"INTRINSICALLY EVIL ACTS" AND THE MORAL
VIEWPOINT: CLARIFYING A CENTRAL TEACHING
OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR1
MARTIN RHONHEIMER
Roman Athenaeum of the Holy Cross
Rome, Italy
1. Introduction: Distinguishing choices and their objects
from further intentions and consequences
MANY CATHOLIC moral theologians have asserted during the last few years that to know what a person really does each time he or she is acting and, consequently, to qualify morally this concrete doing, one must take into account all the further goals for the sake of which this person chooses what he concretely does. Equally, so these theologians contend, a balance of all foreseen consequences should be established to make out whether a determinate behavior is the right or the wrong thing to choose. Therefore, according to this view it will always
be impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species-- its "object "--the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behavior or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned (VS 79) .
The encyclical Veritatis Splendor rejects this view of so-called "teleological" ethical theories 2 as incompatible with the exist-
1 I thank Prof. John M. Haas of Philadelphia for having carefully reviewed my English version of this paper, originally written in German (and not yet published) .
2 The term "teleological " as a characterization of ethical theories became successful through C. D. Broad's essay, "Some of the Main Problems of Ethics," Philosophy XXI (1946), reprinted in C. D. Broad, Broad's Critical
1
2 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
ence of describable concrete actions which are " intrinsically evil," that is, which are evil "always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances" (VS 80). Consequently, this view finally is judged as incompatible with the
Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. D. R. Cheney (London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Humanities Press, 1971), pp. 223-246. Broad simply identified any "teleological" argumentation with a consequentialist one. So he says (p. 230 of the reprinted essays) : "One characteristic which tends to make an act right is that it will produce at least as good consequences as an alternative open to the agent in the circumstances (...) We can sum this up by saying that the property of being optimific is a very important right-tending characteristic. I call it teleological because it refers to the goodness of the ends or consequences which the act brings about." Broad, then, goes on to say that a "nonteleological" characteristic of an action would be, for example, the obligation, independent from considering consequences, to perform what one has promised. But already in 1930 Broad had distinguished "teleological" from "deontological" ethical theories; see C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1930), pp. 206 if. Many, today, call non-teleological ethics (in Broad's sense) "deontological "; cf. William K. Frankena, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963). The term "teleological ethics" was thus "imported" by German moral theologians, mainly by Bruno Schüller; see his Die Begründung sittlicher Urteile. Ty pen ethischer Argumentation in der Moraltheologie, 2nd ed. Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1980), pp. 282-298 (first published in 1973). According to Schüller, a normative ethic would be "teleological" if it affirms that "the moral character of all the actions and the omissions of man is exclusively determined by its consequences" (282) . So he uses "teleological ethics" as synonymous with "consequentialism" (a term in fact created by G. E. M. Anscombe) and even with "utilitarianism." Its counterpart would be "deontological ethics," which holds that there are some actions the moral rightness of which should not be judged exclusively on the basis of their consequences; see also Bruno Schüller, "Various Types of Grounding for Ethical Norms," in Readings in Moral Theology No. 1: Moral Norms and Catholic Tradition, ed. Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 184-198. However, as it seems to me, these distinctions are not very clarifying; they rather seem to confuse judgments of prudence (" such and such is the right thing to do ") with judgments of conscience (" I must do what I know to be the right thing, whatever the consequences ") . Everyone must be a "deontologist" on this (second) level, if he does not want to deny that one must follow one's conscience (see for this some of my publications to which I refer further on) . For supplementary terminological clarifications, see J. M. Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington: Georgetown University Press; Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 81-86.
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 3
existence of absolutely--without exception--binding prohibitive (or: negative) moral norms, that is: with so-called " moral absolutes."
The encyclical clearly distinguishes the object of a concrete choice, and the corresponding action, from ulterior intentions with which a choice is made. It seems to me that one of the central problems implied in thus distinguishing choices and their objects from further intentions may be formulated as follows:
What precisely is qualified when an action or freely chosen behavior is qualified as " morally evil" by virtue of its very " object" ? This point, I think, must be carefully elucidated if we want to talk reasonably about concrete actions, or choices of determinate behaviors, being morally evil by virtue of their very object, i.e., independent of further intentions. If we could not sustain the distinction between the "object " and " ulterior intentions " of a concrete choice, adherents of " consequentialism
or "proportionalism" could successfully deny being implicated in the encyclical's criticism of these positions.
In order to answer the above question, however, another very important assertion of the encyclical must not be overlooked. After having affirmed, in number 78, that "the morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the 'object' rationally chosen by the deliberate will," the text of the encyclical adds the following remark:
In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person.
And this is so, the encyclical continues, for the following reason (the emphasis is mine)
The object of the act is in fact a freely chosen kind of behavior. (...) By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person (VS 78).
4 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
The above quoted rejection (VS 79) which follows in the encyclical in fact is formulated in quite a sophisticated way (e.g., it refers both " object" and the predicate " morally evil " to "choice of behavior" and not simply to "behavior This sentence, repeated in number 82, remains the doctrinal core of the whole encyclical and one of the cornerstones of its argument. And it seems to me that no "teleological" ethical theory--be it
consequentialist" or "proportionalist "--can reasonably deny being affected, indeed, hit in the heart, by this rejection. For it is characteristic for all "teleological" ethical theories that they consider senseless any distinction between " objects " and "further intentions," as well as that they reject the possibility both of judging "wrong" a chosen action independently from all the foreseen consequences, and of speaking on this level as such about
"moral evil."
During the following exposition I will, without referring much to the text of the encyclical, simply expose how--according to my views which owe so much to the work of many others--the encyclical's teaching should be understood. I not only intend to follow Aquinas's ethical theory but also to render explicit some implicit presuppositions in the field of action theory that are necessary to render fully intelligible both Aquinas's account of "moral objects" as such and its pertinence for our present problem.4
3 Compare this also with No. 1761 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoted in VS 78: ". . . there are certain specific kinds of behavior that are always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil."
4 See a more detailed account in my following books and articles: Natur als Grundlage der Morel (Innsbruck-Wien: Tyrolia Verlag, 1987) ; La prospettiva delta morale. Fondamenti dell'etica filoso fica (forthcoming: Rome:
Armando Editore, 1994) ; "Menschliches Handeln und seine Moralität. Zur Begründung sittlicher Normen," in Martin Rhonheimer, Andreas Laun, Tatjana Goritschewa, Walter Mixa, Ethos und Menschenbild (St. Ottilien: EOSVerlag, 1989), pp. 45-114; "Zur Begründung sittlicher Normen aus der Natur," and "Ethik--Handeln----Sittlichkeit," Der Mensch als Mitte und Massstab der Medizin, ed. Johannes Bonelli (Wien-New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992), pp. 49-94 and 137-174; finally, my investigations into Aquinas's
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 5
I shall first clarify the term " object " as used in practical reasoning (section 2). I then clarify the basic perspective in which we have to consider our problem, the perspective of intentionality, showing how problematic it is when an ethical theory distinguishes "moral" from "non-moral" goods (section 3). This opens the way to speak properly about the "object" of a human act, which of course is fundamental for knowing what precisely is qualified when an action is qualified as "evil by virtue of its object " (section 4). In the longest section (5), I will challenge the distinction between "right making properties" and "good making properties" of an action; I argue for a virtue-orientated rather than norm- or rule-based ethics, showing why only the former is able really to explain why there are in fact some intrinsically evil acts." In section 6, I shall show how intentionality explains the rational structure of what we call the "object " of a human act. Finally, in section 7, I will add some remarks about how to integrate my analysis into the general frame of a natural law theory.
2. Objects of actions as objects of practical reason
According to Aquinas, every action intended by the will is a "bonum apprehensum et ordinatum per ratio nem," a "good understood and ordered by reason." Clearly human acts are specified by different objects; every potency has its own specific object which is its proper end. However, the human act is morally specified only by an " object in so far as it is related to the principle of human acts, that is reason." 8 One must, therefore, guard against identifying the object which provides the moral specificainterpretation and completion of Aristotle's action theory are expected to be
published under the title Praktische Vernunft und Vernünftigkeit der Praxis (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994) .
ST I-II, q.20, a.1 ad 1. In ST I-II, q.18, a 10, Aquinas affirms that the object which specifies an action morally is a "forma a ratione concepta."
6 "
. . . ab obiecto relato ad principium actuum humanorum, quod est ratio" (ST I-II, q.18, a.8). The "bonum virtutis" consists "ex quadam commensuratione actus ad circumstantias et finem, quam ratio facit" (In II Sent., d.39, q.2, a.1).
