Christ and the Moral Life Randall B. Smith Professor of Theology University of St. Thomas Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves. (John Paul II, Fides et Ratio) The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. (Gaudium et Spes, 24)

Introduction: In class readings:

Pope John Paul II
Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
"The Happiness Trap"
Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (selection)
"The Risks of Meaninglessness"
Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning (selection)

Reflection:  Write your own eulogy. If you were to die in ten years, what would you want someone who knows you well to be able to say honestly about you? Did you have serious setbacks and obstacles?  If so, how did you face them?  What made your life meaningful?

Tasha Eurich, Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think (selections) --- Outline
Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos (selections)
Timothy Clydesdale, The First Year Out, 1-6, 37-41 (on the “daily life management game”)
Daniel Goleman on "Self-Awareness"

Reflection:  In this course, we are asking students to ask "the fundamental questions" of the sort Pope John Paul II talks about at the beginning of his encyclical Fides et Ratio.  "Who am I?" is one of them.  I want you to consider whether you "know yourself"?  This reflection has two parts.  The first part is due before the second class period.  The second part will be due before the fourth class period (see below). I am telling you about the second part now because that assignment will require some advance planning. You will need to find a trusted friend or family member who knows you in advance, and they need to answer some questions about you.  But for the second class, you only need to write a reflection on Part 1.   

Part 1:  If Timothy Clydesdale's study of college students is any indication, how likely is it that you will actually ask yourself the fundamental questions we wish to examine in this class?  How likely is it that you will prefer instead to use what he calls "the identity lock-box"?

3. Consumerism: Buying and Selling a Sense of Self

Christian Smith, "Captive to Consumerism"
Walker Percy, "The Self as Nought"
Juliet Schor, The Overspent American (selections: shorter version in Reader)
John Paul II on "consumerism"

Reflection:  Today's reflection has three parts:

(1) Are you affected by modern methods of marketing and advertising that market items by selling a persona, a sense of identity?
(2) Are your friends affected by these modern methods of marketing and advertising?
(3) If you answered no to the first question (you are not affected) and yes to the second (your friends are affected), what would your friends and parents say about you? 

4. The Modern Moral Landscape

Christian Smith, Lost in Transition, Introduction and Ch. 1, "Morality Adrift"
Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (on “moralistic therapeutic deism”)

Reflection:  [Part 2 of the reflection about whether you "know yourself" is due today.]

Find a trusted friend or family member who knows you well.  For each of the seven areas listed below, describe how you see yourself (e.g., what are you values? how do you react to situations?). Then, ask the other person, without looking at your answers, to write down how they see you (e.g., what do they think your values are? how do they see you react to situations?).  Now discuss the similarities and differences between your answers about yourself and your partner's answers.  I am not interested in prying into your private life, so you needn't turn in to me what you wrote about the seven areas below or what your partner said.  What I am interested in is your written reflection on the similarities and differences between your answers about yourself and those given by someone who knows you well.  Were you surprised by any of your partner's answers?  If so, was the difference because they didn't understand you as well as you thought, or was it perhaps because you don't understand yourself and how you are being seen by others as well as you thought? (Due, as I said above, at the beginning of the fourth class period.)

1. Values: The principles that guide how you govern your life
2. Passions:  What you love to do
3. Aspirations: What you want to experience and achieve
4. Fit: The environment you require to be happy and engaged
5. Patterns: Your consistent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving across situations
6. Reactions: The thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reveal your strengths and weaknesses
7. Impact: How your actions are generally perceived by others

5. The Source of Confusion: A Confusion of Sources

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press), 6-14, 23-30.
Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk, "The Land of Rights" (16 pp.)
Immanuel Kant, "The categorical imperative"
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chs. 1 and 4.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (on the "harm principle")

Reflection: Consider this situation where "maximization of utility" and "rights" might come into conflict.  You are a manager in a major corporation.  Your job is to maximize efficiency and to cut inefficiency.  You will only advance in your career at the company if you are successful in maximizing profit and minimizing inefficiency.  You notice an employee who is falling behind the rest.  You inquire and find out she is having trouble with your boss who has been sexually harassing her.  She is upset, and her work has suffered.  Throughout the company there is pressure to maximize efficiencies, and higher-ups in the corporation are looking to you to do your part in your unit.  This could be your time to shine.  You say you believe in a woman's right not to be harassed, but there isn't much you think you can do to resolve that problem since the problem arose with someone who is not only your superior but also someone who makes a lot of money for the company.  And if you say something, you risk getting yourself and the company caught up in a lot of bad publicity.  As a result, your fellow employees are putting pressure on you to "not make trouble."  How here's the question:  Do you uphold the woman's "right" regardless of the consequences or do you consider this employee's good in conjunction with the good of the many?  How would you decide whether to adopt one approach (respecting her "right" regardless of the consequences) over the other (maximizing utility for the many)?  What arguments would you use to convince those who disagree with you?

