The ethics of discernment : Lonergan's foundation for ethics / Patrick H. Byrne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Byrne, Patrick H. (Patrick Hugh), 1947- author.

Series:

Lonergan studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lonergan, Bernard J. F--Criticism and interpretation.

Lonergan, Bernard J. F.

Ethics.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xvi, 509 pages ; 25 cm.

Other Title:

Lonergan's foundation for ethics

Place of Publication:

Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2016]

Summary:

"In The Ethics of Discernment, Patrick H. Byrne presents an approach to ethics that builds upon the cognitional theory and the philosophical method of self-appropriation that Bernard Lonergan introduced in his book Insight, as well as upon Lonergan's later writing on ethics and values. Extending Lonergan's method into the realm of ethics, Byrne argues that we can use self-appropriation to come to objective judgements of value. The Ethics of Discernment is an introspective analysis of that process, in which sustained ethical inquiry and attentiveness to feelings as "intentions of value" leads to a rich conception of the good. Written both for those with an interest in Lonergan's philosophy and for those interested in theories of ethics who have only a limited knowledge of Lonergan's work, Byrne's book is the first detailed exposition of an ethical theory based on Lonergan's philosophical method."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part I Preliminaries

1 Discernment and Self-Appropriation 13

1.1 Introduction 13

1.2 The Notion of Discernment 14

1.3 Aristotle of Stagira 17

1.4 Paul of Tarsus 20

1.5 Ignatius of Loyola 23

1.6 Bernard Lonergan 29

1.7 Self-Appropriation as Discernment 31

1.8 Conclusion 35

2 Objectivity and Factual Knowing: Lonergan's Three Questions 37

2.1 Introduction 37

2.2 Lonergan's Three Questions 38

2.3 Inquiries, Questions, and Wonder 38

2.4 Cognitional Structure: What Am I Doing When I Am Knowing? 41

2.4.1 The Patterned Stream of Experiencing, Remembering, Imagining 42

2.4.2 Questions for Intelligence and Acts of Understanding 46

2.4.3 Questions for Reflection, Judging, and Reflective Understanding 49

2.4.4 Judging the Correctness of Insights 52

2.4.5 Summary 55

2.5 Objectivity: Why Is Doing That Knowing? 55

2.5.1 Lonergan's Answer 56

2.5.2 Contending Notions of Objectivity and the "Epistemological Theorem" 57

2.5.3 Is Human Questioning Unrestricted? 61

2.5.4 Ongoing Criticism 63

2.5.5 Biases: Mere Subjectivity vs. Authentic Subjectivity 64

2.6 Reality: What Do I Know When I Do That? 68

2.6.1 The Simple Answer 68

2.6.2 Contending Notions of Reality 68

2.6.3 Reality as Intelligible 71

2.7 Conclusion 72

3 Self-Appropriation, Part I: Self-Affirmation of Cognitional Structure 74

3.1 Introduction 74

3.2 Self-Appropriation and Self-Affirmation 76

3.3 Self-Affirmation as Conditioned 76

3.4 Self Affirmation of the Knower as Hermeneutical 78

3.4.1 Consciousness as Experience 79

3.4.2 Cognitional Structure Applied to Cognitional Structure 82

3.4.3 Mediated Givenness 84

3.4.4 Correctly Understanding Consciousness-as-Experience as Hermeneutical 88

3.5 A Decisive Act 91

Part II What Are We Doing When We Are Being Ethical?