6 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
tion of an act with "things" or the natural ends of single potencies. As Germain Grisez has put it, ". . . human acts have their structure from intelligence. Just insofar as an action is considered according to its naturally given structure, it is to that extent not considered as a human act--i.e., as a moral act--but rather as a physiological process or as instinctive behavior. Action with a given structure and acts structured by intelligence differ as totally as nature differs from morality. Nature has an order which reason can consider but cannot make and cannot alter. Morality has an order which reason institutes by guiding the acts of the will."
The object which provides the moral specification is always the object of a human act just insofar as it is an act of a human being. Without the act of practical reason which relates to any object in a specifically moral way, there is neither a human act nor a personal meaning of such acts. To speak of the "object of an action " is to speak of the content of an intentional action. That is to say, the morally relevant object of an action is the content of an act insofar as it is the object of an intentio voluntatis (whether this is on the level of the choice of concrete, particular actions, or on the level of intending further ends for the sake of which a concrete action is chosen as a means). With this we see that every object is equally the object of the practical reason which orders and regulates, the fundamental rule or measure of which is the natural law. Only in this way do both the various natural ends of human potencies and the usus rerum exterio rum become integrated into the personal suppositum in a cognitive-practical way. They thus become objectified in their intelligibility which renders possible the recognition of their morally objective meaning.
3. The perspective of intentionality and the so-called
"non-moral" goods
The bona pro pria, i.e., the proper goods toward which the individual potencies are ordered as ends--considered in their ontic
Germain Grisez, "A New Formulation of a Natural-Law Argument against Contraception," The Thomist 30:4 (1966) : 343.
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 7
structure, independently from their being potencies of a human person, that is, considered on the level of their "genus naturae"
--are not yet moral goods which are as such morally significant (they are no bona debita for the acting person as such).8 But calling them "non-moral" goods seems to be equally erroneous. One simply cannot make moral judgments on the level of "genus naturae." However, to call these proper goods of potencies "nonmoral goods" is actually a moral qualification since it is possible only from an ethical perspective. To be ethical, a perspective must take account of the acting subject's intentional relation to acts and ends. To affirm that the ends of natural inclinations are nonmoral goods or non-moral values is to assert that they do not possess an inherent "proportio ad ratio nem." This would mean that they were exactly as inclinations " indifferentes ex specie," in St. Thomas's language, or that these inclinations, acts, and ends are morally indifferent not only if we consider them "abstractly " in their "genus naturae," but also if we conceive them as forming part of the human suppositum. Again, this would mean that only further circumstances or intentions of the acting subject by which he acts on these inclinations and performs the acts proper to them would have a moral qualification, while the inclinations themselves would not.
To look at natural inclinations and their ends in an abstractontic way is, however, neither ethically nor anthropologically an adequate way of considering them. It simply can never lead to a morally qualifying judgment, and this is precisely what the assertion means which states that they are "indifferent" (" adiaphora") or non-moral goods.9 It is not the ends of these inclina8 The distinction between (" actus" or "finis ") pro prium on the one side,
and debitum on the other, goes back to ST I-II, q.91, a. 2. See for this my Natur als Grundlage der Moral, pp. 72 if.
Cf. ST I-II, q.18, a.8: Aquinas arrives at identifying an act as indifferent "in specie" by the assertion that the act as such has no proportion to the "ordo rationis"; considered in itself the choice of such an act is not yet meaningful for practical reason, "sicut levare festucam de terra, ire ad campum et huiusmodi." It is something quite different to consider an act, which by itself does possess such a "proportio ad rationem," independently from this relation
8 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
tions which are non-moral, but rather the abstract way of considering them which is non-moral. The problem springs from looking at natural inclinations simply as natural inclinations, inclinations of the "genus naturae" abstracted from the actual human person. 10
This means that inclinations, their proper acts, and ends are falsely looked at as " data," "facts," and " state of affairs," from the perspective of an outside observer, rather than as inclinations of a intellectually and thus willingly striving person. As such, every human being experiences his inclinations as his inclinations, as something that he willingly and intentionally pursues. This, precisely, is not recognizable from the viewpoint of an outside observer.
From the viewpoint of the external observer we also say that birds build nests because the outcome of a bird's gathering different materials and executing determinate bodily movement is in fact a nest. But do birds really build nests? That is, do they perform the action of "building a nest" ? For this they should intend, in gathering materials, the goal of building a nest; they should gather materials, move, and work for the sake of building a nest. Moreover, they even should also intend the "why" of building the nest, e.g., "to protect their offspring." With good
to reason, that is, on its merely natural level (e.g., an act of eating or nutrition, an act of sexual copulation) . In this case, this will be a biological, physiological or psychological viewpoint which in no way allows a moral judgment. The qualification of an act as "indifferent," however, is precisely such a moral judgment.
10 Aquinas also sometimes uses the expression "consideratio absoluta," that is, a consideration of acts detaching them from the wider context in which a moral qualification would be possible. Cf. In IV Sent., d.16, q.3, a.1, qla.2 ad 2: "aliqui actus ex suo genere sunt mali vel boni (...) . Hoc autem ex quo actus reperitur in tali genere, quamvis sit de substantia eius inquantum est ex genere moris, tamen est extra substantiam ipsius secundum quod consideratur ipsa substantia actus absolute: unde aliqui actus sunt idem in specie naturae qui differunt in specie moris; sicut fornicatio et actus matrimonialis." Both fornication and a matrimonial act are, as sexual acts considered in their "genus naturae" and in their corresponding physiological, biological, and in a sense also in their affective aspects, strictly identical acts. Nevertheless the human sexual act is not an "actus indifferens" if considered in its "genus
moris."
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 9
reason we assume that they indeed are not doing this.1' A human person, however, who strives for self-preservation or for the care of his offspring, and who performs corresponding actions, does not only "arrive at" preserving his life, etc.; rather, he also intends it in his actions. He does something for the sake of preserving himself and caring for his offspring, and this "for the sake of" is a content of his will. Self-preservation and care for offspring are, in this case, objects of an intending will, guided by reason. And as such, the corresponding goods (self-preservation, care for offspring) are much more than the resulting states of affairs of " self-preservation" or "protection of offspring." It rather is a practical principle which guided a freely chosen act and its intentional content, a content which determines as an intelligible good the agent's will.'2 These contents of intentionality (self-preservation, care for others, and similar things) are already on the level of natural inclination a " good " of a striving human person and, therefore, "good for man" in the context of the person as a whole. It is precisely this which we call a "moral good." " Moral goods" are the contents of acts of the will. And the contents of acts of the will are precisely that which we call, from a moral viewpoint, their objects.
We can conclude that to call the ends pursued by natural inclinations "non-moral" goods signifies, in the final analysis, a moral qualification (or "dis-qualification ") based on the "genus naturae" of these inclinations and their corresponding acts. This, however, is an illicit transgressio in aliud genus and, therefore, results in a conclusion easily recognizable as a sort of
naturalistic fallacy.'' The naturalistic fallacy is based on a failure to see that the "genus naturae" and the "genus moris" are not
11 This is not an argument against teleology in nature; just the opposite is the case: this teleology exists because we affirm both (1) that birds do not intend the goal of building a nest and (2) that they indeed do what they do for the sake of building a nest; so the "intention" is inherent in nature.
12 Compare again VS 78 (the emphasis is mine) : "The object of the act of willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behaviour. To the extent that it is in conformity with the order of reason, it is the cause of the goodness of the will; it perfects us morally
10 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
derivable one from the other.13 The fallacy occurs when one adopts a morally qualifying predicate on the level of "genus naturae." But " moral indifference" actually is such a predicate. Equally, "morally right" is a morally qualifying predicate. It is a predicate which proportionalists adopt for actions on the basis of the resulting balance of non-moral goods which can be foreseen.
In this context the Stoic doctrine of the adiaphora is sometimes invoked: 14 Life, health, beauty, property, social status, honor, etc. are not, one says, goods which determine a person's being a good person. This depends exclusively on the goodness of the will. I would argue in the following way against this attempt to defend consequentialism by invoking this Stoic teaching: The Stoic doctrine only intends to differentiate the sphere of being from the sphere of acting. Indeed, whether somebody is a good or a wicked person does not depend on the state in which he happens to find himself or the state in which he happens to arrive independently from his willing as an acting subject. " Good" and "evil" as objects of practical reason and intentional striving, however, are not at all states of affairs, in which the acting subject happens to find himself. As soon as the agent relates practically to goods/ bads as life, health, physical integrity, truth, property, it is no longer possible to call those goods or bads adiaphora, indifferent things or " extra-moral " goods; for the practical relation itself involves, with regard to them, one willingly taking a position on the basis of a judgment of practical reason; and it is precisely this which determines the quality of the will as a good or an evil will. So precisely insofar as a good is a practical good (or object of a free will orientated to action) it cannot be a non-moral good because it is impossible that the will relates to "good" in a nonmoral way (not even to a piece of bread practically judged and
13 This reproach, which I have invoked against adherents of so-called "teleological ethics," is not, it seems to me, sufficiently refuted by W. Wolbert in his critique of my position; cf. Werner Wolbert, "Naturalismus in der Ethik. Zum Vorwurf des naturalistischen Fehlschlusses," Theologie und Glaube 79 (1989) : 234-267, especially pp. 259 ff.
