The Bases of Ethics

The Bases of ethics The Bases of ethics Edited by William Sweet Marquette Studies in Philosophy No. 23 Andrew Tall...

Author: William Sweet

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The Bases of ethics

The Bases of ethics Edited by

William Sweet

Marquette Studies in Philosophy No. 23 Andrew Tallon, Series Editor

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The bases of ethics / edited by William Sweet. p. cm. — (Marquette studies in philosophy ; no. 23) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87462-622-6 (alk. paper) 1. Ethics. I. Sweet, William. II. Marquette studies in philosophy ; #23. BJ1012 .B375 2000 170—dc21 00-012239

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

Contents Introduction: The Bases of Ethics and Ethical Foundationalism William Sweet ............................................................................... 7 Ch. 1 The Origins and Uses of the Classical Moral Theories Roger Sullivan ............................................................................ 23 Ch. 2 Wisdom as Foundational Ethical Theory in Thomas Aquinas Lawrence Dewan, O.P. ................................................................ 39 Ch. 3 Descartes and the Ethics of Generosity Leslie Armour ............................................................................. 79 Ch. 4 Is Pity the Basis of Ethics? Nietzsche versus Schopenhauer T. L. S. Sprigge ......................................................................... 103 Ch. 5 Jacques Maritain and Karol Wojtyla: Approches to Modernity Kenneth Schmitz ...................................................................... 126 Ch. 6 On the Foundations of Ethics Hugo Meynell ........................................................................... 140 Ch. 7 Ethics, the Humanities, and the Formation of Persons Thomas De Koninck ................................................................ 154 Ch. 8 Personal Identity and the Sense of Duty Elizabeth Trott .......................................................................... 176 Ch. 9 Passing Through: Women’s Experiences and Ethics Monique Dumais ...................................................................... 187 Ch. 10 Ladrière’s ‘Eschatology of Reason’ and the Foundations of Ethics Louis Perron ............................................................................. 197 Ch. 11 The Foundations of Ethics and Moral Practices William Sweet ........................................................................... 220 Contributors ............................................................................. 243 Index ........................................................................................ 245

Introduction The Bases of Ethics and Ethical Foundationalism

William Sweet I To ask after ‘the basEs of ethics’ rather than the basIs or the foundation of ethics may suggest that one has already taken a position on the issue of foundations in ethics. For, some would point out, surely there can be only one basis for ethics, not the ‘many’ implied by the word ‘bases.’ Others might say that such a term supposes that there are bases or foundations to be had and that, if there is one thing that post-modern thought has brought to our attention, it is that there are no bases or foundations at all. But the virtue of such a theme and title for this volume is that it allows interlocutors from different philosophical traditions a degree of latitude in addressing the topic of whether one can speak of a foundation or basis or bases in ethics and, if one can, in identifying what this might be. The term ‘the bases of ethics’ is, of course, also somewhat ambiguous—but, again, this is a virtue, for it enables one to explore a broad range of related topics. Discussion of the theme, then, could go in a number of directions, and the nature of this discussion will be determined by, to begin with, how one understands the word ‘ethics.’ One could, for example, focus on ethical practice or behavior, or one could talk about ethical theory. Moreover, there are many different ways in which one might understand the term ‘bases.’ Thus, a study of ‘the bases of ethics’ could involve an enquiry into the historical basis or origin of ethical theories. Or it could mean that one is concerned with what it is that ethics is about—namely, describing the practice of ethics or being ethical—and what the conditions for such a practice are. Or it could mean that one is interested in features required for engaging in an investigation into ethical theory—e.g., what are the conditions for thinking about or carrying out the study of ethical principles and norms. (Here we would be led to reflect on such issues as the standards for meaning, proof and truth in moral philosophy,

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and how we might come to know these standards and articulate them.) Again, we might ask after the conditions for moral discourse, or the possibility of deriving ‘oughts’ from ‘is’es’ (or even whether there is such a distinction)—and this could also include ‘meta-theoretical’ questions about the meaning of ethical terms. Or, yet again, one could ask from what foundation or ground (e.g., the nature of human or rational being) ethical norms or principles might be deductively derived (what one might call a strict foundationalism)—or what it is that leads us, intuitively or inductively, to our ethical beliefs or judgments (what one might call a weak foundationalism). The papers in this collection reflect these different understandings of ‘the bases of ethics,’ though most of them have something to say that bears on the question of how ethical principles and practices can be, or are, justified. It is, perhaps, not surprising that there should be such a tendency, given the concern with demonstration in much modern (i.e., post-Cartesian) philosophy, but it no doubt also reflects an awareness of an issue with which ethics—and, indeed, much of philosophy—today seems to be preoccupied, and that is the general epistemological debate on foundationalism. If one’s interest is with the basis—in the sense of the philosophical ground(s)—of ethics, which kind of foundationalism (if any) should one adopt? Is it possible to provide an argument that will demonstrate ethical principles or justify ethical practices? Or should we think of such principles and practices as ‘rooted in’ something, but not the subject of a deductive proof? The former option suggests what has been called a ‘rationalist’ view—namely, that we can derive ethical principles from something about the nature of human beings (as in Aristotle and, arguably, Aquinas) or of rational being (as in the example of Kant); the latter option leads us to look for the bases of ethics in sentiment (perhaps, à la Hume or Rousseau [with the notion of pitié]), or in a ‘sense of justice’ or in ‘love.’ There have, however, been serious criticisms of both ways of attempting to provide a basis of ethics. Consider the strict foundationalist position. What might one say about the Kantian and, perhaps, the human nature-based views that appear to have as their aim a rational, deductive foundation of ethical norms and principles? In the first place, it has frequently been claimed that it is impossible to establish moral standards on the basis of something about the world, such as nature, natural law, or the nature of human or of

Introduction ~ The Bases of Ethics and Ethical Foundationalism

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rational being. Attempts to derive ethical principles from nature or human nature fail because such classifications are, critics claim, at best provisional and justified only in view of other, contingent interests we may have. Again, to use ‘rational being’ or ‘personhood’ as a basis for ethics is either arbitrary or question begging, for why should one think that these factors are important or relevant in determining who or what has value and, hence, in establishing what we ought to do? Such approaches, then, are often considered to be not only outdated, but also ‘non-starters.’ But, critics continue, even if we could talk about nature or natural law or the natures of things, we are still confronted with Hume’s challenge—you can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ (Treatise III.1.1). Just because things are a certain way is no reason to say that they ought to be or ought to remain that way. Even if humans have a distinctive and constant nature, we have no reason to say that they should behave in one way rather than another. The fact that a being is human may tell us something about what it likely will do, but—on the basis of its nature alone—we can’t state what it should do. Even were we to find that certain practices are normative for humans in all cultures, there is still no reason to believe that they ought to be normative. So there is no way that we can establish moral principles by arguing from ‘what is.’ Furthermore, one might ask whether it is at all clear what it is that we are looking for when we engage in the search for the foundations of morality or of moral theory. Are we looking for rational arguments for ethical propositions? Are we trying to find ‘evidence’ in some less-specific sense? Or are we saying simply that there have to be grounds, but not necessarily propositional ones (à la Plantinga1) for our moral beliefs? In short, there is some confusion about the kind of foundation or basis that strict foundationalists think we can provide. There is, however, a more radical reason why some have challenged the attempt to prove or demonstrate moral principles or standards. The possibility of demonstration supposes that there are certain self-evident axioms, methods of argumentation and certain basic facts (e.g., about what would constitute a logical argument) which all individuals recognize, and which allow discussion and proof to take place. But, many now maintain, there are no such axioms, methods or proofs. This is because what counts as a proof or demonstration is rooted in practices that vary from culture to culture or are culturally or historically determined. Rationality is, as Alasdair MacIntyre writes, “inseparable from the tradition through which [it] is achieved” (62).

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Thus, there can be no grounding—no foundation—outside of a context (or what Wittgenstein called a ‘form of life’). There can be no neutral ground where discussion and definition takes place, and neither is there any God’s eye view—at least for us—from which we can assess the merits of the different models of rationality. And hence there can be no objectivity and no demonstration (MacIntyre 178). Consequently, even if one could point to an argument proposing or defending a certain set of moral standards, there is no reason why someone outside of one’s cultural group should be persuaded by it, for there are no universally accepted or necessary standards for what counts as a good or a bad argument. We cannot, then, demonstrate or prove our moral standards, and we have no ‘objective’ method by which we can evaluate others. Ethical concepts and norms, and the arguments for them, are contextually determined and so moral standards or principles cannot be proven. There have been many responses to this latter criticism—to what one might call a ‘post-modern’ view. But this criticism does raise an issue that is surely worth considering, and that is whether searching for a foundationalist account of ethics is a useful activity or one that shows promise of getting very far. After all, as Roger Sullivan notes in chapter one, in the Western world we can identify four main types of ethical theory and—several centuries after their initial articulation (I take utilitarianism not to begin with Bentham and Mill)—philosophers still haven’t come to any consensus about which, if any, is correct or the best. Demonstration of a moral theory as the right or best or most appropriate moral theory and—by extension—a justification of strict foundationalism, then, does not seem to be very likely. But, some would argue, there is no reason to be worried about this ‘failure,’ since there is another sense in which we can speak about a basis of ethics—one, indeed, that seems to be increasingly influential in recent moral philosophy. Some have argued that the basis of ethics is to be found in sentiment—in compassion or pity or love. Here, one might hold that there is no rational argument or ultimate foundation for ethics. Instead, being moral involves doing what we are naturally inclined to do (there being a natural goodness to or sympathy in humanity), or is a consequence of ‘love’ (à la Joseph Fletcher’s Situation Ethics). The basic moral categories would not be those of ‘right’ and ‘wrong;’ they would be, rather, ‘what is fitting or appropriate’ or ‘what is inappropriate.’ So, when confronted with a moral situation and when one asks oneself ‘What ought I to do?’—‘What would be fitting or appropri-


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ate?’—what one is asking is something like ‘What does love, or compassion, or pity demand that I do here for my fellow human beings?’ The word ‘demand,’ though, does not reflect a logical necessity; it simply recognizes that I am called on to do something since I have love, compassion, or pity. To paraphrase the British idealist philosopher, Bernard Bosanquet, the moral question here is “How am I to be equal to the situation?” (39). Now note what this option suggests about the possibility of proof or demonstration. It says that there isn’t any ‘rationalist’ foundation for ethics—but, then, why should there be? Suppose I say that my ethical behavior is ‘based on’ love. Do I have to be able to demonstrate the appropriateness of my behavior? And should I feel that I ought to be able to give a rational justification of love as a moral principle? My love for my wife might be reasonable and right, but I do not love her because I have a good reason to (though I may have a good reason to), and for a man to try to provide an argument to the woman of his dreams that she ought to love him would be to engage in what is probably a hopeless cause. If there is not a rational basis for love— either as a basic moral principle or in the sense of one’s loving having to have a rational justification—should one be embarrassed? Must I think of myself as unreasonable or irrational? (After all, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle does not feel compelled to give an explanation as to why one should be moral. This may be because it is self-evident or obviously based on self-interest, but it may also just be the sort of thing for which any explanation assumes what it is trying to prove or else reduces morality to a species of prudence.) Or, suppose that I could give a justification for my love or for love as a moral principle. Some would argue that such an argument would miss much of the point and character of love, and that it could never prove very much. On this view, however, it does make sense to speak of a basis of ethics in a weak sense—that ethical principles are justified somehow—but not in the strict foundationalist sense. Thus one could say that love is the basis for ethics, without ethical principles being derived in a deductive way from some characteristics about love, and without that love itself being justified by appeal to a rational and deductive argument—and others could use a similar approach in explaining that what one ought to do is determined, for example, by one’s desire to see justice done in the world. In such cases, however, we might insist that our moral activity in general is nevertheless still a ‘product’ of our love or our commitment to justice.

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In short, then, perhaps there is no strict proof in ethics; perhaps all that one can do when moral problems arise is look for ‘some suggestions in ethics’ to guide us—the main suggestion being that we try to be equal to the situation. Which of these options for providing a basis for ethics is the most promising? The first option—strict foundationalism—has been, as we have seen, subject to many criticisms. But ‘weak foundationalism’ also has its opponents. For does natural love, compassion, or pity have the universal character that we look for in morality? My love, understood as a kind of inclination, may (as Kant noted) change, both in terms of its object and in terms of how I feel at a particular time or place. And it is unlikely that what I naturally love or have pitié for is going to be the same for other agents. Such a view, then, seems to be open to the charge of relativism or, more precisely, of subjectivism. Moreover, if we say that we are to try to be equal to the situation, does this not suggest that there is some external, objective standard of what ‘being equal’ would amount to? Besides, it seems that we sometimes do think that we can give more of an answer to the question of why we should do something than simply say ‘because I love that person’ or ‘because I want to see justice done.’ And so the option of weak foundationalism is considered by some as no more plausible than strict foundationalism—though for different reasons. There is, of course, much more that can be said concerning both of these options, and even though relatively few of the essays assembled here deal directly with the issue of foundationalism, the problems they discuss indicate clearly that this issue is a complex one. Moreover, as noted earlier, the theme ‘the bases of ethics’ invites us to think about ‘ethics’ and ‘bases’ in a variety of ways, and one should not be surprised if a discussion of the merits of a foundationalist approach to moral philosophy did not involve reflecting on a broad range of concerns, such as the historical origins of ethical theories, the conditions for moral practices, moral principles and moral discourses, and the nature of argument or proof in ethics. And as one explores these different aspects of the issue of ‘the bases of ethics,’ one also comes to see how the essays in this collection bear on each other.

II What are some of the specific issues and questions raised by the essays in this volume, and what kinds of relations are there between them?


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In order to provide some background to the theories discussed in this volume, Roger Sullivan, in “The Origins and Uses of the Classical Moral Theories,” focuses on the historical origins of ethical theories, arguing that they were probably ‘event-driven.’ Some of them were a response to (and, hence, when articulated, focused on) problems of the private realm—that is, the sphere of individuals’ motives and intentions and the relations between family and friends. Others were a response to (and, hence, focused on) problems in the public realm—that is, the realm that deals with the one’s behavior in one’s relations to others in community. Not to recognize these theories as historical and concrete would run the risk of misunderstanding them. Our interest in these moral theories is not, however, simply academic. Each of these theories—Sullivan identifies four: the biblical, the Greek (or virtue-based), the Kantian deontological, and the utilitarian teleological—has important insights and so must be preserved. Sullivan argues that these theories, in fact, can ‘supplement’ one another. By looking at moral theories in this way, not only need they not be considered to be incompatible with one another, but we can arrive at a certain unity of moral theory that is useful for pedagogical purposes. Moreover, in being attentive to the realm in which each theory originally arose and, thus, properly applies, we may be able to reduce moral conflict. Such a solution is appealing, but it presupposes, for example, that we are able to make a clear distinction between the public and private realms. Moreover, one may well ask how the universalist character of, at least, the Kantian and utilitarian views allows for such a compromise. Of all of the various basEs of ethics, can we end up with a single basIs of ethics or, at least, some kind of unity? One is reminded of Alasdair MacIntyre’s attempt to bring disparate ethical theories together—though admittedly in quite a different way—and his project (as William Sweet points out in his study in this collection) is one that has met with a good deal of resistance. Still, perhaps the answer suggested by Sullivan’s enquiry into ‘the bases of ethics’ is not that we should seek a fundamental, formal principle that unifies different ethical theories, but that we should leave the matter to the considered reflections of moral agents—to ask that people be ‘equal to the situation.’ But, unfortunately, many people fail to be ‘equal to the situation.’ What, then, is the explanation of ethical failure—not merely doing wrong, but doing wrong and not knowing or caring about having done wrong or, what is perhaps worse, not knowing or caring about doing what is right? (And here, incidentally, we have a third sense in

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which we can speak of ‘bases’ in ethics—i.e., where one is concerned with the nature of the practice of being ethical and, specifically, with what the conditions are for engaging in such a practice.) So how is it that we can not only know what is good, but not do it, but come to not know the good? Ignorance of moral principles is not an uncommon phenomenon—but there is also a kind of moral blindness that seems to be the product of the will. It is on the relation between wisdom, intellect and will that Lawrence Dewan enjoins us to reflect. What does it mean to see wisdom as a foundation for ethics? In his essay, “Wisdom as Foundational Ethical Theory in Thomas Aquinas,” Dewan notes that the task of wisdom is ‘to present the ordered vision;’ in ethics, then, the task of wisdom is to present the foundations of ethical theory and ethical practice. But wisdom itself, he says following St Thomas, is nothing other than ‘knowledge of God’ and, echoing the position of Ivan in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, he holds that without knowledge of God, no morality is possible. To say that God is necessary to morality is, however, not to adopt a command theory of ethics; the relation between God and morality that Dewan wants to bring our attention to is of a different character. Dewan notes that one of the ways in which we can speak of wisdom is to identify it with metaphysics—the science of being. Now, we see that there is a teleology in nature and, in particular, that things have an appetite for their own perfection. We have, therefore, evidence for a ‘metaphysics of goodness.’ The relation between morality and God, then, is that we are led to God through an understanding of the nature of what promotes ‘human perfection’—that is, of goodness. In short, Dewan holds that ethics “has as its proper foundation the consideration of the relation between the human being and God” and, since wisdom is the philosophical knowledge that says “whatever is possible about God,” wisdom is the foundation of ethical theory. If we have an unambiguous and complete knowledge of the truth, then, we cannot will to believe otherwise. Similarly, if we have such a knowledge of God or the good, we cannot but will to do the good. But we often do not have unambiguous and complete knowledge, and and it is here that we encounter the phenomena of moral corruption, moral blindness, and moral failure. Hugo Meynell is interested in this question of the failure of individuals to do the good but also wishes to address the claim that one cannot give a reason or explanation for why one ought to do the good. He discusses, therefore, both the general problem of whether


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there can be some kind of foundationalism in ethics, and the specific issue of what is involved in thinking about morality and in engaging in moral practices. Meynell argues that many of the alleged difficulties in providing a foundation for ethics are the product of mistakes in philosophy—and that it must be possible to articulate such a foundation, or else one can never say that one has a reason for doing anything. Thus, he suggests that one can easily provide an abductive proof of what the good is, based on facts about the needs and feelings of persons. In answer to the question of why so many people hold that there is a problem in constructing such a proof, Meynell responds that it is not that we cannot know what the good is—for we can—nor is it that moral situations are ambiguous—for they are only in rare cases—but that there is, in even the most sophisticated of ethical theorists, a “flight from knowledge”—a refusal to acknowledge the full implications of one’s moral stand. But what exactly is this ‘moral knowledge’ that Meynell believes is available to all of us, and what does it presuppose? To know and to act on what we morally have to do—to engage in moral activity and moral discourse—we must have an understanding of persons. In her essay on “Personal Identity and the Sense of Duty,” Elizabeth Trott addresses the issue of the bases of ethics by reflecting on some of the conditions for moral knowledge and moral practice. She argues that the apparent breakdown in ethics and in public responsibility in the contemporary world is largely the product of the inability of people to communicate about matters of public morality— and that this, in turn, is the product of a breakdown in a metaphysic that underlies our moral language. Trott notes that one thing that was common to moralists like Aristotle, Hume, and Kant, was the recognition of a metaphysics where the whole was understood to be greater than the sum of its parts. But when people cease to see themselves as a part of a greater whole, and only as mere ‘individuals’ with contingent links to others, notions such as ‘duty’ become unintelligible, and moral discourse—and, ultimately, moral behavior—break down. Moral knowledge and moral action requires, then, an understanding of persons and personal identity in light of this part-whole metaphysic. Leslie Armour follows up this point in his paper, “Descartes and the Ethics of Generosity.” According to Armour, for Descartes the basis of ethics (in the sense of the condition for moral practice) is that we must act with ‘generosity’—that is, with the recognition that “all the other free beings share in the infinite capacity of creativity.” And it is a condition for understanding how ethical behavior takes

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place that we have some knowledge of what moral agents are, how they are related to one another, and how they act. Many will find it striking that the ethical subject or moral agent for Descartes is not the somewhat etiolated ‘rational’ being usually associated with the Meditations and so often challenged in contemporary moral and political philosophy. Instead, on Descartes’ view, the ethical subject is a being of passions—passions having their origin in the body—as well as a being who can wonder, exercise freedom and reason. Descartes’ ‘ethics of generosity’ acknowledges that we are physical beings, subject to our passions and to the influence of our sense. It is, however, when ‘wonder’—admiration—occurs that we are able to see ourselves as separated from the objects of our perception and, therefore, as free and not bound by any categories. And it is the right use of our freedom that, Descartes argues, is the source of moral goodness. But for a more complete analysis of the conditions for moral practice and for an understanding of persons, we need to go farther than this. Armour develops Descartes’ arguments here by suggesting that our recognition of ourselves as free and outside of categories is something that we extend to others, for we notice that the objects of sense perception and the passions of others are the same as our own, and that it is through others that we can experience vicariously what we cannot experience for ourselves. And since all ‘free’ beings share in the infinite capacity of creativity, there must be an ‘openness’ and a ‘generosity’ in moral practice—a policy of tolerance and mutual support—so that the moral realm can be described as an area of continuous discourse. This sense of freedom that Armour says inspires Descartes, is an openness to the infinite (qua indéfini), and it finds its articulation in Descartes’ doctrine of ‘love.’ But this infinite must, in return, find its expression in the finite, and thereby it becomes the source of objective values. This account, which draws principally from Descartes’ arguments in the Passions of the Soul, provides us with a rich conception of moral agency, and it lays out, in detail, several conditions for moral practice. We have, then, an idea of the range of issues that arise in an attempt to articulate ‘the bases of ethics.’ But could one describe this ‘Cartesian’ view as ‘foundationalist’? Armour presents at length the background and structure of Descartes’ views, and sometimes extends them. Still, there does not seem to be any suggestion of ethics or moral practice as something deducible from a set of axioms, and so it is, at best, a weak foundationalism that this account of Descartes provides us with. Once again, what we


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have here seems to be a set of conditions necessary for being ethical—for being ‘equal to the situation,’ but no argument for a strict foundationalism. One finds a similar focus on the person and on a related sentiment—that of pity or compassion—in Timothy Sprigge’s discussion of the basis of ethics in Schopenhauer. While Schopenhauer had, Sprigge writes, a “non-prescriptive conception of moral philosophy,” he claimed that compassion—“a deep sense of the reality of another’s suffering and an associated wish to alleviate it”—is the only morally admirable trait. Indeed, Sprigge notes, Schopenhauer insisted that this view of compassion is an insight that is shared throughout humanity. While Sprigge’s own view—which he does not develop here— is that morality involves more than this, he emphasizes that compassion is “a peculiarly important ethical motivator.” To defend this claim, Sprigge discusses a number of objections—in the main taken from Nietzsche—and finds them wanting. Sprigge concludes that the fact of the suffering of others “cannot be grasped without being felt as a demand of such aid as one can give”—it is a ‘prescriptive fact’—and, thus, constitutes part of a cognitive basis for ethics, though once more in the ‘weaker’ foundationalist sense described above. So can the views of Descartes, Schopenhauer, or any of the other ‘moderns’ provide us with a conclusive or complete strict foundationalist account? Despite Armour’s insistence that the Cartesian subject must be understood in a ‘robust’ way, for many, Descartes’ ‘turn to the subject’ is characteristic of modernity, and it is this (and the view of epistemology that allegedly follows from it) that has been the target of many contemporary critiques, such as those of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty. They argue that to look for the source of ethics by starting with the human subject and its rational powers is a fruitless enterprise—and conclude not only that to look for ‘sources’ or ‘foundations’ at all is futile, but that we must abandon ethical theory and, arguably, ethics altogether. Kenneth Schmitz reminds us that criticism of modernity is not a recent phenomenon. One finds powerful and, Schmitz suggests, more sophisticated attacks provided by Jacques Maritain and Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II). But unlike contemporary anti-foundationalists or post-moderns, Maritain and Wojtyla argue that it does make sense to enquire after foundations—it is just that these foundations lie elsewhere than in the subject or in human rationality. Though one finds a difference in emphasis and in method between these two authors, Schmitz argues that their criticisms of the subjectivism of modern culture are identical in substance. Maritain’s criticisms focus on the

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attempt in the early modern period to ‘separate’ human consciousness from things—which led to the view that the individual self is the absolute centre of all art, culture, and knowledge. Wojtyla is concerned with the same problem in modernity—of the ‘spirit of division’—but he focuses on it, however, as it appears in its later representatives, Immanuel Kant and Max Scheler. While Maritain turns to traditional metaphysics (namely that of Thomas Aquinas) for a solution to this problem, Wojtyla employs phenomenology to “penetrate to the immediate lived experience of the person,” to make sense of ethical action and, particularly, to see the human person as a responsible moral agent. Schmitz insists that, although Maritain’s view is insightful, it is through Wojtyla’s use of the phenomenological method that one can see persons as beings who experience themselves as responsible agents and who can become conscious of themselves as having dignity as acting persons. It is not clear, however, what conclusion one should draw from such criticisms. Should modernity as a whole—especially including its attempts at providing a rationalist foundation for ethics—be abandoned, or do we have reason to reject only the views of some ‘moderns’? And there is another question we must consider. If the critique of modernity as such is correct—regardless of whether this criticism be from a ‘post-modern’ or a ‘pre-modern’ view—what options are left to us? If modernity fails—i.e., if there is no plausible rationalist defense of ethics—can we avoid becoming relativists, perspectivists, or skeptics? Several of the authors in this collection argue that we can reject the ‘rationalist’ demand for demonstration and still hold that there is room for argument and some kind of foundation in ethics. For example, the focus on human dignity that one finds in Wojtyla and Maritain is taken up in Thomas de Koninck’s essay on “Ethics, the Humanities and the Formation of Persons.” De Koninck takes as his basis the view that ethical practice and ethical norms (and, by extension, democratic theory and institutions) rest on the inalienable dignity of the human person—a dignity that seems to be recognized throughout the world and that reflects our deepest moral instincts. De Koninck insists on the importance of this dignity and, hence, that there is a central role to be played by an education in the humanities. Indeed, if we do not recognize this dignity—something suggested by the attacks of ‘post-modern’ philosophers such as Richard Rorty in his Amnesty lectures at Oxford2—how can we mount an effective opposition to acts of barbarism and genocide? Human dignity must, therefore, be recognized and respected. This dignity, and the information and insights that we obtain about human cul-


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ture through studies in the humanities, provides us with a foundation for talk of natural rights and obligations in an increasingly pluralistic world. Nevertheless, the claim that the bases of ethics lie in human dignity is not to be confused with the naturalistic view that such practices and norms are based on, or can be generated from, human nature, and so de Koninck is clearly not committed to a ‘pre-modern’ or ‘modern’ model of rationality and ethics. Another response to modernity and its conceptions of rationality and of ethics can be found in the work of many recent feminist writers. Epistemology and ethics must, feminists argue, reflect experience. They point out, however, that in the history of philosophy, it seems that not everyone’s experience and everyone’s way of dealing with the world (what we might call their ‘rationality’) have been counted. Thus, feminists seek to traverser le patriarcat—to go beyond those epistemologies, ethical theories, and social structures that are rooted in male experience. In her reflection on the work of three important feminist thinkers, “Passing Through: Women’s Experience and Ethics,” Monique Dumais reminds us of the many charges against (modern) ‘rationalist’ epistemology—that it has a too thin view of the human subject qua unembodied mind, that its account of rationality is exclusively male and ignores the distinctive experience of women, and that it has led to a devalorization of women and children. The feminist challenge—which is as much an ethical and political one as a narrowly epistemological one—aims at overcoming this marginalization of women and children (and thereby allowing for a greater expanse of self-determination), recognizing the value of the body, and increasing the sense of solidarity among human beings. It is, therefore, a necessity for women to traverser—to pass through male-centered epistemology and ethics so that, in the end, they will be able to construct a more comprehensive account of knowledge and morality. While it is true that some feminists question the possibility of objective or universal truth, Dumais insists that feminist epistemology does not entail a total deconstruction (and destruction) of knowledge and ethics, or propose itself as an incommensurable alternative to modern epistemology. One can, in other words, accept feminist criticisms of epistemology—and, by extension, of modern ethical theory—without having to embrace the skepticism or relativism that such objections may appear to lead to. Louis Perron is also convinced of the difficulties of ‘rationalist’ or ‘modern’ foundationalist epistemology and, hence, of the models of ethics that it has brought with it. Nevertheless, we should not take

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this as a justification for abandoning ethics altogether. Perron argues that we have to construct a new ethics—one that recognizes, on the one hand, the radical and unconditional character of the demands of ethics while, at the same time, acknowledging the apparent relativity of concrete ethical norms. Perron, then, wishes to provide an ethics that is attentive to the preceding demands, but does not give up the idea of foundation. According to Perron, the Belgian phenomenologist Jean Ladrière has modified this idea in such a way that one can allow for historicity and still retain the values of universality and unconditionality which themselves constitute a ‘foundation’ for ethics. Specifically, Ladrière insists on the idea of a self-transcendence (auto-dépassement) which, though not defined (and, indeed, is indefinable) in terms of content, is able to exact a power over us. By seeing ethics as that which makes a radical demand of us, without specifically articulating a particular content, we can take account of the claims that ethics evolves and that it is only in historical instantiations that ethics acquires its effectiveness. To explain how ethics is able to make such a demand of us, according to Perron, Ladrière has recourse to the notion of eschaton. Like Kant’s kingdom of ends, this eschaton is a reality that manifests itself as an ‘already’ here and a ‘not yet.’ Ethics, then, is the waiting for and the expectation of this kingdom—the waiting for a parousia of the just. But the existence of this eschaton is not an observable phenomenon; it is, as it were, implied by something about the nature of reason. Moreover, the particular principles of this ethics are for us to build and, when we are confronted with a moral situation, the ethical demand is (as Perron has noted elsewhere) to try to do our best and hope that we will be justified. The foundation of this ethics is, however, not something that can be proven or established. But can we really be justified in our ethical practices and beliefs without, in the end, being committed to a strict foundationalism? It is here that the work of Alasdair MacIntyre has been of some interest. MacIntyre argues that while moral values are contextually fixed and not demonstrable, and while moral theories are incommensurable with one another, one can still assert the superiority of a Thomist-Aristotelian ethics and defend the notion of moral truth. Yet, as I point out in my essay, “The Foundations of Ethics and Moral Practices,” MacIntyre has been taken to task for many features of his view, and I argue that there are not only several tensions in MacIntyre’s account but his conclusions are underdetermined by the evidence. Nevertheless, I also claim that there are a number of important insights in


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MacIntyre’s analysis of ethical theory and that, if one is attentive to the nature of moral practice, and if one can draw on a kind of coherence theory of meaning and truth, it would seem that we can have moral knowledge as well as some kind of rational proof in ethics. In short, then, the essays of de Koninck, Dumais, Perron and Sweet suggest that, even if one starts from positions that are critical of modern epistemology, we can still discuss, give reasons for, and talk of foundations (or, at least, bases) in ethics. The ‘foundationalism’ they reflect may be close to the ‘weak’ version described at the beginning of this introduction, but it is not one that is obviously subject to the kinds of criticisms noted earlier. Indeed, it is perhaps here that further discussion of the bases of ethics can begin.

III The essays in this collection draw their inspiration from a wide range of sources—from classical and medieval authors and from the phenomenological, analytic, idealistic, Thomist and feminist schools—and focus on resolving questions that the challenges of subjectivism, skepticism and post-modernism have raised. To enquire into the ‘bases of ethics,’ as has been noted, can mean quite different things. Moreover, how one might construct a basis for ethics is, we have learned as well, something that requires work on several fronts. We must be attentive to history—to the historical character, not only of particular ethical theories, but of ethical standards and ethical practice. We must also be attentive to the culture in which ethical standards and ethical theories arise, and to the conditions which attend their origin. And we must also be attentive to who it is that proposes ethical standards and beliefs. These essays reflect a wide range of attempts to explain and elucidate what one might mean by the notion of ‘bases’ in ethics. And, despite the many problems that the authors note, there is still confidence that there can be moral knowledge, that we can know the conditions for moral practices and for ethical theory, and that there are at least some bases for ethics in general. The importance of talking about a basis or bases of ethics is not, then, merely the ghost of outdated epistemologies or ontologies. If there can be moral knowledge and if there can be bases in ethics, these must be informed by moral experience and moral practice. To be moral, in turn, requires that we think about the obligations that morality imposes on us. What is required of us as moral agents is,

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then, that we be prepared to pursue an investigation into the bases of ethics in all the senses enumerated above. And this, perhaps, is simply to say that, as moral agents, we try to be ‘equal to the situation.’

Notes 1

I have in mind here Alvin Plantinga’s distinction between a belief having a ‘ground’ and its having propositional evidence. See, for example, his essay, “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?” Nous 15 (1981): 41-51, where this distinction is developed. 2 See Rorty’s “Human Rights, Rationality and Sentimentality.” On Human Rights — The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993. Ed. S. Hurley and S. Shute. New York: Basic Books, 1993. 111-34.

References Bosanquet, Bernard. The Philosophical Theory of the State and Related Essays. Ed. Gerald F. Gaus and William Sweet. South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999. Fletcher, Joseph. Situation Ethics. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1966. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Reprinted from the original ed. in 3 vols. Ed. with an analytical index L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928. MacIntyre, Alasdair. Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and Tradition. London: Duckworth, 1990. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.


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The Origins and Uses of the Classical Moral Theories1

Roger J. Sullivan One of the more striking developments in contemporary philosophic discussions about moral theories has been the rise of antitheory—the rejection of normative theories as “unnecessary, undesirable, and/or impossible” (Clarke and Simpson 3). Among those who can be associated with this view are Bernard Williams, John McDowell, Edmund Pincoffs, and James Wallace. I believe that, for those acquainted with their views, simply presenting a positive overview of moral theories can show that the various strains of antitheory are grounded either in misunderstandings about the nature of moral theory or in disappointment resulting from expecting more of moral theories than they are capable of delivering. The kind of overview I believe is needed begins by focusing on the historical origins of our classical ethical theories. This is not a topic commonly discussed, for we are still deeply influenced by the way in which Anglo-American philosophy was done after G. E. Moore. Linguistic analysis is not an easy movement to describe, because it had so many different strands. However, for the most part it was concerned with theoretical questions but not with moral theories as such or with their construction. It was concerned mainly with questions proper to theory of knowledge: clarifying different kinds of moral judgments or, alternatively, moral ‘utterances;’ isolating the cognitive content of moral claims; and trying to understand the exact nature of ethical disagreements. It eschewed metaphysics, and tried to replace it with a non-metaphysically grounded logic. Most especially, linguistic analysis was atomic in outlook, concerned with the smallest bits of language. Like Socrates, it looked for the beginning of clarity in definitions and in the analysis of ultimate expressions. The common wisdom then was that 1) the proper locus for the specifically philosophical analysis of morality was ‘metaethics,’ that is, second-order talk about ethical vocabulary, and also, at least for many practitioners, that 2) doing this kind of philosophy is a morally neutral activity. That is, one’s position about the meaning of moral expres-

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sions (such as emotivism or prescriptivism) has no relevance to any distinctive normative stance. Then actual normative advice was regarded, not as the province of philosophers, but of popular moralists and columnists, of people like Ann Landers and her sister Abigail Van Buren. What was regarded as most important were the distinctions that emerged from the philosophical analysis of moral language, as between fact and value and between prescriptive and descriptive uses of language, as well as new fallacies that could now be identified, such as the naturalistic fallacy, whether understood as the attempt to define evaluative words in terms of non-evaluative words or as trying to derive ‘ought’ from ‘is.’ It was also part of analytic wisdom to insist that there is no significant relationship between the actual origins of a theory and the validity of that theory. To think that there is, is to commit another fallacy, this one the ‘genetic fallacy.’ In time this focus on moral language gave way to a revival of interest in substantive moral topics, as in medical ethics, business ethics, and legal ethics. As a methodology, however, linguistic analysis has continued to influence the way in which philosophy is done, and lately there has been a resurgence of interest in metaethical issues (see, e.g., Couture and Nielsen). Once again, it has found a home in England, and one of its most conspicuous practitioners has been the Cambridge philosopher Bernard Williams. In the Preface to his Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Williams accepted the fact that, even though he did not begin his book with an analysis of the meaning of moral words, his work would still be regarded as analytical philosophy.2 It therefore comes as no surprise to find that when Williams asks where ethical theories “have to start,” he is still so far into the methodology of analytic philosophy that he regards his task as theoretical (93). He is taken up with epistemological problems about the possible justification of moral claims as well as with clarifying the meanings of moral expressions. He is drawn back again to the wellknown concerns of classical linguistic analysis—problems in theory of knowledge, dealing, for example, with the possibility of validating ethical intuitions—as well as the relevant claims of G. E. Moore, of Henry Sidgwick, and of R. M. Hare. What is critical for my present purpose is to point out how abstract and ahistorical Williams’ account is. When he asked where ethical theories “have to start” and suggested that the beginnings must be “ethical experience itself,” it may at first have seemed that he intended to enquire into the historical origins of the various moral theories.

1 ~ The Origins and Uses of Classical Moral Theories

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However, this was not what he meant to do. As we have seen, from the traditional analytic point of view, doing that would have meant falling into the error of committing the genetic fallacy. This legacy has become so much a part of the background of the way that philosophers think today that no one thinks to question it. As a consequence, most of our textbooks are now written on the assumption that the way to read and analyze an ethical theory is to assess the logical shape of individual claims within a theory, without paying any attention to historical questions about the original point either of those claims or, indeed, of the theory itself. From within that heritage, for example, the author of a popular ethics text published first in England and then, last year, in Canada, wrote: “For a better understanding of what ethical analysis involves it has always seemed to me better to increase the detail and reduce the scope” (Palmer x). In the opening chapter of another text, this one published in the United States, the author sets out to consider the aims, structure, and evaluation of moral theories (see Timmons).3 It turns out this means distinguishing, for example, between teleological and deontological theories. Throughout, as is typical, both texts reflect the abstract ahistoricity of linguistic analysis. To point up how strange this methodology actually is, we need only attend to another piece of current wisdom in moral philosophy: that our ethical thinking outside the artificial world of the philosophy classroom is typically ‘event driven.’ That is, we tend to think about moral matters only when we find ourselves in situations that present us with moral problems. But if that is the case, then surely we should consider the possibility that our classical moral theories did not just happen or appear ex nihilo but were also event-driven. That is, the presumption is that they owe their origin and shape to those deeply felt situations, questions, and problems that were pressing at the time of their origin. The categories and distinctions in each theory would then reflect the language used at least tacitly in those problematic situations that generated them. From a wealth of particular moral judgments, generalities would be extracted appropriate to a theory meant to be relevant to many similar situations. It is helpful, then, to think of moral theories as constructions of practical reason that take place only after the press of problems has eased and there is time to reflect on how to organize and sum up the manner in which those involved resolved their moral problems. Theories therefore are ways of trying to catch the commonalities of those deliberations and decisions. To borrow a helpful word from St.

