Mere Christian Social Ethics and the Challenge of Social Science

What exactly do we mean by “Christian social ethics”? How is it related to theology? We should be clear on definitions before we address the challenge of social science to Christian social ethics. Theology is the general term for Christian reflection on the revealed truths of the Christian faith. It contains many subfields: For example, dogmatic theology reflects on the nature of the Trinitarian God, of the second person of the Trinity, of the Incarnation and Redemption, among other basic dogmas of the faith. Roughly speaking, moral questions fall into two subfields: moral theology and Christian social ethics. Moral theology addresses the nature of sin, grace, conscience, and the virtues. Christian social ethics addresses the moral evaluation of social structures (markets, norms and institutions, and anything else in the social order), in dialogue with social science.

In Aquinas and the Market, Mary Hirschfeld (2018) summarizes three theological approaches to economics, which are also outlined in Stephen Long (2000). Each of these approaches characterizes a different kind of Christian social ethics. In one tradition, economics is the senior partner. Economics sets the terms for the debate, and theology takes sides in this debate for or against markets, either adopting one of several competing neoclassical approaches or opting for a radical economic approach (Hirschfeld 2018, 10–13).^[1] In a second tradition, economics is not the senior partner, but neither is theology. Theology accepts a division of labor between economics and theology, without addressing deficiencies in the economic view of human flourishing (Hirschfeld 2018, 13–17).^[2] In a third tradition, theology assumes a dominant position, declaring its independence from the discipline of economics. In this tradition, theology grounds its understanding of markets on theological or philosophical premises, and from this vantage point it offers a theological critique of the premises of economics (Hirschfeld 2018, 17–22).^[3] Hirschfeld is sympathetic to this third approach, but she identifies a deficiency in it: Theology does not take economics, and the problems that motivate economists (scarcity and allocation), seriously enough. Theology in this third mode is more inclined to reject economics altogether than to engage it in dialogue.

Hirschfeld offers a Thomistic analysis as an alternative theological approach that respects the insights and approaches of economics, but in which theology is the “dominant partner . . . the discourse that determines how to make sense of economic claims” (p. 3). Even though the Thomistic approach is not the only alternative available to Christian theologians, her discussion of theology and economics highlights the challenge presented by economics to Christian social ethics. On the one hand, a self-confident economics is ascendant in discussions of policy and social theory. On the other hand, Christian social ethics is splintered and speaks with an uncertain voice.^[4] Christian social ethics either allows economics to set the agenda, uncritically signing on to one or another side in secular disputes, or it accepts a division of labor in which economic expertise is unquestioned, or it ignores economics altogether, refusing to take the concerns and insights of economics seriously.

The thesis of this article is that Christian social thought needs a confident theology of the person and society. By confident theology I mean a theology that is rooted in revelation, embodied in Christian consciences and community, which is able to provide a foundation for Christian social ethics that is independent of social science. Such a theologically grounded social ethics would be capable of critiquing economics from the outside and could integrate the insights of economics into its reflection and evaluation.

Without an independent and confident theology, Christian social ethicists will by default adopt the analysis of economics, choosing sides in the economic debates as framed by the methodology of economics. They will be unable to integrate economics into social ethics, understanding both the limits and the promise of economic analysis. In contrast, a confident social theology will be a more fit partner for the dialogue with economics.

To understand why economics is often the dominant partner in the dialogue with theology, we must explore the nature of moral theology and Christian social ethics, the differences between economics and these branches of theology, and the weakness of these theologies in modern scholarly culture. To do this, I will draw on the account of positive and moral knowledge in Servais Pinckaers (1995), and the discussion of the four sources of moral knowledge in Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (2007). Together these describe what is possible from a collaboration of economics with Christian social ethics, and the dangers of such a collaboration if social ethics lacks confidence and independence.

Although my research addresses the relationship between economics and Christian social ethics, the issues addressed here apply equally to the dialogue between Christian social ethics and all the social sciences. Dialogues with social psychology, sociology, and political science present similar challenges to Christian social ethics, if theology brings nothing to the dialogue beyond moral commitments to one or another social science framework.

Pinckaers on Positive and Moral Knowledge

In The Sources of Christian Ethics, Pinckaers (1995) provides a convincing account of moral and positive knowledge, a defense of moral knowledge as real knowledge worthy of pursuit, and a discussion of the low status of moral knowledge in the academy today.

