Fostering a Catholic commitment to the common good: An approach rooted in virtue ethics

Theological Studies

Volumn 68, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 394-417

  Vogt, Christopher P ^a  

^a ST JOHN'S UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 46449125851     PISSN: 00405639     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004056390706800208     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. For the text of this document see David J. O'Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, ed., Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1992) 166-237
2. For a persuasive argument in favor of the possibility of a culturally situated universalisai, see Martha Nussbaum, "Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach," in The Quality of Life, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (New York: Oxford University, 1993) 242-76
3. The view expressed here is that nothing is given or independent of our perception of it. For example, in Michel Foucault's thought even something as seemingly basic and "natural" as human sexuality is seen to be socially constructed. It is a concept that gives (i.e., creates or constructs) unity and meaning to a set of biological functions, pleasures, sensations, and behaviors. Sexuality is more than a descriptive construct. It also serves as a very subtle and deeply entrenched locus for the exercise of power. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction (New York: Vintage, 1978- )
4. Even many supporters of a politics of the common good recognize that the fact of diversity limits the form that any contemporary political community would take. David Hollenbach, for example, grants that the size and diversity of the United States today precludes the possibility of developing a form of political life resembling an Athenian-style democracy. See David Hollenbach, "Virtue, the Common Good, and Democracy," in New Communitarian Thinking, ed. Amitai Etzioni (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995) 143-53, at 149
5. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University, 1996)
6. Judith Shklar, Ordinary Vices (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1984). Shklar is not alone in her fear (she terms her stance the "liberalism of fear")
7. Hollenbach's The Common Good and Christian Ethics (New York: Cambridge University, 2002) effectively addresses these intellectual concerns
8. While one might seem to live well enough in isolation, the fullness of human flourishing is possible only in the midst of a vibrantly good common life, which facilitates a higher level of human flourishing. As Michael Sandel put it, "We can know a good in common that we cannot know alone" (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice [New York: Cambridge University, 1982] 183)
9. Hollenbach, Common Good and Christian Ethics 27
10. Judith Merkle, From the Heart of the Church: The Catholic Social Tradition (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 2002) 242
11. Charles Curran argues that Catholic social teaching tends to focus on changing institutions and structures at the expense of emphasizing the simultaneous need for a change of heart. He writes: "Without a change of heart, there will never be a change of structure. Yet the documents of Catholic social teaching do not give central importance to the change of heart" (Catholic Social Teaching: A Historical, Theological, and Ethical Analysis [Washington: Georgetown, 2002] 46)
12. Joseph J. Kotva, The Christian Case for Virtue Ethics (Washington: Georgetown, 1996) 17
13. On this issue, see Bonnie Kent, "Habits and Virtues," in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope (Washington: Georgetown University, 2002) 116-30
14. David Baily Harned provides a helpful discussion of this point within the specific context of the virtue of patience. See "The Unity of Virtue," the final chapter of Harned's Patience: How We Wait upon the World (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley, 1997) 155-78
15. Christopher P. Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, and the Christian Art of Dying Well (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)
16. Jean Porter, "The Virtue of Justice," in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope (Washington: Georgetown University, 2002) 272-86, at 273. Porter explains that cardinal virtues such as justice can be understood as distinct because they have distinctive spheres of operation - right relations between persons in the case of justice - but can also be understood as general virtues in that they are present and play a role in the exercise of many other virtues
17. Jean Porter, "Virtue," in The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, ed. Richard P. McBrien (New York: HarperCollins, 1995) 1316-17, at 1316
18. To my knowledge, the best example of the single virtue approach can be found in the work of Martha Nussbaum, who describes compassion (which she also calls pity) as a virtue that perfects one's thoughts, affections, and actions toward others. Her argument for why compassion and many other emotions should be understood in cognitive terms is a strong aspect of her work. For a concise treatment of her approach see her "Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion," Social Philosophy and Policy 13 (1996) 27-58
19. James F. Keenan, "Proposing Cardinal Virtues," Theological Studies 56 (1995) 709-29, develops this issue more fully than I do here. He proposes that justice is insufficient on its own to govern a person's right relationships with others because the right treatment of a stranger would be quite different from the right treatment of a person close to us (our own child, for example). Keenan notes that our obligation to the stranger in society can conflict with what we owe those we love (including ourselves). He argues that the virtue of justice should be understood more narrowly as pertaining only to our relationships with strangers. Interactions with friends and family would be governed by the virtue of fidelity instead of justice. It falls to the virtue of prudence to discern which virtue should be given priority when a conflict arises among justice, fidelity, and self-care
20. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, "Solidarity: Love of Neighbor in the 21st Century," in Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside, ed. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and Mary Potter Engel, rev. and exp. ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998) 30-39, at 32
21. This is one of the central points of the classic work by Joe Holland and Peter Henriot, Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1983)
