(Bernard Hoose) Christian Ethics (BookFi)

Christian Ethics
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Christian Ethics
An Introduction
Edited by Bernard Hoose
continuum
L O N D O N • NEW Y O R K
Continuum
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY10017 - 6503
© The editor and contributors 1998
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any
information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
in writing from the publishers.
First published 1998

Reprinted 1999, 2000, 2002
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-304-70263-3
ISBN 0-8264-4968-9
Typeset by Ensystems, Saffon Walden

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd.
Contents
The contributors viii

Introduction xi
Part I Basic Christian ethics
1 The Bible and Christian ethics 3

Tom Deidun
2 Natural law 47
Gerard J. Hughes
3 Authority and moral teaching in a Catholic Christian context 57
Joseph Selling
4 Absolute moral norms 72
Charles E. Curran
5 Virtue ethics 84
James F. Keenan
6 The human person 95

Joseph Selling
7 Conscience 110
Richard M. Gula
8 The theory of the fundamental option and moral action 123
Thomas R. Kopfensteiner
v
Christian ethics
9 Feminist ethics 135

Susan F. Parsons
10 The distinctiveness of Christian morality 149

Vincent MacNamara
Part II Applied ethics
Social ethics
11 Justice 163
Karen Lebacqz
12 Property 173
Timothy J. Gorringe
13 Morality and law 186

Patrick Hannon
14 The punishment of criminals 199

Bernard Hoose
15 Peace, violence and war 210

Richard G. Jones
Interpersonal and sexual ethics

16 Sex, sexuality and relationships 223
Gareth Moore
17 Divorce and remarriage 248
Kevin T. Kelly
18 Truth and lies 266

Bernard Hoose
Medical ethics
19 Euthanasia 277
Richard M. Gula
20 Ethical problems arising from new reproductive techniques 290
Joyce Poole
21 Organ transplantation 304
David F. Kelly
vi
Contents
22 Hypnosis and general anaesthesia 317

Aureliano Pacciolla,
translated by Bernard Hoose
Index 331
vii
The contributors
Charles E. Curran is the Elizabeth Scurlock Professor of Human Values

at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. His latest books are
History and Contemporary Issues: Studies in Moral Theology and The Origins of
Moral Theology in the United States: Three Different Approaches.
Tom Deidun is a lecturer in New Testament studies at Heythrop College,

University of London, as well as being editor of The Heythrop Journal. His
writings include New Covenant Morality in Paul and numerous articles
concerning New Testament themes.
Timothy J. Gorringe taught theology and ethics in India and Oxford

before moving to the University of St Andrews, Scotland, where he is
Reader in Contextual Theology. Recently published works are Capital and
the Kingdom and God's Just Vengeance: Crime, Violence and the Rhetoric of
Salvation.
Richard M. Gula is professor of moral theology at the Franciscan School

of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.
Recent publications include Euthanasia: Moral and Pastoral Perspectives,
Ethics in Pastoral Ministry and Moral Discernment.
Patrick Hannon is professor of moral theology at St Patrick's College,

Maynooth, Ireland and a member of the Irish Bar. He is the author of
Church, State, Morality and Law and Knowing Right from Wrong.
Bernard Hoose is a lecturer in Christian ethics at Heythrop College,

University of London. He is the author of Proportionalism: The American
viii
The contributors
Debate and Its European Roots and Received Wisdom? Reviewing the Role of
Tradition in Christian Ethics.
Gerard J. Hughes is vice principal and lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop

College, University of London. His writings include Authority in Morals
and The Nature of God.
Richard G. Jones, who previously taught Christian ethics in Manchester,

England, is a former President of the Methodist Conference and is
currently editor of the Epworth Review. He is also the author of Groundwork
in Christian Ethics.
James F. Keenan is associate professor of moral theology at Weston

Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His books include
Virtues for Ordinary Christians, The Context of Casuistry and Goodness and
Rightness in Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae.
David F. Kelly is professor of theology and health care ethics at Duquesne

University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Director of the Duquesne
University Health Care Ethics Center. He is the author of Critical Care
Ethics: Treatment Decisions in American Hospitals, The Emergence of Roman
Catholic Medical Ethics in North America and A Theological Basis for Health
Care and Health Care Ethics.
Kevin T. Kelly combines his pastoral work as a priest with writing and
lecturing. He is part-time Senior Research Fellow in Moral Theology at
Liverpool Hope University College. His writings include Divorce and
Second Marriage, New Directions in Moral Theology and Life and Love: Towards
a Christian Dialogue on Bioethical Questions.
Thomas R. Kopfensteiner is associate professor of theology at Fordham

University in New York. His writings have appeared in various journals,
including Theological Studies, The Heythrop Journal and New Theology Review.
Karen Lebacqz is Robert Gordon Sproul Professor of Theological Ethics

at the Pacific School of Religion in the Graduate Theological Union in
Berkeley, California. Her publications include Professional Ethics: Power and
Paradox, Six Theories of Justice, and Word, Worship, World and Wonder.
Vincent MacNamara teaches theology at the Kimmage Mission Institute,

Dublin. He is the author of Faith and Ethics: Recent Roman Catholicism and
The Truth in Love: Reflections on Christian Morality.
ix
Christian ethics
Gareth Moore taught Old Testament and philosophy at Blackfriars,

Oxford before moving to Belgium, where he is currently living and
working. He is the author of numerous writings, including The Body in
Context: Sex and Catholicism.
Aureliano Pacciolla is a clinical psychologist and moral theologian who

teaches moral theology, psychology of religion, general psychology and
hypnosis at various institutes in Rome and Turin. His writings include
La comunicaziom metaforica: diventare adulti, Ipnosi, Esperienze pre-morte and /
nostrifigli.
Susan F. Parsons is Principal of the East Midlands Ministry Training

Course in Nottingham, England. She is the author of Feminism and
Christian Ethics and of The Ethics of Gender (forthcoming).
Joyce Poole initially trained in paediatric surgery but moved into family
practice. Her professional involvement with seriously ill and handicapped
children kindled an interest in medical ethics. She is the author of The
Harm We Do: A Catholic Doctor Confronts Church, Moral and Medical
Teaching and of numerous articles on medical ethics.
Joseph Selling, a US citizen, is professor of moral theology at Katholieke

Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium. He co-edited The Splendor of Accuracy: An
Examination of the Assertions Made by 'Veritatis Splendor'. He has also written
a number of commentaries on Church documents and articles on various
other topics.
X
Introduction
In recent years there has been something of an upsurge of interest in the

study of Christian ethics. To those who enter into this field, however,
much of what is written can appear confusing or beyond reach. One of the
reasons for this is the fact that a good deal of what is produced by scholars
is part of 'in house' debates: the theologians and philosophers concerned
are really writing for other theologians and philosophers and for those of
their students who are already sufficiently well versed in such matters to
be able to understand. Clearly worded introductions to the various
elements of Christian ethics are not many in number. This volume is an
attempt to improve matters.
It is sometimes stated, rather simplistically, that Protestants base their
ethics solely on the Bible, whilst Roman Catholics ground theirs only in
natural law. It is at least debatable that either of these stereotypes presents
a complete picture of what was truly the case even in earlier centuries.
Today, however, few Christian ethicists would even make the claim.
Advances in biblical scholarship in more recent times have led most
scholars — Protestant and otherwise — to conclude that Scripture alone
does not provide a sufficient basis for Christian ethics. On the other hand,
during the last three or four decades, there has been a tendency within
Roman Catholicism to pay more attention to the contribution of Scripture
than was previously the case.
Nowadays, in fact, there is a good deal of agreement among scholars of
various denominations that there are several sources of which we can make
use in our journey towards ethical wisdom. These include the Bible,
various insights of philosophers (some of whom are, of course, natural law
thinkers), and our own reasoning powers and sensitivities. We can also
add the findings of the various sciences to this list. Sciences such as
xi
Christian ethics
biology and psychology do not normally tell us directly what is morally

right or wrong activity. However, they do help us to ensure that our
ethical decisions are based on correct factual information. An additional
item is found within one branch of Christianity, for, within Roman
Catholicism, there is also an official teaching body which is claimed to be
a privileged source of information and guidance. It is sometimes claimed
that certain moral norms emanating from this last mentioned teaching
body and from some other sources apply always and everywhere, regardless
of circumstances. Not all scholars agree about the validity of such absolute
norms. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there has been an enormous
amount of debate concerning this matter in recent decades. Some Christian
ethicists, however, have observed that many of the contributions on both
sides of this debate have concentrated too much upon the tightness or
wrongness of acts and have given insufficient attention to the person
acting. They believe that this imbalance can be overcome by turning to
virtue ethics.
All that has been said so far explains, to some extent at least, the
presence of the first five chapters in Part I of this book. The sixth is
dedicated to a discussion of the human person. The revival of virtue ethics,
the development of a dynamic approach to natural law and a growth in
the influence of personalism in Christian ethics have led numerous scholars
in recent times to accentuate the importance of trying to understand the
various aspects or dimensions of human personhood, whilst seeing them
all in the unity that is the person.
Clearly, it is the person, the acting subject, who takes into account the
various sources of ethical wisdom indicated above and who is ultimately
responsible for his or her freely taken decisions in the moral arena. Here
we come to the role of conscience, but the term 'conscience' can mean
different things to different people. This concept too, then, needs to be
examined in some detail, and this is done in Chapter 7. Closely connected
to the subject of conscience is that of the goodness or badness of the
person. In this regard, chiefly among Roman Catholic scholars, a theory
about the basic moral orientation of the individual has been developed:
the theory of the fundamental option, which forms the subject matter of
Chapter 8.
There are two other chapters in this first part. For many centuries,
works on moral theology or Christian ethics were written almost exclu-
sively by males from a male point of view. Women, moreover, were in
many ways subordinated to men and undervalued. Clearly, an important
dimension of what it is to be human was missing. As part of the ongoing
attempt to redress the balance, we need to consider the impact and
importance of contributions made in recent years in the field of feminist
ethics, a task undertaken in Chapter 9.
xii
Introduction
Finally, having taken all of these matters into account, we do well to

ask if there is any such thing as Christian ethics. If it is indeed the case
that the Bible cannot fulfil the role that some early Protestants tried to
ascribe to it, what, if anything, is specifically or distinctively Christian in
the discipline we call 'Christian ethics'? This is a question we have to deal
with in the final chapter of Part I.
In Part II we apply some of the general principles to specific matters in
the fields of interpersonal and sexual ethics, social ethics and medical
ethics. In order to keep the book to a reasonable size and an affordable
price, we have been necessarily restrictive in the choice of subjects
examined. Important contemporary moral problems in such fields as
environmental ethics, business ethics and genetic engineering have not
been covered. It is, however, hoped, that readers will feel encouraged to
pursue their studies concerning not only the matters dealt with in this
book but also others such as those just mentioned.
The contributors to this volume were chosen to write specific chapters
because of their expertise in those fields. Many of them are scholars of
international renown. The idea of producing such a volume which would
permit the contributors to specialize in areas in which they are strong
came from Michael Walsh, the librarian at Heythrop College. My sincere
thanks go out to him, to Joe Selling who gave me valuable advice and
encouragement, and to my wife Jayne, who is a constant source of sound
counsel and support.
Bernard Hoose
xiii
PART I
Basic Christian ethics

1
The Bible and Christian ethics
Tom Deidun
Most Christians believe that the Bible has, or should have, a special role
in Christian living. Ethicists in the Protestant tradition have generally
been more alert than Roman Catholic moralists to the need to take this
belief seriously in the conduct of their discipline. However, since the
decades leading up to Vatican II, and especially after that Council's call
for moral theology to be revitalized through more contact with the Bible,
Roman Catholic moralists have increasingly acknowledged the need to
give the Bible a higher profile in their reflections. In a 1971 article 1
Charles Curran was able to review several significant benefits brought to
Catholic moral theology in the 1960s by what he called the 'Scriptural
renewal'.
However, it is sobering to note that Curran then went on to warn about
certain 'limitations' or difficulties inherent in the use of the Bible in moral
theology - limitations and difficulties relating especially to the Bible's
diversity and to its historical and cultural distance. More sobering still is
the thought that the 'Scriptural renewal' whose benefits Curran applauded
had owed its success largely to its failure to notice such difficulties. It was,
in fact, the tail-end of a movement (the so-called 'Biblical theology
movement' in its 1940s/1950s form), whose scientific naivety had already
been amply exposed by the time Catholic theology began enjoying its
benefits.2 This is not to say that these benefits were not real as far as moral
theology was concerned; only that they appear to have been made possible
by methods of biblical interpretation which are now widely regarded as
inadequate for scientific purposes. Hence, the 'Scriptural renewal', while
it may have prevented Roman Catholic moral theology from ever reverting
to its traditional mould, offers no satisfactory way forward today.
My aim in this chapter is not to add substantially to what Curran wrote
3
Tom Deidun
in 1971 but only to describe in more detail, for the benefit of students
who are new to the discussion, the problems that may arise from the
standpoint of biblical scholarship when Christian ethicists look to it for
some contribution to their discipline. Only by way of postscript, as it
were, do I venture a suggestion for a possibly constructive 'use' of the
Bible in Christian ethics which respects the nature of the biblical writings.
Two distinct steps: interpretation and appropriation
If we are to apply 'what the Bible says' to our own ethical concerns (that
is, if we are to pass from text to life), then we must first do our best to
establish 'what the Bible says'. This prior task involves trying to discover
what a given biblical writer understood himself to be saying. There are
two distinct steps, therefore, in any attempt to apply biblical material in
Christian ethics: interpretation of biblical texts and some kind of
appropriation or contemporization.
Obvious as that last remark may sound, many modern hermeneutical
theorists would argue that far from these two steps being distinguishable,
the merging of the interpreter's horizons with those of the text is integral
to any act of interpretation. There is no such thing as a 'presuppositionless'
interpretation. Interpretation involves a circular, or spiral, movement of
interaction between interpreter and text, and this interaction is itself
constructive of meaning. In that sense, the reader is the text's co-author.
But it is one thing to say that there is no interpretation without some
involvement of the interpreter, and quite another to make the interpreter's
involvement a methodological imperative. It may be true at some level
that 'the theologian is . . . an exegete simultaneously of Scripture and
existence';3 but in what follows I take the old-fashioned view that in so far
as the theologian is an exegete of biblical texts, his or her only remit is to
explain the text in its historical and literary context. This entails doing
one's utmost to prevent one's 'exegesis of existence' colouring one's
interpretation of biblical texts. Experience surely teaches us (if common
sense failed to do so) that interpreters who turn to biblical texts in search
of 'relevance' will surely find what they are looking for, but only after
imposing on the texts their own notions of what counts as relevant.
This is not to say that interpretations of biblical texts which operate on
modern hermeneutical theories will have nothing to contribute to Chris-
tian ethicists' appropriation of biblical texts. Quite the opposite, for such
interpretations might, given certain conditions, turn out to be peculiarly
enriching, not least because of their inevitable pluralism and their ability
to bring to the ethicist's use of the Bible a faculty which often remains
unexercised in biblical interpretation, namely, imagination.4
4
Interpretation
Historical-critical exegesis
The method (or cluster of methods) of interpretation which professes to
concern itself with discovering what the biblical writers understood
themselves to be saying, and which claims to provide the least fragile
defence against the imposition of gratuitously subjectivizing elements on
biblical texts, is commonly described as the 'historical-critical method'.
This operates on the principle that a prerequisite for discovering what any
given biblical writer understood himself to be saying is a careful use of all
available critical tools (historical, linguistic and literary), joined with an
honest effort to be objective and an openness to unfamiliar ideas.
As implied above in my references to current hermeneutical theories,
the historical-critical method has not gone unchallenged in recent decades,
and in some quarters has given way to, or been supplemented by, methods
which start from very different hermeneutical premisses. Still, most
biblical scholars continue to regard it as irreplaceable, and as a necessary
first step, at least, in the interpretation of all, or almost all, biblical
writings. The Roman Catholic Church, having gradually become less
fearful of it than it once notoriously was, has recently given it its official
blessing (even if that blessing perhaps evokes, in uncharitable minds,
reminiscences of the blind Isaac).
A recent official Roman Catholic Statement about the historical-

critical method
The Pontifical Biblical Commission's remarkable 1993 Statement, L'lnter-
pretation de la Bible dam I'Eglise? declares at the outset that 'The historical
critical method is the indispensable method for the scientific study of the
meaning of ancient texts' (§1, A), proceeds to evaluate it with the words
'It is a method which, when used in an objective manner, implies of itself
no a priori (§1, A, 4), and concludes that 'To attempt to by-pass [historical
criticism} would be to create an illusion . . .' (Conclusion). In his address
on the occasion of the presentation of this Statement (23 April 1993),
Pope John Paul II told his audience that 'The Church . . . attaches great
importance to the "historico-critical" study of the Bible', and went on to
remind them that his predecessor Leo XIII had approved of it
Vehementer'.6
5
Tom Deidun
A premiss and some implications of the historical-critical method

A premiss of the historical-critical method is that biblical texts are wholly
human products (it has nothing to say about whether they are only human
products). This means that '[the historical-critical method] studies the
biblical text in the same fashion as it would any other ancient text and
comments upon it as an expression of human discourse' (L!Interpretation,
§1, A, 2). Of the many areas of broad consensus about the implications of
this among those who practise historical-critical exegesis, I shall highlight
those which anyone hoping to make a scientific use of the Bible in
Christian ethics will especially need to come to terms with.
The biblical writings are 'culture-bound'

It is no disparagement of the Bible to say that its writings are 'culture-
bound', for the Bible would not be a human product if they were not.7
This does not mean that biblical texts cannot speak out of their own
culture in ways that may be vitally relevant to us; but it does mean that
they speak out of their own culture, not ours. They therefore have to be
read with an eye to what can be known of the particular author's (and his
readers' or hearers') historical, cultural and theological horizons, which,
common sense tells us, are likely to be quite different from our own.8
For example: Christian ethicists need to be alert to, and to make
allowance for, the 'apocalyptic' mindset of early Christianity, with its
tendency to devalue 'this world' and with its general unconcern for, and
pessimism about, society at large. Early Christians could never have come
up with anything like a 'social encyclical'. They had no interest in the
social justice concerns which preoccupy many Christian ethicists in our
day, and no inkling that the gospel required them to defend - and still
less that it was essentially about defending — 'human rights'. They never
thought it was their business to try to transform social and political
structures by working for, say, the abolition of slavery, the social equality
of women or a more just distribution of wealth in society at large; and
this, presumably, because restructuring the ballroom will not be high up
on the agenda of people who believe the ship is sinking.9
It is not that New Testament writers looked critically at a range of
possible moral priorities and consciously opted for the other-worldly ones.
It was simply that their cultural and mental horizons excluded a
fundamental assumption of our theology and ethics, namely, that the
world is important. Hence any dialogue between modern Christian
ethicists whose reasonings mostly presuppose that the world is here to
stay, and first-century Christians who thought maybe it will end at tea-
time tomorrow, is likely to be at cross-purposes. Christian ethicists need
6
to be alert to this. It is easy to be alert to it in instances where biblical

writers expressly indicate that their ethical statements are bound up with
their imminentist eschatology (e.g., Paul in 1 Cor 7:25—31); but such
instances are few.
Admittedly, appeals to the eschatological colouring of ethical teachings
in the New Testament writings can be overdone. It may be significant
that in an epistle which very clearly reflects the 'imminentist' expectations
of one Pauline community (1 Thessalonians: cf. 1 Thess 1:10; 5:1—5), Paul
includes what appears to be routine exhortation (1 Thess 4:3—12); and
several sayings in the 'Sermon on the Mount', which is often said to be
markedly 'eschatological' in character, can be paralleled by sayings in
rabbinic and other Jewish writings which had no thought of an imminent
End.10 The problem for those who wish to find something relevant in
New Testament ethical teachings is to determine, from case to case, the
extent to which those teachings are tied up with a bygone eschatology.
I remarked above that common sense tells us that the biblical writers'
cultural and theological horizons are likely be different from our own. A
less common sense will warn us that this may be so especially where the
horizons of biblical writers appear to coincide with ours. For example: we
may too easily assume that underlying the statements about sexual matters
to be found in the Bible there is a universal, perennial rationale which
must, therefore, make them directly relevant to us. 11 This appears to be
the assumption of those who advocate a 'return to "Biblical morality'" as
the solution to all sexual-ethical controversies in our day (and for whom,
in fact, 'Biblical morality' appears to be synonymous with 'sexual
morality'); and also of those who, less combatively, just take it for granted
that the Bible must tell us something about God's rules on sex.
But this may be an assumption induced in us by our failure to enter
into the cultural worlds of the biblical writers. For regarding, first, the
Old Testament (and the Old Testament, in matters sexual, has probably
burnt deeper into the Christian psyche than the New), the factors which
typically underlie sexual prohibitions in certain well-thumbed pages have
more to do with cultural taboos (where 'purity' is, from our point of view,
non-moral and where, for example, menstruation, contact with a corpse,
cross-dressing, same-sex relations and intercourse with animals are all
deemed equally to be dreaded, and apparently for the same kind of reason),
than with anything that most Christians nowadays would admit to
thinking had anything to do with sexual morality, or else were based on
considerations of 'property rights', such as may be quite foreign or even
morally unacceptable to us. Then, with regard to New Testament writers,
we need to enquire (from case to case) to what extent their attitudes
towards sexual matters derived from the same cultural sensibilities as
those of Old Testament writers. 12
7
Tom Deidun
However one explains the sexual attitudes of the New Testament

writers, the fact is that none of them (with the possible exception of the
author of Eph 5:28ff.) comes anywhere near suggesting that sex might
contribute to the spiritual enrichment of the person and of a personal
relationship, or that there might be some connection between sex and
Christian love. Vatican II (e.g., Gaudium et Spes, n. 49) came up with some
positive reflections on the Christian dimensions of sex; but such reflections
were only possible through a giant leap away from New Testament
perspectives.
The following random reflections might alert us to the distance between
present-day Christian convictions about sexual morality and those of New
Testament writers: (1) In the whole of 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul
discusses sex, marriage and celibacy, he never once mentions agape. This is
especially odd from our point of view if (as many interpreters believe)
Paul's purpose in that chapter was precisely to correct wrong-headed views
on those subjects. (2) In 1 Corinthians 6:12—20 Paul exhorts the
Corinthians not to go with prostitutes. He uses several different motiv-
ations. Some of these are not easy to interpret, but respect for the other is
definitely not one of them. Paul is apparently not at all concerned for the
prostitute's well-being, and agape is conspicuously absent from the passage.
What would surely be a paramount consideration of most Christian
ethicists today in any discussion of sexual morality simply has no look-in
with Paul in this passage. Perhaps it is also significant (3) that the subject
of sexual morality was nothing like as fascinating to New Testament
writers as it is to us, and the Gospel traditions are almost totally silent
about it.
Then, in how many other areas would we need to query whether the
ethical perspectives of some or all New Testament writers coincide with
the best of ours? It may be significant that in the very area where Christian
ethicists have taken it for granted that they do — namely, neighbour love
— there may in fact be a radical divergence or only a partial overlap. We
should not assume that everywhere in the New Testament the love' that
Bible readers warm to really measures up to our own best Christian
appraisals of love. In some places it does; and sometimes it surpasses all
that we might have thought love to be capable of. But this is not always
so. The love that is fervently commended in the Johannine epistles turns
out to be a sectarian-type love, whose flipside is fear and hatred. Raymond
E. Brown says of it:
No more eloquent voice [than that of the author of 1 John] is raised in

the NT for love within the brotherhood and sisterhood. . . . Yet that
same voice is extremely bitter in condemning opponents who had been
members of the community and were no longer. They are demonic,
8
antichrists, false prophets, and serve as the embodiment of eschatologi-

cal lawlessness and iniquity. . . . Those who believe that God has given
His people the biblical books as a guide should recognize that part of
the guidance is to learn from the dangers attested in them, as well as
from their great insights. . . . [I}n a passage like II John 10—11 [the
author] supplied fuel for those Christians of all times who feel justified
in hating other Christians for the love of God. 13
Even in cases where New Testament notions of love are not vulnerable to
such strictures, we should not assume that they coincide with ours. For
New Testament writers are typically concerned with the perfection of the
subject who loves, and only obliquely, if at all, with the interests and
needs of the one loved. From this one might infer that the New Testament
writers seem not to know of the altruism that is cherished in the best of
our own culture, and arguably, in the most really Christian souls; and that
the love they commend is in the last analysis (albeit ever so spiritually)
self-centred; 14 or, alternatively, one could take the difference in perspective
as a cue for critical self-questioning about possible deficiencies in our own
culture's evaluation of love. But all that aside, the point I am concerned
to make here is that there is a difference in perspective, and Christian
ethicists need to be aware of it.
The Bible's diversity

The Bible is a collection of writings produced in many different cultural
contexts over a very long period of time (even the New Testament
writings, in the judgement of most historical-critical scholars, are assign-
able to a sixty- or seventy-year period). These writings are not like so
many chapters of a catechism produced under editorial direction but, for
the most part, free-standing literary works, whose authors held a wide
range of theological viewpoints and who each chose one or more of a
variety of literary genres through which to express them. Even among
New Testament writers, alongside a small number of fundamental beliefs
held in common, there is a considerable diversity of theological and ethical
viewpoints, extending even to the manner in which those fundamental
beliefs are understood and articulated. n
The Bible's diversity does not worry historical critics. Problems arise
only for dogmaticians and ethicists who link the Bible's normativity with
its canonical status and who, in addition, care about theoretical consist-
ency. For if canonicity renders the Bible normative, it must render all of
it normative, even when elements in it stand in tension with each other or
are mutually exclusive.
A first major problem for the canonically-minded is that of the
9
Tom Deidun
dissonance between 'Old' Testament and 'New' in the Christian canon.

For ethicists, this problem presents itself perhaps most acutely in the New
Testament writers' repudiation of at least some of the purity laws, which
lie at the heart of Torah.16 Appeals to New Testament texts like Romans
14:14, Mark 7:14-23 or Acts 10:9-16 do not solve this problem; they
only compound it. For, as canonical texts they invite Christians to accept
that at a very convenient point in time (i.e., the beginnings of the gentile
mission) God suddenly decided to 'cleanse' precisely those things which
throughout tedious pages of the same canon the same God had stridently
pronounced abominable. When Peter heard the voice from heaven telling
him 'What God has cleansed, you must not call common [defiling]', it is
not surprising that he was 'inwardly perplexed' (Acts 10:17).
Purity laws apart, there still remains the problem what canonically
minded ethicists are to make of those Old Testament passages which, for
example, command or commend the ideology of holy war, or which speak
of polygamy or adultery without batting an eyelid. Most Christians, I
imagine, now regard such texts as belonging to an irretrievably distant
moral world. But on the logic of canonicity the discarding of 'obsolete'
elements (including the purity laws) is possible only by way of arbitrary
selectivity, or by appeals to some kind of progressive divine pedagogy,
which comes to the same thing.
For the notion of 'pedagogic progressivity' cuts more ways than one. If
it justifies our discarding some elements in the Old Testament, does it
not by parity of reasoning justify our discarding the lot (a la Marcion)?
But to discard all Old Testament ethical teachings as but yellowed records
of some elementary stage of the divine pedagogy, now superseded, would
be to deprive ourselves of many inspiring ethical perspectives which are
lacking in the New Testament, and without which Christians' moral
vision would be very much the poorer. For example, the Old Testament
exhibits imaginations of God, creation and the future which differ
markedly from those of the New Testament, but are not, surely, for that
reason less to be cherished. May not Psalm 128, for example, or the Song
of Solomon, and all those Old Testament texts which celebrate joy in this
creation be 'meant' as a counterpoint to the world-shunning attitudes of
most New Testament writers?
In any case, theories of progressivity beg the question as to where the
progressivity is supposed to end. The usual view is that it ends with the
revelation of the New Testament, seen as definitive (Heb l:lf., etc.). But
we need to be discriminating about New Testament ethical teachings too;
and we can only be thus discriminating on some theory of progressivity
which extends into the New Testament. In reality, theories about a
progressive divine pedagogy provide no honest way out of the problems
which confront canonically-minded Christian ethicists.
10
Even if there existed some plausible means of harmonizing the Old

Testament and the New such as does justice both to their dissonance and
to their co-equal canonical status, the troubles of the canonically-minded
would only be just beginning. For even within the two collections taken
separately there are a variety of ethical perspectives, and different or even
plainly incompatible stances on some quite specific ethical issues.
To confine ourselves to examples from the New Testament:17 The
ethical stances of Matthew and Paul are quite different (which is not
surprising, given that these writers were addressing two quite different
forms of Christianity). To his (Jewish Christian) community looking for
ethical guidance, Matthew recommended Torah reinterpreted and reprior-
itized in the light of his Christology and his appreciation of the Jesus
tradition, and accommodated, so it seems, to his community's needs and
to the requirements of an incipient gentile mission; whereas Paul wanted
his gentile communities to put Torah out of mind,18 and to look rather to
the Spirit, to community discernment and to traditional Christian
baptismal catechesis (supplemented by selective endorsements of current
Jewish and Hellenistic moral standards) as an adequate guide to conduct.19
Further, 1 Corinthians 7 — for whatever reason — presents a dismal and
trivializing view of marriage and sex, whereas Ephesians 5 is theologically
profound about it. (And let us not complicate matters by noting that the
Song had got lyrical about erotic love.) Then, attitudes towards society at
large differ markedly as between Paul's epistles and Acts; the ethical
evaluation of the state and of civil authorities expressed in Romans 13:1—7
is hardly compatible with Revelation 13, or even with 1 Corinthians
6:1—11; and the evaluation of the moral condition of humankind extra
evangelium is very different in Romans from what it is in Acts 17, and very
different in Romans 2:l4f. from what it is in Romans l:18ff. and 7:l4ff.
Then, even regarding such a particular issue as divorce:20 In the Gospels
of Mark and Luke, Jesus' prohibition is presented as absolute, whereas
Matthew has Jesus include an 'exceptive clause' (which has caused some
exegetes, especially Roman Catholics, to engage in endless exegetical
gymnastics aimed at showing that Matthew's Jesus after all admits of no
exceptions to the divorce prohibition); and Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:12—16,
as it seems to some (including, traditionally, the Roman Catholic Church
in its canonical-legal practice),21 allows for some accommodation of, or
departure from, Jesus' prohibition in certain circumstances.
The diversity of the New Testament writers' moral teachings calls into
question any use of the Bible which relies in one way or another on being
able to speak of 'what the Bible says', or of 'biblical morality' or of 'the
New Testament teaching'. 22 This stricture will apply as much to the
methods of the 'Biblical theology movement' as to more recent and more
cautious positions, such as that of Richard B. Hays,23 who recommends
11
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interposing an act of 'synthesis' between the 'descriptive' and 'hermeneut-

ical' tasks. Hays acknowledges that such a synthesis will require bold
selectivity. But any selectivity is bound to end up with a canon within the
canon, which is a flight from the logic of canonicity and a common ploy
of canonically-minded interpreters who want to have their cake and eat
it.2
The situational character of the biblical writers' ethical statements
Most biblical writings are contextual in a far narrower sense than their
simply being historically and culturally conditioned, for they addressed
very particular situations, or they were occasioned by very particular
circumstances. (I leave aside for now the question whether it is possible to
establish connections, parallels or analogies between the situations
addressed by particular biblical writers then, and situations which
typically confront us now — supposing that establishing such connections,
etc., might be useful.) In the case of Paul's letters, for example (with the
possible exception of Romans), and in the case of, say, the Johannine
epistles, so much is obvious. It is perhaps less obvious in relation to the
Gospels. They too, however, almost certainly had in view the circum-
stances of particular communities. (A careful study of each Evangelist's
redactional strategy suggests so much.)
So it will not do to bring to the interpretation, say, of Matthew, only
the general knowledge that he speaks out of the culture of some kind of
first-century Jewish Christianity (fatal as it would be to overlook this fact).
One would need also to establish, in so far as this is possible, what
Matthew's community's relationship was with this or that sector of
contemporary non-Christian Judaism, what the latter were up to at that
time, whether there was interaction between Matthew's community and
the non-Christian Jews in the 'synagogue over the road' (their syn-
agogues'!); whether there was debate between them, and if so, over what
issues; whether and to what extent Matthew's community still observed
the whole or part of Torah, and, if so, whether some or all of its members
interpreted it in ways which distinguished them from their non-Christian
kinsfolk, and in what ways; and whether this gave rise to problems, and
how Matthew's community appears to have handled these problems, and
whether, and how, and for what reasons their belief in Jesus messiah
aggravated such problems; then, further, whether Matthew's community
was engaged in, or was contemplating, a gentile mission, and, if so, how
this might have complicated (or even created) those problems — to say
nothing, finally, of the sociological profile of Matthew's community and
the light that this might throw on his Gospel. On historical-critical
principles, it would be illegitimate to seek to appropriate Matthew's text,
12
not to say miscellaneous bits of it, without first considering at least these
questions.
So also, regarding, say, 1 Corinthians, one would need to try to discover
the mindset, beliefs and problems of the Corinthian community, if only
to decide whether what Paul says about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 is to
be read as timeless wisdom, or whether that chapter was not rather
addressed to very particular needs, for example, those of a community of
semi-converted Christians with hang-ups about sex and celibacy.25 It
could make all the difference.
As readers of the Bible we are first of all eavesdroppers. This means that
a proper interpretation of the biblical writers' ethical statements presup-
poses the prior task of reconstructing the situation which a given biblical
writer was addressing there and then. We may need to reconstruct the
unrecorded side of the interchange to stand any chance of understanding
what is being said in the biblical text, and with what nuances or emphases,
and in order to be reasonably sure that we are not getting the wrong end
of the stick altogether. In the case of a few biblical writings the quest for
a reconstructed dialogue partner may be misguided; in the case of others
it may be desirable, but impossible for lack of clues; but in most cases the
clues are there, and it would be disingenuous to ignore them.
Attempts at reconstruction will inevitably involve varying degrees of
conjecture and provisionality. Doubtless, the very idea of conjecture and
provisionality will cause hilarity or annoyance among those born or reborn
to see the Bible as the word of God tout court; and may be regarded with
suspicion by those who, while not holding a fervent view of biblical
inspiration, still see the Bible as a repository of straightforward truths,
and scholarly conjecture as an evasion of those truths. But the alternative
to scholarly conjecture is to risk getting it all wrong, and perhaps with
dire consequences.26
The Bible's literary genres

The biblical texts demand to be read with an eye to the particular literary
genre(s) which a given biblical writer chose to employ, and therefore with
an understanding of the conventions governing literary genres in the
cultural worlds of the Bible.27 These conventions might be quite different
from those governing what at first sight appear to be straightforwardly
comparable genres in more familiar literatures. To complicate matters
further, any given biblical writing (say, Genesis, or a prophetic book, or a
Gospel) might embrace a variety of genres or 'forms', each requiring its
own canons of interpretation — a fact which may be confusing to us
moderns, who take it for granted that, say, a law report, or Spitting Image,
or Budgie the Little Helicopter are each patient of a uniform and predictable
13
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set of interpretational criteria from beginning to end; and quite baffling

to those of us who come to the Bible with ears attunable to only two
modes of expressivity, namely, factual reporting and legal responsa.28
In regard to some parts of the biblical literature the fact that different
genres (or 'forms') require different interpretational postures is now widely
appreciated. Christians who persist in taking Genesis 1 — 3 literally (with
or without the Hebrew-speaking serpent) are now widely seen - at least
outside some circles in Tennessee and kindred intellectual milieux — as
daft; and those who take the Book of Revelation as a preview of things to
come are also widely regarded as daft (or as weird and possibly dangerous).
Most Christians are less prone, however, to be hermeneutically cautious
about apocalyptic language when it is attributed to Jesus (e.g., Mark 13);
or about the Jewish or Jewish apocalyptic images which Jesus used in
referring to the coming of the Son of man, or about the Judgement, and
gehenna. Then, when it comes to Jesus' reported ethical sayings, Christians
are inclined to drop their hermeneutical guard altogether, for something
tells them that the genre of such sayings must be Sinaitic. But why should
it be? And if it has to be, why are some of those sayings (e.g., the one
about self-mutilation, or the one about not resisting the evil one) serenely
accepted by the mainstream churches as all-too-obvious instances of
prophetic hyperbole, whereas others of them are pounced on as timelessly
valid moral norms, and, in the case of one of them — the prohibition of
divorce — as an unalterable statute?
Respect for context and for the author's textual strategy

Critical interpretation demands that a biblical text, like any other text, be
read in the light of its immediate and broader literary (as well as historical)
context. Even the smallest components of texts should be read with regard
to their function within their contexts. We mostly do this as a matter of
course when reading, say, an advertisement, a school report or a Lionel
Blue anecdote, but it is strange how doctrinal and other preoccupations
incline us to atomize biblical texts and to isolate those elements in them
that, for altogether extraneous reasons, especially appeal to us.29 One still
meets (or, more usually, is met by) a certain type of earnest Christian
eager to puzzle one with questions like 'What do you make of Romans
1:18?' They never ask 'What do you make of Romans?' (which might
make such encounters marginally more educative).
The temptation to home in on what is merely transitional in, or
incidental to, the text's internal logic is hard to resist; for in every biblical
interpreter there is something of the little boy who, on being asked by his
RE teacher, after a reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, 'Now who
was very sad to see the younger son return?', replied 'Please, Miss: the
14
fatted calf!' There is no biblical interpreter who has wholly resisted the
temptation to bring to the text fascinations that have come to them from
elsewhere (whether from cherished dogmatic or apologetic concerns, or
some paramount life concern or some all-consuming pastoral/socio-
political commitment).30
Manifestations past and present of the fatted-calf syndrome are beyond
counting, so examples must be chosen at random. Classic are: the (second-
think) Augustine's — and then, more disturbingly, Luther's — misuse of
Romans 7:l4ff.; the Roman Catholic tradition's cultivation of the Mat-
thean 'Petrine text'; the same tradition's use of the New Testament texts
which speak of marriage and divorce (though with curious disregard for
Matthew's 'exceptive clause', cf., e.g., Veritatis Splendor, n. 22);31 the
Lutheran tradition's fascination with the verb 'to reckon' in Romans 4;
Veritatis Splendor's, refocusing of Matthew's account of the Rich Young
Man (Matt 19:16-22) on verses 17-18; and the feminist exegete Elisabeth
Schiissler Fiorenza's discovery, in those resurrection narratives which omit
mention of the women, evidence of a calculated suppression of an earlier
women-oriented tradition. 32 The little boy need not have worried, for in
one form or another the fatted calf is alive and well.
A hermeneutic of suspicion
A corollary of all this is that exegetes, by training if not by temperament,
will be suspicious of texts that look like they demand to be read at face
value.33 The wisdom of regarding 'obvious' readings as at least pro-
visionally suspect could be supported by countless illustrations taken from
the history of interpretation. Here are just two, the first 'doctrinal' and
the second more directly 'ethical'.
(1) In Galatians 4:4—5 Paul wrote: 'When the fullness of time came,
God sent his son, born of woman, born under Torah, to redeem those
under Torah, [and] so that we might receive adoption as sons.' Now no
one doubts that by 'born of woman' Paul meant that Jesus was human.
The question is, why he drew attention to the fact. Interpreters have
normally assumed that he wanted to say that Jesus was human as well as
divine. Is it not just possible, though, that he meant, rather, that Jesus was
human and not just a Jew (and because he was human and not just a Jew,
people have direct access to his blessings just because they are human, i.e.,
they do not have to become Jews first)? The literary context of these
verses, and the situational context of Galatians (where Paul was opposing
rival missionaries who sought to persuade his converts to embrace elements
of Judaism as a precondition of access to Jesus) overwhelmingly support
this latter interpretation. Yet traditionally interpreters, doubtless assum-
ing that New Testament writers shared their doctrinal preoccupations,
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have taken it for granted that Paul's intention in this passage was to assert
the doctrine of incarnation and the two natures of Christ. (Never mind
that any preoccupation with the idea of incarnation, and, arguably, even
the idea itself, arose several decades later than Paul.34)
(2) In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul writes about marriage and sex. He seems to
be saying that whereas celibacy is preferable ('it is good for a man not to
touch a woman'), marriage and normal conjugal relations are advisable for
most Christians as a safeguard against the temptation to engage in non-
marital sex. Throughout the centuries Christian interpreters have assumed
that Paul in this chapter is calling his own tunes, and that a straight-
forward reading conveys his considered assessment of marriage, viz., that
marriage is a regrettable necessity for those Christians who cannot control
themselves; and that the best that can be said of it is that it is no sin. A
very common view of interpreters nowadays is that Paul's agenda in this
chapter was determined not by himself but by those in Corinth whose
dualistic disdain of the body and pursuit of spiritual elitism had led them
to advocate (or even seek to impose) an eccentric sexual asceticism. If this
view is correct, then 1 Corinthians 7 tells us more about the Corinthians'
evaluation of marriage (which Paul vigorously opposed) than it does about
Paul's.
The pitfall of the 'obvious meaning' claims most victims from among
those who are ignorant of the connotations of words in biblical texts — as
is often the case when these texts are approached through translation. For
example, it is wrong to suppose that the Hebrew terms generally translated
'holy', 'sin' or 'abomination' have the same semantic resonance as their
'equivalents' in modern languages; or that mysterion in Ephesians 5:32
(translated as sacramentum in the Latin versions) says anything at all about
marriage being 'a sacrament'. Then: it is wrong to equate Paul's sarx with
'the flesh' as this term is used in later ethical discourse; or to interpret his
soma ('body') in the light of anthropological perspectives which were not
his; or to assume that his nomos ('law') has any simple equivalent in our
own conceptuality, or any necessary overlap with our own uses of 'law'
(e.g., '"natural" law'). Similarly, the RSV is wrong to translate the Greek
episkopos and diakonos (e.g., Phil 1:1) respectively as 'bishop' and 'deacon';
and is at least misleading when it renders the Greek malakoi and
arsenokoitai (1 Cor 6:9) as 'sexual perverts'. Germain Grisez has written
that according to Veritatis Splendor 'passages such as 1 Cor 6:9-10 mean
exactly what they say: those who do certain kinds of acts, such as adultery
and sexual perversion, will not inherit the Kingdom . . .V35 Whether or
not such passages mean exactly what they say, or what Grisez says they
say, one must first establish what they say. A sure way of aborting this
task ab ovo is to ignore the Greek text and to neglect to ask what the
terms used in it would have meant to Paul and his hearers.36
16
Some areas of controversy in biblical scholarship

As if the areas of general agreement among exegetes were not cautionary
enough for Bible-keen Christian ethicists, there are also unending contro-
versies among exegetes, and a wide variety of views precisely in those areas
which might have been expected to provide the most promising points of
departure for a Christian ethical use of the Bible: namely, the ethical
teachings respectively of Jesus and Paul. These subjects continue to be
storm centres in historical-critical debate.
Jesus
In non-scholarly views of 'Christian morality', and in much scholarly
Christian ethical discussion as well, Jesus' ethical sayings are accorded
unique authority. (Even those who hold that the Bible's words are the
very words of God somehow manage to maintain that Jesus' words are
uniquely authoriative.) However, those who wish to appeal to Jesus'
ethical teachings are faced with a number of difficulties. There is, first, the
unsolvable problem of how to distinguish what Jesus said from what the
Evangelists, often variously, say that he said.37 Several methods have been
used in the course of this century to retrieve Jesus' words from underneath
the layers of later encrustations. None of these methods has escaped
criticism, nor have all of them together come up with more than tentative
findings, with the result that many scholars have concluded that what
Jesus actually said is now beyond retrieval (intermittent waves of scholarly
optimism notwithstanding). For New Testament scholars as such this is
not at all worrying, and in any case it does not diminish the value of the
Gospels as testimonies to traditions which were surely shaped by the
impact of the historical Jesus. But it offers no encouragement to those
whose use of the Bible in Christian ethics depends above all on an appeal
to the authority of Jesus' 'actual words'.
In spite of the difficulties of establishing Jesus' 'actual words', there is
now some measure of consensus on the core themes of Jesus' preaching,
namely, the kingdom of God; God reaching out to the alienated as never
before; the call to metanoia (repentance). But what consensus there is has
hardly brought an end to the debate. For even granted that 'the kingdom'
was a central theme in Jesus' preaching, it is still not clear what he meant
by it, or what his religious outlook was, and how, therefore, his supposed
utterances on ethical matters are to be understood. This unclarity has
given rise to a host of reconstructions, some of them more or less plausible
and all of them conjectural.38
For the 'kingdom of God' has turned out to be an endlessly debatable
concept. Did it refer to some ideal order of society for which people were
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to strive, or to an apocalyptic intervention of God? Was Jesus a teacher of

the inwardness of religion and of'the infinite value of the human soul', or
was his whole endeavour aimed rather at liberating the Jews from Roman
occupation? Was Jesus above all (or at all) intent on opposing a religious
attitude which makes law a surrogate for God, or was he rather God's
witness par excellence to the centrality of law?
At least some of the 'historical' reconstructions which seek to provide
answers to such questions are clearly attempts to invest this or that
modern stance with the authority of the historical Jesus. They show a
Jesus refashioned in the enquirer's own theological image and likeness.
Liberal Protestants found in Jesus the prototype of Liberal Protestantism
— a Jesus who, having been rescued from underneath the abstruse dogma
of Paul and ecclesiastical tradition, could at last speak pertinently to the
modern world. Albert Schweitzer in his Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906)
finally put paid to the notion that Jesus was a Liberal Protestant, with his
powerful restatement (or overstatement, as it turned out) of the view that
Jesus' whole outlook was dominated by his expectation of an imminent
apocalyptic irruption of the kingdom of God in this world. Jesus never
intended to provide an ethical guide for Christians living in an on-going
history, but only to recommend emergency measures appropriate to the
days leading up to the impending crisis (an 'interim ethic'). Schweitzer
thus came up with a Jesus who was foreign not only to Liberal
Protestantism but also to all who would look to Jesus for ethical relevance.
Henry Cadbury, similarly, in his The Perils of Modernizing Jesus (1937),
stressed the historical 'distance' of Jesus, in protest against the ease with
which the proponents of the 'social gospel' (heirs to Liberal Protestantism)
claimed the historical Jesus' support for their cause. More recently (1991),
Nicholas Harvey has argued that even our assumption that Jesus was
preoccupied with morals says more about ourselves than about Jesus.39
While most New Testament scholars are now very much more alert to
the perils of modernizing Jesus, and most take from Schweitzer at least
the point that Jesus' ethical teaching, or some of it, was intertwined with
his eschatological beliefs, there is a still unresolved debate about the extent
to which, and the senses in which, Jesus' 'ethics' were conditioned by his
'eschatology'.40 There is, first of all, debate over what Jesus' eschatological
beliefs actually were. Did his preaching focus entirely on the coming
'kingdom', as Schweitzer maintained; or was it not rather concerned with
the present inauguration of the 'kingdom' in his person and ministry (as
C. H. Dodd's The Parables of the Kingdom [1935] maintained); or was it
concerned, paradoxically, with both in equal measure?
Suppose, first, that Schweitzer was right to maintain that Jesus' ethical
teaching was wholly conditioned by his expectation of an imminent end.
(This view is no longer widely held, though as recently as 1986 Jack
18
Sanders vigorously defended it. 4 1 ) On this view, Jesus' ethical teaching

turns out to be as irrelevant to us as his eschatology was mistaken.
Arguably, it might still be legitimate to reinterpret his imminentist
eschatology, perhaps in the sense that all of us are living on borrowed
time, or in the sense that any one moment of our lives is just as close to
eternity as any other. 42 But however impressive such reinterpretations
might be, perhaps in some pastoral or homiletic inculcation of moral
urgency, they will not solve the historical problem of the relationship
between Jesus' ethical teachings and his eschatological beliefs; and they
will in any case be unhelpful to those Christian ethicists (most of them, I
assume) who would not be satisfied with an ethic devoid of material
content. 43
If, then, contra Schweitzer, Jesus intended to promulgate 'the law of the
[present] kingdom of God' (Dodd, Parables), then what are we to make of
such seemingly unrealistic injunctions of Jesus as 'Do not resist the evil
one', or of his demand (Luke 14:33) for complete abandonment of material
possessions as a condition of discipleship? Dodd (Gospel and Law [1951])
argued that Jesus' 'precepts' must be understood precisely as precepts, but
then went on to say that they were intended to specify the 'quality and
direction' which acts must have if they are to be genuine expressions of
Christian love. What Dodd meant is unclear to me, since, surely, precepts
by their very nature do not prescribe only the 'quality' or 'direction' of
actions but enjoin or prohibit this or that particular set of concrete actions.
How might I tell my bank to ensure that my deposit and current accounts
have the 'quality' or 'direction' of being closed, short of instructing it to
close them forthwith and credit the balance to Oxfam?
Then, if it is neither Schweitzer's 'imminentist' eschatology nor Dodd's
'realized' eschatology which must determine the interpretative horizons of
Jesus' sayings, but rather an eschatology of present and future ('already'
and 'not yet'), held together somehow paradoxically, then the question
presents itself, just how this paradox is to be maintained in ethical theory.
By taking literally those of Jesus' demands which seem realizable, and the
rest of them with a hermeneutical pinch of salt? But then the paradox
collapses into prosaic categorization. And who is to do the categorizing?
It might just as well be maintained that all of Jesus' reported sayings
are to be taken as hyperbole in the service of paradox (which seems a bit
of an overkill); or that all of them are to be taken literally (which won't
work).
The debates surrounding the teaching of the historical Jesus, his
religious outlook and the thrust of his mission as he understood it continue
unabated, and are no nearer clarity. 44 If these debates matter, then
Christian ethicists who claim special authority for the teaching of the
historical Jesus will need first to reconstruct that teaching and then to
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Tom Deidun
interpret it. In neither of these tasks will they be able to rely on any broad
consensus among New Testament scholars.
Paul
Christian ethicists have traditionally had recourse to Paul on two levels:
on the level of the content of his moral exhortations, and at a deeper
doctrinal/ethical level, where he wrestles with such questions as the
relationship between sin and the law, or the relationship between faith
and 'works'. Recent controversies in Pauline studies affect not so much
the legitimacy of appeals to his moral exhortations (though these are often
problematic enough, for other reasons), as traditional interpretations
(typically the Lutheran one) of the import of Paul's doctrinal/ethical
statements. Such interpretations have been massively challenged especially
since the 1970s by a thoroughgoing application of historical-critical
methods to Paul in the context of the Judaism of his day, motivated by a
determined effort to free the exegesis of Paul's epistles from doctrinal
presuppositions, (I refer to E. P. Sanders and what James Dunn has called
the 'new perspective' on Paul.43)
The essence of this critique of traditional interpretations is that (a)
Paul's opposition to Torah observance has been misinterpreted (it had
nothing to do with the Lutheran antithesis between gospel and law, but
concerned only the demands to be made of gentile converts), and (b) Paul's
statements linking Torah with sin reflect not a phenomenological critique
of contemporary Judaism, nor any profound theological or anthropological
analysis, as Lutheran interpreters have always supposed, but rather Paul's
own 'tortured' attempts to extricate himself from the theological difficult-
ies which arose from his 'dogmatically' motivated repudiation of Torah.
The dilemma into which the 'new perspective on Paul' has led Pauline
studies46 may dismay those Christian ethicists who look to Paul for
support in their advocacy of a gospel that is allergic to law, and, more
particularly, may challenge some theologians in the Lutheran tradition
who appeal to Paul for support not so much in this or that ethical stance
as in their aversion to ethics altogether.
I said at the beginning of this chapter that Christian ethicists intent on
'using' the Bible in their discipline must consider the two steps of exegesis
and appropriation. Having reviewed the chief difficulties which they will
need to face in relation to the first step, I now move on to the question of
appropriation, and some of the difficulties which that step involves.
20
Appropriation
Under this heading I first indicate the ways in which the Bible has
commonly been used by Christian ethicists, with some critical comments
on each of them; and then I make some tentative recommendations.
Some standard approaches

Although there can be no altogether tidy means of classifying the various
approaches to the Bible by Christian ethicists, the classification proposed
by Edward LeRoy Long Jr in 1965 and adopted by Charles Curran in
197147 seems as good as any. There are basically (1) prescriptive approaches,
which focus on individual biblical 'commands' and which typically appeal
to proponents of a deontological ethic; (2) principles I ideals approaches,
which deal with the Bible's individual ethical statements with a high
degree of selectivity and seek rather to encapsulate the Bible's ethical
teachings in one or more basic principles or ideals (e.g., love) — such
approaches appeal rather to exponents of a teleological ethic; and (3)
response! relationalI contextual approaches which focus on the biblically pro-
claimed indicative (what the Bible tells us God is like and about how God
acts) and take that as a point of departure for recommending how the
Christian, in freedom and responsibility before God, should best respond
to God in present circumstances (the basic ethical imperative).
Curran observed that this classificatory scheme meshed with the one
adopted by James F. Gustafson (1965/1971),48 who had chosen a basic-
ally twofold scheme, that is, (1) ethicists who looked to the Bible as
'revealed morality (= Long's and Curran's [1] and [2] above), and (2)
those who looked to the Bible as 'revealed reality ( = Long's and Curran's
[3] above).49 Allen Verhey50 covered the same ground under different
heads but on generally comparable criteria. I follow this broad classifica-
tion, with modifications here and there, and offering my own critical
comments.
The Bible as a repository of divine commands

This position holds that the Bible gives us 'objectively revealed precepts'
and that
. . . the criterion of our standing in the Kingdom of God and of reward

in the age to come is nothing else than meticulous observance of the
commandments of God in the minutial details of their prescription and
the earnest inculcation of such observance on the part of others. 51
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Gustafson attributed this position to 'evangelical conservative Protestants'.

In fact, it is not limited to one particular Christian mindset, since nearly
all Christians, more or less consciously and more or less selectively,
subscribe to it, having been brought up on it; and the mainstream
churches have traditionally made a carefully selective use of it (e.g., when
focusing on 'the Ten Commandments' or Jesus' prohibition of divorce).
Whether thoroughgoing or selective, this approach is highly problem-
atic, for a number of reasons. It must first side-step, or turn a blind eye
to, most of the difficulties hitherto described in this chapter.52 Especially
in the matter of the Bible's diversity, ethicists beholden to the oracular
authority of individual biblical injunctions are faced with enormous
difficulties. First of all, do 'Old Testament' injunctions count, as well as
those of the 'New'? If yes, then do all of them or only some of them? If
only some of them, who is to decide which? What reliable criteria have
we for discriminating between such injunctions as 'You shall do no
injustice in judgement' (Lev 19:15), and such as 'You shall not mar the
edges of your beard' (Lev 19:27)? Or by what logic do some participants
in the debate over homosexuality appeal to Leviticus 18:22, while
discarding as no longer relevant Leviticus 19:7ff. (the sin of not observing
a cultic regulation, punishable, like the 'abominations' mentioned in the
context, by being 'cut off from among the people') and, presumably,
Leviticus 18:19 (prohibition of intercourse during the woman's period),
both of which latter prescriptions appear to belong to the same code as
Leviticus 18:22, and certainly belong to the same canon? Or: why does
Veritatis Splendor (n. 91), when looking for Old Testament examples of
heroic fidelity to 'God's holy law', seize on the example of Susannah (sex)
and not rather (or not also) on that of Eleazar (pork)?53
Or should norm-hunting Christian ethicists perhaps take on board 'Old
Testament' law only in so far as it can claim the New Testament's
endorsement? But then, how will they handle the diverse attitudes of New
Testament writers to 'Old Testament' law? Paul thought it was finished
with (e.g., Rom 10:4), whereas a view 'canonized' by Matthew's Gospel
(Matt 5:18f.) held that every detail stands.
Or should they accept that Old Testament prescriptions are obsolete,
and that only the New Testament provides timelessly valid ethical norms?
If so, then on what canonical authority are they to distinguish between
such New Testament injunctions as bid a person not to tell lies or
gratuitously condemn their fellow, and those which forbid women to
teach, or have authority over males, or be heard in church, or to attend
church without a head-dress; or those which bid slaves be obedient to
their masters, or which make women's salvation conditional on child-
bearing? Are Matthew'?, versions of Jesus' words on divorce (with their
'exceptive' clause) to be taken as normative, or not rather those of Mark
22
and Luke? Does Paul's injunction to 'judge those inside the church' (1 Cor
5:12) override Jesus' injunction not to judge? Should Paul's exhortation
to respect civil authorities as God's ministers (Rom 13) take priority over
his recommendation that we should consider secular courts 'unrighteous'
(1 Cor 6 [he means: in the biblical sense])? Should we take it that the
non-Christian partner in a 'mixed' marriage is 'consecrated' by the
Christian (1 Cor 7:14), or should Christians recoil from any union with
non-believers on pain of being denied (2 Cor 6:14—18)?
Then, even if there were some acceptable criteria for separating off those
biblical injunctions that are still 'valid' from those which are no longer so,
on what criteria are Christian ethicists to decide how to interpret this or
that still valid command, and to determine what its status and function
must be? Origen thought that Jesus' commendation of those who 'make
themselves eunuchs' ought to be taken literally, but afterwards (too late)
changed his mind. Others, while acknowledging that these words of Jesus,
if indeed they were his words, were meant metaphorically, still differ on
how the metaphor is to be interpreted. 54 Again, to return to a point made
above: what authorizes some to interpret Jesus' words on divorce as a non-
negotiable juridical norm, while serenely interpreting others of Jesus'
sayings as hyperbole?
As well as having to come to terms with the above difficulties, and
others not mentioned for lack of space, people who see the Bible as a
repository of divine commands run the risk of trivializing the Bible by
isolating elements of it at whim, or by arbitrarily privileging one
particular mode of biblical discourse over all others ('norm reductionism').
This can lead to a restricted number of biblical texts exerting a mantra-
like influence upon their devotees. And in so far as this kind of approach
to the Bible is typically accompanied by the conviction that the Bible is
the sole authority in ethical matters, its advocates surely suffer the evil of
having their whole ethical vision narrowed down to scattered biblical
prescriptions, being left to their own imagination, or prejudices, in those
vast areas of present-day ethical concern to which the Bible speaks not at
all. (Which, conceivably, is part of the appeal of that kind of approach.)
The Bible as an expositor of ethical ideals

This approach consists in choosing a biblical or New Testament ethical or
ethically relevant master theme (e.g., neighbour love; the kingdom;
justice; the beatitudes; freedom; the imitation of Jesus) to be used as the
divinely authoritative framework of a Christian ethics which draws also on
other sources of ethical knowledge. As is often observed, this approach has
been more commonly adopted by people with a 'looser' view of biblical
inspiration and who correspondingly bring to the Bible a less literalist
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mode of interpretation — and who, in addition, are alert to the limitations

of the 'divine command' model described above. As Gustafson and Long
pointed out, this approach characterized Liberal Protestantism and the
'social gospel' movements.55 But it was also typical of Roman Catholic
moralists during the period of'Scriptural renewal'.56
The main objection to this approach is that the pursuit of a biblical or
New Testament master theme is perilous in the extreme, for it is bound
to end up ignoring the diversity of biblical writings in favour of its pet
relevancies.57 Typically vulnerable to this objection is John Howard
Yoder's claim that 'a social style characterized by the creation of a new
community and the rejection of violence of any kind is a theme of New
Testament proclamation, from beginning to end, from right to left'.58
This does not work, for even if it were true that non-violence is a dominant
or recurrent theme throughout the New Testament (which it is not), that
would not justify our singling it out as the New Testament's central
ethical message, rather than, say, almsgiving, prayer or speaking the
truth.59
The same will apply to Veritatis Splendor's tendency to assimilate the
biblical writers' various perspectives on 'law' to a traditional Catholic
understanding of 'natural law' (law = the decalogue = what Jesus insisted
on, and perfected = what the Spirit empowers Christians to obey =
natural law —> exceptionless norms) in order to claim scriptural support
for a condemnation of consequentialist and proportionalist positions
among some contemporary moralists.
Even the most modest applications of this synthesizing approach — the
kind that settles for a reduction of New Testament ethical teaching to
'love' — will have difficulties from the point of view of critical exegesis.
For, first, it is not the case that New Testament writers always give 'love'
the unique ethical status that many moderns are inclined to give it (New
Testament writers were under no pressure to come up with a single, self-
validating ethical principle); and it is doubtful whether either Jesus' or
Paul's ethical teachings are reducible to, or deducible from, the single
principle of love'.60
Then, even when New Testament writers acknowledge the paramountcy
of love, we should not assume that they all mean the same thing by it.
Jesus in the Synoptics speaks of love of God and neighbour, whereas Paul
speaks almost exclusively of neighbour love (love for everyone, especially
fellow Christians). The Fourth Gospel seems to understand neighbour love
as love within the Johannine community, and the Johannine epistles as
love within one's own narrower group.61 These various slants on Christian
love may give rise to very different, even opposing, Christian ethical
stances, so that blanket statements about love in the New Testament
really lead nowhere.
24
A similar critique will apply, finally, to Richard B. Hays's suggestion

that if the Bible is to be useful for Christian ethics, there is a 'synthetic'
task to be accomplished between exegesis and application, in order to
'describe a unity of ethical perspective within the diversity of the canon'.62
Hays seems to be over-confident about the usefulness of the results of his
proposed synthesis, which are (a) the primary addressee of God's impera-
tives is the community as counter-cultural community of discipleship; (b)
Jesus' death on the cross as a paradigm of God's faithfulness; (c) the
eschatological framework of Christian life (the new creation is already but
not yet). For, first, it is not true that New Testament writers are only
secondarily concerned with the individual's moral choices; second, many
passages of the New Testament reflect attitudes which are not at all
'counter-cultural' (e.g., much of Paul's and the Deutero-Paulines' moral
exhortation consists of thinly Christianized borrowings from Judaism or
Hellenism); and, finally, the principles that are supposed to emerge from
Hays's suggested 'synthesis' are too general to be useful. Would not
Humanae Vitae, for example, qualify as biblically-based under them?
The Bible as providing analogies or precedents for action

On this approach, biblical writers' moral assessments of situations which
confronted them are used as the basis for judging comparable or analogous
situations today. As has often been remarked, the main problem with this
approach is that of control, for the tendency will be to choose biblical
analogues which support one's prior stance. Gustafson noted the necessity
of often having to choose between biblical situations (e.g., between the
Israelites' liberation from oppression in Egypt and their aggression in
Canaan — both of which are judged positively by biblical writers) as
'normatively proper' analogues to this or that political-ethical situation
today. His recommendation was that those biblically described situations
should be preferred which were 'more nearly consistent with certain
central tendencies of the biblical, theological, and moral witness' and
'"truer" to the central themes of biblical morality'. 63
I take the point that the choice of 'biblical analogies' can be biased, and
consequently that caution and control are necessary. However, in my view
Gustafson's quest for 'normatively proper' analogues makes this approach
more hazardous than it need be. As I shall argue below, the quest for
'normativity' in the Bible is probably the greatest single obstacle to a
constructive Christian-ethical use of the Bible. Conversely, I think that an
imaginative and relaxed use of biblical 'analogies' (especially given the
fascination of historical critics with the situational contexts of biblical
writings) might be one useful area of shared insight between biblical
scholars and Christian ethicists.
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The Bible reveals not a morality but a reality: the character of the living God
Although in some respects this approach is similar to the one just
described, it differs from it in that it is not concerned with the biblical
writers' moral reactions to particular situations but with their description
of what God is like and how God acts. Gustafson described this approach
thus:
. . . The primary question became not 'How ought we to judge this
event?' nor even 'What ought we to do in the event?' But 'What is God
doing in this event?' 'What is he saying to us in this event?' Three
articles published by H. Richard Niebuhr during World War II have
titles which illustrate this: 'War as the Judgment of God', 'Is God in
the War?' and 'War as Crucifixion'.64
This approach65 looks not to biblical imperatives, interpreted in a more or
less simple fashion, but to generalized descriptions of the biblical indicative.
Christian morality is about response to a person, not a rule. The Bible
draws us away from fascination with God's laws and calls us instead to a
discerning and responsible relationship with God. According to this
approach, we are not looking to the Bible for normativity, but for partial
insights. By considering (among other things) what sort of God the Bible
reveals to us, we discern how best we can fulfil our role as responsible
moral agents responding to the living God who now acts in contemporary
events (a response that may entail more radical and more demanding
action than is ever required by the directly ethical imperatives to be found
here and there in the Bible). As the interpretative key to what God is like
and how God acts, practitioners of this approach typically rely on what
they consider to be the central or all-embracing biblical theological theme,
for example, 'liberation'; 'crucifixion and resurrection'; 'hope'; 'God's
doing humanizing work'.
The main problems with this approach are, first, the basic theological
one of whether it makes sense to say that God is 'doing' anything in this
or that event (does not Job protest against simple-mindedness in this
matter?); and, second, its over-confidence in its ability to discover in the
Bible a central theological theme, or a dominant portrayal of God. For
who is to say where in the Bible we must look to discover what God is
like and how God acts? Should we look to the jihad God of some Old
Testament passages or to a God who looks approvingly on all of creation?
To the Deuteronomist's God, or to Job's? To Paul's gospel about God's
limitless outreach to sinful humanity, or to the Book of Revelation? To
the God of Sinai or to the God of Luke 15 ? To passages which speak of
God's 'wrath', or to passages which portray God as endlessly forbearing?
The Bible simply does not give us a uniform portrayal of what God is
26
like, since different biblical writers have different theological viewpoints,

and many of them hold together within their several writings images of
God which are not uniform and often stand in tension with one another.
One's diagnosis of contemporary events will depend on which biblical
portrayal of God one brings to it, so that for all its apparent theological
sophistication, this approach, like the rest, may end up simply canonizing
prejudice. 66 In a word, we are here in the thick of the 'Biblical theology
movement', with its naiveties and its dangers.
Still, given these caveats, I think that this approach to Christian ethical
uses of the Bible might be fruitful, provided that it is used sensitively, is
humble enough to remain interrogative and does not seek to impose itself
as the way to the appropriation of biblical wisdom.
The Bible as formative of character

Bruce Birch and Larry Rasmussen suggested that 'the role of the scriptures
in the nurturing of a basic orientation and in the generating of particular
attitudes and intentions is a central one'67 — that is, that the Bible's most
effective contribution to Christian ethics is to form the character of the
ethical decision maker. These authors also make the important point that
the Bible's contribution to Christian ethics will be greatly impoverished
if we look only to its nomistic statements, ignoring the far greater potency
of its images, stories, historical narratives, rituals and paradigms.
I have a lot of sympathy for Birch and Rasmussen's stress on the Bible's
potential for character formation and for their (and Gustafson's) stress on
the variety of types of biblical discourse, and will return to these topics
later. Here, suffice it to say that my sympathy for Birch and Rasmussen's
view ends at the point where they say that the Bible's central contribution
to Christian ethics (i.e., its character-forming role) may dispense with
'biblical scholarship' (p. 325). I would have thought that critical control
was especially necessary if the Bible is to be used in the formation of
character. Surely Birch and Rasmussen are aware that some of the most
virulent forms of bigotry in our own day are promoted by people who
have been formed from mother's knee on the Bible unencumbered by
biblical scholarship.68
Gustafson's 'great variety' approach

Gustafson (1970, 1974) favoured a 'loose' approach to the methodology of
Bible use in ethics, which took account of the great variety of moral
values, norms and principles expressed in the Bible through a multiplicity
of literary forms - from laws to visions and from parables to allegories —
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Tom Deidun
and of the fact that they were addressed to a variety of particular historical
situations. Ethical judgements are to be made
in the light of appeals to this variety of material as well as to other

principles and experiences. Scripture is one of the informing sources for
moral judgments, but it is not sufficient in itself to make any particular
judgment authoritative.69
I consider Gustafson's approach to be probably the most honest and most

circumspect of them all. Perhaps my own recommendation would differ
from his only in worrying less about questions of authority and method-
ology and in being less concerned to find some (however qualified)
normative use of the Bible in the consideration of contemporary ethical
issues. Was Gustafson prompted to bring together the Bible and the
Cambodian invasion (pp. l68ff.) by the prior assumption that the former
must have something authoritative to say about the latter? I doubt whether
we need constrain the Bible even to that extent. Gustafson clearly had
moral objections to the invasion, but his objections to it seem to me to be
just such as would arise in any humane and Christian conscience, regardless
of the Bible.
Some principles that should govern Christian ethicists' approach to

the Bible
Acceptance of the often tentative results of exegesis
The Biblical Commission's 1993 view that 'to attempt to by-pass [critical
exegesis] would be to create an illusion' means in effect that Christian
ethicists who want both to make use of the Bible and to be intellectually
honest must be prepared to accept the uncertainties of exegesis, and to
rest content with exegetical findings that are often only tentative.
Christian ethics - ethics practised by Christians

I sympathize with those Christian ethicists who maintain that basically
they are Christians engaged in the business of ethics, and as such are
concerned to uphold the autonomy of that discipline. Charles Curran
insisted that the methodology appropriate to Christian ethics is just an
extension of that which is appropriate to ethics in general; and Gerard J.
Hughes maintained that neither Scripture nor tradition could ever be the
ultimate authority for deciding any moral issue, since both Scripture and
tradition are subject to the discrimination of reason. Gustafson, in mildly
Protestant vein (though here reflecting a position which, on the surface at
least, is not too far removed from the traditional Catholic one), spoke of a
28
'dialectic between principles of judgement which have purely rational

justification and which also appeal to the tradition expressed in scripture
and developed in the Christian community'. 70 All this must mean that the
premisses on which Christian ethicists work are falsifiable, and the
methodology they use is subject at every stage to rational scrutiny.
Christian ethicists are not gnostics who work on first principles that are
unavailable to outsiders.
The Bible's 'authority'

All the various approaches to Bible use reviewed above presuppose that
the Bible is authoritative, whether in a strict, nomistic sense, as often
among interpreters who hold to high notions of biblical inspiration, or in
a looser sense, as among those who feel that however sophisticated we
need to be in discovering and interpreting 'the Bible's teaching', that
teaching is in the end normative.
The question of the Bible's authority for Christian ethics is part of the
more general question of the Bible's authority and its relation to other
sources of authority — a question that can only be settled dogmatically
(hence with no regard for the interpretation of texts).71 Although some
Christians would see the authority of the Bible (or parts of it) as
foundational, in reality such a view represents a dogmatic claim which
always more or less avowedly involves a 'dialectical' (or, put less charitably,
a circular) relationship between an authority claimed for the Bible and the
authority claimed by a Church, or by some other kind of orthodoxy.
Others would regard the Bible's authority as always at best secondary,
since reason, precisely as the arbiter of whether or not it is being addressed
authoritatively, is always primary. (Even religious claims for a 'sacrifice of
the intellect' must address themselves to the intellect.) Still others, on
ostensibly theological or philosophical grounds, would make experience the
arbiter of the Bible's authority, as well as the heuristic guide to its
meaning, whether this experience is described in traditional religious
terms (e.g., the continuing experience of the Spirit or allegiance to some
ecclesial tradition) or in pastoral and socio-political terms (e.g., the
experience of oppression).72
Bestriding these views is the Roman Catholic position, with its four-
focal view of moral authority: right reason, Scripture, tradition, magiste-
rium, not necessarily in that order. Nowadays the magisterium tries hard
to highlight Scripture. Vatican II modified the traditional formula about
the sources of divine revelation being 'partly Scripture, partly tradition' to
one which seemed to give Scripture co-equal status: 'both Scripture and
tradition'. Veritatis Splendor (e.g., n. 5) even endeavoured to ground moral
obligation in biblical texts. It seems clear, however, that the magisterium,
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as authentic interpreter of right reason, Scripture73 and tradition, wants to

remain decisive. A consequence of this is a marked tendency to assimilate
Scripture to its own tradition, determining which elements in the Bible
are to be considered 'authoritative', or at least denying the Bible a critical
function vis-a-vis tradition. From a scientific point of view, those who use
the Bible with these presuppositions, however extensive their coverage of
biblical material, will not have progressed beyond the traditional Roman
Catholic use of the Bible as a source of proof texts; which is a pity, because
the Roman Catholic tradition, which generally has no hang-ups about
biblical authority, is better placed than most to make an imaginative and
creative use of modern biblical studies.
One's view of the Bible's authority will condition the ways one uses the
Bible in Christian ethics. As became apparent in the above review of the
various methods of Bible use, those who hold to a high doctrinal view of
the Bible, and who typically opt for a correspondingly straightforward
interpretation of biblical texts, will pass from text to existence without
much hermeneutical fuss (though not without a great deal of arbitrary
selectivity). After that, the more supple one's view of the Bible's authority,
the less straightforward one's ways of approaching the Bible will be.
Although some ways of approaching the Bible may be less fraught with
difficulties than others, nevertheless, so long as the Bible is seen as
normative, no approach to it is problem-free, and in most cases the same
fundamental problems arise from one or more of the factors that have been
illustrated in the bulk of this chapter.
This might be an appropriate place to comment on the view of those
who advocate turning to the Bible's authority as a refuge from the
impasses of philosophical ethics or as a supplement to a less than adequate
human reason. Biblical authority, so it is claimed, provides a degree of
clarity and reliability which rational discourse can never hope to attain
to.74 A principal aim of this chapter has been to illustrate the naivety of
such optimism. The tasks of interpreting the Bible and using it in ethics
involve just as much complexity, and are subject to just as much
opaqueness and provisionality, as any debate in philosophical ethics.
Christians who seek refuge in the Bible from the impasses of philosophical
debate put me in mind of the man in Amos who took refuge in a house
and leant with his hand on a serpent.
In what sense 'authoritative'?

Perhaps the whole problem of the relationship between Bible and Christian
ethics derives precisely from our preoccupation with the Bible's authority.1*'
This preoccupation was born of past controversies, and to the extent that
much present-day Christian theology in the West is still worried about
30
positions taken up in those controversies, it is perhaps understandable.

But past controversies were embedded in past cultures; and as Nineham
reminded us, 'The desire to settle things by an appeal to authority is itself
a culturally conditioned phenomenon'.76 Preoccupation with the question
of the Bible's authority may not be the way forward now, and indeed may
be the best way of depriving ourselves of the Bible. Why, after all, do we
need to speak of the Bible's authority, and not, rather, of its potency or
fecundity? Are potency and fecundity less 'divine' than 'authority'?
If the Bible is now to be creative rather than destructive for Christians,
we need a far more mature view of its 'authority'. The value of the Bible
for Christian ethics is perhaps more to be compared with the value, for
the human spirit, of the imbibing of a great foreign culture than with,
say, the authority of common law for deciding legal cases in England, or
with the authority of The Lancet for making decisions about appropriate
surgical procedures. We do not (except by conscious metaphor) speak of
the 'authority' of classical Greek literature or of the 'authority' of
Renaissance art. The 'law' in Christianity is, after all, not a legal code or
an authoritative document but the fertile Spirit of God.77
A recommended non-method
The approach to the Bible which I favour will not lend itself to any
'methodology', but will instead be free and unpredictable. Since one of its
main concerns will be to respect the principles and methods of exegesis, it
will not be vulnerable to the criticisms which show other — apparently-
more tidy — approaches to be either inconsistent in theory or unworkable
in practice. It might be more enriching than any of the methods reviewed
above, while remaining hospitable to elements of most of them. It will
seek to stimulate rather than terminate Christian-ethical discussion. Its
strength will lie in being inventive, rather than in seeking to settle issues
on its own biblical say-so. Its attention to biblical texts will be versatile
and imaginative. It will be disdainful of biblical one-liners, and suspicious
of 'favourite' biblical texts or 'themes', such as are nowadays cherished by
all manner of ideologues. Since it will make no blanket judgement about
the 'authority' of biblical texts, it will not need to be consistent; and
selectivity will be its virtue. Because it will want to take biblical writings
seriously, it will not use them woodenly. It might on occasion put forward
the opinion that the ethical insight of this or that biblical writer is
wonderfully intuitive, while accepting with perfect equanimity that this
or that other biblical writer's ethical stance is irrelevant or distasteful.
Similarly — and consistently with its refusal to be compelled to be relevant
— it will not feel that it has something special to say on every contemporary
ethical issue or ethically significant event.78 It will not feel obliged to
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Tom Deidun
come up with a 'biblical' explanation of Auschwitz, or with a 'biblical'

verdict on Cambodia. It might decide that 'the Bible' has nothing directly
relevant to say about AIDS, and nothing beyond the broadest generalities
to bring to certain huge areas of contemporary Christian ethical debate.
This is not to say, however, that such a 'non-method' will not be able
to make solid contributions to Christian ethics, nor that, for all its
lightness of touch, it will be less concerned with the serious business of
praxis than other approaches which give the impression of being more
earnest. On the contrary, it might perform a myriad useful functions, and
contribute solidly to Christian ethics in unexpected ways. Such contribu-
tions might be either initially 'subversive' or directly constructive. The
following examples must necessarily be rather scattered.
Some 'subversive' functions

On this level, an important aim of this approach would be that of seeking
to 'defamiliarize' Christian ethicists with biblical texts. For example, it
might call into question the supposed 'biblical basis' of traditional beliefs
or practices; or invite ethicists to look again, in the light of modern
criticism, at texts which became 'standard' in a pre-critical era. In the
context of Roman Catholicism, it might urge the magisterium to seek a
greater convergence between its official statements about biblical interpre-
tation and its actual use of biblical texts.
More particularly: it might query how a contributor to the Catechism of
the Catholic Church, in a section devoted to the Ten Commandments, could
virtually invest the whole traditional Roman Catholic moral catechism
with Sinaitic authority.79 Or: it might prompt us to ask to what extent
traditional Roman Catholic Church practice in the matter of marriage and
divorce still labours under a pre-critical understanding of New Testament
texts, or relies on tendentious exegesis, and what modifications of this
practice a critical reading of biblical texts might suggest. (Which, I
suspect, might lead to marriage being taken more, not less, seriously.) Or:
it might put to us the question, whether Paul's alarm in 1 Corinthians 7
at the fact that the Corinthians, or some of them, were opting for celibacy
under pressure from (some in) the community, and the theological and
prudential reasons Paul gives for vigorously opposing this, might not have
some bearing on present-day discussion about mandatory — albeit 'freely
opted-for' — celibacy for Roman Catholic diocesan clergy. (As far as I
know, this fascinating text - as opposed to bits of it, taken out of context
— has never been brought to bear on any such discussion.)
Or again: it might raise the query whether a properly contextualized
interpretation of Matthew 5 — 7 might challenge nearly every interpreta-
tion of 'The Sermon on the Mount' that has hitherto been proposed, in
32
that nearly all of them regard the 'Sermon' as a source of law (binding on
some or all), without ever asking about the genres of Jesus' sayings, or
about Matthew's understanding of Jesus vis-a-vis Torah, or whether
Matthew considered law (and not rather the character of Jesus as wisdom -
Torah in person) to be the prism of God's will for Christians (cf., e.g.,
Matt ll:28ff., with Sirach 24:19-23; 51:23-26).
Some more directly constructive functions

On a more directly constructive level, the kind of approach I favour would
seek to stimulate unfamiliar reflections, perhaps turning the very 'foreign-
ness' of the Bible to our advantage. As L. William Countryman put it:
. . . one of the primary contributions which Scripture makes to the

work of the Spirit in the life of the Christian community is that it
stands outside our present and therefore prevents us from reading our
contemporary world as an inevitability. 80
For we too are culture-bound, and where shall we turn for something to
jolt us out of our domesticity?
The kind of approach I favour might stimulate fresh discussion on
specific ethical issues, or, more generally, urge on Christian ethicists the
need to expand their horizons of relevance; or at least it might call
attention to possible imbalances in their agenda: for example, by posing
the strange question, why Christian ethical discussion is intensely con-
cerned with questions of sexual morality, social justice, bioethics, business
ethics, human rights, gender issues and the like, and not also with what
was a major preoccupation of many biblical writers — what the psalmist
calls 'truth in the heart' or what, obversely, the Fourth Gospel saw as the
hidden depths of mendacity in human behaviour (e.g., John 2:25b; 3:19f.).
Similarly, while the insights of biblical writers may be hopelessly pre-
Freudian, they might none the less invite us to query whether our post-
Freudian 'therapeutic ethos'81 has got it right in all respects.
More bittily: Such an approach might, for example, bring to bear
biblical texts about adam as steward of creation (also in the Christological
sense) on environmental ethics and the 'futurity problem'; 82 or some
prophetic texts which condemn the practice of 'religion' without social
justice on current social-justice issues (perhaps a useful point of encounter
between the Judaeo-Christian tradition and humanists); or a consideration
of the thrust of Romans to a discussion of religious (including Christian)
particularism; or an analysis of the dialogue between Paul and the
Corinthians (in 1 Corinthians) to a discussion of contemporary inner-
Church issues, for example, pluralism, conflicting rights, the dangers of
33
Tom Deidun
spiritual elitism, the co-equal sharing of spiritual gifts and the correlative
functions of community members (e.g., magisterium/theologians; lay/
ordained; males/females) in 'building up' the Christian (and wider)
community; or, say, a consideration of the situation which occasioned
Galatians to a discussion of the relationship between faith and behavioural
conformity; or the implications of Hebrews to a critical discussion of the
place of cult in religion. Or, it might draw on this or that psalm, this or
that section of wisdom literature, this or that parable of Jesus, to suggest
to us unfamiliar insights.
This is not to say that the Bible will be able to contribute to Christian
ethics only when it is presented as 'foreign', or only when its interpreters
come visibly armed with historical-critical tools. Doubtless, to dispense
with such tools would be 'to create an illusion'. But even when we have
heeded the strictest caveats of historical criticism, we cannot ignore certain
recurrent emphases in most New Testament writings which surely go to
the heart of their authors' perception of what we still regard as central
Christian values: for example, the emphasis on innocence, love, compas-
sion, forbearance, humility, and so forth. Even while acknowledging even
here the danger of arbitrary selectivity, we can hardly deny that there is a
recognizable set of ethical attitudes (seen as profoundly Christian and
authentically human) which span the gap between then and now. Scholars
who spend their days poring over the Bible, for all their technical
sophistication, must surely think it part of their contribution to Christian
ethics to recall to its practitioners such central Christian values, in case
their technical sophistication causes them to lose sight of them.
Further: an approach to the Bible that wants to be free and creative will
welcome every insight, even those not born of historical-critical parentage.
The approach I favour would be warmly welcoming of modern hermeneut-
ical insights, such as those which highlight the importance of the reader's
involvement in the interpretation of texts, or the transformative potency
of story, or which seek to go behind the text to unmask negative
ideologies. At the same time, there must be some means of identifying and
excluding the plainly aberrant. Dennis Nineham spoke of the distinction
between 'insight' and 'vagary', and took comfort in the assurance of
Graham Hough that 'the consensus of those qualified to judge seldom has
much difficulty in deciding where the area of legitimate and illuminating
interpretation ends and the lunatic fringe begins'.83 Nineham must have
written that in one of his rare trusting moments; at all events, our own
day has surely taught us that consensus is not necessarily a safeguard
against lunacy. Still, in order for hermeneutically sophisticated interpreters
of biblical texts to contribute, and to contribute richly, to Christian
ethical reflection, it will be sufficient that they include in their point of
departure a consideration of what can be known of the original authors'
34
contexts of thought, and also that they give an account of themselves, to

assure us that they are not off on a frolic of their own, or not all along
plotting to invest their readerly co-authorship of biblical texts with
'biblical authority'.
It is interesting to observe that the kind of unprogrammatic (yet still, I
believe, fruitful) approach to the Bible which I favour was the one that
early Christians instinctively adopted and freely employed. New Testa-
ment writers were convinced of the fecundity of Hebrew scriptures, but
never thought them to be independently binding and never felt the need
to apologize for the theoretical inconsistency in the way they 'used' them.
Although some New Testament writers often use formulae which show
that they considered parts of these writings authoritative, or often argue
on the basis of their supposed authority, none of them interpreted that
authority nomistically, for all of them were uninhibitedly selective. For
example, as mentioned above, kashrut rules were jettisoned quite early on
in some quarters (admittedly after much squabbling); and Paul regarded
the whole prescriptive function of Torah - in ethical matters too — as
obsolete. To judge from the uses made of the Old Testament by most
New Testament writers, Paul and the Pauline tradition were quite typical
when they said that the Scriptures were there to be 'useful' — to give us
'teaching', 'admonition', 'patdeia' (instruction) and 'encouragement' (2
Tim 3:16; Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:11). They did not think they were there
to regulate their lives or to provide a divinely authorized point of
departure for an ethical 'methodology'.
Also, the approach I favour, which seeks to allow the Bible to animate
and nourish Christian ethics, rather than requiring it to legislate (in
however loose a fashion) seems splendidly to accord with the best insights
of Vatican II, which invited theologians to make the Scriptures the 'sou/ of
all theology', and recommended that the scientific exposition of moral
theology be 'magis nutrita by them - not to enable traditional moral
theology to mesh methodologically with the Bible, but so that moral
theology might 'throw light on the exalted vocation of the faithful in
Christ and their obligation to bring forth fruit in charity for the life of the
world' (Optatam Totzus, n. 16). 'Soul', 'nourishment', 'charity' and 'life'
seem to me to reflect a rather more expansive mindset than one which still
looks to the Bible primarily as written evidence of God's eternal
preoccupation with exceptionless norms.
Contributions in broad brush

In case my description of the approach I favour has given the impression
that it is rather too disorganized or too desultory to contribute solidly to
Christian ethical reflection, I conclude with just three examples (chosen
35
Tom Deidun
from a whole range of possible ones) of very general, though still

important, insights which biblical studies might bring to Christian
ethics.84
Coinherence of 'imperative' and 'indicative'

For all the diversity and historically conditioned character of the New
Testament writers' ethical teachings, these writers shared a more or less
explicit awareness that the Christian 'ought' now flowed from a specifically
Christian indicative. This does not mean that Christian ethics has now
become esotericized; only that for Christian ethicists the ethical imperative
is henceforth grounded not simply in right reason and/or consideration of
the sovereignty of the creator, but in the new action of God in Christ and
the continuing action of the Holy Spirit. New Testament writers, in
varying degrees of generality, thought their ethical thoughts in the
context of this novel indicative.
This is perhaps clearest in Paul. It is well known that in the content of
his moral exhortations Paul is jackdaw-like — choosing whatever appeals
to him, from (so it seems) Jesus' stress on the paramountcy of love,
through traditional baptismal catechesis, to standard Jewish allergies or
the moralizing platitudes of Hellenism. But on a deeper level, Paul's
ethics are an integral part of his theology, for, as he sees it, the fundamental
imperative of right living flows from the indicative; indeed, is the
indicative becoming dynamic in human freedom. So, for example, he
often, paradoxically, juxtaposes indicative and imperative: 'You have put
on Christ' — 'Put on Christ!'; 'You have life in the Spirit' — 'Walk in the
Spirit!'; 'For freedom Christ has set you free' - 'Be free!' Or, he
characteristically introduces his moral exhortations with a 'Therefore . . .',
referring back to his exposition of the divinely-wrought indicative. (Classic
are Rom 6:12; 8:12 and 12:1.) Then, in answering the charge that his
dispensing with Torah must lead to antinomianism (Rom 3:8; 6:1, 15),
he turns not to some alternative set of prescriptions, but to the indicative
of the Christian's sharing in Christ's destiny (Rom 6). One could say that
Paul's insistence on the imperative is simply a function of his proclaiming
the indicative.
We may be on less secure historical ground regarding Jesus' teaching:
but in so far as the moral demands which Jesus made of his disciples
flowed from the indicative of the kingdom, and had to do with responding
to it, we may say that Jesus always at least implicitly introduced his
ethical teaching with a 'Therefore'.
An enhanced awareness that the context of 'Christian' ethical thought
and action is always the Christian indicative might greatly benefit
Christian ethics. In fact, it must be this that makes Christian ethics
36
Christian. The difference between the ethical stances and values of

