Morality: Making Moral Decisions

  • Moral decisions can be easy to make, hard to make, or potentially have life-changing consequences.

    • Easy: What should I have for lunch?

    • Hard: Should I follow the crowd?

    • Life-Changing: What college should I go to?

  • Many small decisions build up to a big, overarching decision.

  • Good decisions need discernment, which is a decision-making process that attends to the implications and consequences of an action or choice.

    • The Holy Trinity helps to distinguish between right and wrong, trials and temptations.

  • Trials are challenges you are faced with that you need to overcome; they are necessary for inner growth.

  • Temptations: Pushes towards succumbing to trials and committing sin, which can lead to sin and death.

  • The decision-making process can defined by the acronym STOP.

    • S: search out the facts

    • T: think about alternatives and consequences

    • O: others can help you make good decisions

    • P: pray always for guidance

  • Prudence is the moral virtue that inclines you to discern a good, ethical, and moral life; and to choose the means to accomplish it.

    • Necessary for correct judgment.

  • You can grow the virtue of prudence within you by:

    • cooperating with God’s grace

    • gaining personal experience

    • making an honest evaluation of your mistakes

  • Searching out the facts allows you to make moral decisions through your intellect in finding the truth.

    • Begin with “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how.”

      • The moral object — what

      • The intention — why

      • The circumstances — who, when, where, and how

    • Search out if the act itself is good (moral object must be), is the intention good, and do the circumstances fit the goodness of the act.

      • If any of these conditions are missing, then the action is not good in every aspect.

  • The moral object (what) is the content of the matter of a moral decision.

    • Some actions are objectively good, some are not.

    • Includes what you do, how you speak, how you act or don’t act.

    • Your actions make up the content of the moral object.

    • Both good and bad objects form.

  • Objective norms can make it easy to determine the difference between good and bad, and they correspond to true good.

    • Ten Commandments

  • The intention (why) is why a person does something and resides in the will of the person who acts on it.

    • Subjective discernment of morality

  • The two rules that govern intention are:

    • Keeping the intention good

    • The end does not justify the means

  • For an action to be fully good and just, both the moral object and intention must be good themselves.

  • The end does not justify the means (how) defines that the means—or steps to get to—an action must be good alongside the outcome.

    • A good end does not justify an evil means.

  • The circumstances (who/when/where) cannot make an action good or evil, they can only diminish the good or evil in the action.

    • Can diminish a person’s responsibility for a specific action.

    • Who: who was involved; different people may have different levels of moral responsibility in a situation.

    • When: time may or may not affect the goodness or evilness of a moral action.

    • Where: the place an action takes place may or may not affect the morality of an action.

  • In moral decision-making, there is value in exploring different alternatives and possible consequences as a result of the action.

    • Alternatives are different paths or approaches you could consider before making a moral decision.

      • Should not make moral decisions until you have considered all the alternatives.

    • Consequences help to determine whether an act is good or evil — every alternative has a consequence.

      • Is important to consider, but the moral object is still the determining factor.

  • Other people can help you make good decisions.

    • Everyone needs someone and a connection with society.

    • There is value in consulting others when facing a moral decision.

    • Consider how your actions will affect others.

    • You should seek advice from parents, grandparents, friends, teachers, and Jesus.

  • You can seek advice from Jesus through his teachings on morality, which can be found in the gospels.

  • Two-fold responsibility refers to obeying the Magisterium in moral decision-making.

    • Listen and learn God’s saving precepts

    • Observe and live by the authority of the Church

  • Penance and reconciliation offer forgiveness for one’s sins and growth in holiness to overcome sin.

    • Entails the confession of mortal sins, not venial sins

      • Mortal sins are grave offenses that sever our relationship with God and cause a loss of grace.

      • Venial sins are lesser offenses that injure one’s relationship with God.

    • Catholics are obligated to receive penance and reconciliation at least once a year or before receiving the Holy Communion.

  • To make good decisions, prayer can help us to do so.

    • Prayer is a conversation with God and a Christian’s living relationship with God.

    • Entails talking and listening to God.

    • Distractions and disinclination may cause you to stop praying, although you shouldn’t.

  • To pray, you must praise God, thank Him for his gifts, express sorrow for your sins, offer your support for others, and ask God for forgiveness and grace.

  • To listen to God, we must slow down and seek silence to hear Him speaking to us.

    • God can guide us through thoughts, feelings, imagination, emotions, and memories.

    • Meditation is a search or quest

    • Contemplation is a mental prayer