14 Bruno Schüller, Die Begründung sittlicher Urteile; Werner Wolbert, Ethische Argumentation und Paränese in 1 Kor 7 (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1981) .
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 11
chosen as "to be eaten here and now"). The Stoics only wanted to emphasize that moral goodness consists in an attitude of indifference with regard to any good other than virtue itself. So, they intended to render praxis itself indifferent as far as it relates to these goods called adiaphora. The important thing, the Stoics affirmed, is to be virtuous, which means to live in apathia with regard to indifferent goods. Consequentialists and proportionalists, however, are not Stoics. For they assert that precisely in the sphere of these "indifferent goods" man has to take responsibility for optimizing these goods (and minimizing the bads), and that this is the basic criterion of the " rightness" of an action. That means that they also consider the practical relation to single adiaphora as "morally indifferent" (while Stoics want to render insignificant this practical relation) and that only the action, which optimizes them, is morally right. This, however, is a thesis in the field of action theory which is profoundly problematic.
4. "Object" in the perspective of human actions
This problematic consists in confusing the viewpoint of the first person" (the agent's perspective) with the viewpoint of
the third person (the observer's viewpoint). To a large extent, these two perspectives correspond to two quite different concepts of human action: the intentional and the causal-eventistic concept.15 The latter looks at actions "from outside" and sees them as events which cause determinate effects. Events which cause effects, however, are not yet actions (it could, for example, be an earthquake) . From such a perspective, "acting" can only be reconstructed, as it were, by interpreting the foreseen connection between act-event and its effect as being the reason for which a rational subject has performed this particular act. An action would be explained precisely when it was possible to indicate
15 About the importance of the perspective of the " first person" see J. M. Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics, pp. 114 if.; Giuseppe Abbà, Felicità, vita buona e virtù (Rome: LAS, 1989) ; Angel Rodriguez Luño, Etica (Florence: Le Monnier, 1992) and finally my own La prospettiva della morale.
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those reasons which the agent might have had for performing the action. The same applies to its moral qualification: The action itself and its effects are simply events or states of affairs (that is, non-moral realities) . Only those reasons which an agent might have for causing through the action-event x the effect y (the state of affairs) are morally qualifiable; this, however, only as " morally right " or " morally wrong." This, I should add, is more a qualification of effects (of y) and their desirability than a qualification of the actions (of x) by which these effects are brought about.
For example, the action-event x brought about by A could consist in causing (in what way does not matter) the death of P. The caused state of affairs will be " death of P." Only the reasons for the desirability of P's death (in the context of a balance of other goods and bads) would determine whether "to do x" is right or wrong. Such a reason may be, e.g., the foreseeable consequences of A's doing x for all concerned (i.e., also the effects of doing x with regard to the life of Q, R, S,...,T as a consequence of A's doing x; e.g., in a case of hostage-taking and blackmail).
What here, however, is entirely put aside is precisely the acting person as a subject which intends something in doing x; the acting subject, therefore, which performs x for the sake of causing P's death (with the purpose of killing him). That is: What is put aside is the choice of " killing-P " as a setting of A's will against the life of P. This also means: What is put aside is A's taking a position with regard to a specific person to which he owes, as to his fellow-man, this and that. This act of choice can adequately be seen only by looking at human actions in the perspective of the first person: From such a viewpoint there are not only two states of affairs (an action-event and its resulting effect), but also the act of intending P's death. This intentionality (which here is a choice, the choice of an action) cannot be reduced to " causing the state of affairs of P's death." Otherwise there would be no difference between what an earthquake "does" and what an acting person does: the object and intentional content of " causing P's death " means to set one's will against the
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 13
life of P (= against P in the dimension of what fundamentally is "good--for--him") and this positioning of one's will constitutes a specific relation between the acting person and P. The content of this " taking a position " shapes the agent's will and is, as such, the content of a free will, and is " good" or "evil" wholly independently of other (foreseeable) resulting states of affairs which might be brought about as a consequence of A's abstaining from killing P (as, for example, saving the lives of
Q,R,S,...,T).
From an observer' s viewpoint there is, therefore, no difference between " causing P's death " and " killing P," that is, " doing something for the sake of causing P's death." From the observer's viewpoint we may say in the same way "John killed ten persons" and "the earthquake killed ten persons" (as we affirm "The bird built a nest"). What we cannot say in either case from this particular perspective is: Besides the ten killed persons, there is also a murderer. In the case of the earthquake this would be simply nonsense; in the case of John, however, it could well be the case that he is, in fact, a murderer. But it will never be possible to justify such a differentiation from the observer's viewpoint (otherwise we should equally admit that an earthquake at least could be something like a murderer) . In reality, however, " to kill P" is not simply "to cause P's being dead," but rather it is to choose, to intend, to want P's death (for the sake of whatever further end) . Those practical goods which are objects of our actions (and here P's death is, for the agent, a " practical good," the content of his action) are never such objects simply in their natural, ontic value-quality as states of affairs, but rather as objects of an act of the will guided by reason. That is why objects of actions--precisely because of their being objects of a human action--are goods in a moral sense. As said before:
bonum apprehensum et ordinatum per rationem.
Therefore, practical reason, which is embedded in appetite, and the corresponding moral reflection never relate to the "bona propria "--the particular goods of single natural inclinations--as mere state of affairs on the level of their "genus naturae"; as such they cannot be objects or contents of the natural inclination
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of a human person who relates to them appetitively, by will informed by reason. For whom is "self-preservation" ever simply something given, a good only to be "taken into account" or a mere state of affairs, no matter how desirable? For whom is it ever a "non-moral" good, that is, a good which does not concern him as a person striving for the fulfilment of his being? As it was said, the ontic-natural aspect of these goods or ends is a posterior abstraction which abstracts them from the context of practical self-experience; so, this purely natural aspect is a reduction of the proper intelligibility of these goods.
The goods of natural inclinations are never simply a set of given facts, and man is not simply the sum of various inclinations. They rather constitute the proper practical self-experience of persons as a certain kind of being. They form a whole, grasped by intelligence as "my" being. So, the practical self-experience of man as naturally striving for goods is precisely what constitutes the identity of a person as a human person: every inclination and its proper good are experienced as correlated to my own striving and not as something alien to me, as, e.g., nature which surrounds me, the world in which I am placed, my environment.16 This "good-for-me" as object of a reason-guided
16 This, it seems to me, is an often overlooked differentiation. An example is provided by Louis Janssens, "Ontic Evil and Moral Evil," Louvain Studies 4 (1972) :121 (note 34) and 135 f. The bodily dimension of man is here conceived simply as "material part of the material world"; it is named "human" only insofar as this "material part of the material world" participates at the same time in the subjectivity of single human individuals. Therefore, Janssens considers the body, in a consequent way, as a "means to action," as an instrument of man's subjectivity for his being able to act in the sphere of the external world. With this, the properly "human " is restricted to a spiritually understood subjectivity (without taking into account that also the body originally forms part of man's subjectivity) . This, however, is not a personalist view of man, but a view which we could call a "personalistic spiritualism." The consequences of this view are, in the case of Janssens, absolutely clear, e.g. when he says that the exterior act ("actus exterior") is an "exterior event" (120) which, in itself, does not possess a moral meaning because it does not yet participate in the subjectivity of man, i.e., before it is assumed by the spiritual "ego" as a "means to action." So, bodily acts are, according to this view, a sort of "raw material," determined in their moral meaning exclusively by the spirit. This is obviously true as far as bodily acts need to
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 15
will, as intelligible human good, is the content of true self-love which, through the golden rule (a rule of reason and as such a rule of the structural principle of justice based on acknowledgment of others as equal to me), leads to the command "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."
