This is a wonderful article posted at Catholicism.org

In the movie “Master and Commander,” Rear Admiral Sir John Aubrey (played by Russell Crowe) pretends to ask one of his officers a difficult question. He inquires which of two weevils that have appeared on the ship’s table would be the proper weevil to choose. When the befuddled seaman points to the larger of the two, Admiral Aubrey corrects him, asserting confidently that he ought to have chosen “the lesser of two weevils.”

Aubrey’s joke is, of course, a pun off the moral principle which states that, when forced, one is permitted to choose “the lesser of two evils.” The phrase is used most often in electoral politics. For that reason, we are virtually guaranteed to hear much more of it during what is shaping up to be a particularly gory election year.

A False Principle

It is a serious problem that this “principle,” now apparently part of our national lexicon of political ethics, is being mouthed by Catholics. If the relevant Wikipedia article is correct, the origin of the principle is found in U.S. foreign policy statecraft of the Cold-War era. Whatever its source, the dictum is anything but Catholic.

This may come as a revelation to political pragmatists, but Catholics may not choose any evil. None — period. There is a principle in Moral Theology — the principle of double effect — which, under certain clearly defined conditions, permits us to perform an act that has both a good and an evil effect, but there is no allowance whatsoever in the Catholic system for directly choosing an evil.

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