Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Ethics, freedom and responsibility

Publication at Protestant Theological Faculty |
2021

Abstract

The article brings together two perspectives. The first one introduces the phenomena of morality as a problematic feature both in respect of the use of the concept of morality and in the context of our heritage of subjectivist approaches to human being.

Morality then may be seen as redundant. Yet, the possibility of human choice, of its relation to value and its existential consequences, is an interesting resource for seeing such moral phenomena as anthropologically significant qualities.

Revisiting the assumed capacity of human person for morality, while giving due care to the distinction between ethics of the external requirements and internal morality of one's conscience, points to surprisingly important role of realized human freedom. The second perspective develops the potential of human freedom for responsibility using a concrete theological example; discussing the terms "moral" and "ethical" and making a difference of responsibility to moral law and to one's conscience.

It is briefly documenting the debate in the catholic moral theology and the Catholic Church in the last decades. This controversy about the autonomous morality is shown on two Church documents: Veritatis splendor and Amoris Laetitia.

We come to the conclusion that our capacity for freedom makes us responsible in both senses, towards moral law and to one's conscience. Such complexity of our responsibility is often not recognized, if not denied, yet may be seen as a sign of human uniqueness and dignity.