Some ethicists think that the permissibility of an action typically does not depend on the intentions with which the action is done. (We obviously need “typically”. It is possible to make promises as to one’s intentions. And saying “This statement is intended” is permissible only if one intends to say it.)
Here is a deep reason why Christians cannot agree. Perhaps the deepest Christian ethical commitment is to something like this:
- An action is permissible if and only if it is loving (possible weaker variant: it is not unloving).
But whether an action is loving or unloving typically depends on intentions.
14 comments:
Alex
Is the action "eating ice-cream" a loving action?
I guess you could say it is not an unloving action, but the intention is simply to satisfy your taste. I know you can say you "love" ice-cream, but to go from there to claiming that eating ice cream is a loving action seems like a stretch to me.
Last time I checked, eating ice-cream was permitted by the Church. My mother, a devout Catholic, eats ice-cream every Sunday. Should I warn here that here action isn't permissible?
In enjoying the beauty of the world--and gustatory beauty is an aspect thereof--one is appreciating the God in whom the beauty participates. And appreciation is one of the three central aspects of love.
Alex
OK, but is it my intention to act in a loving way when I eat ice-cream, or is the "loving" aspect merely a necessary consequence of an action that entails gustatory beauty?
If the latter is true, that would seem to pose problems for your stance.
It should be your intention to enjoy God's world in everything pleasant you do. But intentions are not like words you say: they can be implicit in your basic attitudes.
Alex
So, in your opinion, an atheist is not permitted to eat ice-cream, because it is obviously not his intention (whether explicit or implicit) to enjoy God's world.
Of course, on Christian ethics, atheism is not permissible, but that's another matter.
I was talking of a "Christian ethical commitment". There is an ambiguity in "Christian ethics": is it ethics according to Christians or ethics for Christians? If the latter, then may be is an easy solution: this ethics doesn't apply to atheists.
Note, too, that my original formulation was open to the possibility that the permissible is just the not unloving. I could just go with that.
But a better move is to say that the atheist who eats ice cream can be exercising proper love of self, assuming the consumption is not excessive.
Alex
Christians typically do not just apply their ethics to Christians. Otherwise, they would not object to, say, same-sex marriage for non-Christians.
As for the not unloving. If you include self-love, then I can't think of too many actions that are unloving. Killing an infant for fun would not be unloving if the killer enjoys it.
Somehow, I don't think that killing for fun should be permissible.
Catholics, at least, distinguish between special obligations that Christians have and obligations that apply to everyone in virtue of the natural law. "Christian ethics" is ambiguous between the two. Some Catholic ethicists think that there is no natural law requirement of loving your neighbor as yourself, but there is a requirement for Christians to do it.
Here is a first approximation of the logical structure of loving and unloving acts, in the special case where the agent knows who the affected parties are:
1. An act G is unloving iff there exists a Y such that G is unloving to Y.
2. An act G is loving iff there exists a Y such that G is loving to Y and there does not exist a Z such that G is unloving to Z.
In particular, doing something evil to someone else for one's own sake is unloving to that someone else, and hence it is unloving simpliciter by (1).
(There are special complications where the agent doesn't know who the affected parties are. For instance, creating a robot to torture someone that one falsely believes to exist is unloving.)
Alex
I agree that doing something evil to someone else for one's own sake is unloving to that someone else, but the question is whether that implies an unloving intention?
I can imagine someone intending to have fun without intending to do evil to someone else, even though it turns out that the "fun" action does is in fact evil to someone else.
Such an action would, IMO, not be permissible even though there is no unloving intention.
Having an unloving intention is only one of the ways that an action can be unloving. Neglect of one's children is unloving, even if there is no intention that the children should suffer.
Alex
But you said that "whether an action is loving or unloving typically depends on intentions"
I definitely didn't mean that it depends *only* on intentions. Whether the cake burns depends on the temperature of the oven, but not only on that (also on how long it's there, etc.)
I suspect the following claims are true:
1. Having a good intention is always necessary for an action to be loving.
2. Having a bad intention is always sufficient for an action to be unloving.
3. Having a good intention is rarely if ever sufficient for an action to be loving.
4. Having a bad intention is rarely if ever necessary for an action to be unloving.
Alex
"Having a bad intention is rarely if ever necessary for an action to be unloving" can be translated as "an action can be unloving even if there was no bad intention".
Using your analogy, the cake can burn even when the temperature the oven is cold. So, you may suspect your claims are true, but your four claims are no compatible with whether an action is loving or unloving typically depends on intentions. Whether an action is unloving clearly does not depend on intentions.
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