What makes for a Good and Happy Person

1. What makes for a Good and Happy Person pp. 134-145

2. Grace and Justification Discussion • http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm • Read articles 1987-2005 • What is grace? • What is does grace mean for us?

3. Three Ways of Pursuing Good A Catholic approach to ethics and morality has three components: • Natural Ethics • The Role of Obligation • The Impact of the Gospel

4. Teleological: Natural Ethics • Aristotle’s teleological approach reflected in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas: • How do we define the standards of excellence of the “good life”? • What is the role of the other in attaining the good life? • What is the institutional context of this good life?

5. 1) Standards of Excellence of the Good Life a) There Are No Recipes • Each person is created by God and is unique. • Each person’s vocations are also unique. • The communion of saints serves as examples to help us plan our own path in life. • The saints have set standards of human excellence.

6. b) Standards of Excellence • These are sets of best practices • Consider any vocation (professional or spiritual) – Standards of excellence/best practices are set out for people in each vocation. • They serves as guidelines to follow.

7. c) The Study and Practice of Virtue Virtues are the standards of excellence in living the good life. • They are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will, that govern actions, order our passions and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make it possible to lead a morally good life.

8. Theological Virtues • Virtue is a kind of excellence, according to Plato and Aristotle. • In Catholic tradition identifies 3 Theological virtues that are gifts of grace from God and whose practice is aimed God himself: Faith, Hope and Charity (Love)

9. Cardinal Virtues • The four cardinal virtues are the principle moral virtues that all other virtues hinge on: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. • They can be practiced by anyone and represent the foundation of natural morality.

10. Temperance • It is the restraint of human passions and appetites in accordance with reason; self-control of the body. • Many people think it is moderation in eating and drinking (misunderstanding) • It involves taking care of ourselves and thinking in terms of self-preservation; it is a love that is life-giving and selfless.

11. Temperance touches the most basic appetites and passions: food, drink and sex. • Temperance is more than just repressing these urges – it is about tempering these urges and desires and using them for human growth. • Abstinence humanizes our desire for food, sobriety humanizes the pleasure of drinking and chastity humanizes our desire for sexual pleasure.

12. Intemperance abuses food, drink and sex so that they are no longer there for self-preservation, self-assertion and self-fulfillment and become objects of addiction. • These things become ways of escaping our human and Christian responsibility. • Intemperance can be a sign that we don’t like or love ourselves.

13. Temperance and Chastity • Humans are made in God’s image, male and female (first creation story) • A rib from the male is used to make the female (second creation story) • Males and females complete each other and together make up the face of God which is love. • The gift of sexuality is an expression of love between a husband and wife; and the means of procreation.

14. Sexuality is a gift found in the reciprocal love of a man and woman – It contains the sublime word of love that completes the person in the likeness of God. Chastity – the integration of sexuality within the person. It includes self-mastery. Every baptized person is called to lead a chaste life according to his or her state in life.

15. Temperance of Food and Drink • Food and drink is meant to be enjoyed within reason. • Consumption in excess failing to consume enough is a vice that undermines the body’s health. • Overeating is the vice of indulgence. • The vice of drunkenness can lead to affect owur ability to make rational and moral choices while also having chronic effects on health.

16. Check out these clips • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOK0q4XX1YM • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy-9nugHRAI • How do the gift of sexuality and the virtue of chastity relate to sacrifice and love?

17. 2) The Role of the Other in Attaining the Good Life • Friendship, according to Aristotle, is not primarily a feeling of attachment of another – it is that and more. Friendship is a virtue. • Friendship is a deliberate activity that requires continuous exercise. • Friendship is essential for the good life.

18. What is Friendship? • It is an opening of one’s heart and mind to the other – it is a free and independent communication of one’s own person. • The openness of friendship calls for faith. • Friendship calls us to count on one another, requiring us to have hope. • Friendship involves a free self-giving on one person to another through love.

19. Solicitude: The other, not as a friend but as an ethical appeal Solicitude – Anxious concern for another • We have 2 types of experiences of the “other” that enter into ethics: friendship and the appeal of those in need. • Sometimes, in our attempt to help those in need, we find that we don’t really help them, but rather they help us (provide inspiration, courage, example).

20. 3) The Good Life Needs Just Institutions • It goes beyond individuals and includes the social structure of institutions (family, the state, health care, churches, market/economy etc.) • Some institutions are natural like family and marriage. • Other institutions have developed over time to meet our needs like protection, justice, education etc.

21. Institutions structure the expectations of people who live in together in society. • They are the backbone of the common good and they embody our values, beliefs and practices • Institutions are as good as the people who are part of them and who are willing to put their efforts into them.