Category: virtue and vice

Does a doubtful conscience oblige us?

Considering the manner in which conscience obliges us to follow it, we should consider moreover the question, does a doubtful conscience oblige us?

It seems that it does:

1. For conscience is a matter of good or evil in reference to the ultimate end, pertaining to salvation or damnation. But, to use a classic example, if a hunter, in the forest hunting deer, sees a large moving object, but is in doubt about whether it is a deer or a human, he must not shoot, until he is sure that it is not a human. Even more so, must one in doubt regarding a potentially sinful matter have certainty before acting.

2. Again, if someone has a doubtful conscience about doing something, he believes that doing it might be wicked. Therefore, if he willingly does it anyway, he seems to show that he is willing to do a wicked action, as through thinking “this might be wicked, but I am going to do it anyway.”

3. Again, St. Paul says, “Anything that is not according to faith” which here seems to mean conscience, “is sin.” (Rom 14:23) Therefore what is done aside from or against a doubtful conscience is sinful.

4. Furthermore, if reason is still uncertain, yet someone proceeds to act, it must be emotions or brute will that determines what it he does, but this pertains to precipitation and is a form of imprudence. Therefore it is sinful to act while reason is still uncertain about what is right and wrong, or good and bad.

5. Further, St. Thomas Aquinas says, “it is dangerous to resolve (determinare) a question about mortal sin, if the truth is not evident (nisi expresse veritas habeatur); for error by which that which is a mortal sin is believed not to be a mortal sin, does not excuse conscience altogether, though it may partially excuse it. (non excusat a toto, licet forte a tanto)” (Quodlibetale 9, q.7, a. 2) But a doubtful conscience presupposes that the truth is not evident; if it were evident, one would not be in doubt about the matter. Therefore a doubtful conscience obliges, at least when the doubt concerns something that is potentially a mortal sin.

6. Finally, St. Alphonsus Ligouri teaches outright: “It is never licit to act with a practically doubtful conscience; and in a case where someone acts he sins, with a sin of the same sort and gravity as his doubt concerns, because someone who exposes himself to the danger of sinning, already sins according to what is said in the Scripture, “He who loves danger will perish in it.” (Sirach 3:26.) (Theologie moralis I.1, 22), The same thing is taught by many thomists and moral theologians (e.g., Edward Feser, Charles Coppens in Moral Theology, Fr. John Hardon, Catholic Dictionary, “Rules of Conscience”)

Sed contra 1. Against this, St. Francis de Sales recommends as the chief rule of obedience “Let everything be done for love, nothing for fear. Love obedience more than you fear disobedience.” (Emphasis by capitalization in original). But if one foregoes doing what seems good because one is uncertain if it is wrong by reason of violating some legitimate rule, one seems to be acting more out of fear than love. Therefore a doubt of conscience does not prohibit one from pursuing what seems to be good, even when one has some fear of its being wrong, which is to have a doubting conscience.

Sed contra 2. Again, it is sometimes impossible for one to dispel all doubt about whether one should do some action or refrain from it. Therefore, if acting with a doubtful conscience were sinful, one would be unable to avoid sin, which is an unreasonable position. Therefore acting with or on a doubtful conscience is not sinful.

Sed contra 3. Again, certainty is not to be sought equally in all things, but inasmuch as the matter permits. But in some matters it is not practicable, and therefore not prudent, to seek certainty. This may apply either because the matter is so obscure or complicated that even long deliberation will not attain to certainty, or because one must act quickly, and in a short space of time it is not possible to dispel doubt about whether acting or not acting is the right thing. To take another classic example, if you are asked by the Nazis if you are hiding Jews, and are unsure whether you should tell the truth, lie, equivocate (if a suitable equivocation occurs to you), or say nothing, taking more than a brief moment to think about it may be equivalent to saying nothing, resulting in a search. But what cannot be avoided (acting or refraining from action with a doubting conscience) cannot be blameworthy. Therefore, a doubtful conscience at least does not always oblige.

Sed contra 4. Again, doubt of conscience may pertain not only to doing A or B, but to doing A or not doing A. And sometimes the doubt may be greater on the side of not acting, i.e., it is more probable that not doing A is sinful than that doing A is. But if it is wrong to act on a doubtful conscience, it seems that one would rather be obliged to not act, and therefore to what is more probably sinful.But this is an unreasonable position.Therefore, again, one is not obliged by a doubtful conscience.

I respond that the first and fundamental precept of natural law is “do good and avoid evil.” This obligation is manifested and realized in the obligation to particular goods. As rational beings, we do the good and avoid evil not by mere natural necessity, but by choice and judgment. Since we choose good (or evil) in accordance with our apprehension and judgment of the good, we are obliged to pursue and hold fast to the truth about what is good, so far as this is reasonably possible and necessary in order to choose the good.

I say “reasonably possible and necessary” because it may be more or less difficult for us to determine what is good or evil, right or wrong. Again, in some matters it is of greater importance what we do, in other matters of lesser importance. To what extent deliberation is reasonable will depend on the degree to which one might, through further deliberation or consultation, arrive more surely at the truth of the matter, as well as on the importance of the matter.

Sometimes it is difficult to discern what is good because we do not know some relevant facts. For example, one considering whether he should attend Mass while ill may not really know what the risk of him infecting someone else is, or what the chance is that a immunocompromised or otherwise vulnerable person could be present and possibly end up being infected by oneself.

In other cases, the facts are more or less clear, but how moral principles should be applied is not so evident. For example, returning home after shopping at the supermarket, one might discover that some item was by an oversight not rung up by the cashier. Is one obliged to return to the supermarket to pay for the item? Or is the burden of doing so out of proportion to the value of the item and therefore one has no obligation in justice to do so? Or because one might equally another time be doubled charged yet unable to be refunded for the double charge (on account, say, of a store policy), is it fair to keep the item this time without having paid for it?

Similarly, some matters are of great importance, and justify a great degree of deliberation, others are of less importance, and do not justify much deliberation; protracted deliberation might, indeed, detract from other good things one could be doing, and such deliberation might therefore itself be wrong. A potential move from California to Texas might be worth much deliberation. When making a cake, whether to put half a cup (to reduce calories) or three quarters of a cup of sugar (to make it sweeter) into the cake, is not worth deliberating a long time. Similarly, whether abortion is the killing of an innocent human being is worthy of considerable deliberation (so far as one has not previously attained clarity on the issue, so that no new deliberation is necessary), but whether in a specific instance, here and now giving a beggar on the street a dollar is reasonable and just (because it helps him in his need), or bad (because such economical support without other means of support only furthers the systemic problems in his life and society, or because it may be supporting organized crime), is not worthy of long deliberation (though the question of one’s attitude to begging and beggars in general may be worthy of considerable thought).

