Reframing Catholic theological ethics

A study in Catholic moral theology, this work argues for a focus not on behaviour but on intent, and draws on thinkers from Thomas Aquinas to the Second Vatican Council.

"Traditionally, Catholic moral theology has been based upon an approach that over-emphasized the role of normative ethics and subsequently associated moral responsibility with following or disobeying moral rules. Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics offers an alternative ethical method which, without destroying any of the valuable insights of normative ethics, reorients the discipline to consider human motivation and intention before investigating behavioral options for realizing one's end. Evidence from the New Testament warrants the formation of a teleological method for theological ethics which is further elaborated in the approach taken by Thomas Aquinas. Unfortunately, the insights of the latter were misinterpreted at the time of the counter-reformation. Joseph A. Selling's analysis of moral theological textbooks demonstrates the entrenchment of a normative method aimed at identifying sins in service to the practice of sacramental confession. With a firm basis in the teaching of Vatican II, the "human person integrally and adequately considered" provides the fundamental criterion for approaching ethical issues in the contemporary world. The perspective then turns to the crucial question of describing the ends or goals of ethical living by providing a fresh approach to the concept of virtue. Selling concludes with suggestions about how to combine normative ethics with this alternative method in theological ethics that begins with the actual, ethical orientation of the human person toward virtuous living."--Provided by publisher.

Cover; Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics; Copyright; Acknowledgements; Contents; Introduction; Coming to Grips With the Basic Problem; Returning to the Roots; Origin of the Methodological Problem; Contemporary Thinking; A New Perspective; The Continuing Appeal of Normative Ethics; Some Practical Issues About This Study; 1: The Crisis in Ethical Method; The Turn to Natural Law; Fallout from the Controversy over Contraception; Intrinsic Evil; The Sources of Morality; 2: A Theology for `Theological Ethics;́ `What shall i do to inherit eternal life?;́ The Good News about the Kingdom.

The Meaning of the KingdomThe Commandments as Attitudinal; The Spirit of the Law and the Attitudinal Approach to Morality; Becoming Practical; Where do we go from here?; 3: Thomas Aquinas: The First Christian Ethicist?; The Importance of the Twelfth Century; Commentaries on the Sentences; The Moral Psychology of Thomas Aquinas; Application of the Psychology; The Structure of the Moral Event (qq 1-21); The Voluntary and Circumstances (qq 6-7); Acts of the Will Directed Towards the End (qq 8-12); Acts of the Will Directed Towards Those Things in Service to The End (qq 13-17).

One act or two acts of the …