The foundation of most intellectual discourse is Western-centric to the exclusion of other views. This includes ideal patterns of social interaction, preference for aesthetic, accepted norms and values, and the concepts of dignity, respectability, morality and ethics. Such a position is culturally myopic. Western cultural influence colors all of them including moral precepts. The assumption is ...

the foundation of most intellectual discourse is western-centric to the exclusion of other views. this includes ideal patterns of social interaction, preference for aesthetic, accepted norms and values, and the concepts of dignity, respectability, morality and ethics. such a position is culturally myopic. western cultural influence colors all of them including moral precepts. the assumption is ...

Following the Second Vatican Council, the predominant trend in Catholic moral theology has been decidedly antagonistic toward the tradition that dominated moral theology before the Council, namely the use and formulation of ecclesiastically-approved “manuals” or “handbooks” of moral theology, the contents of which chiefly involved general precepts of morally good and bad behavior as well as the...

This paper provides a theoretical framework to explain recent empirical findings on the malleability of morality, and suggest new testable implications. Building on a basic model with image concerns, we introduce the concept of narratives that allow individuals to maintain a positive image when in fact acting in a morally questionable way. We show how narratives, however feeble, inhibit moral b...

The moral theory of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) has a theological as well as a philosophical aspect; indeed Thomistic moral philosophy, while theoretically complete in itself, is subsumed into moral theology. I shall here be concerned only with the moral philosophy of Aquinas, but first a word on the possibility ofconsidering his moral philosophy without discussing his moral theology. As a Ch...

CONTEXT Despite considerable advances in the incorporation of professionalism into the formal curriculum, medical students and residents are too often presented with a mechanical, unreflective version of the topic that fails to convey deeper ethical and humanistic aspirations. Some misunderstandings of professionalism are exacerbated by commonly used assessment tools that focus only on superfic...

In recognition of the fifteenth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis splendor, this issue of the Josephinum Journal of Theology opens with five essays touching upon the theme of moral action, which was perhaps the central concern of the encyclical. In particular, Veritatis splendor responded to a post conciliar situation in which traditional moral doctrines, such as the teach...