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An Ethical Agenda for Europe

Fundamental Problems on Practical Ethics in a Christian Perspective Johan Verstraeten
Today, applied ethics confronts many problems: technological and biomedical innovations, crisis of the welfare state, rising unemployment, migration and xenophobia. These and the changes accompanying them are, in themselves, important objects of study. An investigation on the level of the differentiated disciplines of practical ethics is insufficient.1 In as far as practical ethics also serves to disclose reality, it shows that modern problems can only be understood in the light of the general cultural crisis of which they are, at the very least, symptoms. In the rst part of this article, we will try to clarify this by analyzing the crisis in the ethos of modern secularized society. The second part will try to show that Christian ethics can offer a meaningful answer to this cultural crisis, and how it can do so.
1.

The General Cultural Crisis

An analysis of one concrete problem confronting modern European society is sufficient to detect the underlying ethical cultural crisis. For example, we could take migration and the violent reactions accompanying it.2 On the European continent, migration is no longer a factor of increased economic activity as it was in the 1960s, when it was thought necessary to import foreign workers to help with increased production; it has become structural. The economic immigration of foreign workers changed the landscape of some cities and the ethnic composition of the employee and school populations of some regions. Second and third generation immigrants have become

denitively settled and have demographically increased more quickly than the ageing native population. Being added to this is a new wave of immigrants which some compare to the period of mass migrations at the end of the Roman Empire. Visa offices are being overrun. Ever more people from the East and South try to nd work in Europe illegally. Until recently, the number of people seeking refugee status has increased. In 1992, Germany had 500,000 requests, double that of the previous year, and four times more than in 1988. In areas where the pressure of immigration is felt particularly strongly, there are signs of culture shock. When the immigrants belonged to a Christian culture, there was still some form of recognition. The confrontation with millions of Islamic migrants has changed the cultural situation. In the subjective (and collective) consciousness of those Europeans that deal directly with migrants, the permanent presence of foreigners feels threatening. Anxiety reexes can develop into violence, into subtle intellectual campaigns against the universality of human rights and into political manipulations by the extreme right. Obviously all this has had its inuence on the ethical agenda. The number of articles, books and conferences on multi-cultural society, the rights of migrants and refugees, cultural identity, tolerance, nationalism, just rules for a refugee policy, etc., while becoming uncountable, risk overtaking the essential. Research by the French historian Jean Delumeau3 has shown that throughout European history, persecution of foreigners has frequently occurred. Persecution resulted

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from a fear that Christian culture would be lost. The persecutions of Jews and witches are the best known examples. Their place has now been taken by the Moslems. Anxious reactions again display a stereotypical character. According to Ren Girard, the persecution of foreigners a phenomenon evinced not only in manifest violence, but also in subtle rational forms of discrimination suggests the inuence of a social psychological mechanism known as the scapegoat mechanism.4 Girard believes that anxiety reactions are not caused primarily by the presence of foreigners, but by the disintegration of our own culture, the absence of meaningful differences. Where the integrating framework of social values disappears, anomaly and confusion take its place. People become fearful and insecure. Instead of looking for a cause within themselves, they react upon the nearest victim. If we want to fully understand the current problem with immigrants and refugees, then we must rst examine the erosion of our own culture. Girards analysis displays a noteworthy agreement with the acute diagnosis Alasdair MacIntyre offers at the end of his book After Virtue.5 With a suggestive reference to the situation at the end of the Roman Empire, MacIntyre says that the barbarians were not those who put external pressure on our culture, but those who undermined it from within by their libertarian ideologies and practices. His standpoint is literally, The barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.6 Are we able to assert that we have become the barbarians that have undermined our own culture? And if so, in what way? What is happening with our own culture? We will try to elucidate this in four points.
(1)

