Moral Theology

Many researchers believe that the proper identification of psychology variables depends on using accurate tools that function beyond cultural, political and social attachments for measuring the psychological features in human societies. In this regard, the present study has been conducted to examine the psychometric properties and factor structure of Black’s Moral Agency Scale (2016) in Iranian population. This scale has 15 items with three subscales of responsibility, external attribution and group pressure that has been validated with a desirable validity and reliability in American-European society. In the present study, to use this scale first the Persian version was prepared using back translation and then it was distributed among a sample of 381 male and female students of the University of Mazandaran, who were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling to participate in this study. In the next step, the construct validity of the scale was examined by exploratory factor analysis method. The results showed that after removing 2 items due to loading onto a factor other than the main factor, the scale has a three-factorial structure such as the original version. Then, to examine the confirmatory factor analysis, the model's fit was evaluated using Amos software, which confirmed the results of the structure obtained from the exploratory factor analysis. Moreover, for further evaluation of the validity of the scale, the correlations between the factors and the total score was examined through Pearson's correlation, and results indicated a good correlation between the subscales with the total score of the scale. To assess the reliability of the scale, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was adopted. The Cronbach's alpha for responsibility, group pressure, external attribution and total scale scores were 0.53, 0.57, 0.55, and 0.60, respectively. Finally, with due regard to the data obtained from this research, it can be said that the present scale has an acceptable reliability and validity and is suitable for use by Iranian researchers in future studies.

Die Vereinbarkeit von Suizidbeihilfe und ärztlichem Ethos stellt eine der dringlichsten Fragen der modernen Medizin dar. Die vorliegende Studie greift die aktuelle Diskussion dieser Frage mit Blick auf die schweizerische Situation auf. Aus der Einsicht, dass der gefühlte Verlust von persönlicher Autonomie den Suizidwunsch hervorruft, wirft die Studie die bioethische Folgefrage auf, ob alle Menschen Personen sind. Unter Bezug auf das Denken von Paul Ricœur erklärt die Studie, weshalb jeder Mensch, unabhängig von seinen realen Fähigkeiten, als autonome Person zu betrachten und als solche mit der Herausforderung konfrontiert ist, die eigene Einsamkeit zu überwinden. Die Suizidbeihilfe erweist sich jedoch gerade hier als problematisch, da sie die wechselseitige Anerkennung zerstört und die Einsamkeit des Einzelnen bestätigt. Die richtige, dem ärztlichen Ethos entsprechende Antwort auf die menschliche Not, die dem Suizidwunsch zugrunde liegt, ist hingegen die Palliative Care. Denn sie ermöglicht ein Sterben, das Selbstschätzung und Selbstachtung fördert und damit die Anerkennung des Menschen als autonome Person verwirklicht. Jeder Mensch sollte diese Anerkennung in seinem gesamten Leben erfahren. Sie zu realisieren, stellt eine gesellschaftliche Herausforderung dar, zu deren Bewältigung gerade auch der christliche Glaube beitragen kann, bildet er doch eine Ressource, Menschen zusammenzuführen und Anonymität zu überwinden.
http://bookview.libreka.de/preview/82458/9783796538407?session=f51d776ab704970b809f0c27cb5044836b080a50

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, most legacy airlines filed for bankruptcy protection as a way to cut costs drastically, with the exception of American Airlines. This article applies the Principle of Double-Effect to the act of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for reasons of management strategy, in particular, cost-cutting. It argues that the Principle can be a useful tool for discerning the ethicality of the action, and demonstrates the usefulness by proposing three double-effect criteria that, when fulfilled, argues for the ethical justifiability the action in question.

Article in Finnish in Lutheran Student Christian Movement in Finland's magazine Etsijä on Moral Theology, especially on the relation formal and material moral criteria to each other and on the role given to free will in different theological solutions. The nature of Lutheran Moral Theology is assessed and conclusion drawn on it are estimated.

Etsijä-lehdessä julkaistu artikkeli, joka käsittelee kysymystä moraalikriteereistä, erityisesti formaalisten ja materiaalisten kriteereiden suhteesta. Onko Jumala lahjoittanut ihmiselle luomisessa vapauden vai valmiin olemuksen, jota seurata? Lisäksi arvioidaan luterilaisen moraaliteologian luonnetta ja siitä tehtäviä johtopäätöksiä.

