Another Triumph for Liars for the Greater Good

Hadn’t heard about fact that “the CIA …carried out sham vaccinations in order to get DNA samples and locate bin Laden’s family in Pakistan.  By exploiting the trust we have in doctors, even just this once, even intending not to get caught, the CIA broke the system, and now, 160,000 children are not being vaccinated for polio.”

That’s the thing about lying: it destroys trust, even when you do it for really good reasons.  And when you do that, you can wind up achieving the opposite of your goals.  That’s why the Church says it is intrinsically immoral.  It would be good if Catholics got their moral instruction from the teaching of the Church and not from the normal consequentialist sources that dominate discourse at our tribal watering holes in American culture.