The Delicate Art of Putting Intractable Disputes into Question

The Rationality of Perfective Ethics

In the pre-modern period, it was taken for granted that, in order to act rationally, every human being must have a reason for acting. The universal human desire for happiness provided the motive to seek out those goods that satisfied that desire. In this account, whether a particular choice was good or evil depended on whether or not the means one had chosen to achieve happiness was compatible with one’s ultimate end. Only the seeking of true human ends made one’s choices intelligible and perfective of the person. In the Aristotelian scheme of perfective thinking that St Thomas inherited, ethics was considered to be a craft into which one had to be initiated in order to achieve the status of a master craftsman. ⁸ In this scheme, the description of the master craftsman that the apprentice could become if he mastered the skills of the given craft functioned as the goal. Thus, perfective ethics is concerned with judging the choice of which goods are best fitted to make human nature-as-it-is-presently capable of becoming the human nature-that-it-could-become if the apprentice chose the right means to achieve his goal. ⁹ The benefit that came from achieving the goal was itself the motive for pursuing that goal.

The Rationality of Normative Ethics

Anxious to secure for theology a mode of predication that would provide a unified subject matter for metaphysics, John Duns Scotus argued that the notion of ‘being’ must be the same whether predicated of God or of any created beings. ¹⁰ This move secured the univocity of the concept of ‘being’ and a single subject for metaphysics, but it also meant that all beings existed in their own right independently of God because their form of ‘being’ was the same as his. In this scheme, if for some reason one wanted to erase the notion that there was a God, it could be done without erasing the basis for the existence of all other beings in the universe. By being seen as no longer dependent on the existence of God, the world no longer necessarily witnessed to the existence of God. The question, ‘Is there a God?,’ became thinkable. This move would open the door to secularization and pave the way for the eventual appearance of atheism in Western culture.

While secularization did not appear immediately, the notion of perfective ethics took an immediate and direct hit. The mechanism for explaining how a being could progress to a greater perfection depended on the notion of potency and act as the principles of change within that being. Once, however, ‘being’ was conceived of as having only one meaning, the only metaphysical categories available to describe something were ‘being’ and its opposite, ‘non-being.’ Because it was not something ‘real,’ potency was classified in the new binary system as absolute ‘non-being,’ and thus could not serve (together with ‘act’) as a co-principle of ‘being.’ This move had grave consequences for understanding the ethical act by stripping it of the capacity to account for the process of perfection. If in acting, one passed from potency to act, change in this scheme had fundamentally been seen as a change in the acting person. There was already present a capacity to account for the primary moral effect of acting, its intransitive effect on the person. Our actions make us the kind of persons we become through the choices we make. Only secondarily was acting seen as producing a transitive effect in the external state of affairs. Without potency and act as principles of being, the dynamics involved in the act of choosing were obscured, as well as the way of describing what was chosen. Moralists abandoned the standpoint of the first person—one in which a description of the intention of the agent was already built-into the description of the act—and adopted the standpoint of the third person. Human acts were now conceived to be types of abstractly conceived actions to which an intention had to be subsequently added. The intentionality that is at the heart of the moral action was then seen as something added to the physical, exterior act. This move obscured the distinction between the moral order and the physical order because it collapsed the description of the moral object into the description of the physical object. ¹¹

Once the only foundational metaphysical categories that existed were ‘being’ and ‘non-being,’ universal concepts were thought to be only mental constructs. Without essences supplied by universal concepts, there could be no basis for maintaining the real distinction between essence and existence. Only individuals without any internal connection with one another could appear. Moreover, without any description of human nature, there was no basis for determining what contributed to human flourishing. At one stroke, the whole basis for any type of perfective ethics disappeared. Over time, a second tradition of rationality emerged to explain the significance of moral choice by seeing in choices the willingness (or unwillingness) of persons to conform their actions to the will of God as manifested in the demands of an external norm. Virtue was no longer its own reward. Virtue now was what qualified one for a reward for having a good intention expressed in an obedient willingness to conform to the law. ¹² Once the goal of the moral life was seen in terms of obedience to an external norm, ‘extrinsicism’ had entered into moral theology. Thus was born normative ethics.

