I wrote this book as an exercise in hospitality. With it I invite readers into a conversation on the basic human question, what is a good life? The book strives for an intentionally welcoming tone in two ways. First of all, a good host listens to his or her guests and appreciates wherever they are in their lives. This book grew out of just such listening to over five hundred students in twenty course sections over six years at four American universities (University of Notre Dame, Mount St. Mary’s University, Catholic University, and Georgetown University). It has grown and developed dramatically such that the present book, which follows this course’s most recent version, is radically different from its first presentation to the students who took it and helped shape it. Its overall structure, the layout of individual chapters, and certain distinct points echo specific contributions of particular students over these past few years. It is born out of a conversation, and so its tone is one of walking with, rather than preaching at.

Second, a welcoming host does not simply listen, but also offers and contributes. By arranging space and furniture in a certain way, offering food and drink, and joining in conversation, a good host nourishes whatever venture he or she shares with the guests, be it the enjoyment of friendship, a better understanding of themselves and the world, support in times of trial, a common cause to make changes in the world, or all of these together. In this book I attempt to make a contribution to that ultimate adventure shared by readers and myself, that of understanding and living a good life. I offer my own experience (as a teacher), but more importantly share—in an accessible and relevant way— the wisdom of smart and holy people who have gone before us on this common quest. The manner this is done in is not a simple presentation of information. It is rather adding voices to our conversation, a conversation that includes renowned thinkers, but as importantly the voices of us today who enjoy reflecting on and struggling with the question, what is a good life? I hope readers will join with me and past students in building a habit of reflection on this question as one component of the answer to that question.

Speaking of answers, this book is not a manual offering technical procedures and solutions to how to live a good life. This is largely due to that fact that this ultimate question defies technical solutions. It should not be placed in the how-to section of a bookstore next to books on home repair or writing a good resume. That is not to say there are no answers, or that this book makes no contribution to such answers. Given the nature and complexity of the question, no short synopsis is offered here by way of conclusion. Yet before proceeding to describe more specifically the goals and format of this book, allow me to note two foundational ideas of the book’s response to this question.

First, simply put, the answer to the question of what constitutes a good life is happiness. A good life is a fulfilling, satisfying, rewarding, flourishing—in short, a happy—life. This may seem so obvious as to be no answer at all. But recall this is a book on moral theology. The word “moral” has not yet appeared in this introduction. Some people may connect morality with living a good life. But morality as being happy? That is exactly the contention of this book. It is by no means an innovative contribution of this particular book. Great thinkers throughout history—Christian and non-Christian alike—have understood the moral life to be one and the same as the happy life, even if this claim does not initially resonate with what many of us today think of when we say morality. We see already the benefit of inviting those historic voices into our conversation. A main claim of this book is that it makes no sense to say, “this will make you truly happy, but the morally right thing to do is something else.” There are plenty of obstacles to happiness in this life, but morality rightly understood is not one of them. This point is not uncontested. As seen in chapter 1, some people today and throughout history have not understood morality as constitutive of living happy lives. Nonetheless, one central idea of this book is that determining how to live morally is a matter of determining how to be genuinely happy.

The second foundational idea of this book is that living happily depends upon a truthful understanding of ourselves, the world around us, and anything beyond this world we live in. This is not to say that people with more schooling or higher SAT scores are therefore happier. Nor is it to say that happiness cannot be experienced in this life until we know everything. It is to say that determining how to live morally, and thus what constitutes genuine happiness, entails determinations of whether or not how we live our lives reflects accurately who we are, what the world around us is like, and what is true beyond the world around us. This claim permeates the entire book, but is addressed most directly in chapters 1, 5, 10, and 11. Having presented two cornerstone ideas of this book, and already begun to mention specific chapters, we turn now to the main goals of the book and its organization into different chapters.