First, in Europe there is no spontaneous

consensus on basic social values. There is a loss of culture as the symbolic whole of ideas, values and practices that integrate people in society providing a long-term social framework. Social schisms arise or are strengthened primarily through this collapse of an integrating ethical cultural framework and the dissolution of any consensus on what constitutes a good society. We could refer here to dualism within labour (i.e. the ever increasing gap between those with a well-paid and interesting job and the unemployed or those with unstable contracts and low-paid uninteresting work); the gap between business Europe and social Europe (symbolically represented by the weak social charter on the social rights of workers - 1989); merciless competition between liberal AngloSaxon and the social type of market economy (cf. Michel Alberts Capitalisme contre Capitalisme). The poorest and weakest are the rst victims of this deep social division. We note, moreover, that where a generally recognized view of a good and just society is lacking, many social and technical processes become system-bound. They become self-referential and suffer from a closed complexity reduction. This leads to a uni-cultural society where people live within the closed horizon of what is, on the one hand, a bureaucratically technical and economically utilitarian rationality and, on the other, the air-conditioned nightmare of the consumer heaven. The vacuum that this leaves behind in the human heart often leads to a ight in cheap and irrational attempts at meaning as provided by drugs and ideologies of the exreme right. To express this Toynbee has used the concept schism of the soul. If Europe wants to be more than a senseless, nearly uncontrollable system-bound bureaucratic and economic power, we must again discover what Jacques Delors describes as lme de Europe, the soul of European culture, the moral project that lies at the basis of our transnational society. The founders of the

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European Community for Coal and Steel had more in mind that mere productivity, efficiency and prot. The treaty of Rome was based on a fundamental and unique ethical project: the creation of a realm of cooperation and integration that would become the solid basis of a long-term peace between states that were once enemies. Unfortunately, little remains of such an ethical project.
(2) This leads directly to a second characteristic of the present situation. It is striking that, as H. De Dijn put it, there is a symbiosis between a strong self-functioning economic and political system and an individual pattern of life where being able to do what one wants, is the central value.7 Indeed, a mentality of collective individualism and value relativism accompanies a lack of consensus on orienting basic values. MacIntyre speaks of emotivism. This concept does not refer to a multiplicity of options. That can be valuable. Emotivism refers to a general opinion that says that moral principles and value judgments express nothing other than mere subjective preferences. In an emotivistic society, every project, every idea, every practice receives the same value. No distinction is possible between what is valuable and what is not. Paradoxically, relativism becomes the highest value. Pluralism and tolerance are no more than indifference. Where people decide in the name of a supercial ideal of equality not to make any more value judgments, they destroy the ability to ground a common ethical project. At least as bad as emotivism is cynicism, the laughing at truth that has become the hallmark of the intellectual. This is strikingly illustrated by Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose when he has William of Baskerville say the only truth consists in the liberation of truth. Here the denial of truth becomes the highest truth. In such a situation, individual preferences

that absolutize opinions are the only reference points. Obviously the Christian tradition cannot concur with this situation.
(3)

A third characteristic is political liberalism where we recognize not only the fragmentation of values, but also a theoretical legitimation. It is true that liberal theoreticians start with good intentions: amid a disintegrating emotivistic and pluralistic society, they want to offer a rational foundation for social regulation. In developing this project, they use a radical method of avoidance: every recourse to a normative or metaphysical vision of a good society is systematically rejected, or at least eliminated from the foundation of their political game plan. As sole solution to the fragmentation, they defend a theoretical construction of formal procedures whose only goal is allowing individuals to pursue their personal preferences and interests in as far as they do not impede the freedom of others. Their minimal state no longer has an ethical basis or function. This can lead to very serious problems as Belgian jurisprudence has shown. Where judges are no longer able to pass judgment ethically, using a consensus on what is just, and can only respect procedures, proved contravention of law is often acquitted. Those who win their cases are those who can pay the best lawyers. A typical example of this empty procedural way of thinking is the radical liberal view of Robert Nozick, the inspiration of nearly all radical European liberals. Here politics is reduced to a service to the absolute rights of possessive individualists. His axiom is: individuals have rights and there are matters where neither other individuals nor groups may interfere. Nuances apart, this thinking ultimately leads to a society where individuals demand their rights (particularly their rights to ownership and wealth) lacking the slightest regard for the general well-being of a society seeking to care for its poor, i.e. the un-

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employed, the sick or the disabled can only survive thanks to a social minimum or a welfare income. A more balanced and socially responsible form of procedural thinking is found in the inuential book by John Rawls, A Theory of Justice.8 Rawls does not start from the content of an ethical concept of good society, but from a situation of fairness that is nothing more than a hypothetical social contract agreed upon under a veil of ignorance between individuals, who determine social procedures using a rational calculus (maximin) that formally excludes purely egoistic motives. It is praiseworthy that he uses the difference principle to reach a form of redistribution in favour of the poorest, but this has no basis in substantial solidarity. A just policy towards the poor is ultimately accepted only when it agrees with the reasonable self-interest of the citizens. In honesty, we must concede here that Rawls mental exercise is advantageous in that it does show that ethically motivated care for the poor is not an unreasonable social option. Behind the apparently objective and rational foundation of a formal procedural framework for political and social life, there is a deeper problem. That authors, such as Rawls and Nozick and their followers, can reach diametrically opposed views of society, despite their recourse to rational arguments, can mean that there is something the matter with the universality of rationality as it has been conceived since the Enlightenment. There is no longer any reasonable solution for many political, economic, social and philosophical differences of opinion.9 Lacking an absent or theoretically rejected rational ethical framework, society becomes entangled in endless and insolvable debates. It is true that rational moral arguments are still used, but they often no longer have a basis. They are like scientic formulas that have survived an atomic
(4)

