The concept of the "intrinsically evil"

In both of my careers as a Catholic thinker—my former one as a professor, and my current one as a blogger—I have found it a real challenge to get across to people what is meant by saying that some acts are "intrinsically evil." The phrase from traditional moral theology so translated is intrinsece malum, which is often used in magisterial documents. As we contemplate the Holy Family this Christmas season, it occurs to me that misunderstanding about the concept of the intrinsically evil (IE) is especially rampant in the area of sexual morality. Today I want to contribute to a correct understanding by excluding two equal and opposite misapplications of the concept to the specific question of contraception.

But first, the concept itself. In his landmark encyclical Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul the Great explicated IE thus:

Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances.

Now, VS was the first document of its level of authority to actually give a magisterial explication, as distinct from application, of the concept of IE. A short time before that, CCC §1761 had made a start: "...there are certain specific kinds of behaviour that are always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil." That was important because it made clearer to people that intrinsically evil acts are those of kinds that it's "always wrong to choose," irrespective of any further feature of the particular act or of any further consideration about the act. In that respect, VS was an advance. Yet perforce, its explication of intrinsice malum comes after a quite interesting explication of various associated concepts that must be understood if that of IE itself is to be understood. I highly recommend them to the reader. But further interpretation and clarification is obviously needed and ongoing.

One important clarification must begin with stressing that distinctively "moral evil" is a "disorder" precisely of "the will." Hence, to will something that is intrinsically evil is a moral evil because so willing disorders precisely the will of the agent itself. But given as much, one cannot specify what, if anything, is intrinsically evil about a physical act merely by describing its physical features. And that's because one cannot say what makes the act distinctively human, an actus humanus, merely by describing what happens when somebody initiates a chain of physical events. Rather, the "object of the human act" that makes the act intrinsically evil has to be something done intentionally by the agent, in such a way that the physical feature of the act that makes the act morally significant is precisely that which "embodies the agent's intention"—a phrase first coined by Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe in her now-classic book Intention. That is the sense in which JP2 speaks of "objects of the human act" as subject to moral evaluation. Such an object is not so much what occurs in virtue of a freely chosen act; if it were, then there could be no morally significant distinction between the foreseen and the intended consequences of acts. That in turn would rule out any principle of double effect (PDE); but PDE is regularly invoked and applied in orthodox moral theology, as it should be, even though it's not yet fully clear how to formulate PDE in such a way as to minimize its misapplication. No, the "object of the human act" is what embodies the intention of the agent, even if some of what the agent foresees as flowing from what he does is not what he intends. If and when such an object is intrinsically evil, that is because what is willed and intended is an act of a kind that disorders the will of the agent. Why is that so important?

Consider the Church's teaching that contraception is "intrinsically evil." What does that mean? Citing Humanae Vitae §14, CCC §2370 says: "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil. The Vademecum for Confessors even says that "[t]his teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable," which leaves confessors with no excuse for excusing contraception. Now the phrase 'whether as an end or as a means' tips us off that what's subject to moral evaluation here is what one "proposes" and thus intends to do regarding something very specific. If one has sexual intercourse that one has intentionally acted so to make sterile, then whether or not the act of intercourse (a) is or would have been sterile in fact and regardless, or (b) is wrong for some other reason, the act embodying the intention to make it sterile it is itself intrinsically evil. In that sense, contraception is the "object" of that sort of "human act," and it is that object the willing of which is a disorder of the will, regardless of what otherwise ends up happening. On the other hand, periodic continence for the purpose of avoiding conception, although can sometimes be wrong for a number of reasons, is not said to be intrinsically wrong, because it is not the sort of act which, just in itself, embodies an intention to do something which it is a disorder of the will to do intentionally. Hence, under certain conditions discussed in magisterial documents, "natural family planning" (NFP) for purposes of avoiding conception can be morally acceptable. Since one is not doing anything to make procreation impossible when it might otherwise be possible, there is no "object of the human act" that is intrinsically evil as contraception is said to be.

Nonetheless, there are two equal and opposite errors about this teaching among Catholics. The more common one, which is common for all-too-obvious reasons, is an objection to the teaching itself: it is held that given the ultimate intention involved, there is no morally significant difference between contraception and NFP. That objection is registered by progs and trads for very different reasons; if it were sound, then the Church's developed teaching would be incoherent and thus not a fit object for assent.

