Making Moral Decisions

We’re in week 4 of our module on practical theology. We spent the first two weeks on a sort of introduction to the good life, and we capped that off with an extended worked example. And we deliberately chose friendship for this example because it highlights the everyday-ness of ethics. The good life isn’t just lived in the big decisions—the typical “hard questions” that usually make the contents page of books about ethics—but in the small moments. We’ve seen that more of life is morally charged than we may have initially thought, and that more of our decisions matter because they contribute towards forming habits, cultivating virtues and vices, and ultimately determining our character.

Up till now that’s where our focus has been. But there are other sorts of questions—the sort of questions that make the contents page of books about ethics. These are questions not so much about character, but about stance; the sorts of questions that, whether or not they affect us directly, we need to work out our position on. This evening we’re going to be spending some time thinking about how to think about these sorts of questions. And the way we’ll go about it is by looking at an example that lends itself to explaining some of the principles we’ll need for thinking through these sorts of questions: abortion. First we’ll see what we can learn from scripture; then we’ll see what we can learn from philosophy; then we’ll put it all together.

Abortion and the Bible

The first question we have to ask, then, is where in the Bible do we go to think about abortion? What does the Bible actually have to say about it? When we look, I think what we’ll find is: not much. Richard Hays has made a very important point that the Bible’s teaching on this question is far less clear than conservatives have made it out to be. And, while I think he goes a bit too far at some points to prove this, I agree with the point that he makes about how we approach the debate: “The absence of explicit [biblical] evidence suggests first of all that a certain humility about our claims and convictions concerning abortion is appropriate. Those with whom we differ are not necessarily monsters; they might have serious grounds for their position.”

We have commands not to murder, say, in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17), or reiterations of that in, say, the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:21ff.; Rom. 1:29; 13:9; Jas. 2:11; 1 Pet. 4:15; Rev. 21:8). The problem, though, is that none of these talk about murder of the unborn. When it comes to abortion, the question isn’t whether or not murder is wrong—I think we can all agree on that one. The question is whether or not taking the life of an unborn child counts as murder. Richard Hays writes: “To cite [such passages] against abortion begs the question. No one in the debate is arguing in favor of murder. The issue is one of definition: Is abortion murder or not?”

Exodus 21 gets us a bit closer:

When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment. If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound (vv. 22–25).

But there are a few problems. The first is that the Hebrew is anything but straightforward. For the phrase “her children are born prematurely,” depending on what version you use, you’ll probably see a footnote there: “or ‘has a miscarriage.’ ” That paints two different pictures: does the child die or not? And that’s an important question, because the penalty doesn’t actually have anything to do with the fate of the child, but whether or not there’s further harm done to the mother. As far as I can tell, it’s that the child is born prematurely. A literal translation would be “and her children come out, but there is no harm.” And besides all that, the verse isn’t actually talking about premeditated abortion, but accidental injury. I think it does point us in the direction of the value of human life, even unborn human life. But I don’t think we can push this verse too much further without projecting our own ideas onto it.

We might think of Psalm 139:

13 It was you who created my inward parts;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I will praise you

because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made.

Your works are wonderful,

and I know this very well.

15 My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret,

when I was formed in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw me when I was formless;

all my days were written in your book and planned

before a single one of them began (vv. 13–16; cf. Jer. 1:5).

But, argues Richard Hays, we should be careful about pushing this text too hard. “It must be interpreted within the poetic genre to which it belongs, not as a scientific or propositional statement.” The point being made in this psalm has more to do with God’s care and omniscience. The dignity of humans, even unborn humans, is in view. And that has bearing on how we approach the subject of abortion. This is one of those points I mentioned earlier where I think Richard Hays goes a bit far. But even so, I don’t think he’s wrong when he says that this passage only gets at the issue indirectly.

A similar point can be made about John the baptist leaping in the womb of Elizabeth in Luke 1:44. But on this verse, Richard Hays is much more scathing: “To extrapolate from this text—whose theological import is entirely christological—a general doctrine of the full personhood of the unborn is ridiculous and tendentious exegesis; indeed, it should not be dignified with the label ‘exegesis.’ ”

So, in summary, it isn’t nothing, but we really don’t have much to go on. Richard Hays again: “Abortion is an extraordinarily challenging test case, because it is a major ethical issue not addressed specifically by any [biblical] texts at all.” A case can be can be made against abortion from scipture—a point, you may be surprised to hear, Richard Hays agrees with. A passage like Psalm 139 does establish the dignity of humanity, even unborn humanity. And commands throughout the Bible forbid the taking of innocent human life. It follows that, all things being equal, abortion is out of the question. But what I hope you’ve seen from this section is that: 1) it isn’t as obvious as I think we tend to make it out to be; and that means 2) some humility is in order—people who disagree with us on this aren’t necessarily monsters, even if we can make a strong case that they’re wrong about abortion.

