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I can't be satisfied with this just for the fact that it involves too many unknowns.
First, I doubt if we are willing to say that every contingent event in the world is a result of God's active willing it. Therefore, the man may have fallen by his own misstep or someone else's. It does not really matter.
The only real question at hand is whether I have a moral obligation to save a life which is in peril. After all, I cannot know (even by your admission) that perhaps God willed this man to die this way. Therefore, the only way to construe my touching the stop button would be as a direct act of intervention.
We cannot say that God has determined, against my free will, that I push the button. Nor can we say that God necessarily willed that I be here to deliberate.
If God's voice had told me to stop the machine, or during prayer I had received a vision that moved me to be at this spot, I would have reason to consider that I ought to push the button. But we haven't stipulated that.
So we have only the facts.
Could I not suggest that not intervening would represent mercy? I know that you'll be able to say that it is for God alone to issue mercy. Yet I think about situations where a farmer has a grotesquely injured cow or horse. It is ubiquitously understood to be a merciful act to end the animal's pain if practical reasoning suggests there is no way to recover.
If a machine is mangling the body of a man, and we think that only one or two more seconds would pass before death, it is reasonable to also think that his condition at whatever time I find him currently alive will be gruesome, in fact, near death anyway. Therefore, should he survive he will be in great pain, he will have a painful recovery, and will likely be deformed for life, perhaps to the level of being freakish.
It seems merciful that I not intervene.
There would have to be a clear moral proclamation from God that we must save every life if we are able to.
If there is no such proclamation, I think it would be better to be merciful - again, absent the knowledge whether God willed this suffering or purgatory for this man.
What if he was deformed before falling in?
I'd have to say that one deformity of meat that falls into a meat grinder will produce a greater deformity.
Even still, the immense pain of the situation followed by the recovery, followed by what figment of a life is possible afterward, causes me to ask (what I consider the reasonable and perhaps Kantian view) whether I would want to be spared.
I don't think that I would.
What if he was deformed and the grinder provided corrective surgery, and what if he is a masochist? Also, what if we're on the moon?
First, I doubt if we are willing to say that every contingent event in the world is a result of God's active willing it.
I specifically refrained from saying "active" will; Aquinas distinguishes between God's active will and His permissive will, and I am referencing His permissive will.
Therefore, the only way to construe my touching the stop button would be as a direct act of intervention.
It is precisely because we cannot know the mind of God, and whether He permissively wills a man die or become a cripple, that we must always act according to charity in all we do. The end of charity is God and eternal life, not temporal peace. If these ends are not obstructed through our action, and no probable danger will come to us by intervening, and we are able, then we should act to preserve life.
Yes there are many complicating factors in these scenarios, such that, depending on the details, it may be a prudential matter with no clear answer. This may be such a matter. But there are similar situations were the answer is clear, like active euthanasia, and this we must condemn.
Nor can we say that God necessarily willed that I be here to deliberate.
If you are there then it is part of God's Providence. It does not follow from this that a certain action of you is expected, but that you would be there He certainly did will.
I know that you'll be able to say that it is for God alone to issue mercy.
Men can of course be merciful also, but the ends of the action differ. To have mercy with respect to a life can be man's; with respect to a soul, God's alone.
I agree with your sense that it would be more merciful to "let someone die" then "force them to live" in certain situations. I guess in my envisioning of the scenario, especially originally, my idea was that it was a choice between stopping the machine before any mangling had occurred, rather than after. But even if we are talking about after, I still think that because there are so many factors unknown to us, we would be obliged to do whatever we can to preserve the life. Maybe the man has a family he would rather live to provide for, even if he is wheelchair bound for life. Maybe this, maybe that - I had it when moral considerations are reduced to these details. A life is a life and if it can be saved, that is better than to let it die or suffer more harm than it would if intervening. Maybe you would say the psychological harm of living with the industries is one additional "harm" added by the saving, but I would say death exceeds even that.
a farmer has a grotesquely injured cow or horse. It is ubiquitously understood to be a merciful act to end the animal's pain if practical reasoning suggests there is no way to recover.
Animal and human moral situations are very different. Animals do not have rational, immortal souls. They won't go to hell if they assent to a suicidal relief from suffering, whereas a man might. It just isn't the same.
It seems merciful that I not intervene.
A very similar situation is a comrade-in-arms lying on the ground, his legs and one arm blown off. Do you pull out your pistol and just shoot him? Or pull his tourniquets and get him to the medic? Different soldiers might will different things; some would prefer to die in the battlefield then live with three prosthetic limbs, other would endure any suffering to see their families again. If the soldier cannot communicate to you (is unconscious), I would say the only justifiable course is to presume the latter, pull the tourniquets, and do the best to save him. I find this to be most analogous to the man caught in the machine.
Another layer of complexity is added if the man in the machine can communicate, or the soldier isn't unconscious, and they are both begging for death. Arguing to keep them alive, I recognize, seems simply cruel at such a point. Then again, there are cases of people in great amounts of pain, who have begged for death, but were nonetheless saved, nursed to health, and are overwhelmingly grateful to have not been killed.
And that's what it amounts to. Killing. Of an innocent life (not put to death through just punishment). In other words, murder - however noble or merciful to intention. For there are strong moral arguments that can be made to suggest that inaction, when action is possible, is little different from direct killing.
