Unit quiz: Moral Method and the Contested Cases: From the Object of the Act to a Prudential Judgement

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Question 1

A surgeon proposes an operation that will foreseeably shorten a patient's life by some months but will relieve severe pain, arguing that the pain relief outweighs the lost months. A colleague objects that the Church forbids any act that shortens life. Which analysis is correct?Neither blanket claim is right: the act is analysed by its object, which is the relief of pain by a proportionate intervention, while the shortening of life is foreseen but not intended and not the means to the relief (CCC 2279; ST II-II q.64 a.7); the colleague's objection ignores intention and the surgeon's arithmetic ignores the object.The surgeon is right, because where the good effects outweigh the bad ones the act is justified, and the Church's teaching is ultimately a calculation of proportionate benefits.

Question 2

A politician argues that because natural-law reasoning about the family has been used to justify unjust treatment of women and of people with same-sex attraction, the natural law is a religious imposition on a plural society and should be abandoned in public argument. Which response best reflects the Church's position as presented in this unit?The politician is right: since the natural law has produced unjust conclusions, it is a culturally conditioned framework that cannot ground norms binding on people who do not accept its theology.The historical charge can be conceded without the conclusion: the tradition itself distinguishes general principles that hold without fail from the descent to detail where defects increase (ST I-II q.94 a.4; CCC 1960), and the Church holds that some moral knowledge is available to reason as such, which is what makes public argument with non-believers possible (VS 43-45).

Question 3

A manager explains that she never needed to learn any moral rules, because she has a naturally generous character and simply does what a good person does; she adds that her colleague, whose upbringing was harsh, cannot be expected to behave well. Which correction reflects this unit's account of virtue?Virtue is a habit rather than a natural talent, acquired through deliberate acts and habituation and capable of growth or decay (ST I-II q.63 a.1-2; CCC 1804, 1839), so both halves of her claim are wrong: good character is something one practises rather than something one has, and it is not foreclosed to anyone by circumstances.She is right on both counts, since temperament is fixed by upbringing and the virtues are simply the outward expression of a person's natural disposition.

Question 4

A hospital committee proposes to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration from every patient with a diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state, in order to free beds, and asks a Catholic ethicist to endorse the policy as a legitimate withdrawal of disproportionate treatment. Which response is most accurate?The policy is legitimate, because nutrition and hydration are always forms of medical treatment that may be withdrawn whenever the underlying condition is judged irreversible.The policy as framed cannot be endorsed: the Holy See's 2007 responses hold that administering food and water even artificially is in principle an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life and is therefore obligatory to the extent that and for as long as it accomplishes its proper finality, so obligatoriness must be assessed patient by patient rather than imposed categorically, and ordinary care cannot be interrupted even when death is imminent (CCC 2279).

Question 5

In a parish discussion about a proposed immigration law, one participant says the Church teaches that restrictions on immigration are intrinsically evil, and another says the Church has no authority to say anything about borders because the question is purely political. Which evaluation is correct?Both statements are wrong: the Catechism obliges prosperous nations to welcome the foreigner while stating that political authorities may attach juridical conditions to immigration for the common good (CCC 2241), and the Holy See's instruction records both the right to emigrate and the power of public authorities to regulate the flow of migration (EMCC 21), so the teaching binds without prescribing one policy.The first statement is right, since the duty to welcome is taught without qualification and any restriction therefore contradicts the Church's position.

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