Consequently, in matters of lesser importance and/or when any additional confidence acquired through further deliberation does not justify the added effort and time, one is not obliged to settle doubts of conscience.

We should, therefore, say that a doubting conscience does not in principle oblige a man to avoid doing what he is afraid might be wrong, or to do what he is afraid might be obligatory. Nor does it always oblige him to resolve the doubt. And so we conclude that a doubting conscience does not, as such, oblige.

But as the arguments on the other side, that a man must not act on a doubting conscience, are not without weight and this opposite position is commonly held by moral theologians, we should take note of a certain truth in this position.

When a man reflects on his obligation or lack therefore to further seek the truth, he may often thereby resolve the doubting conscience, if he comes to surety about what he should do in this situation. There are, indeed, three outcomes of this self-reflective deliberation about whether he need deliberate further.

1. He may see that he is obliged to do what he can to resolve his doubt;

2. He may see that, because of the difficulty in resolving the doubt, or because of the minor importance of the matter, he is under no obligation to resolve the doubt, and indeed might be guilty of wasting time or of scrupulosity in pursuing the matter.

3. He may be unable to decide whether he ought to try to resolve the doubt, or just act according to his best lights. This happens especially, though not exclusively, with persons inclined to scrupulosity.

In the first two cases, his conscience is no longer doubting, but sure: in the first instance, that he ought to resolve the original doubt; in the second instance, that he should act according to his currently best judgment; in the third case, however, the doubting conscience remains, and one has no choice but to act with a doubting conscience (refraining from action to which one might be morally obliged is considered as an act, morally speaking).

Thus, a doubting conscience may in some cases be resolved to a sure conscience through this self-reflective consideration. It is, however, not always possible to resolve the doubt in this manner. And when it is possible, it is not always reasonable or obligatory to do so, when e.g., the issue in question is so minor that even the additional self-reflective act by which one might explicitly decide that one should act despite one’s doubt is superfluous or excessive.

Sometimes, indeed, a man may be obliged to such reflection, when the matter is important enough to require at least the further (self-reflective) deliberation of explicitly considering whether one should devote more resources and time to (objective) further consideration. And in this regard the arguments that a man must not act with a doubting conscience, but must resolve it, have some truth behind them. However, the obligation to further pursue the truth of the matter does not derive from conscience itself, but from the importance of the good in question. Again, this resolution of doubt to certainty is not always possible, and, even when it is possible, a person is not in every case obliged to attain this subjective and self-reflective certainty. And so it is not true unconditionally.

Ad 1. The first argument to the contrary is valid for those situations where the matter is important and further consideration can resolve the issue, but fails to conclude universally. For example, in a country wrought by civil strife over the government, a warden or executioner might be unsure whether a convicted traitor is actually a traitor, or whether the conviction is politically motivated and unjust. He may rightly act according to his best judgment, even while fearing that he is either cooperating with injustice or disobeying legitimate authority.

Ad 2. To the second argument it should be said that this argument assumes something false, namely that the person who does something that might be bad does not care if it is, whereas it may be merely that he is not reasonably able to clarify the matter.

Ad 3. To the third objection it should be said that St. Paul is here discussing the situation of those Christians who believed that they were obliged to avoid eating meat. Thus, we should understand “not according to faith” or “conscience” in the sense of “contrary to conscience”, and so St. Thomas Aquinas also interprets this passage in his Commentary on the Letter to the Romans: “He who “distinguishes”, i.e., he who has a false opinion that he must distinguish foods, namely the foods he considers to be illicit, is condemned, if he eats…. Because it is not from faith, but is rather against the faith, i.e., against the truth of faith and the conscience of the one who does it.

Ad 4. To answer the fourth objection we should note that we naturally and normally do many things without an explicit and complete argument for why it is good to do them or better than their alternative, acting out of habit and various spontaneous inclinations. For example, when shopping, I might choose cherries rather than grapes, because cherries taste better, or grapes, because they are cheaper, without actually considering the potential argument in favor of the other one. It would be unnatural and indeed impossible to reason everything through step by step at every moment.

Thus, when reason perceives something good yet retains some doubt about it, if the situation does not oblige a man to resolve the doubt, as we explained above, it is not contrary to reason, and in some cases might even be the most reasonable thing to do, to do that to which he is spontaneously inclined, or to follow his intuition, to use the common language.

Ad 5. To the fifth objection we should first note that Aquinas does not give an argument for why he on this issue states that error about a mortal sin does not excuse conscience altogether. It is difficult to reconcile this claim with what he says about ignorance (that an act that follows from involuntary ignorance is itself to be considered involuntary), except on the supposition that any error by which that which is a mortal sin is believed not to be a mortal sin, is at least partially voluntary. As this position stands in opposition to experience, particularly when considering the influence of parents and the surrounding society on the moral judgments of children, and as it inclines to a presumptuous judgment of the conscience of others (since when we judge their judgment about a grave matter to be wrong, we would presume at least venial sin on their part), we should not assent to it. We further note that this argument would apply not merely to a conscience holding something to be probably legitimate, but to a conscience erroneously holding something to be certainly legitimate.

We may, nonetheless, grant the argument to this degree, that in grave matters, when it is not of serious importance whether or not we act (which implies that we have no doubt that it is morally legitimate not to act), we should avoid acting when we have serious doubt that it would be gravely wrong to act.

Ad 6. To the sixth we reply that St. Alphonsus Liguori and many moral theologians have desired to create a system capable of resolving all moral cases, and consequently tend to reduce “gray”, or areas of indistinct truth, to black and white clarity. Indeed, some cases of doubt can be resolved by application of the principle that “a doubtful law does not bind”, as explained above, and as St. Alphonsus goes on to explain. But the implicit assumption that it is always possible, reasonable and obligatory for someone to resolve his doubt, at least by application of this principle, seems neither to be based on empirical experience, nor a logical argument, but serves to help establish such a system by which every moral case can be clearly and distinctly resolved. This assumption, as noted above, is untrue. More fundamentally, the desire lying behind such theories, the desire to establish a system capable of logically resolving all moral cases does not correspond to moral reality, which is measurable not so much by a logical system as by the virtue man.

