At 03:08 PM 4/14/2005 -0700, Dave Land wrote:
>I fail to see why there would need to be a "just war" doctrine if war
>was not intrinsically evil. I mean, there's no "just lunch" doctrine
>justifying the consumption of a mid-day meal, nor is there such a
>doctrine for any of a nearly infinite number of not-intrinsically-evil
>human endeavors. It is because war is intrinsically evil that it needs a
>special-case doctrine.
I think that you are misunderstanding what it means for an action to be
intrinsically evil.
In Catholic teaching, an intrinsically evil action can *never* be
justified. It is not permissible to do evil in the name of good. To use
the example from the Catholic Catechism, it is not permissable to condemn
an innocent man in order to save the nation.
So, why need a "just war" doctrine? Well, because in Catholic theology
the morality of an action is based upon three characteristics:
1) The inherent nature of the act
2) The intent of the act
3) The totality of circumstances surround the act
Thus, even if a given act is not intrinsically evil, it is only morally
justified if the intent and totality of circumstances are good as well.
At 07:05 AM 4/14/2005 -0700, Nick wrote:
>It seems to me that even when
>talking about a just war, most every theologian acknowledges that war is
>failure, that it arises not out of goodness, but out of evil -- that war
is an
>evil to be resisted whenever possible.
While war may arise out of the fallen state of man, the existance of a
"just war" would not be possible if war were "evil." What is "just" may
not be "evil." Thus, mainstream Catholic theologians would disagree with
the above.
JDG
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