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    • E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil. – E. Christian Brugger is a Senior Fellow of Ethics and Director of the Fellows Program at the Culture of Life Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the J. Francis Cardinal Stafford Professor of Moral Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He has Master degrees in moral theology and moral philosophy from Seton Hall, Harvard and Oxford Universities and received his D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in Christian ethics from Oxford in 2000.  Christian has published over 200 articles in scholarly and popular periodicals on topics in bioethics, sexual ethics, natural law theory, as well as the interdisciplinary field of psychology and Christian anthropology.  He lives on a farm in Evergreen, Colorado, with his wife Melissa and five children.
    • Helen Alvaré, J.D. – Helen Alvaré, J.D. is Honorary Fellow in Law at the Culture of Life Foundation.   Helen is an Associate Professor of Law at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia where she teaches and publishes in the areas of property law, family law, and Catholic social thought. Professor Alvaré serves as Consultor for the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Senior Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute where she chairs the Conscience Protection Task Force, is President of the Chiaroscuro Foundation and most recently Editor and Co-Author of Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves.From 2000 to Spring 2008, Professor Alvare taught at the Catholic University Columbus School of Law. Professor Alvare also lectures widely in the United States and Europe on matters concerning marriage, family and respect for human life. She is a consultant to ABC News and to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Marriage and Pro-Life Committees. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named Professor Alvare a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity.From 1987-2000, Professor Alvare was an attorney with the USCCB’s General Counsel Office and director of information and planning for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. In these positions, she testified before the…
    • Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L. – Jennifer Kimball Watson joined Culture of Life Foundation as Executive Director in November of 2007. She is an Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, F.L.. Previous to her work with the Culture of Life Foundation Jennifer was a Wilbur Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal located in Michigan. Jennifer earned a Licentiate in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum School of Bioethics in Rome.  Her prior undergraduate studies were in International Administration and Government Policy at the Evergreen State College in Washington State.Jennifer’s areas of specialization include Eugenics in Artificial Reproductive Technologies, Heterologous Adoption and Transfer of Embryos, The Womb in Reproductive Technologies, and the Role and Significance of The Medical Act. She interviews with National Conservative and Christian Radio Syndicates as well as several foreign and secular reporters. Jennifer has spoken on the dignity of women and women’s social issues to various audiences since 1999 and has spent several years in advocacy work with various international organizations in the field of life sciences. From 2000 to 2006 she recruited and coordinated grass-roots social policy efforts that consisted of a public and private sector network of professionals and academics…
    • Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D. – Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D., is Culture of Life Foundation’s Associate Fellow in Law. Maggie is member of Washington, D.C. and Maryland bar associations.  She holds a B.A. in Philosophy (Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude) and a Certificate in Classical Philosophy from the University Honors Program at The Catholic University of America. She earned a Juris Doctorate from Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, where she served as a Research Fellow at CUA Law’s Marriage Law Project. She also studied Roman Law and EU Law at Magdalene College, University of Oxford, England.A former Fellow and Staff Counsel for Americans United for Life, Datiles co-authored an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark partial birth abortion case, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, et al., companion case to Gonzales v. Carhart (2007). She also advised legislators, policy groups and the media (radio and newspapers) on abortion and bioethics laws and drafted pro-life model legislation.Her areas of research and/or publication include legal issues surrounding abortion, government funding restrictions for abortion, contraception, healthcare rights of conscience, stem cell research, artificial reproductive technology, population decline, physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage.She currently publishes articles…
    • William E. May – William E. May is Senior Research Fellow of the Culture of Life Foundation and emeritus Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he taught the academic years from 1991 through 2008 after teaching for 20 years at The Catholic University of America. He is the author of more than a dozen books. The 2nd edition of his Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life was published by Our Sunday Visitor (2008), and a substantively revised 3rd edition is scheduled for publication in 2013. In 2003 Our Sunday Visitor published a revised and expanded edition of his Introduction to Moral Theology. Among his other books are: Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995; 2nd revised edition, 2009)); and, with Ronald Lawler OFM Cap and Joseph Boyle, Catholic Sexual Ethics (rev. and enlarged ed. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1998; 2nd rev. edition, 1998; a 3rd edition, substantively revised by May alone, was published in 2011); Theology of the Body: Genesis and Growth (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2010) He has published more…
    • Frank J. Moncher, Ph.D. – Dr. Frank Moncher received his Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 1992, following which he spent several years on faculty of the Medical College of Georgia, with a focus on Adolescent Intensive Services. In 2000 he moved to the Washington, DC area to teach at a graduate school of psychology which had a mission of integrating the science of psychology in the context of the Catholic Christian view of the human person. Concurrent with this, over the past 12 years he has consulted with 11 different religious orders and 4 dioceses to provide psychological evaluations of aspirants and candidates, as well as consulting with different diocesan marriage tribunals.His research interests include the integration of Catholic thought into psychotherapy, child and family development issues, and integrated models of assessment of candidates for the priesthood and religious life. Frank is published in Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, Adolescence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Edification, and the Journal of Psychology and Christianity, as well as contributing to several book chapters on children, families, and religious issues.Since 2010, Dr. Moncher has worked for the Diocese of Arlington and Catholic Charities as a psychologist and consultant.  His…
    • Steve Soukup – Fellow in Culture and Economy Steve Soukup is the Vice President and Publisher of The Political Forum, an “independent research provider” that delivers research and consulting services to the institutional investment community, with an emphasis on economic, social, political, and geopolitical events that are likely to have an impact on the financial markets in the United States and abroad. Mr. Soukup has followed politics and federal regulatory policy for the financial community since coming to Washington in 1996, when he joined Mark Melcher at the award-winning Washington-research office of Prudential Securities. While at Prudential, he was part of the Washington team that placed first in Institutional Investor magazine’s annual analyst survey for eight years in a row. Mr. Soukup left Prudential with Mr. Melcher to join Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2000 and stayed there for two years, before leaving early in 2003 to become a partner at The Political Forum. While at Lehman, Mr. Soukup authored macro-political commentary and followed policy developments in the Natural Resources sector group, focusing on agriculture and energy policy. He also headed Lehman’s industry-leading analysis of asbestos litigation reform efforts. At The Political Forum, Mr. Soukup was initially the editor and junior partner,…
    • Dr. Pilar Calva, M.D. – Dr. Calva is a medical doctor specializing in Human Genetics with a Cytogenetics subspecialty from The University of Paris, France. In Paris, she was the under-study to the world-renowned Professor Jerome Lejeune, who is considered by some to be the father of modern genetics. In 1958, Lejeune discovered that an extra 21st chromosome is responsible for Down syndrome, or Trisomy 21. Lejeune dedicated his life tirelessly and unfailingly to defend the unborn, especially those with Down syndrome, testifying before scientific conferences and lawmakers. He was appointed by Pope John Paul II as the first President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. In Dr. Calva’s own words: When I arrived in France, I lived a life divided between faith and reason. I thought that from Monday to Saturday, I put on my white coat for my scientific tasks, and Sunday was the day I took off the white coat, put on my crucifix and dedicated myself to my religious duties. Professor Lejeune truly converted me, making me see that one can wear the white coat and the cross, at the same time. That is, one can fly with the wing of faith and the wing of reason. Inspired by the life…
    • Elyse M. Smith – Elyse M. Smith is an associate attorney with a northern Virginia law firm working in nonprofit and church law, estate planning, and civil litigation. Ms. Smith graduated magna cum laude from Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida, where she served on Law Review and was published in the Ave Maria International Law Journal. She was named “Most Dedicated Editor” for her work on Law Review. Ms. Smith earned her bachelor’s degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.  
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  >  Issue Briefs  >  Life  >  CULTURE OF LIFE ISSUES AND THE “GOODS” OF HUMAN PERSONS

