Benedict XVI and proportionalism

2. Acts are not good or bad in themselves, according to proportionalists. The other side of the coin is that, in order to act rightly, it is necessary to weigh up the good that will be achieved and the evil that may result.

While one may not intend to do evil to human beings as such, if the amount of good for persons outweighs the evil, one has a proportionate reason for acting. Then the evil resulting (for instance, death, wounding, dishonour) remains outside the realm of morality (this is called by proportionalists “premoral” evil to distinguish it from moral evil in the strict sense).

If however, the evil done outweighs the good, then there is no proportionate reason for acting and the evil becomes moral evil and therefore wrong.

An example commonly given is the taking of his own life by a spy caught by the enemy in wartime. According to the proportionalist theory, this would not be wrong if there were no other way to protect secret information whose betrayal would jeopardise many lives. There would be a proportionate reason for taking his life in this case.

It is because of the central importance of proportionate reason in this theory that it is referred to as Proportionalism, and hence its protagonists are called proportionalists.

In weighing up the preponderance of good over evil, account must be taken not only of the action itself, for instance killing or lying, but also of the motive for which it is done and the circumstances in which it occurs.

This means that we cannot do our calculations in the abstract by attempting to put a moral label on classes of actions while prescinding from actual circumstances. Each act must be judged in its actual context and in terms of the existence of a proportionate reason. For proportionalists, a good intention certainly does not justify a morally wrong action. For them it is necessary to look at all the morally relevant circumstances before one can know exactly what the action is and therefore whether it is to be judged as morally wrong.

3. Clearly, in this way of thinking concrete moral rules are not absolute, that is, admitting of no exceptions. At most, they are general rules that will apply perhaps in the majority of cases, but that cannot be expected to exclude every possible exception. Killing an innocent person will generally be wrong but may be justified in some particular circumstances, for example, in a situation where one has certitude that this is the only way a far greater number of innocent persons may be saved.

A similar judgment could be made about lying, stealing, sterilisation, and so on in exceptional circumstances. However, it is admitted that some moral rules may be “virtual” absolutes, in the sense that it is hard to envisage the possibility of there ever being a proportionate reason for going against them.

The prohibition of rape, forcing another to violate his or her conscience, dropping a nuclear bomb that would kill a million people, and pedophilia, would for them, be in this category of “virtual” absolutes. Proportionalists come then to the same conclusion about pedophilia as Pope Benedict XVI in his comment, but on different moral grounds.

Proportionalism, it must be admitted, has done a great deal towards stimulating thought about moral issues and promoting a much-needed revision of Christian ethics. It has not however fully satisfied all its critics.

Whatever about the claim, which many proportionalists make, that the indispensable place of the individual person is implied in the evaluation of consequences it remains an indispensable truth that the dignity of the human person and the place of human rights needs to be enshrined as the centrepiece of moral decision making.