But the objection simply misses what is meant by saying that contraception, or indeed any other sort of act, is "intrinsically evil." To call a given sort of act intrinsically evil is not to say that the further intention with which one does it, beyond the intention it actually embodies, is unacceptable. There can be all sorts of laudable further intentions with which one does something intrinsically evil. One can, for instance, intentionally kill innocent human beings with the purpose of preventing even more deaths; that, indeed, was the precise rationale for the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that didn't make the tactic morally acceptable according to Church teaching; quite the contrary. In Evangelium Vitae §57, the same pope who wrote VS condemned any and all "direct, voluntary killing of an innocent human being" as "gravely immoral" regardless of any further intention one might have for doing such a thing. Similarly, what's intrinsically evil about contraception is not the further intention to avoid conception—which can, according to the 20th-century popes, be morally responsible—but rather the intention actually embodied in the act of contraception itself, i.e., to "render procreation impossible." Now, just why that is supposed to be intrinsically evil, apart from any further intention-with-which it is done, is unclear to a great many Catholics; and that lacuna in understanding is what accounts for the inability of some to see the moral difference between contraception and NFP. I've addressed that issue before, citing mostly JP2's "theology of the body," and shall not dilate on it here; the immediate point is that the issue is separate from that of just what sort of intentional act is said to be intrinsically evil in the first place. Only when one is clear on just what is being so condemned can one then go on to learn why it is condemned, and also why a different pattern of action with the same further intention as contraception is not intrinsically evil, even though it can sometimes be evil all the same.

The opposite error is not an objection to the teaching itself, but rather an over-rigorous interpretation of one of its premises. On this showing, the relevant "object" of the human act can be characterized as intrinsically evil not only apart from the agent's further intention in doing what he does, but apart from his immediate intention as well. For instance, if a married couple one of whose members is HIV-positive use a condom purely for prophylactic purposes, their sexual act is of a sort that is known to anti-procreative in effect even if not by intent. That's because what condoms do, when they are non-defective and used as directed, is prevent semen from being deposited in the vagina. From that, it is thought to follow that the object of the couple's sexual act, for purposes of moral evaluation, is morally unacceptable for the same sort of reason that, say, anal intercourse is unacceptable. The pattern of action is thought to be such that the sexual act in question cannot be said to have procreative significance, because it cannot bear the intrinsic relationship to procreation that HV says the conjugal act must bear. Accordingly, condomistic sex even for purely prophylactic purposes cannot qualify as a conjugal act at all, and is intrinsically evil for the same reason that sodomy is: it's an inherently non-procreative sort of act. That is held to be so even supposing that the couple would be happy to conceive if they could block HIV transmission without blocking sperm too, and even supposing that the blocking of sperm is not a means to the blocking of HIV transmission. A good example of such reasoning is this paper from Luke Gormally, a man I know personally, and one with whom I've debated this very question before on this blog.

The difficulty with that view is rather similar to one that prog theologians have often raised against what they considered the standard neo-scholastic explanation for the wrongfulness of both contraception and sodomy. That standard explanation, according to some prog apologists and theologians, was that contraception and sodomy are immoral because "unnatural," meaning that they run counter to the "natural" purpose of sexual activity: procreation. Sex that is unnatural in that sort of way was held, or thought to have been held, to be an evil object of action, irrespective of any subjective disposition of the agent, and hence irrespective of intention. Unnatural acts were thus accounted intrinsically evil. Now if that really had been the explanation, I would agree with the prog critique. What's wrong with the explanation, such as it is, is that it doesn't tell us why it is unacceptable to interrupt or depart from the course of nature in this sort of case but perfectly acceptable to do so in many others, such medicine, animal husbandry, or even cosmetology. In order to tell us that, it would have to specify how interrupting or departing from the course of nature in the case of sex embodies an intention that makes the act an intrinsically evil sort of act, i.e. an act of a sort that disorders the will when intended.

Of course I'm not at all convinced that the ancient and medieval understanding about the wrongfulness of contraception and sodomy was as ill-informed as the prog critique often makes out. It was understood better among them than among us that lust, with all its attendant disorders, increases in direct proportion to the deliberate unmooring of sex from procreation. And that should tell us something. For my immediate purpose, it tells us something that both Paul VI and John Paul II were keen to stress. What makes contraception and sodomy wrong is that they sunder a connection which is essential to our inner spiritual health, to the proper "order" of the will, thus causing us to a greater or lesser extent to treat our sexual partners as objects with which to satisfy ourselves. I've had enough experience with both licit and illicit sex to verify that for myself. But if the VS account of the objects of the "human act," is correct, then there is an intrinsically evil act here only if and when one actually intends the sundering, such that the sexual act in question embodies one's intention to break the intrinsic relationship between sex and procreation. I am not in the least convinced that condom use by married couples for the purpose of preventing infection by a lethal virus, and only for that purpose, embodies such an intention. Such activity might be wrong for other reasons, and I believe it is wrong for at least one other reason. But it is not wrong just because it is foreseeably non-procreative in effect, just as a given war is not wrong because, like all wars, it foreseeably results in the death of innocents.

