What’s the most reasonable thing to see when you walk through the door of a Catholic young men’s gathering? The answer is nothing, because you’ll be blinded by all the cigar smoke.
Smoking is a popular pastime, even after decades of state-sponsored condemnation. Catholics are no strangers to it, either: G.K. Chesterton wrote that “to have a horror of tobacco is not to have an abstract standard of right; but exactly the opposite. It is to have no standard of right whatever. . . . A man does not make dividends for the Big Boss by smoking, and therefore smoking has a smell as of something sinful” (Generally Speaking, 1929). Yet we’ve all been hammered with statistics on the harms that come from tobacco in all its forms.
And so, in today’s edition of Both Sides Now, you’ll find that where there is smoke, there is fire. Hopefully not hellfire, though. Is smoking a sin?
YES: At Least If You Make a Thing Out of It
By Pat Flynn
The answer to whether smoking cigarettes is immoral depends on whether we’re talking about the occasional smoke or the habitual one. What I want to do in this article is argue for a negative answer in the first case and an affirmative answer in the second. That is, it’s not wrong to have a smoke here and there. However, given our current state of knowledge about the harms of habitual smoking, I believe it is wrong to engage in that.
First, let me first briefly explain why I don’t think occasional smoking is immoral. After all, some Catholics might think an argument can be made against smoking absolutely—one that parallels arguments against lying or contraception.
The basic idea behind those arguments—sometimes called perverted faculty arguments—is that God has given us certain powers aimed at achieving specific ends that constitute real goods for us. To intentionally direct those powers away from those ends (i.e., to pervert the faculty) is immoral, insofar as it intends directly not to attain those real goods. Lying is the classic example. One intentionally directs a speech act away from its proper end—namely, revealing the contents of his mind.
There are many nuances and objections to this line of reasoning, but none of that needs to detain us here, because smoking doesn’t involve a perversion of a faculty. Here’s why.
The natural end of the respiratory power is (as Google will tell you) gas exchange: the intake of oxygen and expulsion of carbon dioxide. But smoking doesn’t pervert that process—it doesn’t intentionally direct the power away from its natural end. Oxygen is still absorbed; gas exchange still occurs. So, at worst, smoking compromises the ideal function of the respiratory system while introducing harmful pollutants—but it doesn’t pervert the faculty in the way lying perverts communication or contraception perverts the procreative act. (Also, just think: we take drugs like anesthetics via breathing—why not a stimulant like nicotine?)
If there’s a parallel to occasional smoking, it’s sort of like eating unhealthy food. Just as you’re still digesting and getting some nutrients (albeit poorly) when eating junk food, you’re still getting oxygen (albeit with harmful byproducts) when smoking. Smoking is definitely damaging—probably more so than eating sour cream Pringles—but it’s not, per se, a perversion of the respiratory faculty. This means that the stronger sort of perverted faculty arguments—whatever one thinks of them (not everyone, including all Catholics, finds them convincing!)—don’t apply to smoking.
So the occasional smoke, like the occasional indulgence in junk food, is still morally on the table, so to speak.
Okay, then. So, let’s now consider what natural law (an ethical theory I am assuming on behalf of my Catholic audience) says about caring for our health—which is obviously relevant to the action in question. In his classic text Right and Reason, Fr. Austin Fagothey offers a helpful summary:
The natural law obliges man to take reasonable care of his health. Reasonable care does not mean becoming a health crank but using ordinary means of keeping healthy. . . . By ordinary means, we refer to proper food, clothing, shelter, due moderation in work and exercise, the avoidance of foolish risks and dangers, taking the usual remedies in sickness, seeking and following medical advice when necessary.
Importantly, even though the above is undoubtedly true, not all unhealthy actions are automatically immoral. Otherwise, it would be wrong ever to eat junk food, which seems absurd. Sometimes it’s perfectly permissible to engage in something that may not be particularly healthy—even something obviously damaging, or potentially so—once all the relevant factors are considered and there’s a proportionate reason for doing so. For example, eating a Triple Whopper isn’t automatically immoral, because when consumed occasionally, the harms are fairly minimal and can almost certainly be outweighed by other goods: immediate pleasure (which, by itself, isn’t morally suspect), nutrition (yes, even in a Triple Whopper), convenience, economy, and possibly social enjoyment—like if that just so happens to be where you’re having your fortieth birthday party.
