Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision and Truth Book

Contents

Foreword....................vii
1. Exceptionless moral norms: few but strategic....................1
2. Witnessed to by faith....................6
3. Part of the theology of human fulfillment....................9
4. Rejected when human replaces divine providence....................12
5. No narrowing of horizons....................16
6. Choice, reflexivity, and proportionalism....................20
7. Protecting changeless aspects of human fulfillment....................24
8. Negative norms but positive and revelatory....................28
9. Rejection: some motivations and implications....................29
II. Clarifications....................31
1. Intrinsece mala: acts always wrong, but not by definition....................32
2. Specified neither evaluatively nor physically/ behaviorally....................37
3. Opposed to reason and integral human fulfillment....................40
4. Worse than suffering wrong....................47
5. Proportionalist justifications: incoherent with rationally motivated free choice....................51
6. The central case: intentional harm, always unreasonable....................54
7. Deadly defense and death penalty: not necessarily proportionalist....................55
III. Christian Witness....................58
1. Free choice: a morally decisive reality....................58
2. Evil: not to be chosen that good may come....................59
3. Actions: morally specified by their objects (intentions)....................67
4. Intending human harm: never acceptable for God or man....................74
5. Counterexamples....................78
6. Responsibility for side effects: other principles and norms....................81
IV. Challenge and Response....................84
1. Contraception and the general denial of absolutes....................84
2. Historical and ecclesiological skirmishes....................90
3. The main action: in philosophical theology....................93
4. Prudence misconceived: the absolutes aesthetically dissolved....................101
5. A summary conclusion....................105
Index....................107