It's Halloween!

No post today, cuz I am lazy.  Have fun!  And remember that Nov 1 is all Saint's Day!  Holy Day of Obligation!

Prudential Judgement

One of the phrases that gets thrown about in the Catholic blogsphere with reckless abandon is "prudential judgement."  This phrase when used properly distinguishes that which Catholics can legitimately disagree about.  But often times it is used as a short hand for "I can believe whatever I want."

Prudential judgement comes from the virtue of Prudence, which is used when making decisions about everyday life in conformance with the Church's teachings.  It is more than that however.  It is also the virtue of determining the good and evil in things, and knowing what one ought to do and what one should avoid.

When used properly prudential judgement is a key virtue in living our lives.  It allows us to live by the Faith in everyday actions and informs the decisions we make in order to derive the most good out of a given situation.  It also allows us to discern what is good and what is bad, allowing us to make sense of situations where the good is hidden or evil that lies in wait.

What it does not mean is that decisions that are of prudential judgement cannot be either right or wrong.  It means that unlike things that go against the Faith directly matters of prudential judgement require reason and discipline to find the good and avoid the evil.  There is still good to be had and evil to avoid.

Prudential matters involve questions such as "what is a just wage?" and "how can we best improve the lot of the poor?"  These questions are difficult and require understanding of the particular circumstances as well as the moral principles of social justice.  As a result people of good faith can disagree about the answers to such questions.

What it does not mean is that there is not a right or wrong answer.  There is such a thing as a just wage for our current circumstances.  There is a right and proper way to help the poor.  While these things are the subject of much debate, there are correct answers to them.

What all of this means is that while matters may require prudential judgement, it does not mean that matters of prudential judgement are places where relativism resides.  We do not have the luxury of simply pretending that what we want to be true is true.  Matters of prudential judgement still have a right and wrong answer.  And it is our moral duty to discern the correct answers to such questions for our time.

It is one of the strange ironies that relativism has rendered discussions about prudential judgement as hostile as they are today.  Relativism promises that there is no real truth.  So we should not get so worked up over disagreements.  Yet our political discourse is hotter than ever.  This is because of two reasons.  One is our pride and we hate to be wrong.  The other is that deep down we know that these things matter even if we've forgotten why.

Prudence however is a virtue that reminds us of the importance of truth in our everyday lives.  It calls us to use our reason and to discern the good in all decisions.  We owe to to God, our fellow man, and ourselves to discern and work for the good that exists in all of our decisions.

The new blacklist

For all the complaining about McCarthyism, the Left has now fully embraced the strategy they once decried.

Collective Guilt Part 5

This is the fifth part in the series on collective guilt.  It has been a while so for those who follow my blog should read up on the previous four sections.  And once again as stated in the first section this is simply my own musings and am open to correction where my thought may not be in line with Catholic teaching on the subject provided one can demonstrate such.

We last discussed this question we pondered if one who was under another's authority could be punished for the sins of the superior.  We finished by asking the question:

But how is this fair?  And when has this principle ever been applied?

The nature of authority presumes its existence is for the benefit of those under the charge of the superior.  Our world naturally organizes itself into a hierarchy of persons responsible for decisions that range from those that have minimal impact to very wide ranging consequences.  The hierarchy exists not only for beneficial reasons but given situations a necessity.

This hierarchy exists for the benefit of all in theory.  One can see this in the family, where the parents by nature have dominion over their children.  This authority is for the benefit of the child, as the child is not able to interact with society at the level necessary for survival on their own.  While this may seem trivial, when one thinks about it the family reveals at a very basic level the notions of authority as they are meant to be.  It is no accident that the Church calls the family the fundamental unit of society.

If we clearly derive benefits from authority and the proper use of such it only stands to reason that the improper use of authority can be punished and that punishment can be enforced on those under the authority abuser.  The fact that we benefit from the proper use of authority practically demands that the punishment for abuse of that authority be distributed in a similar manner.  To not have some form of punishment distribution would be a violation of justice, not its execution.

Having said this it must be pointed out that oftentimes the "punishment" for the abuse of authority happens naturally.  The employees whose corrupt CEO who runs a company into the ground are deprived of their livelihood.  The child of the father who goes to jail is deprived of their natural provider.  The teacher who neglects their duty to teach deprives the students of an education.  Oftentimes the nature of the sin results in the punishment of those under the authority of the sinner on its own, requiring no further action due to the fallout of the sins themselves.