This kind of self-experience reflects the original ontological or anthropological integration of different natural parts of the human suppositum. On the basis of a metaphysic of the suppositum, such an experience is open for a deeper explanation. So it becomes obvious that each natural inclination by its very nature possesses, in the context of the person as a whole and precisely as an inclination belonging to a human person, a meaningfulness which from the beginning transcends the mere "genus naturae." This transcendence is destroyed or at least obscured by an abstract view which detaches these inclinations from their original context as inclinations of a human person. In a moral objectivation, the "natural meaning" of each natural inclination is precisely a personal meaning which must not be identified with its " genus naturae."
The proper work of natural reason--the acts of which are always acts of a person--consists in grasping the transcendence of particular goods, exactly on the basis of the fact that they are integrated into the whole of the human suppositum: as intelligible goods. As such an experienced intelligible whole of goods they form the "Self." In its natural act, which corresponds to a natural inclination to virtue, i.e., to a life guided by reason, reason comprehends these particular goods as human goods and, therefore, as fundamental practical goods of the person. These goods constitute our identity, the consciousness of who we are (I and
be "operationally" integrated into the whole of the person. It is not true, however, as an anthropological thesis which reduces "moral meaning" to what proceeds from the spiritual part of the soul or even as a thesis which reduces "human person" to "spirit." Cf. also Martin Rhonheimer, " Contraception, Sexual Behavior, and Natural Law," The Linacre Quarterly 56:2 (1989) 20-
57. Also published in "Humanae Vitae ": 20 anni dopo. Atti del II Congresso Internazionale di Teologia Morale, Roma 9-12 novembre 1988 (Milano:
Edizioni Ares, 1989), pp. 73-113.
16 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
the others) and fundamentally shape the will in respect of "the good for man."
5. The fallacious distinction between "right making
properties" and "good making properties" of an action
Moral philosophers who defend--however divergent be their approaches--a consequentialist position (a "teleological ethic") usually are much concerned with emphasizing a fundamental difference between the "moral rightness" (or the " right-making-properties ") and the "moral goodness" (the "good-makingproperties ") of an action.17 The first, they say, concerns the question about the properties which render an action "right" or
wrong '' ; the second is related to those properties of an action insofar as it springs from a free will. By way of balancing goods and bads, only the question about the "rightness of types of actions " is meant to be resolved. And this, it is asserted, is the question which properly belongs to so-called "normative ethics." The question, however, about what makes the will of the acting subject a "good" will does not, according to their view, depend on whether an action is " right" or "wrong" but rather, e.g., on whether one acts out of benevolence toward other persons, out of love of justice, with a will to fairness or to respecting the other's conscience, with a " Christian intentionality," etc.
Of course in a sense this is rather obvious. It is true in the sense that an involuntary, and thus not imputable, error about what one has to do--in this sense a wrong action--may not hinder the will of somebody who acts in this way from being a good will, even as it does the wrong thing, e.g., a will which, in fact, intends justice even if it does not do the just thing. The corresponding action, then, would be at the same time "morally
17 The distinction between the "goodness" and the "rightness" of an action was introduced by W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930) . The terms "right-making" and "good-making characteristics" (" wrong-making" and "bad-making characteristics ") of an action was first used in 1946 by C. D. Broad, in his famous, above quoted, essay "Some of the Main Problems of Ethics."
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 17
good" and "wrong." The widespread acceptance of this distinction seems to be caused, to a large extent, by the possibility of this state of affairs. It is, however, a case in which the agent in reality does not choose and thus willingly perform the action which he thinks he is choosing and performing. It is, therefore, an exceptional case which, for analytical purposes, must be set aside until after having determined what basically causes the goodness and the rightness of actions; precisely, because of this, it cannot serve as a paradigm. To be able to justify a distinction between "right" and "good" we must start from the normal condition in which actions are chosen and performed, that is, from the condition that the agent chooses and thus willingly performs exactly the action which he believes he is choosing and performing.
Now, the predicates " right" and "wrong" are morally qualifying only insofar as we consider them as predicates for human acts. Certainly, a physician may perform an operation
rightly" (correctly, well, efficiently, competently, etc.) ; despite this, his way of acting may be qualified as "wrong" (e.g., if it is--in the first sense--a " well done " abortion). The first type of qualification concerns the technical aspect of the physician's acting, the second concerns the moral rightness of the choice of this action. In both cases we may, instead of " right " or
wrong," also call the action, respectively, " good " or " evil." The designation derives from the perspective in which we consider the action: Either we consider it from the technical perspective (the aspect of surgical techniques) or we consider it from a moral perspective (the aspect of its being the voluntary and deliberate action of a human person; this is the properly moral perspective). The second perspective includes the first (one cannot act in a morally right way without caring about one's technical competence). The distinction, however, between
morally right " and '' morally good " seems to be off the point here. The only relevant distinction is the distinction between "non-morally (e.g., technically) right/wrong" and "morally right/wrong"; the second, however, is equal to (morally) "good" and (morally) "evil."
18 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
The position I am criticizing overlooks the fundamental difference between praxis and poiesis. taking its orientation from a
poietical" model of action.'8 It is indeed characteristic of technical actions that its (technical) " rightness " is distinguished from the goodness of the will of the person who performs a technical act. Aristotle, however, taught us that the goodness of a praxis (which is eupraxia) and the goodness of a moral agent (and this means his wilful striving: orexis) is a specific kind of "rightness " (orthotês) : the rightness of prohairesis, of the choice of an action. Indeed, we can say that there exist fundamental structures of the " rightness " of desire which reveal themselves precisely through the " lex naturalis." These structures determine--despite the legitimacy of a limited and well defined balancing of goods--that certain actions are always wrong, precisely because the desire or will involved in these kind of actions cannot be " right." Yet a will which is not " right " is an evil will. In this sense it is " wrong "to choose to kill a human person (that is: to set one's will against another man's life), whatever be the further intention or end for the sake of which this is chosen. To affirm that such a choice is " not right " (or
wrong") means precisely to affirm that this is a disorientated choice of the will, that this is a type of action which as such (" in itself ") is evil. "As such " or " in itself" here signifies:
independently from further intentions or foreseen consequences.'9 Such an action springing from a corresponding choice is evil, because it shapes the will, rendering it an evil will, a will directed against "the good for man" (here from the perspective of jus18 See for this also Rüdiger Bubner, Handlung, Sprache und Vernunft, 2nd
ed. (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1982), pp. 74-90.
19 Of course it may be considered as "good" (desirable) that P finally dies (and we may even pray for it) in this sense we also say: "It was precisely the 'right' thing for him (and probably also for his relatives) that he finally died." With this, however, we do not qualify an action or the choice of an action, but a state of affairs and its desirability. The goodness, rightness or desirability of such a state of affairs, however, cannot serve as a criterion for qualifying a possible action of mercy-killing. Because in such an action a will set against P's life is involved, with the further intention of bringing about a desirable state of affairs.
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 19
tice) . This precisely is what we designate "not right" or wrong" in a moral sense.20
Hence, the distinction between " right-making-properties" and "good-making-properties" is in principle questionable. We always have to describe actions and behaviors as objects of choices and, therefore, as intentional actions. From such a perspective, however, the goodness of the will is regarded as depending on the goodness of freely chosen, wanted actions which also includes the agent's willingly referring to the specific goal which constitutes the objective intentionality of this action (I will come back to this below) . That is why acts of choice are always describable as forms of rightness, that is, of the rightness of desire or of the will. This enables us to indicate specific kinds of actions which are never to be chosen because they are not consistent with a good will, e.g., the choice of killing a person, whatever be the further intention. On the other hand, it is indeed possible to choose what
20 This affirmation, as is obvious, presupposes that killing as the execution of capital punishment (pronounced by the competent judicial authority) and taking into account the fact that the punished is really guilty according to the standards of penal law, cannot be described as a choice of the death of a person. Intentionally this action is (as any type of punishment is) "restoration of the order of justice," violated by the criminal and in danger of being disrupted without imposition of punishment. However it is precisely not the choice of the death of a person as resulting from weighing the good of a person's life against other goods which by this person's death would be brought about (whether capital punishment can be considered as an adequate, pro portionate, and in this sense just kind of punishment at all is another question which still may be answered negatively; but in an objective-intentional sense it is "punishment" and therefore an act intentionally and objectively belonging to the virtue of justice, and not the choice that a person not be, whether as a means or as an end). Cf. the excellent treatment of this question in John Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics, 127 if.; and my own remarks in Natur als Grundlage der Moral, 371-374 and in La prospettiva della morale V, 3, d. Secondly, the above affirmation also implies the concept of non-intentional side-effects, e.g., in the case of self-defense which (physically) causes the aggressor's death. This means quite precisely that the aggressor's death was not chosen for the sake of defending one's life; cf. ST II-II, q.64, a.7: "illicitum est quod homo intendat occidere hominem ut seipsum defendat." Here, "intendere" means the elective will referring to the concrete action (" occidere hominem"), while the defense of one's life is the further intention with which the concrete action is chosen.
