Goal of/reason for moral laws = happiness

We live a moral life, make the right choices in order to maintain happiness, but that isn’t

always easy or fun.

Happiness is lasting; fun is fleeting

The paradox of happiness - obtaining it and keeping it often requires sacrifice - something we don’t normally associate with happiness.

Some Basic Moral Principles

Three universal moral rules:

1.We may never do evil in order to obtain a good result. (“The ends do not justify the means.”)

2.“The golden rule.” Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you.

3.Respect for our neighbor and our conscience should guide our acts.

There are three kinds of human actions:

1.The morally indifferent – acts that in themselves have no moral significance.

2.The morally evil – acts that in themselves are evil and as such forbidden (e.g. murder, abortion, adultery, etc.).

3.The morally good – acts that in themselves are good and that we as Christians are commanded to do (e.g. praying, feeding the poor, etc.). Some of these are commendable – meaning they go beyond our duty as Christians (e.g. martyrdom or heroic sacrifice).

Avoiding the morally evil is just the minimum and does not by itself make us good Christians – we are called to do more:

We are called not just to avoid what is morally evil, but also to do what is morally good. We should not only avoid vices but should also seek to practice virtues. We should not just avoid hurting others but should also seek to help them.

The law of love

Love of God and love of neighbor are central to the commandments and all moral laws.

Happiness is found in loving God and loving others.

All morality deals with relationships. We are all related in right or wrong ways to:

Others – social morality (our relationship with the world and others)

Self – individual ethics (our character, vices, virtues)

God – The ultimate meaning and purpose of human life

Three levels of love:

Adoring God – We are called to put God above all. Putting things – or even people – above God is idolatry and foolishness.

Loving persons – Since we are all created by God in His image, we are called to love all people – that is to desire and seek only what is best for them. We are not commanded to like all others, since that is a feeling rather than a voluntary choice (i.e. we can love others even though we don’t like them). This is violated when we wish evil upon others, love them above God (idolatry) or use them as things.

Using things – The things of this world should be loved in proportion to what they are. For example, we should respect higher animals which have feelings more than those that do not (e.g. insects) and living things more than non-living things. God created things to be used by us, not as ends in themselves. We should appreciate them but not put them above God (idolatry) or others (treating/using people as objects or placing/valuing them below things).

The law and the person:

When we are young, we see things as simply right or wrong. As we mature we begin to

develop a conscience and see that sometimes there is no obvious path – that sometimes there is a lot of grey area between the black and white. In those cases, using our consciences we need to make the best possible decisions given the circumstances in which we find ourselves. If we can follow the law, we must. However, not all choices are simple and some require thoughtful, honest and informed decisions.

Conscience has three functions:

1.Gives us an awareness of good and evil

2.Gives us a desire for good and an aversion for evil

3.Gives us a feeling of peace and joy for having done good and unease and guilt at having done evil.

All three of these work in the three components of our soul: our mind (intellect/reason), our will and our feelings (emotions).

Important things to remember about conscience:

1.It is not just a feeling – it is first and foremost a knowing, an awareness in our minds and hearts of good and evil. 2.It is not infallible – We are imperfect beings, so our consciences can be mistaken, and can mistake what is evil for good. For that reason, we are obligated to educate and inform our consciences when making decisions. Errors of conscience can happen because of vincible or invincible ignorance.

Vincible ignorance comes from our own neglect or irresponsibility when it comes to finding out what is true or good or from being blinded by habitual sin. We are responsible for this kind of ignorance since we can overcome and conquer it.

Invincible ignorance Comes from some inability to know of relevant facts. It is the kind of ignorance we are not

responsible for and cannot overcome.

3.The Church teaches that we must always inform and follow our conscience when making moral decisions. While we must follow the law if we can, it would be sinful to ignore our consciences simply for the sake of following the law when making a moral decision.

4.Conscience is not merely negative but positive. While it condemns us for having done wrong, it also offers us hope through repentance and forgiveness.

5.One’s conscience is not something which is obtained once and for all. It must constantly be developed and informed through prayer and learning.

6. Conscience is not passive but active. We must honestly and actively seek to hear it and to know what is right and true.

Free will

God has given us the freedom to make moral choices, even knowing that we are capable of making choices that can separate us from Him.

With freedom comes responsibility, however. In the end, we are responsible for our own

salvation or condemnation.

Sin

Sin is deliberately going against the will of God through commission or omission.

Venial sin – a less serious sin that harms our relationship with God/Church/others. While they do not separate us from God, they are not to be taken lightly, since venial sins can negatively affect our character and ultimately make us more prone to committing mortal sin.

Mortal sin – a sin that separates us from God and the Church

There are three conditions necessary for mortal sin. All three must be present for the sin to be mortal:

They are: “grave matter,” “full knowledge,” and “full consent.”

First, the sin must be a “grave matter,” an act that in itself is seriously sinful, like adultery, grand larceny, blasphemy, or murder (including the murder of unborn children or old people). The objective act itself must be seriously (gravely) sinful.

Second, there must be full knowledge that the act is a serious sin.

Third, there must be full consent of the will. We deliberately choose to do (or not do) the action. Sins of weakness, committed reluctantly, in spite of a sincere effort to avoid them, are not necessarily mortal sins. Fear, addiction, and compulsion can diminish personal freedom and therefore responsibility for evil acts, but they do not wholly remove it. “The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders” (CCC 1860) – as is probably the case in many suicides.

Three moral determinants (what makes any act good or evil):

1.The object chosen – What act has been chosen/done?

