Introduction to Christian Ethics

Roger H Crook

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317347385
• Edizione: 6
• Argomento: Theology & Religion
• Categoria: Religion

This book is a college-level introductory textbook in Christian ethics. It introduces the field of ethics and a variety of approaches to its study. The book is written for college students and is designed to help them develop a method of dealing with the thorny moral issues.

1 An Overview of Ethics

DOI: 10.4324/9781315663869-1

Every day we make moral judgments on all sorts of things—some on crucial issues and others on more inconsequential matters. We evaluate another person’s conduct when we say, “He ought not have done that,” or “She ought to take her studies more seriously,” or “He should be more careful.” We decide about our own conduct when we are in a bind with our studies, when we have to deal with someone we do not like, when we encounter a homeless person asking for money, or when we respond positively or negatively to a charitable agency’s appeal for a contribution. We make a judgment about a current social problem when we say, “He ought to get out and find a job,” or “That poor person doesn’t have a ghost of a chance of getting a job with the economy the way it is.” We make a pronouncement on a political issue when we say, “We need to reform our justice system,” or “We should spend more money on medical research,” or “We ought to drop a bomb on those people.”

Spur-of-the-moment moral judgments usually express the way we feel more than they express what we think. For the most part, they are prompted by situations or events that impinge on our own lives. They reveal our prejudices and/or reflect the prevailing attitude of our peers. Only rarely do these judgments reflect careful thought about the situation to which we are speaking. And rarely do they deal with matters which have not forced themselves upon our attention. Surely there is a better way to make decisions about good and bad, right and wrong. In the study of ethics we undertake a search for this better way.

The study of ethics requires no less a rigorous discipline than study in any other academic field. Good work requires that one be well informed, think carefully, and be open to additional information and insight. Because the work of the ethicist is not subject to the same type of objective verification that is possible in some disciplines, one can appear to be thinking logically and critically when in fact such is not the case. A conscientious student will learn that there are no quick and easy solutions to the difficult problems of moral judgment.

Many academic disciplines focus on the future. To attain some desired goal, they analyze the facts as they are now known or believed to be. Researchers study the cause of a disease, for example, in order to find a cure and ultimately to find a means of prevention. Others study soils and seeds and chemistry so that more adequate food and fiber can be produced. Still others study history to understand how we got to where we are so that we can move into a better future. Certainly the useful application of all investigation is not immediately apparent; much research is abstract rather than practical. Ultimately, however, because we human beings care about the future, the question of the practical application of abstract research will surely arise. The study of ethics is entirely at home with this approach. Ethics does not involve itself in the assessment of guilt or innocence for past actions; it is not interested in attaching blame or credit. Rather it is interested in the formation of character and in guidance for decision making. It is concerned with helping people answer the question, “What is the good or right thing for me to do?”

Many different types of questions can and must be asked about any issue. The economic situation in a number of nations, for example, has led people by the thousands to enter the United States, some legally but others illegally, seeking employment. Their presence has forced the United States to face a number of questions: How can the nation best meet the immediate needs of those people for food, clothing, and shelter, and what long-term provisions can be made for them? This is an economic issue. How can the United States prevent people from entering the country illegally, and what should be done with those who are intercepted in the attempt to do so? These are legal questions. How should the nation relate to the government of another country that does not effectively cooperate with its efforts to deal with illegal immigration? This is a political question. What is the moral obligation of Americans to the people who, for economic reasons, leave their own country and come to the United States? This is an ethical issue the answer to which must take into account all the other questions but also will go beyond them.

Another example is the need for research on a wide variety of medical problems, some of them common and some of them rare, and the provision of care for all who need it. Many questions are appropriate: How extensive is the problem? What are the most effective methods of treatment? Who will pay for them? Who will finance the necessary research to discover more effective methods of prevention and treatment? To what extent may those who discover effective methods of treatment profit financially from them? How can we make treatment available to all who need it? Since our resources are limited, should we concentrate our efforts on diseases that affect a larger number of people? And underneath all these questions is the ethical issue: In the interest of the victims, and in the interest of the larger community, what is our moral responsibility?

These two illustrations deal with social issues. All social issues, however, entail individual decisions and actions. It is individuals who are involved in political issues, who vote, and hold public office. It is individuals who buy and sell, who work and who employ other people, who live in communities, who are involved in institutional life. It is individuals who, within the context of a social order, influence that order by their own actions. It is individuals who suffer. In our complex society all of us deal both with the structure and with individuals within it. As individuals living in society, we interact with it, affecting it and being affected by it. At times we find ourselves at home in society; at other times we find ourselves standing in judgment over it. The ultimate question, however, is neither legal nor scientific nor political nor economic, but moral. It is not “What do I think?” but “What action shall I take?”