war but whose meaning-giving framework has been lost. Ethics risks becoming bogged down in pure rhetoric. Strategic, rational arguments are used for sophistic legitimation of private interests. So much for a pessimistic analysis of the moral crisis in our society. We do not deny that there are positive tendencies present in our society, such as the new forms of solidarity and responsibility (cf. new milieu and human rights movements, doctors without borders, the search for new forms of wholeness, etc...), but they do not outweigh the general tendency.
2.

An Answer: The Ethics of Narrative Communities of Representation and Practice

The question now is: is there an alternative and can Christian ethics contribute to it? I believe that this is the case. In a situation where ethical concepts relating to political, social and economic life have lost their ultimate frame of reference, or have become so general that they either have lost all meaning or have become ideological instruments of interest groups, only one way remains open: Reevaluation of individual narrative thought and practice oriented traditions that give meaning, such as the Christian tradition. By this I do not mean that Christianity can again impose a comprehensive universal value framework, as those, who still dream of restoring medieval Christianity, would hope (the representatives of the so-called Compostella syndrome). The postmodern situation is much too complex and fragmented for this. I refer, rather, to the position that Christian ethics will have little meaning when it does nothing more than repeat contentless concepts from secular discourse, ignoring its own specicity as expression of a particular narrative representation and practice or when it would limit itself to merely motivating action. Clearly, much more is involved than that.

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The Role of Narrative Tradition First and foremost it is necessary to renew the content and meaning of moral concepts that have become meaningless yet that are vitally important for a convivial society. This can be done by reuniting them with a narrative tradition that offers an ultimate horizon of understanding and the hermeneutical keys to criticize the ideological distortions of reality. With a view to the solution of social problems (e.g. health care) society needs a receptivity for what Ricoeur calls the acceptance of a meaning offered to us through the interpretation of texts and symbols. This is primarily, but not exclusively, the strong point, of religious traditions such as Christianity. An interpretative environment with meaningful texts such as the Bible opens the way to a new poetic imagination that protects people from suffocating in the entropy of social existence. Thanks to the hermeneutical relation to narrative tradition that antedates modernity with its iron cage of bureaucratic rationality, it is possible to criticize the presuppositions of this modern rationality, opening new meaningful and more holistic perspectives on humanity and society. In a certain sense this demands a reversal of Bultmans demythologization: we must no longer demythologize biblical texts to conform to our modern understanding of ourselves, but must demythologize the closed ideological framework of modern thinking. We can only do this when we do not weaken the narrative force of the Christian tradition. The importance of a new meaning for eroded concepts can be illustrated with the example of human rights. A proper understanding of the concept of human rights is a corner stone of a just and democratic society. Yet this concept is at risk today. While movements of the extreme right reject human rights or limit their application to themselves, liberals denude them of meaning by

inating their claims, by demanding subjective preferences as rights even when they contradict the well-being of the community. One method to avoid such an erosion of human rights is as David Hollenbach suggests giving these rights a new foundation, relating them to their ultimate basis: the dignity of the human person. How do we ground this dignity? Rational thinking must recognize that accepting human dignity as the basis for ethical reection and practice is neither an empirical result (unless limited to insights derived from historical contrasts with the inhuman), nor the conclusion of a rational argumentation that can serve as proof. Affirmation of human dignity is an act of faith. With Mazowiecki we can say that one cannot deny that it is the experience of faith that has generated and conrmed in human consciousness a value that is itself the foundation on which human rights are based. By maintaining that there is something above and inside the person, something which is indestructible, something that cannot be appropriated and cannot be subordinated by force, the experience of faith has undoubtedly created the foundations of an inner liberty, which constitutes the roots of culture. Besides its contribution to founding human rights, the Christian moral tradition can also play a role in criticizing and putting aside a culture drowning in the inationary claims of subjective preferences that oppose the interests of the community. The Christian tradition (insofar as it is expressed in the AristotelianThomistic tradition) has long contrasted this with a normative teleological view of the common good. According to this tradition, the common good is not the sum of individual preferences, nor the result of a mechanical invisible hand, or formal procedures. Rather, it is a concrete utopia. It is a utopia because a clear telos, a moral goal, is given to society, one that, while never being fully realized in history, still