There are five large goals driving the tone and structure of this book’s exploration of the central question, what is a good life? The first echoes what was said above: to present the riches of the Western (particularly Christian) traditions of moral thought in an accessible and hospitable manner. Our answers to everyday contemporary questions about how to live our lives can be nourished by seeking the guidance of the smart and holy people who have gone before us. Thus the starting point for this book is not an assumed knowledge of or even interest in traditional sources such as Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, or St. Thomas Aquinas. The starting point here is own our lives and the questions that inevitably arise as we live our lives. Hence, examples are generally taken from everyday experiences. The thought and terminology of those who have gone before us is then only employed to the extent that it helps us better understand and answer the questions we face. As noted above, it is assumed here that everyone—however articulately or even consciously –is seeking how to live a happy, fulfilling life. This provides a common starting point for our reflection and a reason to appeal to classical sources in the tradition in a manner that applies to our experiences. When moral theology is understood in this way it is not only accessible but hospitable.

Second, this book presents moral theology as informing the common everyday questions of our lives primarily through the concept of virtue. The notion of virtue is explained more fully in chapter 3. Virtues (such as the seven that help structure this book: faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance) are stable qualities a person has that enable him or her to live a good life. One benefit of approaching moral theology through the virtues is that living virtuously (which is the same as living morally) accounts for the importance of rules without reducing the entire moral life to rules. Furthermore, focusing on virtue enables us to attend to the sorts of persons we become, and not simply the sorts of acts we perform. Finally, describing the good life through the virtues provides both a way to describe the commonalities between people of varying or no religious tradition, and a way to delineate the distinctiveness of the virtuous Christian life. As seen below, the very twofold structure of the book reflects this latter concern.

The third goal for this text is to present a comprehensive account of moral theology. Despite its reliance on a virtue perspective of morality, this text boldly seeks to present all important topics in the field of moral theology. Reminiscent of the first goal, the purpose of this text is not to present an academic field of inquiry called moral theology. Its starting point is the set of questions that our lives pose to us. But that starting point provides the context for exploring all of the main concepts of which any student of the discipline moral theology should grasp.

Fourth, a foundational claim of this book is that living a good life requires a truthful grasp of the way things are in reality. This claim is true not only with regard to the necessity of having an accurate grasp of ourselves and the world around us, but also with regard to the moral importance of our answers to what are called here “big-picture” questions: is there a God and if so what is God like? What is the meaning of human life? What happens after death? Our answers to these ultimate questions have enormous impact on what we think constitutes living a good life. While the first half of the book demonstrates how our understanding of “the way thing are” concerning worldly matters is morally important, the second half explains how critical for our lives are our big-picture beliefs about the way things are. Given this claim, a basic account of the Christian story of the way things are is offered here, along with more extensive treatments of key features of the Christian vision of the way things are.

The fifth goal of this book is to examine several particular moral issues. Many texts on moral theology (or Christian ethics) begin with, and perhaps rest exclusively with, particular contested moral issues. This is understandable, since any fruitful discussion of moral theology must eventually engage concrete issues. However, particular cases are purposely not the starting point of this book. They are treated only after extensive discussion of the virtues. The purpose of the four “test case” chapters in this book is not to offer an exhaustive treatment of each of those four issues (drinking alcohol, the use of the atomic bomb in 1945, when to have sex, and euthanasia). The purpose is twofold. First, each test case does indeed aim to offer practical guidance as to each of these actions or decisions. But second, this is done in a manner that attempts to illustrate the important difference it makes to attend to virtue in moral theology. It is hoped the discussion of cases in this book accomplishes that, in addition to (in fact, as a means of) offering persuasive positions on each of the issues.

The structure of the book flows directly from these goals. The book is divided into two halves based upon two types of virtue: cardinal virtues and theological virtues. The first half focuses on cardinal virtues, which are qualities that enable persons to do well those worldly activities that are part of any human life in any time or culture, including eating, drinking, sex, making decisions, relating with others, and facing difficulties. This half of the book describes simply how human persons function regarding such activities, and what qualities enable us to function well. The first three chapters address how human persons think and act in practical matters by addressing the topics: “why be moral?” (chapter 1), intentionality and freedom (chapter 2), and the nature and types of virtue (chapter 3). There is also a chapter on each of the four cardinal virtues: temperance (chapter 4), prudence (chapter 5), justice (chapter 7) and fortitude (chapter 9). Finally, both in order to demonstrate how the claims of these chapters play out and to offer practical guidance on particular issues, there are chapters on drinking alcohol (chapter 6) and the dropping of the atomic bomb in World War II (chapter 8).

