Morals of the Church
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Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

II. On the One Counseling

1000.

I. Notion. The one counseling is he who induces another to inflict damage in his own name (cf. n. 999).

Counsel is distinguished into doctrinal and impulsive. Doctrinal counsel is that by which someone gives a judgment about the liceity or illicitness, the justice or injustice, of an action; impulsive counsel is that by which someone, once the morality of the action is known, excites another to the action. Each can be either bare or clothed, according as it is not confirmed, or is confirmed, by assigning motives, means, the place or opportune time of execution, or something similar.

II. Damages to be repaired. 1. He who gave doctrinal counsel is bound thus:

a) If he gave it from office, he is bound to repair both the damages which are going to befall the one seeking counsel and those which are going to befall others from it. For all the aforesaid damages must be imputed to him (St. Alphonsus, III, 564).

b) If he did not give it from office, he must restore the damages which befall others from it, but not those which befall the one seeking counsel. The reason for the former is that he is their unjust cause; the reason for the latter is that these must be ascribed to the imprudence of one seeking counsel from an unskilled person. If, however, he used deceit, namely by pretending skill, he is bound also to repair the damages that would follow for the one seeking counsel, because in this case these too must be imputed to him (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).

  1. He who gave impulsive counsel is bound to restore the damages which befall others from it, but not those which befall the one seeking counsel. The reason for the former is that they must be imputed to the one giving counsel; the reason for the latter is that the one seeking counsel, by freely following the counsel, should impute to himself the damage that followed from it (St. Alphonsus, III, 558).

III. Cessation of the obligation of restoring. The obligation of restoring ceases:

  1. If the counsel was bare, whether doctrinal or impulsive, the obligation ceases by a serious revocation, signified to the executor in time. For thus the counsel ceases to influence the effect (St. Alphonsus, III, 559).

  2. If the counsel was clothed, most authors hold as sufficiently probable that the counselor is freed from the obligation of restoring if he brings forward motives which of themselves ought to destroy the former motives; to these especially belong motives sought from faith. For then, they say, the execution is said to proceed more from the executor's own malice than from the counsel of another (St. Alphonsus, III, 559).

Corollary. The counselor who, after his counsel has been revoked and weakened as much as he can, could not turn another away from execution, is bound by charity to warn the person who is to be damaged; indeed by justice, if the counsel was clothed, because counsel of this sort - although the execution of the counsel is said to proceed more from the executor's own malice than from the counsel of another - nevertheless in some way continues to influence (St. Alphonsus, III, 559).

Question 1. Is it permitted to persuade one prepared to harm a determinate person that he should inflict on him rather a lesser evil than a greater one?

Response. Affirmatively, because by acting thus he prevents a graver damage rather than counsels some damage (St. Alphonsus, III, 565).

Question 2. Is it permitted to persuade one prepared to harm that he should inflict rather a lesser evil on one person than a greater evil on another?

Response 1. It is not permitted to persuade one prepared to harm that he should inflict rather a lesser evil on a determinate person than a greater evil on another. Namely, just as it is not permitted to avert one's own damage with injury to another, so neither is it permitted to prevent another's damage with injury to another; unless the difference between the two damages is of such a kind that the other, as regards the counsel given, cannot be reasonably unwilling (St. Alphonsus, III, 565, 577).

Others admit the contrary, because it is conformable to charity that the damage be prevented of him who will suffer more, rather than of him who is going to undergo lesser damage; hence the one to be harmed cannot be reasonably unwilling toward the counselor, but only toward the damager himself. But the fact that one consenting to his own damage exercises an act of charity does not prevent him from being reasonably unwilling and from licitly not consenting.

Response 2. Likewise it seems illicit to persuade one prepared to harm that he should inflict rather a lesser evil on someone, that is, on a non-determinate person, than a greater evil on another, for example that he should harm a rich man rather than a determinate poor man. The reason is that in this case the one persuading influences the damage of him who will be harmed (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).

The One Counseling