Living Theology
in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church
In America
Vol. 7 No. 1
Summer 2002
In 1966, Max Scheler
published “Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik,” later
translated into English under the title, “Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal
Ethics of Values,” in which he applied the phenomenological principles of
observation and analysis first pioneered by Edmund Husserl to study ethical
theory and practice. At the heart of
his work lies the observation that values, and the choices that valuing offers,
can be described in a series of continuums.
Each of these continuums can be “ranked” in a hierarchy of ethical
horizons, or “value modalities.”
The first of these value
modalities he described as ranging from “agreeable” to “disagreeable” states of
sensible feelings. In this range,
ethical decisions are made on the personal creature “comfort” derived from your
choice. You can seek to maximize
pleasure, or personal “good,” and your desire to avoid pain or discomfort in
your life. Against this horizon of
possibilities, ethical actions are a matter of personal, individual
preferences, which are understandable to the extent that the individual making
the choices personally benefits.
The last modality of values
that Scheler describes ranges from the “holy” to the “unholy.” It is cast against the horizon of ultimate
choices and a relationship to the “divine.”
Feeling states range from “blissfulness” to “despair.” Choices are not necessarily governed by
personal comfort or gain, but in fact are made independently of happiness and
unhappiness. This horizon of
possibilities seems to surpass, or even negate, personal considerations of
self-preservation; you cast your life choices against the large screen of God.
In his book Bioethics: A Primer for Christians,
Gilbert Meilaender introduces his work with a clear statement of ethical
valuing. He enters the current moral
debates with the horizon of God and our faithfulness in mind. In describing the “Christian Vision” that
forms the foundation for his discussions of such issues as abortion, suicide,
euthanasia, human experimentation and genetic therapy, Meilaender refers us to
our Baptism and our life in the context of God’s faithfulness. The crucified Christ and the solidarity of
God with those who suffer create a range of ethical possibilities that lift us
beyond “comfort” and “individual preferences and rights” to consider room in
our choosing for such an “uncomfortable” notion as suffering:
“Part of the pain of human
life is that we sometimes cannot and at other times ought not do for others
what they fervently desire. Believing
in the incarnation that in Jesus God has stood with us as one of us, Christians
must try to learn to stand with and beside those who suffer physically or
emotionally. But that same
understanding of an incarnation also teaches us that to make elimination of
suffering our highest priority would be to conclude mistakenly that it can have
no point or purpose in our lives.” p.8
As our technology and
medical scientific research have advanced our knowledge of the very building
blocks of life, our ethical choices have not become easier or clearer. The Human Genome Initiative, stem cell research,
and the (no longer) science fiction concept of human cloning do not simplify or
eradicate our ethical choices. To many,
these developments aggravate the difficulty of choice and create a bog of
unclear options. But choices will,
nevertheless, be made. And those
choices will occur against a horizon of valuing.
Using the horizon of Baptism
and our life in the community of Christ’s Church for moral reflection,
Meilaender discusses making difficult, even painful, ethical choices for a path
that seems to move us contrary to the direction of our science and
society. But he makes the argument for
such possible choices without pitting “science against faith,” or reducing
Christian choosing to a nostalgic desire for a primitive, eighteenth century
sub-cult. As I read this work, I kept
coming back to the Liturgy of Holy Baptism, when the parents and sponsors are
asked to raise the newly baptized in the faith of the church so that “living in
the covenant of their Baptism and in communion with the Church, they may lead
godly lives until the day of Jesus Christ.”
The “godly life” is the horizon of values
for this book of ethical discussion.
You may not find all the answers, or agree with some answers proposed,
but I would commend to you the horizon of value-modalities Meilaender so
articulately describes for the ongoing ethical debate we will surely continue
in our communities and lives.
Nicholas J. Zook