Available courses

Morality is essentially an attempt to identify what constitutes a good life and how we can achieve it. We know that living well is not always (or perhaps ever) easy. It requires knowledge, reflections, and practice. The Catholic tradition has a long history of assisting in the lifelong process of acquiring knowledge, engaging in critical reflection, and practicing living well, even in difficult and challenging situations. In this course we will look at ways Catholic theology has identified the good, i.e. moral, life and has provided resources for pursuit of such a life. Themes will include freedom and authority, conscience and its formation, relativism and legalism, human and theological virtues, sin and grace, prayer and the moral life, and the unity of the Catholic moral vision. We will address these topics through the seven primary virtues in the Catholic tradition. This perspective emphasizes the fact that morality is about who we are and are becoming, not simply what we do in particular situations. Since this is an introductory course, we will not focus on specific areas of morality (e.g., bioethics, sexual ethics, social ethics, ecological ethics). However, we will apply what we learn about the framework and unity of the Catholic moral vision to case studies involving such topic areas.