The arguments on the other side may be granted, the distinctions or qualifications one might make in regard to these arguments being left as an exercise to the reader.

Does an erroneous conscience excuse us?

This post continues the consideration of the binding force of authority, in particular of conscience.

1. It seems that an erroneous conscience always excuses. For what is proposed by an erroneous, is judged as good to do or good to avoid doing. Now a good will is a will that tends to its proper object, the good. Therefore the will that tends to the presented good by choosing what is judged to be good or rejecting what is judged to be evil, is a good will. Thus erroneous conscience excuses a will of evil in following that conscience.

2. Further, if an erroneous conscience sometimes does not excuse, then, since a man is always obliged to follow his conscience, a man would be compelled to do evil, either by following his conscience and thereby doing (unexcused) evil, or by violating his conscience. But the culpability of sin presupposes the possibility of acting otherwise, as St. Augustine says “No one sins in that which he cannot avoid.” (Retract., I, 9 / PL 32:596; cf. De libero arbitrio, III, 18 / PL 32:1295) Therefore erring conscience must always excuse.

On the contrary stands the authority of the psalmist, when he prays for the forgiveness of “hidden faults” (Psalm 19:12), and of St. Paul in the letter to the Corinthians: “I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.”

The Catechism also teaches, that when conscience errs due to error, one must distinguish whether the ignorance is his fault. “This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility…. In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits…. If – on the contrary – the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him.” (CCC 1791, 1793). Therefore an erroneous conscience excuses sometimes, but not always.

I respond that to ask whether error of conscience excuses from evil, is to ask whether the evil of what is done according to conscience is to be attributed to the one who, in acting according to his mistaken conscience, does something objectively bad. For example, a doctor may believe himself obligated by his profession and duty, or in conscience, to assist a woman in ending an unwanted pregnancy, and may do so even in a situation that, objectively, means killing an innocent person, which is contrary to natural and divine law. Is he guilty, before God, of murder?

The general principle applicable to such cases is that everything connected with a human act, whether good or evil, is to be attributed to the will just to the extent that such circumstances or characteristics of the act are voluntary, either directly, or at least indirectly. Thus, if a cook, having taking usual and reasonable precautions, serves up strawberries and cream, not knowing that the strawberries are contaminated with salmonella, poisoning the guests is not be attributed to the cook’s will, he is not to be morally blamed for the incident. But if a food distributor simply ignores reports of food poisoning, paying no attention to them at all, the resulting food poisoning from lots of contaminated food would truly and fairly be attributed to him. Although not directly willed or intended, it is a result of the voluntary ignorance, and in this sense from his will.

The same distinction may be applied to the ignorance or error of conscience, when someone’s conscience tells him he must do something, which actually is bad, though he does not know that. He does not directly will to do evil, but rather to do the good which he perceives in what he does. So the badness of what he does is not directly voluntary, as willed by him. Yet it may be indirectly voluntary, if his ignorance of the badness is voluntary, if, say, he at some time knew that he should consider the morality of the situation more carefully, but refused to do so, for reasons of public opinion, his career, or the like.

Even if the cause of the ignorance or error be general or remote, in the measure that a man is liable for that cause, by voluntary action or negligence, he is liable for the resulting error and the disordered action proceeding from it.

To illustrate this, we might compare man, with manifold interests and responsibilities, desires, and knowledge, to a company with many workers that, produces and maintains complex equipment, say aircraft for example. To save on the number of employees needed, the bosses might be pressured to have workers who double check calculations work faster; if it can be foreseen that this hurry will lead to a number of mistakes over time, and it should be predictable with some degree of probability that this would lead to the failure of jet engines, which then happens, a resulting airline crash and deaths could be attributed to the company.

Similarly, a boss, having once adopted an abusive pattern of behavior he saw in others, if he downplays and dismisses any concerns raised about the way he treats the workers under him as merely motivated by envy or a political ideology such as “wokeness”, he might become so convinced that this is a normal human way to treat employees, that he doesn’t have any doubt about it, and has a secure conscience. This ignorance, inasmuch as it arises from a voluntary, blameworthy neglect to form his views and attitudes in a balanced and authentically human manner, would be indirectly voluntary, and therefore his behavior would be morally blameworthy, despite experiencing no guilt in acting this way.

Or if a man sees to it that he is surrounded by flatters who praise him for his cleverness when he takes advantage of loopholes in the law to cheat others and enrich himself, and, as a result, ends up with a sincere opinion that “as long as it’s legal, it’s ok,” he is guilty of this error and of his resulting unjust practices, even though his conscience not accuse him on this point.

The same distinction applies when ignorance causes a judgment of conscience that something is evil that is actually good.

A man might consider it evil to believe in Christ as the Church proposes Him for belief, not due to his own fault, but because, without fault (or significant fault) of his own, he is convinced that Christ is a myth or a false prophet or that Christianity, at least as proposed by the Church, is harmful and destructive of human happiness. In such a case, he would not sin by refraining from belief in Christ, according to his erring conscience, since his error is not his fault. He would, on the other hand, sin if he were to believe in Christ contrary to his conscience.

A man, might, on the other hand, consider it bad to believe in Christ because, having over time given himself ever more to the pursuit of power, pleasure or fame, he has adopted the view and now believes without question that a religion which preaches self-denial, humility, and the giving of one’s life, is demeaning and wrong. This disbelief, resulting from sin so as to be indirectly voluntary with respect to what is bad about it, is therefore morally blameworthy.

These principles and distinctions can be helpful for examining our own conscience. They further manifest how we can defend and uphold natural and divine law without presuming to pass judgment on the guilt or lack therefore of others before God. “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God;” (Romans 14:10) Since God alone knows the hearts of men, he alone can judge (surely and definitively) to what degree ignorance and error is voluntary. “I the Lord search the mind and try the heart, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” (Jer 17:10)

This suffices for the reply to the first objection; the one following an erroneous conscious is not blameworthy for clinging to the good as perceived, but for, through his own fault, believing something evil to be good or something good to be an evil, and therefore actually tending to evil.

