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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A natural law argument for infanticide


Catholics try to deploy natural law arguments against “artificial” contraception. Let’s consider another application of natural law reasoning.

Some animals kill their young. For instance, the mother or siblings may kill the runt. The ostensible reason is to reallocate limited resources to the remaining, healthier offspring. Better to have fewer with higher chances of survival than more with lower chances of survival.

Likewise, among social animals, alpha males or females may kill the offspring of the betas. The ostensible reason is to assert dominance as well as reserving the succession for the offspring of the alphas. Social animals often have a hierarchy which confers a survival advantage on the group, although some individuals may be sacrificed for the common good.

Assuming that natural law ethics is our guide, is it permissible or even obligatory to kill a sickly human baby?

One can’t say that’s contrary to nature, for there’s abundant precedent in nature for doing just that. And there are situations in which that would up the chances of survival for the remaining siblings. So it serves a natural purpose.

4 comments:

  1. But Scripture says we shouldn't.

    Oh wait! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

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  2. I am not an admirer of the RC Natural Law model, but am familiar enough with it to predict that its adherents would reply that a description of animal behaviour in a fallen world is not normative for human behaviour. The latter depends upon the telos or goal/ proper working of the human body.

    (Mind you, some features like the female clitoris present problems for the RC view. Up until a century ago, it was considered shameful, but JP2 flipped the small-T traditional view with his Theology of the Body. Rather than contraception being wicked because sex is a shameful reversion to animalistic lust which should be reserved for procreation, contraception is now wicked because sex is a beautiful and sacramental union - at least between husband and wife* - that is designed equally and inseparably for recreation and procreation).

    Thus the Catholic objection to non-abstinence-based contraception is at root an objection to altering the body, or at least a functioning body. Now that circumcision is no longer mandatory for baby Catholic boys, and the Popes no longer want a supply of castrati to hit the really high notes in the Sistine choir, there is less of a gap here between Catholic dogma and Catholic praxis than in previous centuries.

    * Not, of course, between Joseph and Mary. As if a saint would ever want to defile the very Mother of Jesus with such filth, just because he was married to her! But, yeah, sex behind all other husbands and wives is a beautiful and sacred thing.

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  3. err, "between all other..."

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  4. TOM R SAID:

    "I am not an admirer of the RC Natural Law model, but am familiar enough with it to predict that its adherents would reply that a description of animal behaviour in a fallen world is not normative for human behaviour."

    I doubt modern Catholicism ascribes animal behavior to the Fall. Catholic theologians like Rahner, not to mention John-Paul II, take theistic evolution for granted. The only thing that's out of bounds is polygenism.

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