Thou Shalt Not Kill the Innocent? Intuition Isn’t Sufficient Anymore

Dr. Karlo Broussard argues that because intuition no longer convinces everyone that killing the innocent is always wrong, abortion must be shown to be immoral through a philosophical argument grounded in objective morality, human nature, and justice, concluding that deliberately killing an innocent human being—including the unborn—violates natural justice.

TRANSCRIPT:

Thou Shalt Not Kill the Innocent? Intuition Isn’t Sufficient Anymore

The Pro-life argument that abortion is immoral is actually pretty simple—at least on the surface. It usually goes like this:

Premise 1:  It’s always immoral to directly kill an innocent human being.

Premise 2: The unborn, from the moment of conception, is an innocent human being.

Premise 3: Abortion is the direct killing of the unborn.

Conclusion: Therefore, abortion is always immoral

Now, it’s often assumed that everyone agrees with that first premise—that it’s always wrong to directly kill an innocent human being. Because of that, pro-lifers usually don’t spend much time defending it. And when they do, it’s often just an appeal to intuition.

But here’s the problem—and this is what we’re going to see in today’s episode—not everyone accepts that premise. In fact, many people don’t! And once that happens, intuition alone just isn’t going to cut it. What we need is a real defense. A robust one. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do today.

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Alright, so there’s no shortage of challenges to this pro-life argument from pro-abortion advocates.

Some go after premise two, arguing that the unborn, from the moment of conception, is not actually a human being.

Many others, however, realize they can’t get around the scientific evidence. So they take a different approach. They’ll concede the unborn is a human being, even from conception—but then argue that it’s not a human person until some later stage of development. And since the unborn isn’t a human person before that line is crossed, they say the unborn at that stage doesn’t yet have a right to life or a claim to legal protection.

Others concede that the unborn is both a human being and a human person, but they still try to undermine premise two by arguing that the baby in the womb isn’t innocent. And if the unborn isn’t innocent, then—so the argument goes—the mother would be morally permitted to kill the child.

And then there are those who don’t want to challenge premises one or two at all. Instead, they go after premise three—the claim that abortion involves the direct killing of the unborn child. The argument here is that some abortions merely terminate the pregnancy without directly killing the baby. And if that’s true, they say, then such acts wouldn’t violate the principle that forbids killing innocent human beings.

Finally—and this is the most important move for our purposes—many pro-abortion advocates, and I’d say most of them, challenge the very first premise: that it’s always immoral to directly kill an innocent human being.

Judith Jarvis Thomson is a classic example. In her 1971 article, “A Defense of Abortion,” published in Philosophy and Public Affairs, she explicitly rejects the idea that “directly killing an innocent person is always and absolutely impermissible.” She says that claim is “false.” And she argues that killing the embryo in the womb—an embryo she admits is plausibly a human person from conception—can be permissible if it’s necessary to save the mother’s life.

Now, ideas like this don’t stay locked away in philosophy journals. You hear this same reasoning today from many so-called “pro-life” politicians—people who say life begins at conception, but who still support legal abortion in cases of rape, incest, and threats to the mother’s health or life. In other words, sometimes—at least in their view—it’s okay to kill an innocent human person. 

Others go even further. Take Sophie Lewis, for example. The title of her 2022 article in The Nation says it all:  “Abortion Involves Killing—and That’s OK!” She approvingly quotes Maggie Nelson from The Argonauts, who says:

[READ #1]

“Feminists may never make a bumper sticker that says IT’S A CHOICE AND A CHILD, but of course that’s what it is, and we know it. We’re not idiots; we understand the stakes. Sometimes we choose death”

And she applies this to cases where mothers, living in what she calls “unspeakable conditions,” kill their children as an alleged act of mercy.

What all this shows is that we can no longer rely on intuition alone to establish the immorality of deliberately killing an innocent human person. Like other long-held intuitions—think of claims about sexual morality—the intuition that it’s always wrong to kill the innocent is steadily drifting away under the pressure of modern thought.