The second half of this book begins with an explanation of how big picture beliefs are important for shaping practical reasoning in worldly matters, and how the Christian story in particular shapes the life of virtue (chapter 10). It then proceeds with chapters on each of the three theological virtues of the Christian life: faith (chapter 11), hope (chapter 13), and love (chapter 15). These are interspersed with chapters on key themes in the Christian story which, if a central claim of this book is true, are enormously important for living a life of Christian virtue: sin (chapter 12), Jesus Christ (chapter 14), and grace (chapter 16). Finally, there are two chapters on specific moral issues, again, both to offer practical guidance and to demonstrate how the claims of the chapters in this part of the book impact the questions of when to have sex (chapter 17) and how to best make end of life decisions, particularly concerning euthanasia (chapter 18).

As should be clear, the second half of the book is far more distinctively Christian than the first half. But for reasons mentioned in the following section and explained more fully in chapter 16, this should by no means be taken to imply that how we live out the cardinal virtues has nothing to do with Christianity and the theological virtues. The twofold division of this book does indeed signify an importance difference between the cardinal and theological virtues. But that difference should not lead one to conclude that the material of the second half has no bearing on the first half of the book. To the contrary, Christianity and the theological virtues transform and perfect how we live the cardinal virtues.

Finally, the epilogue addresses an otherwise neglected topic in this book: the importance of prayer, liturgy, and the sacraments for living the virtuous Christian life. Since this topic is way beyond the scope of a single chapter, the epilogue simply provides an example of the seamless integration of prayer and the virtuous Christian life by demonstrating how words of the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father, both exemplify and further illuminate the seven virtues that help structure this book.

(Especially for Moral Theologians)

The primary audience for this book is people who are not trained in the academic discipline of moral theology. Though the fruits of that discipline make up the content of the book, every attempt is made to start not from the methods and debates of the academic discipline, but rather from the more common everyday questions and experience that engender those academic debates. In sum, though this is a book of moral theology, its primary goal is not to help train people in the discipline of moral theology, but rather to enable people to understand and utilize their practical reasoning better so as to live more virtuous lives. That said, this present section is the only one in the entire book addressed primarily to teachers and practitioners of the field of moral theology. Its goal is to explain why the book has been written as it has, to enable this particular audience to better understand why (and possibly to critique so as to improve how) it appears in the form it does. Though all are of course welcome to read on within this section, be aware that the tone and content of the remainder of this introduction is not replicated in this book. The disparate topics addressed warrant a list.

1. As mentioned above, the book proceeds in two parts. What this distinction reflects is the relationship between nature and grace. This topic is treated directly in this book, but climactically in chapter 16. This could leave the reader to think for fifteen chapters that the importance of the topic is unrecognized or, even worse, that grace floats above, without transforming and perfecting nature. This would be a mistaken impression. In fact, each chapter on a theological virtue attempts to show how the natural capacities and longings of human persons are fulfilled and even elevated by grace. Furthermore, chapter 16 explains in detail how grace transforms human nature and the worldly activities of the cardinal virtues. The structure of this book as a whole actually makes an argument on how this question can be fruitfully addressed with the target audience of this book. In a manner reflective of chapter 11’s read of John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio, it starts from common human experiences to show how grace perfects nature. Another approach would be to start with the theological virtues and grace. The reasons for the approach adopted here are primarily strategic, given the target audience of the book. For a large majority of American university students today the claims of Christianity are at least somewhat alien. Christianity is thus most intelligible and compelling when presented as the completion and perfection of common human experiences, even though the person of Christian faith affirms that human nature originates in, and is only fully understood in the context of, grace.

