Theological Ethics of Herbert McCabe

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THE THEOLOGICAL ETHICS OF HERBERTMcCABE, OP: A REVIEW ESSAY

L. Roger Owens

ABSTRACT

Herbert McCabe, OP (d. 2001), was a significant theological figure in England in the last century. A scholar of Aquinas, he was also influenced by

Wittgenstein and Marx, his reading of whom helped him articulate a distinctive Thomistic account of human embodiment that serves as a critiqueof other dominant approaches in ethics. This article shows McCabe's contribution to moral theology by placing his work in conversation with otherimportant approaches, namely, situation ethics, proportionalism, and theNew Natural Law Theory.

KEYWORDS:McCabe, situation ethics, proportionalism, New Natural LawTheory, moral theology

WHEN HERBERTMcCABE,OP, DIED ON JUNE28 ,2001, there were few ripples

in the theological world this side of the Atlantic. A Dominican in England

since 1949, McCabe, through his teaching and his editing ofNew Black-

friars, the Dominican journal of philosophy and culture, had considerable

influence in England despite his rather small literary output. His two

earliest books, The People of God (1964) andLaw, Love and Language

(1968) were originally given as lectures to Catholic student organiza

tions throughout England.God Matters (1987) is comprised primarily of

essays previously published inNew Blackfriars and a few sermons. Except for the small catechism The Teaching of the Catholic Church (1985),

which McCabe considered to be his most important work, these are the

only books McCabe published in his lifetime. Another collection of previ

ously published essays and sermons,God Still Matters (2002), appeared

posthumously, followed by a collection of sermons, God, Christ and Us

(2003), both edited by Brian Davies, OP. The recent republicationo Law,

Love and Language, which most clearly addresses issues of moral theol

ogy, will make McCabe's work more accessible to a wider readership.A note about the plan of this essay: As a United Methodist I will not


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572 Journal of Religious Ethics

Roman Catholic moral theology. Nonetheless, to fully appreciate McCabhis work needs to be seen within the context of dominant debates i

Catholic moraltheology.Therefore, after a biographical introduction thaplaces McCabe within the broader context of the English Dominicans ithe last century, followed by an account of the most distinctive aspect oMcCabe's ethics, I will contrast his work with that of supporters (JohFinnis) and detractors (Richard McCormick) of the encyclical VeritatSplendoras these positions are found in the collection of essaysConsidering Veritatis Splendor (Wilkins 1994). It would be a mistake, howeveto assume that McCabe's relevance to theological ethics lies in how h

might be pigeonholed in a debate the terms of which are already set anwith which he would undoubtedly disagree. Rather, this essay will arguthat McCabe's most important contribution lies in how his theologicaethics cannot be separated from his sacramental theology. Therefore, brief conclusion will point to the sacramental, and thus eschatologicatelosof McCabe's ethics.

1. Situating McCabe

McCabe inhabited both the earlier world of the Dominican theology oculture and the burgeoning political activism offriendslike literary critTerry Eagleton. He entered the Order of Preachers in 1949, at the age o23,having already studied chemistry and philosophy at Manchester.

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was well prepared for the rigorous training he would receive among th"galaxy of majortalents"of the English Dominican province of the 1950and 60s (Duffy 2001). At that time the culture of the English Dominicanwas at its height. Understanding it will show the influences that helpeto create McCabe's unique position, and how he managed to combine careful understanding of Aquinas as an Aristotelian with an "evolvinpolitical and religious radicalism'' (Duffy 2001).

Aidan Nichols argues that the rigorous intellectual culture of EnglisCatholicism in the 1930s and 40s was epitomized by the intellectualights teaching in the Dominican Order (Nichols 1997). Fr. Bede Jarrett worked to create an intellectual culture in the English Domincan Province, a culture which flourished in the 30s and 40s when th

study of church dogma and scholastic theology, especially that of ThomaAquinas, was not done for its own sake, but so that culture more gen


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TheTheologicalEthics of Herbert McCabe,OP:A Review Essay 573

contemplate the life-givingdogmataof the Church in and for themselves.However, its more characteristic approach was to ransack the treasure

house of the Catholic tradition of past and present to illuminate the varied modes in which the Christian spirit can put itself forth in the mente-facts and the artefacts that are in different respects both the materials and signs ofGod'sKingdom" (Nichols 1997, 2). The theologians whocarried out this theological ransacking were many of McCabe's teachers and colleagues, including Victor White, Thomas Gilby, and GervaseMathew.

Consider the influence of Victor White, OP. White embodied the the

ological vision described by Nichols in the way he brought his scholarship of medieval scholasticism into conversation with Jungian depth-psychology. This allowed him to critique the characteristic notion thatscholasticism is dryly rational; scholasticism itself was something morelike a mystical enterprise. White writes that "our present-day understanding of the psychological function of symbols and beliefs may helpus to understand how eminently practical and inherently salutary aresuch seemingly 'speculative' treatises as those on the Trinity, the Incar

nation, the Eucharist" (quoted in Nichols 1997, 69). This approach toscholasticism, which McCabe describes as finding "fascinating parallelswith the anti-dualism and 'materialism' of St Thomas in the work ofmodern-depth psychology" (McCabe 1987, preface) would become veryimportant for McCabe and especially for his moral theology, even if heapproaches the same Thomistic doctrine from the perspective of LudwigWittgenstein.

