Almost everyone has a moral compass of some sort. For some, it can be so damaged that a person celebrates evil as if it were good. Consciences can be marred. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit renovates our natures so that we can again will and choose what is good, honorable, and right.

Over the last month, many of us have experienced disbelief, worry, and finally numbness. Due to these concerns, we naturally have tried to define our situation and what we should do. How do we protect the vulnerable? How do we protect our economy? How do these two concerns mesh?

Many experts have put their shoulders to the plow to figure out these matters, and I will not (and cannot) add to these specific questions since I neither have the requisite skill nor the ability to review all the data. What I do have are faith and Christian ethics.

And through these, we can navigate the difficult ethical waters of the coming months with some confidence.

General Ethics

Almost everyone has a moral compass of some sort. For some, it can be so damaged that a person celebrates evil as if it were good. Consciences can be marred. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit renovates our natures so that we can again will and choose what is good, honorable, and right.

So what I propose here is possible for Christians, and aspirational for those who are not. In sum, there are three primary tendencies in ethical reasoning within North America. The first is utilitarianism. This tendency defines what is good as being the best for the most people. 

The second is expressive individualism. What is good is what most fulfills a person. For example, consider the relatively common phrases, “You do you” or “find yourself.” The movie Frozen II focuses on self-discovery and self-actualization. These represent emphasises on expressive individualism. 

The last, and now somewhat forgotten about, often goes under the name of virtue ethics. Basically, this view defines goodness as the practice of individual virtue. So a person acts on the basis of what is right without specific regard for utilitarian concerns or expressive individualism. 

Obviously, these patterns of ethical thinking overlap. And for Christians, we often want to do good to the whole church, we want to express ourselves truly, and only a good true can produce good fruit. So each tendency overlaps somewhat with Christian ethics and so scriptural patterns of thinking. 

Christian Ethics? 

As you might guess, Christians ethics really includes various tendencies that find their centre in God’s revelation. Yet some aspects of each view can be eliminated. First, utilitarianism can define what is good for the most as almost anything. So if it defines the economy as good and safety as bad, then it may skew off the rails. Who defines what is good? What is good? Utilitarianism may unwisely define the good for society.

Likewise, expressive individualism can run amok largely because it involves selfishness at its centre. And when expressive individualism works in a utilitarian society, then it can define the best for society as the best for oneself! 

Virtue ethics in its general form has the virtue of defining goodness in an objective way. A good action is good by definition, and practicing that good action makes one virtuous. Hence, it may be good to deny oneself (contra expressive individualism) because selfishness is wrong; it may also be right to act virtuously even if it harms people as when a military leader will not commit an atrocity to win a war even though it may mean his side loses (against some forms of utilitarianism). 

It also seems to fit with Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and particularly with his emphasis that only a good tree produces good fruit (Matt 7:17). Of course, defining “good” still creates problems. But thankfully, Christians can interpret divine revelation to define what is good, holy, and just (Rom 7:12).

Interestingly, Christians have agreed over the centuries and usually emphasized a kind of virtue based ethics over the years. In one sense, how could they not? Christianity emphasizes a way of living, of acting and being in the world. It defines goodness objectively. 

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