To the second objection we reply, it is true that no one sins in that which he cannot avoid, and when a man is not able to avoid having an erroneous conscience, he is not blameworthy for following it. But when it is someone’s own fault that his conscience is in error, he is rightly blamed for the disordered action he does in following his conscience. The dichotomy “following his conscience (thus doing evil), or violating his conscience (thus being evil)” is indeed a false dichotomy. For since man is by nature ordered to the truth and desires the truth, conscience will never absolutely forbid a man from reconsidering his moral situation and correcting his conscience. Thus he is able to avoid all sin by correcting his conscience, and then following his corrected conscience.

We may be confident that God, who wills all men to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4), always enables a man to remedy a voluntary error of this sort. But on the supposition, that a man’s conscience were so darkened through voluntary fault, that he was absolutely unable to correct his conscience, the disordered deeds he would perform in following his conscience would not be, morally speaking, additional sins, but merely the necessary fruit of his previous sins.

We note, further, that though involuntary ignorance excuses a man of moral fault, he does not free a man from the consequences of disordered behavior. That which contravenes natural and human goods remains harmful, even if, without personal fault, someone is genuinely convinced that this behavior is not harmful.

Does an erroneous conscience oblige us

This post continues the series on the authority of conscience.

It seems that an erroneous conscience does not oblige us to act in accordance with our conscience.

1. For the obligatory force of conscience is derived from the necessity of pursuing a good or avoiding an evil that conscience judges as something necessary to be chosen or avoided. But when conscience is in error, that which is judged to be an indispensable good or to be evil is not actually such. Therefore, an erroneous conscience does not oblige us to choose or avoid it.

2. Again, an erroneous conscience may be in contradiction to a higher law, such as the divine law. But a lower rule of our behavior, as conscience, cannot overrule a higher rule such as the divine law. Rather, when two rules conflict, we are obliged to follow the higher one. Therefore erroneous conscience at least does not always bind.

But against this stands the authority of St. Thomas Aquinas, who states that “every will at variance with reason, whether right or erring, is always evil.” (ST I-II, q. 19, a. 5) Therefore even an erring conscious obliges the will to follow it.

Further, the Church assembled in Council of Vatican II teaches, “In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life.” (Dignitatis humanae 3). The Catechism similarly states: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.” (CCC 1790)

I respond that, as stated previously, conscience is a judgment by which constraints, or rules for action in relation to the attainment of happiness are known as applicable to specific concrete actions. Conscience always proposes something as a rule for a concrete action, which is to be done or avoided; for example, “I must complete this work assignment, as I have promised to”, or “I must not receive Holy Communion, because sacramental confession is necessary before every Holy Communion, and I have not been to confession since my last Holy Communion” Whether the rule or the application therefore is objectively correct, by conscience we hold something as a rule for a concrete action. And, given that conscience is erring, the discrepancy between the “objective” truth of the matter and the judgment of conscious is unknown. Otherwise conscious would not be erring, but still deliberating or doubtful.

Since we can and mustchoose the good and choose to avoid evil inasmuch as it is known to us, we are therefore obliged by conscience, even when this conscience is mistaken.

It is worth noting, however, that the feelings that correspond to conscience may sometimes counterfeit conscience, producing quasi-judgments about what we should do. For example, an emotionally and physically abused spouse might feel guilt at the thought of separating from an abusive spouse, and, corresponding to this guilt, the thought “I can’t do that!” They might continue to have such feelings and thoughts, even have careful, prayerful discernment that has lead to a prudent decision to separate, for their good and the good of the children.

We are not, in principle, bound by these feelings and thoughts, and especially not when they are in contradiction to the true judgment of conscience, which is not a feeling or impression, but a judgment of our mind according to the truth as best we are able to know it.

The response to the first is apparent from this. When a man has an erring conscience, he is not obliged to follow that conscience in virtue of the objective good or evil in the action in question, but in virtue of the good or evil which he believes to be in it. Thus, if a man believes that chewing the consecrated host when receiving Holy Communion is wicked, he is obliged to avoid choosing to do that, not because it is objectively a bad thing to do, but because his will relates to it in the way that he understands it, as a bad thing to do.

To the second we may reply that a higher rule can override the obligation of a lower rule only when the two rules can be separated from each other. For example, if a bishop orders that a priest remain in pastoral duty in his diocese rather than transfer to another diocese or pursue contemplative life, the pope could overrule this ruling of the bishop. But if the higher rule is only applied through the mediation of the lower rule, the higher rule cannot nullify the lower rule. If, for example, the priest could only knew the decision of the pope through the bishop’s order, he would be obliged to what the bishop claimed the pope had decided, whether the bishop was telling the truth or not. But morally binding laws are applied to specific acts through the judgment of conscience, and therefore we are bound to follow conscience, though it at times be objectively mistaken.

The authority of conscience: does conscience oblige us?

Having examined the nature of conscience, we continue to consider the obligation following from it. And first, whether conscience obliges us?

And it seems that it does not, because

1. No one is bound except by some authority superior to himself. But one’s conscience is not superior to oneself. Therefore one is not bound by conscience.

2. The same authority that can oblige a man, can also free him from obligation. But conscience cannot free a man from obligation, therefore it cannot oblige him.

3. Conscience recognizes not merely obligatory goods and evils that one must avoid, but also that which is better, yet not obligatory. For example, it might in some case be just to demand the return of a debt while being better to forgive it. But a man is not obliged to that which is better. Therefore he is not obliged by conscience as such.

4. No one is obliged to the impossible. But sometimes conscience urges to contradictories, and therefore to the impossible. For example, if someone unwittingly caused a fire that led to horrible loss of human life and pain, another person might be urged by conscience to lie about some circumstances in order to spare that person from distress over what he did, while still in conscience perceiving the lie as a moral evil. Or a military office might feel himself obliged to destroy a plane with innocent hostages that is being used as a missile and would kill far more people if not destroyed, yet perceive the destruction of the plane as murder. Or the leaders of a state might, to deter nuclear attack, intend nuclear retaliation if attacked with nuclear weapons, thus being ready in principle to actually carry through with a retaliation that kills many innocent people in order that the present threat of retaliation be credible.

Against this is the authority of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.” (CCC 1790)

I respond: to impose an obligation on a moral or free agent means to make that to which he is obliged necessary, not in the sense that he is absolutely unable to do anything else, but in the sense that his freedom is constrained, so that he may not do anything else, if he is to attain his end.

