A Tale of Two Women. Reflections on Two Types of Morality, One Hundred Years after the Birth of St. John Paul II
Reflections on Two Types of Morality, One Hundred Years after the Birth of St. John Paul II
Stephan Martin Kampowski
Pontificio Istituto Teologico per le Scienze del Matrimonio e della Famiglia , Italyhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-7927-6100
Abstract
On the centenary of the birth of St. John Paul II, this article reflects on his legacy for moral theology by examining the enduring relevance of his 1993 Encyclical Veritatis Splendor. Against what some authors call the new morality, this papal document holds up the classical notion of morality as a realm in which we encounter the absolute, to the point that one may even be called upon to lay down one’s life in martyrdom. As a figure of classical morality, the essay presents Antigone, who risked her life to honor her dead brother’s body. A different woman serves as a figure of the new morality: Mrs. Bergmeier, who is praised by some of the proponents of this approach for having committed “sacrificial” adultery in order to be reunited with her family. Examining the differences between these two accounts, the paper recalls the classical distinction between choice and intention. It is argued that the new morality has forgotten about the moment of choice, subsuming it entirely under the intention. In its teaching on the moral object and intrinsically evil acts, Veritatis Splendor defends the basic moral experience that we have a choice and that our choices matter.
Keywords:
John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, New morality, moral absolutes, choice, intention, Antygona, martyrdomReferences
Anscombe G.E.M. Modern Moral Philosophy, in Philosophy 33 (1958), p. 1-19.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, ed. by R. Crisp, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004.
Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric [Rhetorica], with an English translation by J.H. Freese, Loeb Classical Library 193, Harvard University Press 1926.
Balthasar H.U. von, Cordula oder der Ernstfall, Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag 1987.
Diels H., Kranz W., Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Vol. II, Zürich: Weidmann Verlag 2005.
Fletcher J., Situation Ethics. The New Morality, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 1966.
Fuchs J., Personal Responsibility and Christian Morality, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press 1983.
Goertz S., Autonomie kontrovers. Die katholische Kirche und das Moralprinzip der freien Selbstbestimmung, in: S. Goertz, M. Striet (eds.), Nach dem Gesetz Gottes. Autonomie als christliches Prinzip, Freiburg i.Br.: Herder 2014, pp. 151-197.
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, 6 August 1993.
Keenan J.F., Distinguishing Charity as Goodness and Prudence as Rightness: A Key to Thomas’s Secunda Pars, in: The Thomist 56 (1992), pp. 407-426.
Keenan J.F., Proposing Cardinal Virtues, in: Theological Studies 56 (1995), pp. 709-729.
Melina L., Morale tra crisi e rinnovamento, Ares: Milano 1993.
Plato, Gorgias, trans. W. Hamilton, Penguin Books, New York 1971.
Rhonheimer M., The Perspective of Morality: Philosophical Foundations of Thomistic Virtue Ethics, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press 2011.
Ross W.D., The Right and the Good, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1930.
Sophocles, The Antigone of Sophocles, ed. by R. Jebb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1891.
Spaemann R., Überzeugungen in einer hypothetischen Zivilisation, In: Schritte über uns hinaus. Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze I, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 2010, pp. 285-309.
Spaemann R., Wer hat wofür Verantwortung? Kritische Überlegungen zur Unterscheidung von Gesinnungsethik und Verantwortungsethik, in: Grenzen. Zur ethischen Dimension des Handelns, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 2001, pp. 218-237.
Thomas Aquinas, On Evil [De Malo], trans. J.A. Oesterle, J.T. Oesterle, University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, Ind. 2001.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Latin-English Opera Omnia, Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic 2019.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin-English Opera Omnia, Lander, Wyoming: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine 2012.
Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 7 December 1965.
Whitman W., Song of Myself, in: Leaves of Grass, New York: Viking Penguin 1959.
Pontificio Istituto Teologico per le Scienze del Matrimonio e della Famiglia
Professor of Philosophical Anthropology at the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences in Rome. Since 2012 he is also invited Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas (Angelicum), Rome. He was born in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, pursuing his university degrees in the United States, Austria, and Italy. His doctoral dissertation was dedicated to Hannah Arendt and the role of Saint Augustine in her work. It was published as Arendt, Augustine, and the New Beginning. The Action Theory and Moral Thought of Hannah Arendt in 2008. His more recent publications include: La fecondità di una vita. Verso un’antropologia del matrimonio e della famiglia, Siena: Cantagalli 2017, and Embracing Our Finitude. Exercises in a Christian Anthropology between Dependence and Gratitude, Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books 2018.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7927-6100
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 4.0 International License.
