Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia
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Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

studiamoralia.org
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11.07.2015 Views

20 JOSEPH A. SELLINGtaking place.Johnstone’s analysis of this is ambiguous. He seems to recognizethat the intention to give a gift needs one criterion forevaluation (“he or she is genuinely acting out of love”) while thechoice of the gift itself relies upon a very different criterion(will it “suit,” “benefit” or “please” the friend). Yet, he refuses torecognize these two, distinct and very different aspects of a unifiedevent. The loving intention to give a gift does not insurethat a ‘proper’ gift will be given, nor does the ability to determinewhat would be beneficial or pleasing to persons guaranteethat the gift-giving is not motivated by a desire to manipulate.Johnstone’s eagerness to characterize Aquinas as the patronsaint of the “unified vision” seems to have left him unawarethat the Aristotelian paradigm (form and matter) innovativelyemployed by the scholastic to expose the complexity of voluntaryactivity created the very possibility of making distinctionsthat would be necessary for the further development of moraltheology.History of the Subject-Object RelationshipWhat is presented in Johnstone’s article with regard to thehistory of what he calls the separation of subject and object issomewhat sketchy. After presenting his interpretation ofAquinas in the opening part of his essay, he devotes another twopages to him in this historical section. In the remaining fivepages, only four historical persons are mentioned: Scotus (d.1308) gets one paragraph, as does Ockham (d. 1347, others givethis as 1349). Suarez (d. 1617) receives nearly a page andHeribert Jone (1885-1967, dates not given by Johnstone) isoffered as an example of the manualists. The theology course ofthe Carmelites of Salamanca (1665-1724) is mentioned in passing,and the name of the single figure that one would haveexpected to have been singled out for particular attention withregard to “the subject” is reduced to an adjective in, “some versionof the Kantian subject” (109).Scotus and Ockham are said respectively to place moralityjust about entirely in the (divinely commanded) object or the(willing) subject (105). Suarez is represented as defending

THE SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATION IN CONTEMPORARY MORAL THEOLOGY 21Ignatian spirituality against the charge of mystical subjectivismby emphasizing the objective element of morality present in(natural) law (106). The Carmelites see morality as present inthe “matter” or object of an act that “is the cause and root ofgoodness of the interior act, or its foundation” (107). 3 Finally,the manual tradition in Catholic moral theology is said to becharacterized by a tension between the objectivist/naturalistperspective, seeing morality in the achievement of natural andultimate ends (108), and the “subject-line” of thought thatembraced the turn to the subject under the auspices of thingssuch as “fundamental option” and “creative conscience” (109).What I find remarkable about this sketch is that Johnstoneplaces the responsibility for the so-called separation of subjectand object squarely within the Roman Catholic tradition. Infact, earlier on in his text he writes,…we tend to assume that Catholic theology resisted “modernity.”I suggest that what happened was that Catholic theologyoften accepted the separation of subject and object. One sub-traditionof that theology resisted the “subjective” orientation, andtook its stand on a kind of objectivism based on the object consideredas separate. Another, however, constructed its moral theorywithin a subjective orientation. (101)Another curious detail about this opinion is the shift fromthe vocabulary of subject and subject-oriented to that of subjective.Subtle though it is, what started out to be a study of tensionand dynamics of Catholic moral theology begins to take onthe character of good/acceptable/tolerable theories and3This sounds remarkably similar to what one reads in the encyclicalVeritatis Splendor (1993): “Human acts are moral acts because they expressand determine the goodness or evil of the individual who performs them.They do not produce a change merely in the state of affairs outside of manbut, to the extent that they are deliberate choices, they give moral definitionto the very person who performs them, determining his profound spiritualtraits.” (VS, 71) Also, “The object of the act of willing is in fact a freely chosenkind of behaviour. To the extent that it is in conformity with the orderof reason, it is the cause of the goodness of the will.” (VS, 78)

20 JOSEPH A. SELLINGtaking place.Johnstone’s analysis of this is ambiguous. He seems to recognizethat the intention to give a gift needs one criterion forevaluation (“he or she is genuinely acting out of love”) while thechoice of the gift itself relies upon a very different criterion(will it “suit,” “benefit” or “please” the friend). Yet, he refuses torecognize these two, distinct and very different aspects of a unifiedevent. The loving intention to give a gift does not insurethat a ‘proper’ gift will be given, nor does the ability to determinewhat would be beneficial or pleasing to persons guaranteethat the gift-giving is not motivated by a desire to manipulate.Johnstone’s eagerness to characterize Aquinas as the patronsaint of the “unified vision” seems to have left him unawarethat the Aristotelian paradigm (form and matter) innovativelyemployed by the scholastic to expose the complexity of voluntaryactivity created the very possibility of making distinctionsthat would be necessary for the further development of moraltheology.History of the Subject-Object RelationshipWhat is presented in Johnstone’s article with regard to thehistory of what he calls the separation of subject and object issomewhat sketchy. After presenting his interpretation ofAquinas in the opening part of his essay, he devotes another twopages to him in this historical section. In the remaining fivepages, only four historical persons are mentioned: Scotus (d.1308) gets one paragraph, as does Ockham (d. 1347, others givethis as 1349). Suarez (d. 1617) receives nearly a page andHeribert Jone (1885-1967, dates not given by Johnstone) isoffered as an example of the manualists. The theology course ofthe Carmelites of Salamanca (1665-1724) is mentioned in passing,and the name of the single figure that one would haveexpected to have been singled out for particular attention withregard to “the subject” is reduced to an adjective in, “some versionof the Kantian subject” (109).Scotus and Ockham are said respectively to place moralityjust about entirely in the (divinely commanded) object or the(willing) subject (105). Suarez is represented as defending

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