Some such constraints are given by nature and are known to man as natural law, while others are imposed by positive divine decree and known through revelation, accepted in faith.

These constraints have a basis in reality itself. For example, since life and the ability to performs acts of life is a presupposition for living well, or happiness, preserving one’s life and capacity for living activities is necessary for happiness. (Or, in a case of conflict, preserving the life of others, whom one loves as oneself.) Since man’s perfection is found above all in knowing and loving, pursuing truth and truth, for example, is necessary for happiness.

Yet the way that these constraints, or precepts of natural law or positive divine law, constrict the will in its freedom, is by being known by man, and known in their application to his potential action, as constraining or prohibiting him from performing certain actions, or requiring him to perform certain actions, if he is to attain his end.

But the knowledge of the constraints on actions in relation to the attainment of happiness, or morally obligatory precepts, as applied to action, is nothing other than conscience. Therefore conscience obliges the will.

Ad 1. To the first argument against this position, it should be noted that though conscience is not superior to oneself, it is the recognition of an order superior to himself, whether the order of nature or of the divine truth. And so one can be bound by conscience, which sets one in relation to a superior order that is not at one’s own disposal.

Ad 2. To the second we respond that in the sense we are considering here, of moral obligation, conscience does indeed free a man from obligation to a duty of which he is not aware, unless his limited or erroneous conscience results from his fault, and he could and should have known of an objective law or precept obliging him.

Ad 3. To the third we respond that conscience obliges according to the nature of conscience’s judgment. Where conscience recognizes a necessary good or an evil that must be unconditionally avoided, it obliges absolutely. Where the judgment is of a good, but not a necessary good, it obliges one to respect that good as a good, and not treat it as an evil, but does not absolutely oblige to that good.

Ad 4. To the fourth we respond that when a man seems urged in conscience to contradictories, damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, presupposes an incomplete or erroneous conscience. By “incomplete” I mean that some link in the moral connection between the ultimate end is missing or does not have unconditional force. In the first example, “causing or allowing distress” is not absolutely incompatible with the order to man’s complete good. If the principle “distressing people is bad” is taken as a principle only applicable for the most part, and therefore producing a merely provisional judgment about what the man should do, this judgment, since it is not final or definitive, is not properly conscience, yet in common parlance may be termed “doubtful” conscience. Conscience in this incomplete sense is, in and of it itself, not binding, the common opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, and with respect to conscience of this kind we grant the argument that conscience which urges equally to contradictories is not binding. We shall however consider the question of doubtful conscience in greater detail later.

If the general notion “distressing people is bad” is taken as a principle for an absolute judgment that this “must” not be done, this judgment of conscious is erroneous, being based on a false supposition. As also in speculative matters two arguments, at least one of which proceeds from false premises, may lead to contradictory conclusions, so also a judgment of conscience, proceeding from a false premise, may contradict another judgment of conscience considering the action and circumstances from a different perspective. Now an erroneous conscience does bind, as we will explain in the next article. Consequently, if a man were to be immovably stuck in an error, such that he believed that "doing this deed now" and "not doing this deed" now are both absolutely wrong, he would be so bound as to be unable to perform any action morally, as also a man can for physical or emotional reasons be restrained from performing any moral action. However, in general a man can correct his conscience, if in no other way, then at least by considering the fact that the contradiction of the two contrary conclusions “I must unconditionally do this now”, and “I must unconditionally not do this now”, necessarily implies an error in at least one of the trains of thought. Having drawn this conclusion, he will now have an incomplete or doubtful conscience, and what was just said above will apply.

A similar account applies to the other two examples.

Authority in Church history – blind obedience or personal judgment

We find two opposite approaches to obedience in Church history, one, that puts such value on obedience as to marginalize nearly every other consideration, another, that would measure every obedience by how well an authority corresponds to the truth or to authentic christian tradition – as judged by the one who was expected to obey.

The practice and teaching on obedience in the Catholic tradition has likely tended rather to excess in the way of blind obedience than to excess in the way of personal judgment. A tendency thereto is at any rate not surprising, given that the christian tradition, going back to Christ, e.g., “He who hears you, hears me” (Lk 10,16) and to St. Paul, has seen in the obedience owed to man, an obedience “to the Lord”, to God himself. (Eph 5: 21; Col 3:22-24)

Blind/unconditional obedience in the spiritual tradition

“8. Once a man who wanted to become a monk came to see Sisois of the Thebaid. The hermit asked him, ‘Have you any ties in the world?’ He said, ‘I have a son.’ He said to him, ‘Go and throw him in the river, and then you can be a monk.’ He went to throw his boy into the river, but the hermit sent a monk to stop him. He was already holding his son ready to throw him in, when the brother said, ‘Stop! What are you doing?’ He said, ‘The abba told me to throw him in.’ The brother said, ‘Now the abba says, do not throw him in.’ So he left his son, and came back to the hermit; and tested by such obedience he became a strong monk.” Sayings of the desert Fathers — https://erenow.net/common/the-desert-fathers/15.php

“That it might be more thoroughly tested whether he would make affection and love for his own flesh and blood of more account than obedience and Christian mortification (which all who renounce the world ought out of love to Christ to prefer), the child was on purpose neglected and dressed in rags instead of proper clothes… And further, he was exposed to blows and slaps from different people, which the father often saw inflicted without the slightest reason on his innocent child under his very eyes… And when the Superior of the Cœnobium saw his steadfastness of mind and immovable inflexibility, in order thoroughly to prove the constancy of his purpose, one day when he had seen the child crying, he pretended that he was annoyed with him and told the father to throw him into the river. Then he, as if this had been commanded him by the Lord, at once snatched up the child as quickly as possible, and carried him in his arms to the river's bank to throw him in. And straightway in the fervour of his faith and obedience this would have been carried out in act, had not some of the brethren been purposely set to watch the banks of the river very carefully, and when the child was thrown in, had somehow snatched him from the bed of the stream, and prevented the command, which was really fulfilled by the obedience and devotion of the father, from being consummated in act and result.”

And this man's faith and devotion was so acceptable to God that it was immediately approved by a divine testimony. For it was immediately revealed to the Superior that by this obedience of his he had copied the deed of the patriarch Abraham. (John Cassian, Institutes, Book IV, Ch. 27,28) https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/350704.htm

Blind/unconditional obedience in theology

First Rule. The first: All judgment laid aside, we ought to have our mind ready and prompt to obey, in all, the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our holy Mother the Church Hierarchical.