Christians and those of non-Christians is not that Christians have an
ethical agenda that could not be cherished by others, but that the context
in which they seek to realize this agenda is that of the gospel's indicative,
which in practice means a personal experience of Christ. The Christian
part of Christian ethics comes in when the people wrestling with ethics
have a faith-experience of Christ, are formed by the ethos and values of
Christian tradition, are sensitive to the insights and concerns of Christian
communities and, in a word, see the world with eyes which are (by their
best endeavours) both human and Christlike; and, finally, that their
insights are intended to benefit Christian communities, and the world
through them.
Put differently: if Christian ethics has any Christian specificity, it must
surely be one that derives from the faith dimension of its practitioners'
experience. But the faith element in Christian ethics means more than
(and surely other than) accepting 'in faith', say, a particular interpretation
of a biblical text or, in the case of Roman Catholics, a particular
pronouncement of the rnagisterium. The faith element comes in when
Christian ethicists, while striving critically to bring to bear on ethical
issues right reason, whatever scientific knowledge is currently available,
biblical insights, and the wisdom of their own church teaching and
traditions, and in dialogue and debate with their non-Christian colleagues,
see their efforts and integrity in all of this procedure as their personal
response to a transcendent calling.
In practice, the New Testament writers' view of the co-inherence of
imperative and indicative in Christian living, if taken seriously, might
have very significant effects in Christian ethics. It might, first, encourage
Christian ethicists to say their prayers.8^ Less dauntingly, it might
encourage them to review the relationship between their own and other
theological disciplines, and maybe to think back to the coinherence of
Christian ethics with dogmatic and spiritual theology of once upon a time.
Roman Catholics generally deride the days when seminary moral theology
was indistinguishable from canon law. Those days are said to have gone;
but is it not still the case that in some university theology faculties
students are admitted to postgraduate courses in Christian ethics without
a thorough grounding in theology (including biblical studies)? This may
be a way of ensuring an eventual return to legalism in Christian ethics, in
however modern a dress.
A biblical paradigm for the process of ethical discernment
In Paul's communities it appears that the most important factor in shaping

both the general ethical attitudes of Christians and their stance on
37
Tom Deidun
particular issues was community discernment. 1 Corinthians 14 provides

a good window onto this process. In the church gathering all members of
the community have 'some teaching' (no doubt Paul means in ethical
matters too); and if 'prophetic' utterances were somehow privileged, this
was almost certainly because they were judged to be prophetic, not because
they came from an elite group of prophets. All members of the community
were potentially prophets, and indeed should be keen to exercise the gift
of prophecy (1 Cor 14:1). We can only guess at the criteria which the
community used (or argued about) in ethical discernment; but if Paul's
own 'methodology' is anything to go by, we can be pretty sure that they
looked not to a code of prescriptions but to whatever sources of wisdom
they deemed to express the mindset of the Spirit (Rom 8:6) and to be
relevant in the circumstances.
We cannot assume that the Pauline communities were typical in this.
But does that matter? There was a way of Christian ethical discernment
which has become foreign to some Christian traditions today, or even
regarded as perilous. Christian ethicists in traditions where a sensus fidelium
has come to be regarded as a threat rather than the Spirit's way of going
forward might at least pause to reflect on the strange ecclesial setup of the
Pauline communities. This might then lead them to ask whether the
structures for ecclesial discernment perpetuated by their own tradition
need to be in some kind of continuity with those of churches in the New
Testament period and if so, and in so far as they are not, where the
discontinuity came from, and whether it can be defended by an honest
Christian conscience. Perhaps that line of questioning would take Chris-
tian ethicists into historical and theological depths which may be outside
their remit; though, come to think of it, perhaps it is part of their essential
remit.
Progressivity
I recalled above a common ploy of canonically-minded Bible interpreters
in handling the problem of the (to us) obvious provisionality of much Old
Testament moral teaching. To be consistent with the logic of canonicity,
it was enough to assert that God was educating God's people through a
progressive pedagogy, whose earlier stages were to be revealed as merely
provisional at the time of New Testament graduation. We saw then that
this did not work, for even within New Testament ethical teachings we
need to separate off the obsolete from the potentially enduring; so that it
appears that the progressive divine pedagogy continues into the New
Testament period.
But this is not to say that some notion of progressivity (or at least of
provisionality or corrigibility) might not encourage useful reflection
38
among Christian ethicists. For what if the divine pedagogical process

continues even beyond the New Testament period? If some such notion
were applied in a thoroughgoing manner, that is, to provisionalize not
only the Old Testament, and not only the New Testament, but also, and
perhaps most importantly, on-going Christian ethical reflection, it might
turn out to be a luminous, liberating concept — one perhaps that was
worthy of God. For maybe the ethical perceptions of every age are but
provisional stages in the divine pedagogue's teaching strategy. As Leonard
Hodgson expressed it:
So far from having given us a full and final explanation of the meaning
of our faith [the New Testament writers] were taking the first steps
towards its discovery, initiating a process which under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit has been continuing ever since and is still going on. . . .
[W]e have to take into account how the understanding of it by the
New Testament Christians has been deepened and enriched in the
experience of their successors, and is still being deepened and enriched
by our experience of life in the world of today.86
If that is true, then a court-jester-like reminder about the provisionality
of ethical reflection might be not the least of the broader contributions
which historical-critical biblical studies have to offer students of Christian
ethics.87
Summary
Any use of the Bible as a methodological starting-point for Christian

ethics, or as a source of self-authenticating raw material, is impossible to
maintain in theory and in practice is bound to impoverish both the Bible
and Christian ethics; whereas a relaxed and imaginative approach to the
Bible — such as refrains from burdening it with our own preoccupations,
and especially our preoccupation with 'authority' — might be endlessly
enriching. Such an approach might have nothing to offer by way of text-
generated ethical norms, be they ever so loose, nor anything that is
satisfyingly amenable to system or which could conveniently be set out in
a textbook. Still, it might have the potential of enriching our ethical
imagination in unexpected ways. And even if it fails in all that, it will at
least be honest; and on that minimal basis alone, it might spare Christian
ethicists a lot of theoretical angst — and Christians at the coalface some
unnecessary misery.
39
Tom Deidun
Notes
1 Charles E. Curran,The role and function of the Scriptures in moral theology', first
published in Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America (1971); reprinted
in Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, SJ (eds), The Use of Scripture in
Moral Theology (Readings in Moral Theology, no. 4; Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press,
1984), pp. 178-212.
2 'In academic circles, this ephemeral movement was by I960 in a state of terminal
decline': Robert Morgan, 'Biblical theology' in R. Coggins and J. L. Houlden
(eds), A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM Press, 1990), p. 89. See
Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970).
This is by no means to deny that many Catholic exegetes at that time were
employing proper scientific methods in their study of the Bible. Some of them
paid for it dearly.
3 James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (London: SPCK, 1977), p. 8.
4 See, e.g., Robert Murray, Exegesis and Imagination (University of London, The
Ethel M. Wood Lecture, 1988).
5 ET and commentary in Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Biblical Commission's Document 'The
Interpretation of the Bible in the Church' (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1995).
6 After vigorously commending the historical-critical method ('which implies of
itself no a priori), the Biblical Commission's Statement went on to speak of
'Catholic exegesis'. I cannot understand this incongruity. Fitzmyer, who was a
member of the Commission, tries hard to explain it (The Biblical Commission's
Document, p. 47), but, as it seems to me, makes matters worse when he speaks of
'the way the Bible must be interpreted in the Church'. On p. 133, with reference
to 'Catholic exegesis', Fitzmyer speaks of 'risks', 'dangers' and the need for
'caution', especially regarding the temptation to 'attribute to the Bible what is
only a product of a later development'. Thirteen months after Pope John Paul had
blessed the Commission's Statement, the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis
put forward the (ostensibly historical) judgement that 'the Blessed Virgin Mary
{did not receive] . . . the ministerial priesthood' (n. 3).
7 The Biblical Commission's Statement sees a denial of this as a failure to accept
fully the 'consequences of the Incarnation' (Conclusion).
8 See Dennis Nineham, The Use and Abuse of the Bible (London and Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 1976), esp. ch. 1.
9 The point being made in this paragraph does not depend entirely on the view that
Jesus and the New Testament writers believed that the End was imminent (pace
Nigel Biggar and Donald Hay, The Bible, Christian ethics and the provision of
Social Security', Studies m Christian Ethics 7.2 [1994], pp. 43-64 [44f.]). I
personally think that Jesus and some New Testament writers did. But even if they
did not, it seems certain that their negative evaluation of the world was influenced
by apocalyptic elements in Judaism. Cf. J. L. Houlden, Ethics and the New Testament
(London and Oxford: Mowbray, 1975), pp. 8ff.
10 Cf. Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew (London: SPCK, 1976),
pp. 117—36; E. P. Sanders, The Question of Uniqueness in the Teaching of Jesus
(University of London, The Ethel M. Wood Lecture, 1990).
11 Edouard Hamel is confident that the Bible presents 'a fundamental sexual
anthropology' and 'the fundamental significance of sexuality': 'Scripture: the soul
of moral theology?' in Curran and McCormick, Use, pp. 105-32 (p. 113).
40
1 2 1 am not convinced by the arguments of L. William Countryman, in his thought-

provoking Dirt. Greed and Sex (London: SCM Press, 1989), that early Christians
abandoned Hebrew purity considerations over sex as resolutely as they eventually
did over foods. Regarding Paul (who is important here): those places where the
Jew in him prompts him to accompany condemnations of sexual impurity with
derogatory remarks about gentiles (1 Thess 4:3ff.; 1 Cor 5:1, etc.) do not support
that view. Nor am I convinced that Paul collapsed 'impurity' into 'greed'
(Countryman, p. 108), though admittedly he and the tradition after him some-
times associated the two.
13 Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves and Hates
of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1979),
pp. 132, 135.
14 Cf. H. Cadbury, The Perils of Modernizing Jesus, pp. 86ff.; Nineham, Use, p. 204
(Hodgson).
15 See James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (London: SCM
Press, 1977); also Nineham, Use, ch. 7.
16 The view that the purity laws have nothing to do with ethics mystifies me. They
may have nothing to do with our ethics; but that is because we have, for one
reason or another, chosen to exclude them. On the logic of canonicity our exclusion
of them is arbitrary.
17 And to examples of diversity in directly ethical matters. There is also a kaleidoscope
of views within the New Testament relating to eschatology, soteriology, Christ,
the Church, church order, and every area of theology one can think of (see n. 15
above), all of which areas may have some bearing on ethical matters.
18 Pace E. P. Sanders (Paul, the Law and the Jewish People [London: SCM Press, 1985]),
ch. 3, who argues that once Paul got off the subject of 'entry requirements' for
gentiles, he took it for granted that Christians would continue to defer to the
moral prescriptions of Torah. 1 am not convinced that texts like Romans 8:4;
13:8-10 offer any support for that view. (By this I do not mean that Paul intended
members of his communities to feel free to commit adultery, steal, bear false
witness, etc.)
19 John Drane, Paul: Libertine or Legalist (London: SPCK, 1975), argued that Paul,
having at an early stage (Galatians) entertained the view that the Spirit was an
adequate ethical guide for Christians, later (1 Corinthians) saw the error of his
ways and adopted a law-ethic. The view that Galatians is early is debatable; and
what Drane calls a 'law ethic' is already present in 1 Thessalonians 4:1—12. It is
commonly held that 1 Thessalonians (which Drane's book omits to mention) is
the earliest extant letter of Paul.
20 On divorce, cf., e.g., Houlden, Ethics, pp. 73—80; John R. Donahue SJ, 'Divorce:
New Testament perspectives', The Month (April 1981), pp. 113-20.
2 1 1 refer to the so-called 'Pauline privilege'.
22 Or, in Houlden's phrase, on 'the diversity of New Testament teaching [being]
pulped into a plausible uniformity' (Ethics, p. 115). This approach characterizes
the use of the Bible in the documents of Vatican II: e.g., Lumen Gentium (nn.
18—21) punctuates its exposition of the standard Catholic account of the historical
origins of the hierarchical Church with references to the most diverse New
Testament texts, all of which it sees as witnesses to a single point of view.
23 Richard B. Hays, 'Scripture-shaped community: the problem of method in New
Testament ethics', Interpretation 44 (1990), pp. 42-55.
24 'If these texts [sc., New Testament texts that advocate incompatible ethical
stances] are allowed to have their say, they will force us to choose between them —
41
Tom Deidun
or to reject the normative claims of both' (Hays, art. cit., p. 47). Why not both
choose between them and reject the normative claims of both?
25 Cf. H. Chadwick, '"All things to all men": (1 Cor. 9:22)', New Testament Studies 1
(1954-55), pp. 261-75; W. E. Phipps, 'Is Paul's attitude towards sexual relations
contained in 1 Cor. 7:1?', New Testament Studies 28 (1982), pp. 125ff.
26 For an example, see the articles referred to in note 25 above, and Peter Brown,
The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), pp. 53ff.
27 Pope John Paul, in his address on the occasion of the presentation of the Biblical
Commission's Statement (see Fitzmyer, The Biblical Commission's Document, note 5
above, pp. 5f.), reminded his audience that Pius XII's Divino Afflante Spiritu laid
particular emphasis on Bible interpreters' need to understand literary genres. See
also Vatican II, Dei Verbum, n. 12. The papal magisterium's interest in literary
genres, and its criticism of the 'illusion' of those who refuse to 'make distinctions
that would relativize the significance of the words (of biblical texts}' (Pope John
Paul in Fitzmyer, p. 5), seem not to envisage the biblical writers' ethical language.
28 Cf. A. N. Wilder, cited by Nineham, Use, p. 206: 'the stultifying axiom that
genuine truth or insight or wisdom must be limited to that which can be stated
in discursive prose'.
29 Cf. Nineham, Use, pp. 47ff.
30 Cf. Houlden, Ethics, p. 11: 'Even the most biblically-minded Christian makes
artificial patterns with the texts.' (Did he mean especially the most biblically-
minded?)
31 Cf. Gareth Moore, 'Some remarks on the use of Scripture in Veritatis Splendor in
Joe Selling and Jan Jans (eds), The Splendor of Accuracy: An Examination of the
Assertions Made by 'Veritatis Splendor' (Kampen: Kok/Pharos, 1994), pp. 71-98.
Moore argues that the encyclical's preoccupation with a commandment-centred
ethic induced it to home in on the text's transitional reference to 'the command-
ments', thus missing the whole point of the passage, which is about the
'inadequacy of thinking of a person's relationship to God in terms of law and
commandment' (p. 80).
32 Cf. Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of
Transforming Biblical Reading (London: HarperCollins, 1992), pp. 444ff. See also
Thiselton's comments on Rowland and Corner's assessment of the use of biblical
material in liberationist communities in Brazil, and on Cardenal's research into
comparable groups in Nicaragua (the Magnificat shows that '[the Virgin] was a
communist. . . . That is the Revolution'): New Horizons, pp. 41 If.
33 Feminist and liberationist exegetes, in the wake of Gadamer, claim a 'hermeneutic
of suspicion' as their preserve. In fact, most second-term students in biblical
studies work on the principle that they can't trust anyone. (This is by no means
to discourage feminist and liberationist exegetes from becoming even more
hermeneutically suspicious.)
34 Cf. J. D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Enquiry into the
Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM Press, 1980). (On Gal 4:4,
see pp. 38ff.)
35 The Tablet (16 October 1993), p. 1331. Grisez continues: ' . . . assuming, that is,
that the sin, committed with full awareness and deliberate consent, remains
unrepented'. From the list of types who, according to 1 Cor 6:9f., will not inherit
the kingdom, Grisez picks out those characterized by sexual misbehaviour and
then directs his attention to particular acts. This preoccupation with certain
(intrinsically evil) sexual acts he shares with the encyclical: cf. Nicholas Lash,
42
'Crisis and tradition in Veritatis Splendor, Studies in Christian Ethics 7.2 (1994),
pp. 22-8.
36 For examples of such an enquiry, see Countryman, Dirt, pp. 117ff. and Robin
Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).
37 Even the 'Sermon on the Mount' - often regarded as Jesus' answer to Sinai, or at
least as the classic compendium of his ethical teaching - was never a sermon of
Jesus, but is rather a Veritable chorus of voices, some bearing the stamp of Jesus,
the others assembled by the evangelist to form a single whole that makes certain
specific points' (Schweizer, Good News, p. 197).
38 On the wide range of views, see, e.g., Allen Verhey, The Great Reversal (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), ch. 1; or Tom Wright in Stephen Neil and Tom
Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1986 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1988), ch. 9- Perhaps we should bear in mind Henry Cadbury's
observation that the idea that Jesus will have worked out any overall plan for his
'ministry', and that the 'kingdom of God' was a single, thought-out conception,
may well be anachronistic. If this is true, then any attempt at a (to us) plausible
'reconstruction' will be misguided from the start.
39 '. . • the thrust of Jesus' life and teaching was at most oblique to anything that
could reasonably be called morality and not infrequently subversive of it. ... The
view that Jesus offers distinctive and superior moral teaching, and the notion that
he confirms and expands the highest agreed moral wisdom, are different forms of
the attempt to say the best we can of him in terms of the prior assumption that
morality is all-important. This assumption is being allowed to dictate the
interpretation of Jesus': Nicholas Peter Harvey, The Morals of Jesus (London:
Darton, Longman and Todd, 1991), pp. 32f.
40 Cf. Thomas W. Ogletree, The Use of the Bible in Christian Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell,
1984), pp. 177ff.; E. Clinton Gardner, 'Eschatological ethics' in John Macquarrie
and James Childress (eds), A New Dictionary of Christian Ethics (London: SCM
Press, 1986), pp. 201-5.
41 Jack T. Sanders, Ethics in the New Testament (London: SCM Press 1975, 2nd edn
1986): '[Jesus'] ethical teaching is interwoven with his imminent eschatology to
such a degree that every attempt to separate the two and to draw out only the
ethical thread invariably and inevitably draws out strands of the eschatology, so
that both yarns only lie in a heap. Better to leave the tapestry intact' (p. 29).
42 'The underlying message of the New Testament is that the emergency is now, for
us all': J. L. Houlden, Bible and Belief (London: SPCK, 199D, p. 171. Cf. Richard
Hiers, 'Jesus, ethics and the present situation' in Curran and McCormick, Use,
pp. 1-20.
43 Cf. Jack Sanders's appraisal of Bultmann's attempt to reinterpret Jesus' imminen-
tist eschatology in terms of existential urgency (Ethics, pp. 11-14).
44 'Whereas twenty-five years ago a consensus had emerged, there appears now to be
only confusion': Morna D. Hooker, 'Kingdom of God' in Coggins and Houlden,
Dictionary, pp. 374-7 (p. 377).
45 See E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion
(London: SCM Press, 1977); Paul, The Law and the Jewish People (see note 18
above). This challenge has not yet been effectively answered. At least, the only
extended response to it I have seen from the Lutheran tradition (Timo Laato,
Paulus und das Judentum [Abo: Abo Akademis forlag, 1991]) goes no further than
an unabashed rehearsal of standard Lutheran exegesis.
46 Cf. Tom Deidun, 'James Dunn and John Ziesler on Romans in new perspective',
The Hey throp journal XXXIII (1992), pp. 79-84.
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Tom Deidun
47 Edward LeRoy Long Jr, 'The use of the Bible in Christian ethics', Interpretation 19
(1965), pp. 149-62; Charles E. Curran, art. cit., note 1 above, pp. 178-212.
48 James F. Gustafson, 'Christian ethics' in Paul Ramsey (ed.), Religion (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965); see also Curran and McCormick, Use,
pp. 133-50.
49 In a later article (1974), reprinted in Curran and McCormick, Use, pp. 151-77,
Gustafson suggested some specifications of his earlier classification.
50 Verhey, Great Reversal (see note 38 above).
51 John Murray, quoted by LeRoy Long Jr, 'The use of the Bible', p. 150.
52 To typical practitioners of this use of the Bible, this is no problem.
53 Cf. Moore, art. cit., note 31 above, p. 86.
54 Especially in Roman Catholic tradition these words of Jesus are interpreted as a
commendation of celibacy. But they are open to other quite plausible interpreta-
tions: cf., e.g., A. E. Harvey, Eunuchs for the Sake of the Kingdom (University of
London, The Ethel M. Wood Lecture, 1995).
55 Long locates its origin in Harnack, with his 'infinite value of the human soul', and
in Albert Knudson, who did much to perpetuate Harnack's view. He also cites,
more recently, Paul Ramsey, Andrew Osborne and Reinhold Niebuhr.
56 Cf. Charles Robert, 'Morale et Ecriture: Nouveau Testament', Seminarium NS 11
(1971), pp. 596-622. This kind of approach influenced Bernard Haring's The
Law of Christ (German original 1954), commonly acknowledged to have marked a
turning-point in Catholic moral theology; and it appears to be what Vatican II
had in mind when it recommended that 'biblical themes should have first place' in
dogmatic theology (Optatam Totius, n. 16; my italics).
57 '. . . the canonizing and harmonizing impulse which longs to produce "the New
Testament view'" (Houlden, Ethics, p. 121). Even such (supposed) 'master themes'
as the 'kingdom' or the imitation of Jesus leave most of the New Testament out
of account.
58 John H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 250; cited
by Verhey in Curran and McCormick, Use, p. 226.
59 In any case, it is questionable whether the New Testament references to non-
violence can be so easily generalized, either into a principle of personal conduct
(for we simply do not know what action Jesus or the New Testament writers
might have taken had they chanced on a rape or a mugging), or into a socio-
political programme (for we do not know what advice they might give to, say,
British conscripts when war was declared on Hitler's Germany).
60 Here re-enters the whole problem of the historical Jesus. In Mark's Gospel, at
least, neighbour love is mentioned in only one passage; and Matthew's Jesus is
capable of a long tirade on the question of ethical priorities without once
mentioning love (Matt 23). Regarding Paul: notwithstanding those texts which
speak of the paramountcy of love, he is quite capable of bringing to moral
questions criteria which have nothing obviously to do with love (cf., e.g., 1 Cor
6:12-20; 1 Cor 7; Rom 13:1-7).
61 See pp. 8-9 above.
62 Richard B. Hays, art. cit., note 23 above, p. 44.
63 Gustafson in Curran and McCormick, Use, pp. I63f.
64 Gustafson in Curran and McCormick, Use, p. 166.
65 Its origins are attributed especially to Earth. As well as in H. R. Niebuhr it is
exemplified in Paul Lehmann, Joseph Sittler, Jiirgen Moltmann and others.
Curran, art. cit., note 1 above, p. 182, judged that it had beneficial influence in
the 'Scriptural renewal' in Roman Catholic circles. It is still at the heart of
44
liberation theologians' use of the Bible. Cf. Gustafson in Curran and McCormick,
Use, pp. I66f.
66 E.g., some biblically-minded people 'know' what God is 'doing' in the AIDS
crisis.
67 Bruce Birch and Larry Rasmussen, 'The use of the Bible in Christian ethics' in
Ronald P. Hamel and Kenneth R. Himes OFM (eds), Christian Ethics: A Reader
(New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 322-32 (p. 324), extracted from their The
Bible and Ethics in Christian Life (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976). For the place of
character and virtue in contemporary Christian-ethical discussion, see Chapter 5
in this book.
68 A similar caveat must apply to those who insist that 'the believing community' is
the indispensable context for the appropriation of the Bible in Christian ethics.
Cf. Verhey in Curran and McCormick, Use, p. 216: ' . . . the importance of the
believing community as the context for the authority and appropriation of biblical
materials seems to be part of a developing consensus'. But which believing
community? The Bob Jones University (which still, on biblical grounds, prohibits
interracial dating)? The Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk (which still, on biblical
grounds, limits its membership to whites)?
69 Gustafson in Curran and McCormick, Use, p. 165.
70 Curran, art. cit., pp. 198, 206; Gerard J. Hughes in The Heythrop Journal XIII
(1972), pp. 27—43; Gustafson in Curran and McCormick, Use, p. 172.
71 For starting-points for reflection on the Bible's 'authority', see, for example, L.
William Countryman, Biblical Authority or Biblical Tyranny? Scripture and the
Christian Pilgrimage (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981); and John Barton, People
of the Book? The Authority of the Bible in Christianity (London: SPCK, 1988).
72 '. . . the revelatory canon for theological evaluation of biblical androcentric
traditions . . . cannot be derived from the Bible itself but can only be formulated
in and through women's struggle for liberation from all patriarchal oppression': E.
Schiissler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 32; quoted
by Hays, art. cit., note 23 above, p. 51.
73 For the magisterium as authentic interpreter of the Bible in Roman Catholic
thinking, see Vatican II, Dei Verbum n. 10, quoted by Veritatis Splendor, n. 27. For
reflections on the relationship between this claim and the commitment of Roman
Catholic exegetes to historical critical exegesis, see R. E. Brown in R. E. Brown et
al. (eds), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990),
pp. 1163F.
74 Cf. Hughes's discussion (art. cit., note 70 above, pp. 37f.) of Keith Ward's Ethics
and Christianity (London, 1970); Hamel, art. cit., note 11 above, pp. 109f.:
'Human reason is not infallible. . . . The light provided by Scripture will be added
to the light of human reason, supporting it, guiding its reflections, keeping it out
of impasses and indicating to it the sure paths to be followed.'
75 Similarly, it appears to be a preoccupation with biblical normativity that has
prompted Christian ethicists to speak of the 'function' of the Bible in Christian
ethics, or of an appropriate 'methodology' for using the Bible in Christian ethics.
76 Nineham, Use, p. 268.
77 See the splendid quotation from Chrysostom in Veritatis Splendor, n. 24; cf. also
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 106, a. 1, also quoted there. Aquinas (ibid., a.
2) also made the point, citing Augustine, that 2 Cor 3:6 was as applicable to the
New Testament as it was to any other writing. Cf., among moderns, Houlden,
Ethics, p. 120: 'It is arguable that to be true to the deepest convictions of the
leading New Testament writers, and more, to be faithful to the Lord who lay
45
Tom Deidun
behind them, we need to be emancipated from the letter of their writings.' All
this means, surely, that Christians are not in any nomistic sense a 'people of the
Book'. Cf. Barton, People of the Book?
78 I second Nineham's wish when he says: 'I should like to see Christians nowadays
approach the Bible in an altogether more relaxed spirit, not anxiously asking
"What has it to say to me immediately?", but distancing it, allowing fully for its
"pastness" . . .' (Use, p. 196).
79 Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), Part 3, Section
2.
80 Countryman, Dirt, p. 237. His discussion in this book is an excellent example of
what I mean here.
81 The phrase is Brian Mahon's: Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society (London and
New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 59.
82 The phrase is Gregory Kavka's: 'The futurity problem' in Ernest Partridge (ed.),
Responsibilities to Future Generations (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1981),
pp. 109—22. For a Christian-ethical discussion of some of the issues involved, see
William P. George, 'Thomas Aquinas and concern for posterity', The Heythrop
Journal XXXIII (1992), pp. 283-306.
83 Nineham, Use, pp. 195ff.
84 Admittedly, the first of the following examples is not derivable only from modern
exegesis; though the point would certainly be missed by ethicists who turned to
the Bible on the look-out for directly ethical concerns.
85 Nineham saw fit to conclude his Use with a homily on prayer (p. 269).
86 Leonard Hodgson, Sex and Christian Freedom: An Enquiry (London: SCM Press,
1967), p. 42; quoted by Nineham, Use, p. 75.
87 The image is cribbed from J. L. Houlden's 'The status of origins in Christianity'
in his Bible and Belief (London: SPCK, 1991), pp. 74-81 (pp. 80-81), used there
in connection with the relationship between historical studies and systematics.
46
2
Natural law
Gerard J. Hughes
When it is used in connection with ethics, or with Christian ethics, the

phrase 'natural law' in its broadest sense refers to the view that morality
derives from the nature of human beings. The controversies surrounding
this view can be traced, again in broad outline, to one of two sources, the
first concerned more with method, and the second more with content.
They might be summarized roughly as follows:
(1) Different views about the use of reason to discover God's designs for
human beings.
(2) Different accounts of what human nature is, and about how, or
indeed whether, there is any way of deriving morality from such an
account.
In a broad sense it would be fair to say that almost all the classical
Western philosophers, from Aristotle to Bentham, tried in some way to
show that morality had its basis in human nature. Many of them would
contrast morality as derived from human nature itself with the moral
customs and legislation of particular groups of human beings, and would
on occasion appeal to the natural law as a basis for assessing and on
occasions rejecting the legitimacy of particular customs or laws. In our
own day, documents like the United Nations Declaration on Human
Rights propose a set of rights which belong to human beings because of
what human beings are, and which ought to be respected for that reason.
It can be appealed to precisely to challenge the customs or legislation of
particular countries. The many difficulties encountered in attempting to
elaborate what the natural law is have at least until comparatively recent
times not deterred philosophers from holding that some such basis for
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Gerard J. Hughes
morality there must be. However, the difficulties are serious enough. I
shall in this chapter try to outline and assess them by elaborating on the
two types of issue mentioned above.
Human nature and God's design

Human nature as an embodiment of God's design
A comparatively uncomplicated view of human nature which a religious
believer could hold is that human nature, as we find it, reflects the wisdom
and goodness of the creator God. To the extent that we can understand
ourselves, to that extent we can understand God's designs in creating us
as we are, just as to the extent that we can understand anything else in
creation we can to that extent understand how the creator God intended
things to be. In principle, then, and leaving aside for the moment any of
the difficulties under (2) above, if we can show how to base morality upon
human nature, we will come to understand how God intended us to live.
Thomas Aquinas is typical of many Christian writers who accepted this
position. His term for God's creative designs was the 'eternal law'; and
under that term he included God's designs for the non-human parts of
creation as well as the human. The non-human parts of creation reflect the
eternal law in a deterministic way: they inevitably behave according to
the natures they have. The laws of nature, discovered by scientists, describe
the behaviour of things. Aquinas is willing to use the terminology of law
and obedience even here, and to say that these parts of creation obey the
laws of their natures; but 'obey' here is a metaphorical expression. The
laws of physics do not require things to behave in a particular way, they
simply describe how they by nature do behave. This is true, in part, also
of human beings, since we are also part of the natural world; our bodies
behave according to the laws of physics and chemistry like any other
bodies in the universe. Aquinas contrasts this way of embodying God's
designs with the specifically human way in which we might do so. Unlike
rocks or trees, human beings can come to understand the kinds of beings
they are, and are free to live in a way which corresponds to that
understanding, or to refuse to do so. We are not naturally determined to
exhibit God's designs in our lives. Of course, our understanding of
ourselves and hence of how we should live is in all probability limited. In
this respect it is no different from our understanding of physics or
astronomy or any of the other natural sciences. Still, as with the other
sciences, there is no limit in principle to how much we can learn; and the
more we do learn, the more God's design for us will become clear.
In the eyes of some theologians, however, this comparatively simple
view is altogether too simple. In particular, it fails to take into account
48
Natural law
the theological doctrine of the Fall. They would argue that human nature,
as we know it now, is very far indeed from expressing the way God
intended us to be; it has been distorted by our own wrongdoing at every
period in human history. Theologians did, and to some extent still do,
differ considerably in their estimate of the extent of this moral distortion
of human nature. Views range widely. Some would argue that while
indeed we are weakened, both in our minds and in our constancy in
seeking the good, this weakness is not such as to invalidate the view that,
reflecting on ourselves even as we are, we can still see how God intends us
to live. The most they would concede is that this reflection might be more
difficult than it ideally should have been. At the other extreme, it has
been held that we are so weakened that, left to our own devices, we are
simply not capable of seeing in ourselves anything but our own distortions;
there is therefore no secure way in which reflection on ourselves as we are
can tell us anything about how God intends us to be.
To give a proper account of these differences would take us too far into
issues which are more properly the concern of systematic theology. But
perhaps some brief points can be made which might at least help to
pinpoint where the real disagreements lie. A convenient place to start is
with the famous slogan of the sixteenth-century reformers, sola fide, sola
gratia, sola Scriptura, 'only by faith, only by grace, only from Scripture'. It
is the last two of these which are of immediate importance. Going back to
the time of Augustine, there was a controversy in the Christian churches
about the need for divine assistance, 'grace', to enable us to know what
God's will is and to follow it. Pelagius and his followers were thought to
deny this, and to say that with our own unaided powers we could do a
great deal; and this view (whether Pelagius really did hold it or not) was
rejected as heretical. It remains a further, and separate question, to whom
and how God's grace becomes available. Is God's grace in fact available to
everyone who sincerely seeks God, whether they are Christian believers or
not? It is possible to hold that God's grace will always assist the sincere
moral reflections of human beings, so that in practice human reason need
never be unaided human reason, while still maintaining that the natural
law can be known without appeal to the specifically Christian revelation
in Jesus, as interpreted in the biblical and later Christian tradition. One
might, therefore, accept sola gratia, without accepting sola Scriptura. Those
theologians who insist upon sola Scriptura will generally reject the
usefulness of a natural law approach to Christian ethics.
In any event, theologians have often found it difficult to be consistent,
either in their proclaimed trust in, or in their clear distrust of, the use of
reason in ethics. Reformed theologians like Karl Earth, despite their
rejection of a natural law approach, have in practice used reason to reflect
on human nature as we know it, partly in order to interpret Scripture
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Gerard J. Hughes
itself, and partly to supplement its moral teachings to deal with issues
which are not mentioned in Scripture at all. At the other end of the
theological spectrum, some Catholic theologians, despite their theoretical
insistence that we can in principle discover God's designs by using our
reason to reflect upon human nature, have in practice shown a good deal
of distrust for such purely philosophical reflections, and have insisted that
they be corrected or supplemented by revelation, or by the Church as the
proper interpreter of revelation.
Natural law as a counter to theologically based ethics

From the time of the Enlightenment until our own day, people have been
impressed with the progress of the natural sciences. In particular, the
methods of the natural sciences seem to have proved themselves beyond
all doubt, simply by being so helpful in enabling us to understand, and to
some extent therefore to control, the world in which we live. For this
reason, it became fashionable to contrast the steady progress of science
with the unsolved disputes between divided theologians, and to suggest
that if human nature were studied scientifically, discoveries about human
morality would rest on a more secure basis than they ever could by being
left to theologians and divines. In consequence, proponents of what was at
least in some sense a natural law theory of ethics saw themselves as for the
first time providing a good scientific grounding for morality, a grounding
which hitherto had been sadly lacking. Along with Aristotelian science,
now regarded as totally discredited both in its conclusions and in its
method, Aristotelian ethics, whether in its original form, or in the
medieval version of it adopted by Aquinas, was also thought ripe for
replacement. Strong elements of this approach are to be found in thinkers
as different in many other respects as Thomas Hobbes, David Hume,
Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham.
Not, indeed, that the ethical conclusions reached by most of these
writers were either surprising or radical. By and large, they endorsed the
moral codes of their day. Hobbes said that the problem with earlier writers
(among whom he very likely had Aristotle in mind) was that they had
indeed given lists of moral virtues, but they had totally failed to explain
why these character traits should be thought of as virtues. He therefore set
out to show how those same virtues could be derived from a secure basis
in physics, and human psychology. Hume, too, explicitly tried to show
how it is that ethics can be explained by studying human nature, using
the methods of the new sciences. His intention was not to offer
revolutionary moral views, but to explain how ethics arises from the
workings of human nature. Kant endeavoured to provide ethics with the
same kind of philosophical justification as he believed he had provided for
50
Natural law
the natural sciences. It was not so much the conclusions of traditional

ethics which these writers called in question, as the lack of any scientifi-
cally justifiable basis. Traditional ethics (as it so happened, largely
Christian ethics) was rejected as methodologically unsound. Somewhat in
contrast, Jeremy Bentham was much more of a social reformer, as were
the utilitarians who followed him. They tried to give unarguable reasons
for criticizing those who resisted the reforms which they saw as absolutely
necessary in the wake of the industrial and political upheavals of the late
eighteenth century. Once again, they tried to achieve this by providing
ethics with a scientific foundation which could not be gainsaid. John
Stuart Mill, a disciple of Bentham, once said that Bentham was not a
great innovator in moral philosophy, but he was a great innovator in
philosophical method in ethics.
In various ways there has long been a tension between those philo-
sophers who insist (sometimes with hostile intent, sometimes not) on
using human reason to reach conclusions about God and about how we
should live, and those who insist on the primacy of revelation and
theology. This tension has been evident in many areas, from astronomy to
the origins of the world, from the theory of evolution to ethics. Now,
truth is one, and the truths established by rational means cannot conflict
with God's revelation. In trying to resolve discrepancies between what we
believe we have established on philosophical or scientific grounds and
what we believe to be the correct interpretation of God's revelation, we
have to admit in advance that in principle either or both sets of beliefs
may be mistaken. Human reasoning can go wrong and often does; and the
Christian community has not infrequently misinterpreted God's revelation
in Christ and in the Scriptures. It is rationally indefensible to assume in
advance of any inquiry either that there can be no such thing as divine
revelation, or that it can have nothing to teach us about ethics; and it is
theologically irresponsible to insist on a particular interpretation of God's
revelation which cannot be shown to be rationally defensible and consistent
with all that we have learnt by other means about ourselves and our world.
Human nature and the basis of ethics
Human nature has been understood in many different ways. In the opinion
of Plato, of Augustine and of Kant, human reason, or the human rational
soul, was regarded as defining what a human being essentially was, and
the human body was regarded either as an unavoidable hindrance, or at
least as an irrelevance so far as the moral self was concerned. The British
philosophers from Hobbes to Mill believed that ethics depended on human
psychology, and that human psychology could be explained in terms of
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Gerard J. Hughes
some very simple desire(s) — for pleasure, or self-preservation, or power.

All these views are still in varying degrees influential. But in fact the most
enduring version of the natural law tradition in Christian thought draws
its inspiration from Aristotle as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas. Aristotle
rejected the body/soul dualism of Plato in favour of a much more unified
view of the human self in which physical and mental powers were more
closely inter-related. Human beings are animals who can think. As a
result, his ethical views stressed the importance of the emotions (which
for Plato, and later for Kant, were simply to be tamed or excluded as
motives in ethics). Aristotle would also have regarded the 'scientific'
psychology of Hobbes or Hume or Bentham as grossly over-simplified.
Human needs and desires are irreducibly complex; and while, doubtless,
simplicity is indeed a desirable feature of any theory, whether in the
human or in the natural sciences, it must not be bought at the price of
distorting the facts. It was in all essentials this Aristotelian view which
Aquinas adopted, modifying it only to the extent that he was prepared to
supplement it with specifically Christian beliefs about the law of the Holy
Spirit written in our hearts, and to adapt the Aristotelian notion of a
fulfilled life (eudaimonia) to accommodate the Christian belief in the vision
of God in heaven.
To understand the predominant Christian view of the natural law, then,
one must begin with what has become known as the 'Function Argument'
which Aristotle sets out in his Nicomacbean Ethics, Book 1, ch. 7. Of
course, to understand it fully one has to read it against the background of
Aristotle's philosophy as a whole. Here, then, is a commentary on its main
elements.
Aristotle held that human beings have a variety of activities which by
nature they are capable of performing: growing, reproducing, sensing,
feeling emotions, thinking and choosing. Each of these can be performed
well or badly, and each one in the list depends upon the preceding ones,
in the sense that for the 'higher' activities the required bodily infra-
structures have to be in place and properly functioning. Some of these are
activities we share with other animals, others are characteristically human.
He believes that for a human being to live a fulfilled life, all these
activities must be functioning well. Though a fulfilled life will, of course,
involve keeping healthy, and sleeping, and digesting and so on, what
makes it fulfilling are not these background activities, but the activities of
intellectual understanding and contributing to society. Human beings are
thinking social animals.
All thinking involves an insight into particular cases in the light of
which we can formulate general laws. In scientific theories, we can then
use these general laws to explain individual events. This is how Aristotle
understands reason to function in its purely speculative activities, as we
52
Natural law
try to understand the world around us, and God. But, as he somewhat
ruefully says, a life devoted entirely to such speculative activity is 'too
high for man'. But something of this vision of the grasp of all truth being
the pinnacle of human fulfilment was taken over by Aquinas and
interpreted in terms of the Christian doctrine of the beatific vision. In
practice, though, Aristotle accepted that human beings must also live a
life of contribution to the community; and this requires us to turn our
reason to practical decisions.
We will, if we have been well brought up, have already grasped
connections between actions which have been described to us as wrong, or
as cowardly, or dishonest, generous or mean. We can formulate general
rules about what it takes to be brave, or dishonest, or generous. But, says
Aristotle, practical wisdom (we might say, 'moral discernment'; his term
is phronesis) requires that we be able to read individual situations in a
morally correct way, since morality requires us to make particular
decisions. We already have at our disposal many moral concepts which we
have learnt to use: but we have simply to see what is required of us here
and now: whether, for example, to say 'That's very good' to someone
would be a lie, or a proper piece of encouragement, or a raising of false
expectations of progress. There are no rules which will tell us how to do
this, no arguments which can be used: what we need is long experience of
life, and emotional balance.
Aristotle points out that being liable to over-react, or under-react,
emotionally does not destroy someone's ability to do theoretical math-
ematics; but, in his view, it certainly does undermine one's judgement in
making moral decisions. To make good moral decisions, and to be able
also to trust our moral insight, we need to come to individual decisions
with a solid emotional balance; and that, in turn, requires that our
emotional responses have been properly trained. (Here, the contrast with
Plato is evident.) To have appropriate emotional responses is to have all
the moral virtues.
All this Aquinas takes over. He speaks, as does Aristotle, of the first
principles of practical reasoning. What are these? They include two
different types of principle: (1) purely formal principles: The most basic
of these is the principle of Non-contradiction, which should govern all
our reasoning, whether speculative or practical: another purely formal
principle is 'Good is to be done and evil avoided', which should govern all
practical reasoning. These formal principles as it were set the ground rules
for how we should think, in science or in ethics; but they do not in
themselves tell us what to think. (2) Other 'first principles' have
substantive content. In science, they contain fundamental truths about the
natures of things in the physical world; and in ethics, such truths as that
life and health are good things, as are education, and honesty, and the
53
Gerard J. Hughes
virtues generally. He also points out that there are many other more
detailed 'good things'; examples might be open heart surgery, or nursery
schools, or confidentiality, or giving to Oxfam. I have chosen these more
specific examples as indicative of ways in which we might seek to promote
health, or education, or honesty; but Aquinas points out that these more
detailed good things are less clear, and less likely to be truly good in all
cases, than the more fundamental ones. He, like Aristotle, does not believe
that it is possible in ethics to have anything like the precision one might
hope for in the natural sciences. And, just as Aristotle appeals in the end
to the insight of the person of practical wisdom and emotional balance, so
Aquinas stresses the importance of prudentia (his translation of Aristotle's
phronesis}, which presupposes fortitude and temperance (the balanced
emotional response in the areas of aggression and desire).
What neither Aristotle nor Aquinas believes is that from general moral
principles we can simply deduce what we ought to do in individual cases.
Part of the reason for this is that there is no way of logically deducing the
desirability of open heart surgery from the desirability of health, even
though the desirability of open heart surgery may be based upon the
desirability of health; and, second, though it is true in all cases that health
is a good thing, it is not true that open heart surgery will be a good thing
in every case. There is no substitute for seeing, in the circumstances of
each situation, what is to be done. Of course, one can explain one's
decision afterwards, by stating the good ends at which it was aimed. But
that does not in itself justify one's decision. For example, I could decide
to say 'That's very good!' to someone, and explain that by saying that they
needed encouragement at this point; but equally, I could decide to say
'Really, that could be a lot better' by saying that what was required was
honest criticism. Each decision can thus be explained in terms of the good
at which it aimed. But the explanation does nothing to justify one decision
rather than the other. Aristotle and Aquinas agree that the person of
practical wisdom will just have to see what is to be said to the person; and
that 'seeing' cannot be further justified by argument. And were someone
to object that saying 'Well done!' was simply a lie, and therefore wrong,
the reply would be that in the circumstances, it was an act of kindness,
not a lie, and if the critic does not see that then he is simply lacking in
practical wisdom.
As will be seen, then, Aquinas's view of natural law combines the
conviction that what one ought to do is based upon what is good for
human beings given how human nature functions, with a remarkably
flexible account of what people ought to do in practice. Consistency
requires that we treat similar situations in the same way, and the
injunction that we should do good and avoid evil requires that in
explaining our choices we have to be able to explain the good at which we
54
Natural law
were aiming. But neither these requirements, nor any of the more specific
statements about what things are good for human beings, will of
themselves settle how particular decisions have to be taken.
Therein lies both the strength and the weakness of natural law theories,
whether those of Aquinas and Aristotle, or the views of such writers as
Kant, or Hobbes, Hume and Bentham.
Their strength lies in the basic contention which is common to them
all, that ethics ought to be firmly rooted in what human beings are like,
and how they interact with their various environments. Although in more
recent times views of ethics have been propounded which are explicitly
value-neutral, it is perhaps more generally accepted that we cannot just
decide what we will count as a human good. What is good for us depends
upon our natures, not upon our decisions. And, in theological terms, it
seems more consonant with the wisdom of God that he wills us to be
fulfilled individuals, fulfilled according to the nature with which we have
been created. Moreover, natural law theories have always been committed
to the view that there is room in ethics for truth and falsity: we can be
mistaken, less easily with regard to very general aims like health, or
education, or freedom, but more and more easily in more specific types of
case, about what genuinely is fulfilling for ourselves or others. We can get
things right, but also get things wrong. We have to discover what truly
fulfils a person, we cannot simply decide what we will count as fulfilment.
Moreover, these theories all insist on the connection between ethics and
the human sciences. Aristotle and Aquinas were no exceptions to this,
despite their lack of modern scientific knowledge, and despite the
strictures of the Enlightenment critics. What has changed is the concep-
tion of scientific method, rather than the basic view that in order to
understand ethics, let alone to make good ethical decisions, one has to
understand human beings in a scientific way. The more we can understand
medicine, or psychology, or sociology, the better placed we will be to
understand what we are actually doing to ourselves and one another, and
hence the better placed to see what we ought to be doing.
Their weakness, if weakness it is, lies in the difficulty of relating
complex decisions to basic principles. For example, whether to spend more
money on the health service than on education, or whether to insist on
doctor—patient confidentiality where minors are concerned, or whether to
allow genetic research, and if so under what limitations. These decisions
obviously affect different people, for good and for ill, and at least often
make it only too clear that it is just not possible to achieve everything we
would wish all the time. Philosophers and theologians have wrestled with
these issues, and have tried to give theoretically consistent accounts of
why they advocate looking at them one way rather than in some other, as
indeed they are intellectually bound to do. It has often been said, with
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Gerard J. Hughes
some justice, that most moral philosophers and theologians, including

those who are sympathetic to this overall approach, in the end are
unwilling to depart very far from the received wisdom of the society or
Church with which they identify, and that their theoretical accounts are
tailored to defend the status quo. Aristotle, as is well known, failed to see
anything wrong with slavery, or with allotting a subordinate place in
society to women. Hobbes seems to us altogether too wedded to an
absolutist form of government, Bentham and Mill not sufficiently sensitive
to the fact that some people's desires might be morally perverse. Though
in principle natural law theories are geared to the critical assessment of
the received moral wisdom of any particular time or place, they have in
practice not always succeeded in providing such criticism, precisely
because the very flexibility of the theory can make it hard to demonstrate
that a mistake is being made in its application. We tend to identify
human fulfilment with what we have learnt is human fulfilment, for men,
or women, Europeans or Amazonian villagers. Gross moral mistakes can
be identified readily enough; but even if they can easily be spotted, there
is still much room, perhaps too much room, for more detailed, but no less
important, disagreement.
The temptation at this point is to use authority rather than a
painstaking return to fundamental methodology to achieve greater consen-
sus. Appeal can be made to theology, or to long-standing custom, or to
the impossibility of stepping outside the moral consensus in which one
has been brought up, a consensus which must therefore in its broader
outlines be allowed to go unchallenged. There are many authorities to
which appeal can and has been made, some with more claim to credibility
than others. The mistake is to use the appeal to authority rather than
reasoned argument, or to insist on the total primacy of what we take to be
reasoned argument while paying no heed whatever to the accumulated
wisdom of our own and past generations.
Select bibliography
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, qq. 91-94; II-II, qq. 47-52.
Karl Earth, Church Dogmatics, II, 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957).
John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).
Paul Helm (ed.), Divine Commands and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1981).
Richard Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989).
56
3
Authority and moral teaching in a
Catholic Christian context
Joseph Selling
The issue of authority and the sources of morality is a far-ranging one that
will inevitably be treated differently by the different Christian churches.
Some churches regard the Scriptures as the sole authority in every matter
religious, others recognize the role played by philosophy and/or consensus
in the formation of fundamental principles. Since there is a great deal of
literature dealing with each of these perspectives, I will limit myself here
to treating the issue of authority and moral teaching as it is perceived
within the Roman Catholic community.
The question of authority and its role in the lives of individuals and
groups of persons is not an exclusively ecclesiastical one. This simple
observation points immediately to a rather significant problem that will
plague any attempt to write about authority from a theological or moral
perspective, namely that differing concepts of authority will be confusingly
mingled in the mind of the reader. Police authority and parental authority
might be posed as examples of different concepts of authority that most of
us take for granted in our daily speech (although far too many parents
exercise their authority as if they were police officers). We can add to these
examples the notions of scientific authority (competence), judicial author-
ity and political authority, none of which necessarily connote moral
authority.
Using the word 'authority' will inevitably conjure up associations that
can obscure moral theological discussion. When that discussion is carried
out within the specific ecclesiological context of the Roman Catholic
Church, we must exercise further caution for, although moral teaching
certainly occupies an important place in church offices, this particular
exercise of authority does not function in exactly the same way as other
offices in the ecclesial body.
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Joseph Selling
The teaching of Vatican II, especially that contained in the Dogmatic

Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, makes it clear that the
episcopal pastors occupy the threefold office (mandate) to sanctify, to teach
and to rule. In all three of these areas, the bishops exercise an authority
that calls for different responses. The authority to rule addresses the
question of jurisdiction which in turn calls for the response of obedience
and possibly the threat of sanctions. The ruling function considers
primarily the protection and the maintenance of the common good of the
People of God. The authority to teach, on the other hand, addresses the
question of truth, and even more specifically the truths of the faith. It
primarily considers the integrity of the faith, and its aim is to convince
the faithful to grasp and to accept the truths of the faith. The proper
response here is not obedience but attentiveness.1
Too frequently people, even bishops, expect that obedience is owed to
the teaching authority in an unqualified manner, neglecting the possibility
that if one is not convinced of the truth — or relevance — of a teaching
then the insistence on obedience may simultaneously oblige one to violate
one's conscience.
Of course one will immediately object that not all teachings are of
equal importance or equally binding with regard to acceptance, not just
attentiveness. We will suspend the question whether this objection applies
to moral teaching in particular and grant the fact that there are different
levels of authority when it comes to the exercise of the teaching office in
the Church. Unfortunately, these different levels, sometimes referred to as
a 'hierarchy of truths', 2 are not always made clear to the faithful, perhaps
because the distinction between the levels and the proper assignment of
various, individual truths to one of these levels remains in dispute.
Dogma, doctrine and discipline (teaching)
I suggest that the traditional distinction that has been made between the
primary and secondary objects of authoritative teaching3 should be
extended to encompass a third category. What has generally been referred
to as the primary object of authoritative teaching is held to be coextensive
with revelation, that is, the deposit of faith contained in Scripture and
(apostolic) tradition. These constitute dogmas and they are essential to the
faith, pertaining to salvation, and frequently put forth with a christological
focus. With the Orthodox churches we could easily extend this general
body of truths to the teachings of the first seven ecumenical councils and
to the creeds, most of which are synonymous with conciliar teaching.
The secondary objects of authoritative teaching constitute a more
problematic area that was not clearly defined either at Vatican I or Vatican
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Authority and moral teaching
II. There is a general consensus, however, that this 'class of truths' includes
those things which are indispensable for the maintenance of revelation,
such as the condemnation of propositions that would contradict revelation
or a statement of those things that would necessarily flow from revelation/*
It seems rather clear that there are a great number of items that would
fall into neither of these categories and which, up until now, have been
given no clear designation. Whereas dogmas are understood to be the
object of authoritative definitions and must be accepted by one who
considers oneself to be a member of the Church, and doctrines are
generally considered to be 'theologically certain' if not actually irreforma-
ble, there are a significant number of 'teachings' that may be more or less
important but for which there is no clear measure. My suggestion is that
we attempt to delineate a category of teachings that would not so much
seek to exhaust what should be contained in this body of statements or
propositions as it would, by default, exclude an entire range of things that
have nothing to do with ecclesiastical pronouncement. 5
I propose that the majority of church teaching that fits this category
has traditionally been referred to as discipline, meaning practices, habits or
a manner of living, sometimes associated with the Latin term mores. In a
theological context, these practices or disciplines frequently have an
explicitly religious character. One thinks, for instance, of sacramental and
liturgical practice. Sacramental discipline would include factors ranging
from the time, style and manner of celebrating a sacrament to the
determination of conditions necessary for its reception. Most of these
elements have little or nothing to do with revelation, yet they do enjoy a
certain level of importance, for both the individual and the community,
and are thus the object of authoritative teaching. That said, it is clear that
being the object of authoritative teaching does not ipso facto imply
absoluteness, certainty or unchangeability.
There is also an entire range of things, however, which are not explicitly
or evidently religious in character but which are relevant to what we could
call the object of authoritative teaching (i.e., that which falls within the
competence of the office to teach). This encompasses that broad field we
call 'morality' and, at first sight, touches upon just about every facet of
our lives.
'Levels' of moral teaching
Some aspects of the moral life enjoy virtually universal consensus among
Christians and are thus taken for granted. It is not merely coincidental
that these areas of consensus are congruent with Christian dogmas and
church doctrine, intimately tied up with revelation. The most obvious
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Joseph Selling
example are the dictates of the Decalogue. Most people would be startled
to hear us say that the Church teaches the Ten Commandments authori-
tatively, even infallibly. Yet the fact is that even the Decalogue needs to
be taught, something that constitutes a primary function of the Church,
exercised not only by the hierarchy but by every member of the faithful.
Less obvious examples of moral teaching that would constitute church
doctrines are those things that are essential to, flow from or are necessary
to protect revelation. The doctrine of free will, for example, is not
explicitly stated in revelation, nor is the doctrine of grace, and the entire
question of justification remains a lively debate among the Christian
churches. The rejection of predestination is a doctrine that has great, if
subtle, significance for Christian morality. Yet few of us ever think about
any of these issues that continue to be taught — authoritatively — by the
Church. We take for granted that the pastors of the Church, the hierarchy,
can, do, and must continue to exercise this teaching office, lest the
community of the People of God drift away from the truth (integrity) of
revelation.
Church doctrine in the area of morality, therefore, contains statements,
propositions, or more accurately convictions that are widely, if uncon-
sciously, taken for granted among the faithful and are even frequently
recognized by non-members as characteristic of the Christian community.
Christians, for instance, are expected to pray together and worship at some
fairly predictable regularity, although how and when this is actually done
is a matter of practice (discipline). Christians are the kind of people who
marry for life, although again how this doctrine is applied to particular
situations is again a matter of practice. It is Christian doctrine that
forgiveness and reconciliation are essential aspects of justice, but how this
is worked out in practice remains very much under the influence of social,
cultural, political, economic and ideological factors.6
All these aspects of Christian (church) doctrine contribute to the very
character of the community and hence to its individual members who are
expected to be attentive to and to accept what we might here call the
basic tenets of that community. While these tenets together define the
community, or more properly describe the community we call the Church,
they are not necessarily exclusive to the Christian churches, especially as
individual elements. There are those, for instance, who would subscribe to
the notion that marriage is a life-long commitment but who would
experience no tendency or compulsion to pray in community. That is,
even in the area of doctrine, Christians do not have an exclusive claim to
the individual aspects of what may constitute moral life.
60
Natural morality
The idea that persons can live morally without having an explicit
knowledge of revelation comes as no surprise to the Christian who already
has the benefit of that revelation. Following Jesus' own teaching, St Paul
observes that all persons are capable of doing what is prescribed 'in the
law' even if they have never known 'the law', because what is essential to
the law is written in their hearts (Rom 2:14-15). It is part of Christian
doctrine that human persons are capable of coming to a knowledge of
what is true and what is good, that they can recognize truth and goodness
because of their very being.7
This is sometimes referred to as natural morality because it is available
to all human beings, regardless of their culture, faith or religious
convictions. The leaders of the Catholic community have always claimed a
competence to teach about natural morality or the conviction that there is a
natural morality. Some have even gone so far as to claim a competence to
expound upon the content of natural morality. This, however, appears to be
taking a step too far, and the countless historical examples of the
overextension of such claims should make us very cautious. What has been
'taught' (as a matter of discipline, not doctrine, according to the
distinction proposed) about slavery, usury, or the divine right of kings is
now recognized as being culturally and historically specific. At some time,
it was important for everyone, including institutions such as the church,
to have some position on these issues. Taking a position on something,
however, was not equivalent to, nor should it be confused with, incorpo-
rating that position into the essence of what it means to be a believing
person (dogma and doctrine). Even more fundamentally, as long as any
given position with respect to natural morality has no demonstrable
connection with revelation, there is no guarantee that such a position
exhibits any inherent truth value. In most areas of natural morality,
church leaders enjoy no more — or less — competence than any other
intelligent or wise persons on most issues.
The exception to this observation rests in any possible connection that
an issue of natural morality might have with revelation. There are some
who hypothesize that the Decalogue represents the specific revelation of
(the) propositions of natural morality that a fortiori now enjoy the status
of certain truth. This is a convenient argument for those who are wedded
to the notion that morality must be deductive in argumentation from
some set of first principles. Nevertheless, the burden of proof still rests
with those who claim that their conclusions are contained in the principles
themselves.
At various times in history, claims have been made for virtually absolute
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Joseph Selling
certainty being attached to some interpretations of natural morality. Using

the Decalogue as a starting point, taking for instance the sixth command-
ment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery', enthusiastic logicians have
deduced the moral status of everything from non-marital sexual encounter
to dress codes to in-vitro fertilization. Few have questioned the warrant
for this type of reasoning, presuming a kind of blanket authority exercised
by the hierarchy of the Church to explain and pronounce upon natural
morality. The reasoning goes that as God is the creator, God is the author
of natural morality; those who do the work of God are therefore somehow
authorized to interpret this natural morality. Occasionally this argument
goes so far as to claim complete competence with regard to what it calls
the 'natural law'.
If one reasons from a position that is unaware of being immersed in a
relatively specific culture at a particular time in history, it is easy to
overlook that the vast majority of so-called interpretations of what is
'natural', and hence somehow proper or fitting for the natural law, are
little more than the expressions of a particular ethos or even a political
ideology.8 Through history, church leaders have condemned as 'unnatural'
such items as using an umbrella, eating with utensils, giving vaccinations
or even practising democracy, not to mention more sinister positions that
have been taken on the inequality of the races or the 'natural subordination'
of women to men.
Appealing to the 'natural law' in order to construct a moral position
will always be at best questionable and open to the accusation of self-
justification. Such an approach is typical of legalism and rationalism, both
of which have infected Catholic moral theology since its delineation as a
separate discipline during the counter-reformation.9 Furthermore, it con-
tradicts the philosophical and political roots of natural law theory that
was, somewhat ironically, instigated as an argument against authority. In
ancient Greek philosophy, the 'natural law' was invoked as a 'higher
authority' to challenge reigning political structures.10 In medieval philo-
sophy it became an argument for the possibility of the universal knowledge
of good and evil, very close to the Pauline text referred to above. Thomas
Aquinas defined the natural law as the person's 'rational participation in
the eternal law' and set forth its definition with the simple dictum, 'do
good and avoid evil'.11
Up to this point, the 'natural law' functioned as a court of appeal or a
stimulus for investigation. It had no content, per se, and needed to be
'fleshed out' with reason; in Thomas's scheme guided by the virtue of
right reason itself, prudence.12 In fact, I would suggest that the position
of Aquinas was very close to what is today referred to as 'autonomous
ethics', although the lack of cultural pluralism in his environment still
makes it difficult to picture him within this school of thought.
62
Only slowly did 'the natural law' become a repository for moral norms.
As stated above, the content usually assigned to this 'law' very much
resembled dominant ethnic practices. This does not disqualify the validity
or even the normative character of that content, because the aggregate of
social expectations within which we live more or less constitutes, or at
least reflects, the concrete material (descriptive) norms that are operative
on the moral level. What is distressing about assigning these things to
the 'natural' law is that it invests these norms with a character of
unchangeability and absoluteness that is not only inappropriate but
actually antithetical to their purpose. This is compounded by the
assignment of authoritative status when these norms are taken up into a
body of 'official' teaching, such as that proposed by the hierarchical
magisterium of the Church.
The problem of the relationship between authoritative teaching and
natural morality remains a delicate one. It is, furthermore, a problem that
will not be solved by 'authoritative pronouncement'. 13
Non-propositional moral teaching
Especially since the first Vatican Council in 1870, there has been a
tendency to think of the exercise of authority in the Church as concentrated
in the hands of the hierarchy alone, the pope and the bishops. This is so
pervasive that even the term 'magisterium', a term that was traditionally
used of learned persons and teachers,11 has come to be virtually identified
with membership in the hierarchy. Some correction to this idea was
accomplished at Vatican II which restored a more balanced understanding
of the Church as the 'People of God'. The Church is first and foremost a
community; God relates to and reveals to a community. Therefore, no
amount of papal or episcopal hegemony can claim exclusive access to the
truth about God and the mystery of the relationship of God to humankind,
an experience that is primarily set in the context of the entire People of
God.
The exercise of authority in the Church as the People of God, therefore,
does not rest solely in the hands of the episcopacy, although as we shall
see the bishops remain the only persons in the Church who can lay claim
to being official teachers. The authoritativeness of any deed or statement,
furthermore, is inextricably tied up with the nature and the mission of the
Church as the People of God, formed by the Word of God and shaped by
apostolic tradition. Therefore, any claim to authoritative action or teaching
in the Church is bound up with revelation. It 'extends as far as extends
the deposit of divine revelation, which must be religiously guarded and
faithfully expounded' (L(7, n. 25).
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Joseph Selling
One must carefully distinguish various degrees of connection with

revelation before one can assign any level of authority to a given statement
of the magisterium. Before we look at that, however, it is good to remind
ourselves that the entire issue of exercising authority within the Church
has tended to become highly intellectual. When one refers to the exercise
of authority, one almost spontaneously thinks of members of the hierarchy
making statements or issuing decrees (encyclicals, constitutions, exhorta-
tions, instructions, and so forth). Our notion of authoritative gestures has
become highly prepositional and almost one-sidedly preoccupied with
intellectual content. Authority is exercised by making statements. This is
not so much a wrong concept of the exercise of authority as it is a much
too narrow one. It looks exclusively at the content of our faith without
looking at its meaning and implications.
Jesus exercised authority, recognized even by his opponents and sceptics,
not by formulating propositions or issuing statements. More often than
not, his verbal communication was in the form of parables and exhortations
that puzzled and challenged rather than explained. His most profound
impact was made by what he did and how he lived. His 'authority' was
expressed and exercised with actions: performing miracles, casting out
devils, dying and rising from the dead. His primary means of communi-
cation we would today call his witness to the truth rather than his
'statement of truths'. This witness was and is constituted by the way in
which one lives. For how one lives reflects what one truly believes, and
the style of living one exhibits testifies to one's commitment to those
beliefs.
We must not forget the intimate connection between the exercise of
authority and the convincing power of one's witness through action. At
the same time, when it comes to the exercise of authority in matters of
morality, we should not forget that the issues being addressed also have to
do with how one lives, the development of a lifestyle. An authoritative
statement about Christian morality, that is, one that draws its convincing
character from its connection with revelation (Scripture and tradition),
addresses the question of the appropriateness of particular lifestyles — as a
whole and in their individual aspects - for a person or persons who claim
to believe in the message of the gospel and the revelation that is Jesus
Christ.
To ask the question 'What is an appropriate way of living or an
appropriate way of doing things for one who professes and shares faith
with the People of God?' then, it is first necessary to consult the meaning
of that faith as it is carried through time and place by the believing
community — the Church. This necessitates a twofold sensitivity, one to
the roots of our faith in Scripture and tradition and the other to the
contemporary expression of that faith in our historical and cultural context.
64
Both elements must be present if our faith is to be visible through our

lifestyle and our particular gestures. It is this question of appropriateness
that is addressed with and through authority within the community we
call the Church.
To authoritatively make an assessment, formulate a judgement, or
pronounce a statement about the way of doing things must be traceable to
the life of Jesus as reference point for the entire community, the whole
People of God (Matt 5:1"7: 'I come not to abolish the law and the prophets
but to fulfill them'). All authoritative statements are somehow tied to
revelation: Scripture and tradition. This does not mean that we have to
find identical or even similar events or gestures in the Scriptures before
we can have a competent opinion about a particular issue; nothing in the
life of Jesus or the early Christian community even came near the question
of organ donation and transplantation. Nor does it mean that if we happen
to find a particular gesture in the Scriptures we need to imitate it slavishly;
to implement St Paul's teachings about slaves or women would be rather
imprudent, to say the least. Tracing our moral stance back to revelation
means that it must reflect that spirit or attitude of the teaching (witness)
of Jesus. We are called to live in the love of God and love of neighbour.
Thus, when a statement or judgement demonstrates that a particular
manner of acting is compatible or not with the all-encompassing com-
mandment to love, it takes a stand on what would be considered
'appropriate' for those who call themselves Christians.
By the same token, to authoritatively pronounce on the appropriateness
of a given lifestyle or gesture, we must be sensitive to the cultural and
historical context within which we express ourselves. The missionary
zealotry that took place during the colonial period of Western civilization
should have taught us a lesson about separating out moral demands from
cultural expectations. How much of Western European culture was spread
throughout the world in the name of Christianity? Even 'at home'
however, we must be careful to be sensitive to the historical evolution of
concrete behavioural prescriptions. One need only think of the teaching of
Pius XI in his famous encyclical 'On Christian Marriage', Casti Connubii
(1930). The roles of man and woman described for married life in that
document may have been appropriate for the pre-war North Atlantic
world, but they would hardly be appropriate teaching today.
Authority and normative ethics
The twofold sensitivity that is necessary for carrying on the enterprise of

moral teaching is reflected in the practical distinction between formal,
attitudinal norms that point to the exercise of virtue in moral life, and
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Joseph Selling
concrete, behavioural norms that describe human activity and signal the
real or potential presence of good and evil. The authority of the formal or
fundamental norms is the most certain because of its link with the core of
Christian faith itself that specifically addresses attitude or disposition.
Called to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves, we recognize this
call to love being applied in the many facets of human life, especially life
in community. Love applied to human relations is commonly referred to
as justice; love applied to human sexuality is chastity. Love applied to
communication is called honesty and a loving attitude toward commit-
ment is called faithfulness. In other words, love applied to all sorts of
human endeavour reveals the virtues: be kind, generous, patient, and so
forth (1 Cor 13). The authority of the fundamental norms is the authority
of revelation itself and those who pronounce such statements can claim
this authority with confidence, knowing that they are servants of the
source and not its creator. Those who hear the exhortation to a virtuous
life respond not to the speaker but to the source itself, for 'God is love' (1
John 4:7-8).
It is quite a different story for the more explicit, concrete norms that
describe specific human behaviour which always takes place in a cultural
and historical context. Exactly what authority such statements might carry
is dependent not simply on a demonstrable connection with the faith but
also upon a consensus within the (Christian) community about the
appropriateness of various forms of behaviour. Here it is clear that we need
to use the utmost caution lest we overextend the claims to authoritative
pronouncement or underestimate the importance of some behaviours
purely on the basis of their representing cultural conventions. These are
two of the dangers to be avoided in elaborating material norms.
On the first count, we could offer the example of some interpretations
of the so-called natural law that claimed a hierarchy of persons based upon
non-specifying differences within the human condition. As we read in
Gaudium et Spes, 'every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural,
whether based on sex, race, colour, social condition, language or religion,
is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent' (GS, n. 29).
There have been some instances in the past in which the pretence of
religious authority was used to enforce discriminatory practices as though
they were willed by God.
On the other side, we should be wary of complacency toward some form
of behaviour simply because it constitutes 'common practice'. One could
again refer to many forms of discrimination in social living, but a good
alternative would be the way in which various societies tolerate the
violation of social expectations. Tolerance shown to political corruption,
the practice of avoiding reasonable taxes, or the negligent breaking of
traffic laws all constitute specific forms of behaviour that have an important
66
relevance to the whole of social living. Arguing that such behaviour is

'commonplace' does not justify its perpetration. The believer must always
ask whether such behaviour is really appropriate for one who claims to
believe in and live the good news of the gospel.
Teaching authority and morality
Clearly, however, it is neither realistic nor possible for each and every
member of the faithful - not to mention every member of society - to
assess every possible form of behaviour or even come to grips with the
appropriateness of a given attitude or disposition. (How, for instance, does
one distinguish righteous anger from revenge, especially when one is the
victim of injustice?) Fortunately, it is not necessary for us to approach the
vast majority of moral issues from scratch, as it were, because we have
available to us a tremendous heritage of moral wisdom. This wisdom
contains insights, observations, practical rules, and tools for moral
assessment and calculation that help us develop lifestyles and guide us in
making moral decisions that are appropriate for living out the faith.
A person who considers himself or herself to be Christian will define
their life at the most fundamental level as being a child of God, redeemed
by Christ and participant in the entire People of God. A Catholic Christian
(NB: not to the exclusion of others) further recognizes that the means for
encounter with God encompass not only the written Scriptures but also
the apostolic — episcopal — tradition, transmitted through the ages via the
entire community of believers.
It resides in the office of the bishop as apostolic successor in communion
with all other bishops to safeguard and teach the faith. To the extent that
the bishops teach the faith on behalf of the community of the People of
God, this teaching is rightly referred to as authoritative. The authority
that this teaching carries is not the personal authority of the individual
exercising the office but rather the authority of the source of this teaching.
Insofar as various teachings can be related to the (deposit of) faith, 15 they
call upon the faithful to accept these teachings as essential for membership
in the community of the People of God.
When the bishops teach dogma, the very essentials of the faith itself, the
authority they exercise is the same as the dogmas: every member of the
faithful must accept these dogmas if they are to count themself as members
of the faithful. When the bishops teach doctrines, they enunciate items that
have been found to be dependent upon, flowing from or necessary for the
protection of the faith, and the authority of these teachings is proportion-
ate to their essential connection with the faith.
However, when the bishops teach about discipline or the practices of
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Joseph Selling
Christians deemed to be appropriate for followers of Jesus Christ, they

enter a realm of statements and gestures that may or may not have a
significant connection with the gospel. Before one can assess the authority
of any specific instance of this form of teaching, one is obliged to assess
and/or demonstrate its connection with what it means to call oneself a
Christian.
The area of day-to-day teaching or discipline (mores} is so vast that it is
nearly impossible to predict the 'authoritative' value of any specific
teaching in advance. While some positions taken by the Church echo a
clear consensus not only among the vast majority of the faithful but also
throughout significant periods of history, other areas of human conduct
are so new and some so complex that it is difficult to discern any clear
consensus even within the episcopacy. One thinks immediately about
issues in bioethics, but I suggest that there are even larger areas of conduct
that exhibit subtle but extremely complex issues about which it is
extraordinarily difficult to achieve any clear consensus, especially when
social, cultural, political and economic factors continuously and interac-
tively influence human behaviour.
A typical example of such an issue would be the stewardship of human
fertility. Since the human community has acquired a significant if not yet
comprehensive knowledge of the intricacies of human fertility, not only
the respect for this God-given gift but its management becomes the object
of human responsibility. This responsibility applies not only to the
individual couple but also to the whole community: the medical com-
munity, demographers, social scientists, socio-economic policy makers,
educators, even agriculturalists.
Clearly the Church as the People of God has something to say about
these issues; but, because of the broad scope of the issues themselves, what
it says cannot be limited to the behaviour of the individual (couple). Any
statement about the regulation of fertility that does not take sufficient
account of the multi-dimensionality of this vital human issue will be less
than credible because such a statement will not reflect the complexity of
the real question at hand.
It is not our purpose to investigate a particular question of moral
teaching, although some may recognize here one of the more intense issues
in recent Roman Catholic moral teaching that has failed to achieve
consensus among a meaningful portion of the faithful. The crisis caused
by the controversy over the teaching of Humanae Vitae (1968) has burdened
the teaching authority of the Church with a legacy it has not been able to
overcome for nearly thirty years. Many have suggested that the greatest
setback that resulted from the controversy over fertility regulation is the
harm done to the credibility of the teaching authority itself.
Be that as it may, I propose that the authority to teach in the area of
68
morality within the context of the believing community is intimately tied

to the matter being taught. When this matter involves the fundamental
truths of the faith, dogma, that authority extends as far as the truths
themselves which constitute what we call revelation, Scripture and
tradition. When the matter of teaching involves non-revealed truths,
doctrine, its authority is proportionately related to the degree of connec-
tion with revelation or the need for such a teaching to protect the integrity
of revelation. It goes without saying that already at this level we should
be aware of the real possibility for change to take place through time and
culture.
When it comes to questions that exhibit little or no clear connection
with the content of revelation — what is essential for the faith — we must
admit of a very broad scope to the claims for authoritativeness on
particular issues. Especially when this competence (skill) is applied to the
huge area of what is called 'natural morality', extreme caution should be
exercised by the subjects (holders, authors, instigators) of authority lest
they mistake as a Vital issue' something that is little more than a social,
cultural, or anthropological phenomenon. To cite a now ridiculous
example, arguing whether or not it may be natural for a human being to
fly is only a little removed from whether or not it is natural for kings to
control the lives of their peasant subjects, and actually not very much
further removed from claims for any 'natural' way in which human persons
'should' pursue and live out human relationships.
With respect to what have been referred to above as behavioural
(material) norms, the crucial question appears to be whether the develop-
ment and maintenance of particular lifestyles (including their component
parts) are indeed appropriate for one who calls oneself a Christian, a
follower of Jesus Christ and participant member of the People of God.
The answer to this question cannot be found in official statements or
rulings of the hierarchy alone, for these have been shown to be influenced
by historical and cultural factors that militate against absolute claims to
certainty. In order to determine the appropriateness of human behaviour
to the message of the gospel it would seem inescapable that we need to
consult those who are committed to living their lives in the faith - the
People of God.
Finally, what can be taught 'authoritatively' in these areas (discipline,
teaching, natural morality) needs to exhibit the three characteristics of
credibility, communicability and conviction. These are the pillars that
support the authoritativeness of common (day-to-day) moral teaching,
even within the Church. Without these elements, no amount of insistence
will render something credible, make it more communicable or ensure its
ability to convince. Especially in the area of 'natural morality' we must
realize that the argument from authority is always the weakest.
69
Joseph Selling
Notes
1 See Charles E. Curran, 'The teaching function of the Church in morality' in C. E.

Curran (ed.), Moral Theology: Challenges for the Future - Essays in Honor of Richard
A. McCormick (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 155-78 (p. 162).
2 See Avery Dulles, 'The hierarchy of truths in the Catechism', The Thomist 58
(1994), pp. 369-88.
3 See Francis A. Sullivan, Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church (New
York: Paulist Press, 1983), pp. 127-52.
4 An example of the former would be the condemnation of certain philosophical
categories being applied to Christian doctrine, such as gnosticism. An example of
the latter would be the notion of the efficacy or merit of human action.
5 I have developed this idea historically and in more detail in 'The authority of
church teaching in matters of morality' in F. Vosman and K. Merks (eds), Aiming
at Happiness: The Moral Teaching of the Catechism (Kampen: Kok/Pharos, 1996),
pp. 194-221.
6 Note that we can make a distinction between forgiveness and pardon, neither of
which necessarily implies the other. We can forgive a murderer but refuse to
pardon the murderer from punishment. Contrarily, we can pardon someone —
dismiss the consequent punishment 'due' to their crime — without forgiving them,
say for the sake of the peace of the community.
7 Some would say that this characteristic of being human is attributed to our being
created in the image and likeness of God; others say it has to do with human
nature. The verbal and philosophical vehicles of expression are mere variations of
what must be a primary human experience.
8 An interesting review of some specific topics that have been dealt with as moral
issues in the past can be found in Bernard Hoose, Received Wisdom? Reviewing the
Role of Tradition in Christian Ethics (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994).
9 The legalism of classical textbook moral theology was introduced by the canon
lawyers who became the first, predominantly Spanish, 'moral theologians' after the
Council of Trent. Rationalistic influences were introduced later, as the textbook
tradition underwent a revival in the second half of the nineteenth century.
10 The classic example of this appeal is found in Sophocles' Antigone.
11 Bonum est faciendum et prosequendum et malum vitandum: Summa Theologiae, I-II, q.
94,ad 2.
12 The way in which Thomas described the work of prudence would today be familiar
to a number of theories of conscience. For Thomas himself, 'conscience' was not
very important, signifying merely an act of the intellect giving assent to the
findings of reason informed not only by faith but by syndereisis — an anomalous
concept that has disappeared today because of our richer understanding of the
human mind and our greater appreciation for what we now call conscience.
13 It is perhaps interesting to note that when the encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the
regulation of births, Humanae Vitae, was issued in July 1968, the press officer of
the Vatican who introduced the papal letter to the world, Msgr Lambruschini,
was careful to point out that the 'more fundamental questions of natural moral
law' are neither discussed nor resolved by this decision. See 'Conference de presse
de Mgr. Lambruschini, tenue a Rome le 29 juillet 1968' in P. Delhaye, J.
Grootaers and G. Thils, Pour Relire Humanae Vitae: Declarations episcopates du monde
entier (Gembloux: Duculot, 1970), pp. 183-4.
70
14 Very important work has been done in this area by Yves Congar OP, who has
written two virtually classic articles on the subject in Revue des sciences philosophiques
et theologiques 60 (1976): 'Pour une histoire semantique du term "Magisterium"',
pp. 85-98, and 'Bref historique des formes du "magistere" et de ses relations avec
les docteurs', pp. 99-112. These have been translated into English in Charles E.
Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds), Readings in Moral Theology, no. 3: The
Magisterium and Morality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982) as 'A semantic history
of the term "Magisterium"', pp. 297-313, and 'A brief history of the forms of the
"Magisterium" and its relations with scholars', pp. 314-31. For a wider back-
ground to these studies, see also Congar's Tradition and Traditions: An Historical
and Theological Essay (London: Burns & Gates, 1966), originally published in two
parts as La Tradition et les Traditions: Essai Historique (I960), Essai Theologique
(1963).
15 The classical phrase 'deposit of faith' refers to the totality of what we as the People
of God believe. As it stands, this expression gives the impression of being almost
entirely prepositional and hence not entirely apt for a description of the moral life
which includes more 'gestures' than statements.
Select bibliography
Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds), Readings in Moral Theology, no. 3:
The Magisterium and Morality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), especially articles
by Yves Congar, 'A semantic history of the term "Magisterium"', pp. 297-313,
and 'A brief history of the forms of the "Magisterium" and its relations with
scholars', pp. 314-31.
Piet F. Fransen, 'A short history of the meaning of the formula fides et mores', Louvain
Studies 1 (1979), pp. 270-301.
Joseph A. Selling, 'The authority of church teaching in matters of morality' in F.
Vosman and K. Merks (eds), Aiming at Happiness: The Moral Teaching of the Catechism
(Kampen: Kok/Pharos 1996).
Francis A. Sullivan, Magisterium: Teaching Authority m the Catholic Church (New York:
Paulist Press, 1983), pp. 127-52.
71
4
Absolute moral norms
Charles E. Curran
Are there moral norms that are always and everywhere obligatory? Human
beings in general and Christians, as well as philosophers and theologians,
have continuously grappled with this issue but the question has become
more intense in the last decades as some previously accepted moral norms
have been questioned.
The question needs to be nuanced and put into proper perspective.
Almost all would agree that some absolute and universally binding norms
exist. For example, those against murder, lack of respect for persons,
cheating, harming another merely to indulge one's own sense of superior-
ity. Such absolute norms are either formal (murder by definition is
unjustified killing) or very general (justice is to be done) or quite qualified
and include relatively few actions (harming others to indulge one's own
sense of superiority is unacceptable). The controversy today in the churches
often involves concrete, specific, unqualified absolute norms.
Most often ethicians discuss this question of absolute norms from the
perspective of personal morality but this study will also consider the social
dimensions of the issue. However, these two aspects should never be
totally separated.
The Christian approach has generally recognized four different sources
of moral wisdom and knowledge - Scripture, tradition, reason and
experience. Norms have been grounded in these sources with most
emphasis going to the Scriptures and human reason. Protestant approaches
have given greater emphasis to the role of Scripture whereas Roman
Catholic authors have appealed primarily to reason, with the Anglican
tradition often appealing to both Scripture and reason.
72
Personal perspectives
The Scriptures have often served as the basis for absolute moral norms and
laws for Christians. The Ten Commandments constitute the best known
moral teaching found in the Bible. Many catechisms and discussions of
Christian morality have followed the schema of the Ten Commandments.
Although all Christians accept the Ten Commandments, diversity exists
in the numbering of the individual commandments. The differences
concern the first commandments and the last commandments. The Greek
tradition and most Protestants make the prohibition of false gods the first
commandment and the prohibition of false images the second command-
ment while combining in the tenth commandment the coveting of the
neighbour's wife and goods. The Catholic and Lutheran traditions follow
a slightly different version putting the prohibition of false images under
the first commandment's prohibition of false gods and making the
coveting of the neighbour's wife the ninth commandment and the coveting
of the neighbour's goods the tenth commandment. Not all the Ten
Commandments constitute absolute prohibitions as illustrated in the
commandment against killing. Christians generally recognize some cir-
cumstances in which killing can be accepted albeit reluctantly. However,
some absolute norms such as the prohibition of adultery have been based
on Scripture.
Before the critical study of the Bible in the nineteenth century most
Christians understood the moral teaching of the Bible as the commands of
God for all times and places. Fundamentalists still interpret the Bible in
this way. Scripture scholars and moral theologians in the mainstream
Protestant and Catholic churches today recognize that the teachings of the
Bible are historically, culturally and socially conditioned. We live in
different circumstances and situations and consequently what was accepted
as true in a particular book of the Bible written in different times and
places might not be true in our changed situation today.
One good illustration concerns the submission and obedience of wives
to husbands as found in the 'household codes' best illustrated in Galatians
3:18 — 4:1 and Ephesians 5:22 — 6:9- Fundamentalists and some
conservative Christians still see the obedience and submission of the wife
as a biblical norm continuing to be true in our day. Those who accept the
more critical approach to the Scriptures see these household codes as
expressions of the patriarchy of the time and no longer binding in the
changed circumstances of our times.
The present controversy about homosexuality in practically all the
Christian churches illustrates the different ways in which Christians
interpret the Scriptures. Until the late 1960s Christian churches were
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Charles E. Curran
unanimous in their condemnation of homosexual acts and in their

recognition of a biblical basis for this condemnation. The 'holiness code'
in Leviticus (18:22 and 20:13) twice condemns homosexual acts. Chris-
tians generally interpreted the famous story of the town of Sodom related
in Genesis 19:4—11 as the destruction of the city by God because of its
great sinfulness as shown in homosexuality. The Christian Scriptures
contain three apparently direct condemnations of homosexuality (Rom
1:27; 1 Cor 6:9-10; 1 Tim 1:9-10).
Today, however, some Christians do not see in the Scriptures a
condemnation of homosexual acts between a committed homosexual
couple. Homosexual acts within the context of a loving relationship
between two homosexually oriented persons can be morally good. In
dealing with the scriptural evidence, supporters of such a position first
point out that the Sodom story does not understand the destruction of the
city as caused by the sin of homosexuality, thus lessening the great
heinousness which had supposedly been connected with homosexual acts.
The Scriptures do assume that homosexual acts are wrong but this does
not seem to be a major concern of any biblical writer in either the Old or
the New Testament. In addition, no arguments are given of a theological
or ethical nature to explain why these acts are wrong. In the New
Testament there is also a problem in the translation of the Greek. The
Greek in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 probably does not refer
to general homosexual behaviour but may mean only male prostitution
connected with idolatry. In interpreting the meaning of the Scriptures for
us today one recognizes the great cultural, historical and social differences
between the biblical times and our own. The biblical traditions and
writers knew nothing about homosexuality as an orientation or a con-
dition. They were thus talking about heterosexual persons engaged in
homosexual acts. Consequently, the Scriptures do not necessarily condemn
homosexual acts between two homosexually oriented persons in a commit-
ted relationship.
This is not the place to enter into the discussion of the merits of both
sides, the purpose is merely to show the difficulty some Christians have
today in finding in the Scripture a law forbidding homosexual acts
between committed homosexual persons. Some evangelical Christians
(e.g., Richard Mouw) still insist on seeing the moral life primarily in
terms of the commands of God as found in the Scriptures but these
commands constitute prima facie obligations. Precisely because of the
differences between the biblical times and our own circumstances other
aspects come into play that may override the presumption in favour of the
biblical command. Thus at the very minimum, many Christian ethicists
today recognize the difficulty of grounding specific, concrete, absolute
moral norms in the teaching of the Scriptures.
74
Experience and especially human reason have often supported the

grounding of absolute norms for philosophers (e.g., Immanuel Kant with
his famous categorical imperative saying that I ought never to act in such
a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law)
and for Christian theologians and churches. The Roman Catholic tradition
more than any other Christian tradition has developed its moral positions
in the light of human reason and from this perspective has insisted on
some absolute norms. The Catholic tradition has employed the theory of
natural law to ground its norms. This theory is developed in greater detail
in Chapter 2.
For our purposes natural law maintains that human reason reflecting on
human nature can arrive at moral wisdom and knowledge. The Roman
Catholic Church has recently been the scene for much discussion about
the theory and practical conclusions of natural law. The official hierarchical
teaching continues to employ a natural law method and defends absolute
moral norms. With regard to very concrete, specific and unqualified norms
the official Catholic teaching insists on the absolute condemnation of
contraception, masturbation, direct sterilization and direct killing, on the
basis of its natural law theory. So-called revisionist Catholic theologians
and many non-Catholics object to many of these very specific and
unqualified absolute norms.
The question of absolute norms has arisen especially in Roman
Catholicism with regard to universally condemned actions which are
described in terms of the physical structure of the act; for example,
masturbation, contraception, and direct killing are always wrong. The
condemnation of contraception by the pope insists that human beings can
never interfere with the physical conjugal act. The sexual faculty has a
twofold purpose — love union and procreation. Every sexual act must
always be open to and expressive of these two purposes. Direct killing
according to official Catholic teaching is an act which by the very nature
of the act or the intention of the agent aims at killing either as a means or
as an end. Note that 'direct' is determined by the physical structure and
causality of the act. In the case of the dilemma of taking either the life of
the mother or the life of the foetus (a case which in practice is very rare
indeed) one cannot directly kill the foetus to save the mother. Such a
killing is direct because the act is specifically aimed or targeted at the
foetus as a means to save the mother. One can, however, remove a
cancerous uterus which contains a foetus because here the physical act is
aimed at the cancerous uterus and does not directly kill the foetus. The
instances where the moral act is described solely in terms of the physical
structure of the act concern mostly sexual and medical ethics.
The question arises why such cases seem to be so different from other
areas of morality. For the most part the Catholic moral tradition like other
75
Charles E. Curran
Christian moral traditions has not identified the physical structure of the
act with the moral act. Killing is a physical act. But not every killing is
wrong. Not every act of false speech is a lie. The lying example provides
helpful insight into the question under discussion. In this century some
theologians began to question the accepted understanding of the malice of
lying and proposed a solution which actually has roots in an even earlier
Christian tradition. The accepted understanding in the beginning of the
twentieth century understood the malice of lying to consist in the violation
of the God-given purpose of the faculty of speech. The purpose of the
faculty of speech is to put on my lips what is in my mind. To put on my
lips what is in contradiction to what is in my mind is perverting the
faculty of speech and is therefore going against its God-given purpose.
Such an approach developed an elaborate casuistry of mental reservations
to deal with conflict situations where telling the truth might be harmful.
The problem of needing to conceal the truth from someone who has no
right to it or was going to abuse it occasioned a rethinking of the criterion
of the malice of lying. The faculty of speech should not be isolated and
considered in itself but rather seen as part of the human person who is
related to other human persons. The malice of lying consists in the
violation of my neighbour's right to truth. But if the neighbour has no
right to truth then one may speak a falsehood which is not a lie. The
'physical' falsehood is not always a moral lie. The example not only
illustrates the fact that the moral reality differs from the physical reality
but underscores the problem with a moral criterion based on the nature
and purpose of the faculty as seen in isolation from the person and the
person's relationship with other persons.
The official Catholic teaching on sexuality also employs an approach
based on the nature and purpose of the sexual faculty or power. Human
sexuality exists for the twofold purpose of love union and procreation and
consequently every sexual act must be both open to procreation and
expressive of love union. Such an understanding grounds the condem-
nation of artificial contraception for spouses.
A word of caution is in order. Sometimes the physical and the moral
are the same. The only human beings we know are physical and bodily
human beings. However, one cannot a priori identify the human and the
moral with the physical. The physical is only one aspect of the human and
the moral. The ultimate moral or human judgement (I am using these
two terms synonymously) must be inclusive of all aspects — the physical,
the psychological, the social, the eugenic, the hygienic, and so forth. The
moral or human judgement is the ultimate judgement which must balance
off all the particular aspects of the human act such as the physical or the
biological. Human nature cannot be reduced only to the physical or the
biological.
76
Two other significant factors have lately affected the understanding of

