What’s Wrong with the World

No planes were shot down in fact. Yes, it would have been wrong if they had. They wouldn't have known it was murder, because they would have believed it was justified by consequences. They would also have been regretful and sad, not gloating. There are worse kinds of murder. But yes, it would have been murder.

A former friend actually told me it was okay for them to do that because all adult Americans have entered into a tacit compact with our government by not leaving the country whereby we agree to die for our country if need be. I find this argument ludicrous, not to mention the fact that there were probably children on board the airliner(s) in question.

It would not have been murder. Awful, but not murder. In the event of a shootdown, the deaths of the passengers would have been incidental to the object, rightful in itself, of disarming and killing the terrorists. It was the terrorists, by killing the crew and taking over an aircraft that they didn't intend and weren't able to land, who committed murder. At the risk of falling into a consequentialist pit, the passengers were already dead once the pilots died, and the aircraft they were riding had become a weapon in the hands of the mujahideen (sp?). Downing the aircraft was the only right course of action, as the passengers decided themselves. To view it from another angle, if we accept that it would have been murder for the government to destroy the plane, must we not decide that it was suicide for the passengers to do so, rather than an act of gallantry?

Cyrus is correct. Shooting down the plane would have been an act of self-defense. The passengers would be incidental to the act.

Their deaths would be a tragedy, but the ojective would not have been to kill them, nor even (pace Cyrus) to kill the terrorists, but to defend an as-yet unidentified target that was under attack.

Only...the passengers weren't already dead. We can't start redefining "dead" here.

Good question about the passengers' own act. My position has been that if they aimed to destroy the plane and themselves, then it was suicide. But if they aimed to take over the cockpit, overpower or kill the terrorists and make some effort to land the plane, then it was a legitimate act of self-defense against the terrorists. Of course, their chances were very poor. If I remember correctly, what little we do know indicates that it was the terrorists, not the passengers, who deliberately crashed the plane at the last moment. Of course the most likely outcome was that the plane would crash accidentally while everybody was struggling in the cockpit, which may have been what happened. But you can fairly view it as their _trying_ to target the bad guys specifically in order to rectify the situation, even if this had little chance of success. It was, after all, the only chance. Shooting down the plane, on the other hand, attempted to target no one specifically but rather the plane as a unit with everyone aboard.

I have no problem, by the way, with having it as an objective to kill the terrorists. I have always believed that it's perfectly all right to _try_ to kill bad guys who are engaged in an act of aggression, and that to pretend one is just shooting at their buttons or trying to stop them but not to kill them is almost always to engage in sophistry.

Short of the hand of God reaching down to catch them, there was nothing that could have been done to save the passengers once the aircrew had been incapacitated. They were going to die, because the act of hijacking that would culminate inevitably in their deaths had already been performed. The decision left to the government was not whether those people would live or die, but whether the aircraft that was incidentally carrying them would successfully be used as a weapon to kill still more people.

I'm not convinced, gentlemen, and I do think Cyrus falls into that consequentialist pit.

First, we ought to assume that the passengers' actions were not suicidal. I seriously doubt they were thinking, "Let's take over the plane and commit an act of collective suicide by crashing this bird where it won't hurt anyone else." I think they were hoping to save their own lives as well as those of others. It is not inconceivable that a pilot in the tower could have talked the plane down, even if unlikely of success. As Lydia points out, it is the attempt that matters. If we accept that "the passengers were already dead once the pilots died," we permit ourselves to consign them to that category of people who are "as good as dead," a mode of thought that proves problematic in other areas, as with the advocacy of euthanasia. It is only then that people's lives become "incidental."

It is true that the plane had become a weapon (of mass destruction, no less), but it was a weapon full of people, most of them innocent, a situation analogous to the placement of missile batteries and weapons factories in densely populated areas of a city during wartime, which an unscrupulous government knows will be targeted by the enemy. (What I mean is that these terrorists were hiding behind the passengers.) The question becomes: can we disable the weapon and still call it self-defense?

To do so, one condition that must be met is a determination of fact: that you are indeed under attack. Cheney met this condition.

Another condition is that the response must be proportionate to the threat. If the plane had held only terrorists, Cheney could also have met this one.

Lastly, a genuine act of self-defense cannot involve the intent to kill the innocent as a means to one's end. Did Cheny choose to do this? His own words acknowledge that he did: "...my gosh, you just shot down a planeload of Americans. On the other hand, you maybe saved thousands of lives."

Maybe.

In Zippy's terminology, the object of Cheney's act was to kill a planeload of Americans in order to save others. If this is not consequentialist, I don't know what is. He feared the consequences of not shooting down the plane. He was weighing the value of the lives on the plane against the value of those on the ground. This is to say that the loss of a hundred on the plane is acceptable if we can save a thousand on the ground. But (using Anscombe's example) I do not accept the principle that it's all right to boil one baby in oil if it would save a thousand people.

If events had played out differently, say the plane had not crashed in Pennsylvania but gone on to the White House or Capitol building, and Cheney had not ordered it shot down, my guess is that he would have been pilloried by public opinion.

Btw, there has been much talk in the blogosphere over the past year of ticking bomb scenarios. As such things go, they don't get much better than this one.

I would add that in the prospect of death one can legitimately choose death without it being suicide. Saint Apollonia choose to step into the fire and be killed rather than have her virginity be taken from her. As Dionysius recalled:
At that time Apollonia, parthénos presbytis (virgo presbytera, by which he very probably means not a virgin advanced in years as is generally reported, but a deaconess) was held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of fagots and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words (either a blasphemy against Christ, or an invocation of the heathen gods). Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and was burned to death.

