Michael Banner: The Ethics of Everyday Life – Moral Theology, Social Anthropology, and the Imagination of the Human

The Alder Hey Hospital case, where heart, fetuses, and thyme gland specimens were revealed to have been harvested and stored at the hospital without the knowledge of the parents of the deceased children, informed Banner’s research.  The harvesting of the specimen was coupled with the bioethicists’ nonattendance to the parents’ needs and understanding of what mourning is for them – describing their decries as sentimental. This controversial development becomes a key informant in his consideration of the need for everyday ethics.

Banner critiques the centralization of the notion of hard cases as the dominant framework for ethical consideration – and its lack of attention to the social context out of which moral or ethical concerns emerge. Thus, Banner places moral theology and moral philosophy under scrutiny for being abstract and removed from concrete lived experiences. For Banner, moral theology needs to develop an ethics of everyday life’ (p. 3) or the life course (p. 4). This is because moral theology only classifies an action as right or wrong, even if it backs up this identification with the form directions of a stringent confessional or other pastoral practice, has thereby offered nothing by way of treatment, and at best, it is simply a cosmetic (p. 13). Thus, there is no attendance to the underlying notion of influential in moral action.

The critique lodged by Banner is meant to help us understand the (Christian) imagination of being human. Thus, Banner centers on one of the critical Christian components – the credal recitation and centralization of the life of Jesus. As it pertains to moral theology, this Christian imagination of being human is thus put in conversation with social anthropology. For Banner, moral theology should pay attention to frameworks of social anthropology, which allows for an understanding and examination of the everydayness of life and ethical concerns therein. This helps us to understand that morality is a social practice (p. 18). His methodical approach allows us to assess contemporary circumstances and complex life situations.  Banner seeks to construct an ethics of everyday life from a Christian perspective.

For Banner, social anthropology helps illuminate moral theology because the former is an avenue for cultural engagement pertinent to understanding the dynamics and patterns within that cultural context. For him, deep cultural engagement by way of social anthropology helps attend to deeper individual, cultural, and social drives and offers therapeutic healing for a context – this then allows moral theology to function from a concrete place, as in the case of the Alder Hay hospital where the medical experts could not understand the concerns and sentimentality of the parents demanding the return of the clandestinely removed specimens.

For Banner, Christian moral theology means that the shape of human life must be juxtaposed with the Christ-shaped life. When critically assessed in relation to contemporary complex everyday circumstances, the Christ-shaped life allows us to go beyond the right or wrong evaluation. Banner brings into the discussion core topics such as conception, allowing us to assess the logic behind ‘chasing the bloodline,’ kinship, and the practices of godparenting. Juxtaposing these allows us to understand conception in broader frames, especially as we examine issues of ‘childlessness’ IVF, and ARTS.

With his allusion to moral theology and social anthropology, Banner seems to place them as discussant or conversation patterners – the conversation must help expand our thinking of moral theology. This is useful in that anthropology highlights the patterns of life, while theology must be “psychologically and socioculturally realistic” (p. 17). Thus, theology must be situated within and speak about and from a given context.

Question(s)

1. It seems Banner does not adequately outline what he means by the social context. What does this represent to him? What dominant patterns can be considered in his formulation of an everyday ethic? What is the ‘everyday’ to Banner? What are the constituents of such?
2. Thinking in line with humanitarianism, Banner points towards a turning to each other in suffering – what does this mean in contexts where institutionalism prevents such an individualistic turning toward understanding another’s suffering? (p. 96).
3. While Banner calls it ethics of everyday life, he is utilizing a Christian perspective. However, because many of the issues he raises occur within a plural/multi-context, what are the limitations of approaching moral theology from Banner’s perspective in the Alder Hay hospital?