Although leadership of organizations rarely is discussed in terms of the religious construct of repentance, we propose that repentance and continuous improvement are closely related ideas that profoundly impact individuals and organizations. We identify six parallels between repentance and continuous improvement and then show how these parallels apply to the fundamental principles associated with highly regarded leadership perspectives. We conclude by identifying five contributions of the article to the management literature.

Richard McCormick justified his move to proportionalism in part because of the perceived inadequacy of the Grisez-Finnis approach to morality to answer the following question: “What is to count for turning against a basic good, and why?” In this paper, I provide the beginnings of an account of what it means to intend damage to a good; I then show that the account is readily exportable to judgments regarding killing and lying defended by Grisez and others. I then indicate that (...) the account comports well with some of what Grisez says about sexual morality and suggest areas in which further clarification is necessary. In thus proceeding, I hope to inoculate the Grisez view from McCormick's reservations. (shrink)

In this short response to Peter Clarke's thorough and interesting tracing of the developments in Richard McCormick's approach to moral questions, I take a perspective external to the concerns of Clarke's paper. I propose to look at the developments in McCormick's approach not so much from the perspective of contemporary Catholic moral theology but from that of the impact on the practices and beliefs of the Catholic community. From that perspective, the really important events in McCormick's theological development are his (...) rejection of the received teaching on contraception and his closely connected embracing of a moral theory that implies that there are no moral absolutes, namely, proportionalism. (shrink)

Questions concerning the role (or lack thereof) of God in morality are implicitly or explicitly important in Western philosophical ethics. I describe some of the different ways philosophers treat (or ignore) God and the foundations of morality more generally, and I highlight some of the implications of these approaches for bioethics. I demonstrate that the starting points we choose for morality set the course for fundamentally different accounts of what is permissible and impermissible, good and bad, and right and wrong.

This issue of Christian Bioethics explores foundational debates regarding the orientation and application of Christian bioethics. Should Christian bioethics be approached as essentially a human activity, grounded in scholarly study of theological arguments and religious virtues, oriented toward practical social ends, or should Christian bioethics be recognized as the result of properly oriented prayer, fasting, and asceticism leading to an encounter with God? The gulf between these two general perspectives—the creation of immanent human goods versus submission to a fully transcendent (...) God—is significant and, as ongoing debate in Christian Bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality over the past nearly three decades has made clear, the implications are both intellectually engaging and spiritually profound. (shrink)