May I Patronize Companies that Support Intrinsic Evil?

Michie

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DIFFICULT MORAL QUESTIONS: Living in a sinful world requires all of us to cooperate in evildoing sometimes, and most of us to do it frequently.


Q. I read that the Adobe Company supports Planned Parenthood. I have used Photoshop over the years to supplement my income. I recently bought a new computer, on which my old software is incompatible. Unfortunately, I’ve found that Adobe no longer sells the program outright; rather, I am required to lease it on an annual basis. A priest told me that leasing it is “remote material cooperation,” which apparently means it’s okay. But I have my doubts.

My question is this. When dealing with an intrinsic evil such as abortion, wouldn’t this kind of cooperation still be wrong? How can there be “proportionality” between the benefits I receive in using Photoshop and the evil that they do with the money I give them, especially killing unborn children?

This question can also be applied to shopping at companies like Walmart, Home Depot and Starbucks, all of which support causes contrary to good morals. — Mary


A. Whenever we contribute to the success of another’s evildoing, moral theology calls it an instance of moral cooperation (e.g., working as a janitor in a hospital that performs abortions or acting as a defense attorney for obviously guilty clients).

Living in a sinful world requires all of us to cooperate in evildoing sometimes, and most of us to do it frequently. Moral cooperation can be entirely legitimately; even Jesus paid taxes to Rome, which used the money, among other things, to fund evildoing (e.g., to pay the procurator and soldiers that unjustly put him to death). But cooperation in evildoing can also be wrongful, which is no doubt why you want to know whether it’s legitimate to lease something from a company that supports another company that kills preborn children...

Continued below.
May I Patronize Companies that Support Intrinsic Evil?
 
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RDKirk

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There was a woman in the first century living in the city of Philippi in ancient Greece. Lydia was a dealer of purple fabric.

Philippi was an interesting city in that it has a known history behind it. During the conflict after the assassination of Julius Caesar, the older Greek city of Philippi was where the conclusive battle was fought between the forces of Caesar's political heirs Mark Antony and Octavian and the forces of the assassins Brutus and Cassius.

The defeated forces of Brutus and Cassius were not slaughtered, but because they were Roman citizens, they were allowed to settle in that area as a coloniae of Rome. So Philippi was special as a city of Romans within Greece proper (Ceasarea in Palestine was another such coloniae).

Philippi was rebuilt as a "miniature Rome", under the municipal law of Rome, and governed by two military officers appointed directly from Rome. The significant thing is that the imperial decrees that governed Rome herself were directly applied to Philippi. Whatever the emperor decreed for Rome also happened in Philippi.

There are two decrees that are significant here. One is that the Jews were expelled both from Rome and from Philippi under Caesar Claudius about 49 AD (which is why there was no synagogue in Philippi when the apostle Paul visited). The other is that only senior Roman officials were allowed to wear purple. This last is important: Not just wealthy people could wear purple in Philippi, but specifically only senior Roman officials.

So Lydia--who we read in the bible was the first Christian convert in Greece--did all her business with the senior pagans of the city who would have been foremost in the city in keeping the official pagan practices, such as worshiping dead Caesars, eating the meat and blood of strangled animals, engaging in ceremonial temple sex, infanticide and abortion (the ancient Romans practiced both chemical and surgical abortion).

And that would have been true of Phoebe, Philemon, and any other benefactors of the Church in Europe. If any had wealth, it would have been through trade with pagans.
 
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Michie

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A. Whenever we contribute to the success of another’s evildoing, moral theology calls it an instance of moral cooperation (e.g., working as a janitor in a hospital that performs abortions or acting as a defense attorney for obviously guilty clients).

Living in a sinful world requires all of us to cooperate in evildoing sometimes, and most of us to do it frequently. Moral cooperation can be entirely legitimately; even Jesus paid taxes to Rome, which used the money, among other things, to fund evildoing (e.g., to pay the procurator and soldiers that unjustly put him to death). But cooperation in evildoing can also be wrongful, which is no doubt why you want to know whether it’s legitimate to lease something from a company that supports another company that kills preborn children.

