I said yesterday that the basis that the bishops use to make at least some of their moral judgments is hierarchical ethics. What does that mean? Well, actually, the terms that I used yesterday are an oversimplification. Let me show you a more complex chart.
| DESCRIPTION | STRENGTH/WEAKNESS | EXAMPLE |
|---|---|---|
| ETHICAL RELATIVISM – No principles are universally valid. All moral principles are valid relative to cultural tastes. The rules of the society serve as a standard. | Strength- Brings about tolerance of other cultures. Keeps societies from falling apart.
Weakness- Confuses what ought to be done with what is currently done. |
South Seas Islanders practice cannibalism. Cannibalism is strictly prohibited in the U.S. |
| DIVINE COMMAND THEORY – Moral standards depend on God who is all-knowing. Any act that conforms to the law of God is right; an act that breaks God’s law is wrong. | Strength- Standards are from a higher authority than humans. Gives reasons why man should behave morally. Gives worth to all equally.
Weakness- Can be arbitrary depend-ing on interpretation. Can we know the true divine authority? |
Christian religions point believers to rules like the Ten Commandments. |
| UTILITARIANISM – Actions are judged right or wrong solely by their consequences. Right actions are those that produce the greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness. Each person’s happiness is equally important. | Strength- Promotes human well-being and attempts to lessen human suffering.
Weakness- One person’s good can be another’s evil. Hard to predict accurately all consequences. |
The U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in WWII believing it was worth the loss of life to gain the end of the war and stop the higher loss of life if the war continued. |
| DEONTOLOGY – Emphasis is on moral rules and duty. If not willing for everyone to follow the rule, then it is not morally permissible. Emphasis on autonomy, justice and kind acts. People treated as ends, never means. | Strength- It provides a special moral status for humans. Moral rules are universal.
Weakness- It says nothing about other living things. Rules can be abstract. |
In the U.S. a continued emphasis on human rights for all people stems from a willingness to reason that justice and equal treatment ought to be applied universally. |
| VIRTUE ETHICS – Morals are internal. It seeks to produce good people who act well out of spontaneous goodness. It emphasizes living well and achieving excellence. | Strength- It internalize moral behavior.
Weakness- Offers no guidance for resolving ethical dilemmas. |
A faculty determines that a student council officer with a genuine interest to serve deserves more recognition than one who just wants to beef up his resume. |
Unfortunately, this is a secular chart, and so it does not catch a couple of the “Christian” alternatives. But, it begins to give you an idea of how complex making ethical choices is. Few make ethical choices based on a system. Sadly, that means that they make ethical choices based on what they learned through interaction with parents and other authorities. This tends to make people inflexible and incapable of considering other alternatives. In fact, Our Lord Jesus Christ had that problem with the Pharisees, the Sadduccees, and the scribes and teachers of the law.
Having said that, look closely at the chart above. Most Christians would self-identify as being under some wording of the “Divine Command Theory.” The problem with that category in this chart is that it does not deal with the two ways in which Divine Commands are applied, absolute and hierarchical. More than that, this chart is too brief to deal with two problems that Christians face:
- What do you do if two of God’s commands conflict? I could give you many examples, but one that is beloved of ethics professors is a scenario from World War II. The Ten Commandments make it clear that you are forbidden from bearing false witness, from lying, from perjury. What do you do if you are Corrie ten Boom (read her story sometime), and you have Jews hidden inside your house, and government authorities come to your house and ask you if you have Jews in your house? Do you lie?
- What do you do when there is no divine command because the situation did not exist at the time of the writing of the Scriptures? For instance, the Jehovah’s Witnesses use the blood consumption laws of the Old Testament to claim that you are not to receive a blood transfusion. But, what about the Internet, or even some of the discussions on economic and political systems that did not exist back then. How does one apply God’s commands to these more recent situations?
Finally, if you look at the chart above, most of us can see areas with which we agree in every ethical system named above. How do we internalize a system of sound ethics?
Well, here is what is not going to happen. I am not going to use several days on an ethics course on this blog. There are many good online reliable Christian universities that will let you take such a course online. I highly recommend that you take such a course.
But tomorrow, I will at least talk about absolute versus hierarchical ethics under the heading of Divine Command Theory. And, I will really only talk about that with respect to fetal cells and vaccinations. Then I will stop this subject area.
===MORE TO COME===
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