In chapter 3 of Sources, Pinckaers contrasts moral knowledge with positive knowledge. The term moral can be misleading to modern ears. Today we define the term moral as obedience to moral rules. These can be religious rules, like the Ten Commandments or the moral teachings of the church. They can be analytical rules, like rule utilitarianism or Kant’s categorical imperative. They can be the moral standards of a community. Moral as it is used in this article is broader; it is a synonym for practical.

Moral virtues help you make good decisions—sometimes by following moral rules, but often by discerning human goods in your daily life and acting well to achieve them in an uncertain environment. Drinking moderately, telling the truth, being faithful to your spouse, and paying your employees just wages count as moral actions. However, the realm of the moral also includes decisions about whether to change jobs, to go on a diet, or to vacation close to home or journey five hundred miles away.

Moral knowledge is the kind of knowledge we bring to bear when we direct our lives toward our happiness and the happiness of others. Christian social ethics reflects on the sources of moral knowledge in revelation. The purpose of this reflection is to guide Christian behavior in the world. Moral knowledge is not rigorously specifiable—we cannot learn it from a textbook. Nevertheless, we reason about what we do in our lives and reflect critically on what we have done. Moreover, we must admit that some people are better at making practical decisions than others. We may call this ability to reason well about our lives and how we act practical wisdom instead of knowledge, but it is nonetheless a kind of knowledge.

Moral knowledge is the kind of knowledge by which we guide our own behavior. There is a positive knowledge of behavior, too. This is the knowledge of modern social science, including economics. According to Pinckaers (1995, 57), positive knowledge “proceeds by way of rigorous observation of facts perceptible to the senses. . . . It observes these things as far as they are quantitatively measurable and reducible to invariable laws expressing precise formulas.” Positive knowledge is the goal of the social sciences, including economics.

The search for positive knowledge in the social sciences dominates policy and commerce. Pinckaers (1995, 57–72) describes its familiar characteristics. The discipline of economics seeks knowledge from an exterior vantage point, through observation and quantification of behavior into abstract categories. Its analysis is unconditional: If these preconditions hold, then do this. Because it is exterior knowledge, it treats human behavior as a consequence of exterior forces, not of unobservable free will. It is third person, objective, and technical; it formulates its knowledge such that any adequately trained person can understand, critique, and apply its method. Its third person, technical, and objective nature makes it a powerful engine of analysis. This accounts for the prestige of the economic way of thinking in modern academia and government.

Moral knowledge is ubiquitous, but it does not fit into the framework of positive knowledge. Consequently, its existence is overlooked and rarely acknowledged by positive science. Pinckaers (1995, 49–57) describes its nature and compares it to positivist science. Moral knowledge is knowledge of the acting person from the inside; it arises from interior reflection. It does not collect abstract data; instead, it accumulates and reflects on the experience of acting, both of the individual and in community. Because it is interior, it is first person and unconditional; the acting person does not have the luxury of conditional statements. She must act, and as she does so she experiences directly the consequences of her actions. The experience of acting makes moral knowledge more aware of human freedom, conditioned by but not determined by exterior forces.

The clearest comparison of moral and positivist knowledge comes through an example. Imagine you have been working in a particular job for ten years. You are married with four kids, two of whom are entering high school. Your wife works part-time, but has opportunities to move back into full-time work and would like to do so.

You have an opportunity to take a new job, with better pay, but it requires relocation. What kind of positivist knowledge can inform your decision? Labor economics can provide data on the average growth rate of salaries and benefits in your current occupation and in the new opportunity. It offers insight into what other people in your situation have done: What is the effect on job switching if your spouse works part-time, has a college degree, and your children are of a certain age? Positivist research can show the effect of the distance of the move on the probability of switching jobs.

Positive economics also will provide a general model of decision making: Collect data on all relevant facts, consider your preferences (which are also clearly defined), and choose the best of the options before you.

Positive knowledge can be useful here, but it is only knowledge about how other people act in situations more or less like yours, and about how various measurable factors affect the job-switching decision of other people. However helpful positive knowledge is to your decision calculus, it is not sufficient for your practical needs. The questions you ask about your decision may include facts from positive social science, but the knowledge that is central to your decision is much broader, and of a different nature. You are asking this question in the first person (should I switch jobs?), not in the third person (what are the observable patterns of job-switching in past data?). You are not a point in some economist’s dataset.

Moreover, you are responsible for the decision you make. You, your family, and others will have to live with the consequences, good and bad. An economist studying job-switching decisions does not know the people who make up his data. The economist does not feel such decisions the way he feels his own relocation decisions.