both human nature and human reason and have influenced the realization
that concrete, specific, unqualified, absolute norms are hard to justify and
ground — historicity and historical consciousness on the one hand and also
the turn to the subject.
The emphasis on history contrasts with the emphasis on the givenness
of nature which is basically the same throughout history and in all parts
of the world. Historicity is much more aware of pluralism and diversity
with regard to human beings. Historical consciousness grounded in such
historicity tends to see the human in terms of the particular, the
individual, the contingent and the developing. An older classicism
understood the human more in terms of the immutable, the eternal, the
unchanging, and often began its considerations with the essential defini-
tion of the reality that was always and everywhere true. Historical
consciousness employs a more inductive methodology than the one-sided
deductive approach of classicism. However, historical consciousness recog-
nizes both continuity and discontinuity and rejects a total relativism or
existentialism which emphasizes the present with no connection to the
past and future and no relationships to others in the present. One can
readily see how historicity and historical consciousness would make it
more difficult to speak about unqualified, specific, absolute norms that are
obliging in all cultures, times and circumstances.
The turn to the subject emphasizes the person not just as an object or
nature but as a true subject of one's own existence. The person is a self-
conscious subject who makes and shapes himself or herself in the course of
history. Although limited by nature the subject is not totally determined
by it. However, at times the person as subject and agent can interfere with
the physical act or the physical purpose of the faculty for the good of the
total person as such.
The two shifts to historical consciousness and to a greater focus on the
subject have affected all ethical endeavours. These factors undergird the
critical approach to the Scriptures which has already been discussed.
Philosophical ethics, the vast field which bases ethics only on human
reason, has also been affected by these two shifts. Three current develop-
ments in philosophical ethics which also influence moral theology or
Christian ethics will be addressed — the very possibility of a universal
morality, foundationalism, and the contemporary debate between deonto-
logical and teleological approaches.
First, in the light of historicity, greater pluralism, and growing
diversity, some philosophers maintain that ethics are bound to a particular
tradition and community and not necessarily universal. However, the
mainstream Christian tradition with its emphasis on universality as
illustrated in its understanding of God as the Creator of all and of
77
Charles E. Curran
Christian love as reaching out to all generally cannot accept such an

approach denying any universality to morality.
Second, many philosophers today reject what they call foundationalism
which claims there is one source or basis from which our understanding of
ethics as well as our specific norms can be derived. Catholic natural law
theory furnishes one illustration of foundationalism because it derives its
total ethical theory about the human being as well as absolute norms from
human nature. However, many who reject foundationalism still oppose
relativism and accept some universal moral realities as true for all. These
approaches use a more inductive methodology to arrive at some moral
realities binding on all.
Third, in philosophical ethics as well as in theological ethics today
many refer to the differences between the two principal methodologies
concerning human actions which are described as deontological or teleo-
logical approaches. Deontology sees the moral life primarily in terms of
duty, law and obligation. This position then is often associated with
absolute norms. On the other hand, teleology understands the moral life
in terms of ends or goals to be attained. One extreme form of teleology is
consequentialism which bases morality only on the total consequences of a
particular action. Such a total consequentialism maintains that good
consequences could make exceptions in all moral norms. For example,
infanticide or even incest might be morally acceptable in some rare
circumstances because of the good consequences. However, the differences
between these two approaches are not as great as first sight seems to
indicate. On the one hand, many teleologists reject a total consequential-
ism and even some total consequentialists recognize the need for some
rules or norms based on consequentialism. (A great debate exists in
philosophical ethics between rule utilitarians and act utilitarians.) On the
other hand, the vast majority of deontologists today who see duty or
obligation as the primary consideration in morality stress that they are
speaking about prima facie obligations which are open to some exceptions.
However, many deontologists would be willing to recognize absolute
norms which are of a more general or broad nature. Thus, there is no
sharp opposition between deontologists insisting that all norms are
absolute as opposed to consequentialists who are not willing to admit any
kinds of norms.
Within Roman Catholicism at the present time one can identify three
generic approaches to the question of absolute norms dealing with
concrete, material behaviour. The official hierarchical teaching continues
to employ the natural law approach with its emphasis on the purpose of
the faculty in matters of sexuality. On this basis the hierarchical teaching
authority continues to support the well-known teachings opposed to
contraception, direct sterilization, artificial insemination, and direct kill-
78
ing. A second approach identified with Germain Grisez and John Finnis
develops a different natural law approach based on human flourishing or
integral human fulfilment. According to this approach there are certain
basic human goods which human beings can never directly go against.
While the theory disagrees with the emphasis on the nature of the faculty
in the natural law theory of the hierarchical magisterium it comes to the
same basic conclusions in practice.
A third approach, often called revisionist or proportionalist, disagrees
to some extent with both the theory and the conclusions of the natural
law theory proposed by the hierarchical magisterium. This theory dis-
tinguishes between moral evil and premoral (or physical or ontic) evil thus
trying to avoid the danger of physicalism that seems to be present in the
official hierarchical teaching. One can never intend premoral evil as an end
but one can intend and do premoral evil as a means to an end provided
there is a proportionate reason. Much discussion has ensued about the
exact meaning of proportionate reason. Proponents of Catholic revisionism
maintain they avoid the dangers of physicalism on the one hand and of
total consequentialism on the other. I personally accept the Catholic
revisionist position.
In conclusion the question of absolute moral norms is not the most
important question for basic Christian ethics. Law in my judgement is not
the most significant moral category. Morality should never be seen
primarily in terms of a legal model but rather in terms of a relationality—
responsibility model which sees the individual human person in multiple
relationships with God, neighbour, world and self. In the context of this
model great emphasis is given to the conversion or basic change of heart
of the individual person together with the virtues or attitudes that should
direct the Christian in daily life. Values constitute an important consider-
ation in Christian ethics and laws should exist to protect these values. Law
thus should never play the primary role in basic Christian ethics or in the
moral life but laws do have a necessary place. Some laws will admit of
exception while others are absolute. For example, most Christians recog-
nize there are circumstances when the obligation of promise keeping is no
longer morally required while the Christian community generally main-
tains an absolute prohibition of adultery.
The previous considerations have laid the groundwork for an under-
standing of absolute moral norms in moral theology. On a more general
level there exist absolute moral values or principles or norms but as one
becomes more specific the possibility of absolute, specific, unqualified
norms decreases. Such a general understanding coheres with generally
accepted understandings of logic. The greater the complexity and the
specificity, the more difficult it is to claim that one moral value will not
conflict with another. Confidentiality, for example, is a very important
79
Charles E. Curran
value based on a promise and a relationship to others. Physicians, for

example, owe confidentiality to their patients. However, sometimes this
obligation in specific instances can be overturned — for example, the
demands of the common good or the good of another person such as the
sexual partner of a person with AIDS. On the other hand, churches that
celebrate the sacrament of penance insist on an absolute obligation of
confidentiality on the part of the priest in order to protect the most
important relationship of all - the penitent's relationship through the
priest with a saving God.
In the thirteenth century in the Catholic tradition Thomas Aquinas
made the same basic point about the move from the general to the more
specific and complex. Thomas Aquinas makes an important distinction
between the first principles of the natural law and the secondary principles.
The first principles oblige always and everywhere, but Thomas usually
refers to these first principles only as one is to act according to right reason
and to do good and avoid evil. I do not think that any reasonable person
would disagree with Aquinas. However, the conclusions of practical reason
or the secondary principles of the natural law oblige ut in pluribus — as
generally occurs but not always. Thomas Aquinas gives the example of the
principle that deposits or something entrusted to another for safe-keeping
must always be returned to the rightful owner. However, in some
circumstances returning a deposit to the rightful owner may be irrational
and even harmful. One should not return a sword to a drunk who is
threatening to kill others. The basic reason proposed by Aquinas is that
the more specific something becomes the more other circumstances are
able to enter in and change what ordinarily should be done.
This section has tried to show both the need for some absolute norms
in Christian ethics and also the reason why in the last decades many have
questioned some of the existing absolute norms that have been tra-
ditionally held in some Christian churches. As pointed out, some
Christians have challenged the absolute norm condemning homosexual
acts between homosexual persons; many Catholics question the absolute
norm condemning contraception for married couples. On the other hand,
most Christians today still maintain that adultery is wrong. It might help
to briefly indicate the reasons why adultery is wrong. Strong scriptural
and traditional warrants exist for this condemnation. The experience of
the Christian community today indicates strong support for the immoral-
ity of adultery. Reason points out the manifold bases and grounds for the
condemnation of adultery since adultery involves an injury to one's spouse,
a violation of one's own marriage commitment, and results in deleterious
effects on the important institution of marriage. The second part of this
book will discuss the question of absolute norms in the area of marriage,
sexuality, divorce, truth, confidentiality, and euthanasia.
80
Social context
The discussion about absolute norms generally occurs only in the context
of personal morality. But one must also consider here the context of social
morality with the realization that no absolute dichotomy should exist
between the personal and the social.
The Christian tradition in general and the Roman Catholic approach in
particular have emphasized the importance of the common good. Human
beings are not just isolated individuals but are social beings called to live
together in civic and political community. The common good refers to
shared or public values and interests which ultimately redound to the
good of all the members of the community.
Such an understanding of society is opposed to individualism which
sees the society as the sum total of individuals and also to collectivism
which denies the legitimate needs and rights of individuals who are
submerged in the collectivity. Individualism constitutes the major prob-
lem today.
Individualists pursue their own individual good or success (often
understood in monetary terms) and have no concern for the common or
public good of the community. I should be free to do my own thing and
you should be free to do your own thing. The dangers of such an approach
are obvious. Either civil society will be torn asunder or the strong and the
fortunate will prevail.
Any theory of the common good asserts that a shared understanding of
the requirements of justice and human rights is necessary for community
and society. We must provide justice for all and ensure the basic human
rights of all. But here too one must make sure that justice and human
rights are not understood in a totally individualistic manner.
Human rights are both political or civil on the one hand, and economic
or social on the other. Political and civil rights stress freedom from — the
freedom of individuals from outside forces that are trying to restrict or
restrain them. Thus we have freedom of religion, of the press, of
association, of speech. But there are also social or economic rights. Every
individual has the right to a basic minimum necessary for truly human
existence — a right to food, clothing, shelter, and a basic level of health
care. Both types of rights are necessary.
These basic human rights or common values will by definition tend to
be somewhat broad and general. Likewise there will be much discussion
about what such values or rights entail in practice. However, even the
many particular disagreements within a given society on such issues
indicate that a basic type of shared broad agreement still exists.
Some recent developments in Christian theological ethics, however,
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Charles E. Curran
might seem at first sight to argue against any absolute norms of justice
and rights in a given political community. Liberationist and feminist
theologies point out there is no neutral, objective, universal reason but all
of us are human subjects who are coming from different historical and
social locations. Every human being brings with himself or herself their
own experiences, to say nothing of that person's fmitude, limitations and
prejudices. The Western world and our understanding of it have been
shaped by white males of an upper-class background. Consequently, not
enough attention has been given to women or to those of other races and
economic classes. The United States with its strong declaration of
inalienable and fundamental human rights did not recognize the rights of
African Americans and accepted slavery and second-class citizenship for
Blacks for most of its history. Patriarchy dominated the Western world,
relegating women to a subordinate role in society. The poor have been
made invisible. Universal, neutral, objective reason does not really exist.
Liberation theologies begin with the location and experience of the
oppressed - the poor, people of colour, and women - and take their
subjective strivings for liberation seriously. In this light God is not an
objective, detached observer of the human scene but God too is prejudiced
and partial - in favour of the oppressed. In the liberationist perspective
truth is not an abstract reality which is applied to particular issues.
Rather, theology and ethics insist on the importance of praxis and
reflection on praxis. Truth emerges from the experience of people striving
for liberation and does not exist primarily as an abstract, objective reality.
In the light of the emphasis found in various liberation theologies one
might conclude there is no possibility for any universality. But the vast
majority of liberation theologians and ethicists while emphasizing social
location and the experience of the oppressed do not want to deny
universality. Liberation theologians in Latin America speak about a
preferential option for the poor which is not exclusive but merely shows a
preference. Feminist ethicists generally do not plead for an exclusive
feminist society but recognize the need for all to be equal and share in the
life of society.
Yes, social location and the recognition that we are not neutral, value-
free, objective observers of the human scene are important insights in
contemporary ethics of all kinds. However, most thinkers who start from
a particular social location also recognize the need for some common
morality and universal norms of justice and rights within the society.
Without such commonly accepted principles of justice and rights there
can be no true political community. Today we are much more conscious
of the pluralism and diversity within political society. In addition, our
world has witnessed the breakup of some political unities because of the
diversity of language, ethnicity and culture. In the light of the greater
82
diversity existing in most political societies today and in the light of an

over-emphasis on individualism it is harder to recognize and agree on the
common good of all. But without a common good involving absolute
norms of justice and fundamental human rights there can be no political
society.
Often the issue of norms and absolute norms or laws in basic Christian
ethics has been emphasized and distorted. Norms of any type are not the
primary concern of the discipline but they do have a place and a role. This
chapter has attempted to explain both the need for norms in basic
Christian ethics and the reasons why some absolute moral norms previously
held in Christian communities have recently been challenged.
Select bibliography
Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds), Readings m Moral Theology, no. 7:
Natural Law and Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1991).
Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw, Fulfillment in Christ: A Summary of Christian Moral
Principles (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991).
Bernard Hoose, Proportionalism: The American Debate and Its European Roots (Washing-
ton, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1987).
Richard J. Mouw, The God Who Commands (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1990).
Jeffrey S. Siker, Scripture and Ethics: Twentieth-Century Portraits (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997).
83
5
Virtue ethics
James F. Keenan
Renewed interest in virtue ethics arises from a dissatisfaction with the

way we do ethics today. Most discussions about ethics today consider
major controversial actions: abortion, gay marriages, nuclear war, gene
therapy, and so forth. These discussions basically dominate contemporary
ethics. Many writers in this volume, in fact, belong to a variety of different
schools of thought that measure whether a controversial human action is
right or wrong.1
Virtue ethicists are different. We are not primarily interested in
particular actions. We do not ask 'Is this action right?' 'What are the
circumstances around an action?' or 'What are the consequences of an
action?' We are simply interested in persons.
We believe that the real discussion of ethics is not the question 'What
should I do?' but 'Who should I become?' In fact, virtue ethicists expand
that question into three key, related ones: 'Who am I?' 'Who ought I to
become?' 'How am I to get there?' 2
Who am I?
No question is more central for ethics than 'Who am I?' It is the

foundational question.3 When we know who we are, we know where we
need to improve. To the virtue ethicist, the question ethically, then, is the
same as 'How virtuous am I?' This is because, as Thomas Aquinas writes,
every moral question can be reduced to the consideration of the virtues. 4
The answer is found by two major considerations. First, 'What standards
am I to measure myself against?' Second, 'How will I know whether I am
measuring fairly?' For the first question, two of the most important works
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Virtue ethics
in ethics attempt to assist us by naming the basic virtues. In the

Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives us eleven different virtues that are
necessary for helpful citizens of whatever society we belong to. Friendship,
magnanimity, practical wisdom are some of these. In Part II of the Summa
Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas takes from Plato, Cicero, Ambrose, Gregory
and Augustine the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance
and fortitude or bravery. Together with these he adds the three theological
virtues. He states that the first four we can acquire through deliberately
willed and enjoyed habitual right action; the latter three are gifts from
God.
If we follow Aquinas's outline then we can say that the fundamental
question is 'Am I just, temperate, brave and prudent?' For centuries we
have recommended that people ask themselves this. More recently, because
we equate ethics with particular major actions, we have forgotten this
question for self-examination. Nonetheless, even in recent times we have
had important writers reminding us of the centrality of these cardinal
virtues. 5
But how can I know how virtuous I am? To answer that question
Aristotle suggests that we can know ourselves by considering how we act
in spontaneous situations: we reveal ourselves to ourselves when we act in
the unplanned world of ordinary life. We may believe that we are
particularly brave or cowardly, but that assessment is only correct if it
conforms to how we actually behave in the unanticipated concrete
situation. Self-knowledge is key, therefore, but a self-knowledge that is
critical and honest, not one based on wishful thinking.
Who ought I to become?
The second question embodies a vision of the type of person we ought to

become. Though we use Thomas's four cardinal virtues to find out how
virtuous we actually are, we should use those same four virtues to
determine who we ought to become. For certainly, if we are honest in
answering the first question, then some virtues are not as fully acquired
by us as are others. In fact, for the honest person the virtues are not what
we acquire in life; they are what we pursue.
We use the virtues, therefore, to set the personal goals that we encourage
one another to seek. Thomas and others call this goal the end. That is, the
middle question sets an end that we should seek. That end is a type of
person with the cardinal virtues.
Setting this end means that the fundamental task of the moral life is to
develop a vision and to strive to attain it. Inasmuch as that vision is who
we ought to become, then, the key insight is that we should always aim
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James F. Keenan
to grow. As a person-oriented ethics, virtue ethics insists that without

growth, we cannot become more moral.
Setting such an end describes, then, another way that virtue ethicists
are different from other ethicists. Rather than examining actions and
asking whether we should perform them or not, virtue ethicists say that
persons ought to set ends for the type of people they wish to become and
pursue them.
I have always thought that parents think this way. Parents are not
primarily concerned with what action Johnny is doing. Rather, they want
to understand how Johnny is growing. Certainly there are times when
with young children, parents talk like deontologists: 'Don't ever talk to
strangers', 'Don't ever talk back to another person', 'Don't ever cross the
street unless the traffic light says so'. But behind all their judgements is a
more basic concern about how Johnny is turning out.
If Johnny needs to become more sensitive to other people, his parents
may pick one neighbourhood to live in with more children rather than
another with fewer; if Mary should become more studious, her parents
will look for the school that successfully helps students to acquire right
study habits; if Tommy is insecure, his parents will try to find ways that
as a family they can help Tommy to grow in confidence. Generally,
parents' judgements about their children focus on what type of people
their children are becoming and whether they can help their child become
more fully integrated. That is, parents ask both 'Who is my child?' and
'How can he or she grow well?'
Likewise, we do well when we parent ourselves. When we begin to
examine ourselves, we see which weaknesses we can respond to and which
strengths we can develop. When we are pro-active and anticipate a variety
of situations where we can be more open-minded, more generous, more
forgiving, more assertive, we are trying to develop the virtues within
us.6
As a matter of fact, we often act this way. For instance, if I were to ask
you to take a piece of paper and write down three ethical issues, what
would you write down? Poverty, war, sexual matters, gender equality, and
so forth. But if I asked you to turn the paper over and write down three
things about yourself that you woke up this morning thinking about, I
believe that you would write about bettering a relationship, learning to
work better, taking better care of your health, or becoming more conscious
of your neighbour. Virtue ethicists think of the second side of the paper
as the real issues of ethics. We believe that when we start thinking that
way, then we can address those big controversial issues on the first side
having promoted first a virtuous life for ourselves individually and
communally.
To the extent that we are examining our lives and seeking ways of
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Virtue ethics
improving ourselves for the betterment of ourselves and others, we are

engaging in virtue ethics.
How do I get to the end?
In order to get to the end, one needs prudence. For many years prudence
has had a terrible reputation, being thought of as caution or self-interest.
Be prudent meant: Don't get caught. Be extra careful. Watch out!
For Aristotle and Thomas prudence is not simply caution. Prudence is
rather the virtue of a person whose feet are on the ground and who thinks
both practically and realistically. Prudence belongs to the person who not
only sets realistic ends, but sets out to attain them. The prudent person is
precisely the person who knows how to grow.7
Being prudent is no easy task. From the medieval period until today,
we believe that it is easier to get something wrong than to get it right.
For today we still assert that if only one component of an action is wrong,
the whole action is wrong. Think for instance of cooking. In order for
something to come out right, every ingredient has to be measured exactly,
prepared correctly and cooked properly. How many of us have had a
terrible meal because it was too salty, overcooked, too spicy or too bland?
Only when everything comes out right can we say that the meal tasted
well.
Prudence is even more complicated when we try to work out the
appropriate way of becoming more virtuous. It must be attentive to detail,
anticipate difficulties and measure rightly. Moreover, as any one who has
watched children knows, we are not born with prudence. Actually we
acquire it through a very Jong process.
The first sign of real prudence is finding the right person to give us
advice. When I taught at Fordham University in the Bronx, I lived in the
student dorms and noted how often university students went to one
another for advice. These students, away from home for the first time,
were looking for advice no longer from their parents, but instead from
their peers. Often they looked to people like themselves for advice; in fact,
the groups with which they associated collectively were similar to
themselves individually. Studious students stayed together, as did hard
workers, athletes, snobs, shy people, excessive party-goers, and so forth.
When they asked for advice they usually were not hearing anything new.
On occasion someone from outside the group might raise a question.
For instance, one might say to the excessive drinker that he was drinking
too much. Inevitably he sought out advice about the charge and went to
his alcoholic drinking buddy to ask if he was drinking too much and his
buddy would calm his friend's anxiety with denial. After a while, however,
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James F. Keenan
the drinker would ask someone else, usually someone from the exact
opposite group, someone who thought drinking was always wrong. What
the student was looking for was advice, but he went from one extreme to
the other.
Finding prudence is finding the middle point. Unlike the student here,
prudence guides us to moderation, where we are not at either end of an
extreme. The student who drinks excessively will only get good advice
when he meets someone who is able to recognize the difference between
moderate and excessive drinking.
As prudence looks for the moderating advisor, it does so because it
realizes that all of prudence is precisely getting to the middle point or the
mean between extremes. As Aquinas says, virtue is the mean.
Getting the mean is not always easy. I remember a friend who was
afraid of heights. In order to grow, he needed to face his fear, but he had
to do it prudentially. That is, he needed to set a realistic goal that he
could attain. But that goal had to be the mean between extremes for him.
For instance, if he went too high, say if he went to the observation deck
of the World Trade Center, he would feel no confidence at all, only
anxiety. But if he only went to the second-storey balcony of an apartment
building, he would not feel sufficient tension. Prudence helps then find
the mean where there is adequate tension for growth, neither too little nor
too much.
That mean is not fixed. For me to get over my fear of heights requires
me to go to the height where I feel sufficient tension, a height that may
not be the same as for another with a similar fear. The mean of virtue then
is not something set in stone: rather, it is the mean by which only a
specific person can grow. This is another reason why prudence is so
difficult: no two means are the same.
But parents again know this. Though their children always cry 'Foul'
or 'That's unfair' whenever a parent treats one child differently from
another, still if a parent treated each child the same, then only one child
would grow adequately. Instead, parents appreciate the uniqueness of each
child and try to address each child as unique.
Finding the mean of the right tension depends on who the person is.
Just as in weight-lifting, one needs to determine what is the right tension
by considering the lifter's abilities, so too in most matters that pertain to
a person's growth, we cannot give prudential advice unless we have a clear
idea of who the agent is. In a manner of speaking, a virtue ought to fit a
person the way a glove fits one's hand. There is a certain tailor-made feel
to a virtue, which prompts Aquinas to call virtue one's second nature.
Virtue ethics is, therefore, a pro-active system of ethics. It invites all
people to see themselves as they really are, to assess themselves and see
who they can actually become. In order both to estimate oneself and to set
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Virtue ethics
desired goals it proffers the virtues for both. Moreover, it invites all people
to see that they set the agenda not only of the end, but also of the means
to accomplish that end. Virtuous actions, like temperate drinking or
courageously facing one's fear of heights, are the prudential means for
achieving the end of becoming a more virtuous person. And we see those
means as moderate or prudential ones.
Virtue ethics encompasses one's entire life. It sees every moment as the
possibility for acquiring or developing a virtue. To underline this point,
Aquinas said that every human action is a moral action.8 That is, any
action that I knowingly perform is a moral action because it affects me as
a moral person. Whatever I do makes me become what I do. If I drive to
work and use that time to reflect on the day that lies before me, over time
I can become a person with a developed sense of foresight. If I drive to
work both aggressively and speedily, I eventually arrive at my office with
the same manic personality that brought me there. If I correct everyone's
mistakes at every opportunity, I am becoming more and more of a control
freak. And though my corrections may hurt a few around me, they are
basically making me progressively more and more trapped by this
disposition. While others may be affected by some of my actions, I am the
first person affected by all of my actions.
Thomas saw every human action as an exercise. The way I take
breakfast, the way I leave home, the way I drive to work, the way I greet
people in the morning are all exercises that affect me. My morning
exercises make me in part: the person I will be for the rest of the day. They
make me become what I do. Though some of us go through life never
examining the habits we engage, Thomas suggests to us that we ought to
examine our ways of acting and ask ourselves 'Are these ways making us
more just, prudent, temperate and brave?' If they are, they are virtuous
exercises.
When we think of exercise we think of athletics. The person who
exercises by running eventually becomes a runner just as the one who
dances becomes a dancer. From that insight Thomas, like Aristotle before
him, sees that intended, habitual activity in the sports arena is no different
from any other arena of life. If we can develop ourselves physically we can
develop ourselves morally by intended, habitual activity.
Virtue ethics sees, therefore, the ordinary as the terrain on which the
moral life moves. Thus, while most ethics make their considerations about
rather controversial material (genetics, abortion, war, and so forth), virtue
ethics often engages the commonplace. It is concerned with what we teach
our children and how; with the way we relate with friends, families, and
neighbours; with the way we live our lives. Moreover, it is concerned not
only with whether a physician maintains professional ethics, for instance,
whether she keeps professional secrets or observes informed consent with
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James F. Keenan
her patients. It is equally concerned with her private life, with whether
she knows how to respect her friends' confidences or whether she respects
her family members' privacy. In a word, before the physician is a physician
she is a person. It is her life as a person with which virtue ethics is
specifically concerned.
As opposed to dilemma-based ethics, virtue ethics is pro-active,
concerned with the ordinary and all-encompassing. Dilemma-based ethics,
which captures so much of our time, imagination and energy, presents
ethics as an emergency room in which suddenly a previously unknown
person arrives in a catastrophic state: needing an organ transplant, assisted
suicide or an abortion. In that made-for-TV ethics, the agent is little more
than a reactor to other people's dilemmas.
Virtue ethics looks at the world from an entirely different vantage
point, moving ahead with less glamour and drama, but always seeing the
agent, not as reactor, but as actor: knowing oneself, setting the agenda of
personal ends and means in both the ordinary and the professional life.
Virtue ethics: yesterday, today and tomorrow
While we are retrieving virtue ethics today we realize that we cannot

return to the early Athens of Aristotle or the thirteenth-century Italy of
Thomas. Moreover, we recognize that there are some concerns about virtue
ethics being raised by a variety of people. First and foremost is the
argument that virtue ethics cannot deal with practical issues. Because
virtue is concerned with persons, some argue, it cannot adequately deal
with human action.9 Though one can equally ask these objectors how
effective their ethical systems have been,10 or more importantly, whether
their ethical systems for all their clarity have ever helped people to become
more ethical,11 still virtue ethics must show how practical it can be. Here,
it is noteworthy that nursing ethics in particular is making great headway
in showing how a relationally-based concern for agents as persons is a
more constructive ethics than any present rule or code-based ethics.12 In
fact, the application of virtue to medical ethics has raised several issues
about the delivery of health care that other ethical systems never asked.13
While virtue ethics is at times introspective, the complaint that it needs
to be more extroverted and practical has prompted a variety of writers to
demonstrate that it can give specific advice, that it can improve our ability
to know the right and to do it, that it can give us new issues to address,
and above all that it can make us better and our actions morally right.
Two other issues prompt us to refine our understanding of virtue. In a
brilliant book, Owen Flanagan warns against preconceiving of a defini-
tively moral person and imposing that image on others. He argues that
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Virtue ethics
the possibilities for moral excellence are as unlimited both as the

individual is complex and as human experience is original. A discussion of
great saints and heroes helps make the point that no single portrait of a
moral saint or hero has ever provided a definitive expression of what a
human person ought to be; St Elizabeth was not Mahatma Gandhi, St
John the Baptizer was not the Little Flower. The Christian community
sustains this insight: the communion of saints demonstrates the enormous
variety of ways that the holy is incarnated or as Flanagan beautifully puts
it, 'the deep truth that persons find their good in many different ways'.14
He insists then that people can only become morally excellent persons by
being themselves. The saint has always been an original; never an
imitation.
Flanagan rightly warns us that in asking 'Who ought I to become' we
understand that we are not trying to become clones. Rather we are seeking
to understand how we as individuals can actually become virtuous. Thus,
though we may each believe that we should become just and prudent, we
must be sure that we preserve our own identities as we pursue the virtues.
Flanagan is not the only one who warns us that we cannot ask our three
questions in a vacuum. Alasdair Maclntyre reminds us 15 that our local
communities determine our understanding of the virtues. Justice in
Aristotle's Athens is not the same as it was in the seventeenth-century
pioneering Wild West or the late twentieth-century urban New York.
Maclntyre's claims concern not only history but also geography. Justice is
expressed differently in Congo, Malaysia, France or Brazil. Likewise, what
constitutes prudence in London, Birmingham, York or Liverpool is
different.
Both writers warn against any artificial designs for answering the
question of who we ought to become. We each ought to strive to become
the person that God made us to be and we each must recognize how our
societies have contributed to our own understanding of what it means to
be moral. But we should recognize that at least minimally there are some
virtues that each of us ought to have, regardless of where or when we live
or who we are. 16 We should not say much about the content of each of
these virtues, for history, geography and the individual fill out their
practical meaning. But we can say to every child, adolescent and adult
there are ways of living about which every virtuous person is rightly
concerned. This was what Plato, Cicero, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory,
Thomas and others meant by the cardinal virtues.
We conclude our consideration of the virtues asking then a final
question: 'Are the four cardinal virtues that they offered in antiquity
adequate for today?' For several reasons, I think they are inadequate and
in their place I propose another set of cardinal virtues. 17
First Thomas's cardinal virtues basically describe one type of person:
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James F. Keenan
the just person. Temperance and bravery exist in order to help a person to
be just; they are effectively auxiliary. Likewise prudence functions to
determine the concrete mean for justice, temperance and courage. For
Thomas then the just person is the virtuous person. The other virtues help
the person to be just.
Today, however, the image of the just person is insufficient. Almost
everyone writing on the virtues today recognizes that whereas one must
be just, that is, that one must treat everyone equally, still one must also
attend to the immediate needs of friends, family and community. Writers
like Reinhold Niebuhr, 18 Margaret Farley19 and Carol Gilligan20 insist
that the moral person cannot only be just: the demands to care for a loved
one may conflict with the call to be fair to everyone.
Paul Ricoeur adds that it is important that justice is challenged by the
affection we have for another. Rather than reducing the two claims to one,
he places them in a 'tension between two distinct and sometimes opposed
claims'.21 This insight that the virtues are distinct and at times opposing
stands in contrast with Thomas' strategy of the cardinal virtues where
justice is supported by fortitude and temperance and none contradicts,
opposes, or challenges the claims of justice.
Furthermore we recognize another difference with Thomas. Thomas
argues that virtues perfect or make better our own dispositions; each
virtue perfects a particular power in us. Justice perfects our will, prudence
our reasoning, courage and temperance perfect particular emotions. But
today we think of the person as fundamentally relational. Virtues perfect
not individual powers, but rather the ways we relate with one another.22
In this relational light let us call the two competitive demands that we
have been discussing, justice and fidelity. If justice urges us to treat all
people equally, then fidelity makes different claims. Fidelity is the virtue
that nurtures and sustains the bonds of those special relationships that we
enjoy whether by blood, marriage, love or sacrament. Fidelity requires
that we treat with special care those who are closer to us.23 If justice rests
on impartiality and universality, fidelity rests on partiality and
particularity.24
But these two are not enough; we also must perfect the unique
relationship that we have with ourselves. Thomas, through the order of
charity, demonstrates the virtuous love for self.25 Following him, Stephen
Pope26 and Edward Vacek27 argue that we have a primary task to take care
of ourselves: affectively, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
For these reasons, then, I conclude by proposing that we conceive of
ourselves as relational in three ways: generally, specifically and uniquely,
and each of these relational ways of being demands a cardinal virtue: as a
relational being in general, we are called to justice and to treat all people
fairly; as a relational being specifically, we are called to fidelity and to
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Virtue ethics
sustain the specific relationships that we enjoy; as a relational being

uniquely, we are called to self-care that no one else can provide.
These three virtues are cardinal. Unlike Thomas's structure, none is
necessarily always more important than the other: they each have equally
urgent claims and they should be pursued as ends in themselves. Thus we
are not called to be faithful and self-caring in order to be just, nor are we
called to be self-caring and just in order to be faithful. None is auxiliary
to the others. They are distinctive virtues with none being a subset or
subcategory of the other. They are cardinal.
The fourth cardinal virtue is prudence, which determines what consti-
tutes the just, faithful and self-caring way of life for an individual. It also
negotiates how the cardinal virtues should interact and which one should
override the others in a particular situation, and when and to what degree.
Of course, this is no easy matter, but working this out requires another
essay.
Notes
1 James F. Keenan, 'Virtue ethics: making a case as it comes of age', Thought 67

(1992), pp. 115-27; Joseph Kotva, The Christian Case for Virtue Ethics (Washing-
ton, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1996); Gilbert Meilaender, The Theory and
Practice of Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
2 These questions appear in Alasdair Maclntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral
Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
3 John Kekes, The Examined Life (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1988).
4 Summa Theologiae, Prologue, II-II, Sic igitur tota materia morali ad considerationem
virtutum reducta.
5 See Josef Pieper, The Pour Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1966); Jean Porter, The Recovery of Virtue (Louisville, KY: Westmin-
ster, 1990).
6 Along with essays on growth and ordinariness, see my 'Parenting and the virtue
of prudence' in Virtues for Ordinary Christians (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward,
1996).
7 Daniel Mark Nelson, The Priority of Prudence (University Park, PA: Pennysylvania
State University, 1992).
8 See my 'Ten reasons why Thomas Aquinas is important for ethics today', New
Elackfnars 75 (1994), pp. 354-63.
9 See for instance, the essays by Tom Beauchamp and Robert Veatch in E. Shelp
(ed.), Virtue and Medicine (Boston: Reidel, 1984).
10 David Solomon, 'Internal objections to virtue ethics' in Peter A. French et al.
(eds), Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13: Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), pp. 428-41.
11 See Leon Kass, 'Practicing ethics: where's the action?', Hastings Center Report 20.1
(1990), pp. 5-12.
12 See Martin Benjamin and Joy Curtis, 'Virtue and the practice of nursing' in Virtue
and Medicine, pp. 257—74.
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James F. Keenan
13 For example, James Drane, 'Character and the moral life: a virtue approach in
biomedical ethics' in Edwin DuBose et al. (eds), A Matter of Principles? (Park
Ridge: Trinity Press, 1994), pp. 284-309; Michael Green, 'What (if anything) is
wrong with residency overwork?', Annals of Internal Medicine 123 (1995),
pp. 512-17; James F. Keenan, 'What's morally new in genetic engineering',
Human Gene Therapy 1 (1990), pp. 289-98; William Stempsey, 'Special report:
the virtuous pathologist', American Journal of Clinical Pathology 91.6 (1989),
pp. 730-8.
14 Owen Flanagan, Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 158.
15 Alasdair Maclntyre in both After Virtue and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
(Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1988).
16 Martha Nussbaum offers a helpful response to Maclntyre's warnings in 'Non-
relative virtues: an Aristotelian approach' in Midwest Studies 13, pp. 32-53.
17 I develop this at length in 'Proposing cardinal virtues', Theological Studies 56.4
(1995), pp. 709-29.
18 Reinhold Niebuhr, Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writings of Reinhold
Niebuhr, ed. D. B. Robertson (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1957).
19 Margaret Farley, Personal Commitments: Beginning, Keeping, Changing (San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1990).
20 Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
21 Paul Ricoeur, 'Love and justice' in Werner G. Jeanrond and Jennifer L. Rike (eds),
Radical Pluralism and Truth: David Tracy and the Hermeneutics of Religion (New
York: Crossroad, 199D, pp. 187-202, at p. 196.
22 See Paul Lauritzen, 'The self and its discontents', Journal of Religious Ethics 22.1
(1994), pp. 189-210.
23 In Virtues for Ordinary Christians I treat each of these.
24 See a similar insight in William Spohn, 'The return of virtue ethics', Theological
Studies 53 (1992), pp. 60-75, at p. 72.
25 The concern for self-care runs throughout the Summa, from I, 5.1c and 48.1 which
describes how all nature seeks its own perfection to I-II, 27.3 that insists that it is
natural to prefer oneself over others and 29-4 that it is impossible to hate oneself.
In II-II, Aquinas argues that though inordinate self-love is the source of sin (25.4,
28.4 ad 1), self-love belongs to the order of charity and is prior to neighbour love
(25.12, 26.4). He adds that charity is the source of peace which aims at ending
conflict not only with others but also within oneself (29.1). By introducing self-
care into the constellation of the cardinal virtues I believe that I am developing
Thomas's own thoughts.
26 Stephen Pope, The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love (Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press, 1994).
27 Edward Vacek, Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics (Washington,
DC: Georgetown University Press, 1994), pp. 239-73.
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6
The human person
Joseph Selling
Any system of moral reflection, including those which some people might
like to label 'relativistic', ultimately must have some point of reference for
denning its most fundamental terms. This remains true whether one
considers morality from the subjective perspective, the goodness or badness of
moral intention, or from the so-called objective perspective, the Tightness or
wrongness of human behaviour.
'Subjectively', for a behavioural event (act or omission) to be considered
moral, it must exhibit elements of freedom and intention. Although there
is a growing tendency to factor animals, and even 'nature', into our moral
considerations, concepts such as 'animal rights' and 'the integrity of
creation' remain passive items that are reflected upon rather than function-
ing as agents. Only human persons are considered moral agents, precisely
because they are capable of self-direction (intention) and presumably
because they enjoy the knowledge of and ability to make choices (freedom).
Random events, no matter how 'good' (bumper crops) or 'evil' (earth-
quakes) human beings might like to call them, are not of themselves
moral events. Only human events are properly referred to as moral,
although again it is necessary to qualify only certain kinds of human
events in this way.
Tradition distinguished the actus hominis, such as walking, eating or
sleeping, from the actus humanus according to whether freedom and
intention are part of the entire event. Today we might suggest that merely
describing the gestures or actions of a human being does not yet deliver us
into the moral realm. Something more is needed before we can speak of
human events as moral events, namely freedom and intentionality. Such
events are uniquely perpetrated by the human person, a term that describes
not a mere object or being but an active, existential phenomenon. The
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Joseph Selling
human person is not a static, ontological thing; the repository of a 'nature'.

Rather, the human person is always dynamic, situated and (intentionally)
engaged.
Considering morality 'subjectively', then, must always include reference
to the human person because freedom and intention, unique characteristics
of the human person, are indispensible elements of moral decisions.
Considering the 'objective' perspective of morality, we see that behav-
ioural events are complex phenomena, consisting of acts (and omissions)
that take place within the context of an entire range of circumstances.
These behavioural events may, of course, be described without reference
to intention or freedom. Not every actus hominis is an actus humanus.
Nevertheless, for such an event to qualify as a candidate for moral analysis,
it must again be related in some way to the human person.
The Tightness or wrongness of human behaviour is never determined on
the basis of a single, isolated component of a behavioural event, but rather
on the basis of several, interrelated components which, together, render a
description of an event sufficient to demonstrate its relevance to moral
analysis, that is, an event that exhibits a complex and ambiguous
conglomeration of (ontic, pre-moral) good and evil. In turn, the evaluation
of these components, rendered by assigning the adjectives 'good' or 'evil',
begs the question of how we are to determine what constitutes the
meaning of these adjectives.
On what basis do we label the components of human behaviour good or
evil? Several answers to this question are possible, ranging from authority
(commandment)1 to statistics (nature)2 to the anticipation of pleasure or
pain.3 A personalist view of morality suggests that the answer to this
question is founded upon observation: the shared, interpreted experience of
the human community through time. True personalism, then, is always
phenomenological.4 Further, personalist morality (mores) is always elab-
orated within a community and supported by consensus. What is 'good'
is always considered 'good-for-persons'; what is 'evil' is 'evil-for-persons'.5
No matter which criterion one subscribes to for analysing the compo-
nents of human behaviour, some notion of person will constitute a
necessary element of performing moral decision-making; for without the
freedom and intention exercised by the person, we are not speaking in
moral terms. If one opts for a 'personalist' kind of morality, then the
notion of the person functions not only on the subjective pole but on the
objective pole as well, forming the reference point for the determination
of good and evil, and subsequently right(ness) and wrong(ness).
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The human person
The centrality of the human person for moral reasoning
Person constitutes a concept, a working hypothesis constructed through

the consensus of an interpretative community. As a concept, neither is it
reducible to a single individual, person is always person-in-community,
nor can it be adequately described without considering the multi-
dimensionality of being human.
From an explicitly phenomenological point of view, we observe that an
adequate and integral understanding of the human person recognizes that
person is always person-in-relation. The human person stands in relation
to everything, one could even say to the 'totality of reality'. In one sense,
this observation might be said to constitute the core meaning of
personhood, for it indicates the engagement of every facet of our
experience. We stand in relation to reality not merely physically but
intellectually, emotionally, socially and spiritually as well. We relate
through physical presence but also through our imagination. We use
symbols to represent, language to communicate, and a whole host of
learned mechanisms to interpret the meaning of internal and external
stimuli.
Ultimately, nothing will be strange or completely foreign to the human
person, for it is our fundamental belief that through encounter we
experience relationship. This does not mean that every single individual is
open to each and every possible relationship, it means that the pheno-
menon we are calling 'person' is relational, open to the totality of reality
on every level.
A morally sensitive person will spontaneously recognize the congruence
between the expressions 'being human' and 'being moral'. Humanists refer
to the realization of human identity or fulfilment, a calling that transcends
any particular individual. Any person who seeks 'the meaning of life' is
searching for a dimension of being human that is accessible to all while
simultaneously transcending each individual. Even the fatalist recognizes
something called 'destiny' into which we are all taken up, even if the
subsequent denial of freedom would undermine the possibility of such a
position ever becoming truly moral.
The theist will have no difficulty in seeing here an indication of what is
commonly called God, that which transcends even the totality of reality
itself. Every human person stands in relation to God. Those who share a
faith in a 'personal God' immediately recognize that this is a personal
relationship, one that is made understandable through the gratuitous gift
of a loving Creator. Others will describe the relationship to the transcend-
ent in terms appropriate to their belief system. Nevertheless, we can and
should say that the fundamental relationality of the human person,
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Joseph Selling
adequately considered, is manifest in a particular way in the experience of

our relationship to the totality of reality, to the transcendent, to God.
A focal point for multi-dimensionality
Although one might like to suggest that 'intentionality', the fundamen-

tally relational characteristic of the human person, identifies the core
meaning of person, such that whatever else might be said would merely
constitute a detail of an otherwise comprehensive description, moral
awareness demands that we distinguish and investigate the different ways
in which human relationality is expressed.
For instance, observing that the human person stands in relation to the
totality of reality would, of course, include the fact that person stands in
relation to the material world. Nevertheless, while this dimension of being
human is not independent from our relation with the transcendent, it is
worth distinguishing this specific dimension for the sake of the clarity and
completeness of our concept of person.
Another way of phrasing this is to observe that the human person is
multi-dimensional. I suggest that we think of 'person' as a focal point,
where all these dimensions converge. The person is a unity, but there are
several ways of observing this unity and several dimensions to which the
person is open, in relation. Each of these dimensions or aspects of the
person needs to be named and brought to consciousness. Without an
awareness of one or another dimension of person, we remain ignorant of
that particular relational aspect of being human and will consequently fail
to observe the real or potential presence of good and evil. To use the
example above, a lack of sensitivity to the human person's relation to the
material world can result either in the failure to reap the benefits of the
world in which we live (use of resources) or in the neglect of the care that
must be taken in our relation to the environment (pollution).
Simply saying that the human person stands in relation to the totality
of reality, therefore, is insufficient to sensitize us to the multi-dimensional
aspects that constitute moral sensitivity (i.e., awareness of the real or
potential presence of good and evil). We must therefore distinguish each
of those dimensions pertinent to the project of moral analysis. At present,
we observe at least eight continuous dimensions of the human person that
reveal important information for performing that moral analysis.6 These
dimensions are 'continuous' because they are always present, whether we
are conscious of them or not. We cannot turn these aspects of our being a
person on and off, as it were, because the person is a unity, not simply
exhibiting but actually constituted by these dimensions. Therefore,
whenever we refer to the human person we should immediately add
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The human person
'adequately considered'. This will remind us to be cautious not to forget

one or more of these dimensions in our analysis.
Finally, we must be careful not to rank or prioritize the various aspects
of being human. Not only would this violate the unity of the person as
moral agent, it would also result in a disbalanced anthropology. I have
therefore been careful about the manner which I have chosen to present
the eight continuous dimensions of the person. The order of presentation
has no significance in the complete picture; for there is no priority of
dimensions, only the unity of the person. That said, I have constructed
the following pattern in a way that I hope will correct the Western bias
toward exalting subjectivity as the 'most important' aspect of what it
means to be human. 7
The human person, adequately considered

The human person, adequately considered, stands in relation to
everything, to the whole of reality
I have already mentioned this dimension of the person above. However, it
not only bears repeating but I hope that some further reflections will lead
to a better understanding of the importance of this observation.
Affirming that as intentional beings we stand in relation to all that is
implies that there are human relationships that are not always obvious to
the average observer. Some scientists, for instance, being aware of the
relation that we have with our total environment, have expanded this to
an appeal to our relation with the whole of humanity, human destiny, the
human enterprise, even the cosmos. On the other hand, some spiritualists
will claim that we stand in relation to an entire spirit world, be it the
spirits of the trees, the land and the water or with the spirits of our
ancestors. In more traditional language, religion speaks of our relation
with a spirit world within, without, above, or around us. Those who prefer
to use religious language speak of our relation to God. Theistic language
certainly has advantages for those who have become accustomed to its
usage, and among theists there are those who express the faith that God
even communicates with human persons in a manner that is comprehen-
sible for all human persons. We express this belief when we refer to a
'personal' God.
This being an exposition in the context of moral theology, we can
describe this dimension of the human person in the explicitly religious
language of our tradition. More specifically, in the Christian tradition, we
have even less difficulty in speaking of a personal God who not only
communicates but who has joined with humanity in the event that we
call the incarnation. Our comfort in our tradition, however, should not
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Joseph Selling
make us insensitive to the fact that this language sometimes creates a wall
between people rather than a bridge. From an ethical perspective, then, it
is perhaps more ecumenical to speak of our relation with the transcendent,
with that which is on a 'higher' (more encompassing) plane than what we
would normally refer to as human experience. In our times, speaking of a
'world beyond our normal experience' is returning to popular usage,
literally and especially implicitly. There is a good deal of attention paid
to our human destiny or being caught up in a project that is universal and
greater than any individual imagination (the cosmos, the rhythms of the
'natural' world, even socio-biology); there is literature and film about
spirits, ghosts, and out-of-body experiences; there is a proliferation of
science fiction images ranging from 'the Force (be with you!)' of Star Wars
to the transient beings who people the world of the Trekkies!
Rather than demeaning this language, we should recognize it as an
expression of contemporary persons to go 'beyond' their empirical,
scientific, rational experience into a realm of different meaning. Theistic
language, unfortunately, sometimes brings with it images that are counter-
productive, making it hard to communicate the good news of the gospel.
Legalistic, paternalistic, judgemental images of God have been somewhat
dominant in Western culture, forcing people to abandon the images
without having experienced the larger reality they so narrowly attempt to
represent.
To speak of the human person, adequately considered, being in relation
to all that is, may be affirmed in theistic language by referring to our
relationship with God. In Christian tradition, we can elaborate upon this
as our relationship with a loving, affirming, forgiving God whom we
worship in thanksgiving and whose message we celebrate with joy. The
privilege that our tradition grants us to do this helps us see why our
relation with God is of fundamental ethical significance.
The human person, adequately considered, stands in relation to the

material world
Since one might say that this borders on the obvious, it is necessary to be
explicit about the material dimensions of our existence so that we do not
fall into the trap of spiritualism or that of dualism. Even though we can
affirm our relation with the transcendent, we simultaneously know that
even our communication with God depends upon physical mediation.
Our existence in a material world is not insignificant for moral
reflection. Our daily commerce with reality makes us keenly aware of the
limitations that we experience with respect to our best aspirations. There
is only so much to go around, only so many resources, that sometimes the
challenge of poverty and deprivation appears to be beyond our capabilities.
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The human person
Rather than dwelling upon these negative experiences which in them-

selves are obvious enough, we can just as well accent the positive aspects
of our relation with the material world. For, just as there is a shortage of
drinkable water in many parts of this world, there is also the beauty of a
river or a waterfall, and the ability to harness moving water to produce
work. Furthermore, we must remind ourselves that we do not live 'in' a
world. Though the material and physical limitations that surround us may
be a source of frustration, we should not forget that we are so intimately
part of the material world that we can never conceive of being separate
from it. Even those who go into space take an earthly environment with
them. They would cease being human persons if they did not.
The material world ol which we are so intimately a part, however, is
also something to which we stand in relation. Dependent as we are on the
air we breath and the water we drink, we tend to see these things as
objects, apart from our existence. This is good insofar as it gives us the
ability to utilize the material world, to humanize the natural world, to
create a 'user friendly' environment for all persons. But we should take
great care not to fall into the trap of thinking that the material world
constitutes an arbitrary object for our unrestrained manipulation.
The human person, adequately considered, is cultural, that is, is

always in relation to (groups of) other persons
The human person is fundamentally related in the sense that this pun is
intended to convey an appreciation of our 'relatives'! No human person
springs into existence spontaneously but is always born into a culture that
consists of other human persons. We all have parents, even if these good
people decided (or were driven) to use a Petri dish to achieve the fusion of
gametes. We have grandparents, and ultimately we all have great-
grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and so forth. These people are all
interrelated as well, such that every person is part of a family, a tribe, a
clan, a nation.
An adequate consideration of the human person draws our attention to
the observation that just about everything that we might consider
necessary to specify our humanity is dependent upon our social — cultural
— existence. Perhaps the most fundamental aspect of this inter-human
relationality is language, the basic tool of relationality itself. Language,
one may say, is arbitrary in the sense that it is language, langue, taal or
Sprache. When we wish to communicate, however, we quickly learn that
it is anything but arbitrary. Though a creation of a given people, language
takes on a momentum, a life of its own that exhibits limits as well as
possibilities.
We can affirm the fundamentally social character of the human person.
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Joseph Selling
Without social relations we would never develop our potential as human

persons. Contemplating this for even one moment leads to a critical
assessment of the individualism that is often said to be characteristic of
Western society. The irony of an individualistic attitude is its ignorance
of the dependence of the individual upon the tools of social commerce to
assert the very individuality that is being claimed. 'Different from' implies
something from which to differ. The 'individual' springs into awareness
only within the experience of contrast that is possible in a social context.
Autonomy is the result of separation, which in turn is completely
dependent upon identification with a group.
The social dimension of the human person pervades every aspect of our
existence as human beings. The human environment consists in an
incredibly complex web of interconnecting systems that make life as we
know it possible, from our language to our kinship systems, from economic
structures to the network of roads and highways, from social customs to
the use of barter — which today we have reduced to the convenience of
something we call money (plastic or paper). Even the mythological 'self-
taught man' is dependent upon the goods of culture to 'teach himself. In
short, the human person, adequately considered, is a cultural reality,
situated in an existence that is socially, linguistically, economically,
politically specific.
These observations must lead us to contemplate the incongruity of
suggesting an 'individual(istic) ethic'. Morality basically describes the way
in which we live by guiding us through the complex web of human
relationships. The construction of these relationships is never dictated by
a single individual. Thus, morality itself must always be understood as a
cultural phenomenon. To be human is to be cultural, and no amount of
protestation against the bounds of cultural specificity will eliminate our
need to deal with this dimension of human existence.
Also, we should not neglect the observation that culture itself is the
product of human making.8 The 'Pastoral Constitution on the Church in
the Modern World', the final document to be approved and promulgated
by the Second Vatican Council in 1965, Gaudium et Spes (GS), affirms the
'interdependence of person and society' (GS, n. 25) and takes note of the
'rightful independence of earthly affairs' (GS, n. 36). In para. 55 of that
document we specifically read:
In every group or nation, there is an ever-increasing number of men
and women who are conscious that they themselves are the artisans and
authors of the culture of their community. Throughout the world there
is a similar growth in the combined sense of autonomy and responsi-
bility. Such a development is of paramount importance for the spiritual
and moral maturity of the human race. This truth shows clearer if we
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The human person
consider how the world is becoming unified and how we have the duty
to build a better world based upon truth and justice. Thus we are
witnesses of the birth of a new humanism, one in which man is defined
first of all by his responsibility toward his brothers and toward history. 9
The human person, adequately considered, is historical

Following directly upon the quotation above, we must simultaneously
affirm the historical dimension of human existence. In a sense, we live 'in
history'. However, such a statement may be misleading if it implies that
history is something 'outside' of us. Unfortunately, the study of history in
schools often gives us precisely that impression, especially when history is
related as a series of (large) 'events' effected by (important) personages.
History in the truly human sense focuses upon the present which
derives its meaning both from the past and toward the future. From the
past we inherit our culture and achieve our personal, even individual,
identity. Toward the future we describe the meaning of our present
decisions and activities. 'History', then, is always in the making, culturally
and socially. This extends to morality as well. We inherit the wisdom of
the past as well as the tools to perform moral analysis and to reach moral
decisions. There is no need to begin from 'square one', as it were, when
assessing a moral question. Much has been learned from the past. At the
same time, what we may call moral 'tradition' should not be looked upon
as static, a forever unchanging structure that precludes further develop-
ment. For it is precisely what we have learned from the past that makes it
possible for us to face as yet undefined questions that may beg for new,
creative responses.
Although it appears rather obvious that historicity is a fundamental
dimension of the human person, it is perhaps too easy to overlook the
individual dimension of being historical. Each human person is also a
'history', deriving identity in the present, built upon a past and oriented
toward a future. We need to take this into account not only when
considering our own well-being but especially in our dealing with other
persons. How we respond to other persons has a good deal to do with who
they are — their own identity built up from personal history. This identity
does not determine our behaviour, but it would be unwise to ignore its
possible relevance. One does not entrust the care of children to someone
who has a history of child molestation. At the same time, we respond to
persons as being future-oriented beings. Making promises, for instance,
should always be done with this in mind. Human persons who make
commitments to each other should realize that the nature of personal
commitment involves not simply the person as they appear in the present
but also as they will be in the future.
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Joseph Selling
With respect to moral analysis, historicity is extremely important both

in situating our relations with other persons and being aware that our
moral reasoning is itself historical. We make decisions on the basis of the
knowledge we have, while the heritage of human wisdom is a continuously
developing source of that knowledge itself. An excellent example of this
would be our concern for the integrity of the environment within which
we and all of humankind — including future generations — live. It is only
recently that we have become aware of the importance of protecting our
environment from pollution, wastefulness and general misuse. It would be
ridiculous to suggest that the human community has been sensitive to
this importance throughout history. On the contrary, the plagues of the
Middle Ages are a graphic example of how the human environment was
dangerously polluted. At the same time, we can hardly place blame on
fourteenth-century society for violating rules of hygiene of which they
were unaware. At a later time, we now realize the mistakes that were
made. In our own time, we are just beginning to realize the enormous
importance of directing our own behaviour with a view toward the future,
our future and that of the coming generations.
The human person, adequately considered, stands in relation to

other persons
If the human person, adequately considered, is fundamentally relational,
then the most 'personal' relation of all is that with other human persons.
Our relation with culture is mediated first and foremost through other
persons; we come to know our history through other persons; we create
our own, personal history through relation with others; even our relation-
ship with the transcendent is communicated to us through other persons
as the continuing story of God's relation with humanity (the covenant).
GS, n. 12 comments that through our 'innermost nature the person is a
social being, and unless one relates self to others one can neither live nor
develop one's potential'; and again, in GS, n. 24: 'humankind, who is the
only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find itself
except through a sincere gift of self.
Our 'intimate' relationships, first with family, then friends, then with
loved ones with whom we may create a family of our own, are the source
of the process of becoming human. Since our very survival is dependent
upon the response given to us while we are still helpless infants, the more
'human' that response is, the more 'human' our survival will be.10 The
goods of culture are first mediated through other human beings who teach
us language and an appreciation for the treasures of human knowledge
and wisdom. It is through social interaction that we develop our
specifically human potential and achieve human fulfilment. By the same
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The human person
token, the ambiguous term 'self-fulfilment' refers to the fulfilment of the

self and not by the self.
The human person, adequately considered, becomes a conscious

inferiority, a subject
The 'person' is not simply a material, cultural, historical, social, relational
entity but also a 'self. We relate, exercise intentionality, because the
person is also an inner self, a subject endowed with freedom and called to
responsibility. Therefore, we often hear it said that the person should be
treated not as an object, as a thing, but as a subject.
The most personal acts one performs are initiated in one's consciousness.
The ability to reflect, upon ourselves or upon something other than
ourselves, is a sign of our consciousness. The propositions that we think,
we know, we feel, we decide, all depend upon an inferiority as the source
of these activities. Indeed one of the most noble of all human activities is
sometimes referred to as conscience, 'the most secret core and sanctuary of
the person . . . where one is alone with God, whose voice echoes in one's
depths' (GS, n. 16).
It is as a conscious inferiority that one experiences freedom in the most
meaningful sense of the term. For although 'freedom' is sometimes used
to describe the experience of having choices or options for action, the most
profound form of freedom is experienced as a personal identity. At the
same time, the gravest offences against human freedom are precisely those
things which attack personal identity: brainwashing, the use of drugs or
techniques to gain control over the person, any assault on the selfhood of
the person, be it individual, social, political, through the use of violence,
propaganda or deception.
According to some, our conscious inferiority, the fact that the human
person, adequately considered, is a subject, may be said to be the primary
focal point for defining the human person itself. At the same time, it is
difficult to conceive of human subjectivity without the experience that
comes through growth toward maturity. One does not develop a 'self in a
vacuum, for each self is cultural, historical, situated in terms of its relation
with other selves, with the world at large and with the transcendent.
Identity, even in the scriptural sense, is expressed by a name, and that
name is given to us rather than created by us. Thus, we situate the
conscious interiority of the person in its proper relation with all the other
dimensions of the human person, adequately considered. This does not
signify an objective priority but rather an intrinsic inter-relatedness.
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Joseph Selling
The human person, adequately considered, is a corporeal subject

Western philosophy has suffered from an inherent dualism, paradoxically
brought about by its concentration upon the individual as subject. We
often hear of the body-soul split of the person, the 'ghost in the machine'
image whereby the 'real' person inhabits some interior space and uses the
body for purposes that are almost considered to be neutral. This type of
dualism is so imbedded in our way of thinking that we are forced to use
the terms body and soul, matter and spirit, even to refute them.
What we must affirm is that every person is essentially corporeal.
Metaphysically, corporeality is frequently used as a signification of
individuality, a principle of individuation. Because of our dualist way of
thinking, we usually equate our corporeality with our bodiliness, our
physical existence. To the extent that our human experience of persons is
always mediated through our body, this is a valuable notion. At the same
time, we might wish to use more contemporary language and say that it
is through our corporeality that we interface with the material world and
with other persons. While our subjectivity is 'responsible' for our
potentiality to symbolize, signify, and communicate, we are dependent
upon perceptible phenonema to effect that communication.
Furthermore, the observation that we are corporeal subjects offers us
many possibilities to appreciate the significance of our human activity.
Even activity that is non-corporeal has interpersonal ramifications, for
even the formation of our opinions and attitudes will ultimately have an
effect upon the way we relate to other persons. That relation, subtle as it
may be, is always communicated bodily. Finally, even our relation 'with
ourselves' cannot ignore our corporeality. We have an obligation to
consider physical health, the strength to do our work, the ability to carry
out our tasks, all of which depend upon a proper care of our physical body.
Every human person is unique

Almost by definition, the individual human person, adequately considered,
is a totally unique, one-time occurrence. We can speak, for instance, of a
'personality' in the sense of particular characteristics that belong to the
unique individual. Further, each person has their own talents, abilities,
skills, perspective. These may not be equally valued in every social context,
but they nonetheless constitute the value(ableness) of the person. The
virtually infinite variety of personal characteristics are the result of unique
combinations of 'nature and nurture' that will never be repeated. There-
fore, we are justified in the observation that each person should be treated
as a unique individual.
At the same time, however, we are aware of the danger of Valuing'
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The human person
persons as such, ranking them in a hierarchy. Most social structures have

a tendency to Value' or reward certain personal characteristics that happen
to be advantageous for that structure. A technologically advanced society,
for instance, will tend to reward persons who exhibit technological skills,
giving the impression that these persons are more valuable than those
without the same skills.
It is more than democratic instincts that prompt us to recoil against a
hierarchy of persons. I would suggest that the recognition of the
uniqueness of every person ultimately leads us to a fundamentally ethical
question: must we accept the maxim that all human persons are funda-
mentally equal? Simple as this may sound, it becomes one of the most
difficult 'observations' about the human person to elaborate and to defend.
The more common vocabulary on this topic usually speaks of the equal
dignity or equal value of all human persons, not their fundamental equality
as such.
Christians have always claimed that the human person — each and every
human person — is created in the image and likeness of God. On the basis
of this creation in God's image alone, the human person enjoys dignity
and is worthy of respect. Even when Christians lived in and accepted
hierarchically structured societies - think for example of the period of
scholasticism that rose to its climax in the context of feudalism — they
still maintained the dignity of each individual, even if an individual might
be guilty of heinous crimes.
Perhaps the most fundamental challenge of contemporary (social) ethics
is coming to terms with an affirmation of the dignity of each and every
human person. A proliferation of 'movements' claiming recognition,
liberation or equal rights appears to be a sign of this sensitivity to the
dignity of the individual. Unfortunately, these 'banners' are sometimes
used to attack the rights of others, paradoxically calling into question the
foundation of their own claims.
The concept of the human person, adequately considered, represents the

description of a multidimensional but unified being. In order to carry out
a moral analysis with a view toward taking responsible decisions, it is
incumbent upon us to be constantly aware of all the dimensions of the
person, even and especially when one or more of those dimensions may
not appear to be immediately pertinent. To ignore one or more dimension
of the person is to neglect a source of moral responsibility. Ironically, it is
frequently in the name of that moral responsibility that one concentrates
so strongly on one dimension (e.g., medical practitioners concentrate on
human corporeality, political leaders on the socio-cultural dimensions of
person and church leaders on our relationship to God) that one loses sight
of the person as a whole. I sometimes suspect that these disproportionate
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Joseph Selling
concentrations on one or another dimension of the person to the neglect

of a view of the person as an integrated unity constitute a greater source
of (ontic) evil than the malicious intent of wrongdoers.
Notes
1 This is the kind of moral methodology predominant in Veritatis Splendor, the

encyclical letter of John Paul II on moral theology, promulgated on 6 August
1993- See Joseph A. Selling, 'Veritatis Splendor and the sources of morality', Louvain
Studies 19(1994), pp. 3-17.
2 See Cynthia S. W. Crysdale, 'Revisioning natural law: from the classicist paradigm
to emergent probability', Theological Studies 56 (1995), pp. 464—84.
3 When such a criterion is used individually, one usually refers to 'hedonism'; when
it is used collectively, one sometimes refers to 'utilitarianism'.
4 See Kenan Osborne, 'A phenomenology of the human person: a theo-anthropo-
logy', Presidential address delivered to the Catholic Theological Society of America
in 1979, Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention of the CTSA (1979),
pp. 223-33-
5 Ultimately, 'good' is that which protects, promotes or enhances the human person,
adequately considered, while 'evil' is that which threatens, harms or diminishes
the human person, adequately considered. See Louis Janssens, 'Ontic evil and
moral evil', Louvain Studies 4 (1972), pp. 115—56; idem, 'Artificial insemination:
ethical considerations', Louvain Studies 8 (1980), pp. 3-29; idem, 'Personalism in
moral theology' in Charles E. Curran (ed.), Moral Theology: Challenges for the Future
— Essays in Honor of Richard A. McCormick (New York: Paulist Press, 1990),
pp. 94—107. Some authors refer to this as human fulfilment or human flourishing
— again begging the question of how one might know the meaning of those terms.
Such terminology is confusing without an explanation of the more basic notions
of good and evil. What is good may not always contribute to 'flourishing'. See, for
instance, Bernard Hoose, 'Proportionalists, deontologists and the human good',
Heythrop Journal 33 (1992), pp. 175-91.
6 In a relatively early article, 'Personalist morals', Louvain Studies 3 (1970-71),
pp. 5—16, Janssens had mentioned five aspects or dimensions of the human person.
These were later expanded in the article referred to above on 'Artificial insemina-
tion' which discusses the eight dimensions, although in an order different from
what I present here and with some variations that I have dropped or changed.
Janssens' article is very useful for textually anchoring these ideas in the text of
Gaudium et Spes. What he wrote there has been taken over by a number of authors,
such as Kevin T. Kelly, New Directions in Moral Theology: The Challenge of Being
Human (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1992), pp. 30—60, who elaborates upon the
dimensions quite extensively. At the time of 'artificial insemination', it seems that
the notion of elaborating some descriptive definition of the person was needed for
theology in general. See, for instance, Edward Schillebeeckx, 'God, society and
human salvation' in Marc Caudron (ed.), Faith and Society: Acta congressus
internationalis theologid lovaniensis 1976 (BETL 47; Leuven: Duculot, 1978),
pp. 87—99, who wrote about (five) 'anthropological constants'.
7 My experience and discussion with non-Western students, particularly Africans,
has been rather enlightening. When you ask someone with this non-Western
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The human person
background who they are, you are just as likely to get the answer that they are
someone's relative, a member of a particular family or tribe. Self-identity, unlike
the Western emphasis on conscious interiority and individuality, is frequently
rendered with a reference to one's membership in a group. This experience, which
has been repeated many times, over more than twenty years, has had a significant
effect upon my understanding of the human person.
8 Space does not allow me to elaborate upon this idea at this point. However, I
believe it is worth at least mentioning an important distinction. Objective culture
refers to the goods of the human environment which are offered to and
appropriated by individuals who in turn transform this into subjective culture
which is personal and, again in turn, made available to the communitarian heritage
of objective culture. Also in this connection, we should draw attention to the
definition of the common good found in GS as 'the sum to those conditions of
social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively
thorough and ready access to their own fulfilment'.
9 Walter M. Abbott (ed.). The Documents of Vatican II (New York: America Press,
1966), pp. 260-1.
10 Reference might be made here to the famous 'wolf children' raised by animals in
the wild. Although some children raised by animals have survived, their
development not only did not exhibit human characteristics, their ability to learn
what most persons take for granted (language and other communication skills)
was seriously impaired, even obliterated.
Select bibliography
Louis Janssens, 'Artificial insemination: ethical considerations', Louvain Studies 8

(1980), pp. 3-29.
Kevin T. Kelly, New Directions in Moral Theology: The Challenge of Being Human
(London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1992).
Kenan Osborne, 'A phenomenology of the human person: a theo-anthropology',
Presidential address delivered to the Catholic Theological Society of America in
1979, Proceedings of the Thirty Fourth Annual Convention of the CTSA (1979),
pp. 223-33.
Joseph A. Selling (ed.), Personalist Morals: Essays in Honor of Professor Louis Janssens
(BETL; Leuven: Duculot, 1988).
109
7
Conscience
Richard M. Gula
'Let conscience be your guide' is a reliable moral maxim. But what does it
mean and what does it demand of us? Conscience is a difficult notion to
understand and even more difficult to explain how it operates. Yet, we all
know that we have a conscience, even if we can't explain how we got it or
how it works. We know that we stand for certain things, we struggle over
deciding what to do, and we feel pangs of conscience when we do
something wrong, even petty matters like taking cookies from the cookie
jar. Questions of conscience come up regularly and not just over the big
issues like taking a stand on war, on crime and punishment, or on
euthanasia. Questions of conscience also come up on very personal matters
like whether to blow the whistle on a co-worker who is doing a sloppy
job, or whether to reveal a brother's alcoholism to his fiancee, or whether
to take more time away from the family to play another round of golf. If
we are ever going to grow in our loving relationship with God and
neighbour, then we need to discern what is truly loving. Conscience is our
capacity for making such a discernment.
The task of this chapter is to clarify the meaning of the moral
conscience. I will first distinguish the moral conscience from what it is
not — its psychological cousin, the superego. Then I will sketch in greater
detail the meaning of conscience in the moral tradition with added
emphasis to the notion of the formation of conscience, to the relation of
conscience to character and to choice, to the goal of a mature conscience,
and to the requirements for acting in conscience.
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Conscience
Conscience/superego mixup
One way of getting at the notion of moral conscience is to distinguish it

from what it is not. One of the most common errors in thinking about
the moral conscience is to mistake it for what some psychologists mean
when they speak of the 'superego'. Psychologists of the Freudian school
tell us that we have three structures to our personality: The id — that
unconscious reservoir of instinctual drives largely dominated by the
pleasure principle; the ego - the conscious structure which operates on the
reality principle to mediate the forces of the id, the demands of society,
and the reality of the physical world; and the superego — the ego of another
superimposed on our own to serve as an internal censor to regulate our
conduct by using guilt as its powerful weapon.1
To understand the superego, we need to begin with childhood. As we
develop through childhood, the need to be loved and approved is our basic
need and drive. We fear punishment as children not for its physical pain
only, but more because it represents a withdrawal of love. So we regulate
our behaviour so as not to lose love and approval. As a matter of self-
protection, we absorb the standards and regulations of our parents, or
anyone who has authority over us. The authority figure takes up a place
within us to become a kind of psychic parent or police officer keeping an
eye on our behaviour and giving us commands and setting out prohibi-
tions. Since we carry this authority with us in the unconscious structure
of our mind, the voice of this authority is always and everywhere present
to us. It tells us that we are good when we do what we have been told to
do, and it tells us that we are bad and it makes us feel guilty when we do
not do what we should.
A simplified way of thinking about the difference between superego
and moral conscience is to distinguish between 'shoulds' or 'have-tos' and
'wants' as the source of the commands directing our behaviour. 'Shoulds'
and 'have-tos' belong to someone else. The 'wants' of conscience (what my
truest self would want to do) belong to us. Whereas the 'shoulds' and
'have-tos' of the superego look to authority, the 'wants' of conscience look
to personalized and internalized values, or acquired virtues. The superego
acts out of the obligation to be obedient. The moral conscience, by
contrast, exercises responsible freedom — the freedom of wanting to do
what we ought to do as virtuous persons because we own the values that
we are expressing. When we act out of the fear of losing love, or out of
our need to be accepted and approved, the superego is at work. The moral
conscience, on the other hand, acts out of love for others and in response
to the call to commit ourselves to value. The conscience/superego mixup
helps us to understand in part what makes a person with an overly
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Richard M. Gula
developed or overly active superego have a difficult time distinguishing

between what God is calling him or her to do from what someone else in
authority says he or she should do.
Although basically a principle of censorship and control, the superego
still has a positive and meaningful function in our personalities. In
children, the superego is a primitive but necessary stage on the way to a
true moral conscience. In adults, the superego is an internalized moral
legacy from our unconscious past. It functions positively when integrated
into a mature conscience to relieve us from having to decide freshly in
every instance those matters which are already legitimately determined by
convention or custom. The difference between the working of the superego
in the child and the adult is one of degree and not of kind. In concrete
cases, the superego and moral conscience do not exist as pure alternatives
in undiluted form. We experience them as a mixture in our efforts to
decide what to do. But to be able to say that we are acting in conscience,
there must be a greater influence of the internalized values that we own
over the superego and the pull of social pressure to conform.
The moral conscience
Achieving clarity about the moral conscience has been complicated by the
way the theological tradition has spoken of it.2 What we understand today
by conscience is rooted in the biblical notion of the 'heart'. The heart is
the seat of vital decisions, for it is the centre of feeling and reason, decision
and action, intention and consciousness.3 The hope of the messianic
prophecies is for the people to receive a new heart so that their inmost
inclinations will be to live out of the gift of divine love which they receive
in the covenant (Jer 31:31-34; Ezek 11:14-21).
In the New Testament, Jesus reflects the Hebrew understanding of the
unity of the person to be centred in the heart. From a person's heart come
the evil ideas which lead one to do immoral things (Mark 7:21), whereas
a good person produces good from the goodness in the heart (Luke 6:45).
Paul is the chief New Testament author to deal with conscience. He
weaves together Hebrew and Greek thought to speak of conscience as our
fundamental awareness of the difference between good and evil, as a guide
to loving decisions, and as a judge for acting in ways unbecoming of a
Christian (Rom 2:15; 1 Tim 1). From the biblical vision of the heart as
that dimension of us which is most sensitive and open to others, especially
to God's love, we can develop our theological understanding of conscience.
The medieval debates spoke of conscience as a function of the intellect
(practical reasoning) or of the will (choosing). The manualist era made it a
rationalistic operation that functioned in a deductive way. The Second
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Conscience
Vatican Council's document Gaudium et Spes (GS), The Church in the

Modern World, opened us to a new era of reflecting on the nature of
conscience when it taught:
In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not
impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always
summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience
can when necessary speak to his heart more specifically; do this, shun
that. For man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the
very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is
the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with
God, whose voice echoes in his depths. (GS, n. 16)
On the inviolability of conscience, Dignitatis Humanae (DH), the Declar-

ation on Religious Freedom of the same Council, teaches:
In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience faithfully, in

order that he may come to God, for whom he was created. It follows
that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience.
Nor, on the other hand is he to be restrained from acting in accordance
with his conscience, especially in matters religious. (DH, n. 3)
More recently, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical on moral theology,
Veritatis Splendor (VS), affirms conscience as the link between human
freedom and moral truth, when he says that the relationship between
freedom and God's law 'is most deeply lived out in the "heart" of the
person, in his moral conscience' (VS, n. 54).
We can distil the wisdom of the tradition on conscience for our
contemporary understanding of it by distinguishing three dimensions of
conscience: a capacity, a process and a judgement. As a capacity, conscience is
our fundamental ability to discern good and evil. Except for those who are
seriously brain-damaged or emotionally traumatized, everyone seems to
have this raw capacity as part of our human nature. Conscience has also
been used to name the process of discovering what makes for being a good
person and what particular action is morally right or wrong. This is the
dimension of conscience which is subject to being formed and informed
through experience and critical investigation of the sources of moral
wisdom. This inquiry yields the actual judgement that concludes 'This is
what I choose to do, because this is what moral truth demands'. This is
the practical judgement that takes place in one's heart where we are alone
with God. As Veritatis Splendor puts it, 'It is the judgment which applies
to a concrete situation the rational conviction that one must love and do
good and avoid evil' (VS, n. 59). This is the judgement that fulfils the
maxim: let conscience be your guide. The guidance which this judgement
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Richard M. Gula
gives us will be as reliable as the thoroughness of the homework that we

did to inform it.
In light of these three dimensions of conscience, a contemporary
approach to conscience focuses on the whole person. Conscience includes
not only cognitive and volitional aspects, but also affective, intuitive, and
somatic ones as well. We understand the moral conscience holistically as
an expression of the whole self as a thinking, feeling, intuiting and willing
person. Conscience is the whole person's commitment to value and the judgement
one makes in light of that commitment of who one ought to be and what one ought
to do or not do.
Many people still mistake the appeal to 'conscience' as a stand for
individual freedom and against authority. In short, they think conscience
is a freedom from authority. This notion could not be further from the
truth. Conscience is not a law unto itself, nor is it the teacher of moral
doctrine. To invoke conscience means to be subject to moral truth and to
make a practical judgement of what to do in light of that truth.
Traditionally, we spoke of the judgement of conscience as the 'proxi-
mate norm of personal morality'. This does not mean that conscience
independently determines what is good and what is evil. Nor does it mean
that conscience makes all morality relative to a person's own desires, or
that one's moral judgement is true merely by the fact that the judgement
comes from one's conscience. It does mean that the person's sincerely
reflective judgement of what to do sets the boundary for acting with
integrity, or sincerity of heart. To say 'My conscience tells me' means 'I
may be wrong, but I understand this to be an objective demand of
morality and so I must live by it lest I turn from the truth and betray my
truest self.
To follow one's conscience in this sense is answering to the call of God
which one hears from within the depths of one's own person. If one truly
believes in one's heart (i.e., with one's whole self) that this line of action
rather than another is God's objective call, then that line of action is no
longer simply one option among many. It becomes the morally required
line of action for that person to take. In a sense, we feel within us that we
really have no other choice. Martin Luther is well remembered in history
for his statement witnessing to his conscience, 'Here I stand, I can do no
other'. This is what we mean by saying that a person is 'bound in
conscience'.
We give primacy to conscience and regard the moral claims of
conscience as absolutely binding because in conscience is where we meet
God's Spirit leading us. As Veritatis Splendor affirms, conscience does not
command things on its own authority, as though the person were in
dialogue with him or herself. But the command of conscience, 'Do this,
shun that', comes ultimately from God's authority (VS, n. 58). Conscience
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Conscience
is the place where God speaks to us. Thus, obeying conscience is giving
witness to God. To transgress the command of conscience would be to act
contrary to what we believe that God is calling us to do in this instance.
The formation of conscience
The obligation to follow conscience presupposes that we have properly

formed our conscience. This is a function of the second dimension of
conscience named above, that is, conscience as a process of discernment.
This is the process of a continuous conversion to what is true and good,
the search for who we ought to be and for what we ought to do in faithful
response to God's call. We are morally good to the extent that we honestly
try to discover what is right. We are bad if we fail to try. But trying to
find out what is right is different from actually attaining it. Forming
conscience is a lifelong task, an ongoing process of conversion.
The root meaning of the word 'conscience' is 'knowing together with'.
This meaning underscores that moral knowledge is social. Convictions of
conscience are shaped, and moral obligations are learned, within the
communities that influence us. While the judgement of conscience is
always made for oneself (what I must do), it is never formed by oneself. No
one can ever identify moral truth entirely on one's own. We are too
limited by experience and knowledge, or almost blind from being
accustomed to sin to recognize moral truth all by ourselves. So we must
always take counsel before acting in conscience. That means that we ought
to consult the established sources of wisdom.
As humans we consult our own experience as well as the experience of
family, friends, colleagues, and experts in the field which pertains to our
area of judgement at hand. We analyse and test the stories, images,
language, laws, rituals, actions and norms by which the various communi-
ties in which we participate live the moral life.
As Christians we turn to the testimony of Scripture, especially the
words and deeds of Jesus, the religious convictions of our creeds, and the
lives of moral virtuosos, and the informed judgement of theologians past
and present who help to interpret the traditions of Christian life.
More specifically, Roman Catholics are expected to pay attention not
only to their rich heritage of stories, images, devotional practices and
spiritual disciplines. They are also to heed the moral instruction of the
magisterium, the teaching office of the pope and bishops. The magisterium
is charged with the mission of understanding, interpreting and applying
the moral truth found in revelation and natural law to contemporary
issues. This teaching office — which Catholics believe to be guided by the
promise of the Spirit - carries a weight and presumption of truth for them
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Richard M. Gula
that no other teacher can rightfully claim. They believe that the moral
guidance of the magisterium helps them to check the bias of their own
sinfulness and it expands their moral awareness of how they can keep the
gospel alive from age to age. Given these convictions about the magiste-
rium, Catholics are expected to include this privileged source of moral
guidance in making moral choices.
Conscience and character
The proper formation of conscience uses these sources of moral wisdom

not only to answer the practical moral question, 'What ought I to do?'
but also the prior moral question, 'What sort of person ought I become?'
The aim of forming conscience is not simply to inquire about the right
thing to do by gathering information and thinking it over, but it must
also include the fuller texture of a person's moral character: one's attitudes,
motives, intentions, affections and perspective. The moral life is a matter
of who we are as well as what and how we choose.
Character emerges from the habits we form which reflect the beliefs,
ideals, and images of life that we internalize as a result of the communities
in which we live, especially the people who have captured our imagin-
ations. To form good character, we do not begin with argument. Maybe if
we were disembodied spirits, abstract analysis would work. But we are
embodied persons who learn through experience most of all. So we need
to begin with people of good character, like Aunt Rose and Uncle Pat.
The power of example is the most formative influence on shaping
character. We become persons of good character by acting in the same
spirit that persons of good character act.
The fuller formation of conscience, then, must pay attention not only
to the rules of explicit moral instruction, but also to the communities that
influence us, the images and beliefs these communities reinforce, and the
people who embody the community's style of life in a way that captures
our imaginations so that we would want to be like them. In the end, the
decisions we make and the actions we do will be a function of the kind of
character we develop and the situation in which we find ourselves. What
we do ultimately both reveals and shapes our character.
Conscience and choice
Even though the moral conscience is subject to truth, is oriented to moral

values, and is committed to doing what is right and to avoiding what is
wrong, conscience can still err. For example, in the process of forming
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Conscience
conscience, we can miss or distort some of the facts of the case and so be
mistaken in our judgement about the right thing to do. Consider the
parent who confronts a child with tough love when everyone else can see
that support is most needed now. We call this acting with an erroneous
conscience. This means that, even when we sincerely search for the truth,
we can still miss what is truly good objectively.
The dignity and inviolability of conscience do not exempt us from
making mistakes. Acting with an erroneous conscience can lead one to
doing what is wrong, but it does not necessarily make one a bad person.
Pope John Paul IFs encyclical Veritatis Splendor follows a long-standing
tradition when it speaks of the erroneous conscience as possibly resulting
from invincible ignorance, that is, the person acting is unaware of being
wrong and is unable to overcome this ignorance on his or her own. A
person who does wrong as a result of invincible ignorance commits a non-
culpable error of judgement. This error does not make what is wrong
become right, but neither does the error compromise the dignity of
conscience (VS, n. 62).
The dignity of conscience assures that the one who makes a sincere
effort to inform conscience and then lives by it will not betray his or her
integrity. It does not guarantee that one will discern what is truly good.
No one can be blamed for doing something wrong if he or she sincerely
tried to find out what is right. We say that that person did the best he or
she knew how to do. It is those who do not even try to find out what is
right that we need to worry about. As the encyclical explains, conscience
compromises its dignity when it is 'culpably erroneous', that is, when we
show little concern for seeking what is true and good (VS, n. 63).
Otherwise, we must always follow the light of our conscience in good
faith and leave the rest to God. Christian theology teaches that God will
judge us, not on the basis of our actions being objectively right or wrong,
but on the basis of the sincerity of our hearts in seeking to do what is
right, even if we make a mistake.
The goal: a mature conscience
A mature conscience takes responsibility for one's own formation and

judgement before God. The mature conscience is in dialogue with the
various sources of moral wisdom, but it ultimately makes up one's mind
for oneself. It does not pin its soul on another, and abdicate responsibility.
Martin Buber's tale of Rabbi Zusya poignantly illustrates that the integrity
of conscience is to be true to one's self. Out of our loyalty to conscience
we will witness to God and be judged by God. 'The Rabbi Zusya said a
short time before his death, "In the world to come, I shall not be asked,
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Richard M. Gula
'Why were you not Moses?' Instead, I shall be asked, 'Why were you not
Zusya?""4
If a person spends his or her life doing what he or she is told to do by
someone in authority simply because the authority says so, or because that
is the kind of behaviour expected by the group, then that person never
really makes moral decisions which are his or her own. For moral maturity
one must be one's own person. It is not enough to follow what one has
been told. The morally mature person must be able to perceive, choose,
and identify oneself with what one does. In short, we create our character
and give our lives meaning by committing our freedom, not by submitting
it to someone in authority. We cannot claim to be virtuous, to have strong
moral character, or to give direction to our lives if we act simply on the
basis that we have been told to act that way. As long as we do not direct
our own activity, we are not yet free, morally mature persons.
Who can act in conscience?
This note on moral maturity leads us to ask, then, 'Who can make moral
decisions of conscience?' If conscience is the whole person's commitment
to value, then to act in conscience requires some degree of knowledge,
freedom, and the affective capacity to care for others and to commit oneself
to moral values.
Knowledgee
The kind of knowledge required to act in conscience obviously includes
the capacity to reason, that is, to reflect, to analyse, or to think in
somewhat of a critical fashion. But knowledge for acting in conscience
also requires an appreciation of moral values (we call this 'evaluative
knowledge'), especially the value of persons and what contributes to their
well-being. Without a heartfelt appreciation of values, but merely
conceptual knowledge about them, we act more out of hearsay than we do
out of conviction. To reach an appreciation of value requires experience
and reflection, not just right information.
Acting in conscience also requires the capacity to be self-reflective and
to have reached some degree of self-awareness that puts us in touch with
what is going on inside us. The key to acting in conscience is to be self-
conscious. Knowledge of the self includes knowing not only one's limits,
but also one's strengths, potentials and preferences. A basic goal of
Christian morality is to live according to the graces we have received.
When we live out of our blessings, and do not try to run ahead of our
graces, we make the moral life a continuous expression of praise and
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Conscience
thanksgiving to God who has endowed us with different gifts or different

degrees of the same gifts.
Freedom
To act in conscience one must also be able to direct one's actions according
to self-chosen goals. Actions that are not under our control cannot really
be considered within the realm of conscience. For example, we cannot be
held responsible for a tree falling on our house in a wind storm. Such an
act of nature is beyond our control. But we can be held responsible for
how we respond to the destruction it brings. In our pastoral tradition we
have recognized that what we ought to do implies that we can do it. It is
unreasonable to demand that someone do what is beyond his or her
capacity of knowledge, freedom, or emotional or moral strength.
Our basic freedom is the freedom to make someone of ourselves. As
Christians, we direct our basic freedom towards becoming one with God.
But since we experience God and express our relationship to God in
mediated ways, our basic freedom of self-determination gets expressed
through the particular choices that we make in life. (We also call this 'free
will'.) Our freedom to choose must be exercised across a broad spectrum
of possibilities, but within the limits of nature and nurture. What we do
is at least partially up to us and not solely the result of genetics, the
environment, unconscious influences, or luck. If we were strictly pro-
grammed by our genes, or blinded by social sin and other environmental
conditions, then there would be no possibility for morality. If we are
beyond freedom, we are beyond morality.
The biological, psychological and social sciences have certainly made us
aware of how limited our freedom is. In fact, they have made us so aware
that the modern-day 'out' for immoral behaviour is often the claim to
being victimized by some past experience. The great temptation is to say
that, whatever my failing, it is not my fault — 'Such and such happened to
me and made me to be this way and to do these things; therefore, I can't
be held responsible.' Such a notion of determinism has profoundly
diminished our sense of responsibility and wreaked havoc on morality.
The bottom line is that, whatever has happened to us, responsibility for
our action is still possible. If we were absolutely determined, then we
would never feel unsettled or indecisive about our choices. Neither would
we ever have to deliberate about anything if we were completely free or
completely determined. Real freedom is learning to live well within
limits. Those who are free do not expect to be dealt a winning hand, but
to play well the hand they have been handed. The more we become aware
of what limits us, the more we will be able to live freely within those
limits. Our freedom to choose challenges us all the time. Each of us has to
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Richard M. Gula
assume responsibility for what he or she does. The power to assume an

attitude towards what is happening to us makes us truly free.
The freedom we have to act in conscience, then, is not a licence to do
whatever we want. Rather, the freedom of a good conscience is the freedom
of wanting to do what we ought to do because it is the right thing to do.
Ultimately, our freedom to choose this or that, within limits, is fundamen-
tally a freedom to choose an identity, to become a certain sort of person.
We cannot do everything. Determining factors prevent that. But we can
pour ourselves into what we do, make it truly our own, choose it as a
genuine expression of who we are and aspire to become.
Emotions
The degree to which knowing what is right results in doing what is right
can only be understood against the flow of emotions that support a good
will. In other words, knowledge will influence behaviour to the extent
that we care about the good and are committed to seeing it come about.
For example, someone may be a whiz-kid when it comes to moral theory,
but still be morally flawed because of the lack of affective awareness and a
heartfelt commitment to the values at stake. Someone else, however, may
do what is right spontaneously from the heart because of his or her
sympathy for the values at stake, but he or she may never be able to give
any theoretical justification for acting that way. Why? Because our feelings
display our moral sensitivity. They drive us to act according to our
convictions.
Without the capacity for an affective experience of the value of persons
and what befits their well-being, we will not have the capacity for acting
in good conscience. The capacity to be loving is the beginning of moral
awareness. Research on the role of empathy shows how important this
human feeling is in the development of conscience.5 Empathy is experienc-
ing what another is experiencing. When empathy is born, care is born,
and with it, morality.
The capacity to experience an emotion like empathy is set in our genetic
endowment, but it requires the proper environment, especially in our
early years, if it is ever to emerge in full power as part of the conscience of
an adult. What is missing in a psychopath, for instance, is not the
knowledge of right or wrong, but caring commitment to do the right
thing. The psychopath has no empathy. To pour ourselves into what we
do requires an emotional capacity to care about others and to commit
ourselves to ideals and standards. Thus the emotionally traumatized, the
severely brain-damaged, the gravely mentally ill, and those suffering from
severe pathological conditions, like the sociopath or psychopath, cannot
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Conscience
be said to have a functioning conscience because their emotion is blunted

and their self-awareness is impaired.
The effort to engage in the moral reasoning which an act of conscience
demands is doomed to failure unless a person first cares enough about
people and moral values to become engaged in such reflection. Without a
desire to become good and do what is right, moral instruction and
reflection will profit us nothing. We can give all the moral instruction we
want, or provide the best moral mentors we know, and create an
environment where it is easy to be good, but if the person does not care
about being good, nothing will happen to produce a morally good person.
Emotions are the building blocks of conscience. Emotions enable us to
care enough to want to commit ourselves to what we experience by heart
as valuable. Our 'reasons of the head' demonstrate in a way that can be
rationally accessible to another what our 'reasons of the heart' lead us to
do.
Conclusion
Conscience, then, is our fundamental capacity for moral discernment, the

process of discerning, and the judgement we make in light of the truth
that we discover. We all begin with the basic capacity to know good from
evil. Throughout our lives, then, we search the sources of moral wisdom
to become sensitive to value, to learn virtue, and to discover what is right
and what is wrong. If we are to act in conscience, we need to acquire a
heartfelt awareness of what helps people to live fully and what harms
them. We need to take charge and give direction to our lives lest we
spend our whole lives living someone else's desires for us. We can only do
this if we have sufficient emotional stability to care about ourselves and
others and to commit ourselves to what we know by heart is worth
striving for. Upon these foundations we can build a moral life that is
responding to what God is calling us to do.
Notes
1 For a succinct treatment of the Freudian model of the person, see the still valuable
article by Gregory Zilboorg, 'Superego and conscience' in C. Ellis Nelson (ed.),
Conscience: Theological and Psychological Perspectives (New York: Newman Press, 1973),
pp. 210-23.
2 For a still valuable review of the ways the tradition has talked about conscience, see
Bernard Ha'ring, The Law of Christ, vol. 1: General Moral Theology, trans. Edwin G.
Kaiser (Paramus: Newman Press, 1966), pp. 135-89. Also Bernard Ha'ring, Free
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Richard M. Gula
and Faithful in Christ, vol. 1: General Moral Theology (New York: Seabury Press,
1978), pp. 224-301.
3 Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1974), pp. 40-55.
4 Martin Buber, The Way of Man According to the Teaching of Hasidism (New York:
Citadel Press, 1966), p. 17.
5 For a review of this research, see Sidney Callahan, In Good Conscience (New York:
HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 186-90. See also Charles M. Shelton, Morality of the
Heart (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 33-59.
Select bibliography
Sidney Callahan, In Good Conscience (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).