I will try to apply to your situation some of the Catholic Church’s wisdom on moral cooperation. In doing so, I hope to provide an example — a model — for you and others to use when addressing other issues of moral cooperation, issues today that can cause grave concern for morally conscientious people (e.g., Can I attend the “wedding” ceremony of my “gay” son? Can I refer to “transgender” persons by their preferred names? Can I vote for candidates whose personal lives or public positions are not always morally exemplary? Can I take a job with a company that supports LGBT activism?)



Assessing Moral Cooperation

When judging whether some instance of cooperation is morally licit, the first thing to do — and you’ve obviously already done this — is make sure that you, the cooperator, do not support the evil that you are contributing to. In the language of theology, make sure that what you are doing is not “formal cooperation.”

We formally cooperate when we help an evildoer soas to advance his evildoing, for example, we support Adobe because it supports Planned Parenthood.

The Catholic Church teaches that formal cooperation is always evil and never should
be chosen. (See U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs),” Part VI: Introduction, p. 24) The fact that you are asking your question makes clear you are not formally cooperating.

The second and more difficult kind of cooperation to assess is called “material cooperation.” We materially cooperate when we disagree with what the wrongdoer does, yet in some way still advance his bad acts (e.g., Jesus [and us] paying taxes to rulers that use some of the money in wrongful ways). The Catholic Church teaches that this kind of cooperation can be licit, but also can be wrongful. (See ERDs, ibid.)

How do we judge? We examine whether there are stronger reasons (called “just causes,” sometimes
referred to as “proportionate reasons”) for cooperating than for not cooperating. How do we determine this? We look at the goods and harms caused by cooperating and not cooperating and we compare them.

Allow me to elaborate.

Every good (or benefit) that we’re trying to achieve and every harm we’re trying to avoid by cooperating stands as a “reason” to cooperate
. In your case, these include the benefits you think you can achieve from leasing Photoshop, including the income you derive, your satisfaction at creating something beautiful, the positive relationships you nurture through your work, etc. It also includes the harms you are trying to avoid by cooperating, including the loss of income from not using the software, with all attendant disadvantages (e.g., not being able to pay your rent, children’s school bills, food, etc.).

Likewise, every harm caused by our cooperation stands as a reason not to cooperate. To determine what these are, we should ask questions such as the following:

  • Will babies (or more babies) be killed by my annual leasing of Photoshop?
  • Will my example of cooperation undermine my own personal witness to the love of Christ and to Gospel morality?
  • Will long-term cooperation cause me over time to become psychologically callous to the fact that Adobe supports a corporation that kills massive numbers of unborn children?
  • Will my cooperation impart legitimacy to Adobe’s leadership so as to encourage more support for Planned Parenthood and other companies that do evil? Or, on the flip side, would my non-cooperation prevent or diminish Adobe’s support for Planned Parenthood? Say, if you forgo Photoshop, and you publicize the reasons on Facebook or Instagram or by sending a letter/email to each member of the Adobe Board of Directors telling them what you’re doing and why; is this likely to make a difference?
  • Will my example of paying annual subscriptions to Adobe tempt anyone to sin? (This is the crucial question of “scandal.”)
  • Will my example cause disharmony between me and other good people committed to ending the evil of abortion, or worse, disharmony within the Christian community, of which we have far too much already?
These are not random questions. Each concerns a duty that we have to someone interested in or affected by our cooperation, duties to ourselves, to our families, to the babies, to Jesus and the Gospel, to our neighbors, especially fellow Christians, and even to the evildoers themselves.

If after honest reflection and inquiry (perhaps also some research) I conclude that the reasons not to cooperate are not strong: I figure that nobody will be interested enough in my leasing of Photoshop to be scandalized by my example or set in disharmony against me; that the money Adobe gets from my subscription in myself whatever breeds complacency towards the evil of abortion. And I similarly conclude that my reasons to cooperate are strong: e.g., I need the software to support my family. Then thus far, I don’t have a decisive reason not to lease the product.

But a final question still needs to be answered before we can be confident our cooperation is licit.

Is there available a morally acceptable and practically feasible alternative that would not require me to cooperate with evildoing? So would any of the photo-editing alternatives to Photoshop reasonably meet your needs?

