“The doctrine, the doctrine, what’s happened to the doctrine, especially where context is concerned,” The Catholic Times reported last December in a spoof inspired by Irving Berlin’s song “Choreography.”
That satirical verse targeted the moral theology method known as proportionalism. The framework holds that the morality of an act relies on a calculus involving the nature of the act, intentions, and consequences.
Pope John Paul II challenged this view in his 1993 encyclical, Veritatis Splendor. He argued against the notion that no intrinsically evil acts exist.
During a National Public Radio discussion about that encyclical, a guest insisted that Einstein’s theory of relativity applied to morality, The Catholic Times reported.
When challenged to name an intrinsically evil act, the guest faced a quiet question regarding what combination of intentions and consequences would justify rape in a parking lot.
John Paul II maintained that denying the existence of grave sins drains the moral life of its drama and diminishes humanity. He argued that the obligation to avoid intrinsically evil acts provides a sturdy foundation for the democratic claim that all people are created equal.
Now, artificial intelligence titans candidly admit they do not believe morality is objective, posing a fresh challenge for ethicists.
Anthropic’s large language model Claude operates with a constitution stating that collective moral knowledge is still evolving. This view is linked to applications directing teens to clinics offering queer, polyamory, and kink-informed therapy.
“Religious ethicists mired in contextuality cannot help technology leaders develop tools that avoid cultural degradation,” The Catholic Times concluded, arguing that only those with a firm grip on immutable moral truths can offer the necessary ethical counsel.