2.The intention with which the person performs the act – a bad intention can make an act bad even though in itself it may appear to be good. Even the best intention, however cannot change an act that in itself is evil into a good act.

3.The circumstances of an act do not change it from good to bad or vice versa but they can contribute to increasing or decreasing the sinfulness of an act.

The Seven Deadly Sins

For centuries, the Church (and mankind) have recognized these seven things (vices) as being destructive of the happiness of the person and of society. They oppose virtue (particularly the virtue of temperance) and are at the root of many actions that are evil and that the Church considers sinful.

Pride – Pride is arrogance. There is nothing wrong with appreciating one’s strengths and person; in order to appreciate and love others, we must first appreciate and love ourselves. Pride is sinful because it is the extreme of putting ourselves above others.

Avarice - Avarice is replacing God with things. It is allowing things to possess us rather than the other way around and desiring to possess more than we need or more than is useful. It is never satisfied, since happiness will never be found in things.

Envy – Envy is resenting another’s happiness. When we envy another, we refuse to see and appreciate the gifts that God has given us.

Wrath – Wrath is wanting to bring harm and destruction upon another. While there is nothing wrong with anger (and it can often motivate us to seek change when we see injustice), it becomes wrath when it is destructive rather than constructive.

Sloth – Sloth is laziness; it is failing to make use of the gifts, talents and energy with which we have been blessed by God. While rest is a good thing and renews our energy, laziness is the simple failure to do what we should do.

Lust - Lust is the desire for pleasure run amok. It is, simply put, the obsession with physical pleasure. It is pure selfishness because it puts one’s pleasure above another person.

Gluttony – While often associated with eating, gluttony goes beyond that. It is waste; it is overconsumption. As such, it is a failure to appreciate the value of what God has given us and ignores that there are those in the world who live in need.

The Four Cardinal Virtues

The cardinal virtues are the four principal moral virtues. The English word cardinal comes from the Latin word cardo, which means "hinge." All other virtues hinge on these four: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

The ancient Greek Philosopher Plato first discussed the cardinal virtues, and they entered into Christian teaching by way of Plato's disciple Aristotle. Unlike the theological virtues, which are the gifts of God through grace, the four cardinal virtues can be practiced by anyone; thus, they represent the foundation of natural morality.

Prudence – Simply put, prudence is good judgment. It is the ability to look at a situation and see the right and correct path to take. When we mistake the evil for the good, we are not exercising prudence—in fact, we are showing our lack of it.

We exercise prudence by avoiding impulsive actions and making decisions based on valid moral principals. Prudence also requires that we evaluate the advice we receive from others in the light of what our faith teaches us.

Justice – Justice can be defined as a respect for the rights of others or “the constant and permanent determination to give everyone his or her rightful due.” Injustice occurs when we as individuals or by law deprive someone of that which he is owed.

Justice is often used in a negative sense today—"justice was served"; "he was brought to justice"—the focus of the virtue is positive. While lawful authorities may justly punish evildoers, our concern as individuals is with respecting the rights of others, particularly when we owe them a debt or when our actions might restrict their exercise of their rights.

Fortitude - While this virtue is commonly called courage, it is different from what much of what we think of as courage today. Fortitude allows us to overcome fear and to remain steady in our will in the face of obstacles, but it is always reasoned and reasonable. Prudence and justice are the virtues through which we decide what needs to be done; fortitude gives us the strength to do it.

Fortitude is not foolhardiness or rashness; it is not "rushing in where angels fear to tread." Indeed, part of the virtue of fortitude, is avoiding recklessness. Putting our bodies or lives in danger when it is not necessary is not fortitude but foolishness.

Temperance - Temperance is the virtue that keeps us from excess. It is the restraint of our desires or passions. Food, drink, and sex are all necessary for our survival, individually and as a species; yet a disordered desire for any of these goods can have disastrous consequences, physical and moral.

The seven deadly sins could be described as examples of intemperance since they are each examples of failing to control our desires or passions.

The Theological Virtues

Unlike the cardinal virtues, which can be practiced by anyone, the theological virtues are gifts of grace from God, and the object of the virtues (what the practice of the virtue aims at) —is God Himself.

Faith - The theological virtue of faith allows the person who has it to see how the truths of reason and of revelation flow from the same source.

In the popular understanding, faith is opposed to reason; reason, it is said, demands evidence, while faith is characterized by the willing acceptance of things for which there is no rational evidence.

However, for the Christian, faith follows naturally from reason. It is a form of knowledge that extends beyond the natural limits of our intellect, to help us grasp the truths of divine revelation, truths that we cannot arrive at purely by the aid of natural reason.

Hope – Hope comes from God’s promise of eternal life. Hope does not imply a belief that salvation is easy; in fact, just the opposite. We have hope in God because we are certain that we cannot achieve salvation on our own. God's grace, freely given to us, is necessary in order for us to do what we need to do to achieve eternal life.

Charity is the last and the greatest of the three theological virtues; the other two are faith and hope. Charity depends on faith, because without faith in God we obviously cannot love God, nor can we love our fellow man for God's sake.

God, as the source of all life and all goodness, deserves our love, and that love is not something that we can confine to attending Mass on Sundays. We exercise the theological virtue of charity whenever we express our love for God, but that expression does not have to take the form of a verbal declaration of love. Sacrifice for God's sake; the curbing of our passions in order to draw closer to Him; and the practice of corporal works of mercy are all examples of charity in action.