The link also has a comment from Augustine addressing this. In short, one generally has wide liberty in sacrificing one's own life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Apollonia

I never understand things like the St. Apollonia story. (Not that I was familiar with that particular one but have run into something like it in a work of fiction.) If they were going to burn her at the stake anyway, why bother jumping into the flames? She could just have continued to refuse to do evil--to say the words--and the bad guys would have killed her. The act would have been unambiguously theirs, and no one would have to ask about suicide at all. It seems like a rather pointless gesture to me. In the work of fiction in question, a missionary was to be thrown off a cliff by aborigines who believe he has killed someone who died while the missionary was doctoring him. They take him up to the top of the cliff and he jumps off rather than waiting for them to throw him. His reason is to show them that he's not afraid of death. This does actually impress several of them, and I believe one converts. But for goodness sake! You don't need to jump off a cliff to show that you're not afraid of death, and I'm not at all sure the rhetorical point was worth the ethical problems.

Lastly, a genuine act of self-defense cannot involve the intent to kill the innocent as a means to one's end.
That intent, unless we are construing "intent" differently, to kill the innocent is precisely what is lacking in this scenario, which is why it is not the same as boiling newborns. In firing on the plane, the death of the passengers, while for all intents an inevitability, is not willed, nor strictly speaking necessary to the desired end of destroying the aircraft before its new crew can wreak further damage on the ground. In the scenario of the boiled baby, the death of an innocent per se is precisely what is intended.

That would be a disputed point Cyrus. While one may not will the terrorists by on the plane, one does certainly will the death of the innocents and the terrorists by shooting the plane down. I doubt I can find the link, but I believe a German court or the EU explicitly stated that the obligation to protect the innocents on the plane was equal to the obligation of protecting the innocents on the ground and therefore one could not shoot down the plane.

To be honest Lydia, I'm more on the 'just accept it' side on the spectrum of obedience regarding that teaching. It isn't something I've given tremendous thought.

That intent, unless we are construing "intent" differently, to kill the innocent is precisely what is lacking in this scenario, which is why it is not the same as boiling newborns.

It is true that colloquially we don't use the word "intent" univocally. Sometimed it refers to desired and expected consequences, and sometimes it refers to chosen behavior, for example. And those are two quite different things.

If I shoot through a wall of children with the remote intention of killing the terrorist behind them do I "intend" to shoot through the wall of children? Do I intend their injuries, specifically? Have I chosen, as a specific behavior or act, to harm them?

Clearly yes.

I may wish that I could engage in a different behavior which does not injure or kill the wall of children. But wishful thinking is not the same thing as intent. I can't claim that I don't intend something that I choose as a direct and specific behavior. If I am choosing it directly in my deliberate and specific behavior then I intend it, whether I wish that some counterfactual obtained or not. If I wish that I could fly to Tokyo by flapping my arms and without boarding an airliner then when I step out of the plane at Narita I cannot claim that I didn't intend the getting on an airliner part. Specific behaviors are always directly chosen; what is directly chosen is always intended.

That this causes no small amount of discomfort among modern consequentialists - of which there are legion - is itself a morally irrelevant consequence. All of course as I see it, as far as I can tell, from my POV, and all that.

Saith Zippy (regarding intent): Sometimes it refers to desired and expected consequences, and sometimes it refers to chosen behavior

Yes. Cyrus is referring to the former, I to the latter. I think. I suspect so, for he says "the death of the passengers, while for all intents an inevitability, is not willed..," which is another way of saying 'not desired', while I say that it is 'chosen.'

He is attempting to invoke double-effect, in which the deaths of the innocents would not be an intended effect, but a sort of unfortunate side effect to a different intention (the protection of innocents on the ground). But for that principle to apply, the passengers' deaths would have to be accidental to be unintended. You can't very well shoot down a plane full of people, knowing as you do it, and for an absolute certainty, that all will die as a result, and then claim it was an accident. Their deaths were the chosen means to the end, and, as Zippy well puts it, "what is directly chosen is always intended."

We should keep in mind (and perhaps lay to his credit) that Cheney seems not to have needed the protection of double-effect to salve his conscience. He doesn't kid himself. He makes a directly consequentialist justification, saying that he would have had to sacrifice those Americans on the plane for the sake of many others on the ground.

Were my wife and kids on that plane, I would not blame Cheney for their deaths. I asked my wife the same question and she agreed. If I were a pilot of the United States Air force, I would have shot it down, even if it were full of children coming back from their first communion.

1) The Secretary of Defence and his subordinates have the obligation to protect the United States of America from attack: it is a grave moral obligation. All non hostile citizens of the United States are entitled to the protection of the SecDef.

2) Once the terrorists had assumed control of the aircraft, it became a weapon directed against the United States capable of causing mass destruction. The threat was credible, real and immediate. The potential victims of this weapon had as much right to life and to the protection of Mr. Cheney-- in his capacity as SecDef --as the civilians on the aircraft.

3) The SecDef then had a moral obligation to stop the aircraft. Failure to stop the aircraft would have a dereliction of his duty and a moral evil.

4) The SecDef had no way of extending his protection to the civilians in the aircraft. If he did, and did not use the capacity, he would be guilty of dereliction of duty to these civilians. The SecDef must use the means at his disposal to fulfill his duties to both protect Citizens of the U.S while at that same time repelling aggressors.

5) The means available at his disposal in order to stop the aircraft did not permit the distinguishing between civilian and terrorist. The only way to stop the aircraft was to shoot it out of the sky. Cheney’s directive to the Air Force was to shoot the plane out of the sky. He did not add “and make sure all of the passengers are killed” to that directive.

I cannot imagine that anyone on this forum would even suggest that in the event that there were any survivors of the crash that the SecDef would have directed the military to make sure everyone was bumped off, rather medical assistance would have been directed to the survivors in ensure that they lived. Cheney’s directive was to stop the aircraft, not kill the passengers.

The thing that would have been directly actulised—the moral object--had Cheney’s orders been completed would have been that the plane would have been stopped: That is not evil. Extending the scope of the moral object to include the consequences beyond the thing actualized is to go beyond the act. Is a conception occasioned by a rape included in the moral object of the rape? Ordering the military to stop an aircraft that is attacking the U.S. by damaging its structure is not evil.

The directive was to stop the plane knowing that the passengers would be killed, not kill the passengers to stop the plane. It’s a subtle difference but it makes all the difference: admittedly not to the passengers. Consequentialism does not even factor into the equation.