2. Those familiar with traditional thought on virtues, and especially that of St. Thomas Aquinas, know that there is a particular order of the virtues. That order is respected in the second half of the book on theological virtue: faith, then hope, then love. It is not respected concerning the cardinal virtues, which in the Thomistic tradition are ordered: prudence, justice, fortitude, then temperance. Temperance is treated first among cardinal virtues for two reasons. First, its object of sensual pleasure is a particularly accessible one for contemporary readers and so it is a helpful way to start analysis of particular virtues. Second, temperance provides a perfect occasion to examine the moral importance of emotions, which continues the theme of the previous two chapters on the importance of interiority for the moral life. This chapter on temperance thus serves as the perfect transition from action theory to particular virtues.

3. Speaking of action theory, the primary task of this book is not to inaugurate its readers into technical debates among practitioners of the discipline of moral theology. Thus there is no adjudication of important debates between virtue ethicists and either consequentialists or deontologists, or on the existence of intrinsic evils, or on the distinctiveness of Christian ethics. One’s positions on these debates obviously shape how one presents an accessible vision of moral theology. In fact, though the guiding task of this text is not to address these more technical debates, the vision presented in this book clearly takes positions on each of these, and other, debates. In other words, there is indeed an underlying argument in this book concerning the distinctiveness of Christian ethics, the existence of intrinsic evils, and other such questions. Nonetheless, the task of this book is not to explain the different sides of those debates or substantiate this book’s stance on them.

4. Related to these debates, trained moral theologians will immediately note that three of the four test case chapters (8, 17, and 18) address absolute norms on different issues. People who deny the existence of absolute norms could reject this approach out of hand, or more subtly argue that the approach presented here is not truly a virtue ethic, but an old-fashioned (perhaps natural law) approach to moral theology that is simply dressed up with chapters on different virtues while actually being driven by the norms themselves. This particular criticism reflects a poor understanding of virtue ethics as unable to account for absolute norms. Each of these three chapters attempts to demonstrate that an absolute norm (such as no intentional killing of the innocent) is justified by the incompatibility of the action prohibited with the good goals of the activity at hand, be it waging war, having sex, or caring for the dying. Obviously these are hard cases (and chosen for that reason), so many will disagree with the conclusions drawn, and perhaps the approach employed here. But it is not an accurate critique to claim the positions herein are only extrinsically relayed to the methodology espoused in other chapters.

5. As for the test case chapters, the order they appear in the book basically reflects the order they are taught in the class. It would be ideal to have all the material in the other chapters assimilated before treating any one case, but this seems to lose students and readers, so the test cases are interspersed throughout the book. The chapter on drinking alcohol has limited treatment of justice and fortitude since it precedes chapters on those two virtues for precisely this reason. But students and readers benefit from examining an issue earlier on in the class. The chapter on the atomic bomb fits logically after that on justice, and thus precedes the discussion of fortitude in the following chapter. The two test case chapters in the second half of the book are placed after chapter 16 so readers can benefit from that chapter’s material on grace and infused cardinal virtues while engaging questions of sex and end-of-life decision-making. In sum, while the order or presentation of the non-test case chapters is part of the underlying argument of this book, the order of the test cases is intentional but not part of that underlying argument.

6. Finally, the tone of this book is purposely casual to make it accessible and inviting. This is a danger with regard to the precision of terminology. Some crucial terms in this book have common usages that are close in meaning to, but not exactly the same as, their meaning in this book. Examples include morality, intention, habit, passion, prudence, temperance, and so on. The confusion which may result from this reveals why some academics are drawn to devising technical terms which purposely do not relate to common usage. For both readability and methodological reasons, that step is not taken here and commonly used terms are employed technically, with every attempt made to be precise about their meaning in this context, often with attention to how that is similar to, yet different from, the meanings of more common usage.

Furthermore, sometimes in this book more casual terms are used as technical terms. The best examples are “big picture beliefs” and “innerworldly” activities. The former term refers to beliefs concerning what Fides et Ratio has called “ultimate” (or “big picture”) questions. The latter term comes from Veritatis splendor and designates activities that people of any time and culture engage in since they are accessible to unaided human reason. This topic is taken up in chapter 3.