Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

THE SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATION IN CONTEMPORARY MORAL THEOLOGY 39activity and the deepening knowledge about the intricacies ofhuman relationships of every kind are only a few of the areasdemanding a much more complex approach to issues of ethicalimportance than the classical handbooks of moral theologycould ever provide.Making decisions about these kinds of questions are nolonger a matter of yes or no, follow this or that rule or not. Asoptions for human activity increase and persons become moreinformed about the short and long term consequences of theirdecisions, they need to develop more refined tools for moralassessment and evaluation.Proportionate thinking became more frequently invoked todeal with these levels of complexity as might be illustrated withthe examples of family planning. As the options for achievingand maintaining family size became available and couples wereable to consider options for themselves and their children, theentire argument about what is going on became more sophisticatedand nuanced. The simple concept of “birth control”evolved into a consideration of “responsible parenthood” andthe narrow options of using this or that form of “contraception”developed into the multiple possibilities of “regulating fertility”,including the dual goals of increasing or decreasing humanfecundity. The attempt to resolve these complex phenomenawith the simple prohibition of artificial contraception appearedto reduce the multiple elements of this profound human dramato the judgment about single acts. In the mind of many, thiswas equivalent to physicalism, or what Johnstone refers to asobjectivism.The response to this crisis in moral theology and practicewas an attempt to reunite the personal, intentional goals beingsought in the project of responsible parenthood with a circumspectappreciation of all the positive and negative elements ofany procedural options available to the couple. What proportionatethinking aims at is not a separation but a re-unificationof the entire moral event. At the same time, to maintain anappreciation of all the aspects involved in this kind of decisionmaking,one needs to remain conscious of all the distinct elementsthat are at stake. Neither are goals reducible to one or