Had Cheney had a non lethal capacity to stop the plane say through some ground based remote control of the aircraft, I feel he would have been obligated to use it. The fact is he didn’t and therefore couldn’t, and hence is inculpable.

On the other hand those who put civilians in harms way in order to occasion evil are culpable for the injury inflicted upon civilians. If you push a man in front of an oncoming train, the train does the killing but you are responsible for the murder. Judging by the logic of this thread the train driver gets lumped with the responsibility.

I am absolutely amazed at you people. What you are in effect suggesting is that defence is illegitimate against an aggressor surrounded by a human shield. Just think about it for a minute. Every suicide bomber would soon enough surround himself with a shield of women and children knowing that the pious right would condemn anyone who dared to injure the innocent in order to get to him. Likewise arms factories would be placed around hospitals and orphanages. Nuclear reactors and enrichment plants would be next to retirement homes and schools. It is too horrible to contemplate. Military operations are morally out, since nearly all wars will conceivably result in the deaths of civilians and as we all know a foreseeable unintended death is just as bad as an intended death.

The left does not have a monopoly on intellectual pathology.

SP, not all such situations are created equal. The mere possibility of collateral damage is not at all on a par with deliberately shooting down a planeload of civilians. Even when bad guys operate out of neighborhoods, not only is precision bombing sometimes possible, but warnings can be issued to the civilian population to evacuate before undertaking operations. The kinds of human shield situations you cite have been used extensively against Israel, though it is usually the pious Left that castigates that country for even the most painstakingly moral self-defense. Last summer they were _phoning_ homes from which Hezbollah was launching missiles and in the basements of which arms were stored to warn them to evacuate, to warn them that they were going to strike the homes. _Phoning_ them! Yet they were still demonized. Civilians were loudly and repeatedly warned to evacuate areas of conflict and often chose not to. To my mind, those who deliberately place themselves as human shields (sometimes these are "peace activists") for aggressors are just barely a rung up from combatants and have no right to complain if they end up as collateral damage. They are trying to manipulate the moral sensibilities of the good to benefit the evil. I saw pictures of such activists on the roofs of buildings from which rockets were being fired last summer. I would not have minded in the least if they had been killed.

In any event, the very fact that people have a choice in such situations shows that not all attempts to use human shields are the same in terms of the constraints they place on the intended victim of the manipulation. To be sure, there are cases where I would say it is better to die than deliberately to kill the innocent, and where the bad guy can win in this way. There, you and I will doubtless disagree. But you take it too far when you assume that by disagreeing with Cheney's choice here we are all condemning all risk of civilian collateral damage in war.

I have little time, so I will be brief. Lydia, Mr. Luse, etc: Is it irrelevant that there was in fact nothing that could have been done to save the lives of the passengers on that aircraft? I would appreciate clarification on that point as I struggle with this question. Or do you disagree with that statement of fact? Do you think that there was something that could have been done? It would appear to be an essential to the assignment of culpability to Cheney et al in the event of the plane having been shot down, that he actually did have some control over the near-term fate of those passengers, but perhaps I misunderstand.

Were my wife and kids on that plane, I would not blame Cheney for their deaths.

That may be true, but it is irrelevant in the important sense here. If someone murdered me because the detonator of a doomsday weapon was attached to me and would destroy the world as long as I went on living, I wouldn't personally blame him for doing it. But it would still be murder, and as a moral matter - for his own teleological good - he shouldn't do it.

Also I don't think "object" means what you think it means. The object isn't a goal or objective like "stop the plane from killing people on the ground"; it is the directly chosen behavior. If you choose it, then you can't claim that you don't intend it. And it is never, ever licit to intend evil, period. The very concept of "morally licit to intend evil" is self-contradictory.

Cyrus, I consider it irrelevant. If you had a fatal disease that was going to kill you in ten minutes, three days, or thirty years, it would make no difference to my moral responsibility not to put a gun to your head and pull the trigger.

Naturally, it would be _worse_ if the passengers could have been saved but they opted to kill them anyway for reasons of efficiency or something weird like that. But it doesn't make it okay just because the bad guys were planning to kill them anyway by flying the plane into a building some minutes later.

Is it irrelevant that there was in fact nothing that could have been done to save the lives of the passengers on that aircraft?

Yes, it is irrelevant. It may not be irrelevant in terms of gravity of the moral offense, subjective culpability, etc; but as a categorical matter it doesn't change an evil act into a good act. Aborting a baby that you are morally certain will die anyway is still morally illicit, for example; morally illicit no matter what the consequences.

Cyrus,

I don't think we can know for a certainty whether anything could have been done to save their lives (e.g., in the event they had wrested control of the plane from the terrorists), but yes, I do consider it irrelevant. The fact that a man is doomed by circumstances doesn't grant me permission to speed him on his way.

Doing the right thing is often a very hard thing; at times the alternatives seem downright unbearable, and that's why what I'm suggesting will never be, shall we say, 'popular'. And note that I do not condemn Cheney. Caught in the vice of circumstance, I might have done the same thing. Who knows? I hope never to have to.

As for the Social P., Lydia and Zippy answered him as politely as might be expected, considering that we've all been diagnosed with some undefined pathology. But further considering his magnanimity toward the lives of innocents in time of war, perhaps the physician could turn his diagnostic skills on himself.

Zippy and Bill:

A homicide, if not criminal, isn't murder.

What is your rationale for excusing the criminal, especially considering an act so heinous as murder?

What is your rationale for excusing the criminal.

None, unless by "excusing" you mean "forgiving", since I don't think I mentioned excusing anything. If I don't personally blame someone who wrongs me - if I forgive him - it doesn't change the fact that as an objective matter he did something he shouldn't have done. I am incapable of remaking reality such that he didn't do wrong; I am only capable of forgiving the wrong from my own standpoint. I do think the extreme circumstances I described mitigate the gravity and culpability of the wrong, but they don't make it not-wrong.

