I recently finished
10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help. One of the chapters deals with John Stuart Mill's
Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism boils morality down to this: pleasure is good, pain is evil. The morality of any action is judged by whether or not it increases aggregate pleasure for humanity. So here's the question.
If I come over to your house, knock you out, steal your car and then use it to drive inner-city orphans to dental appointments for the next month, is that good or evil? What if you were a PR flack for BP and spent your days lying to the public about the oil spill? What if the orphans all had rotting teeth?
What if we went over to this guy's house, beat him senseless, took all of his money and donated it to the UN?
It seems to me that arguments similar to the one you give, are a problem for most ethical systems. For example:
ReplyDeleteRobin Hood robs the oppressive rich to give to the poor. Can you give an argument, based on, say, Catholic doctrine, that will allow you to say unambiguously whether he's a hero or a villain? And would you be reasonably comfortable in assuming that pretty much all other Catholics would reach the same conclusion?
Tim, your comment deserves a longer response, but in the meantime, here's an abbreviated one.
ReplyDeleteChristian morality is all about personal salvation. You do what is right in your life because God said so. Robbing from anyone is wrong so helping Robin Hood ends then and there. Exceptions have to come from truly extreme cases. Lying to Nazis to save Jews, a la Anne Frank, for example.
Atheist morality derives from trying to develop a model that provides the best future for all Mankind. This is an oversimplification, but I think it holds. Utilitarianism, Marxism, National Socialism, all do the same thing. They posit a model for human behavior and from that they derive a perfect future. Getting to that perfect future is then the goal of all people and since there is no God, there are no rules and getting there as fast as possible is just fine, no matter how many PR guys from BP you rob.
Lenin is a great example of this as he allowed Russian peasants to starve to death. The aggregate good of future generations achieving a Marxist utopia sooner rather than later outweighed the mass slaughter of the peasants at the time.
In answer to your question, no, Catholic doctrine would not support Robin Hood. Concrete example: the Jesuits who preached Liberation Theology were not supported by the Pope.