Case 2. A Malicious Intention

Philip, a Catholic, placed poison in his garden to kill harmful animals. Sometimes he had found a cat or even a dog killed by the poison in the garden, when the thought occurred to him: “Would that this valuable dog of my neighbor Caius were killed in this way, for Caius has often been troublesome to me, and not rarely have I found his dog entering my garden.” Therefore, led by the hope of killing the dog of Caius, which is descended from the breed called Saint Bernard, he placed a larger quantity of poison, and the next morning found that unfortunate dog dead in a corner of the garden. After it was buried, his conscience pricked him concerning restitution to be made. Hence it is asked:

1. Can the intention make an external act unjust?

2. What is an occasional cause and an accidental cause of damage?

3. When is one who posits the cause of another’s damage excused from making restitution, even if the damage was foreseen or desired?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. Can the intention make an action unjust which otherwise is not unjust? Some theologians, with Lugo, assert that it can, but the common opinion is against them. For the intention with which an action is done does not alter the nature of its influence on the effect produced, and whether an act is unjust or not, depends on this influence.¹

1 St. Alphonsus, book iii, no. 584.

2. What is an occasional, and an accidental cause of damage?

An occasion is that which, being put, an effect follows from some other cause. Thus if A murder B, and C is taken up on suspicion, A is the occasion of C’s arrest. An accidental cause is that from which the effect was not probable, though possible, as if A digs a trench where few people pass, but B, a blind man, passes that way, falls into the trench, and is killed; A is the accidental cause of B’s death.

3. When is one who puts the cause of another’s damage excused from making restitution, even though the damage was foreseen and desired? Besides theological fault, it is necessary that the action of him who is to be obliged to make restitution be the efficient cause of the damage, and that it be unjust. For unjust actions alone impose the obligation of making restitution, and nobody is bound to make restitution for damage which he did not cause.

4. The case. Philip poisoned his neighbor’s dog out of spite. He certainly committed a grave sin against charity. But as he put the poison in his own garden, into which his neighbor’s dog sometimes strayed, his action was not the efficient cause, but only the accidental cause of its death. He may therefore be excused from the obligation of making restitution, according to the better opinion.