I also made no mention of the positive law, so I am not sure why "criminal" needs to be even introduced as a (new) category into the discussion. In the paragraph above in this comment I took it as synonymous to "wrongdoer".

Lydia:
>The mere possibility of collateral damage is not at all on a par with deliberately shooting down a planeload of civilians

The plane was not just a planeload of civilians, but a planeload of civilians commandeered by terrorists who were intending to kill other civilians.

To my mind, those who deliberately place themselves as human shields (sometimes these are "peace activists") for aggressors are just barely a rung up from combatants and have no right to complain if they end up as collateral damage

Huh? Why. A peace activist is not harming anybody; there is no self defence justification.
I presume that Zippy would assert that dropping a bomb on a terrorist shielded by a civilian would be an evil moral object in itself and hence wrong. The argument could be made, that the peace activist may be colluding with the aggressor and trying to further their cause, hence attack on the peace activist is justified. But many peace activists are stupid and hence morally innocent; doesn’t their moral position resemble that of the passengers on the plane? If it is wrong to kill non combatants, why is it a “non evil” to kill sincere peace activists shielding enemy combatants?
Furthermore suppose that warning leaflets have been dropped, appeals made and yet innocent individuals for whatever reason cannot leave; are justifiable military operations to be stopped because of the fear of civilian casualties? The civilians in that plane were to be collateral damage; they were not the directly intended targets. Had Cheney an opportunity to separate the terrorists from the civilians and not availed himself of the opportunity I would agree that he was guilty of moral evil, but he didn’t and hence wasn’t. Honestly Lydia—and with respect—I cannot see how you can say that incidental civilian deaths in the course of military operations are justifiable but not in this instance. Once again—with respect as usually you are right—I think your thinking on this matter is woolly.

Zippy:

I think I know what object of the act means.

The thing willed by Cheney was to stop the plane not kill the passengers. (Not evil)
The act to be actualized was the physical destruction of the aircraft (Not evil)
The consequence was the death of the terrorists and passengers. (Double effect)

Likewise in a salpingectomy for ectopic pregnancy;

The thing willed is saving the mother. (Not evil)
The act performed is a salpingectomy. (Not evil)
The consequence is the mother’s life is rescued and the fetus is killed. (Double effect)

Most of the conservative world has not had a problem with this line of reasoning and neither do I, but perhaps as Bill alludes; it is a result of my defective moral character.

Bill:

You are right, Zippy and Lydia have both answered me politely and I was aggressive but in no way have I inferred that their line of reasoning are based on anything but a desired to conform to the good. But excuse me if I get a bit hot under the collar if I see a line of reasoning that upon meditation leads to nothing but misery, grief and death. I feel honor bound to refute it.
But perhaps both you and I could take politeness class, as you seem quite keen to infer less than sincere motives to my reasoning. My support of Cheney in this thread is not because his actions satiated my bloodlust, rather I thought he did the right thing. Over on the contraception thread I felt that you last few comments directed towards me were less than charitable and not in the spirit of things, I see that spirit resurrected on this thread. I don’t want to sound like a prissy miss, but if the aim of this blog is simply beat the consensus drum then I feel I probably have no place here. Women’s rights, racial equality, democracy and religious were all ideas that were not initially accepted by conservatives. Those who first raised those issues on the conservative forum probably got an earful as well.
One of things that is never asked is why did conservatism fail so thoroughly in the 20th Century, perhaps it was because when challenged, it appealed to tradition and authority instead of the Good. Forums such as this one are sorely needed people need to debate issues and ideas within the conservative mindset but if the aim is simply to moan about the ways of the world and rehashing old ideas simply because they are old then I’m off. To all of you who have considered my posts, thank you. Many have helped clarify my thinking.
This Physician is going to heal thyself. Best wishes and good luck to all.

unless by "excusing" you mean "forgiving"

Just before I posted, I said to someone, I think he means "forgive." Anyhow, I'd still like to know what mitigating circumstances deserve your magnanimity.

I don't think we can know for a certainty whether anything could have been done to save their lives (e.g., in the event they had wrested control of the plane from the terrorists), ...

This is an aside, but I think people may underestimate the odds here more than a little. Assume for a moment that the terrorists are down, the crew is dead, and the passengers have control of the cockpit. A little less than one person in a hundred in the US is a pilot. Some multiple of that have at least taken a few flying lessons, and even more have flown Microsoft Flight Simulator. Keeping the shiny side up and the greasy side down isn't very difficult if you aren't in the clouds. Landing is the more dangerous part, and many modern airliners (including a 757 like Flight 93) have an autoland capability: one guy can make sure the plane stays level while the guys on the ground coach another guy to arm the autopilot for an auto-land. Once that is engaged you just sit back and enjoy the ride. As long as there are no systems malfunctions (and these are very, very rare: you'd have to be having a really bad day to get hijacked and be in an aircraft with a major malfunction) you'll be home in time for supper with your new book agent.

You can't take off without a trained pilot, but in many of the larger airliners you can land without one. The old joke is that a modern air crew requires one human and one monkey: the monkey flies the plane, and the human feeds him bananas.

The biggest danger in any situation is panic. Try to postpone panic to those last few seconds of your life when you know for certain there ain't a thing you can do. If you can do that, you'll almost always live longer.

I'd still like to know what mitigating circumstances deserve your magnanimity.

The fact that in the scenario I described my murderer was attempting to save the world rather than (say) rob me comes immediately to mind.

The act to be actualized was the physical destruction of the aircraft ...

Not just the aircraft, but everything in it, including all the innocent people in it. You can't fire a missile at a bunch of innocent people and kill them without intending to kill them. To claim that one doesn't intend to kill them or that one isn't choosing to kill them is obvious nonsense.

Salpingectomy is (or at least may be) different, especially if one makes every attempt to preserve the living embryo: an attempt at cryogenic freezing comes to mind. Though I am much more sympathetic to Lydia's view that salpingectomy is an abortion and always evil than I am to the view that killing a bunch of airline passengers by destroying them along with their plane isn't murder. Specifically I think Lydia is definitely right if what one does is discard the tube in a bin of medical waste rather than treating it as the container of an innocent living (though in danger of almost certain imminent death) human being.

