What do we talk about when we talk about ethics?

1. Catholics often use moral language that is meaningless. 

I know, that's probably unfair in that other groups also engage in meaningless moral talk. But it is fair in the sense that Catholics do it and we do it a whole lot. For example: "We have to find new ways of being church." I hear that all the time. And the problem is not that it's weird jargon. Most people who use weird jargon can explain what that weird jargon means if you ask them. I've tried asking people who say "new ways of being church" what that means and they can't give a coherent answer. 

And sometimes they avoid answering the question by getting angry at me.

2. I know I go on a lot about narcissism here but ...

It's amazing how often we talk about ourselves when we talk about ethics.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The point of virtue ethics is to become a better person and that requires us to focus on ourselves.

But ... what do we focus on when we focus on ourselves? here is two possibilities:

• Did I clean up the kitchen every day this week?
• Did I share other people's poverty?

I hope you can see the problem.

And Catholic moralists really do talk like that. Here is an excerpt:

At one level we might be afraid of poverty because of the demands that justice will make on us if we face it. In fact, I remember that the readings from the mass the day we left Michael included the exhortation, “Say not to your neighbor, ‘Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give,’ when you can give at once” (Prv 3:27). Challenging words. But there may be a more fundamental reason why we build the wall. When I recall how strangely difficult it was to receive Michael’s gaze, it strikes me that it was not from a fear of what I owed him, but from a fear of who I had to become, and of what I had to let go of, in order to receive his presence. 

In short, I was afraid of facing Michael’s poverty alongside him, of receiving him in his poverty, because in order to make room for him I had to acknowledge the poverty of the world that I can easily inhabit at times, a world where I imagine that I can be free from my own needs, on my own terms and by my own work alone, the Into the Wild world of “boundlessness for its own sake.”

Start with that opening, 

At one level we might be afraid of poverty because of the demands that justice will make on us if we face it. 

Why not simply say,

One reason we deny the existence of poverty so we won't have to do anything about it.

What does all the talk about "the demands of justice" achieve? 

There is something more fundamental. And that thing that is more fundamental turns out to me ME!!!!!!

But it gets worse! "...  it was not from a fear of what I owed him, but from a fear of who I had to become, and of what I had to let go of, in order to receive his presence." The problem is not the suffering of the poor person who might need our companionship but ME, ME, ME and the very ME-NESS of ME!

3. Here is a crazy, outta-left-field kinda thought: you can see why Pope Francis will fail in the above. That's the way he talks. That's the sort of moral language he uses. It's a language that is designed to create a community. And it's a very exclusive community because it's hard to master.

The irony is that while being small and exclusive in effect, people like Francis and Charles Atkinson, the writer at Ethica Politika whom I cite above, pretend to be inclusive in intention. They aren't because you'd have to make a huge investment to learn to talk the way they do.

But even if you did, their moral language would remain just as meaningless.

4. You think I am being unfair to Pope Francis?

In this way it becomes possible to build communion amid disagreement, but this can only be achieved by those great persons who are willing to go beyond the surface of the conflict and to see others in their deepest dignity. This requires acknowledging a principle indispensable to the building of friendship in society: namely, that unity is greater than conflict. Solidarity, in its deepest and most challenging sense, thus becomes a way of making history in a life setting where conflicts, tensions and oppositions can achieve a diversified and life-giving unity. This is not to opt for a kind of syncretism, or for the absorption of one into the other, but rather for a resolution which takes place on a higher plane and preserves what is valid and useful on both sides.

That's #228 from Evangelii Gaudium. Look at some of that language:  "a way of making history in a life setting where conflicts, tensions and oppositions can achieve a diversified and life-giving unit".

It would actually be comforting if that language meant nothing at all. It would even be comforting if Pope Francis was merely using obscure language to be deliberately exclusive. But there are far more disturbing reasons why Francis might be saying things like, "... but this can only be achieved by those great persons who are willing to go beyond the surface of the conflict and to see others in their deepest dignity". Hint: What's the opposite of humility?

5. Okay, how about something positive? How about something that could make our lives better? Here is a thought from the consistently helpful Art of Manliness.

I know a few very smart and talented individuals whose lives are in utter shambles despite their gifts. And it’s because they keep making stupid and avoidable mistakes. They consistently add wholly unnecessary downside to their lives. 

If they had done nothing really positive, but had simply avoided the DUIs, the drug arrests, the out-of-wedlock births, the affairs, and the consumer debt, their lives would have been vastly superior to the ones they have now. 

Let that sink in: doing nothing would have given these people a better life than they have now. 

I sometimes hear people carp that the Ten Commandments or other religious edicts focus too much on restricting behavior, and don’t focus enough on positive actions. But perhaps there’s wisdom in focusing on the “thou shall nots.” If you can go through life not murdering people, not lying, not sleeping with your neighbor’s wife, and not filled with envy, you’re going to have a pretty good life.

Read the whole thing.