20 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
is morally right with an evil intention; or to choose to do the morally wrong thing with a good will. Moral philosophers and theologians have always known this in the past, and it has traditionally been considered in ethics.2'
Certainly many decisions, probably even the great majority of them, are legitimately worked out on the basis of weighing goods and consequences. This is particularly true for decisions taken in a wider social context (e.g. social, economical, scientific and research policy). But corresponding possibilities of action are, on the grounds of moral reasons, restricted. They are restricted by the condition that they be consistent with the fundamental " rightness of the will " on the level of concrete choices of actions. Here we encounter the kind of responsibilities which we are accustomed to expressing in so-called absolute prohibitions. On this level, the
right " and the " good " (or: the " wrong" and the " evil ") basically are identical. Here, balancing goods and calculating possible consequences is excluded.22
It is one of the most important assertions of classical virtue ethics that there exist conditions for the fundamental rightness of actions which depend on basic structures of the " rightness of desire" and that it is therefore possible to describe particular types of actions, the choice of which always involves wrong desire. However, an ethic which understands itself--on the level of "normative ethics "--as providing a rational discourse for the purpose of justifying moral norms (or rules) will never be able to acknowledge this . " Norm-ethics" are " objectivistic" in the sense that they may not, on the level of the concrete performance of actions, include in their reflection the acting subject and his willingly "taking a position" with regard to "good" and
21 Compare Peter Geach, "Good and Evil," Analysis 17 (1956) : 33-42; republished in Theories of Ethics, ed. Philippa Foot (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 64-73; see especially p. 72.
22 This is why VS 77 rejects in a very specific and restricted way the method of balancing goods and evils: "The weighing of the goods and evils foreseeable as the consequence of an action is not an adequate method for determining whether the choice of that concrete kind of behaviour is 'according to its species,' or 'in itself,' morally good or bad, licit or illicit."
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 21
"evil" in choosing this or that particular action. Similarly they cannot pose the question about the "rightness of desire," or about the "truth of subjectivity," on the level of concrete choices of particular actions (independently from taking into account further intentions regarding the state of affairs or the weighing of consequences which foreseeably will be brought about by these actions or by refraining from them).
I concede it to be true, as has been argued,23 that the traditional doctrine about the "fontes moralitatis" as such does not resolve problems of normative ethics; it rather presupposes these problems to be already resolved. For with respect to this approach, everything depends each time on what one considers to be the
object " of an action. Consequentialists will assert that to determine the object of a concrete action, one has to take into account its foreseeably resulting consequences for all concerned. In this sense, consequentialism does not deny the doctrine about the "fontes moralitatis," it merely puts forward a specific solution about how to work out what the "object" of a particular action
is.
Nevertheless this classical doctrine about "sources of morality" contains an undeniable assertion which, however, is implicitly denied by consequentialism. It is the assertion that, with regard to human action, it is possible each time to distinguish between (1) an "object" by which this action (and the agent's will) is already morally specified as " good," "evil," or " indifferent" independently from further intentions and (2) these further intentions. So the classical viewpoint holds that there are actions which are evil despite the best of intentions or despite the foreseen and intended outcomes precisely because the choice of this particular kind of action through which these laudable intentions are meant to be fulfilled must already be considered as morally evil. It will, however, never be possible to render intelligible this moral methodology on the grounds of an ethic which from the
23 Cf. Bruno Schüller, "Die Quellen der Moralität. Zur systematischen Ortung eines alten Lehrstückes der Moraltheologie," Theologie und Philosophie
59 (1984) :535-59.
22 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
beginning is concerned with justifying "moral norms." This is so because in such an approach the distinction between "object"
and further intentions necessarily drops out of view. The only thing which a norm ethic can produce in the way of an action theory are the particular ''occurrences (" actions "), on the one hand, and the consequences, brought about by them, on the other. If an agent intends the best consequences, then it is these which come to be designated the " object " of his "act."
But this does not correspond to our ordinary experience as acting subjects and to the way we arrive at moral decisions; it rather has about it the air of casuistry. From the viewpoint of the acting subject we always encounter at least two intentionalities to be distinguished. If I break the promise of repaying somebody a determinate amount of money, causing by this his economic ruin because I, simultaneously, intend to prevent by this action the ruin of many others, I have chosen to break the promise given to my creditor for the sake of realizing an intention which is very laudable in itself. But here the object of choice (" breaking the promise") is not less intentionally " taking a position " than the further intention (" benefitting others "). The same applies to killing or lying with good further intentions.
Moral virtue is not only, as it is sometimes asserted, the will or the free determination to do "the right thing" each time. Were it like this, there would exist only one single moral virtue. Instead moral virtue is the habitual rightness of appetite (of sensual affections, passions, and of the will, the rational appetite) related to the various spheres of human praxis. An act which is according to virtue is an act which is suited to cause this habitual rightness of appetite which produces "the good person." To keep one's promise is indeed such an act according to moral virtue.
Certainly, we can describe the action "to promise" from the very beginning in an "eventistic" way, say, as a kind of uttering words (a "speech act") by which A causes in B the mental state of being certain that A will do x. One may for various reasons consider it very beneficial that in a society there exists a practice of this sort. So one will formulate a rule (or norm) ac
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 23
cording to which one is bound to abstain from any performance which could deprive others from being certain that, whenever A performs the speech act of "promising x," x will be brought about by A. The norm "never break promises" means precisely "always abstain from weakening the practice of promise-keeping." Even if one holds that the rightness of an action has to be determined exclusively on the basis of its foreseeable consequences, one must equally consider that the weakening of the practice of " promise-keeping " will be one of the consequences-probably the most weighty one--to be included in the balance. So, on the basis of such a rule-utilitarianism, one should insist that one is always obliged to keep promises. Or more precisely:
one will not insist that promises have to be kept but rather that the rule or norm "keep your promises" has to be observed. This is an important difference (which will become clear immediately). The rule does not express the intrinsic morality of a type of action but rather constitutes the reasonableness of a certain behavior on the grounds of the utility of the rule under which this behavior is subsumed and which is to be maintained by this behavior (for the benefit of society, of course) . It is obvious that there remains the possibility of conflict with other such rules (" conflicts of obligations ") ; consequently the rule cannot be valid "absolutely." As a result we have to work out which rule has to be followed in such a case: Either on the basis of a "hyperrule," or by arguing in an act-utilitarian way. Utilititarian ethics thus tends to become a complicated attempt to resolve the problems of "normutilitarianism." Actually it becomes much more concerned with resolving the problems of utilitarian ethical theory than with resolving ethical problems.
It is quite clear that in all these cases an agent may very well do the " right" thing with an evil will, and sometimes the "wrong" thing with a good will (calculating or subsuming incorrectly or applying the wrong rule, though intending the overall benefit of society or of all concerned). Here, the discourse concerned with grounding norms and resolving cases of conflict of rules and obligations must be sharply distinguished from another discourse, the one concerned with the conditions of good-
24 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
ness and wickedness of appetite and will. This distinguishing does not, however, reflect the requirements and the structure of moral action but merely the requirements which arise from the particular characteristics of a " norm-ethic." As said before, with such arguments one does not resolve ethical problems, but at most, if at all, the intrinsic problems of a particular ethical theory.
In reality, as acting subjects, we neither observe nor follow norms or rules, nor do we work out our decisions each time exclusively on the basis of foreseeable consequences for all those affected by our actions. Instead, human action realizes itself in the context of definite "moral relationships," the relationships between concrete persons (fellow-men, friends, married persons, parents and children, superiors and subordinates, employer and employee, creditor and debitor, physician and patient, partners in a contract, persons who live in a particular community, etc.).24 Here, it is always concerned with what we owe to others, with the question of right and of good will toward particular fellow-men, with the question of responsibilities toward concrete persons.
Let us consider again the example of promise-keeping. Above we have defined "to promise " (" eventistically ") as an utterance by which A causes in B the mental state of being certain that A will do x. However, the bringing about of B's mental state of being convinced that A will do x is not necessarily a promise; it could also be a menace, an announcement or a reassurance (what is really meant by a speech act like "You can be sure that tomorrow morning I'll come and see you" ?). The above eventistic description of promising contains everything except the
24 This category of "moral relationship" and its importance for explaining responsibility in moral decision-making was very well emphasized by Robert Spaemann, "Wer hat wofür Verantwortung? Zum Streit um deontologische oder teleologische Ethik," Herder Korrespondenz 36 (1982) : 345-50 & 403-8. The subsequent criticisms by A. Elsässer, F. Purger and P. Müller-Goldkuhle (ibid. 509 if.; 603 if.; 606 if.) unfortunately do not enter into the fundamental question posed by Spaemann; Spaemann himself remarks upon this in his concluding reply (Herder Korrespondenz 37 [1983] : 79-84) .