Hey, SP--You don't have to worry too much about respecting me. As long as you aren't nasty, which you never are, we can always agree to disagree. And I know _very well_ that virtually all men of good will living in the world now would disagree with me on this, so I'm prepared to be thought very weird indeed by people I like and respect. Don't leave, please. We're happy to have you around.

On the peace activist, I don't think his stupidity is entirely non-culpable. And yes, he is _definitely_ colluding with evil people. So no, for sure, he is _not_ in the same situation as some person totally non-sympathetic to the bad guys, not trying to help them by manipulating the feelings of the good guys, just living his life, who gets grabbed by the bad guys. Terminal moral stupidity can definitely be inexcusable; sincerity has nothing to do with it. For that matter, the terrorists themselves are sincere. They sincerely believe this is what their god wants them to do! So-called "peace activists" (and really, they are aiding the cause of evil aggressors) in such situations deliberately acting as human shields for the evildoers make me very angry indeed. They are being bad themselves, in my opinion, fuzzleheaded though they may be. Their reward for being somewhat fuzzleheaded instead of entirely evil is that I wouldn't lock them up in military prison as POW's if they happened to survive the conflict! I'd let them go home. But that's about it.

As to your question about when civilians truly cannot leave a given area, I still would not say military operations have to be entirely called off, though they should be carried out with the knowledge that there are civilians present who have been truly unable to leave and are innocent of combative intent. House-to-house fighting becomes (I would think) a better method in that case than, say, indiscriminate airstrikes.

But remember, in the case of the plane we're talking about aiming fire _directly at_ a plane, a compact physical unit, that you're going to shoot down out of the air, that you know is full of innocent captives of evil people, as well as the evil people in question. That's deliberately killing those specific people, not hypothetically maybe killing people who may be there. The closest analogue in ordinary warfare, I suppose, would be something like fire-bombing Dresden or, perhaps even more relevantly, dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. I think both of these were wrong, though done for good intentions.

Zippy, the info is very interesting. I've always thought that _if_ they could retake the cockpit without the whole thing going down (which unfortunately didn't happen), the odds wouldn't be so horrible as all that. I know for a fact that the pilot was actually alive in the one plane that was flown into one of the towers (before it was flown into the tower, that is). He was herded back with the passengers. I don't know what was the case with Flight 93.

The closest analogue in ordinary warfare, I suppose, would be something like fire-bombing Dresden or, perhaps even more relevantly, dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Quite different, though. The specific situation under consideration is about self-defense in a military action that involves _collateral_ loss of innocent lives.

I'm sorry, Social P., I didn't realize you got to call us pathological and that we had to take it sitting down. Others can, I won't. It's true that I haven't much patience these days for people who call themselves Catholic but don't let its moral dictates interfere with their own conclusions. Maybe some of that leaked out. Call it collateral damage. If you can't stand me you should still stick around to read Lydia, Zippy, et al. They're always edifying, especially when their thinking isn't "woolly." I won't be here much longer anyway.

KW - weren't the victims of Hiroshima collateral losses too? They were killed for the very same reason: that in the end many more lives would be saved than lost.

Yes, some see it that way. But it's better to keep the examples separate. The problem with such comparisons is the same as other with irrelevancies (Cyrus got answered well-enough on that). They don't advance the premise that innocent life killed in an act of defense is anything more than homicide.

innocent life killed in an act of defense

you forgot the word "intentionally" in front of "killed", which would render the phrase as what it is, a self-contradiction.

My apologies, but would you mind just stating clearly what point you're trying to make? I trust Zippy's answer satisfied you?

Sure, what part is unclear?

I think, KW, you have this separate category called "homicide" that's objectively not as bad as murder. Is that it?

I can see a point to having a bunch of different categories in law for different degrees of ill intent, heinousness, accident, or whatever. But in discussions of moral issues where legal categories are not in question, I just use the word 'murder' to _mean_ the deliberate taking of an innocent human being's life. There can be murder with an evil heart (as in the case of the terrorists) or there can be a willingness to murder with a good heart and good intentions but a confused set of moral categories (as with Cheney). But it's murder either way, in terms of moral categories. Calling the one 'homicide' just doesn't get us anywhere, to my mind.

Separate categories are always applied to distinguish crucial differences. To be exact and respectful, the distinction exonerates one from the charge of murder--morally or legally--and it stretches back through Aquinas and Augustine. This very distinction has gotten us quite far over the centuries, even though it may or may not apply to the Cheney scenario. Do you oppose the just war theory, too?

What's not clear is that I can't tell whether you supported Cheney's decision or not.

I'd be interested in hearing where Acquinas and Augustine support intentionally killing the innocent.

I have a much more difficult time condeming the hypothetical shooting down of Flight 93 than I do in condemning the atomic bombings and fire bombings in WWII, or the British "dehousing" campaign. Those bombings were quite obviously simple acts of terrorism, inexcusable even if they did shorten the war.

It is a rare enough event on the internet, so enjoy it. I am persuaded that my intuition was wrong. My remaining question is that of collateral damage. Collateral damage, to use that bloodless phrase, is inevitable in any conflict. Given that, how can any military action be licit? Belligerents know noncombatant deaths are inevitable, so must it not be said that they intend those deaths? If so, are they not murderers, even if a conflict is otherwise justified? The laws of war impose standards of reasonableness, proportionality, and good faith, and don't really protect human shields, placing the blame for their deaths on the users of the human shields, but this is a much higher standard.

Zippy - I didn't know that about modern airliners. I've never flown an aircraft, and my experience with simulators is limited to a few hours playing Il-2 Sturmovik and a very old AH-64 simulator. I always found landing rather difficult...

I am absolutely amazed at you people. What you are in effect suggesting is that defense is illegitimate against an aggressor surrounded by a human shield. Just think about it for a minute. Every suicide bomber ... [blah blah blah] ... It is too horrible to contemplate. Military operations are morally out, since ... [blah blah blah]. The left does not have a monopoly on intellectual pathology.