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This is not all he learnedfromWhite. He also learned to read Aquinasas a thoroughgoing apophatic theologian, taking with utter seriousnessAquinas's contention that one cannot know "what Godis"only "that Godis"(Nichols 1997,72). This apophatic approach toGodis practically ubiquitous in McCabe's work. As McCabe says ofGod Matters, "In the end,I suppose, I am only trying to say two not very original things: that theonly God who matters is the unfathomable mystery of love because ofwhich there is being and meaning to anything that is; and that we areunited with God in matter, in our flesh and his flesh" (McCabe 1987,preface). The first he learned from Victor White and his own reading of

Aquinas. The second shows what such an apophatic doctrine of God hasto do with our embodied lives and thus how his moral theology always


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"Jarrett Dominicans" who shaped the intellectual culture I have alreaddescribed. His chronicle ends at the Second World War after which, h

argues, English Catholicism became increasingly activistic; to some degree "it suffered a closing in of cultural horizons" (Nichols 1997, 45). Imany ways McCabe himself embodies what Nichols cannot help but describe as a decline. Manywhohave written on McCabe's life note that b"the beginning of[theSixties],McCabe had become a leader of an emering Catholic social radicalism" (Duffy 2001). He published essays in th"irreverent Catholic Marxist magazineSlant"another frequent contributor to which, Terry Eagleton, became McCabe's "life-long friend an

comrade" (Duffy 2001). If his relationship with White shows McCabegrounding in the theology-of-culture Catholicism of the inter-war periodhis relationship with Eagleton epitomizes his turn to social radicalismand political activism.In two bookspublished in the 1960s, Eagleton (Egleton 1966,1970) offers a Marxist interpretation of Christianity, one othe main points of which is also an enduring point in McCabe (learnefrom Aquinas and Wittgenstein as well as from Marx). Language, hmaintains, is not an internal phenomenon seeking expression througthe human body, but the practical consciousness that is the body's livinand working in the world. For both McCabe and Eagleton, the recovery of the significance of the body enabled innovative interpretations oChrist's presence in the world and his continued presence in the Eucharistie liturgy of the Church.

For McCabe, this move toward a Marxist and increasingly Wittgensteinian interpretation of the body in the world was notamove away fromthe grounding in Aquinas he received from White. McCabe's achievement, as Alasdair Maclntyre notes, was "to understand Aquinas botin his own terms and in ours and so to overcome" the kinds ofdificulties that plague expositors of Aquinas. As a member of the Order of Preachers who took the specific task of preaching quite serously, McCabe could never become a mere commentator on AquinaHe always had to approach Aquinas with the questions that were being asked in his own day. That involved, as Maclntyre notes, wrestlinwith the new philosophical scene in which Wittgenstein was playina major role, but also the "new kind of radical vocation, one that in

volved rethinking our relationship to Marx" (Maclntyre 2002, viiiMcCabe did not shift from a Thomistic inquiry to a Wittgensteinian


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2. McCabe's Distinctive Wittgensteinian-Thomism

Before situating McCabe in conversations in Catholic moral theologyand more broadly in theological ethics, let me outline what I mean byMcCabe's Wittgensteinian-Thomist anthropology, for his way of viewinghumanity and the meaning of human action in a community lies at theheart of his distinctive contribution to theological ethics. His account ofhuman beings as embodied minds constitutes the central thrust of hispreferred way of thinking about ethics.

Taking his cue from the shift in analytic philosophy made possible by Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein 1997),McCabe approaches ethics from the perspective of a changed understanding of language and meaning. He attacks a dualistic theory of meaningaccording to which, as he says, "The interior mind is the home of concepts and it is where thinking takes place; actions, however, words, andother expressions of my thinking take place in the public world of thebody. My words consist of public signs that stand for private thoughts"(McCabe 2003a, 85). It is precisely McCabe's Wittgensteinian-Thomismthat furnishes him with the critique of this position and an alternative to

it. From Wittgenstein McCabe learned that"suchproblems dissolve oncewe recognize that what we call concepts are nothing like experiences butare simply skills in the use of words The question of meaning is not aquestion about my secret thoughts but about the public language" (McCabe 2003a, 86-87). The meaning of words cannot simplybedeterminedby the thoughts within my head, but meaning is at least quasi-objective,residing not in the mind but in the public use of language and a sharedform oflife.He writes:

Meanings, then, arewaysof enteringintosociallife,waysof being with eachother.The kindof meanings available in the language ofasocietytaking'language' in its widest extent to include all conventionally determinedsignsandsymbolsconstitutethe way in which people are with eachotherin that community. To imagine a language/ as Wittgenstein says, 'is toimagineaform of life' [McCabe 2003a, 84].