22. Jon Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1994) 90-91
23. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine no. 193
24. John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis no. 17, http://www.vatican.va/ holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp- ii_enc_30121987_sollicitudo-rei-socialis_en.html (accessed September 13, 2006)
25. Hollenbach, Common Good and Christian Ethics 189 (emphasis added)
26. See David Hollenbach, "Globalization, Solidarity, and Justice," East Asian Pastoral Review 43 (2006) 21-38
27. Isasi-Diaz, "Solidarity" 34
28. Sobrino argues that we can really know Christ and the shape of liberation only by following Christ. Sobrino envisions a hermeneutical circle of mutually informative praxis and reflection. Liberative praxis leads to a more liberative way of knowing; contemplation and reflection in turn help one to know how to witness or act more effectively and authentically ("Systematic Christology: Jesus Christ, the Absolute Mediator of the Reign of God," in Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993] 440-61, at 448-52)
29. see Hollenbach, "Globalization, Solidarity, and Justice."
30. Isasi-Diaz, "Solidarity" 39
31. Paul Wadell, "Compassion," in Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. Carroll Stuhlmueller (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1996) 157
32. Diana Fritz Cates, "Caring for Girls and Women Who Are Considering Abortion," in Medicine and the Ethics of Care, ed. Diana Fritz Cates and Paul Lauritzen (Washington: Georgetown University, 2001) 162-203, at 170
33. Warren Reich, "Speaking of Suffering: A Moral Account of Compassion," Soundings 72 (1989) 83-108, at 93
34. Diana Fritz Cates, Choosing to Feel: Virtue, Friendship, and Compassion for Friends (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1997) 139-40. Nussbaum takes a contrasting view, arguing that compassion is not an identification of oneself with the other or a fusion of the other's suffering with one's own. The compassionate person feels pain at the undeserved suffering of the other and senses that he or she would suffer in a similar situation, but there remain two separate instances of suffering, not a single shared experience
35. See Nussbaum, "Basic Social Emotion" 34-35, and Upheavals of Thought 324-27
36. See Diana Fritz Cates, "The Religious Dimension of Ordinary Emotions," Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 25 (2005) 35-53, and Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought
37. For a helpful analysis of the latter, see Diana Fritz Cates, "Conceiving Emotions: Martha Nussbaum's Upheavals of Thought, " Journal of Religious Ethics 31 (2003) 325-41
38. Cates, "Caring for Girls" 171, is referring to J. Giles Milhaven, "Ethics and Another Knowing of Good and Evil," Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, ed. Diane Yeager (Washington: Georgetown University, 1991) 237-48
39. Cates, "Caring for Girls" 72
40. Hille Haker, "Compassion as a Global Programme for Christianity," in In Search of Universal Values, ed. Karl-Josef Kuschel and Dietmar Mieth, Concilium (London: SCM, 2001) 55-70, at 64
41. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought 310-11, insists that compassion always involves several judgments that are made from the perspective of the onlooker. For example, a compassionate person must judge whether the other's suffering is serious or trivial, and what actions would remedy it. The compassionate person's response is rooted in his or her conception of a good human life
42. Cates, Choosing to Feel 159
43. Haker, "Compassion as a Global Programme" 65
44. Isasi-Diaz, "Solidarity" 36
45. Haker, "Compassion as a Global Programme" 66
46. For a similar description of the shape of hospitality, combined with a discussion of its applicability in a very different context, see Christopher P. Vogt, "Recognizing the Addict as Neighbor: Christian Hospitality and the Establishment of Safe Injection Facilities in Canada," Theoforum 35 (2004) 317-42
47. Robert J. Karris, "The Gospel according to Luke," in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990) 625-721, at 711
48. Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 17-21
49. John Donahue asserts that the central claim of the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke's Gospel is that everyone is worthy of the designation of neighbor. Indeed, Jesus tells the parable as an answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?" (The Gospel in Parable [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988] 130-31)
50. Similarly, Fitzmyer asserts that Jesus' response rules out the validity of the question, Who is my neighbor? Everyone must be considered neighbor; the real question is how one should treat one's neighbor (The Gospel according to Luke: Introduction, Translation, and Notes, Anchor Bible 28 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985] 884)
51. Pohl, Making Room 13
52. Pohl writes, "Under the guise of acting generously, [some] avoid the questions of maldistribution of power and resources and reinforce existing patterns of status and wealth. They make others, especially poor people, passive recipients in their own families, churches, or communities" ("Hospitality from the Edge: The Significance of Marginality in the Practice of Welcome," Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics [1995] 135)
53. Bruce Lambert, "On L.I., Raid Stirs Dispute over Influx of Immigrants," New York Times, June 26, 2005
54. A study released in 2006 by the Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy at Hofstra University found that over half of day laborers on Long Island have experienced at least one instance of violence, intimidation, or harassment while seeking employment - a rate more than 109 times that for average citizens of New York. The study also found that day laborers on Long Island were exposed to unsafe working conditions at a rate 5.45 times higher than that for the average New York state worker. Over half of the workers reported not being paid after a full day's work, and over a third reported one or more incidents of being abandoned at a work site. Gregory M. Maney et al., Protecting Human Rights in a Global Economy: The Impact of Government Responses to Day Labor Markets (Hempstead, N.Y.: Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy, 2006)
55. Maney, "Protecting Human Rights" 23
56. Hollenbach, Common Good and Christian Ethics 215, 219
57. Martha Nussbaum, "Can Patriotism Be Compassionate?" Nation 273.20 (December 17, 2001) 11-14, at 11
58. James E. Gilman, "Compassion and Public Covenant: Christian Faith in Public Life," Journal of Church and State 36 (1994) 747-71