Social P., seems to me that Bill answered this harangue in the manner in which it was delivered; that is, with a bit of sarcasm and even irritation. I've even tempted to bring up the standard "you can give it but you can't take it" line. The fact is you disagree with a position held by Bill, Zippy, and (I believe) the Roman Catholic Church. Disagreement need not issue in bitterness -- but it is likely to do just that when it is accompanied by accusations of pathology.

Let's try to stick to the substantive arguments here.

Many of the quandries require liciety by ignorance. For example, a missle is headed toward your home, and you proceed to take use of your Surface-To-Air missle in reflexive self-defense. In such a case, the shooting would be licit, because you would have no opportunity to ascertain whether your defensive measure would harm innocents. Your ignorance wouldn't be culpable in anyway. In the cases of deliberate human shields, the human shields do not have ignorance as to what they are doing and are culpable in their own deaths; you aren't forcing someone to sit between your bullets. The hijacked air plane scenario does not give the benefit of ignorance.

The joyful quandry between unintended but foreseen effects and intended effects. An example would be taking morphine at the end of life to suppress pain knowing that it will hasten death. It is licit in so much as the treatment is for pain. I imagine there is a point at which the chosen behavior is not to kill all the people on the plane. However, I don't believe that point is necessarily over a field in Pennsylvania.

I'd be interested in hearing where Acquinas and Augustine support intentionally killing the innocent.

A complex interest.

Nota bene, Aquinas is named the chief proponent of a just war theory and a prime architect of the double effect reasoning.

I think there's a big difference between the extremely general fact that civilian deaths almost inevitably happen in war and clear knowledge of the specific fact that there are innocents in *that* building that you're about to drop a bomb on *right now.* The latter would be the analogy to shooting down Flight 93. If you've seen the movie _Clear and Present Danger_, I think it is, there's this scene where the Americans are about to take out the house of a South American drug lord. The one soldier has his shoulder-mounted thingy and is about to shoot it at the guy's house, when he sees these little kids running around just outside. He says something like, "Uh, sir..." to his superior, but he's (I seem to recall) ordered to shoot, so he does. The whole house is blown up. (It's supposed to be some special technology that I don't think is real.) And of course, we hear that the South Americans drag the little kids' bodies out of the wreckage. Now that's morally problematic, to say the least of it. Engaging in war when you know in the general sense that civilians are likely to be killed in the process as a whole is a different matter.

Belligerents know noncombatant deaths are inevitable, so must it not be said that they intend those deaths?

No. There is a difference - a nontrivial difference - between choosing to kill Innocent Bob as a specific chosen behavior (in the object of the act) and knowing with certainty that there will be accidental deaths in wartime. We know with absolute certainty that there will be accidental deaths on the highway, but we still drive.

Nota bene, Aquinas is named the chief proponent of a just war theory and a prime architect of the double effect reasoning.

Yes. My own understanding of these matters comes from Acquinas, from reading commenters (with whose reasoning I do not always agree) on Acquinas (e.g. Kaczor and Finnis), and from the only detailed Magisterial statement in existence on the subject, Veritatis Splendour. I support the just war doctrine (which is to say I believe that it is a true description of the moral realities with respect to war) and the principle of double-effect.

Nowhere in anything I've ever read by Acquinas or Augustine has it been stated that it is morally licit to intentionally kill the innocent. So I was curious why you seemed to think that some reading of Acquinas and Augustine supports the notion that intentionally killing the innocent can be licit in some circumstances.

I was curious why you seemed to think . . .

OK, an innocent mistake, I guess, from reading into my reply to Lydia aobut the important distinction between homicide and murder.

KW, in what do you take the distinction between homicide and murder to consist? I see that you express doubt as to whether it applies to the Cheney scenario. When I call it "murder" I mean that it was a decision deliberately to kill specific innocent people. I consider the gravity of that offense and the need not to pretend that it was somehow unintentional or justified by double effect to be more important for purposes of moral clarity in discussion than the fact that Cheney wasn't an evil person and acted *in one sense* with good intentions. This is why I think giving it a different name would have the wrong implications in discussion.

Zippy - I didn't know that about modern airliners.

Another old aviator joke comes from the maintenance log entries for an airplane just back from a test flight:

Problem: Test flight OK, except autoland extremely rough.

Solution: Autoland not installed on this aircraft.

I have a much more difficult time condeming the hypothetical shooting down of Flight 93 than I do in condemning the atomic bombings and fire bombings in WWI

Yes, that's why Zippy discussed culpability and forgiveness, and Lydia said that "there are worse forms of murder."

I am persuaded that my intuition was wrong.

Rare? It's unheard of. A statistical singularity, improbable verging on impossible. And yet somehow I believe you.

One thing I'm considering is eliminating the word "collateral" from my vocabulary, for that "bloodless" reason you mention. The key word is "accidental".

I'm hoping to find time to post a little more on what I think is your major difficulty. Not my post, actually, but excerpts from the thoughts of someone a lot smarter than I, and whom I greatly respect. By this weekend, hopefully.

- Paul, I don't really want him to go, but if Lydia can't keep him around, nobody can.

- Zippy, the stuff about landing the plane was fascinating. Btw, are you familiar with a spelling of "Aquinas" of which I am ignorant?

I love KW, but it's hard to get a straight answer. Sometimes.

Btw, are you familiar with a spelling of "Aquinas" of which I am ignorant?

The basic problem is that I am just barely literate, and have a subconscious but very strong tendency toward creative spelling. It might even be a result of my inner child rebelling against the conflation of formal symbols with meaning; if so, I need to hunt the little bastard down and kill him. More likely it is just the capital modern vice of hurried laziness. It certainly isn't that I intentionally set out to drive those more literate than I nuts.

"I love KW, but it's hard to get a straight answer. Sometimes."

Dr. Tollefson once called his comments elliptical. I agree with that, but I think it helps his cause of persuasion that he has such a pleasant way of disagreeing. It is the art of diplomacy, really.

