Morality – Final Exam Notes
What is morality?
Morality - the decisions we make about right and wrong, “the struggle to live well (K Himes).” It is also how we are oriented/directed towards God.
- A systematic and self critical study of good/bad, right and wrong.
Major Questions Morality Addresses
- Is there meaning to life, and if so, what is meaningful?
What are different ways people have attempted to answer this question?
- How do you attain moral goodness (How do you become a moral person)?
- Are human beings naturally good or evil?
Character - Our personal integrity, values, the sum total of a person's moral decisions. It can also be described about how good of a person someone is.
Moral Decisions are choices that make us better human beings and bring us closer to God.
Immoral Decisions are choices that make us worse human beings and lead us farther from God.
Competing Ideas with Christian Morality
Church - Morality is based on how well we love. Loving God and being a good person means loving your neighbor.
Before looking at Christian moral teachings and beliefs we will look at several philosophies that contradict the teachings of the Church.
- Moral Relativism - Right, wrong and meaning are completely up to each individual person. Whatever you think is right to do is ok.
- Pelagianism - Goodness is something that needs to be achieved through our own choices. We make ourselves become good and earn heaven/salvation through our own efforts, if not, then we aren't rewarded.
- Nihilism - The belief that nothing in life has any real meaning or value.
- Individualism - The idea that each person needs to whatever it takes for his or her own benefit (or family) regardless of how affects others.
- Hedonism – The idea that the purpose of life is to maximize the amount of pleasure and minimize the amount of pain we experience.
Human Dignity
Human Dignity is the Catholic belief that all people are made in the image and likeness of God. “God created human beings,
making them to be like himself. God looked at everything he
made and found it to be very good (Genesis 1:26, 31)."
Human nature - the way human beings have been naturally created. It’s based on their tendencies, attitudes and behavior. Catholics believe that human nature is good, although people have tendencies to go against their nature and make wrong choices.
Christian Morality - Human Nature and Dignity
Catholic Beliefs
-Because all people are made to be like God, and God is both in and with each person, all people are sacred and valuable.
-Every human life has meaning and is graced.
- For Catholics, the best way to describe God is that he is perfectly loving. Therefore, God’s grace is freely given to us by God.
- Human Dignity is not something that has to be earned by
good behavior or that can be lost with sinful choices.
-It is not given in different amounts. God cares for everyone the same, perfectly, 100%.
- Human dignity involves seeing and treating all human beings as if they are in a sense part of a family or community.
- Because we are all sacred and have dignity, the Church says that we all have certain human rights.
1) We have certain freedoms from
2) We have certain freedoms to do
Sources of Morality
What factors affect your morality and decision making?
Internal Factors
- Intuition - Your first reaction towards things, your "gut feeling."
- Emotion - Your feelings and moods affect the way you make decisions
- Conscience - Your ability to tell the difference between right and wrong.
- Reason - using facts, logic and observations to support your moral reasoning.
External Factors
- Authority
- Cultural Influences
- Religious Beliefs
The Creation Stories and the Incarnation
This is the belief that God has chosen to become a human being instead or remaining in the form of God. In a sense this can be considered the greatest compliment to being a human, that God wanted to become one of us.
The real origin of evil and sin is to reject the goodness of being human, that we are not really made in God’s image. It is to disagree with God’s statement about the goodness of creation and to think that nothing has any worth or is any good.
The Incarnation is the revelation of the goodness of being human.
According to Scripture, Catholics believe that Jesus became human like us in all things but sin.
What truly unites us with God and makes us like him is to be a better human being. Anything that makes us truly a better person and makes us more authentically human also makes us more like God. Anything that causes us to turn away from the goodness of humanity or treat others as if they are undignified is an obstacle to relationship with God.
Pope John Paul II even defined Christianity as “an attitude of deep amazement at the human person’s worth and dignity."
Explicit Christians - People who believe and accept the teachings of Jesus and the Church.
Implicit Christians - People who live out the teachings of Jesus in their lives.
Categorical (Short Term) and
Transcendental (Long Term) Conscience
Conscience - Our ability to know the difference between right and wrong.
Primacy of Conscience
"The Divine Law is the supreme rule of actions; our thoughts, desires, words, acts, all that man is, is subject to the domain of the law of God; and this law is the rule of our conduct by means of our conscience. Hence it is never lawful to go against our conscience (Henry Newman)."
- Our conscience is our personal ultimate moral authority. However, we have the responsibility to educate our conscience so it leads us to a right path. If our conscience is properly formed and used then we are obligated to follow it.
- Our conscience should have the final word on what we should and should not do.
Discussion - What are ways that a person can educate his or her conscience?
Our conscience works in two different ways.
Categorical (Short Term Conscience) - The everyday individual choices you make about right and wrong.
- It's about how you live out your values.
- How you choose to act in situations.
- Choosing where you are in life now (Present).
Examples:
1) Deciding to help out your younger sister with her homework when she is struggling.
2) Telling your friends to stop spreading rumors about another classmate.
Both of these decisions are situations where you choose how to act in the present that demonstrate your values.
