Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME OUT OF POSTMODERNISM?... 239
erally left to suppose or imagine what kind of understanding of
ethics underlies the position which a given postmodernist author
adopts on important moral questions such as social oppression in
capitalist culture, conventional and nuclear war, biomedical research
and techniques, feminist and gender issues, human rights
and so forth. One of the few postmodernists who has attempted
to articulate a postmodern ethics is the British sociologist Zygmunt
Bauman. In his work Postmodern Ethics 3 , this author proposes
a vision of morality which reflects the critique of modernism
germane to postmodernist thought.
This article will attempt a systematic comparative study of
the understanding of morality articulated in Bauman’s work and
that articulated in Fides et ratio. The method to be employed
here will involve three stages: first, we will allow Bauman to
“speak for himself”, as it were, through close reference to Postmodern
Ethics (and at the same time to speak for other postmodern
authors, upon whom he draws heavily). Second, we will
attempt to articulate the moral import of the broader argument
of Fides et ratio. Third, we will revisit Bauman’s account of
morality in order to identify and analyse the key points of contrast
with the Catholic position. A careful reading of these two
texts in this light should afford some interesting answers to such
topical questions as the following: What is the importance of
postmodern philosophy for ethics in general and for theological
ethics in particular? What aspects of postmodern ethical
thought does christian ethics reject as incompatible with christian
morality and why?
Morality according to Zymunt Bauman’s Postmodern
Ethics
In this section, Bauman’s thought will be presented synthetically
in the form of the following three tenets which, it is hoped,
adequately present his argument:
3 BAUMAN, Zygmunt. Postmodern Ethics. (Oxford UK & Cambridge USA:
Blackwell, 1993). Portugese translation: Ética pósmoderna (São Paolo:
Paulus, 1997).