Moral Autonomy: a Kantian cop out or a necessity?

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Henri_Searcher

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am recently starting out as a teacher of philosophy and moral ed. and Religious Education in state/secular schools in Europe. Say no more…the Curriculum is vast and having to cater for a wide range of searchers! We are trying to teach the kids to be sound critical thinkers: dudes who think logically and critically. I believe this is the road to the Truth: since it shines and is so rational even in its excesses…
Stephen Law, a British Philosopher advocates thinking autonomy for children. That is: kids should not have the Truth or doctrines shoved down there throats per-se but should be given the freedom to embrace what they come to consider rationally and freely as the truth. Autonomy according to this thinking is not an option states the author: for even when we defer on ot an authority (i.e God and the Church) we have still had to autonomously decide to do so. For this to be genuine it has to come from our deepest hearts and minds…no?
Then there is the point made by von Baltasar that those who embrace Christ have God more intimate than our own deepest intimacy (Augustine). To accept Christian morality would then be no longer a heternomous or merely external Law but our deepest intimacy. Thus does Christ conquer the whole Autonomy versus heternomy paradox. Our Faith is the great synthesizor.
What say you all? Immanent self sufficency and an unwillingness to defer to an external being for Truth and Wisdom are so prevalent in today’s philosophy. What say you? Any threading?: Ciao 4 now.
 
Henri_Searcher said:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am recently starting out as a teacher of philosophy and moral ed. and Religious Education in state/secular schools in Europe. Say no more…the Curriculum is vast and having to cater for a wide range of searchers! We are trying to teach the kids to be sound critical thinkers: dudes who think logically and critically. I believe this is the road to the Truth: since it shines and is so rational even in its excesses…
Stephen Law, a British Philosopher advocates thinking autonomy for children. That is: kids should not have the Truth or doctrines shoved down there throats per-se but should be given the freedom to embrace what they come to consider rationally and freely as the truth. Autonomy according to this thinking is not an option states the author: for even when we defer on ot an authority (i.e God and the Church) we have still had to autonomously decide to do so. For this to be genuine it has to come from our deepest hearts and minds…no?
Then there is the point made by von Baltasar that those who embrace Christ have God more intimate than our own deepest intimacy (Augustine). To accept Christian morality would then be no longer a heternomous or merely external Law but our deepest intimacy. Thus does Christ conquer the whole Autonomy versus heternomy paradox. Our Faith is the great synthesizor.
What say you all? Immanent self sufficency and an unwillingness to defer to an external being for Truth and Wisdom are so prevalent in today’s philosophy. What say you? Any threading?: Ciao 4 now.
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the bible says we are sheep.
 
By way of highlighting my argument of the free autonomous (allbeit aided by Divine Grace) coming to the Faith, I copy and paste my contribution from the “does being more radical make you more holy/” thread. Somebody had infered that I could not possibly be a free thinker if I was “imprisoned” by Catholic papal “idolatry”. It’s the old autonomy dilemna. Hierarchy is a tough one…but Christ set up the scaffolding…!