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Irenaeus, moral theories recapitulate the thinking that moral problems generate. In doing so, they also reflect views, first, about what a human being is rather than some other kind of being, and then about what it is to be a good human being. Finally, theories are worthy of being called “classical” for two reasons: they address perennial moral issues, and they incorporate the most common ways which people have used to resolve those issues. There are at least four such classical theories—Biblical, Greek (Aristotelianism now subsumed into virtue ethics), Kantian, and Utilitarian.

I With that for an introduction, I now admit that I will also be doing analysis with the help of Immanuel Kant. But I want to think, not small, but large. Because of that, my discussion will take us into unfamiliar territory, with claims that may not be readily acceptable, at least on first reading. What I ask for is tolerance of one unavoidable consequence of my engaging in general claims in a brief paper: I will not be able to imitate the close attention to precision that we have come to expect of philosophical analysis. The first large question we need to ask is this: Of what value are moral theories? In answer, I will only repeat what Kant held in the introduction and first chapter of his Groundwork. Our most fundamental need, he said, is clarity about our moral life, and achieving such clarity is the main task for and contribution of moral theorizing. Clarity helps sensitize us to what is and what is not a moral issue, thereby making us more attentive to the moral decisions we need to make and how to make them. Clarity also requires that we have a moral vocabulary that enables us to think about as well as articulate moral norms and positions, an ability that also contributes to our sensitivity to the moral world. But we also need to admit from the start that ethical theories have only a limited role in our moral life. Two other tasks remain even after one has achieved the conceptual clarity a moral theory can offer. First is the creative task of spanning the gap between generalities and specifics, that is, of determining exactly how the general norm or norms in a moral theory apply to particular cases. This requires the use of judgment, to decide what and how moral principles apply, what items in a situation are morally relevant, and how they should be weighed. Regardless of how powerful a moral theory might be, it cannot by itself tell us precisely how to act in the concrete circum-


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stances of life. That is just the reason why such moral judgments were described by Aristotle as requiring aisthesis, a reflective sensitivity for what counts, rather than a formal process. In this regard Kant offered a helpful metaphor when he called the Categorical Imperative a moral “compass” (Kant, Groundwork 4:404). Like other compasses, the Categorical Imperative will guide us in the right direction, but it cannot tell us exactly what we should do to act rightly. Both Aristotle and Kant thought we can develop our ability to make such judgments either through casuistry or through experience, by watching and listening to and learning from others whom we respect. Students often become very disillusioned over this limitation of moral theories. They had supposed that a satisfactory theory would tell them just what to do in each problematic situation of life, something like a food recipe can tell us exactly how to prepare a particular dish. I suspect that this same limitation lies behind many of the discontents of anti-theorists. But, as Aristotle saw, human moral life is far too complex for any moral theory to yield the precise information we may have learned to expect in other subjects. Our practical reasoning has a third, an imperative, role in our moral life, and that is to make our judgments efficacious so we will in fact act on them. Accepting a particular moral theory and being able to make particular judgments on the basis of that theory will not make us good people. That is the function of moral character. Three final comments now need to be made about moral theories in general. The first is that, given the great variety of moral problems, it is surprising how much power the various theories do have. Secondly, that same variety means that we may expect too much if we presuppose that any single moral theory will be conceptually strong enough to be able to resolve every possible moral issue.4 Thirdly and just as importantly, it may also be the case that there simply is not just one moral theory appropriate for all occasions, so that each of the four needs to be complemented by at least one other. This may appear to be a implausible claim, since all the emphasis in the past has been given to how theories are opposed to each other. The presumption has been that one cannot consistently hold any two traditions together at the same time. However, a close reading of the four classical theories can support the claim that they are often more compatible than they may at first seem (see, e.g., Sullivan [1995]).

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II Our next large question, therefore, concerns the relations between the various theories. When discussing the four classical moral traditions—Biblical, Greek, Kantian, and Utilitarian—almost all moral philosophers regard them as rivals. On this view, we need to decide which is the one best theory; likewise, to accept any one of these is to reject the others. But why have we taken this for granted? One reason that comes to mind is that each theory presents itself as being right, and we have uncritically inferred that one of them must therefore be the right one. Also, as we have seen, different theories can lead to different conclusions, and we resist allowing two conflicting decisions both to be correct. Yet time has shown that there is something intransigent about all four theories, at least in their general shape. Unlike scientific theories, which are superseded and then disappear, all four moral theories continue to be used to address moral problems. Although one, the religious, has always had many more adherents than the others, none has completely won the field over the others. This peculiarity of the classical theories needs to be accounted for. In order to develop our understanding of the relationships between the various moral theories, I will now borrow Kant’s division of the moral world into two domains, related to each other but still distinctive: the public and the private (Metaphysics 6:218-20). What Kant called “the doctrine of law” pertains to laws of justice regulating our “duties of outer freedom.” These belong in the public domain, for they consist of behaviors which agencies like the state can legislate and enforce. By contrast, “the doctrine of virtue” concerns the internal forum of character, wherein a person defines his or her goals and motives. This is the private domain, for one’s motives and goals must be self-chosen and cannot be legislated from outside. The fact that the two domains are distinct enabled Kant to distinguish between actions which are “merely legal,” that is, merely conform to the moral law, and those which are also done from the motive of duty. (Acting from that motive is, of course, a necessary condition for our behavior to be ethical in the strict sense.) This distinction also lies behind the common saying that the state cannot legislate morality. It can legislate behaviors that virtuous persons would perform, but it cannot make its citizens virtuous. Kant’s division is crucial both to an adequate discussion of moral theories and to a discussion of possible moral obligations. Yet it has been rarely been given sufficient attention in discussions not only of


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moral theories in general but also of Kant’s theory in particular. So I need to elaborate further on it. As already mentioned, one part of the moral world consists in public or civic morality. It is concerned with the interactions of people who are not necessarily related to one another in any intimate or personal way. They most often are strangers, related to one another only in passing. But this usually is not an insurmountable problem for public legislators, since by their very nature laws of justice often must ignore most differences between individuals. Kant held that our civic moral obligations consist mainly in obeying rules of impersonal justice, based on public reasons, that is, reasons that can be considered and adopted by all the citizens, apart from any other special allegiances they might have.5 Civil law therefore requires equality of treatment, that is, the impartial application of the same public policies to everyone. Moreover, in Kant’s view, the fundamental function of the civil order is mainly negative—to protect the freedom and rights of everyone. The worst kind of government is a tyranny, precisely because it is antithetical to freedom, and the worst threat to freedom is a paternalistic tyranny, which assumes the responsibilities of those under it. By its ill-advised benevolence, it seduces them into remaining in a permanent state of dependence, of immaturity, or, to use Kant’s word, of ‘tutelage.’ We should not be surprised, then, that Kant condemned in the harshest terms the belief that the state should assume responsibility for the happiness of its citizens. The second part of our moral world is the private or personal moral realm, which includes the relations within families and between associates and friends. Kant pointed out that laws of justice do reach into the private sphere, providing the conditions necessary for personal morality both to exist and to flourish. But civil laws extend only part of the way, mainly to impose negative parameters on the private order. Within those limits there remains an enormous amount of “elbow room,” as he called it, for constructing and carrying on our private lives and relationships. When judging how to shape our personal lives, Kant wrote, we “can decide what is to be done only in accordance with rules of prudence (pragmatic rules), not in accordance with rules of morality (moral rules)” (Metaphysics 6:433n.).6 The private part of our moral life therefore has these distinctive characteristics: First, we are still bound by norms of justice, by the same negative obligations owed others in the public realm. Neither closeness nor intimacy is an excuse for violating the rights or dignity of others. Here, however, our concerns are largely positive in nature, focused on what

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we can do to promote our own happiness and that of others, particularly those about whom we most care. Next, such prudential concerns are pre-eminently partial, for they require us to attend to the varying interests, needs, projects, and commitments of particular individuals. It is easy to see, therefore, that this is not the place for the impartiality and impersonality of the public order. Lastly, the emphasis in the private realm extends beyond behaviors to one’s feelings, intentions, and motives. This is the primary locus of character, where our values determine how we construct our lives, how we form our voluntary relationships with others, and how we mean to affect those with whom we associate. As we shall we, the line between the public and private moral worlds is not as sharp and clear as it may at first seem, and there are serious questions about where to draw the line between them. How one does that depends, among other things, on one’s convictions about both the proper function of the state and about the possibilities and limitations of human nature. We will discuss this issue further in the final section of the paper.

III Let us now to return to the consideration of each of the traditional ethical theories. We already have seen the plausibility of holding that each of the classical moral theories will address most appropriately just those problems most similar to the ones that historically had generated it. The distinction Kant made in our moral world now enables us to make a more definite claim: each of the four moral traditions is primarily concerned with either the public or the private moral arena. This is not to say that any of the four totally ignores the other part of our moral world. It is only to say that each theory is most relevant to those problems special to either the public or private arena. How might we determine which? By asking what part of our moral universe gave rise to each theory. What were the historical roots of each theory, and what problems did each consequently try to address? We therefore now need briefly to survey the genesis of each theory. 1) The Judeo-Christian tradition emphasizes a moral partnership between God and his creatures. It began as a public compact between Yahweh and the Judaic people, but in the Christian era the emphasis was shifted to the essentially private phenomenon of character, to the individual’s intentions and motives, and to each person conforming


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to the will of God. As Augustine argued in his De civitate dei, not man but God is responsible for the social consequences of obedience to his commands. So, in this tradition, the public realm is now secondary to the salvation of one’s soul. 2) The Greek tradition as epitomized by Plato in his Republic and by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics saw ethics as based on reason rather than mythology and also as part of politics.7 The individual is related to the public realm as microcosm to macrocosm; and harmony, the right order in each, requires the rule of reason. Nevertheless, because the ideal Greek city state was so small, there could hardly be a sharp division between the public and private arenas, so that the relations of citizens to one another could still be characterized as primarily personal rather than as impersonal. That is why in his Ethics Aristotle spent more time on friendship than on any other topic and focused most of the rest of his discussions on virtues of character. The fact that both Plato and Aristotle began their moral inquiries by asking what kind of person we should aim to become and how we can go about becoming that kind of person also shows that the principal focus for Greek ethics was mainly on moral character. (Today this view has been adopted by virtue ethicists who also typically hold that, because Aristotle’s account reflects now obsolete cultural values, it needs to be revised by a list of virtues more appropriate to our views today.) 3) What problems motivated Kant to construct his moral theory? Kant is almost always portrayed as concerned mainly with individual character, and his specifically political writings have traditionally been regarded as relatively unimportant occasional pieces. I wish to suggest that this view is completely misguided. Kant lived most of his adult life under Frederick the Great, whose favorite philosopher was Niccolò Machiavelli. Machiavelli had rent the moral world apart by arguing that in the public forum the prince is not bound by the ethics of the ordinary person. When necessary to stay in power, the prince not only may but should violate the norms of private morality. Kant therefore aimed to construct a theory of the human moral universe that would restore its integrity by setting public, universal, and absolute limits beyond which no one should ever go, in order not to violate anyone’s dignity or freedom.8 Kant carried this same aim into the private realm, arguing that there good character also requires a conscientious respect for one’s fellow human beings. He aimed to show how public and private life have a common ground in the moral law.9 However, as we have already seen, that principle does not by itself determine great areas of the private

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realm. The moral law then requires us to act on the principle of prudence, which in effect functions as Kant’s ‘greatest happiness principle,’ constraining each of us to promote our own development, welfare, and happiness as best as we can, and, within reasonable limits, also that of others. 4) Finally, Mill’s Utilitarianism, like Marx’s communist philosophy and Charles Dickens’ novels of social protest, arose out of their mutual abhorrence of the misery inflicted on the people of England by nineteenth-century industrialism. Mill was deeply distressed by the disease, the destitution, and the hopelessness of the great masses of the people—by the unhappiness he saw all around him. His solution, of course, was the Greatest Happiness Principle. In his Utilitarianism he, like Kant, was concerned primarily with the public order, with rules of justice that will best promote the public weal taken as a whole. There his principle operates very much like Kant’s Universal Principle of Right, mainly as a public norm against conduct injurious to others (that is, conduct contrary to what Kant had called our perfect duties to others). This also requires the state to try to eliminate impediments to the pursuit of happiness, such as disease and poverty, as well as to combat ignorance that would prevent citizens from intelligently and responsibly making good decisions.10 However, just as the public/private distinction is not sufficiently recognized, so also it often is not appreciated that Mill held that the utilitarian principle applies differently, depending on whether we use it as a norm for societal or for individual welfare. When we turn to the private realm in his companion essay, On Liberty, Mill made clear what he earlier had not in his Utilitarianism. Again like Kant, he condemned benevolent paternalism, whether exercised by the state or by societal pressure, that would repressively try to legislate how all the citizenry should be happy. He instead argued that each individual should have the liberty both to choose and to pursue his or her own conception of happiness. In general, Mill’s moral theory for the private order defends the thesis that educated persons with good character are the best equipped to pursue their own happiness as well as contribute to that of others, limited, of course, by the obligation not to inflict harm.11

IV We are now nearing the end of our examination of moral theories. Given their historical backgrounds, it seems most natural and most helpful to approach moral problems in one’s personal life through


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either virtue ethics or the Biblical tradition or perhaps a combination of both, depending upon ones faith. Both these theories are teleological, aimed at promoting the flourishing of individual persons and emphasizing how sensitive moral judgments need to take into account the particularities of individual situations. (So they typically use aretaic terms like ‘good’ and ‘appropriate,’ ‘fitting,’ and ‘right.’) Aristotle’s approach, concentrating as it does on individual virtues, often turns out to be unsuitable as well as unhelpful for the public order. Severe public stresses may also arise if proponents of a Christian or any other religious tradition try to impose a personal, denominational code on the public realm, particularly on a pluralistic society where not everyone shares the same conception of the content of God’s will. (Fortunately, however, many of the standards that religions support can also be defended by Kantian and/or consequentialist arguments.) It also seems most helpful for those concerned with morality in public life, like legislators, to look to either the Kantian or the Utilitarian tradition. Which of these should they use? Perhaps Kant’s theory is most appropriate when they are considering conducts to ban and Utilitarianism when they are thinking about ways in which the state should contribute positively to the public weal. (Both such theories are more at home with the notions of ‘duty’ and ‘obligation,’ for they hold that citizens should be constrained to certain behaviors.) Neither addresses the private moral world except in very general terms, such as the duties to develop our talents and to contribute, in so far as we can, to the happiness of others. Since we have both negative and positive aspects to our public lives, it does not appear that we can completely do without either theory.12 It should now be clear that we can best understand the significance and the value of the different moral theories we have inherited by looking to their genesis as well as by using Kant’s distinction between the public and private arenas to clarify their application. As Kant was convinced, such an architectonic gives us a way to organize and thereby clarify our thinking.13 By itself, of course, the schema will not solve all our moral problems, for we still need to develop the judgment necessary to choose and properly use theories in our lives.

V So far all seems clear. However, it does not remain clear when we leave the world of theory and introduce the schema to the world of practice, which is full of conflicting claims and practices. This is a very

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complex topic, and I will offer some comments, but I will not try to offer a complete account. In the private realm, there is always the well-known possibility of conflicts between faith and reason. Fortunately, for the most part the two seem to agree with and supplement rather than conflict with each other. But when conflicts do arise and there is apparently no possibility of a resolution, both reason and faith continue to demand one’s absolute fidelity. For that reason, many people are loath to give up either, and they live their lives with the dissonance of deep, unresolved conflicts. Others find they cannot live that way, and for them, everything depends on the depth of their faith, whether that be faith in religion or faith in reason. Regardless of what one’s choice might be, its repercussions will be painful and long lasting, for they deeply affect the very meaning of life. The criterion Kant himself used to draw the distinction between the public and the private spheres was both clear and not particularly controversial: the public order is defined by what can be legislated and enforced externally, while the private includes both public norms and what is often called the ‘internal forum,’ which cannot be legislated from without. However, the manner in which Kant populated the public sphere was not a theory-neutral matter, for it rested on a second criterion: his classical liberal view of the state.14 That kind of liberalism evolved as a protest against totalitarian governments, and liberals like Kant were insistent on giving the state only the function of imposing whatever rule of law might be necessary to protect the freedom of everyone so as to allow everyone to exercise his or her autonomy. This minimalist view of the state is predicated on the belief that once the state begins to widen its sphere by assuming paternalistic ‘safety net’ functions, it begins again to erode the freedom, the dignity, and the autonomy of the citizens. As we know, in the course of time consequentialist-type arguments have been used to extend the boundaries of public responsibility much further into the lives of the individual citizens than Kant or even Mill originally envisaged. The introduction and expansion of government entitlement programs represent a fundamental lack of trust in the ability and/or willingness of people to take responsibility for their own lives. People therefore have learned to look to paternalistic regimes to assume the responsibility for solving many of their personal problems. As Kant feared, the realm of private morality has been significantly weakened and the beneficiaries of the government’s largess have tended both to grow in number and to remain in sloth and ‘tutelage.’ The result has been a deep division in society, between those who


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choose to be (mainly) independent and those who at least appear to be permanently dependent.15 Because public laws are necessarily impersonal, they ignore the essential partiality of the private sphere. The consequence is that the administration of public welfare programs is easily judged to be both insensitive to the needs of some individuals and unjustly preferential to others. Widespread lack of respect for impersonal regulations regulating personal matters finally leads to a devastating loss of respect for the moral authority of the state. So morality in both the public and the private sectors tends to be eroded by governments full of benevolent intentions. Only a quick survey of the ways in which responsibilities are now allocated in this and other countries shows wide-spread disagreements about which belong in the public realm and which in the private. These differences are a reflection, of course, of a lack of consensus about the proper role of the state. However, we do have at least one norm, more or less neutral between moral theories, to guide us in such cases. If locating a particular moral problem in the public arena, for example, generates only confusion, seems only to exacerbate that problem, and offers no clear possibility of a resolution, we should be willing to consider relocating it in the private sector as the better alternative. Let me offer a deliberately contentious example. We all know what has happened when efforts have been made to make decisions about abortion a matter of public law: battle cries and confrontations, with little chance for the evolution of a harmonious resolution (or what Kant called ‘the general will’) that might pass legislation which at least the majority of the citizens could respect and obey. In the process, complex, conflicting and perhaps irreconcilable considerations are often oversimplified into slogans, and the ultimate victims are those most affected by such confusion. The conclusion, it can be argued, would then be to hold that abortion should be left a private matter between a woman and her physician. Because a substantial number of people will still consider abortion to be murder, they will fight to keep the issue in the public forum. But when we have tried that and ended with no solutions that the electorate as a whole can agree upon, it surely is plausible to argue, as both Kant and Mill did, that the government should not try to legislate what people should and should not do until there has been substantial progress toward a clear consensus. To paraphrase what Justice Antonin Scalia said recently when asked about the Supreme Court’s deciding another medical and moral issue, “Why would you

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want to leave that to nine lawyers, for heaven’s sake?” (Quoted in Newsweek, April 15, 1996, p. 27). Perhaps Justice Scalia was thinking of recent opinions of the Court, showing that the justices are as far from agreement on many such issues as the general populace itself. As of the present moment, therefore, there are substantial reasons for holding that such decisions should be left in the private sector. There is also another argument for favoring this alternative. It is significant that the number of abortions has increased at the same time that technology has supplemented simple abstinence with the most effective means ever available for preventing conception, thereby obviating the need to consider most abortions. It is plausible, then, to believe that a crucial reason why abortions are still so numerous must be a lack of strong, positive moral values on the part of those responsible for pregnancies they themselves do not want and so terminate. The area of character may be part of private morality, but, as Aristotle saw, the moral development of the citizens still can be deeply affected—supported and promoted—by public policies with an educational function. If done effectively, those who might otherwise be tempted to have an abortion may find the very idea so abhorrent that they simply will not think of it as a live alternative. Their moral convictions would then have no need to be supplemented by public legislation. Perhaps this may not seem the right place for concluding my paper. I have offered what I believe are critically important suggestions about how to think of and use our classical moral theories, and about what they can and cannot do. But now, at the end, we are left in the middle of a serious, ongoing moral disagreement, with no sure resolution in sight. And, as has already been mentioned, the recommendations included in this paper bear little semblance to the various ways in which moral responsibilities are actually divided. These very problems show the need, not to jettison our moral theories as the anti-theorists have proposed, but for a more informed willingness to use them as vehicles for trying to achieve a consensus. In the Groundwork Kant wrote that if he had only clarified the ultimate moral norm, what he had done was still “quite a considerable gain” (4:425). I would like to think I might invoke the same claim now about moral theories.

Notes 1

Early versions of parts of this paper were read at the Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University, January 1992; the Eighth International Kant Congress, March


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1995; at the 1996 meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology; and at the annual meeting of the Canadian Maritain Association, May 1996. 2 Whereas the traditional concerns had been largely with moral argumentation and disagreements, Williams focuses on the convergence of opinions, and on why convergence in the sciences and convergence in ethical discourse differ radically from one other. Scientific agreement, he writes, must somehow be a matter of being guided by “how things actually are,” while ethical agreement is “a part and consequence” of people living together in what they consider to be “the best social world for human beings.” See pp. 93, 127, 136, 154-5. For this reason Williams argues that the notion of moral obligation needs to be supplemented by attention to the notion of importance—a recognition of which considerations make a life worth living. He concludes with his own list of fallacies, or philosophical errors, each of which, he writes, overly simplifies the complexities of human moral life. They include: taking all obligation to be ethical and the only type of ethical consideration; and thinking that whatever lies outside obligation is only inclination, that outside of absolute freedom there is only force, and that whatever is not absolutely just is not just at all. 3 A minority of texts do discuss the origins of moral theories. See, for example, Robert Arrington’s Western Ethics. 4 Further there may be no moral theory that can guide us in some particularly difficult cases. We have no good reason to expect moral theories to be that powerful. 5 I owe the expression “public reasons” with its Kantian overtones to John Rawls; see his Political Liberalism, pp. 212-54. 6 The translation is Mary Gregor’s, the emphasis mine. The importance of this citation has seldom been recognized. 7 There is little dispute about Plato. For Aristotle, see Bodéüs. 8 For an example of how useful it can be to approach Kant’s moral theory through his political philosophy, see Sullivan, An Introduction to Kant’s Ethics. Like this paper, that book originated with problems about how best to teach an undergraduate course. 9 In his political writings Kant called the Categorical Imperative the “Universal Principle of Law [or of Right]” and restricted its application to what is appropriate for public law to legislate, namely, public behaviors. See Kant, Metaphysics of Morals 6:230-31. 10 So Mill held that the morally best citizen is the one who promotes the public good because he is that kind of person, even if doing so does not bring him much personal happiness; see his Utilitarianism, ch. 1. 11 Alan E. Fuchs has reminded me that, more precisely, Mill also held that the state may intrude on apparently private actions which harm only the agent, if they do not seem sufficiently “voluntary.” Likewise, some public and harmful actions should remain free from societal concern if those harmed do not have the right to be free from such harm—such as merchants ruined by fair competitive business practices and authors whose careers are seriously injured by critical reviews. 12 The fact that one needs to choose what one judges the most appropriate theory for each part of one’s life should not raise concerns about moral relativism. The presumption, for example, is that a religiously devout person would and should choose a religious moral theory for personal decisions. As we shall see in a moment, the choice of one’s theory for public life depends on whether the theory

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one is using is resolving problems (consistent with our intuitions) or exacerbating them. 13 Kant’s claim is confirmed when such a scheme as this in fact proves very helpful to students who, after taking an ethics course, are otherwise left with an incoherent concatenation of theoretical claims, without the ability to know what to do with them. 14 David Gallagher helped me get clear on how Kant’s thinking here depended on his minimalist liberalism. 15 A recent change in the government’s view of the United States welfare system has significantly altered the factual situation.

References Arrington, Robert. Western Ethics: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. Bodéüs, Richard. The Political Dimension of Aristotle’s Ethics. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Clarke, Stanley G. and Evan Simpson, ed. Anti-Theory in Ethics and Moral Conservatism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Couture, Jocelyne and Kai Nielsen, ed. On the Relevance of Metaethics: New Essays on Metaethics. Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, 1995. Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. A new trans., with analysis and notes H. J. Paton. London: Hutchinson, 1961. ———. The Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. and ed. Mary Gregor. Introduction Roger J. Sullivan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Palmer, Michael. Moral Problems: A Coursebook. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Rawls, John. Political Liberalism. NY: Columbia University Press, 1993. Sullivan, Roger J. “The Influence of Kant’s Anthropology on his Moral Theory.” Review of Metaphysics 49.1 (Sept. 1995), 77-94. ———. An Introduction to Kant’s Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Timmons, Mark, ed. Conduct and Character. Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1990. Williams, Bernard Arthur Owen. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

2 ~ Wisdom as Foundational Ethical Theory in Thomas Aquinas

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Wisdom as Foundational Ethical Theory in Thomas Aquinas

Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov’s doctrine as given by another character, Miusov: Only five days ago, in a gathering here, principally of ladies, he solemnly declared in argument that there was nothing in the whole world to make men love their neighbors. That there was no law of nature that man should love mankind, and that, if there had been any love on earth hitherto, it was not owing to a natural law, but simply because men have believed in immortality. Ivan Fyodorovitch added in parenthesis that the whole natural law lies in that faith, and that if you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism. That’s not all. He ended by asserting that for every individual, like ourselves, who do not believe in God or immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately be changed into the exact contrary of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to crime, must become, not only lawful but even recognized as the inevitable, the most rational, even honourable outcome of his position. (Dostoyevsky. The Brothers Karamazov 78-9; emphasis mine)1

Introduction One problem for the foundation of ethics is the question of the reality of nature. Is there any such thing as nature?2 Much prevailing scientific orthodoxy gives the idea that the coherence and order of reality is ultimately accidental.3 Another problem focuses on the move from being to goodness-for-me (from “is” to a decisive “ought”). Even given that things have natures, and that natures are interesting and beautiful, what relevance has the appeal which they make to one’s appetites? The sapiential response to both of these problems is to present the appetite as pertaining to the nature of the thing. The human appetite is appetite for the fullness of being proper to the intellectual

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nature: to be, in a way, all things. Things have more the nature of goals, just to the extent that they participate in or pertain to such fullness. The ultimate happiness must be beyond the grave, a knowledge of God, the source of being as such, beyond what is possible in the present state.4 ,5 In this present state of life, the contemplative operations have most of all the nature of the goal. The next highest line of operation is that which orders the will regarding the whole community, i.e. governmental felicity, which brings rational order to the realm of choice (Summa theologiae 1-2.3.5). Below this are domestic and individual reasonableness. The task of wisdom is simply to present the ordered vision.6 Action itself is always the domain of freedom. What can ethics be but an appeal to reason?7 And what can its foundation be, save the foundation of such an appeal?

Wisdom What do I mean by “wisdom”? I mean that philosophical knowledge that says whatever is possible about God and the relation of other things to God. The conception of wisdom is presented by Thomas Aquinas at the beginning of the Summa contra gentiles (1.1) and at the beginning of the ST (1.1.6). This is because Thomas himself holds that the work he is undertaking in them, i.e. the theology which pertains to revealed Christian religion, is the highest form of wisdom.8 Later on in the ST, he discusses philosophical wisdom as the highest of the intellectual virtues (1-2.66.5).9 I am proposing that ethics has as its proper foundation the consideration of the relation between the human being and God the creator and providence. The idea is that without the doctrine of God, no morality is possible.10 In this connection, I might note that in present-day vocabulary, the word “religion” often means exclusively the revealed religion that is the object of faith.11 I am working with a philosophy that claims to prove the existence of a God, and contends that the ethical theater of action really follows upon this viewpoint. Thus, I am speaking about natural ethics associated with a metaphysics of divine order in things. St. Thomas distinguishes, as I said, between philosophical wisdom and the wisdom that pertains to revealed religion. While I believe that the real well being of humanity requires the latter (this is the point of the very first article of the Summa theologiae, i.e. 1.1.1), it would seem both possible and desirable to isolate for consideration the philosophical wisdom.


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Different names are given to the supreme philosophical science. It is called “metaphysics,” “ontology,” and simply “wisdom.” As the science of beings as beings, it is called “ontology.” What do we mean by calling this same science “wisdom”? The right pathway to an answer starts from Aristotle’s observation that “wisdom” is associated with judgment and putting things in their proper order. (A fine text on the doctrine that putting things in order pertains to wisdom is to be found in SCG 2.24 [#1005]. This chapter also ends by saying that God does everything according to a ratio, a reason.) Now, the judgment concerning an effect is made in the light of its proper cause. And the judgment concerning secondary causes is made in the light of the supreme cause. Thus, as Thomas says: that [person] is called “wise” in any particular domain who considers the highest causes in that domain. For example, in the domain of construction, the technician who considers the design of the building is called “wise” and the “architect,” in comparison with the lower technicians .… And again, in the domain of the entirety of human life, it is the prudent [person] who is called “wise,” inasmuch as he orders human actions to their due goal .... He therefore who considers the highest cause, unqualifiedly, which is God, is called “wise” maximally: hence, wisdom is said to be “knowledge of divine things,” as is clear in Augustine, On the Trinity 12 [c. 14; Migne 42.1009]. (ST 1.1.6)

Thomas goes on to distinguish between the science which knows the highest cause merely on the basis of knowledge of creatures (what the philosophers know) and the science which knows that cause as to what God alone knows about himself and chooses to reveal. It is this latter with which Thomas is occupied (ST 1.1.6). However, inasmuch as metaphysics or ontology is knowledge of God, it is wisdom. Thomas, in discussing the ascendancy of wisdom over all the other intellectual virtues (among which is ethics),12 points to the excellence of its object, as compared to the objects of the others: the greatness of a virtue, as to its species, is considered from the object. But the object of wisdom has priority of excellence among the objects of all the intellectual virtues: for it considers the highest cause, which is God, as is said in the beginning of the Metaphysics. And because it is through the cause that one judges concerning the effect, and through the higher cause concerning the lower causes, hence it is that wisdom has judgment over all other intellectual

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Lawrence Dewan virtues, and it belongs to it to provide order [ordinare] for them all, and it itself is architectonic with respect to them all. (1-2.66.5)13

Wisdom is the knowledge of God, the highest cause, inasmuch as it is ontology, i.e. the science of being as being. This is because being as being, i.e. being, taken formally, is the proper effect of the highest cause (1-2.66.5.ad 4).

Ethical Theory What do I mean by “ethical theory”? Human action is voluntary, and voluntary action needs rational direction (ST 1-2.1.1). Since actions are performed in things as having individual being, the knowledge that directs action must extend to the consideration of things as individual (ST 1-2.6.prologue). Thus, this knowledge cannot be merely a series of general considerations, but must study things as individual. The ultimate knowledge pertaining to action is associated with the virtue of prudence or practical wisdom. However, the theater of human action has certain universal or typical features, and this makes possible a science of human conduct (ST 1-2.58.5 in its entirety is very helpful). This is “ethics” or “moral philosophy.” Ethics, the science of human conduct, is not to be confused with psychology or anthropology or sociology. These are all merely observational rather than directive. They look at the human being as manifesting certain common tendencies, and thus their view is focused on human nature rather than on human freedom. (Indeed, they look more at the lower aspects of human nature, wherein our particular conduct is more predictable: cf. ST 1.115.4.ad 3.) They typically try to say whom you (the typical “you”) will vote for, whereas ethics tries to say whom you (the personal “you”) should vote for (though only in a somewhat general way). Neither should ethics be confused with technical knowledge. (See ST 1-2.57.4 in its entirety; while this distinguishes between prudence and technique [ars], it applies also to the distinction between ethics and technique.) Technical knowledge certainly directs human action. Whether you are building bridges, or building a society, or merely seeking to stay alive, there is “know how” that you will need. There is “political science” in the modern sense, which often means “how to acquire and keep office,” “how to stay on top.” However, technique is something the human being has in common even with other beings that do not have mastery over their actions. Ants exhibit technique. So do bees.14 For the human being particular techniques


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constitute a realm of acquired knowledge, because reason is a kind of universal technique which can supply what the ant can do and what the bee can do and so on ad infinitum.15 Technique (in its universal mode) pertains to the human being as rational, but not precisely as a voluntary agent.16 Our concept of ethics cannot be fully exhibited until we have provided a conception of the will and its “proper object.”17 So much, for now, for ethics. But what do I mean by “ethical theory”? “Theory” here is being taken in the sense of “the vision of reality as given.” Other expressions would be “observational knowledge,” “objective knowledge,” “contemplative knowledge.” The sciences pertaining to human action or conduct or behavior that I mentioned above—psychology, anthropology, sociology—are all “theory” in this sense. They aim “to get a good look” at the given. They do, as said, seek to predict what a human being will do, but even then it is inasmuch as the future is somehow “already given” in its roots or principles.18 However, when I say that a theory or theoretical science is presupposed as foundational by ethics, one must not assume that such a science will be something like psychology. It is going to have to be a science that knows what to say, in a primary way, about the human will. That science, I am going to say, is not psychology, but rather is metaphysics, the science of beings as beings. (I take it as evident that a knowledge of such sciences as psychology is helpful in ethical reflection.) I am aware that this line of thinking has long had its adversaries. John Rawls19 is not, of course, the first to advocate an independence of ethics vis-à-vis metaphysics. The only answer to such critics is to explain oneself as carefully as possible.20 Ethics itself must be taught before one studies metaphysics, but in that condition it gets its starting-points by some grasp of a less probing sort than the sapiential (CM 6.1). Nevertheless, like all the sciences, it has its true wellbeing when it basks in the light of metaphysics. Wisdom is in a commanding position, even as regards prudence itself (ST 1-2.66.5.ad 1).

God and Ethics When I say that a God is required for ethics, this could easily be misunderstood. I do not mean exactly that we must start our ethical vision with a God (and I certainly do not mean that ethics will be primarily a “divine command” doctrine).21 We should remember that

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for Thomas Aquinas, the existence of a God is something which, scientifically speaking, requires a reasoned proof from necessary principles (ST 1.2.1 and 2). Among the proofs that he presents, the Fourth Way begins: “There is found in things something [which is] more and [something] less good, true, noble, and so on with other things of this order” (ST 1.2.3: “Invenitur enim in rebus aliquid magis et minus bonum, et verum, et nobile; et sic de aliis huiusmodi”). This is to say that we are supposed to be able to recognize goodness, and even a hierarchy of goodness, prior to concluding to the existence of a God. However, it is precisely from such a vision of things that the existence of a God becomes manifest, where the term “a God” means “a maximal [in the order of ] being [as such],” which is “the cause of being and goodness and every perfection for all beings.”22 Thus, the end-product of our reasoning is a vision of reality such that to deny the existence of a God is to rob all else of its goodness. Accordingly, there is a remarkable argument in the SCG, at the end of a chapter on divine providence: Through these [foregoing arguments] is excluded the error of some who, because bad things are seen to happen in the world, said that there is no God: as Boethius [reports], in On the Consolation of Philosophy 1 [prose 4], introducing some philosopher asking: If God is, whence comes the bad? One ought to argue in contrary fashion: If the bad is, God is. For there would not be the bad if the order of the good were done away with. But this order would not be, if God were not. (SCG 3.71 [#2476])

The order of the good and God stand and fall together. Thomas contrasts the movement of thought of revealed theology and philosophical theology, the former moving from God to creatures and the latter from creatures to God. (See SCG 2.4 [#876]. The contrast is between “the doctrine of philosophy” and “the doctrine of faith.”) Accordingly, I will begin with creatures, and, more specifically, I will focus on their goodness.