Please don't kill him, Zippy. There are few enough amusements in life. "those more literate than I" Talk about diplomacy. I think.

Step 2, I won't contend with that. Very diplomatic of you.
How do you know it's a he?

Zippy, you were much missed around here, as evidenced by the fact that with little time this morning I'm on this thread writing about your plan to kill your inner child rather than on the other thread deciding whether I want to dive in in defense of capitalism. :-)

That line about the inner child ranks up there with the funniest I've read in a long time.

Being the master of Diplomacy, I though I would return to finally burn any remaining bridges that I have. I don’t imagine I’ll convince anyone but here goes.

Paul Cella, sorry in advance for the [blah, blah, blah] but I’m a bit pedestrian in my thinking and I have trouble expressing myself as eloquently as yourself. To the rest of you sorry for the long post.

I presume—though I am not sure anymore-- had terrorists been the only people on the aircraft, everyone here would agree that Cheney would have been right to shoot it down. However civilians were on the aircraft and this clearly changes the moral situation for most people on this thread. The presence of civilians changed what was a morally permissible act into a morally impermissible act.

I don’t know of Dick Cheney shooting down any civilian airliners purely for the heck of it, so I assume that his interest in Flight 89 was due to the terrorists on it, not the civilians.

Presumably the objection to the order is due to the actual means employed. I presume that no one would object that if a method which had no ill effects were used, such as being able to take over the plane by ground control. However such means were not available so Cheney authorized the use of a non-discriminatory weapon which would kill both civilians and terrorists.

Now the moral objection to non discriminatory weapons is that they kill innocent as well as the guilty: In other words they actuate a double effect in their operation. The objection to deliberately dropping a bomb on a terrorist who has housed himself in a packed schoolhouse is because children would be killed. Likewise dropping bombs in civilian areas even though it is intended to kill aggressors is morally impermissible due to civilian deaths. Therefore the objection to shooting the plane down is that it would kill both the innocent passengers and the guilty terrorists.

The moral principle which is behind this objection: It is impermissible to use agents which have double effect in pursuit of a good. This is Axiom 1.

But perhaps my rustic understanding of this thread is flawed. The moral objection to Cheney’s act is that he willed the death of the civilians and hence murdered them. The principle of double effect forbids us to use evil means despite the good effect of stopping the terrorists and hence Cheney’s act was morally objectionable.

However bringing about the death of someone is not the same as murdering them. Killing someone as an act of self defence is not murder, nor is bringing the death of a patient when trying to save them murder. For an act to be murderous there must have a death and desire to kill for it is these criterions which give the murderous act its moral character. I have always understood this as the Christian view but then again it looks like I’m wrong.

Zippy has stated what one wishes is irrelevant, what one does is. For in foreseeing the consequences of ones actions and then proceeding to do them one clearly actuates what one intends; Acts assume their moral character in what they objectively actuate. The moral object of the act is evidenced by the ends as observed objectively, not from the vantage point of the actor. The vantage point of the actor is irrelevant, since intention can be deduced from actualized act. I didn’t see this take in Veritatis Splendor.

According to the Zippian proposition I am no different to Dr Kevorkian when I administer a lethal dose of morphine to a patient to relieve his pain. Both Dr Kevorkian and I foresee the death of the patient through the administration of morphine. I may be “wishing” that the patient did not die as a result of my administration of morphine, but as Zippy has stated this is irrelevant, what determines the moral object of the act is the thing that is actuated, i.e the death of the patient. As I see it, according to Zippy I cannot claim that I did not want to kill the patient when I deliberately took actions which killed the patient.

Zippy’s line of reasoning effectively neutralizes any justification by appeal to the operation of double effect. The concept of foreseen unintended effect is rendered incoherent by the line of reasoning that all foreseen effects by a chosen action are intended by virtue of their deliberate actuation. The concept of a foreseen unintended effect is an illusion.

Moral Axiom 2: The foreseen consequences of what you do are what you intended.

Hence if you foresee an evil consequence of an act, then when you act you have done an evil.

It is impossible to invoke the principle of double effect if Axiom 1 and Axiom 2 are to be satisfied. All sorts of evils start to creep in.

Now the principle of self defence is only legitimate through the appeal of double effect.
St Thomas will back me up on this one. But if double effect is cannot be invoked due to the operation of Axioms 1 and 2 then self defence is illegitimate. The logical conclusion of the above line of reasoning is Militant Pacifism: Curious for a site that has a sword bearing Knight in its banner.

Now I see why Cheney’s correct course of action was to do nothing.

Now the operation of Axiom 1 and 2 would explain this curious line of Lydia’s;

“My position has been that if they aimed to destroy the plane and themselves, then it was suicide”

Um, Err, No: Perhaps it could have been self sacrifice? But then self sacrifice is only justifiable through the principle of double effect. Killing yourself for a good cause is morally wrong since actions which exert a double effect are wrong in light of Axiom 1 and the claim that you weren’t really trying to kill yourself—in order to save others-- doesn’t stand up to scrutiny by the operation of Axiom 2. Choosing an action in which you deliberately foresaw your death-- no matter what else you intended-- is suicide.

Now of course it is perfectly legitimate to hold these views. Mahatma Gandhi did and many modern Churchmen of the Left do as well. However it ain’t Christianity.

Traditional Christianity has approved of the principle of double effect. It recognised that in the real world by doing good sometimes one actuated unintended evil. It was a fact of life. Apparently what one “wished” mattered.

I don’t think the Church fathers would have viewed approvingly of the line of reasoning that concludes that self sacrifice is suicide and the self defence is murder. My condemnation of this line of reasoning was harsh; theirs would have been far sterner.

Not being Catholic sometimes has its advantages. I don't have to appeal to double effect for self defense. I think if some bad guy is trying to kill me, it's okay for me to _try_ to kill him.

I tend to think that double effect is legitimate only when the second and unintended effect really might very well not come about, where one has reason to believe one can "get away with" just carrying out the primary effect, and the secondary one really is an accident. E.g. Driving on the highway, getting in an accident, and having a child in the other car killed. Perhaps this isn't the way the phrase is normally used, though.