This shift in ethical thinking provoked a new understanding of human freedom. William of Ockham proposed that freedom fundamentally meant freedom to do either the good or the bad without external coercion. ¹³ To qualify for the reward, one had to have acted freely, without any prior determination. ¹⁴ For the will to be made good by this obedient conformity, a formal act of the will was needed. ¹⁵ A distinction was made between the human act (one in which the intellect had a role to play) and the moral act (one in which only the will had a part). Because the intellect was intrinsically ordered to the pursuit of the truth, Ockham excluded it from the process of making moral (i.e., reward meriting) choices. He rooted freedom solely in the faculty of the will endowed with a radical autonomy from all outside influences, beginning with the intellect. ¹⁶

By understanding freedom in terms of indifference to the good, the defenders of Augustinianism unwittingly obscured the source of the obligation to choose the good. Moral obligation was no longer seen as flowing from the inner desire to seek what was perfective of the person but from some law imposed by God from without that carried with it some penalty for violation. Since the obligation to obey now depended on the intention of the lawgiver, the need was now present to ascertain how far the lawgiver intended to bind the person in conscience. This development, in turn, gave rise to a problem that can only exist in normative ethics, the need to determine which norm applies to which case and to what degree. The law itself came to be seen as an adversary restricting human freedom. The result was the birth of casuistry.

Once the framers of the Enlightenment abandoned the hypothesis that God was the external origin of the obliging force of the moral law, Kant supplied for the lacuna by appealing to his categorical imperatives. In this way, says MacIntyre, the metaphysical shift to univocity ‘not only made possible but provoked a good deal of later moral philosophy, directly and indirectly, from [Ockham] all the way to Kant.’ ¹⁷

MacIntyre ascribes to the rational inquiry of the Enlightenment a specific view of truth: one that was singular, impartial, and universal. ¹⁸ By singular, MacIntyre means that there was only one way to think rationally about moral truth, and only one account of the history of such an inquiry. By impartial, MacIntyre means that rational inquiry was conceived of as being objective in the sense that it had escaped all one-sidedness. By universal, MacIntyre means that all rational persons could be expected to reach the same conclusions. Those who held such views, says MacIntyre, were also logically compelled to hold the following positions: (1) that all other accounts of morality that did not agree with theirs must suffer from the limitations of one-sided partiality; (2) that other rival accounts that reached opposite conclusions were false; and (3) that, if their inquiry at some later point demonstrated the superiority of some other rival mode of rationality, then they were obliged to admit that their original way of thinking had been defeated and was capable of being replaced by its rival. ¹⁹

The Rationality of Situational Ethics

According to MacIntyre, the philosophers of the Enlightenment thought that, once emancipated from the chains of traditional thinking, all well-intentioned people would be able to agree on what was right and what was wrong. Disagreements, however, continued to multiply due to the fact that not everyone rejected all of the elements of the moral schemes of previous ages. ²⁰ MacIntyre credits Nietzsche with recognizing—and ultimately denouncing—the claims of objectivity on the part of the defenders of the Kantian categorical imperatives as simply a defense of the subjective will to power of those who stood to benefit by the imposition of such norms. ²¹ The critics claimed that every situation was unique and therefore no a priori set of rules could be formulated. Classical relativism then attempted to put into question all claims to truth coming from rival views by claiming that, because the standards by which judgments are made about the truth are internal to each viewpoint, all claims to truth are incommensurable. ²² The closely linked claims of perspectivism argued that all views have at best a part of the truth, and none have such a claim on truth as to be able to exclude any other view as false. Instead, all claims to truth are somehow compatible.