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exercises a mobilizing and orienting inuence. It is concrete because it is not only a theoretical concept but also presupposes a lived practice; and because it expresses no Archimedean stand point, but gives special attention for the poor. It does not deal with the greatest good for the greatest number, but a well-being where minorities, migrants and victims of history are included. A society always bears the face of its victims. Christians cannot refuse to answer the summons of this face. That a reevaluation of the common good from the Christian narrative tradition has very concrete implications can be demonstrated from the shift in meaning of the right to propertys in the social teaching of the Catholic Church. In a liberal society, the sacred right to property (le droit sacr et inviolable) quickly degenerates into a negative right to freedom: property is the right of a powerful individual who can exclude others (e.g. by, as owners of shares, giving so much attention to nancial advantage that the labour of others is sacriced; by, as wealthy citizens, choosing a system of elective health insurance instead of a compulsory system based on solidarity, etc...). In the more biblically founded view of the universal use of goods, the right to property becomes a positive right: a right for everyone, in which all in society can fully participate and thus something that demands that an individuals absolute right to property be limited (e.g. via mandatory contributions to the social security system). This is one aspect of a plea for the Christian moral traditions contribution to theory and content of our extrication from the cultural crisis. The Practice of Narrative Communities of Representation Yet thinking differently is not enough, it is also necessary to act differently. Christian social ethics are not intended only as a basis for

theoretical concepts, but must also result in a new practice of social responsibility. In a noteworthy text on normative versus utilitarian citizenship, the agnostic sociologist Elchardus says that in a world where the awareness of responsibility is lost (cf. the free riders or hitchhikers mentality) or in a sphere where few take responsibility for the whole and everyone prefers to hide behind functionally differentiated professional deontology, society has a greater need than ever for communities that although inspired by particular convictions cultivate responsibility for the whole.10 Society needs a philosophical and political movement that can carry forth a packet of ideals over generations and can educate people to the cultivation of these ideals. Given this, we can posit that a Christian inspired practical ethic may not ignore the pedagogical function of narrative Christian communities. Such communities are not only think tanks, but are also milieus where individuals are socialized, communities where people, through their continuous contact with stories, symbols, rituals and examples, internalize values and are educated to be responsible citizens through the formation of their moral characters. The creation of normative citizenship does not begin from scratch, but with an educational process that uses what is already there. It begins with inherited moral principles, with the experience of many centuries, preserved in codes, morals and customs, and with the way all this is cultivated in a community. Through their familiarity with meaningful stories, Christians learn to see reality from a perspective other than that imposed by a utilitarian and instrumental culture. They learn to value what is not immediately useful11 and they develop the ability to feel what it is like to be poor. Paradoxically, through their particular community of believers they learn to act in a more universal way with a greater feeling for

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responsibility and the radically human. The inuence of meeting, in narrative texts, a God attentive to people cannot and may not be underestimated. Faith is not an interaction with a fossil, but is an event experienced in community that generates fundamental ethical attitudes. The importance of socialization by narrative communities is documented by recent sociological research: the more people are socialized in a certain value framework, such as the Christian, the less likely they are to become disoriented in the general sphere of anomie and the less they are misled by irrational or manipulated meaning systems that lead to unethical behaviour towards foreigners, or by those seeking votes for the extreme right.12 These have been some elements of a plea for the reappraisal of a more substantial contribution to practical ethics from Christian thought and practice. The Problem of a Methodological Choice The preceding has left an important question unanswered. How can the contribution of the Christian tradition of narrative and practice be methodologically conceived? We can distinguish two tendencies here: a radical witness ethic and an ethic emphasizing the value of tradition.
(1) The postmodern return to particular moral traditions is strongly represented by the proponents of what we can call a radical ecclesial witness morality or the ethic of narrative contrast communities. We nd the most striking call to such as ethic at the end Alasdair MacIntyres book After Virtue. According to him, we need communities of shared beliefs, the construction of local forms of community where civilization and intellectual and moral life can be supported through the new dark ages that are already inuencing us (...) We are

