Questions to the Moralist - Personal Web Server - Boston College

May I ask you some questions?
1) You mentioned somewhere in your lecture that rationalization is the dark side of a
good person's conscience, and that this may be a danger in judging an act to be right
when it is in fact "wrong." (Please correct me if I didn't recall it perfectly.) Why would
rationalization be "dark" if it were part of the discernment process that a person goes
through in making a moral decision? What is "wrong" with rationalization? Wouldn't
seeking for right reasons and bringing together moral principles entail some kind of
rationalization?
2) What is the place of "direct knowledge" or "hunch" or "intuition" in moral decisions?
Supposing a person who has gone through careful discernment -- integrating all
principles and sectors of sources for moral theology -- ultimately "feels" that the "correct"
decision derived from the labyrinthine process of reason is "wrong," how would he
understand this "deeply internal voice" which seems to stand apart from the result of his
discernment?" There are situations when, inexplicably, while the mind goes through all
logical efforts and right reason, the "heart" (or maybe intuition?) still prompts the whole
person to do otherwise. What then happens to a person who goes ahead with right reason
in the sanctuary of his conscience even when his "intuition" or "heart" strongly tells him
to do otherwise? And what happens to a person who, despite seeing clearly that his
rational decision is right, ignores reason completely and heads on to follow his
"intuition."
Fr. Bretzke replies
Thanks for your questions. To answer your first question I would stress the distinction
between the words "rational" and "rationalization"; while they are closely related in terms
of their root meaning the nuance is quite different. To use reason to come to a balanced
decision, weighing facts, seeking to see all perspectives is a "rational" process.
"Rationalization," however, is a sort of pseudo-reasoning process. It means ascribing
what seem to be "reasons" to a decision in order to make it appear "rational" but in fact it
is a process of false justification. For example, if someone cheats on their taxes and
offers as a justification "everyone does it, and the government knows this and raises the
tax rate accordingly," this would be giving a "rationalization." So in light of this
distinction of the terminology would your first question be cleared up?
Your second question is a bit more difficult to answer because it brings up the aspect of
discernment which does involve our emotions and affective dimension, as well as the
recognition that we "know" on several levels, and not just the "intellectual." I'm not quite
sure what you mean by the term "direct knowledge." If you mean "infused knowledge"
this could be quite problematic, since it would suggest knowledge obtained in a nonhuman
manner. For example, if I were to be given "direct, infused knowledge" of
Tagalog I wouldn't have to study the language in order to speak it (as a foreigner).
However, if by "direct knowledge" you mean something more along the lines of a
"hunch" or an "intuition," then I think we can use that knowledge to an extent, since it is
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