Richard M. Gula, Reason Informed by Faith (New York: Paulist Press, 1989).
Bernard Ha'ring, Free and Faithful in Christ, vol. 1: General Moral Theology (New York:
Seabury Press, 1978).
Vincent MacNamara, Love, Law, and Christian Life (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier,
1988).
Daniel C. Maguire, The Moral Choice (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978).
Timothy E. O'Connell, Principles for a Catholic Morality (rev. edn; San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1990).
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8
The theory of the fundamental
option and moral action
Introduction
Moral theology, like any science, is an open-ended enterprise. Because

moral theology is an ongoing affair, theologians engaged in it will find
themselves at once committed to the tradition in which they work and
ready to bring the tradition into conversation with other disciplines in
order to transform it. This dual order of reflection can be the context in
which to discuss the theory of the fundamental option. The theory of the
fundamental option is the result of neo-scholasticism's conversations with
personalism, transcendental philosophy and the hermeneutical sciences.
The theory has provided a new context in which to analyse the moral act
in a way that is freed from the inadequate essentialist categories of the
tradition.
This chapter is divided into four sections. The first section will trace
the origins of the theory of the fundamental option back to a theology of
grace. The second section will show how the theory of the fundamental
option, when transferred into the realm of moral theology, opens the way
for a new relationship between person and act. The third section will
discuss the role of faith in moral reasoning focusing on how the creed
provides the initial sketches of a Christian anthropology. Finally, since the
theory of the fundamental option and the analysis of moral action that it
entails are not without controversy, the chapter will address some of the
criticisms that have been recently levelled at the theory.
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Origins of the theory
Though most frequently utilized and discussed in the context of moral

theology, the theory of the fundamental option has its origins in dogmatic
theology. Behind the theory is the classical axiom that grace presupposes
and perfects nature. The theory of the fundamental option originated in a
psychology of grace which was meant to explain the inner operation of
grace and the experience it begets.1 It aimed to analyse the human sphere
in which grace flourished. The theory of the fundamental option was
developed in reaction to the tendency in neo-scholastic theology to
emphasize the transcendence of grace and its utter discontinuity with
nature. This emphasis resulted in an extrinsicism where grace was
superimposed on or grafted onto nature. In reaction to neo-scholastic
theology, there emerged a greater appreciation of the reciprocity or
interpenetration that exists between the transcendence and immanence of
grace. There emerged, in other words, a better understanding of the
human dimensions of grace. Within a personalist understanding of grace,
the gracious and salvific initiative of God presupposes a receptive potential
on our part, and our inclination for union with God is perfected by God's
free and gratuitous offer of himself.
The inclination to or potency for the infinite, which is prior to any
knowing or choosing, is the basis of the theory of the fundamental option.
The theory refers to the instinct of grace that projects us toward God as
the fulfilment of all our longings. Entailed in the theory of the fundamen-
tal option, then, is the anticipation of our eternal destiny and fulfilment;
it designates our immanent and dynamic orientation to all of reality. As
such, the fundamental option goes beyond a categorical level of analysis
and casts light on the conditions that make concrete acts of knowing and
choosing possible. This means that the fundamental option is a transcen-
dental category. It remains on a pre-reflexive or a-thematic level. The
fundamental option can only be grasped asymptotically in individual
decisions and actions. Being a transcendental category, however, does not
lessen the fundamental option's efficacy in individual decisions and actions.
It is effective in all individual choices and actions. The fundamental option
eludes a fully thematic awarenes or reflexive apprehension because human
existence is finite and contingent. This is what one of the best known
proponents of the fundamental option theory, Josef Fuchs, means when he
asserts that 'the fundamental option is not itself a single act of self-
disposition, though it is always felt in particular acts of deciding'.2 The
fundamental option remains the nucleus of all our moral decisions. Every
decision is sustained by it and every decision substantiates it.
The theory of the fundamental option is often coupled with the theory
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The theory of the fundamental option
of the final option. The theory of the final option holds that at death we
definitely decide for or against salvation. The theory does not mean that a
life of virtue is useless; nor is it meant to imply that we cannot reject
God's grace during our lifetime. Rather, the theory of the final option
underlines the fact that at death the nature of a decision is most vividly
manifested, and that salvation and loss do not lie on the periphery of our
lives; our daily living serves as the prehistory to our eternal destiny.
'Death issues from the whole experience of life, of which it bears the
stamp, but by affirming or revoking the past, gives life its definitive
character.'3
Though the theory of the fundamental option stands in the effective
history of personalism and transcendental philosophy, important insights
into the theory can be gained by recent developments in the hermeneutical
sciences. The appreciation of the role of prejudices in knowledge, for
instance, has undermined the traditional romantic conception of herme-
neutics that was determined by a thoroughly modern view of knowledge.
Guided by this epistemological interest, traditional hermeneutics sought
the 'determinant' meaning of a text which, it was thought, was able to be
known independently of the concerns of the interpreter or reader. This
endeavour was undermined in a radical way by the rehabilitation of the
role of prejudices in knowledge. Taking the role of prejudices seriously
means that there is no neutral or pure access to the world as in an
empirical or naive realist account of knowledge. All our knowledge of the
world is conditioned, in part, by our pre-understandings or pre-judge-
ments. Far from distorting our knowledge of reality, our pre-judgements
constitute our initial bias or openness to the world. In light of the work
of the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, it has become a
hermeneutical axiom to assert that our prejudices, far more than our
judgements, constitute our historical existence.4 In a similar way, individ-
ual decisions are only adequately understood when they are seen as
stemming from a more primordial context which directs our stance toward
life as a whole. This originating context directs freedom's striving toward
the good.
From a hermeneutical perspective we can say, then, that our inclination
toward the good is inseparable from our pre-understandings about what
constitutes the morally good life. This means that the fundamental option
is inseparable from conceptions of human flourishing, or what Gibson
Winter has labelled an 'ideology of human fulfilment'. 5 The ideology of
human fulfilment provides a normative orientation toward the realities of
the world. This normative orientation stakes out the boundaries in which
moral reasoning and freedom can function in a legitimate way. From a
hermeneutical perspective, this means that moral reasoning and freedom
are not self-sufficient realities, but they have a relational character. Our
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normative orientation toward the realities of the world also becomes the
filter through which a moral norm is read or interpreted.6 The application
of a moral norm cannot be known apart from the normative horizon that
it is meant to protect and promote; to forget this function of a moral
norm is to easily run the risk of falling into a crude voluntarism or
legalism. A moral norm, then, is like any literary text; it has a hypothetical
character; its meaning is ambivalent; its meaning emerges from a process
of interpretation or reading. In this interpretative process, the weighing
of premoral but morally relevant goods cannot be modelled on merely
technical calculation, but should be seen as the final step in a strategy of
action guaranteeing that our actions witness to our conception of the
morally good life. In this way, in all our individual decisions about
particular goods, the ideology of human fulfilment is tacitly present as the
object of our striving.
Purpose of the theory
The purpose of the theory of the fundamental option is to provide a more

adequate and personalist context in which to analyse the moral act. In this
regard, proponents of the theory of the fundamental option stand in
opposition to the tendency of neo-scholasticism's overly objective act
analysis which was modelled on the certainty of a modern ideal of science.
This reductive analysis of moral action was based on the unchanging
essence of human nature. Instead, proponents of the theory of the
fundamental option rely on a personalist understanding of human nature
in which freedom assumes a more dynamic and creative potential. Within
the theory of the fundamental option, moral objectivity is no longer
limited by an essentialist metaphysics of human nature but is bound to
the transcendental subjectivity of the person. A more adequate analysis of
the moral act, then, is achieved by a greater appreciation of the subjective
conditions from which the act originates.7
The theory of the fundamental option emerges from a better under-
standing of the nature of moral truth. Moral truth is a truth of meaning;
it is the truth about the whither and whence of our existence. Moral truth
is not a truth among others, but it penetrates our entire life project giving
the directionality and anticipatory structure of our lives. Moral truth has
a teleological character in that it is the object of our striving and choosing.
In this context, the meaning of freedom goes beyond the ability to choose
between objects to mean our ability to achieve the moral good and to
create through our choices a dignified and worthy life. Entailed in a theory
of action, then, is a conception of history. History is distinguished from
the more primordial category of 'time' which recounts the succession of
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one moment to the next. History, on the other hand, results from those
successive moments being assumed into and transformed by our life
projects. Moral actions, in other words, do not stand juxtaposed to each
other in an unrelated fashion, but they weave the story of our moral lives.
History has an autobiographical character.8
In this personalist context, the fundamental option represents the
dynamic core of our moral identities. It represents our orientation towards
the moral good as such and, though prior to any one choice, it gives
direction to our deliberations and knits our choices into our unique and
personal histories. Though no one decision will exhaust the fundamental
option, individual decisions can be seen as interpretative extensions of it.
The passage between the fundamental option and individual decisions is
not done in any mechanical or automatic way. The element of decision
cannot be subsumed under any naive scientific explanation; such a way of
thinking would belie the risks that are inherent to the moral enterprise.
The moment of decision involves what Karl Rahner has called 'the logic
of existential knowledge' which escapes the surety of deductive calculus.9
Through our decisions and actions there is a slow maturation of the
fundamental option as we realize ever more fully the meaning of our life
projects. As we make individual decisions the contours of our moral
identities take shape. All the diverse and various experiences of life become
interpreted in light of the possibilities of legitimate freedom to the point
that there emerges a profound consistency and transparency between our
identity and our actions, between who we are and what we do. We act
authentically. We develop a morally mature personality where there is
found a readiness and facility to act in a virtuous way.10
By rooting a theory of moral action in a personalist metaphysics, an
ineluctable bond is formed between the fundamental option and individual
decisions. Their inseparability creates an analogous relationship between
them. A family resemblance is created between the fundamental option
and an individual decision and, so too, among the various decisions. To
fully understand individual decisions and actions, they must be seen as
embedded in and constitutive of one's fundamental option, and they must
be seen as contributing to the greater whole of our moral personalities.
Naturally, some individual decisions will participate in the fundamental
option to a greater or lesser degree. This is no surprise when we recall that
certain decisions will involve us as subjects more than others, as and when
our life projects become the appropriate object of a moral decision. There
is, for instance, a more profound personal investment in a vocational
decision than in the peripheral choices of daily living. In this regard, there
is a convergence between metaphysical and psychological categories.
As reflective of our moral identities, there is a certain stability to the
fundamental option. For the Christian this means that there is a genuine
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and enduring orientation toward the good under the influence of grace (1
John 3:9). Nevertheless, the fundamental option can become corrupted.
Theologically speaking this occurs through mortal sin. In terms of a
psychology of sin, this kind of moral tragedy occurs over time. Our
orientation toward the good can become dulled through repeated offences
and omissions and, as we find ourselves continually failing to strive for the
moral good, our actions continually fall behind our moral potential. We
embark on a perilous journey through which the inner structure of the
fundamental option begins to decay and rot. As we become untethered
from the mainstay of our moral identities, we flounder. Because the
fundamental option and individual decisions are so intimately linked, it
becomes progressively more difficult and increasingly less probable that
we will regain our moral equilibrium. We are beset by a progressive moral
decline to the point that our orientation to fulfilment in God — still, the
end of all our knowing and acting — becomes meaningless to our self-
identities. We truly experience the death of our souls. While it is true to
say that our separation from God occurs through mortal sin understood in
terms of the traditional categories of grave matter and full knowledge and
freedom, such an act would never have its disastrous consequences had it
not already been prepared for and preceded by a prehistory of moral
decline. By uniting the sinful act with the process which leads up to it,
Klaus Demmer likens sin unto death to a whirlpool from which we will
need all our strength to escape.11 The sinful act becomes nothing other
than the confirming evidence of our moral deterioration.12
Faith and moral decisions
There are two positions presented on the issue of when the fundamental
option can become an object of reflection in life. The first position is
rooted in the Church's practice of baptizing infants and holds that the
fundamental option of the Christian coincides with a person's first truly
responsible decision. The second position is more speculative. It holds that
the fundamental option coincides with the infusion of the theological
virtues by sanctifying grace; they direct the moral life of the justified
person towards a life with God.
This leads to the important question as to the role of faith in moral
decision-making. What is the proper role of the content of faith in moral
reasoning? What is the relationship between the truths of faith and moral
truth? These questions are at the centre of the debate between the
proponents of an autonomous morality and an ethics of faith.13 On the one
hand, reason cannot be regarded as completely autonomous to the extent
that faith is extrinsic to the reasoning process. On the other hand, it
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would be a distortion of both revelation and moral reasoning to reduce

revelation to divine commands directly regulating moral behaviour; faith
illuminates but does not replace reason. The question is, what does the
creed offer to our self-understanding, to our way of viewing the world,
and to our way of being-and-acting-in the world?
Pedagogically, the creed incorporates us into a believing community.
By being incorporated into the community, we learn the contours of the
Christian way of life. We gain a habit of mind that enables us to speak
and reason about the world in a certain way. We learn, in other words, all
the implications of faith which determine our freedom, structure our
experience, guide our insight and animate our action. By imparting a set
of basic integrative convictions, faith is not a limitation to but the
condition of moral reasoning.
In the creed, we profess that every human being is created in the image
and likeness of God (Gen 1:26). This is the backing for the indestructible
dignity of every human being. This dignity is not merited; it is not
destroyed by sin; it cannot be diminished by any quality that can
otherwise distinguish us from others.
Second, we confess in the creed that Jesus became human to reconcile
us with the Father and to be our model of holiness (Matt 11:29). His
sacrifice of himself is the model of the new law, 'Love one another as I
have loved you' (John 15:12). By living among us, Jesus has created a new
communion or solidarity among us (1 Cor 12:26—27), making everyone a
neighbour worthy of our charity and care.
Third, we confess that we are redeemed by Christ and called to share
eternal life with him. As Christians, we face death with the confidence of
our faith in him who has conquered death by his resurrection (Rom 6:3—9;
Phil 3:10—11). For us, in death, life is changed, not ended.
Finally, we confess 'to wait for the resurrection of the dead and the life
of the world to come'. With this belief we can confidently leave the final
judgement on history to God (1 Cor 4:5). This allows moral reasoning to
continually relativize 'final' judgements within human relationships and
pursue avenues of dialogue in the hope of leading to reconciliation and
peace.
These integrative convictions provide the initial sketch of a Christian
anthropology. They emerge from faith and are further specified through
moral reasoning; they function, then, as middle terms in the reasoning
process.11 Like a research programme that practitioners of a discipline
continually make more specific, these integrative convictions provide the
filter for the Christian experience of the world; they condition the
perception and weighing of premoral but morally relevant goods; and they
provide the initial criteria by which to measure the adequacy of moral
insight and action.15
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Criticisms of the theory
There are persistent criticisms of the theory of the fundamental option.

Criticisms of the theory may be found in the texts of the Roman Catholic
magisterium and in certain theological circles. In both cases, however,
there is expressed the deep-seated fear that the theory of the fundamental
option is built on a dualistic anthropology which inevitably leads to an
analysis of moral action which separates the fundamental option from
individual decisions. The separation of person and act 'contradicts the
substantial integrity or personal unity of the moral agent in his body and
in his soul'. This dualism leads to an underestimation of how particular
kinds of actions can impact our moral character in a negative way. The
suspicion of this dualism is found in Pope John Paul's recent encyclical
Veritatis Splendor, The Splendour of Truth. In turning explicitly to the theory
of the fundamental option, the papal text reads:
A distinction . . . comes to be introduced between the fundamental
option and deliberate choices of a concrete kind of behaviour. In some
authors this division tends to become a separation when they expressly
limit moral 'good' and 'evil' to the transcendental dimension proper to
the fundamental option and describe as 'right' or 'wrong' the choices of
particular 'inner-worldly' kinds of behaviour . . . There thus appears to
be established within human acting a clear disjunction between two
levels of morality.16
Within the personalist metaphysics upon which the theory of the
fundamental option is built, however, there is no such separation between
goodness and tightness or person and act.17 To separate the fundamental
option from individual decisions is to risk falling into pure abstractions
and to somehow forget that individual decisions have repercussions — in
either a positive or negative sense — on the fundamental option. By failing
to appreciate the interpenetration of the transcendental and categorical
levels of action, sceptics of the theory of the fundamental option are open
to the criticism that they remain entrapped in a reductive metaphysics of
the act. This means that the criticisms of the theory of the fundamental
option can be traced back to the uncritically objective metaphysics of
human nature of the neo-scholastic tradition. The differences between
critics and advocates of the fundamental option originate precisely on this
level: the divergent metaphysical commitments with which proponents
and critics of the fundamental option work provide different points of
departure from which to analyse the moral act.18
In the neo-scholastic tradition, the analysis of the moral act was guided
by an essentialist metaphysics and centred on the determination of the
130
moral object. 19 The point of departure for the determination of the moral
object was the finis opens, or the end of the act. This of course made sense
when the determination of the moral object was made within the
epistemological tradition of realism. Nevertheless, this realist tradition
was restricted by a modern notion of science and the casuistic categories
of jurisprudence. In such a state of affairs, the finis operands, or the end of
the agent, was relegated to the psychology of action. The intention of the
agent was a circumstance - albeit a principal one — and could only modify
the act in an accidental way.20
This traditional analysis of moral action had at least two important
effects, both of which are undermined by the theory of the fundamental
option. First, moral objectivity was attributed to the phenomenal structure
of the act which, in turn, circumscribed the possible interpretations of the
action. Second, while this circumspection fostered a high level of commun-
icability, the price it exacted was the impression that moral action no
longer presupposed a human subject. There was a clear line demarcating
the objective and subjective spheres of reality.
The theory of the fundamental option, however, leads to a more
nuanced determination of the moral object and revision of the relationship
between the finis operis and the finis operantis. From a moral perspective,
the phenomenal structure of the act is underdetermined and assumes its
meaning in light of the fundamental option. This means that the moral
object can no longer be limited to the phenomenal aspect of the act as in
the stark and essentialist categories of the neo-scholastic tradition, but
must be seen under the sway of the life project which predetermines
freedom and insight. The fusion between the fundamental option and the
phenomenal structure of the act is never done in an arbitrary way; the
fusion between intention and execution is always done in a way commen-
surate or proportionate to the underlying normative horizon which
conditions freedom and insight. 21 The moral object, then, is the result of
the phenomenal structure of the act being interpreted or read in light of
the ideology of human fulfilment.
The theory of the fundamental option also provides the basis from
which to reconfigure the relationship between intention and execution.
The finis operantis is no longer relegated to the psychology of action; the
agent's intention is no longer merely a circumstance answering the
question why one is acting. In light of the fundamental option, the finis
operantis plays an active and constitutive role in the determination of the
moral object. 22 What is done is always seen in light of why it is done.
From this perspective, finis operantis becomes the true finis operis of an
action.
131
Conclusion
The theory of the fundamental option stands as a central teaching of

contemporary moral theology. Not only does the theory of the fundamen-
tal option provide the immediate context in which to analyse the
individual moral act, but it reflects the renewal of moral theology at its
deepest foundations.
At one level, the theory of the fundamental option provides the broadest
possible context in which to analyse moral action. Moral decisions and
actions are not isolated entities that can be scrutinized and understood
independently of ourselves. Within the theory of the fundamental option,
individual decisions and actions contribute to and are reflective of our
moral identities. As an integral part of a theory of moral action, the
fundamental option is rooted in a thoroughly personalist understanding of
moral norms.
At a deeper level, the fundamental option reflects the renewal of the
neo-scholastic tradition. Through contact with other schools of thought -
in particular, transcendental philosophy — neo-scholastic theology has been
put on a new foundation freed from the essentialist categories that held
sway over it. Keeping this in mind means that criticisms of the theory do
less to cast doubt on its validity, than to underline the need of critics and
advocates alike to scrutinize and justify the metaphysical commitments
with which they work.
Notes
1 Piet Fransen, 'Pour une psychologic de la grace divine', Lumen vitae 12 (1957),
pp. 209-40.
2 Josef Fuchs, 'Good acts and good persons', The Tablet (6 November 1993), pp.
1444_45.
3 Jorg Splett, 'Decision' in Sacramentum Mundi, vol. 2 (London: Burns and Gates,
1969), p. 63. A more critical view of the theory of the final option is given by
Bruno Schiiller, 'Mortal sin - sin unto death?', Theology Digest 16 (1968),
pp. 232-5.
4 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.
Marshall (New York: Crossroads, 1992), pp. 216-1.
5 Gibson Winter, Liberating Creation: Foundations of Religious Social Ethics (New
York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 126.
6 Richard Gula, What Are They Saying About Moral Norms? (New York: Paulist
Press, 1982).
7 Klaus Demmer, 'Opzione fondamentale' in Nuovo dizionario enciclopedico di teologia
morale (Rome: Paoline, 1991), pp. 854-61.
8 This is the insight of recent retrievals of virtue. See for instance, James F. Keenan,
132
'Virtue ethics: making a case as it comes of age', Thought 67 (1992), pp. 115-27;
Paul Wadell, Friendship and the Moral Life (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame Press,
1989).
9 Karl Rahner, 'On the question of a formal existential ethics' in Theological
Investigations, vol. 2 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1975), pp. 217-34.
10 There is a connaturality between ourselves and the good: Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae: II-II, q. 45, ad 2.
11 Klaus Demmer, 'Optionalismus - Entscheidung und Grundentscheidung' in
Dietmar Mieth (ed.), Moraltheologie im AbseitsP Antwort auf die Enziklika 'Veritatis
Splendor' (Quaestiones Disputatae 153; Freiburg: Herder, 1994), pp. 83-4.
12 The same process can be detailed in terms of the conversion of our hearts and
minds. The early Church's penitential practice is based on the insight that we do
not easily pass back and forth between the state of grace and state of damnation.
13 Vincent MacNamara, Faith and Ethics: Recent Roman Catholicism (Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press, 1985); James Walter, 'The dependence of Christian
morality on faith', Eglise et Theologie 12 (1981), pp. 237-77; Josef Fuchs, 'Moral
truths — truths of salvation?' in Christian Ethics in a Secular Arena (Washington,
DC: Georgetown University Press, 1984), pp. 48-67; idem, 'Our image of God
and the morality of innerworldly behaviour' in Christian Morality: The Word
Becomes Flesh (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1987), pp. 28-49.
14 Hans Kiing, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York:
Crossroad, 1991), pp. 66-9.
15 Jean Ladriere, 'On the notion of criterion', Concilium 155 (1982), pp. 10—15.
16 John Paul II, Encyclical Letter The Splendour of Truth (Washington, DC: The
United States Catholic Conference/London: Catholic Truth Society (1993), para.
65.
17 Josef Fuchs, 'Morality: person and acts' in Christian Morality: The Word Becomes
Flesh, pp. 105-17; James F. Keenan, 'Distinguishing charity as goodness and
prudence as Tightness', The Thomist 56 (1992), pp. 389—411.
18 This is the criticism ol Veritatis Splendor made by Demmer, 'Optionalismus -
Entscheidung und Grundentscheidung', especially pp. 73—8.
19 The historical analysis is provided by Gerhard Stanke, Die Lehre von den 'Quellen
der Moralitat': Darstellung und Disktission der neuscholastischen Aussagen und neurer
Ansatze (Studien zur Geschichte der katholischen Moraltheologie 26; Regensburg:
Friedrich Pustet, 1984).
20 This is evident in one of the strongest critics of the fundamental option, William
E. May, Moral Absolutes: Catholic Tradition, Current Trends and the Truth (Milwau-
kee: Marquette University, 1989).
21 In this way, the theory of proportionalism can be seen as responsible for binding
all the elements of moral action into a coherent whole. See the fine study of
Bernard Hoose, Proportionalism: The American Debate and Its European Roots
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1987).
22 See for instance, Klaus Demmer, Die Wahrheit leben. Theorie des Handelns (Freiburg:
Herder, 1991).
Select bibliography
Josef Fuchs, 'Basic freedom and morality' in Human Values and Christian Morality
(Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1970), pp. 92-111.
133
Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1: Christian Moral Principles (Chicago:
Franciscan Herald Press, 1983).
Bernard Raring, Sin in the Secular Age (New York: Doubleday, 1974).
John Paul II, The Encyclical Letter, The Splendour of Truth (Washington: The United
States Catholic Conference/London: Catholic Truth Society, 1993).
134
9
Feminist ethics
Susan F. Parsons
General comments
The starting-point for a consideration of the subject of feminist ethics

must surely be the recognition that the experiences and the reasoning, the
lives and the conditions of women make a difference to the fundamental
assumptions that we have about ethics. When women are considered,
things simply do not look the same. It has been the work of feminists to
demonstrate this fact, and thereby to urge those who engage in the study
and the analysis of ethics to include women in. Feminists seek to provide
insights from women's experiences of moral dilemmas, so that we may
shed new light on methods of decision-making. They seek to use women's
stories and reflections to help us understand more fully the nature of the
moral life. They seek to develop women's perspectives on matters of moral
concern. Much that is discussed in feminist ethics, therefore, is about the
difference women make to our understanding of the moral life, to our
analysis of ethical methodology, and to our consideration of substantive
moral issues.
In pressing this kind of claim for the inclusion of women, there is a
necessary criticism of those systems of ethics that have not taken women
into account. Since feminism is a modern development, this criticism
suggests that all systems of ethics which have so far been devised to
provide guidance for the living of the good human life, all of these have
been inadequate. In some cases, approaches to ethics have presumed that
men were the only moral agents. As a result, the description of the moral
life, and the analysis of the nature of ethical reasoning, are such that
women are not able to find themselves within these terms. In other cases,
systems of ethics have presumed the inferior nature of woman, or have
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Susan F. Parsons
recommended the confinement of her life and activity to those things

chosen for her by men. As a result, the full humanity of women has been
denied. In both of these ways, ethical systems have been flawed. Feminists
therefore question the philosophical and the theological traditions of ethics
on behalf of women.
The outcome of this critical investigation and this constructive work
has been the development of feminist ethics as a subject in itself. It may
be said generally that 'a feminist is one who takes most seriously the
practical concerns of women's lives, the analysis and the critique of these
conditions of life, and the ways in which women's lives may become more
fulfilling'. 1 To address these matters, there is a considerable body of
literature which may be identified and examined. There is a shared history,
both of ideas and of events, which may be searched for new understanding.
There are contemporary challenges arising in human life and society, to
which feminist ethicists apply themselves. And there is now a diversity
amongst feminists themselves. This diversity means that feminists take
different approaches to ethical questions and to the project of ethics itself.
In this diversity, feminist ethics shares in the complexity of ethical
considerations that is characteristic of life and thought in the late
twentieth century. We begin our investigation of feminist ethics by
considering three of the strands that make up this diversity.
The rights of women
Because feminism has emerged during the modern period of history, it is

a child of the Enlightenment. Feminism is, firstly, a political movement
concerned with the rights of women. As such, it has been and is entangled
with liberalism. Early feminists argued that women should be given the
same rights and responsibilities in society as men were given. Their
demands for equal treatment with men, throughout all the institutions of
a society, were based on the liberal ideals that shaped much of the political
thinking of the Western world from the late eighteenth century. These
ideals involve two significant beliefs. On the one hand is the belief that a
human being is a rational agent, capable of judging her own interests in
the light of moral principles. In exercising this rational capacity for
making decisions, human beings realize their freedom. They become self-
determining and, therefore, responsible for the lives that they lead. One
liberal ideal therefore is to respect the individual person, and to give her
the space in which to realize her full humanness. Early feminists believed
that such an understanding of the human person included women, and
they pressed for the political recognition of this.
On the other hand is the belief that the moral principles used to guide
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Feminist ethics
human behaviour are universal. Indeed, it was important to the whole

project of the Enlightenment that through the use of human reason, we
could discover universal truth and universal goodness. To embark on this
discovery takes the moral person beyond her own habits, and beyond the
customs of the society to which she happens to belong, and beyond
unthinking obedience to those with higher status or power. It requires of
her an ability to detach herself from these particular things, and in her
detachment, to consider what is morally right for all persons, or what
ought to be the case for people everywhere. Another liberal ideal, therefore,
is to think universally, a process which is itself rigorous and demanding,
and as a result of that thinking, to discover the basis for a true and just
society. Once again, early feminists saw that this brought huge freedom
for women to ask questions about their lives. It seemed simply logical
that a method of reasoning which aims for universality must include
women.
Liberal thinking still exercises a great hold on the culture and the
imagination and the thinking of Western societies. Much feminism today
is therefore shaped by its major emphases. It has been an important
contribution of this way of thinking about ethics that issues of justice
have been on the political agenda. At the centre of the liberal conception
of justice is the vision of a social order, in which individual persons can be
free to exercise their rights — to deliberate about what they should do, to
choose their course of action, and to be personally responsible for their
decisions. Liberal feminists have been hopeful that their work for such
justice would be a sign of the common humanity of women and men, and
of their fundamental equality within the universal human community.
Therefore, they have pressed for equal rights under the law, for equal
citizenship and the responsibilities that entails, for equal opportunities in
education and employment, for equal pay and economic status, and for
equal freedom in the self-determination of their lives.
These same liberal ideals that inspired early feminists may now also be
heard in a wider context, as women throughout the world gather for
international discussion. For they have discovered in liberalism a shared
vocabulary for consideration of a whole range of issues that are of concern
for women today. Liberal feminists believe that the political movement
for the rights of women is still of major significance. They believe that the
vision of justice which upholds these rights is a worthy goal of moral and
political action for and by women. 2
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Susan F. Parsons
The liberation of women
Interwoven with this story of liberalism is another strand of thinking that

has also been gathered up in feminist ethics. For feminism is, secondly, a
social and cultural movement concerned with the liberation of women.
There are indications that in the early stages of feminism, women were
engaged in serious examination and critique of the social structures in
which they found themselves. Thus feminists described the social and
economic pressures upon women, and the expectations that women fulfil
particular roles and functions within a society. They investigated the
socialization of women in institutions, like the family or the Church. They
considered the language and the thought-forms available to women, by
which their self-understanding is formed. The purpose of this critique was
to liberate women from those structures and those practices that were
oppressive, and to reshape society in ways that encouraged realization of
the full creative potential of women.
Again, there are two key beliefs central to this work of liberation. On
the one hand is the belief that women can be trapped by the circumstances
of their lives. It is true that all persons are shaped within and by social
forces. We are the persons that we are, through the formation of our lives
within the human community. We are formed in relationships with those
close to us, and we understand who we are and what we are to do with
ourselves through the use of common language. We have choices available
to us because of our social circumstances. In the midst of this shaping, or
construction, of our lives, however, we may also know that we are being
imprisoned and held captive by social structures, or by cultural forces,
that stifle our consciousness and our fullness of life. It is this awareness
which feminists express on behalf of women. Their first task in working
for liberation is to name those things that oppress women. Then women
may begin to speak about the deep sense of alienation in their lives.
On the other hand is an optimistic belief that these structures of
oppression can be altered. All of the social and cultural factors that
contribute to the shaping of our lives are historical factors. They have no
intrinsic necessity about them, and are therefore subject to change. A
concern for liberation points women, not so much towards participation
in society as it currently is, as towards the building of a less oppressive
social order. Feminists therefore work for practical structural changes that
will enhance the quality of women's lives. In this work, they are sustained
by the hope that social change is positive, that a future society may be
better than a present one, and that human beings can work together for
good in their social and cultural environments.
This kind of thinking has also been enormously influential within
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Feminist ethics
feminism, and still inspires work of liberation around the world. Many
women find that the language of liberal ethics does not quite reach to the
depths of their concerns. The growth of the social sciences and of cultural
studies has given to women new ways of understanding their situation.
The increasingly international and intercultural nature of feminism has
brought new insights and experiences onto the feminist ethical agenda.
Therefore, feminists are today concerned to investigate the structures of
domination that disempower women. In some cases, these are economic
structures that rely upon the availability of women, desperate to work for
any pay under any conditions and at any cost to their dignity. There is
evidence of increasing impoverishment of women throughout the world,
and this is disempowering. In some cases, these are political structures
that do not allow women participation in the ordering of public life. That
women continue to find it difficult to present for public debate the needs
and concerns of their lives in a serious way in their own countries is
disempowering. In some cases, these are linguistic structures configured
around the absence of woman as the hidden Other. Women find in every
area of discourse that the language they need to use to speak of themselves
and of their wisdom is not available to them, and this is disempowering.
Feminists use these realizations to encourage women to recover their
power. The means that may be required to regain lost power, or to exert
new forms of power, constitute a major part of ethical discussion amongst
feminists, who work for the liberation of women into the fullness of their
potential as human persons."*
The distinctiveness of women
There is yet another strand which contributes to feminist ethics. Feminism

is, third, a commitment to the distinctiveness of women's perspective and
insight. To take up this strand is to recognize that, through their
experiences and their dilemmas, women have developed particular ways of
knowing and of reasoning. Feminists are concerned to stress the signifi-
cance of these ways, and to encourage their further expression and
development. This emphasis offers an important corrective to traditions in
which women's nature has been devalued, trivialized or feared. To affirm
the validity of their insights, and to take seriously their experiential
wisdom, have been most important steps for women to take in their own
self-acceptance. Thus, it has been recognized by feminists that women
find it difficult to love themselves, to believe in themselves, or to value
themselves. As a result, they have colluded in traditional depictions of
their lives as frivolous, or of their natures as passive and malleable, or of
their contributions as peripheral. By agreeing to these cultural construc-
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Susan F. Parsons
tions, women are consenting to the loss of their full humanity. They
thereby remove themselves from the development of their own moral
potential. Feminists are committed to the affirmation of women as
distinctive moral agents.
In addition, this emphasis promises that the contributions of women's
gifts and insights may be of great significance for the reshaping of our
social and personal lives, as well as for the reformulation of ethics.
Feminists have resisted the man-centredness of traditional approaches to
ethics. They have argued that the moral emphasis upon the freedom of the
individual self may reveal an anxiety about relationships which is
characteristic of men. They suggest that women's knowledge of the
primacy of relationships in the formation of human personhood offers a
significant new approach to our understanding of humanness. Likewise,
feminists have argued that notions of rationality have typically set the
mind against, or over, the body, and in this dualism have revealed man's
mistrust of the body's knowledge. Again, it is significant that women
derive moral insight from their experiences of embodiment. Far from
being some passive material upon which a mind acts, the body itself may
also be a source of moral wisdom. Similarly, feminists have argued that
the major thrust of ethical thinking has been towards control — of personal
behaviour, of social life, of the natural world. These aims suggest a male
pride in accomplishment and in domination. Women suggest that
vulnerability, and compassion, and a rather untidy pragmatism may offer
a different, and possibly a better, picture of the moral life.
Such emphasis upon women's distinctiveness constitutes a major point
of discussion amongst feminists today. Some will argue that their
distinctive gifts are the result of women's particular embodiment, of their
physical capacities for bearing and for nursing children. This makes
women, naturally, more empathetic towards the needs of others, more
capable of caring, more sensitive to the impact of their choices upon the
welfare of others. Some find that this interpretation reinforces a simplistic
biological literalism, which binds women to their bodily functions and
keeps them socially confined to mothering or caring roles. They argue,
instead, that women's distinctive insights are the result of the activities in
which they engage, and of the positions which they occupy in social
structures. Thus, women have experiences of work, of suffering, of living
with others, of exclusion, or of creativity, all of which provide special
insights for them. By reflecting upon and learning from these experiences,
women develop the values by which they shape their own lives and their
relationships with others. To pay attention to the standpoint of women,
therefore, is to enrich our understanding of morality. Emphasis upon the
distinctiveness of women is a third major strand in feminist ethics.4
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Feminist ethics
Feminist ethics and Christian ethics
Throughout the development of feminism in the modern period, there

have been Christian women who have contributed to, as they have gained
much from, these strands of feminist ethics. Early feminists believed that
the emphasis upon women's rights was an expression of their faith in the
Creator. That God should endow each human creature with inalienable
rights seemed an appropriate way to describe what it meant to be made in
the divine image. Human persons thus were given a certain dignity of
being, one indication of which was the capacity for moral thinking and
behaviour. Human persons were understood to be given intrinsic value as
free beings. Importantly also, human persons were believed to have been
made equal in the eyes of God. Therefore, a concern for inclusive justice
for women was believed to be a consistent application of this theological
and philosophical humanism that emerged with the Enlightenment.
Similarly, feminists who emphasize the liberation of women have
believed that their work of overcoming oppression is an implication of
their faith in the Redeemer. Here the compassion of God is emphasized, a
compassion for humanity caught up in sin. Thus, God directs and
encourages and sustains saving acts, which set people free from the effects
of sin, and from the bondage of sin. The divine Redeemer is casting down
the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. Christian feminists
draw out the implications of this theme of salvation for the lives of
women. They believe that the principalities and powers of patriarchal
structures have already been overcome, and that women are to be set free
for the wholeness of life intended for all creation. They share with other
liberation theologians a commitment to the transformation of the present
in the light of the good news of God's work of redemption.
Feminists who emphasize the distinctiveness of women may also be
Christian women, who understand their concerns as an outcome of their
faith in the Sanctifier. The presence of grace in human life, by which we
are able to become the persons God intended us to be, is believed by these
women to be the starting point of their moral lives. In receiving this
grace, they are able to overcome the fear of being unworthy, the anxiety
of feeling inferior, or the desperate attempt to be someone else. Then
women may discover in their own natures, and in the midst of their
experiences, the gifts of God to them, which are for them to lay hold of
and to develop. These Christian feminists find that the spiritual dimension
of morality, by which we seek to become holy, is one that speaks to their
concerns for the distinctiveness of women.
Christian feminists believe that there can be, and ought to be, a fruitful
sharing of interest between feminist ethics and Christian ethics. On their
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Susan F. Parsons
part, feminists have been engaged in most serious theological reflection

upon women's lives and experiences. They have come to particular
conclusions, and have developed important insights for women, in the
midst of this faithful searching, and they challenge the Christian tradition
to make appropriate response. As for Christian ethics, the fundamental
theological themes with which its fabric is woven are constantly in need
of examination. We reconsider them, and we restate them in every
generation, and in the midst of ever new possibilities and challenges.
Feminists are making their own contribution to this unfinished tapestry
by weaving in the different strands of feminist ethics. Christian feminists
hope to encourage the further development of this reciprocal relationship.5
Relationality and autonomy
One of the matters to be addressed in this developing relationship is the

nature of the moral subject. Every approach to ethics relies upon some
assumptions about what a human person is, and what it is about the
human person which presents the possibility for moral thinking and
behaving. Running through the strands of feminist ethics are differing
assumptions about the human person, differing views of what it is that
makes us uniquely human, and therefore differing descriptions of the
subject who thinks and chooses and acts morally. To consider the nature
of this moral subject is now a matter both of some confusion, and of some
urgency.
The confusion stems from our present ambivalence towards the inherit-
ance of liberal individualism. Liberalism has presented us with a particular
understanding of the human person, as an autonomous individual who is
fundamentally free. There are lots of ways in which I may describe myself
as a person — by my relationships, by my life-story, by my location, by my
work, and so on. In liberal individualism, all of this is stripped away as
external to the essence of personhood. In essence, a human being is
understood to be a centre of consciousness. This is, most uniquely, a
human capacity for self-knowledge and for self-transcendence, for detach-
ing oneself from particular circumstances, and for surveying and judging
alternative possibilities. In the centre of the moral life, therefore, is a
fundamentally unattached being, who is uniquely free to govern himself
by the use of reason. I use the masculine pronoun here, because it has
never been entirely clear to feminists that women have been included in
this understanding of the human person. Many have insisted that women,
too, be recognized as self-legislating free persons, and therefore as
autonomous individuals just like men, but this has proved troublesome.
For women have claimed, from the midst of their experiences of moral
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Feminist ethics
reasoning, that they do not understand their fundamental personhood in

quite this way. Rather, they have sought to emphasize the social nature of
the human person, who is not essentially detached, but who is integrally
formed within relationships. To be a moral subject is not, therefore, to
strive for that centre of transcendence from which autonomous choices can
be made. Rather, it is to learn how to be responsive, in the midst of the
networks of relationship in which one's life is enmeshed. Relationality,
therefore, defines the moral subject. What has become confusing and
difficult within feminist ethics is that these differing views of human
personhood may too easily lend themselves to a new dualism, such that
women become responsible for, and therefore bound by, relationships,
while men are free to roam autonomously around the universe alighting
wherever they choose. Women become those who care for relationships,
while men become those whose universal vision provides the bigger, and
morally more significant, picture.
To escape this dualism, it is no surprise that many feminists have
greeted the postmodern turn with some enthusiasm. They have found in
postmodernism a critical dismantling of the liberal individual self with its
pretence of autonomy. Such a centre of free consciousness has been exposed
as the cultural production of modernism. Thus, no appeal at all can be
made to this private subjectivity in matters of moral concern. Its loss,
however, has been a mixed blessing for women. For they are now torn
between two undesirable alternatives. On the one hand, there is the loss
of a vocabulary of moral freedom, which women had not yet fully laid
hold of, and which leaves them with the playfulness of unmasking false
dichotomies. On the other hand, there is a new emphasis on their lives as
women, determined and potentially oppressed by relationships, for which
they are morally responsible. This dilemma places feminist ethics in a
critical location, and makes our consideration of the nature of the moral
subject a matter of some urgency.
The question is whether and in what sense Christian ethics may address
this matter satisfactorily. One hopeful expression has been offered. 'An
incarnational faith such as Christianity tends to avoid severe dichotomies,
forced options for either/or. Neither autonomy nor relationality, alone, is
the whole story. Neither the stereotypical ways of women nor the
stereotypical ways of men can claim validity to represent what "human"
behaviour denotes. All the qualities characterizing our kind deserve
acknowledgement.'6 What is needed, therefore, is a closer examination of
the nature of autonomy and of relationality, as these are lived and known
by both women and men. We need a more adequate description of the
nature of the moral subject, in which both women and men may recognize
themselves in their shared humanness. Much creative work is needed in
this area of theological exploration.
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Susan F. Parsons
Nature and history
A second matter to be addressed in this continuing dialogue has to do

with the context of the moral life. Each approach to ethics makes some
assumptions about the significant moral environment in which human life
is set. By means of these assumptions, we are helped to see the larger stage
on which the drama of our individual human lives is unfolding. In our
moral reasoning, we are then able to place what we are considering and
doing into this larger setting. This context provides a kind of objectivity
to our ethical deliberations, giving us an overall meaning, within which
what we do as moral persons makes sense. Once again, running through
the strands of feminism are differing descriptions of this moral context.
Feminists have questioned traditional understandings of this context on
behalf of women, but they have disagreed about which is the most
appropriate one to commend for women's moral lives.
Feminism has arisen in the midst of emerging historical consciousness.
There is much, therefore, in feminist thinking to suggest that history is
the important context of our moral lives. We are historical beings. We are
shaped as persons by history, as particular circumstances and places and
people and events become woven together in the fabric of our identities.
We are shaped by the movements of history, as changing patterns of ideas
and human institutions influence our lives. This kind of awareness is
important in feminist ethics, for it has given women a context in which
to take account of the real situations in which they find themselves.
Women have been encouraged to describe their own personal histories, as
well as to see themselves as part of the larger pattern of human history.
Within this description lie the places of oppression and the places of
freedom, which women may identify. Their moral thinking is directed
towards the transformation of this history in positive ways, through work
of reconciliation, through resisting structures of domination, through
common struggle for wholeness of life. In this work, they are encountering
the transforming power of God at work within history. Placing our moral
lives in the context of history is thus potentially liberating, and carries
promise for the fulfilment of women's lives, in ways that we may not now
foresee. For many feminists, this context has freed women, most especially,
from the alternative moral context of nature.
To speak of nature as the context of our moral lives has often been to
speak of something which is not historical, which does not change, which
has been established from the beginning by the will of the divine maker.
Into nature is inscribed the natural law by which each created thing is to
exist. Human creatures must therefore search their own nature, to discover
there how they are to live. In this moral context, women's lives have
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Feminist ethics
traditionally been very tightly circumscribed. Forms of natural law ethics

available to us have been built around a dualism of gender, whereby the
nature of men is described as potentially rational and active and free,
while that of women is described as passive, determined by biological
necessity and physical function. Such descriptions of our different natures
have presumed the man to be the complete human being, and thus he is
the norm against which the nature of woman is judged inferior. Some
feminists have attempted to overturn this evaluation by affirming the
goodness, indeed the superiority, of women. They have argued for a form
of naturalism in ethics which celebrates women's essential nature. In this
context, the moral life is no longer about transformation, but about
conformity to nature and thereby to the will of the Maker.
Contemporary feminists find themselves in a difficult place in this
matter. On the one hand, many have celebrated the death of nature.
Feminists have helped to shatter the illusion that there is some realm of
nature, apart from history, that somehow underlies all that we do. They
have deconstructed this so-called reality, as yet another pretentious
construction of culture. It is exposed as a lie, told by the powerful to
subdue and silence the powerless. They are suspicious of language which
speaks of what is natural because they need to ask who says it is so, and
on what authority. The attempt to establish nature as an objectively sure
foundation upon which to build ethics is no longer credible for feminists.
On the other hand, they too have celebrated the end of history proclaimed
in postmodernism. Many feminists now find it difficult to believe that
there is any purpose to history, or within history. They have questioned
the human capacity for shaping history in any active or transforming way.
They suspect movements of liberation as romantic illusions which, in their
turn, will also repress the weak. They find it difficult to understand how a
divine being might relate to or interact with this history. Today, feminism
is facing the realization that, in many ways, two of the major contexts in
which the moral life may be understood have been dismantled, leaving
ethics without a context of meaning in which its tasks make any sense.
Feminists are looking for a way through this dilemma, within which
also lies a subject of considerable importance for Christian ethics itself.
For it seems that both feminist ethics and Christian ethics are in a critical
location at this intersection of ideas. Our age has become sceptical about
the possibility of meeting the redeeming work of God in the midst of
history, as we have come to mistrust our fellow human beings to engage
in liberating work for our common good. In addition, we find it difficult
to discern what is 'natural' any longer, or to meet the Creator in the
natural world. Descriptions of nature seem only to be a screen upon which
we project our culturally limited notions. It has thus become an important
question whether either of these contexts can, any longer, stand alone as
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Susan F. Parsons
an adequate context for the moral life. Once again, it may be that a
fruitful way forward is to discover the ways in which they are now
inextricably linked. Thus we need to recognize that deriving moral
precepts from nature 'always takes place within a historical setting in
which the perspectives of some will be privileged over those of others and
in which the perceived need to address social and moral problems can
result in distortions of ostensibly universal values'. At the same time, we
need to be able to build 'an understanding of basic and shared human
characteristics through reflection upon human life itself.7 The more
adequate rendering of the context of the moral life is a further area for
creative theological exploration.
Conclusion
These are difficult matters on the agenda of feminist ethics as it faces the
future. A number of alternative routes lie before those involved in the
subject. To understand what these are is clearly the first important task
for feminists today. Disagreement about which one ought to be taken now
adds further to the complexity and diversity of feminism. In making these
choices, feminists are engaged in analysing their own inheritance of ideas,
in assessing their commitments to the projects that have shaped feminism
in the past, and in discerning the implications of each choice for the lives
and the well-being of women. New wisdom is needed from feminists in
this task.
Some feminists believe that a useful framework for consideration of
these issues is to be found in the theological and the philosophical
tradition of natural law ethics. Within its terms, there is potential for
developing an inclusive understanding of our shared humanness as women
and men. There is a description of the process of moral reasoning which
may overcome some of the dichotomies of relationality and autonomy, of
reason and emotion, of theory and practice, which have set women against
men in unhelpful ways. The positive way in which natural law ethics
envisions our working together for the common good of humanity, in the
midst of the realities of its sufferings and its joys, may provide the needed
mix of nature and of history together, as the context for the moral life.
The hope which it sets before us of discovering, through dialogue and
engagement with one another, not only a deeper human communion, but
also the presence of the divine intermingled with the human, is a profound
expression of the ultimate meaning of the moral life.8 Feminist ethics is
straining forward towards this flourishing of all creation in the fullness of
the divine presence.
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Feminist ethics
Notes
1 Susan F. Parsons, Feminism and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1996), p. 8.
2 For consideration of this strand of feminist ethics, see essays by B. H. Andolsen, N.
Bancroft and B. W. Harrison in B. H. Andolsen, C. E. Gudorf and M. D. Pellauer
(eds), Women's Consciousness. Women's Conscience: A Reader in Feminist Ethics (New
York: Seabury, 1985), chs 1, 2 and 8; by Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir,
and R. P. Petchesky in E. H. Frazer, J. Hornsby and S. Lovibond (eds), Ethics: A
Feminist Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), chs 1,11 and 24; and Parsons, Feminism,
chs 2 and 3.
3 For consideration of this strand of feminist ethics, see essays by A. M. Isasi-Diaz,
R. R. Ruether and E. Schiissler Fiorenza in Andolsen et al. (eds), Women's
Consciousness, chs 4, 5 and 10; by C. Hamilton, M. Sanger, B. Friedan, C. Delphy,
A. Kollontai and C. A. MacKinnon in Frazer et al. (eds), Ethics, chs 2, 3, 4, 5, I 7
and 21; and Parsons, Feminism, chs 4 and 5.
4 For consideration of this strand of feminist ethics, see essays by M. D. Pellauer, T.
M. Eugene, C. E. Gudorf, C. Keller and M. A. Farley in Andolsen et al. (eds),
Women's Consciousness, chs 3, 9, 12, 17 and 19; by E. Goldman (X 2), V. Woolf, K.
Soper and S. Ruddick in Frazer et al. (eds), Ethics, chs 9, 10, 18, 20 and 21; and
Parsons, Feminism, chs 6 and 7.
5 These issues are discussed more fully in essays by C. S. Robb and J. O'Connor in
Andolsen et al. (eds), Women's Consciousness, chs 15 and 18; and by S. F. Parsons in
Frazer et al. (eds), Ethics, ch. 23.
6 Denise L. Carmody, Christian Feminist Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 152.
See the rest of ch. 6 of her book tor further discussion of this matter. See also essays
by R. L. Smith and C. Keller in Andolsen et al. (eds), Women's Consciousness, chs 16
and 17; and by M. O'Neill in Catherine Mowry LaCugna (ed.), Freeing Theology: The
Essentials oj Theology in Feminist Perspective (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), ch. 6.
7 Lisa Sowle Cahill, 'Feminism and Christian ethics' in LaCugna (ed.), Freeing
Theology, p. 215. See also essay by J. L. Griscom in Andolsen et al. (eds), Women's
Consciousness, ch. 7; and L. S. Cahill, Sex. Gender and Christian Ethics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), chs 2 and 3.
8 For further discussion, see Parsons, Feminism, ch. 10; the essay by L. S. Cahill in
LaCugna (ed.), Freeing Theology, ch. 9; and Cahill, Sex, Gender, chs 2 and 3.
Select bibliography
Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, Christine E. Gudorf and Mary D. Pellauer (eds), Women's
Consciousness. Women's Conscience: A Reader in Feminist Ethics (New York: Seabury,
1985).
Lisa Sowle Cahill, Sex, Gender and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996).
Denise L. Carmody, Christian Feminist Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
Elizabeth Frazer, Jennifer Hornsby and Sabina Lovibond (eds), Ethics: A Feminist Reader
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1992).
147
Susan F. Parsons
Catherine Mowry LaCugna (ed.), Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist
Perspective (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).
Susan F. Parsons, Feminism and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996).
148
10
The distinctiveness of
Christian morality
Vincent MacNamara
The issue of the distinctiveness of Christian morality has been taken in

various ways. Words like 'distinctive', 'unique' and 'specific' have been
used sometimes interchangeably, sometimes with a different nuance. I
propose to consider two main forms of the question. The first explores
what kind of morality is congruent with Christian faith, that is, how the
believing community might be expected to understand and live moral
life. The second considers in what respects such a life is unique. That is,
it considers the difference between Christian morality and other forms —
the morality which commends itself to the humanist or to adherents of
other religions. They are different but related questions. The emphasis in
the first is on distinctiveness, in the second on specificity or uniqueness.
I think it is well to see the issue against the broad canvas of the
relations between morality and religion. Religion and morality are
formally distinct. They deal with different clusters of questions. It is
perfectly possible for an explicitly non-religious person to be sensitively
moral. But what happens when morally concerned people are also
religious? When we bring together in religious ethics these two profound
strands of our experience we can expect various kinds of interaction. Most
religions have an ethical element but they view morality in quite different
ways. Individual religions interpret the major religious themes differently
— the nature of the deity, the creation of the world and of human beings,
the meaning of human life, the origin of good and evil, the nature of
salvation. This general cosmogony bears on the morality of the religion. It
gives it its distinctiveness.
The relationships between the basic faith/story/myth of a religious faith,
on the one hand, and its ethical expectation, on the other, are varied. One
will therefore expect the question about the distinctiveness of Christian
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Vincent MacNamara
morality to be many-faceted. In general, one is asking how Christian faith

bears on moral life. But that breaks down into different questions, all of
them important. One might inquire whether a particular faith affects the
notion of morality or of moral obligation, and that raises questions about the
source of morality and the possibility of knowing its demands. One might
ask how a faith interprets the whole moral enterprise or supports it, or
offers motivation for it, or provides an impulse to it. One might ask about
the significance of moral life within the faith, since the ethical strand
receives a different emphasis from one religion to another. One might ask
how faith colours an understanding of the kind of conduct that is
appropriate. One might ask how these and other elements cohere to give
a particular identity or Gestalt to a morality. It is because Christianity
answers such questions in its own way that there is, in the first instance,
something that can be called a Christian morality.
Not all of these matters can be pursued here: I concentrate on what
seem to me to be the more significant issues. A general problem must be
mentioned, however. It is this: that the subject of Christian morality
encompasses many traditions. And even within any one tradition there
will be change and development of doctrinal understanding. That will
affect morality. What follows, therefore, must of necessity be a personal
interpretation. It is written from within the Roman Catholic perspective
but with an interest in other theological perspectives.
It is an axiom in the study of comparative religious ethics that one
cannot understand a particular morality if one does not understand the
web of beliefs or stories in which it is inserted. Religions have sets of
stories but the grounding story in all of them is the nature of the deity or
of the ultimate. In some religions the deity is personal and is good and
benign, in others the deity is in some respects evil. In some, the deity is
otiose or indifferent and creation is devoid of moral purpose, in others the
deity is the guide of human history. Not all religions believe the soul to
be immortal, or dependent on the deity, and not all have notions of an
afterlife. If your deity is capricious or morally indifferent your religion
might not give a high priority to morality.
But the Christian story is the story of a deity who is an intelligent and
purposeful creator and sustainer, who has a care for the whole cosmos,
who values individuals intensely and seeks their wholeness and fulfilment,
whose purposes are realized in the liberating life, death and resurrection
of Jesus. That is foundational. It gives a grounding, a thrust and a
significance to the whole of life. So it has been rightly said that the
question of who God is, is the most basic question of moral theology.1 It
is the overarching context.
There is, therefore, in the religious stories of Jews and Christians an
inner impetus towards morality, towards engagement with others and
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The distinctiveness of Christian morality
with the structures in which they live. It is a trajectory towards the

fulfilment of the ancient promises that God will make all things new. The
awareness of this dynamic was arrived at only slowly and painfully. It had
to be tenaciously insisted on by the prophets against empty cult, and came
to be enshrined in the foundation document of the Decalogue. God had
cared for the people and made a covenant with them: their lives were to
be a service of God and of God's purposes. Religion was to be moral, and
moral life religious. 'Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue
the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow' (Isa l:17ff.). The lives
of other peoples might reflect their gods: that of Jews was to reflect theirs.
The New Testament story intensifies the dynamic. The worship of the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ is even more clearly both mystical and
prophetic, both religious and ethical. The central Christian anamnesis or
remembrance is the dangerous memory of the death and resurrection of
Jesus as inaugurator of the reign of God, a reign of justice, peace and
reconciliation. That reign of God is the end point which beckons Christian
life forward and stands in judgement on every present form of life.
The Christian understands the present reality as including sin and sinful
structures, which contrast starkly with the promises of peace and justice.
So the Christian ethic is revealed as a liberation ethic. The love of God
poured into our hearts must issue in political love, in the struggle for a
condition — for structures — that will facilitate humanness. Political love
then becomes the urgent form of contemporary moral life. It will be
contextual. It will take its agenda from the particular inhumanity that
oppresses in any situation. It will concern itself not only with the tenacity
of individual selfishness but with structural causes of injustice. And in
that very life and practice of the community its God is revealed as
liberator, redeemer, saviour.
We are called to and caught up into this liberating movement. The
salvation offered us is, among other things, a liberation from the sin of
self-enclosedness to a freedom for moral commitment. It is in solidarity
with our human community, in engagement in the work of liberation,
that we respond to God's love. Jesus knew, as we know, that such a way
of life if it is to be consistent - if we are not only to do just things but be
just people — requires a profound conversion. So he preached conversion,
and New Testament ethics, as we shall see, lays out for us a catalogue of
dispositions and virtues that one needs for the work of liberating love.
Jesus knew too that such a way of life is possible only for one who is
securely anchored in the transforming word of the kingdom message.
Gospel precedes law. Joachim Jeremias put it beautifully in his piece on
the Sermon on the Mount. If we read the Sermon on its own, he says, we
have torn it out of its total perspective. Every word is preceded by
something else, by the preaching of the kingdom of God: you are forgiven,
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Vincent MacNamara
you are a child of God, you belong to the kingdom. Because 'your sins are
forgiven' (so Jeremias puts it) there now follows 'While you are still in the
way with your opponent, be reconciled to him quickly'. Because 'your sins
are forgiven' there now follows 'Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you'. And so on.2
Whatever else the revelation might or might not say about morality —
and there can be argument about morality's source, content and binding
force - there is no doubt that it sees moral commitment as the logic of
faith. The Christian religion, C. H. Dodd wrote, 'is an ethical religion in
the specific sense that it recognises no ultimate separation between the
service of God and social behaviour'.3 So closely are the two, faith and
morals, linked in the New Testament that it is difficult at times to know
whether the tradition is speaking of love of God or love of others. What
is not in doubt is that one involves the other. Not to recognize the Word
or not to love others, John's writings tell us, is to be in the dark. To
respond to the other is to respond to the offer of God's personal love to us.
There is an organic relationship between them.
So moral life is transfigured by Christian faith. It is theologal. Christian
morality has been called a covenant morality, a eucharistic morality, a
service of God, an obedience, a sharing in the mission of Christ. The
Anglican—Roman Catholic Agreed Statement characterizes it as 'the fruit
of faith in God's Word, the grace of the sacraments, and the appropriation,
in a life of forgiveness, of the gifts of the Spirit for work in God's service'.4
Faith declares the source of moral goodness — the love of God is poured
into our hearts; the Spirit is given to us. It interprets its movement
towards the final reign of God. It shows its ultimate significance: 'as long
as you did it to one of these you did it to me'. Faith offers moral life a
hope. That hope is the promise that, as goodness has a transcendent origin,
in the end, goodness, however foolish it may sometimes appear, however
defeated, will not finally be defeated. And this is because God is the
deepest mystery, the heart and soul, of every truly human liberation.
All this says something about the distinctiveness of Christian morality.
One might call it the distinctive context: the contrast is with the notion
of content. The word 'context' is a useful one. It situates morality within
the community's web of beliefs. It says something of the consciousness of
Christians as they live their moral life and reflect on it ethically. But it
leaves untouched other matters that must concern us. Two matters in
particular require attention: the source of the moral claim, and the content
of the moral call. However significantly religious considerations shape
Christian moral consciousness, it remains that the source of the moral
claim is something that is distinguishable from such considerations.
Morality has a certain autonomy. By that I mean that religious faith is not
necessary in order to experience and recognize the moral point of view:
152
that is something that is a demand of our humanness or rationality. The

very existence of others itself makes a claim on us. It is the claim to
respect their worth as persons, to recognize, as Outka puts it, that the
human being qua human existent is irreducibly valuable.5 It is a claim
that does not arise as some kind of reciprocal arrangement but is founded
in the sacredness of the person.
Being moral, for the Christian as for anybody else, is essentially
recognizing this claim. But Christians do not split themselves into
religious and moral compartments. Their religious story informs, enriches
and shapes this basic perception. It suggests a fuller understanding of the
indefeasible value of the other. Christians know that each individual is
made in the image of God. They know that God dwells in each, that the
Spirit has been given to each. They know that each is held in a covenant
of love by God and that the final destiny of each one is union with God.
Their story gives a deeper dimension to evaluation of the other and gives
some point to the popular language of seeing Christ in others or loving
others in God. And, like every other primordial story, it necessarily has a
viewpoint on how the content — the main lines — of response to the other
is to be filled in.
What then of the content of Christian moral life? What is distinctive
Christian behaviour? And what of that is specific? The distinctiveness
question asks how a community or an individual shaped by the Christian
story reads the moral landscape. The specific question asks if that morality,
or some elements of it, is foreign to and may not even commend itself to
those who do not share that faith or world-view. We have seen something
of Christian context. That is the matrix of discernment. Moral judgements
are not made in a vacuum. They are made by people who see life in a
particular way. Beliefs about the way things are — one's general philosoph-
ical or religious cosmogony — shape consciousness and bear on moral
judgement. Like all basic myths, the Christian story gives us our stance
towards the world and its creation, towards the value and significance of
the human person, towards body, matter, spirit, towards the meaning and
significance of history, towards life and death, towards what constitutes
flourishing or perfection, towards success and failure. These are matters
which in subtle ways colour understanding of the moral response.
Religious faith is then seen as forming or having the potential to form
a particular kind of character. One thinks of the Christian community as
having a character which has been shaped by its stories of what God has
done for it in Christ - stories of creation, deliverance, covenant, incarna-
tion, salvation, death and resurrection — and therefore as having its own
moral demands and ideals. The perspective of faith leads to perspectives
about living. 'All whose faith had drawn them together held everything
in common: they would sell their property and possessions and make a
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Vincent MacNamara
general distribution as the need of each required. With one mind they
kept up their daily attendance at the temple, and, breaking bread in
private houses, shared their meals with unaffected joy, as they praised God
and enjoyed the favour of the whole people' (Acts 2:44ff). There is a
dynamic relationship between the liturgical recital of the good news and
moral expectations. So every liturgical celebration is a challenge to realize
the enterprise of Christ's life and mission.
James Gustafson put the question thus: 'What relationships are claimed
or assumed between religious beliefs and life grounded in Jesus Christ, on
the one hand, and the morality of the people who hold these beliefs and
share that life, on the other?'6 One could hardly hope to delineate all such
relationships: Christian engagement in the world is richly varied. Nega-
tively, one can say that there are certain kinds of acts, intentions,
dispositions and purposes that run entirely contrary to Christian sensibil-
ity. Positively, one has to say that the only total model of life is Christ
Jesus as inaugurator of the reign of God. That does not mean simply
imitating him. It means seeking to take on his core moral sensibility,
which will express itself in our struggle to realize his humanizing purposes
for society.
About this, there is a tradition. We are not the first who have sought
to discover the way: our ancestors in the faith have asked the same
question as we ask today. The Bible is the classic of that tradition. What
it gives us are impressions of the original community's experience of the
inbreak of the kingdom in Jesus and how that issued in a way of life - the
logic of faith. Moral discernment calls for dialogue between faith today
and the complex faith of the apostolic community. That is not a simple
task. The ethical material of the Bible is diverse. Its mode is indicative,
imperative, parabolic, mystical. It is more story than history, more wisdom
than law. It says what it has to say in a bewildering profusion of forms
and genres. A genuine conversation with it requires discrimination. What
one seeks is to enter into the interplay of ethos and ethic in the apostolic
community and allow it to shape consciousness. Not to engage it is not to
know our lineage, not to know the story of who we are and how we are to
be.
It would be naive to suggest that all Christians agree on the reading of
the story or on its implications. If Jesus is the key to Christian moral
consciousness much will depend on one's dominant image of Jesus. There
will be nuance of emphasis. But there is sufficient agreement, I think, to
rule certain things in and certain things out. That is what the apostolic
community did in its different forms of moral discourse. In continuity
with it, Christian morality today has to insist, for example, that each
human being is to be respected and loved, that life is sacred, that we are
to be faithful to one another and to our promises, that life is a gift and is
154
to be handed on, that we are to speak the truth in love, that we are to
forgive, that the poor and weak are to be protected, that unjust structures
are to be overcome, that we are to be respectful stewards of creation. Belief
in the story of God's ways with us requires such a vision of society.
Most, perhaps all, of that will be assented to by people of good will
generally — religious or not. But the distinctiveness of Christian moral life
goes beyond this. The ethico-religious vision of the early community came
to express itself — most notably in the Sermon on the Mount — as an ethic
that has suggestions about true flourishing and success, about losing and
finding one's life, about poverty of life and spirit, about making decisions
in trust in God, about seeking the interests of others and not one's own,
about giving to everyone who asks, about forgiving, about washing one
another's feet, about bearing the cross, about being prepared to lay down
one's life for others. About love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
fidelity, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22). These are ideals and, again,
some of them will be shared by other traditions. That is not the point at
the moment. The point is that such ideals cohere with the faith-story and
provide a continuo to the moral journey. In Christ they have been given a
vital expression, so that he remains a living norm and challenge for all
time.
What then of specificity? If it is true that one's world-view modifies
how one reads the content of the moral claim, is it the case that the
Christian world-view leads to ethical conclusions that do not seem justified
or compelling to those who do not share that world-view? What is most
crucial for Christians, of course, is distinctiveness, that they discern and
live life in fidelity to their common, community-building story. But the
question of specificity is important for a number of reasons and has been
widely debated among theologians of the different Christian traditions. It
is important, first, for Christians to understand the methodology of moral
discernment. And it is important for them and for others to know what
kind of agreement is possible in public affairs. In fact the issue is often
raised now in the context of ethical pluralism in society.
Here are two quotations which point up the matter. The Catholic
theologian Josef Fuchs in a seminal article asked of his Church: 'Was it
Paul VFs intention to offer a specifically Catholic or Christian solution to
the problem of birth control in his encyclical Humanae Vztae? A significant
number of oral and written positions on this question . . . seem to answer
in the affirmative. Such a view implies that there is a Catholic or Christian
morality which is valid only for Catholics or other Christians and which
differs from another, a non-Christian, morality.' 7 The philosopher William
Frankena raised a concern from the point of view of public morality: 'If
morality (and hence politics) is dependent on religion, then we must look
to religion as a basis for any answer to any personal or social problem of
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Vincent MacNamara
any importance . . . If morality is dependent on religion, then we cannot

hope to solve our problems, or resolve our differences of opinion about
them, unless and in so far as we can achieve agreement and certainty in
religion (not a lively hope).'8
It seems correct to say that Christian morality in terms of its overall
form as a way of life — and that includes how it interprets the whole
enterprise, how it is inwardly related to life in Christ, what motivations
and stories support it, what significance it attaches to the good life, how
the elements cohere in an overall Gestalt — has a specific identity. Nobody
else views and lives life quite like the Christian. That is not a claim about
superiority, only a claim about fidelity to one's vision. But there are
Christian theologians who further insist that there is some content to
Christian morality that is not open to and not regarded as morally required
by those who do not share Christian faith. It is not so much a claim about
additional demands as about different demands. In the above quotation
from Fuchs, for example, it is a matter of how a community formed by
this world-view interprets marital relations.
One would expect an ethic founded on the biblical word, especially
when allied with a sharp insistence on human fallenness and a distrust of
the power of reason, to favour specificity of content — to maintain that
only rootedness in faith can yield a true understanding of human life. That
has been generally the Protestant tradition. But, within that, the range of
method and emphasis has been enormous. At one extreme is the neo-
orthodox stress on the transcendence of God's command in relation to
human ethics, which is expressive of 'the infinite qualitative distinction'
between God and humankind. That is uncompromisingly specific. In
other authors, dependence on a divine command is combined with a more
overt use of concepts of natural and created orders and a greater dependence
on theological and philosophical principles. At the other end of the
spectrum is an almost Roman Catholic appeal to natural law. The spread
of approaches arises in part from the perceived need, especially in North
America, to address the body politic. That has sometimes led to an
underplaying of the significance of theology in the interests of public
discussion. So much so that some have recently found it necessary to make
the urgent plea that theological ethics be kept theological. 'The first task,
Hauerwas writes, 'is not . . . to write as though Christian commitments
make no difference in the sense that they only underwrite what everyone
already in principle can know, but rather to show the difference those
commitments make.'9 A specific morality therefore.
The issue of specificity is not the same as that of appeal to the Bible
but they are closely related. Scripture certainly informs judgement in the
Protestant tradition but how and to what extent? The two-part consensus
of Birch and Rasmussen is a fair statement of the methodology. 'The first
156
consensus can be stated most succinctly by saying that Christian ethics is

not synonymous with biblical ethics. . . . The other part of the consensus
is that for Christians the Bible is somehow normative . . . the Bible is the
charter document that holds a place more authoritative than any other
source.'10 Much will depend then on just how it is normative. There is a
wide spectrum in its use from direct appeal to revealed moral laws or
ideals ('what God commands') through appeal rather to moral analogies
('what God does') as an exemplary pattern for our lives, to a use that sees
it as offering not so much a revealed morality as a theological vision of
reality, a framework of biblically pervasive themes, with which discern-
ment must be in harmony. The more the biblical word is set over against
the inadequacy of 'human' ethics — and some elements of the tradition
grant it a theological veto on the contributions of other sources — the more
likely will be the claim for specificity.
Traditionally, Roman Catholicism has been characterized as a natural
law ethic. It is true that its source was said to be reason informed by faith.
But its official position was and is that the main lines of moral life are
discoverable by reason. The significance of faith is that it illumines reason,
so that the moral way can be known 'easily, with certitude, and without
admixture of error'. Such a basically philosophical ethic has not always
commended itself. So that from time to time movements for renewal have
arisen, most recently and most notably in the 1940s and 1950s. The
concern was to 'Christianize' moral life and ethical thinking.
The criticism was that the ethics of the time was a minimalist mixture
of philosophy and jurisprudence and that it did not breathe the spirit of
Christian life as found in the Scriptures and in the early Church. In effect,
that it was not - as it should be — unique or specific. The basic error, it
was said, was that it sought its inspiration and method in the wrong
sources - in philosophy and natural law, the assumption being that
revelation should make a difference to morality and give it a different
content. So the call was for a morality 'out of the middle of the revelation'
(the expression is Bockle's). This movement meant to say more than that
revelation is necessary to illumine an ethic that is per se available to reason.
It sought a different content deriving from life in Christ. So there was a
turn to faith-themes and particularly to the Bible as offering a revealed
morality.
The project proved to be more difficult than its proponents envisaged
in their first, fine, careless rapture. Misgivings of various kinds produced a
reaction which came to be known as the movement for an autonomous
ethic within Christianity. The central tenet of this reaction is that
Christian ethics can offer no specific content. It does give, it is acknow-
ledged, a Christian context with its specific intentionality, stories and
motivations. It does give an encouragement to go beyond minimal
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Vincent MacNamara
demands to the upper reaches of generosity. But it does not give a

substantive content that is unavailable to other world-views, to a sensitive
and thoughtful humanist, for example. Part of the stance was to seek to
rebut the claim that there is a permanently valid and specific content to
biblical morality.
There are different meanings of autonomy and there were different
strands in this general movement for autonomy. There was concern about
a rather cavalier and uncritical appeal to Scripture in the renewal and, in
particular, to the claim that Scripture gives authoritative universal and
permanent moral rules. There was concern about a heteronomy in morals
in the appeal to biblical norms and so accusations of "revelation-
positivism', 'theological positivism', 'obedience-morality' and so forth.
These are related and relevant matters. The central concern, however, and
the meaning of autonomy in these circles, as the above quotation from
Fuchs indicates, was autonomy of content with respect to faith. It was the
question of substantive specificity. About that a vigorous debate continues.11
It is well to note that neither a specific morality nor a revealed morality
in any sense connotes an arbitrary morality. The issue is one of the true
and full understanding of human life and of the moral way. General
theological developments have modified the way the question is framed.
Until the middle years of the twentieth century, Roman Catholic thinking
made a sharp distinction between the natural order of the unbaptized and
the Christian order of the baptized and therefore raised questions about
the morality appropriate to each order. Current thinking recognizes that
there is but one order, the order of grace, that all people exist in that
order and that to everyone the one destiny of union with God is offered:
it sees all people living in the order of graced nature. (Karl Rahner's
celebrated and controversial expression 'anonymous Christians' was an
attempt to make the point.) If this is so, there is only one model of all
human life, Jesus Christ. The question then is: what kind of morality does
life in Christ require and is the insight that is in principle available to the
non-believer adequate?
Christians, as I said, have to do their morality in fidelity to their story.
There need be no apology for that. That is what anyone in an}' tradition
must do — religious or not. The general moral community then will be a
dialogue of communities and traditions. Clearly, there are distinctive
moral biases within the Christian community. There are values and
orientations. There are purposes and ideals. They point the direction and
they catch the moral imagination. They are very significant. For there are
different levels of moral discourse. But the question continues to be asked
whether they translate into specificity at the level of norms — and one can
see its importance in public debate about issues such as abortion, marriage,
or medical experimentation.
158
Schillebeeckx has the remark that the specific character of the ethic of
Christians is 'that they do not have a distinctive {sic] ethic, and thus are
open to the humanum which is sought by all men and women'. 12 If that is
saying that, at the level of material norms, there is nothing that is not per
se available to the insight of the morally sensitive non-Christian, I think I
agree. But it is well to acknowledge that every person of good will — and
every community — faces a formidable set of obstacles from within and
from without in seeking the truth. There is great difficulty not only in
doing the truth but in seeing it — the Protestant tradition has always
rightly suspected any liberal optimism about that. Objectivity is not
natural to humans: there is need for conversion. So we need constantly to
be confronted by our Christian stories and convictions to clarify for us
what we are up against in ourselves and in the world, in seeking to discern
the way. However much one might want to pay rightful tribute to the
sincerity and insight of the non-believer, we ought not to underestimate
the significance of the faith-community. Its distinctive ethos, its shaping
stories about God, humans and the cosmos, facilitate a moral sensitivity
in the pursuit of norms, even if these are per se available outside the
community.
But the issue of norms is not the whole story and perhaps not the most
important part of it. Morality cannot be adequately caught in material,
especially negative, norms. A community's vision enters into morality and
influences choice. For morality is not only public but personal. It is not
only about what one must do but what one can do. Individual choices for
a way of life — what one might roughly call vocational choices — such as
commitment to justice and peace-making, service of the marginalized,
care of the sick and handicapped, living a Christian vision of marriage,
poverty, detachment, celibacy are part of it. The judgement of faith that
one is called and enabled to give one's life for another is part of it. One
cannot easily separate content here from what some authors call motive:
does the religious motive in the choices just mentioned not enter into the
description of the act? Does it not determine just what act or purpose is
being chosen? And morality is not just a matter of doing: agape, for
example, is a virtue of attachment as well as of action and the disposition
of the heart is part of the virtue. The more attention is given to such
considerations the more arguable is the claim that there is a specific
Christian content to morality. But how much one will want to make of
that is another matter.
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Vincent MacNamara
Notes
1 B. V. Johnstone, 'Methodology, moral' in J. A. Dwyer (ed.), The New Dictionary of

Catholic Social Thought (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994), p. 600.
2 J. Jeremias, The Sermon on the Mount (Bangalore: Theological Publications, 1961),
p. 42.
3 C. H. Dodd, Gospel and Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), p. 13.
4 Life in Christ: An Agreed Statement by the Second Anglican—Roman Catholic International
Commission (London: Church House Publishing/Catholic Truth Society, 1994),
p. 4.
5 G. Outka, Agape (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 10.
6 J. M. Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1968),
p. 6.
7 J. Fuchs, 'Is there a specifically Christian morality?' in C. Curran and R.
McCormick (eds), Readings in Moral Theology, no. 2: The Distinctiveness of Christian
Ethics (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), pp. 3ff.
8 W. Frankena, 'Is morality logically dependent on religion?' in G. Outka and J. P.
Reeder Jr (eds), Religion and Morality (New York: Anchor Books, 1973), p. 295.
9 S. Hauerwas, 'On keeping theological ethics theological' in S. Hauerwas and A.
Maclntyre (eds), Revisions (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1983), p. 36.
10 R. C. Birch and L. L. Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Publishing, 1976), pp. 45-6.
11 For a fuller treatment see my Faith and Ethics: Recent Roman Catholicism (Dublin:
Gill and Macmillan, 1985). Cf. also 'Moral life, Christian' in J. Komonchak, M.
Collins and D. Lane (eds), The New Dictionary of Theology (Dublin: Gill and
Macmillan, 1987) and 'Moral life, Christian' in Dwyer (ed.), The New Dictionary of
Catholic Social Thought.
12 E. Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story o/GW(New York: Crossroad, 1990),
p. 29.
Select bibliography
C. Curran and R. McCormick (eds), Readings in Moral Theology, no. 2: The Distinctiveness
of Christian Ethics (New York: Paulist Press, 1980).
J. Fuchs, Christian Morality: The Word Becomes Flesh (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan,
1987).
J. M. Gustafson, Can Ethics Be Christian? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1975).
S. Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1981).
V. MacNamara, Faith and Ethics: Recent Roman Catholicism (Dublin: Gill and
Macmillan, 1995).
W. C. Spohn, What Are They Saying About Scripture and Ethics? (New York: Paulist
Press, 1995).
160
PART II
Applied ethics
Social ethics
11
Justice
Karen Lebacqz
Although the injunction to 'do justice' (Mic 6:8) has been a constant in
Christian tradition, understandings of what the injunction means and how
to do justice are probably as numerous as the Christians who respond to
that injunction. Some differences are notable. Roman Catholic traditions
have generally grounded the requirements of justice in natural law,
presumably accessible not only to Christians, but to all humans by virtue
of their 'nature' as reasonable creatures. Protestant traditions have focused
less on that which is common to all people and more on 'grace', locating
justice in the 'good news' of God's saving acts and in the story of a
community trying to live faithfully to that Gospel. These differences are
not unimportant. Nonetheless, some common themes and threads can be
found, from which a tapestry of justice with a distinctively Christian
texture might be woven.
Western philosophy
Since that tapestry has intersected with Western philosophical traditions

at crucial points, it is easiest to see both what is distinctive about Christian
approaches to justice and what problems must be addressed in contempor-
ary Christian views by comparing those views to notions of justice that
dominate the contemporary Western philosophical tradition. This chapter
will outline in brief several contemporary philosophical views, and then
will turn to elucidating what is distinctive about Christian approaches to
justice.
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Karen Lebacqz
Liberal views
In Western philosophical traditions, the formal statement of justice is
'treat similar cases similarly' or 'give to each what is due'.1 'Treat similar
cases similarly' implies the equality of each moral agent and prevents
arbitrary discrimination. It is an empty formula, however, in that it does
not specify which cases are to be considered similar or how those cases
should be treated. Similarly, 'give to each what is due' does not specify
whether the criterion for distribution should be need (Marx), contribution
or role in society (Aristotle), the overall good (Mill), or some other
criterion or combination of criteria. The history of Western philosophy is
a history of debates about precisely these substantive issues.
Approaches to what is generally called distributive justice will thus
differ widely. Robert Nozick argues that what is 'due' to individuals
depends on the voluntary exchanges that they make and the gifts they
receive.2 Arguing explicitly against any broader notion of distributive
justice in which the state or a similar entity would redistribute goods
among individuals, Nozick proposes to substitute commutative justice
(justice in exchange) as the sole source of 'entitlements' to goods. In this
approach, there is no built-in protection for the poor or disadvantaged;
gifts given and bargains made by people determine what one rightly holds
as entitlements.
By contrast, John Rawls begins with the recognition that social
institutions position people to be in very different starting positions; these
positions impact the fairness of exchanges.1 Rational individuals choosing
under fair circumstances, he argues, would establish some shared rights
and then would require that differences in income, wealth, or status must
ultimately benefit the least advantaged. For Rawls, inequalities in wealth,
income, status, and the like are justifiable only if (a) they attach to
positions that are open to all (equal opportunity) and (b) they benefit the
least advantaged in the long run, consistent with just savings for the next
generation.
These two theories appear to give us very different understandings of
justice. In Nozick's scheme, justice derives from the voluntariness of
individual exchanges and offers no explicit protections for the poor or
disadvantaged. In Rawls' scheme, justice requires structuring the basic
institutions of society so that they benefit the disadvantaged over the long
run. Since the position of the least advantaged would appear to differ
remarkably in these two approaches, it is perhaps difficult to see how
much the approaches nonetheless share.
As different as they appear at first glance, these theories share some
liberal presuppositions. They both claim a Kantian base of respect for the
individual and individual rights. They focus on the distribution of goods,
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Justice
and they offer no challenge to the fundamental concept of ownership of

goods that derives from Locke nor do they challenge fundamental
institutions such as the patriarchal family of Western culture.
Challenges to liberalism
It is precisely these presuppositions that have come under recent attack.
Communitarians such as Michael Walzer eschew the notion that an
abstract, universal standard of justice can be found. 4 Further, communitar-
ians eschew the fundamental stress on the individual that liberalism
presupposes. They propose instead that communities come to their own
understandings of justice, consistent with their particular histories. Justice
is not abstract and universal, derived by deductive logic from minimal
premises or by procedures of rational choice, but emerges out of the
complex and distinctive histories of communities.
Feminists such as Iris Marion Young,5 Susan Okin, 6 and Nancy
Hirschmann7 concur in some communitarian critiques of the liberal stress
on individual autonomy and rational choice. Hirschmann points out that
such views tend to reflect a male standpoint that cannot speak for all.
Young contends that people are not simply individuals but are organized
and oppressed as members of groups. Okin notes that if Nozick's
adaptation of Lockean property rights is taken seriously, women would be
said to 'own' their children, since they have 'mixed their labor' with raw
materials in order to 'produce' them. Hence, for feminists, the fundamental
presuppositions of liberal theory are problematic: its dependence on a
limited kind of rationality renders it absurd, its neglect of the realities of
oppression renders it impotent, and its blindness to its own biases renders
it inadequate at best and demonic at worst.
Following Carol Gilligan8 and Nancy Chodorow9, many feminists have
charged that the focus on justice and abstract principles misses an
important ethical dimension or Voice' — the voice of care, which is
particular and contextual.10 Thus, feminists have also raised a fundamental
challenge to the adequacy of justice as the rubric under which societal
arrangements should be assessed. To these communitarian and feminist
voices must be added the postmodern challenge that all knowledge reflects
power.11 Hence, the liberal view of justice will be the product of
hegemonic discourse, reflecting the powerful, middle-class position of the
advocates of liberal theory.
In sum, numerous voices are now raised questioning the entire liberal
enterprise of trying to find universal standards of justice. In the face of
such criticisms, not only liberal theory but any attempt to find a theory of
justice may be in trouble. It is partly for this reason that in his more
recent defence of liberalism John Rawls has adopted a more modest agenda
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Karen Lebacqz
for his theory of justice, and now claims it as a political rather than a
moral theory of justice.12
Christian views: a different Voice'
Against this backdrop of liberal theory and its critics, we can see both the
distinctiveness of and the difficulties for any contemporary Christian
approach to justice. We begin with what is distinctive.
An ever/Lowing stream
Christian approaches to justice have roots in the Hebrew Scriptures. Two
words from those Scriptures are translated by our word 'justice': mishpat
and sedakah. Mishpat are particular duties and responsibilities that embody
life in covenant with God and with one another. Sedakah refers to God's
righteousness and hence brings judgement not on particular acts but on
what William Coats has called the entire 'shape of the age'.13 While
mishpat may bear some resonances with 'give to each what is due', sedakah
requires a far more expansive understanding of justice. Eloquent expression
is given to this expansiveness in the prophet Amos's denunciation of those
who trample the heads of the poor into the ground: let justice roll down
like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream (Amos 5:24).
Christians are shaped by this understanding of fundamental covenantal
responsibilities and of an overarching righteousness that offers the vision
of God's reign. While Western philosophy defines justice formally as
'giving to each what is due', or 'treating similar cases similarly', and
Christian tradition has sometimes adopted this more narrow view,14
contemporary Christian theorists tend to follow the call of Amos in seeing
justice as an everflowing stream that will sweep away iniquities. Justice
has a much broader scope, then, than it does in the philosophical tradition.
This broad scope is both benefit and burden. Taking the broader view
enables Christians to address problems of oppression and of the treatment
of groups as well as of individuals. We shall return to this below. It also
allows Christians to refuse the division between 'care' and justice that
appears to plague contemporary philosophical feminists.15 At the same
time, taking such a broad view can dilute the power of Christian discourse
to address issues with precision and clarity.
Remembrance
For philosophers, the grounding of any demands of justice generally lies
either in a notion of the well-ordered society (Aristotle) or in an extension
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Justice
of the powers of reason (Kant). For Christians, the grounding of justice is

in remembrance.16 What is 'right' or 'just' derives from the original
intentions of a loving creator and from the acts of that Creator toward the
creation. As we remember those saving acts (e.g., in the Lord's Supper,
the words of institution often are 'Do this in remembrance of me'), we are
oriented toward God and God's intentions for the human community.
What, then, are God's intentions? We are created for shalom, for a
harmony of wholeness, peace and justice. In Roman Catholic tradition,
this divine law is understood to be reflected in natural law, which can be
discerned by reason and is interpreted through the teaching function of
the Church.17 Protestants are more sceptical regarding our ability to know
what is right, good, or just; they tend, therefore, to turn not to human
reason but to biblical texts and tradition in order to discern what justice
requires.18 Since Vatican II, Catholics and Protestants have moved closer
to each other's position, prompting James Gustafson to propose that a
rapprochement is possible.19 Whatever their particular method for discerning
God's will, for both, the grounding of justice lies in God's creating,
redeeming and sustaining acts. Justice is the human response of gratitude
for these great gifts.
In Christian traditions, therefore, justice is primarily determined by
God. Justice has to do with fulfilling the demands of relationship.20
Human justice is intended to reflect divine justice and is not created solely
by the human community. One can see immediately the possible conflict
between such a view and the stress on individual rights that permeates
contemporary liberal tradition. While rights are sometimes affirmed in
Christian approaches to justice, 21 those rights are always understood
within the larger framework of an emphasis on the common good.
Sin and structure

The Christian affirmation that we are 'fallen' or that 'sin' pervades the
world means that the original intended sedakah or righteousness has been
broken and violated. One of the primary manifestations of sin is injustice. 22
Because the world is permeated with injustice, justice is corrective or
reparative — it is dominated by the principle of redress or setting things
right. 23 To speak of justice is to focus on ways of restoring right
relationship. 21
In one sense, of course, to 'give to each what is due' might be seen as
establishing right relations. Yet the rather narrow, calculating philosoph-
ical notion does not seem to capture either the sense that we begin with
injustice or the sense that right relation might go beyond handing out
goods in accord with some established principle of desert. Just as the
prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures railed against the rich for trampling
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Karen Lebacqz
the faces of the poor into the dust, so the early Church Fathers saw the
rich as 'robbers' who kept bread that belonged to the hungry. 25 Contem-
porary liberation theologians and feminist theologians are particularly
strong in stressing how 'the personal is political' — how individual
suffering and pain reflects structural injustices of the larger political,
economic and social systems. A Christian approach to justice therefore
begins with a recognition of structural problems and of oppression.
Power and the poor

Because of the centrality of oppression to Christian discussions of justice,
the poor become the litmus test of justice.26 The central recognition that
justice has to do with how systems and structures work means that the
measure of justice and injustice becomes the plight of the poor and
oppressed. If some are going hungry, then there must be an injustice
somewhere in the system. This is what allowed early Church Fathers to
declare that the poor were being 'robbed' simply because the rich were
rich. It is what underlies Jose Miranda's claim that the poor would never
have agreed to the wages they receive that keep them locked into
poverty.27
Further, seeing the poor as the litmus test of whether justice is being
done leads contemporary liberation theologians to argue for the epistemo-
logical privilege of the oppressed. Not only is justice measured by the
plight of the poor; it is measured by the poor themselves, for they have
epistemological privilege — they know better than the rich what justice
requires, what it would take to have 'right relationship'. Feminist
theologians have also stressed the standpoint of women and others who
are marginalized. A host of particular theologies reflecting ethnic and
racial communities (e.g., Mujerista theology, womanist theology, 'han'
theology from Korea) contend against any notion that justice is done when
the poor are neglected.
From this perspective, discussions of justice are not simply about what
should be distributed to whom, but are also about who has the power to
make those decisions and to determine the standards by which justice is
assessed. Justice is not simply the proper distribution of goods, but must
include attention to the creation of goods, the participation of all in
decision-making processes, and the rectification of historical injustices.
Dimensions of justice
Significantly, the covenantal, sweeping understanding of justice in Chris-
tian tradition yields a more complex break-down of categories than we
usually find in Western philosophy, in spite of some shared Aristotelian
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Justice
roots. In philosophical tradition, justice is typically broken down into

these categories:
— Retributive (punishment and reward);
— Reparative (restitution);
- Distributive (distribution of goods to individuals by the state);
— Commutative (fairness of exchanges between individuals).
We have already seen that Nozick would collapse distributive justice into
commutative concerns, that Rawls would structure institutions to ensure
that distributive patterns work toward the goal of benefiting the disadvan-
taged, and that Young and others would put some stress on reparative
justice to correct historical injustices and oppression. All three of these
receive attention in Christian approaches, but two additional dimensions
of justice are added explicitly in Roman Catholic theory and implicitly in
Protestant approaches.
The first dimension is called social justice in Catholic tradition. Here,
the term 'social justice' must not be confused with the rather vague and
general use of that term to denote justice in any social sphere. Rather, in
Catholic tradition, social justice has to do with what the individual owes
to the social collective. In order for people to honour their duties to the
common good, the society must be organized in such a way that everyone
can participate.28 Thus, rnarginalization and powerlessness — two of the
five 'faces' of oppression noted by Young — would be explicitly forbidden.
The second dimension is the understanding that while justice has to do
with systems and structures in society, it is not simply a matter of social
ethics. It is also a virtue to be cultivated within the person.29 The
discussion of justice as a virtue has been strongest in Catholic tradition
and much less noted in Protestant traditions. Nonetheless, there is
increasing attention to virtue and character ethics in contemporary
Protestantism.
Interestingly, Joel Feinberg once raised the challenge that the typical
divisions into these categories of distributive, retributive, commutative,
and so on were not very helpful. A more fruitful approach, he proposed,
might be to take injustice as the starting point, and to look at different
types of injustice. 30 This challenge was taken up by Lebacqz, who argues
— with liberation theologians — that a Christian approach must begin with
the realities of injustice. 31 Such an approach stresses the reparative or
corrective dimension of justice, denouncing the status quo and the
injustices that are built into it. But a Christian approach always adds an
annunciation: the proclamation of the reign of God in which the lion and
lamb will lie down together, and peace and justice will embrace.32 This
vision of shalom, of a jubilee of new beginnings, of the perfect harmony
or love that moves justice forward offers a concrete image of the goal
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Karen Lebacqz
of justice. Where contemporary liberal theory and its critics33 draw

back from substantive notions of justice and retreat into procedural
approaches, the Christian vision of justice makes no such retreat into pure
procedure.
The postmodern challenge
The major challenge facing contemporary Christian views, however, will

be precisely how to address questions of justice in a postmodern world
where there is no shared vision of the common good or of the substance of
justice. As the certainty that once accompanied Western philosophical
traditions fades, for example, both Roman Catholic and Protestant
traditions will tend to draw on biblical insights and sources for determin-
ing what is right. But these sources will not be compelling to those from
other religious traditions or who adhere to no religious tradition. In a
pluralistic, fragmented world,34 is there any hope for a universal notion of
the demands of justice, or are we relegated to a kind of relativism in
which Christians can speak only with and to each other? While the
strength of Christian approaches lies in their substantive vision of the
demands of justice, their breadth of conceptualization of the range and
focus of those demands, and their attention to voices of the oppressed, the
weakness of Christian approaches may lie precisely in the fact that,
ultimately, a Christian understanding of justice is posited on a story
shared by a faith community.35 The vision of a world in which all is in
'right relation' is a vision that could probably be shared by many, but the
particular meaning attached to that vision and the modes by which it
would be brought about promise to remain contentious in a pluralistic
world.
Notes
1 See Joel Feinberg, 'Noncomparative justice', p. 55 and William K. Frankena,

'Some beliefs about justice', p. 46, in Joel Feinberg and Hyman Gross (eds),
Justice: Selected Readings (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1977).
2 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), ch. 7.
3 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).
4 Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York:
Basic Books, 1983).
5 Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
6 Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (New York: Basic Books, 1989).
7 Nancy Hirschmann, Rethinking Obligation: A Feminist Method for Political Theory
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992).
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Justice
8 Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1982).
9 Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1978).
10 See, for example, the essays in Mary Jeanne Larrabee (ed.), An Ethic of Care:
Feminist and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1993).
11 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, ed. Colin
Gordon (New York: Pantheon Press, 1980).
12 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
13 William Coats, God in Public; Political Theology Beyond Niebuhr (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1974).
14 Emil Brunner laments this tendency in Justice and the Social Order (London:
Lutterworth Press, 1945), at p. 19.
15 Karen Lebacqz, 'Justice' in Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson (eds),
Dictionary of Feminist Theologies (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,
1996).
16 Karen Lebacqz, Justice in an Unjust World: Foundations for a Christian Approach to
Justice (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1987).
17 Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds), Readings in Moral Theology,
no. 7: Natural Law and Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1991).
18 Stephen Charles Mott, Biblical Ethics and Social Change (New York: Oxford
19 James M. Gustafson, Protestant and Roman Catholic Ethics: Prospects for Rapprochement
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
20 John R. Donahue, 'Biblical perspectives on justice' in John C. Haughey (ed.), The
Faith That Does Justice (New York: Paulist Press, 1977).
21 For example, Pope John XXIII's encyclical Pacem in Terris (section 26) delineates
a number of basic rights, such as the right to a just wage. However, those rights
are posited on an understanding that we are by nature social and that we have
both a duty and a right to contribute to the common good.
22 Reinhold Niebuhr, Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. 1: Human Nature (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941), ch. 7; see also Lebacqz, Justice in an Unjust World.
23 Mott, Biblical Ethics and Social Change, p. 67.
24 Carter Heyward, The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation (New York:
University Press of America, 1982).
25 For instance, Basil the Great queried 'Are you not a robber? You who make your
own the things which you have received to distribute?': quoted in Charles Avila,
Ownership: Early Christian Teaching (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983), p. 50.
26 National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social
Teaching and the U.S. Economy (Origins 16 {24]), pp. 409-55. The letter does not
use the phrase 'litmus test' but speaks consistently of our 'special obligation' to
the poor.
27 Jose Porfirio Miranda, Marx and the Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1974), ch. 1.
28 See the excellent discussion of justice in terms of mutual rights and duties in
David Hollenbach, Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the Catholic Human
Rights Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 1979).
29 Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1966).
30 Joel Feinberg, 'Noncomparative justice' in Feinberg and Gross (eds), Justice: Selected
Readings, at p. 55.
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Karen Lebacqz
31 See Lebacqz, Justice in an Unjust World.