4 The Structure of Ethical Intentionality: Three More Questions 95

4.1 Introduction 95

4.2 Structure of Ethical Intentionality: What Am I Doing When I Am Being Ethical? 97

4.3 Basic Ethical Questions 98

4.4 What Is the Situation? 99

4.5 Questions and Insights of Practical Import 103

4.6 Questions for Ethical Reflection and Judgment 104

4.6.1 Feelings and Ethical Reflection 108

4.6.2 Judgments of Ethical Value 109

4.7 Questions for Choosing, Deciding, Acting 109

4.8 Value Knowledge and Belief 114

4.9 Summary 116

5 Kinds of Feelings 118

5.1 Introduction 118

5.2 A Basic Division of Feelings 118

5.3 Somatic Feelings as Grounded in Neural Processes 121

5.4 Somatic Feelings as Intentional 123

5.5 Somatic Feelings and Patterns of Experiencing 126

5.6 Somatic Feelings in Ethical Life 130

5.7 A Further Division of Feelings: Desires/Aversions, Affects, and Moods 132

6 Feelings as Intentional Responses and Horizons of Feelings 136

6.1 Introduction 136

6.2 The Rich Field of Feelings as Intentional Responses 136

6.3 Intentional Responses to What? 138

6.4 The Multiple Intentionality of Insights 139

6.5 The Multiple Intentionality of Affect-Feelings 142

6.5.1 Value: The Proper Noematic Object of Affect-Feeling Responses 142

6.5.2 Movers of Affective Responses 144

6.5.3 Expressions as "Terminal Objects" of Affective Feeling Responses 147

6.5.4 True Values and the Quasi-Infallibility of Affects and Values 148

6.6 Desires, Aversions, and Moods as Intentional Responses 151

6.6.1 Desires and Aversions 151

6.6.2 Moods as Intentional Responses 154

6.6.3 Questioning as Intentional Response 155

6.7 Concrete Illustrations 156

6.8 Horizons of Feelings as Intentional Responses 160

6.9 Summary 167

7 Feelings and Value Reflection 169

7.1 Introduction 169

7.2 Habitual Valuing and Questions of Value 170

7.3 Value Reflection and the Horizon of Feelings 175

7.3.1 A Question of Vital Value 176

7.3.2 Questions of Social and Artistic Value 178

7.3.3 Feelings and Judgments of Value 180

7.4 Reflection about Questions of Ethical Value 182

7.4.1 The Ethics of Ordinary Life in Northanger Abbey 184

7.4.2 Ethical Reflection in Jury Deliberation 187

7.4.3 Summary 192

7.5 The Double Intentionality of Ethical Reflection, Judgment, and Decision 193

7.6 Habitual Deciding and Acting within Horizons of Feelings 197

7.7 An Alternate Interpretation 199

7.8 Summary 200

Part III Why Is Doing That Being Ethical?

8 Horizons of Feelings, Conversion, and Objectivity 207

8.1 Introduction 207

8.2 Tensions in Feeling Horizons and Value Objectivity 210

8.2.1 The Transcendental Notion of Value 211

8.2.2 Is the Notion of Value Unrestricted? 214

8.2.3 Unrestricted Being-in-Love 218

8.3 Conversions and Horizons of Feelings 223

8.3.1 Intellectual Conversion 225

8.3.2 Religious Conversion 226

8.3.3 Moral Conversion 227

8.3.4 Moral Conversion and the Scale of Values 232

8.3.5 Illustrations of Moral Conversion 234

8.3.6 Psychic Conversion 237

8.4 Conversion and Objectivity 238

9 Judgments of Comparative Value and the Scale of Value Preference 241

9.1 Introduction 241

9.2 Judgments of Comparative Value and Scales of Preference 242

9.2.1 Reflections on Value Comparison in General 243

9.2.2 Some Illustrations of Reflecting about Value Comparisons 243

9.2.3 Time and Comparative Values 244

9.2.4 Felt Scales and Concrete Deliberations 246

9.2.5 Ethical Reflection and Feeling Preferences in Middlemarch 248

9.3 Scheler on Intimations of the Objective Scale 252

9.4 Lonergan, Scheler, and von Hildebrand Compared 255

9.4.1 Scheler's Account of the Scale 255

9.4.2 Von Hildebrand's Account of the Scale 257

9.4.3 Similarities and Differences 258

9.5 Elaboration of Lonergan's Scale of Values 259

9.6 Concrete Instances in the Light of Lonergan's Scale 269

9.7 Reason and the Priority of Feelings of Preference 271

9.8 Comparative Value Judgments about Questions to be Pursued 275

9.9 Moral Conversion Revisited 277

9.10 Objectivity and Lonergan's Formulation of the Scale 280

10 Self-Appropriation, Part II: Why Is Doing That Being Ethical? 285

10.1 Introduction 285

10.2 The Notion of the Ethical 286

10.2.1 Aristotle's Notion of the Ethical 287

10.2.2 Eight Commonly Held Ideas about the Ethical 288

10.2.3 Summary 295

10.3 Being Ethical and Choosing the Value of the Chooser: Self-Appropriation, Part II 297

10.3.1 Existential Discovery as Breakthrough to Self-Appropriation 298

10.3.2 Self-Appropriation: Factual Knowledge of the Structure of Ethical Intentionality 298

10.3.3 Self-Appropriation: Valuing, Choosing, and Enacting Oneself 300

10.4 Self-Appropriation and Discernment 303

Part IV What Is Brought About By Doing That?