The Goodness Tableau It is notable that an early work by John Dewey touching on the foundations of morals begins with “the good,” a topic which indeed occupies over half the book. The candidates passed in review in the discussion are all meant to designate the human good. While obviously that is the item one seeks ultimately to designate, one must


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rather begin with a discussion of goodness as a universal form,23 coextensive with being. Only in that way does one stand a chance of getting the right perspective on human action.24 In the Summa theologiae 1, reality is presented as hierarchical in structure. Most notably, as already mentioned, in 1.2.3, on the existence of a God, the Fourth Way begins: “There is found in things something more and something less good, true, noble and so on with other things of this order.” Eventually in the Fourth Way it is seen that being is also one of the items belonging to “this order;” and God is ultimately presented in the Fourth Way as “maximally a being, which is the cause of being and goodness and of every perfection whatsoever for all beings.” It is this picture of things, this understanding of things, which we require. The fundamental outlook is of things as beings, taking “being” both as it is divided by the categories and as it is divided by act and potency.25 That is, one takes seriously the particular natures of things, and primarily substances, as they reveal a hierarchy of perfection: elements, vegetative life, animal life, human life: all so many modes of substance. Furthermore, one takes seriously causal hierarchy: the need that beings have for higher beings: the priority of act over potency. My plan, then, is to begin with natures and finality, then to consider hierarchy in such finality of natures, and ultimately to place the rational or intellectual nature in the hierarchy. Rather than plunge immediately into the step-by-step presentation of the nature of goodness or perfection, I think one needs first of all to have a sample of the vision of a hierarchy of goodness.26 Here, as always, my ambition is to present the mind of Thomas Aquinas. Do we find him providing us with an example anywhere? One text that seems relevant occurs in his discussion of the corporeal creature in general, and the reason why God created it. We might recall that in Thomas’s time there were influential groups who maintained that God was not the creator of corporeal reality, and this precisely on the grounds that corporeal reality as such was something bad. We thus find him first arguing that God is the cause of corporeal reality, and that it is good (ST 1.65.1c. and ad 2). However, another idea that was abroad was the somewhat Platonic conception of corporeal reality as something designed to imprison and punish spiritual beings who had sinned. This too was viewed by Thomas as at odds with the text of Genesis, which concludes the account of the production of each species of creature with the statement: “God saw that it was good”; as though to say that for each species to be was itself something good (ST 1.65.2). Thus, Thomas

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goes on explain the many dimensions of the goodness of things, culminating in the view that the raison d’être of corporeal reality is to manifest the divine goodness. What we are given here is a presentation of things in their function of finality. Goodness is seen to be found primarily in what has the role of goal or end, i.e. that which stands at the head of any group of merely useful things, as that which has no need to plead its “usefulness” because it is loved for its own sake, intrinsically worthwhile. Secondarily, to be “good” is to be “useful,” or “helpful.” My car is useful, since it provides all sorts of service for my family; my family, on the other hand, is just plain lovable: it is unqualifiedly good. The vision of a hierarchy of goods is, then, a vision of things as themselves meriting to be considered as ends, i.e. things for the sake of which other things are considered worth pursuing or providing. The idea of Thomas’s discussion of the goodness of the corporeal creation is to show that it has (1) intrinsic goodness, that it furthermore (2) serves the greater goodness found in spiritual reality, but yet also (3) has the character of serving the divine goodness.27 Here is what he says: the universe in its entirety is made up of all creatures corporeal and incorporeal], as a whole [is made up] out of parts. Now, if we wish to indicate the purpose [Latin: “finem,” end] concerning some whole and its parts, we will find, firstly, that the particular parts are for the sake of their acts: as the eye for seeing. And, secondly, that the less noble part is for the sake of the more noble: as the senses for the intellect, and the lungs for the heart. Then, thirdly, all the parts are for the perfection of the whole, the way the matter is for the form: for parts are, as it were, the matter of the whole. But going even further, the complete human being is for some extrinsic end, as that he find fulfilment in God.—So also, then, in the parts of the universe, each creature is for the sake of its own proper operation and perfection. Secondly, the less noble creatures are for the more noble, as the creatures which are below the human being are for the human being. But, going further, particular creatures are for the sake of the perfection of the universe as a whole. Further still, the entire universe, with its particular parts, is ordered towards God as towards an end, inasmuch as in them, through some [measure of] imitation, the divine goodness is represented, for the glory of God (though the rational creatures in a special way, over and above that, have God as an end, whom they can attain to by their operation, knowing and loving [Him]). Thus, it is clear that the divine


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goodness is the end [i.e. the raison d’être] of all corporeal things. (ST 1.65.2)28

In the above, St. Thomas is especially interested in relating the being of bodily things to the manifestation of the divine goodness. They do not have to have their existence justified through their making life difficult for intelligent creatures who are worthy of punishment. They are good in themselves, good for other creatures, and good as mirroring, however weakly, the divine goodness.29 On the other hand, my interest in presenting the text is to provide an example of a vision of things, through the eyes of Thomas Aquinas, which sees goodness in them, and levels of goodness. Consideration of the human being is used as a first step, and the first step in the presentation of the human being is to look at one bodily organ relative to its operation. This is quite in accord with the Aristotelian presentation of the proportion of potency to act (Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.8 [1050a7-13]). So also, we are encouraged to consider the proportion of all the parts to the whole: parts are to whole as matter to form, which latter is the prime case of potency to act (Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.6 [1048a30-b9]; cf. De anima 2.1 [412a20-27]). Again, we are expected to grasp the greater goodness, the greater intrinsic lovableness, of mind in comparison with sense, and of the human animal over the lower animals and the plants (see, e.g., SCG 3.112 [#2860]). What I wish to insist upon in all this is that the vision of reality as a hierarchy of goodness is not a vision merely of moral goodness (which is goodness in the domain of free choice), but primarily a grasp of each sort of thing as intrinsically lovable, and of the many kinds of thing as possessing, this one more, this one less, what makes a thing worthy of actual existence. (Cf. ST 1.65.1.ad 2, where Thomas replies to those who regard things as bad, unqualifiedly, simply because they are harmful in some way to humans; the text is quoted later in this paper.) Saying that a thing is “worthy of actual existence” might lead one to judge that goodness is merely the approval expressed by the human being (or even a more exalted observer). The only cure for this “subjectivist” conception of the situation is an understanding of the role of approval, i.e. of inclination or appetite or love, in the schema of being. Goodness is what is approved of, yes, but it is not good because it is approved of; it is approved of because it is good.30 To call the good “good” is to speak of it as something which, for us, has light thrown upon it by its ability to elicit approval. If we wish to get at it more as it is in itself, then we should

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speak of the perfection of the thing. Thus, Thomas Aquinas presents a discussion of perfection in q. 4 of ST 1, and, in fact, presents qq. 5 and 6, the discussion of goodness both in general and in God, as extensions of the question on perfection. Such a doctrine of goodness invites us to see what is meant by “perfection” in things, and to see that tendency or appetite is universal. Such a tableau presents tendency, order, proportion, inclination, not as something “outside of being,” “outside of goodness,” such that we see the natures of things, but do not see why appetite aims at those natures. Rather, such a tableau presents inclination as part of nature, presents it as the counterpart, within being, of goals or perfections. As Thomas says, “Some inclination attends upon every form” (ST 1.80.1).31

Nature and Teleology Thus, the truth that nature acts for an end is crucial for the existence of ethics. Only in seeing this do we see goal and tendency as belonging together in being as being. Our pathway in arguing for that truth against naysayers starts with the self-evidence of our own acting for an end. But our own acting for an end cannot, in itself, constitute ethics. All technique acts for an end.32 The defense of ethics passes through the understanding of nature, and the ends proper to diverse natures. (The importance of nature for the conception of dispositions and virtues is well brought out in ST 1-2.49.2 and 3.) We see that nature acts for an end inasmuch as we see the same kind of order, the same kind of proportion that we establish between a goal and the steps towards it, but see that order as found in things considered as existing prior to the human mind and its works.33 We see that there exist in nature goals and instruments for bringing about those goals. The natures of things are themselves goals, and the lives of natural beings have an order towards those goals. We see in being, as prior to human intervention, the nature of “the unqualifiedly lovable” and “the qualifiedly lovable,” the “bonum honestum” and the “bonum utile.” Not only goodness, but love as well, belongs to being.34 Having started with human technique, and having understood the teleology found in nature, we are well positioned to see ourselves, not merely as choosers, but as ourselves having a natural inclination. Not merely as part of corporeal reality, but also as intellectual beings, we have a nature. That nature has a kind of infinity, relative to corporeal reality. (Cf. e.g. ST 1-2.2.6; 1-2.10.1.ad 3.) We have a capacity


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to know which is ordered towards being in its universality: “all things.” Moreover, we have a natural desire, which is proportionate to that universal capacity to know (ST 1.54.2; 1.59.1; 1.80.2; 1-2.10.1.ad 3).35 It is the human being as a nature with a natural goal, a natural perfected state or fulfillment, which governs the entire conception of ethics (Cf. ST 1-2.1.7.in toto, especially ad 3; also, 2-2.47.15: “The correct goals of human life are determinate.” [Fines autem recti humanae vitae sunt determinati]). Here, of course, I am echoing Aristotle: “to say that happiness is the chief good seems a platitude, and a clearer account of what it is is still desired. This might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of man” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.7 [1097b24-25]). And, in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Thomas Aquinas comments: Since man is something existing by nature, it is impossible that he be naturally idle, as [a thing] not having a proper operation. There is, therefore, some operation proper to man, just as there is of those [techniques] which are added to him. The cause of this is that each thing, whether natural or artificial, has being [est] through some form, which is the principle of some operation. Hence, just as each thing has its proper being through its own form, so also it has its proper operation. (1.10 [#121])

Goodness This leads us to the point: what is goodness? It is significant that Thomas, in the ST 1, presents first the divine simplicity (q. 3), then the nature of perfection, in q. 4, and then the notion of goodness, in q. 5.36 Cajetan, in his commentary on the article which asks whether God is perfect, carefully presents the idea of perfection as pertaining, not to the nature itself of a thing, but to that nature’s mode (or level or grade or intensity) of being. The perfect is the best mode of being pertaining to a nature. He illustrates this: For a thing can be understood and can be [intelligi et esse] under several modes of being [sub modo essendi multiplici], one of which is better than another: for example, the nature of plants and animals has in the seed a certain mode of being, and it has another mode of being in the generated individuals, and again in the same things once grown, etc. And it is clear that the first is, and is called, “imperfect,” because the specific nature is there in potency only; but the second is “somewhat perfect” [aliqualiter perfectus]; whereas the third is unqualifiedly perfect [simpliciter perfectus].37

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I notice that “best” enters into Cajetan’s conception, but I think this merely testifies to the difficulty of expressing these primary notions. Thomas himself does not use the notion of the best. He rather says that that is perfect which is not lacking [de-esse!] what pertains to its own level of perfection.38 That is, he did not use “best,” but only at the cost of having to use the notion of “perfection” itself. Obviously, we are close to a primary notion. Thomas immediately associates it with “being in act.” So does Cajetan. And this is, as he says, a mode of being. Remember that Thomas includes “act and potency” among the naturally known, the first known, intelligibilities. Thus, it is explained that act is among the first simple and thus indefinable notions; and that through seeing proportions in particular examples, one comes to know what act is and what potency is: “And thus, proportionally, from particular examples, we can come to know what act is and [what] potency [is]” (CM 9.5: [Et ita proportionaliter ex particularibus exemplis possumus venire ad cognoscendum quid sit actus et potentia]). We see the vision of perfection as a hierarchy of reality in the same ST article on God’s being “maximally perfect.” Being perfect is seen as associated with efficient causality. This is because being in act [esse in actu] is what pertains to the agent, the efficient cause, as such. We see, then, that our grasp of things as in act or in potency is one with our understanding of efficient causal relationship (cf. SCG 3.69 [#2447]). God has been reasoned to as the primary efficient cause, and thus is maximally in act. Then it is pointed out that something is called “perfect” inasmuch as it is in act. That is perfect, to which nothing is lacking [deest], as regards its own mode of perfection (ST 1.4.1: “Lack” here is not true privation, since it pertains merely to the difference between potency and act. A child is not “deprived” of what ought to be present, if it is immature in the years to which immaturity belongs). One sees from the example used by Cajetan how our conception of the good (which is the perfect) is being generated by our grasp of the proportion between the seed and the immature thing, the immature thing and the mature thing. In the same schema, we see the revelance of movement from the earlier to the later stage, the place of development and tendency in the theater of the good. If we move now from perfection to the actual presentation of the good, the first point is that every good is a being, or rather, that to call a being “good” does not involve talking about some further real item, but is a new way of talking (and thinking) about the same item, already called “a being”: the good does not differ in reality from


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the being. It does, however, add a new notion to our description of the being. The notion it adds is relation to appetite.39 Thomas begins (ST 1.5.1)40 with the notion of “a good.” It consists in this, viz. that something is appetible, an object of (or precise opposite number vis-à-vis) appetite. The word “appetible” is here used in a way parallel to such words as “audible,” “visible,” “tangible,” “desirable.” The audible or hearable is the “object” of the power of hearing, and Thomas is speaking of the appetible as the object of the power of appetite. Thus, calling a thing “a good,” we are using the notion: object of appetite. Now, Thomas takes another step. A thing has the character: appetible, according as it is perfect. That is, if we wish to envisage things “the way we want them,” then we should envisage them the way they are when they are all there, i.e. lacking in nothing that pertains to their own proper nature. If we have been planning some event, e.g. a family party, and not knowing whether some much loved member can get there, and if, when the party is in progress that person suddenly arrives, then we say: that makes it perfect—it’s just the way I wanted it! Thus Thomas says: a thing is the object of appetite insofar as that thing is perfect: for “all things have appetite for their own perfection” (this is nothing less than a law of beings as beings, a law Thomas believes the human mind can grasp through its experience with natural things; it also comes about as close as one can to a definition of appetite).41 In the ST 1 sequence, as we have seen, there has already been a discussion of perfection and the perfect, i.e. in q. 4. Having moved, in his argument, from good to appetible to perfect, Thomas takes a further step. It is to this extent that a thing is perfect, viz to the very extent that it “is, actually”; and this brings us to our calling a thing “a being.” We call a thing “a being” as something having “being” [esse, i.e. the Latin infinitive of the verb is used]— ”esse,” “being” is the act-uality of every real item whatsoever. Hence, to call a thing “a good,” which is to call it “an object of appetite,” is to refer to its being perfect, and so to its being “in act” (in the sense of “actually”), and so to its act of being. Thus, what we are naming is the precise item we call “a being.” But we are expressing, by the word “good,” the notion “object of appetite,” which the word “a being” does not express. Thomas, in q. 5, establishes not only that every good is a being, but also that every being is a good (ST 1.5.3). Also, the aspect of goodness expresses final causality, but it presupposes the perfection which makes a thing an efficient cause and, first of all, the form

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which makes the thing a being (ST 1.5.4). The factors: form, measure, and order all pertain to goodness (ST 1.5.5). The proper division of the good as good is into the intrinsically lovable [honestum], the enjoyable, and the useful (ST 1.5.6). This metaphysics of goodness, applying the term “good” in every domain whatsoever, and not merely from a human point of view, relates directly to the doctrine that nature is a cause which acts for an end. This doctrine, presented by Aristotle in Physics 2, makes appetite something that pertains to every being, inasmuch as it is a being. This is why Thomas regularly presents inclination as including “natural inclination” as well as “animal inclination” and “will” (cf. e.g. ST 1.59.1 and 1-2.26.1). And he teaches, as we said, that “some inclination accompanies every form” (ST 1.80.1). One can speak thus of transcendental inclination. In the ST 1-2 presentation of the order of natural law, the first mode of inclination is that which all substances have in common, viz. to preserve their own being.42 This is why Thomas chides those who judge a thing as “bad” merely because it is harmful for the human being. He says: the corporeal creature, as regards its nature, is good; but it is not the universal good, but is some particular and limited good; and in function of that particularity and limitation there is accordingly contrariety in it, by virtue of which one [corporeal creature] is contrary to another, though each in itself is good.—However, some people, judging things not on the basis of their nature, but on the basis of their own comfort, regard whatever is harmful to themselves as unqualifiedly bad; not considering that what to one is harmful in some respect, to another, or even to the same thing in some other respect, is beneficial. And this would in nowise be, if bodily beings, just in themselves, were bad and harmful. (ST 1.65.1.ad 2.)

It is this viewpoint, which uses the vocabulary and conceptions of goodness universally, which constitutes the setting for morals. We have the presentation of goodness in q. 5, such that it is being in act, it is esse, which constitutes goodness. A thing is perfect inasmuch as it has esse;43 and all have appetite for their own perfection. Thus, goodness is perfection, since goodness is the object of appetite. We should note this conception of substance (or selfhood) as such, aiming at perfection. It is closely tied to the doctrine of nature acting for an end.


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Appetite In the above, the notion of appetite mediates between perfection and goodness. Thomas says that each thing has appetite for its own perfection. This is really the doctrine of 1.19.1,44 1.80.1, and such texts. There we move from being and form to inclination, and from inclination to the good. It seems as if we are being asked to see the goodness of things by seeing the difference between the perfect and the imperfect (act and potency), and then seeing the “move” of things, issuing from within themselves, from the imperfect to the perfect. This is the manifestation of inclination, tendency, appetite. Each thing has appetite for its own perfection; this is very close to ‘some inclination accompanies every form.’ Perhaps the presentations by Thomas of the way will follows upon intellect would best serve to bring out this doctrine. The notion of being, taken just by itself, rather naturally suggests a merely static tableau. And the notion of knowledge, as mirroring being, is still rather static (“static” because “being” and “true” are more absolute than “good”: cf. ST 1.82.3.ad 1). Consider, however, how Thomas introduces the divine will. Is there what we call “will” in God? Thomas has already introduced the reader to intellect in God (ST 1.14.1 [and the whole of q. 14]). Accordingly he says: “it is to be said that in God there is will, just as in him there is intellect: for will accompanies intellect” (ST 1.19.1). It is this accompaniment of intellect by will that Thomas undertakes to make evident, leading the reader from more observable to less observable things. We have here nothing less than a doctrine of being, a fundamental ontology, which introduces us to the thing called “inclination.” We read: For just as the natural thing has being in act [esse in actu] through its own form, so also the intellect [has] understanding in act through its own intelligible form.45 Now, any thing whatsoever has this order towards its own natural form, that when it does not have it it tends towards it; and when it does have it, it reposes in it. And it is the same concerning any natural perfection whatsoever, which is the natural good [bonum naturae]. And this order towards the good, in things lacking knowledge, is called “natural appetite.” Hence, so also, the intellectual nature [natura intellectualis] has a similar order towards the good apprehended through the intelligible form; viz that when it has it, it reposes in it; but when it does not have it, it seeks it. And both [attitudes] pertain to the will.

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Lawrence Dewan Hence, in anything whatsoever having intellect, there is will; just as in anything whatsoever having sense, there is the “animal appetite.” (ST 1.19.1; my emphasis)

This presentation focuses on the “being in act” which follows upon form, and thus presents a tendency which accompanies form. The “movement towards” form and “repose in” form is related to form’s conferring “being in act” [esse in actu]. In this light, form whether substantial or accidental will be perfection and goodness.46 Also, we note that we do not speak merely of “intellect” when the time comes to make the comparison, but of “intellectual nature.” It is as if we are to view the intellect as a new dimension of natural being, expanding the meaning of “tendency,” “inclination,” “order towards the good.” Following a reading of this, one should read ST 1.59.1, on will in angels. Being a text which presupposes that one has seen that there is a God who wills all the rest of reality, it presents all the levels of inclination in the universe as a manifestation of divine will. However, the philosophical reader can “read it upwards,” beginning with the universe as our means of forming a conception of the divine will. It aims to establish that there is will in the angels, i.e. the already envisioned created intellectual substances, but what it is saying about them can just as well be said of the human soul. It begins with the notable premise: “it is to be considered that, since all [things] proceed from the divine will” (ST 1.59.1). Thus, the whole of reality is being envisioned as the expression of a will, i.e. the appetite that accompanies understanding. Let us begin again: “it is to be considered that, since all [things] proceed from the divine will, all are inclined by appetite, each at its own level, towards the good, but in diverse measures.” (We have in De veritate 22.1, “whether all things have appetite for the good,” a remarkable prelude to this ST presentation.) For some are inclined towards the good by mere natural order, without knowledge, such as plants and inanimate bodies. And such inclination towards the good is called “natural appetite.” But some are inclined towards the good with some knowledge; not, however, such that they know the very idea of the good, but they know some particular good; thus, the sense, which knows the sweet and the white and such things. The inclination attendant upon this knowledge is called “sensitive appetite.” But some are inclined to the good with a knowledge by which they know the very idea of the good; which [knowledge] is proper


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to intellect. And these are most perfectly inclined towards the good; not, indeed, merely as directed to the good by another, as in the case of those things which lack knowledge; nor merely towards a particular good, as in the case of those things in which there is only sensitive knowledge; but as inclined towards the good in its universality [in ipsum universale bonum]. And this inclination is called “will”. Hence, since the angels know through intellect the universal idea of the good [ipsam universalem rationem boni], it is evident that in them there is will. (ST 1.59.1)

Thus, we see reality as shot through with tendency towards the good, but those beings which have intellect or mind have inclination in its most perfect realization, as beings which experience the appeal of goodness as such.47 Notice that the above text sees the inclination in things as a result and a manifestation, an imitation, of the divine inclination. The premise unspoken appears to be the often-mentioned doctrine that an agent produces something like itself (cf. e.g. ST 1.4.3). God is productive as inclined to the good, and the beings, as such, which he produces are imbued to inclination to the good. It does not merely happen to a being that it is active, and seeks goodness. Let us go back to q. 19, on the divine will. The article following “does God have will?” asks whether he wills things other than himself. The presentation in a. 1 is not only correct, but is fundamental for the idea of inclination; Thomas will always use as a first principle in discussions of inclination, that each thing has appetite for its own perfection. That is, inclination is very directly related to the perfection of, or perfecting of, the being it is in.48 Nevertheless, inclination is not limited to one’s own self. And it is instructive to see Thomas reply to the question: does God will things other than himself? People have sometimes thought that it would be an imperfection for God to have a mind that considers things other than himself, and similarly one might think that to will another was an imperfection. (This line of thinking is actually countered by Thomas in 1.19.2.ad 2 and ad 3.) Thus, Thomas presents God as willing things other than himself, and does so by continuing the comparison he used in a. 1: the natural thing does not merely have a natural inclination with respect to its own good, that it acquire it when it does not have it, or that it repose in it when it has it; but also that it diffuse its own good into other things, according as this is possible. Hence we see that every agent, inasmuch as it is in act and perfect, makes something similar to itself. Hence, this also pertains

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Lawrence Dewan to the character [rationem] of the will, that the good that one has, one communicate to others, according as this is possible. And this pertains especially to the divine will, from which, by a certain likeness, all perfection is derived. Hence, if natural things, inasmuch as they are perfect, communicate their good to others, much more does it pertain to the divine will, that it communicate through likeness its goodness to others, according as this is possible. (ST 1.19.2)

What I wish to highlight here is the view of all beings as so many (in some degree) perfect things, which thus have a communicability and an inclination to communicate. Each being is not merely a thing in itself, but is a “broadcaster” of its own perfection. Each being, inasmuch as it is perfect, is an imitation, not merely of “God,” but of the divine will. The model for beings is the reproducing plant or animal, one might say: the robin is a thing that produces robins, radiating “robinhood” (pardon the pun). One should not regard “willing things other than oneself ” as merely added on accidentally or arbitrarily to having a will. The unity of the doctrine is especially clear in the discussion of whether it is natural (for the rational creature) to love God more than oneself. When an objector says that nature is turned back towards itself, and that thus it would not be natural to love something else more than oneself, the answer of Thomas is to signal the ampleness of being of various “selves.” By nature, we love our own specific being, our own specific self, more than our individual self; and all the more do we love the universal good which is God more than all else (ST 1.60.5.ad 3). In the article, he had explained that our own being is intrinsically dedicated to the service of God, somewhat as one of our limbs is dedicated to the service of the whole body. My point is that in a causal hierarchy of natures, the higher natures will have it as pertaining to their own perfection,49 that they radiate that perfection.50 The intelligent being is thus a being that, if it must develop from imperfection to perfection, tends to do so willingly, and also tends to radiate the perfection it achieves. (This dimension of the ethical situation, that the human being is such as to take time to develop perfectly, is signaled in such texts as ST 1-2.5.7).

Hierarchy As I have put this so far, it might give the idea of a random broadcasting of a chaos of diverse particular natures. That there are particular natures the development of one of which is opposed to the


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development of another is quite clear (cf. ST 1.65.1.ad 2,quoted earlier). However, there is a hierarchy of natures, some having more comprehensive or systematic roles than others. In Thomas’s presentation of the universe of goodness, he begins with the human being, where the eye has as its end the act of seeing. However, as he goes on to say, the senses are for the intellect; and all the parts are for the whole. Thus, looking at the eye, one sees, “superimposed” as it were, several levels of inclination. The eye is not only perfected with the power to see, but is given a certain place, i.e. in the head, and given a certain musculature for revolving. These things pertain to its service to the whole. So also, then, as we saw, Thomas says, looking at the universe: “in the parts of the universe, each creature is for the sake of its own proper operation and perfection. Secondly, the less noble creatures are for the more noble, as the creatures which are below the human being are for the human being. But, going further, particular creatures are for the sake of the perfection of the universe as a whole” (ST 1.65.2). His whole point is that, in order to size up a thing from the viewpoint of goodness, it will not do to take only its most immediate aspect. One must see it as a member of an ordered hierarchy of goodness. The lowly corporeal creature then reveals its being “because of the divine goodness.” It is remarkable that Thomas begins his question on homicide with the article on the killing of brute animals. If we look at the objections to the killing of animals, we notice the second. Is not homicide forbidden because it is a taking of life? Should we not then ban the killing of animals, which is also a taking of life? Thomas specifies that what is forbidden is the taking of rational life, which is a source of events. Animals are more moved than movers, a sign that they are for the use of others (2-2.64.1.ad.1).51 And in the body of the article, it should be noted that, once it is established that, by virtue of the ontological hierarchy, the plants and animals are meant for human use, it is then further argued that use as food requires killing. Thus, one comes to the licitness of killing. We read: no one sins by the fact that he uses some thing for that for which it is. But in the order of things the less perfect are for the more perfect, just as also in the pathway of generation nature procedes from imperfect things to perfect things. And thus it is that just as in the generation of man the living thing is prior, then the animal, and lastly the man; so also those things which merely live, such as

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Lawrence Dewan plants, are generally for the sake of the animals, while all animals are for the sake of man. And so if man uses the plants as a utility for the animals, and the animals as a utility for man, this is not illicit, as is clear from the Philosopher in Politics 1 [1256b15]. (ST 22.64.1)

If Thomas’ particular example concerning the order of human generation is outmoded, nevertheless his general picture, that the nonliving preceded the living, and the plants the animals, and the animals man, is held generally by present-day science.52 I think at this point one should fill out the conception of reality, and its hierarchy of goodness, with a consideration of the distinction between what things pertain to the universe as intended by its author just by virtue of themselves, and what things pertain to the universe as useful for those primary things. The familiar group of the nonliving, the vegetative, the animal, and the human does not give us enough sense of this being a hierarchy of being as such. Two great avenues of consideration seem available. One is the general distinction between the cognitive (in its perfect mode, the intellectual) and the non-cognitive. This is a sort of static contrast between levels of reality, what Cajetan calls “orders” (see for instance his commentary on ST 1.80.1). To see it as a contrast between higher and lower modes of being, one should remember the word of Aristotle, that the soul is in a way all beings (De Anima 3.8 [431b21]). That is, the intellectual being is in a way all being. It possesses the nature of being in a way which contrasts sharply with the merely particular being of the noncognitive nature. Higher and lower natures act for ends, but the intellectual nature envisages and approaches action from the viewpoint of being, and so of goodness.53 The other avenue is that of efficient causality. In fact, we appreciate efficient causality primarily because of our own causal power, and that has its roots in our intellectual power. We can envisage opposites, and so make choices. (ST 1.83.1: “it is necessary that man have free decision [sit liberi arbitrii], by the very fact that he is rational.”) However, this leads us to a fuller conception of nature. It is not merely true that lower nature acts for an end. It is also true, and we can see it, that lower nature does so only because it is under the influence of higher nature, that is, of intelligence.54 Our first step was that nature acts for an end. Our present step is to consider that the work of nature is a work of intelligence. To be sure, there are many examples even in lower nature of one kind of thing serving another, and thus of a hierarchy of goodness. Still, the pri-


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mary schema affirms that nature presupposes the causality proper to will. At present, we have a rather truncated philosophy of the physical world, and hardly speak of “intelligence higher than the human,” save occasionally to speak of a God. The ancient doctrines of intermediate cosmic intelligences no longer apply. However, this line of conjecture remains an honorable one. Of course, sub-human nature affords a theater for the development and expression of the human mind, but it may not be merely that. It may also express higher subdivine minds.55 The foundational point is that the rational creatures are provided for just on account of themselves, in contrast to the rest of creatures, which are ordered to the rational creatures. Here, I will note two arguments from among many. The following one gives, as it seems to me, a good idea of the sort of distinction that is involved: Whenever some things are ordered to some end, if any among them cannot attain to the end by themselves, it is necessary that they be ordered to those which attain to the end, which are ordered to the end because of themselves: for example, the end of the army is victory, which the soldiers attain by their own act, i.e. by fighting, which soldiers alone are sought after because of themselves [propter se] in the army; but all others, assigned to other jobs, for example looking after the horses, caring for the arms, are sought after because of the soldiers in the army. But it is clear from the foregoing that God is the ultimate end of the universe, whom the intellectual nature alone attains to in himself, knowing and loving him, as is clear from what has been said. Therefore, the intellectual nature alone is sought because of itself in the universe, but all others because of it. (SCG 3.112 [#2858])

As one sees, this argument supposes that God is the end of all. It is difficult to leave him out. One’s very conception of the nobility of the rational creature emerges from the intensity of that creature’s “God-directedness.” A second argument gives a remarkable presentation from the viewpoint of being, one that serves more as an approach to the existence of God, in the line of the Fourth Way: It is evident that all the parts are ordered to the perfection of the whole: for the whole is not because [propter] of the parts, but the parts are because of the whole. But intellectual natures have a greater affinity with the whole than do the other natures: for each

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Lawrence Dewan intellectual substance is somehow all [beings] [unaquaeque intellectualis substantia est quodammodo omnia], inasmuch as it is inclusive [comprehensiva] of the whole of being [totius entis] by its intellect: whereas any other substance has only a particular participation in being [entis]. Suitably, then, the others are provided for by God because of [or for the sake of] the intellectual substances. (SCG 3.112 [2860])56

The Image Of God I have said that our vision of goodness should come before our concluding to the existence of a God, in keeping with the procedure of the Fourth Way. However, this hierarchy of natural goodness does not complete our introduction to the moral order. While we can see things as inclined towards ends, and even see the human being as so inclined, we do not have the complete moral setting until we bring God into the picture as the transcendent summit of being and goodness.57 A primary reason for this is that God comes into the picture precisely as the ultimate end. As Thomas says: all things have appetite [appetunt] for God as the goal [finem], in having appetite for any good whatsoever, whether by intelligible appetite, or sensible [appetite], or the natural [appetite] that is without cognition; because nothing has the aspect of the good and the appetible, save according as it participates in the likeness of God. (ST 1.44.4.ad.3)

Clearly, goodness and God pertain to a single intelligible schema. Secondly, it is because, once we have God in the picture, then we can present the human being as the image of God, and consider the properly human way of moving towards the end. The moral order is precisely that properly rational way of moving towards the divine goodness. (ST 1.2 prol.; 1-2. prol.) The presentation of man as the image of God refers to an effect that imitates the nature of the cause. All God’s effects imitate him, though he infinitely surpasses even the highest of them. What the concept of image suggests is that the imitation is as close to the species of the cause as possible. We do not call a thing an “image” on the basis of mere generic likeness or of some accidental feature. The closest resemblance to God in creatures comes through intellectuality:


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it is evident that the likeness of the species is approached in function of the ultimate difference. Now, some things are assimilated to God, firstly and most commonly, inasmuch as they are; but secondly, inasmuch as they live; but thirdly, inasmuch as they wisely consider or understand [sapiunt vel intelligunt] …. Thus, therefore, it is evident that only intellectual creatures, properly speaking, are in the image of God. (ST 1.93.2)

Thus, the last step in my presentation is to bring God on the scene and to present the human being, or, more generally, the intellectual creature, as made in the image of God (ST 1.93.4). It is this that gives us the true face of ethics.58 It envisages, as goal, a perfect state of such a creature, contemplating the divine and operating in full cooperation with God. It envisages a need for a developmental stage in which such a being moves from immaturity to maturity in such contemplation and co-operation. It is remarkable the way the texts on morals speak of society with God, and the treating of the natures of things, including our own human nature, as intended by the author of nature.59 How does the human being fit in, in the reality created by God? Here, we add to nature the dimension of intellectuality (and, accordingly, of will). But the human being does fit in! I remember regularly seeing, in my student days in France, posters for discussions of the topic: L’homme est-il nature ou liberté? Is man nature or liberty? The suggestion of the question was: “Never the twain shall meet!” What I mean to insist on here is that liberty has its place in nature. Thomas significantly speaks of the “intellectual nature” in introducing both intellect and will.60 ,61 That the human intellect is a part of nature might be argued from the unity of the human being, and the need we have to use the senses and imagination in order to understand (cf. e.g. ST 1.84.7 and 1.89.1). The will and liberty might be more of a problem. It is significant that people who are not sure they can establish the spirituality of the human soul on the basis of its mode of knowing sometimes turn to human freedom as a surer basis. (In Phaedo, Plato provides the sort of argument I mean, though, of course, he does not shy from the argument based on intellectual cognition [94b-95a].) However, I am here asking what is, I believe, a more general sort of question. I grant that there is a remarkable difference between the things that have intellect and the things that do not. The intellectual nature is characterized by an ampleness, to be contrasted with the narrowness, the limitation, of the non-intellectual. The intellectual nature, through

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knowledge, is in a way all beings. The entirety of being can somehow be found in one thing (ST 1.14.1; 1.54.2; 1.79.2; etc.). My question would be: what is the meaning of this difference? Why are there these intellectual beings? They are not uncaused. They reveal this by the need to learn, as well as by a “passivity” in the face of beings as beings (ST 1.2.3.ad 2; 1.79.2 and 4). In this line of thinking, we reason to the existence of a cause of lower and higher nature, a cause in which there is absolute simplicity, and thus in which there is identity of natural being and intellection. Notice I do not say merely “intellectuality,” for that is the name of a nature. I say “intellection,” which is what is highest in the order of operation (ST 1.18.3). The conception of the human being that we must pursue is as made “in the image of God.” What does this mean? It is a line of thinking which sees man as having mastery over his own acts, through intellect and free will (ST 1-2.prol., cited above), but also (unlike God) as having a distinction between substance and operation, between being and understanding, and indeed between understanding and willing. Not only do we have an intellect that requires development. We also have a will that requires development (ST 1-2.5.7). To be like God but not to be God. Thus, our lives are occasions to perfect this likeness. And it is a likeness that cannot be merely preprogrammed. The “space” for our development is not within nature as “already given,” but is the space of infinite option made available to intellect and will (ST 1.54.2). Our intellects and wills transcend finite nature, going in the direction of the divine nature (cf. ST 1.113.2.ad 3). Does this mean “anything goes”? No, only for God does anything go, and that is because he is and acts in view of the very essence of goodness. We have a nature that merely participates finitely in goodness.62 We do have a goal of our endeavor that is naturally given. The ends of human life are already given. This is to say that there is a “right use” of all we have. The goal of the created intellect is knowledge of God. We must take seriously the tableaux of human reality with contemplation as giving meaning to everything, even the political realm.63 The passivity of the human mind is of great importance here. It is a “guest” in the theater of being, and is nourished, perfected, by the contemplation of being as given. Moreover, there is the distinct dimension of will and agency. Intellect by itself is not a source of events (ST 1.14.8). Intellect as such is far less a domain of development than is will (ST 1-2.22.2). The will needs the intellect as a guide, because the intellect is, in a way, “al-


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ready there”: it is the “eye” of the will (ST 1-2.17.5.ad 2). Will is the principle of coming to be. The movement of the appetite is from being in the mind to being in reality.64 Only because the intellect has a vision of the good, i.e. what a thing might be if it were all there, does the will seek to bring the good about.65 Being which is other than God can be a representation of God only by means of a variety of contributions. Fundamentally, there are the contributions of substance, of intellect, and of will. When the will is satisfied, created being is complete. Only when created being is complete is the will satisfied. The developable created intellect is only complete when it has the fullest possible knowledge of God. Or we should say that the substance is satisfied (according to will) when the substance has fullest possible knowledge of God (according to intellect; cf. e.g. ST 1-2.4.4).

Conclusion Obviously there are many features of this doctrine of foundations upon which we have hardly touched. There is the metaphysics of freedom, of divine providence, of evil. The above is meant to suggest only a pathway. We have said that it is necessary to present the rational creature as the primarily intended creature, with other things for its sake. In ethics, we present all use of things in accordance with their own purpose as good and reasonable. Thus, all creatures lower than man are for the sake of man, and are well used in being put at his service. But what about the “human use of human beings”? What is our right order with respect to ourselves? Ethics is of secondary importance. We must not let ourselves be caught in the spell of “the sanctity of ethics.” In some ways, this is a sort of substitute for religion. In a society that has become increasingly secularized, the absence of morals leads to a kind of glorification of “values.” In the face of this, we must assert the primacy of contemplation, and the role of ethics as in the service of contemplation. Ethics is essential, but is not what is best.66 I conclude with a repetition of the fundamental point to be made, concerning the objectivity of goodness. “Goodness is in things.”67

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Notes 1

In Laurence Shook’s biography of Gilson (285), we learn that Gilson gave a paper on April 18, 1948, “Les intellectuels et la paix,” to be found in Horay, ed. Semaine des intellectuels catholiques. Gilson examined peace in terms of the Nietzschian atheism that permeates the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre; for Sartre existentialism was the will to extract the necessary consequences from a coherent atheism. Gilson used his own historical method to draw a comparison between the outlook of men of 948 who were expecting the Antichrist and of men of 1948 who have been told there is no God. If there is no God, as Dostoevsky had Karamazov say, then everything is permitted. The terrors of the year 2000 would become a dominant theme for Gilson over the next few years. Shook refers us to The Terrors of the Year Two Thousand and to “Les terreurs de l’an deux mille.” 2 Cf. Aristotle, Physics 2.1: “That nature exists, it would be absurd to try to prove; for it is obvious that there are many things of this kind, and to prove what is obvious by what is not is the mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is selfevident from what is not” (193a1-6). 3 Writing in 1971, Etienne Gilson, in a Sept. 8 letter to Jacques Maritain, lamented the inability of contemporary scientists to grasp the importance of form. Speaking of “modern science,” he says: What separates us irreparably from it is the Aristotelian (and common sense) notion of Substantial Form [his caps] .… Descartes rid nature of it. They understand nothing anymore since they forgot Aristotle’s great saying that “there is no part of an animal which is purely material or purely immaterial.” It is not the word “philosophy,” it is the word “nature” which separates us from our contemporaries. Since I do not have any hope of convincing them of the truth (which yet is evident) of hylomorphism, I do not believe it is possible to propose our hypothesis to them as scientifically valid. (Prouvost, Correspondance 250; emphasis mine) 4

Summa theologiae (ST) 1-2.5.3. Here we have a discussion that treats of beatitude, starting with its very idea. This would appear to apply even to such beatitude as there would be in a state of pure nature. 5 Thomas’ considerations of beatitude are strongly turned towards beatitude as divinely revealed. However, since grace perfects nature, there is necessarily some possible natural beatitude. That Thomas considers such a state is clear from texts such as De malo 5.1. There it is taught that the appropriate penalty for original sin is the lack of the divine vision. Obj. 15 contends that a man born in the purely natural state, even if he never sinned, would deservedly lack the divine vision, to which one comes only through grace. Thus, that lack can hardly be a punishment. Thomas replies (ad 15): a man constituted in purely natural conditions [in solis naturalibus] would indeed lack the divine vision, if he died in that condition, but nevertheless there would not pertain to him the “deservedly not having.” For it is one thing “not to deserve to have,” which does not have the aspect of penalty but merely lack, and something else “to deserve not to have,” which has the aspect of penalty.