32 Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1983).
33 See, e.g., Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community, and Postmodernism
in Contemporary Ethics (New York: Routledge, 1992).
34 Alastair Maclntyre, After Virtue, 2nd edn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1984).
35 See Gene Outka and John P. Reeder (eds), Prospects for a Common Morality
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993) for a range of views on the
question of a common morality in a postmodern world.
Select bibliography
Joel Feinberg and Hyman Gross (eds), Justice: Selected Readings (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1977).
David Hollenbach, Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the Catholic Human Rights
Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 1979).
Karen Lebacqz, Justice in an Unjust World: Foundations for a Christian Approach to Justice
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1987).
Karen Lebacqz, Six Theories of Justice: Perspectives from Philosophical and Theological Ethics
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986).
Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
172
12
Property
Timothy J. Gorringe
'The idea of property', wrote J. S. Mill, 'is not some one thing, identical
throughout history and incapable of alteration, but is variable, like all
other creations of the human mind; at any given time it is a brief
expression denoting the rights over things conferred by the law or custom
of some given society at that time; but neither on this point nor on any
other has the law and custom of a given time and place a claim to be
stereotyped for ever.'1 The statement needs considerable glossing but its
main point is essential to any proper understanding of the theme. Ideas of
property hang together with ideas of the state, of justice, and of human
nature and vary with different economies. Thus property has been
understood one way in a largely peasant economy where the ox plough is
the principal means of production (Scripture and the early Church Fathers),
another way when trade begins to burgeon (Aquinas), another way in the
light of the rise of the landed gentry (Locke), another way against the
background of the industrial revolution (Hegel and Marx), and another
way in late capitalism (Hayek). At the same time there is a Utopian strand
in the discussion of property, grounded in our earliest texts, which
exercises a profound gravitational pull and which is especially important
at the present time. I shall first try to outline the way in which approaches
to property have changed before sketching the contemporary situation and
the importance of the Utopian tradition.
Property in non-capitalist economies

The Bible
'Until the lions have their historians stories of hunting will always glorify
the hunter', says the African proverb. When we read the Hebrew Bible we
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Timothy J. Gorringe
listen in to a debate, but one of the reasons this collection of books is so

unusual is that we have the history of the victims, the failures, those who
never came to power, rather more than of those who did. We do have the
latter — look at the bombast of much of 1 Kings 1 — 8 , and some of the
royal psalms, for example. But we have far more critique, much of which
centres on property. When the tribes of Israel demand a king to help
them meet the Philistine threat Samuel warns them that he will take, and
take, and take again (1 Sam 8). The fiercely told story of Ahab and
Naboth, with its bloody denouement, is a critique of the view that royal
power can override the property rights of ordinary citizens (1 Kgs 21; 2
Kgs 9).
The background of this critique, as of the positive teaching on property
in the Hebrew Bible, is the belief that in pre-monarchical Israel things
were done differently. Norman Gottwald has argued that in the period of
the Judges there was, for about two hundred years, an egalitarian society,
where each family tilled its land and kept its flocks, which formed a
benchmark for all later understandings of property.2 These were theorized
and set down, above all in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, during and after
the exile (587—538 BCE). Here, against the bitter background of the
collapse of the monarchy, certain crucial principles were laid down. The
practical vision was always that of a free and independent peasantry, where
each family contributed to the common good through its husbanding of
the land, and where the king was 'one from amongst your brethren' (Deut
17:15) who was not permitted to amass huge property. This vision was
theologically grounded above all in the understanding that, in the opening
words of Psalm 24, 'The earth is the Lord's, and all that is in it'. As in the
great vision of Genesis 2 human beings are stewards and park-keepers on
behalf of the divine owner. They have no absolute ownership rights
themselves. Creation is gift: it is not there for anyone to corner or
monopolize or, as in the peculiarly British vice, to label witli 'Private,
keep out'. The committees who put Leviticus together wanted, if we may
be excused the phrase, a 'stakeholder economy'. The land was God's and
every family had its own stake in it, to dwell in peace 'under its vine and
under its fig tree'. Were they to lose the land by falling into debt slavery
their plot was to be restored in the year of remission, the Jubilee year -
every fiftieth year according to Leviticus (ch. 25), or every seven according
to the left-wingers behind Deuteronomy (ch. 15). Meanwhile draconian
legislation sought to dissuade the local bully boys from moving the
landmarks which staked out each family plot, thus enlarging their own
estates and squeezing out the poor. This was treated as a matter of the
utmost seriousness because care of the family patch of land was a sign of
one's membership of the covenant people, so alienating the land was an
attack on Israel's religious basis. It was also a practical measure designed
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Property
to guarantee the economic viability of each family so that 'there shall be

no poor amongst you' (Deut 15:4).3 There is scholarly disagreement over
the extent to which these laws might have been operative during the
monarchy. If they are post-exilic it seems probable they were always
impossible to execute owing to Israel's incorporation into successive world
empires. This was, of course, the situation which marked Jesus' lifetime.
The process which the post-exilic legislators had sought to prevent was
well advanced by the first century CE. Many smallholdings had been
swallowed up in great estates. Since there were taxes to pay both to Caesar,
to Herod and to the religious authorities it was easier than ever for debt
slavery to arise. Instead of a free peasantry many were now wage labourers,
selling their labour in the marketplace if there were any buyers. In this
situation Jesus began his ministry, acording to Luke, by proclaiming the
Jubilee, the 'year of the Lord's favour' (Luke 4:18). Questions of property
come up again and again in Jesus' teaching. He warned again and again
that putting it in the centre barred the road to discipleship (e.g., Matt
6:19ff.; 6:24; 13:22; 19:l6ff.; Luke I6:lff.; 16:14, I6:19ff.). His own
practice in 'having nowhere to lay his head', and the instructions for the
disciples' mission, when they were strictly forbidden to take money or any
of the usual means of support, illustrate the absolute seriousness of his
belief that it was quite impossible to serve both God and 'Mammon' -
where by Mammon we can understand all forms of private property. What
was important was God's rule and God's righteousness (Matt 6:33).
The first community, in Jerusalem, shaped itself around these impera-
tives and disowned private property altogether (Acts 4:32). Paul, in the
rather different environment of the Hellenistic world, found it necessary
to insist that an ethic of sharing and of waiting for God's decisive
intervention did not license welfare scrounging. 'If people refuse to work',
he said, 'they can do without food' (2 Thess 3:10). His positive effort,
however, was bound up with the need for the members of the new
humanity (ecclesia, church) to support one another materially as in every
other way (this is the overall argument of 2 Corinthians).
Aristotle
Whilst these developments took place in Palestine the Greek city states,
and above all Athens, rose and fell. Just past their apogee one of Plato's
pupils, and the tutor of Alexander the Great, was giving lectures of
seminal importance on politics and economics. Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
taught, of course, in the Greek city state in which sea trade was important,
but the backbone of the economy was still agriculture. Aristotle considers
in detail his teacher's proposals (in The Republic) for common ownership.
Plato is always worth reading, he notes, 'but perfection in everything can
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Timothy J. Gorringe
hardly be expected'. Anticipating many later critiques of the welfare state

he believes that common ownership leads to neglect; people only really
lavish care on what is their own. Community of wives would not work for
the same reason. There is an immeasurable pleasure in owning something,
and it allows us to exercise liberality, something which Plato's proposals
would rule out. Several people had made practical proposals for equalizing
property. Phaleas of Chalcedon thought it could be done by insisting that
only the rich gave dowries and only the poor received them. In the Laws
Plato proposed that differences of wealth within the state should never
exceed a factor of five. His pupil was sceptical. If someone has too many
children the law will have to be broken and besides, men of ruined
fortunes are sure to stir up revolution (1266blO). His own solution is that
'property should be private, but the use of it common' (1263a38). At the
heart of Aristotle's ethic is moderation: 'the amount of property which is
needed for a good life is not unlimited' (1256b31). True, desire is
unlimited and 'most men live only for the gratification of it' but what this
teaches us is that our educational system and our laws have to target
desire, rather than property in itself. 'It is not the possessions but the
desires of humankind which require to be equalized, and this is impossible,
unless a sufficient education is provided by the laws' (1266b30).
The Church Fathers

Aristotle's emphasis on moderation was shared, and indeed underlined, by
most of the Greek philosophical schools. Puritanism does not begin with
Christianity. Stoicism especially emphasized the need to be detached from
material possessions. These two streams, the biblical and the Greek, come
together in the Church Fathers, who without exception take the strictest
line on private property. From Ambrose (333—397), bishop of Milan, and
Chrysostom (347—407), bishop of Constantinople, we have thunderings
worthy of the Hebrew prophets, which have continued to echo down
succeeding centuries. 'How far, you rich people, do you push your mad
desires? "Shall you alone dwell upon the earth" (Isa 5:8)? Why do you cast
out the fellow sharers of nature and claim it all for yourselves? The earth
was made in common for all.' That is Ambrose preaching on Naboth's
vineyard. '"Mine" and "thine" — those chilly words which introduce
innumerable wars into the world — should be eliminated from the Church
. . . The poor would not envy the rich, because there would be no rich . . .
All things would be in common.' That is Chrysostom, preaching to the
wealthy congregation who first lionized him, and then exiled him, in
Constantinople. The only partial exception amongst the early Church
Fathers was Clement of Alexandria, who published a pamphlet on the rich
man's salvation, but his sermons would provide very cold comfort to the
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Property
advocates of a contemporary 'blessings theology'. Preaching on Luke 16:9

he says: 'all possessions are by nature unrighteous, when a person possesses
them for personal advantage as being entirely his own, and does not bring
them into the common stock for those in need'. The word 'unrighteous' is
adika — wicked. He emphasizes, like his Greek teachers, the need for a
moderation which today we would call austerity, and the need to use
property for the common good.4
The monastic movement represented an attempt to deal evangelically
with property. It was either renounced altogether or, as in the case of the
Benedictine rule, held in common.
Aquinas
The need for brevity condenses the teaching of a five-hundred-year period
into one figure, and that of the thirteenth century. Thomas Aquinas
(1225—74), however, had a genius for synthesis, bringing together
Aristotle, Scripture, and the neo-platonism of Augustine, which has made
him one of the greatest oi all teachers of the Church. We discern a shift in
his teaching from that we have just reviewed and the expansion of trade
and of markets, which was a major feature of his day, is certainly part of
the reason for this. He deals with property as the presupposition of his
treatment of theft. There are no absolute rights to ownership, but there
are rights to use (Summa Tkeologiae, II—II, q. 66.1). Private property is
necessary because we care better for our own property, things are more
orderly if each looks after their own, and this situation is more conducive
to peace. However, common use always has priority if there are those in
need (66.2). What people have in superabundance is due by natural law
to the poor. In extreme cases of need we have a right to meet that need by
taking property from another either openly or secretly and this is not to
be considered theft (66.7).
In Religion and the Rise of Capitalism R. H. Tawney has rehearsed how
these pious certainties dissolved as the market economy grew. Luther, in
his rage against usury, is still pre-modern. Calvin issues a cautious
endorsement. When it comes to property, however, the first truly modern
voice is that of John Locke.
Property in the bourgeois revolution

John Locke
The upshot of the English civil war was the consolidation of power in the
hands of the landed and mercantile gentry. Locke (1632—1704) is their
spokesman. He is a transitional figure because the Christian tradition is
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Timothy J. Gorringe
still something he has to reckon with. We learn from Scripture that the
earth was given to humankind in common. Whence then came private
property? In seeking an answer he formulates a new justification of
property of fundamental importance. Though the earth and all its creatures
are common to all 'yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This
no Body has any right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the
Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he
removes out of the State that Nature hath provided . . . he hath mixed his
Labour with . . . and thereby makes it his Property.'5 This was a potentially
revolutionary argument. Locke was sixteen when Winstanley and the
Diggers challenged Cromwell on English property ownership and began
digging on St George's Hill. On his arguments they should have had
possession, and changed the face of England for ever. But Locke, whose
circle included many great landowners, hesitates. Are there limits to
property? Yes, for 'The same Law of Nature, that does . . . give us
Property, does also bound that Property too'.6 Having granted that, in
regard to the fruits of the earth, he at once becomes uncertain with regard
to land. God gave the world to men in common but did not intend it to
remain common and uncultivated. 'He gave it to the use of the Industrious
and Rational . . . not to the Fancy or Covetousness of the Quarrelsome and
Contentious.' He sees that the introduction of money as a medium of
exchange crucially affects his principle. Without money property is
limited to what a person can till. Now money is introduced by 'tacit and
voluntary consent' and so 'Men have agreed to disproportionate and
unequal Possession of the Earth'.7 America, understood as a vast tract of
uninhabited virgin territory, is constantly in the background. Even now,
Locke argues, there is land in plenty for all. But Locke has other
considerations about property, equally momentous. In his view property
(i.e., a landowning gentry) is the surest defence against tyranny. The
reason men enter society, he says, is the preservation of property and we
have laws 'to limit the Power and moderate the Dominion of every Part
and Member of the Society'. It is the attempt to take away property which
at once mobilizes resistance against tyranny. 8 Locke talks about 'the
People' establishing a Legislative, but of course only a tiny percentage of
the English population had the vote at the time. Whatever his intentions,
it is scarcely surprising that, after his death, his arguments were read as
support for the reigning oligarchy.
Rousseau
Rousseau (1712-78), like the other phtlosophes, learned from Locke, but
drew almost opposite conclusions as to property. In a famous apostrophe
in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality he described the first man who
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Property
enclosed a piece of land and proclaimed it his as the founder of civil

society. 'From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many
horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by
pulling up the stakes . . . and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening
to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the
earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody".'9 Implicitly
contesting Aquinas's suggestion that private property is the surest ground
for peace and order he argues that it generates perpetual conflict, a
situation resolved through the institution of law, an ideological ruse for
the maintenance of private property. Had he inspected the work of his
contemporary Blackstone this view would surely have been confirmed.
The essay concludes with what is, in effect, a call to revolutionary action,
which was precisely how it was understood in 1789-
Property in the capitalist era

Hegel
The great changes in production we call the 'industrial revolution' led to
the erosion of the small rooted communities in which human beings had
lived for millennia and the growth, for the first time in history, of truly
great cities. The cult of the individual was, in part, a response to this
development and the individual stands at the heart of Hegel's account of
property. Property, for Hegel (1770—1831), is 'the embodiment of person-
ality'. A person has to translate their freedom into an external sphere in
order to exist as Idea.10 To forbid private property, as Plato did, is to
Violate the right of personality'. 11 All notion of the priority of common
ownership is now abandoned, on metaphysical grounds. 'The demand
sometimes made for an equal division of land, and other resources too, is
an intellectualism all the more empty and superficial in that at the heart
of particular differences there lies . . . the whole compass of mind (Geist),
endlessly particularized and differentiated, and the rationality of mind
developed into an organism.' 12 In Hegel's system Absolute Spirit (Geist},
like human spirit, realizes itself through embodiment. In this argument
property is the most concrete instantiation of this principle. To challenge
property rights, then, is to challenge the divine.
Simply theorizing about property will not do. To become persons we
must take possession of things. I can grasp a thing physically and
'mechanical forces, weapons, tools, extend the range of my power.
Connexions between my property and something else may be regarded as
making it more easily possible for me than for another owner . . . to take
possession of something or to make use of it. Instances of such connexions
are that my land may be on the seashore, or on a river bank.' 13 Let us not
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Timothy J. Gorringe
lay at Hegel's door the responsibility for imperialism and wars of

aggression. Nevertheless it is quite impossible to read these paragraphs
without knowing what had happened in Prussia during the War of
Austrian Succession (the annexation of Silesia), nor what was happening as
Hegel wrote in India and the United States.
Marx
Mill, in our opening quotation, thinks of property in terms of things, a
tendency common to most of the tradition preceding him. Marx
(1818-83), on the other hand, from the start thinks in terms of
relationships. 'An isolated individual could no more have property in land
and soil than he could speak. He could, of course, live off it as substance,
as do the animals. The relation to the earth as property is always mediated
through . . . the tribe, the commune . . . The individual can never appear
here in the dot-like isolation in which he appears as mere free worker.'14
This is his great difference from the 'bourgeois economists', who think
always of what he calls ironically 'Robinson Crusoe on his island'. One of
the reasons Marx wished to transcend capitalism was that, developing
ideas Hegel had worked out, he saw how the opposition of those who buy
and those who sell labour produces a multiply alienated society. Further-
more he saw that labour itself was a form of property, a commodity.
Earlier societies had rested on social inter-dependence. When the capitalist
acquires ownership of the means of production this is transformed into the
individual dependence of each worker on the capitalist. According to
Locke rights to property rested on a person's labour. 'Now, however,
property turns out to be the right, on the part of the capitalist, to
appropriate the unpaid labour of others or its product, and to be the
impossibility, on the part of the labourer, of appropriating his own
product.'15 All social relations are mediated by money which, Marx saw
even in 1844, creates inhuman and imaginary appetites. 'Private property
does not know how to turn crude need into human need.'16 Marx believed
that Luther, whom he quoted at length in his Theory of Surplus Value, had
a greater insight into the true nature of capital than most later commen-
tators. The answer to this problem Marx believed to be the socialization —
common ownership — of the means of production, the recovery of human
community.17 Freedom will consist in the fact that 'socialized humanity,
the associated producers, regulate their interchange with nature rationally,
bring it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by
some blind power'.18 In this society it will be, as Marx put it in his
Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), 'from each according to his ability
to each according to his needs'.
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Property
Property in the age of ecological crisis
Without attempting to offer a survey, it would probably be fair to say

that defences of private property amongst philosophers are more vigorous
than they have ever been.19 Liberal theorists appeal broadly to the range
of arguments we have already seen: that labour creates value, that property
is essential for liberty, and that private property is essential to human
realization. These arguments date largely from the late seventeenth century
on and are bound up with the growth of the capitalist economy, an
economy which collapses without growth. They mark a substantial rupture
with earlier views of property. Broadly put, the change is from use to
exchange, from community to individual, from moderation to excess.
Capitalist economics in some shape or form, and thus defences of private
property, form the overwhelming main stream in the West. An increasing
volume of environmental and Third World critique, however, insists that
present arrangements are both unjust and unsustainable. If this is the case,
and I believe that it is, then a fresh look at the wisdom of our ancestors
may stand us in good stead.
The heart of the argument that present trends are unsustainable hinges
on the twin concerns of population growth and ecological damage, both
of which are expanding exponentially. The world population has doubled
since mid-century and now stands at nearly six billion. Eleven billion is a
plausible prognosis for the second decade of the next century. The
percentage of global income going to the richest 20 per cent of the world's
population has increased from 70.2 in I960 to 82.7 in 1989, and decreased
from 2.3 to 1.4 per cent for the poorest 20 per cent in the same period.20
This gap continues to grow. Advocates of free market capitalism like
Michael Novak insist, in the teeth of the evidence, that human beings
will always find a way of dealing with the situation.21 Behind this
insistence is another one, that, as President Bush put it at the Rio Summit,
'the American Way of life is non-negotiable'. It is this way of life which
is putting colossal pressure on the world's ecosystems. 'The average
resident of an industrial country consumes 3 times as much fresh water,
10 times as much energy, and 19 times as much aluminium as someone
in a developing country/ 22 The richest 10 per cent of Americans put 11
tons of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere,
compared with the tenth of a ton of those Third World poor who use
fossil fuels for heating and cooking. In 1992 more than 1,600 scientists,
including 102 Nobel laureates, issued a 'Warning to Humanity': 'No
more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the
threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity
immeasurably diminished . . . A new ethic is required — a new attitude
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Timothy J. Gorringe
towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the
earth.' 23 The economist Herman Daly has compared the earth to a ship
with a Plimsoll line. We are on the Plimsoll line right now: the danger of
sinking is real. This could mean one of two things. It could well be that
processes of global warming are now so advanced that massive loss of
territory, including whole countries, like Bangladesh, is inevitable.
Meanwhile prominent spokesmen in the United States like Garret Hardin
have warned that we must view the earth as a lifeboat, with the Third
World poor in the water. Since our lifestyle is non-negotiable, and we
cannot keep that up if they come on board, we have to let them sink. The
possibility of systematic aggression against the burgeoning populations of
the Third World can also by no means be ruled out. There is little to
show that we have learned anything but lessons in technique from the
Holocaust. Rosa Luxemburg's stark alternative of socialism or barbarism
has already been realized many times over. The difference now is that it
could be both global and final.
The alternative to these dark prognoses is, in Sandra Postel's words, 'a
global effort to lighten humanity's load on the earth'.24 This has to be in
terms of addressing the gross disparities of wealth, of turning from a
consumption to a recycling economy, and tackling population growth. As
is well known, reaching a certain level of prosperity is the key to the
latter. As the Union of Concerned Scientists emphasized, however, a new
ethic is also crucial, and a changed attitude to property is part and parcel
of this. In the light of the present situation liberal teaching on property
since Locke is dangerous and irresponsible, an 'arid intellectualism' (to use
Hegel's phrase) if ever there was one. Let me take four points from the
founding property ethics of Western culture as an alternative.
The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it

The foundation of a property ethic cannot be either labour, security or
self-realization. The foundation of a property ethic which can sustain us
and not destroy us is the acknowledgement of all that we have as gift.
Alongside Weber's elective affinity between Protestantism and capitalism
we might put the fact that the aggressive property ethic of the West is
the product of Protestant thinkers with their logocentric worship. Perhaps
one reason for the relative resistance of Catholic social teaching to this
trend is that the Eucharist, the acknowledgement of gift, was always at
the heart of it. If everything we have we have as gift from the Creator and
Lover of all, we cannot hang on to it, fence it round, keep it from all
others.
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Property
Every family under its vine and fig tree

The legislators of post-monarchical Israel thought in terms of a fundamen-
tal equality. They recognized the need for leadership, but leaders could
only be first among equals. The rights of every family flow from God's
lordship. But this extends to every family on earth. A situation where, as
at present, there are 202 billionaires, 3 million millionaires and 100
million homeless people who live on roadsides, in rubbish dumps and
under bridges is morally unacceptable. Morally there is a case for every
human community to have access to the goods of the earth. This leaves
us, argues Alan Thein Burning, with a conundrum. We cannot limit the
lifestyle we enjoy only to ourselves, but extending the lifestyle to the
whole human family would ruin the biosphere.25 Finding more energy-
efficient technologies can take us some of the way. Developing recycling
economies can take us further. Beyond that is the need for a fundamental
recognition that enough is enough. Aristotle already addressed this
problem. His generation., which had not lost its myths, knew, through
the Midas story, that making an idol of consumption is a recipe for death.
From every strand of our pre-capitalist wisdom comes the imperative: live
simply that others may simply live.
Property does not consist of things but exists in relationships

This also is taught us by the Eucharist, but it was Marx who made it most
explicit. The atomization of life which Marx diagnosed has increased a
thousandfold with the advent of suburbanization, the private car, tele-
vision. The liberal property owner is the individual, beholden to none.
Such a being is a fantasy: we are all sustained by vast intricate webs of
farmers, sewage workers, academics, engineers. Our property, far from
being our moat and drawbridge, all signals that interdependence. Privacy,
an unheard-of luxury to most of the world's population, is a key aspect of
our property, along with 'freedom' (i.e., the right to do what / want when
I want how I want — a pathetic fixation at psychological age three). By all
means let us have our privacy and our freedom, but let us have it in
relation, and not at the expense of others.
Property can become a fetish. To be free we must de-fetishize it

Both Jesus and Marx taught the fetishization of commodities. Marx's
doctrine is, after all, an analysis of what happens when we decide to serve
Mammon. The doctrine of late capitalism is that you are what you have,
you are not a citizen but a consumer, you no longer have services but a
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Timothy J. Gorringe
market. The 1996 Audi advertisment has only one word: 'Worship' - but
this is only to make explicit the subtext of most advertising.
Jesus' teaching about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field is
not, as generations have taken it, an outline doctrine of providence. It is
part of his satirical attack on Mammon — putting property in its place. A
much later attack on the same lines runs:
In place of the wealth and poverty of political economy, come the rich
human being and the rich human need. The rich human being is
simultaneously the human being in need of a totality of human
manifestations of life - the person in whom their own realisation exists
as an inner necessity, as need. Not only wealth, but likewise the poverty
of a person - under the assumption of socialism - receives in equal
measure a human and therefore social significance. Poverty is the passive
bond which causes the human being to experience the need of the
greatest wealth - viz, the other human being.26
Tor freedom Christ has set us free' (Gal 5:1), but that freedom is illusory
whilst we are bound by chains to Property/Mammon. A whole line of
Christians before us saw that and sought freedom in their own way. We
have to seek it in ours, but in a changed situation, and with much greater
urgency. '"Watchman, what of the night?" The watchman says: "Morning
comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire; come back again'"
(Isa 21:11--12).
Notes
1 J. S. Mill, 'Chapters on Socialism' in Collected Works (Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 1963), vol. 5, p. 753.
2 N. Gottwald, The Tribes ofYahweh (London: SCM Press, 1979).
3 C. Wright, God's People in God's Land: Family, Land and Property in the Old
Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), p. 140.
4 There is a splendid collection of Patristic teaching on property, from which these
extracts are taken, in C. Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, 1983).
5 J. Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government, 11.27.
6 Locke, Two Treatises, 11.31.
9 J. J. Rousseau, A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754), second part.
10 G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (London: Oxford University
Press, 1952), para. 41.
11 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, para. 46.
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Property
14 K. Marx, Grundrisse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p- 485.

15 K. Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1961), p. 583.
16 K. Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Collected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow:
Progress, 1975), p. 307.
17 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, Pt 1 section 1, Collected Works, vol. 5
(Moscow: Progress, 1976).
18 K. Marx, Capital, vol. Ill (Moscow: Progress, 1959), p. 820.
19 For such a survey see L. Becker, Property Rights (London: Routledge, 1977).
20 Human Development Report 1992 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
21 In private conversation with Peter Selby.
22 A. T. Burning, How Much Is Enough? (London: Earthscan, 1992), p. 51.
23 Quoted in State of the World 1994 (London: Worldwatch, 1994), p. 19.
24 S. Postel, 'Carrying capacity: earth's bottom line' in State of the World 1994, p. 19.
25 Durning, How Much Is Enough?, p. 25.
26 K. Marx, Economic and Political Mss, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 304.
Select bibliography
C. Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983).

Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 1972).
John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1981).
L. Johnson, Sharing Possessions (London: SCM, 1986).
John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government (1689; Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1988).
R. Mullin, The Wealth of Christians (Exeter: Paternoster, 1983).
185
13
Morality and law
Patrick Harmon
Our lives are shaped by two forces of which often we are hardly aware: the
moral code to which we subscribe and the law of the society of which we
are part. We keep promises, or at least generally believe we ought to, we
pay our debts, respect the person and property of others; we refrain from
deceiving people, or injuring their good name, or taking what does not
belong to us. We think it 'right' to act, or refrain from acting, in such
ways, 'wrong' to deviate from the path which they mark out. We believe
that on the whole it is for our 'good' and the good of others that we
should live according to the prescriptions and proscriptions of morality
and of law.
And on the whole we don't pay much attention, nor do we need to, to
the question whether the rules by which we live are moral rules or legal.
One reason for this is that often they are both: murder is prohibited by
the moral law as well as the law of the land, as are perjury, theft and
selling defective goods. It is morally as well as legally wrong to drive at
speed on the road in front of a school playground from which a child
might emerge as we are passing. Inciting to racial hatred is an offence
against both morality and the law. The law enforces the keeping of some
of our promises, as when we sign a contract to buy or sell a house, or to
do some job or render a service.
But there are times when we become aware that, for all their similarities
and their overlap, law and morality are different fields of experience. There
are some requirements of morality which are not enjoined by the law:
there is no law which says that we ought to give to people who are in
need, or show compassion for a drug addict, or speak a kind word to
someone who is in pain. No law forbids the unilateral ending of a long-
term relationship between partners who are not married, or compels a
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Morality and law
husband to share the household chores. There is no law forbidding

adultery (at any rate in most Western systems) or fornication or lying.
Moreover, in any society the law may allow choices which are contrary
to the moral code of some of its members — abortion, for example, or
euthanasia, or the payment of less than a fair wage. Or it may discriminate
between categories or classes of people in a morally objectionable way, as
when it puts them at a disadvantage merely because they are of a particular
race or religion or gender, or of a different social class.
So law and morality resemble each other, and in some matters they
overlap, and they are interrelated and interdependent; but they are also
importantly different. And among the most important differences is the
fact that the law comes as it were from outside of us. That is, law is made
by decision of the legislature, and in some countries also by way of judicial
interpretation, so that its source is external to those whom it binds. And
law is 'enforced' on us, in that it carries the threat of some penalty should
we be found in breach of it.
At first sight the same might seem to be true of the prescriptions of
morality: a religious person may speak of them as given by God, or they
may be thought of as coming from the moral tradition of whatever society
we happen to belong to. And on a certain view of the relationship between
God and morality — that God will reward the good and punish the wicked
— it might appear that the source of moral obligation, as well as of its
commands and prohibitions, is in the will of God, and so external to the
human being in much the same way as in the case of the law of the land.
But a better view, though it cannot be argued here, is that when we
use the language of law in speaking about morality in the context of
religious beliefs we should follow mainline Christian thinking. This is
that certain ways of behaving are commanded by God because they are, so
to speak, already good and right — good and right in terms of what makes
for the flourishing of the human being. And these commands make a
claim on us, not because God happened to will that they should, but
because they accord with the way he made us as free and rational beings.
Of course the rules of morality come from outside us in the sense that
we learn them from parents, school, society, church. But that is not the
same thing as saying that the rules are invented or decided by fiat of some
external agency. And if we are true to our nature as rational and free we
shall have made our moral principles our own by choice and with
understanding, and our conformity with them will come from ourselves,
from our own 'conscience', from our will to find out and do what is fit for
a human being.
It can sometimes be necessary to sort out the relationships between law
and morality, and the Oxford jurisprudent H. L. A. Hart has formulated
the questions which may be put. 1 The first is whether the development of
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Patrick Hannon
law has been influenced by morality (and vice versa), the second is whether
some reference to morality is required in an adequate definition of law.
The third question is whether the law is open to moral criticism, and the
fourth is whether the enforcement of morality is a part of the function of
law. Hart's questions furnish a starting-point for what must here be a very
general approach to a dense and complex topic.
The first question is reasonably easily disposed of: it is not difficult to
think of examples of the reciprocal interaction between morality and law
which leads to development in one or the other. Take, for instance, laws
which aim to promote equality of opportunity for employment as between
men and women. Such laws are inspired by the moral insight that women
and men are of equal dignity and potential, and that it is wrong to give a
job to a man in preference to a woman merely because of the difference in
gender.
An employer, out of prejudice, might perpetrate such a wrong, and of
course such has been the pattern in what are usually now called patriarchal
societies. Campaigners for women's rights have therefore sought to secure
legislation which forbids discrimination on the ground of gender alone.
But of course a reformer might hope that in due course equal treatment
would become the norm, not just because the law insisted but because
people generally came to recognize that as a matter of morality it is wrong
to discriminate in this way.
One could multiply examples, from laws forbidding racial discrimina-
tion to legislation about road safety, or conditions in the workplace, or
fair trading, or due care for the environment. The point in each case is
that a moral insight generates a movement for legislation coercing people
to act for the good in ways which, left to themselves, they may not feel at
all inclined to do. But the hope is that in time they might come to the
morally more mature frame of mind in which they behave rightly, not
just for fear of punishment but rather because what the law lays down is
also the morally right thing to do.
This idea is not a new one, and in the Christian theological tradition it
was expressed by St Thomas Aquinas who saw law as having a role in
educating people in virtue: 'From being accustomed to shun what is evil
and discharge what is good on account of threat of punishment a man
sometimes comes to continue on that course from his own taste and
choice.'2 But it gives rise to questions to which we shall have to return
when we consider the issue of the enforcement of morals. For there are
difficulties and dangers in the concept of the promotion of morality
through the medium of law.
Hart's second question is whether an adequate definition of law must
include some reference to morality. At one level this is a technical
question, much discussed by legal philosophers. But it isn't a merely
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Morality and law
theoretical issue, and its practical importance may be grasped if we think

of it as asking at another level whether it is necessary that a law be 'just',
that is, conform to a moral standard of justice.
For if law is law merely by virtue of its emanating from the will of the
legislator, and if it is ipso facto binding, then it might be argued that the
law may oblige one to do what is morally wrong. And it was argued at
the Nuremberg trials following the Second World War that the officers
and others who co-operated in the extermination of six million Jews in
the death camps could be convicted of no crime, since they were only
obeying orders and acting under the law.
This question too has been canvassed in Christian theology. For St
Augustine an unjust law was no law, and could not bind the moral
conscience.3 Aquinas spoke of it rather as a corrupt law;4 elsewhere he said
that unjust laws are 'outrages rather than laws'.5 It followed that a ruler
might not exact obedience simply because of a legislative fiat, nor could a
subject excuse moral wrong-doing on the plea of acting in accordance
with the law. The answer of these authors to the defence of superior
orders, as the position of the defendants at Nuremberg is called, must be
that legislation cannot override the moral order.
This was the tenor of a much more ancient strain of philosophical
thought, illustrated in dramatic form in Sophocles' play Antigone. Antigone
buried her brother Polynices, in defiance of an order made by Creon, king
of Thebes, forbidding him honourable burial. She defends herself by
appeal to a higher law.
That order did not come from God. Justice
That dwells with the gods below, knows no such law.
I did not think your edicts strong enough
To overrule the unwritten unalterable laws
Of God and heaven, you being only a man.
They are not of yesterday or today, but everlasting,
Though where they came from, none of us can tell.6
The unwritten, unalterable laws here referred to are what came to be
known in the philosophical tradition as the Natural Law, a concept which
in one shape or another, and despite various sorts of criticism, has endured
in Western thinking. For our purposes it may be taken to say that reason
reflecting upon human experience in the world can come to at least some
general conclusions as to how humans ought to live if they are to flourish.
This in broad terms is the moral order, and the claim is then made that
all law and politics must respect it.7
It follows — and here we arrive at Hart's third question — that any law
is open to moral criticism. That is, legislation is always open to scrutiny
so as to ensure that it is truly in aid of human flourishing. It is not enough
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Patrick Hannon
to say that a particular course of action is allowed or enjoined simply

because it is laid down by law. For a law may be unjust, and if so it may,
and sometimes must, be disobeyed.
Inevitably this gives rise to problems, in principle and in practice.
What is to be made of the people in the US who during the Vietnam war
burnt their draft cards in protest against the war, but also against the law?
How was it that the English women who took a hammer to a Hawk
aircraft destined for Indonesia were exonerated? And if we find ourselves
sympathetic to these protesters, what do we think of those in the US who
sit in front of abortion clinics so as to impede the access of women who
are seeking abortion? Or what do we say about parents who on religious
grounds refuse to allow a child to be given a blood transfusion even when
it is necessary to save the child's life?
Thus is raised the question of the right of a citizen to flout or ignore
the law of the land in the name of conscience, that is, in the name of a
moral principle which that person holds as binding on him or her. It
would be strange, given that in general there is a moral obligation to obey
the law, if such actions could easily be justified morally. Of course the law
itself may recognise 'conscientious objection', as when pacifists are
exempted from military service, or as — in a different way — in the example
of the Hawk case where the women were held not guilty of what on the
face of it was a breach of the law. And a critical influence in the redress of
injustice in a society may be the 'civil disobedience' of some of its
members, as in the US in the 1960s or in South Africa in more recent
experience.
Hart's fourth question — whether or to what extent it is a function of
the law to enforce morality — was the subject of a debate between himself
and Sir Patrick (later Lord) Devlin, after the latter had delivered what
became a famous Maccabean lecture concerning the enforcement of
morals.8 The context of Devlin's lecture was the publication in 1957 in
England of the Wolfenden Report which made proposals for the reform of
the law on homosexual offences and prostitution. His criticism of the
Report evoked a reply from Professor Hart9 which in turn generated
further exchanges between them. In due course the debate was entered by
other legal philosophers and jurisprudents, including some from the
United States and other legatees of the Anglo-American tradition. For
although the debate's original context was English law, the issues which
it raises have a universal application.
It will be useful later to sketch the general lines of the positions taken
by Devlin and Hart. For now, just notice that at the core of their debate
was the question whether there is a 'private morality' which is, as
Wolfenden put it, not the law's business. The expression 'private morality'
was to prove troublesome, and it may be as well at this point to be clear
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Morality and law
at least about what it does not mean. For a start, it doesn't make sense to
think of it as referring simply to the morality of acts done in private: most
murders are done in private, and privacy is virtually essential to the thief;
and it would be ludicrous to suggest that the law should never intervene
when a man beats his wife or children at home.
Nor is it helpful to think of the term 'private morality' as referring to
what is a matter of private (in the sense of personal) moral judgement. For
the question whether something is properly left to the individual's
conscience, or whether it is a claim of the moral order, is usually only the
starting-point of a debate. So, for example, the claim that women have a
moral right to choose abortion comes up against the claim that the unborn
have a moral right to life from the moment of conception.
The first claim says that it is a matter for the personal conscience of a
woman whether to have an abortion or not, the second maintains that the
moral order precludes the directly intended taking of any innocent life.
The argument cannot be settled by asserting the one right or the other,
and there remains for the legislator the question whether either of these
moral beliefs is to be 'enforced'.
Such questions are complicated nowadays by the pluralism of moral
belief and practice which is a feature of so many modern societies. For it
is a fact of modern life that societies are composed of people of a variety of
religious traditions and of none. If the law is to reflect and promote moral
values — and it must, in some sense, as we have seen — whose values? The
values of the majority religious (or other) moral tradition? What then of
minorities in the community: are they to be coerced into following
patterns of behaviour which are contrary to conscience as they experience
it, or prevented from acting according to their consciences simply because
the majority subscribes to a different world-view?
One of the reasons why it is difficult to think clearly about these
questions is that it is difficult to find a starting-point which has prospect
of common acceptance. I shall suggest that, for all that it comes from a
particular religious tradition, Roman Catholic teaching concerning reli-
gious freedom provides a starting-point, and indeed the makings of a
framework, for fruitful discussion of the issues at stake. And the reason
why it has prospect of a more general acceptance is that its basis is a
philosophical one, of a kind which resonates with the mind of our times.10
The principle is to be found in the Declaration on Religious Freedom
of the Second Vatican Council. Its genesis lay in modern consciousness of
the dignity of the human, and the growing demand that people 'should
exercise fully their own judgement and a responsible freedom in their
actions, and should not be subject to the pressure of coercion but inspired
by a sense of duty'. 11 A key influence in the drafting of the Declaration —
many would say its principal architect — was the US Jesuit theologian
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Patrick Harmon
John Courtney Murray. It was of course not accidental that the principal
ideas embodied in the document had their roots in the experience of the
United States, pluralist in its very foundation. 12 The Council's teaching
was conceived in the context of a debate about religious freedom, and it
will be necessary to show how it may be applied to the sphere of morality
as well. But first the principle and its basis.
The principle, put shortly, is that in religious matters people should
not be made to act against their consciences, nor should they be prevented
from acting in accordance with their consciences 'within due limits', a
phrase which turns out to mean 'within the limits of the common good'.
In the context what is primarily meant is that in matters of conscience the
laws of a state should not attempt to coerce people, that there should be
freedom of conscience in matters of religious belief and practice, that there
is a right to religious freedom, within limits imposed by the requirements
of 'the common good'. The meaning of this qualification is of course
crucial, and we must return to it in a moment.
The right to religious freedom is based, the Council said, on the dignity
of the human person and the nature of the search for truth. Human
dignity consists in the twin gifts of reason and the power of choice, and it
is respected to the extent that each person is given scope for the exercise
of these gifts in the pursuit of truth and human fulfilment. And it is in
the nature of the search for truth that it 'must be carried out in a manner
that is appropriate to the dignity and social nature of the human person:
that is, by free enquiry with the help of teaching or instruction,
communication and dialogue'.13
The right here asserted is, as already mentioned, a right to religious
freedom, and its application to the field of morality probably needs to be
shown. The argument is not complicated: the dignity of the human person
and the nature of the search for truth are the same whether one is thinking
about religion or about morality. As gifted with reason and freedom we
live up to our dignity to the extent that we freely seek moral truth, and
coercion is no more at home in the quest for moral than it is for religious
value.
What I am suggesting therefore is that a starting-point and a framework
for a consideration of the issues involved in debates about the enforcement
of morals may be found by transposing Vatican II's principle concerning
religious freedom to the sphere of morality. Our starting-point then would
be that in matters of moral belief and practice people should not be
coerced into going against their consciences, nor should they be prevented
from following their consciences. But the qualifying clause has application
here too, and so we must see what is meant by 'the common good'.
This concept has its roots in classical thought and as developed by
classical and Christian thinkers is rich and complex. But for present
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Morality and law
purposes it will suffice to adopt the description given in the Council's

Declaration, a description which is familiar in Catholic social teaching.
The common good, the Council says, 'consists in the sum total of those
conditions of social life which enable people to achieve a fuller measure of
perfection with greater ease'. 1 ' The core idea is that the law should be
such as to facilitate the flourishing of each person, but in such a way that
the flourishing of any person or group is not at the expense of that of
others.
A mistake which is sometimes made in debates about law and morals is
to conceive the common good in terms which suggest that it is somehow
over against the individual's good. This happens when it is identified with
the moral beliefs of a majority of citizens, so that in Britain, for example,
it might be identified with the moral values of Christianity. On that
premise people could argue that the right of someone from another
religious tradition (say Islam) to believe and practise according to his or
her lights need not be upheld by law. But this is not so. The common
good is the ensemble of conditions of social living enabling each person to
flourish to maximum potential. It includes individual freedoms, including
freedom of religious and moral belief and practice.
Of course the exercise of any individual's freedom cannot be at the
expense of the rightful freedoms of others. A right to freedom of expression
cannot mean a right to say what one likes, true or untrue, about someone
else in the community, and so we have defamation laws. A right to privacy
or against trespass can't be invoked by someone who wishes to conceal the
fact that he has bomb-making equipment in the garden shed. A right to
the truth does not entail entitlement to pry into the personal business of
one's next-door neighbour. The exercise of rights and freedoms of the
individuals who make up a society must be harmonized, and in some
matters this bespeaks regulation by the law. This is often put by saying
that the exercise of individual freedom is limited by the requirements of
peace, justice and public morality.
And this brings us to the question at the centre of the Hart—Devlin
debate: whether or in what sense there is a 'public morality' which it is
the law's business to enforce. In discussing proposed reform of the laws on
prostitution and on homosexual offences Lord Wolfenden's committee had
thought it useful to look for a general principle which might shape
thinking on the relationship between morals and the criminal law. The
committee formulated a principle as follows: the function of the criminal
law is 'to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from
what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against
exploitation and corruption of others, particularly the young, weak in
body and mind, inexperienced, or in a state of special physical, official or
economic dependence'. 15
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Patrick Hannon
This is a version of a principle first enunciated by John Stuart Mill,

who said that the only purpose for which the law can rightfully be used is
to prevent harm to others.16 Lord Devlin interpreted Wolfenden's version
to mean that 'no act of immorality should be made a criminal offence
unless it is accompanied by some other feature such as indecency,
corruption or exploitation',17 or, of course, if it injures someone in his/her
person or property. It is features such as these which, according to
Wolfenden, bring what is immoral into the public realm. And only when
there is this kind of public dimension is it permissible for the law to take
an interest.
Lord Devlin took issue with the Wolfenden view, arguing that there is
indeed a public morality which it is the law's business to enforce. His
position may be put summarily as follows. People who form a civil society
do so on the basis of certain shared ideas, including ideas about right and
wrong. A society's existence is threatened by deviance from the morality
so shared, and it is as entitled to protect itself from moral subversion as it
is from political. It is for society to say how much deviance it will tolerate,
and it is entitled to use the criminal law to enforce its morality when
deviance exceeds toleration's bounds. A legislator will know when this
point has been reached by reference to the standard of the reasonable man,
'the man on the Clapham omnibus'.
On this view there is no private immorality in the sense envisaged by
Wolfenden. The most private of acts has a social resonance, however
indirectly produced: any immorality is capable in its nature of threatening
a society's existence. In theory therefore there is no immora] act that
might not be proscribed by law. But in practice a line must be drawn;
there must be some scope for individual freedom, for the individual
'cannot be expected to surrender to the judgement of society the whole
conduct of his life'. 18 And in deciding what to forbid, a lawmaker may be
helped by some general principles.
The first of these principles — Devlin calls them 'elastic' — is that there
should be the maximum freedom consistent with the integrity of society.
The law should not attempt to enforce all of a society's moral code, but
only those items without the enforcement of which the society would
disintegrate. Second, Devlin says, the law should move slowly, for the
limits of tolerance are apt to shift from time to time. Third, as far as
possible privacy should be respected; he sees a value in allowing people
what would nowadays be called their personal space. And the fourth elastic
principle is that the law is concerned with minimum and not maximum
standards of behaviour, and it should not try to do too much.
Lord Devlin's thesis was challenged by H. L. A. Hart,19 then Professor
of Jurisprudence at Oxford, whose position was essentially that of John
Stuart Mill and the Wolfenden Committee. That is, Hart reaffirmed the
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Morality and law
view that there is a realm of private morality which is not the law's
business. Unless conduct involves an identifiable public harm it ought
not to be proscribed by the law. On this view the law should confine itself
to the prohibition of conduct which would injure others in their person or
property, or corrupt or exploit, or violate the public sensibility or public
order.
In making his case Hart counters Devlin's arguments, and in particular
he rejects the latter's concept of a public morality. The detail of their
exchanges (for the debate did not end with Hart's rejoinder to the
Maccabean lecture20) is beyond the scope of a short chapter. But it is
worth drawing attention to Hart's starting-point, for it sets the tone of
his contribution as a whole. And his starting-point is the contention that
the question whether morals should be enforced is itself a moral question.
For enforcement entails the curtailment of freedom, and the curtailment
of freedom requires moral justification.
In support of this way of looking at the matter Hart points out that
legal enforcement has two aspects. The first is that it involves the
punishment of offenders, and this is done through depriving them of
freedom of movement or of property or of association with family or
friends, or the infliction of physical pain or even death. But all of these are
normally regarded as evil and normally their infliction is considered
wrong. If therefore it is to escape moral censure their infliction requires
special justification.
The second aspect of enforcement is no less pertinent to the need for
justification. It is that law restricts freedom in that it coerces conformity
through threat of punishment. One's freedom is just as surely, even if
differently, inhibited when one refrains from some act for fear of being
put in jail as it is when one is jailed for doing the forbidden deed. And
this kind of restriction also needs to be justified, for freedom is valuable
both in itself and because it enables people to experiment with different
ways of living.
But there is a further reason, according to Hart, why restriction of
freedom requires to be justified from the standpoint of morality: 'interfer-
ence with individual liberty . . . is itself the infliction of a special form of
suffering - often very acute - on those whose desires are frustrated by the
fear of punishment'. 21 He observes that this is especially true of laws
which impose a sexual morality.
For all that there are differences, of vantage-point and of perspective,
between Lord Devlin's view and that of Hart they are not without common
ground. There is this much at least: that both envisage the main issue as
one of reconciling individual freedom and the public interest, in some
sense of that expression. Each requires advertence to a social dimension
in human conduct, and to a public interest in preventing social harm;
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Patrick Harmon
and each is prepared to recognize a role for the criminal law in that
process.
Indeed one commentator has said that 'both are recognizably liberal',22
meaning no doubt that each puts a premium on freedom. In Hart's case
this is clear even in the way he frames the main question, but it is
intimated also in Devlin's assertion that 'the individual has a locus standi
too; he cannot be expected to surrender to the judgement of society the
whole conduct of his life'.23 And this insight is made concrete in the
'elastic principles' to which Devlin would have the legislator advert, and
especially in the requirements that there should be toleration of the
maximum freedom consistent with the integrity of society, and that
privacy must as far as possible be respected.
It could be that the principal difference between them is one of
emphasis; but the difference in emphasis is critical. Devlin's interest, first
and last, is in 'the integrity of society', and in that sense he is
'conservative'. Hart's concern, first and last, is with the protection of
individual freedom. Devlin's way of looking at the issues will probably
recommend itself to someone whose instinct is to preserve societal values,
Hart's will be the more congenial for someone who is inclined to a more
liberal' political view.
Of course, strictly speaking, the term 'enforcement of morals' is a
misnomer. For the law can at best ensure only external compliance,
whereas to be moral it is not enough to behave in a way which is merely
externally correct.24 From a legal point of view it does not matter with
what degree of resentment I pay my taxes; all the law requires is that I
pay them. But from the viewpoint of morality a bad attitude or unworthy
motive or perverse intention may mar what on the face of it is a good act,
as when I give money with bad grace to someone in need. Hence it seems
better to say that what the law enforces is a moral code, or the part of a
code which commands or prohibits observable conduct: that it cannot
enforce morality 'as such'. Indeed if someone refrains from misconduct
wholly out of fear of punishment it is hardly correct to speak of morality
at all.
And this provides a clue, as James Mackey has recently suggested, to
the truth that emerges from the Hart—Devlin debate, and it shows that
each of them was partly right. 'Law does, and must always, make its
business what would be morally right for people to do or refrain from
doing. That is always true of law, in any form of human society which
proposes to be essential to human living . . . This is the part of the truth
that Devlin protected so well on his side of the debate.'25 But it is the
merit of Hart's contribution that 'he has pointed unerringly to the quite
literally demoralising tendency of the apparatus of extraneous punishment
and of its ever-present threat'. 26
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Morality and law
In the end, of course, one's response to the concrete questions which

arise in regard to law and morals will reflect a political philosophy,
consciously or unconsciously held, and behind that a vision of the human
and of human flourishing. It is not surprising that some of the most
important debate about law and morals nowadays has its context in the
relationship between politics and religion.27 The kind of analysis provided
by Hart and Devlin and irheir commentators is of the utmost importance.
But perhaps what is now needed most of all in our public debates is an
articulation and a critique of our political philosophies.
Notes
1 H. L. A. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968),
pp. 1-4.
2 Summa Theologiae, I—II, q. 92, art. 2, ad 4: Blackfriars edn, vol. 28, ed. Thomas
Gilby, 101. Cf. also q. 95, art. 2. Aquinas's approach echoes Plato's but especially
Aristotle's.
3 Augustine, De Libero Arbitno.
4 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 95, art. 2. Gilby translates legis corruptio as 'spoilt law'.
5 Gilby's translation of viokntiae: I-II, q. 96, art. 4, 96, 4.
6 Trans. E. F. Watling, Sophocles: The Theban Plays (Harmondsworth: Penguin
Classics, 1959), p. 138.
7 An excellent account of the history of the concept of Natural Law in legal
philosophy is in John M. Kelly, A Short History of Western Legal Theory (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992).
8 Patrick Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965).
The text of the Maccabean Lecture, entitled 'Morals and the criminal law', is in
ch. 1.
9 Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality.
10 The argument here is developed more fully in Patrick Hannon, Church, State,
Morality and Law (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992), ch. 7.
11 Dignitatis Humanae, para. 1; trans, in Austin Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council II
(revised translation of the basic documents) (Dublin: Dominican Publications,
1996), p. 551.
12 See John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American
Proposition (New York, I960; repr. 1988).
13 Dignitatis Humanae, para. 3; Flannery, p. 554.
14 Ibid., para. 6; Flannery, p. 556.
15 Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals, p. 2.
16 J. S. Mill, On Liberty, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb (Harmondsworth: Penguin
Classics, 1974), p. 68.
18 Ibid., p. 15.
19 Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality.
20 See Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals, Preface, chs 5, 6, 7, and bibliography at
pp. xiii—xiv. See further Simon Lee, Law and Morals (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1986), pp. 96-8.
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Patrick Harmon
21 Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality, p. 23.

22 Basil Mitchell, Law, Morality and Religion in a Secular Society (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1967), p. 18.
24 In this connection it is interesting to read what Aquinas has to say about the law's
role in regard to virtue: Summa Theologiae, I—II, q. 96, art. 3. Notice also his
realism concerning the use of the law in restraining vice: I-II, q. 96, art. 7.
25 James P. Mackey, Power and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
1994), p. 52
26 Ibid. Mackey's own reflections on the debate - which occur in the course of his
treatment of larger themes - are illuminating: cf. pp. 45-54.
27 See for example R. McBrien, Caesar's Coin: Religion and Politics in America (New
York: Macmillan and London: Collier Macmillan, 1987).
Select bibliography
Patrick A. Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965).
Patrick Hannon, Church, State, Morality and Law (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992).
H. L. A. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963).
John M. Kelly, A Short History of Western Legal Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1992).
Simon M. Lee, Law and Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
Richard McBrien, Caesar's Coin: Religion and Politics in America (New York: Macmillan
and London: Collier Macmillan, 1987).
Basil Mitchell, Law, Morality and Religion in a Secular Society (Oxford: Oxford
198
14
The punishment of criminals
Bernard Hoose
In recent years the prison population of the USA has exceeded one million.
In most other Western countries the figures are much smaller, but there,
as in the United States, imprisonment is merely one of several penalties
that can be imposed upon people who break the law. In other words, the
number of people punished by agents of the state in any one year is, in
most countries, considerable. Although concern has been expressed by
some about the size of the prison population in the USA and elsewhere,
most people, it seems, hold that, at least in principle, the punishment of
criminals is justifiable activity. It is not at all clear, however, that there is
general agreement among them concerning the arguments for its justifi-
cation. Three such justifications are commonly offered: deterrence, retri-
bution and reformation or rehabilitation. Some people tend to concentrate
on one of them, seeing it as the only one that is valid, but it appears that
most of those who investigate the subject see a role for all of them. We
shall begin this chapter with a brief examination of each in turn.
Punishment as deterrent
In conversations about how to deal with criminals one often hears

arguments like the following: 'Of course criminals should be punished.
That is the only way in which they will be discouraged from committing
such crimes again. Punishing them also has the effect of discouraging
other people from committing similar misdemeanours.' Such arguments,
based on what are considered to be the likely consequences of punishment,
tend to be favoured by utilitarians.
Utilitarianism is, in fact, a blanket name used to describe a number of
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Bernard Hoose
schools of thought. Here, however, we do not have space for a detailed

discussion of the various nuances of thought contained in these various
schools. Suffice it to say, therefore, that adherents of what may be called
the basic or classical form of act utilitarianism hold that one should choose
that act from among those available which will produce or result in the
greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. There can, of
course, be situations in which, whatever one does or does not do, evil will
result. In such cases a negative form of the utilitarian principle applies:
one should choose that course of action which will result in the least
amount of evil. In this scenario, the number of people involved should, of
course, be kept to a minimum. Clearly, punishment is a non-moral (or
pre-moral) evil inasmuch as it consists in inflicting suffering on other
human beings. If, however, punishment can be shown to be the most
effective way of keeping crime to a minimum, utilitarians are likely to
regard it as justifiable. If they are thorough in their application of the
utilitarian principle, they will compare the effectiveness of various kinds
of punishment. Moreover, if, again, utilitarians are consistent, they should
take the malefactor's good into account, even though that person's good
might, in the end, be sacrificed for the greater good of a greater number
of people. If, therefore, an alternative to capital punishment proved to be
as effective as the death penalty, the death penalty could not be justified
on utilitarian grounds. To take the matter further: if, in a particular kind
of case, some alternative to punishment proved to be more effective in
reducing crime, a utilitarian would have to opt for that alternative.
A first question to be asked, therefore, is what effect punishment really
does have in reducing crime. Although some people are no doubt deterred
from certain forms of criminal activity by the threat of sanctions, it is not
clear that the deterrent effect of even some severe forms of punishment is
anything like as successful as many proponents of the deterrence theory
appear to believe. In fact, there is even evidence to suggest that, where
certain forms of punishment are concerned, the result is often not
deterrence at all, but rather further corruption. This can be, and many
claim often is, the case, for instance, with prison sentences. Indeed, prisons
in some countries have been described as schools for criminals. Moreover,
studies in various countries in which capital punishment for murder has
been abandoned have not revealed any significant increases in the homicide
rates of those countries. Indeed, Ruth Morris reports that, in Canada, the
homicide rate went down after the abolition of the death penalty.1 Some
scholars have gone so far as to suggest, moreover, that when the state
resorts to extreme forms of punishment, it runs the risk of brutalizing
much of the general populace. In other words, we have here another
example of punishment having a corrupting rather than a deterrent effect.
In this case, however, those corrupted are not those who have already
200
committed crimes but those others whom one might have expected to be
deterred from any thoughts of criminal activity through fear of receiving
like punishment. There is evidence to suggest that some such brutalizing
effects occurred in certain countries in the past when particularly gory
executions and horrific beatings were carried out in public places, and
apparently even became a source of entertainment.
A number of researchers believe that the greatest deterrent is the fear of
being caught. In places where the clear-up rate of the local police force is
poor, some people will undoubtedly be willing to risk even severe
punishments because they believe there is little chance of being appre-
hended. That single fact may explain a good deal about the widespread
failure to deter people from indulging in criminal activity. However, even
if the deterrent system worked quite successfully (and perhaps it does in
regard to certain types of criminal activity in certain parts of the world),
it would still present problems of an ethical nature. Punishing a person
merely in order to cause other people to be afraid of the same punishment
certainly seems to amount to using that person merely as a means to an
end. On the other hand, if it were possible to justify punishment in some
other way, there could surely be no objections to any deterrent effect that
resulted from an appropriate sanction administered in a truly proportionate
manner. Such deterrence might be seen as a bonus. Another problem,
however, could rear its head. If one were concerned only with the greatest
good of the greatest number and not with how the good is distributed, 2
one might be tempted to convict and punish a person known to be
innocent or whose guilt was seriously in doubt. This might occur if a
particularly serious type of crime had become all too common in a certain
place and the police had been unable to find any of the real culprits. It is
worth bearing in mind that, even in countries that have well-developed
legal systems, there have been recent cases in which false evidence has
been produced in court and so-called 'rough justice' has been administered.
Before moving on to the next section, it is worth recalling that, even if
one were a utilitarian, proof of a successful deterrent effect in one area
would not be sufficient for a justification of all punishment. Research
might reveal, for instance, that a certain kind of punishment has a
deterrent effect on certain kinds of criminals of a certain age group who
have been wont to commit certain kinds of crimes. The same kind of
research might also reveal that something other than punishment (an
educational project, for example) is more effective when dealing with a
different group of malefactors and/or a different category of crimes. The
problem is thus shown to be a very complex one. A blanket justification
of punishment could not easily be argued for using deterrence theory
alone.
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Bernard Hoose
Retributivist theory
An alternative to the theory of deterrence is that of retribution. This

theory (or perhaps we should say 'group of theories', since there can be
different retributivist approaches) is concerned with justice, which is the
subject matter of another chapter in this book. Here we need to say only
that, equating justice with that which is due to a person or group,
retributivists see punishment as something owed or due. It serves the
malefactor right. Here, of course, there is no question of using somebody
merely as a means to the achievement of some end. This does not mean,
however, that retributivist theories are without their problems.
It is one thing to say, for instance, that punishment is due to a
particular person. It is quite another to say which punishment is due and
why. Retributivists use expression like 'the punishment must fit the
crime', but how are we to work out which punishment fits which crime?
Even supposing, for the sake of example, that one is certain that
imprisonment is the appropriate penalty for a certain kind of criminal
activity, one still has to find some way of calculating the appropriate
length of the prison term. How, precisely, is one supposed to do that? It
is worth noting that such questions presuppose our already having
addressed the problem of deciding what is to be understood by the term
'imprisonment'. What kind of building (or combination of buildings,
fields, etc.) should a prison be? What facilities should or should not be
available to the inmates? What limitations, if any, are to be put on
visiting by people from outside the prison? All these and many other
questions would need to be answered, but on what basis?
It could also be said that seeking to make the punishment fit the crime
does not necessarily serve the cause of justice. In trying to determine what
is due to a particular person we would surely have to bear in mind much
more than a mere physical act — taking a bag of potatoes from a shop
without paying, for example. Surely we would need to take the circum-
stances of each case into account. Was the accused person desperately
hungry, for instance, and had she been unable to get help, in spite of
having asked for it many times? Had she been mistakenly discharged from
hospital whilst still under the influence of a drug that could cause her to
act out of character? It could, of course, be claimed that, if it worked at
all, a retributivist theory could be adapted so as to make the punishment
fit the person in the particular situation in which the crime was committed,
and not just the act considered in isolation from the person. However, it
could also be claimed that proponents of retributivist theory still need to
demonstrate that punishment really is due to people whenever they
commit a crime. The mere fact that many people have, for many centuries,
202
taken for granted that it is due is simply not enough. Moreover, even if
retributivist arguments were thoroughly convincing in this regard, we
would need to bear in mind that 'what is due to a person' should not be
confined to punishment. Help in the adjustment to a new way of life after
imprisonment, for instance, may also be due, although in practice, it
would seem that it is often not forthcoming.
Another point to bear in mind is that, taken to extremes, retributivism
could lead to a situation in which consequences are simply ignored. One
way of stating that punishment is due to people who have committed
criminal offences is to say it is our duty (or at least the duty of the
appropriate organs of the state) to punish them. Somebody holding to this
point of view might be totally unmoved by the negative consequences of
such penalties. Thus we hear conversations in which the participants
appear to have no common frame of reference. Some such conversations
are about whether or not punishment should be employed at all in certain
kinds of cases. Others are about whether or not a certain penalty should
be inflicted upon perpetrators of certain types of crimes. One person
argues, for instance, that custodial sentences are counterproductive where
certain types of young offenders are concerned. She suggests that a better
course of action would be to send them off on weekend courses. There
they will learn about good citizenship and perhaps pick up one or two
useful skills. The problem with these youngsters is that nobody, including
their parents and teachers, has ever taken an interest in them or helped
them to acquire a sense of self-worth. Her interlocutor is unmoved by
such reasoning.
'They have committed serious offences. They must pay the price.'
'But giving them custodial sentences will only make matters worse.
They will return to society with even bigger chips on their shoulders,
and, moreover, they will be schooled in other kinds of criminal activity.'
'The punishment must fit the crime.'
'But punishing them in the way you suggest will only serve to make
matters worse.'
'There is a principle at stake here.'
A first point to be made here is that, in some, though certainly not all,
such conversations, the person claiming to be a retributivist may be moved
simply by a crude desire for revenge. The very existence of a system in
which organs of the state, rather than the victim(s) of the crime, are
responsible for the punishment of criminals should help us to avoid some
of the worst excesses of revenge. However, many of us feel a sense of
outrage when we hear about certain crimes, even though we ourselves are
not the victims, and this sense of outrage is often accompanied by a wish
to see the perpetrators of the crimes suffer. If they are indeed made to
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Bernard Hoose
suffer through the administration of what we see to be a suitable

punishment, we may experience some satisfaction. If, however, the
punishment serves to make matters worse, society in general and certain
individuals in particular have to pay a high price for our small satisfaction.
In discussions about Christian ethics, we would not, of course, expect
revenge to be countenanced. Let us assume, therefore, that the person
claiming to be a retributivist in the above conversation is truly concerned
only with justice and is able to discuss the matters in hand dispassionately.
Let us also suppose that there is sufficient evidence to show that the
youngsters being discussed are corrupted by terms in prison or in similar
young persons' institutions. Does it make sense to say that it would be
morally right to administer such punishment even though it would
produce a situation far worse than that which would result from the
alternative? An affirmative answer to this question would seem to be
counterintuitive. Here, then, is a major problem for those who wish to
isolate retributivism from the other justifications for punishment. It
might, of course, be claimed that, if they were concerned with making the
punishment fit the person rather than the crime, even retributivists would
have to take consequences into account. To do that effectively, however, it
would seem that they would have to give some attention to the reformative
effects of punishment.
Reformative theory
Before taking these two aspects of rehabilitation and retribution together,

it is useful to look at the question of reform in isolation. After all, some
people appear to regard it as the only real justification of punishment.
According to these proponents of reformative theory, punishment can be
justified on the grounds that it helps (or, at least, can help) to bring about
a conversion process in the person who has committed a crime. Thus we
hear talk about systems of correction and rehabilitation. Here a far too
simplistic comparison can be made between the disciplining of children
and the punishment of criminals. One imagines that most people would
consider a minimum amount of mild, non-violent punishment to be
necessary when bringing up children. Such chastisement, moreover, is
held (by most people, it would seem) to be formative. When comparing
this with the punishment of criminals, however, one should bear in mind
the fact that, ideally, children are chastised in a loving atmosphere. If that
is not the case, any punishment administered to them might well be
counterproductive, even seriously harmful. Now criminals, one imagines,
are rarely, if ever, punished in a loving atmosphere.
We also need to bear in mind the fact that successful personal
204
reformation can take place only when the person concerned freely embraces
the means. Quite apart from the nightmare stories one hears about coercive
'treatment' involving drugs and other questionable procedures, it is
documented that, at various times and in various places, attempts have
been made to reform prisoners by forcing them to live in an enforced
'monastic' atmosphere involving silence and obligatory prayers. It is
hardly surprising that little is heard about successes resulting from such
systems. I am not suggesting, of course, that the means to help people
achieve rehabilitation in society should not be made available to them.
We should surely rejoice if they are, but making such means available
would not normally amount to punishment. It would be something
separate from or in addition to the penalty. Various educational, psycho-
logical and religious facilities may, for instance, be made available in
prisons. It is the imprisonment, however, that is the punishment, not the
facilities which are made available. In other words, there is no proof that,
in such cases, the punishment itself is reformative. It may be necessary to
seek another justification for its existence. Having said all this, moreover,
it is worth calling to mind here what was said above concerning not the
reformative, but the possibly corrupting effects of certain forms of
punishment.
Ronald Preston notes that Christians and others who are concerned
about respect for persons realize that this concern relates in certain ways
to all three of the theories so far discussed, but also that it cannot be
satisfied by any one of them alone. Regarding retribution, he says that, if
people offend, any punishment they receive must be deserved. Afterwards,
society should wipe the slate clean. He then goes on to say: 'In certain
cases the common good of persons-in-community may require an element
of deterrence. I state this with caution because of the inveterate tendency
of the public to exaggerate the deterrent effects of punishments. In most
cases we have no deterrence except community attitudes.' Turning then to
the third theory, Preston says that there must be an intention actively to
promote the good of the person who has offended. 'This should not mean
adding a further and indeterminate length to a retributive sentence purely
for rehabilitative purposes and under coercive conditions.' He suggests
that rehabilitation should be available entirely on a voluntary basis. 'Those
who refuse to have anything to do with it would be free to ignore it.' 3
Moberly's theory
Some years ago, the British scholar Sir Walter Moberly suggested that
punishment could be seen as a ritual which represents the moral
deterioration that is taking place in the criminal. It does so by creating a
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Bernard Hoose
crude kind of picture of that deterioration. In other words, punishment

can make the person being punished aware of the battle between good and
evil that is going on within, and may be able, indirectly, to influence the
course of that battle. Punishment, he says, is a kind of inverted sacrament
inasmuch as it is aimed at bringing to naught what it represents (moral
deterioration) rather than bringing it into effect.
Moberly, however, does not limit the role of punishment to the
enlightenment of the offender. A wound has been inflicted upon society,
and something must be done to set matters right. Society has to rid itself
of this centre of infection. In any particular case, moreover, the punishment
must symbolize both aspects: what has happened to the criminal in the
sense of moral deterioration and the appropriate counter stroke that society
must make in order to heal the wound. Imprisonment or excommunica-
tion, for example, indicates that one is temporarily unfit for membership
of society. Certain other punishments, however, may be unsatisfactory
because the correspondence between them and the crimes for which they
are applied is blatantly artificial. Pecuniary fining is an example that
Moberly cites.4
Whatever one may think of the appropriateness of fines when applied
to certain kinds of criminal activity, the reader will, no doubt, agree that,
in most Western countries, much of the fining that goes on has little, if
any, symbolic value. Some might say, however, that Moberly is asking for
far too much here. What punishment, for example, is fitting (if symbolism
is such an important aspect of what is fitting) where rape or arson are
concerned? It could be countered, however, that crimes such as these
indicate that one is unfit for society and should therefore be imprisoned.
Nevertheless, acknowledging that much would not alter the fact that, in
order to meet Moberly's requirements concerning symbolism, those
saddled with the task of inventing punishments would have their
imaginations sorely taxed.
A more serious source of difficulty in the theory is identified by Moberly
himself. Punishment as portrayed in his theory is suited only in what he
calls an intermediate moral region. If we were to apply a scale to both
criminals and societies, we would find that at one end of it are criminals
who are simply too degraded to benefit from punishment, and societies
that are too amoral to be capable of imposing it. At the other end of the
scale there may be people who simply do not need it for their re-education,
and societies that are too advanced morally to need it as an example.
Punishment, he feels, is suited only to those who are found in the
intermediate regions of the scale, and only societies located in the
intermediate region are capable of administering it.
We need not concern ourselves with those (individuals and societies)
who are at what we might refer to as the morally advanced end of the
206
scale. However, we do have reason to be concerned about those at the

other end. A first question we need to ask is not how many societies are
actually located there, but which, if any, are located in the intermediate
region. If we look at the records of countries taken at random, we may
come to believe that such societies are few and far between, if, indeed,
they exist. A few years ago, John Langan wrote, in regard to capital
punishment, that, in the USA
it serves as an intermittent and ominous response by a society that
tolerates the careless and extensive distribution of guns and the
deterioration of basic living conditions for the poor, while it declines to
invest in improving educational and correctional institutions and makes
the unrealistic depiction of extensive and brutal violence a central part
of its entertainment and its imaginative life. It is simply not credible
for such a society to present its reliance on capital punishment as a sign
of its deep and passionate commitment to justice.5
Something similar might be said in regard to other forms of punishment
inflicted in the same society, and, indeed, in many others. It would seem
that, in order for Moberiy s theory to function, there would have to be
some minimal degree of love and respect in the treatment of offenders. As
we noted when comparing the punishment of criminals with the disciplin-
ing of children, however, there are reasons for doubting that such a loving
atmosphere is easy to come by in most countries. In addition to the
appalling conditions found in many prisons, even in so-called 'advanced
countries', one of the most striking reasons for such doubt is the fact that
custodial sentences are meted out too easily. This would appear to be
especially so in the United States and, to a lesser degree, in the United
Kingdom. Writing in 1987 and referring to the situation in the latter
country, Preston opined:
The evidence suggests that as many as 80 per cent of those in prison at
present ought not to be there. It does not protect the public and it
actually harms rather than improves those imprisoned. The system is
unfair and inefficient, indeed monstrous. It will not be easy to shift
public opinion on this, but if I were an Old Testament prophet I would
feel like saying 'Thus says the Lord: cursed be a society which tolerates
this prison system; away with it; it is an abomination to me.'6
A second problem arises concerning those at the 'wrong' end of Moberly's

scale. If there are people who are too degraded to benefit from punishment,
should we not expect to find among them the perpetrators of the most
serious kinds of crimes? Some readers, I imagine, would refuse to brand
anybody as definitively incorrigible. Such refusal, however, does not
necessarily lead us to a conclusion much different from that of Moberiy. It
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Bernard Hoose
may still be the case that, in their present state, many of these people will
not benefit from punishment. Indeed, punishment may merely make
matters worse.
It does not follow from this, however, that we should allow such people
to continue their life of crime unabated. Where persistently violent people
are concerned, drastic measures may be necessary in order to ensure
protection of the public. As the present writer suggested in a recent work,
even if such measures might not accord with Moberly's description of
justifiable punishment (given the aforementioned supposed inability of
those concerned to benefit from it), they may still be justifiable. 7 The
justification would be much the same as that invoked for self-defence or
defence of a third party. Usually, when discussing defence, we are
concerning with the morality of using violence. Here we may also be
concerned with the justification of violence, at least inasmuch as it may be
necessary to use it in the act of apprehending certain criminals. Quite
apart from this, however, we are concerned with the justification or
otherwise of taking the people concerned out of the community in which
they have been living, and detaining them in a secure place from which
we do not allow them to wander. Surely, whether we wish to call this
punishment or something else, it can be justified in much the same way
as violent defence. It is something forced upon us by those very people
who are being detained. It might be described as a lesser evil, chosen in
order to protect the public. It may, moreover, be necessary to keep some
very dangerous people in secure places, away from the general public, for
the remainder of their lives. All that, it would seem, can be justified
where there is serious danger to the public. Treating such people in an
inhumane way in addition to placing such limits on their freedom,
however, is a very different matter.
Notes
1 Ruth Morris, Crumbling Walls . . . Why Prisons Fail (London: Mosaic Press, 1989),
p. 110.
2 A common criticism of utilitarianism is that it cannot deal well with problems of
justice. Ross wrote that justice is not concerned merely with the greatest sum of
good, but rather with how the good is distributed: W. D. Ross, Foundations of
Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 319.
3 Ronald H. Preston, The Future of Christian Ethics (London: SCM Press, 1987),
pp. 231-2.
4 Sir Walter Moberly, The Ethics of Punishment (London, Faber and Faber, 1968),
pp. 199-237.
5 John Langan, 'Capital punishment', Theological Studies 54 (1993), p. 123-
6 Preston, The Future of Christian Ethics, pp. 235-6.
208
7 Bernard Hoose, Received Wisdom? Reviewing the Role of Tradition in Christian Ethics,
(London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), pp. 135-43.
Select bibliography
Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum (eds), Punishment and the Death Penalty: The
Current Debate (New York: Prometheus Books, 1995).
Bernard Hoose, Received Wisdom? Reviewing the Role of Tradition in Christian Ethics
(London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), ch. 4.
Sir Walter Moberly, The Ethics of Punishment (London: Faber and Faber, 1968).
Ronald Preston, The Future of Christian Ethics (London: SCM Press, 1987), ch. 13.
209
15
Peace, violence and war
Richard G. Jones
Many people were disturbed by the dubious moral legitimacy of the Gulf
War in 1991. The British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, called together
a group of church leaders and went to great pains to assure them that it
was indeed a 'just war' because a tyrant, Saddam Hussein, had invaded
Kuwait in a flagrant act of aggression, and Britain had a duty to support
the United Nations in repelling his forces. It was yet another instance of
the notion that some wars can be regarded by Christians as 'just', one that
has occurred throughout Christian history from about the fourth century.
From that early time some Christians — probably the majority — have seen
that although war is a monstrous evil and killing is an appalling offence
against Jesus' teaching, nevertheless it may be more evil not to take up
arms in some, but not all, wars. But in that case, which wars?
Beginning with Ambrose, strengthened by Augustine, and elaborated
by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century and others later, the very
ancient notion of the 'just war' was steadily refined as the main tool with
which Christians tried to assess the morality of wars. Despite the immense
difficulty in fashioning such a tool, it remains the basic moral guide for
Christian reflection to this day. The notion is in two parts, dealing with
the decision to commence war (technically called the jus ad helium) and
then the appropriate conduct of war (the jus in hello). The former has five
requirements:
(1) There must be some just cause (e.g., to repel an aggressor).
(2) There must be just intent (e.g., to restore peace with justice, and not
to seek to devastate the other nation).
(3) The war must be a last resort, every possibility of peaceful settlement
having been exhausted.
210
(4) The declaration of war must be by a legitimate authority (i.e., properly

constituted government, and not a faction within the nation).
(5) There must be reasonable hope of justice being effected. In other
words, there must be a good prospect of success. It is not right to go
to war against overwhelming odds.
For the latter, there are two fairly plain requirements:
(1) The innocent must not be directly attacked, but only the armed forces
of the enemy. This provision also rules out wanton destruction and
atrocities against civilians.
(2) The means used must be in proportion to the ends in view. Huge
destructive force should not be deployed against small opponents.
But, more particularly, the harm caused by the war should not exceed
the good it aims to accomplish.
Commentators frequently criticize these just war provisions as being

hopelessly unrealistic. Wars usually arise from a whole tangle of reasons,
so that to select one major reason as a 'just cause' is a moral fiction. The
intent is often complex too, since a whole variety of national policies may
be at stake. There rarely seems to have been a war coming at the end of
every possible sort of negotiation, one or both sides having acted
precipitately first. Nor is it likely that the outcome can readily be
calculated, since wars have a terrible dynamic of their own and in no time
all sorts of unpredictable factors have complicated the scene (including
other nations being drawn in). Nor is war's conduct easily controlled.
Combatants will inevitably use every stratagem to save their lives and kill
the enemy, and very soon wars can become 'all out'. And yet, as we shall
see again later, these principles are constantly cited in almost all Christian
reflection.
But although most Christians see war as the lesser of two evils, there
have sometimes been Christians who have believed that a specific war was
good, ordered by God, and that participation in it was incumbent upon
the faithful Christian. Because the classic medieval example was the
Crusades, with successive popes calling upon obedient Christians to kill
the infidels who were ruling in Palestine and dominating the Holy Places,
such an attitude to war now has the 'crusade' label attached to it. It is not
as far-fetched today as the medieval background would suggest. There has
been a marked tendency for some Christians to interpret some wars as, in
effect, crusades after they have begun especially if great patriotic sentiment
has been evoked by them. In Britain, for example, the so-called Great
War (1914-1918) was seen in this light by many eminent churchmen
once it had become clear that it would not soon become settled, that the
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Richard G. Jones
war effort required immense sacrifice from every citizen and that every
possible person would be needed to bear arms.
Thus by 1915 many churchmen identified the German Kaiser as
implacably evil, the British and Allied cause as that of 'The Kingdom
of God', and the bearing of arms as the moral human equivalent of
Christ's work for our redemption. At the Primitive Methodist Conference
in 1916 a memorial service was held in which the President declared
'Never before have we thought of the Army as we think of it now. . . .
Those who have died have consecrated the Army in our thinking. Let us
go with them the way of the cross.'1 In much Christian rhetoric the
sacrifice of the Cross was equated with that of the dead soldier, as so many
village war memorials testify to this day when they carry the solemn text
'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends' (John 15:13), in apparent inability to notice the context in
scripture, for here Jesus was obviously talking about his own imminent
and unarmed death by which he was giving himself to his friends and the
world for God's sake.
This tendency to dignify a war by making it into a crusade has had
echoes since then but has rarely been as blatant. Christian thinking is
most prone to encourage it when a huge ideological effort has been first
made to demonize the opponents, as in the Cold War when the Russians
had become 'The Evil Empire' to the American public and communists
were the agents of Satan. Probably the horror and ineptitude of the
Vietnam War did the most to purge such lofty views about war out of the
general American mind-set. For the British, the Great War battles in
Flanders largely disabused the public of the moral grandeur of war.
Roland Bainton 2 notes four features of the crusade — belief that the
cause is God's, belief that God is directly guiding us in it, classifying our
side as godly and the enemy as ungodly, and unsparing prosecution.
Fundamentally, the crusader has never accepted that all our national causes
are ambiguous, a patchwork of the worthy and the unworthy, and has
refused to accept the humanity of the opponents who likewise are caught
up in the double-sided confusions of international politics. God is never
unequivocally 'on the side of one nation, for God's righteousness
transcends the self-interest of any one nation state. God's will is always
permeated with the demand for mercy, and never calls for ruthless
obliteration of opponents, nor the demand for unconditional surrender.
Thus the crusaders' God is too small, is a nation's desires glorified and
exalted up to divine pretensions, with the self-righteousness which always
accompanies such arrogance.
Here too we should notice that there is some value in the statements
which churches often make about the morality of wars in general — they
are not 'in Christ' and cannot be. Thus the Lambeth Conference of 1930
212
declared that 'War as a method of settling international disputes is