Much of the knowledge you need for this decision is unique to your situation. You want data on measurables (salary, benefits, costs of moving, etc.), but many of your deliberations are not quantifiable: Where am I right now in my life? How is my family doing and how will this affect them? How will my wife be affected, and what does she think? If your communication with your wife is open, this is a first-person plural decision—you are deciding together. But preserving a we perspective requires a further set of considerations regarding how you hash out these sorts of decisions. How does this affect your children? They may love the idea of moving, or they may be anxious and angry about losing friends and the investments they have made in school and sports. It may be better that they move, even though they hate the idea.

Your move will also affect your social network: your church, your friends, the people who depend on you. All of these are difficult to express in quantitative categories, but they matter to your decision nonetheless.

In addition, your deliberations provoke strong emotions. Perhaps you are proud to move into a better, more prestigious, better paying job. You want everyone to be excited for you, but they may feel deeply their own loss from the move. Feelings can sometimes guide your decision, but they can often blind you to important considerations. The adage “follow your heart” can be good advice at times, but it can also lead to blinkered disaster.

Finally, much of what you know is tinged with uncertainty. Is this really a good job, or will it turn out badly after a gut-wrenching move? Perhaps an unpromising move will turn out well for your family. A social scientist working with big data can generate probabilities (“there is a 20 percent chance that people in your situation regret the new job”), but there are no sure probabilities for you—just pros, cons, and hunches.

Clearly, when individuals deliberate about a decision like this, they are exercising their reason. A practical decision can be better or worse as measured against the truth of the situation. In deliberating well, we seek a kind of knowledge that escapes the formal categories of positive social science, but it is nevertheless knowledge crucial to living well. It is the kind of knowledge that develops when we see life from the inside—from the perspective of our own deliberation and action. Even though it is interior, Pinckaers (1995, 65–67) insists that it has a kind of objectivity. We share the experience of making decisions about life with every other human. We ask for advice and insight from others about what we are doing, and offer advice for others. Our hunches are not pure feelings, and those who have a knack for making good decisions and living their lives well we call wise or prudent. There are systematic, organized accounts of this kind of knowledge in works like the Ethics (Aristotle 1941) and the Summa (Aquinas 1948), or in the work of modern natural law philosophers (MacIntyre 1981; Finnis 1980; Flannery 2001; Annas 2011).

Pinckaers is confident that cooperation between moral knowledge and positive knowledge can be fruitful. Here, he runs against the grain. Presently, there is little connection between moral knowledge and positivist knowledge. Indeed, many experts in positivist knowledge are skeptical that something called “moral knowledge” really exists. Moral knowledge seems arbitrary, depending on the authority of the speaker and not on rigorous research. Consequently, positivists are skeptical of systematic treatments of moral knowledge such as Aristotle’s Ethics or Aquinas’s Summa.

That said, Pinckaers offers a clear case for the reality of moral knowledge, and the prospect of putting moral knowledge (ethics) into conversation with a positive social science like economics. His discussion comes early in his book, in the chapter “The Human Aspects of Christian Ethics.” Here Pinckaers emphasizes the natural aspects of moral knowledge, apart from its connections to revealed truth. In the rest of the book, he takes on the challenge of building Christian ethics on a foundation that has a distinctive character and is not just another version of secular ethics (Pinckaers 1995, chap. 4).

I shall not, in this essay, offer a detailed history and analysis of The Sources to make the case for a confident theology independent of social science. Instead, I shall turn to the discussion of conscience in Ratzinger (2007) to sketch the integration of moral knowledge and theological knowledge.

Ratzinger on Moral Knowledge

In the second of two speeches on Christian conscience, Ratzinger (2007) outlines “four sources of morality.” The first of these sources, which he calls “objectivity” (pp. 46–49), dovetails with Pinckaers’s positive knowledge. The Catholic Church acknowledges the relevance of the positive knowledge of the social sciences to morality, and urges Catholics to become conversant with the social sciences (Paul VI 1971, para. 40). Nevertheless, positive knowledge is insufficient for guiding human beings toward their own good. The social sciences cannot describe the interior freedom that gives rise to moral choice, or the encounter of the person with the Divine, by means of an exterior, quantitative framework. There are no objective experts on morality. The search for an objective, purely positive science of morality stunts moral reason. It increases the danger of obscuring the differences between good and evil, instead of clearly discerning those differences (Ratzinger 2007, 49).

Ratzinger’s other three sources of morality combine to form what Pinckaers (1995) calls moral knowledge. All three share the same domain: that of a deliberating and acting person who is responsible for his own decisions. These three sources are conscience, community, and revelation (Ratzinger 2007, 49–58). Their interpenetration is the ground for practical Christian ethics, and for systematic accounts of Christian ethics, which together make a confident dialogue partner for positive social science.