Ninth Rule. Finally, to praise all precepts of the Church, keeping the mind prompt to find reasons in their defence and in no manner against them.

Tenth Rule. We ought to be more prompt to find good and praise as well the Constitutions and recommendations as the ways of our Superiors. Because, although some are not or have not been such, to speak against them, whether preaching in public or discoursing before the common people, would rather give rise to fault-finding and scandal than profit;

Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it.

St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises (emphasis added), https://www.ccel.org/ccel/ignatius/exercises.xix.v.html

Ignatius here calls for more than external obedience to precepts of the Church and of superiors, but considers “thinking with the Church” to require one from abstaining from critical words or even thoughts against them.

And that, even when they are imprudent, as long as they do not command “manifest sin”.

3… The superior is not to be obeyed because he is highly prudent, very good, or qualified by any other gift of God our Lord, but rather because he holds his place and authority—as eternal Truth has said, “He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me.” Nor, on the other hand, should he be any less obeyed in his capacity as superior if he is less prudent, for he represents the person of him who is infallible wisdom and who will make up for any shortcomings in his minister

… 7 … Whoever aims at making a complete and perfect oblation of himself must, in addition to his will, offer his understanding. … He must not only have the same will as the superior bur also be of the same mind as he, submitting his own judgment to the superior’s to the extent that a devoted will is able to influence the understanding.

8. For while the understanding does not enjoy the same freedom as the will and by nature gives its assent to whatever is presented to it as true, nevertheless, in many matters where the evidence of the known truth is not compelling, it can, by the will’s intervention, incline to one side rather than the other; and in such matters every truly obedient person should incline himself to think the same as his superior.

… 11. For if we look to the purpose of obedience, it is just as possible for our understanding to be mistaken about what is good as it is for our will. Hence, if we think it right to conform our will to the superior’s to prevent it from going wrong, we should also conform our understanding to his to keep it from going wrong. “Do not rely upon your own prudence,” says Scripture.

“Letter on Obedience” https://jesuitportal.bc.edu/research/documents/1553_ignatiusonobedience/

The only restriction on this absolute obedience in action, will and intellect is where “manifest sin is evident.” (Ibid, 24.)

While St. Ignatius, reacting to the protestant rejection of church authority, is particularly extreme, similarly citations from the christian tradition could be multiplied.

Personal judgment

The christian tradition knows also the maxim “an unjust law is no law.” (St. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio i, 5 “A law which is not just does not seem to me to be a law.” “Lex mihi esse non videtur, quae iusta non fuerit.”

This principle, made famous in the 20th century by Martin Luther King, citing St. Augustine and Aquinas (https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf) provides a corrective to blind obedience. While a superior’s authority may be derived from God and from Christ, and so in obeying him one may be obeying Christ, the superior does not always truly represent God, and therefore need not always be obeyed, indeed in some case must not be obeyed.

But who may judge a law to be unjust or unreasonable? Some groups connected with the Franciscans, such as the Beghards, seem to have been convinced that the rule of Francis and poverty were so in accordance with the gospel, that any decree from the pope modifying or diminishing them would be unjust and therefore not binding.

They say that if the pope changes something in the rule of Saint Francis, adds something to it, or subtracts something from it (especially concerning the vow of poverty), or if he annuls the aforesaid rule, he acts against the gospel of Christ and neither a Friar Minor nor anyone else is required to obey him in the matter, however much he may command it or excommunicate those not obeying him, because such excommunication would be unjust and not binding. (Bernhard Gui, Inquisitor’s Manual: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/bernardgui-inq.asp)

According to the moral theory of probabilism, it would seem, indeed, that whenever an individual is sincerely in doubt about whether a law or command is unreasonable or unjust, and, consequently, sincerely in doubt about whether that law or command is morally binding on him, he is morally free to obey or not to obey.

Joining the idea that unjust or unreasonable laws are not binding with the theory of probabilism that in the case of sincere doubt we are not bound, but free, we end up, in effect, with an altogether opposite approach than the blind obedience favored by many christian authors. Since an unjust law is not binding and might even be contrary to a higher law, one is not only permitted but may be obliged to consider whether a given law is just or unjust. And in the event of any serious doubt, one is not bound to follow the law.

The dilemma

Blind obedience may lead you to cover up sexual and moral abuse, to ride roughshod over the conscience of those deemed beyond reason, whether those are the “woke” or the “deplorables”, or to cooperate in a new holocaust.

The opposite extreme, refusing to grant legitimacy to whatever decision one holds is erroneous, whether a decision of church authority you reject because you hold it to be harmful to the Church, the election of the president – “not my president”, or a court decision, whether one such as Obergefell or Dobbs, if followed consistently, can spiral into schism, civil war, anarchy, or totalitarianism, the enforcement of the position of the strongest parties by brute force.

The mean of virtue

What are the alternatives?

Between “always obey”, and “obey only when the decision seems to you to be right”, there are a number of middle positions.

  • “Obey, unless you are sure (beyond doubt) that the law or command is wrong and seriously harmful”.
  • “Obey, unless you are sure (beyond doubt) that the law or command is wrong”.
  • “On matters of grave importance, obey, unless you are sure beyond doubt that the law or command is wrong; on matters of minor importance, if a law is merely probably harmful, it is not binding”
  • etc.

As is true of human and moral matters in general, it will not be possible to establish a definite golden mean that will be valid for all peoples and times, as virtue lies not in an absolute but in a relative mean. But we can try to establish a number of generally valid principles and guidelines to navigate in the murky conditions of a pluralistic civil and ecclesial society. In the next posts, I want to make an attempt at this, beginning with St. Thomas Aquinas’s account of authority and obedience.

Perceived Poverty and Keeping up with the Joneses

Some time ago a man in his early 60s came looking for a cash handout from the Church. As I generally do in such cases, I sat down to talk about his living and financial situation. According to the information he gave, he was receiving 900 euros a month from the state (about 1000 dollars — this is the minimum that austrian citizens and permanent residents who have lived at least five years in Austrian receive, in the event that have no substantial savings or higher income), of which he spent 200 euros a month on rent for a room in an apartment with a former colleague.