Transcendental (Long Term Conscience) - Choosing the kind of person you want to be.
- Choosing what your values are, the things that are most important to you.
- Choosing where you want to be in your life (Future)
- Big life decisions that take many little decisions to build up.
Examples:
1) Deciding that you need to be a better friend by being more reliable.
2) Choosing to be more obedient by listening to your parents more often.
In both cases, these choices involve big choices that take many little choices to build up. You don't all of a sudden become a more reliable person just because you help a person out one time; it takes many times before you are really becoming reliable.
You aren't an obedient daughter or son just because you listen to your parents once or twice. This needs to become a habit where you are obedient many times before you truly have that value.
Important Point: Both short term and long term decisions can be important and really change you as a person, not just long term decisions.
Transcendental (Long Term) First
With many of our choices we begin with the transcendental (long term) conscience first, where we figure out what kind of person we want to be, what we want to change to be like, or where we want to go in our lives.
For example, if you decide to become a more faithful person (long term choice - picking a value) than what would be some short term choices you would need to make to become this?
- Reading and reflecting on a Bible story
- Going to Mass each week
- Volunteering in a service project to help others
Categorical (Short Term) Conscience First
Many of our decisions begin with our short term conscience first before the long term. This is okay as long as we are paying attention to what the effects of these choices are and how they are changing us and our long term conscience.
Reflecting on our categorical (short term) conscience choices can help us to recognize patterns and habits that we develop so we can see what kind of person we are becoming.
Free Will and Sin
- According to the Church, all humans have free will - the ability to make choices including about right and wrong (morality).
- Original Sin - the belief that all people all born with the ability to commit sins. Although all people are naturally good and made in God's image we are not perfect and will have times where we choose against God (sin).
- We have original sin because we have free will and can make choices. Free will also enables us to be good people because we can make right choices to follow God.
- If we didn't have free will and were forced to be like God we
wouldn't really be good because we wouldn't be choosing it. So its because we can have choices and can choose sin if we want also enables us to be good.
Sin
Sin is the free choice to hurt our relationship with God, ourselves and our community. Sin always negatively affects all 3 and goes against both truth and reason.
- Sin is also a choice to disobey your conscience, to do the
wrong thing when you know it's wrong or should have known
better.
- Sin can easily develop into a pattern of behavior or habit. The
more you sin, the easier it is to keep sinning and it becomes very difficult to stop.
Conditions for Evaluating Choices and Sin
The moral goodness and seriousness of sin are based on three
factors:
1) Action/Object - What you are actually doing and the effects it has on yourself and others.
2) Intent - Your motivation; the reason why you make a choice
3) Circumstance/Awareness - The secondary factors that affect an act like the time, place, method of the act and the conditions surrounding the decision. It also involves how much you know of the situation and the decision you are actually making, like if you are thinking clearly or if your thinking has been compromised.
Different Kinds of Sin
The Church teaches that not all sin has the same effects and consequences. Some sin is worse than others, but all sins are in a sense serious because of their affects and what they can lead to.
- Venial Sin - Less serious sin that damages our relationship with God, ourselves and the community.
- Mortal Sin - The most serious form of sin that completely breaks a person's relationship with God. In order for this to happen, the sin has to meet all three of the conditions of seriously bad action, intent, and full awareness of the situation.
Virtues and Vices
Virtues are good qualities that help us to become better human beings and grow closer to God. It is a firm attitude and disposition that guides us to do good.
Vices are bad qualities that or habit that causes us to become worse human beings and be separated from God.
Both virtues and vices are habits, which are patterns of behavior and ways of living. They often take time to develop.
Influence - someone or something that changes the way we think or behave.
Virtues
The Church teaches that there are 7 virtues that truly stand out and grow closer to God. They are in two different categories.
Theological Virtues - 3 most important
The Church teaches that these 3 virtues are most important of all. They are faith, hope and love (charity).
Faith - A person's relationship with God.
Hope - Being able to see the good in others and in the world, not giving up in any situation, and knowing that God is with you through all things.
Love (Charity) - Self gift, being able freely care for others without seeking anything in return. This is considered to be the most important virtue that all others build towards
Cardinal Virtues - secondary virtues
Secondary virtues that also help us to be better human beings.
Wisdom (prudence) - Understanding, learning from experience, and being able to determine right from wrong in situations.
Justice - Doing the right thing, fairness, helping people with needs.
Courage (Fortitude) - The inner strength to face fears and challenges.
Temperance - Having moderation and balance in life; also relates to self-discipline and not giving in to temptation.
Capital Vices (Seven Deadly Sins)
These negative qualities cause people to make immoral choices and distance themselves from God. They are seen to be the basis and cause of much sin.
Pride - Having an excessively high opinion of oneself so that others are seen to be inferior and the person has no weakness or needs no help from others or even God.
Jealousy (Envy) - The feeling of negativity shown orders because of something they possess or an accomplishment they have attained. It results in the inability to feel joy for the goodness of others.
Greed - The strong desire to acquire more possessions and to keep things for oneself often causing a person to overvalue materials.