Nevertheless, as Fagothey tells us:
One is certainly bound to avoid excesses ruinous to one’s health. But the chief wrong in dissipation and debauchery comes not so much from the ruination of one’s health as of one’s character.
Now, because it’s not always immediately obvious what exactly qualifies as ruinous excess, all this leads us to where I ultimately wanted to go: making the case against habitual smoking. And here’s where we can invoke proportionalism—we consider whether the harms introduced are disqualifyingly disproportionate to any potential benefits. This helps us determine whether routine smoking is, in fact, the sort of ruinous excess Fagothey is talking about.
To evaluate this, we consider two things:
- Whether the harm is directly intended.
- Whether the possible harms are proportionately outweighed by the possible goods.
Occasional smoking can arguably pass this test. Habitual smoking cannot. (And yes, the same analysis applies to junk food, I think: occasionally, fine. As your entire diet? Almost certainly immoral—assuming other economically viable options are available.)
So the first criterion is usually met. I don’t think most people who smoke are doing so because they want to harm themselves. Rather, they smoke because of the various pleasures or perceived benefits they get from it.
But because the harms of routine smoking are now so well established (which wasn’t always the case), the practice almost certainly constitutes a sin against prudence—and against temperance, which demands that we refrain from certain activities, especially pleasurable ones, when regularly engaging in them hinders our flourishing. These are deformations of character, and potentially serious ones—the kind Fagothey rightly claims are worse for us, overall, than just physical harm.
As for the more basic health side of things, everybody knows that routine smoking is very bad for you. So what I’m ultimately saying is that these known facts are sufficient to make the habitual act morally wrong—to qualify it as the sort of ruinous excess that runs contrary to right reason.
Again, to clarify: I’m not talking about smoking a cigarette once in a while—for whatever reason. I’m talking about routinely, frequently smoking cigarettes. Because in that case, whatever goods might be had from the habit—pleasure, relaxation, focus, etc.—are massively outweighed by well-established harms: damage to the body (especially the lungs), drastically increased risk of disease (particularly cancer and cardiovascular disease), addiction (which is economically burdensome), and harm to one’s character (clear violations of the virtue of temperance, for example).
Plus there are other negative considerations in virtue of our being the social, deeply interconnected beings we are—i.e., scandal or being a bad influence (especially on children), secondhand smoke issues, and perhaps material cooperation in evil by supporting (let’s call them) nasty industries that profit off human vice.
Allow me to wrap up by addressing two brief potential objections.
First, I fully accept that it’s not always easy to say exactly where the line falls when it comes to an acceptable proportion of goods to harms—but that’s actually not a huge problem, because it’s rarely necessary to know precisely where the line is. In many cases, we can definitely tell when we’re very far to one side of it. Just as we don’t have to be able to say exactly when someone has a beard, we can all agree that the lead singer of ZZ Top has one. And I want to say the same thing here: given everything we now know about how harmful habitual smoking is—both to health and to character—it’s clear that the potential benefits just don’t justify it. The bads very obviously outweigh the goods, and for that reason, habitual smoking fails to satisfy the second criterion above.
Second, someone might push back and argue that even a single smoke is immoral because of how potentially addictive it is. This is certainly an important consideration, which each individual must weigh carefully. For someone with a history of addiction or strong temptations to excess, yes, it could render even a single smoke a sin against prudence, given his personal history or makeup or both. That’s entirely possible.
However, this isn’t a strong enough concern to justify a universal condemnation or prohibition for everyone. The same, I think, can and should be said about the occasional moderate use of other substances (i.e., alcohol), though obviously not all other substances, since some are so inherently addictive and destructive that they should never be meddled with. But that just doesn’t seem to be the case with cigarettes.
So habitual smoking is morally impermissible. But the occasional smoke—for the prudent person—is not.
NO: Don’t Be ‘Vague About Vice’
By Joe Grabowski
When a number of American states in the early twentieth century passed legislation to outlaw smoking, G.K. Chesterton responded in a series of newspaper articles that such laws were “pure barbarism.” Even to the supporters of smoking, this strong description might at first sound excessive. It is important, though, here as in almost every case when reading a Chesterton quotation, to consider what that great thinker meant in context.
Chesterton explained (emphasis added) that “the essence of barbarism is idolatry; that is, the worship of something other than the best reason and justice of the universe. Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.” Chesterton’s thoughts on smoking here mirror his views expressed on many other matters when it came to American public morals and what he saw to be the undue influence of New England Puritanism on the national conscience. He warned against the tendency of Americans “to be thus vague about vice,” prophesying that it “may yet be the beginning of much peril and oppression.”