CULTURE OF LIFE ISSUES AND THE “GOODS” OF HUMAN PERSONS

Posted: July 6, 2010
By: William E. May
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21st century Americans—and others, particularly in the “developed” nations—are deeply divided over issues central to the culture of life: contraception, the generation of human life, abortion, the care of seriously handicapped infants and of the dying, the meaning of sex, marriage, the family, and the kind of home best suited to help children grow into caring and responsible adults. There are many reasons supporting culture of life positions, but there is a need to show why these reasons are good and true and to help others see why. Moreover, sometimes advocates of the culture of life can and do disagree among themselves and/or find themselves perplexed about what is the right and good thing to do. Is there any way to resolve these disputes and overcome doubts?  

With others I think that it is possible intelligently to analyze these issues, including complex ones over which committed defenders of the culture of life are divided or over which they are perplexed and in doubt. I also think that an analysis of this kind can also help persons of good will, yet hostile to the culture of life, come to a knowledge of the truth. All persons who are mentally competent are obliged to seek the truth and to shape their choices and actions in accord with the truth—and if they are honest with themselves they know they have this responsibility.

The central moral question, “practical” reason, and the “good”
The central moral question is how to tell the difference between actions and courses of actions that are morally good and those that are morally bad. This is a job we do by using our intellect or reason as “practical,” i.e., concerned with “what is to be done and pursued,” and it is here that the notion of the “good” is crucially important.  In a like manner, the notion of “being,” or “what is or can be” is crucial to our use of our intelligence or reason as “speculative” in our efforts to find out what something is—and this is what we do when we study the different sciences (biology, physics, chemistry etc), the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of being or metaphysics.