By reasonable I mean two thing: First, are they produced by companies that are not publicly committed to wrongdoing? And second, and more practically speaking, can you afford them, learn them without a great burden, and do they perform the tasks you need? If there are viable alternatives, then you shouldn’t support Adobe. Why? Because you’d have no reason at all — except perhaps laziness, which is not a good reason — to contribute to a company that does evil.

Finally, even if you decide that buying Photoshop is an instance of licit material cooperation, you may consider writing (and encouraging others to write) to the company urging it to cease supporting Planned Parenthood.
 
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Rugged Cross

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A matter of spiritual depth and feeling plus a lot of prayer needed. To me it would depend on the job or establishment. Abortion clinic - directing someone there or working for - NO. Weapons making or buying - Maybe? The problem also, is we do not always know what these establishments support, and how much do require their service?
 
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Dansiph

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DIFFICULT MORAL QUESTIONS: Living in a sinful world requires all of us to cooperate in evildoing sometimes, and most of us to do it frequently.


Q. I read that the Adobe Company supports Planned Parenthood. I have used Photoshop over the years to supplement my income. I recently bought a new computer, on which my old software is incompatible. Unfortunately, I’ve found that Adobe no longer sells the program outright; rather, I am required to lease it on an annual basis. A priest told me that leasing it is “remote material cooperation,” which apparently means it’s okay. But I have my doubts.

My question is this. When dealing with an intrinsic evil such as abortion, wouldn’t this kind of cooperation still be wrong? How can there be “proportionality” between the benefits I receive in using Photoshop and the evil that they do with the money I give them, especially killing unborn children?

This question can also be applied to shopping at companies like Walmart, Home Depot and Starbucks, all of which support causes contrary to good morals. — Mary


A. Whenever we contribute to the success of another’s evildoing, moral theology calls it an instance of moral cooperation (e.g., working as a janitor in a hospital that performs abortions or acting as a defense attorney for obviously guilty clients).

Living in a sinful world requires all of us to cooperate in evildoing sometimes, and most of us to do it frequently. Moral cooperation can be entirely legitimately; even Jesus paid taxes to Rome, which used the money, among other things, to fund evildoing (e.g., to pay the procurator and soldiers that unjustly put him to death). But cooperation in evildoing can also be wrongful, which is no doubt why you want to know whether it’s legitimate to lease something from a company that supports another company that kills preborn children...

Continued below.
May I Patronize Companies that Support Intrinsic Evil?
It's a minefield out there. A lot of businesses support sinful things. To the point of being absurd.
 
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pdudgeon

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There was a woman in the first century living in the city of Philippi in ancient Greece. Lydia was a dealer of purple fabric.

Philippi was an interesting city in that it has a known history behind it. During the conflict after the assassination of Julius Caesar, the older Greek city of Philippi was where the conclusive battle was fought between the forces of Caesar's political heirs Mark Antony and Octavian and the forces of the assassins Brutus and Cassius.

The defeated forces of Brutus and Cassius were not slaughtered, but because they were Roman citizens, they were allowed to settle in that area as a coloniae of Rome. So Philippi was special as a city of Romans within Greece proper (Ceasarea in Palestine was another such coloniae).

Philippi was rebuilt as a "miniature Rome", under the municipal law of Rome, and governed by two military officers appointed directly from Rome. The significant thing is that the imperial decrees that governed Rome herself were directly applied to Philippi. Whatever the emperor decreed for Rome also happened in Philippi.

There are two decrees that are significant here. One is that the Jews were expelled both from Rome and from Philippi under Caesar Claudius about 49 AD (which is why there was no synagogue in Philippi when the apostle Paul visited). The other is that only senior Roman officials were allowed to wear purple. This last is important: Not just wealthy people could wear purple in Philippi, but specifically only senior Roman officials.

So Lydia--who we read in the bible was the first Christian convert in Greece--did all her business with the senior pagans of the city who would have been foremost in the city in keeping the official pagan practices, such as worshiping dead Caesars, eating the meat and blood of strangled animals, engaging in ceremonial temple sex, infanticide and abortion (the ancient Romans practiced both chemical and surgical abortion).

And that would have been true of Phoebe, Philemon, and any other benefactors of the Church in Europe. If any had wealth, it would have been through trade with pagans.

There was a couple from my former church who had a similar problem. The parents of the wife were not Christians, and their business practices showed it.