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 25
element which confers on this speech-act the quality of being a promise. This it will be only if A wants to confer on B a right or a claim on A's doing x. So B's certitude that A will do x is grounded in a relation of justice caused precisely by the promissory act. Exactly this relation between A and B (that is: B's having a claim or a right on A's doing-x, and B's owing to A to do x)--a relation brought about by the speech-act "I promise you "--shows that a norm " keep your promises " is nothing else than a more particular or specific version of the principle of justice to render each one what one owes him. The promissory act indeed creates a relationship between persons in which this general rationale of justice now is valid.
It may happen that a situation changes in such a way that the doing of x (for whatever reason) subsequently turns out to be an unjust action; or even that doing x was unjust from the very beginning, that is, that A had promised B to do something unjust. Is it possible that B has a claim (a right) on A's committing an unjust act? Certainly not. The promise becomes in reality vain (or reveals itself as vain or immoral from the beginning) . So the promise, in reality, is not "broken"; by not keeping it no injustice is committed; rather the very promissory act was unjust, and it now would be according to justice that A in a way indemnifies B, who has been deceived. In order to be able to judge whether a promise keeps binding the person who made it, the consequences of doing x must be considered (an action without any consequence is not an action at all). But these will always be the consequences in the sphere of the question whether B continues licitly to claim A's keeping the promise, that is: A's doing x. The question can never arise whether such an existing claim may be overridden in favor of other more important or more numerous goods benefitting Q, R, S, . . ., T (even if there may be cases in which the benefits for Q, R, S, . . ., T precisely will determine whether B continues to have a claim on A's doing
x). In any case, the relation between A and B established by making the promise, and the consequences relating to Q, R, S, . . ., T, are two different things; one cannot say that we are, on principle, responsible for all the foreseen consequences of our
26 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
actions or omissions. B's being deceived by a promise which may possibly not be kept certainly cannot be regarded as simply one among many consequences of not keeping the promise. So it may be possible that not-keeping a promise is unjust with regard to B even if the state of affairs resulting from not-keeping it were, as such, more desirable than the one brought about by keeping the promise. In this case, not keeping it would be morally wrong because the choice of an unjust action involves the wrongness of the will.
Anyhow, this view remains far too abstract. In reality things are resolved in other ways. In reality an agent who intends justice will try, for example, to achieve a delay in repaying the debt. Or he will find (or at least try to find) a way to prevent by other means the ruin of Q, R, S, . . ., T. His refusal to commit an injustice against his creditor by breaking the promise will lead him to discover new lines of action, alternatives, and formerly unseen opportunities. To describe this we would need to tell a story. Virtuous actions are, in this sense, rendered intelligible only in a narrative context.25 But the right thing to do will always be the action which is consistent with the rightness of appetite, with the rightness of our will's relation to concrete persons with whom we live together in defined relationships.
Many details should be added, and there is still much to be specified. But the fundamental difference between virtue- and norm-ethics consists in the fact that for the former the morally right is always determined, as well as rightness of appetite, with regard to the "good-for-man" on the level of concrete actions and in relation to particular persons, persons with whom the agent encounters himself living in morally qualified relationships (be they naturally given or be they relationships established by free acts, such as promises, contracts, etc. ) . That is why a virtue ethic can speak about actions which are "intrinsically," "always and per se," "on account of their very object" evil (cf. VS 80). A norm-ethic of utilitarian character, however, that in the last
25 This is one of the very valuable insights of Alasdair McIntyre's After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1984).
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 27
analysis is an argumentatively proceeding norm-ethic, cannot do justice to such qualified relationships. Consequently, it is compelled to detach the category of the " rightness of actions " from the category of the " goodness of the will." That is why it simply will not understand that the intentional relation of the will to "justice," i.e., the "just will," is at stake in every concrete choice
26
of a particular action.
6. The intentional structure of practical objects as
"forms conceived by reason"
So called "teleological ethics" owes a large amount of its plausibility--as far as Catholic moral theology is concerned--not least to the fact that it was directed against a naturalistic (or "physicalist") misunderstanding of the "moralitas ab obiecto."27 Yet, despite this justified aim, adherents to these "teleological" approaches do not seem to have recognized the real source of this misunderstanding, which consists in overlooking the fact that practical reason is embedded in the intentional process of human acting, being a part of it. That is why, I think, these new approaches remained themselves addicted to a surprising, even extreme, naturalism. Particular actions implicitly are considered by them as analogous to "events" and their outcomes as state of affairs. They implicitly presuppose, on the level of particular actions, a causal-eventistic concept of action (action as causing a state of affairs). I said "implicitly," because adherents of "teleological ethics" do not explicitly defend such a corre26 This, it seems to me, explains why virtue ethics do not require a "personalistic complement." Recent personalism often seems to be an attempt to overcome the one-sided views of modern rule-ethics. Ethics based on the concept of moral virtue are intrinsically " personalistic," but are also probably more open to rational discourse than many forms of actual personalism.
27 See, e.g., Franz Scholz, Wege, Umwege und Auswege der Moraltheologie.
Ein Plädoyer für begründete Ausnahmen (München: Bonifatius, 1976), 16f.;
Joseph Fuchs, "' Intrinsece malum'. Überlegungen zu einem umstrittenen
Begriff," in Sittliche Normen. Zum Problem ihrer allgemeinen und unwandel-- baren Geltung, ed. Walter Kerber (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1982), 76f.; Peter
Knauer, S.J., "The Hermeneutic Function of the Principle of Double Effect," in
Readings in Moral Theology No. 1, pp. 1-39.
28 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
sponding action theory (they actually deal very little with questions of action theory) .28 That is why they are compelled to reclaim the aspect of intentionality--the aspect of willingly taking a position with regard to "good" and "evil "--on the level of fundamental options and attitudes, on the level of Gesinnung. So, consequentialists fail to see that, independently from further intentions required to optimize consequences or goods on the level of caused states of affairs, an action may already be qualifiable as morally evil. And this means: That a particular type of action, describable in behavioral terms, may be qualified as causing an evil will simply because it is evil to want (and, therefore, to choose) certain actions as practical objects ('= as the "good to be done"). The problem is bypassed, even veiled, by describing chosen actions from the observer's viewpoint, thus leaving out of consideration precisely the act of choice. Probably the most famous example of such an argumentative reductionism is Caiaphas's advice to the Sanhedrin: "It is better for you that a single man dies for the people, than that the whole people perishes." As a judgment about a simple event or a state of affairs and its desirability this obviously is quite true. But it is well known that Jesus did not simply die but was killed.
Precisely because objects of our actions are intentional objects, that is, objects of acts of the will, they can only be "shaped" by reason; for the will is the appetite which follows the judgment of reason. As Aquinas emphasizes: "Species moralium actuum constituuntur ex formis, prout sunt a ratione conceptae." 29 This "form conceived by reason" is nothing other than the object of an action in its "genus moris."
This again is closely connected with the fact that every human action is an intentional action. And this is why it is something
28 A more recent attempt to do so by referring to Kant is not very satisfying, and it remains unclear to what extent the author may be called a representative of "teleological ethics." Cf. Gerhard Höver, Sittlich handeln im Medium der Zeit. Ansätze zur handlungstheoretischen Neuorientierung der Moraltheologie (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1988). However, this book contains some valuable criticisms of positions defended by adherents of "teleological ethics."
29 ST I-II, q.18, a.l0.
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 29
that does not simply "happen," but something willingly pursued and as such formed or shaped by reason. A concrete practical matter (" materia circa quam ")--the same applies to the "matter" of natural inclinations--is as such, considered in its pure "materiality," always less than the content or object of an action with respect to the natural inclination of a human person. If in greeting somebody or giving a starting signal, I raise my arm, then " raising my arm" (the matter of action) is as such something which can neither be chosen or performed. The real content of an act of choice and of the describable behavior is exclusively the intentional, i.e., human, action "greeting somebody" or "giving a starting signal." In this, however, the practical reason which judges the action as a practical good (something good to do here and now) is already involved. To know what a person is doing by raising his arm, one must know why (in the sense of " what for") he raises his arm. The " why" here is the formal aspect, the "forma ratio nis" which only renders understandable the event of the raising of an arm as a human action. This "why" (or "what for") confers on the action its intentional identity which is able to inform and shape the agent's will.30
In his "Philosophical Investigations," Ludwig Wittgenstein asks "what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm ?" 31 We might answer:
What is left over is precisely the purpose or intention to greet
30 Cf. for this G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention. Professor Anscombe conceives, in the course of her analysis, the question " Why ? " in a larger sense (any sort of motives, or also unvoluntary causes of actions) it includes the "what for ?," without being reduced to it. But insofar as we are concerned with properly human, voluntary actions, the "why ?" precisely is the "what for? ". It properly concerns "intentions."
