This is not a pro-life blog. I am not a pro-life campaigner. And I’m certainly not a lawyer (something you are no doubt as relieved about as myself). But after my previous posts touched on issues of applied ethics without going into them particularly comprehensively, I would just like to clarify some of the other reasons that euthanasia and abortion may be wrong. Read the rest of this entry
The following is another essay I wrote back in 2008.
Is Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean A Plausible Guide To Moral Goodness?
Introduction
Aristotle’s (384 BC – 322 BC) doctrine of the mean has a privileged place in one of the grand moral traditions, that of virtue ethics. Virtue ethics retains a widespread influence today, particularly via its thirteenth century formulation by St. Thomas Aquinas, which remains at the core of the moral teaching of the Catholic Church, and via its twentieth century reunion with the secular mainstream of moral philosophy through the work of several Catholic scholars, particularly Alasdair MacIntyre.[1] This essay endorses virtue ethics and argues that the doctrine of the mean is a plausible guide to moral goodness, but is not by itself adequate as a guide to all-things-considered moral rightness. Read the rest of this entry
Vibrant Bliss 