Moral Systems

MORAL SYSTEMS. - By "moral systems," in a generic sense, is meant a body of principles capable of resolving a doubt of conscience.

When, with regard to good and evil, man finds himself in a state of clear, evident and certain knowledge, attained either by way of reason or by way of Revelation, the duty of man and the task of moralists are quite simple and find their formulation in the most general principle: do good and shun evil. The task, however, becomes more complex in the case of ignorance, doubt and opinionative assent. One who is ignorant does not know, and does not even pose the question of the morality of his act. One who doubts knows that a problem exists, knows its terms, but, having no grounds on which to judge, suspends his judgment. One who opines knows the problem and the terms of the problem, and judges in a certain sense, while yet fearing that the truth may also lie on the opposite side. Therefore every moral doctrine must also take into consideration the claims of ignorance, doubt and opinion.

Now moral theology resolves the case of ignorance with the well-known distinctions of ignorance iuris et facti, etc. (v. IGNORANCE), without giving rise to differences of great importance, at least in the present state of the question. Doubt too is susceptible of various divisions, and there is doubt iuris et facti, positive and negative (v. DOUBT).

Probability, on which one who judges in favor of an opinion relies, while fearing that the opposite opinion may be true, can be iuris et facti, speculative or practical, doubtful and slight, that is, light, absolute or relative, more or less or equally probable than the opposite, and most probable (v. PROBABILITY). From another point of view the opinion can appear safe (tuta), safer (tutior) and less safe (minus tuta), according to the degree to which it safeguards against sin and against the formal non-observance of the law (v. OPINION). Now moralists teach that when a man finds himself in a state of doubt, he is not permitted to act, and must do all that is in his power to acquire certainty, at least practical certainty, in order to avoid the danger of sinning (v. CONSCIENCE). Where it is a question of a doubt of fact which on the one hand is insuperable and on the other cannot be converted into a doubt of law, when one is under the necessity of acting, one must follow the safer side: pars tutior est sequenda. In a doubt of law, when one is only in the field of opinion and of the probable, we are in the case of probability: may we act, or must we defer action until certainty has been attained, which many times is unattainable?

It is customary to call "moral systems" the various attempts made by theologians to resolve this case and to answer this question. In a more proper sense, then, a moral system is the body of principles by means of which, in the conflict of a milder opinion in favor of liberty with a stricter opinion in favor of the law, one arrives at the formation of a practically certain conscience, necessary in order to determine oneself to action without (formal) sin.

This problem cannot be ignored by any body of moral doctrines; and Catholic theology, least of all, ignored it; from its very beginnings it resolved it in a more or less adequate, more or less satisfactory way. Some Fathers, especially St. Augustine and St. Thomas, have left us a solution to the problem which some judge to be clouded by a breath of rigorism or tuziorism, whichever it may be, while to others it has appeared the only possible solution, logical and conformable to a morality qualified as a morality of honesty (v. TUZIORISM). With the Dominican Bartolomé Medina (1528-81) theology oriented itself toward solutions which some call a development and evolution of the ancient one, while for others they are a deviation and a breaking of continuity (v. PROBABILISM). Hence, from the 16th century onward, around the concept of a party more or less safe, more or less or equally probable, broad, rigid and rigorous, various systems came to be ranged, bearing the names of absolute and mitigated tuziorism (v.), laxism (v.), probabiliorism (v.), equiprobabilism (v.), compensationism (v.) and probabilism.

The existence of the systems does not dispense anyone from the sincere and ardent search for truth and especially from the great devices of prudence. On the other hand, the question does not yet appear closed. Moral theology, like speculative theology, is in a state of progress, and nothing prevents us from hoping, and even from provoking, with contributions more real than a merely negative criticism, the advent of something better to take the place of the systems and of the system.

Luigi Macali