Given this is where we’re at, we need something more stable. WE need an argument grounded in fundamental moral principles—principles that belong to all of us simply in virtue of being human.

So the question is: is there such an argument? If we assume, for the sake of discussion, that the unborn child is a human person—as thinkers like Thomson and Lewis do—can we logically show that killing him is wrong?

The answer is yes. But fair warning: it takes a little work. So hang with me.

Now, to make this argument, we need to lay down a few assumptions first.

The first is that there really is such a thing as objective morality. All that means is that some human actions are morally good and some are morally bad—regardless what you, I, society, or those in authority happen to think.

Second, we’re assuming that human nature—specifically, the order of goods that belong to us as rational animals—is the objective standard for judging whether human behavior is morally upright or wrong.

This shouldn’t be too controversial. Think about the MeToo Movement that gained momentum in 2017. To say that human beings should not be unjustly coerced is already to assume that we ought to behave in a way that’s consistent with human nature. We’re self-determining beings, and when nature demands that we respect that order, like when we’re innocent and not an unjust aggressor, to violate that order is wrong.

Okay, with those assumptions on the table, let’s go to the argument.

We’ll start with what I’ll call the natural principle: whatever is necessary for us to have that which is natural to us is also natural.

St. Thomas Aquinas puts it this way in his Summa Contra Gentiles, 3.129:

[READ #2]

“Whenever a certain thing is natural to any being, that without which this certain thing cannot be possessed must also be natural, for nature is not defective in regard to necessary things”

I realize that’s a mouth full. So let’ think through it.

Let’s start with a simple analogy: soldiering. Would it make sense to deploy a soldier without providing him the required training and weapons? Of course not! Why? Because it’s the nature of soldiering. to fight, and fighting requires weapons. So, weapons, just like fighting, are natural to doing what a soldier does.

Consider now the simple fact that you and I are human beings. And as human beings, there’s stuff that belongs to us by nature. We have a body with all its powers and functions. We have a soul with its powers and activities. This stuff is natural to us—it’s what makes us a rational animal. And for the purposes of our argument here, insofar as we’re rational animals we’re social beings. We’re not islands unto ourselves.

Now, as the principle states, whatever is necessary for us to have that which is natural to us is also natural. Since living as social animals is natural to us, it follows that whatever is necessary for us to live as social animals—you might say, the pre-requisites for living as a social animal—is also going to be natural to us.

What is necessary for us to live as a social animal—to live among other rational animals? At a minimum, refraining from killing each other. That is to say, “ordered harmony” (to quote Aquinas from SCG 3.128) is required for us to live out nature’s design for our perfection as social animals. You can’t follow nature’s command to pursue your perfection as a social animal if I kill you, nor can I if you kill me.

The natural order, therefore, entails that each of us be equal in behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of living—what Aquinas calls the “equality of relations” (check out his Summa Theologiae II-II:79:1). So this “equality of relations,” at least with regard to behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of life itself, is natural to us, too. It’s nature’s plan, order, or blueprint. It’s a major part of nature’s recipe for human happiness and perfection.

Here’s where the concept of the innocent comes into play. Being equal in behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of living is just another way of saying the natural order entails that social rational animals be innocent in their relations with one another, primarily in behavior.Here’s where the concept of the innocent comes into play. Being equal in behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of living is just another way of saying the natural order entails that social rational animals be innocent in their relations with one another, primarily in behavior. The behavior itself must be consistent with what human nature demands for the “equality of relations” among human beings. I emphasize the behavior itself because sometimes you can have a person who’s innocent in their intention but not in their behavior, like in the case of a crazy person who’s lost his mind and is not culpable for his aggressive behavior toward me. So innocence, at least in behavior, is essential to the equality of relations.

Now let’s turn to our other major principle—what we’ll call the justice principle: whatever is natural to man is due to him.

Let me give you an example.