Screeds have been written on this subject, I don’t propose to say anything new of course and I don’t have time to be writing cyber books either! Check out what apologists like Dr Scott Hahn (a convert from traditional Lutheran/Calvinist Christianity to the Catholic Church) have said on this matter. In his book “Rome Sweet Home” he intelligently and enthusiastically tells of all his searching’s (intellectual, familial and spiritual) to come into communion with the Church (Unam, Sanctam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam). Man the dude didn’t want to go there…his family were staunch protestants, his wife Kimberly almost left him…he had to leave his job as a theology prof. and as a Minister. However the light of the evidence was such…the Bible, the earliest Church Fathers, the Saints…lots and lots of stuff…called out to him and he was consequent with his findings. A true Searcher…he sought- he found.
This in a lesser way is what I have done in my life. I was no cradle Catholic. Evidence of a Biblical, Patristical and of a experiential-personal nature led me to become a Catholic. The bonds that drew me were the sweet bonds of reason, of beauty that all men recognise in their soul: like a fine composition of Mozart, like a sunrise over an oak wooded lakeside. Hic est veritas et splendor. Here is Truth and Splendor!
The choice was mine, the coercion was zero. Many have recoiled away from the idea of Authority in the Church because of the “abuses” real or imagined. But what then are we advocating in the Church? Anarchy? An invisible Church like some surreal ideal spaceship? We need contact (Houston to Ground control!) God became Man, fully with us: he didn’t abandon ship after the Ascension. The Church his bride is visible too and just as effective as when He first established her and structured her with the twelve apostles at her head and with all the others called to minister and aid the Apostles. That structure came from Christ not from the Church per-se. It was Christ who set Peter in his place and who chose his twelve. When Judas came a cropper what did the 11 do? They chose another! They recognised that this visible structure was necessary, it was from the Lord. Well dudes if that’s what the Lord wanted- replacing Judas with Mathias, how much more do you think He wanted a successor to Peter?
In this way what we read in the Gospels and in Acts etc. is not just History. It’s alive and relevant to us today. The same Mysteries are Actualised and lived out in our lives and Churches too. Tradition is not a grabbing on to the dead past but is alive with the life blood of the Spirit and is lived out in each one of us: as we plug into the Sacred Mysteries of our Faith. “Do this in Memory of me (Anamnesis).” A “Memory” that is like plugging a T.V. into a wall: we plug our hearts into the Traditio (that which is handed down) we experience it. “This is my Body do this in Memory of me.”
The Apostles just as they were the guardians of the visible Assembly (Ecclesia) of believers and the Guardians of the Faith: of what was transmitted and passed on (Traditio) so too now are their successors: the Bishops and their collaborators the presbyters or priests.
They are of the Mother (the Church) but they are become Fathers even of their own fathers. St. Aug. expressed his astonishment at this Mystery (See “The Motherhood of the Church”, Henri de Lubac p89.)
This Mystery is undoubtedly one of diakonia/service. (E.g. St. Aug. I am a Christian for my own good, but a priest for you sakes.) They are servi servorum Dei but they have Authority not bestowed on them from the people but from God. God ordains their Ministry and by ministering to the Church they serve firstly God.
What we are seeing then is this age-old search for over-simplicity and antithesis where the Truth requires a paradoxical synthesis. Just as we can’t separate and only chose either Justice or Mercy as traits for God, nor only Faith or only works for ourselves…and any attempt to do so only drags us into error and short sightedness; so too the error of reducing the hierarchical order/structure of the Church and choosing service (diakonia) and not authority to teach and guard the faith. We want Bishops not to Lord it over us and content themselves with being our servants. True and False! They are servants of God when they serve us and their mandate from God is to teach and to guard the deposit of the Faith. True, in History many of them stepped over the mark and used their Authority outside their due boundaries (that is outside of The Word and of the Sacraments) but that called for (and always will) reform and conversion…not for separation.
The Church is my Mother and the Pastors are my Fathers in the one Father: tangible and human as Christ was…perhaps requiring more Faith than the Christology of the God man but in the end what Christ wanted and came to Institute here and now. Loving my Mother and accepting the teaching in love of my father in faith in my Christian community, does that make me a slave to Tyranny? Does it make me less autonomous in the eyes of Kantian ethics? I choose this road freely…hic est veritas et splendor. And what Christ gives us is a new man and his Mind and Spirit…intimior intimo meo et interior interio meo as Augustine said. Christ is more intimate than my deepest intimacy and more inside me than my deepest entrails! No coercion just interiorized living faith. Amen to it’s radiant beauty and harmony where it can shine in this world.
 
WindyHair said:
the bible says we are sheep.
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A valid point “Windy Hair”. Thanks. We are rational sheep though none the less. So we have to make being a sheep for Christ attractive to the potential flock. The paradox is that by joining the Fold we find our full personal identity…like a deep sigh on coming home to one’s self!
 
Henri_Searcher said:
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This Mystery is undoubtedly one of diakonia/service. (E.g. St. Aug. I am a Christian for my own good, but a priest for you sakes.) They are servi servorum Dei but they have Authority not bestowed on them from the people but from God. God ordains their Ministry and by ministering to the Church they serve firstly God.
What we are seeing then is this age-old search for over-simplicity and antithesis where the Truth requires a paradoxical synthesis. Just as we can’t separate and only chose either Justice or Mercy as traits for God, nor only Faith or only works for ourselves…and any attempt to do so only drags us into error and short sightedness; so too the error of reducing the hierarchical order/structure of the Church and choosing service (diakonia) and not authority to teach and guard the faith. We want Bishops not to Lord it over us and content themselves with being our servants. True and False! They are servants of God when they serve us and their mandate from God is to teach and to guard the deposit of the Faith. True, in History many of them stepped over the mark and used their Authority outside their due boundaries (that is outside of The Word and of the Sacraments) but that called for (and always will) reform and conversion…not for separation.
The Church is my Mother and the Pastors are my Fathers in the one Father: tangible and human as Christ was…perhaps requiring more Faith than the Christology of the God man but in the end what Christ wanted and came to Institute here and now. Loving my Mother and accepting the teaching in love of my father in faith in my Christian community, does that make me a slave to Tyranny? Does it make me less autonomous in the eyes of Kantian ethics? I choose this road freely…hic est veritas et splendor. And what Christ gives us is a new man and his Mind and Spirit…intimior intimo meo et interior interio meo as Augustine said. Christ is more intimate than my deepest intimacy and more inside me than my deepest entrails! No coercion just interiorized living faith. Amen to it’s radiant beauty and harmony where it can shine in this world.
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one can choose to be a sheep if he/she so chooses.
 
Henri_Searcher said:
A valid point “Windy Hair”. Thanks. We are rational sheep though none the less. So we have to make being a sheep for Christ attractive to the potential flock. The paradox is that by joining the Fold we find our full personal identity…like a deep sigh on coming home to one’s self!
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as far as identity, i think in society, labels make us who we are.
personally though, we are more than just christians, americans,
jews, black, white, etc.
 
