Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

THE SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATION IN CONTEMPORARY CATHOLIC MORAL THEOLOGY 49rate subject and object.” Nor did I say that Ockham placesmorality just about entirely in the divinely commanded object,as Selling alleges. Furthermore, as I indicated in note 25 of myarticle, we need to take account of recent research on Ockham,represented, for example, by the dissertation of Sigrid Müller. 13This important work significantly revises the interpretation ofOckham as the originator of a moral theory where normsdepend simply on “the will of God.” Selling does not seem to beaware of such research. The authors he cites, FrederikCopleston and Oswald Fuchs published their work some fiftyyears ago. He does not indicate the other sources on which hehas drawn.The reason why I “single out” Scotus, Ockham and Suarez,is simply because these are the figures who are usually mentionedin the available histories of the development that I havesought to describe. 14 Interpreters of the history of philosophy,such as Charles Taylor, locate the detachment of subject andobject in the “modern era,” with Descartes, in the seventeenthcentury. 15 However, it could be argued that the thought of earlierauthors, such as Scotus, Ockham and Suarez, “lead to” (myphrase) this change.In my brief discussion of Suarez, I did not suggest that thisauthor was responsible for some kind of “demise of reason.”Indeed, I indicated that his norm was “rational nature as such,”13Sigrid Miller, Handeln in einer kontingenten Welt: Zu Begriff undBedeutung der rechten Vernunft (recta ratio) bei Wilhelm von Ockham(Tübingen and Basel: A. Franke Verlag, 2000) 211, 249.14For example, Walter J.Woods, Walking with Faith: New Perspectiveson the Sources and Shaping of Catholic Moral Life (Collegeville, Minnesota:The Liturgical Press, A Michael Glazier Book, 1998) 338-350. On Ockham,see Todd A. Salzman, Deontology and Teleology: An Investigation of theNormative Debate in Roman Catholic Moral Theology (Leuven: LeuvenUniversity Press, 1995) 344-372. The most thorough study of Suarez’s moraltheory, of which I am aware, is Elizabeth Gemmeke, Die Metaphysik des sittlichGuten bei Franz Suarez (Freiburg: Herder, 1965). Moral theologiansneed to reflect on the metaphysical presuppositions of their theories. OnSuarez, see Jean-François Courtine, Suarez et le système de la métaphysique(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990).15Taylor, Sources of the Self, 161, 188.