11 The Human Good Described 309

11.1 Introduction 309

11.2 Parameters of the Human Good 312

11.3 The Human Good as Personal: The Good of an Authentic Human Life 312

11.4 The Human Good as Social 315

11.5 The Human Good as Historical: The Corporate Good of Human History 318

11.6 Summary 321

11.7 An Illustration: Building a Water Well in Malaya 322

12 The Human Good: Explanatory Foundations 331

12.1 Introduction 331

12.2 The Structure of the Human Good as Heuristic 332

12.3 Invariance of the Heuristic Structure of Proportionate Being 333

12.3.1 The Isomorphism between Human Cognition and Potency, Form, and Act 334

12.3.2 The Invariance of the Structure of Potency, Form, and Act 337

12.3.3 Further Dimensions of the Integral Heuristic Structure of Proportionate Being 338

12.4 The Structure of the Human Good as Invariant 339

12.4.1 Heuristic Definition of the Human Good 340

12.4.2 Derivation of the Heuristic Structure of the Human Good 341

12.4.3 Terminal Value, Originating Value, Orientation, Conversion, Liberty 341

12.4.4 Operation, Skill, Development, Plasticity Perfectibility 345

12.4.5 Operation, Cooperation, Good of Order, Task, Role, Institution, Particular

Good 347

12.4.6 Personal Relations 349

12.4.7 Needs and Particular Goods 354

12.5 Summary: The Heuristics and the Invariance of the Human Good 354

13 The Notion and the Ontology of the Good 358

13.1 Introduction 358

13.2 The Goodness of the Natural Universe 359

13.2.1 The Goodness of the Natural Order as a Whole 359

13.2.2 The Kinds of Goodness within the Natural Whole 363

13.3 Further Considerations 364

13.3.1 Is Lonergan's Argument Anthropomorphic? 365

13.3.2 Feeling-Response to the Universe of Proportionate Being 365

13.3.3 The Goodness of Proportionate Being and Natural Law Ethics 368

13.3.4 The Inadequacy of the Insight Argument 368

13.4 The Transcendent Good 370

13.4.1 Transcendent Being as Ultimate Condition of Our Value Choices 370

13.4.2 Transcendent Being as Understanding and Loving 372

13.5 The Goodness of Being and the Problem of Evil 377

13.5.1 The Unintelligibility and Non-Value of Evil 378

13.5.2 The Ethics of Bringing Good Out of Evil 383

13.6 The Notion of the Good and Conceptions of the Good 385

14 Explanatory Genera and the Objective Scale of Values: A Preliminary Grounding 387

14.1 Introduction 387

14.2 Higher Viewpoints 389

14.3 Higher Viewpoints, Natural Sciences, and Explanatory Genera 390

14.4 A Hierarchical Scale of Natural Values 393

14.5 Higher Explanatory Genera and the Objective Scale of Value Preference 394

14.6 Value Preference within a Given Level, and Explanatory Species 400

14.7 Alternate Approaches 403

Part V Method in Ethics

15 Method in Ethics I: Preliminaries 413

15.1 Ethical Intentionality as Methodical 413

15.2 The Method of Ethics in Insight 415

15.3 Personal Decisions as Situated and Methodical 422

15.4 Situated in a Climate of Conflict 424

15.5 Method and Conflict 425

15.6 The Eight Functional Specialties of Ethical Method 428

16 Method in Ethics II: Dialectic and Foundations 432

16.1 Introduction 432

16.2 Critically Engaging Our Heritage: Research, Interpretation, and History 433

16.3 Dialectic 435

16.4 Responsible Initiative for the Future: Policy, Planning, and Execution 442

16.5 Foundations 443

16.6 Conclusion 447.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 449-487) and index.

ISBN:

9781442632868

1442632860

OCLC:

925497592