Abstract

The thesis of this dissertation is that reflection on contingency and finitude as conditions of existence experienced by vulnerable but also inherently valuable beings has the potential of yielding both a way to discern the nature of obligation, broadly understood, and a way of determining specific obligations in the concrete contexts of life. ;The dissertation begins with a description of contingency and finitude as conditions of existence, with contingency understood as dependency and finitude as limitation, as well as a description of the experience of contingency and finitude. These descriptions yield insights into both the nature of existence and the experience of vulnerability. The insights gained from the descriptions are understood in light of a presupposition that underlies much of Christian theological ethics--that human persons are inherently valuable beings who experience contingency and finitude but are more than merely contingent and finite. ;This Christian view of the human person is not without challenge, however. Thus, the Christian view of the human person as articulated by Karl Rahner is presented and then compared with Richard Rorty's pragmatist view, a view that insists upon complete vulnerability to the contingency of existence. Rahner's Christian view is ratified as being truer to experience, and additional support is garnered from an analysis of the moral luck debate, which concludes that human beings are not completely vulnerable morally and thus do have a measure of invulnerability. ;For an analysis of human vulnerability to these conditions of existence, Charles Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend is examined. Dickens's wisdom is that in the face of deep human vulnerability, the proper moral response is acceptance, in particular, self-acceptance. Looking at the moral task in response to vulnerability as self-acceptance generates insights into the nature of obligation and a series of questions which help specify the content of specific obligations that we have to one another and ourselves. The dissertation yields the conclusion that it is only when we accept ourselves, including the conditions of our existence, that we are able to determine and meet our obligations to one another and ourselves