Thomistic Summer Conference 2024 Lecture: Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem. (’94)

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“Public Enemy Number One: Situational Ethics vs. the Common Good”

   

by Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem. (’94)
St. Michael’s Abbey
Thomistic Summer Conference 2024

 

Introduction

To my knowledge, the first warnings issued by the Magisterium against Situational Ethics came in 1952 in an allocution to midwives by Pope Pius XII. Interestingly, at that time it seems that there was no single term coined for this new moral doctrine, so in addition to referring to it as Situation Ethics, Pius XII also referred to it using the expressions “Ethical Individualism” and “Personalist Ethics”. A formal condemnation of Situational Ethics was forthcoming from the Holy Office in a document entitled Contra Doctrinam (Feb. 2nd, 1956). That document taught:

[Situational ethicists] assert and teach that men are preserved and easily liberated from many otherwise insoluble ethical conflicts when each one judges in his own conscience, not primarily based upon objective laws, but by means of that internal, individual light based upon personal intuition, what he must do in a concrete situation.^[1]

From the beginning, then, the Magisterium understood Situational Ethics as a theory which taught that the good of the individual person ought to be preferred to the common good.

What was taught in seminal forms in the 1950s became a flourishing crisis in moral teaching throughout the Catholic Church by the 1990s. Therefore, for the first time in the Church’s history, Pope John Paul II issued an encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, which laid out the fundamental principles of the Church’s moral doctrine. Nearly the whole of that encyclical was devoted to refuting Situational Ethics under two popular forms: Consequentialism and Proportionalism. One common thread of argument found in Veritatis Splendor was that Situational Ethics harms the common good: “Only a morality which acknowledges certain norms as valid always and for everyone, with no exception, can guarantee the ethical foundation of social coexistence.”^[2]

I intend in this talk to lay out the fundamental principles of Situational Ethics and to manifest how Situational Ethics destroys, or at least makes less realizable, the common good of a society and of the individuals within that society. Moreover, I will argue that human happiness consists most of all in the acquisition and enjoyment of common goods. Thus, my conclusion is that Situational Ethics is the enemy of human happiness, and must be rejected as a viable account of how human beings become good and happy.

 

Part I: What is Situational Ethics and Why is it Persuasive?

Let us first say something about what Situational Ethics is not. It is not simply an account of the morality of human acts which takes into account the concrete situations and circumstances in which the act is done. Every good disciple of Aristotle or St. Thomas would acknowledge the need to do that. Nor is it moral nihilism or moral relativism. These moral theories make it impossible to evaluate a human act as simply good or evil. But, in theory, according to Situational Ethics, it is possible to determine if a concrete act is good or evil. Nor is it a theory which presumes moral fault is usually or always non-imputable to a subject under difficult circumstances, though this view has some supporters among those who propose Situational Ethics. Such a view instead holds that there is no moral act to evaluate, not that the circumstances can always change the evaluation of a moral act.

The work most frequently associated with the expression “Situational Ethics” is the book by Joseph Fletcher entitled: “Situation Ethics: The New Morality”, published in 1966. And while Fletcher certainly falls under the umbrella of ethicists who propose some version of Situational Ethics, his own account includes some specific doctrines particular to his own position. My concern here is to explain and evaluate Situational Ethics as the doctrine condemned by the magisterium, especially as described in Contra Doctrinam and Veritatis Splendor.

There seem to be three possible accounts one could give of Situational Ethics:

There are no universally applicable principles for determining the morality of human acts.

There is always some further situation or circumstance which can make any human act good.

The object of a human act is not essentially different from the circumstances of a human act.

The third account can be seen to reduce to the first two as regards the evaluation of the externally knowable act of another. For we cannot see the intentions, so only the circumstances can be used to judge whether an act is good or bad. And since there is no circumstance which is determinative of the nature of an act as generically good or bad, new circumstances can always make an act which before seemed bad to now seem good.

Why is Situational Ethics persuasive?

1) Everyone agrees that there is a lack of certitude in moral matters. This lack of certitude is due, in great part, to the fact that every human action is individual and done regarding particulars. It will therefore include conditions consequent upon matter, such as mutability, and circumstances relating to the here and now. Since the human mind knows only universals with necessity, it follows that no individual thing can be known with necessity or certitude by human knowledge. Hence, it seems that any moral theory which posits necessary moral principles or conclusions is not in conformity with the subject matter of Ethics. Hence, Aristotle says: “The same certitude should not be sought in all discussions…Now good and just deeds, with which political science is concerned, are differently and mistakenly judged to such a degree that none of them seems to be good and just by nature but merely by the disposition of law…It is desirable then when treating of these variable subjects and when arguing from them as premises, to bring out roughly the outlines of truth, and to conclude about things which occur in the majority of cases.”^[3] Thus, Aristotle’s view of truth in Ethics is like an impressionist painting: the outlines are seen not distinctly, but roughly. And St. Thomas says: “The matter of Ethics is of such a nature that perfect certitude is not suitable to it.”^[4]

2) Any account of Ethics should begin with the subjective good of the acting person. That is, Ethics is about making this man good, not mankind good in the abstract. But this is precisely the aim of Situational Ethics, which looks to the improvement of the moral subject rather than to the necessity of obeying rules or laws. Moreover, the good of each person is particular to that person, belonging to him in a unique and unrepeatable way. Thus, an account of the morality of human actions which gives primacy to individual circumstances and situations rather than to abstract laws is more in keeping with the purpose of Ethics.