McCabe's Wittgensteinian critique of this dualistic account of lan

guage allows him to offer an alternative account of human embodiment.Rather than being an instrument used to express internally produced


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meaningsofwords, the meanings of ouractions,forMcCabe,cannot bdetermined solely by what goeson inside the agent (the intention) b

rather with the public, embodied natureof theactionsas it is performin a linguistically constituted community.

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McCaberealizes that most waysofdoingethicsare preeminentlycocerned withjudgingthe lightness or wrongness, the goodness orbaness,ofhuman behavior. Whether this is determined by considering thbehavior's consequences or by whether a certain behavior has brokan inviolable law, the most prevalent forms ofethics are all playing the sameballpark.In this game ethics seeks to address quandaries;

judges behavior as right or wrong.McCabe'sdiscussionofethicsas laguage,however, and hisextensionoflanguagetoinclude the intrinsicalcommunicative natureofall shared bodily life, allows him to offer an aternative account ofethics.Ethics,forMcCabe,is precisely the study human behavior as communicative:

Now ethicsisjustthe study of human behaviour insofar as it is a pieceofcommunication, insofarasitsayssomethingorfailstosay something.Thisdoesnot mean thatethicsis uninterested in behaviour insofarasit

getssomethingdone,thatethicsisnot concernedwiththeconsequencesomyacts,but its preciseconcernis with myactionasmeaningful [McCabe2003a,92].

Ethicsis the literary criticismofbodily communication. Tryingtodeciwhether a pieceofbehavior is good or bad, right or wrong, is analogoutosaying that the job of literary criticism is to pronounce a poem gooor bad.Ifliterary criticism allows one to move more deeply into the sinificanceofapieceofliterature, and thus to enjoy it in a nonsuperfici

way, so "the purposeofethicsis similarly to enable us to enjoy life moby responding to it more sensitively, by entering into the significancofhuman action"(McCabe2003a,95). Some actions wewill findto bshallow and unworthy of our time (McCabehappens tothinkthat this thekindof behavior capitalist economies condemn us to) and som

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Thisispartofthepoint thatG..M.Anscombe makes inIntentions,forexample,w

shewrites that"youcannottake any performance(evenan interior performance)asitselfactofintention; for if you describeaperformance,thefactthat ithastaken placeisnotproof intention; words for example may occur in somebody's mind without his meaning the


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TheTheologicalEthics of HerbertMcCabe,OP:A Review Essay 577

behavior will reveal deeper and deeper levels of significance. "So I wantto say," he writes, "that there is no such thing asthemoral level. Moral

judgements do not consist in seeing something at 'the moral level' or 'inlight of morality'; it consists in the process of trying to see things alwaysat a yet deeperlevel"(McCabe 2003a, 97). What we find when wedothiskind of literary criticism of human life together in light of humanity'sdivine orientation is that these deeper levels of meaning point to evermore human ways of living. Sometimes we will find that in "some activities a man has not lived into his medium, his action has made sense atsome superficial level of meaning but it does not make full human sense"

(McCabe 2003a, 100). The job of ethics is to help us discover this "fullhuman sense"; to live morally is the attempt to live at the most humanlevel of meaning (McCabe 2003a, 102).

With this snapshot of McCabe's account of ethicsinmind, we can take alook at one of McCabe's earliest and most significant debates, that withJoseph Fletcher and the situation ethics of love. His three argumentsagainst situation ethics show us McCabe's distinctive approach in action;they also serve as the backdrop to the situating of McCabe within morerecent debates in Roman Catholic moral theology. In McCabe's exchangewith Fletcher, which became arguments in the first chapter ofLaw, Love,and Language,we can begin to see several crucial aspects of McCabe'sapproach to ethics relevant for our discussion of the debates surroundingthe publication ofVeritatis Splendor.

3. McCabe and Situation Ethics

As John Gallagher argues, the situation ethics debate helped to erodein the American Catholic context important notions of the neo-Thomistmoral philosophy. It is impossible to deny the affinities between situationethics and the rise of proportionalism, though proportionalists deny thatthey are consequentialists (Gallagher 1990, 223-68). Second, and moreimportantly, from McCabe's response to Fletcher we can see what I havecalled his Wittgensteinian-Thomist anthropology put to work especiallyin his argument about the meaning of love and the relationship betweenintention and action. McCabe levels three arguments against Fletcher's

situation ethics.


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pedestrian words like "perhaps," have a range of meaning thcannot be governed by merely following rules of use. As McCabe say

"It is just that a word like love' will always have uses that are nconstricted by such rules for its use as you have managed to formlate at any particular time" (McCabe 2003a, 18). Thus, the word historical (the meaning develops over time through use in a commnity) and it is biographical (how any individual understands the wowill largely depend on that one's biography) (McCabe 2003a, 17-20Because love is such a "growing word" it cannot simply be associatwith certain behavior.

