Abstract
The concept of ‘intrinsic evil’ has been under attack by many influential Catholic theological ethicists for decades, especially from rich Western cultures, and especially since Pope St John Paul II used the term in a central way in Veritatis Splendor during the height of debates over sexual ethics in those cultures during the early 1990s. This edited volume features many of those critical voices and, overall and in the main, constitutes a continuation of that attack. Indeed, the online description of the book from the publisher insists that the term intrinsic evil ‘tends to create more confusion rather than clarity’ and cites the key issue for the book as being ‘whether the concept can still be useful for Catholic theological ethics.’
The book arises out of a project and conference on the same topic held at the University of Vienna in January 2018. The conference was funded by a ‘generous grant from the Austrian Science Fund’ (p. x) which, according to the Fund’s website, works on strengthening the acceptance of science in particular through systematic public relations work.
Despite its clear ideological slant and agenda (which, again, the publisher—and editors—make no attempt to hide), the book is well worth having on one’s shelf if one is interested in the topic. Plenty of top scholars offer substantive and interesting reflections. Steven Pope’s contribution, in particular, offers some great ready-to-hand resources on how concepts adjacent to intrinsic evil developed in Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. Werner Wolbert’s chapter helpfully dives deep into the methodological debates (and terminological confusion) surrounding the use of intrinsic evil. Edward Vacek’s contribution emphasizes Pope Francis’s very different approach to the concept.
But if one is looking for an edited volume which reflects the broad range of opinion on intrinsic evil within Catholic moral theology, one will have to look elsewhere. The editors, Polgar and Selling, conclude the book by saying that they are ‘building a bridge to the future’ of theological ethics of which the concept of intrinsic evil should not be a part. James Bretske, in his chapter, summarizes the views of most of the book’s authors well: ‘These theologians would argue that the term functions something like a period piece, and depends on too many ground concepts, such as the classicist and physicalist paradigms that are no longer credible in a postmodern world that finds the historicist and personalist paradigms more conducive to discernment in our increasingly morally complex world’ (p. 62–63).
Frustratingly, however, its ideological slant is precisely what keeps the book from engaging carefully and in depth with the moral situations which present themselves when we reject the concept of intrinsic evil. The classic debates between Germain Grisez and Richard McCormick about these matters highlighted what was at stake in whichever direction one goes with the concept—but this volume, by contrast, was overwhelmingly concerned with what was at stake with sexual morality (it is the only topic of practical ethics that gets its own section in the book).
And only certain directions/topics of sexual morality at that. Especially in our post-#MeToo era (at this point it may be instructive to note that nine of the ten contributors to the book were men), the concept of intrinsic evil in sexual ethics has new cultural relevance and purchase. But beyond sex, Grisez and McCormick were particularly interested in how the concept of intrinsic evil should or should not inform our views of war and violence, especially when it comes to non-combatant immunity and torture. Several of the authors even in this volume note that it is a concept invoked by a good number of moral theologians when speaking about usury, child labour, racism, and more. Discussions of these issues tend to go places Catholic moral theology ought not to go when we abandon the concept of intrinsically evil.
So while many of the authors in the volume rightly point out that the concept is used imprecisely, and often used as an ideological weapon by certain politically motivated actors, they fail to reckon with what happens to our discussion of the issues above when we abandon the concept. They also fail to reckon with the fact that many use the rejection of intrinsic evil as an ideological weapon as well. Often it is more traditional or conservative thinkers and activists who are criticized for having a central focus on sexual morality, but volumes like this one are evidence that the critique can and often should go in both directions.
Polgar and Selling suggest that the reason behind support of the concept of intrinsic evil comes from ‘its presumed efficiency in dealing with thorny issues in the Church’ (p. vii), but this condescending perspective from this book’s editors fails at a fundamental level to understand why most people who support the concept of intrinsic evil do so: they support it because they believe it is true. If the conference and book had included voices like David Cloutier, Dana Dillon, or those in the new natural law camp, they would have benefited from the thoughtful contributions of moral theologians who would have made it impossible dismiss support for the concept in this way. Not least because they would have also found thinkers who engage very complex arguments about thorny issues—all the while supporting the concept of intrinsic evil.
The book, nevertheless (and again), is a valuable volume to have on one’s shelf for those of us who care about these issues. But it is only a preliminary step to genuinely wrestling what is at stake here. What an exciting thing it would be if a genuinely diverse group of moral theologians got together for ‘round two’ of discussion and exchange in ways which reflected genuine ideological diversity around a broader set of contemporary issues and topics which have import for the debate over intrinsic evil.