The claim to truth contained in the Enlightenment project, however, strictly denied a place for any doctrine of relativism or perspectivism. These later views can only find a home in post-modernity, and this is precisely the claim of those who defend the views of Nietzsche. They hold that the Enlightenment project simply masked a struggle for power since the only truth that can be said to exist is truth from a particular perspective. Rebel as they might against deontology, its critics were not able to shake off its primordial claim that ethics was about the formulation of norms. Their rejection of legal ethics took the form of a universal claim to truth that denied the possibility of any universal claim to truth due to the relativity of all claims to truth. Thus was born situational ethics.

The Rationality of Deontological Ethics

Curran references the tradition of rationality of deontology regnant in the pre-conciliar church as the ‘legal model.’ ²⁶ In the search for norms in matters sexual, the practitioners of this model looked to the physical laws governing the body for indications of God’s plan for sexuality. Using speculative reason, they attempted to justify what was or was not conformable to God’s plan for human happiness on the basis of how a given action did or did not conform to the natural, physical finalities of the body. ²⁷ This application of the deontological model, dubbed ‘physicalism’ or ‘biologism,’ was the tradition of rationality employed by the manualists that Curran has long rejected as the starting point in his search for a way to renew moral theology. ²⁸ Although he understands physicalism to be ‘the a priori identification of the human or moral aspect with the physical, natural, or biological aspect,’ Curran emphasizes that at times the moral and the physical aspects may be the same. ²⁹ He finds the roots of physicalism ‘in Aquinas’s natural law theory itself,’ ³⁰ claiming that such a faulty methodology also underlies the core teaching of Humanae Vitae. ‘The manuals of moral theology condemn contraception primarily on the basis of the “perverted faculty” argument. According to this line of reasoning,’ writes Curran, ‘the faculty or power of sexuality has a procreative purpose. Consequently, every sexual act must be open to procreation.’ ³¹ Curran faults this approach for its extrinsicism. He acknowledges, however, that this model has certain advantages by upholding objectivity in the face of the modern trend to embrace relativism. He concludes, nevertheless, that ‘the problems intrinsic to the deontological model argue against making it the primary model for moral theology or Christian ethics.’ ³²

The Rationality of Teleological Ethics

According to Curran, the chief characteristic of the teleological model is its use of goals or ends. ‘Something is good if it brings you to the goal and bad if it prevents your attaining that goal.’ ³³ In the Thomistic tradition, human reason is capable of discovering that God has ordered human nature and its faculties toward certain ends, thus providing a way to determine what type of behavior is or is not suitable for attaining those ends. What makes the intrinsic version of teleology attractive to Curran is its ability to identify ‘an intrinsic good that truly fulfills us as persons. In this understanding morality is not imposed on human beings from the outside but arises from the demands of our own being as it seeks its fulfillment and perfection. Objective morality and personal happiness are not opposed to one another but are intimately related.’ ³⁴

The extrinsic version of teleology is utilitarianism that Curran faults for its failure to include the action itself rather than simply the consequences of the action in making a moral judgment. ‘At times the end justifies the means,’ he writes, ‘but when ends or consequences are seen as primary, we are in danger of justifying any means.’ ³⁵ The extrinsic understanding of teleology was drawn from the British analytical tradition ³⁶ and was introduced into Catholic usage by Bruno Schüller. ³⁷ Since it preserved the notion that ethics is about the formulation of norms for acting based on a consideration of the intended ends, Curran accepted the analytical tradition’s classification of utilitarianism as a form of teleology even though the ends in question are simply the intended consequences of an action. In the end, Curran faults this model—in both its intrinsic and extrinsic forms—as being too rational and controlling. ³⁸