In traditional Catholic theology, conscience has two parts. Synderesis is a primitive knowledge of the human good, evidence in our soul of our created goodness, a capacity to recall our true nature (pp. 30–36). Conscientia applies moral principles to specific circumstances (pp. 36–38). Ratzinger describes human conscience as “one source of moral knowledge, that is to say, a primitive knowledge of good and evil which appears in the individual man as a source of his ability to make moral judgments” (p. 51).

The human conscience “cannot be separated in its history from the idea of the responsibility of man before God” (Ratzinger 2007, 51). The existence of conscience is a source of human responsibility and dignity. Because of its intimate connection to the individual’s moral life—a meeting place between God and the person in the human soul—it commands great respect. However, Ratzinger warns against its identification with the absolute exercise of arbitrary will. Conscience is not “a deification of subjectivity, a rock of bronze on which even the Magisterium is shattered” (p. 51). Conscience is not an oracle; it is more like an organ, which can be unhealthy or healthy (p. 51). A person with a poorly formed or distorted conscience is akin to a person who is unable to feel pain, who injures himself without knowing it (p. 18).

Because conscience cannot act in isolation, it needs formation. As a remedy for its deficiencies, Ratzinger discusses two other sources of moral knowledge that conscience needs: community and revelation. The term mores captures the communal aspect of moral knowledge: “mores are the habits, customs, and lifestyle of a people” (p. 52). When we think of the moral traditions of a community, which form and guide individual conscience, we often think of them as sets of rules. Ratzinger’s formulation does not exclude rules of behavior, but embeds those rules within a community: “‘morality’ is not an abstract code of norms for behavior, but presupposes a community way of life within which morality itself is clarified and is able to be observed. . . . Every morality needs its ‘we,’ with its prerational and suprarational experiences, in which not only the analysis of the present moment speaks, but also the wisdom of the generations converges” (p. 53). Ratzinger’s discussion of the communal location of moral knowledge calls to mind the rich description of ethics embedded within a shared community of practice, whose traditions arise and persist through reflection on and argument about the good life (MacIntyre 1981, 219–22).

Just as individual conscience is not a guarantee of moral knowledge, communities can embody corrupt traditions and mores: “It is certainly possible for important areas of life in a society to become corrupt, so that the predominant custom of men and women does not guide but seduces, as in a society with the custom of cannibalism, slavery, or dependence on drugs” (Ratzinger 2007, 54–55).

In light of the vulnerabilities of individual conscience and community traditions, revelation is needed to knit together conscience and community. In the divine community of the church, God infuses the person and the community with moral knowledge. In the Catholic Church, the office of bishop carries the responsibility for safeguarding and teaching moral knowledge as well as faith. Ratzinger mentions the special role of the saints (living and dead) in teaching (p. 56): The moral witness of the saints is reminiscent of the authority of the sophrimos in Aristotle (1941, 3.4, 6.5, 10.5). The practically wise person is the measure of morality in Aristotle, because of his experience and virtue. The saints are the measure and guide of the moral life in Christianity, because of their experience of loving abandonment to Christ.

In light of the contrast between moral and positive knowledge in Pinckaers (1995), and in the description of the interpenetration of conscience, community, and revelation in Christian moral knowledge described in Ratzinger (2007), we can more clearly connect Christian social ethics and positive social science. When positive knowledge expresses skepticism of Christian ethics, it is often rejecting the authority of Christian revelation. Reason rejects the witness of faith, and its truth. However, Pinckaers and Ratzinger offer another reason for skepticism on the part of positive science. Christian ethics is one expression of moral knowledge. There are secular forms of moral knowledge, and positive knowledge is blind to and suspicious even of secular forms.

Meeting the Challenge of Positive Knowledge

Ratzinger includes positive knowledge (objectivity) among the four sources of moral knowledge. This is not a failure to recognize the stark differences between the positive knowledge of the social sciences on the one hand, and the interior knowledge of conscience, tradition, and revelation on the other. Instead, the inclusion of positive knowledge in the list implies that a fruitful collaboration is not only possible but necessary.

Pinckaers concludes his discussion of positive and moral knowledge with a discussion of the possibility of collaboration between the two sources of knowledge and an explanation for the failure of the collaboration. His insights highlight the need for a theology that is confident in what it brings to the collaboration.

