Method in Ethics: A Scotistic Contribution

Abstract

HEN VATICAN COUNCIL π noted that human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evo­ lutionary one,1 few may have appreciated the profound impact this would have on moral theology. For contained in this phrase is an implicit challenge to the tradition of moral theology, particularly as received through the manualist tradition of the last two centuries. This tradition was founded on a vision of natural law derived from a cosmology that is static and fixed, a reality in which certain physical functions and acts have been assigned a role by the Creator. Morality consists in knowing these functions and conforming oneself to this order established by God. As Pope John Paul Π himself stated in an early work: whole order of nature has its origin in God, since it rests directly on the essences (or natures) of existing creatures from which arise all dependencies, relationships and connections between them ... Man is just towards God the Creator when he recognizes the order of nature and conforms to it in his actions.2 In the manualist tradition, nature is an hierarchically structured order in which each being has its proper place assigned to it by the eternal law and discovered through reason which constitutes the norms of the moral law. That is, the norm of morality is the inbuilt order of nature manifested in fixed natures, designed and created by God. These fixed natures then serve as the foundation for establishing both the objectivity of moral norms and the claim that some acts are intrinsically good or evil. To affirm, then, that reality is dynamic and evolutionary, as Vatican II did, is to challenge the received order and apparently to undermine the objective nature of morality. How could an act be intrinsically evil in an evolving world? Two trends emerged. One sought to maintain the tradition as received by continuing to locate the norms of morality in the order of nature, as for example in the Instruction Donum vitae which condemned various forms of artificial reproduction because they are against nature. The other, represented by proportionalism, sought to develop a new basis for moral norms.