Sofar, the situation ethicist would agree. However, McCabe claimfor love not to be hopelessly vague there have to be some behaviothat would be impossible to count as loving. That is, while all hman behaviors have a variety of relevant descriptions, there must bsome descriptions which, if appropriate to a specific behavior, wouguarantee that that behavior could not be counted as loving. McCawrites, "We cannot be sure beforehand what might turn out to bloving behaviour, but if we can't say of any behaviour at all thatis definitelynotloving behaviour, then I think the word 'love' woube hopelessly vague. I mean that ifaword is to be meaningful themust be at least something that it doesn't mean, however openendeit may otherwisebe"(McCabe 2003a, 20). There must be some excetionless prohibitions despite the fact that he knows these absolut"will not, of course, serve as a foundation forethics"(McCabe 200321).

(2) The second problem McCabe finds with situation ethics is its inabilito display the relationship between love and behavior:

OrdinarilyI should say that I lovedMaryJane onlyifI wereconcerneabout her welfare, respected her and so on, and I should know thisto be the case because I found myselfdisposedto act in certain wayswhen she was aroundor wasin some way affectedby myactions. Thedispositions and actions involved may be exceedingly complicatedlove may express itself in the most surprising waysbut if there isliterally nothing that would count as an expression of love, then it ishard to see how I could use the word at all. Theoretically I suppose Imight use the word tomeansome interior experience which may or manot happen to accompanymyexternal behaviourrather like a sharp


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The Theological Ethics of Herbert McCabe,OP:A Review Essay 579

loving intention and the actionitself.McCabe charges that situationethicists fall into a kind of dualism, separating the visible behavior

from something called "love" which accompanies it. Indeed, sometimes it seems that human behavior, on this account, is composed oftwo acts, one the internal act of loving, the other the external, visiblebehavior, the expression of the internal. That there is no necessaryconnection between the two makes it impossible for someone to discern whether a particular piece of behavior is in fact loving. McCabewrites:

I think, in fact, that the New Morality onlybecomesplausible on a dualistic view of man according to which moral values attach to eventsin an "interior" invisible life which runs alongside a man's public physical life. Activities in public visible world are in themselves morallyneutral.Wespeak of them as virtuous or wicked according to whetherthey are accompanied or notbyan act of loving in the interiorlife.Thetwolives are not intrinsically connected;wecan make rough empiricalgeneralizations about which public acts are usually accompanied bylove, but such rules of thumb have no sort of necessity [McCabe 1970,74].

What I have called McCabe's Wittgensteinian-Thomist anthropologyis precisely aimed at undercutting this very view of intention andaction.

(3) McCabe provides one final critique of situation ethics when he askshow to determine where one situation ends and another begins. Situation ethics suggests that all the relevant circumstances, the wholesituation, must be taken into account before a particular piece ofbe

havior can be judged good or bad. Then McCabe asks, "How big ismy situation? I mean does it mean the people immediately aroundme,whom I know, or does it extend to everyone who may be affectedby my activities?" (McCabe 2003a, 32). McCabe thinks that it beliesthe bourgeois character of most situation ethics that they draw thesituation rather narrowly. They miss that our actions have intelligibility from being situated in the midst of overlapping communitiesand indeed in the not-yet-fully-achieved community of humanity. If,

however, the larger political and world-situation aspects of behaviorare taken into account, the command to do the most loving thing ina particular situation becomes empty (McCabe 2003a 33)


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rejects the notion of absolute prohibitions, and thus, of intrinsically evacts. Second, proportionalism makes a distinction between the categorie

right/wrong and good/bad. Proportionalism itself is a method for determining the lightnessorwrongness of a particular human action, but nothe morality of the actor, which can only be ascertained by taking thactor's intention into account (Hoose 1987, 41-68). Third, proportionaism,in an effort to determine the lightnessorwrongness of a particulapiece ofbehavior,claims that all the relevant circumstances need to btaken into account and not just the physical act in isolation from its siuation. The literature on proportionalism is too voluminous to look at i

any detail. Thus, by looking more closely at the response of Richard McCormick, America's leading proportionalist, toVeritatis Splendor in hessay "Killing the Patient" (McCormick 1994), we will be able to outlinmore clearly what McCabe's objections might be to proportionalism if hentered the debate (and it happened to be a debate he liked to stay ouof).McCormick's response toVeritatis Splendoris brief and to the poinand it involves two closely related arguments.

The first argument is contained in McCormick's clarification of thposition of the proportionalists. McCormick's fine summary of the hearof proportionalism is worth quoting in full:

Common to all so-called proportionalists, however, is the insistence thatcausing certaindisvalues (non-moral, pre-moral evilssuch assterilization,deception in speech, wounding and violence) in our conduct does not bythat very fact make the action morally wrong, as certain traditional formulationssupposed.These evilsor disvaluesaresaidto bepre-moral whenconsidered abstractly, thatis,in isolationfromtheir morally relevant cir

cumstances. But theyareevils. Thus theologians sometimes say that theyare morally relevant, but not morally decisive. They are morally relevantbecause they ought to be avoided as far as possible. The action in whichtheyoccurbecomesmorally wrong when,all thingsconsidered,there isnoa proportionate reason in the act justifying the disvalue. Thus, just as notevery killing is murder, not every falsehood is a lie, so not every artificialintervention preventing or promoting conception inmarriage isnecessarilyan unchaste act [McCormick 1994,18].