31 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, No. 621, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe, R. Rhees (Oxford: Basil Black-well, 1958), 161e. Wittgenstein thinks that nothing is left over ("Are the kinaesthetic sensations my willing ? ") . Wittgenstein refuses (see the next number) to differentiate conceptually, besides the physical fact, an act of willing. Anyhow, Wittgenstein here clearly mixes up the observer's viewpoint ("the fact that my arm goes up ") and the acting person's perspective (" I raise my arm"). Nobody ever can really observe "I raise my arm"; only
30 MARTIN RHONHEIMER
somebody or to give a starting signal. That means that what remains is "to want to raise the arm under the aspect of a specific description" which is a description of the intentionality involved in the performance. To choose an action " under a description" again involves practical reason which judges "greeting somebody" or "giving a starting signal" as something which is "good" to do here and now. One might object: But you could just simply raise your arm. Well, I would answer, just try to do it! It is true that it might just " happen " (involuntarily, as a reflex, while sleeping); but this is not a human act. If, however, somebody wanted "simply" to raise his arm, he again would do more than simply " raise his arm." If we subtracted from his doing this action the fact that his arm goes up, we would have left over, e.g., "Wanting to show the author of this paper that he is wrong." What would be left over is a "why," the intentional content or the " form of this act of " raising one' s arm."
Therefore, "to greet somebody by raising one's arm" is properly the object of an action, which in itself possesses already an intentional structure. In precisely this structure, respectively the "whole" (the "matter" of the action + its "why" or "what for") is a "forma a ratione concepta." Things like " greeting" or affability or gratefulness or justice, that is, corresponding actions to these, do not "exist" in nature. There do not exist corresponding "natural forms." These acts are intentionalities formed by practical reason. That is why the objective content of human actions can be expressed each time only in an intentional description of the corresponding action. "What" we do is always a "why" we do something on purpose. It is a "material doing" (" materia circa quam") chosen under a description, while it is the "description " which actually contains the intentional content of the action. That is why it seems to me correct when Elizabeth Anscombe writes: "We must always remember
"the fact that my arm goes up" is observable. "I raise my arm" can properly be described only as a choice by a willing subject. Everybody has personal interior experience of such choices as something different from "kinaesthetic sensations."
THE MORAL VIEWPOINT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 31
that an object is not what what is aimed at is; the description under which it is aimed at is that under which it is called the object." 32
It is often overlooked (as, for example, by L. Janssens) that an object of the will necessarily is an action-matter "apprehensum et ordinatum a ratione." For this reason, it possesses by itself a moral specificity; it never can be wanted or chosen as a non-moral good or end.33 Equally one overlooks that the "end" (" finis") is not only an object of further intentions, but also that the particular choice of an action has its proper "end": the action as an object.
That is why, each time Aquinas speaks about "finis," an author like L. Janssens reads "finis operantis," overlooking thereby that the object of the exterior act of the will is in itself an end, but not this further end for the sake of which the action itself is chosen; instead it is the sort of end which Aquinas sometimes (very few times) calls the "finis opens." This "finis opens," however, is the basic intentional content of a concrete action (without which it would not be a human action at all), and therefore something like the "formal object" of an action." Such basic contents are not events like "the raising of an arm," but rather "greeting somebody" or "giving a starting signal." They are neither "things" nor "qualified things" as, for example, a res aliena; but actions "under a description" as "mis32 G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention, § 35, 66.
Here we may find probably the most decisive misjudgment of Janssens; for he assumed that the will is able to relate to "ontic" goods as ontic; so he asserts that it is possible to want "per se" an ontic evil on the level of its being only an ontic state of affairs, and that, as such, it can be the object of a choice which, then, would not be subject to moral qualification as a "good" or an "evil" choice. Only if the ontic evil is the end of the further intention with which a choice is performed, if it, therefore, were the proper reason of bringing such an evil about, could a corresponding will be called an evil will. Such an objectifying of ontic goods by the elective will, however, is simply impossible; it contradicts the very nature of the will which is "op petitus in ratione" or "intellectual appetite"; the will receives its object through reason. Janssens' argument is simply naturalistic.
Cf. e.g. In IV Sent., d.16, q.3, a.1, qla.2 ad 3.
35 About formal and material objects of actions cf. Anthony Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will, 5th ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan, 1976), pp. 187 if.
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apropriate a res aliena," that is " stealing." The arm itself is not able to greet or to give a starting signal; and an action in which a " res aliena" is involved is not necessarily a theft (it may also be the action of seizing something stolen carried out by the police) . Equally the so called "finis opens" is an agent's goal; but it is the goal he pursues independently of the further goals he may pursue by choosing this concrete action. It is the goal which specifies the performed action as a determinate type of intentional action, the one which Aquinas usually calls the "finis proxim us" of a human act, i.e., its object.
The " species" of an action is precisely the species "ab obiecto relato ad principium act uum h umanorum, quod est ratio." The "fin is operis" is nothing other than the object of choice (the choice of the action), which by itself is an act of the will informed by reason.
The so-called "absolute prohibitions." that is, normative propositions which indicate that certain, describable actions may never be licitly chosen and willingly performed, therefore relate to actions described intentionally. It is impossible to do this independently from the content of the acts of choice which relate to such actions. So, for example (although this is not the case with such prohibited actions), a "norm" cannot refer simply to "raising one's arm" but to "greeting somebody by raising one's arm or '' giving a starting signal by a movement of one's arm.'' Only to actions described in such a way can a moral norm reasonably relate. The norm " never kill" receives, in this way, a clear structure.37
7. Natural law: the fundamental rule for the
goodness of will
As Aquinas says in one of his most concise phrasings, "natural law is nothing other than the light of the intellect given us
36 ST I-II, q.18, a.6.
Equally does the norm of never lying; see my Natur als Grundlage der Moral, 346 ff.; 367 ff. About both, killing and lying, see also La prospettiva della morale, chapter V, section 3 d. About contraception, see my paper Contraception, Sexual Behavior, and Natural Law.
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by God by which we recognize what is to be done and what is to be avoided, a light and law which God has bestowed to man in creation." 38 Natural law is not simply an object of human reason, but, like all kinds of law, it consists precisely in judgments of practical reason itself, it is a specific set of "pro positiones universales rationis practicae ordinatae ad actiones," a set of "universal propositions of practical reason directed to actions." 39
As I have shown elsewhere, there exists a parallelism between the constitution of objects of actions as moral objects on the one hand, and the constitution of the precepts of natural law on the other.40 Both objects of human actions and precepts of natural law refer to an "appetibile apprehensum et ordinatum per rationem." Both the praeceptum of the natural law and the object of a concrete action (which is the object of choice, in itself " prescriptive ") are " aliquid a ratione constitu tum "41 and spring from an " ordinatio rationis." 42 By natural law, this objective-- that is, rationally ordered--meaning of natural inclinations is expressed in universali. And, therefore, natural law is properly the law by which particular judgments of practical reason are rectified.43 So in two senses natural law is a "law of reason" : it is a law constituted by reason (on the universal level), and a law referred to and regulating reason (on the level of particular judgments) .
38 Thomas Aquinas, In Duo Praecepta Caritatis et in Decem Praecepta, Prologus: "lex naturae . . . nihil aliud est nisi lumen intellectus insitum nobis a Deo, per quod cognoscimus quid agendum et quid vitandum. Hoc lumen et hanc legem dedit Deus homini in creatione." And further on: ". . . lumen scilicet intellectus, per quod nota sunt nobis agenda."
ST I-II, q.90, a.l ad 2.
40 See Natur als Grundlage der Moral, mainly part II.
41 ST I-II, q.94, a.1.
42 ST I-II, q.90, a.4.
43 " Lex naturalis est secundum quam ratio recta est" (In II Sent., d.42, q.2, a.5) . This would be the appropriate place to speak about the constitution of "prudentia" (practical wisdom or "prudence ") by the "fines virtutum," and about the twofold (intentional and elective) aspect of moral virtue; finally one must say something about the relation between "synderesis" and prudence. See for this ST II-II, q.47, a.6.
