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A Preliminary
Inquiry into the
Nature and
We are fellow travelers. A
Foundations of
hiker on a hilltop, looking
out overMorality
the countryside
stretching away in all
directions beneath his gaze,
is in a good position to
describe
to a friend some of the
characteristic features of
the terrain
they plan to explore.
Servais Pinckaers, OP
2. Ethics: What does it mean?
When I respond to readers’ queries, I
Ethics is the rational
work from this premise: Ethics is the
determination
rational determination of
of
right
right
conduct.
conduct, an attempt to answer the
Ethics
question isshould
“How not Ijust
act now?”
knowing;
Ethics it is it is do-
is not just knowing;
doing.
ing. And so it is necessarily a civic
virtue, concerned with how we are to
aincivic
live society; it demands an un-
virtue of how our actions af-The ETHICIST
derstanding
fect other people. Randy Cohen
The New York
Times Magazine
In considering an ethical question, I
set of
refer to a set of principles I cherish as
principles/values
profoundly moral. This constellation of
values includes honesty, kindness,
compassion,
increase the generosity,
supply fairness.
of I
embrace actions that will increase the
human happiness
supply of human happiness, that will
not contribute to human suffering, that
are concordant with an egalitarian
augment
society,human freedom
that will augment human
freedom, particularly freedom of
thought and expression.
"What does ethics mean to you?"
Among the replies were:
moralit
and so how they are accustomed to behave.
C. Meta-ethics:
■ Concerns itself with the logic of moral dis-
course, meanings of moral terms - like good
and bad, right and wrong, duties and right,
etc.
■ Concern is with the understanding of the
use of these terms, their logical forms, and
the “objects” to which they refer.
■ Concern of meta-ethicists is even more
fundamental: What is the possibility of mor-
al philosophy?
D. Normative ethics (5):
Normative can be understood in two
ways:
1) One can have in mind the art of
living, the technique for acquiring
happiness (understood in an
individual or in Teleological
a social sense).
Man’s inhumanity to
man
● How do we respond to this
dilemma?
Options for the struggling moral will:
– Cynicism: the moral endeavor, in other
words, is considered as mere illusion or sheer
duplicity.
– Stoic affirmation of moral project despite all
adversities: deny the reality of evil itself and
think of evil as reducible to manageable
human proportions eventually to be over-
come by human progress.
– One can persistently determine oneself or
attempt to fulfill oneself, a task demanded by
morality itself, but sustaining this task by
some form of religious faith.
...a task
demanded by
morality
itself.
“One can
persistently ...sustained
determine oneself by some
or attempt to fulfill
oneself, a task form of
demanded
morality itself, but
by religious
sus-taining this faith.
task by some form
of religious faith.”
● Question for the moral will:
“Why be good?”
The project of freedom is
consoled by the belief in the
promise of some form of
everlasting life in union with the
transcendent, the Absolute.
?
The moral quest is sustained by
L
i s
some form of religious faith.
A
th ON
The difference between a “good
s faith”
man Iof T I and a “good man”
R A
is that the former is confirmed in
his moral postulate and task that
he must go on seeking and
actualizing himself.
THE MORAL LIFE IS NOT
ABSURD!