There are hard cases, as everybody knows. The prospect of loss of human good (of persons), of damage apparently avertable by violating the moral absolute, can seem indubitable and be felt as overwhelming. But these are cases in which we do not see the relevant parts of the scheme of providence—a scheme of which we never, in this life, see the whole or even much. (I say this to recall a relevant aspect of the human situation, not as an argument for the truth of moral absolutes.) In these cases, then, the moral absolutes call for a refusal to dishonor the basic human good directly at stake in our choice; they call us to leave providence to settle the "balance" of human goods, a balance which we would merely deceive ourselves if we supposed we could truly see and settle for ourselves.
(John Finnis, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991], 12 [italics in original])
Note from KBJ: Directly killing the innocent is absolutely prohibited by Roman Catholic moral doctrine. This means that there are no exceptions to the rule. Suppose that the only way for Finnis to prevent the torture and murder of 100,000 innocent people is directly to kill one innocent person. Finnis would refuse to kill, thereby allowing 100,000 people to be tortured and killed. As he puts it, "the moral absolutes call for a refusal to dishonor the basic human good directly at stake." Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum (let right be done, though the heavens should fall). Finnis would disclaim responsibility for the killings. This, by the way, is one main difference between absolutists (i.e., absolutist deontologists) and consequentialists. The former hold that we are responsible only for what we do; the latter hold that we are as responsible for what we allow as for what we do.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 