Mark Shea is repulsed by Michael Ledeen's excerpt at NRO. While I agree with Mark that Ledeen's comments go against the Magisterium, it seems we disagree on approach. The following will probably not last long in his comment box, so I reproduce it here[*].
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Murder is surely evil, yet every reasonable person will agree that the cause of good would have been greatly advanced if Henry Tandey had killed Hitler in that trench. History abounds with examples of good actions furthering the cause of evil...
I must be an unreasonable person (I wonder if Mr. Shea agrees), since I disagree with the emphasized phrase. While we know with certainty the single time line in which Hitler lived to 1940, we cannot know how alternate time lines might turn out. And why should Henry Tandey feel responsible for the time line up to 1940 or even 1945? Aren't the dates arbitrarily chosen according to our perspective of significant moments of history? Supposing that Tandey got his wish, shouldn't the calculus include the 50 billion killed in A.D. 2525, when a descendant of one who would have been killed in Hitler's Holocaust sets off a nuclear device in the city of New New York at Tau Ceti? How can we know with any moral certainty which time line is the preferred time line? What is the moral calculus?
More than twenty years intervened between Henry Tandey's chance and his later regret. There must have been many opportunities to deter Hitler from his evil course. Perhaps if Eva Braun had married Hitler. Maybe if Goebbels had a twinge of conscience. Who knows?
The closer analogy is nothing that's been mentioned so far. I bet that it would horrify Michael Ledeen if he were asked to defend it. Paul Hill didn't have to wait twenty years to test his moral calculations. It would be a matter of days before the abortionist, Dr. John Britton, would grind up a few more babies in the abortion mill. Paul Hill decided to save future lives by killing Dr. Britton. Perhaps Ledeen might decide that abortion is not murder, but he would have no argument against those who believed abortion is murder. Where would Ledeen's calculus take us then?
[*] Update: Not without good reason, but Mark has since forgiven me.
Posted by Bob at November 23, 2004 10:29 PM