6. Uncivil Discourse: The Simulacra of Arguments in Rhetorical Junkspace

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 68-71
Vaclav Havel, "Power of the Powerless" (selection)
Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart, 1-26
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

"The New Mind Control," Robert Epstein
"Vicious Cycles: Theses on a Philosophy of News," Greg Jackson

Reflection:  Do you ever assume that those with whom you disagree on important moral, political, or religious issues must be either ignorant or wicked to hold the positions they do?

7. Reflections on Freedom, Success, and Justice

Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart, 41-48
Servais Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View, 65-81 (on the distinction between “freedom of indifference” and “freedom for excellence”)
Michael Sandel on "The Unencumbered Self"
David C. Burns, "Rejecting the Culture of Authenticity"

* Diagram: Freedom of Indifference vs. Freedom for Excellence

Reflection: One of the characteristics of the modern "unencumbered self," is that this person accepts only the obligations he or she has chosen.  Do you believe that you have obligations to others even if you have not chosen them (say, for example, parents, fellow workers, others in society you do not know)?

8. Humanity and Technology

The Second Vatican Council Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), 1-11
Langdon Gilkey, Shantung Compound (selections)

Reflection: Early during his time in the Shantung Compound, Langdon Gilkey saw no need for religion.  Later, his mind changed.  Why?  What were some of the things that caused him to change his mind?

9. Classical Views of Nature, Human Nature, and Human Flourishing: Western

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 51-61 (the threefold schema)
Epictetus, Enchiridion
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

In class: "Metaphysics and Ethics" (Jacques Maritain)

Reflection: If you were a Stoic, how would you envision human nature and human flourishing?  What human capacities would you wish to facilitate?  Which would you wish to minimize and why? If you were an Epicurean, how would you envision human nature and human flourishing? What human capacities would you wish to facilitate?  Which would you wish to minimize and why?  Are you more of a Stoic or an Epicurean?

10. Classical Views of Nature, Human Nature, and Human Flourishing: Eastern

Hindu Dharma
Buddhist Ethics
Confucian Harmony

Reflection: Lots of reading.  No reflection due.  But substantial quiz on all three readings.

11. Reflections on Virgil's Aeneid: Free Will, Fate, and the Gods

Virgil, Aeneid, bks 1, 2, 6 (Summary of Book 6 of the Aeneid)

Reflection:  You are a soldier in Vietnam.  You have met and fallen in love with a Vietnamese woman. The two of you have a child, although you are not legally married.  Due to political reasons beyond your control (and about which you know next to nothing other than bits and snatches you read in the newspaper), you and your battalion are ordered back to the United States.  The North Vietnamese forces are invading the South and will soon overrun it.  If you leave, you may not see her or your child again.  If you stay, you may be imprisoned by the invading North Vietnamese.  Should you obey those orders and leave, or should you stay with her in Vietnam?  Are you responsible for taking care of her and your child even though so much of what has happened has been beyond your control?  Explain your decision.

12. Reflections on Virgil's Aeneid: What to do about Dido?

Virgil, Aeneid, bk 4
Plato, Symposium, 189c-193e (Aristophanes's speech)
Christian Smith, "The Shadow Side of Sexual Liberation"

Reflection: If you were Dido's mother or father, would you want your daughte1r getting involved with Aeneas?  Why or why not?  (Please note, if your answer involves the claim that their sexual relationship is "immoral," please explain what makes it "immoral."  If you wish to claim that Aeneas is motivated by "lust," not "love," please explain the difference between the two.)  If you were you, but in Dido's situation, would you would listen to your mother or father if they warned you against getting involved with Aeneas?  Should you listen?  Why or why not?

Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning, 1-39
Robert Barron, "What Play Are You In?"
St. Augustine, Catechizing the Uninstructed

Reflection: What do you think the story of the world is?  Is it meaningless chaos?  Is it ruled by fate, sometimes beneficial, sometimes cruel?  Or is it something else?  If so, what?