In the text entitled Zur Philosophie der industriellen Unternehmung / Uwagi fi lozofi czne o przedsiębiorstwie przemysłowym („Towards the Philosophy of Industrial Enterprise”), Józef I. M. Bocheński OP (†1995) attempts at discovering the function of the entrepreneur as a factor connecting capital and labor. The Dominican philosopher fails to notice, however, that there is no artificial division of consumer goods and capital goods. Th is is determined by the calculating mind of the acting man, whose point of reference is private property. It is a necessary element of economic calculation, without which there is no economic rationality. In his analysis, Bocheński does not take into account private property, and therefore he does not distinguish between the functions of a manager and an entrepreneur. The Dominican thinker’s attempt to define philosophically an enterprise is innovative, based on anthropological principles consistent with Christian personalism, but incomplete. Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of Economics advocate a subjectivist theory of value that explains the essence of economic exchange based on private property. The author of this article, as a theologian, also reaches for economic personalism and John Paul II who taught that without private property man is not able to understand his dignity fully.

“Only the thought-wave which emanates from the spiritual plane will save humanity from the devastating influence of dogma, which separates humans from humans, which creates hindrances in the remolding of human society into a single existence. This process of rationalization should be developed through the intrinsic human potential of remodeling every aspect of mind. We must do this in the near future. The problem is a peculiar one, but we must solve it, because it has created so many troubles, so many divisions in human society – so many sanguinary battles, so much warfare,” explains Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. “So we will have to solve this problem and create a new world in all the three emanations of life – physical, psychic and spiritual. I hope you boys and girls, by your collective effort, will do something concrete in this respect. You are not insignificant beings; you are the glorified expressions of the Supreme Lord. So you will have to do something concrete immediately. The problem brooks no delay.” This is the fourth of several discourses (the first is “Dogma and Human Intellect”, the second is “Dogma—No More” and the third is “The Liberation of Intellect”) for all intellectuals about dogma, mental expansion and the liberation of intellect.  P. R. Sarkar, (1921-1990), was a spiritual guru (also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) in the tradition of Shiva and Krishna, who founded Renaissance Universal to promote a new global renaissance, and who founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (“the Path of Bliss”).  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, May 7, 2021.

The meaning and the need for pure forgiveness in our world today becomes more complicated as well as meaningless to many people. Moreover, some other people strongly believed that authentic forgiveness is unattainable in this present world. We observe that reports coming from reputable media houses all over the world are replete of heinous acts of inhumanity against humanity like various forms of rape, war, terrorist attack, kidnapping, willful murder, modern day slavery or human trafficking, genocide, jungle justice, oppression, mismanagement and misappropriation of public funds. The reminiscence of these diabolic acts is so strong and painful for many victims like ulcerous wound that refuses to heal; some others may battle with the aftermath of such horrible events for the rest of their lives. The need for a victim to forgive an offender and who actually deserved forgiveness are enmeshed in a complex and ambiguous practices. Vladimir Jankelevitch gives a philosophical cum theological understanding of forgiveness that is far different from all forms of pseudo forgiveness. There is need to review his opinion on the features that characterized an authentic forgiveness and the kind of person that merits such forgiveness.

El trabajo caracteriza la "escuela católica de desarrollo" con los siguientes ochos rasgos identitarios: trascendente-vocacionado, humano, integral, solidario, caritativo-verdadero, igualador, endógeno y sostenible. Además se destacan los siguientes elementos diferenciales respecto a otras escuelas: en la dimensión política, el ejercicio del poder como servicio, la participación de la sociedad civil para lograr un bien común promovido por el Estado bajo el principio de subsidiariedad y la posibilidad de que una autoridad supranacional fuera el garante de los "bienes comunes globales" (LS 174) contenidos en la Agenda 2030 del Desarrollo Sostenible; en la dimensión económica, la lógica del don, el trabajo subjetivo, el emprendimiento y la obligación de ayudar a los países menos desarrollados; en la dimensión sociocultural, la opción preferencial por los pobres, las estructuras de pecado y el ejercicio de la caridad política; en la dimensión ecológica, la "ecología integral" y la "conversión ecológica", a la luz de la encíclica Laudato si'.

Conference draft of the article: "Intellectual Elitism and the Need for Faith in Maimonides and Aquinas," forthcoming: Anuario Filosófico, Vol. 48, no. 1, "Aquinas and the Abrahamic Traditions" (2015).