The fundamental principle or starting point for our use of reason as practical is that “good is to be done and pursued, and its opposite, evil, is to be avoided.” All persons who have reached the use of reason, whether morally good or morally bad, immediately understand this because human action is intelligible, i.e., it has a point. A person does something because he or she thinks that by doing so he or she will participate in something good. (For instance if Ma Fia rubs out one of her enemies before her enemy rubs her out, Ma Fia does so because she thinks that by doing so she is protecting her own life.)What this shows us is that the notion of “good” in this fundamental principle of practical reason must not be understood to refer to the moral good. Rather it refers to all the real goods that are meant to flourish in human persons, and there is a set of such goods. Later we will see what the moral good consists in. But now let us consider the “set of real goods.”

There is, first of all, the good of life itself, including bodily life and health. This is a good intrinsic to the being of a human person. Because life is such a good no one is amazed if a person drowning cries out for help or if a person choking on some food spontaneously seeks to have the choking stopped. Another good is marriage and the begetting of children, as is shown by the fact that people are not shocked if a man and a woman in love with each other choose to get married and, after marriage, to have children. As the song goes, “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage.”

And there are other goods: goods like knowledge of the truth, appreciation of beauty, living in fellowship and community with others. We can call these goods different forms of the good of harmony and this includes friendship and justice with other human persons.  It also embraces a harmonious relationship with some “more than human source of meaning and value.” After all, Socrates scathingly demolished the sophistic claim that “man is the measure of all things” (see, e.g., Gorgias). Another good is a harmonious relationship with one’s self or a state of psychological well-being. Other human goods are developing one’s skills in work and play. It’s good to know how to do one’s work and do it well, to develop talents for playing ball or running or jumping or playing cards, etc.

Distinguishing between morally good and morally bad alternatives of choice
Some alternatives of choice, while promising participation in one or perhaps several basic human goods (e.g., friendship and playing tennis), are fully compatible with a respect for and a love of the other goods of human persons: knowledge of the truth, appreciation of beauty, justice, etc. Such alternatives are morally good. Because one has a good reason to choose them and no good reason not to, these alternatives are morally good.

But other alternatives, while promising participation in one or perhaps several basic goods (e.g., knowledge and possible future benefits to others), are incompatible with a love and respect for other basic goods. Gaining knowledge is good and so too is gaining knowledge with the hope that the knowledge gained will in the future benefit many persons by protecting their health or ameliorating some pathology. These are surely the goods in which scientists seek to participate when they kill the “spare” human embryos left frozen and abandoned in laboratory storage tanks in order to obtain their stem cells for research and study. But the choice to kill these human embryos is not compatible with a love and respect for the life of those human persons. Alternatives of this kind, namely, those incompatible with respect for and love of goods not chosen ought not to be chosen. There is a good reason to kill these tiny human persons, but there is also a good reason not to kill them. Thus the choice to kill them is not morally good. 

A person’s moral good
The moral good of persons consists in the dignity they are called upon to give to themselves and that they are able to give to themselves in and through the actions they choose to do every day of their lives. For the actions we choose to do not only “get things done” in the external world, i.e., have consequences, but also and more importantly “get things said,”, i.e., make ourselves to be the kind of persons we are: liars, cheaters, adulterers, embezzlers, or generous, giving, loving, caring persons in and through the actions we freely choose to do—after all, actions speak louder than words. We can thus say that our moral character is our integral identity as shaped by the choices we make, good and bad.

A basic negative moral principle
The previous reflections on the fundamental principle of practical reasoning that good is to be done and pursued and its opposite, evil, is to be avoided, will help us, I believe, to grasp the truth of a basic negative moral principle. This can be formulated as follows: In pursuing the good and avoiding what is opposed to it, one ought never adopt by choice a proposal to damage, destroy, or impede a basic human good either in oneself or in others, either out of hatred of that good or an unreasonable love of some other good.

Then, in the light of this negative moral principle we can see the truth of specific moral norms such as, one ought never intentionally kill an innocent human person; one ought not intentionally kill an unborn child or senile adult; a husband ought not have sex with some woman other than his wife.

Conclusion
I hope this piece will be of help to everyone. I want to conclude by emphasizing that while we are entitled to and indeed obligated to judge whether freely chosen acts are morally good or bad, we are not entitled—and in fact are not able—to judge the moral character of others; only God can read the human heart; we can’t, and we must not usurp God’s prerogative. It’s possible that those who are hostile to and strongly opposed to the positions central to the culture of life may be unable to understand the true and good reasons supporting the culture of life because they are hindered by the culture in which we live and which has played a key role in mediating false meanings to them. What we need to do is to help effect in them a new “world vision,” by raising their consciousness. But this is an issue that would take us too far afield.

(c) 2010 Culture of Life Foundation.  Reproduction granted with attribution required.

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