Suppose a famine strikes our country. I happen to be well stocked with food, and a starving man comes to my door. Since food is natural to him as a human being, food is due to him. And because there’s no way for him to acquire food on his own, justice requires that I give him some.

Now, how much should I give him? That’s a difficult question, and it goes beyond what we need to answer here. But we can say this much with certainty: to give him no food at all, given my abundance, would be an injustice. In that moment, it falls to me—whether I like it or not—to give him what is due.

Now, with that principle in mind, let’s recall something we established earlier.

We showed that an “equality of relations” among human beings—what Aquinas calls “ordered harmony” or peace—is natural to us as social, rational animals. At a minimum, this “equality of relations” requires equality in behavior that’s naturally consistent with living together as human beings. Very simply: I don’t kill you, and you don’t kill me.

We also showed that this kind of equality in behavior is another way of describing innocent behavior.

Now here’s where the justice principle comes in.

Since equality of relations—innocent behavior—is natural to human beings, it follows that such equality is due to us in justice. This is exactly why Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologiae, second part of the second part, question 79, article 1, that “equality in our relations with others”—that is, peace or “ordered harmony”—is “the equality of justice.”

So let’s pause and summarize the reasoning so far:

P1: What is natural to human beings is due to them in justice (that’s the justice principle).

P2: Equality of relations—meaning innocent human behavior, refraining from killing one another—is natural to human beings.

C:   Therefore, equality of relations—innocent behavior, refraining from killing one another—is due to human beings in justice.

Now, consider what happens when someone deliberately kills an innocent human being—a person whose behavior is naturally consistent with the exercise of my life.

To do so is to violate the “equality of relations” that is due to that person. The killer is no longer equal with the other in behavior. And since this equality is naturally due to every innocent human being—since it’s what human nature itself requires—it follows that to deliberately kill an innocent human being is a violation of nature’s order of justice. In other words, it’s unjust.

And it’s unjust in two ways.

First, it’s an injustice to the innocent victim.

Second, it’s a voluntary failure on the part of the killer to uphold justice—a voluntary failure to give what is naturally due to another human being.

Since to behave in a way that violates or thwarts nature’s order for the human perfection immoral, it follows that to deliberately kill an innocent human being is immoral.

This is why the moral imperative “thou shalt not kill the innocent” is not arbitrary. It’s justified. It’s grounded. It’s rooted in the natural order itself.

We can now summarize our entire argument like this:

P1: Any act that violates what is due to a human being—any act that violates the order of justice—is an unjust and therefore immoral act.

P2: Direct abortion is an act that violates what is due to a human being—namely, the equality of relations.

C:   Therefore, direct abortion is an unjust act and therefore immoral.

Now remember, for the sake of argument, we’ve been assuming that an unborn child from the moment of conception is an innocent human being—a rational animal whom nature directs toward life and self-perfection as a social, rational animal.

Given that assumption, the “equality of relations” that is necessary for him to exist as a social animal—an equality of relationship that necessarily includes refraining from deliberately killing him—is naturally due to him.

That’s what we mean by the unborn child’s “right to life.”

And so, to deliberately kill the unborn—no matter the stage of development—is to violate natural justice. It is a gravely immoral act, not merely just because it offends our sensibilities, and not “just because,” but for a clear, specific, and logically grounded reason.

It’s an offense against justice itself—a deprivation of the goods to which every human person is naturally entitled.

As unfortunate as it is that such an argument is even necessary—since our intuitive horror at killing the innocent really should be enough—we live in an age where the most basic moral truths must be carefully thought through and defended.

My hope is that all people of good will have eyes to see and ears to hear the injustice of the deliberate killing of the unborn.

If you’re interested in getting my this argument form, be sure to check out my article “What If It’s Okay to Kill Innocent People?” at catholic.com

Well, my friends, that’s it for today! If you found this video helpful, make sure to like, subscribe, comment below, and share it with someone who might need to hear this. And for more resources, check out my website at karlobroussard.com.

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