Thank you, SP. Much of what you say clearly follows from the foregoing discussion.

Step2: Thank you for your courtesy.

Lydia: You say, "When I call it 'murder' I mean that it was a decision deliberately to kill specific innocent people." I say, the discussion aims to demonstrate whether this applies and I have no doubt such a demonstration could apply to the chosen scenario. Deliberation precedes judgment; QED and all that. In fact, the President called the shot.

Bill: verum enim invenire volumus, non tamquam adversarium aliquem convincere. --Cicero

Poor Cheney and his "maybe." As is so often the case in tragic dilemmas, choice appears as the ghost of fate. Admittedly he didn't know if other lives were in danger. (I think Rice's comments suggest that there the interest of the community was in danger, in addition to innocent lives.)

In any case, we aren't Greek tragedians that pray against fate. Any discussion of moral dilemmas is incomplete without a theology of prayer. But one must be in the habit.

This disaster is reason enough to consider technological safeguards against turning passenger planes into missiles. If landing a plane is a simple task, perhaps a future VP will be able to do so--or at least divert it from compounding disaster.

The moral principle which is behind this objection: It is impermissible to use agents which have double effect in pursuit of a good.

Nonsense. At bottom what is at issue in this thread is double effect. Everyone participating in this thread, as far as I know, believes in the principle of double effect, with the possible exception of Lydia. So starting out by stating that your opposition doesn't believe in double effect is begging the question.

Since we all believe in double effect (with the possible exception of Lydia), we all believe that there is a distinction between the chosen behavior or object of an act and the remote effects which result from the act. Under double effect it can be morally licit to perform an act with evil remote and unintended effects. Under double effect it is not ever morally licit to choose an evil behavior though: for the object of the act to be evil in itself.

So at bottom, some of us think that choosing to kill a bunch of innocent passengers with a missile is part of the object - the chosen behavior - in this act, and that no remote intention (and no wishful thinking about counterfactual behaviors which are not chosen) nor any justification based on remote intentions (save the innocents on the ground) can make such an act licit.

You appear to think that directly killing a bunch of innocent people with a missile is not in the object of the act. I think that's wrong. But when you state that I don't believe in the principle of double-effect you are simply begging the quesiton: precisely what is at issue is whether killing the innocent is or is not in the object (chosen behavior) in this act. Everyone agrees that it isn't a remote intention, that the person performing the act wishes it could be avoided, etc. But that is irrelevant if I am right and killing the innocent is inherent in the chosen behavior.

Your entire comment is (1) question begging and (2) imputes a bunch of axioms to me that I don't hold. You should retract it in its entiriety and try again. I can just as easily infer that you don't think there is any such thing as the object of an act independent of remote intentions, and that therefore you are a de-facto consequentialist.

If the effect in question were remote, I doubt that it could be certainly foreseen. In any event, I'm willing to reconsider if anything I said implied that remote consequences are in view. I assumed we were talking about less-than-remote consequences. I suppose it's an interesting question at that point which consequences count as "remote." For example, suppose my car isn't terribly safe, but I have a sudden emergency, no emergency vehicles available, I have to go out in the car to save the life of an immediate family member, etc. I do the best I can to drive carefully, but there's an accident, and somebody is killed. Certainly that was an unforeseen consequence. After all, I wouldn't have bothered if I knew that was going to happen, because presumably the whole series of events didn't do any good to the person I was trying to help either. But it's not really "remote," either, because it happens with my own car, right on the road, etc., not on the other side of the world as the result of a butterfly wing that flutters the wrong way because I go driving. So it can be unforeseen yet not in the normal sense "remote." On the other hand, if you told me that if I walk out of my house and around the block, a butterfly wing will be caused to flutter and someone will die 100 years from now, that definitely seems "remote." So remote, in fact, that even if foreseen (if somehow I could have good reason to believe you), it does not seem wrong to take the walk, if only because once we are considering consequences at that distance of time and space, staying in my house hiding under the bed would probably have similarly bad remote consequences for somebody else.

The bottom-line question in every discussion of double-effect is: what is the object of the act? Finnis uses language like "specifying intentions" to delineate what is in the object. Whether his underlying concepts are correct or not, using the language of intention in describing the object is confusing, because the object of the act is supposed to reflect the act itself independent of intentions. So I very much prefer the language of John Paul: John Paul describes the object of the act as whatever deliberate behavior the acting agent chooses. It is never morally licit to deliberately choose an evil behavior, independent of one's intentions or the circumstances.

Operating on a patient to save his life is a deliberately chosen behavior. If one operates on a patient in the field without anesthesia, one is not choosing the pain that the patient feels: one is not choosing the bad effect, even though one knows that it will occur as long as the patient remains conscious. But the notion that one is not choosing the death of the innocent passengers is just obviously wrong: one is choosing it, directly in one's behavior as one fires the missile into the plane. (Strictly speaking the evil act would be the gunner's act; Cheney's evil act would be a matter of formal cooperation with evil).

It isn't nuts to disagree with me about what is in the object of a particular act. This stuff is very counterintuitive and difficult as philosophy (as is any discussion involving the very place where free will meets objective reality), though I think as acting persons it is a lot clearer in the moment what behaviors we are actually choosing. But when SP says that I am denying the principle of double effect, either explicitly or de facto, he couldn't be more wrong. In fact from my perspective the opposite seems to be the case: he hasn't given me any reason to believe that his understanding of the object of an act can ever render an exceptionless norm independent of intentions or circumstances. So if anything he is de-facto consequentialist. I've given examples where I think double-effect applies (e.g. salpingectomy, field operations without anesthetic); he's never given me a chosen behavior that is always evil independent of the acting subject's intentions or the circumstances.

Part of the problem, as I've mentioned before in a number of places, is the limits of discourse when discussing qualia. I know the difference between my chosen behavior and my intentions, just as I know the difference between the color green and the color red. Those differences cannot be reduced to the discursive. But I