Download In Search of the Good!

In Search of
the Good!
Evolution of Catholic
Morality
The Journey
We will attempt to uncover in this course what it
means to be ethical and how Catholic Morality
has evolved and the factors that have shaped
and formed that Morality.
The Way
 History/Understanding
of Ethics
 Historical Roadmap of how Christian
Ethics has evolved from the Covenant to
Present Day.
The Basics
 Theology:
The Study of God
 Philosophy: The Love of Wisdom
 Religion: An organized expression of a
communities belief in the Sacred
“What do I love when I Love
God…”
St. Augustine
 Ethics
is the belief in a right/wrong a
good/evil. (from the Greek, Ta Ethika
meaning good character)
 Morality is the translation of that good into
our actions. (from the Latin, Moralitas
having to do with customs or habits)
Examples of Moral Systems
 10
Commandments
 Buddhist Precepts
 5 Pillars
 Talmud/Torah
 Business codes of conduct
 Student Handbook
 Collective agreements in Sports (personal
conduct policies)
Why Are we Ethical?
 We
can basically reduce the reasons
humans act ethically down to 4.
#1The Scream
 Action/Reaction
 Proposed
by Ken Melchin in his work
“Living with other People”.
 This is basically an action/reaction
response.
#2 The Experience of
Other/Beggar
 The
Beggar
 This is put forward by Emmanuel Levinas in
his work Totality and Infinity
 This experience is often referred to as “The
face” as it is the face of the other that
causes us to act.
#3 I have to
The experience of obligation
 This
is put forward by Immanuel Kant.
 In this we act out of
obligation/responsibility
 This is where we act because we feel the
obligation to not necessarily the desire to.
#4 The Intolerable:
Experience of Justice
 This
reason compels us to act based on
injustice or the intolerable we feel that
something must be done because it is not
fair.
 This was really pioneered by the Church
especially Pope Paul VI
Ethical Camps
 To
examine those reasons even further we
can, for our purpose, focus on three
ethical camps that are crucial to
understanding Catholic Ethics.
1. Aristotle (Teleological Ethics)
2. Kant (Deontological Ethics)
3. Levinas (Relational Ethics)
Aristotle
384-322 B.C
 Aristotle's
ethics are called Teleological
ethics from the root word telos which
means end, goal or purpose.
 Lets examine some of the thought of
Aristotle.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=175b
R_BU0m8&feature=related
 Let us list some of his accomplishments
and flush out his philosophy.
Kant
1724-1804
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2tvRhod
zf0&feature=related
Deontological ethics based on the root word
Deon which means Duty.
Wrote “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of
Morals” & “Critique of Pure Reason”
Maxims : Categorical Imperative/Means and
End
Theoretical Reason
Practical Reason
Emmanuel Levinas
1905-1995
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Ethics of the Face
We find The Good (God) in each other not in
what is similar about each of us but what is
unique.
Since God is much more that we can
comprehend we find traces of him in what is
unique in each of us. It is our seeing that
uniqueness in each other that we find God.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6RLHKRs
9D8&feature=related
Levinas Continued…
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Pope John Paul II refers to Levinas in his work
“The New Millennium”
Matt 25 “When I was Hungry you fed me”
illustrates the thought of Levinas.
Psalm 27 “Your face O Lord I seek”
God touches us through the face of the
other.
*The Catechism of the Catholic Church
(CCC) states “The more one does what is
good, the freer one becomes”
“To speak of the Human Person
….Autonomous, Self Directed” Gula
In This Chapter we will analyze the human person and attempt to
understand why and how it is that human beings act?
Are We Free?
 Agent:
A person who acts freely and
knowingly and is self-directed.
 At the heart of ethics is the belief that
Humans are free to choose…in this
chapter we will examine those who
believe this and those who believe we
might to some extent be determined by
different Biological and/or Social Forces.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
 Analytic
Philosophy: For anything to have
value it must be empirically verifiable.
 He argues against Analytic Philosophy
stating that Human Intention/Free Will is
not necessarily something that is
measurable but is real.
 “When I raise my arm, my arm goes up”
L.W. Continued…
 Wittgenstein
believes that human
intention is left over when analyzing his
statement. L.W. contends that not
everything that has value about the
human person is empirically verifiable.
Freedom
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As Catholics we believe that we are Free.
St. Augustine states “We will when we will, but
it is God that allows us the power to act”
God influences but does not control us. We
call this Providence.
Augustine wrote on Freedom during the time
of the Pelagians who believed Humanity was
fully free and the Manicheans who denied
any type of freedom whatsoever.
Freedom Continued….
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We attempt to define Freedom in the Catechism
of the Catholic Church (CCC)
CCC 1744: Freedom is the power to act or not to
act we are most fully free when our actions are
directed toward the Good (God)
CCC1745: Freedom as a result makes us
responsible and accountable for what we do.