Copyright © 2013-15 Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo.
All rights reserved.

Abstract: In his Commentary on Boethius' De Trinitate 3.1, Aquinas cites Maimonides as giving five reasons for why faith is necessary for mankind.  Yet when one turns to The Guide for the Perplexed 1.34, one immediately sees that Maimonides is actually giving five reasons for why the study of metaphysics, which he considers to be the ultimate path to human perfection, must be restricted to the learned and must be hidden from the unlearned masses.  Interpreters tend to see Aquinas as therefore misappropriating Maimonides' thought, or in the words of one scholar, as "standing Maimonides on his head": his use of Maimonides is seen as a reversal (albeit a "benign reversal") of Maimonides' own thought.  In this paper, however, I place Maimonides' text on the five reasons for concealing metaphysics within the context of his rational mysticism and compare it to Aquinas' own Christian mystical thought in an attempt to show that in his own mind Aquinas is not misquoting, reversing, or doing violence to Maimonides' text; rather, Aquinas is completing Maimonides' natural, rational mysticism with what he understands to be the supernatural perfection of the theological virtue of faith.

The 1648 Peace of Westphalia typifies the “modern” starting point of state sovereignty and humanitarian intervention within conventional historical treatments of International Relations (IR) theory. The treaties ending the Thirty Years’ War signaled the dawn of an international society after medieval Latin Christendom with new diplomatic arrangements that assigned legitimate autonomy to specific European states independent of Roman imperial and papal authorities. The ideological archetypes of Westphalia for IR theory during the twentieth century were contemporaries Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) the realist and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) the rationalist. Each of them powerfully envisioned a modern form of international relations: Hobbes accented sovereign political independence and international anarchy between states whereas Grotius affirmed a worldwide association of states absent a global authority yet still regulated by norms of universal law to justify war and intervention. Hobbesian sovereignty and Grotian international law produce the dynamic tension and terms of modern international relations. Yet the turn to the global history of international law has challenged the conceptual parameters of the IR Westphalian narrative focused on intra-European relations between sovereign states. In particular, attention to the constitutive role of imperial expansion and colonial settlement outside Europe offers a richer scope for analyzing the development of “modern” international relations and its legal-political concepts such as the state of nature, the law of occupation, and the law of nations.

Apologies are morally significant with regard to their form, function, and freight. Nevertheless, little work in Christian ethics considers apologies. Philosophical and social scientific literature on apologies focuses on the conditions for making valid apologies and the efficacy of apologies in moral repair, but ignores the import of apologies for the offender. This literature is ill equipped to specify the relation between persons and their moral failures, minimizes the difficulty of understanding our own moral failure, does not adequately treat the relationship between explanation and apology, and neglects the way that apology-making may comprise a process of moral repair for the offender. Relevant resources in Christian moral tradition can inform and enrich ethical consideration of apologies.

"A maxim or rule of ethical conduct advocating reciprocal  relationship. Stated as “Do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12 NIV;cf. Luke 6:31). Its negative formulation (also known as the Silver Rule) was prominent in early Judaism as formulated by Hillel the Elder ( הלל ) (c. 32 BC–AD 7), “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).

Jesus states that both the Golden Rule and the two greatest commandments are a summary of the law and prophets. In echoing Matthew 5:17, Jesus is calling the disciples to a righteousness greater than the Pharisee adherence to the letter of the Law. In 22:34–40 Jesus is challenged to summarize the law in a single greatest commandment. The quest for such a summary was common among Jewish teachers. The summary Jesus provides is of the intent rather than the letter of the law (France, 282). Jesus’ Greatest Commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” is a restatement of Leviticus 19:18 and 34 (Matt 22:39, cf. Rom 13:8–10; Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8). The roughly contemporary rabbi Hillel the Elder, unlike his rival Shammai (50 BC–AD 30), also accepts the challenge to summarize the law. His formulation of the Golden Rule, however, is negatively focused. Other parallels are found throughout Jewish and pagan literature, but the focus is primarily negative. Jesus’ positive formulation is a stronger interpretation of the command to love one’s neighbor.

