On to Kozinski's piece

The Good, the Right, and Theology by Thaddeus J. Kozinski

I did find this difficult to read -- if his book is like this I may have to reconsider purchasing it. Typical of postmodern American English theological discourse? Does it share something in common with analytic philosophy in this respect? Is it merely style and diction or something more? I had to concentrate in my reading.

The inseparability of faith and reason, in both theory and practice, is one of the main points of Benedict XVI’s encyclical teachings. We can debate the political and philosophical ramifications of the affirmation that we are made in the image of God, that God loves us, and that He commands us to “be perfect as His father in heaven is perfect”; however, in the end, we either affirm these truths or we do not, based upon whether we have or have not encountered the living Christ, caritas in veritate, or perhaps just encountered those Christians who have. So, if human acts are a matter of experience, choice, and grace—not just logic, evidence, and demonstration, whether Aristotelian-eudaimonistic or Kantian-deontological in mode—then any debate about the metaphysical, epistemic, and rhetorical aspects of ethics must invite theology as an interlocutor. And this neglect of theology is the reason that the debate between Arkes and O’Brien is, as it stands, irresolvable.

Would an Aristotelian ethics deny that human acts involve experience (which builds up prudence) or choice? (Aristotle may not talk about voluntas but he does talk about rational appetite and choice.) The key here is grace. If we are oriented to a good that we cannot attain on our own but need of God's grace, then it is not theology that we need first of all, but Divine Revelation and the sacraments. (The witness of the Church in her life in this world.)

The problem is that they are both right. O’Brien is correct that arguments about and declarations of principled moral prescriptions and proscriptions, even rigorous and true ones, cannot ensure a public commitment to and embodiment of Christian or even humanistic values in our post-Enlightenment, neo-pagan, pluralistic political culture. Moral principles are experiential, cultural, and historical in their genealogy and in the subjective apparatus of human recognition. But Arkes is right that we can and must transcend these contingencies to see and act on principles in an absolute, universal, and eternal way. In other words, although reason is tradition-dependent (pace Kant), it is also tradition-transcendent (cum Kant). Somehow we must hold these together, and I don’t think we can outside of a theological narrative and discourse.

In other words, paideia is not accomplished through [academic] discussions of moral questions. One generation forms the next, both within the family and the community as a whole.

"But Arkes is right that we can and must transcend these contingencies to see and act on principles in an absolute, universal, and eternal way." What does this mean? Arkes explains that positive law cannot be based on emotion or ingrained preference, but must be anchored to first principles.

After reading the rest, I find that I don't have much about which to quibble. (Dangling prepositions?) Or do I? I still have to reconsider what MacIntyre says about the relationship between tradition and rationality.