incompatible with the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ',
and successive Lambeths have repeated this. Although it may appear
bland, such declaration shows at least that there cannot be a war 'ordained
by Christ'.
However, in Christian history there has almost always been a third
stance taken up by a few and labelled 'pacifist'. There are many shades of
so-called pacifism, but central to them is the conviction that Christians
must never bear arms or undertake to kill opponents because it is flat
contrary to the teaching and example of Jesus.3 He ordered his disciples
not to retaliate when attacked, to bear with insult and violent assault and
always to maintain a forgiving spirit. Moreover his own actions spoke
more loudly than his words: he endured evil, suffered in his body the
appalling results of it, and died offering forgiveness. The constant New
Testament teaching that we should copy Jesus is to be taken firmly and
clearly and literally.4
The most consistent pacifist witness has been borne by the so-called
'peace-churches', usually Protestant bodies emerging at or after the
Reformation who have cherished an obedience to Christ as rigorously
faithful as they can possibly make it. Many, such as the Mennonites or
Moravians or Brethren, suffered years of persecution in Europe and
transferred their communities to America in the nineteenth or twentieth
centuries. Others set up special 'peaceable' settlements, such as the
Bruderhof homes. In Britain, the Society of Friends has always maintained
a strong peace witness, following the example and teaching of its founder,
George Fox, who would not under any circumstances bear a sword. Many
pacifists have looked to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation as
the link movement. This was founded in 1914 with a firmly Christian
theological basis, holding that a Christian's duty was always to seek
reconciliation in the spirit and power of the cross, and never to seek to
kill opponents. It seeks the enthronement of love in personal, commercial
and national life.
As a counter to pacifism many Christians have been forced into a
position best called 'Christian Realism'. The classic exposition of this
came in 1932 from the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr with his
bombshell work Moral Man and Immoral Society.'' Niebuhr argued that
man's profoundly evil nature meant that all human communities exercise
coercive power and have to be contained by the coercive powers of others.
Although he had once been the national chairman of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation he came later to see that much pacifism was a 'heresy'. He
exempted many of the peace-churches since they were attempting a life of
holiness by shutting themselves off from normal political life, and he saw
a place for such witness. But by 1940 he was writing that 'most modern
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Richard G. Jones
forms of Christian pacifism are heretical. . . . They have really absorbed

the Renaissance faith in the goodness of man, having rejected the Christian
doctrine of original sin as a bit of outmoded pessimism, have reinterpreted
the Cross so that it is made to stand for the absurd idea that perfect love
is guaranteed a simple victory over the world, and have rejected all other
profound elements of the Christian gospel. . . .'6 Most of the creative
theologians of the twentieth century have not been pacifists but have
shared Niebuhr's devastating attacks upon that stance on the grounds that
it is bad theology, failing to recognize that God rules in this fallen world
in part through human institutions — governments, systems of law and
order - that are obliged to use coercive force and in the last resort to kill
people. The result has been that much so-called pacifism has subtly
changed its position. Pacifists have argued that the most effective way to
resolve disputes is that of non-violent love; this is an argument about
strategy, about the best way of getting things done, rather than an
argument about absolute moral principle.
The initial examplar of the non-violent methods has been Mahatma
Gandhi. His passive resistance to rulers in South Africa, then later to the
British occupying power in India, has been seen as the ideal. Undoubtedly,
his style of protest hastened the granting of independence to India and
saved many lives.
But some doubt whether he was an absolutist in his pacifism; he might
have used non-violence as a pragmatic device whereby he and his followers
always maintained the moral high ground and always managed to make
their opponents look shameful.' Moreover many have commented that his
approach was effective against an occupier who was wanting to be relieved
of the burdens of occupation anyway, as the British were in post-war
India. It might have been wholly ineffective, say, against the German
occupation of Europe in the Second World War.
Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader, studied Gandhi's methods
and then linked them directly to the teaching of Jesus (as Gandhi did
not). He saw non-violence as a way of affirming love for the oppressor, a
refusal to dehumanize opponents, as well as a power to make the oppressor
give way. He had also studied Niebuhr carefully, and claimed when
launching a bus boycott in Montgomery that 'true pacifism is not
unrealistic submission to evil power, as Niebuhr contends. It is rather a
courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it
is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it.'8 When his
home was bombed on 30 January 1956, King was out at a meeting, but
rushed back to find his wife and baby daughter safe and an infuriated
crowd of his supporters gathering. He told them: 'I want you to go home
and put down your weapons. We cannot solve this problem through
retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with non-violence. We must
214
remember the words of Jesus. . . . We must love our white brothers no

matter what they do to us.'9
There is no unanimity as to whether King's methods were effective in
hastening the granting of civil rights to Negroes, or whether more violent
ones would have been the more effective. What is clear is that King was
totally convinced of this way of countering white intransigence, as were
many of his followers. Since then, pacifism has tended to move its appeal
to that of the non-violent way. By the 1970s the Fellowship of Reconcili-
ation was calling itself 'an association of Christian pacifists from many
traditions and parts of the world. It exists to challenge all Christians, in
response to human need of justice and truth, to reconsider the effectiveness
of non-violent love.' But it has not convinced most Christians. In 1973
the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in a report on
'Violence and non-violence in the struggle for justice' was asking its
advocates: Are you taking with sufficient seriousness the tenacity of
violence in the structure of society, and the social disruption its diminu-
tion is likely to require? May non-violent action emasculate effective
resistance at crucial points in the struggle? In adhering to this as an
absolute principle are you not in danger of giving the means (non-violence,
i.e., reduced revolutionary violence) priority over the end sought (justice,
i.e., reduced structural violence)? Are you more concerned with your own
'good' conscience than with the good of the oppressed?
One effect of the constant witness of pacifists has been to establish in
most Western countries the right for persons to be conscientious objectors
from bearing arms in war. This has been longstanding in Britain, where
there were 16,500 COs in the First World War and 59,000 in the Second,
mainly on religious grounds.10 There was no such right in Germany until
long after the Second World War, largely because the Lutheran tradition
especially had stressed obedience to the state and the Roman Catholic had
in effect argued likewise. But the latter showed a noticeable shift when
the Vatican Council somewhat reluctantly admitted that 'It seems fair
moreover that laws should make provision for conscientious objectors, so
long as they accept some other form of service to the community'. 11 This
has been much more in accord with the traditional Catholic stress upon
the integrity of the person's conscience, which should not be violated by
either the church or state or any other authority.
Thus there have been three main streams of Christian reflection — that
of allowing there to be some just wars which Christian rulers could declare
and in which Christian soldiers could fight; that of reckoning some wars
to be of divine command, crusades; that which has declared all wars and
participation in them to be wholly anathema to the Christian. All have
experienced severe moral critique, and all appear sometimes to be
unsatisfactory if not irrelevant when handling the various ways in which
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Richard G. Jones
the problems of violence occur today. We turn now to the most pressing
contemporary problems.
Nuclear war and deterrence
In the film Crimson Tide an American nuclear submarine encounters a

strange attack, then finds its communication system faulty. The captain
becomes convinced that they have been ordered to fire their missiles,
and almost everything seems to suggest this. His second in command
feels convinced that they are not under such awful orders; there is a
tense confrontation between the two. At the last possible minute a
message is obtained by the submarine showing the presumed command
to fire to be an error, and the missiles are not despatched. Then the
film shows the crew going into a frenzy of relief and sheer delirium,
because they need not commit that most awful deed. It expresses the gut
feeling that everyone has, that to commit such an outrage and start a
nuclear exchange would be an unforgivable act of folly, horror and
immense guilt.
That feeling finds a more noble expression in a vast number of Church
statements.12 They tend to suggest that nuclear war is in a class all of its
own because of the scale of the destructiveness involved. That assumption
needs caution. After all, shortly before the first atomic bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima, the Americans had firebombed Tokyo and wiped out a
huge tract of the city, killing about half as many civilians as died later in
Hiroshima, thus demonstrating the colossal capability for destruction
acquired by conventional weapons. Again, the arming of so-called 'tactical'
weapons with nuclear tips shows that the use of nuclear materials does not
necessarily involve the largest powers of destruction. Nevertheless, the
distinction between nuclear and conventional weaponry is useful and has
been widely accepted, not least because 'deterrence' needs moral
assessment.
The churches and individual Christians tend to differ profoundly about
the moral issues which follow: Is it right to keep nuclear weapons as a
deterrent to opponents? Is it ever right to use them in a first strike? And
what about a counter strike? Here we will look briefly at three major
statements - that of the report presented to the Anglican Synod in 1982
and entitled The Church and the Bomb^ the Pastoral Letter of the US
Catholic Bishops on The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and our Response of
1983,14 and the Pastoral Letter of the United Methodist Council of
Bishops entitled In Defense of Creation of 1984.15
The Anglican report had no difficulty in declaring that nuclear warfare
was immoral. It accepted that the confrontation between East and West
216
was the major threat to world peace but argued that negotiation from
strength is 'an unsatisfactory philosophy' because it leads to an arms race
of leapfrogging capacity for destruction. The superpowers were already too
strong. It then proposed that Britain gave up nuclear weapons in a phased
manner, whilst always working for multi-lateral disarmament, and finally
that all American nuclear weapons be removed from British soil. The
report infuriated the British government of the time, led to huge debates
within the Anglican Synod, and never succeeded in gaining agreement.
The immediate upshot was the publication of a rival series of essays The
Cross and the Bomb,16 in which the report was subject to a sharp critique
on the grounds of its lack of realism, its naivety in regard to the way
power functions in international politics and therefore its shallow theo-
logy. After some years of debate, the Synod finally passed a motion
declaring that the first use of nuclear weapons was immoral, but this too
was strongly opposed by a minority.
The Catholic Bishops consciously built their case with reference to
previous Catholic work (e.g., the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes,
and a highly significant speech by Pope John Paul II to the United
Nations Special Session on Disarmament in 1982 in which he had said:
'In current conditions "deterrence" based on balance, certainly not as an
end in itself but as a step on the way to progressive disarmament, . . . may
still be judged morally acceptable')- The Bishops expressed deep concern
about the whole culture in which talk of nuclear war came so easily. They
accepted the need for deterrence, but said 'not all forms of deterrence are
morally acceptable' — the targeting of civilian centres, for example, and
the readiness whereby nuclear threats could escalate and, in the worst case,
for nuclear war therefore to escalate. They opposed any first-strike use,
declared a principle of 'sufficiency' in the build-up of adequate deterring
power and recommended immense energy be directed towards widespread
arms reductions, strengthening of control over nuclear weapons and the
building up of peace-making agencies, especially the UN. They believed
that 'There is a much greater potential for response . . . in the minds and
hearts of Americans than has been reflected in US policy'. Again, the
report annoyed the Reagan government, but was not as widely repudiated
as the Anglican one mentioned above.
The Methodist Bishops began with biblical study of the nature of God's
gift of shalom (peace), accepted the just war tradition as far as it is helpful,
but said that a 'theology of a just peace' must guide us. They cited twenty
features of this, including the key just war elements, but saw their task as
outlining a way of universal peace-making. They saw deterrence policy as
'idolatry'. It perpetuates 'the most distorted and most inhuman images of
our "enemy"'. They attacked the 'connection between the ideology of
deterrence and the existence of weapons', and declared roundly that
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Richard G. Jones
'deterrence must no longer receive the church's blessing, even as the

temporary warrant for the maintenance of nuclear weapons'.
As these reports indicate, there are clear differences between Christians
on the morality of deterrence. Some (as in the Anglican report) repudiate
it altogether but, as the critics pointed out, would they have done so if
they had been living in America and carrying the major burden of
opposition to the Soviet Union? The Catholics accept it regretfully, but
only if linked with the intention to seek arms reduction. The Methodist
report went further, calling it idolatrous because it is so linked with pride
in such weaponry. But all three are deeply concerned with keeping the
peace, with the last two commenting on those attitudes needed to pervade
the whole culture if peace-making is to flourish.
Civil war and revolutionary violence
At the time of writing there are mercifully no wars raging between nation
states, although the last fifty years have seen many such conflicts. But
there are numerous civil wars and wars of revolution which have been a
particular concern to the worldwide Christian conscience. The Christian
voice has not been united. Inevitably those who are pacifists have said that
there is no place whatever for Christians to take up arms, even in what
might appear to be a very legitimate cause. Those who are pacifists and
are favouring a general withdrawal from the world of politics (as with
many of the peace-churches) make their repudiation of violence an element
of that withdrawal. But the great majority of Christians accept the
obligation to work politically and socially for a just world; it is amongst
them that the debates have been most vigorous.
For the twentieth century has been one of popular uprisings, of the
overthrow of long-established colonial powers, of the widespread awareness
amongst the simplest peoples that they have a right to determine their
own existence and not be exploited by powerful oppressors. So revolution
— in the limited sense of the attempt to overthrow a government and
replace it with one more favourable to the poor majority, by arms if need
be — has been in the air that almost all of the southern half of the world
breathes. Those people have not taken kindly to established Christians in
the West who have argued that it is the primary Christian duty to obey
government because it has been instituted by God. Until recently this was
the dominant teaching of the Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches
especially.
Thus a twentieth-century Lutheran (Bonhoeffer) could write in the dark
days of the beginning of the Second World War: 'According to Holy
Scripture there is no right to revolution; but there is a responsibility of
218
every individual for preserving the purity of his office and mission in the
polis'17 (i.e., in the political order). Yet Luther recognized that there was
ultimately some ground for the forceful removal of a tyrant ruler, and
especially one who was mad.
In complete contrast to this traditional position is that which argues
that God is so involved in the processes of revolution against oppressive
rule that it is a Christian duty to bear arms and promote revolution. This
teaching first burst upon the world scene in 1966 when the World
Council of Churches gathered together a conference in Geneva on
'Christians and the Technical and Social Revolutions of Our Time'. Here
there were new sharp voices from the Third World (as it was then called)
calling for immediate and wholesale revolution in the name of Christ,
with theological warrant being provided. Thus the American theologian
Richard Shaull proclaimed
The Christian is called to be fully involved in the revolution as it
develops. It is only at its centre that we can perceive what God is doing,
understand how the struggle for humanization is being defined and
serve as agents of reconciliation. From within the struggle, we discover
that we do not bear witness in revolution by preserving our purity in
line with certain moral principles, but by freedom to be FOR MAN at
every moment. 18
The 'moral principles' he was citing were those which traditionally have
made Christians reluctant to engage in revolutionary violence against the
government of the day. He was claiming that such moral scruples were
now obsolete.
Others were taking up arms in guerrilla wars against oppressive powers,
notably the former Catholic priest Camilo Torres in Colombia, who
claimed that 'As Christians we can and we must fight against tyranny . . .
all genuine revolutionaries must see force as the only means left'. 19 Torres
was killed in an ambush, but his example was an inspiration to many.
Whilst this revolutionary fervour was gripping Latin America especially,
some theologians were claiming that Jesus had been a Zealot, a revolution-
ary fighter, too. This contention was fuelled by some eccentric scholarship
in Europe,' 0 later to be firmly repudiated by the most competent New
Testament scholarship, especially by the Reformed scholar Oscar Cull-
mann and the Lutheran scholar Martin Hengel. 21 The great classic work
of liberation theology — Gustavo Gutierrez's A Theology of Liberation — has
a key section in which he confesses that Cullmann has persuaded him to
distance Jesus from the Zealots in many significant ways, yet he is
reluctant to mention the clear implications for the practice of violence
that Jesus cannot be invoked to support it by classifying him as a Zealot.22
Others, equally committed to the immense struggle against long-
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Richard G. Jones
standing oppression and injustice, equally committed to the liberation in

the name of Christ, taught unequivocally that the Christian involvement
must be non-violent. The most notable of all voices was that of Helder
Camara, the Catholic bishop of Recife, a particularly poverty-stricken
region in Brazil. Camara held that unjust social structures were a
particularly awful form of 'structural violence', but that did not justify the
use of arms in bringing about their overthrow. 'If violence is met by
violence, the world will fall into a spiral of violence; the only true answer
is to have the courage to face the injustices which constitute violence
no. I.' 23
Catholic teaching however, whilst being constantly in favour of
democratic reform and the rule of law, made one tiny concession to those
advocating violent revolution. In the major papal encyclical Populorum
Progressio (On the Progress of Peoples) in 1967, the Pope wrote that 'We
know, however, that a revolutionary uprising — save where there is a
manifest long-standing tyranny which would do great damage to funda-
mental personal rights and great harm to the common good of the country
— produces new injustices, throws more elements out of balance and brings
on new disasters. A real evil should not be fought against at the cost of
greater misery.' The excepting clause in this statement is actually a huge
one, as many would-be revolutionaries have noticed.
Meanwhile these issues were being keenly debated in many other circles
— within the emerging Black Theology of the United States, the 'political
theology' in Europe, and in Southern Africa especially — with Christian
opinion always affirming that violent revolution was the last option open
to Christians when there was no other course of action available to them,
or else refusing to sanction that ultimate desperate course and pleading
that even then Christians had no other course but to suffer injustice as
creatively as possible. Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress
adopted the former position, Bishop Tutu the latter. The close links
between the British churches and those of South Africa meant that this
issue constantly featured in their reflections together. Thus the British
Council of Churches affirmed in 1970 that there could be a 'just
revolution',24 and continued much study on the issue, as did the World
Council of Churches. Then in 1980 the British Council published a careful
study by Paul Ballard25 in which, drawing on a magisterial survey of the
issue by the theologian J. G. Davies,26 he defined the 'just revolution' as
follows:
1 It must be declared by a movement that has some reasonable claims to
legitimacy, with leaders 'who have adequate support and show them-
selves just in their dealings and who would therefore make good
national leaders'.
220
2 It must be for a just cause where there is 'sufficient structural and

institutional violence to make it absolutely imperative to strike back' .
3 Armed rebellion is the last resort, and involving no hatred of the
oppressor.
4 There must be just goals of 'a more just order in which different groups
and powers agree to live in peace reconciled to each other'.
5 The means must be just, the social fabric not having been extensively
destroyed, and with respect to the set limits to what human beings may
justifiably do to others (e.g., no torture).
6 There must be such hope of success that there is a realistic prospect of a
just outcome.
The echoes that can be heard here of the ancient notion of the just war are
all too clear. We have returned to where this chapter began. But that
tradition says little about the sort of peace that Christians should be
promoting. For that one must turn to the many traditions of Christian
social thought. There are however some other related issues which have
become important recently — for example, civil disobedience and the arms
trade, both of which have led to thoughtful reports by British churches.27
But that cannot be the last word. The Christian must always be asking
what sort of church life can best promote God's peace; the church should
be 'a peaceable kingdom'. 28
Notes
1 Alan Wilkinson, Dissent or Conform? (London: SCM Press, 1986), p. 33.

2 Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes Towards War and Peace (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1961).
3 John H. Yoder, Nevertheless: The Varieties of Religious Pacifism (San Francisco:
Herald, 1971), suggests at least 17 types.
4 See R. E. O. White, The Changing Continuity of Christian Ethics (Exeter: Paternoster,
1994), vol. I, pp. 231f. and vol. II, pp. 369—78 for the claim that the imitation of
Christ is Christianity's unique contribution to ethics.
5 Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribners, 1932).
6 Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr, Theologian of Public Life (London: Collins,
1989), p. 239.
7 E.g., Peter Bishop in Cyril Rodd (ed.), New Occasions Teach New Duties (Edinburgh:
T. & T.Clark, 1995), pp. 134f.
8 Kenneth Slack, Martin Luther King (London: SCM Press, 1970), p. 40.
9 Slack, Martin Luther King, p. 55.
10 Wilkinson, Dissent or Conform?, p. 291-
11 Gaudium et Spes, para. 79.
12 Listed in Mark Ellingsen, The Cutting Edge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993),
pp. 226-83.
13 The Church and the Bomb (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982).
221
Richard G. Jones
14 The Challenge of Peace (London: SPCK, 1983).

15 In Defense of Creation (Nashville, TN: Graded Press, 1986).
16 Francis Bridger (ed.), The Cross and the Bomb (London: Mowbray, 1983).
17 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (London: Fontana, 1966), p. 351; see also Keith
Clements, A Patriotism for Today (Bristol: Bristol Baptist College, 1984).
18 See J. C. Bennett (ed.), Christian Ethics in a Changing World (London: SCM Press,
1967), p. 33.
19 Richard Shaull, Camilo Torres, Priest and Revolutionary (London: Sheed & Ward,
1968), pp. 73 and 126.
20 E.g., S. G. F. Brandon, Jesus & the Zealots (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1967).
21 O. Cullmann, Jesus and the Revolutionaries (New York: Harper and Row, 1970) and
M. Hengel, Victory over Violence (London: SPCK, 1975).
22 G. Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973), pp. 225-32.
23 Helder Camara, Spiral of Violence (London: Sheed & Ward, 1971), p. 55
24 British Council of Churches, Violence in South Africa (London: SCM Press, 1970).
25 P. Ballard, A Christian Perspective on Violence (London: British Council of Churches,
1980).
26 J. G. Davies, Christians, Politics and Violent Revolution (London: SCM Press, 1976).
27 Accept and Resist: A Study of Civil Disobedience in Christian History and Today
(London: Methodist Publishing House, 1986) and Responsibility in Arms Transfer
Policy (London: Church House Publishing, 1994).
28 A good example is Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom; A Primer in Christian
Ethics (London: SCM, 1983).
Select bibliography
Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes Towards War and Peace (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1961).
R. Bauckham and R. J. Elford (eds), The Nuclear Weapons Debate (London: SCM Press,
1989).
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London: Paladin, 1970).
J. G. Davies, Christians, Politics and Violent Revolution (London: SCM Press, ] 976).
The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response (London: SPCK, 1983).
222
Interpersonal and sexual ethics
16
Sex, sexuality and relationships
Gareth Moore
The modern background
Among all Christians, or among those authorized to speak officially for

Christians, certain elements of sexual ethics were in the past taken for
granted, and the focus was very much on the purpose of sex, what kinds
of sexual act were permitted, and in what circumstances. Since sex was
ordained by God for the purpose of bringing children into the world, the
proper context for it was within marriage, since children needed a loving
and stable environment; this was provided by marriage, which was for the
raising of children and had also been instituted by God himself. From this
it followed that pre-mantal sex or adultery was forbidden. From the fact
that God had ordained sex for procreation it also followed that any kind
of sexual activity not suitable for the production of children was not only
forbidden but perverted the nature of sex itself. Masturbation, contracep-
tion, bestiality and anal and oral sex were all in a deep sense contrary to
the will of God, since they not only broke the law of God concerning
sexual matters, but also struck at the very purpose for which God had
created sex. The same was also true of all sexual acts between people of
the same sex.
It seems this view was often more honoured in the breach than in the
observance, that a great deal of this forbidden sexual activity went on
among Christians, including the official spokesmen. There was plenty of
adultery, masturbation, homosexuality, and so forth. Nevertheless, there
was no widespread challenge to the official teaching which, like many
other aspects of Christian doctrine, was seen as immutable, because God-
given. If people acted persistently contrary to the teaching, this was a sign
of the power of sin rather than of the weakness of the teaching.
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Today, the old certainties are disappearing, and sex and its place in
human relationships is one of the most controversial areas of modern
Christian ethics. As ever, there is much sexual activity which does not
conform to the traditional picture of the nature and purpose of sex. But
there is also, in the West, a widespread discontent with the traditional
teaching itself, which seems to many no longer to correspond to the
realities of life and to the needs of people. The traditional ideals seem to
many not only unattainable but also unnecessary and even harmful. While
it is a normal part of human living to enter into sexual relationships —
normal because of our physical and emotional makeup - there seems,
again according to many people, to be no reason why these should always
be lifelong or exclusive. The old argument based on the needs of children
for a stable environment is no longer convincing in a world where, thanks
to the availability of efficient contraception, there is no necessary link
between sex and reproduction. Neither, given the rate at which world
population is expanding and the limited food and water sources at our
disposal, should there be regret that contraception is so readily available.
There is also an increasing recognition that homosexual acts might
sometimes be appropriate. While men and women who engaged in sexual
activity with others of the same sex were formerly (and in many places
still are) vilified and condemned as wanton perverts, it is becoming clear
to more and more people that homosexuals are capable of loving devotion
and self-giving in their personal relationships, including their sexual
relationships, and that they, as well as everybody else, should have the
chance to taste the fulfilment that such relationships can bring without
having to battle social hostility and rejection by the churches.
This change in the climate of thought about sex has multiple roots.
Since Freud, much public emphasis has been placed on the importance
of sexuality as an element of human personality. Sex is no longer seen
simply as a way of propagating the species, nor as an occasional and
potentially enjoyable necessity, but as an essential and defining aspect of
each person's character, having an all-pervasive influence on human
behaviour and attitudes. A person's sexual history and attitudes are, it is
claimed, important factors in that person's overall health, maturity and
happiness.
There has also been an increasing stress on individual liberty in Western
societies, and this, together with increasingly widespread education, has
encouraged people to think for themselves and find their own values in
sexual as in many other matters. Linked to this has been the rise of the
feminist movement and the gay movement, both of which have stimulated
much new thought about sex and have begun to undermine some more
traditional attitudes. It is not surprising that the advent of voices from
previously largely unheard sections of the community should bring to
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light new points of view and call into question earlier certainties; these
latter are often criticized as being, not the will of God or the reflection of
some eternal law, but merely the views of socially dominant heterosexual
males.
Historical, sociological and anthropological research (much used in gay
and feminist literature) has also had its role to play in the change of
atmosphere. In earlier ages, in a culture saturated by Christianity,
Christian attitudes to sex and relationships could seem universal and
changeless, and therefore obvious, because there was little knowledge of
how other, non-Christian, societies functioned. Modern research has made
it clear that non-Christian societies, both ancient and modern, have very
different sexual practices from those sanctioned in Christianity, and have
very different attitudes to sex. This awareness of difference has made
Christian sexual mores less self-evident, more questionable, and has even
led to a relativism which sees Christian sexual ethics merely as one option,
no better and no worse than any other. The work of Foucault has been
particularly important here, with its emphasis on the way in which the
conceptualization of sex and sexuality — the way sex and sexual relation-
ships are conceived and talked about — not only changes with time and
place but is closely linked to the social structures and wider currents of
thought within each society.1
The advent of efficient methods of contraception has meant that the
link between sex and procreation has been, if not broken, at least rendered
more tenuous, so that it is possible to think of having an active
(heterosexual) sex life without having children and the resulting responsi-
bility. For the same reason, to many it no longer seems reasonable to
confine sex within the bounds of marriage. Marriage may have been the
natural place for sex before, when sex resulted in children who needed to
be raised in a stable environment, but if, because of the use of contracep-
tion, there are no children in prospect, then it should be possible to
engage in sexual activity outside marriage, or even outside any stable
relationship. If care is taken to avoid conception, it is argued, casual sex is
no longer the irresponsible activity it once was.
Another important factor is the development of other forms of stable
relationship than marriage. Men and women openly enter into stable long-
term relationships, and have children, without going through any public
ceremony of commitment, either religious or secular, which would make
their relationship into a marriage, and they defend their right to do so.
Again, male and female homosexuals also enter into stable relationships,
more or less openly, in which they claim that sex has an appropriate place,
just as it has in heterosexual relationships.
Christians are on the whole integrated into the societies in which they
live, and so are not immune to changing currents of attitude and belief in
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the wider society, and all the above factors have brought about changes of
thought and practice within the Church as well as outside. Christians of
most churches are happy to practise contraception, and there is increasing
(if still not widespread) acceptance of homosexual partnerships and of non-
marital heterosexual partnerships. This has been accompanied by changes
at an official level. Thus, for example, the Church of England accepted
contraception in the 1930s, and in the 1990s has come to accept the
possibility of virtuous and Christian homosexual relationships.
On the other hand, there are many Christians who view these
developments with horror and see them not as the legitimate adaptation
of Christian teaching to modern conditions in the light of new knowledge,
but as a betrayal of the clear teachings of Scripture and of Christian
tradition, an abandonment of the loving will of God. The official teaching
of the Catholic Church has been among the most steadfast voices in
defence of traditional Christian values in this area, most notably in its
opposition to contraception and homosexuality.2
In such a climate of controversy it is impossible to give a simple
summary of Christian teaching on sex and its place in human relationships.
In addition, the space available is too short to attempt a theological
treatment of the many and varied human sexual practices and the
arguments concerning them deployed by Christians. In what follows I will
try rather to indicate some (and only some) of the questions and problems
involved in any modern Christian discussion of sex. I will concentrate
particularly on the difficulties of maintaining the traditional Christian
approach in general, difficulties posed in large measure by the modern
discoveries referred to above. Whether these difficulties can be met, and
traditional attitudes rationally maintained, is a further question beyond
the scope of this chapter; but that the difficulties are there and must be
addressed seems to me undeniable.
Common to all Christians is a reliance on the Bible. In addition,
Catholics have accorded an important place to natural reason, and
arguments of a more or less philosophical nature have often found a place
in Catholic treatments of sexual ethics. Since God is seen in the Catholic
tradition as the author of human nature, including both human sexuality
and the human capacity to think, natural reflection on sexual behaviour,
even without reference to Scripture, is seen as a legitimate and indeed
important activity. One important form this reasoning has taken has been
to talk in terms of'natural law'. Fidelity to God has been seen as involving
the attempt to remain faithful to the nature that God has created, to the
natural law. This in turn involves investigation into that nature, which is
the concern not of the Bible but of our natural capacities. It is this rational
investigation, notably but not exclusively as expressed in natural law
theory, which according to the Catholic tradition makes Christian ethics
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accessible to all non-Christians, with whom we share a common humanity,

and it is what gives Christian ethics the possibility of being rationally
based. This type of reflection was an important element of pagan thought
in the early centuries of Christianity. It was adopted also by Christians
and developed a great deal in the Middle Ages. The Protestant tradition
has, by contrast, tended to shun explicit appeal to human reason or natural
law, seeking to base sexual morality on Scripture alone. In accordance
with these two tendencies, the following remarks will be divided into
observations on the use of Scripture and comments on other, non-biblical,
rather more philosophical approaches to sexual ethics.
Scripture
In examining the Christian traditions on sex and relationships, it is well

to bear in mind that people, Christians as well as others, tend to have
strong views on questions of sexual behaviour. It is also well known that
often, when people say that their views on a particular question are based
on Scripture, it is unfortunately rather the case, not that they hold the
views they do because they are compelled to them by scriptural evidence,
but that they have sought justification in Scripture for views that they
already hold independently of Scripture, while ignoring (or being ignorant
of) other parts of Scripture which might support a different view. Non-
scriptural values, even if unacknowledged, can be important in the
selection of biblical texts and in the interpretation of those texts. When
the questions concerned are sexual ones, this tendency is likely to be
strong. Scriptural arguments in this area are therefore well treated with
caution. While it may well be possible to support a given opinion by
reference to Scripture, this should not be interpreted as meaning that that
opinion reflects the consistent view of Scripture. Indeed, it is dangerous to
suppose, without careful and objective reading of the texts, that Scripture
has a consistent view at all on sexual matters. The scriptural books are the
products of different ages and civilizations, and it would be natural to
assume that writings with such diverse backgrounds have diverse view-
points. At the very least, it should not be assumed a priori that this is not
so, and one should be wary of attempts to speak of 'the biblical view of
sex' which do not include a careful and thorough investigation of a wide
range of texts.
Questions of sex, gender and sexual activity in human relationships
occupy a not inconsiderable place in Scripture. In the Old Testament there
are, among other things, laws governing sexual behaviour in Israel (e.g.
Exod 20:14; Lev 18:6—23), stories of rape and vengeance (Gen 34) of
adultery and treachery (2 Sam 11), and advice to young men on avoiding
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other people's wives (Prov 6:23-29)- In the New, we find Jesus teaching
against men coveting other men's wives (Matt 6:27-29). We also find
Paul describing same-sex passion as a punishment for idolatry (Rom
1:21-27), condemning a case of what seems to be incest (1 Cor 5: If.), and
recommending celibacy but conceding the possibility of marriage for those
who cannot exercise self-control (1 Cor 7:8f).
It used to be possible to construct a Christian sexual ethic to a large
extent by simple appeal to biblical texts. Sexual ethics was largely a
matter of finding out what kinds of sexual activity were permitted by
God, and in what circumstances; and this could be discovered by searching
through Scripture. This would normally, though not exclusively, be done
by a process of elimination, for it was for the most part sexual practices
which were not permissible which tended to be mentioned, with explicit
or implied condemnation. The legal texts of the Old Testament were a
particularly rich field here. Thus, from the sixth commandment one
learned that God forbade adultery (Exod 20:14; Deut 5:18); sexual
intercourse between men was forbidden as an abomination to God (Lev
18:22); and sex with animals was likewise prohibited (Lev 18:23). Incest
too was forbidden (Deut 22:30; Lev 18:6—18). A young woman who
marries must do so as a virgin (Deut 22:13-21). Rape is to be punished
(Deut 22:23—29). From this it appeared that the only circumstances in
which sexual activity with another3 is permissible is in marriage.
Other kinds of text, in both Testaments, reinforced this picture, and in
important respects went further. For example, the story of Sodom and
Gomorrah (Gen 19:1—29) implied a condemnation of homosexual acts, as
did Paul's remarks in Romans l:26f. and 1 Corinthians 6:9- The story of
Tobias and Sarah (Tob 6:9 — 7:18) extolled sexual purity and by
implication condemned lust. The fate of Onan (Gen 38:6—10) seemed to
imply divine condemnation of marital intercourse in which contraception
was used. Jesus himself, in the Sermon on the Mount, forbade not only
adultery but all lustful thoughts (Matt 5:27f).
Thus, by reference to Scripture one easily arrived at many of the tenets
of traditional Christian sexual morality. Sex was for married couples only,
and since Jesus forbade divorce, that meant those united in a lifelong and
indissoluble relationship. Within marriage, sexual activity must be chaste,
and not the result of lust. It must also be open to procreation. This
morality was faithful to the word of God, and therefore expressed the will
of God.
This array of biblical citations (and there are numerous others that
could be mentioned) is impressive, and for many Christians, especially
Protestants, it remains the foundation of sexual morality. In the Catholic
tradition too, while natural reason also has an important place, this
testimony of Scripture is central to sexual ethics. In the past, it seemed
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clear that the teaching of God in Scripture was clear and unambiguous,
and to many it still seems so.
Laws and relationships

From a modern viewpoint, however, such an approach to sex and Scripture
is inadequate. Both Protestants and Catholics now recognize that consider-
able emphasis should be placed on the role of sex in human relationships.
After all, a sexual act normally takes place between two people and forms
part of their relationship. A legalistic approach in terms of which acts are
permissible and which not is in danger of missing out this essential
element. When thinking about the morality of a particular interpersonal
sexual act, the central question should not be whether the act is allowed
or not, but whether it contributes to the couple's relationship. One should
also ask whether it contributes positively to the partners' relationships
with others. Here, what counts as a positive contribution to a relationship
is determined by the fundamental Christian view that human relationships
should be based on love. Thus, the questions to be asked are, for example:
Is this act an expression of love between the partners? Does it strengthen
their love for each other? Is it compatible with love for other people
outside this particular relationship? Is it likely to increase or decrease the
participants' capacity to love, or will it probably have no effect at all?
Such an approach, which is common today, has the great advantage that
it integrates sexual morality with the rest of Christian morality. It does
not rely on special, self-justifying rules for sex, but gives full weight to
the insistence of Jesus (and of Paul and other New Testament writers) on
the primacy of love. The demand of Christ that all relationships be based
on love (e.g. Matt 22:39; John 13:34; 15:12, 17) is allowed to apply to
sexual relationships also.
The question now arises: What does this approach imply for the status
of the scriptural precepts and prohibitions concerning sexual relationships
referred to earlier? Particularly important here is the strong New Testa-
ment tradition that the love of neighbour sums up the law. For example,
near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says: 'Think not
that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to
abolish them but to fulfil them' (Matt 5:17). This can sound as if he is
preoccupied with the prescriptions of the law. But then, towards the end
of the Sermon, he shows what he means by this insistence on the law and
the prophets when he says: 'Whatever you wish that people would do to
you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets' (Matt 7:12). The
insistence here is apparently not on the importance of keeping the letter
of the law (we know in any case that Jesus subordinated the letter of the
law to human need4) but on the summing up of the demands of God (the
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law and the prophets) which makes the way a person wishes to be treated
the criterion for the way that person should treat others; in other words:
'Love your neighbour as yourself.'
This teaching, that love sums up the law, is echoed in other parts of
the New Testament. For example, 'He who loves his neighbour has
fulfilled the law . . . Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is
the fulfilling of the law' (Rom 13:8, 10); 'The whole law is fulfilled in one
word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Gal 5:14); 'If you really
fulfil the royal law according to the scripture — You shall love your
neighbour as yourself- you do well' (Jas 2:8).
The consistency and centrality of this teaching in the New Testament
makes impossible any insistence that scriptural precepts and prohibitions
concerning sex (or any other matter), whether from the Old Testament or
from the New, be followed simply because they are scriptural. What Christians
need to follow is not, for example, a prohibition of incest or of homosexual
acts, or a command to increase and multiply, but the injunction to love.
Whatever concrete commands may be found in Scripture must be
subordinated to this overriding principle.
The status of the Bible

But this is not the end of the matter. It is possible to subscribe to this
principle, but to react to it in one of two contrasting ways. The first is to
say that the biblical utterances on sex are effectively abrogated by the
commandment to love. It might be argued that we simply do not need
any more (if we ever did) to consult the Bible about what to do in our
sexual lives. We have instead to think hard, seriously and honestly about
what love invites us to do and what it asks us not to do. The old biblical
rules may or may not be justifiable according to this criterion, but they
are subject to it, and are not independent sources of morality. Thus, for
example, love demands that homosexual people be allowed the same
opportunity to fulfil themselves in loving sexual relationships as hetero-
sexuals have. If Leviticus 18:22 or Romans l:26f. imply otherwise, so
much the worse for them.
This approach, one could claim, does not involve abandoning the word
or the will of God. Biblical rules were made by people, perhaps inspired
by God, but they were made for another society in another era, a society
whose ways are not ours. If they expressed the demands of love in that
society, then they were the word of God to that society, but it does not
follow that they remain the word of God for our society. On the other
hand, if they did not express the demands of love in that society either,
but tended to make it a loveless society, then they never were the word of
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God, and we can thank Jesus for showing us a higher way, the way of
love, which actually does correspond to the will of God.
A second and opposite possible response is to agree that love is primary,
but to insist that the Bible is the word of God, and that the word of God
is permanent and in important ways changeless. God's word to the
Israelites of the first millennium BC is still God's word to all peoples. The
Bible must therefore always remain the source for all morality, including
sexual morality. Something like this position is the traditional and official
position of the Catholic Church. If biblical injunctions appear to be
against the law of love as preached by Jesus and the New Testament, this
should be taken to show, not that the injunctions should be jettisoned,
but that our grasp of what love demands is inadequate, that God's wisdom
is greater than ours. Though sanctioning homosexual relationships may
appear to be what love of homosexual people demands, further investi-
gation will show that such relationships only make the people in them
unhappy in the end, or endanger the overall well-being of society. There
is thus a deep wisdom in the words of Scripture which justifies our
continued adherence to them.
There are problems with both these approaches. The former can seem
to treat the word of Scripture in too cavalier a fashion. If one can simply
ignore parts of the Bible, this raises the question of the status of Scripture
in the Christian faith. Why consult Scripture at all when seeking guidance
on questions of sexual morality? The principle of love, biblically based
though it is, seems, if erected into the sole criterion for our sexual
behaviour, to render its own source obsolete. Some might accept this
consequence readily, but there is surely a problem of the status of Scripture
here which goes beyond its relevance to sexual ethics. Its whole status as
revelation, as divinely inspired, and as the word of God is put in question.
However we interpret the Bible, one might ask, does not Scripture need
to retain a privileged status of some kind within Christianity if the latter
is to be true to itself and to God?
The second, traditionalist approach, on the other hand, makes empirical
claims which are apparently untrue. To continue using the same example,
it is not clear that careful investigation does show that homosexuals in
stable sexual relationships are any worse off than they would be in non-
sexual relationships or alone; anecdotal evidence suggests the contrary.
There is some evidence that young homosexuals tend to be less happy
than their heterosexual counterparts, and this is readily understandable in
the light of the general negative image of homosexuals in society; but
there is none that suggests sexual activity within a stable partnership
tends to make them any unhappier. Further, it is difficult to think of any
plausible causal link between sexual activity in that context and a tendency
to unhappiness. Still less does it appear that the existence of such
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relationships damages society in general. Of course, the traditionalists can

claim that we do not yet have enough evidence; but such a claim wears
thin after a while, especially if not backed up by a credible causal theory.
(Note how here, in the discussion of an ostensibly biblical approach to
ethics, non-biblical, empirical questions already intrude.)
There is a further problem in the traditionalist approach, which is that
it neglects the historical nature of the biblical documents. This problem
is particularly acute when it comes to sexual questions. Old Testament
sexual legislation and attitudes were formed in the context of a society in
which inequality between the sexes was profound and systematic, and they
take their sense from that context. Contrary to what is sometimes asserted,
the Old Testament does not teach the fundamental equality of the sexes.
If there are traces of such a teaching, they are rare and untypical. The
great mass of legislation and teaching tends in the opposite direction.
Men are presented as clearly socially superior to women. Married women
were practically the property of their husbands.5 This is why a man could
divorce his wife at will,6 whereas a woman had no right of divorce. This
inequality was reflected in the sexual sphere. Within certain limits a man
was sexually free,7 so long as he did not have sex with another man's wife,
his neighbour's sexual property. At Numbers 5:12ff. is prescribed a ritual
to determine whether a man who suspects that his wife has had sex with
another man is right; there is no corresponding ritual dealing with a
woman who suspects her husband of having sex with another woman. He
had sexual liberty and she did not, because he fundamentally owned,
whereas she was owned. A woman shown not to have been a virgin when
she married was subject to stoning;8 nowhere is it suggested that a man
should be a virgin when marrying. The only women with comparable
freedom were prostitutes, who were publicly despised; though there is
never any criticism of their customers. And so on. This picture is partly
rectified in the New Testament, with Paul's insistence that a woman has
rights over a man's body as well as vice versa,9 and by Jesus' teaching that
a man is not free to dispose of his wife as of a piece of property.10 But the
reported consternation of Jesus' own disciples at this teaching — 'If such is
the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry'11 - is an
indication of how strange the idea was in a Jewish context shaped by the
Old Testament. Even elsewhere in the New Testament, a thorough-going
subordination of women is in evidence.12
In the light of this it might reasonably be asked whether, in the case of
sexual ethics, we should take the Bible as a guide at all. There is general
perception in the modern Church, among both revisionists and traditional-
ists, that there is, despite the weight of biblical material to the contrary,
an essential equality between men and women. This seems to be demanded
by, among other things, the rule of love proclaimed by Jesus, which is
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surely incompatible with the property-based ethic of so much of the

Bible. 13 Since the sexual attitudes of the Bible are so clearly at variance
with this perception, and so deeply embedded in the social structures from
which they arise, we seem compelled, in the name of Christianity, to seek
some other foundation for our sexual ethics and in general to reject
scriptural pronouncements on sexual behaviour as a possible guide.
Considerations such as these definitely seem to favour the revisionists
rather than the traditionalists.
Non-scriptural arguments
I turn now to a brief consideration of some non-biblical elements of

Christian thought on sex and relationships. Because the explicit emphasis
on human reason has been stronger in Catholicism than in Protestantism,
the majority of what follows will perhaps have more immediate relevance
to the Catholic than to the Protestant tradition.
I earlier mentioned the dangers of selectivity and partiality in the use
of biblical texts to construct arguments in sexual ethics. Parallel consider-
ations apply to natural law and other rational arguments. We can expect
it to happen but rarely that a theologian adopts a particular opinion on
sexual matters because he or she is driven to it by an argument that has
presented itself. It tends to be the case rather that rational arguments are
sought to justify an opinion which is held independently of argument.
There is perhaps nothing particularly wrong with this, except that one is
normally inclined to be insufficiently critical of arguments — especially
one's own — advanced to support a position one holds oneself. This means
that natural law arguments — one's own as well as those of others — are to
be approached with an especially critical eye. This is a crucial matter in
natural law, where the position in question is supposed to be based on
sound reason. No matter how much sympathy one has with, say, a Catholic
stand against contraception, if a rational argument adduced in favour of
that stand is flawed, the argument fails to support it, and it fails,
moreover, to support the claim that the Catholic stand against contracep-
tion is rationally based. If one tries to support the Catholic position with
a bad argument, that position is left looking irrational, based on an appeal
to reason which is but specious. The reader who recognizes the poor
quality of the argument is left with the impression that he has not found
the rational justification of the Catholic position that the argument seemed
to promise, and is left moreover with the suspicion that such a justification
is not to be found. This might not matter much in a world where
everybody agreed that the Catholic position was right, and where the
finding of arguments to support it was merely an intellectual exercise. But
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we do not live in such a world. In our world, opinions are sharply divided
on contraception, as on many other issues in sexual ethics. In such a world,
the function of argument must be to convince those who doubt or who
hold a contrary opinion. A bad argument does not achieve its end; the use
of a bad argument further gives the impression that a good argument is
not available, and that those who hold the opinion in support of which
the argument is adduced are merely confused thinkers - or worse, bigots
— whose opinions cannot be rationally justified and are more likely than
not to be false.
Natural law
The natural law tradition takes its rise from Hellenistic thought, especially
Stoicism. There are two basic elements which converge in the Stoic
attitude to sex. First, for many Hellenistic thinkers the world was a
purposeful place. It was a harmonious whole in which each element
fulfilled its purpose, and each element was there so as to fulfil its natural
purpose. Proper human action was action which respected and was in
harmony with the purposes to be found in nature; it also respected the
natural purposes of human organs. The purpose of sexual activity was
clearly reproduction, since not only did normal sexual intercourse often
result in conception, but it was only by reference to reproduction that the
existence of the sexual organs could be understood at all — it is only
because people reproduce sexually that they have sexual organs in the
first place. It followed that any sexual activity which was not of a kind
such as to allow reproduction did not follow nature's purpose. So, for
instance, all masturbation, all homosexual activity and all heterosexual
intercourse where contraception was employed were against nature, and
therefore bad.
Second, if somebody did not engage in sexual activity in order to have
children, the alternative was that they were doing it for pleasure. There
was a suspicion of pleasure in the Hellenistic world, and not only among
the Stoics. To do anything simply for the sake of pleasure was, in much
Greek thought, unworthy and dangerous, and it also subverted the natural
order of things. It meant that a man (and it was usually specifically men
rather than women who were envisaged) allowed himself to be led by his
desire rather than by reason. This was contrary to nature since according
to nature it was reason, which was the distinctive mark of the human,
that should determine a man's behaviour. To act for pleasure was to act in
a less than human way. Since sex was an area where pleasure and desire
ruled, it was suspect in itself, and could only be justified by its
reproductive purpose.
It was roughly this schema that was adopted into Christianity and was
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developed by Augustine and by medieval thinkers such as Albert the

Great and Thomas Aquinas. Various arguments were found from nature
which were held to show, for example, that certain positions adopted in
sexual intercourse were more natural, more respectful of the nature of
human beings, and therefore more acceptable, than others,14 or that any
activity which resulted in semen being deposited elsewhere than in a
vagina was unnatural and therefore wrong. 15 Masturbation and contracep-
tion were unnatural because they did not respect the natural purpose of
sex and because they resulted in a waste of semen. Homosexual acts were
unnatural for the same reasons, but also because they did not respect the
difference of sexes and the reason why the sexes existed.
Much of this could have been written by pagan philosophers. The
specifically Christian element was that it was the God who had revealed
himself in Scripture who was the author of nature. The order of nature
was the expression of the divine will, and the purposes inherent in nature
— nature in general and human nature in particular — were God's purposes.
It was God who made people male and female16 and gave them organs
whose purpose was reproduction. To perform an unnatural act, therefore,
was not only to offend against nature but to sin against God; it was
deliberately to set oneself to act contrary to the will of God. If somebody
acted against his own nature he expressed contempt for his own nature
and for the God who had created him with that nature.
Natural law and happiness

It is easy to get the impression from this brief sketch that natural law
thought makes human beings subservient to an alien, impersonal, almost
mechanical system of rules which can be read off from nature. People seem
to be caught up, like it or not, in a machine which has little regard for
them and whose purposes they are bound to follow. It is true that some
examples of natural law thinking are like this, but it is not a necessary
feature of natural law theory in general, nor of any thought about sex
based on human reason. Take Aquinas as an example. On the one hand,
he can speak of natural law as 'that which nature teaches every animal'; 17
in this sense, natural law seems to put impersonal biological nature at the
centre of things. But he also has a second, quite different conception of
natural law. He claims that only rational beings can truly follow natural
law. Natural law is a participation in reason, and only beings that can
think about and understand what they are doing so participate.18 Here,
natural law seems to mean little more than rational thought about human
acts in the light of human nature, thinking about what is the proper end
and how to attain it. But this is already a great deal; to think about and
understand what one is doing is very different from acting instinctually,
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like an animal, and also very different from blindly obeying laws simply
because they are laws.
Of course, rational thinking can be done in different ways, and it is
true that when Aquinas thinks about sexual acts, he often starts from
nature in the sense of what he takes to be biological or other empirical
facts about human beings and other animals, 'natural law' in the first
sense. But the two conceptions of natural law are not necessarily bound
together in this way. Indeed, Aquinas himself sometimes takes a different,
much more promising approach. He says that God, the author of human
nature, desires human happiness. Therefore God made human nature in
such a way as to promote human happiness. To act in accord with nature
is therefore to promote one's happiness, while to act against it is to court
unhappiness.19 This approach puts human flourishing squarely at the
centre of natural law; what is natural, what is in accordance with the
proper end of human beings, and therefore good, is what promotes well-
being and happiness, while what is unnatural, and therefore bad, what is
contrary to our true end, is what is deleterious and works against
happiness. On this account, the central question of natural law is not
'What do animals do?' or even 'What is the purpose of this or that human
organ?' but 'What, given the type of creature we are, makes for human
happiness?'
If we use this conception of natural law, natural law no longer seems to
be something which imprisons people in an impersonal system. It means
simply thinking about human action in such a way that considerations of
human happiness, well-being and flourishing — in short, of what is good
for people — are central. This is a big improvement on that: style of
thought which bases itself simply on the biological functions of organs.20
A very important aspect of this type of natural law thought, and indeed
of all types, is that it is in large measure empirically based. Those who
claimed, for instance, that the sexual organs have a certain function in
nature did so on the basis of what they or others actually observed, or
claimed to observe, about the functioning of these organs. They observed
what people and animals did with them, and what resulted. They may not
always have been good observers; they may have missed certain things,
and their preconceptions may have prevented them from taking due note
of everything they saw. But they were basically making an empirical
claim, which they then incorporated into an argument which led to a
moral conclusion. Part of the cogency of such an argument was that it
rested partly on evidence whose truth was open for all to see. Given
enough observation and scientific knowledge, it was possible to see that
the purpose of the sexual organs was reproduction (or so it seemed to those
who argued in this fashion).
In the same way, to think about what makes for human happiness is to
236
think empirically. It is observation which tells us whether, say, a particular

social structure, economic system, personal relationship, eating habit or
sexual habit makes those involved in it happy or unhappy. Once again, we
may observe well or badly. Human life is immensely complex, and it
requires a great deal of accurate observation, often over the long term, to
understand any aspect of it adequately. Often, many factors combine to
promote or hinder a person's flourishing, and it is difficult to isolate the
role and importance of any individual factor. This is particularly true in
the sexual domain, since sexual behaviour does not have a direct effect on
human welfare in the same way that patterns of eating or drinking
behaviour do. These latter have direct and often obvious physical effects,
whereas the effect of sexual behaviour on well-being is likely to be much
more subtle, and on the emotional or psychological plane, which is often
more difficult to measure or evaluate than the physical.
But, even given the centrality of human happiness, and even if we can
sort out the empirical complexities, moral questions, including questions
of sexual ethics, cannot be solved simply by empirical observation. We
may discover, for example, that some practices may make people happy in
the short term, but not in the long term. We normally, in theory,
privilege the long term, but it needs to be asked whether this is always
necessary, whether happiness in the short term can sometimes be worth
the price of eventual long-term unhappiness. This is not an empirical but
a theoretical question. Again, when we speak of happiness we need to ask
whose happiness we are talking about. Some economic and social systems,
as well as many individual actions, purchase happiness for some people at
the expense of misery for others. Here questions of justice come to the
fore.
Sex, rationality and the meaning of acts

If we reflect on the nature of human beings with a view to asking what is
good for us, one important consideration is that we are rational beings.
Our being rational is not only what enables us to reflect on the world, on
ourselves and on our behaviour, but is also an element of our nature that
needs to be taken into account when we think about what fulfils that
nature, makes us happy. What form our rationality takes, how we
understand things, has an important bearing on our well-being.
The word 'rational' here covers a number of things which seem to be
related and to distinguish us in large measure from other animals, which,
we normally say, operate much more by instinct. We have the ability to
understand the world, to discriminate between things, to make connec-
tions between things, to classify things, and so on. An important element
of this rationality is that people are linguistic animals. If we distinguish,
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connect and classify, we do so most often with words, by what we say

about things. Again, we think about our ends and the means we use to
achieve them. If some other animals have a certain rationality, it still
seems true that people can plan, expect, hope and fear in ways much more
complex than those open to dogs or giraffes. We can also attach
significance to actions and events in a way that goes beyond the capacities
of other animals.
One of the things that we classify, that we talk, plan, hope and fear
about and attach significance to, is our bodily behaviour and that of other
people. At this point it is an important fact that many of our bodily
gestures derive some of their significance from our sheer physical consti-
tution. For example, the fact that we have a soft skin well supplied with
nerves means that we are likely to be physically hurt and feel pain if
somebody punches us on the nose. What hurts is inherently unpleasant,
and we seek to avoid it. Deliberate behaviour which hurts us is aggressive.
So if somebody punches us, that does not merely produce a physical
sensation, but has a meaning for us, one which goes beyond the boundaries
of our body. It signifies something about the relationship between
ourselves and the person who hits us; it is an expression of hostility
towards us on the part of that person. We expect everybody to be familiar
with and sensitive to such gestures. It is perhaps conceivable that
somebody might go around punching others without discrimination
simply because this is an activity he finds enjoyable, without any
aggressive intent. For him, punching would have no meaning. But such a
person would, just for that reason, be regarded as asocial and defective. To
be social means to be sensitive to interpersonal meaning. Similarly, there
are sensations, feelings and activities which are inherently pleasant, and
which we seek out. Somebody who helps us have these sensations or
perform these activities shows himself well-disposed towards us. If
somebody holds us to make us feel warm or cherished, or gives us food so
that we can eat, this is a sign of friendship. Once again, our actions,
including our bodily gestures, signify something about personal
relationships.
A further fact about human beings is that physical intimacy serves as a
sign of personal intimacy, of friendship. Friends freely come physically
close to each other in ways that strangers and enemies do not. We permit
friends to come close to us, as we do not strangers. Whereas we may
welcome the close presence or touch of a friend, the proximity or touch of
a stranger or an enemy strikes us as invasive and aggressive. The way we
speak of friends as being close is testimony to this. Once again, the physical
body and what we do with it functions to convey a relational significance.
It is on this basis, the recognition of the importance of meaning for
human beings, that attempts have been made recently to reach certain
238
conclusions about sexual behaviour. Sexual intercourse is one of the most

intimate forms of bodily behaviour. It seems to be a natural expression,
therefore, of the most intimate form of friendship. It naturally signifies a
profoundly intimate personal relationship, just as a punch naturally
signifies hostility. It is as if the partners in intercourse testify to each
other, wordlessly, by the physical and sexual intimacy that they give and
accept, to the depth of their relationship as persons, indeed to the fact
that their relationship is the most profound possible. But the most
intimate and profound human relationship is marriage, by which the
partners commit themselves to being close to each other in all circum-
stances until death. Thus, by a modern route, we arrive at a traditional
Christian conclusion, that the proper place for sex is within marriage.
This conclusion as to the significance of sexual intercourse fits well with
the Second Vatican Council's description of sexual intercourse as an act
'proper to spouses' which signifies self-giving (Gaudium et Spes, n. 49). It
has been developed by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Familiaris
Consortio. He writes:
Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one
another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is
by no means something purely biological, but concerns the innermost
being of the human person as such. It is realised in a truly human way
only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and a woman
commit themselves totally to one another until death. The total physical
self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total
personal self-giving, in which the whole person, including the temporal
dimension, is present: if the person were to withhold something or
reserve the possibility of deciding otherwise in the future, by this very
fact he or she would not be giving totally. 21
In this passage we can see too the use of the idea of a sexual language, the
notion that people actually say something by their acts. In this particular
case an act of sexual intercourse is said to be a lie — a deliberately false
bodily 'utterance' intended to deceive, if the partners to the act are not
totally committed to each other. The meaning which sexual (as well as
other) activities have is interpreted as closely akin to linguistic meaning.
This idea, which has been developed by both Protestants and Catholics,22
has several merits. It emphasizes that sex is not a mere animal act but a
rational human activity, which can be (or fail to be) intelligent. It
articulates the insight that sex is significant for people, that their sexual
acts have, at least potentially, meaning for them, and that sex is a form of
communication: one can communicate one's feelings and attitudes towards
another by the way one acts sexually towards him or her.
But it is another question whether this line of thought actually does
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support traditional Christian views on marriage as the only legitimate

place for sex, and whether it leads to the conclusion John Paul II and
others think it does. If it is true that bodily proximity and bodily intimacy
often signify an intimate personal relationship, it is far from true that they
always do so. While friends habitually come close physically to each other,
for the pleasure of being together and doing things together, all of us also
come physically close to others in the course of our daily lives — when we
talk with others at work, when we buy a ticket on a bus, when we buy
something in a shop, when we stand squashed together in a rush-hour
train, when we play team games, and so on. None of these close encounters
need have any great personal significance, and normally they do not.
Deliberate physical proximity is not of itself a bearer of deep relational
meaning. If we number sexual encounters among the closest physical
encounters, it does not follow that they naturally signify that the partners
to it have an intimate personal relationship. It may well be true that
sexual intercourse can be, within the context of close personal relationship,
a meaningful and effective sign and expression of that relationship, but
that has no tendency to show that sexual activity outside an intimate
personal relationship, and which therefore does not have the significance
that it would within such a relationship, is in any way illegitimate or
inauthentic.
It seems more plausible to argue that sexual intercourse does not have
great unitive significance in itself, but that it bears what significance it
does by virtue of the context in which it takes place. An act of intercourse
which takes place within a loving relationship, and as part of that
relationship, surely does express physically the unity of the partners. On
the other hand, an act of intercourse which takes place between strangers
who intend to separate immediately afterwards may signify little beyond
the minimal mutual good will needed to co-operate in a joint pleasurable
activity.
The point may be made using the analogy between bodily activities or
gestures and language. A word, a spoken or written sign, in a human
language does not have meaning independently of the way in which it is
used, including the context in which it is used. Meaning depends on use,
and we distinguish different meanings of a word by distinguishing its
different uses. In the same way, a human act gets its meaning from its
context. If I aim a punch at your nose in the course of a heated argument,
my act expresses hostility towards you. If I do the same thing in the
context of a sparring match, it may express rather my willingness to help
you improve your boxing technique.
This point is important for assessing the claim of John Paul II that
sexual intercourse outside marriage is a lie, because it is not the self-
giving that it claims to be. The idea here seems to be that sexual
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intercourse just is an act of total physical self-giving, regardless of context.

But we can now see that this is inadequate; one cannot simply read off the
meaning of an act from its physical properties, without looking at the
interpersonal context in which the act is embedded. Neither is there any
reason to describe intercourse outside marriage as a lie. In the context of a
sparring match, my punch is not a 'lie'; it does not falsely express an
intention to hurt you, an intention which I do not really have. Further, an
intention to deceive is essential to lying. My punch does not express an
intention to deceive you, since I have no such intention. If you are aware
of the context, neither will you be tempted to think that I am trying to
deceive you, any more than you will be tempted to think that I am hostile
to you. It is clear from the context what my intention is, and there is no
lying or deception involved. Similarly, if two strangers have a sexual
encounter in the full knowledge that they have not given themselves to
each other and that they have no intention of doing so, not only is the act
not one of total physical self-giving, but nobody is pretending it is.
Nobody is trying to deceive anybody else, and there is no lying involved.
Nevertheless, one might argue, there is surely something important in
the approach of John Paul II and those who argue in a similar vein. Even
if an act of intercourse does not, regardless of context, signify or express a
profound and intimate personal relationship, and even if an act of
intercourse outside such a relationship does not amount to a lie, still
intercourse is, in certain circumstances, a natural expression of love. People
who love each other tend to want — within certain limits — to have sex
with each other. 23 One might say that intercourse is apt to express love. In
this, it differs greatly from a punch on the nose. If I love you, I might
want to go to bed with you, and I will want to do that because I love you;
but I will not normally want to punch you on the nose, and if I do want
to punch you on the nose it will not be as an expression of love, because I
love you. But if I hate you, I may well be inclined to punch you on the
nose. A punch on the nose is apt to express hostility. 24
One might argue on the basis of this that sexual activity outside a
context of love, unconnected with what it is apt to express, leads to an
impoverishment of human expressive capabilities. People sometimes swear
when they are angry, and if somebody swears only in situations of extreme
anger, his swearing can be a powerful expression of his anger. But if
somebody swears all the time, angry or not, his swearing ceases to
communicate anger; the verbal gesture of swearing has, in this person's
case, been evacuated of expressive power, and he can no longer express
precisely anger by this means. In the same way, it could be argued, those
who partake in sexual activities outside a context of love, if they have sex
with people regardless of how, or whether, they feel about them, evacuate
their sexual gestures of sense; they can no longer use sex to express love.
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A man may love his wife deeply, but if he has sexual intercourse with all
and sundry, his sexual activity with his wife cannot be, for him, expressive
of his deep love for her; the activity has become too ordinary. In short, for
an activity to be expressive it must be used selectively. The more
selectively it is used, the more expressive it becomes, while the more
indiscriminately it is used the less expressive it becomes.
Is it possible to argue on this basis that sexual activity should be used
very selectively? It might be possible to argue that the capacity to express
love bodily, through sex, is an important part of human well-being, and
that its loss, through less selective use of sex, is a severe impoverishment.
Those who indulge in sex other than in a context of love, one would have
to say, are — for this reason — less fulfilled and less happy than those who
only use sex for making love. I offer this as a possibility, but I admit I do
not know how such an argument would be made convincing. It involves
an empirical claim about the relative happiness of various classes of people
that would be difficult to substantiate. Even if one could show that
indiscriminate users of sex were less happy than very discriminating ones,
one would also have to show that it is the difference in their sex lives that
accounts for the difference in their happiness. Even if a successful argument
could be generated along these lines, it would tend to show only that
sexual activity is best confined to loving relationships, whether marital,
extramarital or homosexual. While that would satisfy many Christians, it
would be far from supporting the much stronger traditional Christian
claim, that sex should be confined to marriage.
Reproduction and relationships

Given the stress on the relational aspect of sex in modern Protestant and
Catholic thought, it might be thought that the reproductive aspect has
become less important, that sex has come to be seen more as a way of
relating to others and less as a way of bringing new human life into the
world. This does indeed seem to be true for many Protestants, but not for
official Catholic teaching. While Protestant churches have by and large
accepted the use of contraception, which is meant to eliminate the
procreative capacity of intercourse, the Catholic Church has stood out
against contraception. It has done this partly by the use of old natural law
arguments about the purpose of the sexual organs and of sexual activity,
but it has also adopted a new approach, which came to prominence in the
encyclical Humanae Vitae, in which Pope Paul VI reaffirmed Catholic
opposition to all forms of birth control except those which depend on the
timing of sexual intercourse so that it occurs in the infertile part of the
menstrual cycle. According to this new approach, sexual intercourse has of
its nature two 'meanings': the unitive, expressing the relationship of
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mutual self-giving of husband and wife; and the procreative, the ability to
generate new life. 25 These two meanings, it is claimed, can never be
separated. An act of intercourse must always have the unitive meaning
proper to it, that is to say it must take place in the context of that true
union of persons which is marriage. It must also always, as essentially
procreative, be open to new life. This is the new claim. The question is:
what reason can be given for making it — apart simply from a desire to
reinforce a ban on contraception — and can it be substantiated?
The idea of these two meanings of intercourse is at first sight
implausible. That an act might have a unitive meaning, signifying and
expressing the unity between two people, is readily understandable, but
how can an act have procreative meaning? How can an act signify or
express procreation? Procreation is surely not a possible meaning of an act,
but a possible effect. Talk of the two meanings of intercourse seems to
confuse the realm of significance with that of cause and effect. However,
this is principally a terminological problem. The doctrine does not appear
to depend on the claim that procreation can be a meaning of an act. If a
more neutral word, such as 'aspect', is used, the problem disappears. One
could then rephrase by saying that an act of intercourse has an expressive,
unitive aspect and a causal, procreative aspect, and that these two are
inseparable, in the sense that it is never legitimate to perform an act of
intercourse where one of these two aspects is deliberately suppressed.
But there still remains the problem of showing why we should believe
this, that intercourse has these two aspects, and that they are indeed
inseparable. That an act of intercourse can have these two aspects is clear:
two people can make love in a way that expresses the deep love that unites
them, and this can result in the birth of a child. But it is a much stronger
claim to say that these two aspects cannot be legitimately deliberately
separated.
It is not an implausible idea that a human act can have two such aspects
which are closely united. For example, suppose I punch you on the nose.
This is not a friendly thing to do. You will gather from it that I do not
like you. It is an expression of my hostility towards you. My act has an
expressive aspect. But it will also cause you pain. This is the physical
effect of my knuckles coming into violent contact with your nose. My act,
then, also has a causal aspect. But the two aspects are closely related. The
reason why my act has a hostile significance is that it will, if successfully
accomplished, hurt you. That is why I do it. It is the desire to produce
the painful effect that makes my act hostile. I can of course throw a punch
at you without hurting you: I can miss, or you can be wearing adequate
facial protection. I can also hurt you without intending to, by waving my
fists around carelessly and accidentally striking your nose. But I cannot
deliberately separate these two aspects of the act. I cannot throw a punch
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at you without wanting to hurt you. Some intentional reference to the

physical consequence of the act is essential to the very meaning of the act
itself.
In the same way, it could be argued, sexual intercourse has these two
aspects: an affective aspect, expressing love, and a causal aspect, the
conception of a child. Of course, these two are in fact separable; it is
possible to perform an act of sexual intercourse which expresses love
without a child being conceived, and it is possible for a child to be
conceived when the act does not express love, because there is no love in
the union to be expressed, as in rape. But one cannot perform the act as
an expression of love without willing the causal consequence, just as I
cannot aggressively swing a punch at you without wanting to hurt you.
However, there are numerous things wrong with this line of argument.
First, the conclusion is simply and obviously not true. It is not true that
one person cannot make love to another without positively willing that a
conception result. Few, even inside the Catholic Church, have ever made
such a strong claim. The most that is normally claimed is that the partners
to the act of intercourse must be open to the conception of a child, not
actively prevent it through some form of contraception. But here, second,
the analogy with my punch breaks down. If I swing a punch at you, I am
not merely open to the possibility that I might hurt you; I positively
desire to hurt you, and it is that positive desire that makes the swing an
expression of my hostility towards you. If I do not particularly want to
hurt you, but am merely open to hurting you, my act, whatever else it
signifies (if anything), does not express hostility towards you (though of
course you may with justice think that it does). Third, while it is clear
that it is the desire to hurt that makes my punch an aggressive act, it is
far from clear that it is the desire to conceive a baby with another person
that makes the act of intercourse a loving act, expressive of love. There are
a number of things which might make it expressive of love, such as the
desire to engage in a mutually pleasurable activity, or the desire to give
pleasure, within the context of a stable, loving relationship. If, for
example, a woman, after thirty years of loving, committed relationship,
has intercourse with her partner in order, say, to comfort him after a bad
day at the office, it would be implausible to deny that this is an act
expressive of love.
The insistence that the unitive and procreative aspects of intercourse are
inseparable looks, therefore, confused and unconvincing. Theologians have
produced arguments in its favour, but it is not surprising that these in
turn fail to convince.26 In addition, we have already seen that the unitive
aspect of intercourse, its signifying the deep personal unity between the
partners, is itself a problematic notion. At best, it is not a feature of the
physical act itself, but depends on the relational context.
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Conclusion
The considerations outlined here, with regard to both Scripture and

natural reason, lead to no firm conclusion about the rights and wrongs of
any particular sexual practice or about the human context or contexts in
which sexual activity is appropriately situated. There are several reasons
for this. One is the obvious one that I have drawn with very broad strokes
indeed, omitting important details. And there are important relevant
factors which I have not even had space to mention, such as the recent
theological emphasis on the alleged complementarity of men and women
and its significance in interpersonal and particularly sexual life; again,
there is the contention that homosexual people suffer, as such, from some
malady. Argument about sexual matters has become a complicated matter
in the churches in recent years, and I cannot hope to have done anything
like justice to the complexity of the debate. If the debate has become
complex, however, this is because it is increasingly being recognized that
human sexuality is a very complex thing in itself. The relatively simple
formulations of traditional Christian sexual ethics can no longer be
maintained, for they seem to rely on a vastly over-simplified view of
human sexual life and of relationships. If it is to be possible to maintain,
with any intellectual honesty, something like the old Christian norms -
and it is clear to many that this is undesirable — then much work will
have to be put into empirical research into sexuality and its relation to
human well-being. There will also have to be theological investigation
into the interpretation ol~ Scripture and the formation of tradition. And it
is possible that any such research will confirm instead the views of those
working for change in Christian sexual teaching. Or it may be that the
complexity of the matter is such that certainty is just not to be had, and
that Christian theology must content itself with trying to say much less
than in the past about sex and its place in human relationships.
Notes
1 See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vols 1-3 (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1979-86).
2 See, for example, Pope Paul VFs encyclical Humanae Vitae (London: The Catholic
Truth Society, 1968); the document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith published in English as Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the
Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1986); and
the same body's A Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics (London:
Catholic Truth Society, 1975).
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3 Solitary masturbation is nowhere mentioned in the legal texts, nor, apparently,

elsewhere in scripture.
4 E.g., Matt 12:10ff.; Luke 13:l4ff.; Mark 2:23ff.
5 Note, for example, how in the tenth commandment at Exod 20:17 a man's wife is
listed simply as one of his possessions which it is forbidden to covet, coming
second after his house. The corresponding commandment at Deut 5:21 puts the
wife first.
6 Num24:lff.
7 He had to refrain from sex with other men (Lev 18:22), with animals (Lev 18:23)
and with close relatives (Lev 18:6—18).
8 Deut 22:13-21.
9 1 Cor 7:2-4.
10 Matt 19:3-9.
11 Matt 19:10.
12 E.g., 1 Tim 2:11-15; Col 3:18f.
13 For an illuminating survey of the role of ideas of property in biblical sexual ethics,
see William L. Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament
and Their Implications for Today (London: SCM, 1989). As the title implies,
Countryman deals also with the importance of the notion of purity in the Bible,
which there is not space to go into here.
14 E.g., Albert the Great, Sentences, 4.31.24.
15 E.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 3.122.
16 In this use of the biblical account of creation we once again see the blending of
scriptural and non-scriptural considerations. If the medievals attempted to derive
sexual ethics from reason, it was rarely from pure reason unaided by Scripture.
The thinking was done within a Christian context and in explication and support
of Christian doctrines.
17 Summa Theologiae, I-II, 94,2c.
18 Summa Theologiae, I—II, 91,2.
19 Summa Contra Gentiles, 3.122.
20 Though we may still think that this approach has its shortcomings. What, we
might ask, about the welfare of animals, or the flourishing and integrity of the
non-animal environment?
21 Familiar is Consortio, n. 11.
22 For a Protestant approach see, for example, James B. Nelson, Embodiment: An
Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology (London: SPCK, 1979).
23 Evidently, parents can love their children and children their parents without in
any way wanting to have sex together. Two adult friends can also love each other
deeply without in any way wanting joint sexual activity. Much depends on
circumstances, including the age, sex and sexual orientation of the people involved.
24 This is not to say that it is impossible for me to punch you as an expression of my
love for you. But you have to think up a pretty complicated scenario, a very
unusual context, to make sense of the idea. One does not, on the contrary, have to
think of a very complicated scenario to make sense of the idea that I might want,
as an expression of love, to go to bed with you.
25 Humanae Vitae, n. 12.
26 See for example Henry Peschke, who, in the context of an argument against the
possibility of homosexual activity being an expression of love, says:
The sexual act is apt to be an expression of love and appreciation in the last
analysis because it is able to generate new human life. Every man and every
246
woman would like to have a child only with a partner whom they sincerely
esteem. The readiness of a man and a woman to unite together in the sexual act
is therefore a sign of their mutual esteem . . . Sexual acts between two persons
of the same sex however are never apt to procreate offspring. Therefore they can
also not be the expression of a love and esteem which is based on the possibility
to give life to a child. The precondition is missing which imparts to the sexual
act the quality of a sign of love. (Christian Ethics, vol.2 [Alcester and Dublin:
C. Goodliffe Neale, 1978}, p. 435)
This is unconvincing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it
relies on a simple logical mistake. Even if it were true that everybody would like
to have a child only with a partner they sincerely esteem, that does not imply that
you do not sincerely esteem somebody if you cannot, or even do not want to, have
a child with them. Even if love were a condition for wanting to have a child, that
would not make wanting to have a child a condition for love. Even if it were true
that only if somebody is a Scot does he like haggis, it would not follow that
somebody was a Scot only if he liked haggis.
For a more recent attempt, see Germain Grisez, Living a Christian Life. The Way
of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2 (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1993), ch. 9, esp. pp. 634-6.
Grisez's argument is too long to detail here, but it seems to me weak at many
points, in particular that it depends on Grisez's highly suspect notion of marriage
as 'one-flesh unity'. However, readers should, as in all cases, judge for themselves.
Selected bibliography
Lisa Cahill, Sex, Gender and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996). A general survey utilizing feminist insights.
L. William Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and
Their Implications for Today (London: SCM, 1989)- Interesting insights into biblical
understandings of sexual relations.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vols 1—3 (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1979—86). Essential reading.
Gareth Moore, The Body in Context: Sex and Catholicism (London: SCM, 1992). A more
thorough treatment of some of the questions raised in this chapter.
John T. Noonan, Jr, Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians
and Canonists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). Much wider in
scope than its title suggests. Gives important information on traditional Christian
thought on sex in general.
Adrian Thatcher, Liberating Sex: A Christian Sexual Theology (London: SPCK, 1993).
An interesting modern Anglican view.
247
17
Divorce and remarriage
Kevin T. Kelly
The tragedy of divorce
In the USA today four out of ten marriages can be expected to end in
divorce. This tragic phenomenon is equally evident in Britain and the rest
of Europe. Moreover, it is not just the couples themselves who are involved
in a divorce. In the United States the lives of one out of every two children
is affected by the human tragedy of divorce. These figures need to be
transposed into the human suffering involved. Part of the tragic evil of
divorce is the terrible pain people, who once loved each other, now inflict
on each other, often unconsciously and unintentionally. It is hard to
imagine a deeper wounding of one's sense of self-esteem than to be told
by someone, who once publicly declared they could not live without you,
that now they cannot bear living with you! A relationship which it was
hoped would bring love, affirmation and healing ends up causing injury,
self-doubt and even, in some cases, mutual hostility and hatred.
The words 'plague on society', used in The Catechism of the Catholic
Church (2385), are very appropriate, even though they would be better
applied to marriage breakdown rather than to divorce. Divorce is simply a
social damage-limitation procedure for dealing with marital breakdown,
once it has become clear that reconciliation is no longer possible and
continued cohabitation would be destructive, certainly for the couple
themselves and possibly for their children too. In no way is divorce a
panacea for all the suffering caused by the breakdown of a marriage. It
operates on a different plane to the painful memories of the daily hurts
and wounds involved in the gradual disintegration of the couple's love for
each other. Sometimes it can even add to their pain when the finality of a
divorce only serves to consolidate the erosion of self-esteem of one or both
248
partners. In other cases there can be a more positive outcome from a

divorce. For instance, from her experience of working in a shelter for
battered women Rosemary Haughton writes:
For many women, the moment of conversion, the true metanoia, has
come when they reach the decision to seek a divorce . . . To compare
the decision to seek a divorce to the choice of discipleship may seem
shocking — but that can be what it really is: the choice of life over
death, spiritual freedom over bondage. It is for many the entrance into
a new life . . . l
To refer to divorce as 'a plague on society' need not imply any kind of
condemnation of those whose marriages have broken down. Although
plagues throughout history have often been accompanied by the persecu-
tion of scapegoats deemed responsible for them, for the Christian the
authentic human response; must always be positive and two-fold. It must
involve care and compassion for those suffering as a result of the plague;
and it must seek to discover the causes of the plague so that effective steps
can be taken at the level of prevention and cure. Moreover, it must also
resist any temptation to link sickness and sin together and thus attribute
the spread of a plague to immorality. In reality, a plague might sometimes
actually be the side-effect of a positive advance in medical science and
health care.
For a Christian the response to the 'plague' of marriage breakdown
must not be to condemn those who have been through this traumatic
experience and who may be suffering grievously as a result of it. It will be
sensitive to their pain and want to relieve it in any way possible. It must
want to assure divorced people who are feeling so deeply wounded that
they are still precious to God and in no way rejected by God's love.
Moreover, the Christian community as a whole must embody this healing
and affirming Gospel message by the way they relate, individually and
communally, to those who have suffered marriage breakdown. A Christian
response to marriage breakdown must also want to discover why it is that
marriages are breaking down in such alarming numbers at present. In the
West a major Christian prophet in this respect has been Dr Jack
Dominian. His dedicated research has made an enormous contribution to
our understanding of why and how many marriages come to break down
(see Bibliography}. In fact, in the light of his research it could be argued
that, paradoxically, the Christian Churches' enriched teaching on sexuality
and marriage has been a factor contributing indirectly to the breakdown
of marriage. This is because their more personalist understanding of
marriage could encourage couples to have very high expectations of their
relationship. However, Jack Dominian has shown that the building up of
such a profound and multi-dimensional personal relationship requires
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Kevin T. Kelly
great verbal, bodily and sexual skills in listening, communicating and

mutual accommodation. He has also shown that where people are coming
from (experientially and socially, not just locally) is a very important
ingredient in the mix. Hence, one major contributory factor as to why
many marriages break down is simply because one or both of the partners
did not have the capacity or necessary skills to build up the kind of
marital relationship they believe in and which the Church has canonized.
Though they might have been deeply committed to their marriage at the
outset, they simply 'could not' (i.e. did not have the ability to) make it
work.
If this analysis of the causes of marriage breakdown is at least partially
correct, the Christian Churches will want to do everything possible to
ensure that people are properly prepared and equipped for undertaking
the challenging process involved in building this kind of personalist
marriage. Although marriage preparation courses can help, perhaps even
more important is the quality of human development education and
experience received in home and school. Moreover, the growing demise of
the extended family means that greater help and support is needed for
couples in the crucial early years of their developing relationship.
There is also greater awareness nowadays that external factors can
threaten the stability of a marriage - bad housing, unemployment or job
insecurity, poverty, an unhealthy or destabilizing social environment, the
subtle pressures of a consumer society infiltrating through the media, etc.,
etc. Church leaders are becoming increasingly aware of this connection
and are beginning to voice their concern very forcefully. For instance, in
1995 the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales issued a public
statement calling on the British government to address these factors as a
matter of urgency:
The bishops of England and Wales urge the Government and Parlia-
ment to take account of the following three needs whatever reforms are
proposed in respect of the divorce law.
a. Marriage needs to be strengthened, and the likelihood of divorce
lessened by making adequate resources available to increase edu-
cation for marriage and to bring about a change of people's attitudes
and expectations regarding marital relationships and the bringing
up of children. This must include helping young people to acquire
the necessary social skills of communication, to deal sensibly and
maturely with conflicts, and to develop an understanding of what
commitment means in terms of changing and adapting within the
marital relationship as the couple grow and change.
b. Provision needs to be made for the generous funding of marriage
counselling services and other organisations supportive of marriage
250
and family life, so that access to such services is available, especially

when difficulties begin to arise in marital relationships,
c. Realistic support for marriage and the family requires a comprehen-
sive family policy. This will have to deal with the support of
families, including single parent families, through the tax and
benefit system, access to adequate housing and employment, and
child care facilities. A constructive debate must concentrate on all
the elements required for an effective family policy.2
Although the US bishops have produced some epoch-making statements
on social issues, they have not as yet spoken as clearly on this particular
issue. Moreover, in a more recent series of recommendations for implemen-
tation at diocesan level, with reference to preaching and teaching the
bishops of England and Wales have even been very insistent on the need
for pastoral sensitivity in the way the divorced are spoken about:
'Sensitivity in the use of language and images about those who have
experienced marital and family breakdown is often crucial for their
welcome in the community. We ask the bishops to give this lead and to
encourage their clergy to be as fully informed as possible.' They have gone
so far as to encourage those involved in marriage preparation to explore
'the possibility of involving some of our divorced people in the preparation
of others for marriage'.
Just as the more positive personalist Christian teaching on marriage
has, unintentionally, been an indirect factor affecting the breakdown of
marriage, so too has been another enrichment of Christian understanding.
That is the growing appreciation of the full and equal dignity of women
and the awareness that the relationships between men and women, at both
personal and societal levels, have, for most of history, been seriously
distorted by the sinful structure of patriarchy. This awareness is recognized
by most churches as a major 'sign of the times' in our day. Even John Paul
II has spoken strongly on this matter in some of his addresses in 1995
prior to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. This
progress towards greater humanization has, in fact, had a temporary
destabilizing effect on marriage. If the man—woman relationship is seen to
be at the heart of marriage, it is not surprising that some marriages come
to grief at a time when gender relationships are undergoing a process of
profound re-evaluation and particularly when this process is far more
advanced among women than among men. Some women are having to
cope with the sudden awareness that they have been living in a relationship
of great inequality and some couples are struggling with the fact that they
do not share a common vision of equality and mutuality in the relationship
they are setting out to build.
To say that marriage breakdown is a 'plague on society', therefore, need
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Kevin T. Kelly
not imply any condemnation of those who have been through the
traumatic experience of the disintegration of their marriage. On the other
hand, personal sin, even grave personal sin in some cases, may be a factor
which contributes to the breakdown of some marriages. The adoption of a
'no fault' procedure in divorce law does not imply theologically that
marriage breakdown is always without sin. All human relationships are
affected by sin. The breakdown of a marriage relationship is no exception.
Hence, there is the same need for conversion and forgiveness as m the rest
of life. However, to acknowledge that sin can play a part in the breakdown
of a marriage is very different to saying that sin is usually the cause of a
marriage breakdown. On occasion it may be. It is just as likely, however,
that marriages fail through human incapacity to build a lasting relation-
ship despite the best of intentions, rather than through human wickedness
on the part of one or both partners.
Christians have always had to face the pastoral problem of marriage
breakdown, though never before in such numbers. Moreover, in previous
ages marriage was seen predominantly as a contract with strong patriarchal
overtones. The bride was transferred from the authority of her father and
his family to that of her husband and his family. Continuing the husband's
lineage through male offspring and guaranteeing inheritance within the
legitimate family line were key factors in such a transaction. With such
priorities the growth of a deep multi-dimensional personal relationship
did not figure largely in a marriage. The 'master' role of the husband and
the 'mother/housekeeper' role of the wife were the main consideration.
Consequently, the reasons why marriages broke down tended to focus on
alleged deficiencies on the part of the wife — her failure to produce a male
heir, her insubordination, her deficiencies in supervising the household,
suspicions about her fidelity etc.
Against such a background the absolute prohibition of divorce by Jesus
was truly good news for women. It challenged men to respect the personal
dignity of their wives and not to reject them like a piece of unsatisfactory
merchandise. Most contemporary scripture scholars hold that the radical
teaching of Jesus on divorce needs to be interpreted as gospel rather than
law. His absolute prohibition of divorce is more subversive and inspi-
rational than law can be. He is challenging the whole mind-set described
above which fails to appreciate the meaning of marriage in the mind of
the Creator and which reduces it to a social device to ensure property
rights and legitimacy of lineage and is prepared to accept divorce as a
legal corrective measure when things go wrong. Among his Jewish hearers,
these strong words of Jesus must have been particularly disturbing to men
and powerfully encouraging to women.
Scholars seem to agree that the exceptions allowing divorce found in
Matthew and Paul reflect the way the early Christian communities tried
252
to face new situations in fidelity to the radical teaching of Jesus. As the

post-Resurrection church began to spread, new pastoral problems arose.
In the Hellenistic world, for instance, a wife could divorce her husband.
So Paul made it clear that the radical teaching of Jesus applied equally to
women as to men. Difficulties also arose when only one partner in a
marriage embraced the Christian faith. Paul insisted that this did not give
the Christian partner an automatic right to divorce, even though he also
wrote that divorce, and presumably remarriage too, was acceptable
whenever difference of belief made it impossible to maintain peace in the
home.
A very thorough and easily accessible account of the teaching of Jesus
on divorce and its pastoral adaptation to the needs of the early Christian
communities is given by John R. Donahue.3 It is worth quoting some
passages from his conclusion:
The teaching of the historical Jesus is cast in the form of such a 'moral
ought', but it is not in the legal form of a declarative pronouncement
about a bond which cannot be broken . . .
The teaching of Jesus is also in the context of a prophetic defence of
marriage in the face of easy divorce laws which prevented marriage
from being that kind of life between man and woman in mutual
interdependence and harmony intended by the creator. It is also a
protest against the innocent victim of such divorce laws, the woman
spouse in the marriage.
The handing on of the tradition of Jesus in the early Church involves
a twofold movement. On the one hand, the Church continues to
reiterate Jesus' prophetic defence of marriage. On the other hand, in its
application of this defence to concrete instances the Church mirrors the
'pastoral' concern of Jesus . . .
[Paul] defends marriage against those who would force celibacy or
separation upon would-be Christians and says that where separation
does occur reconciliation is to take place. At the same time, he sees
marriage as a dynamic process and in the case of the marriage between
the unbeliever and the believer where sanctification, freedom and peace
cannot arise, he allows for divorce.
Both Mark and Matthew defend marriage against easy divorce, and
Mark adapts this defence to a Hellenistic environment, while Matthew
allows divorce to members of his community whose first marriages did
not meet the demands of Jewish law.
Despite disagreement on details there is a growing consensus among
Catholic exegetes that Matthew and Paul present both an exception to
the absolute prohibition of divorce and represent adaptation of Jesus'
teaching to their own church situation. There is also consensus that
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Kevin T. Kelly
these exegetical findings should bear on church life and practice today.
(Kelly, pp. 226-7)
The possibility of remarriage after divorce
One question which has exercised Christian minds from the earliest days
has been the status of those whose marriages have broken down. Are they
still married or are they now free to embark upon a second marriage? This
question continues to be hotly debated within the Christian Churches
even today. One of the most imaginative theological contributions to this
debate is found in the Church of England Marriage Commission's 1978
report Marriage and the Church's Task. While it recognized that the
marriage commitment is 'unconditional', it interpreted the Church's task
as being one of facing the challenge of crafting 'a discipline which holds
before those who are married, and those about to marry, the challenge of
unconditional love, while offering to those who have failed in their
marriage the possibility of a new beginning' (n. 266). The marriage 'bond'
is subjected to careful scrutiny. The report argues that it is the 'personal
bond' based on 'mutual love' which unifies the various dimensions of the
marriage bond (n. 95). This personal bond can even be said to have an
'ontological character':
The marriage bond unites two flesh-blood-and-spirit persons. It makes
them the persons that they are. It binds them together, not in any
casual or peripheral fashion, but at the very centre of their being. They
become the persons they are through their relationship to each other.
Each might say to the other: 'I am I and I am you; together you and I
are we'. Since the marriage bond is in this way a bond of personal being,
it is appropriate to speak of it as having an 'ontological' character,
(n. 96)
In the eyes of the Commission, once a couple reach this level of oneness
they have created a bond between them 'which, as a matter of fact,
nothing can dissolve' (97). However, not every marriage reaches that level
of oneness. Marriage relationships often break down, as current statistics
show. The Commission interpreted such tragedies as failures in the growth
process of personal commitment in marriage. Although the commitment
is made when the marriage comes into being through their exchange of
vows — it is 'grounded in promise and obligation' — it still remains part of
the 'continuing process' of 'the making of the marriage' (n. 99). Tragically
that process can break down irretrievably with the result that the couple
fail to achieve the unbreakable character of their marriage bond. When
this occurs, God's will for this marriage is thwarted by 'human failure and
254
sin' even though this does not necessarily imply personal guilt on the part
of the couple themselves:
There is something radically wrong when a marriage does break down.
Marriages ought to be indissoluble! However, most of us reject the
doctrine that marriages cannot by definition be dissolved. It is only too
possible for men and women in particular cases to break the bond which
God, in principle and in general, wills to be unbreakable, and to put
asunder what God, in his original purpose, has joined together. Therein
lies the measure of human failure and sin. (n. 100)
For this approach, therefore, when the human bond has broken down
irretrievably, the marriage is no longer in existence and the two partners
are, in principle, free to embark on another union.
Although the theology and understanding undergirding it is very
different, in practice this approach is very similar to that which has been
developed in Eastern Christianity over the centuries. The Eastern tradition
and Orthodox Churches today believe that a marriage can 'die'. Such a
death is seen as tragic, but those who are left alone as a result of it can
still trust in the loving care of God, the benevolent guardian of the
Christian household (oikonomos), and may still find salvific life in the loving
union of a second marriage, even though they might be entering it
conscious of their need for healing and forgiveness as a result of their
previous failed marriage. Bernard Raring suggests that the Roman
Catholic Church might be enriched by a deeper understanding of the
Eastern tradition of 'economy' and its application to remarriage after
divorce (see Bibliography).
The theology and practice of the Latin Church, carried over in the
tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, after an uneven pastoral practice
in the early centuries has gradually hardened into a more ontological
interpretation of the bond of marriage. This bond is constituted by the
marriage covenant itself and is brought into existence by the couple's
mutual consent. Its natural indissolubility becomes absolute in the case of
a sacramental marriage since the bond now signifies the unbreakable bond
between Christ and the Church. Theoretically this interpretation leaves no
room for manoeuvre once the marriage bond has come into existence.
However, it is significant that the Council of Trent's formulation of this
seemingly absolute teaching was worded very carefully so as not to give
the impression that the Council Fathers were rejecting the more benign
Eastern Orthodox practice as incompatible with Christian faith. Moreover,
some aspects of the Roman Catholic Church's own practice are not fully
consistent with this interpretation. It is claimed, for instance, that the
Pope has the power, as the vicar of Christ on earth, to dissolve the
naturally indissoluble ontological bond in the case of marriages of the
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Kevin T. Kelly
unbaptized, though this power is only exercised to ensure the peaceful

state of the marriage of a baptized person. It is also claimed that in two
specific situations the bond can actually be dissolved even in the case of
the sacramental marriage of two baptized persons provided it has not been
consummated. Such a marriage can be dissolved by a Papal act of
dissolution. Prior to the 1983 Code it could also be dissolved when one
partner, with the other's consent, wanted to be free to take religious vows.
In that case, the bond was considered to be dissolved by this new act of
life-long commitment which effectively terminated the marriage relation-
ship (see Kelly, pp. 32—4).
Apart from these two anomalies the 'indissoluble bond' approach which
holds sway in the Roman Catholic Church means that, in practice, any
baptized person who has been truly married is not free to marry again
after divorce since they are still bound by their first marriage. Conse-
quently, the remarriage of a baptized person after divorce while the
previous partner is still living is, as a rule, only feasible within Roman
Catholic practice if the first marriage has been annulled. In other words,
it has to be shown that the first marriage was not really a true marriage
and so no indissoluble bond exists. Where that can be proved to the
satisfaction of a marriage tribunal a divorced person is free to remarry.
This theology and practice has developed over the centuries. Tribunal
practice continues to evolve to keep abreast of the latest findings regarding
the kind of psychological and emotional freedom and maturity needed for
a person to give any truly meaningful commitment to his or her marriage
vows. In fact, it could perhaps be argued that, though the indissoluble
bond theory still holds in theory, in practice the emphasis is moving
relentlessly towards the more pastoral consideration of whether a couple
had the capacity to undertake the profound personal relationship
demanded by our modern Western understanding of marriage. That is
why evidence regarding how a marriage actually worked out, unlike
previously, is now deemed relevant in many nullity cases. Hence, the role
of marriage tribunals today is becoming much more pastoral and directed
towards helping people who have suffered the tragedy of marriage
breakdown and divorce. Previously their prime concern was to defend the
bond of marriage. An indication that this might be what is happening is
found in the figures for annulment in the Roman Catholic Church. In
1968 there were 338 annulments world-wide. By 1983 this figure had
risen to 52,000 and is now estimated to be something in the region of
70,000 per annum. In 1985 in the United States alone there were 52,471
annulments completed in the first instance. What is disturbing, however,
is that the great majority of dioceses, especially in the developing world,
do not have functioning marriage tribunals. For instance, there was not a
single country from Africa or Asia among the eleven countries which
256
accounted for 94 per cent of annulments in the first instance in 1985 (cf.
Provost, pp. 600-1). Although difference of culture is certainly a partial
explanation, such a lack of functioning tribunals means that there is little
possibility of the development of a more culturally adapted tribunal
system for these countries.
The differences between the Roman Catholic position and that of the
Anglican Communion were explored in the ARCIC II Agreed Statement,
Life in Christ: Morals, Communion and the Church (1994). ARCIC was able
to conclude that 'Anglicans and Roman Catholics are at one in their
understanding of the nature and meaning of marriage' (n. 77) despite the
acknowledgement that some Anglicans believe that 'where a relationship
of mutual love and trust has clearly ceased to exist, and there is no
practical possibility of remaking it, the bond itself has also ceased to exist'
(n. 75). One can understand, therefore, why the final section of this part
of their Agreed Statement reads:
We agree that marriage is sacramental, although we do not fully agree
on how, and this affects our sacramental discipline. Thus, Roman
Catholics recognise a special kind of sacramentality in a marriage
between baptised persons, which they do not see in other marriages.
Anglicans, on the other hand, recognise a sacramentality in all valid
marriages. On the level of law and policy, neither the Roman Catholic
nor the Anglican practice regarding divorce is free from real or apparent
anomalies and ambiguities. While, therefore, there are differences
between us concerning marriage after divorce, to isolate those differ-
ences from this context of far-reaching agreement and make them into
an insuperable barrier would be a serious and sorry misrepresentation of
the true situation, (n. 77)
Mark Ellingsen, in his World Council of Churches study The Cutting Edge:
How Churches Speak on Social Issues (1993), adds an interesting gloss to this
point.
Because Orthodox practices converge with Protestantism while its
theological commitments converge with Roman Catholicism, it follows
that the disagreement it has with the Catholic Church in practice is not
theologically related. Consequently, the final conclusion can only be
that disagreements between the Roman Catholic and Protestant tra-
ditions on this matter, despite their distinct theological perspectives,
are not necessarily theologically related, (p. 85, italics in original)
Remembering how the early Christian communities were able to hold in
a kind of dialectical tension commitment to Jesus' absolute prohibition of
divorce and the acceptance of divorce by way of pastoral accommodation
in new situations in the community, it could be argued that all the
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Kevin T. Kelly
Christian churches are, in their different ways, struggling with the same
dialectical tension. They are trying to give theological expression to the
absolute teaching of Jesus within their wider interpretation of marriage;
and, at the same time, they are to be faithful to the tradition of the early
Christian communities by trying to be pastorally accommodating and
creative in their pastoral care of those whose marriages no longer reflect
the love, peace and justice of God's kingdom.
Issues of pastoral practice