The description of this phrase as the “Golden Rule” is attributed to the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (AD 22235), who had it inscribed in gold on the wall of his chamber. Similar references to this ethical principle are found throughout other cultures and religions. Confucius (551–479 BC) famously said, “Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you" (Analects 15:23). It may be found in ancient Babylon, China, Egypt, Persia, Rome, Greece, and India. It may be seen in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Scientology, Wicca, and others. In philosophical traditions it has a presence in Existentialism, Humanism, Platonism, modern psychology, and countless others. In comparing different formulations of the Golden Rule, one should note that each articulation has its cultural nuances. Reciprocity does not equal the love of the Golden Rule and oversimplified comparison should be avoided. Some forms of reciprocity amount to a debtor’s ethic or unrestrained self interest, where one seeks to ensure good treatment by others.

Criticisms of the Golden Rule have arisen in response to its sweeping reciprocity. George Bernard Shaw states that one should not do as they would be done by because “their tastes may not be the same” (“Maxims for Revolutionists”; 1903). Often referred to as the “Platinum Rule” Karl Popper wrote "The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by" (The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, 1945). This critique, offered by many philosophers, highlights that different people want to be treated differently. Immanuel Kant critiqued it on the grounds that it does not sufficiently consider different situations. The rebuttal to these critiques is that the Golden Rule implies a consideration for how the other person wants to be treated. Marcus George Singer observed that the rule can be interpreted in one of two ways: One can take the rule as advocating one to do specific actions to others that one wants others to do to oneself, or one can govern their actions towards by general principles that one would like others to apply when acting toward oneself (The Ideal of a Rational Morality, 270). Jeffrey Wattles advocates applying the Golden Rule to one’s own method of using it (The Golden Rule, 6). In effect, the rule is self correcting and one should ask if they want others to apply the rule toward them in the same way they are applying it toward others.""

Tutti i personaggi principali della saga di Harry Potter sono condizionati in modo decisivo dalle relazioni familiari che hanno vissuto: Harry, Ron, Neville, Luna, Draco... ma anche Dumbledore/Silente e perfino Voldemort. Una lettura che mette in luce questo aspetto della creazione letteraria della Rowling.

In this paper I argue that a reflective ethical standpoint cannot be merged into moralism, but has to take into account fundamental structures of reality which limit simple moralistic perspectives. I do that by focusing on an author who is commonly known for strong moral claims: Albert Schweitzer. However, Schweitzer also focuses on fundamental ethical conflicts that cannot be solved by mere moralism. From here, lines will be drawn to current socio-political problems. Albert Schweitzer kann zweifelsohne als prägende Kraft in den ethischen De-batten des 20. Jahrhunderts gelten. Öffentlichkeitswirksam ist er vor allem als Vorreiter der Tierschutzbewegung, später dann als Warner vor dem Atomkrieg sowie als Fürsprecher weltweiten Friedens in Erinnerung geblieben. Eine be-sondere Wirkung vermochte er nicht zuletzt dadurch zu erreichen, dass er sein eigenes Leben auf eindrückliche Weise dem humanitären Dienst unterstellte. Zum Sinnbild dieses Engagements ist die Gründung und Entwicklung des Tropenspi-tals in Lambarene geworden. Bis heute stellt er für viele Menschen ein Vorbild dar und wurde erst jüngst wieder als ein "Genie der Menschlichkeit" 1 gewür-digt. Bekanntlich hat Schweitzer aber nicht nur als Praktiker, sondern auch als Wissenschaftler gewirkt. In diesem Kontext hat er unter anderem umfangreiche geschichtlich-systematische Überlegungen im Bereich der Ethik angestellt, die ihren zusammenfassenden Begriffsausdruck in seiner Konzeption der ‚Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben' gefunden haben. Um diese Konzeption soll es im Folgenden ge-hen. Das vornehmliche Ziel der Ausführungen wird dabei in der Fokussierung einer Problematik liegen, die von Schweitzer im Rahmen seines ethischen Den-kens mehrfach hervorgehoben worden ist, die in der Schweitzer-Rezeption aber häufig etwas unterbelichtet blieb. Die Rede ist vom antinomischen Charakter, der Schweitzer zufolge allem sittlichen Bewusstsein und Tun geradezu unvermeidbar eignet. Um dies zeigen zu können, werden in einem ersten Abschnitt die Grund-linien der ‚Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben' nachgezeichnet, um in den anschließenden beiden Abschnitten jene Antinomik ins Auge zu fassen. Am Ende wird ein kur-zer Ausblick erfolgen, in dem Schweitzers Einsichten zur Anwendung kommen 1 Cf. Schorlemmer, Friedrich: Albert Schweitzer. Genie der Menschlichkeit. Aufbau-Verlag: Berlin 2009.