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Thomas’s conception of the afterlife without the divine vision is to be seen in his presentation of the children who die without being baptized, and thus suffer the penalty due to original sin: De malo 5.3. This article asks whether the souls of such children suffer any interior sadness. The general answer is that they do not. Thomas criticizes those who say that this is because of their ignorance. Not merely are they not ignorant, but they are intellectually better off than are humans in this life. Others say that the children have well-ordered wills, and it would be a disorder to grieve about something one had no opportunity to have. Thomas himself offers a “middle position,” involving an element of ignorance and an element of non-opportunity. He says: We can, nevertheless, putting both together, hold a middle path, such that we say that the souls of the children do not lack natural knowledge, of such sort as is appropriate for the separated soul in accordance with its own nature, but they lack the supernatural knowledge which is planted in us here by faith, by the fact that they never here had actual faith, nor did they receive the sacrament of faith. But it pertains to natural knowledge that the soul knows itself to have been created for beatitude, and that beatitude consists in the obtaining of the perfect good. But that that perfect good for which man has been made is that glory which the saints possess, is beyond natural knowledge. Hence, the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 2 [9], that “eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it occurred to the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him,” and subsequently he adds: “But to us God has revealed [it] through the Holy Spirit.” Which revelation pertains to faith. And so the souls of the children do not know that they have been deprived of such a good, and for that reason they do not grieve; but what they have by nature, they possess without sorrow. (De malo 5.3, lines 81-102) To form a better idea of this natural beatitude they have, we have only to consider the account of the natural knowledge of the separated soul, in ST 1.89.1.ad 3: God pours into such souls species, i.e. intelligible forms, which are participations in the divine light. In his only previous ex professo discussion of the condition of the souls of the unbaptized children after death, in Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 2.33.2.2 (863), Thomas held the position he placed second in De malo 5.3, viz that the children knew of the supernatural divine vision but their well-ordered wills prevented any grieving over not having it, because it had never really been available to them. Thus, the later Thomas seems to bear down harder on how much beyond natural knowledge the very existence of the supernatural is. In the Sentences text, at obj. 5 and ad 5, it is quite clear that the souls of the children rejoice in their natural knowledge of God. 6 This is the point of Plato’s Republic; cf. book 2 (367e). The responsibility of the philosopher is to so present goodness that it is seen to be intrinsically lovable, quite apart from extraneous reward; to so present the bad that it is seen to be intrinsically repulsive, quite apart from any extrinsic punishment. 7 Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.3: “[to those led by passion] as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit (1095a10).” This does not exclude the reasonableness of avoiding punishment, or the reasonableness of training oneself to act reasonably. 8 ST 1.1.6:

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Lawrence Dewan He ... who considers [what is] unqualifiedly the highest cause of the entire universe, which is God, is called “wise” maximally.… Sacred doctrine most properly determines concerning God according as he is the highest cause: because, not merely as regards that which is knowable through creatures (which the philosophers have known, as is said in Romans 1.19: that which is known of God has been manifested to them); but even as regards that which is known to him alone about himself, and [has been] communicated to others through revelation. Hence, sacred doctrine is called “wisdom” maximally.

“Sacred doctrine” is Thomas’s term for the sort of knowledge found in the ST. See also 2-2.45 on the Gift of the Holy Spirit entitled “wisdom;” note, for instance, 2-2.45.1.ad 1, on the many forms of evil wisdom (“wisdom” in a qualified sense). 10 I think of the contention of Ivan Karamazov, quoted at the outset. Does this connect with Kant’s need for God and immortality as postulates of practical reason?—Karamazov’s insistence on immortality might mean that it is the aspect of reward and punishment that is primary. This takes attention away from the issue of intrinsic goodness. 11 The need to make such a distinction was brought home to me more forcefully in reading Shook’s biography of Gilson. Maurice Pradines said to Gilson in a letter dated Feb. 19, 1941: “This Catholic road, as you pursue it to the stars with such authority, seems to lead straight from philosophy to religion” (246-47). Shook says that Gilson did not agree that philosophy could lead to religion. In this connection he mentions an article by Gilson entitled “Sagesse et société,” and cites Gilson’s introduction to Le philosophe et la théologie: “You don’t find the sources of religion at the end of a philosophy. If you want to talk about the sources of religion, you have to start from religion which, indeed, has no source but is itself the source. There is no other way of coming to it” (xxi). This can only be true as meant of revealed religion, whose starting-point is faith. I would insist that there is a natural knowledge which leads us into natural religion, the natural reasoning to a God which leads us to the practical judgment that this God ought to be worshipped by me; cf. ST 2-2.85.1. Metaphysics is the full flowering of this original natural reasoning. 12 Because ethics is a science and thus bears upon universals, one can know it and teach it without personally possessing the promptings of moral virtue: “concerning those things which pertain to chastity he who teaches moral science rightly judges through the investigation of reason, but he who has the habitus [i.e. the disposition] of chastity rightly judges through a kind of connaturality with those things” (2-2.45.2). 13 For the reference to Aristotle, cf. 1.2 (983a5-12) and Commentary on the Metaphysics (CM) 1.3. It must be noted that while Thomas does not generally allow that God is the subject of metaphysics, he here makes God the object of the virtue of wisdom. At ST 1.7, he tells us that the subject stands related to a science the way the object stands related to a power or habit. Of course, to consider metaphysics as wisdom is to take it in a somewhat special way. 14 Thomas, in making the point that our ultimate happiness cannot consist merely in the activity of practical intellect, says that while in the contemplative life we have something in common with God and the angels, in those things which pertain to the active life even the other animals have something in common with us, though imperfectly. I.e., not only is there technique among animals, but there 9


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is also a share in “prudence,” a share in moral virtue. See ST 1-2.3.5 and SCG 3.35 (para. 5). Recently there have been some studies published concerning the beginnings of morality among lower animals. By “morality,” in those studies, seems to be meant altruistic behavior. 15 And the hand is the “tool of tools,” i.e. the tool which supplies all tools. See ST 1.76.5.ad 4, quoting Aristotle, De anima 3.8 (431b28). Thomas says: the intellective soul, which is comprehensive of universals, has power as regards an infinity [ad infinita]. And therefore there cannot be determined for it by nature either determinate natural judgments or even determinate aids regarding defenses or shelters; as is the case for the other animals whose souls have apprehension and power determined to some particulars. But in place of all these, man naturally has reason, and [has] the hand, which is the tool of tools, because through it man can prepare for himself instruments in infinite variety and for infinite effects. 16

Thus, Thomas comments on Aristotle’s saying that there is some virtue (in the truly moral meaning of the word) which pertains to technique (ars): because in order that the human being make wholesome use [bene utatur] of the technique which he has, good will [bona voluntas] is required, which is brought to perfection by moral virtue, therefore Aristotle says that there is a virtue which is [added] to technique [artis est virtus], viz moral [virtue], inasmuch as for its [technique’s] good use some moral virtue is required. For it is evident that the technician, through justness [per iustitiam], which establishes right will [voluntatem rectam], is inclined to do his work in a trustworthy way [fidele]. (ST 1-2.57.3.ad 2, concerning Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.5 [1140b22])

17

Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Ethicorum 1.1 [ed. Spiazzi, #1-2-3]: There is an order which reason, by considering, produces in the operations of the will ….[That] order of voluntary actions pertains to the consideration of moral philosophy .… Just as the subject [matter] of natural philosophy is change or the changeable thing [motus vel res mobilis], so also the subject [matter] of moral philosophy is human operation ordered towards a goal [operatio humana ordinata in finem], or even the human being inasmuch as he is acting voluntarily for the sake of a goal [vel etiam homo prout est voluntarie agens propter finem].

18

See ST 1.115.4.ad 3: what human beings will do is predictable, especially in general; but free choice can overcome the passions that so largely prevail among humans, and is thus ultimately unpredictable. On our ability, in general, to know the future, see 1.86.4. 19 Cf. Nielsen, “Justice as a Kind of Impartiality.” He distinguishes Rawlsian-type morality of justice from David Gauthier’s (Hobbesian) type, and distinguishes both from ethics viewed as depending on a metaphysics. They do not rely “on moral realist beliefs of either an intuitionist or naturalist sort in which moral truths are discovered as articulating some antecedent reality not dependent on human construction” (512). And we read “What Gauthier rejects Rawls more prudently sets aside as unnecessary for the articulation of a theory of justice. He travels, as he puts it himself, metaphysically, and indeed philosophically, light.

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(This seems to me, as it has not seemed to some others, is [sic] a not inconsiderable virtue)” (513). Here he refers us, among other things, to Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical.” 20 In a letter to James Rowland Angell dated May 10, 1893, John Dewey, when still young and searching, wrote with respect to ethics: “metaphysics has had its day, and if the truths which Hegel saw cannot be stated as direct, practical truths, they are not true” (quoted in Coughlan 73). We should note that “metaphysics” here is closely associated with “Hegel.” Earlier, Dewey was less critical of metaphysics, as we note below. 21 God is not what is first known by the human mind, though, once known, he is what is primarily loved: cf. ST 2-2.27.4 in its entirety. This is a most important statement concerning reality, our situation in it, and the laws of cognition and appetition. 22 ST 1.2.3: “Est igitur aliquid quod est verissimum, et optimum, et nobilissimum, et per consequens maxime ens” and: “Ergo est aliquid quod omnibus entibus est causa esse et bonitatis et cuiuslibet perfectionis, et hoc dicimus ‘deum.’” 23 On being or that which is [ens] as “universal form,” cf. ST 1.19.6; also De veritate 21.4.ad 4, which explicitly includes also “the good” [bonum]. It is true that the good includes in its conception not only form, but also measure and order: cf. 1.5.5. 24 In Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics, Dewey presents Hedonism and the Kantian doctrine as opposite extremes, and sees the good in satisfaction of desires according to law. The law is intrinsic to the desires. The essence of morality is development of personal talent, which, as such, truly contributes to the welfare of the community: “in the performing of such special service as each is capable of, there is to be found, not only the satisfaction of self, but also the satisfaction of the entire moral order, the furthering of the community in which one lives” (129-30). This is the “postulate” on which depends what he calls “moral theory,” i.e. ethics. Notice that while he says that ethics has this “postulate” as its starting-point, he explicitly notes that he is not saying it cannot be proven. But that is a job for metaphysics: “the metaphysics of ethics” (130). He tells us: Unless, then, we are to extend our ethical theory to inquire into the possibility and value of moral experience, unless, that is, we are to make an excursion into the metaphysics of ethics, we have here reached our foundation. The ethical postulate, the presupposition involved in conduct, is this: IN THE REALIZATION OF INDIVIDUALITY THERE IS FOUND ALSO THE NEEDED realization of some community of persons of which the individual is a member; and, conversely, the agent who duly satisfies the community in WHICH HE SHARES, BY THAT SAME CONDUCT SATISFIES HIMSELF. (130-31) 25

Aquinas, CM 5.9, commenting on Aristotle at 5.7 (1017a22-b10): “[Aristotle] distinguishes ‘a being’ (ens), as found in reality outside the mind, by means of ten categories, and this is perfect being .… [Then] he divides ‘a being’ by means of potency and act: and ‘a being,’ so divided, is more common than perfect being: for ‘a being, potentially’ is a being only in a qualified sense, and is imperfect” (emphasis mine). 26 Though the job of the metaphysician is to begin with the primary intelligibilities, such as being, and to build up the conception of goodness as something


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derivative, nevertheless we also need, and even first of all, a vision of the effect, from which we work towards the cause. We are more “at home” with a vision of things as good than as beings; cf. ST 1.82.3.ad 1: the more comparative character of the intelligiblity “goodness,” as contrasted with being and truth. Indeed, in the domain of goodness and appetite itself, we start with what is most sensibly manifest, i.e. desire, rather than with what is primary in reality, i.e. love. Cf. ST 1-2.25.2.ad 1. 27 On the threefold proper division of the good, into (1) the simply good, (2) the pleasant, and (3) the useful, see ST 1.5.6. “The good” is predicated of these three by analogy, in the order indicated: 1.5.6.ad 3. 28 That article’s first objection contends that corporeal creatures were created for the sake of their own being; and Thomas points out that this is entirely in harmony with their being created for the sake of the divine goodness. The second argues that the corporeal creature, being a lesser good than the spiritual, is for the sake of the spiritual; and Thomas replies that this too is true. The last objection and reply focus on the good of the entire universe as requiring creatures of greater and lesser goodness, in order to represent the divine goodness. We thus see the four levels: corporeal being, spiritual being, universal being, divine being. 29 The idea here is that the only ultimate explanation of the reality other than God is God himself as having the sort of being which deserves or merits repetition, even if only in imitations. Thus, at ST 1.44.4, on whether God is the final cause of all things, we read: every agent acts for the sake of an end: otherwise from the action of the agent one thing would not result rather than another, save by chance .… But to the first agent, who is purely an agent [i.e. in no way a patient], it does not belong to act in order to acquire some end; but rather [the supreme agent] intends purely and simply to communicate his own perfection, which is his goodness. And each creature intends to attain to its own perfection, which is a likeness of the divine perfection and goodness. It is in this way that the divine goodness is the end of all things. And in the same place, ad 1: “to act on account of need pertains only to an imperfect agent, whose nature it is to act and be acted upon. But this does not befit God. And so He alone is maximally liberal, because he does not act for the sake of what is useful to himself, but solely because of his own goodness.” 30 This is true as regards the creature’s approval of the goodness of things. God’s love of a thing is prior to the thing’s being and goodness; cf. ST 1.20.2: because our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but by that [goodness] it is moved as by the object, our love, by which we will good for something, is not the cause of its [the thing’s] goodness; but rather, conversely, its goodness, whether true or [merely] so adjudged, provokes love, by which we will for it both that the good which it has be preserved and [the good] which it does not have be added; and we work for this. But the love of God is pouring in and creating [infundens et creans] goodness in things.

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31

In De veritate 22.12 (lines 93-95), we are told: “inclination is the disposition of the mover, in the way that an efficient cause moves [i.e. brings movement about; inclinatio autem est dispositio moventis secundum quod efficiens movet].” 32 ST 1-2.57.4.ad 3: prudence deliberates well about those things which pertain to the entire life of the human being, and to the ultimate end of human life. In some techniques there is deliberation regarding those things which pertain to the proper goals of those techniques. Hence, some, inasmuch as they are capable of deliberating well in matters of warfare or navigation, are called “prudent [or “wise”] generals or navigators, but not “prudent, unqualifiedly,” but rather those only who are capable of deliberating well in matters which relate to life as a whole. 33

See Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 2.12-13-14, on Aristotle’s 2.8 in its entirety. Thomas, with Aristotle, holds that to reduce natural happenings to mere material and efficient causes, which “happen” to hit upon what we call “ends,” is to do away completely with nature and the natural: ends are truly attained, and either by nature or (rarely) by chance. The Empedoclean doctrine (which we see in Darwinism and neo-Darwinism, taken as complete explanations) is against the very idea of nature. (Commentary on Physics 2.14). 34 ST 1-2.26.1. Is love a good? Yes, as something which is good for those things which have it: ST 2-2.25.2 in its entirety, which asks: is charitable love itself something lovable? 35 All of 1.60, save a. 2, is on the will’s natural love. It is a pity that so little attention is given to ST 1.60 in reading 1-2.94.2, on the inclinations pertaining to natural law. 36 An interesting text with regard to the entire study of goodness and its relation to “appetite,” “perfection,” and “being” is to be seen at SCG 1.37, on the goodness of God. Thomas is arguing that communication (i.e. causality) of being and goodness derives from goodness, so that, since God is cause of being, he is truly good. In arguing that communication of being and goodness pertains to goodness, he says this is apparent both from the very nature of the good [ex ipsa natura boni] and from the notion of the good [ex eius ratione]. I.e. he splits his argument so as to make his point in terms of the nature of the good, on the one hand, and the idea of the good, on the other hand. First, the nature: “For, naturally, the good of each thing is its act and perfection. But each thing acts [i.e. operates] by virtue of its being actually. And, in acting, it radiates being and goodness into others.” Second, the idea: “But the notion of the good stems from this, viz that it is the appetible. And it is this by being the goal [Quod est finis]. Which is what ‘moves’ the agent to act.” 37 Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan, O.P. (1468-1534). His commentary on the ST, dating from the 1490s, is printed in the Leonine edition of that work. He taught metaphysics at Padua, theology at Pavia (1497-99), was Master General of the Dominican Order (1508), Cardinal in 1517. See the commentary on ST 1.4.1. 38 ST 1.4.1: “it is in accordance with [precisely] this that something is said to be ‘perfect,’ viz that it is in act [est actu]: for that is called ‘perfect’ from which nothing is abs-ent [deest], as regards the mode [or measure] of its own perfection.” I am playing with “absent” to bring out the insistence, crucial in Thomas’s explanation, on the verb “to be” [de-est].


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The word “appetible,” like “knowable,” is used to express the character of the object of a power. It thus includes in its meaning a relation to appetite. However, this is not, within the appetible thing itself, a real relation, but rather a relation of reason. The appetite is really related to the loved or desired or enjoyed object, but because the operation of the appetite remains within the operator, it does not, as such, affect the object. The object is an object (i.e. the appetible is an appetible) merely by, so to speak, “being itself” or “minding its own business.” Cf. CM 5.17. It has the role of “measure of being,” while the operation has the role of “the measurable.” Cf. ST 1.13.7, on one-way relations in general. In De veritate 21.1 (lines 162-78), presenting the notion of the good, and referring to Metaph. 5.17, Thomas focuses on relation as a sort of dependence; thus, in the situation where one depends on another and not the converse, there is on the side of the nondependent a mere relation of reason. Thomas sums up the cases concerned, as where there is measure and measured, or perfective and perfectible. He there defines the good as a being [which is] perfective of another after the manner of an end [ens perfectivum alterius per modum finis] (lines 208-9). In ST 1.13.7, he explains the same situation as one wherein the extremes or poles of the relation are not in the same order of things (things in reality are not in the same order as those same things merely in cognition; God and created reality are not in the same order). In the CM text referred to above, Thomas makes use of the fact that such actions as seeing and understanding do not go out and affect the things seen or understood. The general classification of the relations is of measurable and measure, but more fundamentally of one thing depending on another for its being (cf. #1004). 40 Thomas tells us: that-which-is-good [bonum] and that-which-is [ens] are identical, as to the things being talked about; and they differ only as to the idea expressed. This is clear as follows. The idea of the good consists in this, that something is an object of appetite; thus, the Philosopher [Aristotle] says in Ethic. 1 that “the good is what all have appetite for.” But it is evident that each thing is an object of appetite just inasmuch as it is perfect: for all things have appetite for their own perfection. But each thing is perfect precisely to this extent, viz to the extent that it is, actually. Hence, it is evident that just to this extent is something good, viz to the extent that it is a being [ens]: for being [esse] is the actuality of every thing, as is clear from what has already been said. Hence, it is evident that the good and that which is are identical, as to the reality being spoken of; but “the good” adds the idea of “object of appetite,” which “a being” does not express. 41

The word “appetite” first of all suggests the desire for something which is not possessed or is absent: like being hungry or thirsty. However, here in our discussion it is being used for the source in us of that and various corresponding conditions, e.g. being satisfied (“Now, I feel that I have had enough, e.g. food or water.”), and loving (something or someone): we only desire what we love and is absent; we are satisfied, i.e. find satisfaction, in the presence or possession of what we love. Hence, the appetible is the lovable, whether present or absent. See ST 1.20.1; also 1-2.25.2.ad 1. Thus, when it is said that every being “has appetite” as regards its own perfection, “to have appetite for” covers “to love,” “to desire,” and “to enjoy.”

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42

ST 1-2.94.2: “there is present firstly in the human being an inclination towards the good in keeping with the nature which one has in common with all substances, inasmuch i.e. as every substance whatsoever has appetite for the conservation of its own being in accordance with its own nature.” This must be understood in the light of 1.60.5: all things have appetite in favor of their own specific being even more than for their individual being, and still more again they have appetite in favor of the divine goodness. And thus, at 2-2.34.5 we read: “Now, that which is maximally and primarily natural to man is that he love the good, and especially the divine good and the good of the neighbor.” [Id autem quod est maxime et primo naturale homini est quod diligat bonum, et praecipue bonum divinum et bonum proximi.] 43 A word should be said about “being in act” or esse. One should not attempt to conceive of “existence, just in itself,” as though it had some intrinsic visibility in isolation, let alone perfection. What Thomas is indicating is the perfection proper to definite natures. It is the existence of this tree or of Fido (i.e. this dog), or of Socrates (this man) that he has in mind. In such a hierarchy, just as we have lower and higher acts of being, so we have lower and higher essences. In fact, it is impossible to conceive of the members of the hierarchy as having being according to more and less unless one envisions their essences. As Thomas says on at least one occasion (ST 1-2.85.4): “every act of being ... is considered through some form [omne esse ... consideratur per aliquam formam], according to which the species is obtained. But the form of each thing, of whatever sort it is, whether substantial or accidental, is according to some measure; hence, in Metaph. 8 it is said that the forms of things are like numbers. And from this it has a certain ‘mode,’ which pertains to measurement.” 44 ST 1.19.1, asking whether will is found in God, presents the basic idea of will. It has its background in a text such as De veritate 21.2. In this latter presentation, the focus is on substantial esse, but in ST 1.19.1 we see that the interest is in the substance and all its acts of being, substantial and accidental, just as in ST 1.5.1.ad 1. 45 Notice how a parallel is made between natural being and cognitional being (viewed as a perfection of the knowing subject). This was already presented in ST 1.14.4: “understanding [intelligere] is not an action proceeding forth into something external, but rather it remains in the one performing the operation as his act and perfection, the way [prout] esse is the perfection of the existent; for just as esse follows upon form, so also understanding [intelligere] follows upon the intelligible likeness [species].” 46 Cf. ST 1.14.6: It was shown above that whatever there is of perfection in any creature, the whole of it preëxists and is contained in God in an excelling mode. But it is not only that which creatures have in common, viz their esse, that pertains to perfection; but also those things by which creatures are distinguished from each other, such as living, and understanding, and suchlike, by which living things are distinguished from non-living things, and intelligences from non-intelligent beings. And every form, by virtue of which any thing whatsoever is constituted in its proper species, is a particular perfection [perfectio quaedam]. And so all things preëxist in God, not only as regards what is common to all, but also as regards those things by which things are distinguished.


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An inadequate imagining of what is being said here might lead to a view of the intelligent seeker as having caught sight of an infinity of goods and going crazy seeking them all: never satisfied. It is true that the intellectual nature is only satisfied with “the best,” but that does not mean material goods in superabundance. In fact, we see that in “mere material goods,” one can have too much; and that will not be good. No, we are rather envisioning a being whose quest and repose is relative to true goodness. 48 Thus, God and his self-satisfaction are identical. His being is so rich, that it must be viewed as: perfect, and as understood as perfect, and as enjoyed as perfect: all this is what it is for a God to be and to be a God. ST 1.26, the question which caps the discussion of the divine essence, bears on the divine beatitude, “beatitude” signifying “the perfect good of the rational nature.” The second article asks if God is called “blessed” [beatus] in function of intellect. It reasons: just as each thing seeks its own perfection, so also the intellectual nature naturally seeks to be blessed. But that which is most perfect in any intellectual nature is the intellectual operation, according to which it obtains [capit] in a way all things. The last article (1.26.4) presents the wealth of the divine perfection: whatever is desirable in any beatitude whatsoever, whether true or false, the whole of it preëxists more eminently in the divine beatitude. For, of contemplative happiness [felicitate], it has the continuous and most certain contemplation of itself and of all others; of active [happiness], the government of the entire universe. But of earthly happiness [terrena ... felicitate], which consists in pleasure, riches, power, dignity and fame, according to Boethius, The Consolation 3 [prose 2: Migne 63.724], it has joy concerning itself and concerning all others (for delight); for riches, it has thoroughgoing sufficiency, which riches promise; for power, omnipotence; for dignity, the rule over all; for fame, the admiration of the whole of creation [totius creaturae]. 49

An excellent overall presentation of the universe, from this point of view, is SCG 3.24 (especially #2053, i.e. second last par.). 50 It is often thought, in this line, that God must create. This is a view that loses sight of the completeness of the divine goodness and its transcendence relative to created being as such. The only possible “outside” communication of his nature, by representation in a creature, can only be a choosable, i.e. optional, good. See 1.19.3. Here is something about which God has no choice, viz. that communication of his own goodness to others can only be by choice. For a very explicit statement to the same effect, cf. SCG 3.97 (#2735): Thus therefore, that God love his own goodness is necessary: but this does not necessarily follow, that it be represented by creatures, since without that the divine goodness is perfect. Hence, that creatures be produced into being, though it has its origin by reason of the divine goodness [ex ratione divinae bonitatis originem habeat], nevertheless it depends on the simple will of God. But it being supposed that God willed to communicate his goodness to creatures, according as this is possible, at the level of likeness: from this he takes the reason that there be diverse creatures.

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Another relevant text is ST 1.25.2.ad 2: “even if it were to produce no effect, the power of God would not be in vain [frustra]. Because that is in vain which is ordered to a end which it does not attain; but the power of God is not ordered to the effect as to a end, but rather it is the end of its own effect.” Cajetan’s Commentary (para. III) on 1.19.2 is excellent. 51 A recent letter in the New York Times, replying to animal rights advocates blaming human beings for the killing of animals, asks what those advocates say about the killing of one animal by another. If they answer that, not being rational they are not morally responsible, they undermine their own position by pointing to the difference between the human being and the other animals, the difference that precisely constitutes the basis for rights. 52 In fact, Thomas did not think this was the history of species, and so he had to depend on the current theory of ontogenesis in order to confirm his conception of the order of things. Still, the general conception rested on the ontological hierarchy of non-knowing and knowing, non-living and living, etc., rather than on the particular doctrine of ontogenesis. 53 ST 1-2.9.1; 2-2.2.3: But only the created rational nature has an immediate order to God. Because the other creatures do not attain to anything universal, but only to something particular, participating in the divine goodness either merely as to being, like the inanimate things, or else as to living, and knowing singulars, like the plants and animals; but the rational nature, inasmuch as it knows the universal notion of the good and of being [universalem boni et entis rationem], has an immediate order to the universal principle of being [univerale essendi principium]. 54

This is, of course, the line of argument in Thomas’s “Fifth Way,” in ST 1.2.3; and that there is room for a hierarchy of intelligences above non-cognitive nature, Thomas acknowledges in such texts as SCG 3.24 (#2047; i.e. para. 2). 55 I use the word “conjecture” in speaking of spiritual beings higher than man and lower than God, and do so following Thomas, De substantiis separatis, prol. 16. 56 SCG 3.112 (#2860, i.e. para. 5). This reminds us of the point made in ST 1-2.2.6, that the intellectual part of the soul infinitely surpasses the corporeal good. 57 Note especially ST 1.6.4 (quoted in final footnote), on whether all things are good by virtue of the divine goodness. They are, since God is the first principle of all goodness, in the lines of exemplar, efficient, and final causality. Yet each thing is good, as well, by virtue of the formal goodness present within it, a formal goodness which is precisely a participated likeness of the divine goodness. This is because “the good is in things.” 58 ST 1-2.prol. (710a4-15): Because, as Damascene says, man is said to be made in the image of God, according as by “the image” is signified intellectual, and free as to judgement [liberum arbitrio], and by oneself a source of events [per se potestativum]; after we have spoken of the Exemplar, that is, of God, and of those things which have proceeded from his power in accordance with his will, it remains for us to consider his image, that is, man, according as he too is source of his own deeds, as having free decision and power over his own deeds.


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This is Thomas’s general introduction to the entire treatment of ethics in the ST. 59 Cf. ST 2-2.154.12.ad 1: Thomas is replying to an objector who thinks that sexual sins against nature are less grave than such things as adultery, since the latter hurts others, whereas a sexual sin against nature does no harm to another. Thomas says: just as the order of right reason is from man, so also the order of nature is from God himself. And therefore in sins against nature, in which the very order of nature is violated, injury [iniuria] is done to God himself, the Orderer of nature. Hence Augustine says, in Confessions 3 [cap. 8 (Migne 32.689)]: “Disgraceful acts which are against nature are everywhere and always to be detested and punished, such as were those of the people of Sodom; which, if all peoples performed them, all would be held in the same guilt of crime by divine law, which did not so make men that they might make use of themselves in that way. Indeed, that very society is violated which ought to be between us and God, since the very nature of which he is the author is polluted by the perversity of carnal desire.” (emphasis mine) Cf. also 1-2.71.2.ad 4: the article asks whether vice is against nature. We have a beautiful presentation of the role of reason, as what is primary in human nature, in the determination of the good. The fourth objection is of interest as concerns the relation between law and nature. The objector recalls Augustine’s definition of sin: “a word or deed or desire against the law of God” [Augustine, Contra Faust. 22 [cap. 27 (Migne 42, 218)]. The law of God is above nature. Hence, vice should be said to be “against the law” rather than “against nature.” Thomas replies: whatever is against the intelligible constitution [rationem] of the artificial thing, is also against the nature of the art by which the artificial thing is produced. But the eternal law is related to the order of human reason as the art to the artificial thing. Hence, it pertains to the same idea [eiusdem rationis] that vice and sin is against [contra] the order of human reason, and that it is against the eternal law. Hence, Augustine says, On Free Judgment [15, Migne 32, 1291], that “from God all natures have it that they are natures; and to this extent they are vitiated, viz to the extent that they fall away from that art by which they have been made.” 60

A remarkable passage from Thomas’ Compendium theologiae presents the tableau as to how the things other than God have as final cause the divine goodness, even as regards their motions and operations. I present only a part, which considers the place of created intellect in the picture: But the rational creature through its operation tends towards the divine likeness in a unique way, as compared with all the other [creatures], just as beyond other creatures it has more noble being [nobilius esse]. For the being [esse] of other creatures is constricted and rendered finite by matter in such a way that it [the esse] does not have infinity, whether potentially or actually; but every rational nature has infinity either potentially or actually, inasmuch as the intellect contains the intelligibles within itself. Therefore, in us the intellectual nature, considered in its first being [in suo primo esse] is in potency its intelligibles, which [intellectual nature], since they are infinite, has a certain infinity in potency; hence, the intellect

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61

Cf. ST 1.14.1: “the nature of the things which know has greater ampleness and extention;” and 1.19.1: “the intellectual nature has a similar stance relative to the good apprehended through the intelligible form.” On the natural love which is supremely causal in the life of the will, see ST 1.60.1 and 2. 62 ST 1.63.1; 1.62.8; and 1.48.6, i.e. the second argument in the body of the article. 63 St. Thomas presents a hierarchy of goods in the realm of human life itself. He is arguing that the purpose of every intellectual substance is to know God intellectually. He says, What is lovable merely on account of something else, exists for the sake of that which is lovable merely on account of itself: for one must not go to infinity in the realm of natural appetite, because the desire of nature would be frustrated, since it is not possible to traverse an infinity. But all the practical sciences and arts and powers are lovable merely on account of something else: for, in them, the goal is not knowing [just in itself] but operation. Theoretical sciences, on the other hand, are lovable on account of themselves: for their goal is the very knowing. Nor is there found any action in human life that is not ordered towards some other goal, except theoretical consideration. For even playful actions, which seem to be carried out without a goal [beyond themselves], have some fitting goal, namely that through them our minds are somehow refreshed, so that subsequently we are more able to carry out studious activities: otherwise one might be always at play, if the game were pursued just for its own sake, and that is certainly inappropriate. Therefore, the practical arts are ordered to the theoretical, and similarly all human action to intellectual theorizing, as to a goal. Now, in all ordered arts and sciences, to that one [art or science] the ultimate goal is seen to pertain which provides instructions and has an architectonic role vis-a-vis the others: for example, the naval art, to which the purpose of the ship pertains, [the purpose of the ship being] its employment or use, is instructional and architectonic relative to the art of shipbuilding. Now, that is the sort of relation which prevails between primary philosophy and the other theoretical sciences; for all the others depend on it, as obtaining their principles from it, and obtaining guidance against those denying [their] principles; and primary philosophy itself is entirely ordered to the knowledge of God, as to an ultimate goal, so that it is called “the divine science.” Therefore, divine knowledge [i.e. to know


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God] is the purpose of all human knowledge and operation. (SCG 3.25 [#2063, i.e., para. 9]) Here we have a hierarchical presentation, made in function of the conceptions proper to the division of the good according to priority and posteriority, or the more and the less, i.e. what has more of the nature of a goal (or the “honorable good,” i.e. “the intrinsically lovable,” bonum honestum), and what has more of the nature of something ordered to such a goal, (the good in the sense of the “useful,” bonum utile.) It is a division of all human activity or operation or life. 64 ST 1.16.1: “this is the distinction between appetite and intellect, or any cognition whatsoever, that knowledge obtains [est] according as the known is in the knower; but appetite obtains according as the exercizer of appetite [appetens] is inclined towards the very thing which is the object of appetite [in ipsam rem appetitam].” 65 See my paper, “The Real Distinction between Intellect and Will.” 66 See especially ST 1-2.3.5, that beatitude is not primarily an act of the practical intellect. Cf. my papers, “Truth and Happiness” and “S. Thomas et le bien: métaphysique et morale.” 67 ST 1.16.1: But just as the good is in the thing, inasmuch as it [the thing] has an order to appetite: and for that reason the aspect of goodness is derived from the appetible thing into the appetite, according as the appetite is called “good” because it is of the good; so also, since the true is in the intellect according as it is conformed to the thing understood, it is necessary that the aspect of “the true” be derived from the intellect to the understood thing, so that the understood thing is also called “true” according as it has some order to intellect. And in ST 1.6.4: “each thing is called “good” by virtue of the divine goodness, as by virtue of the first exemplar, efficient and final principle of goodness in its entirety. Nevertheless each thing is called “good” by the likeness of the divine goodness inhering in itself, which is formally its goodness denominating it. And so there is one goodness of all things, and also many goodnesses.”

References Aristotle. De anima. Ed., Introduction, and commentary David Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961. ———. The Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. and Introduction David Ross. London: Oxford University Press, 1954. ———. Physica. Trans. and ed. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon, 1950. [In English: The Works of Aristotle / Translated into English Under the Editorship of W. D. Ross. Vol. 2. Trans. R. P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye. Oxford : Clarendon, 1908-52.] Coughlan, Neil. Young John Dewey: An Essay in American Intellectual History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Dewan, Lawrence. “The Real Distinction between Intellect and Will,” Angelicum 57 (1980) 557-93. ———. “S. Thomas et le bien: métaphysique et morale.” Études maritainiennes/ Maritain Studies VII (1991) 27-48. ———. “Truth and Happiness.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. Annual Supplement: ACPA Proceedings. 67 (1993) 1-21.

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Dewey, John. Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics. New York: Hillary House, 1957. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Random House, 1950. Gilson, Etienne. Introduction. Le philosophe et la théologie. Paris: A. Fayard, 1960. ———. “Sagesse et société.” Témoignages 1 (1942) 39-54. ———. “Les terreurs de l’an deux mille.” Revue de l’Université d’Ottawa 19 (1949) 67-81. ———. The Terrors of the Year Two Thousand. Toronto: University of St. Michael’s College, 1949. [Reprint, University of St. Michael’s College, 1984.] Horay, Pierre, ed. Semaine des intellectuels catholiques. Paris, 1948. Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologiae cursus completus [series Latina] 221 vols, Parisiis: Apud Garniere Fratres, 1844-64. Nielsen, Kai. “Justice as a Kind of Impartiality.” Laval théologique et philosophique 50 (1994) 511-29. Plato’s Phaedo. Ed., Introduction, notes John Burnet. Oxford, Clarendon, 1911. Prouvost, Géry, ed. Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain: Correspondance, 19231971. Paris: Vrin, 1991. Rawls, John. “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 14.3 (Summer 1985) 223-51. Shook, Laurence K. Etienne Gilson. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint. De substantiis separatis. Opera omnia iussu impensaque. Leonis XIII P.M. edita. Romae: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S.C. de Propaganda Fide, 1882—. Vol. 40. Rome: Ad Sanctae Sabinae, 1969. [English trans. Francis J. Lescoe Treatise on Separate Substances. West Hartford, CT: Saint Joseph College, 1959.] ———. Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. In decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum expositio. Ed. Angeli M. Pirotta. Taurini, Italy: M. E. Marietti, 1934. ———. Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Scriptum super libros sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi Episcopi Parisiensis. Ed. R. P. Mandonnet and Maria Fabianus Moos. 4 vols., Parisiis : Sumptibus P. Lethielleux, 1929-. ———. Compendium theologiae. Opera omnia. Vol. 42. Rome: Editori di San Tommaso, 1979. [English trans. C. Vollert. Compendium of Theology. St. Louis, MO: St. Louis University Press, 1947.] ———. [Quaestiones disputatae] de veritate. Questiones disputatae. 2 vols. Vol. 1. Torino: Marietti, 1964-65. ———. In decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum expositio. ed. Raymundi M. Spiazzi. 3rd. ed. Taurini: Marietti, 1964. ———. In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio. Ed. M. R. Cathala. Rev. Raymundi M. Spiazzi. 3rd ed. Torino: Marietti, 1977. ———. Summa contra gentiles [Liber de veritate Catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium]. Ed. D. Petri Marc. Rev. Ceslao Pera and D. Petro Caramello. 3 vols. Taurini : Marietti, 1961-. ———. Summa theologiae. Omnia opera (Leonine Edition, see above) and Ed. Piana, Ottawa: Collège Dominicain, 1941.


