BOOK REVIEW: Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics, by Steven Jensen.

Jensen begins where he finds us: awash in the conflict between our feelings and reason. His assessment is in harmony with that of the sociologist Christian Smith, who has recently identified the common moral stance of young Americans today as a witch’s brew of “G. E. Moore’s antinaturalistic moral emotivism and Richard Rorty’s relativistic moral pragmatism.” In other words, we Americans tend to think—when we think at all—that reason is a less-illuminating beacon than the impulses of our passions. The low-grade hedonism that characterizes our culture in turn shapes our minds. Even good Catholics find it a challenge to believe—much less to articulate—the truth that Jensen affirms with admirable brevity: “Much of the moral life will involve resisting the emotions with their tempting presentation of apparent goods.” . . .

After a deft and serious sifting of claims about emotion, Jensen then tackles the thorny question of acting in accord with our conscience, even should our conscience be misinformed. In the end, what emerges is a persuasive exhortation to pursue reason as our guide: “If we do not use reason to judge our emotions, then we are apt to elevate to the level of ‘natural’ whatever desire seems most pressing at the moment, which will, often as not, lead to our downfall.”