According to Augustine's doctrine of original sin, Adam's progeny share a collective guilt which, like an infection, spreads through wayward sexual desires, passing from parent to child. But is it fair to blame sinners if they inherit evil like a disease? In Stricken by Sin, Cured by Christ Jesse Couenhoven clarifies the logic and illogic of Augustine's controversial views about human agency. The first half of the book examines why Augustine believed we are trapped by evil, and why only Christ can save us. Couenhoven examines overlooked texts Augustine wrote at the culmination of his career and offers a novel reading of his views about whether we control our personal identities, what we should be held culpable for, and whether freedom is compatible with necessity. The second half of the book develops a philosophically and scientifically astute theory of responsibility that makes it possible to retrieve some of Augustine's most divisive claims.

Couenhoven makes a case for the surprising thesis that a carefully formulated doctrine of original sin is profoundly humane. The claim that sin is original takes seriously our dependence on one another for essential aspects of character and personality, our ownership of cognitive and volitional states that are not simply products of voluntary choices, and our status as personal agents of evil. Attending to these aspects of our lives challenges the idea that each individual's moral and spiritual standing is up to her or him, and drives us to ponder not only the nature of our responsibility and the shape of the freedom we seek, but also the need for grace we all share.

Animal ethics is taking on an increasingly important role not only in philosophy, but also in theology in general and moral theology in particular. With his encyclical Laudato si’, in which he repeatedly speaks of the “value proper to each creature” and criticizes an anthropocentric attitude that does not respect the fact that all creatures have value in themselves, Pope Francis has provided an important impulse to deepen not only environmental but also animal ethical questions theologically and morally and to reflect anew on the human-animal relationship from the perspective of the Christian faith.
Some individual Christian theologians deal with this subject and are perceived as important voices in the socio-political debates on a responsible human-animal relationship. Nevertheless, these contributions have not yet found much institutional expression and anchorage in the breadth of the specialist discipline of moral theology, indeed of theology as a whole.
Issue 2/2023 of the journal AUC Theologica, edited by Martin M. Lintner (Brixen) and Michael Rosenberger (Linz), will be dedicated to this topic. The aim is to stimulate and deepen the theological and moral-theological debate on the animal-human relationship in Central-Eastern Europe. The Call for Papers is therefore especially, but not exclusively, addressed to theologians in Central-Eastern Europe. The goal of this issue is to take stock of the socio-political, ecclesiastical and moral-theological debates on animal ethics in Central-Eastern European countries as well as reflections on how awareness of the importance of a newly considered human-animal relationship can be promoted.

This paper discusses the theme of "personal justice" in the Summa theologiae, a concept inherited from the Nicomachean Ethics wherein Aristotle says that a man is just toward himself only metaphorically, insofar as the parts of man are appropriately ordered with the higher ruling the lower and the body subjugated to the soul. This paper demonstrates how Aquinas extensively utilizes this concept of metaphorical justice across the tripartite division of the Summa in his accounts of original justice in the prima pars, the humanity of Christ in the tertia pars, and justification of the sinner in the secunda pars. As a response to critiques that Thomistic moral theology is not properly centered in the person of Christ, I will show that, for Aquinas, Christ's personal justice both fulfills the right ordering of humanity lost through sin and restores that integrity to mankind in the grace of justification—the root of the Christian's entire moral life.

This master’s thesis deals with the study of three works produced between the mid-sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, a period of significant reforms in many fields of knowledge, such as moral and law. They are: the Tome II of Tratado de la Justicia y el Derecho, a translation into Castilian Spanish of a work originally written in Latin by the theologian Domingo de Soto; the Arte Legal para el estudio de la Iurisprudencia written by the jurist Francisco Bermúdez de Pedraza; and the Tome I of Perfecto confessor y cura de almas written by the jurist and moralist Juan Machado de Chaves.
Through a detailed analysis of the content of these works, we aimed to observe the formative elements of the judges’ conscience, that is, their practical reason used for the resolution of legal demands that required a moral reasoning in order to satisfy justice observing the circumstances of each case. This research allowed us to verify that the moral theology effectively formed the law, giving meaning to its basic and general principles, as well as offering the reasoning parameters required so that the judges could decide in a fairly manner. Therefore, the basic conditions for the establishment of justice in the Ibero-american world depended on the judge’s character.