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#Post#: 24--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mercy killing
By: RomanJoe Date: November 4, 2019, 12:47 pm
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[quote author=Brian link=topic=5.msg23#msg23 date=1572842974]
[quote author=Dominik link=topic=5.msg22#msg22 date=1572829763]
The way I read Brian, the Stoics donīt have the resource on
their own to forbid abortion based on their philosophy, since
based on solely that reasonably the question could be asked if
an abortion due to disease or genetic disorders wouldnīt be the
more mercyful action. Iīm not open to that discussion, period.
[/quote]
Historically, that is correct. Seneca openly celebrates the
father who leaves the disabled newborn to die, and he does so,
at least seemingly, based on the Stoic conception of natural
law. I'm not well-versed enough in natural law to say anything
about how Stoic natural law differs from something like
Thomist/Catholic natural law, although it would be interesting
to flesh out the differences. I would think it comes down to
what the natural activity and telos of the human being is
conceived to be. For the Stoic it is merely reason (which
includes all of the virtues as species of reason), while I think
the Catholic would ascribe broader essential activity to the
human being. For example, love would seem to be something a
human being naturally and essentially does, that is not merely a
species of reason/reasoning.
[/quote]
The Stoics have two types of natural law.
Stoicism has a sort of pantheistic understanding of the natural
order. God isn't utterly transcendent but intimately a part of
the cosmos.
"The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its
soul; it is this same world's guiding principle, operating in
mind and reason."
--Chrysippus, De Natura Deorum
God is an active intelligence, a directing flow. The movement of
the cosmos is churned by Fate, a guiding divine intelligence.
Seneca equates God with the providential nature of divine
reason. So, in part, the Stoic natural law includes a conforming
of our internal state to the divine intelligence, that is, an
acceptance of Fate, its array of externals, and the subsequent
balancing of one's internal mental state with the ebb and flow
of the cosmos. This is roughly similar to the Thomistic
metaphysical understanding of God as the the divine intelligence
that directs all things towards their ends. Final causality is
ultimately rooted in the divine and, without this intelligence,
there would be no motion. Of course the striking difference is
that Thomism views God as radically transcendent vis-a-vis Him
being pure actuality.
The Stoics also overlap with Thomism with regards to the idea
that each thing has an ordained nature. Thus a 'good' tree lives
in accord with its nature, absorbing water, growing branches,
taking in sunlight, producing buds, etc. However, it seems that
the Stoics put more emphasis on the former understanding of
nature as divine fate, hence the Stoic emphasis of coming to
accept externals as the means to peace or apatheia. Whereas the
Thomist would put more emphasis on the latter understanding of
nature as an obligation to our ordained quiddity.
Thomistic natural law involves the agent coming to a greater
understanding of his nature and then directing his will towards
the proper ends of that nature. Stoic natural law, from what I
understand, involves the agent coming to a greater understanding
of the external affairs or Fate of the entire cosmic scheme and
his place in it and then conforming his will to be in accord
with it.
I can see why the Stoics would be proponents of euthanasia,
seeing it as boldly accepting nature as divine Fate. And
obviously the Thomist would be against this, seeing any
deliberate frustration of a natural end as wrong (of course
excessively cleaning one's ears, picking one's nose, could be
classified as frustrating the end of those organs, however, the
severity of frustrating those ends doesn't involve a rapid
corruption of what it means to be a rational animal--morally
wrong, probably not, but slightly imprudent, perhaps?). Now
something like substance abuse to deliberately frustrate one's
rational thinking and overly heighten emotional gratification
would be an egregious frustration of rational animality.
I think currently the typical lay person has an interesting
blend of both of these classical natural law interpretations. We
tend to classify what's bad or wrong for a natural substance by
judging it against its universalized nature. We call someone
handicapped or mentally ill insofar as they don't instantiate
what is thought of as a healthy human being. But we also
emphasize dealing with one's lot in life, coming to
realistically understand one's limits, one's talents, etc. And
no doubt there are many Christian circles that view God as a
giant Fate modulator, seeing tsunamis, fires, terrorist attacks
as divine providence, and that we ought to come to peace and
security in God's will for the cosmos.
#Post#: 26--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mercy killing
By: Dominik Date: November 4, 2019, 4:12 pm
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To keep it short, let out the terms like "divine, "telos" or
"flow", taken at its face value, I fear that pure stoicism
collapses into the moral philosophy of Peter Singer. I mainly
wanted to express that Stoicism by itself would be untenable for
the church and rightly so, I might add. That doesnīt mean
however that we canīt model our moral philosophy in a similar
fashion, as RomanJoe already has indicated, there is great
overlap with the Thomists. However, and that Iīd take is the
greatest difference between pure Stoicism and Catholic morality,
in the latter there is an unquestionable foundation ("Man Is
Made In Gods Image") which the former doesnīt have. But building
upon said foundation, as someone who is admittedly not that well
read in moral philosophy, it does seem to me that the Stoics use
of reason and rationality can be of great help when developing
the natural law. But as already said, this foundation canīt be
established from mere reasoning.
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