The wife was concerned with taking a salary from her parents for that very reason, until I showed her that money in itself is a neutral tool, that can be used for either good or bad purposes.

What I suggested to her was to accept the salary, and then donate it (redeem it) to Christian ministries who could in turn use that money for good and to glorify God.
 
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Lady Bug

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I'm not sure what to do because that probably means I can't buy groceries ever again. Kroger just jumped on the BLM bandwagon and soon Meijer and Walmart, if they haven't already, will follow suit. Even if they didn't, it doesn't mean that the corporations who manufacture my groceries haven't jumped. I feel doomed.
 
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Gnarwhal

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Ah fudge. Adobe supports PP? With my luck all of the companies in my field do because media is so liberal.

To build on the article, consider an alternative. Boycotting a company can really only end up hurting the consumer unless it's a widespread boycott that impacts a company to the tune of millions. Perhaps instead intentionally donating to a Catholic charity or political group that specifically counters whatever the intrinsic evil is that's supported by the company. So if I subscribe to Adobe then maybe I also want to donate to any groups that are doing good work taking Planned Parenthood down.
 
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RDKirk

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I'm not sure what to do because that probably means I can't buy groceries ever again. Kroger just jumped on the BLM bandwagon and soon Meijer and Walmart, if they haven't already, will follow suit. Even if they didn't, it doesn't mean that the corporations who manufacture my groceries haven't jumped. I feel doomed.

What do you think "jump on the BLM bandwagon" really means to everyone?

All black Americans agree with the basic sentiment that our lives should matter to the police as much as anyone else's, rather than apparently not mattering at all in so many cases.

But assenting to the sentiment does not mean--even to black Americans--that we agree with everything said by everyone who picks up a microphone or writes a tweet or puts up a website and claims to be speaking for BLM. For instance, activist Shaun King has gotten a lot of media attention claiming to speak for BLM, but black Americans hold him largely in ridicule, calling him "Talcum X."

And knowing that black Americans can assent to the sentiment without agreeing with everything "BLM" that comes out of any Tom, Shaun, or Harriet's mouth, I'm pretty sure that these corporations that assent to the sentiment do not agree with everything coming out of every Tom, Shawn, or Harriet's mouth either.
 
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Lady Bug

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What do you think "jump on the BLM bandwagon" really means to everyone?

All black Americans agree with the basic sentiment that our lives should matter to the police as much as anyone else's, rather than apparently not mattering at all in so many cases.

But assenting to the sentiment does not mean--even to black Americans--that we agree with everything said by everyone who picks up a microphone or writes a tweet or puts up a website and claims to be speaking for BLM. For instance, activist Shaun King has gotten a lot of media attention claiming to speak for BLM, but black Americans hold him largely in ridicule, calling him "Talcum X."

And knowing that black Americans can assent to the sentiment without agreeing with everything "BLM" that comes out of any Tom, Shaun, or Harriet's mouth, I'm pretty sure that these corporations that assent to the sentiment do not agree with everything coming out of every Tom, Shawn, or Harriet's mouth either.
It's not about whether general black lives matter. It's about whether the rest of the movement aligns with my values.
 
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RDKirk

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It's not about whether general black lives matter. It's about whether the rest of the movement aligns with my values.

I haven't found any organization in which all "the rest of the movement" completely aligns with my values.

And that includes Christians. There are a lot of congregations and denominations that have never completely aligned with Jesus' values, either.
 
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thecolorsblend

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Some amount of cooperation is unavoidable. "Progressive activists" will usually bully companies into supporting XYZ causes. Because Boomer conservatives are usually content to play the fiddle while Rome burns. They'd rather whine about how the world is coming apart and Back In My Day and Get Off My Lawn and all that. That's a lot easier than getting off the couch and doing something about it. Besides, their 401k's won't count themselves, right?

So as a result, a lot of companies support deranged causes because they honest believe that's what their customerbase wants.

Still, some levels of cooperation are too much. I did tech support for a web hosting company at one point. Among other things, the company hosted sites for, ahem, adult entertainment. Suffice it to say, it was not a job for the squeamish.

My priest at the time said working there wasn't necessarily a problem. All I really needed to do was pass the AE stuff over to other support agents. But when I started thinking about it, I realized that I was profiting off from AE (at least somewhat) even tho I want nothing to do with that stuff. My financial contributions to the Church came from that same source, which put the Church in the position of financially benefiting from pr0n too.