That isn’t all we’ll have to say about abortion from scripture, but, in keeping with our general approach, scripture also isn’t the only thing we’re taking into account when making ethical decisions: we also have insights from other disciplines to consider—in the case of abortion, philosophy and science.

Abortion and Philosophy

To help us think about abortion from a philosophical perspective, we’ll be laying out some of the framework we use to think about ethical questions. Becuase this isn’t actually a talk about abortion but a talk about making ethical decisions with abortion as our test case, we’ll be spending more time on the framework than we will applying the framework to abortion itself.

Following on from what we’ve seen, we have two things to address: the sanctity of human life—is it wrong to kill and innocent person and why?—and whether or not abortion counts as the intentional killing of an innocent human life.

Natural law theory

It’s worth saying that when it comes to natural law, the rabbit hole is deep. We were in two minds about whether or not to include it. I’ve decided to go ahead, but just to give a surface level explanation—we could do a session on natural law all by itself.

Natural law theory essentially turns on the notion of the good. That shouldn’t be controversial. We’ve spent the past number of weeks thinking about what the good life looks like. What we need to think about here, though, is what the good entails—what do we mean by the good? “The good,” writes David Oderberg, is “that which satisfies a thing’s natural appetites, or that which fulfils a thing’s nature.”

Aristotle says right at the start of his Nicomachean Ethics: “every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.” Behind “every action and pursuit” is the goal of doing that thing well. If it’s playing the piano, it’s aimed at playing well, which will involve careful attention to the notes, dynamics, and articulations of the sheet of music; it will involve careful interpretation to get the feeling and expression right; and so on. These are the sorts of things that go into playing the piano well.

The idea behind natural law theory is that this can be applied not just to activities we may or may not choose to engage in like piano-playing. Rather, like we saw with wisdom (חָכְמָה) in Proverbs, its scope is broadened to include all of life—in other words, the entire activity of living. “Although not all people play the piano, or study philosophy, and so on, there is one thing we all do, and that is live. And just as philosophy can be studied well or badly, and the piano played well or badly, so one can live well or badly.” The good life is the life lived well—so what does that look like?

Come back to what we said earlier: “The good [is] that which satisfies a thing’s natural appetites, or that which fulfils a thing’s nature.” The good of a thing is bound up in what leads to its flourishing. And what leads to a thing’s flourishing is determined by what that thing is—by its nature. By nature, a squirrel gathers nuts, climbs trees, and runs in front of cars on Tokai road. A squirrel that does all those things (provided it succeeds in dodging the cars) will flourish—it will be a good instance of a squirrel. On the other hand, a squirrel that keeps up with the Kardashians is not a good instance of a squirrel. (Actually that goes for anything that keeps up with the Kardashians.) When squirrels do squirrel things, and do them well, all things being equal, they’re good squirrels. They live good squirrel lives.

The good for humans, then, is bound up in what results in his or her flourishing, determined by human nature. The most fundamental of these is life—not just existence, but healthy and integrated existence. Flourishing for humans means not just physical, but also psychological, emotional, mental flourishing. The good life, then, is bound up with doing what we can to develop and maintain these things, taking into account much of what we’ve been saying in previous talks, thinking especially of what Roland took us through in week 2. And to the extent that we do that well, we will flourish as humans—we will be good humans.

But what sets humans apart from other creatures, what makes the matter of human flourishing a moral question, is the fact that humans aren’t just inclined toward what’s good for them; we decide what we incline ourselves towards. Goodness—moral goodness—is thus bound up in choosing to do those things that lead to our flourishing as humans, and, as far as we are able, avoiding those things that don’t. (Again, I’m sure you can see how this ties in with what we said in week 2.) Since we’re physical beings, that means we should seek to eat healthily, rather than only ever eat cake. Since we’re intellectual beings, that means we should seek after truth and avoid falsehood—meaning we ought not to lie or suppress the truth, even when it’s inconvenient. Since we’re social beings (some more so than others), it means we should foster interpersonal relationships, and ought not to go about deliberately harming others. All of this could, of course, be extrapolated, but that should give at least some idea of what the natural law has to say to the good life.

Natural rights

Since we’re social beings, our flourishing is not only bound up with our own actions, but the actions of those around us in the community. The natural law helps us to think about our responsibilities for maintaining that. Natural rights are basically the flip side of what we find in the natural law. Rights are claims that individuals have on others for the good of the community. It’s giving due consideration to the goods of others—what leads to the flourishing of others.