Although moral and positive sciences “stand at opposite poles in their methods of studying human persons and action,” Pinckaers (1995, 73) insists that “they are not contraries.” The positive, behavioral sciences need the insights of the moral sciences: "The richest, most decisive human actions, such as love and hatred, intention and free choice, reactions to suffering and evil, truth and duty, and faith as well—in a word, all the movements of human interiority, which alone can adequately explain what we do, escape them by and large (p. 73). Because positive theory cannot offer a comprehensive account of human life, it cannot by itself “solve human problems or answer life’s deepest questions.” Moral knowledge also needs the insights of the positive sciences: “Moral values and laws are translated into action in the outer world, but they cannot shape that world to human needs and aspirations without sufficient knowledge” (p. 73).

Moral and positive knowledge can collaborate fruitfully, but only if a certain precondition is met: “that their differences are clearly recognized and sincerely respected—a thing that takes more than mere mutual good will” (p. 73). The collaboration is difficult; Pinckaers describes the failure of collaboration in a section entitled “Three Dangers to Be Encountered in the Relation Between Moral Theology and the Behavioral Sciences” (pp. 74–82).

The first danger to the collaboration is “the abdication of ethicists” (pp. 74–76). Vatican II marked a decline in the status of Catholic ethicists. From a position of authority over formation of Catholic consciences, and a confidence in their methods that made them somewhat suspicious of social science, Catholic ethicists found themselves face-to-face with the behavioral sciences in a desire to be “open to the world.” According to Pinckaers, “these captivated them and shook their confidence in the moral theory they had previously learned” (p. 75). In an attempt to build new moral theories on a positive foundation, ethicists abandoned the crucial insights of moral knowledge—insights that had been entrusted to them. Pinckaers characterizes the consequences of this abandonment as a loss of access to resources to “answer the great questions of life, in dialogue with the sciences and with Christian revelation” (p. 76).

The counterpart to the abandonment of moral knowledge by ethicists was the second danger, which Pinckaers calls “The High-handedness of the Scientist” (pp. 76–77). Every science (including theology and philosophy) faces the temptation to “take over the controls and to explain everything from its own viewpoint, as if it were absolute” (p. 76). While Pinckaers does not cite Cardinal John Henry Newman on this point, Pinckaers’s discussion of disciplinary imperialism echoes Newman’s claim that various disciplines are inclined to expand into comprehensive descriptions of reality when they are isolated from other disciplines (Newman [1852] 1982, discourse 4; Yuengert 2004, chap. 6). When the behavioral sciences ignore their own limits and the existence of other morally relevant knowledge, they can do great harm (Pinckaers 1995, 77).

Newman, anticipating Pinckaers’s discussion, connected the abandonment of the ethicists to the high-handedness of the social scientist. It would be more difficult for economists, sociologists, and other social scientists to be high-handed if their imperialism were faced with confident opposition by moral philosophy and theology. Instead, the ethicists simply took a subordinate position in the collaboration—they accepted the dominance of the exterior point of view of the behavioral sciences, adopting that point of view as their own without critique. Some chose to partner with sociology in its critique of economics, and others chose to partner with economics in its critique of sociology. Some took sides in the political and policy disagreements among economists. Few moral theologians critiqued the positive approach in general, insisting on the complementary insights of moral knowledge and revelation.

Pinckaers’s third “danger” to the collaboration between moral and positive knowledge is essentially a summary of the consequences of the first two dangers. To the extent that ethicists have abandoned moral knowledge in favor of new positive formulations of ethics, and social scientists have obliged them by proceeding as if positive knowledge were sufficient, we are left with purely exterior accounts of the social world and social ethics. Accordingly, positive science attempts to provide what it cannot: answers to deep questions of meaning. It becomes a kind of faith, but a faith that cannot deliver wisdom: “Science is thus caught up in a huge debate beyond its powers, for it can never comprehend the whole person, nor does it touch on the noblest qualities of human nature” (p. 82).

Confident Christian Social Ethics

At the conclusion of his discussion of the crisis in moral knowledge and the resultant crisis in Christian ethics, Pinckaers quotes Ephesians 3 as an example of “the richness of the interiority proposed for the study of moral theologians” (p. 82): "Out of his infinite glory may [the Father] give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God (Eph. 3:16–19). In order for Christian social ethics to fulfill its vocation to bring the Gospel to bear on society through the formation of individual conscience and the renewal of communal traditions, it must recover confidence in its proper place vis-à-vis social science. Moral knowledge, shaped by revelation, must acknowledge and embrace its status as crucial interior knowledge, and argue for its necessary role in orienting positive, exterior knowledge toward true human values. Only then will theological social ethics be able to collaborate fully with social science, and be able to harness the insights of social science, putting those insights at the service of human flourishing and the kingdom of heaven.