It may readily be admitted that, in Chesterton’s day, rather less was known than is today about the deleterious health effects of tobacco use, especially in forms of smoking. The exact nature, let alone the full etiology, of various cancers and other illnesses was much less understood. It may also be the case that tobacco as such simply was not as harmful then as it is now, at least in certain forms—though, on the other hand, the relative lack of hygienic standards of production and distribution may render this difference less significant than one might think.
Nevertheless, the nature of tobacco use has not essentially changed since Chesterton’s day. Neither has the tendency of sloppy moral reasoning among would-be prohibitionists, of this or of any other popular “vice.” GKC’s main argument, therefore, against superstitious or even idolatrous thinking, remains relevant.
In the first place, health can very easily become and, in many quarters today, often is an idol. This much seems undeniable. More to the point, however, is the danger of slippery-slope reasoning Chesterton rightly warns against. The problem with anti-smoking arguments can hardly be considered in their moral character because they fail on the level of logic: they often are not able to be extrapolated into principles applicable to other moral cases, at least not without possibly disastrous consequences.
It is undeniable that smoking entails health risks, yet so does much daily activity in modern life. From eating processed foods to merging onto a freeway, life is simply fraught with deadly risks, including many arguably more dangerous than smoking—considered purely in terms of potential lethal consequences plotted in percentages, especially when looked at on the scale of single acts as individual instances. That is to say, “smoking” may run a risk of killing someone eventually, but a single cigarette is far less likely to kill someone than, say, a single base-jumping expedition.
Why, then, is there so much less (if any) moral worriting about so many other potentially life-endangering activities? Some might argue that it is because other activities carry proportionate positive benefits that smoking does not. But this ultimately depends on testamentary evidence that can hardly be disputed. It is very hard, after all, to gainsay the smoker who says the instant cigarette he craves now will do him and his present jittery nerves some real good, whatever harm it may entail in the long term.
“The long term.” Thereupon indeed rests the strongest argument against smoking. It carries considerable weight against ever lighting one’s first cigarette, and it increases with each lighting up thereafter. Still, “the long term” is not the only frame of reference for moral decision-making. Present exigencies matter greatly. So, too, must every matter be considered sub specie eternitatis, in terms of eternity—which, importantly, is distinct from the mere “future” term, for eternity touches now in a way the future does not. Indeed, very often a moral decision requires exclusion or at least subordination of “the long term” considerations to the privilege of the now and the eternal. The rich man, for example, must lay up treasure in heaven precisely at the expense of his own material future when his poor neighbor is in need. Yet, notably, so many of those who glare censoriously at a man putting a cigarette into his mouth never so much as bat an eye at a man putting another million dollars into his already overflowing coffers.
Many smokers find that the practice helps with stress or anxiety, or aids in quiet contemplation and thinking; it provides a respite in a busy day, sometimes, or helps abate the urge to shout at another driver in traffic. Whether these are wholly salutary ends is somewhat beside the point. Whether they could better be achieved through other means is, also, beside the point. The point is that these are benefits that the smoker may enjoy, and which seem to spring at least as immediately from the act in the present as do the detrimental effects on health, therefore satisfying the requirements of double effect. It also satisfies commonsense morality and avoids superstition or idolatry about health and “the future.” After all, a man must live in the present and in eternity—but, in a very literal sense, no man must necessarily live in the future.
Rather than setting up smoking as some rarified moral activity needing special and more careful scrutiny than so many other daily actions that arguably impact much more on our present and eternal state, it seems better to approach the matter in the cool and measured way suggested by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In paragraph 2290, the Catechism says this activity must be governed by the virtue of temperance—alongside food, alcohol, and medicine, as well as one’s speed behind the wheel of a vehicle!
Indeed, the invocation of temperance against abuse of a thing seems logically to entail that a proper and measured use is possible. For many, perhaps especially those who’ve never tried it before, that right and proper level of use of tobacco will indeed be “none at all.” When it comes to others who do enjoy that use, however, we should satisfy ourselves with aiding them to make right decisions to be temperate in such use, encouraging them to achieve higher levels of virtue. And we should avoid falling into the trap Chesterton so astutely warned of: that of being “vague about vice.”