The first argument here is for the existence of something called pre-moraevilsordisvalues (others proportionalists call these ontological evils [se


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TheTheologicalEthics of HerbertMcCabe,OP:A Review Essay 581

circumstances, necessary according to the proportionalists to determinethe morality of an act, are rendered superfluous. The description of the

act in the abstract, foravery few acts, is enoughtoname that act morallyillicit (McCormick 1994,18-19).

McCormick's second argument is implicit in the first. The distinctionbetween pre-moral and moral evil rests on the relevance of determiningthe morality of an act based on all the "morally relevant circumstances"(McCormick 1994,18,19).Thebringing about of a pre-moral evil becomesmorally wrong when performed under circumstances that cannot justifythe bringing about of that evil (that is, when the evil is brought about

without a proportionate reason). On the other hand, the bringing aboutof pre-moral evils can be justified when all the relevant circumstancesoffer a proportionate reason for bringing about the evil. McCormickwrites:

When contemporary theologians say that certain disvalues in our actionscanbe justifiedby aproportionatereasontheyarenotsayingthatmorallywrong actions {ex objecto)canbe justifiedby theend. Theyaresaying thatan actioncannot bejudgedmorally wrong simply by looking atthematerial

happening, or at its object in a very narrow and restricted sense. This isprecisely what tradition has done in certain categories (contraception andsterilization, for instance). It does this innoother area [McCormick 1994,18].

What becomes clear from these two closely related arguments is thatthe proportionalist debate with John Paul II and his supporters is oneover act descriptions. When is it appropriate to describe a certain killingas murder, thatis,when does the act of bringing about another's death

causing a pre-moral evilbecome the morally illicit act ofmurder?Whendoes the sometimes justified act of taking another's property become themorally illicit act of theft? In most cases, McCormick argues, the Popeand his supporters agree that the morality of an act is dependent on thedescription of its circumstances, but in a very few instances there are actsthat, described in what the proportionalists would call their pre-moral,abstract form, are deemed morally illicit without the further specification of circumstances. McCormick points to sterilization. All agree that

not all killing is morally illicit (that is, murder), so why then in the caseof sterilization do we not need to specify the circumstances in which it is


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McCabe maintains that ethics is not primarily about makindecisions, but about finding ways to live more authentically human live

From this perspective, and given his critique of situation ethics, two criicisms of proportionalism emerge. First, McCabe's critique of the sizof the situation in situation ethics transfers directly into a critique othe necessity of considering "all the morally relevant circumstancesMcCabe points out the impossibility of determining and agreeing upowhat constitutes all the relevant circumstances. Moreover, he worrieabout the tendency to consider too small a situation, making us forgethat humans are members of the human community, that is, an eschato

logical community waitingtoachieve its full human unity. Furthermorhe argues that "any man at any time is in a great number of overlappinsituations, the demands of which will frequently conflict The problem is not so much to discern the demands of'the' situation as to discerthe priorities amongst the different situations" (McCabe 2003a, 33-34When one stops drawing the boundary too closely around a situation, onfinds many overlapping, even competing, situations. Thus, one problemhas been traded for another, both of which show the inadequacy of anadmonition to consider all the relevant circumstances.

Second, as we saw from his critique of the situationist's claim tha"all you need is love," McCabe believes that absolute prohibitions arnecessary to make morality intelligible; there are acts that so violate thdeepest meaning of humanity that under no circumstances can they bdeemed morally justified. He makes this argument in his own essay iConsidering Veritatis Splendor.McCabe writes,

Several commentators have found the most difficult teaching of the en

cyclicalVeritatis Splendorto beits insistence thatwecan describe certainkinds of human acts which will be morally wrong whenever and howeverand for whatever reason they are performed. If, the document claims, anaction falls under such a description,we knowitto be wrongregardless ofanythingelse we might know aboutit.Suchdescriptionmust,of course, beahumanone:itcannotbe merely an accountof what physically happens; imust include referencetowhat the agent intends in his act (though not toany consequences hemayintend). Unlike a number of Catholic moralists,I think there are good reasons for holding this position, though I do not

find them in the encyclical [McCabe 1994,61].


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called acts in the abstract. Absolute prohibitions prohibit human acts, forthere are no other kind. When he says that the account cannot be "of what

physically happens," he is arguing both against the encyclical if indeedit has a tendency to describe prohibited acts merely physically, but alsoagainst the proportionalist's imagining that there are "pre-moral" evilsor disvalues (for example, deception in speech) which can be consideredabstractly apart from any human circumstances.

McCabe argues in favor of absolute prohibitions by use of an analogy.A game like football, he suggests, requires two kinds of books. The firstis a training manual, a book "written by an experienced coach [that] tells

you what the good and bad moves are in the game and how to practise theformer and avoid the latter" (McCabe 1994, 62). A beginner will followthis manual quite rigidly, but as he becomes more experienced he willrefer to it less andless.Finally, when he becomes an expert, he might findthat the right play involves breaking one of the "rules" of the manual.Knowing when to break the rules of the manual is precisely what makesone an expert.