3) It seems impossible to identify the object of a moral act in contradistinction from its circumstances and the intentions of the person doing the act. For example, is the use of a contraceptive pill wrong when it is done for the sake of preventing menstrual cramps or severe acne? Saving a child from drowning seems like an act which is always good. But what if your reason for doing so is so that you can make the child a slave, or what if your decision to save that child means that you can’t steer the ship you are in away from a dock crowded with other children that will all perish if the ship hits the dock? Thus, St. Thomas says that, unlike natural substances with their determinate accidents, “the process of reason is not determined to something one, but whatever [act] be given, it is able to proceed further.”^[5] Therefore, any moral theory that treats certain actions as intrinsically and always good or evil does not conform to real experience.

Part II: An Evaluation of Situational Ethics and its Ability to Make Men Good and Happy

Having seen what Situational Ethics is, and having seen some reasons why it may be a correct and helpful account for evaluating the goodness or badness of a human action, we now turn to an explanation of the traditional moral doctrine embraced by the Church and found especially in the writings of St. Thomas, Aristotle, and their faithful disciples. First, I will consider what is best known about the goodness and badness of human actions. Next, I will argue that common goods are primary and more essentially constitutive of happiness. Finally, I will show how Situational Ethics fails to help men acquire and enjoy common goods, and instead teaches men to prefer lesser, private goods to common goods. As a consequence, Situational Ethics fails to make men good or happy, and so fails the fundamental test for the practical knowledge we call Ethics. For the end for which the art of Ethics was established is to make men good and happy.

What is first in our knowledge concerning the goodness or evil of human acts? 

We are seeking to answer the question: “What makes a human act good or bad?” Before we can answer this question, we must answer three prior questions: “What is a human act?”; “What makes anything good or bad?” and “What does it mean to say that an act is good or bad?”

A) What is a human act? A human act is an act done by a human in a human way. Not every act done by a human is done in a human way. Someone might throw me at a rack of bowling pins and the ensuing strike would certainly be an act done by me, a human. But I would not be acting in a human way, but rather in the same way as any inanimate body would when made to be a projectile by some extrinsic mover. Or again, someone might light a match under my foot while I am sleeping, and by an instinctive reflex, I might draw my foot back as soon as the heat is sensed. But this is much the same way any animal would behave in the same circumstances. This act, though from an intrinsic principle, would nevertheless be done in an animal way rather than in a properly human way. What is required for an act to be done in a fully human way is that it proceed from deliberate reason and choice.

Now there’s some grey area here. I said “fully human”. There are acts which are certainly human, like willing, intending and consenting, that precede a choice made from mature deliberation. Such acts tend to be closer to nature and are in some sense done in a human way, though not perfectly. They can even be said to have moral content and maybe something of moral goodness or evil. But since considering such borderline cases in a brief talk would distract from my main thesis, I will not consider these cases. What is enough to state now is that to the extent that someone is master of his own act, to that extent his act is done in a human way, and to the same extent does the agent bear responsibility for his actions.

B) What makes anything good or bad?

The good is that which all desire. In the sense first known to us, sensible pleasures are good. The first things that a child learns are good are things like ice cream and candy. But since desire is a kind of intrinsic inclination and there are many kinds of objects of desire, the good is said and understood according to analogy. In the most universal sense, the good can be understood as the object of any intrinsic inclination. In the more restricted field of ethics, which is what we are primarily interested in here, the good is the object of human desire, whether natural or conscious.^[6]

Each thing desires, or has a tendency toward, its own perfection, that is, it is inclined from within to pursue and achieve the completion of its own being. This is first of all verified in the case of natural substances. It is good for an animal to sense and to reproduce. It is good for a man to know and to love this knowledge. The activities of reproducing, sensing, knowing and loving, are activities which somehow complete the being of natural substances like animals and men. And, in general, activities perfect and complete the being of substances:

Each thing is called good according as it is perfect. But the perfection of something is threefold: First, insofar as it is constituted in existence. Second, insofar as there are added to it certain accidents necessary for its perfect operation. Third, the perfection of something is through this: that it attains to something other as to an end. Thus, the first perfection of fire consists in existing, which it has through its substantial form; its second perfection consists in hotness, lightness and dryness, and things of this kind; but its third perfection is according as it rests in its proper place.^[7]