Other times however further action is justified.  An aggressor state that is defeated in a war should be forced to pay reparations.  Employees who directly benefited from corruption but otherwise not involved may be required to pay some compensation for cheated customers.  And in an example that hits close to home, a church can be forced to make restitution for the sins of the pastor.

All of these are legitimate examples of those who are punished for the sins of the one in authority.  And in such cases the punishment is demanded by justice instead of being against justice.  This does not mean that direct action needs to be taken, as the fallout from the punishment of the authority can harm those under their charge.

Next I will discuss the origins of this arrangement.

A virus for good

I probably need this:

On the concept of "personhood"

Personhood is often invoked as a yardstick for determining if a member of the species homo sapiens deserves the protection of the state.  The problem as always with such concepts that deny rights to humans is that upon inspection the concept of "Personhood" breaks down.  The proponents of abortion will cite Personhood as the thing which a fetus lacks, and thus can be "terminated" without violating the right to life of "persons".  But when asked for a definition is when things begin to go south.

Personhood has no real definition.  Unlike the distinction between the color of skin, ethnicity, age, geography, and sex the concept of Personhood has no distinguishable traits that mark a fetus as a "person" vs. a "non-person".  This is not to say that traits won't be invoked.  As a whole however Personhood as an operational definition is poorly defined, especially for the potential stakes at play.

Before we look at the real problem with the term let us examine some traits that are marshaled toward its definition.  A problem will become apparent soon enough:

The ability to feel pain - This is often the first trait that is invoked to distinguish "persons" from the fetus.  This is obviously problematic given conditions such as the inability to feel pain in otherwise "fully formed" humans. This is often the first metric to be countered and dropped like a hot potato in discussion.  More on this afterwards.

Cognition - This is the closest thing approaching actual philosophical thought given modernist assumptions about mental activity and what it means to be human.  The problem is that this is invoked not for cognition per se but brain wave activity.  The two are not the same, despite materialists tendencies to convince us otherwise.

The main problem with using cognition as a metric is that cognition is a relative quality when it comes to our ability to perceive it.  So folks with Down's Syndrome for example would appear to be less worthy of life because of lower cognitive abilities, something which normal people would reject.  As a side note this is not always the case, see Nazi Germany and "life unworthy of life".

Viability - Ironically the weakest yet the one that comes up most often in discussions about abortion.  The best definition I have of this is the likelihood of the fetus living outside the womb.  The silliness of this metric is the fact that the ability for the fetus to survive keeps improving as medical technology advances.  Which means not only is viability not static but relative but it isn't even dependent on the fetus itself.  Let's think about that for a minute.  This is supposedly a metric to determine Personhood, yet the metric doesn't involve the fetus at all.

The real problem with this type of thinking is that realistically speaking it isn't even about the fetus.  The pro-abortion mind throws these things out in an attempt to deny the humanity of the fetus.  First pain is usually cited then dropped real fast when the disorder cited above is mentioned.  Then cognition.  Then viability.

The line of thinking presented is not about determining what exactly personhood is.  It is an attempt to justify abortion by "squishifying" what it means to be human in order to justify abortion post hoc.  Personhood is not a legitimate distinction, but is simply a means to an end to dispose of "non-persons" that meet the arbitrary metrics.

Quote of the day

Courtesy of Dr. Edward Fesser's blog.  From a commenter:

I have not read Noe's post, but both of the other hostile reviews display a common tendency with naturalists. First, they point out the successes of the natural sciences, where the criteria of success are wholly pragmatic and utilitarian. Then, they tell us that because the sciences are pragmatically successful, we must defer to them for our metaphysics. So they justify scientism by appeal to purely practical considerations, while demanding that we derive our theoretical conception of the world from science on those grounds alone. 

I find this maneuver infuriating; they want play pragmatist on defense and then they want to turn around and play realist on offense. But nowhere do they ever try to seriously defend the inference from "science is really pragmatically successful" to "science tells what the world is really like." All we ever get are vague declarations about "successful research programs" and our "best theory of the world." (As if there was such a thing)