The second book is the rule book. "This will tell you, amongst other

things, what moves count as fouls. A foul is a bad or forbidden move,but it is not playing football badly; it is not playing football at all, butpretending to Given tha t what you are playing is football, there areno circumstances in which to make a foul move could be legitimate"(McCabe 1994, 62). The manual tells what moves make one a skilledfootball player; the rule book tells which moves are legitimate footballmoves and which are not. He concludes,

Nowit seems to me that the encyclicalVeritatis Splendoris,in great part,

an attack on those who want to read the rule book as though it were atraining manualby those whowanttoread the manual as though itwerearulebook.Neitherseems to haveadvertedtothe fact that they are logicallyquite different kinds of discourse. The rule book, for example, is aboutindividual acts, whereas the manual is about how to acquire dispositions[McCabe 1994, 63].

McCabe makes explicit the analogy between football and life, writing:

Human life...isa natural phenomenon (or gift from God) which we didnot invent; though much inventiveness aswellas experience has togointofi di t h b t t li it Lik it i diffi lt d h ll i


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as loving, so there must be some acts which cannot count as legitimamoves in the game of life.

McCabe does not think that there are very many of these rules anhe certainly does not think that there are enough on which to base all ethics. Indeed, he is not arguing in favor of specific absolute prohibitionbut simply for their necessity. Indeed, I doubt that he thinks steriliztion is absolutely prohibited; he is much more interested in the manu(as he thinks Thomas Aquinas was). Nonetheless, if we take steriliztion as our example we can see his exact disagreement with McCormicMcCormick said that anyone would agree that the act described as "ste

ilizationagainst the good of marriage" is prohibited. The argument over whether "sterilizationagainst the good of marriage"is a tautologMcCabe would say that the phrase "sterilizationagainst the good of ma

riage"is analogous to "foulingagainst the good of the game"In the samway that there is no other kind of foul, so, if sterilization really is onof the forbidden moves in the game of life, then there is no other kinthan that against the good of marriage. Despite these imagined objetions to McCormick's proportionalism, his most fundamental objectioto proportionalism, as it is with any other mode of ethics determinewith discovery of the good or bad, right or wrong, in particular situtions, is that ethics most fundamentally is not about decisions. McCabobjects to proportionalism as a form of quandary ethics, mistaken on thgrounds I have outlined above, but more fundamentally misdirected. Awe turn to put McCabe in conversation with the so-called traditionalistthose supporters of theVeritatis Splendor, also known as Basic GooTheorists, we will see that McCabe's Aristotelianism, his preference fothe manual over the rule book, sets him equally at odds with this othe

dominant approach.

5. McCabe and the New Natural Law Theory

Often called traditionalists because they uphold what they view athe traditional position on the legitimacy of absolute prohibitions, thtraditionalists stress that these prohibitions are part of the natural lawwritten on human hearts. They are also to an extent revisionists, i

that, led by Germain Grisez, they have taken up the call of Vatican to reinvigorate moral theology. Part of this reinvigoration involves fo


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The Theological Ethics of Herbert McCabe, OP: A Review Essay 585

and Rule Books" in order to see more clearly the nature of McCabe's

Aristotelianism and his view of natural law.5

After arguing thatVeritatis Splendor is less about sex than about laying out a foundation for objective morality to secure inviolable human

rightsand after arguing that theories of proportionate reason jeopar

dize this very foundationFinnis argues that in a post-Christian society

an objective foundation for morality is more crucial than ever. Along the

way he makes claims that show his view that the New Natural Law

Theory (the Basic Goods Theory) provides just such a foundation. He

writes:

As God's image, man shared in his dignity, and man's innate grasp uponthe principles of right and wrong was confirmed as participation in God'swisdom and love. While the goods which fulfil human beings here belowlife,knowledge, friendshipretained the value they always had, they tookon a new value as anticipated ingredients of a far grander fulfilment in theheavenly kingdom [Finnis 1994, 72].

Of course, these truths are no longer widely accepted in a post-Christian

culture. Nonetheless, he writes that the objectively binding moralnorms "are still accepted by many people as divinely given, and con

formed to by many others out of cultural inertia. Indeed, the natu

ral law remains written on the post-Christian heart (cf. Rom. 2:14-

15), so that, to a considerable extent, contemporary non-believers still

know, communicate and act on moral truth" (Finnis 1994, 73). Thus he

concludes:

God's commandmentsconfirming what is accessible to practical reason

ablenessevenwithout divine revelationsprotect innocent human life andother fundamental goods of persons These are goods meant to last forever as elements of the divine-human communion for which God createdhumankind. Those who violate such elements of the everlasting kingdomrefuse to make themselves ready for that kingdom. By God's gratuitouslypromised gift, thosewhorespect those fundamentalgoodsin every choiceas the tradition's exceptionless norms requirethereby build up the material of the kingdom... [Finnis 1994, 76].

These extracts illustrate the aspects of the New Natural Law Theory withwhich McCabe's Aristotelianism puts him at odds. The first principle of


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the principle of practical reasoning while the first principle of moralitguides moral reflection concerning the basicgoods.The latter, however,

so broad that the new natural law theorists posit intermediate principlconnecting the first principle of morality with particular moral norm(Salzman 2003, 22-23). The New Natural Law Theory, as these extracfrom Finnis show, is an ethic of choice based on principles of moralidiscerned through practical reasoning.

