What is missing?

1. What is missing? • Each of us is in a tradition (or traditions). Each of us is a member of (many) cultures and practices. • What ethical / cultural practices (beliefs, rules, principles) should I follow? • - feeling isn’t enough. Why? • - tradition isn’t enough. Why? • - agreement isn’t enough, Why? • What is the relevance/importance of history, place, culture? • Relation of reason, passion, tradition, culture, social dimension

2. Why is it important to know/be ethical? To study ethics? • What values are central? (Are there any general/universal principles?) • Beneficence? Impartiality? Autonomy? Pluralism? • Does ethics make a difference? • relation to other beliefs (science, art, religion) • Who/what counts? Why? • Other factors • Human nature as social beings • The diversity of the social • The place of dialogue • Character / virtue

3. We need a full account of ethics as true and objective • Questions seeking explanation • How/when do I carry out my ethical beliefs? Is there any ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer? • Should others be ethical? (vs artistic taste, scientific knowledge) • How do I explain difference/diversity? Is difference/diversity in practice important? (What does it mean to say that ethics is “true”?)

4. Responding to post modern approaches • Still rationalist; still foundationalist (in critique) • If on a par, sceptical • We can know reality • footprints • Standard of truth not just correspondence • Quasi coherence and a ground • There is a purpose to sentimental education • We look for explanations of our feelings • Why are babies worth more than bugs? • Solidarity must be ‘reasonable’

5. Moral education (Practical ethics) and moral theory (moral philosophy) • we need to distinguish ‘moral ideas’ (morality) from ‘ideas about morality’ (moral science) -- between “the art of living” and “the science of ethics” • sceptical of the actual [psychological] influence that ideas about morality have on ethical behaviour • Is moral science necessary to moral action? • guidelines already present in institutions and dominant ideas that exist in the world • the moral life must grow from within

6. Is there any point to theory and the analysis of ethical life? • to understand moral life, what lies behind it, and what is involved in it • bad theories produce bad observations, and bad observations produce dangerous actions What does such a moral theory involve? • pursuing such questions as: the nature of human freedom, the nature of the will, the source of ethical obligation, the character of dominant ideas, and the ‘principle of value,’ and more.

7. Jacques Maritain

8. Jacques Maritain • Natural Law: reflections on theory and practice (ed. with Introductions and notes, by William Sweet), South Bend, IN: St Augustine's Press [distributed by University of Chicago Press], 2001; Second printing, corrected, 2003. • Man and the State, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1951. • La loi naturelle ou loi non écrite: texte inédit, établi par Georges Brazzola. Fribourg, Suisse: Éditions universitaires, 1986. [Lectures on Natural Law. Tr. William Sweet. In The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain, Vol. VI, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, (forthcoming).]

9. follows Thomas Aquinas (1224-74); foundationalist, rationalist • Vs modernity – “our knowledge of the basic principles of morality as deduced by conceptual and rational knowledge” is fundamentally mistaken • not because reason is defective, or a product of a particular culture • not the function of reason to provide foundational principles • Modernism confuses moral knowledge and moral philosophy • Moral philosophy is a practical science; builds on moral knowledge

10. We know "through science" and "through inclination“ (connaturality) • obtained "through looking at and consulting what we are and the inner bents and propensities of our own being” (RR 22) • Synderesis - not conceptual knowledge or reasoning • But also not affective/sentimental; an innate disposition • "the judgements in which Natural Law is made manifest to practical Reason do not proceed from any conceptual, discursive, rational exercise of reason; they proceed from that connaturality or congeniality through which what is consonant with the essential inclinations of human nature is grasped by the intellect as good; what is dissonant, as bad."

11. We know the first principle "Good is to be done and sought after, and evil is to be avoided" • Questions • Morality varies throughout humanity and history • Is this ‘knowledge’ rational? • What exactly do we know? (moral facts? Principles?) • Is this knowledge reliable?

12. What is involved in morality? • Basic cultural/moral beliefs (framework beliefs, triggered) • Non-basic cultural/moral beliefs • Historical • Social • Require practices and discourse • Rooted in dealings with the world; institutions • Learning moral culture/discourse vs reducible to it • Open ended; allow growth and development