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In this way the precepts of the natural law are recognizable as properly practical principles of the practical intellect determining concrete actions. This intellect possesses its perfection in prudence (practical wisdom) . The questions dealt with here were not questions of "normative ethics"; I did not claim to ground specific moral norms. It concerned a question which first had to be clarified before one could even speak about the grounding of moral norms and normative ethics. I wanted to clarify how, from a properly moral perspective, we have to speak about moral norms and "normative ethics" and what " moral norms" even refer to. Briefly we now can say: " Moral norms " are, in ethics and in the moral life, a quite specific way of speaking about intentional human actions and their practical principles. More precisely, norms are normative propositions (propositions in the mode of '' ought," '' may," '' must not,'' etc.) about intentional actions based on practical principles."
Theories like "teleological ethics" (consequentialism and proportionalism) sometimes present themselves as natural-law theories. They on principle rightly do so, because every natural law theory consists of a theory about practical reason and the structure of moral judgment performed by human reason. And teleological ethical theories, defending the cognitive " moral autonomy" of man, in fact are theories about what is meant by "to act according to reason ".45 However, we may now be able to give a critical evaluation of these theories. First, they do not properly have a conception about principles of practical reason. This can also be regarded as a consequence of their lack of action-analysis. " Teleological ethics " essentially and exclusively is a decision-making theory: it tries to explain how we work out
44 About the relation of so-called "moral absolutes" to intentional actions, see also the excellent Marquette Lecture by William E. May, Moral Absolutes. Catholic Tradition, Current Trends, and the Truth, The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology 1989 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989), especially pp. 40 ff.
45 See Bruno Schüller, "Eine autonome Moral, was ist das ?," Theologische Revue 78 (1982), 103-106. See for this my above quoted article "Zur Begründung sittlicher Normen aus der Natur," especially pp. 67 ff.
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decisions about what to do here and now. If adherents of this theory speak of principles, they do so only to establish some more general rules for the orientation of decision making. These rules or principles, however, do not have, according to this theory, a proper origin, that is, an origin different from the very logic of a particular decision making process. So consequentialism and proportionalism do not really provide a natural-law theory. They provide a theory about reasonable action which basically fails to acknowledge what is most essential for natural law: The existence of real practical principles which are not derived from determinate forms of decision-making procedures, but are the real moral measure for the decision-making process.
Secondly, by measuring the moral "rightness" of single types of action exclusively on the basis of their foreseeable consequences related to non-moral goods and bads, this theory presupposes a concept of action which simply leaves out of consideration a basic aspect of human actions: The fact that the acting subject, that is, its will, takes a position with regard to good and evil already by choosing concrete actions which bring about such consequences. This taking a position relates to the agent's own person and to other persons (including God). So it seems that the theory does not acknowledge what actually follows from a more adequate analysis of human action: That in the will of the agent the properly moral qualities of "good" and "evil" may also appear independently from the whole of foreseeable consequences. Adherents of so-called " teleological ethics " consequently omit in principle an intentional description of those particular types of action which afterwards they qualify, on the basis of their decision-making procedure, as "right" or "wrong." To defend their theory, they are compelled to describe these actions as mere
events." Then at the same time they indicate the difficulties and aporias which logically derive from such a non-intentional concept of action, difficulties and aporias regarding the concept and the respective determination of the "object" of an action, so that, finally, they are able to offer their theory as the only reasonable solution for these problems, problems, however, created by their
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very approach rather than by the subject matter of ethics itself.46 The solution offered by adherents to "teleological ethics" maintains that "action-events" brought about by acting subjects may be qualified as "right" or "wrong" according to whether they bring about the best overall consequences for all the concerned, an optimum of goods or a minimum of bads.
I have argued, however, that even if the non-moral consequences of an action are optimal and mostly desirable, the action by which they have been brought about may nevertheless be an evil action. I would insist that everybody knows that this is possible. Whoever brings about "the best of all worlds" (the world with an optimum of non-moral goods or a minimum of non-moral bads) can, at the same time, be a murderer or a villain, and this not simply because he acted, say, to assure his own glory and, therefore, with a fundamentally evil intentionality, but precisely because we would judge as wicked the actions he performed. This obviously shows already that such a world would not be the best of all. The problem with consequentialist ethics is not that it does not share this conviction or that its adherents are inclined to plead for amorality, but that consequentialism is not able to explain what all of us know. The " secret" of consequentialism does not consist in denying this truth, just as it does not deny the truth of the proposition that a good intention cannot "sanctify " evil means. Instead the " secret" of these methodologies consists in making the acting subject disappear which, in its concrete choices of particular actions, takes a position with his will with regard to " good" and " evil." As a result, the verdict about the good intentions which cannot " sanctify" evil means is simply rendered irrelevant and pointless. For if the "means" (that is: the concrete actions we choose and willingly perform)
46 This approach, however, is not so different from traditional approaches that can be found in some classical manuals of moral theology. Some of them used to look at actions as physical processes or events, relating them afterwards to the "norma moralitatis," an extrinsic rule determining whether it is licit or illicit to perform such and such an "action." What most classical manuals failed to do was precisely to render intelligible what a human action is and that its moral identity is included in it because it is included in the intentional structure of an action.
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only can be "right" or "wrong," and this depending on their foreseeably resulting consequences in the field of non-moral goods and bads, then by definition there cannot exist such a thing as an "evil means." Instead there can be, at most, "wrong means," that is, means chosen on the basis of an error about which means would be the right one in order to achieve a determinate goal. To justify the concept of "intrinsically evil action," an intentional concept of action is required, and a corresponding concept of the intentional basic contents of concrete types of actions. This "intentional basic content" of an action is what we usually call its "moral object."
We all understand a "good person" to be a person whose will is a good one, even if, to be good, such a will must often pay a high price: The price of accepting mostly undesirable consequences of its being a good will. But it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it.48 This proposition precisely means quite specifically that it is morally better to abstain from an action the performance of which would be unjust, even if, as a consequence of refraining from it, a much greater injustice committed by others would foreseeably result, an injustice that, however, I will suffer. If we set aside the acting subject, the injustice committed by me and the injustice suffered by me (and committed by another person) appear just as two different states of affairs. The point (long ago expressed by Democritus) is that one cannot and may not compare these two consequences, nor may one weigh the action to be avoided against the undesirable consequences of refraining from this action. And this simply for the reason that the action as such, considered in itself, is an unjust action. This is precisely what a consequentialist (" teleological ") ethic is unable to justify.
It can be seen that the natural law manifests itself as the totality of principles of practical reasonableness which not only moves us to act and to do the truly good but also compels us to refrain
For a full account of the concept of "intentional basic content" and "intentional basic action" see my La prospettiva della morale.
48 For the following I am indebted to A. W. Müller, "Radical Subjectivity:
Morality versus Utilitarianism," Ratio 19 (1977): 115-32.
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from committing injustice. Natural law is the proper "law " of a good will. It orients human persons, as striving subjects, to the "good-for-man," on the level of himself and of his fellow-men. It equally makes him refrain from evil, from "poisoning his soul." A life that maintains this orientation to the "food-forman" in each and every single act of choice may rightly be called a " successful " life. A person who lives such a life therefore deserves praise and we consider him or her as a person who is on the way to sharing in true happiness, of participating in what the Greek Philosophers called eudaimonia.
It will always remain difficult to disprove convincingly so called "teleological" ethical theories (consequentialism, proportionalism) as long as one tries to do so in the logic proper to norm or rule ethics. The Church's teaching about "law "--" eternal,"
natural," or " positive," " divine or " human," " old " and "new "--was, in the past centuries, profoundly and not very happily influenced by the logic of norm and rule ethics. For different reasons, moral theologians emphasized the " observers' viewpoint." Unlike the classical and medieval tradition of moral theory, the modern tradition was not interested in exposing a comprehensive conception of the good life as part of the intellectual enterprise involved in coming to an understanding of man and of the sense of his existence. From the 16th century onward, moral theology, intensively permeated with casuistry, was rather concerned with judgments about whether particular acts were compatible, or not, with a conception of the good life already established by revealed positive law and the corresponding moral norms.
This concern, however, falls short of the genuine way we arrive at a proper understanding of the real requisites of morality. For this, also in a Christian context, a virtue-centered moral theory is needed, be it on the level of philosophical ethics or on that of moral theology.49 So called "teleological ethics" have not yet
See an example of the latter in Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991).
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escaped from the logic of a legalistic approach; they only now try to "save" freedom from a supposed menace by law. By asserting in number 78 that "to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person," the encyclical Veritatis Splendor opens a new way directed to rediscovering the perspective proper to virtue ethics, which is the genuine perspective of morals.