(1) The remarriage of divorced persons in church
Divorced persons can remarry in most Christian churches today. Some,
like the Church of England, do not give any formal approval of the
practice and leave it to the clergy's pastoral decision to relax the normal
discipline in particular circumstances. Others adopt a more positive stance.
Most offer some kind of pastoral guide-lines to ensure that such marriages
are entered into responsibly and in good conscience and to safeguard the
officiating minister's own conscience.
The outstanding exception in this respect is the Roman Catholic
Church. As has already been noted, the official teaching of the Roman
Catholic Church is that a divorced person whose first marriage was valid
and whose partner is still alive may not enter a second marriage. Despite
his insisting that pastors 'are obliged to exercise careful discernment of
situations' and his instancing the 'difference between those who have
sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly
abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a
canonically valid marriage', John Paul II is adamantly opposed to any
semblance of a church celebration of a second marriage, as he states very
clearly in his Apostolic Constitution Familiaris Consortio (1981):
The respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples
themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful,
forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral
nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who
remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration
of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into
error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage,
(n. 84; for a discussion of whether this clear statement leaves any room
for pastoral flexibility, see Kelly, especially pp. 79-81)
258
(2) The divorced-remarried and the sacraments, especially

admission to Communion: a special problem in the Roman Catholic
Church
Most Christian Churches see no problem in the divorced-remarried
receiving Communion during the celebration of the Eucharist. However,
within the Roman Catholic Church the prohibition of the sacraments to
the divorced-remarried is an issue of major pastoral concern. The pastoral
urgency of this issue is probably felt most deeply in the case of parents
who see their receiving Communion as important for their children's faith-
development as well as for themselves. Another pastorally hurtful occasion
is when sons or daughters who have lost a parent are advised that they
cannot communicate at their funeral Mass. Rarely has this concern been
voiced more eloquently than by my late Archbishop, Derek Worlock, in
the presence of Pope John Paul II himself at the 1990 Rome Synod on
Marriage and the Family:
Many pastors nowadays are faced with Catholics whose first marriages
have perished and who have now a second and more stable (if legally
only civil) union in which they seek to bring up a new family. Often
such persons, especially in their desire to help their children, long for
the restoration of full eucharistic communion with the Church and its
Lord. Is this spirit of repentance and desire for sacramental strength to
be for ever frustrated? Can they be told only that they must reject their
new responsibilities as a necessary condition of forgiveness and resto-
ration to sacramental life? (Fuller version of this intervention in Kelly,
pp. 71-2)
The most authoritative recent statement from the Vatican on this matter
is the 1994 Letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to
the World's Bishops (text in Kelly, pp. 121—7). In it they repeat the current
strict teaching: 'In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ, the Church affirms
that a new union cannot be recognised as valid if the preceding marriage
was valid. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a
situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they
cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists' (n. 4).
Though not explicitly stated in the text, there is no doubt that this
statement was a reaction to the 1993 pastoral initiative on the part of the
three bishops of the Upper Rhine Province. Examining the background to
this initiative and how it eventually led up to the publication of the CDF
letter may help to clarify where matters stand at present in the Roman
Catholic Church with regard to the divorced-remarried and the sacraments.
In recent years there had developed a growing consensus among moral
theologians and canon lawyers, both as individuals and in their professional
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Kevin T. Kelly
associations, that, in certain clearly denned circumstances, divorced-

remarried persons could in good conscience present themselves for
sacramental absolution or Holy Communion and that, when they did so,
they should not be refused by the church's minister (cf. Kelly, pp. 74—5;
the generally agreed conditions for such a conscience decision are listed on
pp. 77-8).
Though a priest might accompany such people in their conscientious
decision-making process, in no way would he be giving any kind of formal
permission or authorization. Some writers refer to this pastoral approach
as the 'internal forum solution' (cf. Theodore Davey in Kelly, pp. 178-82).
This can be confusing, as Cardinal Ratzinger points out in his letter in
The Tablet replying to Davey's article. Ratzinger argues that the term
'internal forum solution' should be restricted as formerly to instances
where a person may have genuine moral certainty that his or her first
marriage was invalid but where, for one reason or another, it is not
possible to have this ratified through a marriage tribunal (Kelly,
pp. 183—5). Others prefer to speak of the 'pastoral solution'. This is
preferable because of its use of the word 'pastoral'. However, it is still
open to the objection that it can give the impression of some kind of
formal permission, albeit at a pastoral level, on the part of the priest. In
reality, what is involved in this pastoral approach is simply an informed
conscientious decision on the part of the divorced-remarried person and
the recognition that this decision should be respected.
This is the background to the 1993 pastoral initiative of the three
German bishops. On 10 July 1993 they published a Pastoral Letter and
an accompanying document ('Principles of Pastoral Care') dealing with
the pastoral care of those who had suffered marriage breakdown and also
of those who had remarried (full texts in Kelly, pp. 90—117 and 121—36).
The bishops' guidelines included advice to their priests with regard to
helping the divorced-remarried, when pastorally appropriate, to look
conscientiously at their present situation to see whether or not they could
feel justified in receiving the sacraments. Though the bishops did not
want to promote indiscriminate admission to the sacraments, they did not
rule out the possibility of a genuinely conscientious decision to receive the
sacraments. Moreover, they recognized that such a decision needs the help
of 'candid discussion with a wise and experienced priest', even though
they pointed out very clearly that there was no question of his actually
giving any kind of official permission.
Such a decision can only be made by the individual in a personal review
of his or her conscience and by no one else . . . The participation of a
priest in this clarifying process is necessary because participation in the
eucharist is a public and ecclesiastically significant act. Nevertheless,
260
the priest does not pronounce any official admission in a formal sense.
(Kelly, p. 113)
To help people in this decision-making process the three bishops offer
their own version of the criteria which, as mentioned earlier, had been put
forward by various moral theologians and canon lawyers both as individ-
uals and as representing professional groupings:
Only an honest accounting can lead to a responsible decision of
conscience. An examination of the following criteria is therefore
indispensable:
• when there is serious failure involved in the collapse of the first
marriage, responsibility for it must be acknowledged and repented;
• it must be convincingly established that a return to the first partner
is really impossible and that with the best will the first marriage
cannot be restored;
• restitution must be made for wrongs committed and injuries done
insofar as this is possible;
• in the first place this restitution includes fulfilment of obligations to
the wife and children of the first marriage (cf. Code of Canon Law,
canon 1071, n.1.3),
• whether or not a partner broke his or her first marriage under great
public attention and possibly even scandal should be taken into
consideration;
• the second marital partnership must have proved itself over a long
period of time to represent a decisive and also publicly recognisable
will to live permanently together and also according to the demands
of marriage as a moral reality;
• whether or not fidelity to the second relationship has become a moral
obligation with regard to the spouse and children should be
examined;
• it ought to be sufficiently clear — though certainly not to any greater
extent than with other Christians — that the partners seek truly to
live according to the Christian faith and with true motives, i.e.
moved by genuinely religious desires, to participate in the sacramen-
tal life of the Church. The same holds true in the children's
upbringing. (Kelly, pp. 111-12)
Because of the high profile of these three bishops, the Congregation of the
Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) felt obliged to intervene and invited the three
bishops to a meeting in Rome. As mentioned above, subsequent to that
meeting, even though the German bishops were not mentioned explicitly,
the CDF sent a letter to all the bishops of the world reminding them of
the current official teaching on divorce and remarriage and insisting that
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Kevin T. Kelly
the current practice of non-admission to the sacraments be strictly adhered

to (text in Kelly, pp. 121-7).
When the three German bishops sent out this CDF letter to their
parishes, they included a letter written by themselves (text in Kelly,
pp. 128—36). This gave their priests and people an account of their
discussions with the CDF and explained how matters now stood. In this
letter, they repeated what they had stressed in their earlier documents,
namely, that 'remarriage during the lifetime of the first marital partner of
a valid sacramental marriage stands in objective contradiction to the
divine order as renewed by Jesus Christ' and that this, therefore, 'precludes
official admission to the reception of holy communion, both generally and
in the individual case' (Kelly, pp. 130—1). However, they go on to insist
that this is not the end of the matter. Because of its pastoral importance
it is worth quoting a long passage from this section of their letter:
It certainly cannot be overlooked that the cases of the divorced and
remarried often involve delicate and highly complex human situations
in which the concrete application of the above principles becomes
pastorally difficult . . . They represent a pastoral challenge which stands
in urgent need of an answer.
According to the traditional teaching of the Church, the general
norm must in each case indeed be applied to concrete persons and their
individual situations, without this doing away with the norm itself.
'Canon law can only posit a generally valid order of things; it cannot,
however, regulate all individual cases, which are often very complex'
(Catholic Catechism for Adults, published by the German Bishops'
Conference, p. 395). The Church's doctrinal tradition has developed for
this purpose the concept of epikeia (equity), while canon law has come
up with the principle of canonical equity. It is not a question here of
doing away with the law that is in force or the valid norm. Rather, it is
a matter of applying them in difficult and complex situations according
to 'justice and equity' in such a way that the uniqueness of the
individual person is taken into account. This has nothing to do with a
so-called 'situational pastoral practice' . . .
The controversy concerning our pastoral letter and the principles was
ignited above all by the question of whether the concepts of epikeia and
canonical equity could also be applied in individual cases having a
given character and under precisely circumscribed conditions to the
question of the reception of communion by the divorced and remarried.
In other words, the question is whether in particular cases of the
divorced and remarried it is thinkable and legitimate not, indeed, that
they be officially admitted to holy communion, but that such individ-
uals, after appropriate guidance by a priest who first recalls to them the
262
Lord's word concerning lifelong fidelity in marriage, see themselves as

justified by their truth-orientated consciences in approaching holy
communion.
We saw no possibility of an official admission, but rather of an
approach to the table of the Lord under precisely stated conditions, this
being made possible on the basis of a reflective pronouncement by the
individual's conscience. This distinction between admission and approach
is fundamental for us. (Kelly, pp. 131—2)
The bishops stress that their 'disagreement' with the CDF position is not
'doctrinal' but concerns 'the question of pastoral practice in individual
cases'. They believe that more recent research into Church tradition shows
that there is 'room, beneath the threshold of the binding teaching, for
pastoral flexibility in complex individual cases' and they insist that 'such
flexibility does not stand in contradiction to the indissolubility of
marriage'.
This letter is very carefully worded. While it shares the basic doctrinal
position of the CDF and acknowledges that their pastoral principles 'are
not accepted by the universal Church and therefore cannot be the binding
norm of pastoral practice', it also recognizes that, as bishops, they are
'bound both to the generally valid doctrine of the Church and its unity as
well as to people in existentially difficult situations' (Kelly, p. 134). In
the penultimate paragraph of their letter, the bishops encourage their
priests 'to seek for responsible solutions for individual cases in fidelity to
the message of Jesus and the faith of the Church as well as in solidarity
with the people involved and in communion with the entire Church' and
they trust priests to 'act in a pastorally responsible way in the light of the
above-cited basic principles' and to advise their people 'in a right way'
(Kelly, p. 135). Despite the bishops' 'taking note' that 'certain statements'
in their two documents 'are not accepted by the universal Church and
therefore cannot be the binding norm of pastoral practice', I interpret
their letter as a carefully worded attempt to help their people appreciate
the CDF's role of doctrinal oversight for the whole Church, while
continuing to recognize that bishops and priests have to honour their own
pastoral responsibility both to help people with their conscientious
decisions in difficult pastoral situations and to respect their decisions once
made. Since they were not in the business of issuing 'binding norms of
pastoral practice' (and certainly not for the universal Church) I would not
interpret their letter as a withdrawal of their earlier guidance on the part
of the three German bishops.
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Kevin T. Kelly
Conclusion
It is evident from what has been written above that doctrinal and pastoral
disagreement about divorce and remarriage exists both between and
within the Christian Churches. Nevertheless, all involved in these dis-
agreements are trying to be faithful to the mind of Christ as evidenced in
his teaching and pastoral practice. The US Catholic biblical scholar John
R. Donahue expresses this beautifully, with particular reference to his own
church, in the closing paragraph of his article referred to earlier:
In a most basic sense the New Testament does sanction what is in fact
church teaching and pastoral practice today. The Church stands in
prophetic opposition to that divorce which destroys that love and life
together which was intended by God for man and woman. At the same
time through its marriage tribunals, through continued reflection on
'the pastoral solution' and through a ministry to the divorced, the
Church is continuing that 'pastoral dimension' of the ministry of Jesus
and the missionary practice of Matthew and Paul. While bearing in its
life the prophetic teaching of Christ, the Church must also present to
the world that Christ who defended the innocent victims of different
forms of oppression and who was ever present to sinners and tax
collectors and whose offer of love was closer to the religiously marginal
than to the pious and just. Any step backwards to a simple 'adamantine
opposition' to divorce without adaptation of this opposition and the
questioning of its application would not be faithful to the New
Testament. (Kelly, p. 228)
Notes
1 Rosemary Haughton, 'Marriage in women's new consciousness' in William P.

Roberts (ed.), Commitment to Partnership (Rahway, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987), at
pp. 149-50.
2 Briefing (2 December 1995), p. 7.
3 John R. Donahue, 'Divorce: New Testament perspectives', The Month (1981),
pp. 113-20 (reprinted in Kelly, pp. 212-28).
Select bibliography
Timothy Buckley, What Binds Marriage? Roman Catholic Theology in Practice (London:
Geoffrey Chapman, 1997).
Church of England General Synod Marriage Commission, Marriage and the Church's
Task (London: Church Information Office, 1978).
264
Jack Dommran, Marital Pathology: An Introduction for Doctors. Counsellors and Clergy
(London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1979).
Bernard Haring, No Way Out? Pastoral Care of the Divorced and Remarried (Slough: St
Paul Publications, 1989).
Kevin T. Kelly, Divorce and Second Marriage: Facing the Challenge (Kansas City, MO:
Sheed & Ward, new and expanded edn, 1996).
Theodore Mackin, Divorce and Remarriage (New York: Paulist Press, 1984).
James H. Provost, 'Intolerable marriage situations: a second decade', The Jurist (1990),
pp. 573-612.
265
18
Truth and lies
Bernard Hoose
The quest for truth
The search for truth of one kind or another permeates the whole of our life
in this world. It comes to the fore when one follows courses at school or
university or when one grapples with a book on elementary physics,
anthropology, chemical engineering or Christian ethics, but it is in no
way restricted to such academic pursuits. It is involved in our watching
television news programmes, in the appreciation of art, in courtship, in
marriage, in friendship and in prayer.
In spite of the ubiquity of the search, there is often something of an
elusive quality about truth. This is especially the case when we are dealing
with the deepest senses of the term. In saying this, I am not referring only
to such matters as the truth that is God and the full meaning of that
profoundest of statements emanating from the lips of Jesus in St John's
Gospel: 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life' (14:6). It is, for instance,
essential that we strive to know ourselves, but the truth that is each of us
is amazingly elusive. We hide a great deal about ouselves behind the
masks that we wear for the various roles we have in life. This is, no doubt,
partly a defence mechanism that prevents other people from getting too
close and hurting us too deeply — the hurt resulting from their reaction to
the discovery of truths about us that they may find unacceptable. Some
years ago, John Powell, quoting an excerpt from an actual conversation,
wrote: 'I am afraid to tell you who I am because, if I tell you who I am,
you may not like who I am, and it's all that I have.'1 The deceit, however,
affects not only those we meet. It affects us too. Strange though it may
seem, we simply do not know all that much about ourselves, and our
persisting in wearing masks is just as much a barrier to us in our quest for
knowledge about ourselves as it is to other people.
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Truth and lies
Given the fundamental importance of self-knowledge, it would seem

that we would do well to devote some energy to finding ways of developing
it. One such way is found in intimate relationships. This is because deep
loving relationships (in which the beloved is accepted, warts and all)
enable those involved to gradually let their masks and other defences fall
away so that more and more of the truth about themselves is revealed to
those who love them and, of course, to themselves. Another way lies in
the kind of prayer that seeks God at the heart of one's own personality
and inevitably finds truth about oneself along the way.2
It is particularly sad that, in hiding the truth about ourselves, we can
be concealing something far more beautiful than that which we portray.
To say this is not to deny the fact that many of us have skeletons in our
cupboards. Nor is it to deny that probably all of us have doubts about the
wisdom of trusting certain other people with even the lovelier truths
about ourselves. They are among the pearls that we are loath to cast before
those whom we have not learned to trust. In short, although our vocation
as Christians may well involve, among other things, a search for the true
self, it would seem that we all feel the need for some minimum of privacy,
for keeping some truths, notably truths about ourselves, within a small
confined circle of intimate friends, and, indeed, for confining some
knowledge of truth to ourselves and God.
The question of lies and untruth
What we have said thus far serves to illustrate the tension that we
encounter throughout our lives between the intuition that the expression
of truth is, generally speaking, good, and the seemingly commonsense
insights that a certain amount of secrecy is necessary, that some truth is
better withheld (at least from certain people), and that even the telling of
untruths may sometimes be necessary for the achievement of a greater
good.
St Augustine, however, did not consider the achievement of such a
greater good to be an option that is open to us. He taught that a lie could
never be a morally right act, not even a lie told to save the life of another
person. For him, a lie could be described as having one thing in mind and
saying another, with the intention to deceive.3 On the face of it, this
might seem to be a useful working definition. We would do well, I think,
to examine it in some detail. 4
A first point worth noting is that, if we were to take the word 'saying'
in the above description of a lie to indicate only the faculty of speech (a
combination of lungs, vocal chords, tongue, lips, etc.), we would be
ignoring numerous other ways of lying. We can also lie, for example, in
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Bernard Hoose
writing, just as we can lie using Morse code, smoke signals, hand signs or
any other kind of body language. A second point worth noting is that a
difference between the facts and the literal meaning of what one says is
not enough to constitute a lie - even if the person doing the communicat-
ing is fully aware of that difference. There must also be an intention to
deceive. If this were not the case, much of our normal use of language
would be morally wrong. Take, for instance, our use of hyperbole. We
would also be acting in a way that is morally wrong in writing novels,
plays, poems and songs if we knew that the words written did not coincide
with known facts. This would be absurd, especially in view of the fact
that fiction can be used very effectively to communicate deep truths, as
can be seen very clearly in Jesus' use of parables in all four gospel accounts.
A third point worth bearing in mind, moreover, is that an intention to
deceive (even when accompanied by success therein) does not necessary
suffice for a lie to occur. If it were sufficient, many of the games we play
would be wrong in their very essence. In many ball games, for example, it
is normal to try to mislead members of the opposing side into thinking
you are going to execute a certain manoeuvre so that they will leave you
free to execute a very different one, and thereby, perhaps, score a goal,
point, try, run or whatever. Such misleading or deceiving of opponents, in
accordance with the rules, is, of course, part of the game. Deceit outside
those rules, as in the case of one who falls to the floor clutching an
uninjured limb whilst falsely claiming that he or she has been injured in
order to gain a penalty point or some other advantage, is, however, a very
different matter. Now it might be claimed that the difference lies in the
fact that this latter case fits Augustine's definition of a lie, whereas the
former case (deceit within the rules) does not. But is it really so? In regard
to such matters as feigning injury in order to gain a penalty point, we
could say that cheats of the kind described have one thing in mind (in the
sense that they know they have not been fouled) and are communicating
something quite different with the intention to deceive. So far so good.
However, it might also be claimed that somebody who acts within the
rules when selling a dummy, or feigning a stroke, also has one thing in
mind (knowledge that no such kick or stroke is to take place) whilst
communicating another with the intention to deceive.
It could be objected that no real deception is involved when people play
within the rules of a game. What might lead one to say this is the fact
that the words 'deceit', 'deception' and 'deceive' tend to have a ring of
moral wrongness about them in modern usage. In other words, we tend to
use those words mostly to describe activity which we have already decided
is morally wrong. In order to avoid misunderstandings, therefore, we
might decide to avoid the use of these words in this context, and use other
words to convey their essential meaning. If we consult a dictionary, we
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Truth and lies
find that 'to deceive' means 'to lead someone to believe what is false' or 'to
purposely mislead'. This, however, changes nothing in what we have said
about selling dummies, and so forth in ball games. The fact remains that
the person selling the dummy misleads purposely, and surely it is such
misleading that we understand to be referred to in Augustine's definition
- if we take it to apply to more than just the faculty of speech as described
above.
It might seem, therefore, that, if we stay with this definition, we are
led to conclusions that are counter-intuitive, one such being that some of
the most skilful moves in ball games are unethical. Once again we need to
look at the same kind of language problem as that just discussed, but in
reference to a different word. This time the word is 'lie'. Here again we
have a word that tends to be used almost exclusively to refer to morally
wrong activity. Another such word is 'murder', which is used to refer to
acts of unjustified homicide. Using the same kind of formula, we could
say that a 'lie' is an unjustified untruth. We should note, however, that
Augustine's definition of a lie is, in fact, a definition of a purposely
misleading untruth. In other words, he appears to be saying that all
communication of purposely misleading untruths is wrong. Apparently
following his lead, various other Christian teachers over the centuries have
claimed that the telling of such untruths cannot be justified in any
circumstances. For them it matters not what the consequences may be of
taking a course other than that of telling an untruth, although, in certain
circumstances, the consequences could conceivably be disastrous. Thus we
find a deontological norm being promulgated.5
Various arguments have been used to ground this norm. One, resulting
from a particular kind of natural law thinking, is that the faculty of speech
has been given to us by God only to communicate the truth. Even if we
ignored the fact that the faculty of speech could be said to have numerous
purposes (including that of entertaining other people in various ways),
upholders of this argument would still have to show how it can be used in
some extended form to prove the wrongness of falsehoods communicated
by means of smoke signals, Morse code, and so forth. Some years ago,
John Dedek noted a couple of somewhat different arguments used in a
document called the Summa Fratris Alexandra, to show why lying, unlike
theft and homicide, could never be morally right under any circumstances.
(The word 'lying' here, it would seem, means purposely misleading by
communicating an untruth.) The first is that an evil intention is always
involved. This is so because the person telling the untruth intends to
deceive. A counter argument to this might be that analogous arguments
could be used about other kinds of acts of which Christians generally
approve. The second argument found by Dedek is that truth is more noble
than life itself and that no new good could be introduced which could
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Bernard Hoose
compensate for a defect of truth. 6 This is an amazing claim. Most people,

moreover, if they reflected upon cases such as those in which a person's
life could be saved by telling an untruth to a serial killer, would regard
the claim as counter-intuitive. Whatever we may wish to say about the
validity or otherwise of these arguments, however, some scholars are of
the opinion that, in practice, the real grounding of this norm was the
extraordinary authority attributed, for many centuries after his death, to
the figure of Augustine.7
In order to overcome some of the problems that could result from
keeping to a deontological norm about telling untruths, various mechan-
isms have been developed and adopted from time to time. Take, for
instance, the case of George, who is approached by a known assassin. The
assassin asks if the person he intends to kill is in George's house. The
truth of the matter is that the intended victim is indeed in George's
house. To tell the truth would obviously be disastrous. Now it would
seem that many scholars who accepted the deontological norm about lying
were also given to a certain amount of teleological thinking, 8 which they
applied in cases such as this. They believed, on grounds that had nothing
to do with consequences, that purposely misleading another person by
telling an untruth was wrong, but they also saw, precisely by taking likely
consequences into account, that one would do well to find some alternative
to telling the truth in such circumstances. One of the mechanisms
proposed was to maintain silence. Keeping silent in circumstances such as
those just described, however, could, in effect amount to telling the truth,
for the assassin could easily guess why George was not saying anything.
Another mechanism proposed was that of mental reservation. Henry Davis
describes what he calls 'broad' mental restriction or reservation as follows:
Since, therefore, a lie is never permitted under any circumstances, there
must be a legitimate means of guarding secrets when silence is
impossible. That means is the use of a form of words which express the
interior thought and could be known to express it, if the hearer were
sensible, prudent, reasonable and knew the circumstances. It is precisely
because the words employed can express and indeed do express the
truth as it is in the mind of the speaker, and as it could be gathered
from circumstances, and because the hearer could understand the words
in their intended meaning if he had the sense to do so, that the speaker
tells no lie. In other words, the expression used can be understood in
two senses, one of which the speaker means, the second of which the
hearer takes.
An example that Davis supplies is that of telling an importunate visitor
that the person he or she wishes to see is not at home. The phrase 'not at
home', he says, has two meanings, one being that the person concerned is
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Truth and lies
physically absent from the house, and the other that he or she is not at
home to this caller. The person speaking, he goes on to say, restricts the
meaning to one, and the hearer is deceived, not by a lie, but by his own
interpretation of the speaker's words. Davis also refers to strict mental
restriction. This he describes as 'the restriction in the mind of the speaker
of the sense of the words to a particular meaning which no one, however
wise, could understand'. Such behaviour he describes as a lie and says it is
never permissible. For the use of broad mental reservation to be legitimate,
says Davis, there must be a sufficiently good reason for its use, and the
person being addressed must have no right to the information. 9 Some
theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, see no need to resort to such
complications, which, generally speaking, are possible only if the person
to whom the question is addressed is quick-witted. They hold that, if the
questioner has no right to the information, it can be legitimate to tell an
untruth.
Those who take a teleological approach to the subject of truth and lying
would see a difference between justified and unjustified misleading of
another person through the communication of an untruth. They would see
this as analogous to the distinction between justified homicide and
murder. In determining which of the two categories a particular episode
falls into, they would take into account such matters as harm done, or
likely to be done, to the person deceived and/or the person telling the
untruth, and, indeed, anybody else who is likely to be affected. They
would also take into account any reduction in trust that might result. In
the case of the person who cheats in a ball game, it is clear that a reduction
in trust is likely to occur and that harm could result for both the cheat
and members of the opposing side. In the case of selling a dummy within
the rules of the game, however, no harm should normally result. As for
the case of the assassin, many ideologists would no doubt argue that, in
view of the disastrous consequences likely to ensue upon the telling of the
truth, there is sufficient reason for deceiving the murderer by telling an
untruth. Indeed, they might argue that one should not resort to alterna-
tives (such as maintaining silence) if telling an untruth is likely to be the
most effective means of protecting the intended victim.
Many, perhaps most, Christian ethicists would describe themselves as
neither totally teleologist nor totally deontologist. A present-day scholar
who considers himself to fit into neither camp and yet believes that lying
(by which he presumably means purposely misleading by communicating
an untruth) is always wrong, is Germain Grisez. He sees human goodness
in the fullness of human being. In order to understand what is involved in
being a good person, therefore, we need to find out what are those things
that fulfil humans. These he calls the basic goods, and supplies a list of
them, included in which are: life, health and safety; knowledge and
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Bernard Hoose
aesthetic experience; living at peace with others, neighbourliness and

friendship; and integrity or self-integration. One of Grisez's basic tenets is
that one should never turn directly against any of these basic goods, which
he describes as aspects of persons. It would thus be wrong to be moved by
hostility to opt for or even accept the destruction or impeding of a basic
good. It would also be wrong to be moved by a stronger desire for an
instance of one of the goods to act for it by destroying, damaging or
impeding an instance of one of the others. If we were to choose in that
way, says Grisez, we would thus determine ourselves against the impeded,
damaged or destroyed good.10 Now lying, he believes, causes damage to
more than one basic good.
Lying and other deceptions are intentional untruthfulness: they express

outwardly something at odds with one's inner self and attempt to lead
others to accept it. Thus, they divide the inner and outer selves of those
who engage in them, contrary to their own self-integration and
authenticity, while impeding or attacking the real community that
truthful communication would foster, even when deception seems
necessary. Therefore, lying and other deception in communication are
always wrong.11
Grisez goes on to discuss lying in various situations, including: lying to

save the life of a potential victim when speaking with a person who is
intent on committing murder; lying to protect secrets; and supposedly
helpful lying, as when one lies in order to hide bad news from someone
who would be seriously upset by it. As one would expect, he describes all
of these as wrong.12
Although Grisez describes the basic goods as aspects of persons and says
clearly that they are not Platonic Ideas, the present author has argued that
they sometimes appear to be treated as separate entities to which humans
should bend the knee. Apart from this, however, there are other questions
to be raised about Grisez's analysis of lying. When discussing the example
of agents of a totalitarian regime asking people in charge of an institution
to identify certain children who are to be sent to a death camp, he says
that, objectively, it would not be right to lie. He accepts that, if it were
feasible, it could be morally acceptable to use force, if necessary. He sees
no paradox here. A person cannot lie, he says, without thereby choosing
self-alienation, which, opposed as it is to the basic good of self-integration
and authenticity, is sufficient to make lying wrong. A person can, however,
use deadly force to defend others without choosing the death which, if it
were intentionally chosen, would make the killing wrong (presumably
because of the attack upon the basic good of life). Moreover, the use of
deadly force in defence does not impede community (the basic good of
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Truth and lies
neighbourliness, living at peace with others, friendship), whilst lying

does. 13
In answer to this, it might be said that one can see that there is a
struggle within when one tells an untruth, but it is difficult to see that
something similar is not there when one resorts to deadly violence, even
in a good cause. It does not appear evident, moreover, that such a struggle
within should necessarily lead to self-alienation. It may just be a sign of
the fact that one hates having to harm another human being in any way.
Moreover, it seems strange to claim that deadly violence does not impede
the community as lying does, especially when the lying is addressed to
the enemies of true community.
Truth in different situations
In chapters and articles devoted to the subjects of truth and lies, it seems
customary to analyse cases of conflict such as that of the assassin discussed
above. Another oft-quoted example is the use of lies (or deliberate
untruths) in warfare, a specific example being the ways in which, during
the Second World War, the Allies tried to mislead the Germans about
when and where they would invade mainland Europe. Yet another example
is that of placebos given by doctors to patients who have been led to
believe that they are receiving medicine. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,
however, restricting the problem of truthful speech to certain cases of
conflict is superficial. Bonhoeffer also believed that 'telling the truth'
means different things in different situations. We need to take into
account the relationships involved in each case. He illustrates this by
taking the example of parents demanding truthfulness of their children.
The truthfulness of a child towards his parents is essentially different

from that of the parents towards their child. The life of the small child
lies open before the parents, and what the child says should reveal to
them everything that is hidden and secret, but in the converse
relationship this cannot possibly be the case. Consequently, in the
matter of truthfulness, the parents' claim on the child is different from
the child's claim on the parents.
Bonhoeffer goes on to say that it already emerges from this that telling
the truth means different things in different situations. We need to take
into account in each situation the relevant relationships. We have to ask
whether and in what way a particular person is entitled to demand truthful
speech of other people. 'Speech between parents and children is, in the
nature of the case, different from speech between man and wife, between
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friends, between teacher and pupil, government and subject, friend and
foe, and in each case the truth which this speech conveys is also different.' 14
In a not entirely different vein, Bernard Haring discusses a case similar
to one mentioned above. During the Nazi period in Germany, employees
of the state went to hospitals and orphanages and asked for lists of children
with certain hereditary diseases. Where such lists were supplied, the
children concerned were sent off to the gas chambers. In many cases, those
who were asked for the lists replied that they had no such children in
their institution. Haring says that, to his mind, they did not lie, although
an analysis of the words alone could reveal a 'false utterance'.
But in the concrete situation, what Hitler's men were really asking
went beyond the words they uttered. Their actual question was, 'How
many children do you have for the gas chambers?' And the only response
to that question could be 'None'. This was truthful communication or
legitimate refusal of communication. Words have their meaning only
within the context, and what, in abstraction, could be called 'lie' or
'false utterance' can be, in the actual situation, the proper response.15
It would appear, then, that there can be communications of truth which

are appropriate to certain kinds of relationship or situation and not to
others.
Concluding remarks
It seems incontrovertible to say that, generally speaking, there has to be a

presumption against lying and in favour of truth just as there has to be a
presumption against homicide and against taking the property of another
person without his or her permission. It would also seem to be the case,
however, that what is true in a particular situation, and, indeed, what is a
lie in the same situation, are not always apparent to the one who searches
only superficially. Having said all this, however, we would do well to
remind ourselves of the damage that can be done to a person who lies too
easily, as, perhaps, most of us do. Truthfulness is, in many ways,
something that we learn. It is also a habit or virtue that we need to
acquire and nourish. Too often, however, untruthfulness becomes some-
thing of a habit, at least in certain kinds of situations. Ronald Preston
puts these points very succinctly.
It seems clear that there are occasions when it is right to tell a lie, but
most of the time people tell lies when they should not. The temptation
comes suddenly, perhaps to get out of an awkward situation or to
practice some petty fraud or deception, and they succumb. In order to
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Truth and lies
have the discernment to know when a lie is called for, one needs to be
habitually truthful. 1 6
Notes
1 John Powell, Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? (London: Fontana/Collins,
1982), p. 12.
2 See, for instance, Teresa o: Avila, The Interior Castle.
3 See Augustine's De rnendacio (On Lying) and his later work Contra mendaciurn
(Against Lying).
4 Sissela Bok defines a lie ,is 'any intentionally deceptive message which is stated':
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1978),
p. 13. Bok sees deception as a larger category, of which lying forms a part. She
does, however, note thai: it is possible to define 'lie' in such a way that it is
identical with deception. Thus, she says, we hear of a person 'living a lie' (p. 14).
5 Deontologists hold that certain acts are always right or always wrong regardless of
consequences. Teleologists, on the other hand, hold that the Tightness or
wrongness of an act depends upon its consequences. Long after Augustine, the
philosopher Immanuel Kant also spoke against lying in all circumstances.
6 John F. Dedek, 'Intrins cally evil acts: an historical study of the mind of St
Thomas', The Thomist 43 (1979), p. 400.
7 Thus Ronald Preston writes: Theologians subsequent to Augustine did not like
to contradict him . . .': Lying' in J. Macquarrie and J. Childress (eds), A Neu:
Dictionary of Christian Ethics (London: SCM Press, 1986), p. 363. John F. Dedek
too is of the opinion that later theologians were generally unwilling to challenge
Augustine's authority regarding this matter: 'Moral absolutes in the predecessors
of St Thomas', Theological Studies 38 (1977), p. 680, and Intrinsically evil acts',
p.412.
8 See note 5.
9 Henry Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology, vol. II (London: Sheed and Ward,
1946), pp. 413-16.
10 A simply worded presentation of Grisez's basic theory is found in Beyond the Neu'
Morality: The Responsibilities of Freedom (Notre Dame, IN and London: Notre Dame
University Press, 1974), which he co-authored with Russell Shaw. See also his
presentation of it in The Way of The Lord Jesus, vol. 1 (Chicago: Franciscan Herald
Press, 1983).
11 Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2 (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Herald
Press, 1993), p. 405.
12 Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2, pp. 406-12.
13 Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2, p. 407.
14 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, ed. Eberhard Bethge (London: Collins, 1966),
pp. 363-72.
15 Bernard Haring, Free and Faithful in Christ, vol. 2 (Slough: St Paul Publications,
1979), p. 48.
16 Ronald Preston, 'Lying' in A Neu1 Dictionary of Christian Ethics, p. 363.
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Bernard Hoose
Select bibliography
St Augustine, De Mendacio (On Lying) and Contra Mendacium (Against Lying).

Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (Hassocks: Harvester Press,
1978).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'What is meant by "telling the truth"?' in Ethics, ed. Eberhard
Bethge (London: Collins, 1966), pp. 363-72.
Bernard Ha'ring, Free and Faithful in Christ, vol. 2 (Slough: St Paul Publications,
1979), ch. 1.
276
Medical ethics
19
Euthanasia
Richard M. Gula
Death's habit of arriving accompanied by the fear of enduring pain, of

being trapped by machines without control, of losing bodily integrity and
personal dignity, of costing a great deal financially and emotionally, along
with other factors lends strength to the movement to secure the public
endorsement of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Fundamentally,
the debate about euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is more about
competing moral visions and values than anything else. After clarifying
the issue being debated, this chapter will identify the main features of the
vision and values shaping the debate, especially those upheld by the
Catholic moral tradition as recently reflected in Pope John Paul II's
encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1995). The Catholic position has been singled
out because Roman Catholic theology has long reflected on the extent of
one's obligation to preserve life. This tradition of reflection, and its
principles for making decisions about the care of the dying, are respected
by diverse communities, and used, at times, as a foil by those arguing in
favour of euthanasia.' This chapter will close with a suggestion for a way
of responding to the euthanasia movement from the perspective of virtue.
The debate
The easiest way to skew the euthanasia debate is to see it as a 'pulling-

the-plug' issue. It is not. Forgoing useless or disproportionately burden-
some treatment (which is what we generally mean by 'pulling the plug')
is not the same as euthanasia or assisted suicide. Standard medical, moral,
and legal practices allow the competent patient, or surrogate of an
incompetent patient, to weigh according to the patient's values the
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benefits and burdens of being treated, and then to select from alternative
treatments or to refuse treatment altogether. In general, the traditional
Catholic medical-moral principle of the ordinary/extraordinary means
standard supports such practice as the morally proper way to care for the
dying. To refuse treatment which is useless or disproportionately burden-
some (i.e. extraordinary) is the morally appropriate forgoing of treatment.
It is neither euthanasia nor assisted suicide (cf. EV, n. 65).
The debate is about voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted
suicide. Voluntary active euthanasia means a deliberate intervention, by
someone other than the person whose life is at stake, directly intended to
end the life of the competent, terminally ill patient who makes a fully
voluntary and persistent request for aid in dying. A common way to think
about euthanasia is to have a physician give a lethal injection to the
patient who wants to die. 'Mercy killing' is commonly used in place of
euthanasia to emphasize that such an act is directly intended as an act of
kindness. But as Pope John Paul II reminds us, 'euthanasia must be called
a false mercy, and indeed a disturbing "perversion" of mercy' (EV, n. 66).
In a physician-assisted suicide, a physician helps to bring on the death
of the patient by providing the means to do it or by giving the necessary
information on how to do it, but the patient performs the lethal act on
himself or herself. The typical procedure of assisted suicide is the patient
taking a lethal dose of poison (by swallowing pills, by taking an injection,
or by inhaling a gas, for example) requested of and then prescribed by the
physician for that purpose. In this case, as in euthanasia, both the
physician and patient play morally responsible roles in bringing about
death. Physician-assisted suicide is not significantly morally different from
euthanasia and so need not be distinguished for purposes of understanding
the moral vision and values at stake in the present debate.
The basic line of argument supporting euthanasia and physician-assisted
suicide can be summarized as follows. On the grounds of respect for
autonomy, human persons should have the right to control their living
and dying, and so they should be able to end their lives when they wish
to terminate needless suffering. Physicians, as agents of the patient's best
interests, should assist either by directly killing the patient or by assisting
the patient in suicide. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are beneficent acts
of relieving human suffering.
The main line of the religious argument against euthanasia and assisted
suicide is as follows. Human persons are stewards of creation and so we
have only limited dominion and thus limited freedom over our lives.
Human life is a 'trust', and not a personal 'possession' over which we can
assume full control. The sanctity of human life is conferred by God and
requires reverence and protection. Taking innocent life is not a human
right, but a grave moral evil. Human suffering, while not a value in itself,
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can have meaning when lived in faith and so need not diminish human
dignity.
Vision and values

Autonomy
Autonomy is the centrepiece in the moral defence of euthanasia. In health
care, autonomy has a prominent place as the guiding principle for treating
the patient as a person with values, goals, and limits. But this same
freedom which preserves the patient's right to refuse treatment is now
being extended by advocates of euthanasia to include choosing death and
the means to achieve it, even to the extent of eliciting the assistance of
another if necessary and desired.2 When defenders of euthanasia appeal to
autonomy, they mean that each person has a right to control his or her
body and life, including the end of it, and so ought to be given the
freedom to exercise this right. When autonomy is absolutized, the sheer
fact that a choice is 'my' choice becomes the sole right-making character-
istic of the choice. In the United States, Jack Kevorkian is drum major for
such a view: 'In my view the highest principle in medical ethics — in any
kind of ethics — is personal autonomy, self-determination. What counts is
what the patient wants and judges to be a benefit or a value in his or her
own life. That's primary.'"
Autonomy underlies the familiar appeal to 'death with dignity' and the
so-called 'right to die'' to justify euthanasia. The 'right to die' and 'death
with dignity' according to this view means that each of us should be able
to determine at what time, in what way, and by whose hand we will die.
In other words, these expressions may be translated as something like the
following: 'It's my body; it's my freedom; it's my life; it's my death. Let
me have control.' While no one seems to doubt that autonomy is an
important value, the question in the euthanasia debate is 'How far does it
extend?'
A counter-argument to justifying euthanasia on the basis of autonomy
can be made from the religious beliefs and moral philosophy of the
Catholic tradition. The religious argument appeals to a combination of
the principles of divine sovereignty and human stewardship and to our
social responsibility for the common good.
According to Christian belief, we live in a world of grace. The first
story of creation (Gen 1 — 2:4) tells us, in a symbolic way, that when
humans appeared on the sixth day, all the rest of creation was already in
place. This is a way of saying that everything comes to us as a gift from a
totally free act of a gracious God. Human life is God's gift to us and our
responsibility. The limits of our responsibility for life are enshrined in the
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principles of sovereignty and stewardship which assert that God has

absolute dominion over life, and that we share in it only as limited
creatures (Gen 2:7) who are to be 'ministers of God's plan' (EV, nn. 39,
52). Life is our own, but not only our own, 'because it is the property and
gift of God the Creator and Father' (EV, n. 40). Together these principles
temper destructive intrusions into life and demand the most serious of
reasons to justify any action that would take life (e.g. killing in self-
defence).
The second story of creation expresses in an imaginative way the limits
that come with being created human and not being the sovereign Creator
(Gen 2:15—17). As the story goes, the first man ('earth creature' is the
better translation) was placed in the garden of Eden but forbidden to eat
from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To eat of that
tree would impart a mastery of life and an autonomy inappropriate for
being human. This story asserts a fundamental conviction of biblical faith
that from the very beginning human freedom over life is limited.5 Thus
our religious beliefs in God's dominion and human stewardship already
limit the extent of our freedom. Pope John Paul II affirmed as much in
Veritatis Splendor (n. 35). In the face of death, freedom is not having
absolute control but it requires submission to what cannot be controlled.
We exercise such freedom in the face of death by accepting ourselves as
creatures of God and by admitting to our powerlessness before death. But
our freedom does not extend to bringing about death at the time and
under the conditions we stipulate.
The social nature of being human also limits our freedom. The
prevailing interpretation of autonomy, however, does not include any
concern of how our personal desires and striving contribute to the good of
society as a whole. The ethos of individualism is sceptical of there being
any good beyond that which any single person takes to be good in his or
her experience. As Pope John Paul II has diagnosed our culture, the
individualistic concept of freedom 'exalts the isolated individual in an
absolute way, and gives no place to solidarity, to openness to others and
service of them' (EV, n. 19)- The counter view which he endorses begins
with an inherently relational view of human freedom. It contends that the
individual will flourish only insofar as society as a whole flourishes. This
view is in line with the Catholic social ethics tradition on the common
good.
Charles Dougherty has made a compelling argument against euthanasia
from the perspective of the common good.6 He argues that there is a good
for society as a whole beyond a good for each person. What we do in
pursuing personal goals bears on the good of the whole society. We call
this good 'the common good'. While it respects and serves the interests of
individual persons, the common good ultimately upholds the collective
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Euthanasia
good as more important than the good of any one individual. But as long
as we continue to envision society as 'a mass of individuals placed side by
side, but without any mutual bonds' (EV, n. 20), then we will continue to
miss our responsibility for the common good. A commitment to the
common good forces us to ask whether there are some things which we
want for ourselves but which we ought not to pursue so that the good of
the whole might better be served. To seek the common good, then, is to
seek those actions and policies that would contribute to the total well-
being of persons and the community.
Our responsibility for the common good has implications for the way
we analyse euthanasia. One is that we must move away from the individual
perspective which analyses euthanasia as a private issue and move towards
the societal perspective which analyses it as a social one. Daniel Callahan
has argued along these lines to claim that permitting euthanasia would be
'self-determination run amok'. 7 It cannot properly be classified, he claims,
as a private matter of self-determination or as an autonomous act of
managing one's private affairs. Euthanasia is a social decision. It involves
the one to be killed as well as the one doing the killing, and it requires a
complying society to make it acceptable. Therefore, euthanasia must be
assessed for its social impact on caring for the dying and on our general
attitude toward life. Autonomy must be understood within the limits of
the social responsibilities for the common good. One possible impact of
introducing euthanasia as a policy is that it will only fuel the fires of a
'culture of death' by negatively influencing social standards of acceptable
life. The vulnerable, those with serious dementia or depression who cannot
speak for themselves or defend their values, may be especially at risk of
being killed. Overall, the practice of euthanasia threatens to weaken the
general prohibition against killing in society and so we end up valuing
life less.
Euthanasia perpetuates the illusion that we can control everything, that
we can be masters of nature and of death. By drawing on its religious
beliefs about God's sovereignty and the limited scope of responsible
stewardship for life, as well as its social ethical tradition of advocating for
the common good, the Catholic tradition recognizes limits to autonomy
and so challenges its support for euthanasia.
The prohibition against killing

The distinction between killing and allowing to die is at the heart of the
euthanasia debate. Killing is any action or omission intended to cause
death. Allowing to die is withholding or withdrawing useless or dispro-
portionately burdensome treatment so that nature may run its course,
that is, so that the fatal condition may overtake a person. The Catholic
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tradition holds to a moral difference between, on the one hand, with-

holding treatment from a dying patient when nothing more can be done
to reverse significantly the progressive deterioration of life; and, on the
other hand, intervening to put the patient to death. Only the latter is
prohibited. The stance one takes on whether killing and allowing to die
are morally different greatly affects the stance one takes in the euthanasia
debate.
One extreme position holds to no moral difference between killing and
allowing to die. This is the position represented by the Hemlock Society
and philosophers such as Jonathan Glover, Peter Singer, Michael Tooley,
Marvin Kohl, Helga Kuhse, James Rachels and others. For James Rachels,
for example, the distinction is simply a descriptive difference.8 Since death
is the outcome in either case, there is no moral difference between killing
and allowing to die. According to Rachels, our present acceptance of
allowing to die ought to be extended to active killing, when such killing
would be more merciful.
Others will hold that the distinction does have moral significance, but
that it dissolves at a certain point in the process of dying. This position is
represented by the late Paul Ramsey,9 Robert Veatch,10 and James
Childress,11 among others. While recognizing that killing is presump-
tively wrong, in rare cases it may be justified as an expression of justice,
love and kindness when the dying person has moved beyond the reach of
benefiting from further care or being relieved of intractable pain.
The Catholic tradition, however, holds firm to the distinction between
killing and allowing to die all the way through the dying process. Its
position is grounded in the principle of the sanctity of life which affirms
the sublime dignity of human life as a reflection of God (EV, n. 34) and
that there are limits within which we must work to promote human well-
being. Two obligations are enshrined by 'sanctity of life'. The first is the
positive obligation to nurture and to support life. It gives rise to the duty
to lead a fruitful life and to show reverence and love for the life of every
person. The second is the negative obligation not to harm or to destroy
life. This obligation is protected by the prohibition against directly taking
innocent life, which includes the prohibitions against euthanasia and
assisted suicide. In short, 'sanctity of life' directs us to foster life-affirming
attitudes and to scrutinize any discussion to terminate life or to forgo life-
sustaining treatment.
Two other associated principles add to the Catholic opposition to
euthanasia. These are the principle of divine sovereignty and the principle
expressed by the divine law, 'You shall not kill'. The principle of
sovereignty in this context shows that what makes killing forbidden is
that it violates the right of divine ownership. Only God is the master of
life (EV, nn. 39, 55). For this reason, the Catholic tradition regards taking
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innocent human life as 'always morally evil and can never be licit either as
an end in itself or as a means to a good end' (EV, n. 57).
The divine law prohibiting killing is found in the fifth commandment.
The significance of appealing to this commandment in making a case
against euthanasia is that it protects the bonds of being a covenantal
community by prohibiting the arbitrary taking of life by an individual,
private decision, without community sanction. On the positive side of
this commandment to protect human life is the 'requirement to show
reverence and love for every person and the life of every person' (EV,
nn. 41, 54).
The distinction between killing and allowing to die finds further
support from a different angle in Daniel Callahan's argument against
euthanasia. 12 Callahan defends the distinction by appealing to three
different perspectives on nature and human action: metaphysical, moral,
and medical. The metaphysical perspective is based on a real difference
between us and the external world, which has its own causal dynamism.
As a result, we cannot have unlimited control over everything. To deny
the distinction between killing and allowing to die concedes more power
to human intervention than we actually have. The limitations of the body
are ultimately beyond final human control. The moral perspective draws a
line between physical causality and human responsibility. The line
separates deaths caused by impersonal forces (the disease causes death) for
which no one can be held responsible, and deaths caused by human action
(a lethal injection causes death) for which someone can be held morally
culpable. The medical perspective underscores the social purpose of the
distinction. It protects the role of physicians as the ones who use their
knowledge of the body and diseases to cure or comfort patients rather than
to kill them. Physicians' power over life should be limited to curing and
comforting. To extend their power to killing would violate what it means
to be a physician.
These various perspectives on the distinction between killing and
allowing to die are momentous for the euthanasia debate. If there is no
moral distinction between killing and allowing to die, then every decision
to withhold or withdraw futile or overly burdensome treatment can be
construed as direct killing. If that were so, then we have greased the slide
toward a general policy of euthanasia. Those who hold to the distinction
under all circumstances oppose any policy on euthanasia. Even those who
admit that the distinction does not hold under all circumstances, and so
concede a qualified acceptance of an 'exceptional-case' euthanasia under
certain conditions, do not have to conclude that justifying one act of
euthanasia leads to justiiying a social policy for the general practice of
euthanasia. As James Childress argues, 'Whatever is said about particular
acts of euthanasia, there are strong reasons to oppose a rule or practice of
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Richard M. Gula
euthanasia because it would probably lead to abuses of the relevant moral

principles, including both love and justice'.13
Beneficence
Closely following the argument from autonomy and the moral difference
between killing and allowing to die is the argument from the desire to
relieve the patient of suffering. This brings us within the scope of
beneficence which includes the duty to help others in need and to avoid
harm.
Three dimensions of the scope of beneficence have played a prominent
role in the euthanasia debate: the 'character' of medicine as a profession;
the 'suffering' that is to be relieved; and the 'mercy' that is to be shown
the suffering/dying.
That we cannot reach a moral consensus on euthanasia reflects disagree-
ment on the role of the physician and the very aim of medicine. The
euthanasia debate raises the question whether killing patients is the
physician's business and so fits within the aim of medicine. Dr Timothy
Quill has become a prominent spokesman challenging the wisdom and
tradition that 'Doctors must not kill'. His argument makes clear that
physicians can use their medical skills not only to treat the medical needs
of patients, but also to satisfy their value of life and their desire to live in
a particular way. His justification takes him beyond the physician's
traditional role of using specialized knowledge and skill to treat medical
needs. It reaches into the realm of judging what kind of life is worth
living.14
Opponents to physicians becoming killers argue on the basis of the
traditional aim of medicine and the responsibilities proper to the physi-
cian's social role. Albert Jonsen, for example, has argued that 'killing a
patient' has nothing to do with the social expectations and responsibilities
attached to the physician's role 'to use scientific knowledge and clinical
experience in making decisions and advising patients about the prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment of disease and the maintenance of health'.15
Similarly, Leon Kass argues that the role of the physician is defined by the
goal of medicine - to benefit the wholeness of one who is sick. For him
the physician-euthanizer is self-contradictory. Intentionally killing the
patient does not fit within the physician's aim to promote healing and
wholeness.16
Daniel Callahan also argues that physicians who euthanize or assist in
suicide have moved beyond medicine's proper realm of promoting and
preserving health and into the metaphysical realm of determining the
value of life and what kind of lives are worth living. This broader realm of
what makes for general human happiness is a matter of religion or
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Euthanasia
philosophy. It does not belong to medicine's competence. Callahan holds

to the conviction that, while it is the proper role of medicine to relieve
the suffering caused by physical pain or psychological stressors that may
accompany sickness, it does not belong to medicine to judge the kind of
life worth living when a person suffers from despair in the human
condition.17
Arguments such as those developed by Jonsen, Kass and Callahan
support the moral character of medicine as a commitment to healing
which is incompatible with doctors killing. For this reason, beneficence
must be seen within the limits of the commitment of the medical
profession to care for the sick. By wanting to license physicians to kill,
advocates of euthanasia are calling into question the social expectations of
the physician and the moral character of medical practice. The traditional
aim of medicine to prevent disease and to restore or maintain health fits
well within the Catholic tradition's limits of the scope of the prohibition
against killing outlined above.
Another dimension to the argument from beneficence is the appeal to
the obligation to relieve suffering. Next to the right to choose how and
when we die, a fundamental claim of the euthanasia movement is the
obligation we have to one another to relieve suffering, especially unnecess-
ary and meaningless suffering.
The argument from suffering reaches beyond medicine's physical
boundaries of promoting and preserving health or wholeness and into the
boundless metaphysical realm of general human happiness or a 'meaning-
ful' life. To enlist a physician in achieving release from a meaningless life
of suffering presumes the physician is competent to judge what kinds of
life are worth living. Perhaps this would be true if suffering had only
medical causes. As Eric Cassell's analysis of suffering shows, while physical
pain may be the major physical cause of suffering, the root problem of
suffering and mortality is more than physical. 18 In many instances pain is
unnecessary. Most pain can and ought to be alleviated by the proper use
of analgesics, even if more aggressive treatments of pain are needed. The
fact that pain is not relieved contributes to the drive for euthanasia.
The degree and intensity to which people suffer, and whether they find
life empty or meaningless, turns less on their physical condition or pain
and more on their outlook on life. Suffering is more a personal matter in
the sense that it is a function of a person's attitude and framework of
meaning than it is an unpleasant experience. While we should not be
glorifying suffering or seeking it as an end, we can make it less
overwhelming by framing it in the context of a life that has value and is
supported by strong bonds of love.
The meaning of pain, suffering and death is tied to the meaning of life
itself. This is fundamentally a religious question. Christian theology
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teaches that suffering, while not a value in itself but an experience of evil,
can be transformed.19 The story of the life—death—resurrection of Jesus
tells us that the tragedy of suffering, dying and death cannot, and will
not, be stronger than God's love. God's love, revealed in the resurrection
of Jesus, gives us the courage to enter into suffering and death knowing
that life ultimately triumphs. If, through suffering, the sufferer is brought
nearer to God in Christ, then that person may bear it courageously because
of the comfort of the spiritual experience it offers. The bonding with
Christ is the means for managing the suffering well (EV, n. 67).
The scope of beneficence is ultimately about mercy, that is, about how
we fulfil the demands of covenantal fidelity that we owe one another.
What kind of mercy towards the dying fits the commitment first to be
faithful and then to be healing whenever possible? While it may be
inappropriate to speak of killing as healing, may it yet be compatible with
mercy towards those who are dying in pain and find life empty, oppressive,
and meaningless? Those who argue in support of euthanasia think so.
But our biblical witness of mercy and compassion points us in a
different direction. In the Bible, mercy and compassion represent the way
that God maintains covenantal fidelity with the chosen people. God's
mercy is the fulfilment of the covenantal commitment to be with and for
the chosen people in all circumstances. Mercy and compassion are the
ways that God, who had covenanted with Israel, continues to love her,
provides for her, and protects her from harm. In the life of Jesus, mercy
and compassion led him to do works which restored the broken to
wholeness. Out of mercy and compassion, he healed the blind, taught the
ignorant, raised the dead, and fed the hungry. 20
The biblical witness, then, shows us that deep personal relationships lie
at the heart of mercy. What from the biblical view is a virtue of fidelity,
love and care becomes for advocates of euthanasia a basis for killing. For
Pope John Paul II, 'True "compassion" leads to sharing another's pain; it
does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear' (EV, n. 66).
Resorting to euthanasia is failing to embody the trust that sustains life
and the commitment to be companions to one another, especially those
who are helpless or those who are unable to contribute to the community.
The refusal to participate in euthanasia is a reminder and an encourage-
ment to remain committed to one another as partners who sustain each
other through trust, love and care.
Character, suffering and mercy are three aspects of the scope of
beneficence which are at issue in the euthanasia debate. The Catholic
religious and moral tradition supports the traditional moral centre of
medicine which finds killing incompatible with the commitment to heal.
Faith informed by the biblical stories of covenant and the life-
death—resurrection of Jesus provides a special context of meaning within
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Euthanasia
which to understand suffering and mercy. In the eyes of faith, suffering

need not diminish the dignity of the human person. The Christian faith
invites those who suffer to grasp its deeper mystery. Faith offers a chance
to transform the uselessness of suffering by identifying with the suffering
of Christ and thereby coming to a closer bonding with God in Christ.
Mercy fulfills the demands of covenantal fidelity by not killing but by
companioning with compassion those who suffer. Mercy embodies the
trust and care that supports the suffering and dying from not abandoning
hope when life is hard.
A response
The euthanasia movement is as much a challenge to the depth of moral

character as it is a challenge to the meaning of our moral principles. The
true significance of the Catholic opposition to euthanasia ultimately rests
on the kind of witness that runs ahead of and behind the convictions
which we say make euthanasia untenable. In order to be a credible player
in the debate, then, we have to bear convincing witness, personally and
corporately, to the ways we live our lives, take care of our health, face our
limits, let go of control, bear suffering, think about our relationship with
others, make room for the weak and unsuccessful, care for the sick, the
elderly and the dying. What kind of persons and community should we
be in order to encourage people to view death as an inevitable outcome
that no one needs to hasten through lethal intervention?
Many of our problems with reaching an agreement on the public policy
and the morality of euthanasia stem from our positions on deeper questions
about life and about the kind of person we want to be. So when we think
about how we might respond to the euthanasia movement, we need to
include not only the soundness of our principles but also the spiritual
depths and strength of our character by developing virtues such as
humility, humour, courage and hope that will enable us to live well while
dying and to face those conditions of hopelessness which threaten to
overwhelm us.
In addition to personal virtue, we also need to be a community of virtue
that gives witness to those fundamental religious and moral convictions
which shape our living and dying in ways that would make euthanasia
unthinkable. Stanley Hauerwas gets to the heart of the matter when he
says that Christians have no 'solution' to the evil of suffering. 'Rather,
they have had a community of care that has made it possible for them to
absorb the destructive terror of evil that constantly threatens to destroy all
human relations.' 21 Our hospitals and parishes are uniquely situated to be
this community of care that surrounds the sick and dying with support.
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Richard M. Gula
A virtuous community is one which provides the structures and

develops the skills which will enable us to provide 'companionship,
sympathy, and support in the time of trial' (EV, n. 67). The demand for
euthanasia will increase if structures of support and skills of care do not
keep pace with the demand. By facing our limits to heal, we as a
community of care can do much to benefit the lives of the dying without
resorting to euthanasia. We must address more effectively the 'need' for
euthanasia, such as by providing adequate relief of pain, by withholding
or withdrawing treatments that only prolong dying, by keeping company
with those who are lonely, and by being a resource of meaning and hope
for those tempted to despair.
That we will have to face experiences of pain, suffering, and death in
ourselves and in others is the price of being human. While this fact is
biologically determined, there is nothing fixed about how we will respond
to it. What sickness and the threat of death do to us is one thing. What
we make of them is another. The way we respond is a matter of character
being shaped over the course of our lives, and not just in the time of crisis.
People are responding differently to the euthanasia movement because
they have different ideas about who we ought to be, where to find meaning
in life, how much control we ought to have, what to make of suffering,
and what we owe to one another. Whether we are going to rise to the
occasion and alleviate those conditions of hopelessness which can make
euthanasia so attractive is ultimately a matter of character, personal and
corporate. Only if we can rise to the occasion with compelling witnesses
to our religious convictions about life, suffering, and death will we ever
have an impact on shaping public consensus toward death as an experience
that we need not hasten through lethal interventions.
Notes
1 See, for example, James Rachels, The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
2 Derek Humphry, 'The case for rational suicide', Euthanasia Review 1 (Fall 1986),
pp. 172-5; Helga Kushe, 'Voluntary euthanasia and the doctor', Free Inquiry 89
(Winter 1988), 17-19.
3 Jack Kevorkian, Free Inquiry 92 (1991), p. 14.
4 For a critical review of this concept, see Leon Kass, 'Is there a right to die?',
Hastings Center Report 23 (January-February 1993), pp. 34-43.
5 Richard J. Clifford and Roland E. Murphy, 'Genesis' in Raymond E. Brown,
Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy (eds), The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 12.
6 Charles Dougherty, 'The common good, terminal illness, and euthanasia', Issues in
Law and Medicine 9 (1993), pp. 151-66.
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Euthanasia
7 Daniel Callahan, 'When self-determination runs amok', Hastings Center Report 22

(March-April 1992), pp. 52-5.
8 Rachels' most sustained argument for euthanasia and against the moral significance
of the distinction between killing and allowing to die is in The End of Life,
pp. 106-28.
9 Paul Ramsey, The Patient As Person (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1970), p. 153; also Ethics at the Edges of Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1978), pp. 146-8.
10 Robert Veatch, Death. Dying and the Biological Revolution (rev. edn; New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 61-74.
11 James F. Childress, 'Love and justice in Christian biomedical ethics' in Earl E.
Shelp (ed.), Theology and Bioethics (Boston: Reidel, 1985), p. 227.
12 Daniel Callahan, 'Vital distinctions, mortal questions', Commonweal 115 (15 July
1988), pp. 399—401. His argument is repeated in 'Can we return death to
disease?' in 'Mercy, murder, and morality: perspectives on euthanasia', Hastings
Center Report Special Supplement 19 (January/February 1989), pp. 5—6; What Kind
of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), pp. 221-49.
13 Childress, 'Love and justice in Christian biomedical ethics', p. 227.
14 Timothy E. Quill, 'Death and dignity: a case of individualized decision making',
New England Journal of Medicine 324, no. 10 (7 March 1991), p. 693.
15 Albert R. Jonsen, 'Beyond the physicians' reference — the ethics of active
euthanasia', Western Journal of Medicine 149 (August 1988), p. 196.
16 Leon Kass, 'Why doctors must not kill', Commonweal 118 (9 August 1991),
p. 474.
17 Daniel Callahan, 'When self-determination runs amok', p. 55.
18 Eric J. Cassell, The Nature of Suffering (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991),
pp. 30-47.
19 For a brief treatment of the meaning and transformation of suffering, see Care of
the Dying: A Catholic Perspective (St Louis: Catholic Health Association, 1993),
pp. 42-5.
20 On the biblical witness of mercy, see E. R. Achtemeier, 'Mercy, mercirul;
compassion; pity' in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 3 (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1962), pp. 352-4.
21 Stanley Hauerwas, Naming the Silences: God. Medicine, and the Problem oj Suffering
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), p. 53.
Select bibliography
Baruch A. Brody (ed.), Suicide and Euthanasia (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989).

Daniel Callahan, The Troubled Dream of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).
Ian Gentles (ed.), Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide (Toronto: Stoddart, 1995).
Richard M. Gula, Euthanasia (New York: Paulist Press, 1994).
John F. Kilner, Arlene B. Miller and Edmund D. Pellegrino (eds), Dignity and Dying:
A Christian Appraisal (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996).
Robert M. Veatch, Death, Dying, and the Biological Revolution (rev. edn; New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1989).
289
20
Ethical problems arising from new
reproductive techniques
Joyce Poole
The science of therapeutics could be said to have begun in 1936 when one
of a group of drugs later to be known as the sulphonamides was used
successfully to treat a patient with septicaemia. The pharmaceutical
company May and Baker had, among others, been working on these
compounds for many years and the first to be used clinically entered
medical history as 'M and B 693', the number indicating how many had
been tried before one was found that would attack the bacteria without
harming the patient.
Until then the treatment of infections had been palliative — nourishing
food and fluid with careful nursing to encourage the body's natural
defences. These were often inadequate, and bacterial infections such as
pneumonia were major killers of young and old. With the advent of a
drug that actually killed the infecting organism came the need for clinical
trials to test its effectiveness against a range of bacteria and, importantly,
for any harmful side-effects. Medicine had entered the era of experiment
in which research became inseparable from its clinical application.
The next few decades brought astonishing therapeutic progress. Penicil-
lin and other antibiotics followed the sulphonamides. Advances in
anaesthesia and technology brought the 'life support system', and with it
the possibility of open heart surgery and organ transplantation. Some of
the new drugs and vaccines proved to have unforeseen side-effects,
however, and the patient's survival time after the first organ transplants
was disappointingly low. It was inevitable that such dramatic advances
would bring new medical dilemmas and some general disquiet among the
public. If something could be done, did it necessarily follow that it should
be done?
The wider ethical issues surrounding experimentation on human
290
New reproductive techniques
subjects need to be considered before we can properly address the

legitimacy of reproductive techniques involving the use of human
embryos.
Research on human subjects
There is no doubt that with the appalling experiments carried out in the
Nazi death camps, medical research had sunk to unplumbed depths.
Horror at what went on in these camps still makes many people wary of
any research on human subjects, whether or not any useful knowledge
might be obtained from it
Organ transplantation was viewed at first with some suspicion by the
Christian churches who feared that doctors might be 'playing God' and
interfering too much with nature. Some Catholic commentators such as
Pope Pius XII were uneasy about the 'mutilation' of live kidney donors
but others concluded that donation of a kidney must be seen in its totality
as an act of unselfish generosity. As for 'playing God' it could be said that
the whole aim of medical research and treatment, whether by drugs,
vaccines or surgery, is 'interfering with nature' in that it aims to keep
alive people who might otherwise die.
The rate of advance in medical and surgical therapeutics made it
urgently necessary that research programmes should be regulated and
codified at an international level. A basic rule of medical practice dating
from the time of Hippocrates, Primmn non nocere — above all, do no harm —
could no longer be strictly applied in an age when potentially effective
treatment could ultimately be assessed only by trying it out on human
subjects.
Clinical trials
Trials can be divided into two main categories each with a different ethical
content.
A 'therapeutic trial' involves persons who are already ill. It compares
current therapy (if it exists) with new so that there is a possibility of direct
benefit to the patient concerned. The test may be of a new drug, or of
different treatments for breast cancer which might be treated by surgery,
radiotherapy or by a combination of these. To make valid statistical
conclusions large numbers of patients have to be randomly selected from
those willing to take part in the trials and those who, with hindsight, fall
into the most or least successful groups do so by chance.
In 'non-therapeutic' trials the research aspect is paramount and volun-
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Joyce Poole
teers, who must be in normal good health, benefit only indirectly by

adding to the sum of scientific knowledge. Most see this as a worthwhile
contribution to human welfare but it is, of course, essential that they
should be well-informed and that their consent is freely given.
Trials involving children

The need for free consent raises serious questions about the use oi children
as human subjects. Some ethicists such as the Protestant Paul Ramsey and
the Catholic Bernard Haring would limit parental consent strictly to what
is in the best interests of the child. Others, such as Richard McCormick,
believe it might be reasonable and permissible to allow minor procedures
on children for experimental purposes.
The Declaration of Helsinki (1964, revised 1975) formalized this more
permissive view by stating that the basic requirement for research on a
human being is 'free consent after full information has been given', or in
the case of a minor, 'the consent of the legal guardian'. Other national and
international ethical codes drawn up since Helsinki appreciate the need
for experimentation on human subjects, including children. Risk must, of
course, be minimal, and proportionate to the foreseeable benefits.
For several years I worked in a surgical research unit attached to a
teaching hospital. The project was related to the problem of resuscitating
children in severe surgical shock, the words in this context meaning the
loss of circulating blood volume by haemorrhage, for example, or extensive
burns. All the important organs such as kidneys and brain suffer from
oxygen lack and the condition is seriously life-threatening. Monitoring
progress involved making complicated serial measurements of the blood
volume in order to establish a logical intravenous fluid replacement
programme, difficult in young children because their circulatory systems
are easily over-loaded. Inevitably there were occasions when, in spite of
our efforts, a child reached a stage of slow but irreversible deterioration.
With the parents' permission, however, we continued to measure para-
meters such as blood volume, bio-chemical changes and renal function
until the moment of death. The techniques were moderately invasive but
not painful and these severely injured children were, of course, already
sedated. Although it was emotionally harrowing, we did not consider that
it was unethical. Sometimes a badly burned child was revived from the
initial trauma only to die miserably several weeks later from skin loss and
sepsis and this could produce quite serious and painful self-doubt in those
of us who were involved. Since then, new techniques in skin grafting and
better control of infection have enabled such children to survive. There is
no doubt that the work was valuable and that those children who died
292
contributed significantly, with their parents, to the survival of those who

followed.
Research on the foetus

The undoubted value of foetal research extended the moral debate still
further and the thalidomide disaster of 1962 underlined its importance. A
searchlight was suddenly shone on the possibility that an apparently safe
therapeutic drug given to a woman for pregnancy sickness could damage
the embryo or foetus ii it happened to be at a vulnerable stage in its
development.
The foetus is not just an immature child; it exists in a different and
enclosed environment. It: is only by examining those that become available
through misadventure that foetal development and mal-development can
be understood.
Pre-viable foetuses become available from natural miscarriage and from
therapeutic abortion, and although there is no strict legal requirement to
obtain the mother's consent to use these for research purposes it is, of
course, customary to respect her wishes in the matter. It is arguable that
this should be enshrined in law although there is a risk that obtaining
such consent may merely add to the mother's distress.
I have attended many cases of spontaneous abortion in the early weeks
and have found that it is, in fact, unusual for a mother to take any interest
in the disposal of the products. It is a common occurrence, especially when
the foetus is developing abnormally, and a woman with several children
will be likely to take the event in her stride. Another will be very
distressed at the unsuccessful outcome of a much longed-for pregnancy
and there is a pastoral need for the Christian churches to devise some form
of liturgy which can be used to recognize and mark her bereavement.
Research on the embryoo

In view of the general public tolerance for human medical research as so
far discussed it may seem odd that the work of embryologists has been
singled out by so many people for special ethical attention, anxiety and
opprobrium.
During the early 1970s, research was being carried out on human
embryos created from ova donated by women undergoing infertility
treatment and fertilized in vitro with donated sperm. Except in the
specialist medical journals, the pioneering work of Steptoe, Edwards and
Purdy in England went largely unnoticed until in 1978 their work
culminated in successful In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and the birth of the
first test-tube baby.1
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Joyce Poole
The world was astounded. It was widely reported that the Patriarch of
Venice, later that year to become Pope John Paul I, expressed delight at
the news. The promise of new hope for infertile couples was greeted
enthusiastically by other Churches' leaders and by the public at large.
The Catholic position has hardened, however, since then, and it now
stands alone among other mainstream religious groups in condemning
IVF outright on the grounds that to separate the marital act from the
begetting of a child is an unlawful violation of a divinely established
single act of procreation. This rules out IVF even in the 'simple case' of
fertilizing a single ovum with the father's sperm and implanting it
immediately in the mother's womb. The Catholic objection can be
logically related, of course, to an extreme interpretation of the teaching of
Humanae Vitae ten years earlier, forbidding the separation of conception
from the act of coitus.
In the UK, the Abortion Act of 1967 had already provoked intense
debate among theologians, philosophers and scientists regarding the moral
absolute propounded by the magisterium of the Catholic Church that
from the moment of conception a fertilized ovum has the rights of a
human person. The development of IVF, which had of necessity been
preceded by embryo experiment and disposal, only added fuel to a fire
that was already raging.
Historically, most religious scholars of the mainstream Christian,
Islamic and Judaic schools have subscribed to the philosophic tradition
which relates animation or 'ensoulment' of the embryo—foetus to its
morphological development. The Arab scholars of the ninth and tenth
centuries reinforced what was known of the writings of Aristotle and the
Greeks and the physician-philosopher Avicenna stated the matter simply
— 'a soul comes into existence when a body suitable for it comes into
existence'. Rabbinic teaching varied but the consensus leaned towards
according increasing status to the foetus after the third month, when it
had become recognizably human."
The dualist theories of Plato identified 'soul' as the essential immaterial
part of a human being, independent of, and only temporarily united with
its body. In later Christian understanding of the soul, the body came to
be seen almost as an encumbrance. The concept persists in the teaching
and language of most religions so that it is not surprising that the idea of
a soul 'entering' the foetus at a particular moment or ascending from the
body at death is common to so many cultures.
Aristotle rejected Platonic dualism and it was the moral reasoning
wrought by St Thomas Aquinas out of Aristotle that Catholic teaching
finally endorsed. The latter's theory of hylomorphism — the essential
coexistence of matter and form — led Aquinas to distinguish between the
unanimated and animated foetus.3 In the natural way of generation, he
294
held, the progression is from the imperfect to the perfect; hence in the
generation of man comes first a living thing, then the animal, and finally
man. St Augustine had earlier drawn a distinction between the formed
foetus already endowed with an immortal soul and a 'tissue' or living
entity on the way to becoming a human person, and while the Church
strenuously condemned abortion, the secular and canonical penalties were
graded according to the development of the foetus.
Steptoe and Edwards reported that they were overawed at the sight of
the cleaving embryo they had helped to create in a dish. For the first time
it had been possible to observe from hour to hour the progressive stages of
fertilization, not a 'moment' but a complex process taking 48 hours or
more. They and their colleagues regarded their work as revealing the art
and plan of a grand designer but did not consider that they were
experimenting upon actual children. 4
The rapid and indeed alarming pace of development after 1978 led to
the establishment in the UK of a Departmental Committee of Enquiry
into Human Fertilisation and Embryology chaired by the Oxford philo-
sopher Lady Warnock and published in 1984. Most of the recommenda-
tions of that report were adopted by the British Parliament in the Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990.
In the presenting letter to the report which bears her name, Mary
Warnock observed that the issues raised by the enquiry reflect fundamental
moral and often religious questions which have taxed philosophers down
the ages and which the report does not attempt to answer. It concentrated
instead on practical recommendations including the establishment of a
statutory body which would regulate and license national infertility
services and experimentation upon human embryos. However, much
public and theological debate since then has centred on the status of the
human embryo during its first fourteen days, as envisaged by Warnock.
The report itself is reserved over status, holding that the answers to
questions of when human life or personhood begins are complex amalgams
of factual and moral judgements. 3
It accepts that once the process of fertilization has begun there is no
particular stage that is more important than another but selects a limit of
fourteen days for experiment because of the appearance at this time of the
first recognizable feature of the embryo proper — the 'primitive streak'. It
may be added that it is around the fourteenth day that, in nature, so many
fertilized but unimplanted embryos are lost in the ensuing menstrual
period, or, conversely, that a woman will begin to suspect that she has
conceived.
There was naturally some disagreement among members of the War-
nock committee on its recommendations. Three members registered
dissent based on their conclusion first, that special status must be accorded
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Joyce Poole
to the human embryo because of its potential to develop to a stage at which

everyone would recognize it as a human person, and second, with regard
to experimentation, that it is wrong to create something that has this
potential and then to destroy it.
The status of the embryo in recent history
Until 1827 when the developing ovum was first seen and recognized it
was believed that the whole genetic inheritance of the offspring was
contained in the male seed. Early microscopists had imagined that they
saw a tiny 'homunculus' in the head of the spermatozoon. The maternal
contribution was thought to be only that of providing the raw materials
and environment necessary for the development of her husband's offspring.
Thus Sarai, Abraham's wife, who had borne him no children, could say to
her husband 'go in to my maid Hagar; it may be that / shall have children
by her'(Gen 16:1-3).
There can be little doubt that ignorance of the human ovum and its
genetic importance has contributed to the inferior status of women
throughout history. Certainly it was not until after the discovery of the
ovum that the equal and complementary roles of the male and female
gametes were understood for the first time and the idea of a 'moment of
fertilization' arose. The philosophic notion of gradual animation held since
the time of the early Greeks had, however, provided a much-needed
working hypothesis that aided moral judgement in the face of conflicting
human claims and is still, in many ways, closely in accord with modern
scientific insight.
Throughout recorded history women have sought means to end
unwanted pregnancies, with or without the help of semi-skilled prac-
titioners. Ancient pharmacological texts are full of recipes for abortifacient
potions, some of them as lethal to the mother as to the foetus. With
advancing medical knowledge in the nineteenth century safer and more
certain methods became available. The consequent rise in the practice
alarmed Pope Pius IX who in his bull Apostolicae Sedis in 1869 removed
from the code of Canon Law the distinction between the 'ensouled' and
'unensouled' foetus. Excommunication was now pronounced on all who
procured abortion without regard to the gestational age of the foetus,
formed, unformed, animate or inanimate. Human status was to be
accorded from the moment of fertilization.6
Without actually claiming that there is a human person from the
moment of conception Catholic teaching holds that in the absence of proof
one way or the other the fertilized ovum must be treated as though it were
a person. In its Declaration on Abortion in 1974 (para. 1471) the Sacred
296
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith went further: 'it is not for the
biological sciences to pass a definitive judgment on questions which are
properly moral or philosophical, such as that of the moment when the
human person first exists. . . . He who will be a human being is already a
human being . . . neither divine law nor human reason admit the right of
directly killing a human person.' In 1987 Donum Vitae (SCDF, 1987; para.
13) claimed 'the conclusions of science provide a valuable indication for
discerning by the use of reason a personal presence from the moment of
conception'.7
These teachings have been reinforced by Pope John Paul II in his
sermons, speeches, and, of course, in encyclicals such as Veritatis Splendor
in 1993 and in his 'Letter to the World' Evangelium Vitae in 1995. Both
of these claim that the moral truth on this matter is clear and that the
hierarchical magisterium has the authority to proclaim it, this truth being
based solidly on the authority of revelation and tradition. It might
reasonably be asked, however, if a specific Christian ethic that can be
substantiated only by appealing to such authority is consistent with the
basic rationalism that traditionally informs Catholic moral theology.8
Many thoughtful and well-informed people of undoubted integrity are
unable to accept the early embryo as a human person. Nor is the Catholic
insistence on instant human status shared by other Christian denomina-
tions or by other religions who in the main do not oppose either
responsible research on embryos or IVF.
Newman considered that it was not reasonable to try to discern scientific
truths from moral and scriptural communications designed for religious
purposes. Nor, of course, can the philosophical question of person or personal
presence be gleaned from scientific evidence alone. Modern scientific insights
may, however, require additional moral arguments over and above appeals
to historical tradition.
The early embryoo