The Rationality of Relational-Responsible Ethics

Curran has embraced a modified form of the ethics of relationality-responsibility, first proposed by H. Richard Niebuhr, because it emphasizes the importance of viewing the person within the context of the many relationships that he or she has in the world. ³⁹ All of these relationships present potential conflicts that will need to be resolved. The task of deciding what is most fitting for each unique situation requires attention to four elements: response, interpretation, accountability, and social solidarity, in a process of on-going correction as changing circumstances dictate. ⁴⁰ The goal here is the promotion of the common good. ⁴¹ By stressing the importance of the ‘person acting,’ ⁴² Curran’s inquiry includes a form of personalism that shifts the focus from nature to the person as subject of moral action with an accompanying emphasis on personal freedom and equality. ⁴³ Curran considers that this model best allows for both the continuity and the discontinuity that historical consciousness requires in a renewed moral theology since it permits ‘some changes in official Catholic sexual teaching, without . . . destroying the need for some universal principles and norms.’ ⁴⁴ Moreover, in view of the fact that ‘[t]here appears to be no detailed law that all people should follow’ nor any ‘built-in ends or goals that all should seek,’ this model is the best way to guard against the danger ‘that everyone does one’s own thing.’ ⁴⁵

The Beginning Point of Moral Inquiry

The centerpiece in MacIntyre’s attempt to recover a common methodology in moral inquiry is the restoration of an appreciation of the importance of the end for which something is done. He argues that the lack of a shared understanding of the role of a telos in determining what is good is the root of the current disagreements. ‘Within the Aristotelian tradition to call x good (where x may be among other things a person or an animal or a policy or a state of affairs) is to say that it is the kind of x which someone would choose who wanted an x for the purpose for which x’s are characteristically wanted.’ ⁵⁰ Identifying for what something is good requires asking what is the end that someone is trying to achieve. ‘To call a watch good is to say that it is the kind of watch which someone would choose who wanted a watch to keep time accurately (rather than, say, to throw at the cat).’ Because the telos supplies the key element for evaluating the performance of the action, the lack of a telos changes the entire way to conduct the inquiry.

For Curran, the starting point for a moral inquiry is the stance that one adopts that allows for a perspective that includes all moral reality. ‘We have no a priori reason,’ he writes, ‘to say that one stance is correct and others are false. The proof of the stance is pragmatic; it all depends on whether the proposed stance really is a logical first step that encompasses all other aspects and gives some critical direction.’ ⁵¹ Curran favours the fivefold Christian mysteries (creation, sin, incarnation, redemption, and resurrection) as the stance from which to understand what is ‘good.’ He writes: ‘The world and everything in it, although finite and limited, is not fundamentally evil but basically good.’ ⁵² His definition of ‘good’ is therefore a judgment of the speculative intellect concerning the thing in itself. In MacIntyre’s case, by way of contrast, to call something ‘good’ is a judgment of the practical intellect concerning the usefulness of something for achieving some end. MacIntyre worries that simply picking a stance as a starting point masks ‘a disquieting private arbitrariness.’ ⁵³ When the starting point of any moral argument cannot be affirmed as correct (i.e., true), the conclusions based on those premises, he argues, will never amount to anything more than an expression of preference. ⁵⁴ Without a shared concept of ‘good,’ ‘good’ runs the risk, as indeed has befallen it, ⁵⁵ of becoming simply a non-natural property of a thing. ⁵⁶ It is understandable, then, that stances can only appear in situational ethics since perfective ethics requires an end and normative ethics requires a norm as their starting points. Unsurprisingly, these differences over the starting point have led to different ways to think ethically.

How to Think Ethically

MacIntyre and Curran differ over the appropriate way to think in making a moral inquiry. MacIntyre argues for perfective thinking. ‘Its basic structure is that which Aristotle analysed in the Nicomachean Ethics. Within that teleological scheme there is a fundamental contrast between man-as-he-happens-to-be and man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-essential-nature. Ethics is the science which is to enable men to understand how they make the transition from the former state to the latter. Ethics, therefore, in this view presupposes some account of potentiality and act, some account of the essence of man as a rational animal and above all some account of the human telos.’ ⁵⁷ Laws in this scheme help to initiate the novice into a mastery of those practices that the tradition has identified as the path to obtain the appropriate human telos.

