HOW  TO  DO  ETHICS  TODAY  

There are different ways of confronting the ethical task of searching for the right solution to a moral question,
or what is called moral truth.  

One approach, the older one, tends to consider reality in the abstract and so to distance itself from the forces shaping the contemporary world. It lays stress on the eternal, the universal and the immutable and for the most part attempts to deduce conclusions from general principles. For this reason it is usually called the deductive method. In Christian ethics or moral theology, this way of doing ethics emphasises law, authority and the hierarchical magisterium, and views departure from them as disloyalty. As a result it aims at finding security, simplicity and, as far as possible in moral matters, certainty.  

Another approach, largely stemming from modern ecclesial and theological perspectives on human existence, is much more attuned to history and experience. This way of looking at reality focuses on the particular, the individual and the contingent. It tends to argue inductively, beginning with life experience as its starting point and working back from this to general moral principles. It places more emphasis on persons and personal conscience than on law and authority, though of course these are not denied. This approach has led to a readiness to re-examine some traditional formulations that were authoritatively proposed to the Christian community, a task that is far from easy and not always successful.  

In the Church the change to the second approach is very evident, for instance, in the development of social morality. Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum projects an older world view with its divinely ordained, hierarchical model of society, in which members are born unequal, private property is seen as almost a metaphysical right and a static human nature is presented as the ground for an immutable and universally applicable natural law. However, by the time of Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris and especially Vatican 2's 1965 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World Today Gaudium et Spes the focus has moved to discernment of the signs of the times as the distinctive characteristic of the contemporary situation.  

This change of emphasis becomes even more evident in Pope Paul VI's 1967 encyclical on the development of peoples Populorum Progressio and especially in the same Pope's apostolic letter Octogesima Adveniens in 1971, which significantly departs from the first approach spoken of above. There is no mention of a universal plan, based on natural law and applicable to all situations. Rather, the Christian communities themselves are called upon to analyse their own particular situation in the light of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church in  order to discern what needs to be done in the way of social and political reforms. This is a dynamic and challenging approach, which involves all the members of the Church in the role of discerning and carrying out the Church's mission.  

In other moral areas, particularly in the fields of family, sexuality and bioethics, the magisterium of the Church has not been so ready to change. Pope John Paul II's 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor, in discussing fundamental moral principles, largely reflects the first approach to addressing moral issues. The Pope tends to argue deductively from an abstract human essence, seeming to neglect its embodied situation, although there are some indications to the contrary.  However, in moral theology we have seen a serious attempt to implement and follow through the second approach, without of course abandoning deductive reasoning. There has been much more emphasis on the historical reality at issue, that is, on the actual situation as well as on the level of development of the person involved in that often complex situation. The impact of human experience is given much greater importance and hence attention is directed to data drawn from the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology, which help to illuminate human experience.  

A good example of these two different approaches is furnished by the issue of contraception. Vatican 2 clearly stated that parents have the right to decide how many children they will have, but how this could be done was left undecided. Paul VI took the question of contraception off the floor of Vatican 2 and reserved the final decision to himself. He set up a special theological commission to examine the matter  in depth. What happened was that the commission split in its conclusions. A report of the minority used the first approach to reach the decision that contraception as a means of birth regulation is morally wrong. The majority report followed the second approach to argue otherwise. As is well known, Paul VI finally opted for the minority view and condemned contraception in his encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. And that remains the official position to this day (though many members of the People of God have made up their own minds).  

Both the above approaches have their own validity and both are still used in moral decision making. The final resolution about how they are to be integrated remains in the melting pot, but some implications of reasoning inductively are pretty clear.  

1. Moral rules are today understood as deriving in the first instance from the meaning and value of the human person, as a long tradition affirms, but in descending from such general principles to concrete moral conclusions the importance of experience in determining what is or is not in keeping with the dignity of the human person is emphasised more strongly today. This means that we are less inclined to claim certainty about complex moral issues than was the case in the past. This may be less be comfortable than the securities of the past but it is more open to the demands of moral truth.  

2. The inductive method demands that more notice be taken of what others think about moral problems. More attention has to be given to the empirical sciences regarding human behaviour, human aspirations, fears, confusions and hang-ups. Not that they have always to be taken entirely, especially if their conclusions clearly conflict with fundamental moral principles, but they should enlighten our thinking and help us in reaching sound judgments. The same should be said in regard to the experience of the larger community and of other cultures. What people generally think about moral questions needs to be taken seriously.  

3. Wider consultation of this nature will enable moral thinkers to formulate statements about morality with greater care and in language and according to thought patterns more accessible and meaningful to people today. Historically this has happened in regard to usury, once considered wrong. A similar change from an earlier understanding of human liberty happened in Vatican 2, largely because of greater focus on experience of the modern world. Stress on the inductive method has meant a recovery of the central importance in decision making of what Aquinas called prudence, or the virtue of practical wisdom.