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Descartes and the Ethics of Generosity

Leslie Armour Modernity has been seen in many guises, but most frequently, perhaps, it has been associated with an attempt to replace an older— some think richer—view of human nature by a reliance on the constructions of human reason. And nowhere perhaps has it been thought to have failed more conspicuously than in moral theory. A recent writer, paraphrasing Alasdair MacIntyre in a phrase that recalls Blaise Pascal, has spoken of the “thin reed” of human reason (Clark 12). Modernity has also been associated with René Descartes to such an extent that it is hardly possible to think of one without the other. But in fact Descartes did not try to build a moral theory on the thin reed of human reason. He did not, indeed, think reason a thin reed, but he believed that reason needed something on which to build. And so he built his moral theory on the passions as modified by reason. He ended with what he called an “ethics of generosity,” an expression meant both to recall an older notion of nobility and the more recent notion of something more than is demanded of one by the ordinary conventions, the conventions which Pierre Charron had associated with a kind of natural “preudhommie,”1 something which he, too, believed must be surpassed by a richer notion. Descartes’ larger notion of generosity is associated with his firm belief that, for human beings, the idea of infinity has a logical priority—that the infinity he associated with God is expressed through us. None of the terms involved is simple. And, so, though the purpose of this paper is to enquire whether an ethics of generosity is possible and defensible, and not primarily to disentangle the complexities of Descartes’ own thought, the historical background is essential. Indeed, if we are to get straight about what the issues are, historical explanation and critical assessment of the ideas involved will have to go hand-in-hand. We must begin with the troubled concepts of passion and reason. Descartes meant by passions the states of mind which present themselves to us for judgment and action in such a way that judgment and

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action are necessarily linked.2 And by reason he meant both the processes of universalization and validation of the kind of continuous discourse that he offered in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The notion of reason as continuous discourse was, indeed, new,3 and it is true, as well, that Descartes was responding to a widespread shift in human thinking which had been taking shape since the Renaissance, one which emphasized human freedom. Because freedom could only come to consciousness in the face of presented alternatives, those who made it central generally saw morality in terms of responses to our inner states. But, characteristically, reason played a decisive role. In other ways, too, Descartes’ moral theories are traditional: He seeks a balance of virtue and happiness (arguing, indeed, in the Discourse that one must not take reason to destructive excess). Reason for him, in its practical form, is as much a balancing activity as it is for Aristotle. If one wants to understand both the very long-range continuity and the specific reference points in Descartes’ concerns, Charron must figure in the discussion. In La Sagesse, he laid out the problems more clearly than anyone else. His own ideas still merit reflection, and he strongly influenced the intellectual climate in which Descartes found himself.4 What Charron sought under the name of preudhommie might be called a reconciliation of happiness and virtue, though he wanted to preserve the joie de vivre of ordinary men and women in a condition that exhibits virtue and aspires to the transcendent possibilities of the human being. What he insists upon is the power of reason to transform immediate feeling. Charron believed that serious reflection would transform our immediate feelings, preserve our natural and immediate gregariousness in the face of desire, and bring us to recognize the need for a social order and for the acceptance of law, social institutions, and ordinary public practices. From such a standpoint, real freedom might be contemplated and reason could develop the critical faculties that enable one to rise above custom and the acceptance of ongoing practices. The process by which this is to take place is not always clear in La Sagesse, but we can easily see how, on a rather traditional view of reason, the process should take place. Immediate awareness is particular and, if we confine it to sensation, self-centered. Reason universalizes. To reason about one’s condition is to give it a structure from which it appears as one example among equally many, and thus to admit the claims of others. Reason also enables one to situate one’s condition, to extend it into a future

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in which one can understand the necessary conditions of one’s actions. In a sense, there develops at once from such considerations a conflict between two sorts of reason. Reason as simply universalizing— the reason from which Kant would eventually seek to develop his ethical theory—gives one’s own interests no evident precedence. Reason about the conditions of successful action is essentially pragmatic and does give evident precedence to the conditions under which one can succeed in one’s aims. The Machiavellianism against which Charron, Yves de Paris (a largely forgotten but useful figure in the story), and Descartes himself were evidently fighting is a kind of pragmatism which gives precedence to reason in this second sense. At most it creates a morality of rational self-interest. Yves de Paris—very likely the most read philosopher in Paris at the time that Descartes was writing—believed that Charron went too far in defending libertinage, itself a difficult notion. Most of the time it just meant skepticism, but it had overtones even then of moral degeneracy, and it was associated with worldliness in general. Yves pursued his vision through the middle years of the seventeenth century in terms of an ordered neo-Platonic hierarchy.5 His doctrine was that each thing ought to function according to its place in the whole.6 The quarrel centered on two issues. One was about freedom, but it was not about freedom in the sense of the right of individuals to choose, but about whether or not the individual who reasoned well would still be without a clear conviction concerning the rational limits of choice. It was also about how reason could place limits on the justification of choices. Yves, whose version of neo-Platonism lent itself to the idea of a highly structured hierarchical world, saw reason as leading to a unified picture of the world in which every individual has a determinate place. Charron, like Nicholas of Cusa, saw the divine spark in each of us as something which leaves us very much on our own—even as God is alone. This freedom demands critical imagination and creativity from us. Charron thus made will a central theme in La Sagesse.7 The other issue in the quarrel between philosophers like Yves and those who thought more like Charron had to do with attachment to the world we live in, and the possibility of giving oneself over as quickly as possible to what was imagined to be the eternity of a transcendent world. Like Blaise Pascal, Yves was trying to find a middle ground between the “libertines” who believed that the good human life involves a full enjoyment of the things of this world and the

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stricter Jansenists (Martin de Barcos, for example) who believed that withdrawal from a corrupt world was the only hope. To do so, Yves had to find a way of reconciling temporal reality and timeless eternity, and so he developed (drawing heavily on Raymond Lull) a generous version of the Neoplatonic tradition which emphasized not the fall of the world away from the One but its natural return and intended redemption. In Yves’ view, Charron moves in ways which give too much scope to reason as the development of particularizing narratives and too little to reason as the source of universal truths. Thus the interest of the individual seeking Charron’s sagesse too often, in Yves’ view, takes precedence over the universal, the general wellbeing of humanity. By contrast, giving too much scope to reason as universalizing fails to allow for the fact that the problem arises within an individual experience and seems to preclude the balance between virtue and pleasure that Charron wants to find. Indeed, Kant himself insisted that the bonum consummatum must reconcile virtue and happiness. Perhaps only God, as Kant thought, can do this, but if nothing can do it there seems to be only what F. H. Bradley called the empty doctrine of “duty for duty’s sake.” Charron, Yves, and Descartes had turned away to one degree or another from the scholasticism of the near past. But those who found scholasticism more attractive also frequently emphasized the problem of freedom. Thus in La Foy des derniers siècles, René Rapin notes that what is demanded now of Christians is that they serve God as free beings (25). Rapin associates this “spirit of liberty” with the “new law” introduced in the New Testament. One must overcome, he says, what he takes to be the dominant position in the Old Testament, one in which God is master and we are slaves. He claims this view severely inhibited the Jews and led to terrible sufferings. He might have added that it was common enough among Christians, too, but his point is not mainly historical: He is arguing that recent centuries have made possible a better understanding.8 Rapin links the idea of freedom with the right use of the passions. The passions are good guides so long as one can respond to them in genuine freedom. Thus he recalls that Jesus had a body like ours and that he dignified it in a way that is permanent and in a way that gives us an opportunity to transcend bodily things as well (Rapin 27). He reminds us that we have reason and share in the sovereign reason of God. But how is this reason to be directed? Rapin had read Pascal carefully and evidently accepted, if nothing else, the doctrine that reason can sustain any


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goal. He concluded that reason needs to be illumined by faith, which shows us our possible destiny (Rapin 30). The problems which Descartes faced were therefore these: What role does freedom really play in our affairs and how is to be given a structure which leads to the good? Are the passions to be acted on, rejected, or transformed? How can reason as universalizing and reason as anchored in the particular situation and inner lives of human beings be reconciled? And finally how does ethics enable us to understand our relation to the infinite?

If the last was most important, the question of reasoning probably provokes Descartes’ most significant contribution to the understanding of ethical theory. Certainly in the Meditations—but arguably always—he tries to join two modes of reasoning. One may argue about the inspiration for the form of the Meditations, but it is clear that what is going on is an attempt to link immediate experience with the universalities of reason in a way that produces a continuous narrative discourse. One may see the whole of Descartes’ writings as an attempt to put a moral structure on human thought, the aim that he describes in the Principles9 in which moral knowledge is the top of the tree of knowledge. But the narrative reasoning which leads directly to his moral theory is an intriguing passage from feeling to wonder to the grasp of the infinite and the developed “ethics of generosity.”10 And so the two issues come together. Much ink has been spilled over just how to read Descartes’ moral theories, partly because, as he himself explained, concern that the authorities might misunderstand made him reluctant to share his views (letter to Chanut, Nov. 1, 1646, AT 4.536), and partly because his moral theory has seemed to many people, contrary to his own intentions, to be peripheral. Such people have generally seen his main effort as one of trying to provide adequate epistemological foundations for science.11 In his own view this was a way-stage to something else.12 I am convinced that an ethic of generosity is the only possible one. I am more troubled about its foundation in the theory of the passions. Descartes, indeed, seems himself to provide more than one foundation for his ethics. But let us try to disentangle the issues one at a time.

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The Problem of Freedom Descartes argues about freedom is various ways. One of his claims is that reasoning itself implies freedom. In the Fourth Meditation, he concentrates on the power to say “yes” and “no” to what is proposed— a power without which we could not be said in the ordinary way to reason and to review evidence (AT 7.57-58; 9.46).13 But in his moral reflections he concentrates on the notion that we experience our freedom. The way this experience comes about is the following:14 We are aware of ourselves in thought, and we are aware of objects that present themselves for judgment. We are attracted to some objects, repelled by others. In this situation subject and object are intertwined; the thing and its attractions are not easily separated. These objects we understand through various categories and the categories are shaped by our own interests. But wonder— “admiration” not étonnement—enters in. Some objects appear as unique. They transcend the limits of the categories. They intrude upon us directly. At this moment we see ourselves as separated from the objects and therefore as free. The point Descartes makes about “admiration” in his Passions of the Soul has not, perhaps, received as much attention as it should from those of us who worry about Descartes’ epistemology. There seems to be a sense here in which, through wonder, reality breaks in on us. If he is right, we have a moment at which we see that as human beings we are both free and not bound by any categories. These are the two roots of the ethics of generosity. Morality, Descartes thinks, is rooted in the specific way in which the passions present us with our freedom. Once presented with it, freedom becomes for Descartes the most important thing. What matters, he wrote to Christine of Sweden (Nov. 20, 1647, AT 5.8186), is how we use our freedom. Descartes argues in this letter that the correct use of free will is “the human good.” He says this because, once free, we cannot pass off our responsibility to anyone even God. If there is a human good then it is something we must choose. The right use of freedom is, therefore, the source of moral goodness. The issue about freedom and morality has more than one dimension. It is because we are free that we are in one sense alone and must


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make our own decisions. But it is because we are free that we see that all the other free beings share in the infinite capacity of creativity and this, Descartes insists, gives us “exemption” from being “God’s subjects.”15 In this capacity we must be generous; for to be otherwise is to lock ourselves into a merely finite self-representation which becomes a prison rather than an expression of ourselves. The “self ” which is perceived to have immediate interests is real and legitimate, but it is a partial representation. We can extend Descartes’ argument if we realize that to pander to this partial representation of our capacities, without consideration for the infinity of other possibilities that must be expressed through others, is also to sell oneself short. For it is through them that we must experience vicariously what we cannot experience for ourselves. To be sure this is an application of Descartes’ argument but the texts suggest it is one that he would want to make. Nothing, perhaps, is more important to understand than that freedom does not enable us to avoid the community, but forces us to give it due weight. If we really had no free will, if, as the Calvinists seemed to think, everything was literally predetermined by God, then we need only concern ourselves with our own feelings. We can leave the others to God. But they are wrong; we are responsible.16 Descartes has often enough been tagged as an “individualist”. But it is evidently folly to focus on the Cartesian self. To do so is to focus on a mere finite manifestation of what is capable of infinitely more. The claim of generosity upon us comes from the fact that we are not ourselves confined to our present appearances. As free and creative beings we are also—as wonder makes clear to us—outside the categories. Indeed anything whatever that is taken in itself manifests one of the kinds of infinity of which Descartes speaks, the indéfini. The differences between us and mere things is twofold. We are ourselves free and capable of action, and we can represent the alternatives of the world to ourselves. To put matters another way, Descartes was convinced that the problem of morality was not one which could be understood at all except in terms of circumstances which are forced upon us and which he believed serve in a very important way to establish a gulf between the world in whose creation we participate and the givens of nature. Descartes tends to put the issue in terms of what makes the human being distinct, an interesting carry-over of Aristotelian presumptions. But the issue is really the very old one about the rupture between us and the created nature, which the Christian tradition frequently took to depend only on God.17

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Descartes’ first concern is just to hold human beings responsible for some of their acts, to explain how freedom is possible and to understand its limits. If human beings are responsible for some of their acts, they must, at least from the point of view of moral discourse, be in some way different from atoms and even from tigers. Terrible things accrue from the behavior of atoms, but the atoms are not to blame. Tigers eat sheep but no one thinks it would be sensible to convert them on moral grounds to vegetarianism. Descartes’ ultimate goal is to show us that real objective values enter into our lives through the space that we create in facing up to wonder and in putting rational structure on the passions. But that is a difficult story to unfold. Descartes makes it sound, especially in the Passions, as if he means to draw this line biologically, and certainly to the outrage of many readers of his time he thought that animals were without souls, felt no pain, and could be treated simply as machines. But he might just as well, indeed better, on his own principles have drawn the line in terms of culture. For biology is a perilous base. It is not just with respect to animals that it lands us in trouble. Men and women are biologically different, but that does not imply that they should be treated differently except where events that occur only in female lives or only in male lives require special consideration. Gender is a cultural notion that needs to be treated in its own right. Human culture, moreover, does not end with human beings. Dogs share in human culture in various ways. Cows as we know them are largely human artifacts. Both need special care because of things we have done with them and to them. Lobsters probably feel pain and should not be boiled alive. There is a spectrum across which other creatures can be found, some of which, like dogs, seem to behave with responsibility and even, perhaps, occasionally to have duties, and others of which have rights (as do lobsters because they suffer) but no duties, because they have no capacity for carrying out duties. Nor does the kind of freedom Descartes is talking about extend necessarily to all human beings in all circumstances. It occurs only when we can really envisage alternatives. If there are cannibals in remote places who have never had it suggested to them that eating one’s enemies is in bad taste and who have never known any culture other than their own, and if that culture is one which provides very few options for day-to-day living, would we say that they have experienced the kind of freedom which enables them to be responsible for their diets? We would at any rate proceed with them differently


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from the way in which we approach Nazis exterminating Jews or gangsters gunning down their enemies. Once the experience of freedom and the consequent culture created provide a realm in which responsibility is possible it does not matter that the line should be drawn along the lines of any particular species, sub-species or category of individuals within a species. It is surely true that one cannot be said to reason unless one is free to reject or accept propositions solely on the basis of the evidence for them, but it does not follow that, just because one can reason, one is free over a wide area of actions in every possible sense.18 Perhaps there are angels with no experience of the kind Descartes is talking about who simply carry out their missions unreflectively. Perhaps a God who can only act for the best is not free in every possible sense. Of course it requires real capacities to be free, and these must be anchored in what one is in some intelligible way, but culture does seem crucial. Descartes does suggest a cultural dimension in the Discours, though he does not explore it in the Passions. But what matters is that we understand why it was important to Descartes that there be a break in the chain of nature. Otherwise, he thinks, we would be “subjects of God.”19 But if we are free then we must decide how to act. We do not do so ex nihilo but in response to the passions. We have desires. We need to eat. We have fears. We are attracted to some things and repelled by others. In some cases we simply respond. If we are hungry and there is food to eat, there is no reason not to eat. But the passions pull us this way and that. And so they generate, according to Descartes, the central problems of morality.

The Problem of the Passions There are a number of contentious issues in Descartes’ account of the passions. Just what are the passions? Should we pay attention to them as elements in our moral life which form a basis for our moral theories? Should we simply regard them as elements in our experience on which we have to pass judgment once we have (independently of them) arrived at a moral theory? Are they themselves simply received states of affairs or are they states of mind for which we have a certain responsibility? If they are something for which we have responsibility, do they force us to deny the fact-value distinction?

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Arthur Prior noticed that inferences of the form “he is a sea-captain, therefore he ought to do whatever a sea-captain ought to do” are perfectly valid (cited in MacIntyre 55). So if Jack loves Lucy, he ought to do whatever one who loves another ought to do. Now this is interesting. To love someone is to be in a position in which one’s selfinterest is out-weighed by the interests of the other. Lovers take risks on behalf of one another, which we would not expect of everyone, and parents who love their children do so, too. For our wives or our children we would readily donate a kidney, whereas we would ordinarily think it too much to ask on behalf of a total stranger. Reasonable benevolence requires that one would give blood to anyone, indeed, perhaps, even bone marrow. Many people would think the additional hazards of donating a kidney change the picture. But it does seem to be the case that if x loves y, x ought to do what one who loves y ought to do and that would surely extend to giving a kidney. It has been objected to “Prior’s principle” that the conclusion has no “substantial evaluative and moral content” (MacIntyre 55), by which is meant, I suppose, that it does not help us to decide what a good sea-captain ought to do. But the case I have just cited seems to be different.20 Here we may well think that the responsibilities derive from some act that changes the world in a way that infuses it with additional values. We may think, of course, that falling in love is something which just happens to people and similarly that having children is just a happening. But falling in love in not just discovering that one has some sort of tingly feeling. It is something that involves the deliberate ascription of meaning to feelings. So raising children is a complicated business in which some of one’s nature, some of one’s character, and some of one’s culture passes to another generation. The responsibility of a father to a child he has never seen is not nonexistent, but it is not of the same kind as that of a father or a mother who has raised the children. Love at any rate is powerful, and when developed must be one of one’s central values. One somehow loses the claim to be fully human if one fails to act on one’s central values. Just because love is something positive which is generally good for those who are loved, whatever their values, we all think I suppose that love is better than hate, and most people think that hate is something which we should keep under control. Hating few people or even none at all is usually recommended.21 By contrast it is usually said that one ought to try to love one’s neighbor, and theists think we must learn to love God. Admittedly in cases like that of Jack and Lucy, people do very fre-


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quently speak of “falling in love” as if it is simply something that happens to one. But, once again, even to say this is to admit that one has invested the situation with meaning. One can become confused, obviously, because all the questions about the passions begin, as the name must suggest, with something that just happens and the moral theories based on the passions end with some transformation of them. The difficulty is one that is evident to readers of Descartes’ Passions who then turn to his letters to Chanut and Queen Christine of Sweden. In the Passions he is interested in the fact that the passions we have are something that happen to people in the sense that they are embodied and have bodily causes. In the letter to Christine he is trying to explain just how one should act. If we decide that we should respond to them and we think that love is a passion we are on the path that Descartes takes. How can one respond to love except by trying to carry out its obligations? But perhaps we should learn to ignore the passions and try to build our moral theories directly on reason. If we should pay attention to them, should we tame them and order them in the way that Descartes suggests? Any serious answer to the question demands a clearer account of what the passions are. And here Descartes has quite a lot of trouble on his hands, some of it metaphysical. He believes they begin with bodily conditions but are transformed into states of the soul or mind. The way that it happens is this: Internal bodily activities generate states of feeling that relate us to objects around us. Raw passions tie us to objects either as things to which we are attracted or as things that we shun. (Thus Descartes’ contemporary, Pierre Le Moyne, regards “la fuite,” in this sense as an evasion, as one of the six basic passions.22 ) But it is a long way from any bodily states to the love Descartes describes in his letter to Chanut or the love to which Le Moyne devotes half his huge treatise on morals and passions. Descartes’ story is that wonder—admiration—enters in.23 In stepping back from things in our moment of surprise we come to be aware of them and of ourselves as distinct. Here the line between the physical and the mental is surely blurred, and Descartes’ account does not make much sense unless one reads him as I did in my account of the relation between his philosophy and that of Eustachius a Sancto Paulo—that is, as insisting that at least certain (ultimately all) realities require a double expression (see Armour). Nothing can be a passion if it has no physical expression in bodily states, in words, or whatever; but nothing can be a passion

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either unless it expresses a certain intentionality, which ties it back to the subject. Pierre Le Moyne held that one must go back to the days when the Academy and La Parnasse were not separated. A special substance had to be imagined in Greek mythology to carry the passions.24 Indeed it was created to make human beings possible. Prometheus (the human’s friend against Zeus) stole fire for us and Parnassus symbolizes poetry. Philosophy and poetry must go together, and so Le Moyne sprinkles his book with poetry of his own writing. The suggestion here is that there cannot in principle be a purely scientific account of the passions and this Le Moyne explains in his account of freedom. It is because we act and actually create something new in the same way that we create poetry that the passions cannot be accounted for by a scientific explanation. In addition, the process of becoming aware of the passions is one that makes it necessary to respond to them. We may miss the point if we simply concentrate on the surface of Descartes’ account. But let us look at what he proposes. There are only six primitive passions in Descartes’ list: wonder, love, hate, desire, joy, and sadness. All the others are compounded of them. We experience them in a way that ties us to objects. They motivate us whether we want them to or not. The passions come in pairs, desirable and undesirable. What is more they evidently pull us in ways which leave us little choice. Love is surely better than hate. Who would not rather have joy than sadness wherever it is appropriate? Wonder and desire do not at first sight seem to form a pair of the same sort, but Descartes sees desire as binding us to objects and wonder as freeing us. Furthermore, wonder seems to let us see things as they really are. The process is, however, one in which we become self-aware, and our natures are formed in the decisions we make. Once separated from things by wonder, we can no longer just sit back and let nature carry us along. We need to choose, but our choices are not wholly unstructured. All six passions seem to be necessary ingredients in human life. Without trying to defend the practice of seeking “basic” passions and especially the practice of trying to find six of them—something Pierre Le Moyne associated with a Stoic tradition—we can readily see how such classifications might come about. We are either attracted to things or we want to be separated from them. Between passionate desire and manifest loathing there are no doubt indefinitely many states including simple cold neutrality. But simple neutrality is a kind


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of separation. Desire can be transformed into love and aversion into hate, and, if a human life is to have some continuity there must be some policy involved in it. The transformation of the passions is a necessary and continuous activity. It is difficult to imagine anyone whose life is not enlivened by feelings of elation and depression, transformed into the things Descartes calls joy and sadness. Descartes has elided desire and aversion (he says that we also desire the absence of evil, so that aversion is merely a desire to have something else or to be in some other place; see Passions, art. 86; AT 10.392). He has thus made room for wonder among the basic six. Wonder he sees as performing a basic role, and few would deny that it exists. So it would seem that Descartes is talking about real elements with which we must all deal Furthermore, it would seem that none of the passions can be wholly eliminated as elements in a reasonable life. Perhaps no one need seriously contemplate a life based on Schopenhauer’s pessimism, but one who feels joy at the death of a close friend, or the defeat of a preferred candidate, or when mighty Casey strikes out is in need of psychiatric attention. And finite human life implies death, elections have to have losers, and baseball is no fun if no one ever strikes out. Descartes does not stop to make the whole of this case, but it seems evident that the passions are linked—and that without the passions as he conceives of them human life as we know it would be impossible. The question is, therefore, only about whether and how they need to be controlled and tamed. That they need to be controlled seems evident. At any rate no one should pass his life in the grip of desire, oppressed by sadness, and absorbed by hate. That we should not always be full of joy seems equally evident. Two passions remain, though, as special cases: Love and wonder. Love is very important and troubling to Descartes as it turns out. But it will be easier to deal with after we have looked at wonder. I think there are philosophers who, even if they would not use Descartes’ language, would want to emphasize what seems at least latent in his account of wonder.25 There is a suggestion that wonder brings us face to face with reality as well as with our own freedom. The condition of that confrontation is that we see each thing as an individual. In a way this is knowledge—in wonder we understand things as infinitely variable and real. But in a way this insight precludes knowledge. For there is nothing we can say about things so conceived, nothing we can do by way of planning a life or even a short range of actions with respect to this confrontation.

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The conceptual structures we impose on things are not really, in Descartes’ view, alien to them. They merely express the reality of some dimension of things that can be grasped by way of ideas and dealt with in language. In the same way our own views of our own bodies, for instance, do not exhaust our reality but they do give us a way of talking about ourselves and of relating to others. The inexpressible infinite in us is something else—but not to be dealt with in complete absence from the specific expressions of it in concrete form. Indeed, the infinite is merely a capacity to express. To understand it we must separate ourselves from it. Love seems unobjectionable except as Descartes says in his letter to Chanut that it brings out the greatest evils as well as the greatest goods. We may love another to the exclusion of everything else, for love tends to bind people together, and make them forget those outside the magic circle. Once again it is the infinite that enables us to see beyond our loveengendered myopia. But this escape has to be brought about by reason. Before we can look at this we need to say something more about the passions themselves. For it is exactly the necessary relation between freedom and the passions which allows Descartes finally to link free will, generosity and love. How we use our free will is the most important issue we face. And love is our highest value. In saying this, Descartes was following a line fairly deeply etched in the philosophy of the time, though perhaps he did not want to follow it to its logical limit. At any rate, if we follow for a moment the reasoning of Pierre Le Moyne26 we shall see what is at issue. Le Moyne argued that the precise form the passions take renders them quasi-determinate—formed content which is susceptible to free will in a way which makes the ultimate explanation of human nature closed to the natural sciences. Curiously, however, by implication at least, it is this very property which makes them amenable to reason, and this perhaps tells us something about Descartes’ predicament. Le Moyne says that the passions lie between freedom and determination (IV.2, ch. 3). He seems to mean that the passions are something which simply come to us; but that we control the specific form that they take. The argument is not fully developed, but it would go like this: All the passions have particular forms, usually intentional. One loves someone, one hates something, one desires some object. But passions are bi-polar. The lover sees in the beloved characteristics which no one else does; the particular form one’s hatreds take has to do with oneself.


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Thus the passions demand fulfillment. They may be largely fulfilled by imagination—Dante saw his beloved Beatrice only twice— or they may be almost fully structured by their object. The alcoholic’s craving for drink allows little latitude. But this bi-polarity is their very nature because they could not be what they are without being intentional in a special sense and they could not be intentional in this way if they were not custom-made for the individual. It may be true, certainly, that the structure is largely given by the character of the individual. But to say this is to miss part of the point. It is to suppose that the individual is ready-made and that the passions fit like clothes. But Augustine was surely right to argue that what we are depends very much on what we love. The process is one of continuous interaction. It is here that reason can fit into the story.

The Forms of Reason Reason plays at least two different roles in this story: It universalizes and it produces a continuous narrative. If we start like Descartes with the notion that the passions have their origins in the body and that they arise from the ways in which the world impinges on us, then we can agree that we need some initial experience—the “wonder” of which Descartes speaks—with which to free ourselves. Once free for a moment we can readily reflect on the objects which present themselves and notice that both they and the passions they express can, up to a point, be universalized. The objects can be assigned to categories and viewed as exemplars of their kinds. Love can be seen as something that can take many forms and involve many people. But, thus freed, we are compelled to choose. What was simply a natural phenomenon of attraction or repulsion has become something that can be shaped into many ways of life. But how can one choose? The question I have in mind is not the one Descartes thinks unnecessary to the major issue and Malebranche rejected: How could I ever have done other than I did? The serious question arises like this: To choose, one needs a motivation. Is the search for freedom itself a motivation that can stand among the others? It is often said that I am pushed and pulled by various passions and that, in the end, the strongest wins out. But what if the motivation is the desire to be free itself? This, interestingly, is what I think Descartes suggests as the outcome

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of wonder. Thus in Descartes’ view the passions acquire value as the road to that freedom which constitutes the highest human good— the highest good first because it is, as he says, the best that we can achieve, assuming that freedom, real freedom, brings with it the generosity which he seeks. We are not God. We cannot be sure that we are right. But we can be generous and seek the freedom with which to act on that generosity. Still, even if the passions do become structured on the road to rational intelligibility, they are still passions. At best I want the love of the person, I stand transfixed in wonder, I am moved by compassion for my fellow man. It has been thought—by Kant for instance— that one could and should stand above such passions and ask only: What is my duty? It is perfectly true that one can build a moral theory on nothing more than reason and the idea of morality. For suppose it is even possible that there are correct moral judgments. Then it is one’s duty to try to make them. If one does not try, one might have found the right answers and if there are any such answers clearly one would be remiss in one’s duties. And if one has a duty to promote enquiries into goodness one has a duty toward all other enquirers to make certain that they are able to carry on the search as well. This involves a whole social policy of tolerance and mutual support. Still, one must have an idea of morality, some concrete notion of what it might be. And this must come from experience. Even Kant, as I said, agreed that in the end if we could not reconcile duty and happiness the justification for the system would break down. And some measure of particularization is necessary. It is good to give water to thirsty dogs, but one may have pressing duties that preclude one from ranging over the world looking for dogs in need of a drink. There is a kind of galloping Kantianism which would result from discovering some good thing to do and then witlessly doing it over and over again—searching the world endlessly for drowning men and dogs who need to be rescued from ditches. Not all good deeds can be done by everyone. If everyone spent the day looking for drowning men in ditches it is clear that much else would not get done. It is not just that drowning would be ignored. There are children to feed and cows to milk, not to mention national budgets to be prepared and philosophical papers to be written. The problem is therefore one about how such particularization is to come about in a way which is consistent with Descartes’ moral aims. The right suggestion evidently is the one which Jean Terrasson made after Descartes and which he regarded as “Descartes’ gift.” The


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idea of continuous discourse is at the heart of the matter. But Terrasson did not work it all out, contenting himself largely with telling us about the poets, and speculating a little about how reason and experience get combined. There are useful clues in the work of Pierre Le Moyne: The passions simply do not come as fully structured emotional responses. Our emotions are not sensations. They demand imaginative completion. It is because they trigger in us something that requires formulation that, once we are jolted from our unreflective involvement with things, as Descartes thinks, we are free. A vague and general beneficence may do for the God imagined by some philosophers of our time (John Hick’s God for instance), but our loves demand more specification. The issue does have to do with the melding of reason and experience. In an important sense the Cartesian self is constructed. As a thinking thing it is a universal. The res cogitans I am aware of is just the same as the one you are aware of. Both are capable of universal reason. But the self only knows it is existing when it thinks about itself, that is, when it particularizes itself at a moment in time. It really does so by telling itself a story. The story is the kind one finds in Descartes’ Meditations or in the religious meditations of Ignatius Loyola and Eustachius a Sancto Paulo who no doubt served Descartes as models. Such stories link experiences together in a way that make sense. It is this intelligible creature surely—the subject who lives a life and who is open to new experiences at any moment—who figures in moral discourse. Terrasson was partly right to drift off into a discussion of rhetoric and poetry, for they are examples of kinds of discourse which make experience intelligible.27 But the tests are that the self should be able to find itself in the world and make sense of a life. Such discourse is continuous in the sense that it links the unfolding episodes of experience in a kind of seamless web but it is also continuous in the sense that it never ends. It is always open to modification. This is so because the two functions of reason mesh in a way that makes it necessary. Reason seeks the universal elements in experience, but it must also anchor them in a moment of actual reasoning. It can thus never reach a final ending. In any case, it is made partly of what is received and partly of what it creates. Indeed the very model of this kind of reasoning is the process by which the passions become intelligible. By the time that I have learned that what I want is chocolate cake and that chocolate is also not good for me and that for various reasons of heath and morals I ought to

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feed myself on processed plankton, I have learned what continuous discourse is.

The Problem of the Infinite But this does imply a continuous teleological orientation, and the continuous discourse could have no force without some notion of a goal. The goal has to be, paradoxically, one which leaves things open, for otherwise such a theory is a way of trapping the mind and ending freedom, and freedom is the essential ingredient in the breach with what is simply given, a “natural” which makes morality possibility at all. Once we are free we are no longer simply products of nature. Indeed there is no more “mere nature,” for everything is changed by the fact that we act on it. It is this that makes us the peril of the world, as environmentalists suggest. It may also make us the hope of the world. For the goods of which Descartes speaks—freedom and love—are good as well as dangerous. Human beings have forever seen themselves as involved in a great drama whose outcome is uncertain. Christians have supposed that a miracle of divine intervention could tip the balance toward good. Except in the great letter on love he sent to Chanut, Descartes rather plays down the drama. Be careful, he says in the Discours. Do not burn down your own house. Temper reason with prudence. Yet he shared in the age-old dramatic vision and gave it his own twist. And anyone who pursues the ethics of generosity will have to face up to it. It is here that anyone who wants to indulge in this kind of reasoning needs the Cartesian infinite. Descartes obviously has it constantly at the back of his mind even though, I think, he never quite works the argument out. I shall try to do it for him. Descartes mentions in the Third Meditation a number of concepts of the infinite. He speaks of what is evidently one version of the late scholastic infinite—derived from a certain reading of St. Thomas— which consists of a set of properties ascribable to God which are conceived as bestowing unlimited powers—omniscience and omnipotence, for instance. He also mentions the infinite, which somehow provides the unity for the infinity of our parts. And he speaks of the indéfini, which is the infinite in the world. But his central notion— the one that I am sure he thinks is logically prior to all our experiences of the finite—is an infinite that cannot be categorized. When we become free we glimpse this possibility.


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As free beings we are outside the limits of categories ourselves. This is how we come to have a share in the infinite, and this is exactly why Descartes says in his letter to Chanut that we are not the subjects of God. Such a doctrine may have made him fear that, if it became known, he would suffer the fate of Giordano Bruno, though in fact it is orthodox enough: By eating of the fruit of the tree of good and evil we take on ourselves the responsibilities of God and can be saved only by an extra-ordinary overturning of the order of things. It is this sense of freedom and infinity that inspires Descartes. Descartes’ own ethics, which stems from the sense of generosity which must accrue to those who realize their freedom, their responsibility, and their closeness to the infinite finds its final expression in the doctrine of love which he expounds in the letter to Chanut. There he insists that it is coincidence of the wills which constitutes real love and this, of course, is what he thinks we must use to inform the relations between human beings and God. The doctrine goes further than this, for the Cartesian infinite is no longer the God of fixed predicates but an infinite which must find its expression in the finite. As the infinite finds its expression, it becomes the source of objective values. In our own time Emmanuel Lévinas who in important respects follows in Descartes’ footsteps has drawn a distinction between the traditional morale de salut and what he called la morale terrestre.28 The one may take us away from the world and focus our concerns on our own ultimate condition. The other forces us to live up to the day-to-day demands of others and to deal, as Descartes thought in the Discourse, with the inevitable hour-by-hour compromises of life. Descartes had hoped to bring them together and it seems to me that it might just be possible to do it.

Notes 1

The idea of a state of mind and character that would represent the right balance of the virtues is a common theme of the period. The word that Charron uses for his moral ideal is preudhommie—honesty and wisdom. The main discussion is in “revué et augmenté,” Bk. II, ch. 3 of La Sagesse. References here are to the 1607 edition. Charron died in 1605. The book had been published in 1601 and a censored edition appeared in 1604; but the 1607 edition is believed to conform to Charron’s final intentions. The first page number in each bracket refers to the 1607 edition, and the second to the 1635 edition. The word is not unique to Charron. Calvin also used it in his Institutes (1541), as did Rabelais, Amyot, and Montaigne. (See Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle; the spelling is given there as preudhommie.) Charron usually

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spells it Preud’homie, but sometimes Prud’hommie. The word appears in earlier centuries as Preud’home and as prudeshomes and proumme. Preudefemme also appears (cf. Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française du seizième siècle). Charron says there is a popular kind of preudhommie (351, 32) and a real kind (352, 3233). The real kind is compared to religion (397, 64). The popular kind of preudhommie consists only of obeying laws, rules of religion, customs, commandments of superiors, and so forth. The real preudhommie depends exclusively on reason (40). Reason shows us three levels of moral development (365-66, 41-42) innocence, virtue, and perfection. The first is a kind of natural bonhommie. The second is the development and control of one’s faculties and emotions by reason. The third is the work of long study of philosophy and its history in a way that will show us our true possibilities and our limitations. In chapter 5 (379-401, 51-67), Charron talks of a comparison of religion and preudhommie. He also says the sage will recognize Christianity as a superior religion, but only because it most reasonably leads to perfection (385-87, 54-55). But all religions are outrageous to common sense. 2 The word “passion” has a checkered history. The word comes from the Latin passio, passionis formed from the verb pati and originally meant “what comes from the outside.” But by the second century, it had taken on a religious meaning involving moral pain. In the thirteenth century it came to be restricted to actions performed on the soul or mind. The philosophical sense is attributed by the Dictionnaire historique de la langue française first to Oresme (1143, 1370), and centers on the distinction between the subject as recipient and the subject as active. Calvin (1558) applied it to human nature in the sense of the thing that people have inflicted on them because of their natures—sin, suffering and death. Descartes uses it in the Passions (1649) to distinguish what the soul éprouve from what it fait éprouver d’autres. But as one digs further it quickly becomes clear that the passions are themselves an internal activity. By the time one comes to amour, the passion is said to be excited by natural spirits that provoke us to join ourselves to various objects. Indeed one could make the same analysis of the six possible passions envisaged by Descartes (Article 59): Admiration, amour, haine, désir, joye, tristesse. As the notion of activity grows we can see that there is a reasonable story about how passion comes to mean affection violente in modern French. If one consults Edmund Huguet’s Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle (V.673), one finds that while Montaigne did indeed use the word to include what happens to bodies, the sense of passion as emotion was well established, e.g., in La Fontaine. 3 It was recognized as new by Jean Terrasson, but this fact elicited surprisingly little attention. See La Philosophie 114ff., esp. 115. 4 His influence on Descartes was probably quite direct. Descartes certainly read him and mentions him in a letter to the Marquis of Newcastle on Nov. 23, 1646 (see Oeuvres / publiees par Charles Adam et Paul Tannery [AT] 4.575). Pierre Mesnard in Essai sur la morale de Descartes links Charron to Descartes’ original idea of wisdom (20). 5 I mean to distinguish “neo-Platonic” in the sense of a revisionist Platonism from Neoplatonic in the sense of a position associated with Plotinus. Some elements of Yves’ philosophy are certainly Neoplatonic but his insistence on an ordered hierarchy of forms is more directly Platonist 6 Much of Yves de Paris’ moral theory is in Les Morales chrétiennes. It was his vision of a neatly ordered universe in which there are necessarily all sorts and conditions


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of human beings which endeared him to the bourgeoisie. But Charles Chesneau (Julien-Eymard d’Angers) reminds us that Yves did not let his middle class readers off lightly. He was among the first to attack the “trickle-down” theory of economics—the thesis that the money spent by the rich is good for the poor and justifies the ostentation of the rich (see Chesneau 17-46.) Yves applies his theory of civic virtue in Le Gentilhomme chrétien. But see also L’Agent de Dieu dans le monde; De l’indifférence; Digestium Sapientiae; La Théologie naturelle ou les premières véritez de foy éclaircies par raisons sensibles et morales; and Très-humbles remonstrances presentées à la reine contre les nouvelles doctrines de ce temps. 7 See the excellent discussion in Rice, The Renaissance Idea of Wisdom. 8 In view of his pleas for understanding in his writings on the philosophy of history (see Instructions pour l’histoire) it seems unlikely that Rapin’s concentration on the Jews in his master-slave remarks is anti-Semitic. Rather the context is that of the Old Testament and a particular reading of it that makes God an absolute master who may, without accruing blame, do with us as he pleases. It is, of course, standard doctrine that the New Testament brought about a new relation between human beings and God. Many people in the sixteenth century—including Descartes—took the view which Rapin does, though probably at most times and in most places people in the Judeo-Christian tradition have taken God to be an absolute master. Rapin had, certainly, to accept what the Church would insist upon—that the faith of the last centuries had to be the same as the first. But different times bring different perils. A large part of his message is that the spirit of liberty abroad in his own time should be understood in terms of the Christian faith and not as something in opposition to it. It is his view that this freedom gives us opportunities but it also puts us in great peril that we cannot well manage and overcome without some divine assistance. 9 The tree appears in the preface-letter; see AT 2.2, 14. 10 Thus one may see Emmanuel Lévinas’ insistence on “Ethics as first philosophy” as a natural development of Descartes’ thought, though it is more often seen as a radical restructuring. 11 The question is vitally important because on one view the contemporary split between facts and values as well as the thesis that there can be no “moral knowledge” whose claim to solidity comes near to that of the sciences derives from Descartes’ thought. 12 Nicolas Grimaldi notes, “Descartes never ceased to characterize morality as the principal goal of philosophy” (8). 13 Descartes always insists on the power to control our own thoughts at least in the sense of being able to judge propositions true and false. There is a long account of these issues in Gilson’s La Liberté chez Descartes et la théologie. Gilson changed his mind about some things in this book but not about his basic account of Descartes and freedom. 14 This story is unfolded in Les Passions de l’âme (1649), Pt. II, AT 11.372-442. The first two articles of this part (51 and 52) deal with our first encounters of things. Wonder appears in the next article, 53. Descartes returns to wonder in Articles 70-72. Astonishment is distinguished from it in Article 73. The rest of Part II outlines the order and development of the passions. The story continues into Part III where the method of learning generosity is reached in Article 161 (AT 11.45354).

