My aim is to indicate that Bernard Lonergan's work in economics can be used to argue that there is a special or unique dimension of business ethics. To be more specific, in order to be an ethical business person it is not sufficient to be a "virtuous" person. Ethics in business calls for a clear view on how an economy works and is working, and it calls for intelligent actions in light of such knowledge.

“What are we to do next?” is a question that spontaneously emerges in our daily lives, for example, in planning a family vacation, and the question is permeated by a mood of adventure. Ethics as functional collaboration envisions an adventure-anticipating team of individuals who are reaching for better vacations for one and all. Collectively the team is to reach both for a serious understanding of the concrete and particular, be it the local high school or local economy, and for a (...) timely and humane reply to the question “What next?” Their reaching is to make more efficient and beautiful the way they divide up a large number of questions of the type “What is the current situation?” “How did we get here?” “What do we want?” and “What are we to do next?” Whatever small steps we actors in the drama of higher or lower education might take to realize such collaboration are fundamentally good steps, that is, what we are to do next. (shrink)

Over the past thirty-odd years, the feminist contribution of the ethic of care has changed the way in which scholars and ‘lay people’ think about and approach ethical practices in our contemporary society. These changes are important in two significant ways. First, the contribution of feminist work to the body of ethics as a whole is a valuable addition. Second, by drawing attention to the concrete context of moral decision-making, particularly the notion of care, feminist scholars have opened the door (...) for meaningful discussion and understanding of the word care as it is involved in moral decision-making. The latter is where Lonergan’s theory of ethics is most beneficial.The article is written in four sections. It begins with a brief review of a feminist perspective on the ethic of care; a second section explores Lonergan’s identification of levels of consciousness as relevant to feminist notions of care; a third section explores the influence of Aquinas on Lonergan’s theory of ethics and richly applies this fuller context (linking feelings, plans, actions and decisions) to feminist contributions; a final section enlarges significantly on the meaning of the word care by introducing Lonergan’s idea of functional specialization as an ‘ethic of ethics’ that will care about the field of ethics in a radically new way. (shrink)

This essay is an existential approach to the issue of foundations in Philosophy. The style of approach is designed to engage the philosophic reader into his or her own foundational dynamics through personal conversation and as a way of overcoming the obfuscation that has dominated the history of philosophy. Relating this to “an ethics” is an effort to manifest the critical dynamic of following one’s own acts of intelligence. The conversational approach is an effort also to overcome the isolation and (...) egoism of philosophic debate towards a more collaborative enterprise that would unify the disparate views on cognition, epistemology, and metaphysics with a view towards a more systematic control of academic work and history. (shrink)

Philip McShane explores the implications of Bernard Lonergan’s compacted account of ‘what questions’ and ‘what-to-do questions’ for understanding deliberation. The essay provides a fascinating and instructive glimpse into McShane’s own long-continued struggle and dialogue with Lonergan’s achievement.

In all disciplines there is the question of how to promote progress and offset decline. But, what are progress and decline ? For this short article, the main discussion centers on biology. A solution called functional specialization begins to emerge as relevant to all of the sciences, technologies and arts. This introductory article ends with some heuristics on various follow-up issues.

In Method in Theology (chapter 3) Lonergan points to a parallel between instances of a mediated return to immediacy: “Finally there is a withdrawal from objectification and a mediated return to immediacy in the mating of lovers and in the prayerful mystic’s cloud of unknowing.” Soto’s essay explores the question: “If it is possible, as some couples report, for the mating of lovers to be a prayerful, mystical experience, what does this mean?”Soto explores the physiological, psychological and spiritual dimensions of (...) the lover’s immediacies. She finds three centers of natural immediacies in the lovers’ return via their lovemaking, and one supernatural immediacy. They include a primitive psychological state, Lonergan’s notion of spontaneous intersubjectivity, and the self-presence of contemplation. All three immediacies have transformative potential for the lovers, and position them for mystical experience. The fourth center of immediacy is the supernatural gift of the indwelling Christ. His presence in the lover’s awareness is mystical immediacy. Christ is mediator and mediated in the couple’s objectification of their mystical immediacy and their ensuing graced living, or, life of prayer.Through scholarly research and supporting, concrete interviews of couples, Soto sketches out some of the ways the lovers cooperate with the precept to “be in love.” The ethic is framed around the developments and conversions in Lonergan’s trajectory that moves from eros to friendship and to a special order of charity. (shrink)