CCC1761: One may not do evil so that good may
result from it.
CCC1754: Circumstances contribute to making an
immoral act more severe (Aggravate) or Less
Severe (Mitigate)
Determinism
Groups of Determinists
 We
can organize Determinists into three
categories: Scientific/Social/Religious.
Scientific Determinists
G.E Moore
G.E Moore
 G.E
Moore in his work “Principia Ethica”
discusses his theory of Naturalism.
 Naturalism sees the universe as a unified
system operating according to the Laws
of cause and effect.
 Naturalism attempts to reduce human
behavior to Biological\Physical causes.
 The Human Being is a complex series of
cause and effect.
Scientific Determinism
Continued
 An
example of naturalism is “The Human
Genome Project”.
 If Naturalism is true then Ethics would
belong in the study of Biology.
 If Naturalism is true then according to Ted
Peters “Human culture would be on a
leash, a short leash controlled by a
Genetic Agenda”
Other Consequences
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If Human Behaviour is reducible then surely
we can replicate it. (A.I)
Turing was the first to conceive of intelligent
Machines.
McCarthy coined the term A.I
Deep Blue the IBM supercomputer was the
first example of A.I when it defeated reigning
world Chess Champion Gary Kasparov
(Watson is IBM’S Latest Version of a
Supercomputer)
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Others who believed this would be Huxley
who stated “The Brain is a Machine Like
everything else”
Concepts such as teleportation would
illustrate the fact that humans can be
reduced and then re-configured.
Philosophers such as Descartes, Aristotle and
Plato would believe that there is a distinction
between the mind and the brain.
Social Determinists
Freud, Adler, Jung and Rank Make up the
Vienna Psychological Society.
So, did you get along vith
your muzzer?
Social Determinism
 Social
Determinism believes that Human
Behaviour is a result of a multitude of
Social Causes.
 Freud's “Theory of the Unconscious”
 Freud believed that we are ruled by 2
instincts.
1. Eros: Life instinct (pleasure seeking)
2. Thanatos: Death Instinct (pain avoiding)
Religious
Determinism
John Calvin and The Puritan
Tradition
Religious Determinism
 John
Calvin believed that Human Beings
do not “earn” their Salvation. Calvin
believed that God had already chosen
those who would be saved. He called this
Doctrine “Pre-Destination”
 The Puritan tradition believed that
humanity was so depraved that we all
deserved Hell. And that if we are saved it
is all because of God’s Grace.
Final Thoughts on
Freedom/Determinism
 Obviously
we are moving forward with the
belief that we are free and therefore
accountable for what we do. (If we didn’t
believe in freedom the course would end
now)
 Also we do understand that we definitely
are influenced by genetic/social factors
but that we do possess “Free Will”
Conscience
 Our
Conscience is what we use to make
the decisions we make 
 Let’s examine some factors that shape
and form our conscience (The Church is
one of those factors and the remainder of
the course will focus on how the Church
shaped and formed its Conscience as an
institution through a historical context,
then we will examine how we apply that
teaching)
Factors That Shape
 The
Importance of Others
 “Am I my brothers Keeper?” Genesis
 In the West we see others as obstacle
 Sartre saw others as “My Hell”
 Martin Niemoeller in his work “First they
came for the Communists” Sees all of us
linked.
B: The Importance of Having
Direction in Life
 Our
Direction affects our decisions.
 Charles Taylor believes there is a link
between identity and moral stance.
 Fr.
Ron Rolheiser “Meaning and
Happiness…”
C: The Importance of
Communication and
Language
 Our
language impacts how we see the
world since we decode our experience
using language.
 Charles Taylor believes; to answer the
question Who am I you must examine 3
Things:
 1. Community in which you were born
 2. The Language you Speak
 3. By Whom you were raised
D. The Importance of
Character and One’s Body
 Character
means how our actions over
time become fixed in our nature
 “Plant an action…….
 Moral Fibre: Is like muscle fibre the more
you exercise it the stronger it becomes
E. The Importance of
Conscience
 All
of the previous effect conscience and
your conscience according to our faith is
summed up in CCC 1776/1777/1778
 Thomas More is an important example of
how our Conscience impacts our person!
 “The Kings servant but Gods first”
E. The Importance of
Development of Conscience
 Your
Conscience develops as you mature
 Your Conscience develops as you follow
norms
 Your Conscience helps you deal with your
moral failure
 Your Conscience develops as you
participate in the life of the Church
 Your Conscience develops as you grow in
humility (I don’t know everything)
Our Conscience can be
misinformed/malformed
 Rationalization
 Trivialization
 Misinformation
 Means
to an End
 Ends justify the immoral means
 Difficult to reason