There would have to be a clear moral proclamation from God that we must save every life if we are able to.
Could not the Fifth Commandment ("Thou shalt not kill") be construed as such a proclamation?
And if not...we have His Church to rule on such things, since God did not rule on every moral issue, as much as wishes he had, and Divine intervention is not expected of God every time we face a moral quandary. This is one purpose the Church exists, to clarify such things.
So what does the Church say about saving lives?
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):
I. Respect for Human Life
2261 Scripture specifies the prohibition contained in the fifth commandment: "Do not slay the innocent and the righteous."61 The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere.
Euthanasia
2276 Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible.
2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.
Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.
2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.
2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.
I would say our man-in-the-machine example more readily falls under Paragraph 2277, and thus must be condemned.
There is most definitely a problem with these edge cases, where by trying to stretch the logic by way of manipulating the hypothetical physical facts, we not only stretch reality (like our assuming that 5 seconds would even permit us to coordinate an intervention with the machine), but we talk about such cases with very different images in mind.
I envisioned a severe situation where a man's entire body was captured in some toothed or spinning machine, like a lathe and had been virtually obliterated. Such a case would probably have resulted in eventual death anyway, and so I'd have considered it to fall under 2278. You'd simply be relieving the man of his anguishing trip to a hospital where he'd die in a matter of hours perhaps.
In the case where someone loses a limb or two, I am inclined to agree with you fully.
In talking about these issues, I am always reminded of a video I saw around a decade ago. An Indian woman was committing what looked to be a sati ritual - self immolation.
She sets herself ablaze and begins panicking. Her frantic running doesn't allow any of the standers by to catch her. She is probably fully engulfed in flames for a couple of minutes before anyone gets to her with blankets.
Eventually she just sits down while completely alight. A few men come to her with blankets to smother the fire. It is obvious, well before the flames are out, that she has burns over 100% of her body. To the bone. She is practically charred.
In that case, I'd not have put the flames out. I would have let her die. She will not live. Extending her suffering would just be needless.
What do you think of the examples of people with advanced ALS who have lost sovereignty over all of their movement and live in constant pain each day? I have always thought Kevorkian was justified to assist in humane euthanasia in those cases where the patient wanted it (even where the family wished it).
My trouble is this:
How can your desire to be morally good outweigh that person's chronic suffering?
How can your desire to be morally righteous take priority over the person who is actually suffering?
I have always found it staggeringly hypocritical for a person to tell the suffering that God wants them to live. Perhaps this has less to do with the morality of the act itself, and more to do with the sovereignty of an individual to make their own choice.
I suppose that is what I believe, is that the individual must be the one to make the choice. Holy people near to them ought to make their cases, but I don't believe they can decide on behalf of the person.
Regardless of what you think of sati, women should not have choice.
How can your desire to be morally righteous take priority over the person who is actually suffering?
It is about our goodness and theirs. They are not in contradiction. The soul of the suffering one to be euthanized will benefit most from not assenting to suicide, if they are conscious - to assent to as much could be fatal for their soul. And if they are not conscious, and are not likely to be conscious again, as with a permanent coma, this would likely fall under 2278. If they are suffering but "not conscious" because they have suffered brain damage, then assent to suicide would not be an issue, but unless complex machines are necessary to keep them alive, it would still fall under 2277 - a life of pain is not an obstruction to holiness; it lends itself to it, if nothing else, and to deny a person that, especially if they are unable to assent or even understand this, cannot be considered licit.
Holy people near to them ought to make their cases, but I don't believe they can decide on behalf of the person.
And what about mental anguish? If someone you know walks up to the edge of a building, fed up with the suffering in their life, I'm not only going to try to talk them down - I'm going to call the fire department, get a big net, and obstruct their fall.
Your reasoning here seems to be in the line of "one's life is one's own to do with as one pleases." This is not true; your life is not yours to forsake. It comes from God, and for a purpose, and it is never morally acceptable to use this life to spit in the face of God.
I sympathize with your reservations, really I do. But when it comes to euthanasia per 2277 or suicide, where the person in question is going to suffer, but does not depend on extraordinary instruments to keep them alive, then killing them to evade that suffering is no more acceptable than a suicidal person jumping off of a building is morally acceptable - regardless of the suffering, murder is always wrong - even self-murder.
Aquinas distinguishes between God's active will and His permissive will,
lol @ divine simplicity.
Could not the Fifth Commandment ("Thou shalt not kill") be construed as such a proclamation?
Except for when someone speaks out against indulgences.
lol @ divine simplicity.
You could say the same thing about God's Knowledge, or Love, or any other attributes. There is a difference between synonymity and equity of essence to be considered.
Classical Theist has a number of videos (, , ) on the topic of Divine Simplicity that you should watch if you're set on raising this point every time God's attributes are mentioned.
Except for when someone speaks out against indulgences.
Again, this commandment, as with anything in Scripture, must be read in the context of the whole of Scripture. Scripture has commentary on the death penalty and just war, revealing both as licit. The killing that is condemned in the ten commandments is immoral killing, or murder, which is why some translation outright read "Thou shalt not murder".
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