Somebody wrote to my wife Christine (she runs a podcast which I occasionally appear on) asking me why it wouldn’t be morally permissible to kill somebody (say, slip them a poison pill) if they are 1) dying of cancer and 2) simultaneously being tortured by a Chinese prison guard. They mentioned how they thought it would be “too philosophical” to reason against ending their misery, especially since they are going to die anyway.
Here was my response:
The first thing we must realize is simply that bad people can put good people into situations where they are either forced to make an extremely difficult heroic decision or an emotionally understandable (but not permissible) immoral decision. That is just a power that bad people have, in virtue of their ability to bring absurdity into creation. One such example — not yours, but similar in ways — would be an evil person who puts someone in the position of either having to rape and torture an innocent child, or be raped and tortured themselves. The right answer is to not under any circumstances rape and torture an innocent child, though we could undoubtedly crank the hypothetical tension to conjure up all sorts of conflicting intuitions — say, what if the child is unconscious, or genetically can’t feel pain, or isn’t of the age of reason, etc. Or what about just killing the child before torturing him or her, etc? But none of these would alter the moral permissibility of the action when objectively analyzed, all the hypotheticals do is alter or manipulate or confuse our moral intuitions, and though perhaps generally reliable, intuitions are certainly not infallible, especially as situations increase in moral complexity. Indeed, the only proper moral action in the hypothetical above would be to fight against the evil person or accept the torture because of your refusal to torture others — again, an action can be heroic and moral and traumatic. (Another example: not aborting after rape is the heroic, but often traumatic, morally right decision.) You mention being overly philosophical — but that’s the point. Intuitions and emotions often conflict, in turn clouding moral sight. So it is the “cold & abstract” philosophizing that’s needed to gain clarity in these difficult situations, to see through the emotional fog, as it were. We cannot rely on intuition alone but must go deeper to understand what those intuitions are supposed to get us to appreciate in the first place.
Furthermore — and now we will be getting to what is pertinent to the hypothetical you’ve drawn up — the reason we (intuitively) think pain or harm is morally relevant is because of what pain or harm attaches to – namely, a human person – and how pain or harm often factors into certain situations of what is good or bad for a human person. But pain or harm *by themselves* aren’t *really* morally relevant, because we cause pain and/or harm to things all the time without it being morally impermissible to do so, whether chopping up a head of cabbage (harms the cabbage), or slaughtering animals for nutrition (pain and harm to the animal), or even just engaging in intense bouts of exercise (pain but not harm, generally speaking). The point being that morality is a rational enterprise, and what determines morality (for us, anyway) is what is objectively good for the nature of a human person. And the reason we seek to alleviate pain in the first place is because pain is often either itself a harm, or signifying a harm, to a human person, and it is good for us to assist fellow human beings in avoiding or alleviating harm. But once that deeper analysis is understood we can see why it is never good for us to intentionally end the life of an innocent human being, because the harm we cause by killing someone (which is the ultimate harm! – indeed, even if they are going to die anyway) is always objectively worse than the harm they undergo by physical suffering, and so the RIGHT thing to do in such a situation is to fight against the otherwise noble (and generally but not infallibly correct) intuition to alleviate someone’s physical pain, at least to the extent it tends us in the direction of causing greater harm — i.e. murder.
Now here is another situation that might be worth thinking about, because of its apparent — but only apparent — relatedness. Suppose someone is dying from cancer and we decide to give them a particular pain medication knowing it might shorten their life because of side effects. Is that permissible? The answer is generally yes, but only because our INTENTION is not to shorten their life, but to alleviate pain AND to do so NOT by ending their life (or causing some greater harm). In other words, it is sometimes morally permissible to pursue certain actions even with foreseen (and possibly unavoidable) negative consequence GIVEN that the negative consequence isn’t the means for success or itself intended. (This, by the way, is how pro-life ethicists deal with ectopic pregnancies, etc, and is known as double effect reasoning.) Thus, if we COULD give a medicine that wouldn’t shorten a person’s life, we would choose that instead, or if it happens the medicine we gave didn’t shorten a person’s life after all, we would celebrate that, and not consider our measures taken to be a failure but an even greater success. HOWEVER, if you give someone a pill intentionally designed to kill them and it DOESN’T kill them, that measure IS a failure, and so double effect reasoning could not be applied in the situation you described.
The primary takeaway is this: When intuitions clash (which in difficult situations can often happen) only reason and/or revelation can be used to resolve the moral dilemma, and the outcome may be emotionally difficult to accept precisely because intuitions are in conflict. Furthermore, other people in these situations might be angered or resent you for making the decision you did, but that does not alter the moral status of the situation itself. Because there is often a difference between what people would WANT you to do versus what you actually SHOULD do. Same with ourselves, if we’re being honest: it is one thing to say what we should do in any given situation, quite another to say for certain what we would do. Should I ever find myself in the position of either being tortured or apostasizing, I know I SHOULD accept torture before denying Christ. But WOULD I? I cannot say. I pray God would give me the grace to persevere, but I am a weak and degenerate sinner.
Of course, most of the above is coming at the issue from the matter of morality as grounded in human nature — that is, as a philosophical project — but we musn’t forget that God has explicitly commanded us not to murder, as well, Additionally, the Catholic Church formally teaches against abortion, euthanasia, etc — i.e. any intentional killing of innocents, without exception. So we have three corresponding lines of support against ever intentionally ending an innocent human life – ethical reasoning, God’s direct revelation, and Catholic magisterial authority. Thus, prayer for increased understanding is a prudent idea : )
Finally, I’ll be releasing a podcast episode soon with Dr. Gaven Kerr on abortion/euthanasia where we confront moral hypotheticals quite similar to your own, particularly with end of life situations in the experience of profound physical pain. If you subscribe to my podcast The Pat Flynn Show you will likely see that air next weekend, otherwise I’m sure Christine will share a link when it is live, as well. I believe that may also help.
Oh, and it might also be worthwhile, since you seem deeply interested in ethical matters (which is great!), to invest in a few morality texts. I would recommend Right and Reason by Austin Fagothey, Introduction to Ethics by Brian Besong, and The Ethics of Abortion by Chris Kazcor along with his latest Life Issues, Medical Choices. Lastly, anything by David Oderberg.