Patrick Byrne

In The Ethics of Discernment, Patrick H. Byrne presents an approach to ethics that builds upon the cognitional theory and the philosophical method of self-appropriation that Bernard Lonergan introduced in his book Insight, as well as upon Lonergan's later writing on ethics and values. Extending Lonergan's method into the realm of ethics, Byrne argues that we can use self-appropriation to come to objective judgements of value. The Ethics of Discernment is an introspective analysis of that process, in which sustained ethical inquiry and attentiveness to feelings as "intentions of value" leads to a rich conception of the good. Written both for those with an interest in Lonergan's philosophy and for those interested in theories of ethics who have only a limited knowledge of Lonergan's work, Byrne's book is the first detailed exposition of an ethical theory based on Lonergan's philosophical method.

_Philosophy as a Spiritual Exercise_ investigates distinctive contributions to the discipline of philosophy that have arisen out of the Society of Jesus. The essays in the collection span the history of the Society, from its foundation until today, and refer to many of the founding documents and Fathers of the Order. Throughout, there is the question of the relation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to philosophy. As a result, the book offers ways to think about how philosophy relates to spiritual development and how spiritual development relates to philosophy.

While Lonergan wrote a great deal about intellectual and religious conversion, he wrote comparatively little about moral conversion. Hence, Lonergan’s writings on moral conversionraise a number of important questions, but do not explicitly answer them. This essay offers an interpretation that endeavors to answer some of these questions. In doing so, it illustrates key elements in both Lonergan’s explicit statements about, and my own understanding of moral conversion by considering three case studies: Katherine Anne Power, St. Augustine, and Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the protagonist of by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment. In particular, it focuses on the process of stripping away of self-delusions that is an intricate part of moral conversion.

Two recent studies by Joseph Torchia and Paul Griffiths show the importance of Augustine’s critique of the vice of curiositas to contemporary life and thought. Superficially, it might seem that Augustine condemned curiosity because it “seeks to find out whatever it wishes without restriction of any kind.” Though profoundly influenced by Augustine, Bernard Lonergan praised intellectual curiosity precisely insofar as it is motivated by an unrestricted desire to know, rather than by less noble motives. Drawing upon the researches of Torchia and Griffiths, this article endeavors to show that Augustine does not simply equate curiositas with an unrestricted desire to know, and that the virtue of intellectual curiosity as Lonergan understood it is in fact endorsed by Augustine by means of its relationship to the virtue of studiositas. This more nuanced view of the virtues and vices of intellect can provide guidance for contemporary intellectual pursuits, both how to pursue and not to pursue knowledge.

In his most recent book Alasdair MacIntyre criticizes the dominant moral system of advanced societies, which “presents itself as morality as such.” Yet, he argues, its primary function is to channel human desires into patterns that will minimize conflict amid distinctively modern economic and political arrangements. Although he appreciates how what he calls “expressionism” has unmasked this ideological function of modern morality, he points out that expressionism is also impotent to provide adequate moral guidance amidst the “conflicts of modernity.” He proposes that Neo-Aristotelianism’s account of reasoning and desire has the ability to overcome the moral failings of these modern modes of thought. Yet he relies on an excessively deductive version of reason and overlooks Aristotle’s fuller account of desire. The article shows how Bernard Lonergan’s account of both provides a superior account of both Aristotle’s own writings and the actual human phenomena of reasoning and desire.