Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

48 BRIAN V. JOHNSTONEthat we cannot understand the history of moral theology as if itwere a body of thought closed in itself, without considering thecultural and philosophical matrix within which it developed. Ihave argued that there are sufficient indications of a similarseparation of subject and object in Catholic moral theology. Theevidence that I adduce supports the conclusion that there is aserious issue here and that it must be addressed.3. A Separation in Catholic Moral Theology?I will begin by dealing with some of the criticisms thatSelling makes of my suggestion. My account of the separationof subject and object is indeed somewhat “sketchy.” It couldhardly be otherwise in one article. However, I believe the sketchserves the purpose for which it was intended, namely to drawattention to the frameworks within which moral theologianshave been working. I do not place the “responsibility” for the“so called separation” squarely with the Roman Catholic tradition,as Selling asserts. In the very text cited by Selling, I saynothing of the kind. What I wrote was that the Catholic traditionaccepted the separation, which I attributed to a generalmovement which I have called “modernity.”Within the Catholic tradition, one group of theologiansadopted a kind of objectivism. I explained what I meant by theterm, namely a moral theory which claims to find morality, ormoral norms, in the material object of the act. The object, withits morality “ in” it, then causes the morality of the intention ofthe subject. Others followed a subject-oriented approach; I gavesome examples. The problem needs to be defined precisely: it isnot as if one type of moral theology deals exclusively with the“object,” while the other is concerned only with the “subject.”The problem is the starting point of reflection and the explanationof how the two are connected.I do not see why it is unfair to attribute to Scotus the particularview that I indicated. I cited a well researched article insupport of my contention. I did not say that Scotus was the“inventor” of “objectivism.” This is another of Selling’s interpretations.There is nothing in my text which even remotely could suggestthat I am claiming that Ockham was “attempting to sepa-