YOU MUST have heard of this famous Robin Hood scheme of winning the hearts of the people: "That it is ok to steal from the rich and give it to the poor." The intention is good but the method of acquiring the money is questionable.
This was actually done in a slightly different way, by the notorious and perhaps the richest drug lord in the world, the late Pablo Escobar. He would hand dole-outs to the poor in the form of cash and housing in Colombia from the proceeds of his drug trafficking. We might reckon that it justifies his illegal drug trade because he had helped the poor, even more than the Colombian government could help its people.
The two cases above would fail the
test with the moral rule of “the end does not justify the means.” The “end”
refers to your goal or intention which can be good as in the case of Robin Hood
and Pablo Escobar which is to help the poor but the method or the means of
helping is wrong which is to steal from the rich and drug trafficking.
Moral Theology gives us three things necessary for an act to be morally
right: first, the action itself has to be right, second, right motive, and
third, right circumstances. All three should be present for an action to
be morally upright.
In applying rule number (1), let’s
take the case of abortion. Abortion as the Church would classify it, is
an “intrinsically evil act” or the act itself in essence is evil. It is
always wrong to kill an innocent unborn child in all circumstances even if the
child is a product of rape. The only exception to this rule I know of is
the rare medical case of trying to save a mother and her unborn child in a
medical operation. If you save the mother, you can lose the child, or save the
child and lose the life of the mother in the process. In this situation
you can only save one person but not both. If the doctors decide to save
the mother and lose the child in the process, they have done no wrong since
their intention is to save a life. This rare medical case actually
happened, in a news I read sometime, but the heroic mother gave up her life for
her unborn child.
Second, we should have the right
motive in carrying out the right action. If you give alms to the poor
with the motive of receiving praise from the public or out of vainglory, then
your action as a whole is wrong. It might not be a big sin or a mortal
sin but sin, nevertheless. Even though our motive is something within us
and is hidden from others (as many sins and saintly acts are), and we don’t
offend others directly, but we do offend God who can read our hearts.
Right action therefore should go with the right intention.
And lastly, the right circumstances. If you tell the truth but that truth can harm others, then the circumstances of telling the truth are wrong or immoral. If you disclose a company information you have been sworn to keep or a priest tells others of the sin confessed by a person, then it is a circumstantial sin even though their intentions might be good.
Circumstances can worsen a sin or make a
good act more meritorious. If you murder someone inside the Church the
circumstances of taking another person’s life makes the sin more grave because
of the sacrilegious act of committing a sin in a holy place. On the
other hand, if you give to the poor a bigger amount of money that could pinch
more from your pocket, then the circumstances of the act make it more deserving
of a greater heavenly reward. Right action, right motive and right
circumstances are the requirements for a morally right act. (ECC)
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