If ones should desire to do a good, and then does it, even if some evil would profit from that good, one is not culpable for the way evil uses that good. For example, God created gave humanity existence, and that existence is good. However, we have abused that good. We have taken what was given to us and used it to do evil. The good of God’s creating humanity is not undermined because humanity has abused their existence and sinned; human existence is still a good despite what we have done with it.
On the other hand, we must remember the ends do not justify the means. If one wills to do some evil, and then does it, even if some good comes out of it, they are guilty of the evil they actually committed. The good which comes out of it does not justify the evil. St. Augustine pointed out that all evil is done with the intention of some inordinate good, and so all evil tries to justify itself by that good. However, because one wills to do evil, one is culpable for that evil, and therefore, there is no justification for doing it. For example, one cannot release a genetically specific virus that will kill all of one racial group (say, for example, Arabs) just because you think killing them would bring about world peace.
Consequentialism is about the defense of an evil because of the good which can come out of it. If one, however, defends a good which happens to be later abused, one is not following consequntialistic ethics, but rather, defending traditional morality. Giving birth to Jack the Ripper was a good, even though Jack the Ripper eventually went out on one of the most famous killing sprees in modern history. If one should argue that Jack should have been aborted in his mother’s womb, because of the great evil he did in his life, one is arguing consequentially; the one who refutes this is not defending evil, but the good of birth, and therefore, not thinking as a consequentialist.
Of course, working in the real world is not so simple, and most choices we make are of mixed moral worth. We must act upon the dictates of moral philosophy with practical reason. That means, though we might not always be acting in formal cooperation with evil, we still might be acting in material cooperation with evil. We must try to avoid both, though to do so, with the complex interdependent web of action we find ourselves in, it is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid material cooperation with evil. We must rank the evils and the moral value associated with each evil, so that then and only then can we act in prudence and try to do that which is of the least evil and of the most good.
Since our knowledge and reasoning ability varies with one another, one person’s prudential decisions will differ from another’s. This is not to say there are not general concerns which should be in the forefront of all decision making: there are. They are those evils of great moral weight. Evils which are grave are of a far greater consequence than those evils which are not grave, even if the grave evil is not intrinsically evil and the intrinsically evil action is not grave (for example, entering an unjust war is a far greater matter than saying a white lie, even though lies are intrinsically evil and wars are not).
Now, this has some practical application in the recent health care debates. One of the arguments I read against universal health care is that it might (!) lead to more abortions (though of course, the other side of the argument is that it might lead to less abortions). Even if this would happen, that there would be more abortions because of the passage of some great health care initiative (let’s take all other considerations of it) this by itself does not make one’s vote for health care one in formal cooperation with evil. If more abortions did happen, one could argue there was remote material cooperation, but remote material cooperation is not of the same gravity direct, intended support for abortion.
Connected to the above argument is the idea that even if a bill should be put in play that would fund a universal health care system, and it would have a structure put in place so that the health care system would not fun abortion, even this bill cannot be accepted because “in the future, the abortion restrictions might be lifted.” This goes even further away from acceptable political discourse, because it basically says that we cannot accept any law because in the future, the law can be changed, so that even good laws are just potential evil laws. Because of what might happen in the future, we can’t work for some good now. If someone went the other way around were to say that we should accept an evil bill which is all about the creation of a medical fund which will only be used to fund abortions because in the future, we might one day remove the abortion aspect of the funding and make it into a bill about general medical funding, we would be right in rejecting such an argument. The second argument hopefully demonstrates why the first is illegitimate, though both are consequentialist arguments, because one is arguing for some evil for the sake of some possible good. Both are also clear examples of why political discourse must be tampered with reality and not with hypothetical speculations, otherwise, there is no end to the debates, and all kinds of excuses can always be given for any action.
Of course there might be other reasons to not support a specific bill promoting universal health care than on the issues of abortion. But we must remember the arguments must be sound and reasonable, based upon real goods, and one which acknowledges the good of universal health care and suggests a better way to get to it. One thing which a Catholic cannot do, however, is reject the call for universal health care. To do so is to exit the pro-life cause. Without proper insurance, many people are not given the care they need, and are dying because of it. Insurance companies regularly deny coverage of all kinds of pre-conditions, allowing for the wholesale slaughter of innocents. Their blood cries out. Will we listen?
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