I disagree, labels don’t make us anything: they just more or less realistically decribe us! What we ARE is what we choose to be: as responsible, rational and free persons. We have a nature: in which we can reflect God (as Images of God) or not.
In the madding crowd we each must choose a path, an identity a way. God calls individuals…to be a part of His Family.
 
We have free will, therefore everyone is autonomous morally in so far as one is acting freely. If an adult obeys the Church, presumably it is out of their own autonomy. Maybe one who thinks otherwise believes the Church has a will control device or secret inquisitions :rolleyes:? From what you say, Stephen Law is concerned with indoctrination it seems, not autonomy. Unfortunately for Stephen, indoctrination is completely and utterly unavoidable. If one preaches to keep an open mind without exception and proper scrutiny, one will be indoctrinated to be agnostic or be extremely weak minded, and likely a hypocrite since to function man needs doctrines of some sort, be it in senses or ends. His idea presupposes that what we indoctrinate kids with is false (from what you say at least). So I would ask, ‘what is wrong with indoctrination into the truth’?

If one wants to play it safe in a secular environment or one unready to receive what we believe to be the fullness of truth, the best thing to indoctrinate kids with (since they will be indoctrinated with something by necessity of human nature) is to get them to love truth and goodness itself above all things, and that they love it no matter the costs. It almost sounds secular, but if one really follows those ideals, I do not see how it could not be a good thing as God is equivalent to ‘the Good’ and to ‘the Truth’. I would say one should always seek happiness too, but unfortunately that word has been polluted too much in the English language, even though (as St. Boethius points out) it also means the same as God.

Typically we try to give the ones we love the best, even though we may be mistaken or not 100% sure what we give is really the best thing. It would not be loving to do otherwise. Its the best we can do 😉 .
 
Dranu, thanks for the comment. Indeed some amount of indoctrination is inevitable when we teach and learn because we are exchanging data and teaching (doctrina). THerefore the indoctrination or transferal of doctrine should be True. The beautiful way is to allow the Truth to shine in its splendor. That is, that we explain it and not shove it down throats per-se.
But I know what you are saying much of the post-modern relativism is utterly paralysing: young philosophy and theology students get an earful of it at most colleges and high schools (i.e. outside of America they still teach these things at high school level-I believe in the U.S. they do not.) The kids, maybe undergrad ideal filled youth (and why not!) take on these subjects looking for Truth and then they hear from the Profs that there is no Truth just cultures and the interpretation of limited languages and concepts…so the idealists abandon the search of Truth and either settle for hermeneutics or abandon Philosophy and Theology as a waste of time. I mention Truth to some colleagues and they look at me like I’m some naive young kiddy! I think that is why Jesus said we would have to remain like children…Children grow to recieve Truth and learning…the modern adult mind seeks to reduce Truth to it’s own level of understanding. It seeks to rationalize away the Mystery and then shrink back from the results of our puny minds and remain at the level of interpretation.
Man to give up on the Search for Truth must be the saddest thing, especially as a philosopher. If we have Truth in Christ- we know that He is a Truth enshrouded in Light and Mystery: we have to grow and approach in Faith and simplicity…but never abandoning reason.
Lastly: just want to clear the name of Steven Law-his book is not bad, he proclaims himself a liberal (i.e. free searching) non relativist philosopher. Although not Christian (by the sound of it) he has some noble ideas. We can adapt a “heteronomous” moral code but only by an autonomous decision of liberty. Liberty demands the light of Reason if it is to walk outside the darkness of group manipulation and idle fashions. It needs GRACE too though if it is to remain integrally aimed to the Truth which exceeds it. Ciao 4 now!
 
Depends on age group. Children (not adolescents) need some unequivocal truths to help them through life. They need moral guidance and spiritual signposts, because life can be hard. If they are dealing with an abusive parent or authority figure, bullies at school, they need to know there are higher powers looking out for them.

Adolescents are a different story. Would you want to be young Saint Augustine’s teacher? Good luck for that brave soul. For adolescents, moral/intellectual autonomy is the reality anyway, so a teacher should be able to engage and challenge them. To be an effective moral teacher for adolescents, it is useful to have some life experience and first-hand perspective on what they are dealing with.
 
Yes I agree Oakleaf! I commend you…Yes the youngest children do need some firm pointing in key human issues…ultimately the parents are divinely ordained to play a key role here…and then the schools are called to supplement and help this.
I also say that there is room for youngsters to grow up with all the freedom of thought that they want…but not the freedom of free action-tout court. So liberal even philosophical and yes Catholic schools should help pupils to think rationally and freely but at the end of the day that does n’t make one free to just do whatever the hell one wants. Freedom of thinking not freedom of action-per-se. That is my opinion to date on moral education. Teaching does require the imparting of ideas and doctrines but those ideas must be rationally substantiated and presented. The pupils can reject these ideas but they have to substantiate their thinking…and then for the common good of all there exists a school rule which all must adhere to rationally and freely or not.
 
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