Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

THE SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATION IN CONTEMPORARY MORAL THEOLOGY 33tions would not be necessary, for a moral judgment wouldalready have taken place – on the basis of the assessment of theobject alone. This is what Johnstone calls “objectivism” and Iagree that this represents a radical separation between the person(subject) who formulates an intention (commits oneself topursue a particular end or goal that is appropriate within theirlife-situation and circumstances) and the act being performed(object) that, together with all the relevant circumstances ofthis particular event, is the means chosen in order to achievethe person’s goal.The PDE, as its name indicates, was formulated for the purposeof dealing with the occurrence of evil as a circumstance(effect) of a moral event. As long as the principle was formulatedin Latin, the distinction between actus and obiectum wasclear. The absence of evil in an obiectum did not guarantee thatthere was no evil in the unified, integral actus (humanus, voluntarius).Quite the contrary, the very reason why the PDE existsis to deal with the presence of evil in human activity, as part ofthe whole, unified moral event. 18Eventually, moral theology began to be done more andmore in the vernacular. This became necessary in order toequip the laity to exercise responsibility in an increasingly complexand professionalized world. With translation came theconfusion and ultimately the fusion of the terms obiectum andactus. “What one did” was usually referred to as an “act”. Thiseffectively obliterated the elucidating distinction between actusand obiectum. However, in order to accommodate such thingsas the PDE one still needed a term to distinguish between whatwas done and the effects flowing from what was done. I suspectthat the phrase “act in itself” was coined precisely for this purpose.18Why is it that so many people will defend the position that it is notpermissible to perform an act because of the presence of an evil in “itsobject” – on the basis of the principle bonum est ex integra causa, malum exquocumque defectu, basing themselves on Aquinas’ reference to Pseudo-Dionysius in, among other places, I-II, q. 18 a 4 ad3, while they simplyignore that the same principle should apply when there is the presence ofevil in the effects (= circumstances) of an act?