But rights aren’t unconditional. Rights can be forfeited. According to Thomas Aquinas, justice is “the constant and perpetual will to render to each one that which is his right.” That means, as Aquinas, and Aristotle before him thought, justice turns on the idea of equality. Punishment for wrongdoing, then, ought to match the wrongdoing in some way—the punishment should match the crime. The rights the perpetrator abuses in others, then, the perpetrator forfeits for themselves.

Intentions and foreknowledge

Now, since what sets us apart from other creatures as morally accountable is our capacity as rational creatures to make decisions, then what matters isn’t so much the actions themselves, as the decisions that lie behind them. Actions by themselves aren’t inherently moral or immoral. The moral nature of an action depends not only on the actions themselves, but also upon intention. Hitler was guilty of genocide, not simply because at his hands a whole lot of people died; it’s also owing—perhaps more so—to his intentions. It still would have been evil if he’d been thwarted before a life was lost; he still would have been inclining himself toward some end that is evil.

But there’s a difference between intending something and foreknowing something. When a friend of ours came round to visit Leanne a few weeks ago and brought her chocolates, her intention was to give Leanne chocolate. She may well have foreseen that that also meant giving me chocolate, because I have a lovely wife who enjoys sharing nice things with me. But that wasn’t her intention—and I know that because she told me in no uncertain terms that these were for Leanne and not for me.

Now, when we apply this to ethics, what we find is that there is an asymmetry between intention and foreknowledge. If our friend intended to give Leanne chocolate but merely foreknew that I would end up getting some anyway, she’s credited with doing good for Leanne, not me. If she didn’t intend it, it doesn’t count. On the other hand, if I had a nut allergy (I don’t) and she gave Leanne chocolates with nuts in foreknowing that I would end up having some and having to be rushed to hospital but didn’t take due measures to warn Leanne about the nuts (or whatever), then our friend would have been culpable.

The principle of double effect

The distinction between intention and foreknowledge helps us with simpler cases like these; but what about when things get more complicated? If Peter is speeding down a road and knocks over a pedestrian, he’s guilty. But what if he’s rushing his child to hospital and only has a few minutes to get there otherwise his child will die?

A ship gets hit with a torpedo. The captain orders that that part of the ship be sealed to stop it from sinking—but in doing so some of the crew will be trapped there, and will die. Is it okay to give up the lives of the few for the sake of the many?

A tram is racing down a track and is going to hit a whole lot of people who’d been told that the railway line had been inactive for over a decade. But Gerald sees it coming, and next to him is a complete stranger who is big enough that, pushed in front of the tram, would slow it down enough to save the people, although they wouldn’t survive. Is it okay to push the person in front of the tram?

How would you judge these cases? And on what basis? That’s what the principle of double effect is there for. It has four conditions; if all four conditions are met, then an action with both good and bad effects is permissible. So let’s take a look at those four conditions, then we’ll come back to these questions to see how they can help us.

1. The intended action must be at least permissible, if not good

Note: the intended action. It’s never okay to intend evil, only to intend good. But there’s a difference between the action itself, and the effects that follow from that intended action—which brings us to the second point.

2. The good effect must follow from the intended action at least as immediately as the evil effect

From any action there will be a multiplicity of effects—some good, some bad. But what follows immediately from the action can’t only be evil; there must be good. So, while it’s okay for there to be evil effects from good actions, or as knock-on effects of good actions, it isn’t okay for there to be good effects from evil actions or from evil effects.

But in what sense is it okay to have evil effects from good actions?

3. Evil must never be intended, only permitted

If there is some evil, it can only be because it was foreseen and permitted—never because it was intended. Again, we can’t intend evil because of some good effect that will come from it; it’s never okay to will evil, only to allow it. And even then:

4. Evil may only be permitted for sufficiently good reason

The reason for permitting the evil effect must be serious enough to justify it. We can’t go ahead on an action that will have seriously bad effects when the good effects are insignificant.

So, how does the principle of double effect help us with those moral quandaries we mentioned earlier? Take the first one: Peter didn’t intend to knock down the pedestrian. He may have been aware of the possibility—we have speed limits for just these sorts of reasons—but, since it wasn’t Peter’s intention, and because it wasn’t the means to getting his child to the hospital on time, he isn’t guilty of intentional homicide.

