Abstract
Real life does not always color neatly within the lines of the formal logics and abstract theories that dominate moral theology and ethics. Intellectually insulated from the messiness of lives, these ethical systems tend to dismiss moral dilemmas out of hand, providing little place or help to those experiencing hardship and oppression or caught in the pincers of forces beyond their control. Moral exemplars, as a result, remain too male, too disembedded from social bonds and commitments, and too aloof to the precarities and contingencies of a world that does not always ‘work’ rationally. Kate Jackson-Meyer contends that ethics and moral theory must have a place for such dilemmas if they are truly to pertain to the actual lived reality of persons. In so doing, she adds to a rich scholarly discussion raising important questions for moral theology and ethics by arguing that, while experience itself may not be self-validating, moral theory should nevertheless carefully consider how these experiences interrogate standing ethical categories (p. 6). Moreover, as she observes, when we fail to acknowledge such situations, not only do we misconstrue the moral fabric of our lives, but even more, we are bereft of ways to address and seek to heal the injury and damage incurred when agents, nevertheless, must take action under such difficult circumstances.
Jackson-Meyer concludes that dilemmas do exist and that, for Christian theologians, the only true moral dilemmas are tragic dilemmas (p. 3). Her definition of a tragic dilemma distinguishes it from a moral dilemma, stating that, ‘a tragic dilemma involves a moral transgression that causes great harm or mars an agent's life even when one acts in the best way possible’ (p. 27). Beginning with case studies drawn from actual situations, Jackson-Meyer seeks to tune moral theology and ethics more to the complexities and precarities of human existence. Her central claim is that ‘In a tragic dilemma, a moral agent chooses between—with sufficient knowledge—conflicting nonnegotiable moral obligations rooted in Christian commitments to protect human life and the vulnerable and recognized by Augustinian lament. Transgressing a nonnegotiable obligation involves wrong-doing that causes great harm and may mar an agent's life, but personal culpability is mitigated so long as the agent acts with repugnance of the will, and societal culpability is operative when the tragic dilemma is a result of structural sin’ (pp. 1–2). The key contribution of her study, thus, is not only its lucid analysis of what makes for a tragic dilemma and how structural sin frequently gives rise to such predicaments but also the strategies for healing from tragic dilemmas she proffers within the framework of Christian community.
Jackson-Meyer's argument is refreshing because it is both critical and appreciative in its engagement with moral philosophy and theology. The introduction concisely lays out her argument while also briefly posing cases of moral and tragic dilemmas through a method of portraiture. The cases are the point of departure for theological interpretation and consideration. Chapter 1 embarks on a philosophical analysis of moral and tragic dilemmas, distinguishing and providing an anatomy of them while making the case, following Bernard Williams, that moral theories alone cannot neatly encompass our moral experience, especially around hard cases. Chapter 2 takes up an Augustinian approach to moral and tragic dilemmas. While Augustine and those that follow him make no place for tragic dilemmas, Jackson-Meyer argues, he does open a space for lament given the messiness of life. Without a concept of tragic dilemmas, moreover, she contends that such Augustinian accounts are plagued by an inconsistent anthropology. She takes her theological analysis further in chapter 3 by engaging the Thomistic tradition. Like Augustine, she claims, Aquinas makes no place for moral or tragic dilemmas, holding instead, that they are the result of human sin. Jackson-Meyer, however, demonstrates the limits of both the Thomistic reliance on the hierarchy of goods and double effect to resolve certain cases where a remainder lingers. She proposes that Aquinas's own account of mixed actions implies as much. Pointing to Aquinas's notion of the ‘repugnance of the will’ wherein an agent abhors the consequences of an intended action, she then offers a corrective in an expanded account of intention, opening ‘new ground to reflect on moral and tragic dilemmas within Thomistic ethics’ (pp. 79, 95). Chapter 4, then, develops her Christian view of tragic dilemmas, arguing, following Lisa Tessman, that cases do arise where Christian nonnegotiable obligations conflict such that one cannot fulfill them all. In these situations, there is no good or moral choice because the situation itself is tragic or corrupted, engendering twofold personal and social culpability. On my read, the crescendo of the book comes with Jackson-Meyer's attention to how ‘social sin and unjust social structures’ give rise to tragic dilemmas—something elided in both Augustinian and Thomistic moral theology (pp. 122–23). Her final chapter presents a Christian, communal approach to healing from tragic dilemmas, setting out practical considerations for how to engage in such processes.
The study will be of interest to moral theologians and ethicists as well as graduate students working across the spectrum of subdisciplines from bioethics, just war, and peace studies to care and virtue ethics. Its clarity and lucid organization would also allow for its chapters to be assigned separately, even for use among upper-level undergraduates. One question that remains for this reader is the limits of obligation as an ethical framework and the subsequent limits of tragic dilemmas. For instance, I wonder where sacrifice or martyrdom factor into the notion of Christian nonnegotiable obligations around the commitment to protect human life, even as I recognize these are not the kinds of cases Jackson-Meyer sets out to analyze. I also acknowledge the way those two concepts have precipitated unnecessary oppression or have been used as leverage to compel acquiescence to violence and abuse. Might a moral frame of happiness and freedom for excellence shift the nature of obligations so as to relate them to their end, as Servais Pinckaers, OP suggested? While I do not think this resolves the tragic reality of certain choices in difficult situations, I do wonder if it helps soften the frame of competing duties often implicit in an ethics of obligation, especially where such tend to straitjacket the options.
Dilemmas are tricky because they tend to captivate our moral imagination in a way that gives too much prominence to casuistry, with less focus on the agent and her formation and flourishing. Once the category is opened, it may be tempting to walk every camel through the eye of that needle, leading, on the one hand, to an endless and infinite sense of obligation (Kierkegaard and Levinas) or, on the other hand, allowing for a kind of soft fatalism (Niebuhr) to slip in which too broadly accepts the harms accompanying hard decisions, especially of a corporate nature. Each view in their own way may lead us to envision tragedy as the substance of human life, and thereby, misdirect our attention from the end of beatitude. Still, I think readers will find Jackson-Meyer's category of tragic dilemmas convincing in that at least some situations manifest the tragic within life—even if they are not inclined to agree that all of the cases she discusses fit this designation. At the very least, however, Jackson-Meyer's argument for tragic dilemmas reminds us that the social reality of human existence weaves us all in a fabric of precarity and interdependence so as to make no place for moral arrogance or privileged self-certainty. Readers, hence, would do well to remember the advice Jackson-Meyer's own title conveys and to see tragic dilemmas within a larger conversation of Christian ethics that invites humility and compassion with the hope of beatitude and to pay close attention to the Christian, communal approaches for healing she offers in the final chapter.