The first perfection listed here by St. Thomas, being constituted in existence, implies both existence and some determinate or specific essence, so that one can say both that it is (in some generic way) and what it is (specifically). So in some sense one could distinguish a four-fold perfection in things.^[8] Sometimes, however, St. Thomas will focus primarily on the second and third perfections listed above, which he calls first and second perfection or first and second act:

The perfection of a thing is two-fold: first and second. The first perfection is according as a thing is perfect in its substance, which perfection is the form of the whole which arises from the integrity of its parts. But the second perfection is the end. The end, moreover, is either operation, as the end of a harpist is to play the harp, or it is something to which the operation arrives, as the end of a builder is a house which he makes by building. And the first perfection is the cause of the second perfection because form is the principle of operation.^[9]

In general, we can say for natural substances, the ultimate perfection is its proper operation or activity.^[10] By proper activity we mean not only the activity which that thing alone can do or which it does best, but also the activity which is proper or appropriate to its nature. Thus, man can drive a car better than other animals, and he can reason while other animals cannot. But it is reason and the activities done with reason which are the activities which perfect man, as man. This proper operation or activity is an accident which completes the substantial being of the substance, and so appropriately is called “second act”. Thus, the acting substance is more perfect, more complete in its being than the substance which is not acting or operating.

C) What does it mean to call an act, in particular a human act, good or bad? Clearly when we speak about good or bad things, this is first said in reference to good or bad natural substances^[11] and their parts. It is easy to understand what we mean by a good horse, a good rose, a good eye, a good flower. In the case of natural substances, we saw that the end or good of a natural substance is its proper activity. But we cannot say that the good of some activity is its proper activity. It belongs to substances to act per se. So we have to return to the notion of perfection and fullness of being when we try to understand the good of an act.

When we go on to ask about what makes an action (in particular a human action) perfect and complete in its being, we must understand this by analogy to good natural substances and their parts.

This is the method employed by St. Thomas when answering the question whether every human act is good:

Concerning good and bad in actions, it is necessary to speak just as we speak of good and bad in things. Because each thing produces such an action of the sort that [the thing] itself is. Moreover, in things, each thing has as much of good as it has of being, since good and being are converted.^[12]

First, St. Thomas sets down that the primary meanings of good and bad are taken from things, and we then speak of good and bad in actions “just as” we speak of good and bad in things. In other words, good and bad are said first of things, and secondarily, by way of analogy, good and bad are said of the accidents that belong to things. But St. Thomas gives a specific reason why we do this in regard to acts: “because each thing produces such an action of the sort that it itself is.” That is the act of a substance is like that substance, since every effect is like its cause. For example, since human beings are composed of body and soul, they will produce composite acts having a bodily component and a spiritual component. An angel, in contrast, will have a simple act, yet one distinct from its substance. God, being pure act will have an act which is not really distinct from his substance.

Applying this principle to the question of the goodness of human acts, St. Thomas concludes that just as natural substances (i.e., substances composed of matter and form) have their good in diverse degrees of being and perfection, so do human acts. More specifically, just as a natural substance finds its fullness of being in diverse grades of being, such as substantial forms and accidental forms, so a human act achieves its fullness of being in diverse grades of being:

Every action has as much goodness as it has being; but to the degree that there is lacking to it something of the fullness of being which a human action ought to have, so much does it lack goodness, and in this way it is called bad. For example, if there is lacking to it either a determinate quantity according to reason, or a due place, or something of this kind.^[13]

And just as we can distinguish and order the diverse grades of being and perfection for a natural substance, so also can we distinguish and order in a proportional way the diverse grades of being of a human act. Thus, St. Thomas makes a distinction of the things which contribute to the fullness of being of a human act which is proportional to the distinction of the things which contribute to the fullness of being of a natural substance:

In a human action goodness can be considered in four ways. In one way, a human action can be considered according to genus, namely insofar as it is an action, since, as was already said, however much it has of action and being, so much does it have of goodness. In another way, a human action can be considered according to species, which is taken according to a suitable object. In a third way, a human action can be considered according to circumstances, as if it were considered according to certain accidents. In a fourth way, a human action can be considered according to an end, as if considered according to its relation to the cause of its goodness.^[14]

Since its being as an action is taken for granted when we ask the question about what makes a human act good or bad, the determination of the goodness or badness of any human action focuses upon the last three degrees of completion of being: a determinate species of action, the suitable accidents of an action, and the right relation of the action to the cause of its goodness. The fist is established by the object of the act, the second by the circumstances of the act, the third by the end intended by the one acting. In short, the object, circumstances and end are the three sources of goodness in a human act. If all three are suitable according to right reason, the act will be good. If even one is not, the act will be bad, since goodness arises from the presence of everything integral to a thing’s perfection.^[15]

Which goods are primary and more essentially constitutive of happiness?

