, especially if all reasonable means to correct the issue have been taken, but actively causing the death is immoral.
I don't think I wrongfully put words in your mouth then. Regarding whether you would press the switch or not. I think and I have different intuitions here, that go along with utilitarianism, or negative utilitarianism. And I also think that a poll would reveal that most people would wish that you not press the switch.
If you were accusing me of wrongfully putting words in your mouth regarding the rape thing, but not the grinder thing... I wasn't saying you were saying that rape is moral. (Although I was jokingly saying you were saying that immoral means to paying rent was the way to go.) I was saying that rape, while still a grave sin, is less grave than murder.
I don't think I was wrong about your positions here. I don't think I represented you inaccurately.
And I also think that a poll would reveal that most people would wish that you not press the switch.
Fortunately morality is neither relative nor determined by the outcomes of polls.
I was saying that rape, while still a grave sin, is less grave than murder.
This was primarily what led me to think you were putting words in my mouth, because no, I would not claim and do not claim that rape is worse than murder. Rape pertains to the sixth commandment against adultery (although the principle against violence of the fifth is involved), whereas murder is an outright violation of the fifth commandment. Killing an innocent life is worse than non-lethal violence combined with sexual sin. That's why I would not say that the sexual depravity of our modern time is itself the worst of all our sins, but rather, abortion is, because of the sheer immensity of innocent lives being murdered without a second thought, without half the population even seeing anything wrong with it. Obviously sexual degeneracy is related to our abortion culture, and both are very serious sins, but the gravity of murder is paramount (among the common sins against our neighbour, anyway; the violations of the first three commandments in our society are of course even worse than this).
I don't think I was wrong about your positions here. I don't think I represented you inaccurately.
I wasn't meaning to accuse you of bad faith. I was just then, as now, correcting what I perceived to be an error in your analysis.
(post is archived)