waiting not for a Godot, but for another doubtless very different St. Benedict. (263) In the United States, the moral theologian Stanley Hauerwas, in particular, represents this thinking. He thinks believers must, in the rst place, form a moral contrast community. Their social task is not to mediate a Christian view of society, but living a specic Christian project: the formation of a community where people can listen to the story of God and live faithfully according to it. This view has elicited response in Europe. In the German speaking countries Norbert and Gerhard Lohnk have urged the creation of an ecclesial contrast community where the nonviolent imitation of Christ would be central. In their view, it is not necessary to become active in politics since the faithful imitation itself creates a political fact: Die Lsung Gottes is ein Politikum.13 Standpoints in the English speaking world are also striking. Within the Anglo-Saxon tradition, Duncan Forrester rejects trends to mediate via middle axioms. For him there is only one way out of the crisis in political thinking: telling the story with all its inner vitality and depth of meaning. This narrative ethic is, according to him, the truest Christian contribution to the public realm.14 Using a different approach, John Milbank radically conrms this, rejecting every abdication of theology to the social sciences. He offers only one alternative, a counter history of ecclesial origination, a counter ethics and a counter ontology where the Christian difference is again emphatically posited.15 In a certain sense, we could even say John Paul II, despite his preference for an objective rational morality rooted in the dignity of the human person, opts for such a view. He continually repeats that we can only know and live the truth, including moral truth, in the light of revealed redemption in Christ. Moreover, in Veritatis splendor he expressly demonstrates his

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preference for the radical imitation ethic of the martyrs who were prepared, when necessary, to pay the price of suffering and sacrice for a living witness to the truth about humanity.16 In the light of what has been said earlier, it is not difficult to judge the value of these views. The concern to give value to the narrative expressiveness of Christianity is, in any case, positive. The emphasis on the educational possibilities of Christian communities is also important. However, when a narrative contrast community ethic would be chosen exclusively, several objections can be made to it. Such an ethic starts with a sharp dichotomy between the negatively judged secular world (seen, I think, as too merciless) and the community of believers. Is it not true that Gods omnipresent Spirit works salvation also in the secular world and that saving perspectives are opened? Is it not better to conrm this salvation soteriologically in its secular form than to deny it? Given the theology of creation, can anyone continue to claim extra ecclesia nulla salus? In my view, a radical narrative ethic does not sufficiently distinguish the ideal from the reality of the ecclesial contrast communities that, as undeniably human phenomena, cannot escape conicts and the struggle for power. Moreover, when their relation to the biblical foundation is insufficiently hermeneutical, they also run the risk of ending in new forms of deism and fundamentalism. Finally, my objection is primarily that the morality of imitation and witness does not give enaugh attention to the need to justify its own stance rationally and to communicate with other rational traditions. Robert Gille warns that moral communities without the critique of rationality can become tyrannical, arbitrary and perhaps even demonic.17
(2)

Because of the inherent limitations of a radical and narrative witness ethic, it seems to

me more meaningful to choose a tradition-dependent communication. This means that in the present crisis of universal ethical rationality, a revaluation of particular narrative traditions is necessary but not sufficient. Particular narrative communities can only step beyond their borders and give adequate answers to real problems when they are more than mere story communities generating witnessing behaviour. Supported by their narrative foundations, they must also show they are real representation communities, that they are open to the traditions of rational thought. The question is how a tradition-dependent community of discourse can have a more universal meaning. One interesting solution has been suggested by A. MacIntyre in Whose Justice, Which Rationality:18 traditions such as the Christian can only conquer their epistemological crises through contact with other traditions, by understanding them from within, and by creatively integrating the insights of these traditions in their own traditions (even when these, at rst sight, seem incommensurable). MacIntyre uses the historical example of Thomas Aquinass inclusion of Aristotelian thought in Christian ethics. The last word has not been spoken on this. Today, too, we need a new dialogue with rational traditions where meaningful questions can be asked. One step in the right direction is Hans Kungs Weltethos project. In a dialogue between the various religions, it is working towards a new understanding of general moral foundations. However, a dialogue between religions is not enough. Despite the crisis of Western modernity, a deep discussion with secular traditions remains necessary. One example is the social teaching of the Catholic Church. This ecclesiastical social ethic contains many interesting general convictions, but it is not yet adequate. The problem is not solved merely by comparing the principles of ones own Church with those of other Churches

