Rethinking Cooperation with Evil: A Virtue-Based Approach by Ryan Connors (review)

Reviewed by: Rethinking Cooperation with Evil: A Virtue-Based Approach by Ryan Connors Gary Atkinson CONNORS, Ryan. Rethinking Cooperation with Evil: A Virtue-Based Approach. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023. xiii + 313 pp. Paper, 34. 95 The author adheres closely to the recommendation to tell his reader what he intends to do, tell him what he is doing while doing it, and having finished, tell him what he's done, a recommendation worth following for a work as tightly structured and complex as this one. It is clear, irenic, and shows extensive research: nearly 1, 000 footnotes in its 275 pages of text offering many avenues for further exploration including numerous references to "alternative" accounts. It is far more than an analysis of cooperation, for it exposes the reader to a universe of concepts, many of which are seldom introduced in studies on the topic. It is also bracing, an elixir likely to incite (and likely intended to incite) the reader to a deeper commitment to careful moral thought and conscientious moral action. Few readers will close this book with a feeling of time unprofitably spent. The introduction makes clear the book's two central claims: (i) that an adequate analysis of the topic of cooperation with evil has yet to be provided and (ii) that a virtue-based approach stemming from St. Thomas Aquinas contains the elements for its provision. In support of these claims the book is organized into five chapters, the first three foundational and the last two matters of application. Chapter 1, "The Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas: Received and Jettisoned, " begins with a presentation of St. Thomas's treatment of five topics—borrowing money from known usurers, scandal, restitution for End Page 709 crimes committed by agents working together, exacting oaths from known perjurers, production of objects used for sinful purposes. This first section is followed by an examination of three theologians in the tradition of Thomistic analysis, Jean Capreolus (d. 1444), Giacomo de Vio Cajetan (d. 1534), and John of St. Thomas (d. 1644). Following this section is a third containing an account of the departure from the Thomistic mode of analysis represented by Thomas Sanchez (d. 1610) and St. Alphonsus Liguori (d. 1787). The first chapter provides a nice introduction and solid grounding for what is to come. Chapter 2, "A Broad Sampling of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Casuist Authors, " explores in its first section the manuals of nine figures: Aloysius Sabetti, Thomas Slater, Dominicus Prümmer, Benoit-Henri Merkelbach, Noldin-Schmitt, Jone-Adelman, McHugh-Callan, Henri Davis, and Bernhard Häring. The second and third sections highlight the lack of consensus among the authors and the consequent perplexity encountered by a conscientious moral agent regarding what counts as a "sufficient, proportionate, serious, or grave" reason for cooperation with evil. At several points throughout this book the author acknowledges the good sense of the casuists and the careful articulation of their judgments, but he finds their general approach to be wanting for several reasons, including their tendency to neglect consideration of the moral virtues and the nature of the act of cooperation itself. The extensive historical grounding provided by chapters 1 and 2 prepares the reader for chapter 3, "The Renewal of Theology: A Return to Virtue, " the focal chapter of the book. The first section concerns the thought of Servais Pinckaers, who "initiated a revival of St. Thomas's moral theory that continues to the present day. " This is followed by a section treating of magisterial documents adopting St. Thomas's and Pinckaers's approach: Veritatis splendor, Evangelium vitae, Declaration on Euthanasia (1980), Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of Conjugal Life (1997), Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (2009). The third section considers the work of three twenty-first-century moralists who apply Thomistic methods to the topic of cooperation with evil: Steven Long, Archbishop Anthony Fisher, and Andrew McLean Cummings. Chapter 4, "A New Way Forward: the Virtuous Person Faces a Moral Dilemma, " is the first of two chapters showing St. Thomas's approach at work. The author calls this approach both "object based" and "virtue based, " marking the two features receiving. . .