Aristotle observes that just as we know part of the truth before we know the whole truth, so also we know the particular good before we know the common good. Children are aware of the goods of pleasant tasting things, and toys and, in general, particular things that are either pleasant or useful. If one were to offer an ordinary three-year-old a choice between a bowl of ice cream and a fully-paid-for college education, the three-year-old would chose the bowl of ice cream every time. Nor is this order of knowledge restricted to children. Even after reaching maturity, human beings find sensible goods to be better known than reasonable goods.

Since love follows upon knowledge, we tend to love better known things more, so that there is a tendency in men to prefer sensible goods to reasonable goods. Sensible goods are always private goods. That is, they are able to be possessed by a single individual at a time, or if they are shared, they are divided when shared. Your socks are a private good. They can be worn by you and only you. A sum of money can be shared among many people, but it is divided and diminished in being shared. The roads are for common use, but only one person at a time can use each part of the road. Anyone who lives in New York City or Southern California knows this well. Therefore, sensible goods are often a source of contention since if you have some sensible good, I can’t have it at the same time, and vice-versa.

In contrast to sensible goods, some reasonable goods are able to be shared by many at the same time without being divided or diminished. Such goods are called “common goods” in the proper sense of that expression.^[16] Some examples of reasonable goods are truth and peace. If I hold some truth and then I share it with you by teaching it to you, we now simultaneously possess the very same truth, and yet it has not been divided or diminished. To the contrary, it has in some way been amplified by being shared. If I live in a family or society in which there is a right order among the members, then the rest which comes from that right order is common to all the members in that community. And when another member is added to that community, the peace each enjoys is not divided, but somehow extended to embrace that new member as well. Persons can also be common goods inasmuch as they can be objects of knowledge and love.^[17] A person can be known and loved simultaneously by many other persons without being divided or diminished. Thus, a father or mother is a common good to all their children, and a child is a common good for both its father and mother. Ultimately, God can and should be loved as a common good.

Notice that the distinction between private goods and common goods is not the same as the distinction between the good of the person and the good of the community. The common good is a good of each person. Truth is my good, peace is my good, God is my good, the father and mother I share with my siblings are my goods. None of these are mere “goods of the community” as if they belonged only to the whole community, but not to any persons within the community. Indeed, this can happen, as when we say that drivability is a good for a car, but not for any one part of it. But this is not what we mean by a common good in the most proper sense. So the common good is not an alien good, the good of “another”. Both private goods and common goods are my personal goods.

The common good is not a good other than the good of the particulars, a good which is merely the good of the collectivity looked upon as a kind of singular. In that case it would be common only accidentally; properly speaking, it would be singular. Or, if you wish, it would differ from the singular by being nullius. But when we distinguish the common good from the particular good, we do not mean thereby that it is not the good of the particulars; if it were not, then it would not be truly common. The good is what all things desire insofar as they desire their perfection. This perfection is for each thing its good – bonum suum – and in this sense, its good is a proper good. But thus the proper good is not opposed to the common good.^[18]

This is one way the most proper conception of the common good is distinguished from the totalitarian notion of the common good, which is merely a good of the “state” as an aggregate, but not of the persons within the state. Since both private and common goods are goods of the person, we should determine which kind of good is better for and more perfective of the person.

The Common Goods of each Person is to be Preferred to their Private Goods

If we examine the relationship between private goods and common goods, we can see that, in any given order, a person’s common good ought to be preferred to his private good. This is true for many reasons.

First of all, a private good is exhausted by a single individual. This is a sign of its poverty: it has so little goodness that it can only be possessed by a single individual at one time. On the other hand, a common good is not exhausted by an individual. It has sufficient goodness to draw a multitude of persons into its own goodness and to perfect them thereby.

Secondly, private goods are the cause of conflict between those who prefer them to all other goods. If I want this piece of pizza more than anything else, and so do you, we will have to fight to see who gets it. This kind of conflict is obviously harmful and undesirable.

Thirdly, private goods tend to be destroyed by their use and enjoyment. All sensible things are subject to corruption, and, for the most part, use and enjoyment of a sensible thing will lead to its corruption.

Enjoying cake will destroy it. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Using a car or socks will wear them out.^[19]

Fourthly, that good which is best is most diffusive of itself and most of all a cause of goodness in others. But common goods are more diffusive than private ones, and more causes of goodness of other things. Thus, that which perfects and is a final cause for an entire species is better than the good of only one individual within that species. Therefore, common goods are to be preferred to private goods. Charles DeKoninck makes this argument, relying upon the doctrine of St. Thomas:

The good is that which all things desire insofar as they desire their perfection. Therefore, the good has the notion of a final cause. Hence, it is the first of causes and, consequently, diffusive of itself. But “the higher a cause is, the more numerous the beings to which it extends its causality. For a more elevated cause has a more elevated proper effect, which is more common and present in many things.”²⁰ “Whence it follows that the good, which has the notion of a final cause, is so much the more efficacious as it communicates itself to more numerous beings. And, therefore, if the same thing is a good for each individual of the city and for the city itself, it is clear that it is much greater and more perfect to have at heart – that is, to secure and defend – that which is the good of the entire city than that which is the good of a single man.”^[21] [22]

Finally, the best good of a thing is that good which is most perfective of its nature. But since human beings are rational animals, reasonable goods will be most perfective of human nature. And the best reasonable goods are common goods, since they can be shared by many at the same time without being diminished. Therefore, common goods are to be preferred to private goods.