As we have already seen, McCabe's approachtoethics is farfromanaproach based on principles. Rather, ethics is the study of the meaningfuness of the intrinsically communicative nature of humanbodiessharing

common life.Inthe earlier sectiononMcCabe's Wittgensteinian-Thomianthropology we saw primarily how what McCabe learned from Wittgenstein allowed him to offer an alternative to situation ethics of any formeven proportionalism. In his essay "Manuals and Rule Books" he showmore clearly why that anthropology is a Wittgensteinian-7%orasra. Ishort, McCabe's account of humans as embodied minds sharing bodilife together is also the account of why an ethic focused on virtueaethic of the manualis superior to an ethic of principlean ethic of thrule book, especially since an ethic of virtue needs at least some absolutprohibitions.

This needs filling out. We have seen that for McCabe, ethics is abouliving more deeply human lives together. He sees this approach embodied in the way Aquinas transformed Aristotle's ethic for thepolis. FoAristotle, thepolis 'liad its basisinphilia Philia does, of course, involve affection, but precisely the affection arising from solidarity in shared important project (such as marriage), a solidarity which Aristotle regards as the precondition for justiceitself.It is acts incompatib

with thisphilia that are the ones absolutely ruled out" (McCabe 19964).Aquinas, accordingtoMcCabe, develops Aristotle in two ways. FirsAquinas extends the analysis of thegoodfor thehumanpolis tothe entirhuman community under the rule ofGodthe Creator. Second, Aquina"takes Aristotle's political notion ofphilia (amicitia in his language) ahis model for thecaritaswhich is the foundation of the community of thhuman family as, not merely creatures, but children of God" (McCab1994, 65). Thus absolute prohibitions become the prohibition of "ac

which are incompatible with membership of a community sustained andefined bycaritas"(McCabe 1994, 65). For McCabe's WittgensteinianTh i hi h b f f lif f b di d h


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these two sometimes overlap. In its primary meaning, for him, 'natural law' just is our capacity for practical reasoning" (McCabe 1994, 65)."There is, for St. Thomas," McCabe writes, "no built-in code or Voice ofconscience,' no innate grasp of moral truths" (McCabe 1994, 66). Rather,he argues, natural law is for Aquinas precisely our human capacity toreason about action, and thus every activity about which humans canreason practically falls under natural law.

Of course, since our practical reasoning is fallible "it was kindly ofGod to reveal (at least to his chosen people) the ten commandments: notas principles from which practical thinking should start, but as markers

of the boundary where it might as well stop" (McCabe 1994, 66). Hecontinues:

Godreveals whatwemight have worked out for ourselves but 'only after alongtime and with the admixture of many errors.'Acorollary ofthis,however, is that althoughwemay have been too scatterbrained to work it outfor ourselves,wecould,byhindsight, recognize that itisnot unreasonable.To see this we must recognize that the commandments are limits ratherthan principles[CVS66].

The commandments are like the rule book. They set the limits to appropriate behavior in our lives as humans with one another and in ourfriendship, through the Spirit, with God. "For St. Thomas," he writes, "adirect contravention of the revealed precepts of the decalogue is a 'mortal' sin because the life in the Spirit it rejects can only be restored bya miracle equivalent to the resurrection from the dead" (McCabe 1994,67).McCabe is arguing that laws and principles have their place within

ethics, but not as the foundation of ethics, and surely not as the principlesfrom which we reason practically about particular behavior. Rather theyset the limits, the boundaries, for growth in virtue, the virtues necessaryto sustain friendship within the human community and with God. Theplace of principles in the New Natural Law Theory's and McCabe's respective approaches to ethics shows their fundamental difference. In theformer account various principles are used to determine what particularbehaviors rightly seek the basic goods for humanity and how to choosewhen those goods conflict. In the latter approach, on the other hand,

principles have a much more limited, though essential, role in providingappropriate space for the acquisition and embodiment of the virtues.


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three approaches considers that any adequate account of ethics muavoid the "naturalistic fallacy," in which a moral principle, imperativ

or value, an "ought," isderived fromreflection on the facts of reality, a"is."Situation ethics avoids this fallacy in itsinsistence,asMcCabepuit,"thatnomoral characterattachestoany piece of externalbehavioursuch"(McCabe2003a,4). Proportionalism avoids this fallacy by distinguishing good and badfromright and wrong. An act itselfcanbejudgeright or wrong, but only an agent's intention can bejudgedgood or bathe goodness of the agent'swill,the agent's culpability, cannot be detemined fromconsidering the facts of the situation. Ironically, the fear

committing the naturalistic fallacy drives the basic goods theoriststothsame conclusion.ToddSalzman explains that "to avoid the naturalistfallacy, the BGT [BasicGoods Theory] denies the causal relationshipposited by traditional moralists between an act and awilling subjethat provides objective grounds for morally assessing the agent'swil(Salzman2003,51;see also Black2000,145).McCabewouldsay thaall three approaches share a postEnlightenment anthropology that pesistsin positing, however subtly, a dualism between the innerseatofth

willand intention and the externalworldof physical behavior. According toMcCabe,Aristotle andAquinas did not share this anthropologand Wittgenstein has allowed postEnlightenment thinkers to recovthe substantial insightsofAristotle andAquinasfor a new age.

