The Problem of a “Secular Ethics”

(9/3/09 - My Catholic column for Newman University newspaper The Vantage)

Last week in bioethics class we were asked to read, summarize, and respond to the bioethical issue as to whether standard medical ethics apply in disaster conditions. The following is my abridged response informed by the Christian Faith.
In 2006 secular trained philosopher Mary Marshall sought to justify the option of various ethical conclusions in extreme situations, such as during the Hurricane Katrina incident concerning a doctor and two nurses in Louisiana charged with murder, with examples of paradigm cases as “seemingly impossible dilemmas”. First, of course, a philosopher of such justifying tendencies has to deny moral absolutes, as she does, claiming “Most of us in the worlds of bioethics and philosophy are wary of moral absolutes”, a claim of proportion I believe is quite the exaggeration.
To support the case of the Louisiana case Marshall proceeds to give accounts that she sarcastically assumes “even Solomonic wisdom couldn’t even resolve, because the options seemed morally bankrupt, or worse.” She is likely making a subtle allusion to the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of the same child in 1 Kings 3:16-28.
The fist case she presented was that of the William Styron story Sophie’s Choice, wherein a mother has to make the “painful or impossible” choice of “deciding which of one’s children to send to the gas chamber.” The second situation is that of a mother during the Sri Lankan tsunami “immersed in the deluge, clinging to her husband and child; and loosing the strength to hold fast to both of them, of having to let one go.” Third, she told of a school hostage situation where “parents with multiple captive children being allowed to remove only one” and then she asked “How do you decide which hand to release, which name to give?”
Marshall then tells of the Hurricane Katrina incident of those medical persons charged with manslaughter and the circumstances surrounding it. She then gives two final cases where a ship crewman throws 14 men off a sinking raft to save the rest, and then of a nurse (Szwajger) during the Holocaust who administered lethal doses of morphine to suffering and dying children about to be carried off to elsewhere to be killed. Marshall ends by illustrating her sense of “compassion” as a mother who “would rather that my child die the gentle death administered by Szwajger…than die a violent death at the hands of soldiers.” In conclusion she promotes that the Attorney General over the Katrina case “makes his findings, and as the case plays out, that compassion, not absolutism, is the order of the day.”
I was going to start my critique of her line of argument by focusing on the problem of a “Faithless Ethic,” but quickly realized the pluralistic problem of that, as there are many faiths. The problem orthodox Christians see in “secular ethics” is the lack of the deeper appreciation and wisdom provided by the principles and revelations of the Judeo-Christian faith. In fact, Solomonic wisdom could respond to every one of Marshall’s situations.
The mother confronted with the case of which child to send to the gas chamber could forego the choice all together and thereby likely face martyrdom – if she had faith in the Resurrection of the Just Dead.
The mother in the Sri Lankan incident would have to let her child go and offer him/her into the hands of God, as her primary duty is to her husband – granting she is faithful to her Marital Covenant.
The parents of the school children would have to cast lots to decide which child must be set free – putting the decision in the hands of God.
The sea crewman was completely unjustified – lacking virtue by fearing death and lacking faith of rescue (which, regardless, may never have come) wherein he chose to kill to “save.” Evil means cannot justify an apparent good.
The nurse who euthanized the children with morphine should have let the children be taken away – letting God judge the murderous soldier’s souls and not hers.
Marshall’s sense of “compassion” is what I would call a faithless and therefore, in ethical considerations, a false compassion. This is illustrated in her statement that she, “would rather that my child die the gentle death administered by Szwajger…than die a violent death at the hands of soldiers.” A Christian could point out that God the Father was willing to allow His Son to die a violent death at the hands of Roman soldiers. Ultimately, Christian faith and hope in the Resurrection of the Dead was the ultimate point and revelation of the Christ’s crucifixion, thus fueling the Christian ethical decision making. If we die in faith, or even for our children who are “sacrificed” for the sake of justice, we have hope in the reward of the Resurrection. We need not fear death! With such faith one has the freedom to allow the apparent worst. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love and certain principles of human dignity can resolve all such “dilemmas.”
Yet, in a way, it is understandable that those not evangelized to the Judeo-Christian revelation would lack certain principles and appreciations, thus the problem of a “secular ethics.” They lack any firm foundation. Even if the secularist’s main ethical principle is based upon “human dignity,” as it presently appears to be, this is still a holdover from the Judeo-Christian view of humanity as dignified because it is “in the image and likeness of God.” As this principle is dissolving due to certain utilitarian ideas, where we are becoming mere objects or “utilities,” so dissolves our appreciation of ethics based on moral absolutes and we are all the more governed by the fear of death.