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and religions. The social ethic of any church needs discussion partners from the scientic rational traditions (economical, political and social sciences, etc...). This does not mean working on a supercial theological legitimation of existing or dominant positions (cf. Michael Novaks cheap legitimation of capitalism). We need an in-depth dialogue that considers the point of view of scientists who pose fundamental questions from their own rational tradition, such as the economists that now criticize the neoclassical paradigm from their ethical awareness, e.g. A. Sen and A. Etzioni. The same reasoning could be applied to medicine. This requires a greater openness and cross-disciplinary work, a task far more difficult than the endless repetition of general ecclesiastical concepts. Obviously in developing such a project, the universities will play an eminent role. Conclusion In determining an ethical agenda for the future, practical ethics should not be limited to an

isolated treatment of the many urgent problems. Rather, attention must be primarily focused on the search for a solution to the general cultural crisis. Across the borders of separate ethical disciplines, medical, political, economic and technical aspects of human life need to be integrated in a meaningful framework. Through permanent recourse to the foundations of the biblical narrative, but also through its traditiondependent open dialogue with other traditions, Christian inspired practical ethics can contribute to this.

Notes
consciously use here the concept practical ethics and not applied ethics because the latter gives the impression that it deals with an application of abstract moral principles to a dependent reality. Practical ethics, on the contrary, starts from reality and tries to verbalize the problem with unveiling questions, to develop a balanced ethical standpoint by thoroughly analysing the situation in confrontation with current values and norms and to realize le meilleur humain possible. See G. MAERTENS, J. VERSTRAETEN (Eds.), Ethische Perspectiven op mens, maatschappij en milieu. Tielt, Lannoo, 1992, p. IX. 2.Cf. Jef VAN GERWEN, Europa is een immigratieland in Streven, 60 (1993), pp. 204-214. 3.Jean DELUMEAU, La peur en occident (XIVe-XVIIIe sicles). Paris, Fayard, 1978. 4.Ren GIRARD, De zondebok. Kampen, Kok-Agora / Kapellen, Pelckmans, 1986. 5.Alasdair MACINTYRE, After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory. Second Edition. London, Duckworth, 1985. His standpoint at the end of this book is comparable to Toynbees view on the decay of civilization. (Arnold TOYNBEE, A Study of History. A new edition revised and abridged by the author and Jane Caplan, New York, Weathervane and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972). Toynbee shows that the decline of a civilization is not only attributable to external pressure, but is equally the result of internal cultural decay. 6.A. MACINTYRE, o.c., p. 263. 7.Cf. Herman DE DIJN, Hoe overleven we de vrijheid? Modernisme, postmodernisme en het mystieke lichaam. Kampen, Kok Agora / Kapellen, Pelckmans, 1993.
1.We

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John RAWLS, A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1971. We are well aware that Rawls method implies neither indifference nor scepticism towards particular religiously or metaphysically grounded opinions on the fundamental goals of society. But it is true that he uses a procedural method to attempt to formulate a solution for the pluralism of views and in so doing approaches their content with an agnostic attitude. In this sense we agree with the interpretation of R.J. MOUW, S. GRIFFIOEN, Pluralism and Horizons. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1993, pp. 30-34. Rawls views as expressed in Political Liberalism. New York, Columbia University Press, 1993 are not taken into consideration here. 9.MACINTYRE, o.c., p. 6: There seems to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture. 10.Mark ELCHARDUS, Cultuurstrijd rond het burgerschap. Manuscript, Brussel, 1994. 11.An interesting application of this to health care and care in general can be found in R. GILL, Moral Communities. Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 1992. pp. 1-6. 12.See Jaak BILLIET, Over de houding van Vlaamse katholieken tegenover etnische minderheden in Collationes, 23 (1993) 3, pp. 273-286. 13.See Norbert LOHFINK, Rudolf PESCH, Weltgestaltung und Gewaltlosigkeit: ethischer Aspekte des Alten und Neuen Testaments in ihrer Einheit und ihrem Gegensatz. Dsseldorf, Patmos, 1978 and Gerhard LOHFINK, Wie hat Jesus Gemeinde Gewollt. Zur Gesellschaftlichen Dimension des christlichen Glaubens. Freiburg, Herder, 1982. 14.Duncan FORRESTER, Beliefs, Values and Policies, Conviction Politics in a Secular Age. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 28. 15.John MILBANK, Theology and Social Theory, Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford, Blackwell, 1990. 16.Veritatis Splendor, nr. 90-94. 17.Robert GILL, o.c., p. 65. 18.Alasdair MACINTYRE, Whose Justice, Which Rationality. London, Duckworth, 1988.

8.See

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