Doing Evil for a Good

Before a good to obtain, man is often tempted to tell himself that an evil act would be permitted, so long as it serves a good cause. To lie to avoid a conflict, to steal to feed one’s own, to sacrifice an innocent to save several: each time, a good end seems to redeem an evil means. Catholic morality opposes to this temptation a firm principle: one can never do evil so that good may come of it. The end, however noble, does not justify the means. But this principle is often misunderstood, and one must see with precision what it truly bears upon.

The structure of the moral act

To understand this principle, one must first know how the moral value of an act is judged. The Catholic tradition distinguishes, in every human act, three elements that together determine its goodness or its malice.

The first is the object: what one does concretely, the act itself considered in its content. To say something false in order to deceive, to take another’s goods, to strike an innocent: these are objects. The object is the heart of the act, what it is in itself.

The second is the end, that is, the intention, the goal in view of which one acts. One can give money to relieve a poor man, or to be admired: same object, different ends.

The third is the set of circumstances: the context, the moment, the place, the consequences, the condition of the persons, which can aggravate or attenuate the bearing of the act.

For an act to be good, the three must be good together: a good object, an upright intention, fitting circumstances. And it suffices that a single one of these elements be evil for the whole act to be evil. The goodness of an act requires that everything in it be right at once, whereas a single grave defect suffices to make it evil.

A good intention does not redeem an evil object

From this structure follows the decisive point, the one on which the principle exactly bears. Among the three elements, the object is first: it is what gives the act its species, what it is fundamentally. And a good intention cannot make an evil object good. If what I do is evil in itself, no end, however high, sets it right. To steal remains to steal, even to give alms; to lie remains to lie, even to get out of difficulty.

The relation moreover works in only one direction. An evil intention suffices to spoil an act whose object is good: to give alms out of pure vanity corrupts a good action. But the reverse is impossible: a good intention does not suffice to save an act whose object is evil. The good requires the integrity of all its elements, evil arises from the slightest defect. This is why the one who chooses an evil means in view of a good end does evil, whatever the greatness of the good he aims at. Saint Paul rejects this reasoning with severity, and declares just the condemnation of those who hold it: “Why should we not do evil so that good may come of it? Their condemnation is just.” Romans 3:8. Christ says it otherwise by the image of the tree: a good fruit supposes a good tree, and the act cannot be good if its root, its object, is evil: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree bear good fruit.” Matthew 7:18.

Intrinsically evil acts

The principle therefore aims at a precise category of acts: those that are evil by their very object, which are called intrinsically evil acts. These acts are disordered in themselves, by what they are, independently of any intention and any circumstance. To kill an innocent, to lie, to betray, to blaspheme: these acts can never become good, for their object always contradicts the good of man and the order willed by God.

For such acts, no end can serve as justification. One cannot kill an innocent to save a nation, nor deny God to save one’s life, nor commit an injustice for an advantage, however immense. To recognize that there exist acts always forbidden is essential to the moral life: it is what prevents one from negotiating everything, from justifying everything by the circumstances. There are things one will never do, whatever the price, because they are evil in themselves. The prophet Isaiah already warned those who reverse values and name the evil good: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.” Isaiah 5:20. To call good an evil act because it serves a good cause is precisely this reversal.

What the principle does not say

This principle is demanding, and it must be preserved from two confusions that would weaken it.

First, this principle forbids doing evil, and not tolerating it when one cannot prevent it. To do an evil is to accomplish it oneself; to tolerate it is to let it subsist without committing it, because one does not have the power to set it aside. A ruler who cannot suppress an evil in society without provoking a greater one can let it subsist without thereby committing it: he does not do it, he bears it. To tolerate an evil one undergoes and to choose to accomplish it are two quite different things.

Next, it must be distinguished from a neighbouring case, which is called the double effect. It happens that an act good in itself produces, besides its good effect, an evil effect that one does not seek but cannot avoid. A physician who administers a remedy to calm an extreme pain can foresee that this remedy, by a side effect he does not seek, risks weakening the patient. There, one does not do evil for a good: one accomplishes a good act, from which follows, without one willing it, an unfortunate effect. The difference holds to what one truly chooses: in the double effect, the evil is neither the goal nor the means, it is only a consequence undergone. Whereas to do evil for a good is to will the evil as a means, to choose it in order to obtain something else.

Thus the principle bears entirely on the object of the act. Morality is judged first by what one does, and an evil object can never be justified by a good end. To do evil for a good is to choose a means evil in itself, and this remains always forbidden, for true good is never built on evil.