So, the real answer here was to seek new employment. I was in a mood for change anyway. Ideally, I wanted a job that didn't require programming, using Photoshop, fixing some nitwit's computer or whatever else. And eventually, I found something. My job now is 100% honorable; no AE or any of that other stuff.

We probably can't completely eliminate our participation in these things but we can limit it a lot more than some of you may think.
 
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pdudgeon

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Some amount of cooperation is unavoidable. "Progressive activists" will usually bully companies into supporting XYZ causes. Because conservatives are usually content to play the fiddle while Rome burns. Their 401k's won't count themselves, I guess.

So as a result, a lot of companies support deranged causes because they honest believe that's what their customerbase wants.

Still, some levels of cooperation are too much. I did tech support for a web hosting company at one point. Among other things, the company hosted sites for, ahem, adult entertainment. Suffice it to say, it was not a job for the squeamish.

My priest at the time said working there wasn't necessarily a problem. All I really needed to do was pass the AE stuff over to other support agents. But when I started thinking about it, I realized that I was profiting off from AE (at least somewhat) even tho I want nothing to do with that stuff. My financial contributions to the Church came from that same source, which put the Church in the position of financially benefiting from pr0n too.

So, the real answer here was to seek new employment. I was in a mood for change anyway. Ideally, I wanted a job that didn't require programming, using Photoshop, fixing some nitwit's computer or whatever else. And eventually, I did. My job now is 100% honorable; no AE or any of that other stuff.

We probably can't completely eliminate our participation in these things but we can limit it a lot more than some of you may think.

GOOD FOR YOU!!
That's what hero's do.

They take a stand with God and against injustice or wrong doing, knowing that it might hurt them to do so, but that God will make up for any losses.

My dad did something similar a long time ago. He drove truck and was on the road most of the week, making deliveries up and down CA. His boss would make him haul more than the limit for his rig. So when he would pull across the scales to weigh the load in his truck, the employees of the scales would issue him a traffic ticket for hauling too much weight on the highways.

His boss didn't care, and told my dad that he would pay all the tickets. NOT!
The police came to our house ready with arrest warrants to throw him in jail for unpaid tickets.
Fortunately he was on the road at the time, but my mom had a fit!

She called in some favors from our church, and the fines were paid. But that was enough of a scare for the rest of the truckers, and they went out on strike against the trucking company.

Long story short, they broke the company with their strike. And the church stayed by my mom and dad's side and helped us out with groceries, while he walked the picket lines for fair treatment for truckers.
 
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thecolorsblend

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Srsly tho...

My dad did something similar a long time ago. He drove truck and was on the road most of the week, making deliveries up and down CA. His boss would make him haul more than the limit for his rig. So when he would pull across the scales to weigh the load in his truck, the employees of the scales would issue him a traffic ticket for hauling too much weight on the highways.

His boss didn't care, and told my dad that he would pay all the tickets. NOT!
The police came to our house ready with arrest warrants to throw him in jail for unpaid tickets.
Fortunately he was on the road at the time, but my mom had a fit!

She called in some favors from our church, and the fines were paid. But that was enough of a scare for the rest of the truckers, and they went out on strike against the trucking company.

Long story short, they broke the company with their strike. And the church stayed by my mom and dad's side and helped us out with groceries, while he walked the picket lines for fair treatment for truckers.
That is seriously not cool. I mean, I'm glad that the other parishioners came to your father's rescue. But exploiting workers like that is just low.
 
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pdudgeon

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Srsly tho...

That is seriously not cool. I mean, I'm glad that the other parishioners came to your father's rescue. But exploiting workers like that is just low.

Yes, it was. And it didn't help that this strike was happening in November and December, and my dad wouldn't cross that picket line to go to work.

I was pretty young at the time, so my parent's kept most of it from me.
I kept asking "Daddy, when are we going to get a Christmas tree?" We couldn't afford a tree of course.

The Church showed up with a tree for us on Christmas morning. And they were the ones who paid my dad's traffic tickets, and kept him out of jail.

The boss had the nerve to invite us over to his house for New Year's Eve. We didn't go.
 
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