Curran’s commitment to shifting the focus from nature to person does not allow the role of the telos of human nature that MacIntyre sees as indispensable to appear. Consequently, although Curran has famously rejected deontology, his only available option on the meta-ethical level is still normative thinking. Ethics for him is a discussion about norms, albeit situationally adaptable norms that change as the situations in which persons find themselves are changed by external historical events. When Curran writes that ‘revisionists hold that actions that are described only in terms of the physical aspect or structure are neither necessarily always wrong or intrinsically evil,’ what he is denying is the necessarily universal obligatory force of norms. ⁵⁸ He is not focused on whether certain actions are perfective of those who perform them, but whether there are universal norms that prohibit certain actions semper et pro semper. This is normative thinking in action even if the content of the thinking is focused on identifying what is fitting for a given situation.

The Meaning of Historical Consciousness

MacIntyre and Curran are in limited agreement that the way to think ethically has a history of its own. Curran, for his part, welcomes the postmodernist claims ‘that history is not the objective science we once thought it was.’ ⁵⁹ While not embracing postmodern thought in all its particulars, Curran credits postmodernist liberation theologies for having criticized an exaggerated universalism that is still needed in chastened form, however, to resist relativism. Although an explicit reference to history appears in Curran’s description of intrinsic teleology, it is not the history of how the different models developed historically, but one that recounts the historical changes that affected exteriorly the human condition. ⁶⁰ By asserting that the various models are capable of recombination, Curran asserts implicitly the possibility of narrating a unified history by means of the different models without necessarily needing to narrate what gave rise to their differences in the first place or explaining why those differences do not render their use incompatible. In his view, ‘[h]istorical consciousness gives more importance to the particular, the individual, and the contingent,’ while paying ‘greater attention to human subjectivity.’ ⁶¹ ‘Moral reality,’ he writes, ‘cannot be reduced only to the ends or purposes that God has put into human nature and especially into human powers or faculties. Human beings develop over time and many other historical and cultural realities impact and influence our development and who we are.’ ⁶² These aspects of a moral inquiry the manualists, with their ‘essentialist, universalist, and deductive approach to moral theology,’ have not adequately appreciated. ⁶³

Since these historical changes affect the way we act, historical consciousness helps to secure a middle path between the immobility of a classicism that allows no place for change and development, on the one hand, and a radical existentialism on the other hand, which, according to Curran, ‘sees the particular human person today with no real connection to past and future and no binding relationships with others in the present.’ ⁶⁴ He appeals to historical consciousness (with its incorporation of an account of human experience) to argue that, if the church can be shown to have changed her teaching on x in the past in response to changes in the culture, that same church could change her teaching regarding other issues in the future as circumstances continue to change. ⁶⁵

By contrast, MacIntyre insists that disagreements are not merely discrete sets of incompatible assertions and denials. They imply a broader sociological context that, along with its companion history, has to be taken into account in assessing the competing conclusions, since both history and sociology have been open to be influenced by ‘the unacknowledged persuasions of pleasure, money, or power.’ ⁶⁶ A rationality that can best explain historically why moral inquiry developed in the way it did, says MacIntyre, has the best claim to be considered the superior rationality.

The Role and Meaning of the Virtues

MacIntyre and Curran are also in limited agreement about the importance of the virtues in moral inquiry, but an agreement that is once again part of a greater disagreement. For MacIntyre, ‘[a] virtue is an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods.’ ⁶⁷ By the term ‘practice’ MacIntyre means ‘any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.’ ⁶⁸ The habits that facilitate those practices that successfully secure those goods that are seen as perfective both of a person and of the society to which that person belongs are the habits that are prized as virtues. These habits do not exist in and for themselves. They exist so that those goods may be achieved with ease. But their exercise has an ironic aspect for those who are committed to any form of utilitarianism. In order to achieve the goods that are internal to the practices and the internal rewards that those practices entail, the virtues must be exercised without regard to the consequences that they afford. Even though virtues are ordered toward the achievement of certain goods, says MacIntyre, ‘unless we practice them irrespective of whether in any particular set of contingent circumstances they will produce those goods or not, we cannot possess them at all.’ ⁶⁹ Virtue, he argues, that is not a full-time practice is not a virtue at all. Only those who have mastered those practices by following the laws that define them will appreciate why they must be practiced without regard to consequences. ⁷⁰