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See his letter to Christine of Sweden, Nov. 20, 1647 (AT 5.81-86). The remark about God’s subjects —in which he says that our free will makes us in a certain sense equal to God and “semble nous exempter de lui être sujets”—is on 85. 16 In the context of the historic debates about this issue it is important to notice what Descartes is saying. In the Fourth Meditation (AT 7.57-58; 9.46) he remarks that I do not have to be “indifferent” to the choices in order to be free. That is to say there may be reasons which incline me to one course or another, but what matters is that I freely choose and embrace what I have chosen. He goes on to say that I may be indifferent and, indeed, his account in the Passions suggests that wonder sets me free. But what he is concentrating on are experiences of freedom. Malebranche was later to suggest, commonsensically, that one is free who does what he or she wants to do. 17 The idea of a rupture and of the uniqueness of human beings accords well with a universe of discrete states of the sort that characterized much medieval Aristotelianism, but poorly with the Neoplatonic tradition. John the Scot envisaged nature as an interlocking system in which there is a continuity and in which we both participate and share in the activity of God. Nicholas of Cusa, for whom Descartes had a fondness, recognized the role of language and mathematics in our idea of created nature and held that in the world as we know it we are both bound up with nature and cut off from God except through the analogy between our own created processes and God’s. But Descartes is hardly alone in the history of philosophy in wanting to make human beings distinct even at the price of a doubtful philosophical consistency. 18 Notice that it is at least a misuse of language to deny the obvious connection between reason and freedom. Suppose a judge is given a written argument and suppose it is printed on pink paper. Unknown to the attorney the judge suffers from a rare brain condition such that the sight of pink fills him with such revulsion that he can no longer think clearly. Whatever conclusion he comes to we will not say that he “reasoned” his way to the conclusion. Or suppose one party to the case is a member of the Communist Party and the judge so dislikes communists that he invariably finds himself agreeable to any argument for the other side. Again we would not say that he reasoned his way to the conclusion. Of course, either decision might be right in law and supportable by strong reasons so that the decisions might still be “rational.” 19 But again there are other solutions such as that of John the Scot. If we must cooperate in creation we cannot be mere slaves. 20 To declare one’s love for someone is precisely to declare one’s adherence to a set of values whereas to declare oneself a sea captain is to claim some kind of expertise the nature of which is not at once obvious. This is more—and in other respects less—than the claim that one is a competent navigator. Sea captains are supposed to do more than that and may, in fact, have under their command navigators more skilled than they. It can also be objected that all such inferences merely rest on the meanings of words, so that a moral inference valid about sea captains or about lovers might be true in one century and false in another. But love, in various forms, has been recognized for a very long time and across many cultures. We can all recognize the love of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, and it has fascinated both scholars and poets and troubled theologians just because it combines many different sorts of love—that of human beings for one another, of human beings for God, and even of the strong for the weak who need to be protected. So although we cannot very well define all the sorts of love and create some simple


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classification of them, we can be fairly sure that human beings recognize there is a phenomenon about which we are able to express some kernel of truth. 21 “Righteous anger” seems a perfectly sensible notion, though there were arguments to suggest that anger is always wrong or at least to be avoided or minimized. But “righteous hatred” sounds like a nonsense idea. Why this should be so will have to emerge as our discussion goes on. 22 See Le Moyne, Les Peintures morales 1642, 1643; Jacques Cottin 1669; Charles Osmont 1672. There do not appear to be significant changes in the editions. The Jacques Cottin edition would have been the last one which Le Moyne could have changed himself. He died in 1671. Le Moyne associates the tradition of six basic passions with the Stoics (bk. I, ch. 2). But the list is not always the same. 23 There is a useful account of this in Meyer, Le Philosophe et les passions; see 219. 24 Le Moyne, Vol. 1 (1672), bk. III, ch. 1 (233-41); and the same pages of 1669. 25 For instance, Gabriel Marcel and Henry Bugbee, neither of whom would want to be thought a Cartesian. 26 Like his colleague René Rapin, he tended to take a somewhat relaxed view of things, and his La Devotion aisée—just by its title—disturbed many people. Le Moyne was also a feminist who insisted that women could do philosophy and science just as well as men, and were just as capable of bravery, etc. 27 If it frequently happens—as is alleged—that contemporary poetry fails to carry out this task or rebels against it, then this is evidence, too. It is evidence perhaps of the limitations of continuous discourse, for such failures to make sense are ruptures in this discourse. 28 Lévinas deals with “la morale terrestre” in “Le moi et la totalité.”

References Armour, Leslie. “Descartes and Eustachius a Sancto Paulo.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy. I.2 (1993) 3-21. Calvin, Jean. Institutio Christianae religionis. Lutetiis [Paris] Oliua Roberti Stephani, 1553. [Institutes of the Christian Religion. Trans. Henry Beveridge. 3 vols. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-46.] Charron, Pierre. La Sagesse. 3rd ed. “revué et augmenté.” Paris: David Douceur, 1607. (Reprinted in Toutes les oeuvres de Pierre Charron. Paris: Jacques Villery, 1635; photo-reprinted, Geneva: Slatkine, 1970.) Chesneau, Charles (Julien-Eymard d’Angers). “Richesse et pauvreté dans l’oeuvre d’Yves de Paris.” XVIIième Siècle Revue. (1871) 90-91. Clark, Henry C. La Rochefoucauld and the Language of Unmasking in SeventeenthCentury France. Geneva: Droz, 1994. Descartes, René. Oeuvres / publiees par Charles Adam et Paul Tannery. Abbreviated AT. Nouv. presentation, en coed. avec le Centre national de la recherche scientifique. 11 v. in 13. Paris: J. Vrin, 1964-74. (—v.1. Correspondance, avril 1622-décembre 1639. [1969]. —v.3-4. Correspondance, janvier 1640-avril 1647. [1971-72]. —v.5. Correspondance, mai 1647-février 1650. [1974]. —v.6. Discours de la méthode & Essais. [1965]. —v.7. Meditationes de prima philosophia. [1964]. —v.8, pt.1. Principia philosophiae. [1964]. —v.8, pt.2. Epistola ad G. Voetium, Lettre apologetiqe, Notae in programma. [1965]. —v.9, pt.1. Méditations: traduction française. [1964]. —v.9, pt. 2. Principes: traduction française. [1971]. —v.10. Physicomathematica, Compendium musicae, Regulae ad directonem ingenii, Recherche de la verité, Supplément à la Correspondance. [1966]. —v.11. Le monde,

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Description du corps humain, Passions de l’âme, Anatomica, Varia. — Notes: Index general at the end of v. 5.) Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française du seizième siècle. Geneva-Paris: Slatkine, 1982. Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle. Vol. 6. Paris: Didier, 1965. Gilson, Etienne. La Liberté chez Descartes et la théologie. Paris: F. Alcan, 1913. Reprinted, Paris: J. Vrin, 1982. Grimaldi, Nicolas. Descartes: La Morale. Paris: J. Vrin, 1992. Huguet, Edmund. Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle. Paris: Didier, 1961. Le Moyne, Pierre. Les Peintures morales ou les passions sont représentées par tableaux, par caricatures, et par questions nouvelles et curieuses. Paris: Sebastien Cramoisy, 1642, 1643; Jacques Cottin, 1669; Charles Osmont, 1672. Lévinas, Emmanuel. “Le moi et la totalité.” Entre Nous: Essais sur le penser-à-l’autre. Paris: Grasset, 1991. 25-52. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. Mesnard, Pierre. Essai sur la morale de Descartes. Paris: Boivin, 1936. Meyer, Michael. Le Philosophe et les passions. Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1991. Paris, Yves de. De l’indifférence. Paris: Thierry, 1638. Reprint, Paris: Belles-Lettres, 1966. ———. Digestium Sapientiae. Paris: Thierry, 1648-54. (Vol. 1, 1648; Vol. 2, 1654.) ———. Le Gentilhomme chrétien. Paris: Thierry, 1666. ———. L’Agent de Dieu dans le monde. Paris: Thierry, 1656. ———. Les Morales chrétiennes. 3rd ed. (rev.). Paris: Thierry, 1640. ———. La Théologie naturelle ou les premières véritez de foy éclaircies par raisons sensibles et morales. 4 vols. Paris: Nicolas Buon, 1633, 1640. ———. Très-humbles remonstrances présentées à la reine contre les nouvelles doctrines de ce temps. Paris: N.p., 1644. Rapin, René. La Foy des derniers siècles. Paris: Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1679. ———. Instructions pour l’histoire. Paris: Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1677. Rice, Eugene. The Renaissance Idea of Wisdom. Harvard Historical Monographs, XXXVII. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958. Terrasson, Jean. La Philosophie applicable à tous les objets de l’esprit et de la raison. Paris: Prault et fils, 1754.


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Is Pity the Basis of Ethics? Nietzsche versus Schopenhauer

T. L. S. Sprigge Compassion the Basis of Ethics for Schopenhauer According to Schopenhauer1 : “Only insofar as an action has sprung from compassion does it have moral value; and every action resulting from any other motive has none” (OBM §16.144). According to Nietzsche: Brave and noble men … are at the farthest remove from that morality which sees the mark of the moral precisely in pity or in acting for others or in désintéressement; belief in oneself, pride in oneself, a fundamental hostility and irony for ‘selflessness,’ belong just as definitely to noble morality as does a mild contempt for and caution against sympathy and the ‘warm heart.’ (BGE §260.177).

and “Strong ages, noble cultures, consider pity, ‘neighbor-love’ … something contemptible” (“Skirmishes of an Untimely Man,” TI §37.540) and “What is more harmful than any vice? Active pity for all the failures and all the weak: Christianity” (A §2.570). According to Spinoza: “In the man who lives by the guidance of reason, pity (Commiseratio) is in itself bad and disadvantageous” (E IV.50).2 My purpose in this paper is to evaluate the force of the criticisms, on the part of Nietzsche and others, such as Spinoza, of the foundational role often attributed to pity or compassion, more especially by Schopenhauer and to a lesser or greater degree by the great world religions. The issue is of considerable importance quite apart from the particular way in which it is raised by these philosophers. Though I shall, upon the whole, be defending Schopenhauer, and agreeing with him that compassion is in fact both a form of knowledge and basic to ethics, I am not in absolute agreement with him. For one

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thing I think what is properly called morality has other sources too. Moreover, while it is wildly over-stated, I find that Nietzsche’s critique of an ethics of pity or compassion does include insights that call for some qualification of Schopenhauer’s approach. Actually, I think we can look to Spinoza for a more balanced expression of some of these insights. I shall start with a sketch of Schopenhauer’s ethics of compassion. According to Schopenhauer, man is for the most part motivated by pure egoism, an egoism tempered sometimes by sheer malice. This egoism and periodic malice spring from the false sense of separateness pertaining to each phenomenal manifestation of the one cosmic Will, this being the single thing in itself behind the phenomenal world. As egoists we have, however, sensed the need for some co-operation with our fellow men if our lives are not be ‘nasty, brutish and short.’ (Schopenhauer often quotes Hobbes in this connection though I have not found him using this actual phrase.) This motivated human beings to develop the state, and the forces of law and order, as well as a more informal social contract that dictates certain principles of honor in our social relations. The state, the law, and the code of honor are backed by sanctions which temper the damage we would each otherwise suffer from the egoism and malice of others, as also does our individual self-interested awareness of our need to co-operate with our fellows for our own good (OBM §14.133; WWR I §62.344-46; etc.). All this, however, has nothing whatever to do with morality properly speaking. For nothing done from such essentially egoistic motives calls forth that special sort of admiration, which we feel for what we call moral goodness. This is only evoked when we suppose that someone has risen above the level of normal human egoism and has been inspired by a selfless wish to relieve the suffering of others. Only actions inspired thus by genuine compassion possess any real moral worth (OBM §14.138-40). The compassion with which Schopenhauer identifies moral goodness is not a mere subjective feeling without cognitive content. It expresses rather the collapse of an illusion. To feel compassion is to see through the apparent distinction of oneself from other people, and indeed animals, to the underlying identity (OBM §21-§22.199214; WWR I §55, §62, §66.372-73, §67). Thus compassion rests upon, or even is, a form of knowledge, the knowledge that it is one’s own deeper self that suffers too in others. This leads necessarily to a

4 ~ Is Pity the Basis of Ethics? Nietzsche versus Schopenhauer

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readiness to help one’s fellows in their need and to refrain from what would harm them. Someone who found Schopenhauer’s metaphysics unacceptable might still agree that egoism and malice rest on an illusion, the illusion that our own feelings, and in particular our own sufferings, have a kind of privileged reality in comparison with which the feelings of others have only a shadowy kind of existence. To quote Josiah Royce: What, then, is our neighbor? …. He is not that face that frowns or smiles at thee, although often thou thinkest of him as only that. …. Thou hast regarded his thought, his feeling, as somehow different in sort from thine. Thou hast said, ‘A pain in him is not like a pain in me, but something far easier to bear.’ Thou hast made of him a ghost, as the imprudent man makes of his future self a ghost. Even when thou hast feared his scorn, his hate, his contempt, thou hast not fully made him for thee as real as thyself. His laughter at thee hast made thy face feel hot, his frowns and clenched fists have cowed thee, his sneers have made thy throat feel choked. But that was only the social instinct in thee. It was not a full sense of his reality…. Of thy neighbor thou hast made a thing, no Self at all. …. Have done with this illusion, and simply try to learn the truth. Pain is pain, joy is joy, everywhere, even as in thee…. The result of thy insight will be inevitable. Seeing the oneness of this life everywhere, the equal reality of all its moments, thou wilt be ready to treat it all with the reverence that prudence would have thee show to thy own little bit of future life. Lift up thy eyes, behold that life, and then turn away, and forget as thou canst; but, if thou hast known that, thou hast begun to know thy duty. (15-62)

Actually Royce was as much a metaphysical monist as Schopenhauer, but this passage is an eloquent, if a trifle too preacherly, statement of a line of ethical thought which could be argued for without any very strong form of metaphysical monism. And it does seem to me a true account of how we ordinarily feel about each other and to justify the claim that egoism rests on an illusion for which compassion is the correction. Personally I would travel rather further metaphysically in Schopenhauer’s and Royce’s direction, but to grant so much is perhaps to grant what is ethically most essential. Moreover, even if we stand apart from metaphysics altogether, we can still agree or otherwise with Schopenhauer that compassion is the basis of ethics, and that morally good behavior is to be identified with that which springs from compassion, while morally bad action is action which springs

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either from malice or from some special deficiency in compassion (OBM §16, esp. 145). It is the critique of this purely ethical claim by Nietzsche, which primarily concerns me in this paper. I should mention in passing that Schopenhauer develops this account of ethics by distinguishing two aspects of morality, justice and loving kindness (OBM §17, §18.148-67). The first consists of principles by which we must abide if we are not ourselves to be the cause of injury to others; the second consists in the active effort to relieve the sufferings of others however caused. Both are ultimately descriptive of how we will behave if inspired by genuine compassion in our dealing with others, and their moral goodness springs entirely from the compassion they express. Thus Schopenhauer regards moral philosophy as descriptive of moral worth rather than as telling people how they ought to behave. For Schopenhauer the only meaningful ought is hypothetical (see OBM §4.52-58; end of §13.130). So he is not advising people how to behave, for everyone will in fact behave according to his own character, which Schopenhauer thinks is innate. The most we can do is to point out to people the best way to achieve their ends (whether those be egoistical or compassionate) so that they can act more wisely, which upon the whole will mean through greater co-operation with others. But this has no bearing upon their moral worth which consists in the extent to which their motivation includes compassion with others, something determined by their innate character (see OBM §13.130; WWR I §55.286-307). In spite of this non-prescriptive conception of moral philosophy, it is hard not to see an element of recommendation in his account of the foundations of morality, not to take him, that is, as seeking to rouse us from our usual egoism, or even malice, to a more compassionate and altruistic way of relating to others, for which his metaphysics supplies a cognitive foundation. At any rate, for purposes of contrasting him with Nietzsche (and also Spinoza) it seems reasonable to take him thus. And the contrast between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche could hardly be greater. For Schopenhauer compassion is the only morally admirable trait in a human being, while for Nietzsche compassion is so far from being an admirable trait at all, that it is, upon the whole, a rather deplorable hindrance to those who might otherwise achieve something positive with their own lives, filling them with unnecessary guilt and sapping their energies. Before examining the case against him, as made out by Nietzsche and others, let me clarify further just what Schopenhauer is claim-


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ing. He is claiming (not that compassion is the only admirable trait a human being can possess, but) that it is the only morally admirable trait. But what distinguishes moral admiration from other types of admiration, for instance, for someone as an artist? And is Schopenhauer claiming that compassion is the only human characteristic which ever is admired in a moral way, or that it is the only one that should be? Although he did not confront these questions as sharply as modern discussions might have forced him to do, what his position comes to, I think, is that a very special kind of admiration is evoked by what we take to be really compassionate behavior, (or rather by the compassionate will we take to be expressed in it), that nothing else ever actually calls forth that type of admiration, and that everyone who reflects realizes that the emotional force of ethical words derives from this special kind of admiration felt for compassion and for compassion alone.3 He also thinks that all statements about what is right and wrong, and about what people morally ought to do, are, ultimately, statements about what compassion would prompt in various situations.

Schopenhauer’s Historical Claim It is evident that Schopenhauer does not regard himself as describing just one particular type of morality, that associated especially with such religions as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism, while allowing that there have been other principles and codes of conduct which are as properly called ‘moral,’ however unacceptable they are to us or to him. Rather does he claim to be describing the moral insight shared throughout humanity so far as anything which can be called a moral point of view is present at all. Thus everyone in their heart, according to Schopenhauer has, throughout history, really shared this moral point of view.4 If it is not the position of most official moral philosophy, this is because that has been an abstract affair divorced from the concrete reality of what all human beings actually feel. Nietzsche of course strikingly challenged this historical claim. He contends rather that the ethics of pity and compassion is a herd morality imposed, within certain societies at particular times, upon the naturally strong of the earth by the weak and second-rate as a means of enervating the former in the interests of the latter. Thus there was once a time when what was valued most highly was “foolhardiness, vengefulness, craftiness, rapacity, and the lust to rule,” while later

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what came to be valued most was that sort of conformity and submissiveness which makes people less troublesome to comfort-loving neighbors. 5 The historical question of how far human evaluations have remained constant, how far radically changed, is of great interest but I lack the appropriate knowledge to have much of an opinion on the matter. Certainly in the Odyssey there are features of the character of Odysseus which seem to be admired and which are far from Schopenhauer’s ideal; on the other hand, he is not depicted as totally without kindness (though perhaps this is mainly to his subjects and could be seen as the tenderness of the Übermensch for the helpful herd).

Comparison of Schopenhauer with Benevolence Systems Schopenhauer’s position has something in common with ethical systems for which benevolence is the basic virtue. But there is a rather striking difference. For philosophers like Hutcheson, benevolence was an inclination to act in the way which one judged would maximize human or human and animal happiness. Had Schopenhauer simply seen moral goodness as resting on a grasp of the fundamental identity of all conscious beings one would have expected this to be his position. For such a philosophy compassion with suffering would only be one half of the story; the other half would be an inclination to promote positive happiness. However, Schopenhauer specifically denies that the good man is anxious to spread happiness. For he will be wise enough to know that the very idea of more than the briefest happiness is a will o’ the wisp. The best that can really happen to a human being is a reduction of his suffering, apart from the odd brief thrill of pleasure as some particular frustration is temporarily eased. So to try to promote positive human happiness is like wanting to draw round squares. And there is another reason for not seeking to promote positive happiness: that the only final relief from the miseries of life depends upon the will to live denying itself through turning away from all egoistic striving, and this one and only true salvation is most typically reached by the route of the most intense suffering, which may, therefore, be a blessing in disguise. Moreover, it is impossible really to enter empathically into another’s joys, as opposed to his sufferings, partly because these more readily arouse our envy than an identification with him, partly because there


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is nothing genuinely positive in pleasure with which to identify, since pleasure is really only the relief of a brief absence from pain, the pain of boredom, if of nothing else (see OBM §16.146-47; WWR I §58.319; WWR II ch. XV.573; etc.). Thus it is only when we find another suffering that we can transcend an egoistic or malicious attitude towards him. Schopenhauer quotes Rousseau in this connection: “It is not peculiar to the human heart to put itself in the position of those who are more fortunate than we, but only of those who are more pitiable” (Émile, first maxim, quoted by Schopenhauer OBM §16.146). All in all, Schopenhauer’s good man hardly sounds as though he would be the life and soul of a party. He might work for Oxfam but hardly for Comic Relief. This rather doleful picture of moral goodness is evidently one of the things against which Nietzsche reacted, and against which we can imagine Spinoza reacting too, as he may have reacted to aspects of the Judaism and Christianity of his own time and place. And of course it is part and parcel of Schopenhauer’s celebrated pessimism. Whether life is on the whole as bad a thing as Schopenhauer thought, I shall not consider, but surely he is wrong that pleasure and joy are nothing positive but merely the feeling of relief from pain. People surely do really sometimes thoroughly enjoy a good meal, playing a game, being flattered, listening to lovely music. As for the possibility of identifying with someone else who is happy, clearly when someone is happy there is not the same call to do something about his situation as there is when he is miserable, so that even the most altruistic person is content to leave the happy person to his own devices. But surely sometimes one can do things with the direct intention of making someone else happy and surely you can really enjoy someone else’s happiness as truly as you can find their unhappiness painful. (If you proffer an egoistic interpretation of the enjoyment of another’s happiness, that is no more, if no less, convincing than offering an egoistic interpretation of compassion.) Moreover, even if the relief of suffering is generally a more urgent task than that of setting out to make yourself and others happy, the idea that a good character is determined solely by one’s ability to pity others, and not at all with one’s capacity to enter into their happiness, and enjoy increasing it, is a bad one. For one thing there is in real life no sharp distinction between increasing happiness and decreasing unhappiness. For another thing it really would be an obsession with suffering which only brought one into sympathy with others by concern at the negative aspects of their lives.

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Although I take issue with Schopenhauer on these points I do agree with him, even if on different grounds from his, that the relief of unhappiness is more central to morality than the production of happiness. One reason is that for the most part if you remove unhappiness (other than by killing the unhappy) you produce happiness. Happiness rushes into fill the vacuum in consciousness left by unhappiness; equally unhappiness rushes in to fill the vacuum in consciousness left by the removal of happiness. Arguably another reason is that somehow the existence of unhappiness is more of a bad thing than the existence of happiness is a good thing but I am not sure that this rather gloomy quasi-Schopenhauerian point is true. However that may be, one may agree with Schopenhauer that compassion is a peculiarly important ethical motivator, while preferring to see it as one main aspect of a fellow feeling which extends also to pleasure at another’s joy.

Three Objections to Pity As the Basis of Ethics from Positions Less Extreme Than Nietzsche’s Before considering Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer’s ethics of compassion let me mention three criticisms of Schopenhauer, which might be made by a more moderate opponent. a) First, it may be said that pity implies contempt and as such is not a good basis for human solidarity We run into various problems of linguistic usage here. I am not confident as to how it stands with German, though I am informed that bemitleiden can be somewhat insulting, but in English it is hard to find a situation now in which ‘I pity you’ would not be an insult. Typically it occurs in plays where the hero turns on some villain, in whose power he is, and says ‘I pity you,’ implying that it is wretched to be so second-rate a human being. In English the word ‘compassion’ carries a less patronizing charge than ‘pity,’ and may be a better translation of Mitleid in this context. It has the disadvantage, however, of having no common verbal form, since ‘to compassionate’ is hardly ordinary English. And in any case, most of us probably have a limited taste for being objects of compassion, even if it is not expressed by the word ‘pity.’ However, what I think Schopenhauer, and other ethicists of pity or compassion, really have in mind under this heading is a deep sense of the reality of another’s suffering and an associated wish to alleviate it, which need have no tincture of contempt. And I would incline to see


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them as right in holding that this, if not the whole basis of ethics, is still something the capacity for which is one of the main conditions of an adequate moral outlook. b) Another objection to making pity basic to ethics is the thought that someone overcome with such an emotion cannot act rationally with due consideration either of the effects of the action or the principle under which it falls. This too is a point particularly emphasised by Spinoza (E IV.50, scholium). It is certainly true that some people may be so overcome with emotion that they cannot cope. It is better to be helped by people who are not too emotionally fraught. But this is compatible with saying that what fundamentally gives a reason for efficient relief aid is the insight that is given most basically by pity. And, in fact, Schopenhauer himself makes the point that, although compassion reveals the basic truth of the underlying identity which binds us all, and is the longterm motivator behind the adoption of a moral way of life, in the thick of events we must rely on principles dictated by compassion in reflective moments rather than on the gusts of current feeling.6 c) A third reason why some people object to regarding pity as the basis of ethics is that they think it is often no more than a mere self-indulgence and is therefore by no means always admirable. This is true. In the eighteenth century there was a cult of sentiment which may have only been slightly connected with real active benevolence or philanthropy. And we may recall the story of the Russian lady weeping at the heroine’s plight at the opera while her coachman was freezing to death on his seat outside (James 125). But surely the pity or compassion which is simply enjoyed as an indulgence is different in kind from that which really activates people to help others. There is also the contrasting point that some people find pity so unpleasant a state that they avoid being made too aware of things in the world which they might contribute to stopping if they faced up to the facts.7 But I cannot see that this is a serious objection to Schopenhauer. However, I do not want myself simply to endorse an ethics of pity or compassion or even of an altruism which covers fellow feeling in general. For one thing I think that it is both an unrealistic and an undesirable attitude which would ask each of us to be entirely motivated by altruism, and not to accept as part of a sensible ethic recommendations as to how each of us can live a life which we ourselves enjoy so far as circumstances allow.

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For another thing, in a certain way, a Schopenhauerian ethic too much emphasizes the contrast between egoistic and altruistic motivation. The most satisfactory life for the individual is one in which he is not excessively selfish, as the term would normally be understood, and is genuinely concerned with how things are going for others. But the reasons in favor of this life are not to be divided into non-moral egoistic reasons and moral altruistic reasons. Rather can the individual only have a satisfactory life if it is bound up affectively with the lot of others.

Nietzsche contra Schopenhauer and Christianity Let us turn now to Nietzsche’s far more radical attack upon the value of pity, and still more to the notion that it is the basis of any decent morality. In trying to work out the details of Nietzsche’s critique of an ethics of compassion I have found twelve not sharply distinct points which require discussion. I shall make some remarks about each of these twelve points in turn.8 §1. Nietzsche’s first objection (my numbering of course): Basing ethics on pity is associated with the thesis that pain is a bad thing and pleasure the one good thing. But all great human excellence9 comes from suffering, so that if the sufferer is potentially a higher man, one should react to him as one who needs to be toughened by suffering, while if he is not potentially a higher man, it really hardly matters that he is suffering.10 It is rather a large task to undertake here to consider whether pain (understood in the largest sense as covering all sorts of suffering) is intrinsically a bad thing and pleasure intrinsically a good thing, or even the sole things which are so, as claimed by classical utilitarianism and other hedonistic systems. Pain or suffering clearly has its utility in human and animal life. It leads us to avoid things that can threaten our survival, and serves as a warning that something is wrong. Maybe too, since everyone is almost bound to suffer quite badly some time in one way or another, an excessive desire to save people from pain may make them less capable of facing more serious pain when it comes later, and thereby of less use both to themselves and to others. But that suffering and pain are, apart from their utility as warnings of something wrong, or as tougheners, or perhaps deepeners of character, ever other than intrinsically bad, I find it hard to accept.11 To me it seems that any genuine encounter with pain, or any ability to


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imagine real pain or suffering in another, carries with it necessarily the message that this is something to put a stop to if possible. I admit that there are techniques for dealing with pain which do in a sense consist in telling oneself that it really does not matter. Trying to contemplate a (not too serious) physical pain as a mere sensation, with no intrinsic disvalue in itself may, up to a point, provide a way of coping with it. But this turns on a double meaning of the word ‘pain’ as standing for a certain range of physical sensations, and as standing for the nastiness they (together with certain more ‘mental’ experiences) sometimes have for us. A technique whereby one robs pain of its nastiness is not evidence that it is good to live through sensations that are persistently nasty. The same applies to techniques of detachment from one’s own concerns that may help one cope with mental suffering. To suffer is bad, but it may be possible to live through certain situations with less suffering than one would otherwise, by learning to see that they do not matter to the extent that one thinks they do. Is pleasure intrinsically good? I believe one cannot really live through, or imagine anything pleasurable without seeing this as one of the pluses in life. If one has a negative attitude towards a pleasure that is because of consequences expected or guilt feelings associated with it. Nietzsche himself is, of course, one of the great celebrants of Lust which it seems can be translated as either ‘pleasure’ or ‘joy.’ One of the highpoints of Also Sprach Zarathustra is its great hymn to Lust and the uniquely positive acceptance of the world which it brings, once we recognize that, so intertwined is everything with everything else, that all the nastinesses and trivialities of existence are justified as its necessary price. And of course the very title of Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft shows that he is no opponent of the enjoyment of life. But equally is he opposed to all those “modes of thought which assess the value of things according to pleasure and pain (Lust und Lied)” (BGE §225.135-36). There seem to be two reasons for these apparently contrasting attitudes to joy or pleasure. First he thinks that joy or pleasure is only really a good when it is the subjective sign of an increase in one’s power, and secondly that even qua subjective experiences there is a contrast between what it seems better to call ‘joy,’ as a deeply fulfilling total state of consciousness and pleasure as a quality simply of some individual sensations. The distinction I have in mind is much that which Spinoza marked by contrasting laetitia with titillatio (E IV.41; E IV.43 with scholium), though it seems that Nietzsche’s Lust can mean either of these according to context. If

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Nietzsche is in effect operating with this contrast I agree that what matters is joy rather than pleasure, though the same is true, I should suppose, of all significant philosophical hedonists. It is not that I cannot fall into a Nietzschean mood at times myself. If one sees a group of old people in a ‘home’ playing bingo and being excited at winning some trifling prize, one may, in a rather elitist way, react by thinking what empty trivial lives these are. What does it really matter if people like that live longer or shorter lives? What a waste of time on the part of younger, more vigorous people it is to sacrifice themselves to provide these pathetic creatures with this trivial pleasure! (The only trouble is that I may be one of these pathetic creatures myself too soon.) Now there may be two different backgrounds to this reaction: i) One may believe that these old people playing bingo are not really happy and are merely filling up empty lives with something that merely passes the time. Well, if subjectively their lives are unsatisfactory then I agree that that is a bad thing. This is not the time to consider what might be done about that, but it goes nowhere to show that genuine pleasure is not always good. ii) One may feel that it adds nothing to the total value of the universe, or to the worthwhile-ness of human life as a whole, that people are enjoying these trivial pleasures. But, surely, if it really is enjoyable then it is an addition to the sum of human good, and may even be useful in the future as a guide to how to enjoy your old age. There is no denying that from any point of view there is much that is pretty pathetic in human life. But so far as anything is genuinely enjoyed, rather than a mere way of getting through a boring day or life, that somehow seems to me a real plus to the universe. Indeed I don’t really know what else can be a plus to the universe. In general, I have to say that basing ethics on the thesis that pleasure (that is, every enjoyed experience) is good in itself and pain (that is, every kind of suffering) is bad in itself is basing it on about the only really undeniable type of value statement there is. As for the view that the value of one’s existence at any time is to be measured by what Nietzsche calls the ‘quantum of enhanced and organized power’ pertaining to it, rather than by one’s state of consciousness, such power seems to me quite pointless unless it is registered positively as a pleasure or joy in one’s consciousness—or is of some use to others.