To say that an action of a certain sort, such as contraception, is "intrinsically evil" is to say that it embodies an intention which it is a disorder of the will to have. Just how to identify embodied intentions and disorders of the will is the subject-matter of moral psychology. We have more than enough psychologists and moralists, but we don't have enough moral psychologists. That's because we don't have enough saints, enough lovers of God and neighbor, in the here and now. John Paul the Great was one of them. Let us learn from him.

As you may know, since I’ve mentioned it a number of times over the years, Homily XIX on Corinthians was given to me by my father, of eternal memory, just before my own marriage. Its been my “marriage guide” for the past 31 years. It works, by the way! I had forgotten about the wonderful discussion of freedom in Christ which it contains.

Our Western, really Enlightenment, concepts of freedom are rather different from those held by others at other times in other places, especially in the Orthodox East.

Thanks for the reminder!

Suppose that there are Just Wars and Unjust Wars. Is The Church to tell us which is which? Has that ever worked anywhere? Will God, without repentence, forgive those who do their duty in an unjust war?

What does the Orthodox Church teach about the Church's power to bind & loose sin?

I think that "conscientious objection" is a derivative of "Just War" theory. I think the West recognizes the inherent evil of war, all war, even just wars. While you see the ongoing slaughter that's taken place in European crossroads throughout the ages, the wars that the Western Church prevented rarely get mentioned in any history books. An excommunicated prince had a great deal of difficulty gathering any army, because death on the battlefield by anyone who fought under his banner meant certain damnation.

No recognizing sin for sin and dealing with it through the sacraments is leading to a sort of moral relativism in the West which may well lead to its downfall because, unlike the recognition of the sinfulness of war in the Christian East, its non recognition or nuanced recognition in the West makes the whole concept of evil disappear, sort of like the Evil One has, BC.

I see your point, but wonder about the Eastern response to communism's rise to power in the USSR. The Church survived underground, but it didn't prevent Russians from taking up arms on behalf of their nation.

I'm again reminded of the urban legend about young Catholic girls having abortions, because an abortion would only be one sin, whereas, there's no way to repent if she's committing an ever growing number of sins by taking birth control pills.

“I see your point, but wonder about the Eastern response to communism’s rise to power in the USSR. The Church survived underground, but it didn’t prevent Russians from taking up arms on behalf of their nation.”

I doubt we can ever know how many, if any, wars the Orthodox Church has prevented. Human beings go to war whether they are Orthodox or Latin or Reformed or Hindus or Mohammedans, etc. We shouldn’t be surprised if men war with each other. That’s reality. We however should never believe, much less teach, that war is not always sinful.

“What does the Orthodox Church teach about the Church’s power to bind & loose sin?”

That’s sort of a broad subject. In a nutshell, Orthodoxy teaches what Rome teaches but there’s more to it than that.

“I’m again reminded of the urban legend about young Catholic girls having abortions, because an abortion would only be one sin, whereas, there’s no way to repent if she’s committing an ever growing number of sins by taking birth control pills.”

I don’t doubt that’s a legend, however, it speaks volumes about the position the Latin Church has placed at least some of its people in.

Since you changed around the order of portions of my response to you, I don't think you saw some of the connections that I was trying to make.

I doubt we can ever know how many, if any, wars the Orthodox Church has prevented.

I'm sure the Orthodox Church prevented some, possibly more than the Western Church, though as I said, it's the kind of history that rarely gets told. Rome had a real knack for siding with stronger princes against the weaker ones in disputes, so "prevention of war between Catholic brothers" on Her part wasn't (IMO) always entirely altruistic.

Human beings go to war whether they are Orthodox or Latin or Reformed or Hindus or Mohammedans, etc. We shouldn’t be surprised if men war with each other. That’s reality.

This is true. On a smaller scale, it could be said that police are in a constant state of "war".

We however should never believe, much less teach, that war is not always sinful.

Sin of commission isn't the only kind of sin. Evil can also thrive due to sins of omission.

My reason for bringing up the abortion, birth control thing.... The EO position on war almost seems like it's okay to willfully sin, with an expectation of asking for & receiving absolution later. Those who survive battle have a better chance of forgiveness than those who've died in battle?

Me: “What does the Orthodox Church teach about the Church’s power to bind & loose sin?”

That’s sort of a broad subject.

Indeed it is. The Holy Spirit leads & guides the Church, preventing it from making grave errors. If a church is teaching it's flock that it is incapable of error & the flock managed to follow the church's teaching to the letter, think this imaginary flock would be without any grave sin?

In a nutshell, Orthodoxy teaches what Rome teaches but there’s more to it than that.

What does Orthodoxy teach in respect to its own infallibility?

I don’t doubt that’s a legend, however, it speaks volumes about the position the Latin Church has placed at least some of its people in.

It reminds me a great deal of the penance required of some of the lapsi. Seven years on the doorstep of the church is a very long time & I wonder how many gave up before their time was fully served.

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