Other than half a pack of cigarettes a day (in his opinion his only vice), he claimed to need the rest of the money for food and drink. On further inquiry, several times a week he would buy coffee in a coffee shop, not as a way of meeting up with other people, but just because he liked coffee. And he would several times a year take trips that would cost several hundred euros, sometimes need to buy new clothing instead.

In his estimation, his income was enough, but just barely, so that when unexpected and unplanned expenses came, such as some medical expenses not covered by insurance, he needed more money. This did not, he said, commonly happen (and indeed the last time he had received money from the parish where I now am was something like a year ago).

As he claimed to have a background in business, I tried getting into detail how he could better manage his money, noting that, if he smoked just one cigarette less per day, bought coffee in a coffee shop one less time per week, or even better, bought a coffee pot and made his own, he could set aside the money, and have more than enough for such unexpected expenses.

He reacted rather indignantly to the suggestion, as well as to other suggestions to save him money, and to make a kind of a game out of it, e.g., to take delight in seeing out independent he could be, not to see it, e.g., as a deprivation to make coffee himself rather than pay someone to do it, but as an exercise of self-reliance.

I gathered that he had the feeling, that's just what normal people do, and he felt it unworthy of his dignity to expect such things from himself. Such a feeling is formed of course by the society in which one lives, hence the title of this post, "keeping up with the Joneses".

Poverty comes in many forms. In first world countries with a weaker social system, such as the USA, absolute poverty can be quite great.
In first world countries with a strong social system, pretty much everyone can live in luxury in comparison with life throughout most of human history. Poverty is then mostly either a matter of perspective: relative deprivation in comparison with those living in still greater luxury. Or is the result of poor management of one's life and material means. This doesn't necessarily imply a moral fault, but a lack of domestic virtue in the Aristotelian sense.

This and similar cases suggest that the provision of a bare financial minimum for all by a means such as a universal basic income and healthcare might do away with extreme poverty, but by a long shot wouldn't eliminate all perceived poverty.

Rock climbing and judging people

To do one's best at rock climbing and remain safe, one should prepare for the worst, and think the best, and when deciding whether to climb a particular face under given circumstances, make an objective judgment of the difficulty and risk.

a. Prepare for the worst — when making preparations, assume the worst case scenario. If you can do something to increase safety in the event of a problem (e.g., a runner unexpectedly comes out), assume the problem will arise, and take action to ensure safety nonetheless.

b. Think the best — focus on the goal, rather than a potential fall. Being well prepared and attentive, so that you climb with care and will react rightly and quickly to any incidents, will help you climb well and increase your safety. But being afraid of falling won't help you climb well. Having done all you can to increase safety and decrease the risk of falling, and being attentive so that you can react quickly if a piece of stone breaks off, a runner comes out, a climbing starts falling, etc., it's better to focus on the intended goal of climbing successfully than the possibility of a failure and fall.

c. When deciding whether to make a climb, it's best to make an objective assessment of it. One shouldn't ignore the risks (assuming the best), but there is also no need to pretend they are worse than they are (assuming the worst).

I find these three ways of relating to risk in rock climbing a good analogy to three ways St. Thomas Aquinas gives of making judgment about things or persons. In a Summa article on whether doubtful matters should be decided in the more favorable/more charitable fashion, ST II-II, q. 60, a. 4, he makes a threefold distinction:

a. When making an assessment about a possible evil of a person in order to remedy it, one should in doubtful matters incline towards assuming the worst. (E.g., if you see signs of someone abusing alcohol, and if you can act in such a way as to help him if your suspicions are accurate (without harming him if your suspicions turn out to be inaccurate), than you should do so, rather than assuming the best, and failing to act.) (ad 3)

b. When making an assessment about a fault or vice of a person in himself, one should in doubtful matters assume the best, even if it is objectively less likely — it's much better to be wrong in assuming the best of someone, than to be wrong in assuming the worst of someone. (Again, in the situation where you see signs of someone abusing alcohol, you should, as regards your attitude toward that person, assume the best — should not think less of his character or virtue due to this suspicion) (ad 3)

c. When making an assessment about things, one should make a judgment according to what is most probable.

 

As in rock climbing, to the extent that you can hinder an evil by assuming the worst and preparing for it, you should do so, so also, to the extent that you can hinder a potential vice of someone by assuming the worst and acting to hinder it, you should do so.

Yet as, in regards to the possibility of falling, having taking all the steps to increase safety, and avoiding entering into an excessively risky situation, you should climb with confidence rather than fear, so also, in regards to the person's own character, your attitude should be positive, looking to the virtue you hope he has, rather than to a vice that he might have.

Aquinas, Averroes, and Habits

A question for my readers: Aquinas quotes numerous times Averroes definition of a habit as "that by which one acts when one wills", and seemingly relies on this definition when he argues, for instance, that the habits animals acquire are not habits in the full sense, since "they do not have the power to use or not use them, as seems to belong to the account of a habit." I do not know of any passage where he justifies this part of the definition of habit as helping to make a clear and systematic treatment of the principles of human action.

I have a number of difficulties with this restriction of the term habit: (1) It does not apply to "habits" of being, such as health or beauty; (2) it does not seem to belong in a meaningful sense to natural habits such as synderesis; (3) in the case of men, the freedom to act or not to act doesn't seem any more applicable to a habit than to other, less stable inclinations or disposition to action–if anything, it seems less applicable.

(Update: number 1 above could be explained by the fact that the definition "that by which one acts when one wills" is meant only to define habits of action, not habits of being; still, the fact that definition does not apply to "habits" of being is at least an indication that it is not included in the meaning of the term habit, or the Latin "habitus" — which is related to "habere" and "se habere").

My question is, then, has St. Thomas simply adopted a linguistic usage of the term "habitus" from Averroes' Commentary on Aristotle, or is there some real justification for the insertion of this phrase "that by which one acts one when wills" into the definition of a habit?

Averroes

Are We Obliged to Do the Impossible?

In asking whether passions and emotions can be sinful, Aquinas raises the objection:

“No one sins in doing what he cannot avoid,” as Augustine says (On the Free Choice of the Will III, 18). But man cannot escape the inordinate movement of sensuality, since “the sensuality ever remains corrupt, so long as we abide in this mortal life, and that is why it is signified by the serpent,” as Augustine says (On the Trinity XII, 12,13). Therefore the inordinate movement of the sensuality is not a sin. (ST I-II, 74:3, obj. 2).