For his part, Curran sees virtues as ‘a part of human flourishing and the call to God to strive for perfection in response to God’s gift.’ ⁷¹ Acknowledging that St Thomas has an account of virtues followed by an account of law, Curran looks to the relational-responsible model to explain how virtues and law fit together within the same framework. According to him, the virtues are the internal principles that ‘modify our particular relationships with God, neighbor, world, or self.’ ⁷² Laws and grace are the external principles for doing the same. Curran acknowledges the possibility of tension among the virtues even though the Thomistic tradition had linked them to the hierarchically ordered cardinal virtues in order to insure harmony. ‘The tension between forgiveness and justice,’ writes Curran, ‘comes to the fore in many aspects of public life but also at times in private life.’ ⁷³ In addition, whereas the Thomistic tradition acknowledged the possibility of virtues for all the faculties, Curran is open to the transcendental account of human agency, which sees the will alone as the proper location for the virtues. ⁷⁴

The Identification of the Virtues

Linked to the issue of the role of virtue in moral inquiry is the question of how to identify specific virtues. MacIntyre’s account of what counts as a virtue proceeds through three stages. The first stage concerns the identification of those qualities necessary to those practices that seek to achieve the goods perfective of persons. ⁷⁵ MacIntyre cites the example of ruthlessness. Ruthlessness can be a virtue if the task at hand is to secure the survival of a platoon of soldiers on the battlefield. But the raising of a family is a different practice and that same ruthlessness in the context of raising a family would be a formula for disaster. ⁷⁶ The ends identified by the practices, he says, must be distinguished in turn from misconceptions of our end that can mask self-centered desires for pleasure, power, and money. ⁷⁷

The second stage is identification of the broader context of a whole life. Virtues, he insists, cannot be defined in the abstract; they need a context of a life narrative that is socially embodied in order to make the choice of a given practice intelligible as a virtue. Just as a human act is intelligible because it is directed toward the achievement of some end, so what constitutes a virtue is made intelligible only as part of a broader narrative about the pursuit of some end for which someone is willing to live (or die). Without the identification of such an end, nothing about human agency will be intelligible to the agent. ⁷⁸ He or she will not be able to understand what he or she is doing and why.

The third stage is the identification of the further context of an on-going social tradition that results from a community’s continuing search for better ways to achieve the goods internal to its social practices. ⁷⁹ The narrative of a whole life, if it is to be intelligible, needs the context of the shared life of a community whose intelligibility is accessible to others. Without that context, what the agent does will not be intelligible to the community to which he or she belongs. ⁸⁰ Since virtues cannot be manufactured at will, they cannot be defined abstractly nor exist prior to the identification of the socially embedded practices that require them. These practices, in turn, require the context of a sociology which implies an end which itself cannot be manufactured at will. The practices proposed by a given social order identify the virtues needed to attain those ends prized by that society. Change the social practices that constitute order in that society and the list of virtues changes accordingly. According to MacIntyre, only those human qualities can be considered virtues that satisfy the conditions of each of these three stages. ⁸¹

Curran presumes the classical identification of the virtues and denominates as general virtues those that govern our basic orientation to God, our neighbour, the world and ourselves. To this group belong the traditional theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity as well as the infused virtues. The second group are the particular virtues that modify in a unique way those same relationships. ‘The unique individual has a particular character depending on the way different virtues are configured. Everyone creates her own personal synthesis.’ ⁸² He finds that the presence of unique charisms, diversity of vocation, and the consciousness of historicity make a general description of virtue difficult. The tension that Curran perceives among the virtues indicates that he is still relying on the traditional (i.e., classicist) definition of the virtues—but within a framework supplied by the relational-responsible model. This model, however, handicaps him, because being focused on an undefined common good as its end, it lacks a way to define those practices for which virtues are needed to achieve an end, thereby obscuring the role of ends in defining what is or is not a virtue.

