Raised in Seattle, Christopher Kaczor holds a B.A. from Boston College (1992), a M.M.S. (1994) and a Ph.D. (1996) from the University of Notre Dame. He did post-doctoral work at the Universität zu Köln as an Alexander von Humbolt Foundation, Federal Chancellor Fellow in 1996-1997 and returned as a Fulbright Scholar in 2002-2003. He served previously as Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Loyola New Orleans and as tenured Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America where he was also concurrently Director of the University Honors Program. Dr. Kaczor has been interviewed on issues of ethics, philosophy, and religion for newspapers and radio stations across the country as well as on television on EWTN, ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, MSNBC, and The Today Show.
Contact: ckaczor@aol.com
Website:http://myweb.lmu.edu/ckaczor/
In our divided Church, some conceive of the moral life for the most part in terms of personal justice; others, for the most part, in terms of social justice. Those primarily concerned with personal justice focus on one set of moral issues, such as sexual morality. Those primarily concerned with social justice focus on another set of moral issues, such as concern for the weak and disadvantaged. The search for common ground is advanced by noting that these two kinds of justice are not opposed to one another but rather can be complementary and mutually reinforcing. For example, premarital sex, though typically considered an issue of personal morality, could also be considered as a social justice concern.
Date posted: 2009-10-28
Research on human fetal life involves numerous complex medical, moral, and legal aspects. It is not always easy, nor desirable, to seal off one aspect from another, but I want to focus on one element: the problem of consent. The topic is a timely and important one. Research on human fetal life is reportedly a growing industry and the subject of legal developments in France, where the government proposed to allow research using human embryos: in Great Britain, where fetuses have been stored without parental consent; and in the United States, where scientists are creating human embryos for the sole purpose of research.
Date posted: 2009-10-03
These philosophy and theology notes focus on the ethics of removing artificially administered nutrition and hydration (ANH) from patients in permanent coma, post-coma unresponsiveness, or (as it is more commonly but somewhat pejoratively called) persistent vegetative state (PVS). Although the case of Terri Schindler Schiavo brought this situation to national attention, these reflections do not deal with the specific details of her moral, legal, and familial situation. Rather, they focus on five issues raised by responses to the March 20, 2004, address of Pope John Paul II to participants at the conference in Rome on Life-Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State.
Date posted: 2009-08-08
The Vatican's Instruction on bioethics, titled "Dignitas Personae" or "The Dignity of the Person," treats contemporary questions in bioethics, condemning practices widely accepted in our society including vitro fertilization and some forms of stem cell research. Paradoxically, the Instruction is based on a principle that also is widely accepted in our society, the principle of equal human dignity.
Date posted: 2009-07-13
Daniel Boonin argues that an individual cannot acquire the right to life without at least some present desires. Why? Modifying arguments first given by Donald Marquis in his article "Why Abortion is Immoral" and by Michael Tooley in "Abortion and Infanticide," Boonin holds that killing you or me is wrong because it thwarts our desires, especially the (present, dispositional, and ideal) desire to have a future-like-ours... When then does the fetus obtain these desires?
Date posted: 2009-06-13
A spate of recent articles defends the permissibility and practice of killing newborns. In their Hastings Center Report article "Ending the Life of a Newborn: The Groningen Protocol" (January-February 2008), Hilde Lindemann and Marian Verkerk support those who "responsibly end the lives of severely impaired newborns" of various kinds suffering from serious illness. Their argument is fairly straightforward and similar in form to the argument in favor of euthanasia generally, another practice accepted in the Netherlands. They note that most people already sanction the removal of life support from severely handicapped babies who have no chance of survival.
Date posted: 2009-06-01
Is later abortion worse than early abortion? Would the discovery of a nonhuman rational animal change the personhood debate? Does an individual person arise only after the possibility of twinning is excluded? This reflection touches on these important questions.
Date posted: 2009-05-16
In November 2007, the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published Committee Opinion #385 entitled, "The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine." The committee opinion sought to "maximize accommodation of an individual's religious or moral beliefs while avoiding imposition of these beliefs on others or interfering with the safe, timely, and financially feasible access to reproductive health care that all women deserve." Unfortunately, the balance struck by the committee between the right of conscience of physicians and the reproductive health care of women so emphasizes patient autonomy that it turns physicians into medical automatons forced to act against their best ethical and medical judgment.
Date posted: 2009-05-02
Freedom to achieve the goal of human life is aided and enhanced through the revelatory instruction - what to do and what to avoid, or law - that comes from God. "Patterned on God's freedom, man's freedom is not negated by his obedience to the divine law," wrote John Paul. "Indeed, only through this obedience does it abide in the truth and conform to human dignity" (VS 42). God, who is most free, cannot do evil and can do only good; so too a human being is most free when doing good and makes himself less free through doing evil. "In his journey towards God, the One who 'alone is good,' man must freely do good and avoid evil. But in order to accomplish this he must be able to distinguish good from evil" (VS 42). Natural law - the law that is written in our hearts - is the divine help given by God to all people to enable them to do good and avoid evil.
Date posted: 2009-04-10
By living "as if God did not exist", man not only loses sight of the mystery of God but also of the mystery of the world and the mystery of his own being. (EV 22) Having lost the knowledge that humans are the image of God, the culture of death reduces the value of the human person to functionality, efficiency, and usefulness, to transient human desires and the vagaries of economic productivity. In this culture, pleasure and lack of pain are the most valuable commodities, and the powerful can exploit and even kill legally those who are weak, poor, elderly, sick, or immature.
Date posted: 2009-03-30
This reflection takes up recent literature on sex selection of children, especially by abortion, and the right of children to be loved. Sex selection can occur in three ways: prior to conception by sperm separation, after conception but before implantation through genetic diagnosis of IVF embryos, and after implantation by abortion.
Date posted: 2009-03-11
Thomas Aquinas taught that not all the truths of the faith can be proved by reason, but all the objections to the faith can be disproved by reason. Perhaps this principle can be applied in the debate over contraception. With this in mind, let's look at some objections against the official teaching and at possible responses to the objections. If the objections can be shown to be weak, the position of the Church is strengthened.
Date posted: 2009-03-05