The same conclusion can be reached inductively. First, if we examine the goods which can be achieved through common action, we notice that those goods are preferable to the goods which can be achieved through the action of a single individual. A single individual may be able to gather and prepare basic food necessary for life. But he could never acquire and prepare the most nutritious and delectable foods necessary for a good life. Again, a single individual can build basic shelter for his needs, but he cannot build a beautiful and expansive home necessary for a good life. The same might be said of clothing, art, medicine, and the like. So even the best and most desirable of private goods somehow depends upon common action of many individuals working together. This common action is a common good, and such a common good is presupposed to the most desirable private goods.

Similarly, defense against threats to life and property cannot be done well without common action. One man cannot fend off a pack of wolves or a bear. This common defense is a common action and a common good. Once again we see how private goods such as life and property depend upon common goods for their well-being.

The propagation and preservation of the human species requires common action between a man and woman to generate new children and then requires living in a stable union to raise their children in common. Right order within a family is required for the good of each of the members of the family, especially the children. When the children are cared for and educated in such a way that their nature and natural abilities are brought to perfection, so that they can care for themselves and care for others, then they become able to bring forth and provide for the next generation of human persons.

Again, the human person has many abilities which cannot be brought to fulfillment without common action and common goods. Yves Simon argues this position persuasively:

The rule to which all men are subjected in varying degrees is one of specialization for the sake of proficiency. This rule entails heavy sacrifices even in the most gifted. A man highly successful in his calling accomplished little in comparison with the ample virtualities of man. He has failed in a hundred respects. Only the union of many can remedy the failure of each.^[23]

A good education in any of the arts and sciences is not possible without common action. A fortiori, wisdom is not possible without common action. Such an education leading to and culminating in wisdom is itself a common good. Simon points out that, as a result of the efforts of many over history, persons of ordinary intelligence now have the tools to understand and solve problems which even geniuses of previous generations were unable to solve.

Finally, the contemplation of God, in which happiness most of all consists, is done best in union with others. Others are needed to bring someone to wisdom, and even when wisdom has been attained, the common activity of contemplating God is preferable to contemplating God alone. The famous text of St. Augustine’s confessions describing the conversation between Augustine and his mother Monica shortly before her death at Ostia^[24] beautifully exemplifies the way in which the contemplation of God is enhanced by common activity. Aristotle too makes this observation:

The good man feels toward his friend as toward himself, since his friend is another self. Therefore, just as his own existence is desirable to everyone, so, or nearly so, is his friend’s existence. Now a virtuous person’s existence is desirable because he perceives that it is good and this perception is desirable in itself. Consequently, he ought to be conscious of his friend’s existence too. This takes place in associating with one another and sharing conversation and thoughts. In this way we understand living together as applied to men; we do not understand it in the sense of feeding together as applied to cattle…To be happy, therefore, a virtuous man needs virtuous friends.^[25]

So even the activity which seems least dependent upon others, the contemplation of truth, still is perfected when experienced as a common good. Something similar happens when friends watch a movie together, it is an entirely different experience to watch a good movie alone and with a friend. And it is much better with friends. Moreover, since happiness is the most perfect good, that is the best activity of man done in the best way, and since contemplating God with friends as a common activity is the best way to contemplate God, we see that perfect happiness is formally a common good.

In general, once the nature of a common good is understood as that which is perfective as an end of an entire multitude, whether a friendship, a family, a society or a species, it becomes clear that the common good of members of that community is preferable to the private goods of those same members.

Situational Ethics vs. the Common Good

Because Situational Ethics destroys the common good, and the common good most of all contributes to the happiness of men, Situational Ethics destroys the possibility of human happiness. I have already argued above for the truth of the major premise that common goods most of all contribute to human happiness. Here I will content myself to argue for the truth of the minor premise.

There are many ways to manifest that Situational Ethics destroys the common good. I will provide four ways of proving this truth. The first way is through the effect Situational Ethics has on Law. Recall that Situational Ethics teaches that there are no universally applicable moral precepts. But if there are no universally valid moral precepts, then it is impossible for a law to always be just, so that no law ought to always be obeyed. And since the circumstances of any action are known best by the one who performs that action, each person would have the competence to judge whether any law applied to him or not. This means, of course, that those who have care of the common good should only be obeyed if it seems good to those under their authority. But this obviously destroys the unity of the community and together with it, the common good. Socrates used an argument like this when refusing to escape the penalty of death unjustly applied to him:

If the laws and the community of the city came to us when we were about to run away from here, or whatever it should be called, and standing over us were to ask: “Tell me, Socrates, what are you intending to do? By attempting this deed aren’t you planning to do nothing other than to destroy us, the laws, and the civic community, as much as you can? Or does it seem possible to you that any city where the verdicts reached have no force but are made powerless and corrupted by private citizens could continue to exist and not be in ruins?”^[26]

If someone decides that his own judgment about his guilt (rather than a public verdict) is to be the determining factor about how he should act or be disciplined, then he must hold this is true for all in the society. Thus, whoever disagrees with a public verdict can do as he wants, and laws will only bind those who agree with them. But very few, if any, will agree with being punished. Such a disposition toward law, that each man is the judge of their application, would certainly destroy the society. And the good of membership in a well-ordered society would be lost not only for Socrates, but for all. Therefore, it is better for Socrates to love the common good of his society and lose his life, than to save his own life and lose his love for the common good of his society.

Another way to manifest this same conclusion is from the unity of human nature. Granted that all men share a common human nature, it follows that all men have the same natural inclinations which must be fulfilled in order for them to be happy. And therefore, all men share the same objects of these natural inclinations, and these objects are the very goods which perfect human nature. Moreover, such goods include not only material goods like food and air, but also reasonable goods which perfect human nature as rational, such as truth and understandable and lovable objects, such as other persons, especially God. But if there are no universally valid moral precepts, then this necessitates that there are no common natural inclinations, or objects. And hence, there are no common goods perfective of rational nature as such.^[27]

A third way of showing that Situational Ethics destroys the common good is through the universality of truth and the role truth plays on conscience. If there are universal truths about what is good, then conscience can apply those universal truths to particular actions (albeit not without the help of prudence and prudent men). These actions, although they are particular, will always fall under the universal truths of which they are applied instances. Therefore, while human actions remain particular and individualized, they will nevertheless reflect certain universal truths about what is good for all, and so there can be common action and common goods through such common actions. But if there are no universal truths about the good, then conscience becomes its own determiner of truth:

Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person’s intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil, and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others.^[28]

And while this appears to give conscience a greater freedom, in fact it makes conscience a slave to individual desires and inclinations. And since there is no limit or order to the variety of desires and inclinations an individual will have, there will be at most the possibility of occasional and accidental coincidences of such desires among men, and so common action will, for the most part, be lost as will the common goods achieved and enjoyed by such common action.

A fourth way to manifest this same conclusion is by considering the nature of the object of a human act. When there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil act, that is, a human act which is evil on account of its unreasonable object, then there is no such thing as an objectively evil action. Hence one can never say that an objectively evil act is imputable to a person. But the object is the part of the action that is knowable to those outside the agent. And so there is no way for the action of another to be judged as manifestly and objectively evil.

But the common good of any human community is preserved by the prohibition of manifestly and objectively evil actions. Good human relations cannot be preserved by the mere proscribing and prohibiting of interior acts and dispositions, since human beings are animals and come to know and relate to one another through sensible goods and signs. Therefore, if no action can be judged as manifestly and objectively evil, there will be no possibility of common human action.

Examples help to illustrate the fact that denial of universal precepts about outwardly manifest actions harms the common good of any community. Let us say that Situational Ethics is used to evaluate whether or not it is good to give communion publicly to those who are outwardly committing grave sins. The principles of Situational Ethics would inevitably lead to the conclusion that sometimes this is a good act, and also that the one administering communion should work under the practical assumption that there are circumstances of which he is unaware which might justify giving communion to such a person. But then what would the effect of this conclusion on the common good of the Church?

If someone is performing manifestly grave sins and yet is willingly admitted to holy communion, it follows that that freedom from the outward appearance of grave sin is not a condition for receiving communion. The only condition then, would be the communicant’s self-estimation of his moral state. Thus, unrepentant fornicators, adulterers, murderers, child molesters, thieves, torturers, racists and perpetrators of genocide and other crimes must willingly be admitted to holy communion. The only conclusion someone could draw from this is that the Church no longer forbids sin of any kind, since they obviously do not have any negative implications for one’s relationship with God and the Church. The injunctions of John and James that we should love “in deed and in truth”, and that “faith without works is dead” would then become meaningless. Such an attitude would reduce or completely eliminate the efforts of Catholics to resist evil inclinations and pursue holiness.

