Theological Ethics and Moral Helplessness in the Anxious Present: Responsibility and Repair
- First Published March 12, 2025
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Abstract:
Theological ethics has inadvertently contributed to the diminished autonomy many
feel amid the anxieties of daily life. The shift from act-based ethics to totalizing ethics,
and Vatican II’s universal call to social justice, urged Christians to work for earthly
justice without offering tools for assessing one’s moral goodness when these projects
fail. Virtue ethics that is attentive to moral luck can help combat moral helplessness
by observing moral agency in action patterns that shape the self’s dispositions.