The response he makes to this objection is that though it is impossible to avoid all inordinate movements of sensitive appetite, it is possible to avoid any particular inordinate movement, and that this ability is sufficient for a voluntary sin.

[The corruption of the sensitive appetite] does not prevent man from using his rational will to suppress individual inordinate movements, if he has a presentiment of them. He can do this by, for example, turning his thoughts to other things. Yet while he is turning his thoughts to something else, an inordinate movement may arise about this also: thus when a man, in order to avoid the movements of concupiscence, turns his thoughts away from fleshly pleasures and to the consideration of science, sometimes an unforeseen (impraemeditatus) movement of vainglory will arise. And therefore a man cannot avoid all such movements, on account of the aforesaid corruption. But it is enough, for the account of a voluntary sin, that he be able to avoid each individual one. (Ibid., ad 2)

Now, if a man is in proximate danger of having an extremely disordered desire for sensitive goods, it seems clear that he ought to do what he can to avoid that, and would be guilty of neglect if he turned his attention to avoid sins into which he is in no special danger of falling. Consequently, it seems to follow from Aquinas's position that a man can in one and the same period of time have acted morally as well as he could, have made the best moral decisions that he could make, and yet be guilty of a voluntary sin. This conclusion seems, on the face of it, rather problematic.

Does Aquinas hold the same position when he considers more particular matters? It does not appear so. In a later article, he asks whether disobedience is a mortal sin, and raises the objections:

Someone is said to be disobedient when he does not fulfill his superior's command. But superiors frequently give so many commands that it is scarcely or not at all possible to keep all of them. Therefore, if disobedience were a mortal sin, it would follow that man could not avoid mortal sin, which is an untenable position. Therefore disobedience is not a mortal sin. (II-II 105:1 obj. 3)

Now, it seems equally true in this case that a person could keep any given command, and thus, by focusing on keeping the most important commands, he fails to keep some of the less important commands (whether because of time conflicts or just because there are some many commands that he can't remember all of them). It was nonetheless absolutely speaking possible for him to keep any individual one of those other commands, and thus by Aquinas's general reasoning, it would seem that the failure to keep the command remains a sin.

Aquinas does not accept the reasoning in the concrete, however, but replies:

No one is obliged to what is impossible. Therefore, if a superior gives so many commands that a subject cannot fulfill them, the subject is free of sin. And therefore superiors should refrain from giving very many commands. (Ibid, ad 3.)

I'm not sure what to think about Aquinas's position here. Is he, in an attempt to describe scientifically a real human experience, to get at the experienced psychology of such faults, making an abstract argument that is not strictly valid, and this becomes evident when one considers not abstract but concrete cases? Or is there a decisive difference between the two cases?

Instincts Regarding Determinism and Moral Responsibility

Shaun Nichols and Joshua Kolbe describe in a paper, Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions (PDF), several studies aimed at delineating common intuitions regarding the (in)compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism. Having one universe, universe A, described in which everything, including human decisions, is completely caused by the foregoing events, so that they cannot happen differently than they do, and another universe, universe B, in which human decisions are not completely caused by foregoing events, and could be different than they are, the vast majority (90%) say that the second universe is more like the one in which we live.

The participants are further asked either an abstract or a general question regarding the possibility of moral responsibility in universe A:

Of those asked the abstract question, "In Universe A, is it possible for a person to be fully morally responsible for their actions?   Yes    No", 86% responded that it is not possible for a person to be fully morally responsible for what they do.

Of those presented with the concrete scenario and question, "In Universe A, Bill stabs his wife and children to death so that he can be with his secretary. Is it possible that Bill is fully morally responsible for killing his family?", 50% responded that it is possible.

Presented with the even more detailed scenario, "In Universe A, a man named Bill has become attracted to his secretary, and he decides that the only way to be with her is to kill his wife and 3 children. He knows that it is impossible to escape from his house in the event of a fire. Before he leaves on a business trip, he sets up a device in his basement that burns down the house and kills his family. Is Bill fully morally responsible for killing his wife and children?", 72% responded that he is fully morally responsible!

The authors suggest that these contradictory intuitions suggest that the greater affective reaction to the concrete scenario.

Now, an alternative explanation would be that it was simply the concreteness of the scenarios that led to the different responses. The more concrete ways that the presents see in which the actions proceeded from Bill's intellect and will, the more likely they are to respond that he is or could be fully morally responsible.

In an attempt to exclude this possibility, the authors made another experiment in which all participants were presented with concrete situations. Some were asked:

As he has done many times in the past, Bill stalks and rapes a stranger. Is it possible that Bill is fully morally responsible for raping the stranger?

Others were asked:

As he has done many times in the past, Mark arranges to cheat on his taxes. Is it possible that Mark is fully morally responsible for cheating on his taxes?

Under the stipulation that these persons are supposed to exist in universe B, in which human decisions are not entirely caused by foregoing events, almost all responded that the persons could be fully morally responsible for their actions (95% responded that Bill could be fully morally responsible for the rape, and 89% that Mark could be fully morally responsible for cheating on his taxes).

Under the stipulation that these persons are supposed to exist in universe A, in which human decisions are entirely caused by foregoing events, nearly all responded that Mark could not be fully morally responsible for cheating on his taxes; only 23% answered that he could be fully morally responsible. 64%, on the other hand,  responded that Bill could be fully morally responsible.

The authors argue from this study that the concreteness of the question or scenario is not responsible for the different responses, but the kind of affective response elicited by the scenario.

It is an interesting study, and doubtless affect plays in a role in the responses, but there does occur to me another possible factor that the authors do not consider, namely that the participants' instinct is that, in fact, the decision to cheat on one's taxes, because it does not directly concern fundamental human goods, is only secondarily a moral matter and can be determined by circumstances and external causes, while the decision to rape someone, being more directly concerned with fundamental human good, cannot be determined by circumstances and external causes. Such an instinct would explain the results: since the persons have an intuition that the decision to rape cannot be a non-moral action, and also a belief that in a deterministic universe all actions are non-moral, their responses are close to 50-50; the persons asked about Mark have an intuition that the decision to cheat on taxes can be a non-moral action, though in normal circumstances it is a moral action, and so, since there is no conflict with their belief that in a deterministic universe full moral responsibility is impossible, the majority answer that Mark cannot be fully morally responsible.