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§2. Nietzsche’s second objection: To show pity is to make much of something of which it would be better to encourage the sufferer to make light.12 Suppose a child falls and has very slightly hurt itself. It looks towards its mother or father for pity. It is a bit of current wisdom on these matters that you shouldn’t show any great concern but should treat it as something that hardly matters. Immediate consolatory remarks encourage the child to take every little hurt as an opportunity for self-pity and winning the sympathy of others. This sounds quite sensible. But there are forms of suffering of which it seems absurd to ask the sufferer to make light. ‘Pull yourself together woman, it doesn’t really matter that much that your daughter has just been bludgeoned to death.’ However one should behave towards one who has endured terrible suffering, it can hardly include the message that these things don’t really matter that much. §3 Nietzsche’s third objection: The ethics of compassion is associated with a regrettable Christian cult of suffering (see BGE §293.198; N 360). Here Nietzsche is sounding a note rather similar to that struck by the founding father of the British utilitarianism he so despised. For Jeremy Bentham had deplored the fact that some moralists seemed to base their moral judgments on almost the converse of his principle of utility, namely on a principle of ascetism according to which actions are to be regarded as morally virtuous only to the extent that they are associated with misery and the frustration of normal human happiness. But even if, in certain forms of religion, the cultivation of pity is secretly associated with a certain perverse taste for scenes of horror and misery, this can hardly serve as a ground for rejecting the value of compassion not thus contaminated. I would, however, say this much for Nietzsche, that Schopenhauer’s treatment of compassion would be healthier if he saw it as an aspect of fellow-feeling which relates us not just negatively to the sorrows of others but non-enviously to their joys and positive achievements too. 13 §4 Nietzsche’s fourth objection: Pity focuses attention on the worst in human life (see, e.g., A §7.572-74). Insofar as this is the point that one should not let oneself be so weighed down by pity for others that one cannot do anything positive with one’s own life, I agree. That may shows that living solely for others is not an entirely desirable ideal, but it is equally true that there

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is little to be said for turning one’s attention away from all the horrors of the world which one can personally avoid. Nor do I see it as a good way of coping with them to try and make them seem good to one’s aesthetic sense, though I admit that the Nietzschean remark of Strindberg has a certain frisson: “I find the joy of life in its fierce and cruel struggles” (Preface to Miss Julie 63). §5 Nietzsche’s fifth objection: Pity is a device of the weak for controlling the strong (A §5.571-72; A §7.572-74; A §51.632-34; WP §685.364; etc.). That this is often the case is almost a cliché in a certain sort of drama. And it is doubtless true that a habit of looking for pity, or encouraging others to do so, can be a bad thing. But to implore the sympathy of a villain, if it ever works, seems desirable and surely there are too many signs today in countries like ours of a lack of sympathy for the old and infirm on the part of some young people. But Nietzsche is not just making this rather familiar point about a particular type of personality. Rather does he see the whole ethics of pity or compassion as a type of herd morality which the weak of the world have imposed on the strong, as a way of manipulating them, so that they cannot develop their own personal excellence without feelings of guilt. This leads us to Nietzsche’s next objection, in my list, to an ethics of compassion. §6. Nietzsche’s sixth objection: It is associated with monstrous and outmoded notions of human equality, for which every one has equal value, stemming essentially from the religious superstition that there is a God who is concerned equally with the salvation of each of us. This is a part of that Christian ethics for which ‘the virtues through which happiness is possible for the lowliest [are] the standard ideal of all values’ (WP §185.111; “Skirmishes of an Untimely Man,” TI §37.540). Having abandoned God, we must have the courage to recognize that there are basically different human types of very unequal value. There are, in fact, two main types, higher men who are harbingers of an improved more noble type of humanity, and lower types who contribute nothing, except as slavish means, to the development of the human race.14 Should we agree with Nietzsche in abandoning any idea of human equality? I shall discuss this without entering into the theological aspect of it. Nietzsche is obviously right that people vary greatly in the significance of the contribution they can make to what matters most in


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human life as a whole, however we estimate that. They also differ in moral quality, however that is judged. But insofar as they are capable of equivalent degrees and quality of happiness and suffering, of joy and misery, then I stick to the Benthamite view that the happiness or unhappiness of one is as important as that of another, and that everyone should count for one and not for more than one in weighing up the ethical significance of the effects of one’s action on their welfare. And, as I have said, for me it is beyond doubt that, in the end, experiences are as good or bad as they feel to the subject, for this is where their value is really experienced at first hand. I cannot make sense of the notion of a value or disvalue that is not felt as such by someone and that really amounts to an egalitarian hedonism of some sort, if pleasure and pain are taken in a suitably broad sense. § Nietzsche’s seventh objection: The ethics of pity is associated with introspective dwelling upon subjective states rather than objective power and achievement. 15 This is closely associated with the next point. § Nietzsche’s eighth objection: Pity belittles men by privileging their suffering as the main thing that matters about them. But how much someone suffers is among the less important things about him (see Z 400-1; N 458-561; xxx). I can see something in this. Take Van Gogh. By all accounts he had a pretty miserable life, but it would be a rather limited reaction to him simply to think of his suffering. What is important about him is his amazing artistic achievement. Possibly that could only have been the work of a suffering soul like his. Whether it could ever be right to ensure that there was enough suffering in the world to produce a certain sort of great art I do not know. I don’t think all great art stems from suffering; it seems unlikely that the work of Handel did, for example, though I have heard people challenge his greatness for this reason. Had one known Van Gogh and recognized his greatness it might have been appropriate to comfort him by talking of his genius and remarking how little his unhappiness weighed in the scales compared with it. There are certainly problems about the relation between great art and suffering. But I doubt that they are best solved by denying that compassion rests on the realization that in itself suffering is an evil which it is always prima facie desirable to relieve where possible, and that the exceptions to this principle must turn on the need to prevent

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worse suffering later or elsewhere (or perhaps in some few cases in the interests of some great joy for which the suffering is necessary). § Nietzsche’s ninth objection: Pity goes with contempt. I discussed this already as a likely objection to Schopenhauer from more moderate opponents than Nietzsche, but it is important, or has been thought so, for Nietzsche too. (Kaufmann emphasizes this aspect of Nietsche on pity; see Kaufmann 368.) Such words as ‘pity’ and bemitleiden can have a rather contemptuous denigrating feel to them. This may, in fact, have a somewhat Nietzschean explanation, for thus used they serve to make us feel superior to others. But how relevant is that to the pity or compassion in the sense it bears for Schopenhauer and similar ethicists where it is more or less equivalent to such expressions as ‘sympathy with the sufferings of others,’ or simply ‘kindness,’ which carry no suggestion of contempt or of a patronizing attitude? If someone visits and befriends old people on behalf of ‘Help the Aged’ out of sympathy with their loneliness, there is surely no contempt here. Is it really a pity that people feel pity in this sense? I concede this much, however, that one would rather be visited in old age because someone likes talking to one, than because they are being kind. And perhaps the person who visits old people because he likes their company is a better person than the person who does it out of sympathy. To that extent there is wisdom in Spinoza’s, and perhaps Nietzsche’s, insistence that it is better all round if people are motivated to do the ‘right thing’ by positive pleasurable emotions, rather than negative painful ones.16 Still, pity or compassion, in the form of a real insight into the nature and reality of another’s suffering, is, I continue to maintain, the grasp of a truth basic to ethics, namely that real suffering is a blot upon the universe and is equally so whether it is your suffering or someone else’s. Moreover, there is a certain weakness in resenting kindness from others. § Nietzsche’s tenth objection: The profession of altruism, which goes with pity, is always fundamentally dishonest, or somehow in bad faith, or the result of social conditioning which involves no real concern for the welfare of others. 17 I must say that I think that this is simply false. That there are dishonest types of altruism is of course also beyond doubt and it may well be that what looks like altruism is often merely the result of a


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conditioning process such as that which trains us unthinkingly in good manners. § Nietzsche’s eleventh objection: Pity is a symptom of decadence, hostile to human life and standing in the way of the attainment of the higher forms of human excellence on the part of those capable of it (see A §7.573; A §57.647; GM Pref. §5-§6.19-20; WP §266.152-53). Unselfishness generally is symptomatic of a deficiency in the will to power. The higher man is so filled with joy, and the aspirant to being a higher man is so striving for joy, that he has learnt or must learn to discount suffering as a comparatively unimportant part of the universe. Pity is a threat to such joy to be resisted. I teach the No to all that makes weak, that exhausts. I teach the Yes to all that strengthens, that stores up strength, that justifies the feeling of strength (WP §54.33).

Nietzsche could be said to qualify this by allowing that herd ethics may be suitable enough for the herd (A §57.179) and that pity has its place in this. But I would like to insert the question here: Has there been anyone, among Nietzsche’s many enthusiastic admirers, today and in the past, who have learned from him that their particular role is to belong to the herd and conform to herd ethics, or do not admirers of Nietzsche rather always place themselves among those higher men who may stretch out a hand of help to a second-rater, as an expression of their overflowing power but would be ashamed to be overcome by pity?18 § Nietzsche’s twelfth objection: All in all, pity will have little or no place in the new tablets of values which the higher men of the future will create for themselves and in the ethic which will guide their conduct in pursuit of their great self-chosen goals. In general, the moralities of the future, so it is to be hoped, will enhance human life, elevate man, and establish appropriate rank differences. All these constitute a morality of development in which individuals will choose great goals for themselves and discipline themselves by the rules necessary to attain them. These higher men will have created their own new tablets of values and morality (see my opening quotations for examples). I am doubtless not a higher man, and am hardly capable of creating new tablets of value, so if there are to be higher men, I shall have to leave that task for them. But I hope that if they take control, they

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will not be too ready to pity in the contemptuous sense, and too loath to pity in a more respectful way, people of a less superb type. Upon the whole, for me, the improvement of human life must take the form of grasping the truth of things more fully and living happier lives, and I think that both of these must go with some readiness for compassion with all humanity, nay all sentient life. But perhaps I am becoming rather facile, so I shall conclude by summing up my own response to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on pity and compassion.

Conclusion My conclusion is that compassion or pity should, indeed, be given a basic place in ethics along lines of a Schopenhauerian kind. Apart from questions of practice, and at the level of abstract reflection, a satisfactory feature of this view is that it solves one of the great problems of philosophical ethics, namely how there can be facts about the world which are intrinsically motivating and can thereby provide a cognitive foundation for a prescriptive ethics. Thus it gives the lie to the so-called error theory of ethics of J. L. Mackie according to which ethics cannot be objective because that requires that there be what he regards as weird facts about the world which are intrinsically prescriptive. For it seems to me that the suffering of another—or indeed, and more obviously, of oneself—is just such a prescriptive fact, a fact which cannot be grasped without being felt as a demand for such aid as one can give. (I, rather than Schopenhauer, would add something similar about their joy.) The two great facts involved here are, first, that suffering is an intrinsic evil, such that really to grasp its nature is to wish it reduced19 and, second, that our ordinary outlook according to which the suffering of ourselves is one kind of fact and that of another person another kind of fact depends on an illusory aspect of personal identity. Let me dwell a moment on the second of these great facts. Ordinary selfishness, and cruelty too, depend upon thinking it a quite different kind of fact that another is suffering than that I do. For if I really regarded the suffering of another as the same sort of fact as would be my own suffering in a similar way, then I cannot react emotionally and behaviorally quite differently to what would hurt the other as would hurt myself. Indifference to another’s suffering, and even pleasure in it, requires that we think of it as a less vivid kind of reality than our own. What is wrong here is partly a fact that


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requires no special metaphysical belief to recognize, namely that they are the same kind of fact. But metaphysical monists would go further and say that the very idea that there are two or more different subjects of experience involved is itself an illusion, and that really there is but the one universal Self which lives, rejoices and suffers in us all, having given itself the illusion, which at a higher level it corrects, that it is a multiplicity of separate individuals rather than one single cosmic individual. However, Schopenhauer’s ethic is by no means entirely adequate and requires qualification or development to meet such points as the following: 1) First, compassion should be seen as an aspect of a fellow feeling which should involve us in the other’s joys as much as his sorrows. 2) Each of us has a quite proper primary concern with their own self-fulfillment so that the ideal of living solely for others is an inadequate ideal. Not only is it impracticable but it devalues the worth of life to urge people not to enjoy their own lives. Moreover, one’s concern with others, at least comparatively remote others, should be a derivative of one’s concern with a fulfilled life for oneself rather than a replacement of it. Similar things apply to group selfishness and altruism. 3) Perhaps people and groups who have a chance to make something of their own lives should not allow themselves to be so weighed down by the sorrows of others that they cannot do so. For at that rate one simply allows the evil in the world to spread itself through its damping effect on everyone’s vitality. It may be better and more effective to help others out of a rational grasp of the requirements of human solidarity than out of distressing emotions. Human solidarity has its basis both in empathy and in the need for happy relations with others. 4) But what seems most unsatisfactory in Schopenhauer’s thought is that his sense of the deep identity holding between all conscious beings is developed in such a misanthropic way, with no sense of what is good about the variety of human or indeed other forms of life. For him each of us is part of a ghastly mistake on the part of the single world Will, a belief that gives a very sour quality to the kind of self-less-ness which he idealizes. Of course, his pessimism about what the world Will is up to gains massive support from the amount of evil in the world, but it also reflects, I am afraid, some defects of Schopenhauer’s own personality which make it impossible for him to admit that there is anything much worthwhile in creation at all. At any rate other metaphysical monists have managed to take a more

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positive view of the world and thereby a rather richer view of what an adequate ethics can do for us. One feature of a more satisfactory monism may be the value it places on the plurality of persons and groups. It may be essential to both personal and group identity, that their own lives seems to them to exist in a more vivid way than that of other persons and groups, and this is an illusion which needs to be kept in check by an adequate ethic. But this illusion is not altogether an evil, since it allows them, so to speak, to specialize in the pursuit of different species of the good, thus to an enrichment of the world, provided it is associated with sufficient sense of their more basic shared essence as a basis for mutual aid rather than conflict. (This is somewhat what Royce had in mind in his doctrine of loyalty to loyalty.) Then again metaphysical monism is usually associated with an emphasis on the extent to which as individuals we may, and perhaps can only, find personal self-fulfillment through having a satisfactory role in the community, a theme quite lacking in Schopenhauer for whom the state is conceived, in purely Hobbesian terms, as a device by which each of us can carry on as the sheer egoists we normally are with less inconvenience from others. Thus the sharp contrast that Schopenhauer, and perhaps Nietzsche, make between egoism and altruism tends to encourage a false distinction between doing things for the sake of others and for one’s own sake. For one of the main bases of ethics lies in the truth that people can only fulfill themselves by appropriately satisfying social relations with others. Thus Schopenhauer, in spite of his belief in the essential identity of the will and subject which lives through us all is strangely individualistic in his view of human life, with no mediating concept, such as that of self-realization in the community, between sheer egoism as the psychological norm and completely selfless altruism as the ethical ideal. None of this, however, affects the point that when the chips are really down it is the equal reality of suffering and joy wherever it occurs which is the most fundamental truth underlying a satisfactory ethic.

Notes 1

The following abbreviations are used in the essay. References to Nietzsche include section numbers common to all editions, with the exception of The Will to Power, which consists of notes organized quite differently in different editions.


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A = Nietzsche. The Anti-Christ. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. In PN. BGE = Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. E = Spinoza. The Ethics. Trans. Samuel Shirley. (Obvious and usual conventions are used for references to individual propositions.) GM = Nietzsche. The Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. GS = Nietzsche. The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. N = Schacht. Nietzsche. OBM = Schopenhauer. On the Basis of Morality. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. PN = Nietzsche. The Portable Nietzsche. Selected and trans. Walter Kaufmann. TI = Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols. Trans. W. Kaufmann. In PN. WP = Nietzsche. The Will to Power. Trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. WWR I = Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Representation. Trans. E. F. J.Payne. Vol. I. WWR II = Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Representation. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. Vol. II. Z = Nietzsche. Thus spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Kaufmann. In PN. 2

SP E IV.50. Compare “Pity in a man of knowledge seems almost ludicrous, like sensitive hands on a cyclops” (BGE §171.87). It may be said that such quotations can be a little misleading taken out of context. I would quote more fully if writing at greater length, but the quotations seem to me aptly to express at least one mood in which these thinkers wrote. 3 At OBM 139-40 Schopenhauer speaks of a special satisfaction known as the “approbation of conscience” which one feels when one’s action presents itself as having moral worth. 4 See OBM 186-87 (where it is associated with an unfortunate whiff of Schopenhauer’s anti-Semitism, one of many ways in which his fine philosophy suffers from blemishes springing from his own character). 5 “Lofty spiritual independence, the will to stand alone, great intelligence even, are felt to be dangerous; everything that raises the individual above the herd and makes his neighbour quail is henceforth called evil; the fair, modest, obedient, self-effacing disposition, the mean and average in desires, acquires moral names and honours” (BGE §201.105). 6 See OBM §17.150-52. But in the end justice like every other virtue appeals to us not conceptually but through imaginative sympathy with another’s sufferings. (See WWR I §67.376). 7 In Aldous Huxley’s short story “Fard” a lady who is making heavy demands on her lady’s maid asks her to put some make up on so that she will not look so tired and unhappy. That is one way of avoiding the pain of pity. 8 The views I ascribe to Nietzsche are ones that over the years I have gathered from Nietzsche and his commentators. In this connection I have made use especially of Richard Schacht’s account of Nietzsche on pity in his massive commentary. Schacht’s main treatment of Nietzsche on pity is at Schact 359-61; 458-61. Walter Kaufmann gives his ‘softer’ interpretation at 363-71, though by 371 he seems to have been persuaded by Nietzsche of the value of selfishness: “giving alms to others is easier than making something of oneself.” However, my account is not entirely dependent upon Schacht’s interpretation and I have re-read most of the relevant Nietzsche material in preparing this

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article. It seems to me right to ascribe these views to Nietzsche but my main concern is with the ideas themselves, as ones often found in Nietzsche, whether rightly or wrongly. 9 And perhaps even the greatest pleasures. “What: The aim of science should be to give men as much pleasure and as little displeasure as possible? But what if pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other” (GS §12.85). 10 “The discipline of suffering, of great suffering—do you not know that it is this discipline alone which has created every elevation of mankind hitherto?” (BGE §225.136). “It never occurs to them, [those who pity] that, to put it mystically, the path to one’s own heaven leads through the voluptuousness of one’s own hell. No, the ‘religion of pity’ (or ‘the heart’) commands them to help, and they believe that they have helped most when they have helped most quickly” (GS §338.26971). “To those human beings in whom I have a stake, I wish suffering, being forsaken, sickness, maltreatment, humiliation —I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust and the misery of the vanquished; I have no pity for them because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not— that one endures” (xxx; see also WP §910.481). 11 I shall follow the hedonistic tradition of not attempting to distinguish the senses of ‘pain’ and ‘suffering’ in any systematic way. Both terms are used to cover both ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ experiences that are thoroughly unpleasant. (See also note 12 below.) 12 “But if you have a suffering friend, be a resting place for his suffering, but a hard bed as it were… thus will you profit him best” (Z 202). 13 See Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, first published 1789, ch. II. In fact, Nietzsche seems both to despise a doctrine like utilitarianism for attaching too much importance to the relief of suffering, on the hot water bottle principle that it is the only real evil, and those forms of Christianity which seem to glorify it. His view, then, one might think is that suffering is neither importantly bad nor importantly good. However, that cannot be quite so, for in his own way Nietzsche attaches the same importance to the development of character through suffering as does Christianity. 14 A §43.618-20; BG §203.108-9; §257.173; WP §854-§857.457. For a convenient account and references to Nietzsche’s rejection of any notion of human equality, as rooted especially in Christianity, see Schact 326-40 and 384-86. 15 See, for example, GS §13.86-88; for a discussion, see Schact 362-67. 16 “Desire arising from pleasure is, other things being equal, stronger than desire arising from pain” (E IV.18). 17 So at least Schacht interprets him; see 448-51, where he bases himself mainly on WP §269.153-54 and WP §786.413-16, which, however, are not without ambiguity. Among other relevant passages are GS §13.87 and §352.295-96; “Skirmishes of an Untimely Man,” TI §35. 535-36). 18 I do not want to get involved in discussion of Nazi and related readings of Nietzsche but perhaps some German soldiers in the world wars did see themelves as part of a herd whose duty it was to serve higher men—I do not know. 19 I have argued elsewhere that the occurrence of pain and suffering are, in a way denied to be possible by much recent philosophy, both matters of fact and


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something essentially prescriptive. See, e.g., Sprigge [1988] ch. V and [1987-88] 139-40.

References Bentham, Jeremy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. [1789]. Ed. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. London: Athlone, 1970. James, William. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. I. New York: Henry Holt, 1915; Repr.1950. Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. 3rd ed. New York: Vintage/Random House, 1968. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Anti-Christ. The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. ———. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1973. ———. The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage/Random House, 1974. ———. The Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage, 1969. ———. Portable Nietzsche, The. Selected and trans. Walter Kaufmann. London: Chatto and Windus, 1971. ———. Thus spoke Zarathustra. The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. ———. Twilight of the Idols. The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. ———. The Will to Power. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage, 1968. Royce, Josiah. The Religious Aspects of Philosophy. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965. Schacht, Richard. Nietzsche. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983. Schopenhauer, Arthur. On the Basis of Morality. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965. ———. The World as Will and Representation. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. Vols. I and II. New York: Dover, 1966. Spinoza, Baruch. The Ethics. Trans. Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1982. Sprigge, Timothy. “Intrinsic Connectedness.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. New Series. LXXXVIII (1987-88) 139-40. ———. The Rational Foundations of Ethics. London: Routledge, 1988. Strindberg, August. Preface to Miss Julie. Six Plays of Strindberg. Trans. Elizabeth Sprigge. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1955.

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Jacques Maritain and Karol Wojtyla: Approaches to Modernity

Kenneth Schmitz The phenomenon of so-called “post-modernity” has brought modernity forward as a category for reflection and criticism; but the thing itself—I mean the period from, say, the sixteenth to the nineteenth or twentieth century—was under sustained consideration by both Jacques Maritain and Karol Wojtyla before it had quite acquired the notoriety it has received in some quarters during the past two decades.1 When one sets their reflections on modern culture side by side, they disclose a very considerable similarity, if not identity, in much of their substance, but a difference in approach, and to some degree in emphasis and tone. The difference is due no doubt in part to the different eras and situations in which they have been written, but also to a difference in personal background and philosophical approach. Maritain had a long and distinguished career, while Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II continues a brilliant and prolific career. It would be too much in the present context to attempt even a survey of the topic over the whole course of their careers, since they return to it often and in different ways; but the principal intuitions, concepts, and criticisms found in their early and middle works show a remarkable staying-power. I propose, then, to limit my own reflections for the most part to some of the pertinent works of Maritain that were composed or published in the twenties and thirties of this century, and to Wojtyla’s writings composed in the fifties and sixties. The topic presupposes an historical knowledge of modern culture. Now, it is not unusual to consider Etienne Gilson, the historian of philosophy in contrast to Maritain’s doctrinal emphasis, but one cannot discount Maritain’s impressive knowledge of the history of Western culture. Nevertheless, in the avant-propos to Antimoderne he tells his readers that his method is not historical and that it follows a doctrinal order.2 In a word, history serves doctrine.3 The same may be said of Karol Wojtyla’s Lublin Lectures, which carry us through a tour of many of the main figures of Western philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to Kant and Scheler, with a passing swipe at Utilitarianism;4 but, like Maritain, he does it with the clear purpose of build-

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ing up an adequate metaphysical doctrine of moral action in line with the principles of Aristotle and St. Thomas.5 Nevertheless, one is struck by the fact that Wojtyla tends to pass over the historical consideration of those very figures to whom Maritain attaches such importance in the formation of modern culture,—I mean, Luther, Descartes, and Rousseau. Still, there can be no doubt that Wojtyla’s strictures against modern subjectivism betray the implicit presence of Descartes in his thought. Moreover, in the Lublin Lectures ([LV] 204-56ff.), he criticizes Hume’s empiricism and Bentham’s utilitarianism because they substitute a merely subjective good for the objective good evidenced by natural law. One can hear a distinct echo of that critique in the encyclical letter Veritatis splendor. The omission of these central figures may be accounted for in part by a difference of emphasis. Maritain is most concerned with the origins of modern culture. He tells us that three men dominate the modern world with its torments: a reformer of religion (Luther), a reformer of philosophy (Descartes), and a reformer of morality (Rousseau). Perhaps it is Maritain’s central metaphysical interest in archai, in origins, that guides his thought, for it is centered upon causal principles. Kant interests Maritain primarily as the convergence of these three streams of thought into “the academic structure of modern thought” (Three Reformers [TR] 4). Wojtyla, on the other hand, is interested in the end-result: precisely, in the moral philosophy of Kant and Scheler. Kant stands as a divide, then, between the two thinkers, not as to the substance of their critique but as to the focus. Both thinkers criticize the subjectivism of modern culture and thought, but for Wojtyla the context of subjectivity is set phenomenologically by Husserl, not epistemologically by Descartes. Both Maritain and Wojtyla locate the “neuralgic” point6 of modern culture in its subjectivism; more precisely, in the spirit of division, and in a series of inversions that results from the subjectivism. Maritain writes of the inversion of reason and intellect (ratio and intellectus), of theory and practice, giving the primacy to instrumental reasoning in the service of non-rational, and often irrational ends; a voluntarism that urges the subordination of reason to the will; the inversion of thought and things, giving to thought the dominance over things; and the inversion of man and God, withdrawing the self into a more or less absolute isolation. All of these have as their effect what Maritain calls the modern “spirit of division.”7 Now this charge of the partition of the human person is also the central issue in Wojtyla’s criticism of both Scheler and Kant. Focus-

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ing more strictly upon the character of moral action, and less broadly than Maritain who engages the whole of culture, Wojtyla finds both Kant and Scheler unable to give a full account of the moral life. Neither can account for the entirety of the human person as responsible moral agent (LV 76-77),8 or for why our moral actions qualify ourselves in an absolute way (simpliciter) as good or evil persons. Scheler excludes the will from a determining role in morality, while Kant identifies the person—not with the full-bodied metaphysical composite of form and matter, essence and existence—but with a pure rational will, because of his conviction that the understanding cannot know real things. Here, too, we find a certain convergence between the two thinkers in Maritain’s recurrent observation that the basic error of modernity is to separate off the soul (from grace in Luther), the mind (from things in Descartes) and the feelings (from others in Rousseau)—that is, to separate human consciousness from all dependence on things. For the mortal sin of modernity is to delude itself into seeking a freedom that is independent of things (see TR 71ff.).9 But whereas Maritain goes directly to the metaphysical issue of the ontological constitution of the human being, Wojtyla locates the spirit of division in the different methodological reservations practiced by Scheler and Kant (LV 47-53; 73-78; cf. Schmitz 45ff.). Reacting to Kant’s excessively formal emphasis upon pure practical will, pure reason and duty, Scheler places almost exclusive emphasis upon the emotional experience of values, and constructs an “ethics of material values” that is too passive. This is because he excludes the causal activity of the will from the data of moral experience. On the other hand, Kant’s reservation arises from his reduction of cognition to phenomena for the purpose of refuting realistic metaphysics and constructing a critical idealism. In both philosophies consciousness (of felt values, of moral duty) is central. Wojtyla writes of the absolutism of the conscious self in modern thought: Since the time of Descartes consciousness has been absolutized, as is reflected in our times in phenomenology through Husserl. In philosophy the gnoseological attitude has superseded the metaphysical, being is constituted in, and to a certain degree through consciousness. Especially, the reality of the person demands a return to the concept of conscious being. This being is not constituted in and by consciousness; quite the contrary, it constitutes both consciousness and the reality of human action as conscious. The person and act, that is, my own self existing and


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acting is constituted in consciousness which consequently reflects the existence and action of the self. Thus, one’s experience, especially that of one’s own self, indicates that consciousness is always rooted in the human subject. Consciousness is not an independent subject, although by a process of exclusion, which in Husserl’s phenomenology is called epoché, it may be treated as if it were a subject. This manner of treating consciousness is at the basis of the whole so-called “transcendental philosophy.” This examines acts of cognition as intentional acts of consciousness directed to trans-subjective matter, and therefore, to what is objective or to phenomena. As long as this type of analysis of consciousness possesses the [restricted] character of a cognitive method, it can and does bear excellent fruit [by providing descriptions of intentional objects]. However, the method should not be considered to be a philosophy of reality itself. Above all it should not be considered a philosophy of the reality of man or of the human person, since the basis of this method consists in the exclusion (epoché) of consciousness from reality or from actually existing being. Despite this, it is undoubtedly necessary to make use of this method in the philosophy of man. Consciousness is not an independent subject, but is central for understanding personal subjectivity. (“Person: Subject and Community” 278)10

In this passage we see the way in which Wojtyla understands what Maritain had already called the inversion characteristic of modern culture. It consists in making the self, the absolute center and source of all initiative, of all thought and action. And yet paradoxically, despite their criticisms of modern subjectivism, both thinkers recognize that the disclosure of the unique character of subjectivity is the central achievement of modern culture. Maritain himself had already written that much progress has thus been made, above all in the world of reflection and self-consciousness, revealing often by lowly means, in science, in art, in poetry, in the very passions and even the vices of man, his proper spirituality. Science has undertaken the conquest of created nature, the human soul has made a universe of its subjectivity, the secular world has been differentiated according to its own proper law, the creature has come to know itself. And such progress taken in itself was entirely normal (True Humanism [TH] 18f.).

Yet for all the positive appreciation of modern culture that is expressed in such passages as this, one cannot fail to notice that Maritain is unusually prescient regarding the end-result of what he diagnoses

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as the anthropomorphic humanism of modern culture, as distinct from theocentric or true humanism. He writes with passion of the “forces of destruction” (Antimoderne 195ff.) abroad in modern culture, and he uses strong words to denounce its deviation. Wojtyla, too, speaks of the “disintegration of man” (LV 404),11 but in a calmer vein and with not so broad a brush; though later as John Paul II, he has spoken out increasingly of the “culture of death” that afflicts Western societies. Writing during the Second World War, Maritain alerts us to the very deep crisis that faces the modern world: “The end of the Roman Empire was a minor event compared with what we behold. We are looking on at the liquidation of what is known as the ‘modern world,’ which ceased to be modern a quarter of a century ago when the First World War marked its entry into the past” (Christianity and Democracy 12). He is confident that the days of what he calls “the bourgeois revolution” are at an end, as is the domination of “Manchester liberalism” (Education at the Crossroads 110).12 In like manner, John Paul speaks of the abundance of material goods and the poverty of values, while—in words not unlike those of Gabriel Marcel—Maritain observes that, “The heirs of rationalism seek to impose on us today an entirely different system of ethics, an antiascetic system that is exclusively technological.… Such a system of ethics does not enfranchise man. It kills him and galvanises the corpse... mankind is irretrievably and literally lost” (Religion and Culture 94ff.). Maritain does not mince words, and with chilling anticipation of the post-modernists Foucault and Robert de Man who have proclaimed the death of man, Maritain locates modernity in “the place of intersection and of conflict of a primarily sexual libido and a desire for death...a monster dear to [modern man] himself ” (TH 20, 22). He writes, “the modern world confounds two things which ancient wisdom had distinguished. It confounds individuality and personality... What is modern individualism? A misunderstanding, a blunder, the exaltation of individuality camouflaged as personality, and the corresponding degradation of true personality… It is a homicidal civilisation” (TR 19-21). Maritain announced his criticism of the modern period in a collection of essays published in 1922 under the title, Antimoderne, and I have touched upon his passionate criticism of modern culture. Once again, however, we need to acknowledge the nuanced character of Maritain’s critique of modern culture. It would be a mistake, therefore, to deduce from the title an indiscriminate rejection of modernity in all its effects. As we have already seen, despite the blunt (or should I say, “sharp,” since in matters of the intellect both metaphors


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converge)—despite the blunt-keen language of such works as Three Reformers (1928), Maritain still reserved an appreciation for the many good results produced, not simply during the modern period, but even by its energies.13 Indeed, in The Dream of Descartes; published in 1944, but containing essays composed as early as 1920), he points to Descartes’ role in lifting the “blockade” caused by the late medieval stagnation and decay—one might even say the debris of late medieval thought in which the cultural forms of medieval Christendom had fallen away from the spirit of Christianity.14 As he says more than once (e.g., in the 1931 debate on Christian philosophy), one can admire the remarkable genius of a thinker without accepting his principles. It is not that all of the effects of modern culture are bad, but that its basic principles are in need of refutation and correction.15 Nor did Maritain leave any doubt as to where a recovery could begin: it was with the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, the same principles (for he was no neo-Thomist, and declared himself to be a paleo-Thomist)—the same principles developed to meet the new situation. So too, Wojtyla appeals to the Aristotelian and Thomistic metaphysics for a basic account of the moral life (LV 170200).16 Much has been made of the phenomenology of Karol Wojtyla, and rightly so. But the present English edition of The Acting Person (AP) may lead one to miss the solid grounding of Wojtyla’s thought in the metaphysics of Aristotle, and even more of St. Thomas.17 Nor is Wojtyla’s attention to their metaphysics an act of simple unreflecting piety. Wojtyla shares with Maritain a number of doctrines that more than prove that Wojtyla’s distinctive marriage of phenomenology and metaphysics is not simply a marriage de convenance; it is from Wojtyla’s viewpoint, if I may so describe it, a marriage of necessity. George Williams, in his useful book, The Mind of John Paul II, correctly insists that Wojtyla’s thought is not a hybrid product of metaphysics and phenomenology, some novel tertium quid that confuses both. Wojtyla is very careful to keep the two methods distinct, even as they cooperate in the joint undertaking to which he has put them in his anthropology. On the other hand, I have come to see more clearly (than when I wrote the last chapter of At the Center of the Human Drama18 ) that Wojtyla’s metaphysics of the person has played an intrinsic determining role in the way in which he conceives phenomenology. This may be seen in two clear doctrines proper to his thought. First and most important, he denies that intentionality constitutes the essential character of human consciousness (AP 32; Schmitz 69-

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71). This is indeed a strange doctrine for a phenomenologist! But it is deliberately taken in order to preserve the integrity of the human person. One calls to mind Maritain’s rich doctrine of “integral humanism.” The second clear instance of the influence of metaphysics upon Wojtyla’s phenomenology is the inclusive character of his technical operation of bracketing (AP 13, 19-20). Husserl’s initial epoché is exclusive; or more accurately, it effectively suspends consideration of the metaphysical principles of real existence and objective causality. Wojtyla’s bracketing is more akin to an algebraic function. More importantly, it is inclusive. It places the factor of consciousness outside the brackets in order to consider it in relation to the whole of the human person—body and soul, processes and feelings, the unconscious itself, concrete existence, and lived experience—and to consider consciousness—not as the absolute subject of thought and action—but as an aspect relative to the interior experience of the whole human person as subject of thought and action. And here we do find a difference in method between Maritain and Wojtyla. It is surely fair to say that Maritain understands the human person in terms of the metaphysical categories of essence and existence, of spirit and matter; indeed, the latter form the basis of his distinction between person and individual. Wojtyla accepts these categories as necessary in order to secure the person as an integral metaphysical suppositum, i.e. in order to avoid the spirit of division, which is Maritain’s characterization of modernity (see note 7); but Wojtyla also adopts a modified realistic phenomenology in order to penetrate to the immanent lived experience of the person. In keeping with their realistic intent, both Maritain and Wojtyla subordinate knowing and acting to the truth of things as they are and are known to be. Maritain insists upon the primacy of the intelligence, whereas Wojtyla orders the will towards the good as true. Both reject the root inversion that lies at the base of modernity. Both find the flaw of modernity to consist in the withdrawal into the self that raises the self to the status of an absolute. From this inversion there follows a prevalent modern notion of liberty as absolute autonomy.19 Maritain is well-known for his defense of natural law, while Wojtyla insists upon the role of natural law as the non-coercive discipline of human action in deepest collusion with the character of the whole human person and the order of created reality as the measure of what is true and good for the person.20 But, if there is so much substantive agreement between the two thinkers, the question arises: why does Wojtyla think that he has to adopt another method, even as he retains the metaphysics of being?


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He tells us that it is because phenomenology is able to disclose sui generis the interiority proper to moral experience. But if there is so much substantial agreement with the metaphysics of Maritain, is the turn to phenomenology necessary, after all? Wojtyla claims that it is, if we are to penetrate the differentia specifica of modern culture. Now, Maritain himself names that difference; the distinctive quality of modern culture is its unprecedented disclosure of human subjectivity. What is more, he salutes it as a great advance for humanity. He tells us that it is the explicit recognition and cultivation of the sense of interiority proper to the human person, adding, to be sure, that the modern deviation has raised the principle of immanence to a self-destructive absolute. Both Maritain and Wojtyla agree that the true immanence of the human spirit is misconstrued by modern thought. But Wojtyla adopts the method of phenomenology because traditional metaphysics cannot take adequate account of this turn to the self, given the development of the sense of subjectivity in modern times, so that by itself it is not adequate to catch the distinctive character of modern experience. Now, there can be no doubt that Maritain has plumbed the modern spirit to its depths and with a degree of insight commensurate with his own genius. Moreover, he turns to analogy and the analogical understanding of being in order to accommodate both being and the modern sense of consciousness as an analogical mode of being. But for Wojtyla, metaphysics retains too general an outlook and vocabulary, translating all experience into the modes common to all being. Now, experience is a mode of being, so that Wojtyla does not call into question the truth of the metaphysical account but rather its adequacy. Is it adequate to the peculiarly modern introspective sense of interiority? We might agree that the older more abstract and objective form of scholastic metaphysics of the manuals was not. But Thomistic metaphysics has turned more and more towards the concrete, no doubt under the felt pressure of this pervasive interiority. Indeed, Maritain himself shows such a turn to the concrete in Existence and the Existent, and even already in Preface to Metaphysics. But from its absolutely comprehensive horizon, Wojtyla implies that metaphysics renders modern interiority in terms that fit all and every being and therefore not in the concrete terms fully appropriate to lived inner experience.21 One might say that there is a defect of resonance. In resolving experience into a mode of being, metaphysics does not yet enter into the precise quality of experience as such.22

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The emphasis upon the concrete is vital for Wojtyla’s project, which is ordered towards action, towards the realization of actus humanus, the properly human act. Wojtyla’s philosophy does not eschew or denigrate theoretical intelligence, the speculative reason so central to Maritain’s metaphysics—far from it! But he gives his attention to practical reason, not even hesitating to say, “practical reason grasps the good prior to grasping the object as being” (LV 182, 198). One is tempted to situate Wojtyla’s thought within what Maritain calls the “speculatively-practical” sphere, but Wojtyla’s emphasis is even more on the person as individual agent, the acting person, more than on the person as a substantial being in the rational mode. So that there may be some difference in the relationship between theory and practice in the two thinkers, a comparison which—so far as I can determine—has not been worked out by Wojtyla. Wojtyla’s own phenomenology of the person as agent leads him to disclose the interiority of the person in the very lived experience of himself or herself as directly experiencing his or her own causality in the actual initiation of his or her own acts. In the path that leads to this interior uncovering of personal experience, Wojtyla begins by denying the conventional understanding of consciousness as the intentional relation to objects (AP 32-34; cf. Schmitz 69). On the contrary, he insists that the identification of consciousness with intentionality is the principal strategy of idealism, and that its adoption as marking the essential character of consciousness commits one to idealism, no matter how strenuously one might strive for realism (AP 343). At first glance, in the service of realism, intentionality seems to carry the mind out towards the world of objects; but, in truth, it merely brings the world within a consciousness that already holds itself as the absolute center of all relations. To be sure, knowing is always a knowing of something, but intentionality is a particular interpretation of knowing. I must acknowledge that for some time I too have suspected when intentionality is taken as the primary character of consciousness we fall into a not-so-innocent device for getting us out of a hole that Descartes has dug us into. Intentionality for Wojtyla is a set of cognitive mechanisms, in part unconscious, even as the metaphysical principles of matter and form, substance and accident are not directly experienced as such. These cognitive mechanisms of intentionality work to present the object “in the field of consciousness” (AP 33; cf. Schmitz 69). But as he looks at consciousness from the point of view of experience, Wojtyla uncovers the experience of the immanence of consciousness. He calls this moment “reflective” or “reflecting” consciousness (AP 33, 303-


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4; cf. Schmitz 71-73). Its role is to mirror the intentional contents already present in the field of consciousness. It seems to me that Wojtyla is here aware of restoring an older language that describes conscious activity as immanent (in contrast to transitive action) and of preserving the interiority that is the peculiar dignity of consciousness. Nevertheless, we have not yet reached the inner sanctum which is the prerogative and essential character of consciousness itself, and which Wojtyla calls “reflexive” consciousness (AP 41-46; cf. Schmitz 73-77). Now, reflexivity consists in the direct, the living experience of ourselves as subjectivity. And this is experienced in the immediate consciousness of ourselves as initiators of action, as sources of deliberate, willed, rational activity. This is the moral experience par excellence and the living experience of ourselves as subjectivities who are acting persons. It is this sense of creativity that characterizes the specific difference of modernity, and it is in this vital inner experience of ourselves as responsible sources of our actions that we can situate the more comprehensive, fundamental and requisite metaphysics of created being. It is in the direct experience of ourselves as responsible agents that we come to know ourselves intimately and discover our dignity as acting persons. Wojtyla’s turn to phenomenology is towards a method that can bring forward an intimate account more proportionate to the modern emphasis on subjectivity while still situating the philosophy of the acting person in the metaphysics that Maritain had already found in St. Thomas Aquinas.