William Carroll, Creation and Science

* Outline: The Difference Between Creation and Change
* Outline: Divine and Natural Causality

Reflection: Has modern science demonstrated to you that belief in a loving God is irrational?  (You should be honest about this.  You should not presume that your instructor is looking for the "right" or "pious" answer.)

Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order (selections)

Reflection:   This chapter poses questions about the relationship between my purposes and the nature and ends of the things I encounter.  Consider:  should the nature and end of my dog limit my purposes and set boundaries as to how I treat him or what I do with him?  If I injure my dog while pursuing my goals, have I done what I ought not to do? So too, should the nature and end of my fellow humans limit my purposes as to how I treat them?  Should I consider their purposes as well as my own, and if so, in what ways?  Or as an individual, am I bound only by the things I choose to be bound by?  

Pope John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, "Freedom and Law," 31-50
Roch Kereszty, “Sin as a Threefold Alienation”

*Scripture:  Gen 2-3 (The Garden and the Fall)
* Outline: The Threefold Alienation of Sin

Reflection: How does Pope John Paul II interpret the temptation in the Book of Genesis to "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"?  Now, consider: When you make decisions, do you imagine that you create good and evil by the fact that you chose it, or do you attempt to discover good and evil?  If you imagine that you create good and evil , what is your basis for creating them?  If you discover good and evil, how do you set out to discover what is good and what is not?

Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Who is Man?"
G. H. Colt, "The Magic of Touch" --- "The Magic of Touch" (scan of the original)
Bill Moyers, Healing and the Mind
Hubert Dreyfus, “Disembodied Telepresence and the Remoteness of the Real”

*Scripture:  Gen 1.24-2.9

Reflection: 
A) Is healing a purely physical thing?  Is it a purely mental or spiritual thing?  If it is not either one, how should we understand it? 
B) If you said that healing is not purely physical or purely mental and emotional, but both, do you think that sex is purely physical or purely mental and emotional, totally unrelated to the physical?  Can you really separate the two in the case of sex but not in the case of healing?  If so, why the difference? 

Plato, Phaedrus, 253d-257b (“Allegory of the Chariot”)
Paul Gondreau, "Balanced Emotions"
Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error, xi-xv, 245-258 (up to “A Note on the Limits of Neurobiology Now”)

Overview for the mid-term and final exams: Catholic View of the Human Person

5 Steps to Emotional Intelligence

Reflection:  According to the little reading "5 Steps to Emotional Intelligence," we can recall those five steps by remembering the mnemonic "RULER." How good are you at these five steps?

Philip Hallie, “Magda and the Great Virtues,” 
Josef Pieper, “The Christian Virtues”

Reflection:
    Do you have a skill? Did learning the skill involve discipline? Did it involve learning information you didn't previously know?  Does mastering your skill involve learning to deal with material (wood, metal, the spin of tennis balls, hitting curve balls, paint, a musical instrument, the human voice) or with other people (teammates, fellow band members, other carpenters)?  If so, please describe.  Has mastering your skill given you joy?  (If you haven’t mastered a skill, would you like to?)
    Now consider this:  A student once came to my class and announced as she entered the room, "I want to be like that woman!  I want to be Magda Trocmé!"  What would she have to do to make herself into someone like Magda Trocmé?  Would it be like developing a skill?  If so, how?

Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (selections)
Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel, Blind Spots (selection)

Reflection:  Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel identify some "moral blind spots" that cause many of us to do unethical actions without realizing we are doing so. In Reflection 5 above, I asked you to say what you would do in a situation if you observed sexual harassment in the workplace. Given the studies mentioned by Bazerman and Tenbrunsel, how likely is it that you actually will do what you said you would?  If it now seems much less likely that you will act as ethically as you first proposed, what steps could you take to ensure that you will act ethically when the time comes?

Josef Pieper, Justice (selections)
Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, ch. II, sections 4-10

Reflection: In Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II proposes ways in which convictions about the nature of the human person and human flourishing can and should influence the way we treat workers in justice, "giving them their due." Do you agree with his analysis?  Why or why not?  Have you found, working, that most employers act the way the Pope proposes? Would you prefer they did? If you were a manager or employer, how would you treat your workers?

“Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law and the Natural Law” (with Diagram)
Robert Sokolowski, “What is Natural Law? Human Purposes and Natural Ends,” The Thomist, vol. 66, no. 4 (October 2004): 507-529.

Psalm 19
Psalm 119
Deuteronomy 4:7 ff.

Reflection:  The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche thought that the Old Testament Jewish laws were made by a “slavish” people to keep excellent men enslaved and to prevent them from exercising their will-to-power, their will-to-dominate and change the world.  In his encyclical Veritatis splendor Pope John Paul II suggested that, “God's law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and promotes that freedom.”  So does the law enslave us (as Nietzsche thought) or free us (as John Paul II thought)?

Catechism of the Catholic Church, pt. 3, sect. 2, aa. 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (sections 2196-2513)
Thomas Aquinas, Summa of Theology I-II, q. 105, aa. 1-4   

Movie: The Bicycle Thief (also titled The Bicycle Thieves), Vittorio De Sica, 1948  

Reflection (choose one of the following two):

A)   In the Summa of Theology, Thomas Aquinas proposes that not paying a workman his wages is a violation of the commandment against stealing, do you agree?  When employers fail to make payroll, do you imagine they say to themselves, “Oh no, I just violated one of the Ten Commandments, and that’s a serious sin!”  If not, why not? 

 B)   In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2479), we read that “Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honor of one's neighbor. Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation and to respect.”  Is gossip of this sort (that maligns a person) a violation of justice and charity, specifically a violation of the commandment against bearing false witness?  If you say yes, gossip is a "sin," why do you continue doing it?  Do you like it when others gossip about you?  If not, why do you do it? When you do it, do you say to yourself, “I am committing a sin; I am violating one of the Ten Commandments”?  If not, why not?

Pinckaers, "The Holy Spirit and the New Law"
“Grace,” Catholic Adult Catechism
Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Reflection:  Would being motivated by charity and by the Christian worldview make any difference in how one decides what is “prudent” or not?  If so, how?  What kind of person must one be and what kinds of abilities must one have to make prudent judgments when faced with decisions like those faced by the villagers of Le Chambon whether to hide Jewish refugees or refuse?  Would charity and/or faith help?  If so, how? 

Philip Hallie, "The Hands of Joshua James"
James C. Scott, "Practical Knowledge"--- outline
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence

Reflection:   Are you a very wise person?  After you have given a general answer to that question, now ask yourself whether you have a good understanding of first principles; a solid ability to reason from first principles to particular situations; and a good memory that allows you to learn from experience.  Are you teachable?  Can you “think on your feet” when new situations arise?  Do you foresee relevant problems?  And do you take the necessary precautions to protect against possible problems? Does considering the question of wisdom from the perspective of those categories change your judgment about your own wisdom? 

David Messick and Max Bazerman, “Ethical Leadership and the Psychology of Decision Making” --- outline

Reflection:  Authors Messick and Bazerman discuss three sources of moral error:  mistakes about the world, about others, and about ourselves.  Consider a bad decision you made.  What was the source of that poor decision?  Was it a mistake about the world, about others, or about yourself?  Or was it all three?  Explain.

Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, "The Beatitudes"
Pope John Paul II, Veritatis splendor 90-94 

Reflection:  In Veritatis splendor 91, Pope John Paul II declares that, "The Church proposes the example of numerous Saints who bore witness to and defended moral truth even to the point of enduring martyrdom, or who preferred death to a single mortal sin. In raising them to the honor of the altars, the Church has canonized their witness and declared the truth of their judgment, according to which the love of God entails the obligation to respect his commandments, even in the most dire of circumstances, and the refusal to betray those commandments, even for the sake of saving one's own life."  Early in the course, we discovered reading Christian Smith's book Lost in Transition that most emerging adults report that they would be willing to compromise their own values if it would benefit them and they thought that they could get away with it. Would you be willing to make substantial sacrifices (job, money, career, reputation, freedom, life) if the choice was that or doing something immoral?  If so, for what and why?  If not, why not?

 Fr. Roch Kereszty, Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology, ch. II: "The Death and Resurrection of Jesus"

*Scripture:
Matthew 28
Mark 16
Luke 24 and Acts 1-2
John 20-21
Paul's Epistles (Rom 6 and 1 Cor 15)

*Overhead: St. Paul and the Resurrection
*Overhead: The Good News of the Resurrection

Reflection: No reflection due. But reading quiz as usual.