The Moral-Nonmoral Distinction in Catholic Ethics: The Sterilization of Moral Language

THE MORAL-NONMORAL DISTINCTION IN CATHOLIC ETHICS: THE STERILIZATION OF MORAL LANGUAGE Introduction. !{CHARD McCORMICK has achieved an ascendency among Catholic moral theologians, a position he has earned after two decades of reporting developments in moral theology and articulating his often judicious moral positions. He also stands as a principal partner in the dialogue between Catholic and Protestant ethics. McCormick's gradually emerging moral methodology and the ethical positions which he takes have received mixed assessments. The litera.ture abounds with supporters who praise him for contributing to a nuanced and sensible aggiornamento in Catholic moral thought and with opponents who accuse him of serious deviation from the Catholic moral tradition. I suspect that a weariness is developing in the debate over (1) whether McCormick holds a strictly teleological theory of moral justification; (2) whether such a theory is (a) compatible with Catholic moral teaching at least as far back as Thomas Aquinas and (b) philosophically tenable; and (3) whether the thrust of McCormick's position will be to (a) undermine a coherent Catholic morality or (b) make the entire enterprise epistemologically more humble and honest. Not wanting to enter the debate on any of these points, I wish to probe McCormick's moral methodology at another, and I think, neglected level. I would like to subject his position , especially his employment of moral terminology and moral notions, to an analysis which moral theologians often fail to attend adequately to themselves, often at the expense of the cogency of their positions. One cannot avoid the impression that the language of Catholic moral theology has in the 343 344 MICHAEL K. DUFFY recent past obscured rather than clarified Catholic moral teaching. In addition to the magisterial use of Latin phrases, the employment of scholastic distinctions unfamiliar to modern folk contributes to the impression that Catholic moral theology is written in a private language inaccessible to the unschooled. My reading of McCormick is that he strives for clarity. At the same time, he is acutely conscious of having been misunderstood at a fundamental level, namely, rut the level of moral terminology, which, in turn, has made his moral position suspect. McCormick's own moral methodology has been influenced decisively by continental theologians Peter Knauer, Louis Janssens, and Bruno Schuller. It is their approaches, albeit with refinements, which McCormick has adopted; consequently , an evaluation of their employment of moral terms and notions applies to McCormick's use of moral language as well. I shall argue below that Catholic moral theology these days suffers most from a lack of conceptual clarity that is perpetuated by-and perhaps originates in-the ethical analysis by these men. My modest contribution shall be to suggest why their moral arguments potentially obscure and misstate the moral issues at hand. In a recent issue of the "Notes" McCormick faults opponents for not understanding the distinction between " moral " evil and " nonmoral " (or " premoral " or " ontic ") evil. Defending the distinction he writes For centuries Catholic theologians have referred to certain effects of our conduct as mala physica, in contrast to mala moralia. For example, what are we to call the killing that occurs in legitimate self-defense? ... Malum (mere) physicum was the traditional way of describing such evils. Contemporary theologians rightly think the world physicum is almost invariably misleading, as suggesting and being restricted to bodily harms and harms due to commission. The concept is far broader. It includes not only harm to reputation, etc., but even the imperfections and incompletions due to our limitations.1 1 "Notes," Theological Studies, Vol. 42, no. 1 (March, 1981), p. 78. THE MORAI,-NONMORAL DISTINCTION 345 In a footnote to the same passa.ge he again tries to clarify the distinction: If my legitimate self-defense resulted in the killing of a person, that killing would be classified as a nonmoral or ontic evil ... The distinction, he notes, has been " so badly misunderstood, frequently distorted, firmly resisted." What of this moral terminology-which of course he has inherited from these European moralists? I will argue that it contains serious misconceptions and must be used very carefully, if not avoided altogether. Two centuries ago David Hume spawned a serious misconception by clajming that our moral...