Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

252 MARTIN MCKEEVER
It is beyond the scope of this piece to enter into the profound
and complex issues which this teaching raises both at an epistemological
and theological level. 4 In the context of this article, the
teaching of the encyclical as it pertains to ethics is intended to
serve as a point of reference in the process of evaluating the vision
of morality presented by Bauman. It is to this task that we
now turn.
Critical observations on Bauman’s position in the light
of Fides et ratio
It is abundantly clear from these two contrasting visions of
morality that the differences between postmodernism and
Catholicism on this score, at least as represented by Zygmunt
Bauman and John Paul II, are very pronounced. We are confronted
here not simply with differing opinions on specific
moral questions, but with radically diverse ways of understanding
morality itself. One might say that we are dealing with a
metaethical rather than an ethical divergence. In this final section
we will attempt to highlight and analyse some of the major
aspects of Bauman’s thought which account for this stark contrast.
A convenient way of arranging these observations will be
to revisit the three tenets in which Bauman’s vision was originally
articulated and note the main divergences with the
Catholic position.
The first of these tenets was: “The modernist project of making
progress by regulating human conduct through the use of instrumental
reason has been discredited”. As it stands, there is no
patent contradiction between this tenet and the vision presented
in Fides et ratio. One might even argue that there is a certain degree
of convergence in so far as both Bauman and the encyclical
express a negative judgement on the excessive rationalism of
modernity. The idea that human technology and bureaucracy
4 For a series of interesting current articles on the broader philosophical
and theological issues raised by Fides et ratio see: Revista Eclesiástica
Brasileira, Volume LIX, Fasc. 233, Março 1999, 30-66; Rivista di teologia
morale 121 (1) gennaio-marzo 1999, 3-61.