Consider another example. It is a requirement for baptism that someone publicly renounce Satan and sin. Yet, if someone were to be baptized in the very act of sinning publicly, this would cause those who knew about it to either conclude that the requirement of repentance is not real, or that the public act is not really sinful. Thus, if someone were to wear a t-shirt advocating abortion or Satanism while being baptized, this would contradict the very conditions for baptism. So also would someone manifestly guilty of simulation, such as a man simulating a woman or vice versa during their baptism. Situational Ethics would teach that there is no way to call such an act sinful by reason of its object. And, therefore, the outwardly knowable aspect of the act would no longer be taken into consideration when judging someone as a candidate for baptism. But then, why bother making an outward renunciation of sin and Satan? The consequences for the community would be immense: namely, each person would rightly conclude that membership in the community does not require an outward renunciation of sin and Satan. But a community which does not have this as a common requirement can be called a community in name only. Such a situation would destroy the visible source of unity in the Catholic Church or any other community based upon what is truly good.^[29]

Another consequence of Situational Ethics is that it puts those responsible for caring for the common good in the position of judging the interior state of other individuals. Cardinal Müller argues that the attempt to discern between those who are subjectively guilty and those who are not is not possible:

This discernment would ultimately be impossible because only God examines hearts. Moreover, the economy of the Sacraments is an economy of visible signs, not of internal dispositions or subjective culpability. A privatization of the Sacramental economy would certainly not be Catholic. This is not a matter of discerning a mere interior disposition, but rather, as St. Paul says, of “discerning the body” (cf. Amoris Laetitia 185-186), the concrete visible relations in which we live.^[30]

The Church is not merely an invisible union of souls known to God alone, but a visible sign: a sacrament. A sacrament is by its very nature a visible sign, and it is this visible and public dimension of the Church which demands that the public celebration of the sacraments conform to their outward significance.

Part III: A Second Look at the Reasons Situational Ethics Seemed Persuasive

In this final part of my talk, I will revisit the reasons which seemed to be in favor of the account of the morality of human acts offered by Situational Ethics. In each case, I will restate the reason, and then show how in fact, Situational Ethics either fails to accomplish what it promised, or at least how traditional Ethics better is better suited to the subject and purpose of Ethics.

Obj. 1: Since the human mind knows only universals with necessity, it follows that no individual thing can be known with necessity or certitude by human knowledge. Hence, it seems that any moral theory which posits necessary moral principles or conclusions is not in conformity with the subject matter of Ethics.

A.1: As St. Thomas points out, and Aristotle before him, even contingent things have necessary aspects. Otherwise, they would be utterly unintelligible. Thus, while this man is contingent, granted that he is an instance of a man, there will be many true things that can be said of him with necessity, such as the fact that he has a body and a rational soul; that he has flesh and bones and a head; that he should have two eyes, and two ears, and so forth. Similarly, there are many things that can be said of particular human acts with necessity, such as every act of hatred for God is evil, and every act of adultery is evil, etc.

Obj.2: Any account of Ethics should begin with the subjective good of the acting person. That is, Ethics is about making this man good, not mankind good in the abstract. Moreover, the good of each person is particular to that person, belonging to him in a unique and unrepeatable way. Thus, an account of the morality of human actions which gives primacy to individual circumstances and situations rather than to abstract laws is more in keeping with the purpose of Ethics.

A.2: The distinction between abstract mankind and this man fails to recognize that the universality of moral norms is not a universality which separates from this man, but a universality based upon the real human nature which this man shares with other men:

This service [of upholding universal moral norms] is directed to every man considered in the uniqueness of his being and existence: only by obedience to universal moral norms does man find full confirmation of his personal uniqueness and the possibility of authentic growth. For this very reason, this service is also directed to all mankind: it is not only for individuals, but also for the community and the society as such…In this way, moral norms, and primarily the negative ones, those prohibiting evil, manifest their meaning and force, both personal and social. By protecting the inviolable personal dignity of every human being, they help to preserve the human social fabric and its proper and fruitful development.^[31]

Obj.3: It seems impossible to identify the object of a moral act in contradistinction from its circumstances and the intentions of the person doing the act. Thus, the object of a moral act should not be formally distinguished from its circumstances.

A.3: Most of the examples used to justify the claim that the object of a human act is not distinct from its circumstances or intentions either fail to distinguish between the interior and exterior acts of man or fail to appreciate that the object, circumstance and end of a human act are defined in relation to reason.

Because human beings are composed of body and soul, the acts of human persons are composite, comprising an internal act and an external act. For example, an external act of a person might be to drive a car to the supermarket, while the internal act is the choice to get groceries. Driving a car to the supermarket is the means chosen by the will to achieve the end of getting groceries. In this case, we see that the internal act of the will has a different object than the external members. First, the will proposes some good as its end (getting groceries), and then it commands the external powers or members to act in such a way as to obtain that end (driving the car). With this distinction in mind, we can see that the object of the internal act of the will is nothing other than the end intended (i.e., object here is the same as the end, and they only differ by notion). On the other hand, the object of the external members is the outwardly knowable object upon which the action of the external members bears.^[32] This is usually what we mean when we speak about the object of a moral act, and it is what St. Thomas refers to as the “materia circa quam”.^[33]

Notice, however, that the object of the internal act of the will also includes the object of the external act of the bodily members. The will not only wills to get groceries, but also chooses to get them through this determinate means of driving a car: “The exterior act is the object of the will inasmuch as it is proposed to the will by reason as a certain good apprehended and ordained through reason.”^[34] So, for a deliberate act, the object of the exterior act is also contained under the object of the will, though not immediately, but through the mediation of the external members. Thus, the attempt to divorce the object of the exterior act from the direction of reason fails to acknowledge the truth that the external members are carrying out the command of reason when they act.

