Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research, has an article in Crisis Magazine entitled ‘Irony of Ironies: Vatican II Triumphs Over Moribund Modernity‘. Challenging the incoherence of modern thought, Gregg remarks
Another characteristic of late-modernity is the manner in which moral arguments are increasingly “settled” by appeals to opinion-polls, choice for its own sake, or that ultimate first-year undergraduate trump-card: “Well, I just feel that X is right.” For proof, just listen to most contemporary politicians discussing the ethical controversy of your choice.
Such incoherence, however, owes much to many moderns’ determination to limit reason to scientific rationality. Empirical reason is a powerful tool. But it can’t resolve extra-empirical problems. And once you implicitly deny the existence of extra-empirical reason, there’s really no other basis for answering normative questions other than appeals to feelings. Emotions, however, aren’t a rational basis for settling arguments about anything.
Read the entire piece here.