The Challenge of Relativism to Moral Absolutes

Both MacIntyre and Curran agree on their opposition to relativism and in their affirmation of the existence of absolute norms, but they disagree both about how to root that opposition and about the nature and extent of that opposition. ⁸³ For his part, MacIntyre claims that there is such a thing as a truth that is objectively valid for everyone. Such a claim also implies that there is such a thing as falsity and a way to distinguish it from the truth. ⁸⁴ According to him, moral inquiry is a reflective search for the truth about what kind of end one should have as the goal of one’s life lived in a particular time and place and in a particular culture. Such a search terminates when one is able to say how things are in themselves rather than simply how things appear to be from a particular standpoint. At that point, the human mind has grasped the inner reality of something external to itself. Such an encounter defines the meaning of what is true and what is false. Thus, in accord with his perfective way of thinking, MacIntyre insists that it makes no sense to say that the violation of those negative precepts protecting a good that achieves what has been identified as one’s true end can be violated from time to time in order to allow for an exception that would achieve some other out-weighting good. ‘The notion of outweighing,’ he says, ‘cannot have this kind of application.’ ⁸⁵

For his part, Curran acknowledges the existence of moral absolutes that are not ‘based on the physical structure and object of the act.’ As he denies, however, the existence of ‘intrinsically evil’ objects, he holds that in applying the absolute norms ‘in more specific complex circumstances, the possibility of exceptions increases. Law can never be the primary model for moral theology, but a relationality-responsibility model can and should recognize the existence of some absolute norms.’ ⁸⁶ MacIntyre would agree that positive moral absolutes are impossible since no positive precept could cover all circumstances. The point in contention between them, however, is the existence of negative moral absolutes. The model of responsibility-rationality does not have an intrinsic way of rooting a universal statement of prohibition since, according to its rationality, every situation is unique and its focus is on the common good of the human reality. Universal negative prohibitions could arise extrinsically by introducing some moral precept by way of deontology. But Curran’s rejection of making deontology primary foregoes this solution. Making it secondary would require an explanation of how the claims of deontology are compatible with those of relationality-responsibility.

The intrinsic way to secure absolute norms would be through the introduction of a ‘thick’ concept of a good that is perfective of the person according to the model of intrinsic teleology. Curran is aware of the distinction between a ‘thick’ concept of the good (one that is the product of practical intellect) and a ‘thin’ concept of the good (one that is the product of speculative intellect). ⁸⁷ The ‘thin’ concept of the good is hospitable to Curran’s belief that human goods cannot be absolutized. Such a concept of a human good, however, only allows for the value of the good to a given individual to appear. It cannot sustain the moral absolutes that he says he wants because it cannot prevent one good from being sacrificed for the preservation of another good higher on the hierarchy of values. Since the value of a given good will differ from person to person, the ‘thin’ concept of the good will be quicksand for any moral absolute. The ‘thick’ concept of the good does not have this liability but it is still problematic for Curran due to its inability to allow for the exceptions he considers important.

The Question of Physicalism

Curran agrees with what he calls the ‘insight’ of David Hume that a statement of moral obligation cannot be derived from a statement of fact. An ‘ought’ cannot be deduced from an ‘is.’ ‘This approach,’ says Curran, ‘is the naturalistic fallacy. Nature itself has no normative character.’ ⁸⁸ Disagreeing, MacIntyre says that this denial could only have appeared once the concepts of ‘Man’ had lost its functional aspect and could no longer be seen as capable of being described in terms of how one was faring in achieving his purposes in the context of the ends that God has already placed in his nature. ‘It is only when man is thought of as an individual prior to and apart from all [relational and operative] roles that “man” ceases to be a functional concept.’ ⁸⁹ The lack of an awareness of this shift—a lack which he attributes originally to Hume—is for MacIntyre a sign of a deep lack of historical consciousness. ⁹⁰