Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

THE SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATION IN CONTEMPORARY MORAL THEOLOGY 31appears to be a contradiction of his own observation.But, I would argue, they still remained fixed within theframework of the separation of subject and object; they wereunable to consider the act otherwise than as a pre-moral piece ofbehaviour to which morality was “added” by a consideration ofthe intention. (123)This is a curious piece of reasoning that betrays a certainconfusion. I would suggest that this confusion is brought aboutby a lack of understanding of what this approach to moralanalysis is trying to say. Johnstone fails to grasp the distinctionbetween moral and pre-moral and treats them as if they wereunrelated concepts. Admittedly, this is a relatively commonmistake and thus deserves to be addressed. 15The basic problem stems from the ambiguity of the word“moral”. On the one hand, the word can be used to refer to acertain mode of being or acting, as in “the moral life”, a moralcode or a moral assessment. On the other hand, it can be usedas an abbreviated form of a positive moral judgment, meaning“morally good” and signifying the opposite of the antonymimmoral, as in “that was a moral thing to do” or “she is a moralperson”. Particular confusion occurs when one uses the expression“moral act”. Does this refer to a certain kind of act, asopposed to a non-moral act, such as swallowing? Or does itrefer more specifically to the judgment about an act beingmorally good rather than morally bad? It is not always clearwhich meaning is being employed.The Catholic Christian moral tradition has inherited distinctionsregarding the description of moral activity for the pur-15In a footnote to the section heading on p. 119, “B) Proportionalism”(sic: this actually should be section “C”), Johnstone admits that he has notattempted to investigate the writings of any so-called proponents of proportionalism,supposedly on the basis of a “lack of philosophical cohesion” inthe system. On wonders how he detected this lack of cohesion if he had notread any of the authors himself. This resembles the position of VeritatisSplendor that attempted to criticize an entire approach to moral theologywithout demonstrating any understanding of what that approach entailed.