The captain of the ship makes the decision for the part of the ship that got hit by the torpedo to be sealed, costing the lives of the men that were down there. The intention, though, was good: to plug the whole to save everybody else on the ship. The good effect of saving the majority of the crew is thus achieved at the same time as the loss of the men below, so good doesn’t proceed from evil; rather there are both good and evil effects proceeding from the same action, namely the captain’s decision. And the evil effects aren’t intended by the captain—if it were possible to get the men out before sealing up the hole then of course he would do that. The goal isn’t to trap the men, but to patch the hole. And, finally, he’s allowing the deaths of some of the crew for the sake of saving most of the crew, thus there is sufficient reason for allowing the evil.

And, lastly, can Gerald push the stranger in front of the tram? It would seem serious enough—one life for the sake of the many. And the intention is good—the saving of the many, even if at the expense of the one. But notice, the action requires an evil action, or at the very least an action that has an evil effect prior to any good that may result. Thus Gerald has no business pushing the stranger in front of the tram.

Abortion and natural law

With all this in view, how do we think about the question of abortion? If abortion is the taking of a human life, then it’s the taking of an innocent human life. The question we need to spend a moment on is, is abortion the taking of human life?

David Oderberg is worth quoting at length here:

At fertilization, the nucleus of the sperm, containing the DNA of the father, and that of the egg, containing the DNA of the mother, merge to form an entirely new nucleus. The zygote …, or cell resulting from union of sperm and ovum, contains the entire genetic blueprint for future development of the foetus, baby, and son on, is determined, if not wholly, then mostly wholly, by the DNA of the zygote. About a day after conception, once the new genetic blueprint is formed, the zygote begins dividing, in other words, growing. It goes through the phase of morula (12–16 cells; from Latin for “mulberry”, referring to the rough shape of the entity; the cells are surrounded by a membrane, the zona pellucida, a “transparent girdle”, and remains surrounded until the entity is able to implant itself in the womb). Then the growing entity is called a blastocyst (“germ bladder”, referring to the fact that the entity has a hollow part), from day 4 to implantation at day 7. … Around days 7–9 the sex of the entity can already be determined, which is of course powerful evidence that it is a human being in its own right. A few days after implantation the embryo, which is now drawing nutrition from the lining of the mother’s womb, begins sending out hormones and other chemicals that stop the mother menstruating. At about day 15 the embryo has a “primitive streak”, or the beginning of a body axis; the possibility of its dividing into identical twins ceases at this stage … . At around day 17 the embryo’s own blood cells are developing (hence it has its own blood type at this stage), as well as the placenta from which it will continue to feed until birth. By day 20 the brain is already beginning to form, and you can see the rudimentary hemispheres. The embryo is 2mm … long. All of this, note, has occurred before the mother knows she is pregnant (detectable at present at about 3 weeks …).

Leanne and I only found out at around six weeks. All that development and more had already happened.

Now, to be clear, we aren’t arguing that the unborn are human based on the extent of their development, but the continuity of development. To have it any other way would necessarily mean drawing a distinction between this and that phase of development; but we can’t do that without: 1) saying that some particular feature is essential to humanity (like cognition, for instance); or, 2) drawing an arbitrary line. Grounding an argument in arbitrariness doesn’t seem like a good way forward, so I think it more likely that people would prefer option 1, and cognition has been a popular one to go to. But that wouldn’t just justify abortion, but also the killing of anyone who didn’t have satisfactory cognitive abilities, regardless of age. And in any case, option 1 still leaves the door open to being arbitrary—one would need to justify why having this faculty in particular marks us out as human.

There’s plenty more that could be said, but since our focus is less on abortion and more on the sort of moral framework we can use to speak to issues like abortion, we’re going to move on to some more complicated cases.

What might some of the reasons for abortion be? One might be convenience, or to put it less bluntly, quality of life, perhaps something like pursuing a career. Rising the corporate ladder and the stress and hard work that goes into that is much harder when you’re pregnant. When it comes time for choosing who will get that promotion, a pregnant woman perhaps isn’t the first to come to mind because she hasn’t been up to her usual capacity since the morning sickness hit. A skydiving instructor who falls pregnant physically can’t do her job—especially as the pregnancy goes on. Or a woman falls pregnant and her boss puts pressure on her to have an abortion, or go find another job. Could these be good enough reasons to have an abortion?

In each case the first condition of the PDE isn’t met: the intended action is the abortion, which we’ve seen isn’t permissible. And even if it wasn’t, the fourth condition isn’t met: there isn't a sufficiently good reason. The closest we get is when loss of employment is on the table, since that can potentially have some very serious consequences. But even then, what’s being weighed up is the good of employment and the good of human life. Since life is the more fundamental human right, abortion isn’t okay.