The period we are concerned with here is the first fourteen days, as this is
the time allowed in law in some countries for observation and manipula-
tion. It is upon the philosophic and moral interpretation of this period of
development that the ethical case for or against the new reproductive
techniques basically depends.
A few words first about terminology. The word 'embryo' is used from
fertilization until the end of the eighth week of its development. This is
the period of basic formation of the primitive organs and it is at about the
eighth week that the embryo becomes recognizably human. From the
eighth week onwards the process is one of development and growth and it
is referred to from now until birth as the 'foetus'.
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Joyce Poole
Until embryo experimentation became a reality this stage was referred

to in the textbooks as the 'pre-embryonic period' because, until the
cleaving cells have differentiated into those that will form the embryo
proper from those that will form the placenta and membranes, there is,
strictly speaking, no embryo. Many workers in the field have since
regretted that the word 'embryo' was used, first because of its inaccuracy
and second, because of the emotional overtones attached to the word.
Unfortunately there is no single word to describe this early period, each
stage having a separate name. 'Gamete' is used for either ovum or sperm.
The 'zygote' is the fertilized ovum prior to division, then 'two-cell', 'four-
cell', 'eight-cell stages' and so forth, until the ball of cells resembles a tiny
blackberry — the 'morula'. Further cell division and the beginning of
differentiation continue, again with each stage having a separate name. If
embryos are to be stored by freezing it is usually done at the four-cell
stage.
Embryo experimentation, culminating in IVF, so caught the public
interest and imagination, however, that a single word had to be selected
for the whole period, and 'embryo' was, perhaps unfortunately, decided
upon for the sake of simplicity. 'Conceptus' would have covered all the
stages but lacked semantic appeal.
The process of fertilization of the ovum, from penetration of its cell
membrane by the sperm until the formation of the human cell nucleus,
takes about 48 hours. In the course of maturation in testis or ovary the
sperm and ova have undergone the particular type of cell division called
meiosis whereby they halve the number of their chromosomes from 46 to
23 after random exchange of their genetic material. By this mechanism
the combination of genes carried by each gamete is different from the
next.
After penetration of the ovum, the pro-nuclei from sperm and ovum
must merge and their chromosomes align in pairs before the pattern of
the new human cell nucleus is established. Evidence gleaned from recent
research into infertility and recurrent miscarriage suggest this process may
go wrong as often as three times out of four, resulting in a conceptus that
is incapable of developing into a human being; a defective female nucleus,
for example, may lead to the formation of what is known as a 'hydatidiform
mole', a condition known from antiquity in which all 46 chromosomes
have been derived from the male. Ova which are, occasionally, fertilized
by more than one spermatozoon are not viable, nor are those that have
more or fewer than 23 chromosome pairs.
If merging of the pronuclei is successfully accomplished, the resulting
zygote divides rapidly, the first three divisions producing eight identical
daughter cells which are 'totipotent', that is, they each have the ability,
given the right conditions, to produce an identical embryo. It is at this
298
stage in the IVF process that a sample cell may be removed to examine its
genetic pattern and identify a single-gene defect such as Huntington's
disease. This is at the cutting edge of advance in IVF technology but it
seems that removal of a single cell for diagnostic purposes does not affect
further development and that an embryo 'screened' in this way can be
safely implanted in the uterus.
Twinning, if it arises from a single ovum, is observed most frequently
between five and eight days after fertilization, while the cells are dividing
rapidly but not yet differentiated. This phenomenon raises immediate
questions about a 'personal presence' from the time of fertilization. Some
submissions to the Warnock enquiry suggested that the potential to form
monovular twins might be determined at fertilization and that two or
more ensouled 'persons' might have been present, so to speak, in the mind
of God. No genetic determinant has been demonstrated, however; twin-
ning can be induced artificially, and it appears almost certainly to be
caused by factors external to the conceptus itself.
Division continues rapidly with the cells becoming progressively
smaller. By fourteen days the cells are visibly differentiating into those
that will form the embryo - the 'primitive streak' — and those that will
form the membranes and placenta. 9
Twinning occasionally takes place as late as the fourteenth day, when
two primitive streaks may appear. Incomplete separation at this stage is
the cause of conjoined ('Siamese') twins in which case the number of
individual 'persons' would be reckoned on the number of heads. This
would accord with the views of many twentieth-century theologians —
Karl Rahner and Bernard Haring among them — who have suggested that
the presence of a primitive cerebral cortex should have at least some
bearing on the requirements for personhood.
In the early eighteenth century, St Alphonsus Liguori, patron saint of
moral theology, regarded it as certain that the foetus is not ensouled before
it is formed, and, in 1713 the Holy Office of the Catholic Church actually
issued a decree - which still applies — forbidding the baptism of a foetus
before human form can be discerned. If, as the Catholic Church now
maintains, science provides a valuable indication for discerning by the use
of reason a personal presence from the moment of conception, questions
arise not only with regard to twins but about why so many embryos
should simply fail to develop or implant, or why another should develop
into a tumour or a foetus so abnormally formed that no personal activity
will be possible.
If the ascription of an individual soul to the early embryo leads to
insoluble difficulties, then perhaps the ascription needs to be recon-
sidered.10 Much of the discussion of the time of 'ensoulment' of the
embryo has, in fact, a disconcertingly medieval ring, often sitting oddly
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Joyce Poole
with the detailed science that is called in aid. A sounder basis for
scientifically informed debate would perhaps be a concept of ensoulment
that regarded the soul not as a separate entity 'infused' at a moment in
time, but rather, in more hylomorphic and Aristotelian terms, as the set
of capabilities of a living organism; understood thus, the soul is not a
separate entity but the measure of the development of the living body
through which we become present to the world.
Potential
Those members of the Warnock committee who based their dissent on the
potential of the embryo to develop into a human person were on much
firmer ground than those who look to the evidence of science to support
their argument for actual personhood. Although in nature relatively few
fertilized ova develop into persons it is beyond dispute that all persons
started life as fertilized ova. The only real question is whether the
argument from potential will bear the weight that is put upon it.
Any answer to such a question has important implications for ethical
practice. Can it support, for example a right to life for an early embryo or
even a right to respect? Before there can be a person there must be an
individual and there can be no individual before the conceptus has passed
the stage when it might still divide into two or more embryos. It is at
this point that the law dictates that experimentation must stop. If only
persons have rights then it follows that the embryo in vitro has no rights.
This does not, however, absolve us from our human duty to accord it
respect. This duty derives not from rights possessed by the embryo by
virtue of what it is, but something we owe to it through our own primary
relationship with other members of the species; there is a danger that an
exaggerated language of rights could eclipse this sense of duty.
Respect demands the observance of high ethical standards in laboratories
and infertility clinics; it would clearly exclude, for example, the production
of embryos for commercial purposes.
A duty to preserve life on the other hand would outlaw all forms of IVF
on account of the experimental work that underpins it. This objection on
the grounds of potential is logical even if it is not universally shared.
Against such an objection it could, for instance, be argued that there are
few other areas of life where potential is equated with actuality. The acorn
cannot be said to be the oak-tree it may eventually become and in nature
few acorns become trees just as few early embryos develop into human
persons. This is more than a philosophical argument; an early miscarriage
does not present a woman with the same degree of loss as a still-birth or a
neo-natal death.
An absolute duty to preserve life is not, furthermore, one which is
300
recognized in medicine or society generally. Doctors are not obliged to

use all possible means to keep a patient alive when it is considered that
the expected benefit would not be proportionate. A patient with advanced
malignant disease, for example, is unlikely to be offered or to want renal
dialysis even if it might confer a few more weeks of life. A patient beyond
hope of benefit may well consent or volunteer to take part in a trial of a
potentially toxic therapeutic drug for the sake of a medical advance that
might benefit others.
It is difficult to keep an embryo alive even for the fourteen days allowed
by Warnock and it has no potential unless it is implanted into a uterus.
Spare embryos left over from IVF have themselves no future, therefore,
but knowledge gained from observing and experimenting upon these
during their brief span greatly improves the prospects for others. It could
even be said that to use them in this way, with the consent of the parents,
enhances the respect which is due to them as members of the human
species.
Very strong feelings are aroused on the 'right to life' issue and must be
recognized, but it cannon be denied that most members of the public do
not see the early embryo in a test-tube as a human person with rights,
although most would accord it respect.
Some who would not fundamentally prohibit embryo research would,
out of respect for the embryo's human, if not personal, status, confine it to
'spare' embryos left over from IVF, and this is a cogent argument. Against
it, however, it could be said that those who hold this view have already
conceded that the early embryo does not yet have the status of a person,
and that embryos created for experiment rather than implantation do not
have the potential to acquire it. The success rate of IVF in the best clinics
is no more than one in four and one of the commonest causes of
childlessness is spontaneous abortion in the early weeks. It may well be,
therefore, that reluctance to fertilize ova for the express purpose of
experimentation, though arising from a desire to avoid the wastage of
embryos, nevertheless puts off the day when so much natural wastage can
be avoided. 11
The basic ethical issue

Discussion on the ethics of reproductive technology can range from the
morality of obtaining a sperm sample by masturbation to the morality of
paying a woman to bear one's husband's baby. However, the question that
lies at the heart of all such ethical debate concerns the moral status of any
potential human being at any given point in its journey from unfertilized
gametes to new-born child.
IVF has the central intention of overcoming the common problem of
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Joyce Poole
female infertility caused by blocked uterine tubes. The ovum is that of the
natural mother and the sperm is that of the natural father so that the child
is truly that of the parents in both the genetic and social sense. It thus
presents a paradigm case against which ethical questions can be weighed.
The complex questions surrounding freezing, storing, selecting are
secondary and beyond the scope of this single chapter. So also are the
moral, social and biological problems raised by the possibility of donated
gametes - male or female - and by surrogate motherhood.
Reproductive technology is an emotive subject. Ignorance and fear can
lead to imagined 'designer babies' growing in bottles or monstrous hybrids
produced from human and animal gametes. At the same time it cannot be
denied that the possibilities and ramifications are serious matters and laws
and professional codes must keep pace with new developments. All
practitioners engaged in this work must demonstrate that they are worthy
of the trust the profession has traditionally enjoyed.
In IVF we are not 'making babies' but, having ourselves been made in
the image of an inventive, imaginative and compassionate God, we are
allowed the dignity of co-operating with Him in the creation of a new
human being. It is essential, therefore, that all those engaged in reproduc-
tive technology, doctors, lawyers, policy-makers or parents must place at
the centre of the debate the interests and identity of the child that is to be
born.
Notes
1 G. R. Dunstan, 'In-vitro fertilization: the ethics', Human Reproduction (1986),

pp. 41-4.
2 G. R. Dunstan, 'The human embryo in the Western tradition', ch. 5 in G. R.
Dunstan and Mary J. Seller (eds), The Status of the Human Embryo (London: King
Edward's Hospital Fund, 1988).
3 Michael J. Coughlan, 'Mediation and St Thomas Aquinas', ch. 2 in The Vatican,
the Law and the Human Embryo (London: Macmillan, 1990).
4 Robert Edwards, 'Ethics and embryology: the case for experimentation', ch. 3 in
Anthony Dyson and John Harris (eds), Experiments on Embryos (London: Routledge,
1990).
5 John Mahoney, 'Warnock: a Catholic comment', The Month (September 1984).
6 Joyce Poole, The status of the embryo', ch. 6 in The Harm We Do: A Catholic
Doctor Confronts Church, Moral and Medical Teaching (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third
Publications, 1993).
7 Some Catholics find it difficult to reconcile the passage quoted above from the
Declaration with others found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council,
such as 'all the faithful, clerical and lay have a just freedom of enquiry, of thought,
and of humble and courageous expression in those matters in which they enjoy
competence' (GS, 62).
302
8 G. J. Hughes, The authority of Christian tradition', ch. 1 in Authority in Morals

(Heythrop Monograph; London, 1978).
9 Joyce Poole, 'The status oi the embryo', ch. 6 in The Harm We Do.
10 Michael Coughlan, 'Souls and embryos', ch. 5 in The Vatican, the Law and the
Human Embryo, p. 71.
11 G. R. Dunstan. 'In-vitro fertilization: the ethics'.
Select bibliography
Michael J. Coughlan, The Vatican, the Law and the Human Embryo (London: Macmillan,
1990).
G. R. Dunstan and Mary J. Seller (eels), The Status of the Human Embryo (London: King
Edward's Hospital Fund, 1988).
Anthony Dyson and John Harris (eds), Experiments on Embryos (London: Routledge,
1990).
R. A. McCormick, Corrective Vision: Explorations in Moral Theology (Kansas City, MO:
Sheed and Ward, 1994).
John Mahoney, Bioethics and Belief (London: Sheed and Ward, 1984).
Joyce Poole, The Harm We Do: A Catholic Doctor Confronts Church, Moral and Medical
Teaching (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1993).
303
21
Organ transplantation
David F. Kelly
Among topics in medical ethics organ transplantation offers an oppor-

tunity to examine areas both of methodological and of current practical
interest. To get at these areas this chapter will begin with a brief look at
the theological context from which Christian (mainly Roman Catholic)
medical ethics has analysed transplantation. Then we will turn to an
historical overview of the actual ethical judgements Catholic medical
ethics has made about it. Finally we will look at some of the ethical issues
of current interest.
The relationship of the Christian religion and the practice of bodily
healing (medicine) has a long history. The most developed and most
influential of the Christian traditions on medical ethical issues has been
the Roman Catholic. Catholic scholars and pastors have developed over
the centuries a complex system of principles and judgements. 1 Indeed,
until the middle of the twentieth century Catholic moral theologians were
virtually alone among Christian scholars in investigating the ethical issues
connected with the art of healing.
This chapter will thus stress the approach taken by the Catholic
tradition. However, except in certain limited areas, the Catholic position
is not at variance with other Christian traditions, and all Christian
churches are able to draw on the same religious themes and symbols. The
contemporary Christian approach to transplantations is largely an ecumen-
ical one.
304
Theological context
The central reality of Christianity is creation and salvation by a God who

creates us in dignity and 'loves us to death'. That is what the cross and
resurrection of Jesus means. We are of worth. That worth comes ultimately
from God, which is the best foundation any dignity can have. Christian
medical ethics, at least at its best, is rooted in this knowledge. And this
means the worth of the whole person, not just of our 'souls', as we so often
think.
It also means that we are called to be co-creators, or at least co-agents
with God. We are thus both creatures, who owe our totality to God, and
co-creators, who receive from God the gift and the task to share in God's
creating and saving activity. This complex notion is of great importance
in medical ethics. God wants us to do some things, but not all things.
Our lives and our bodies are our own, but they are not totally our own.
These fundamental themes of human dignity 2 set the context for moral
decision-making in the area of health care. The human person is created
in God's image and is chosen and ordered to life with God through the
grace of Jesus given in the Spirit. Catholic theology insists, of course, that
this creation, choosing, and ordering is not primarily an individual event.
Humans are social beings. Christianity, like Judaism, proposes a people of
God, not just a loose collection of private individuals. This increases the
dignity and supports the rights of each individual person as it also insists
that each person find meaning in the interconnectedness and interdepend-
ence of human society.
Organ transplantation in Catholic medical ethics

The early debate and Bert Cunningham
The ethical issue of organ transplantation arose largely in the 1940s and
1950s. The first specific procedures to pose the question were transplanta-
tions of corneas and of ovarian tissue. By the late 1950s the procedure at
issue was kidney transplantation. Blood transfusions and skin grafts, which
had been the procedures common prior to this period, were not generally
seen to pose a problem.
The moral issue as it arose in the Roman Catholic tradition was focused
around the problem of mutilation. Could a person 'mutilate' him or herself
for any purpose? The principle most commonly applied was the principle
of totality. A part of the human body could be sacrificed for the good of
the whole body. The principle of totality was, by the mid-twentieth
century, an integral part: of the moral methodology which had come to
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David F. Kelly
the fore in Catholic medical ethics. For a number of reasons this

methodology emphasized primarily the physical and individual aspects of
right and wrong behaviour. This emphasis has been criticized in recent
years, but it was then the central method for doing Catholic medical
ethics.
In this methodological context the principle of totality had come to be
limited to the physical good of the individual physical body. Thus a
gangrenous leg might rightly be amputated. Similarly, 'indirect' steriliza-
tions were permitted if an organ of generation was diseased so that its
removal was necessary to save the physical organism. But one could not
castrate himself in order to avoid temptations against chastity. Nor could
one sterilize himself or herself in order to avoid children. Blood transfu-
sions and skin grafts were usually considered non-mutilating. But if the
principle of totality were to be applied in its physicalist and individualist
limitation to transplantation from living donors of cornea or kidney, these
procedures might well be forbidden. And indeed many Catholic moral
theologians did forbid all 'mutilating' transplants. For a period of time
Catholic moral theology was more apt to forbid organ transplantation
than to permit it.
At this point a doctoral student at the Catholic University of America
submitted as his dissertation a treatise entitled 'The morality of organic
transplantation'. 3 This set off a controversy within Catholic medical ethics.
Cunningham's central thesis is that mutilations for the purpose of organ
transplantation are indeed licit, and that they are licit according to the
principle of totality, if this principle is extended to include not: only the
individual physical body from which the organ is removed but the entire
Mystical Body of Christ. In this way he broke through the individualist
limitations associated with the traditional principle of totality and gave it
an explicitly social meaning.
Cunningham notes the negative judgement of some Catholic moralists
who insisted that mutilations are allowed only if done for the physical
good of the individual body, thus forbidding all transplant surgery.4 But
he disagrees, describing the scriptural and theological bases for the unity
of humankind as a race created by God and as a Body redeemed by Christ.
This unity serves in turn as a basis for arguing that a person may licitly
mutilate him or herself for the good of a neighbour. He insists on the
precept of charity and discusses how far it ought to extend.5
Cunningham gives examples of procedures his thesis would permit, and
some of them are extreme. He does recognize that limits must be imposed
by the principle of proportionality. Yet he permits operations which at
the very least should cause more concern than they seem to do for
Cunningham. For example, he allows for the transplantation of a cornea
from a living donor, resulting in considerable loss of vision, and even the
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corneal transplant of one eye from a one-eyed donor, resulting in total

blindness. In this last case, the donor is presented as a convict sentenced
to life in prison, the eye thus 'not needed by anyone'!6 There is a clear lack
of respect here for the individual person that arises from the thesis that
individuals are ordinated to society as parts to the whole. But his
recognition that moral method in medical ethics ought not be limited to
the good of the individual or to the purely physical enabled him to allow
for the possibility that organ transplantation might be morally right.
Reactions to Cunningham
Cunningham's thesis was hotly debated by Catholic moralists during the
1940s and 1950s. Many European moralists continued to oppose all
organic transplantation. Most American moralists, and some Europeans,
accepted Cunningham's conclusion that organ transplantation was licit,
though many of them expressed hesitation at the lack of caution or
proportion found in some of Cunningham's judgements. They had a moral
sense, I believe, which tended toward allowing operations which seemed
to do little if any harm to the donor and to be of great benefit to the
recipient. Since the magisterium (the Catholic pope and bishops) had not
made any pronouncements directly to the contrary, these Catholic moral-
ists were willing to permit: the procedure. They disagreed, however, about
whether or not the principle of totality could be applied. Some argued
that that principle must continue to apply only to the individual body;
these justified organ transplantations on the basis of Christian charity.
Others argued that, with proper safeguards, the principle of totality might
be extended in a way similar to Cunningham's proposal. And some
opposition to transplantation continued.
But by I960 or so most Catholic moralists accepted the moral Tightness
of at least some organ transplants, and Catholics have now joined others
in seeing in this procedure not only a morally correct act but indeed a
laudable one to be supported by public policy. The 1994 'Ethical and
religious directives for Catholic health care services'7 permits living donor
transplantation.
Today's questions about transplantation
To my knowledge no Christian theologian is today arguing for a general

rejection of organ transplantation. But this does not mean that all the
moral problems have been solved or that there is complete agreement
about how to answer them.
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David F. Kelly
Issues in living donor transplants

There is still some hesitation among Christian ethicists about some of the
issues involved in living donor transplants. Many would be more cautious
than Cunningham was and would be slow to approve his interpretation of
the principle of totality which implies that the human person is merely
one part of a wider whole. Catholic theology insists that the human person
is both individual and social. Organ transplantation is morally right, but
this is because it contributes to and is in keeping with the created and
saved dignity of the donor as well as that of the recipient.
In this context, Catholic theologian Richard McCormick proposed an
understanding of the principle of totality which differed from Cunning-
ham's.8 In his 1975 article McCormick accepts Cunningham's basic idea
that the principle of totality ought to be changed so that it can be applied
to organ transplantation. But McCormick wants to extend the notion of
totality not so much in the direction of the whole society as in the
direction of the total personal good of the donor. Organ transplantations
are justified by the principle of totality since the donor may rightly
subordinate his or her own physical perfection to his or her spiritual and
personal perfection. The physical injury is indeed for the total good of the
donor, a good which is sought by this gift of love to another. McCormick
is quick to add, however, that this does not mean than any and all organ
donations are morally right. There must be a correct proportionality of
benefits and harms if donation is to be morally right.
Belgian Catholic theologian Louis Janssens takes a similar approach.9
Though he does not explicitly mention the principle of totality, it is clear
that he would refuse to apply it as Cunningham does, subordinating the
individual to a wider corporate whole. 'The human body and its parts',
says Janssens, 'are not merchandise.'10 Living donor transplants are morally
justifiable only under certain conditions. First, the recipient must be truly
needy and there must be no other equally helpful treatment available.
Second, the donor must give his or her free and informed consent. Third,
certain objective criteria must also be met: organ donations which
jeopardize the life of the donor are forbidden; any transplantation which
would limit a person's consciousness would be immoral; organ donations
are illicit which 'would render the donor incapable of playing his or her
role in social collaboration'.11 In all of this there is a sense of balance in
the relationship of individual and society.
American Catholic moralists Benedict Ashley and Kevin O'Rourke
elaborate on a distinction between anatomical integrity and functional
integrity.12 The former 'refers to the material or physical integrity of the
human body' and the latter 'to the systematic efficiency of the human
body'.13 Whereas organ donations which harm anatomical integrity may
308
be permitted, those which would cause a loss of functional integrity are

forbidden. In addition, potential benefits must be weighed against actual
risks. An honest assessment of the likely outcome must be a part of the
decision process.
American Protestant ethicist James Nelson also insists that caution
must reign.14 He suggests an analogy to the just war theory, which he
applies both to living donor and to cadaver transplants. Just as the resort
to violence is sometimes justifiable, but not automatically right, so organ
transplants, while right in some circumstances, require justification. There
must be no better alternative (the requirement of last resort). The
physician must have as his or her primary intent that of helping the
patient, not that of advancing medical knowledge or personal prestige (the
requirement of just intent). Informed consent is essential (the requirement
of a just and open declaration of war). The rights of the donor, including
the dying donor, and the recipient must be safeguarded (the requirement
of noncombatant immunity). Transplant physicians should be honest with
donors and recipients (the requirement of right attitudes in the conduct
of war); they must try to avoid unrealistic expectations derived from the
media. The good effects, of the procedure and of the practice in general
must outweigh the bad effects (the requirement of due proportion); this
includes the issue of resource allocation. Finally, the end must be just and
it must be achievable (the requirement of a just end). The analogy to the
just war theory may appear bizarre, but it has the advantage of calling
needed attention to the many reasons for hesitation in transplantation
surgery.
The question of allocation and cost

The principal problems today do not usually concern living donors since
most transplanted organs are taken from cadavers. The problem is much
more apt to revolve around questions of cost and of distribution of scarce
resources. This is a very difficult question. It is clear that society should
spend its resources justly. We ought not spend so much on procedures
that benefit only a few that we neglect doing what would benefit many.
This conclusion can be drawn easily from the theological resources
Christianity provides. Human beings, as created and saved by God in
Christ, are not isolated individuals but are called to participate with one
another in working for the common good.
But it would be arrogant for moralists to claim that easy specific
conclusions can be drawn from these obvious premises. We cannot reject
expensive procedures simply on the basis of cost. It may theoretically be
true that the money spent on complex transplant surgery could help large
numbers of the poor or the starving, but the complexities of today's global
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David F. Kelly
economy make such judgements questionable at the practical level. How

can we know that it is expensive organ transplantations, and not
educational costs, military costs, entertainment costs, church costs, or
other allocations of society's resources, which deprive the poor of needed
care and support? Yet the complexity of the question cannot cause us to
give in to the temptation to ignore it. We do need to concern ourselves
with questions like these. If we believe that humans are one in God's
creative love, then we need to be concerned about all humans, not just
about the ones in our own hospitals or offices.
Though there is no clear 'Christian answer' concerning specific policies
in this area, Christianity does proceed from a different 'story' or 'myth' to
that of much of American political and medical history as well as much of
philosophical biomedical ethics. These tend to emphasize individual
human rights, and often underemphasize the social networks within which
people live. The Christian tradition, especially in its Roman Catholic
forms, insists that individual rights be placed within the context of the
common good. We simply do not have a right to everything we want; nor
do we have a right to everything we need when others' needs are greater.
Though this religious ethos is not validly the basis for quick and easy
answers to complex questions, it can help us approach a solution to the
allocation problem. The American health care system, for example, needs
major reform in the direction of justice. No perfect system is apparent,
but other nations do better at this than the United States. In those nations
some procedures which benefit only a few are given lower priority than
treatments which benefit many. Organ transplants often fit this category.
Even as nations await the development of better systems of health care,
some conclusions can be drawn which apply now. We ought to be able to
argue with at least some strength that those medical procedures which are
very expensive and which are at best of questionable benefit to those who get
them should not get public funding, except as limited experimental
research. We also ought to be able to argue with some strength that those
medical procedures which are very expensive and which are at best of
questionable benefit to the specific population at which they are aimed, even
though they may help a few persons within that population, should not
get public funding, except as limited experimental research. Now this
seems quite reasonable, and I think it is, but when these principles are
applied to specific kinds of organ transplants, the conclusions they lead to
are not easily accepted.
The issue of artificial heart implants, either permanent or as bridge
devices to human heart transplants, illustrates this problem. Theoretically
the artificial heart would seem to be an ethical as well as a technological
advance over cadaver transplants. A permanent artificial heart would
eliminate that portion of organ scarcity which results from too few donors.
310
It is quite likely that the costs would decrease if more hearts were made.
The problem of rejection, and thus the cost of immunosuppressant drugs,
would seem to be less than with human or animal hearts. It might be
easier to 'fix' and to 'do maintenance on' a human-made heart than an
organic one.
But there has thus far been little success with the permanent artificial
heart. Recipients are tied to machines which inhibit mobility. They suffer
from consistent periods of significant incapacity. And the devices fail in a
relatively short time.
In the absence of any real hope of success, experimentation with
permanent artificial hearts should be strictly limited. If and when it is
determined that they are not advancing vital knowledge, no more should
be attempted even if patients (experimental subjects) consent to them.
But what about the temporary artificial heart? Unfortunately, major
ethical problems arise even with the temporary artificial heart. Since this
is not a substitute for, but an addition to organic heart transplantation,
costs are increased. And the scarcity of organs is not alleviated; it is rather
increased. Thus, as long as there are too few cadaver hearts for those who
need them, the temporary artificial hearts only add to the list of the
needing without adding to the list of the donors. This would change
if enough human hearts became available, but for now the procedure
seems to be of no benefit to heart patients as a whole. Potential recip-
ients without artificial hearts are passed over in favour of those with
them, who would otherwise already have died. Since this is done at great
cost, and since it merely shifts the outcome of who will live and who
will die from one group to another within patients with end-stage heart
disease, it does seem to be unethical. As in the case of permanent im-
plants, temporary implants are ethically right when performed on a
restricted experimental basis in order to gain knowledge which might
lead to a successful permanent device. Some recent advances support this
claim.
Organ procurement and determination of death

The question of when death can be said to occur is not in itself an issue of
organ transplantation. Indeed, it is morally and medically better to
distinguish, even to separate the two questions as much as possible. Yet it
is a fact that one of the problems connected with cadaver organ
procurement is that of determining that the donor has died. In addition,
there are questions arising today about anencephalic newborn infants as
potential organ donors, and these concern the problem of determining the
moment of death.
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David F. Kelly
Organ procurement
Organ procurement involves a number of policy questions apart from the
determination of death. Principal among these is the question of who
controls the body of a deceased person and thus decides whether or not
organs can be taken. There are a number of different policy options, and
governments have adopted one or another of them. Some argue that
cadaver organs ought to be considered the property of the state, or at least
that the common good should require by law that they be available for
transplantation regardless of the wishes of the person before death or of
the relatives after death. Opposing this is the position that organs be
taken only if relatives spontaneously volunteer them or if the now-dead
person has made his or her wishes to donate clear during life. In between
these two positions is the policy generally known as required request, a
policy now adopted by a number of states in the United States. This
policy requires by law that the relatives of a dying or newly dead person
be asked about possible organ donation if it is medically possible. If the
deceased carried an organ donor card or otherwise made his or her wish to
donate known this wish is seen as valid consent.
There is not any clear Christian position on this issue. On the one hand
is the importance of giving as a free gift and the freedom of choice that
this entails. On the other hand, Catholic social ethics recognizes that there
are times when individual choice must cede to the common good. Perhaps
it is best here to support a moderate policy such as required request,
which includes both the freedom necessary for giving and the valid needs
of the common good.
Determination of death
Determining death has been a problem for much of human history. Today
it arises in the context of medical technology which can maintain even in
corpses the outward appearance of biological life. Thus it became necessary
in some cases to develop criteria for determining that death had occurred,
and these became known as 'brain-death' criteria. Two proposals were
made. Some argued that since all real human activity requires the abilities
of the 'higher brain' or cortex, the death of the cortex should be sufficient
to declare that a person has died.
But the majority have thus far rejected this argument. To accept it
would not only have changed the way death was diagnosed but would
have changed the meaning of death as well. Cortically dead patients, such
as those in persistent vegetative states, can breathe spontaneously. To
declare such persons dead would mean we must be willing to bury
breathing bodies, or to act directly to stop the breathing prior to burial.
312
Thus the generally accepted consensus is that only 'whole brain death',
including the death of the brain stem, is sufficient to know that a person
has died. In this way no one is declared dead, by these new diagnostic
criteria, who would otherwise have been thought living. This approach
has been generally adopted in the United States.
It is essential to note that none of this has any direct connection with
organ transplantation. The issue of determination of death ought be
studied and resolved on its own. Yet there is a connection which comes
when cadaver organs are needed. Since 'fresh' organs are better than 'stale'
ones, a quick means of diagnosing death is desirable. And the criteria of
brain death may be involved since the best organs are often those of young
persons who have died with head injuries resulting in trauma to the brain
and little direct injury to the rest of the body. As we have seen, in the
United States the criteria used are those which determine 'total brain'
death. No organs can be taken from a patient in a persistent vegetative
state or from an anencephalic infant since these are considered to be alive.
There is considerable discussion about this. Some argue that we should
turn to a higher brain-death standard that would permit the taking of
organs from the permanently comatose. Christian theology might be used
to support either position. On the one hand, it is clear that the human
person is more than mere biological life, and Catholic ethics has for a long
time recognized that there is no obligation to sustain life when the
benefits of doing so are outweighed by the burdens of the treatment.
Catholic tradition does not require that persons in persistent vegetative
states be kept alive by medical means. They may, and ought, be allowed
to die. Thus Catholic and general Christian opinion might change toward
permitting neo-cortical determination of death. On the other hand,
Christian and Catholic theology would reject the notion that the entire
human person is contained in brain functioning. So far most Catholic
moralists are hesitant to say that the permanently unconscious are already
dead.
There is one final aspect of this problem to be addressed. It must be
repeated that the issue of determining death is not as such an issue of
organ transplantation, even though that has often been its context. We
ought not change laws merely in order to facilitate organ procurement. In
fact, it is possible that if we do so the availability of organs will be
harmed, not helped. Far too many of us already fear that physicians might
not care properly for us if they need our organs. To add anencephalics or
other cortically-dead bodies to the list of the legally dead would change
what it means to be dead. There could be a backlash that would work to
the detriment of organ transplantation. This could change in the future,
of course, as people become more open to the notion of cortical death. But
at least for now caution should rule.
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David F. Kelly
Foetal transplantation
The question of foetal organ and tissue transplants, such as the transplan-
tation of foetal dopamine-producing cells for treatment of Parkinson's
disease, raises issues additional to those we have already developed, and
leads to much controversy, especially in Roman Catholic ethics. The
reason, of course, is the connection to abortion. Official Catholic teaching
argues that from the moment of conception the foetus must be treated as
a human person and rejects all direct abortions, even those of very early
embryos. Even for some who would permit early abortion for serious
reasons, it seems clearly right to oppose any attempt at 'growing' human
foetuses simply in order to use their organs after abortion.
Less clear, however, is transplantation from a foetus which has been
aborted. On one side of this question are those who argue that this will
increase the likelihood of abortion and that it means a moral identification
of the physician and the recipient with the abortion. These also question
the authority of the woman to consent for the foetus. On the other side
are those suggesting that once the abortion has taken place and the foetus
is dead, the organs and tissue may be taken as with any other cadaver.
There is a general agreement rejecting any techniques used to keep the
organs viable if these techniques would further endanger the life of the
woman or of the foetus, as well as an insistence that any child born alive
be treated like any other person.
Conclusion
Over the years Catholic medical ethics has changed its judgement about
organ transplantation. It now recognizes the contribution this remarkable
procedure can make to human healing. Yet risks remain. Christian medical
ethics will continue to find in organ transplantation a procedure that
requires ongoing vigilance.
Acknowledgements
This chapter is in part a revision and a compilation of material written by

me and previously published in the following formats.
'Religious aspects of organ transplantation: Christianity' in D. R. Cook
and P. J. Davis (eds), Anesthetic Principles for Organ Transplantation (New
York: Raven Press, 1994), pp. 349-60.
'Artificial hearts: an ethical solution to the donor shortage?', Health
Progress 68.3 (April 1987), pp. 24-6.
314
'Individualism and corporatism in a personalise ethic: an analysis of

organ transplants' in Joseph A. Selling (ed.), Personalist Morals: Essays in
Honor of Louis Janssens (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 1988),
pp. 147-66.
'A Roman Catholic perspective on organ transplantation' in C. Don
Keyes (ed.), New Harvest: Transplanted Body Parts and the Ethical Conse-
quences (Clifton, NJ: Humana Press, 1991), pp. 199-211.
Notes
1 For a complete history cf this development, see David F. Kelly, The Emergence of
Roman Catholic Medical Ethics in North America (New York: Edwin Mellen Press,
1979).
2 I have developed these themes at greater length in a special publication of the
National Association of Catholic Chaplains entitled A Theological Basis for Health
Care and Health Care Ethics (New York: National Association of Catholic
Chaplains, 1985).
3 Bert Cunningham, 'The morality of organ transplantation', dissertation, Catholic
University of America: Studies in Sacred Theology, no. 86 (Washington: Catholic
University of America Press, 1944).
4 Cunningham cites the late 1930s manuals of Noldin-Schmitt and lorio, popular
and influential textbooks ol that time (pp. 64—70).
5 Cunningham, pp. 87—99.
6 Cunningham, p. 106.
7 'Ethical and religious directives for Catholic health care services', Origins 24.27
(15 December 1994), pp. 449-58.
8 Richard A. McCormick, 'Transplantation of organs: a comment on Paul Ramsey',
Theological Studies 36 (1975), pp. 503-9.
9 Louis Janssens, 'Transplantation d'organes', Foi et Temps 4 (1983), pp. 308—24.
10 Janssens, p. 318, translation mine.
11 Janssens, p. 320, translation mine.
12 Benedict M. Ashley and Kevin D. O'Rourke, Health Care Ethics: A Theological
Analysis (2nd edn; St Louis, MO: Catholic Health Association of the United
States, 1982), pp. 308-11.
13 Ashley and O'Rourke, p. 310.
14 James B. Nelson and Joanne Smith Rohricht, Human Medicine: Ethical Perspectives
on Today's Medical Issues (rev. edn; Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1984),
pp. 176-99.
Select bibliography
Benedict M. Ashley and Kevin D. O'Rourke, Health Care Ethics: A Theological Analysis
(2nd edn; St Louis, MO: Catholic Health Association of the United States, 1982).
Louis Janssens, 'Transplantation d'organes', Foi et Temps 4 (1983), pp. 308—24.
David F. Kelly, The Emergence of Roman Catholic Medical Ethics in North America (New
York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979).
315
David F. Kelly
David F. Kelly, A Theological Basis for Health Care and Health Care Ethics (New York:
National Association of Catholic Chaplains, 1985).
Richard A. McCormick, 'Transplantation of organs: a comment on Paul Ramsey',
Theological Studies 36 (1975), pp. 503-9.
James B. Nelson and Joanne Smith Rohricht, Human Medicine: Ethical Perspectives on
Today's Medical Issues (rev. edn; Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1984).
Richard C. Sparks, 'Ethical issues of fetal tissue transplantation: research, procurement,
and complicity with abortion', The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990).
United States Catholic Conference. 'Ethical and religious directives for Catholic health
care services', Origins 24.27 (15 December 1994), pp. 449-58.
316
22
Hypnosis and general anaesthesia
Aureliano Pacciolla
Translated by Bernard Hoose
Hypnosis
When experimenting with the possibility of controlling pain through

hypnosis and the conscious will, J. M. Charcot observed that some nuns
could tolerate hot coals in their hands but reacted violently as soon as one
touched their clothes as if to lift them. An initial interpretation of this
could be that a person in a deep hypnotic trance does not accept an act which is
contrary to his or her moral standards.
Since then many researchers into hypnosis have tried to look more
deeply into the possibility of modifying conscience and moral behaviour
through the use of hypnosis at various levels of trance — vigilant (or
superficial), medium, and deep (or somnambulist) - for the most varied
motives, ranging from the most licit and legal to those which are most
immoral and most legally unacceptable. Hypnosis is based on suggestion
and this distorts both perception and one's appraisal of reality. These
being the bases of the decisional processes, hypnosis is regarded by some
as highly manipulative, in the sense that it offers the opportunity to
modify human behaviour more easily than is the case with other methods
and other states of consciousness. This possibility of manipulating and
changing various kinds of human behaviour through hypnosis should be
considered both very dangerous and very useful, depending on the purpose
for which it is used: for selfish exploitation of others or for treatment
aimed at psychophysical well-being. It is precisely this seeming relative
ease in altering the human person that gives rise to a great number and
variety of moral problems concerning hypnosis.
In this context, the first crucial question regarding hypnosis and moral
behaviour is: Can hypnosis also modify one's conscience? Can one act
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Aureliano Pacciolla
against one's moral principles in a hypnotic trance? Can hallucinations

during hypnotic trance and post-hypnotic conditioning alter the morality
of a person in his or her principles and behaviour?
The answer seems to be negative and is confirmed by research and
experimentation. Nevertheless, there is a second question, regarding
hypnosis and immoral behaviour, how is it that, under hypnosis, some people
do what they have never done before and would never do in a vigilant
conscious state (a state of normal alert consciousness)? It is important to
explain some episodes reported in the media: sexual violence accepted in a
state of trance; suicides or acts of self-harm through post-hypnotic
suggestion; and other apparently inexplicable behaviour which is in the
sphere of interest of forensic psychology and moral science.
These two questions, and their respective answers, imply very serious
moral problems, and the maximum clarity is important for legislators,
moralists and all those who submit themselves to hypnosis for reasons of
therapy, research or entertainment. The response to both of these questions
should be at the basis both of specific legislation concerning this matter
and of the appraisal of hypnosis as a therapeutic instrument In both
spheres - as we shall see - we have particular moral problems.
Hypnosis and moral behaviour

A research experiment — among many — to illustrate the possibility of
manipulating conscience and moral behaviour through hypnosis:
It was suggested to 24 people (the subjects of the experiment) that they
take a poisonous snake in their hands (a self-harming act) and throw
sulphuric acid into the researcher's face (an act harmful to others). As a
precaution, the snake, the researcher and the subjects were separated by a
sheet of invisible glass. The subjects were divided into four groups, each
composed of six people. Under hypnotic trance, all were ordered in
peremptory fashion to pick up the snake.
Of the first group, entirely made up of people who were highly
susceptible to hypnosis, five tried to pick up the snake and also to throw
the acid. Of the second group, made up of people who were only slightly
susceptible to hypnosis, all fulfilled both orders. Of the third group,
composed of people in a state of vigilance, three tried to pick up the snake
and five threw the acid. Of the fourth group (the control group), made up
of people in a state of vigilance, who had, however, been given to
understand that they could not perform such acts, three tried to pick up
the snake and one threw the acid.
How should we interpret this behaviour from a moral point of view?
First of all, for a serious reflection on the problems of moral behaviour, it
is important to ask what J. Piaget did in his study of the evolution of
318
moral judgement in children and how L. Kohlberg proceeded in a similar

study among adolescents. Or rather, it is not enough to observe behaviour.
What is decisive is to ask why the person (the subject of the experiment)
has decided in favour of that form of behaviour. It is very important that
it is the subjects themselves who respond regarding the motivation of
their conduct.
I should add that, in the experiment referred to above,1 there was a
discussion with the subjects of the experiment, and it is interesting to
note how all the subjects affirmed that they were convinced they would
not have done any harm either to themselves or to others, since they were
aware of the fact that it was an experimental situation conducted by
responsible people. In other words, the subjects (even those who were
highly susceptible to hypnosis) expected that security measures would be
taken.
From what we have seen, we can come to a provisional conclusion: the
conscience is never completely suppressed.
In other research it has been shown that hypnosis cannot alter a person's
moral principles or scale of values. What it is important to show here is
how much can and cannot be obtained through the use of hypnosis. For
example, it is relatively easy to obtain psychomotor block (of movement
and language) in some subjects, as often happens in exhibitions in the
theatre or in TV shows. Other behavioural operations — like, for example,
those that occur in psychotherapy — are much more complex and more
difficult to attain; for this one needs the conscious collaboration of the
subject regarding the processes of change. Hypnosis does not make
criminals out of honest folk or vice versa.
But then, how is it possible that sexual abuse occurs in hypnotic trance
in subjects who would never have behaved in such a manner? The most
frequent examples dealt with in courts concern the spheres of sexuality
and fraud.
In the past, hypnosis has been used illicitly for bellicose aims: not just
for political propaganda, but also for so-called 'brainwashing' or as a
substitute for 'truth serum'. It is precisely in this last mentioned case that
it has been possible to verify what has just been affirmed, that the
conscience is never completely suppressed. In fact, in other research, it has
been possible to confirm that one can lie even under hypnosis and that
there is therefore no guarantee of the authenticity and reliability of the
information obtained under hypnotic trance. Therefore, hypnosis alone
cannot be used in a court of law as proof of the reconstruction of facts
through eye witnesses who have lost their conscious memory of what
happened. In some countries, a deposition given under hypnotic trance is
accepted, but account is taken of it only if the crucial details coincide
with, or are supported by, other evidence. In other words, nobody can be
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Aureliano Pacciolla
condemned solely on the basis of a deposition given by themselves or

others in a state of hypnotic trance.
The problem of forensic deontology remains open above all in determin-
ing when a judge can have recourse to a means such as hypnosis and what
the criteria should be for determining its reliability. In each case, nobody
can be — legally or morally — put under hypnosis without his or her
consent and without the participation of a professional doctor or psycho-
logist who is qualified in the medical and legal use of hypnosis.
Hypnosis and immoral behaviour

During hypnosis, the behaviour of hypnotists is immoral whenever they
try to modify a hypnotized person beyond the objectives of psychotherapy
or of the clinical sphere (research and experimentation) in which they are
qualified to work. Hypnotists do not have to ask for consent for every
single therapeutic process to be put into operation, but they may not go
beyond the limits of the therapeutic aims.
Patients always have a right to their privacy, even if they are regarded
as criminals. Without a legally valid authorization, nobody may be
hypnotized to get information or a confession, or as part of a programme
of rehabilitation.
The behaviour of the person hypnotized - with or without his or her
consent — could be immoral (or rather, contrary to the principles of his or
her own conscience) as a consequence of a particular stimulation on the
part of the hypnotist. How is it possible that a person who would never
rob or who has no intention of committing suicide could do so in a
hypnotic trance? And how would this accord with what was said before
about the personal conscience remaining unaltered in a hypnotic trance?
One answer to these questions, and to many analogous ones, comes from
the possibility, in hypnotic trance, of modifying one's perception and
appraisal of reality. Since we decide on the basis of how we perceive and
appraise reality, that is what directs behavioural decisions. If I perceive
the presence of a person close to me and judge that it is my fiancee, I can
decide to direct my behaviour in an affectionate and intimate way. The
alteration of the perception and appraisal of reality in hypnotic trance can even
alter moral behaviour.
From a practical point of view, that can happen with fraud and
deception. In hypnotic trance one can be made to believe that a drink is
harmless (with a colour and taste that are different to the real ones) and
pleasing, and the subject will drink it. This mechanism is at the basis of
any apparently immoral behaviour that can be performed under hypnosis,
and the more the subject is open to suggestion, the more realizable will it
be. It is obvious that deception and fraud are also possible outside of
320
hypnosis, but there is a notable difference. In the state of alert conscious-

ness (or rather, outside of hypnotic trance) the logical-rational processes
are more active, and, therefore, deception and fraud are more difficult to
put into effect, whilst, in hypnotic trance, and in any other state of
consciousness that is characterized by inhibition of the critical capacities,
deception and fraud are easier.
In other words, subjects in hypnotic trance do what they would not do
outside of the trance if (through distortion of perception and appraisal) a
frame of reality is constructed around them that is acceptable or downright
desirable and advantageous to them so much so as to provoke their
collaboration. In this case, hypnotized people cannot be either morally or
legally culpable because they are not aware of objective reality, and that is
not because of an illness (such as, for example, psychotic delirium) or
because of a lack of volitional control (as, for example, in drunkenness).
The hypnotized person behaves coherently in the hallucinatory context.
For this reason, the subjects who can most easily find themselves involved
in these problems are those who have a greater facility to develop
hallucinations in hypnotic trance.
Another problem
Another problem connected with hypnosis, although this time in the
religious rather than the forensic sphere, concerns reincarnation. Some
subjects regress, not only to a remote past, and then recall in detail
experiences from their childhood. It even seems that they can regress to a
preceding life, but, at this point, it would be more exact to say, to a
'presumed' preceding life. Even if some testimonies are really very
surprising, so much so that, for many, there are doubts and perplexity
concerning the different explanations about reincarnation, it is, neverthe-
less, important to point out that, up to this point in time, there has been
insufficient research to prove the reliability of what is said under hypnosis.
So far, the scientific literature on hypnosis and regression to presumed
preceding lives has not produced evidence in favour of reincarnation.
Furthermore, the methodology used in hypnotic regressions to presumed
preceding lives cannot be said to be scientifically adapted, and, therefore,
the results cannot be regarded as reliable. Nevertheless, research continues,
even if there are now many who regard it as useless or inappropriate, given
that no amount of scientific research can produce a conviction of faith.
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Aureliano Pacciolla
Hypnosis and Christian moral theology
In moral theology, the problem of hypnosis is posed in terms of freedom

of conscience between manipulation and free will. From the results of
scientific experiments known about so far, it can be affirmed that — both
during the trance and afterwards, with post-hypnotic suggestions —
enough free will for self-determination stays with the hypnotized subject
because the will is not subjugated, or, at least, not completely. The
morality of a person also has an unconscious level: some moral principles
are observed even in a state of intoxication or under the effect of some
toxic substances. The sense of duty and responsibility can be on the alert
even when one is in deep sleep. The fact that a mother can sleep deeply in
spite of noise but can wake up as soon as her child emits a weak cry is
probably due to this unconscious dimension of morality. For Christian
moral theology, therefore, hypnosis in itself is licit and can be licitly used
by professionals who are capable and competent in the therapeutic and/or
didactic spheres. In hypnotic trance the hypnotized subject continues to
maintain enough free will in regard to his or her own decisions.
Other useful clarifications regarding the use of hypnosis in accordance
with the principles of Christian morality are those pertaining to the
consent of patients: Is it necessary that patients explicitly express their
consent to the use of hypnosis or can recourse be had to an 'implicit'
consent? Does the hypnotizing therapist have to ask for such consent
explicitly or can he consider it 'presumed? One can respond to these
questions holding that the therapist (physician or psychologist) 'has the
moral duty, beyond the contractual obligation, to put into effect all those
means which are held to be most advisable in the interest of the person
being helped, without being concerned about consent for the carrying out
of every single act. And only the explicit opposition of the person, if
validly manifested, obliges the doctor to refrain from carrying out the act
to which consent has not been given.'2
Another moral problem is that of the use of information which can be
given in a state of trance. I can respond to this in general terms: in a
hypnotic trance, extorting information without the consent of the subject
is illicit, even if one intends doing it for a good end. Even a delinquent
has the right to private intimacy; and, anyway, it has been confirmed that
one can lie under hypnosis.
Concerning hypnosis, the Church has anticipated both official medicine
and secular jurisprudence, but we should also say that some theologians
have displayed a certain closure and some suspicion towards hypnotic
phenomenology. However, as we shall see, it is more a matter of taking
up a position in respect to a bad use of hypnosis. For example, m an old
322
Roman Catholic manual of moral theology there is an allusion to hypnosis

among the sins against religion, but the description is up to date for its
time which saw no taking up of positions against this approach.3 The
theologian who was the author of this manual demonstrated that he was
very much in favour of 'waking suggestion', which today we can call
'indirect hypnosis':
The milder form of hypnotism — without true hypnosis — employed in

psycho-therapeutics as a curative agency is less dangerous. It works
remarkable cures quickly and permanently, provided the patient uses
his own will-power to maintain the primary beneficial effect. It is the
mind and will of the patient that effect the cure. . . . There is no reason,
therefore, to condemn 'waking suggestion' unless it is misinterpreted
and misdirected, that is, if its use leads to ridiculous superstition, or
the attribution to the healer of magic and occult powers, and if the
suggestions employed are wrong.4
I have used this example from a Catholic manual of moral theology which
predates the Second Vatican Council precisely to show that the attitude of
openness and prudence on the part of the Catholic Church (and, indeed, other
churches) in regard to hypnosis is not only a characteristic of the present
theological position, but has always been there. Of course, I do not mean
to say that this has been a universal attitude shared by all theologians of
all times. If there have been exceptions, these have certainly been rare and
lacking any doctrinal relevance. The prudential attitude also comes from
the fact that many — above all in the past - confused hypnosis with
spiritualism and magic.
The main concern of theologians springs from the consequences of an
improper use of hypnosis, especially if the practitioners are not pro-
fessionals. This means that no theologian has ever had any objections to
hypnosis if it is used for therapeutic ends and if the practitioners are
professionals. It can be said that this is, in substance, the position of the
manuals of Christian moral theology.
General anaesthesia
In the 1950s we had the first publications concerning the possibility of

remembering what was perceived during operations whilst under total
anaesthesia.5 The first explanatory response on the part of surgeons was
that there was a momentary weakening of the anaesthesia which could
permit the placing of some memories. Anaesthetists did not willingly
accept this implicit accusation concerning their ability to appraise the
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Aureliano Pacciolla
quantity and quality of the anaesthesia on the bases of physiological and

surgical parameters.
Whilst, on the one hand, anaesthesiology still needs to make advances
in regard to both drugs and techniques, on the other, not a few
anaesthetists pointed out that, even under total anaesthesia, the reticular
system never completely loses contact with the surrounding reality.
Furthermore, memories never referred to visual sensation, sensations of
touch or olfactory ones, but only to auditory perceptions. And it is known
that hearing is the last of the five external senses to abandon normal alert
consciousness under total anaesthesia, in coma, and in various other states,
such as preagonic ones. Therefore, from a purely theoretical point of view,
it does not seem so absurd to suppose the hypothesis of auditory perception
under total anaesthesia and an equally possible memorizing of these
perceptions. Various patients have demonstrated that they can retrieve at
the conscious level part of what they perceived under total anaesthesia.
A notable contribution to this hypothesis came from the first systematic
experimental research and from the gathering of observations made by
patients.6 Nevertheless, there were not a few doctors who held that these
post-operative accounts were 'hallucinations' of the patients caused by the
dissociating effect of the anaesthetizing gas. In reality, patients who
quoted to the letter phrases uttered during their operations were statisti-
cally very few (about 2 per cent), but there were certainly many others
who felt the consequences of what they had heard whilst under total
anaesthesia. For example, during an operation, the surgeon told his
assistants that the patient was inoperable because of the advanced state of
the invasion of cancer. Immediately after the operation, in spite of having
forgotten the event and in spite of benevolent reassurances on the part of
all the medical personnel, the patient was profoundly depressed. Since
many analogous cases were observed, it was recommended that great
caution be exercised during operations, or else the patient should be given
earplugs. Anyway, the moral problem was from now on felt by many.7
From the scientific documentation gathered by the 1970s, one can
conclude that one of the new moral problems of the medical profession
concerned the manner of speaking about the patient during total anaes-
thesia, above all when reference is made to matters concerning his or her
life and health. A possible conditioning seemed evident from all the
conclusions of the research conducted up to that time.
One conclusion of noteworthy importance refers to the content of what
is generally remembered. More than words ad litteram there are the
emotions and reflexes that remain after anaesthesia. Two examples: (1)
optimism or pessimism expressed about patients during total anaesthesia
has a notable effect upon their mood during the post-operatory phase; (2)
under total anaesthesia, the reflexes can be conditioned more or less as
324
with post-hypnotic suggestion: 'Upon waking, when I pronounce this

number . . . you will feel a tingling sensation and you will need to scratch
your ear, or else your nose will feel itchy and you will scratch it.' When
completely awake, almost all patients do not remember the words heard,
but a significant percentage of patients, at the indicated stimulus (the
number, for example . . .), reply with the reflex to which they have been
conditioned (scratching their ear or nose). This percentage is even more
significant if — in addition to, or together with, a reflex — the conditioning
of a mood or state of mind is put in place (for example: 'You can be
tranquil . . . everything is going well . . . you can be calm and go to
sleep . . . ' ) .
The recovery of feelings and the putting in place of reflexes raises the
possibility of real perception during total anaesthesia.8
In the 1980s a new moral problem presented itself, arising precisely
from the possibility of conditioning a subject during general anaesthesia.
Or rather, if subjects could be conditioned negatively by what they heard
whilst under total anaesthesia, they could also be conditioned positively,
and the state of total anaesthesia, then, becomes an excellent opportunity
to use for therapeutic purposes. In concrete, subjects can be conditioned
by putting in place useful reflexes in the post-operatory phase by sending
them messages — during total anaesthesia — aimed at certain physiological
functions in need of recovery in such spheres as peristalsis, pain control,
anxiety, insomnia, urination, swallowing and other functions necessary to
the functional autonomy of the patient. In the 1980s research and
experimentation were developed, based precisely on this presupposition.
Confirmed was the previously acquired datum that the state of anaesthesia
is not a passive one from the point of view of psychological functioning
and that it can be used for the person's benefit. 9 Patients who remember
ad litteram the content of conversations that took place during their
operations are still statistically very few in number, but the percentage
rises considerably if we take into account the restoring of emotional states
and the responses to conditioned reflexes. This percentage rises even
further if the subjects are sensitized to memory recall by means of hypnotic
induction before or in place of pre-anaesthesia and another hypnotic
induction after the total anaesthesia.
This is one of the major goals that research will try to reach during the
1990s. It is not a question of substituting hypnotic trance for analgesics
or drug-induced anaesthesia. It is rather a question of using hypnosis to
make perception during total anaesthesia more sensitive and the putting
in place of conditioned reflexes more effective and beneficial in the post-
operatory phase.
It is often not necessary to add hypnosis to the messages imparted
during total anaesthesia; these last mentioned could be enough. In
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Aureliano Pacciolla
neurosurgical operations lasting seven hours or more, uniting the two

procedures assures better results in the post-operatory phase.
In general, post-operatory development is strictly correlative to the type
of operation and to the psychic structure of the patient, so, in order that
they may have maximum efficacy, the messages — heard through earphones
during total anaesthesia - must be strictly personalized. This is one of the
most important data: the messages that contain the patient's name are the
ones that are most incisive.
I should immediately add that, in control groups in which patients did
not hear personalized messages, but only relaxing music, these too
displayed clinical benefits and advantages that were far superior to those
of patients treated in accordance with traditional procedures (or rather,
without any particular device other than the mere administering of the
anaesthetic).10
One of the first moral problems brought to light here concerns precisely
the benefits of this procedure. A patient can: (1) suffer less; (2) take fewer
tranquillizers; (3) recover much sooner. If this particular procedure permits
us to attain these objectives to the advantage of the patient, why not put
it into practice?
Another problem: has this procedure been sufficiently studied to
guarantee its validity? Patients and doctors can rest assured not only that
this procedure is harmless, but that it presents a high probability of
success in terms of real, consistent and durable blessings. Not to take into
account these findings could amount to a serious omission in regard to the
dignity of the patient.
In the future it will also be possible to extend research to another
problem that is still not very clear: various psychological disturbances —
especially of the phobic and/or obsessive type — seem to arise after total
anaesthesia. Changes of taste and changes in behaviour in a direction that
is not pathological have also been noticed, but all this is more difficult to
verify because often there is no psychic profile of patients prior to the
operation to compare with a later follow-up, which could confirm or deny
a real change. Moreover, even after having verified a change — pathological
or otherwise — it is still very difficult to demonstrate that total anaesthesia
is the only or the principal factor in such changes in behaviour.
We can conclude that the state of total anaesthesia is the location of
many problems in the sphere of medical ethics, hitherto unknown, and
many will still have to be studied. The quality of the psychophysical well-
being of very many patients depends on the solution to these problems.
326
Notes
1 M. T. Orme, 'The use and misuse of hypnosis in court', International Journal of

Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (1979), pp. 311-41; M. T. Orme et al.,
'Hypnotically induced testimony' in G. L. Wells and E. F. Loftus (eds), Eyewitness
Testimony: Psychological Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984),
pp. 171-213; P. W. Sheehan and K. M. McConkey, Hypnosis and Experience: The
Exploration of Phenomena and Process (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1982); G. F.
Wagstaff, Hypnosis, Compliance and Belief (Brighton: Harvester Press/New York: St
Martin's Press, 1981); G. F. Wagstaff, The enhancement of witness memory by
hypnosis: a review and methodological critique of the experimental literature',
British Journal of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis 2 (1984), pp. 3—12.
2 T. G. Formaggio, Deontologia medica e legislazione sanitaria (Pavia: Pavese 1958),
cited by F. Granone, Trattato di ipnosi (Turin: Ed. UTET, 1989), p. 354.
3 H. Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology, vol. II (London: Sheed and Ward, 1949),
pp. 17-20.
4 Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology, vol. II, pp. 19—20.
5 D. B. Cheek, 'Unconscious perception of meaningful sound during surgical
anaesthesia as revealed under hypnosis', American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis I
(1959), pp. 101-13: J. Rosen, 'Hearing tests during anaesthesia and N2O and
relaxants', Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica 3 (1959), p- 1; Editorial, 'Conscious-
ness during surgical operations', British Medical Journal 2 (1959), p. 810.
6 In chronological order: D. B. Cheek, 'What does the surgical anaesthetized patient
hear?', Rocky Mountain Medical Journal 57 (January I960), pp. 49-53; D. B.
Cheek, 'Use of peri-operative hypnosis to protect patients from careless conver-
sation', American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 3.2 (I960), pp. 101-2; B. Hovell,
'Prevention of hearing during anaesthesia', Anaesthesia 35 (I960), p. 519; R.
Hutchinson, 'Awareness during surgery. A study of its incidence', British Journal
of Anaesthesia 33 (I960), p. 463; J. Parkhouse, 'Awareness during surgery',
Postgraduate Medical Journal 36 (I960), p. 674; L. S. Wolfe and J. B. Millett,
'Control of post-operative by suggestion under general anesthesia', American
Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 3 (I960) pp. 109—12; D. Hutchings, 'The value of
suggestion given under anaesthesia: a report and evaluation of 200 consecutive
cases', American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 4 (1961), p. 26; E. E. Auld, 'Awareness
during surgery', Lancet 2 (1961), p. 1394. R. Pearson, 'Response to suggestions
given under general anaesthesia', American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 4 (1961),
p. 106; J. T. Brunn, The capacity to hear, to understand, to remember experiences
during chemioanesthesia: a personal experience', American Journal of Clinical
Hypnosis 6 (1963), p. 27; D. B. Cheek, 'Further evidence of persistence of hearing
under chemio-anesthesia: detailed case report', American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis
1 (1964), p. 55; D. B. Cheek, 'Surgical memory and reaction to careless
conversation', American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 6 (1964), p. 237; B. W.
Levinson, 'States of awareness under general anaesthesia: a case history', Medical
Proceedings 11 (1965), p. 243; B. W. Levinson, 'States of awareness under general
anaesthesia: primary communication', British Journal of Anaesthesia 27 (1965),
p. 544; E. Werbel, One Surgeon's Experience with Hypnosis (New York: Pageant
Press, 1965).
7 M. Abramson et al., 'Response to our perception of auditory stimuli under deep
surgical anesthesia', American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 96 (1966), p. 584;
327
Aureliano Pacciolla
C. Bahl and S. Wadwas, 'Consciousness during apparent surgical anaesthesia',

British Journal of Anaesthesia 40 (66), p. 289; J. Mclntyre, 'Awareness during
general anaesthesia: preliminary observations', Canadian Anaesthetists' Society Jour-
nal 13 (1966), p. 495; D. J. Waters, 'Factors causing awareness during surgery',
British Journal of Anaesthesia 40 (1968), p. 259 F. J. Evans et al., 'Sleep-induced
behavioral response: relationship and susceptibility to hypnosis and laboratory
sleep patterns', Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 148.5 (1969), pp. 467-76; B.
W. Levinson, 'An examination of state of awareness during general anaesthesia'
(unpublished thesis) (1969); A. Kasasian, 'Awareness during anaesthesia', British
Medical Journal 1 (1969), p. 507; R. Sia, 'Consciousness during general anesthesia',
Anesthesia and Analgesia (Cleveland) 48 (1969), p. 636; L. Terrel et al., 'Study of
recall during anesthesia', Anesthesia and Analgesia (Cleveland) 48 (1969), p. 86; J.
Wilson and D. Turner, 'Awareness during caesarean section under general
anaesthesia', British Medical Journal 1 (1969), p. 281.
8 V. Bensen, 'One hundred cases of post-anesthetic suggestion in the recovery
room', American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 14 (1971), p. 9; S. Crawford,
'Awareness during operative obstetrics under general anaesthesia', British Journal
of Anaesthesia 43 (1971), pp. 179—82; C. Perry et al., 'Behavioral response to
verbal stimuli administered and tested during REM sleep: a further investigation',
Waking and Sleeping 2 (1978), pp. 35-42; S. Zornetzer, 'Neurotransmitter
modulation and memory: a new neuropharmacological phrenology' in M. Lipton,
Psychopharmacology: A Generation in Progress (New York: Raven Press, 1978); H.
Rigter and J. Crable, 'Modulation of memory by the pituitary hormones' in
Vitamins and Hormones (New York: Academic Press, 1979), p. 37; J. Barber et al.,
'The relationship between nitrous oxide, conscious sedation and the hypnotic
state', Journal of the American Dental Association 99 (1979), pp. 624—6.
9 R. Yeoman et al., 'Enflurane effects on acoustic and photic evoked responses',
Neuropharmacology 19 (1980), pp. 481-9; D. B. Cheek, 'Awareness of meaningful
sound under general anaesthesia', Simposia Specialists (paper presented at the 22nd
Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, San
Francisco, 1979); K. Millar and N. Watkinson, 'Recognition of words presented
during general anesthesia', Ergonomics 26 (1983), p. 585; C. Thornton et al.,
'Enflurane anaesthesia causes graded changes in the brainstem and early cortical
auditory evoked response in man', British journal of Anaesthesia 55 (1983),
pp. 479—86; C. Thornton et al., 'Effects of halothane or enflurane with controlled
ventilation on auditory evoked potentials', British Journal of Anaesthesia 56 (1984),
pp. 315-23; G. Lynch et al., Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (New York:
Guilford, 1984); I. Izquierdo et al., 'Effects of various behavioral training
procedures on brain B-endorphin-like immunoreactivity and the possible role of
B-endorphin in behavioral regulation', Psychoneuroendocrinology 9.4 (1984),
pp. 387-91; I. Izquierdo and R. Diaz, 'Involvement of A-adrenergic receptors in
the amnestic and anti-amnestic action of ACTH, B-endorphin and epinephrine',
Psychoneuroendocrinology 9.1 (1984), pp. 77-81; J. Richardson et al., 'The effects of
intravenous diazepam and hyoscine upon recognition memory', Behavioral Brain
Research 14 (1984), pp. 193-9; C. Firth et al., 'The effects of intravenous diazepam
and hyoscine upon human memory', Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
36A (1984), pp. 133-44; H. Bennett, 'Non-verbal response to intraoperative
conversation', Anesthesia and Analgesia 63 (1984), p. 185, also in British Journal of
Anesthesia 57 (1985), p. 174; P. Gold et al., 'Epinephrine-induced learning under
anesthesia: retention performance at several training testing intervals', Behavioral
Neuroscience 99.4 (1985), pp. 1019-22; C. Thornton et al., 'Effect of etomidate on
328
auditory evoked response in man', British Journal of Anaesthesia 57 (1985),

pp. 554—61; R. Richardson et al., 'State dependent retention induced by post-
acquisition exposure to pentobarbital or shock stress in rats', Animal Learning and
Behavior 14.1 (1986), pp. 73-9; B. Bonke et al., 'A clinical study of so-called
unconscious perception during general anaesthesia', British Journal of Anaesthesia
58 (1986), p. 957; L. Goldman and A. B. Levy, 'Orienting under anaesthesia',
Anaesthesia 41 (1986), pp. 1056-7; L. Goldman, 'Awareness under general
anaesthesia', thesis, University of Cambridge (1986); L. Goldman, M. V. Shah and
M. W. Hebden, 'Memory of cardiac anaesthesia: psychological sequelae and
operating room conversation', Anaesthesia 42 (1987), pp. 596-603; D. Cheek,
'Unconscious perception of meaningful sounds during surgical anesthesia' in
Mind-Body Therapy: Methods of Ideo-dynamic Healing in Hypnosis (New York:
Norton, 1988), pp. 113-30; H. Bennett, 'Perception and memory for events
during adequate general anesthesia for surgical operation' in H. Pettinati (ed.),
Hypnosis and Memory (New York: Guilford, 1988), pp. 194-5; M. Jelicic and B.
Bonke, 'Auditory perception during general anaesthesia: psychological conse-
quences', Southern Medical journal, 82.10 (1989), pp. 1220-3; L. Goldman,
'Cognitive process under general anaesthesia' in Michael Heap (ed.), Hypnosis:
Current Clinical, Experimental and Forensic Practices (London: Croom Helm, 1988),
pp. 77-88; A. Pacciolla, 'Anestesia generale: nuove prospettive terapeutiche e
morali', L'ancora nell'unita di salute 2 (1989), pp. 158-74.
10 McLintock et al., 'Postoperative analgesic requirements in patients exposed to
positive intraoperative suggestions', British Medical Journal 301 (1990),
pp. 788—90; A. Pacciolla, 'Ricordi e riflessi condizionati in anestesia generale',
Rivista Medica Italiana d': Psicoterapia edlpnosi II (1990), pp. 167-83.
329
Index
Abbott, Walter M. 108n Bahl, C. 328n

abortion 314 Bainton, Roland 212, 221n
Abramson, M. 327n Ballard, Paul 220, 222n
absolute norms xii, 72-83 Bancroft, N. l47n
Achtemeier, E. R. 289n Barber, J. 328n
adultery 16,73,79,80,223 Earth, Karl 44n, 49
Albert the Great 235, 246n Barton, John 45n, 46n
Alexander the Great 175 basic goods 79,271-3
allocation of resources 309-11 Basil the Great 17In
Ambrose, St 85,91,176,210 Beauchamp, Tom 93n
anaesthesia (general) Beauvoir, Simone de l47n
moral problems concerning 323-6 Becker, L. 185n
Andolsen, B. H. l47n behavioural norms 66-7, 69
anencephalic infants 311, 313 beneficence 284—7
Aquinas, St Thomas 45n, 46n, 48, 52, Benhabib, Seyla 172n
53-5, 62, 70n, 80, 84, 85, 87, 88, Benjamin, Martin 93n
89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94n, 133n, 173, Bennett, H. 328n, 329n
177, 179, 188, 189, 197 n, 198n, Bennett, J. C. 222n
210, 235,246n, 275n, 294 Bensen, V. 328n
Aristotle 47, 50, 52-3, 54, 55, 56, 85, Bentham, Jeremy 4 7 , 5 0 , 5 1 , 5 2 , 5 5 , 5 6
87, 89, 90, 91, 164, 166, 168-9, Bible
175-6, 177, 183, 197n, 294 and Christian ethics xi, xiii, 3-46,
Ashley, Benedict 308, 315n 154-6, 156-7, 158
Augustine, St 49, 51, 85, 91, 177, 189, and absolute norms 72-4
197n, 210, 235, 267, 268, 269, 270, and sexual ethics 226, 227—33
275n, 295 Biggar, Nigel 40n
Auld, E. E. 327n Birch, Bruce 27, 45n
authority 29-31, 39, 56, 57-71, 111, Birch, R. C. 156-7, I60n
112, 114, 118,215 Bishop, Peter 22In
autonomous ethics 62,157-8 Blue, Lionel 14
autonomy 102, 142-3, 146, 158, 278, Bockle, Franz 157
279,280,281 Bok, Sissela 275n
Avicenna 294 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 218-19, 222n,
Avila, Charles 17In, 184n 273-4, 275n
331
Index
Bonke, B. 329n contraception 75,76,223,224,225,

brain-death 312-13 226,233-4,235,242-3,244
Brandon, S. G. F., 222n Coughlan, Michael J. 302n, 303n
Bridger, Francis 222n Countryman, L. William 33, 4In, 43n,
Brown, Peter 42n 45n,46n, 246n
Brown, Raymond E. 8, 4ln, 45n, 288n Crable, J. 328n
BrunnJ. T. 327n Crawford, S. 328n
B runner, Emil 17 In Cromwell, Oliver 178
Buber, Martin 117, 122n Crysdale, Cynthia S. W. 108n
Bultmann, Rudolf 43n Cullmann, Oscar 219, 222n
Bush, George 181 Cunningham, Bert 305-7, 308, 315n
business ethics xiii Curran, Charles 3, 21, 28, 40n, 44n,
45n, 70n, 71n, 108n, I60n, 171n
Cadbury, Henry 18, 4ln Curtis, Joy 93n
Cahill, Lisa S. I47n
Callaghan, Daniel 281,283,284-5, Daly, Herman 182
289n Davey, Theodore 260
Callahan, Sidney 122n Davies,J. G. 220, 222n
Calvin, John 177 Davis, Henry 270-1, 275n, 327n
Camara, Helder 220, 222n death, determination of 311-13
Carmody, Denise L. I47n Dedekjohn 269, 275n
Cassell, Eric 285, 289n Deidun, Tom 43n
Caudron, Marc 108n Delhaye, P. 7On
Chadwick, H. 42n Delphy, C. l47n
character ethics 169 Demmer, Klaus 128, 132n, 133n
CharcotJ. M. 317 deontological norms 269
Cheek, D. B. 327n, 328n, 329n deposits, return of 80
Childress, James 43n, 275n, 282, 283, determinism 119
289n Devlin, Patrick 190, 193, 194, 195-6,
Childs, Brevard 40n 197, 198n
Chodorow, Nancy 165, 171n direct killing 75
Chrysostom, John 45n, 176 distinctiveness of Christian morality xiii,
Cicero 85, 91 149-60
civil war 218-21 divorce and remarriage 11,14,15,
Clarkson,J. Shannon 171n 22-3, 32, 248-65
Clement of Alexandria 176-7 Dodd, C. H. 18, 19, 152, I60n
Clements, Keith 222n Dominian, Jack 249
Clifford, Richard J. 288n Donahue, John R. 4ln, 171n, 253, 264
Coats, William 166, 171n Dougherty, Charles 280, 288n
Coggins, R. 40n, 43n Drane, James 94n
collectivism 81 Drane, John 41 n
Collins, M. I60n Dulles, Avery 70n
common good 81-3, 192-3, 280-1, Dunn, James 20, 4In, 42n
309,310,312 Dunstan, G. R. 302n, 303n
Cone, James H. 40n Durning, Alan Thein 183, 185n
confidentiality 79-80 DwyerJ. A. I60n
Congar, Yves 7In Dyson, Anthony 302n
conscience xii, 105, 110-22, 187, 190,
191, 192,215 Edwards, Robert 293, 295, 302n
and character 116 Elizabeth, St 91
erroneous 116—17 Ellingsen, Mark 221n, 257
formation of 115-17 empathy 120
violation of 58 Engels, F. 185n
332
Index
environmental ethics xiii Grisez, Germain 16, 42n, 79, 247n,

Eugene, T. M. l47n 271-3, 275n
euthanasia 277-89 Grootaers,J. 70n
excommunication 206 Gross, Hyman 170n
Gudorf, C. E. l47n
Farley, Margaret 92, 94n, 147n Gula, Richard 132n
Feinberg, Joel 169, 170n, 171n Gustafson, James 2 1 , 2 2 , 2 4 , 2 5 , 2 6 ,
feminism, feminist movement 165, 166, 27-8, 28-9, 44n, 45n, 154, I60n,
168, 224 167,171n
feminist ethics xii, 82, 135-48 Gutierrez, Gustavo 219, 222n
feminist theology 82
fining 20 Hamel, Edouard 40n, 45n
Finnis, John 79 Hamel, Ronald P. 45n
Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schiissler 1 3, 45n, Hamilton, C. l47n
I47n Hannon, Patrick 197n
Firth, C. 328n Hardin, Garret 182
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 40n, 42 n, 288n Haring, Bernard 44n, 121-2n, 255,
Flanagan, Owen 90—1, 94n 274,275n,292, 299
foetal transplantation 314 Harris, John 302n
Formaggio, T. G. 327n Harrison, B. W. l47n
formal norms 65-6 Hart, H. L. A. 187-90, 193, 194-6,
Foucault, Michel 17In, 225, 245n 197,198n
Fox, George 213 Harvey, A. E. 44n
Frankena, William 155-6, I6()n, 170n Harvey, Nicholas P. 18, 43n
Fransen, Piet 132n Hauerwas, Stanley 156, 287, l60n,
Frazer, E. H. l47n 222n, 289n
freedom 95, 96, 97, 105, 118, 119-20, Haughey, John C. 171n
126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 193, 194, Haughton, Rosemary 249, 264n
195, 196,279,280 Hay, Donald 40n
French, Peter A. 93n Hayek, F. von 173
Freud, Sigmund 33, 224 Hays, Richard B. 11-12, 25, 4ln, 42n,
Freudian school 111 44n,45n
Friedan, B. I47n Heap, Michael 329n
Fuchs, Josef 124, 132n, 133n, 155, 156, Hebden, M. W. 329n
158,I60n Hegel, G. W. F. 173, 179, 182, 184n
fundamental option xii, 123-34 Helsinki, Declaration of 292
Hengel, Martin 219, 222n
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 125, L32n Hey ward, Carter 17 I n
Gandhi, Mahatma 91, 214 Hiers, Richard 43n
Gardner, E. Clinton 43n Himes, Kenneth R. 45n
gay movement 224 Hippocrates 291
genetic engineering xiii Hirschmann, Nancy 165, 170n
George, William P. 46n historical consciousness 144, 145-6
Gilby, Thomas 197n Hitler, Adolf 44n, 274
Gilligan, Carol 92, 94n, 165, 171n Hobbes, Thomas 50, 51, 52, 55, 56
Glover, Jonathan 282 Hodgson, Leonard 39, 4ln, 46n
Gold, P. 328n Hollenbach, David 17In
Goldman, L. 329n homosexuality, homosexual acts 73—4,
Gottwald, Norman 174, 184n 223,224,230, 231-2, 234, 235,
Granone, F. 327n 242,245
Green, Michael 94n Hooker, Morna D. 43n
Gregory, St 85,91 Hoose, Bernard 70n, 108n, 133n, 208,
Griscom, J. L. l47n 209n
333
Index
Hoose, Jayne xiii Keller, C. l47n

Hornsby,J. l47n Kelly, David F. 315n
Hough, Graham 34 Kelly, John M. 197n
Houlden, J. L. 40n, 4ln, 42n, 43n, 44n, Kelly, Kevin T. 108n, 254n, 256n,
45-6n 258n, 259n, 260, 26ln, 262n, 263n,
Hovell, B. 327n 264n
Hughes, Gerard J. 28, 45n, 303n Kevorkian, Jack 279, 288n
human person xii, 95—109 King, Martin Luther 214-15, 221n
corporeality of 106 Knudson, Albert 44n
historical dimension of 103-4 Kohl, Marvin 282
relationality of 97-8, 99-103, 104-5 Kohlberg.L. 319
as subject 105-6 Kollontai, A. l47n
uniqueness of each 106-7 Komonchak,J. I60n
human rights 6, 47, 81-3, 167, 310 Kotva, Joseph 93n
Hume, David 50, 52, 55 Kuhse, Helga 282, 288n
Humphry, Derek 288n Kiing, Hans 133n
Hurd, Douglas 210
Hutchings, D. 327n Laato, Timo 43n
Hutchinson, R. 327n LaCugna, Catherine Mowry l47n
Ladriere, Jean 133n
hypnosis, moral problems 317-23
Lane, D. l60n
Langanjohn 207,208n
incest 230 Larrabee, Mary Jeanne 171 n
indirect killing 75 Lash, Nicholas 42-3n
individualism 81,83,280 Lauritzen, Paul 94n
injustice 151, 190 law and morality 186-98
intention, intentionality 95, 96, 98, 105 Lebacqz, Karen 169, 17In, 172n
Isasi-Diaz, A. M. l47n Lee, Simon 197n
Izquierdo, I. 328n Lehmann, Paul 44n
Leo XIII 5
Jans, Jan 3 In Levinson, B. W. 327n, 328n
Janssens, Louis 108n, 308, 315n Levy, A. B. 329n
Jeanrond, Werner G. 94n liberalism 136-7,138,139,142,143
Jelicic, M. 329n liberation of women 138-9,141
Jeremias, Joachim 151-2, l60n liberation theology 82, 168, 219
John XXIII 17In lies, lying 76,239,240-1,267-75
John the Baptizer 91 Liguori, Alphonsus 299
John Paul I 294 Lipton, M. 328n
John Paul II 5, 40n, 42n, 108n, 113, Locke, John 165, 173, 177-8, 180, 182,
117, 130, 133n, 239, 240, 241, 251, 184n
Loftus, E. F. 327n
258, 259, 277, 278, 280, 286, 297
Lombard, S. l47n
Johnstone, B. V. I60n
Long, Edward LeRoy Jr 21, 24, 44n
Jonsen, Albert 284, 285, 289n
love of neighbour 8-9, 24
justice 81-3, 163-72, 202, 204, 237
Luther, Martin 114,177,180
'rough' 201
Luxemburg, Rosa 182
Lynch, G. 328n
Kaiser, Edwin G. 12In
Kant, Immanuel 50-1, 55, 164, 167, McBnen, R. 198n
275n McConkey, K. M. 327n
Kasasian, A. 328n McCormick, R. A. 40n, 44n, 45n, 70n,
Kass, Leon 93n, 284, 285, 288n, 289n 71n, 108n, I60n, 171n, 292, 303n,
Kavka, Gregory 46n 308,315n
Keenan, James F. 93n, 94n, 132-3n Maclntyre, Alasdair 91, 93n, 94n, l60n,
Kekes, John 93 n 172n
334
Index
Mclntyre, J. 328n nuclear deterrence 216-18

Mackey, James 196, 198n nuclear war 216-18
MacNamara, Vincent 133n, I60n Nussbaum, Martha 94n
Macquarrie, John 43n, 275n
Mahon, Brian 46n O'Connor, J. l47n
Mahoney, John 3P2n, 303n Ogletree, Thomas W. 43n
Mandela, Nelson 220 Okin, Susan 165, 170n
Marcion 10
O'Neill, M. I47n
marriage 13, 16, 32, 248-63
organ transplantation 304-16
alternatives to 225—6
Origen 23
Marx, Karl 164, 173, 180, 183, 185n
Orme, M. T. 327n
masturbation 223, 234, 235
O'Rourke, Kevin 308, 315n
May, William E. 133n
Osborne, Andrew 44n
Meilaender, Gilbert 93n
Osborne, Kenan 108n
Merks, K. 7 On
Mieth, Dietmar 133n Outka, G. 153, I60n, 172n
Mill, John Stuart 51, 52, 56, 164, 173, ownership see property
180,194, 197n
Millar, K. 328n Pacciolla, Aureliano 329n
MillettJ. B. 327n pacifism 215,218
MilloJ. S. 184n Parkhouse, J. 3 2 7 n
Miranda, Jose Porfirio 168, 17 In Parsons, Susan F. l47n
Mitchell, Basil 198n Partridge, Ernest 46n
Moberly, Sir Walter 205-8 Paul VI 70n, 155,220, 245n
modernism 143 peace 210-22
Moltmann, Jiirgen 44n Pearson, R. 327n
Moore, Gareth 42n, 44n Pelagius 49
Morgan, Robert 4()n Pellauer, M. D. l47n
Morris, Ruth 200, 208n Perry, C. 328n
Mott, Stephen Charles 17In persistent vegetative states 312, 313
Mouw, Richard 74 Peschke, Henry 246-7n
Murphy, Roland E. 288n Petchesky, R. P. l47n
Murray, John 44n Pettinati, H. 329n
Murray, John Courtney 192, 197n Phaleas of Chalcedon 176
Murray, Robert 40n Phipps, W. E. 42n
Piaget.J. 318-19
natural law xi, xii, 24, 47—56, 61—3, 66, Pieper, Josef 93n, 17 In
75_7 ; 78-9, 80, 144-6, 157, 163, Pius IX 296
167,189 Pius XI 65
natural morality 61-3, 69, 226-1, Pius XII 42n, 291
233-7, 241-2 Plato 51, 52, 53, 85, 91, 175, 176, 179,
Neil, Stephen 43n 197n,294
Nelson, C. Ellis 121n Poole, Joyce 302n, 303n
Nelson, Daniel Mark 93n Pope, Stephen 92, 94n
Nelson, James B. 246n, 309, 315n Porter, Jean 93 n
Newman, John Henry 297 Postel, Sandra 182
Niebuhr, H. Richard 26, 44n postmodernism 143, 145
Niebuhr, Reinhold 44n, 92, 94n, 171n, Powell, John 266, 275n
213-14, 221n Preston, Ronald 205, 207, 208n, 274-5
Nineham, Dennis 31, 34, 40n, 4ln, principle of totality 305-7,308
42n, 45n, 46n prison 199, 200, 202, 203, 204, 205,
Novak, Michael 181 206,207
Nozick, Robert 164, 165, 169, 170n promise keeping 79
335
Index
property 165, 173-85 Sanders, Jack 18-19, 43n

proportionalism 79 Sanger, M. l47n
punishment 195, 196, 199-209 Schillebeeckx, E. 108n, 159, I60n
capital 200 Schiiller, Bruno 132n
corrupting effects of 200-1, 203, Schweitzer, Albert 18,19
204,205, 208 Schweizer, Eduard 40n, 43n
deterrent theory of 199-201,205 Scroggs, Robin 43n
reformative theory of 204—5 Selby, Peter 185n
retributive theory of 202-4, 205 self-knowledge 266-7
as symbol 206 Seller, Mary J. 303n
Selling, Joe xiii, 42n, 108n
Quill, Timothy E. 289n sex and sexuality 7-8, 11, 16, 76,
223-47
extramarital sex 225, 240, 241, 242
Rachels, James 282, 288n, 289n
purpose of sex 223,224
Rahner, Karl 127, 133n, 158, 299
Shah, M. V. 329n
Ramsey, Paul 44n, 282, 289n, 292,
Shaull, Richard 219, 222n
315n
Shaw, Russell 27 5 n
Rasmussen, Larry 27, 45n, 156-7,
Sheehan, P. W. 327n
I60n, 221n
Shelp, E. 93n, 289n
Ratzinger, J. 260
Shelton, Charles M. 122n
Rawlsjohn 164, 165-6, 169, 170n,
Sia, R. 328n
171n
sin 128
Reeder, J. P. Jr l60n, 172n
Singer, Peter 282
reincarnation 321
Sittler, Joseph 44n
relationality 142-3, 146
Slack, Kenneth 22In
relationships 223-47
religious freedom, right to 192 Smith, R. L. l47n
reproductive techniques 290-303 Solomon, David 93n
research and experimentation 290—6 Soper, K. l47n
on children 292-3 Sophocles 70n, 189, 197n
on the embryo 293-6 Splett,Jorg 132n
on the foetus 293 Spohn, William 94n
Richardson, J. 328n Stanke, Gerhard 133n
Richardson, R. 329n status of the embryo 296, 301
Ricoeur, Paul 92, 94n Stempsey, William 94n
rights and law 193 Steptoe, Patrick 293, 295
Rigter, H. 328n stoicism 176, 234
Rike, Jennifer L 94n Sullivan, Francis A. 70n
Robb, C. S. I47n Summa Fratrzs Alexandra 269
Robert, Charles 44n superego 110,111-12
Roberts, William P. 264n
Robertson, D. B. 94n Tawney, R. H. 177
Rodd, Cyril 22In teleological approach to ethics 271
Rohricht, Joanne Smith 315n Teresa of Avila 275n
Rosen, J. 327n Terrel, L. 328n
Ross, W. D. 208n Thils, G. 70n
Rousseau, J. J. 178-9, 184n Thiselton, Anthony C. 42n
Ruddick, S. I47n Thornton, C. 328-9n
Ruether, R. R. l47n Tooley, Michael 282
Russell, Letty, M. 171n Torres, Camilo 219
Tracy, David 94n
Saddam Hussein 210 truth 113,114,115,117,126,192,
Sanders, E. P. 20, 40n, 4ln, 43n 193, 266-75
336
Index
Turner, D. 328n Werbel, E. 327n

Tutu, Desmond 220 White, R. E.G. 221n
Wilder, A. N. 42n
untruth 267-75 Wilkinson, Alan 2 2 I n
utilitarianism 199-200, 201 WilsonJ. 328n
Winstanley, G. 178
Vacek, Edward 92, 94n Winter, Gibson 132n
Veatch, Robert 93n, 282, 289n Wolfe, L. S. 327n
Verhey, Allen 21, 43n, 44n, 45n Wolfenden, Lord 193
violence 210-22 Wolfenden Report 190, 193, 194
virtue ethics xii, 84-94, 169 Wolff, Hans Walter 122n
virtues 84-94, 287-8 Wollstonecraft, Mary l47n
Vosman, F. 7()n Wolterstorff, Nicholas 172n
women
Wadell, Paul 133n distinctiveness 139-40, 141
Wadwas, S. 328n rights 136-7, 141, 188
subordination 73, 82, 232
Wagstaff, G. F. 327n
Woolf, V. I47n
Walsh, Michael xiii
Worlock, Derek 259
Walter, James 133n
Wright, C. 184n
Walzer, Michael 165, 170n
Wright, Tom 43n
war 210-22
Ward, Keith 45n Yeoman, R. R. 328n
Warnock, Mary 295 Yoder, John Howard 24, 44n, 221n
Warnock Report 295-6, 299, 300, 301 Young, Ins Marion 165, 169, 170n
Waters, D. J. 328n
Watkinson, N. 328n Ziesler, John 43n
Weber, Max 182 Zilboorg, Gregory 121n
Wells, G. L. 327n Zornetzer, S. 328n
337

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Christian Ethics

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Edited by Bernard Hoose

© The editor and contributors 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

First published 1998

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Typeset by Ensystems, Saffon Walden

The contributors viii

Part I Basic Christian ethics

1 The Bible and Christian ethics 3

6 The human person 95

9 Feminist ethics 135

10 The distinctiveness of Christian morality 149

Part II Applied ethics

13 Morality and law 186

14 The punishment of criminals 199

15 Peace, violence and war 210

Interpersonal and sexual ethics

18 Truth and lies 266

22 Hypnosis and general anaesthesia 317

Charles E. Curran is the Elizabeth Scurlock Professor of Human Values

Tom Deidun is a lecturer in New Testament studies at Heythrop College,

Timothy J. Gorringe taught theology and ethics in India and Oxford

Richard M. Gula is professor of moral theology at the Franciscan School

Patrick Hannon is professor of moral theology at St Patrick's College,

Bernard Hoose is a lecturer in Christian ethics at Heythrop College,

Gerard J. Hughes is vice principal and lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop

Richard G. Jones, who previously taught Christian ethics in Manchester,

James F. Keenan is associate professor of moral theology at Weston

David F. Kelly is professor of theology and health care ethics at Duquesne

Thomas R. Kopfensteiner is associate professor of theology at Fordham

Karen Lebacqz is Robert Gordon Sproul Professor of Theological Ethics

Vincent MacNamara teaches theology at the Kimmage Mission Institute,

Gareth Moore taught Old Testament and philosophy at Blackfriars,

Aureliano Pacciolla is a clinical psychologist and moral theologian who

Susan F. Parsons is Principal of the East Midlands Ministry Training

Joseph Selling, a US citizen, is professor of moral theology at Katholieke

In recent years there has been something of an upsurge of interest in the

biology and psychology do not normally tell us directly what is morally

Finally, having taken all of these matters into account, we do well to

Basic Christian ethics

Two distinct steps: interpretation and appropriation

A recent official Roman Catholic Statement about the historical-

A premiss and some implications of the historical-critical method

The biblical writings are 'culture-bound'

to be alert to this. It is easy to be alert to it in instances where biblical

However one explains the sexual attitudes of the New Testament

No more eloquent voice [than that of the author of 1 John] is raised in

antichrists, false prophets, and serve as the embodiment of eschatologi-

The Bible's diversity

dissonance between 'Old' Testament and 'New' in the Christian canon.

Even if there existed some plausible means of harmonizing the Old

interposing an act of 'synthesis' between the 'descriptive' and 'hermeneut-

The situational character of the biblical writers' ethical statements

The Bible's literary genres

set of interpretational criteria from beginning to end; and quite baffling

Respect for context and for the author's textual strategy

Some areas of controversy in biblical scholarship