The reason why people fail to distinguish the object of a human act from its circumstances is because they do not realize that the object of a human act is defined in relation to reason. Since every human act, insofar as it is human, is an act proceeding from reason, when we speak about that which completes the being of a human act, we are speaking of things that are understood in relation to reason.

In a kind of general, but vague way, the object of an action can be defined as that upon which the action bears.^[35] In the case of an active power, the object is its term. For example, the object of nutrition is food. In the case of a passive power, the object is its principle.^[36] For example, the object of sight is color. It is precisely this object which tells you what kind of action is being done. If your action is assimilating food, say a steak, into your substance, then you are eating. If your action is shaping metal, then you are metalworking. If your action is sensing color, then you are seeing. If your action is sensing flavor, then you are tasting, and so forth.

It is also important to recognize that the object of any power is correlative to that power. For example, grass could not be considered food unless there existed something that eats grass. It has the notion of food from the fact that it can be eaten. Similarly, when we speak of human actions, we consider those objects not just as they stand in their natures in themselves, nor even as objects of our various vegetative and sense powers, but rather we consider them as objects of the rational powers.^[37] That is, we consider how they stand in relation to the order which reason knows they ought to have. St. Thomas makes this clarification when responding to an objection about the nature of adultery:

Of acts diverse in species, there are diverse effects. But the same species of effect can follow upon a good and a bad act, as when a man is generated from adultery and marital copulation. Therefore, good and bad acts do not differ in species.^[38]

St. Thomas responds:

The conjugal act and adultery, insofar as they are compared to reason differ in species, and have effects which are specifically different, since one of them merits praise and reward, while the other blame and punishment. But insofar as they are compared to the generative power, they do not differ in species.^[39]

St. Thomas explains in greater precision what it means for an act to be compared to reason when considering the fact that the things which are objects of our acts are good in themselves.

Although exterior things are in themselves good, nevertheless, they do not always have a due proportion to this or that action. And, therefore, inasmuch as they are considered to be the object of such an action, they do not have the notion of good.^[40]

The right proportion of an object to an action is itself determined by the nature of the thing doing the action. Eating is an act proportioned to the mouth, since the nature of the mouth is to take in food. But eating is not proportioned to the ear, since the nature of the ear is to hear, not to take in food. Since reason can perceive the natures of things and their respective ends and proper activities, reason can determine when the right proportion exists between an object and its act.

To clarify, let’s take an example from a contemporary moral debate. It is sometimes claimed that contraception is not intrinsically evil, that is, evil on account of its object. A man might, for example, use a condom to prevent bacteria from entering his urinary tract while wadding through a river. Thus, there is nothing intrinsically evil about using a condom. It is just a physical item used in a physical way. Such an objection fails to appreciate the fact that the object of a moral act is determined in relation to reason. The question reason asks is: are you doing an act which is, of its nature ordered to generation? If the answer is yes, then using a condom during that act in such a way as to frustrate the end of that act is wrong according to its object, and can never be good. In other words, it is intrinsically evil.

Conclusion

We see part of the truth before we see the whole truth. Situational Ethics teaches part of the truth about the way in which human acts are to be evaluated. It teaches that human acts are particular and contingent, and, therefore, must be evaluated as such. But this is only part of the truth. It is also true that human acts proceed from reason, and thus are expressions of universal principles that reason perceives in all things. These necessary and universal relations which are found in all things do not cease to influence these things when we descend to the particular and contingent. This act of adultery is still an instance of adultery. Another part of the truth unseen by Situational Ethics is that common goods perfect individual agents more than their private goods do.

Difficulties in Ethics are more stubborn than those in Mathematics. Once a mathematical problem is solved, the mathematicians can move on and trouble themselves no longer over what once was a problem and now is a proof. Not so in Ethics. The fact that we know sensible and private goods better than reasonable and common goods is inscribed in human nature, and so is the tendency to believe that a better known good is better. Situational Ethics will, therefore, be a perennial problem, just as the child’s preference of ice cream to college educations will be a perennial fact of human experience. Both wisdom and moral virtue are prerequisites for seeing for oneself the fatal flaws of Situational Ethics. And so, in order for the beginner to avoid pitfalls which would prove fatal to his happiness, trust in one more prudent than himself is needed.

But there is a way even for the beginner to glimpse what is wrong at root with Situational Ethics. Situational Ethics is not an Ethics conducive to martyrdom. It always offers an out for the person facing martyrdom. Both Pope Pius XII and St. Pope John Paul II close their reflections on the errors of Situational Ethics with an encomium to martyrdom. The martyr is the bright lamp whose excelling virtue even a child can see. May the example of the martyrs always be a star to guide the Church toward her true happiness, one in which the good of all is most divine for each of the blessed.

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