What about in the case of, say, an ectopic pregnancy, where the fertilised egg implants somewhere other than the uterus, putting the mother’s life at risk? Condition 1 is met: the intended action is permissible, since the intended action is saving the mother, not killing the baby—indeed, if the baby could be saved as well, they would do that. The good effect—the saving of the mother—as well as the bad effect—the killing of the baby—happen at the same time, meaning condition 2 is met. The killing of the baby, again, isn’t the intention—which is to say that it is permitted, not intended, meeting condition 3. And, since it’s one life weighed against another, and since the baby’s life depends on the mother’s, it counts as a sufficiently serious reason, so condition 4 is met. The abortion, in this case, is thus permissible.

Combination: The Bible and Philosophy

We’ve seen that the Bible doesn’t talk about abortion directly. We looked at a handful of passages usually brought up in the conversation about abortion, and what we saw was that, although there is a case to be made, it isn’t as obvious and forceful as we might have thought—at least not on its own. That shouldn’t surprise us; it wasn’t an issue for them like it is for us today.

We’ve seen that philosophy gives us a bit more precision. We saw that abortion is out of the question insofar as it is the unjustified taking of innocent life—but that that isn’t always the case, and we thought through some principles to help us navigate those sorts of situations.

In our module on systematic theology we looked at this diagram:

In the first step, organisation, we take various texts that speak to the topic in question and work out how those texts hang together—what the Bible’s unified teaching is on a particular topic. Then we do the same for philosophy, taking into account various concepts, and arriving at a conclusion from philosophy of what we can know about that topic. The next step is to bring those insights together—recognising that while scripture is infallible, our extrapolation of principles from philosophy is not, so scripture has the stronger weighting, but that ultimately these two sides of the diagram shouldn’t actually contradict each other.

The same is true of ethics. We’ve seen that there is an argument to be made from scripture against abortion; and we have seen that there is an argument to be made from philosophy against abortion. But we saw that, where scripture wasn’t terribly specific in what it has to say against abortion, in philosophy we can be a whole lot more specific, and a whole lot more precise. Thus what we can conclude from philosophy complements, and in fact supplements what we can say from scripture, and as we combine insights from both disciplines, we come to unity: in other words, what we should think about abortion.

But we did say that we would come back to what the Bible has to say about responding to abortion—there is more to be said.

It’s one thing to tell a woman she can’t have an abortion. It’s another to care for her when the baby’s born, the man is nowhere to be found, and she doesn’t know how she’ll make ends meet. The Bible might not have a lot to say about the first; it has a lot to say about the second.

Think again about what we said in week 1: the good life isn’t just about the now, but the not yet. In his death and resurrection, Jesus has ushered in a new age—“The time has come,” Jesus said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mar. 1:15). And with this kingdom comes a whole new way of life. Paul writes in Romans 12:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (vv. 1–2).

As Christians, we’re “urged to live according to the coming age which has already broken in.” Notice in these verses the use of the plural: “offer your bodies [plural] as a living sacrifice [singular].” We aren’t just called to live as citizens of God’s kingdom on our own, but as a community. Richard Hays writes: “The community, in its corporate life, is called to embody an alternative order that stands as a sign of God’s redemptive purposes in the world. Thus ‘community’ is not merely a concept; … it points to the concrete social manifestation of the people of God.”

And characterises this community isn’t merely unified protest. It’s love lived out in their relationships with each other, and extended to the world around. That is part of Richard Hays’ answer to abortion. He quotes another writer:

Let me ask you: Which has greater power? Ten thousand people who fill the streets in front of abortion clinics and shame those seeking abortions, or ten thousand people in California who take to the state captial a petition they have signed stating that they will take any unwanted child of any age, color, any physical condition so that they can love that child in the name of Jesus Christ?

How much more powerful would this be?

He tells another story of a group of pastors discussing abortion when one says that it’s justified in cases of teen pregnancies, when the girl can’t afford to look after the child. This is the answer of one of the other pastors in that conversation:

“We have young girls who have this happen to them. I have a fourteen year old in my congregation who had a baby last month. We’re going to baptise the child next Sunday,” he added.

“Do you really think that she is capable of raising that baby?” another minister asked.

“Of course not,” he replied. “No fourteen year old is capable of raising a baby. For that matter, not many thirty year olds are qualified. A baby’s too difficult for any one person to raise by herself.”

“So what do you do with the babies?” they asked.

“Well, we baptise them so that we all raise them together. In the case of that fourteen year old, we have given her baby to a retired couple who have enough time and enough wisdom to raise children. They can then raise the mama along with her baby. That’s the way we do it.”