These aren't particularly funny cartoons from today's Ethics class. We're reading Hauerwas, which is great, but it took time and coffee to bring me to a point where I wanted to draw something other than pillows and blankets. The quote is from class, part of a larger image given about rules falling from the sky.Hauerwas rejects both deontological and teleological ethics in favor of a narrative approach; our ethics are formed not by rules, nor by consideration of the common good, but by the stories that we tell one another within community. I'm not sure why he juxtaposes deontological with teleological, rather than with axiological, but on a broader level he sounds more like a sociologist than a theologian or philosopher anyway.
If our ethics are relative to the stories we tell one another, then sin would be telling a different story, tweaking the narrative somehow. I'm not sure what I think of Hauerwas, overall, but I can relate to a sense of my self as consisting of all the stories I've told and been told, stories about my family, about my church, about what it means to be from Upstate NY and what it means to be Julie. And when I step out of that story, I step out of myself. I feel smaller, scattered, and insecure.The story goes on, though; the trick is the telling it.
3 comments:
The juxtaposition is a standard one in philosophy: is the moral weight of an action on the intention or on the outcome?
"Axiology" is a larger category that encompasses both--and Hauerwas' position as well.
But I should take off the tweed jacket...
I like Hauerwas, as well as Alasdair MacIntyre, who takes a similar approach. (And if there was a law against posting unfunny cartoons, you know I'd be locked away with a very, very long sentence.)
Hm. The dictionary I was using (and linked to in the post) juxtaposed axiological to deontological and gave teleological as a species of axiological. Are you saying that "'Axiology' is a larger category that encompasses both teleology and deontology?" Do I need a better definition of axiological ethics than this dictionary is providing?
And don't worry; I put that question in the post in hopes that you'd put on your tweed jacket.
that's a lot of "ologies."
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