readings

• The morality of human action is intransitive as well as transitive, impacting the world and shaping the self.
• Freedom in the Catechism is claimed as a shaping force, with the statement, "by free will one shapes one's own life."
• Virtue, as defined in the previous chapter, is a part of the moral life that is more than actions.
• The seven main virtues of the Christian tradition structure this entire book on moral theology.
• Virtue is a lens through which to examine the moral life in a richer way than approaches that concentrate solely on actions, rules, and contentious cases.
• Habit, as defined in the context of moral theology, is an abiding quality a person has that characterizes who they are.
• Specifying good action in particular cases is not immediately evident to all people.
• Virtue lies in the mean between two extremes.
• A virtue approach to morality is supple and can accommodate individual, as well as cultural, differences as to what constitutes, say, temperance concerning alcohol.
• The virtue approach to moral theology offers specific enough rules to guide our lives in practical situations.
• The virtue approach to morality is not content free, as it relies on exemplary, or paradigmatic, actions to exemplify each virtue and names certain actions that are necessarily incompatible with, and thus opposed to, virtuous activity.
• A virtue approach to morality is not completely content free due to its recognition of certain absolute norms, such as the prohibition against the intentional killing of innocent persons.
• Acts are crucial to who a person is, as the gospel says, a tree is known by its fruits.
• Habits are more stable qualities of the person than particular actions, making a person a certain sort of person.
• Habits are changeable.
• Josef Pieper’s books on faith, hope, and love are titled Faith, Hope, and Love.
• Josef Pieper’s books on the four cardinal virtues are titled The Four Cardinal Virtues.
• Thomas Hibbs’ book on virtue’s splendor is titled Virtue’s Splendor.
• Jean Porter’s book on nature as reason is titled Nature as Reason.
• Jim is able to act in a friendly manner toward women, but through repeated past actions he tends to see, and thus treat, women primarily as potential sexual partners for his own enjoyment.
• Matt is able to act in a chaste manner toward women, and his abiding habit of chastity inclines him to act in this new situation in the way he generally has in the past, and he treats the woman accordingly.
• Both Jim and Matt might politely greet the woman when she enters the room, but their different habits shape how they engage the woman in conversation.
• Attending to external actions is crucial for moral theology, but the habits that abide in us are what incline us to act in one way or the other, and the intentionality that they hold gives meaning to how those external acts are done.
• Developing virtues rather than simply performing good acts is important in moral theology, as one’s habits reveal not only what acts one frequently performs, but also how one sees things and why one does those acts.
• Christ criticizes people who pray, fast, and give money to the poor, but his dismissals in all three cases are of those who do these good acts “so that others may see them”.
• Christ praises those who do good things in secret, telling them they will be rewarded by their heavenly Father who “sees in secret.”
• Christ sees — and praises — the poor woman in the temple when she donates two small coins.
• Christ is emphasizing that if our good acts are done to be seen, such that they would not be done in secret, then they are not emblematic of the persons Christ calls His followers to be.
• The Beatitudes are those famous verses where we read, “happy are those who…”
• A virtue approach lacks specificity but the problem is not with virtue but with real life.
• Aquinas argued that in concrete individual cases, there is so much contingency and detail that general rules are liable to fail.
• Identifying the relevant virtue, and any relevant absolute norms, is only the start of the process of discerning how to act well in a particular situation.
• A norm particular to the exact situation must be formulated in order to act well.
• For instance, virtue discussions of alcohol use assume there is a mean of temperance, and ways to deviate in excess or defect.
• The ability to formulate particular rules concerning activities accessible to reason, and the very rules themselves, is what is meant by natural law.
• The possession of the cardinal virtues enables one to identify and observe natural law.
• There are many possible explanations for differences in how people live out the cardinal virtues, such as malice, ignorance, evil social structures, and the like.
• The Christian tradition holds that human sin is a major cause of these differences.
• Christ praises people, not simply acts, in these verses.
• The moral life is one of true happiness, as claimed in chapter 1.