Definitions

Ethics is a systematic, critical study concerned with the moral evaluation of human conduct. This evaluation, as we have noted, is oriented toward the future. That is, it is concerned with the making of decisions. Its basic question is not “Did I do right?” or “Was my conduct good or bad”—although to raise the ethical question, of course, is to take the past into account. The evaluation of past conduct, however, is not for the purpose of creating a sense of guilt but of helping make decisions about the future. Its concern is “What am I to do now? How am I to relate to other persons? How am I to relate to the communities of which I am a part?” Such evaluation requires some standard, some canon by which to measure. The beginning point in the study of ethics, therefore, must be the choice of a worldview, a philosophy of life. No ethical system stands on its own feet, but rather is based either tacitly or explicitly on some philosophy. The person who decides that something is good must be prepared to justify that decision. What makes this good and that bad? Why is this value superior to that one? The answer to the question “Why?” is determined by one’s basic view of life.

Christian ethics is the critical evaluation of human conduct from a Christian perspective. From that perspective a Christian ethicist makes assumptions about human nature, about the relationship of human beings to one another, and about their relationship to God. A faith community provides the supportive context for such deliberation and action. Christians share many beliefs with adherents of other religions and with nonreligious people. Whether they agree with these people on a specific idea, whether they reach the same conclusions, is not the heart of their ethic. The basic nature of their ethic is determined by their starting point. Their faith defines their character, provides the motives from which they act, underlies the generalizations they make about value and duty, and points to the conclusions they reach about a proposed course of action.

The word morals is used freely in the discussion of ethics. Indeed, in popular thought the words ethics and morals are often used interchangeably. Strictly speaking, however, there is a distinction: The word ethics refers to a systematic study, and the word morals refers to a behavior pattern. In this sense, one speaks of a moral action or a moral person, and of an ethical system or ethical code. Because this distinction is not maintained either in popular usage or in academic discussions, the student can determine the intent only by considering the context within which it is used.

Subject Matter

In the study of ethics, one is concerned with making value judgments. Value literally means “worth” or “importance.” We are accustomed to evaluating almost everything in terms of money. We understand that many factors, in addition to the cost of materials and labor and distribution, enter into a decision about the price to be placed on an object. One such factor is its desirability, the willingness of the public to pay a high price. For many items this factor appears to be the major one. Put in simple economic terms, the question is this: Would you rather have this object than the money you have to pay to get it? If there are two things you want, but you have the money for only one, which will you choose? If one thing must be sacrificed for another, which will you hold on to? The issue, therefore, is one of establishing priorities. In ethical terms, it is the question, To what do I give priority? For what am I willing to give up other courses of action?

Some thinkers insist that the proper approach to the making of ethical decisions is to begin by determining what is the highest good in life. If we take this approach, we begin by looking for the one thing for which we would be willing to sacrifice everything else. Discovering that, we have a basis for making all other decisions. Everything else will have value in relationship to our movement toward that highest good. In simple terms, the question is, What do we want out of life? Happiness? Power? The approval of other people? A sense of accomplishment? A sense of being true to ourselves? Once we have answered that question we can evaluate options in terms of whether they would help us attain our objective or would interfere with attaining it. This approach is teleological, concerned with movement toward an ultimate goal. Duty is derived from value; we ought to do what helps attain the goal.

Other thinkers, however, put duty first and say that value is derived from it. The word duty refers to an obligation that is based on a relationship or that results from one’s station in life. It is closely akin to the word responsibility, which implies an action prompted by a sense of loyalty to something outside the self. The person who acts from duty acts not in order to attain a goal but because of an inner commitment. The focus is on the motive rather than on the objective. Satisfaction comes from doing one’s duty; the good life is the life of response to this inner sense of compulsion. In that sense, value is derived from duty. Such theories are deontological, concerned with movement from a basic obligation.

Whether Christian ethics is teleological or deontological is an open question. In either case, however, it is concerned with norms or standards. It is not interested simply in describing the patterns of people’s actions, in analyzing their moral beliefs, customs, and practices. Such objective description is a function of the social sciences, which deliberately avoid making value judgments. Those disciplines are not in the business of saying that one way of acting is good and another way is bad. The most that they will say is that one way of acting achieves certain results and that the other way achieves different results. In sharp contrast, however, the study of ethics requires the making of value judgments. In essence, ethics is prescriptive rather than descriptive. The intent of ethics is to discern a way of acting either for the achievement of certain desirable goals (teleological) or as a response to certain fundamental relationships (deontological). In either case, the ethicist does not try to impose standards upon another person or upon a group, but rather tries to find and to act upon a valid way to make sound decisions about moral issues.

Assumptions

In every discipline students are required to make certain assumptions. Whether the discipline is history or biology or mathematics or economics or music or physics, the study does not proceed from a vacuum. The assumptions of one discipline may well be a proper field of investigation in another. Indeed, within the same discipline there may be debate about what assumptions are necessary. Agreed upon or not, however, no work proceeds without them.

