Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

22 JOSEPH A. SELLINGbad/unacceptable/intolerable ones. To label a moral theologian“subjective(ist)” is virtually equivalent to condemnation, especiallysince the publication of Veritatis Splendor (1993).I believe that there is a different way of interpreting the historicaldevelopment of moral theology. In the interest of space Iwill limit myself to some of the players and periods named inJohnstone’s essay. Exactly why Johnstone singles out Scotusand Ockham is not at all clear, especially since he initiallyclaims that the separation of subject and object took place onlyin the seventeenth century. Casting Scotus in the role of a kindof inventor of objectivism, I think, seems a bit unfair. One alsowonders why the author did not rather refer to anotherFranciscan and Aquinas contemporary, Bonaventure, who alsoplaced much emphasis upon the will over reason. Bonaventure,like Scotus, at least assumed that morality lies in objectiveactivities, while the subject is obliged to follow a divinely initiatedorder.William of Ockham is not infrequently signaled out as thefather of “nominalism” and, by implication, the patron of subjectivism.Most philosophers and theologians who cast him inthis role, however, forget to situate Ockham in his own time.Another mendicant friar, he upheld the value of poverty andcriticized the wealth of the secular clerics. He clashed with thepapacy that, lodging itself in Avignon, had caused confusionand dismay within the church. Forced to flee from the pretensionsof the worldly hierarchy, he became engulfed in polemicsabout truth and goodness. 4The issues that spawned Ockham’s approach to ethics very4Frederik Copleston, A History of Medieval Philosophy (London:Methuen, 1972) p. 236-7, n. 3, writes, “If he had not gotten mixed up in thepoverty dispute, he would probably have been able to pursue his academiccareer and publish writing which from the philosophical point of view atany rate, would have been of more interest and value than his anti-papalpolemics.” See also, Oswald Fuchs, The Psychology of Habit According toWilliam Ockham, Franciscan Institute Publicatons, Philosophy Series, 8 (St.Bonaventure, N.Y.: Univ. pub., 1952)