Inspired by the late Pope John Paul II's encyclicals Centesimus Annus, Veritatis Splendor, Evangelium Vitae and Fides et Ratio, the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture aims to transform the culture in which we live into one where the dignity of human life is respected, the compatibility of faith and reason is recognized, and the connection between the truth and genuine freedom is understood. We carry out this mission by supporting appropriately focused scholarly research in ethics and its dissemination in the classroom and the broader culture.
In these four encyclicals, Pope John Paul II engages fundamental ethical questions and reasserts the traditional Catholic position that genuine human freedom is inseparable from a vision of the truth. Along with the Catechism and other papal writings on social justice and the dignity of the human person, these encyclicals constitute a comprehensive new expression of the Catholic intellectual and moral vision. They also bring this vision to bear on the problems of contemporary culture by reaffirming the traditional Catholic mandate to combat tyranny and all threats to the sanctity of life and to genuine human freedom. The Center is dedicated to responding to this mandate.
Ethics centers abound at America's universities and professional schools. Books on popular ethics appear at an ever-increasing rate, and graduate programs train more and more "ethicists," as we now call those who claim the cultural authority to speak in the name of the ethical. Since the early 1970's, universities have been on an ethics binge. Given this crowded landscape, why do we need another center for the study of ethics?
The work of the Center is rooted in two basic principles. First, we believe that systematic and rational discussion of ethical problems must be grounded in traditions of thought and practice. Our work is inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition and moral vision embodied in the Augustinian/Thomistic tradition, which itself has been forged through dialogue between the developing Christian community and other moral and political traditions. This dialogue has always been guided by a commitment to rational discourse seeking truth.
Second, we believe that this moral vision requires that we address particular ethical problems in the broader culture. New technologies and new forms of social organization in late modernity have increased the possibilities for human development, but have also created new threats to human dignity and human life. Pope John Paul II has suggested that the totality of these threats constitutes "a culture of death." The Catholic moral vision has ample resources for responding to these threats-especially in its commitments to the dignity and worth of each person, the absolute character of basic human rights, and the fundamental importance of love and concern for others in need. These considerations put the Catholic moral vision increasingly at odds with what have become dominant trends in secular culture. It is unsurprising that many of those who are responsive to the Catholic moral vision, particularly young people, also find it difficult to resist the pressures of secularization as these are transmitted in and through contemporary institutions, including the university. Academic centers for ethical inquiry are among the institutions frequently inhospitable to this moral vision, despite their claims of tolerance and neutrality.
The University of Notre Dame is uniquely situated to house an academic center dedicated to the articulation and defense of the Catholic moral vision while maintaining the highest intellectual standards. It already houses rich academic resources in ethics, including distinguished scholars, well-funded and well-maintained library resources, and other centers and programs supporting research and teaching in specialized areas of ethics, often from a distinctively Catholic perspective. Indeed, ethics scholarship currently takes place in every college at Notre Dame. In founding the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, the administration has for the first time created a center for ethics research and teaching with a direct affiliation to the university as a whole. As such, its charge is to coordinate, focus and amplify these resources, with the larger aim of communicating the Catholic intellectual and moral vision, which has always been at the heart of Notre Dame's educational and religious mission, to a national and international audience.