McCabe thinks that his account of ethics as language, his antdualistic account of the intrinsic, quasiobjective meaningfulness of human behavior, thatis,his account ofethicsas the study of the meaning oshared, embodiedhumanlife undoes the naturalistic fallacy because itouse language hewouldneveruse,deconstructs the distinction betweethe language of fact and the language of value. Of the position that n"simple fact of what is thecasecan logically entail anything that oughtobe thecase;or, as we mightsay,no account ofasituation in physicislanguage can entail an account in moralist's language,"McCabewrite

Ithinkthat this doctrine is an irrelevance because an account ofhumanbehaviourassuch is never in physicist's language.Tosaythat FredkilledCharlie is to say something of quite a different kindfrom'this particle

movedfrompointat time Tltopointqat timeT2.'To describe an eventasakillingis already to describe it in terms ofitssignificance; it is to


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The human body is not, therefore, a medium but a source of significance,andthis distinguishes it radically (substantially)fromother things As

the Thomistsaid,human life is thesubstantialformofthebody,that whichmakes itwhatitis;or,as Wittgenstein put it,"Thebest picture of the soulis thebody."It is because there are human bodies that there is a worldof communication and it is by my bodiliness that I belong to this world[McCabe 1970,71-72].

Thus we have come full circle, back to what Maclntyre calls McCabe's"Wittgensteinian and Thomistic understanding of human beings as embodied minds and of the human body as expressive in its deeds and itswords," the crucial insight that makes the most substantive differencebetween McCabe and other dominant approaches to ethics (Maclntyre2002, viii-ix).

7. Conclusion: Ethics and the Eucharist

The substantial amount of space devotedtosituating McCabe in intra-

Catholic debates suggests, I fear, that these are the most important contexts in which his work might be read. Indeed, it was necessary to putMcCabe in conversation with Roman Catholic moral theology in orderto highlight the critical function his distinctive approach might play inrelationship to other dominant approaches. I think, however, that themost important aspect of McCabe's work is the thoroughly theologicalframework in which the distinctive approach displayed above finds itsproper place. In this concluding section, I want very briefly to point tothe way McCabe's ethics as language finds its fulfillment, so to speak, inthe sacraments of the church.

So far we have seen that, for McCabe, ethics is the study of the bodilypresence of humans to one another, of human communication, in the community of humanity. McCabe, in fact, is writing primarily of the church,which for him is the sacrament of the eschatological unity of all humanity. When we realize with McCabe that human unity is not a given ofour nature but "that human unity is something towards which we move,a goal of history" (McCabe 2003a, 67), then we realize that his ethics is

distinctively Christian because the humanity about whose bodily communication McCabe writes is an eschatological reality. As McCabe says,


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Until then, the world has the church as the sign of its eschatologicafuture. McCabe writes, "Jesus Christ is himself the medium in whic

men will in the future communicate, he is the body in which we shaall be interrelated members... he is the language in which we shall express ourselves to each other in accordance with the promise and summons of the Father. Now this language, this medium, this expressionthis body which belongs to the future is made really present for us the church" (McCabe 2003a, 141). Through the sacraments of the churcJesus is present bodily as the language of the future. "I mean that thchurch makes the presence of Christ articulate as a language, as an in

terpretation of the world, as a means of communication" (McCabe 2003a142).

For McCabe, intention and action are embodied human communication, meaningful in their public expression in the community of humanity. Since this humanity is fragmented, however, intention and actiofind their fullest, deepest, most human significance in the sacramentalife of the church as it articulates to the world the truth of the world's future unity. "The resurrection meant not just that a church was founde

it meant that the world was different: the church exists to articulate thdifference, to show the world toitself"(McCabe 2003a, 142).

McCabe argues that human communication cannot be achieved untall humanity shares bodily the life of God. Until then, we share nosacramentally in that life through the eucharistie celebration. In thcontext of debates about situationsandrules, principles and prohibitionMcCabe offers an alternative approach to ethics. His approach is nolikely to be terribly helpful getting us out of quandaries, but it can poinus to a way of life and guide us to the deepest meaning of human lifit can point us to the virtues as the most appropriate communicatiobetween one another and, through the Spirit, with God; and, finally, can point us to the eschatological calling to grow up, to grow into ouhumanity, until we have achieved, through Christ, a share in divinity. Athe endo Law, Love and Language,McCabe writes:

I have not, in this book, tried to apply christian principles to particularmoral questions because it seems to me that christiantiy does not in the firs

place propose a set of moral principles. As I suggested in myfirstchapter[onsituationethics],I donot think thatsuchprinciples are out of place in


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TheTheologicalEthics ofHerbertMcCabe,OP: A Review Essay 591

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Theological Ethics of Herbert McCabe

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