We have said that every ethical system is based on some worldview, and that the worldview on which Christian ethics is based is the Christian faith. This, then, is the first assumption that underlies this particular study. In every religion there is a distinctive understanding of value and duty, of right and wrong, of good and bad. At many points Christian ethics and the ethics of other religions overlap, and at many points they differ. Nonreligious philosophies have their own understanding of value and duty, right and wrong, good and bad. In their conclusions they, too, have much in common with Christian ethics, as well as much at variance. Moreover, within Christianity there are differences both in theology and in ethical thought. Recognizing all of this variety, the Christian ethicist stands within the Christian faith and draws conclusions from it.

A second assumption underlying this approach to the study of ethics is that there is an orderliness in the universe that is independent of our knowledge of it. This assumption, in fact, is made in all scientific investigation. Orderly patterns are observed and on that basis predictions are made with a high degree of accuracy. Descriptions of this order are always tentative, recognizing that revision is constantly demanded in light of new information. The better we know these patterns, the more we can use them to our own ends. In this study of Christian ethics the assumption is made that there is a pattern, an orderliness, that underlies human relationships. In these relationships, therefore, we can talk about cause and effect, about consistency, and thus about norms.

A third assumption is that we can know something about that orderliness. At this point, the word something is crucial. We cannot know everything; that is no more possible in the realm of ethical concerns than it is in scientific investigation. An honest scholar in any discipline maintains a spirit of tentativeness about discoveries and conclusions. Information may be incomplete, data may be misinterpreted, and later discoveries may alter thinking about what is now believed to be true. This spirit of tentativeness keeps the scholar going; there is always more to be learned. To learn, we must proceed on the basis of what is now believed to be true. At the same time, we must be ready to revise our thinking in light of new information. This is the spirit that students of Christian ethics are asked to maintain. Our quest is for truth that will provide the basis for moral decisions. We will act on the basis of our present insight, and at the same time we will be open to new understanding that is yet to come.

A fourth assumption is freedom of the will. Human beings do in fact make choices and act on them of their own volition. No one assumes that people are totally free. We live under the restrictions of the natural order and of the social order, some obvious and some not so readily apparent. Within these restrictions, however, we make choices. While we cannot violate the law of gravity, for example, we can use it in a wide variety of ways to accomplish our purposes. Although we cannot choose our parents, we can make decisions about how we deal with them. We cannot choose whether to be sexual beings, but we can decide how to deal with our sexuality. We recognize, therefore, that certain conditions and influences restrict our choices even though they do not determine them. We can talk about why a person is a criminal, for example, and recognize that a poor family setting or bad companions or personality problems may influence that person’s decisions and actions. At the same time we recognize those factors as influences, not determinants, and we know that the individual makes independent decisions.

The final assumption is the responsibility of the individual. In one sense this responsibility means that having made a decision, a person must live with it. The consequences of an action are often the logical result of the decision we have made. We are not free to choose an action and to refuse its consequences. Nor can we attribute the results of our choice to some other person or some other set of circumstances. This responsibility means that a person who chooses is held accountable. Our choices and actions often come under judgment by some external authority. That authority may be as informal as group pressure or as formal as the law of the state. From a Christian perspective, the final authority to which we are accountable is God. At this point the concept of duty becomes involved in Christian ethics. We have a duty to ourselves and to the communities of which we are a part. This duty, however, is contingent. The Christian’s ultimate duty is to God, and moral choices are made in response to God.

Cautions

To maintain a careful objectivity and to maintain the integrity of their study as an academic discipline, some ethicists stress the fact that they aim at knowledge and not at behavior. Austin Fagothey, for example, says “Ethics is not interested in what a person does, except to compare it with what he or she ought to do” (Right and Reason). John Hospers makes the same point, saying “Ethics is concerned to find the truth about these moral questions, not to try to make us act upon them” (Human Conduct, p. 9). Hospers is not indifferent to behavior, and he hopes that people who find the truth will act on it. He insists, however, that ethics “is concerned not directly with practice but with finding true statements about what our practices ought to be.” Such affirmations, however, are overstatements of the need for objectivity. It is probably true of all disciplines, and it is certainly true of ethics that knowledge is not sought for its own sake; it is sought so that it can be used. No knowledge of goodness, of course, can make one good. To know the good is not necessarily to do the good. Armed with the best information available, one may nevertheless make bad decisions. Knowledge, however, provides a necessary tool for action. One learns an approach to decision making in order to make good decisions.

In the pursuit of this objective the student faces a number of serious problems. First, there is no consensus on the nature of good and bad, of right and wrong, of value and duty. At the starting point is the question of whether there are indeed any absolutes. Is it possi...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction To the Student
• 1 An Overview of Ethics
• 2 Alternatives to Christian Ethics
• 3 Alternatives within Christian Ethics
• 4 Sources of Guidance
• 5 Biblical Ethics
• 6 Faith Working Through Love
• 7 Sexuality, Love, and Marriage
• 8 Life and Death: Issues in Biomedical Ethics
• 9 Christian Ethics and Ethnicity
• 10 The Status of Women
• 11 Citizenship in a Democracy
• 12 Punishment for Crime
• 13 War and the Quest for Peace
• 14 Work, Property, and Community
• 15 The Care of Creation
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index