Practical Considerations From “Natural Ethics”

WHAT MAKES FOR A GOOD & HAPPY PERSON?

PAUL RICOEUR’S TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS:AIMING AT THE GOOD LIFE

• “communion of saints”• Best practices• Studying & practicing virtues

Standards

• Friendship• Solicitude

The role of other

• Social structures, e.g. family, church• Promote & stabilize search for the good

Institutional Context

TEMPERANCE

• Touches on 3 essentials of life

• Their focus is on self-preservation, part of our desire to exist

• Not just about REPRESSING desires

• Is not selfish when integrated into genuine human growth

• Aquinas

• Abstinence humanizes desire for food

• Sobriety, humanizes the pleasure of drinking

• Chastity humanizes our desire for sexual pleasure

SEX & CHASTITY• The sex difference makes man & woman unfinished in

themselves

• The classic rule is very simple

• Sexual acts acquire true human meaning when directed in a loving union bound by total reciprocal fidelity & open to procreation

• Sex has two co-equal purposes

• Unitive (love-giving) & procreative (life-giving)

• Review Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) & Fr. Ron Rolheiser pages 138-139

THE ROLE OF THE OTHER

• One cannot live out the good life alone

• Aristotle pointed out the need for friendship

• A deliberate activity requiring continuous exercise

• Must be worked at

• Read and comment on “What is Friendship?” page 141

SOLICITUDE: THE OTHER AS ETHICAL APPEAL

• Recall Levinas call to respond to the needs of the other

• E.g., the beggar who makes me aware of their neediness,

• Images of those suffering from AIDS, drought, famine, war…

• Create some kind of suffering within us sympathy, compassion

• Solicitude: anxious concern for the other a requirement for living ethically

THE GOOD LIFE NEEDS JUST INSTITUTIONS

• To promote & stabilize our search for the good

• Think of institutions to which you belong

• Institutions structure expectations, direct behaviour to promote & protect the common good

• Helps us define values, beliefs and practices shape our lives