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Debating “Intrinsic Evil”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2014

Dana L. Dillon
Dana L. Dillon*
Affiliation:
Providence College
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Abstract

Recent US election cycles, debates about the Affordable Care Act, and a variety of so-called culture war issues have placed the term “intrinsic evil” into public discourse. This issue's roundtable affords readers the opportunity to probe deeply various dimensions of the concept, such as the pedagogical effectiveness of the term, its current use in virtue ethics, and the rhetorical effectiveness of competing moral discourses. The authors' explorations range from consideration of classical questions about the substance and circumstances of acts to a taxonomy for “intrinsic evil” to how social processes affect the discourses available to ethicists.

Keywords

intrinsic evilvirtue ethicsproportionalismhuman rightsVeritatis Splendorexceptionless moral normsdouble effect
Type
Theological Roundtable
Information
Horizons , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , June 2014 , pp. 130 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2014 

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References

22 Vatican Council II, Optatus Totius 16, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651028_optatam-totius_en.html.

23 Knauer, Peter SJ, “The Hermeneutic Function of the Principle of Double Effect,” in Moral Norms and Catholic Tradition, ed. Curran, Charles E. and McCormick, Richard A., Readings in Moral Theology 1 (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 1–39Google Scholar

24 Kalbian, Aline, “Where Have All the Proportionalists Gone?” Journal of Religious Ethics 30, no. 1 (2002): 3–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Ibid., 7.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 16.

28 Ibid., 17–18.

29 Weaver, Darlene Fozard, The Acting Person and Christian Moral Life, Moral Traditions Series (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011), 19Google Scholar.

30 Quoted in Weaver, The Acting Person, 19.

31 Pinches, Charles R., Theology and Action: After Theory in Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 63Google Scholar.

32 Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html, 80, quoting Gaudium et Spes 27.

33 This argument is laid out in detail in the magisterial volume by Pinckaers, Servais OP, Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Noble, Mary Thomas OP (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

34 MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 187Google Scholar.

35 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, trans. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1948), I–II.1.1Google Scholar.

36 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 209.

37 Ibid.