Notes 1

Indeed, during the Second Vatican Council, Wojtyla played an important role in insisting that more than the document De ecclesia [On the Constitution of the Church] was needed, and that a separate document was needed in which the Church addressed the modern world. The resulting document is Gaudium et Spes [The Church in the Modern World]; (see Acta Synodalis Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani Secundi. Periodo III, par. 5. 48, 508-9. See also his ample response in Acta et Documenta Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano Secundo II Apparando, Series I, Antepraeparatoria, Vol. II, pt. 2; 32. 741-58.) 2 He returns to the question of method in a later work, La Philosophie Morale. Examen historique et critique des grands systèmes. Nevertheless, for all his emphasis upon the importance of doctrine, Maritain did not reduce history to doctrine. Indeed, he very wisely reminds us that “we must not forget that men like Saumaise, Petau, Sirmond, du Cange, Mabillon were the glory of French erudition in the seventeenth century, which people have sometimes tried to characterize completely by the Cartesian spirit” (Three Reformers [TR] 65). And, it seems to me, it is true that most Catholic intellectuals, at present educated largely in the secular

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canon of modernity, do not possess sufficient knowledge and appreciation of the contribution of Catholic writers to the modern era. Until they do, they will not be as free as they might otherwise be to understand and effect a change in modern culture. 3 Towards the end of La philosophie morale (555-56), Maritain turns again to the question of method. He tells us that a detailed historical reflection permits the disciples of the perennial philosophy to take stock of the problematic of moral philosophy and to profit from such a reflection. For, he writes, a consideration of the great moral systems has helped to define the field of moral philosophy, situated as it is today between the “ethnology” of the positive disciplines, on the one hand, and moral theology with which it is closely associated, on the other. Moreover, the study of these systems has clarified the first notions proper to moral philosophy, for each philosopher has had to deal with them in some fashion or other. It is just that, as Pascal says, in the game of tennis, each uses the same ball, but one places it better than another. Wojtyla has a similar use of history for doctrinal purposes in mind in his review of the history of philosophy in the Lublin Lectures (Lubliner Vorlesungen [LV]). 4 Maritain also brusquely mentions “anglo-modern stupidity,” but in the context of the modern liberal miscontrual of liberty (TR 45). 5 In The Acting Person [AP], Wojtyla writes: “The author admits that in this study the aspect of the contingency of man has not received sufficient attention and this is all the more true of the historical aspect of man” (309, note 36). 6 The term is Wojtyla’s: “I have not engaged the problem of the norm, of happiness and its reciprocity [with the norm], in its entire historical breadth, but have grasped only certain points which I indicated in the introduction were neuralgic” (LV 386). 7 This charge runs through Maritain’s consideration of modernity and is inseparable from his Catholic understanding. (Cf. the subtitle of his major work, The Degrees of Knowledge. To distinguish in order to unite.) Thus, he points to the nominalism of Luther, whose very language is conflictual: “[It is said that Luther’s] words are half battles” (TR 28). This anticipates Nietzsche’s agonistic notion of argument (Homer’s Contest), and François Lyotard’s remark that ‘to speak is to fight.’ Again, regarding Descartes’ “angelism”: “He is an obstinate divider and he has not only separated modern and ancient, but he has set all things against each other—faith and reason, metaphysics and sciences, knowledge and love” (TR 89; see also 71ff. And of Rousseau, he writes, “By dint of following the endless inclinations of material individuality, he has completely broken the unity of the spiritual self. The stuff no longer holds together. Man is no longer himself except at the price of dissolution” (TR 99f.). 8 Cf. Schmitz 41-57; on this particular point, see 48. Wojtyla’s Habilitationsschrift was centered on his study of the ethics of Kant and Scheler. 9 In a long analysis Maritain shows how the Cartesian insistence upon the independence of thought from things closes off thought from the world of objects, to which we have access through the senses, and that man is subsequently divided upon into the dualism of mind and body. Wojtyla says much the same of Kant. 10 A rather different translation is to be found in Person and Community. Selected Essays 226. 11 Hume’s empiricist method leads to the destruction of the normative moment in moral life (386ff.). This is due to the displacement or inversion of the objective good by the merely subjective good.

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Given the present sloganism of “free market” economy, he may have been premature in this observation rather than prescient. 13 “To denounce a fundamental spiritual deviation in a period of culture is not to condemn that period... During the same period there is an evolution in human affairs, an expansion of history; there are, conjoined to certain evils, gains and achievements of mankind that have an almost sacred value since they are produced in the order of divine providence; we must acknowledge these attainments and these gains.” (Religion and Culture 84f.). And in True Humanism he writes of “the long agony of the fifteenth century” and the decline of the cultural energies of the Middle Ages: “At the same time other vital formations, belonging to a wholly other and purely human type of culture, were striving to come to light. The catastrophe of the mediaeval order is thus the opening of the epoch of modern humanism. The radiating dissolution of the Middle Ages and of its consecrated forms represents at the same time the birth of a secular civilisation, one that is not indeed wholly secular, but which, as it advances severs itself more and more from the Incarnation” (7). We ought to distinguish Maritain’s appreciation of the positive qualities in modern culture from his appreciation of the genius of the great trio of thinkers who gave expression and force to modern developments. Of Descartes he acknowledges that the Cartesian spirit has fostered simplicity, ordered reasoning, “a healthy aversion for pedantry and empty contention, a brave resolution to save the deposit of naturally Christian truths by force of good sense,” etc. (TR 82-83). 14 In Primauté du Spirituel he tells us that the term Christendom “refers directly not to the Church but to divers temporal formations that arise under her influence.” It is an error to confound “the Catholic religion with the culture of Catholic peoples” (98, note 1). And again he remarks upon a scourge that grew more and more menacing as Christian civilisation declined and religion itself became enfeebled in the hearts of many who for reasons of education or of family tradition continued in the social following of a faith that had no longer any meaning for their interior life. During the bourgeois period of our civilisation a religion naturalised in this way penetrated our culture and our social order so as to form part of it and became one of the elements that the governing classes need to enable them to govern properly. ‘The people must have a religion’: this formula expressed in an exact though inverted form the same conception as the phrase of Marx that religion is the opium of the people. Atheist communism is only bourgeois deism turned the other way round.” (100) 15 It is my impression that some of Maritain’s darkest yet most hopeful writings are those written during the immediate pre-war years (1939-40) and continuing into the immediate post-war years (1945-49). In them Maritain looks with some measure of realistic hope towards a “new civilisation of love,” in which Christians would not lose the opportunity which they had already once lost at the beginning of the period of modern industrialization. In “A Lost Opportunity,” Maritain remarks upon the relative absence of Christians working for social justice in the Industrial Era (see De Bergson à Thomas d’Aquin 113f.). The cornerstone of Maritain’s Christian hope was the fecundity of the Church, and that may well account for the passion contained in The Peasant of the Garonne, but also for his deeply spiritual late works on Christ and the Church. For a more philosophical enjoinder to Vatican II, see his Lettre sur la Philosophie a l’heure du concile 77-84. 16 See “In Search of the Basis of Perfectionism in Ethics;” “Thomistic Personalism;” AP xiv, 25; and on Aristotle, see Person and Community 63f.

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17

See a discussion of the present English edition in Schmitz 58-67. For my assessment of Wojtyla’s project, see Schmitz 121-46. 19 Indeed, Maritain writes (in Antimoderne 76-77) of modern liberty as handed over to apostasy, by the ambition for exhaustive knowledge and the prejudice of fashioning the real after the measure of humanity. He calls for libertas a coactione, the true liberty of reason, which is not the absence of necessity but the absence of constraint or violence, adding that what is needed is a philosophy of being founded on experience (106). 20 “The Human Person and Natural Law,” and in many publications, including the encyclical letter, Veritatis splendor. 21 See his extensive discussion of the term actus humanus (czyn) in “The Intentional Act and the Human Act, that is, Act and Experience,” esp. 270. For a reproduction of the text and a discussion, cf. Schmitz, 40-41, note 23. 22 The preceding is an inference from what is largely left implicit in Wojtyla’s own writing though it is implied by the description of his own project as a “reversal” of the traditional approach. See, e.g., AP 22, 25-26. Cf. Schmitz 66, note 19; 12627. 18

References Maritain, Jacques. Antimoderne. Paris: Éditions de la Revue des Jeunes, 1922. ———. Approches sans entraves. Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1973. ———. Christianity and Democracy. Trans. Doris C. Anson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944. ———. De Bergson à Thomas d’Aquin, essais de métaphysique et de morale. New York: Éditions de la Maison française, 1944. Paris: Hartmann, 1947. ———. Distinguer pour unir: ou, les degrés du savoir. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1932. [Distinguish to Unite: or, The Degrees of Knowledge. Trans. under the supervision of G.B. Phelan. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959.] ———. The Dream of Descartes. Trans. Mabelle L. Andison. New York: Philosophical Library, 1944. [Le songe de Descartes. Paris: Correa, 1932.] ———. Education at the Crossroads. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943. [L’éducation à la croisée des chemins. Paris: Egloff, 1947. Republished, with additional material, as Pour une philosophie de l’education. Arthème Fayard, 1959. Nouvelle édition, 1969.] ———. Existence and the Existent. Tr. Lewis Galantière and Gerald B. Phelan. New York: Pantheon, 1948. [Court traité de l’existence et de l’existant. Paris: Hartmann, 1947]. ———. The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time. Trans. Micheal Cuddihy and Elizabeth Hughes. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968. [Le paysan de la Garonne: Une vieux laïc s’interroge à propos du temps présent. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1967.] ———. La philosophie morale. I. Examen historique et critique des grands systemes. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de Idées, 1960. [Moral Philosophy. Ed. Joseph W. Evans. London: G. Bles, 1964.] ———. Primauté du spirituel. Paris: Plon, 1927. [The Things That Are Not Caesar’s. Trans. J.F. Scanlan. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.] ———. A Preface to Metaphysics: Seven Lectures on Being. New York and London: Sheed and Ward, 1939. [Sept leçons sur l’être et les premiers principes de la raison spéculative. Paris: Téqui, 1934.]


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———. Religion and Culture. London: Sheed and Ward, 1931.[Religion et culture. Edition originale: premier numéro de la collection des questions disputées. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1930. 2nd ed., with a preface, 1946.] ———. Three Reformers: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929.[Trois Réformateurs: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau. Paris: Librairie Plon, 1925.] ———. True humanism. Trans. M.R. Adamson. London: Bles, 1938; [Humanisme intégral: problemes temporels et spirituals d’une nouvelle chrétienté. Paris: Fernand Aubier, 1936.] Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Homer’s Contest.” Ed. Walter Kaufmann. The Portable Nietzsche. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1968. 32-39. Schmitz, Kenneth L. At the Center of the Human Drama. The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, 1993. Vatican II. De ecclesia [On the Constitution of the Church]. Acta Synodalis Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani Secundi. Rome: Typis Polygottis Vaticanum, 1972. ———. Gaudium et Spes [The Church in the Modern World ]. Acta Synodalis Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani Secundi. Rome: Typis Polygottis Vaticanum, 1972. Williams, George Huntston. The Mind of John Paul II: origins of his thought and action. New York : Seabury Press, 1981. Wojtyla, Karol. The Acting Person. [AP]. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979; 1969. ———. Habilitationsschrift. Published in Polish as Ocena mozliwosci zbudowania etyki chrzescijanskiej przy zalozeniach systemu Maksa Schelera (Lublin: KUL, 1959); trans. into German as Über die Möglichkeit, eine christliche Ethik in Anlehnung an Max Scheler zu schaffen. Primat des Geistes. Philosophisches Schriften. Ed. J. Stroynowski. (Stuttgart-Degerloch: Seewald, 1980). ———. “The Human Person and Natural Law.” Person and Community. 181-85. ———. “In Search of the Basis of Perfectionism in Ethics.” Person and Community. 46-49. ———. “The Intentional Act and the Human Act, that is, Act and Experience.” Analecta Husserliana 5 (1976) 269-80. ———. Lublin Lectures. [Lubliner Vorlesungen (LV)]. ———. Person and Community. Selected Essays. Ed. and trans. Theresa Sandok, OSM. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. ———. “Person: Subject and Community.” Review of Metaphysics 33:2 (Dec. 1979) 273-308. [In Polish: Osoba: Podmiot i wspolnota. Roczniki Filozoficzne 24.2 (1976) 5-39.] ———. Response. La Philosophie Morale. Examen historique et critique des grands systèmes. Paris: Gallimard, 1960. Acta et Documenta Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano Secundo II Apparando, Series I, Antepraeparatoria, Vol. II, pt. 2. Rome: Typis Polygottis Vaticanum, 1960. ———. “Thomistic Personalism.” Person and Community. 165-75. ———. [as John Paul II]. Veritatis splendor. Citta del Vaticano: L’Osservatore romano, 1993.

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On the Foundations of Ethics

Hugo Meynell The problem of the foundations of ethics, like that of the foundations of knowledge in general, is often supposed to be intractable, if not insurmountable. It is also not infrequently supposed that this lack of foundations for knowledge and ethics does not matter. I maintain that, if it were indeed true that there were no such foundations, it would matter very much. If the view were generally accepted, and its consequences followed through, it would really be the end of all serious human effort, on any matter whatever, to establish what is true or false, good or bad. Can we really sit down under the consequences of non-foundationalism? Does it not ineluctably follow from it that there is no better foundation for the belief that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen, than for the conviction that it consists of phosphorus and strawberry jam; or for the opinion that it is bad to exterminate people because of their race or enslave people because of their sex, than for the view that it is perfectly proper to do so? I myself do not believe that the problem of the foundations of ethics is insoluble, or even particularly difficult; and maintain that it only seems to be so because of a series of unfortunate but influential accidents in the history of thought. At first glance, it appears that one finds out what is good, right or worthwhile, much as one discovers the truth about any matter of fact. One attends to evidence; one envisages possibilities; one affirms to be so, perhaps provisionally, the possibility that appears to fit the evidence best. My little daughter complains of a severe sore throat; I consider various possibilities as to what it would be best to do about the situation; I conclude that I should induce her to take periodic doses of a sticky and malodorous pink beverage recommended by our family doctor. What kind of evidence do I take into account? Very summarily, the evidence in her behavior to the effect that she is distressed, and in my overall experience of life that to follow the recommendations of a qualified medical practitioner is likely to reduce discomfort of this kind. If someone were to ask, “Why is it good to relieve anyone’s distress?” I would wonder whether she knew the meaning of the term ‘good;’ it seems that the tendency to relieve

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distress is in general of the essence of good action. Martin Milligan once suggested to me, in conversation, that the good is related to the needs and feelings of persons and other sentient beings rather as the truths of natural science are related to sense-experience. It all sounds very easy—one verifies value judgments by attending to people’s needs and feelings, very much as one verifies judgments in physics or chemistry by attending to observations or experimental results. And indeed, I believe this to be the correct account of the matter. Why on earth, it might be asked, does discussion of this issue not just stop there? What is supposed to be the difficulty? Roughly, there are two sorts of objection, one crass and vulgar, the other more subtle, or at least with the reputation of being so. According to the vulgar one, which is a corollary of what is known as ‘scientism,’ good and bad, or right and wrong, cannot be isolated in the laboratory, and consequently be genuinely ‘real’ or ‘objective.’ It is easy to dismiss this point as unworthy of attention, but something like it seems to be implied in a recent book by Bernard Williams, who has been called ‘the cleverest man in England.’ Williams claims that the more we ponder the implications of the scientific world view, which at its term would describe the world exactly and exhaustively, the less seriously we will take morality, which is radically relative to different times, places and cultures (cited in Putnam 170-78). The subtler objection derives from the work of two famous philosophers, whose arguments are alleged to have made the simple account that I outlined earlier impossible to sustain. That they are supposed to have done so strikes me as one of the greatest oddities in the history of thought, for reasons that I hope to make clear. In Book III of his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume remarks that he often finds authors arguing to some general property of human nature or to the existence of a deity; and then proceeding to state that such and such ought to be the case, or that one ought to do so and so. But he goes on to say that he cannot see how such an inference from ‘is’ statements alone to ‘ought’ statements could possibly be justified. This passage is often pointed to as the origin of the famous, I would say infamous, ‘is-ought’ or ‘fact-value’ dichotomy. The second passage is due to G. E. Moore; in his Principia Ethica, he purports to uncover a lacuna in reasoning which he calls “the naturalistic fallacy.” What this fallacy amounts to, fundamentally, is supposing that ‘good’ can be defined in terms of anything other than itself. But that it can be so defined, according to Moore, must be wrong, for the following reason. Many thinkers have sought to define ‘good’ in terms of contribution to the greater happiness of the greater number. But if

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this were right, it would never be correct to say that an action (for example) was good, when it did not so contribute. However, many people, and perhaps most, would say or imply that it is not always good to act for the greater happiness of the greater number—for example, to ‘punish’ an innocent person in order to persuade a raging mob not to indulge in mayhem. Yet if the definition were correct, such a claim would not only be wrong, it would not even make sense. If for an action to be good is really by definition for it to contribute to the greater happiness of the greater number, it is self-contradictory to say that it is at once good and lacks this attribute. Moore thought that good was, as he put it, a ‘simple intuitable non-natural property;’ you apprehended it directly as either belonging to something, or not. In that respect, he suggested, it was like ‘yellow.’ The consequence was that goodness could not be analyzed into properties or effects of other kinds. The school of radical empiricists known as ‘logical positivists’ had, of course, no use for nonnatural properties, intuitable or otherwise; though they accepted Moore’s argument to the effect that ‘good’ was not to be defined in terms of any other property or set of properties. They concluded that to call something good was not strictly speaking to describe it, or to say anything about it, at all; it was rather to evince an emotion, or to commend a policy of action with respect to it. 1 1 When one says that Pope John XXIII was a good man, or Hitler a bad, one is not, as one might have supposed, attributing to these famous persons themselves, or to their actions, properties which would justify such attitudes; one is merely expressing the attitudes or commending them to others. Just the same applies to esthetics as to ethics; to say that J. S. Bach is a great composer is to evince an enthusiasm for his work, and to recommend such enthusiasm to others; it is not to attribute properties to Bach or his music which would render appropriate such emotion or commendation. The person of common sense may well be shocked by such a view. In Tom Stoppard’s play Jumpers, there is an episode where a police Inspector meets a professor of moral philosophy. The inspector says in effect (I do not quote verbatim): “So, according to the view you describe, the only thing wrong with murder is what we happen to feel about it! What kind of moral philosophy is that?” The professor replies, “Oh, middle of the road contemporary stuff, I’d say.” C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength is about a university which goes to the bad, and ends up getting people murdered and tortured in the interests of ‘research.’ At the end, some of the ‘good’ characters are discussing what has gone wrong; and someone remarks that the profes-


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sor of moral philosophy was such a conscientious man, that he would walk miles rather than leave a penny debt unpaid. Yet in his lectures he was forever proving the impossibility of ethics; and there was no single enormity that had been practiced in that university, which could not be justified by inference from what he had said or written (That Hideous Strength 243). After all, if the wrong-ness of torturing children for fun consists in nothing more than the emotion we happen to feel about it or the practical attitude we happen to take up to it, what if we do not feel the emotion or share the attitude? Someone might quite reasonably say, if there are compelling reasons for believing in scientism or logical positivism, we will just have to put up with their unfortunate ethical implications. But are we in fact rationally compelled to embrace either one of them? The answer, happily, is no. On the contrary, we are constrained as rational persons to reject them. Why? The basic reason is, that both positions are self-destructive. If scientism were true, everything that anyone said, thought or wrote would be in principle exhaustively explicable in terms that make no appeal to intelligence or reason as such. But in that case nobody, scientists included, would really say what they say, or believe what they believe, because there was good reason for them to do so. To take a notorious example: if B. F. Skinner were right, everyone would say what she says, and write what she writes, simply due to a history of positive reinforcements working on innate predispositions, of which doing or saying things on the ground that there is good reason to do or say them forms no part. It follows directly from this, that Skinner himself does not really say what he says or write what he writes because he has good reasons for doing so. But if this is so, there is no good reason why anyone should agree with him. And just the same applies to an exhaustive account of human speech and writing in terms of the physics and chemistry of the brain. Hilary Putnam, who is especially convincing as himself having formerly espoused scientism, has pointed out that while science depends upon minds and values, the scientism which is often inferred as a matter of course from science leaves no room for either of them. Science comes into existence so far as people are thoroughly attentive to relevant data, intelligent in envisaging possible explanations for them, and reasonable in preferring in each case the explanation that is best corroborated by the data. In other words it depends on people using their minds well, in a manner which is of positive value. When it comes to the foundations of ethics, I think that a good way of at once determining and vindicating them is to be had by recourse to what I like to call ‘Aristotle’s dodge.’ (He does not in fact

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use it in the Ethics, but in the Metaphysics (Bk. Z.17.1041a 9ff.; see Lonergan 15). Aristotle says that if you want to know what the definition of something is, say an x, it is useful to ask why a particular instance of it is an x, and not rather something else. For example, if you are wondering what a horse is, it is worthwhile to inquire why a particular horse is a horse, and not rather a cow or a donkey, or even a mule. To apply the lesson to moral goodness, I might ask why a particular good person, action or situation is good, and not indifferent or bad. Ultimately,when the question is pressed, it seems to me that there are two types of answer—in terms of the realization of happiness or fulfillment, and in terms of fairness. (This is why the ethical theories of Mill and Kant are neither of them wholly wide of the mark, or completely satisfactory as they stand; Mill seems to set too much store by the former criterion at the expense of the latter, while Kant errs in the opposite direction.) Where these criteria conflict, one is apt to get ambiguous cases—something is good in the one respect, bad in the other. (‘I know it will make Tanya happy if she gets both lollipops, but won’t it be unfair to Katya?’) Where they do not conflict—where a policy, say, promotes happiness or misery, but not at the expense of fairness or inequity—you get what is unequivocally good or bad. If anyone did not know that, other things being equal, actions which promoted happiness or fairness were good, and those which tended to cause unhappiness or unfairness were in general bad, one would have to infer that they did not know the meaning of the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ Moore’s mistake was to assume that a bundle of qualities and effects cannot be central to x-ness, if one can by way of exception say quite correctly that something is x, and yet that it lacks one of these qualities and effects. (Perhaps the more of these qualities and effects it lacks, the less sense there is in saying that it is x; but that is a slightly different matter.) This is what ‘buts’ and ‘thoughs’ are for. To apply the moral directly to ascriptions of moral worth, one may occasionally say quite properly that an action is bad, though it promotes the greater happiness of the greater number; especially when its effects are unfair (as in our useful if well-worn example of the innocent person ‘punished’ to appease a mob bent on mayhem.) Moore’s error is in effect the one illustrated by R. G. Collingwood, who writes that a term in ordinary language—as opposed to technical terms gifted by kindly godparents with exact definitions when they were first coined—is related to its meaning rather like a gull hovering over a ship’s stern, as opposed to perched on a stone. He adds that one should not shoot the gull and tie it to the rigging (Collingwood 7).


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And as Anthony Kenny remarked in an early article, “Aquinas and Wittgenstein,” the “HCF theory of meaning” is an error, which has been seen through by such philosophers as Aristotle, Aquinas, and Wittgenstein. (Aristotle makes the point in relation to the terms ‘being’ and ‘healthy,’ Wittgenstein—though less elegantly in my view than Collingwood and less insightfully than Aquinas—with respect to the word ‘game;’ see Investigations, I. par. 66.) The use of ‘wide reflective equilibrium’ in the critique of moral attributions, as championed by John Rawls and Kai Nielsen (ch. 8), is fine as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. As it stands, it simply goes to confirm our deep prejudices at the expense of those of our more superficial convictions that are incompatible with them. If I am strongly enough convinced that no action can be bad if it is described without obvious authorial disapproval in The Book of Joshua or The Story of O, wide reflective equilibrium of itself can provide no method which is even in principle reliable for refuting my position. In cases of conflict, when push comes to shove, there seems no reason why I should not, on the basis of an unqualified wide reflective equilibrium, stand by the authority of these august documents and abandon the principles of happiness and fairness. Are positivism and scientism, it may be asked, to be rejected root and branch? Now positivism and scientism have prided themselves on their objectivity. Are we then to repudiate all pretensions to objectivity or rationality in the manner of post-modernism? I think that such an inference is unnecessary, and indeed would be quite disastrous. It seems to me that positivism and scientism are both flawed approximations to a more satisfactory account of rationality. Scientism is on the right lines so far as it insists that, both for theoretical and practical purposes, we should aspire to explanatory as opposed to merely descriptive accounts of things. Without such accounts, we cannot either extend far our knowledge of how things are, or achieve such desirable ends as curing tuberculosis or putting people into orbit in space. Positivism is right so far as theories both in natural and social science have to be corroborated by the data to be worthy of belief. Can we do better than scientism or positivism in articulating the nature and implications of the comprehensive rationality which is exemplified by science? And if we can, will the results be applicable to ethics? I believe that the answer to both these questions is yes. According to C. S. Peirce, the basic underlying form of what he calls “abductive” inference, which is central to scientific, and in general to rational inquiry, is like this: “A surprising fact, B, is observed.

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But if A were true, B would be a matter of course. Therefore, there is reason to suspect that A is true” (quoted in Shepherd 146; from Hartshorne and Weiss 5.159). Now all competent human beings use this form of inference constantly, and from the very first, in making use of their sense-experience in finding out what is actually or probably so; the difficulty is to spell out just what they are doing when they do this. One may think of a young child catching her mother out in a lie. Let us suppose that the child smells drink on her mother’s breath; and that when she remarks on the fact, Mother hastily says that it is just the child’s imagination. The child reflects that it is more plausible to suppose that Mother is lying, as evidently she has strong motivation to do, than that she herself is deluded. This is what the child in effect does, though naturally she cannot spell out that that is what she is doing. Suppose again that, as an adult and an academic, I wish to know whether the professor of Mesozoic Biodiversity is in her office. I can ask her secretary, or take a look into her office. I can then think of a range of possibilities which might account for my experiences; perhaps her secretary has reason to deceive me, perhaps she has persuaded someone who looks like her to sit in her office so as to establish an alibi. These, however, are not the simplest or most obvious explanations of the available evidence. (Occasionally, of course, there may be clues that make us take such possibilities rather more seriously.2 2) So I conclude that she is in fact in her office. Unfortunately, in spite of the sustained efforts of several generations of ingenious thinkers, it does not seem that this process is reducible to ‘logic’ in any narrow sense; this fact has been a prolific source of skepticism among philosophers in the last three decades or so. ‘But might not the evidence be systematically ambiguous between two or more contradictory judgments? Can one not conceive of a state of affairs in which, whenever a fragment of evidence seemed to confirm the judgment that the lady was in fact sitting in her office, there always turned out to be another scrap to the effect that she was not? Could not this ambiguity in principle continue forever?’ One can imagine a science-fiction story that turned on the question, whether there were real alien intruders, or not; where the discovery of evidence favoring the one conclusion was always followed after a time by discovery of evidence favoring the other. A number of people have remarked that this seems to be true of what are called ‘paranormal phenomena;’ the evidence which seems at first sight to support them appears to be too strong just to neglect; but over and over again promising hypotheses (about psychokinesis, clairaudience, or whatever) turn out not to be consistently confirmed. My own impression


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is that, though this state of affairs is perhaps in some sense conceivable, it happens that it is never, or at least scarcely ever, the case within our world. The fact that special relativity and quantum theory are inconsistent with one another, but that both are supported by a substantial amount of evidence, might be thought to provide a counterinstance; but I understand that most cosmologists look forward to the discovery of a theory which will somehow reconcile in a higher viewpoint the insights of both.3 3 It is surely an a priori truth that reality cannot itself be contradictory, though human accounts of it certainly can, not only with one another but within themselves. It will not do to be the epistemological equivalent of the lady who said to her husband, at a late stage in a cocktail party, ‘Oh Edgar, do stop drinking, you’re getting blurry round the edges.’ An analogy may bring out what I am getting at. There is no exact boundary between the south of England and the midlands (England does not boast an equivalent of the Mason-Dixon Line). But no person who was at once sane and informed would deny that Andover, say, was in the south or Warwick in the midlands. What about Banbury, Oxford, and Newbury (which one would pass through or close by on the way from Warwick to Andover)? You might say that Banbury was a bit far south to be in the midlands strictly speaking, and that Newbury was too far north for one to be quite happy about assigning it unequivocally to the south. The situation of Oxford, it might be suggested, is such that it would be very misleading to say unequivocally either that it was in the midlands, or that it was in the south. My suggestion is, in effect, that most hypotheses are definitely confirmed by the relevant data, at least in the long run, rather as Andover is definitely in the south; or are falsified by their data in the definitive manner that Warwick is in the midlands. Banburys, Oxfords, and Newburys, though they certainly and indeed notoriously do occur in science, are exceptional or non-existent there in the long run. Where value judgments are concerned, of course, Banburys, Oxfords, and Newburys are notoriously much more common, and there are some instances, I would concede, which in the nature of the case cannot be resolved. Much great literature actually turns on bringing out the moral ambiguity of cases, which a crude sensibility would tend to prejudge as absolutely good or bad, right or wrong. In Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, the decent and conventional Romans are very satisfied with the conclusion that Antony is utterly to be condemned for neglecting his political future in favour of a love affair; but Enobarbus corrects the picture with a marvellous vi-

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sion of Cleopatra coming down the Nile in her barge. On the other hand, to say that love in such case was really worth the sacrifice of one’s political career, as Dryden seems to have assumed in his All for Love, is equally to miss the point. Joseph Conrad’s novel Lord Jim turns on a rather similar moral ambiguity; the reader misses the point if she either affirms tout court, or denies tout court, that Jim has been responsible for an act of reprehensible cowardice in taking his leap off the “Patna.” However, for all the importance of such cases in considering the nature of ethical evaluation, it will not do to generalize too far from them. There are cases where a value judgment may be properly and unequivocally made, even when it is admitted that there is a great deal to be said on both sides. It happens that we have two good examples from Canadian public life at the moment, in the east and the west of Canada. It is an appalling tragedy if the traditional way of life and livelihood of a large number of human beings is to be ended forever or even greatly curtailed. On the other hand, unless they are so curtailed, the fish stocks and the forests will be destroyed, which will be bad for everyone, and perhaps worst of all in the long run for those whose traditional way of life is closely bound up with fishing or forestry. On matters of fact that have little or no immediate moral relevance, we tend either to have knowledge, or to be in non-culpable ignorance. On moral (including political) matters, we are more prone to a half-conscious flight from knowledge (cf. Lonergan, ch. 6, 7). We either fail to attend to the relevant evidence, or overlook obvious but inconvenient explanations for it. One of C. G Jung’s patients is supposed to have told him that he could not accept Jung’s account of his condition, since if what Jung said was true, he (the patient) would have been wasting his time for the last twenty years. In the American South before the Civil War, it was widely believed among whites that black people were congenitally incapable of the attachment to their children which was characteristic of whites; otherwise, the custom of separating the children of slaves from their parents at a very early age would have appeared obviously to be the abominable cruelty that it was. In Dorothy Sayers’ play The Man Born To Be King, a well-born Roman lady cheers her companion up about the horrors of crucifixion, by informing her that members of inferior races subject to Rome were not capable of feeling as much pain as a Roman would. The topic of the flight from knowledge, by way of a connection I will make clear a little later on, brings me to a discussion of the moral theories of Carol Gilligan. Since her book, In a Different Voice was


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published in 1982, it has been quite usual for people to claim that there is a special feminine kind of morality based on care, which is to be contrasted with the traditional masculine sort based on justice. I must say immediately that I believe this to be a mistake, and rather a serious one, for all that I think that many of the points that Gilligan makes are well taken. What I think to be important about the notion of care in relation to morality is, briefly, as follows. Human beings, both male and female, are dependent on relationships with other human beings, not only as children for basic physical needs, but as children and adults for the consciousness of being valued and loved. If this need is not met, a person will be unlikely either to be happy herself, or to be able to permit those within the range of her influence to be so. (One may compare the cynical dictum of Screwtape, that some people live for others, and you can tell who the others are by their hunted look.) Apart perhaps from the sheer physical necessities of survival, care is at a conservative estimate the commodity that human beings can do least without. Now either because of natural endowment, or because of upbringing, or (as I believe) due to a mixture of both, women have been far the most important sources of care in this sense. Some women, and rather more men, seem to be so constituted, again by heredity or conditioning or both, as to be bad at caring; in the ideal world, this would be taken into account with a view to the general wellbeing (perhaps by some institution analogous to the permanent family nanny once featured by the English upper classes). Now it is my view that a lot of the unjust restrictions (and unjust privileges and protections) which have been accorded to women have been due to a half-conscious realization of their vital traditional role as sources par excellence of care, and to the fear that, if women were liberated (or enslaved) to perform functions which have traditionally been reserved mainly for men, the sources of care would dry up, and life would no longer be worth living for women or for men. The bearing of care on ethics, as articulated on the basis of the two principles which I set out earlier, is to be gauged from the fact that to be cared for and (scarcely less) to care are virtually4 4 necessary conditions of human happiness and fulfillment; and that it is correspondingly unfair that some people are cared for inadequately or not at all. If we make a very rough distinction between ‘care’ and ‘(other) work’ (let no one deny that care is intensely laborious), the more intelligent and decent types of feminist rightly insist that, for the general good, many or most men should take more than their previous share of the burden and privilege of care, and many or most women should be encouraged to take more than their previous share

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of the privilege and burden of ‘(other) work.’ (On the less intelligent or decent forms of what is called ‘feminism,’ which I, who would like to label myself a feminist, would prefer to call ‘Ms. McCarthyism’ or ‘fascism in skirts,’ I do not trust myself to write in a manner which is not actionable. Those who wish to know something of the atrocious intellectual and moral corruptions to which I am referring, should take a look respectively at Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge’s excellent and appalling book, Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women’s Studies, and John Fekete’s nightmarish and assiduously researched Moral Panic: Biopolitics Rising.) I can best introduce my misgivings about Gilligan’s views, and display the manner in which I fear that they may pander to the desire which all of us have to avoid the acute discomfort of moral selfknowledge, by misquoting an interview cited in her work. The object of my misquotation will be to bring out the inadequacy, and indeed the danger, of the principles that she appears to espouse. Suppose I am a respectable citizen of the ‘Blue’ race and nation, the authorities of which are known to be systematically abducting and killing members of the ‘Green’ race. I happen to find out where a ‘Green’ is hiding, and I know that I can further my career, and improve my family’s prospects as well as my own, if I inform the authorities. I may even fear that, if I do not do so, I and my family may be put to quite serious inconvenience. Here is the doctored quote (I put in italics the bits which I have altered): I struggled with it a whole lot. Finally, I just had to reconcile myself—I really do believe this but it is not an easy thing that you can say without emotions and maybe regret—that, yes, life is sacred, but the quality of life is also important, and it has to be the determining factor in this case. (What value to me, after all, is the life of another human being whom I do not know, and who furthermore is of another race than mine, as compared with my own convenience and that of my family?) The quality of that Blue’s life, the quality of that Green’s life—I have seen too many photographs of Greens being beaten up in the streets and that sort of thing as opposed to being removed and killed by the authorities, for all I know relatively painlessly, but it doesn’t do to look too deeply into these matters), and it is so easy to say, ‘Yes, this is killing, there is no way around it, but I am willing to accept that, I am willing to go ahead with it, and it’s hard.’ I don’t think I can explain it. I don’t think I can really verbalize the justification.” (Gilligan 58)


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Gilligan does concede the possibility that the incoherence of the person concerned “could reflect the inadequacy of her moral thought” (59) though she does not appear to take this possibility very seriously. At all events, applied in the context in which I have applied it, I think that most thoughtful and morally sensitive people would understand it in this way, and they would probably regard the ‘incompetence at moral reasoning’ involved as selective and willful. Now, as it seems, the enormity of what the person is contemplating seems on the point of emerging into clear consciousness; now the soporifics get the upper hand.5 5 What is being ‘struggled with’ is the somewhat chilling self-attribution, “I am getting another human being killed for my own convenience; and I don’t like to put this clearly to myself.” I think that in the situation that I have presented, most people would feel rather queasy about Gilligan’s comment: that the “inability” of the person concerned “to articulate her moral position stems in part from the fact that hers is a contextual judgment, bound to the particulars of time and place, contingent always on ‘that Blue’ and that ‘Green,’ and thus resisting a categorical formulation” (58-59). In plain English—given that I am a ‘Blue,’ and given the particular sort of ‘Blue’ that I am and my special circumstances, it is quite appropriate for me to get a ‘Green’ person killed. This sounds to me like a flight from moral knowledge. The original context of Gilligan’s example, as the reader will probably have guessed, is not having another adult human being, but a healthy fetus, killed for one’s convenience.6 6 (These days, ‘sexism’ and ‘ageism’ are often spoken of as morally objectionable attitudes; what about ‘extra-uterism’?) One wonders why the person concerned did not contemplate bearing the child and giving it up for adoption. Dominique Fournier has told me the following anecdote. A lady who had contemplated such a course of action, but had ultimately decided on abortion, said that she could not have lived with herself if she had given her baby up. Fournier bit back the retort, that it seemed odd that she could she live with herself more easily after having her baby killed. (At least the person cited by Gilligan does not resort, as so many have done, to the contemptible evasion that the fetus is merely a lump of tissue that is a part of their own body.)7 7 Some of the interviews reported by Gilligan seem to me to offer far more effective grist to the mill of a respectable feminism. Surely the lack of autonomy and self-reliance expressed in the following example are at least in part the result of the unjust treatment of a woman over many years on the grounds of her sex: “As a woman, I feel I never understood that I was a person, that I could make decisions and that

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I had a right to make decisions. I always felt that that belonged to my father or my husband in some way, or church, which was always represented by a male clergyman.” And Gilligan and her informants do well to recognize the fact, unfortunately underplayed by some feminists, that there are certain advantages to a confined position, that there is a “gain from illness” as Freud put it (135ff.). Once you have been deprived of, or have yielded up, your freedom of choice, you are absolved from the responsibility of decision; when the events of your life are regarded as just happening to you, you can complain about them with a clear conscience. Gilligan expresses well the nature of the contract which is entered into, half willingly, by many people, not only women: “Childlike in the vulnerability of their dependence, and consequent fear of abandonment, they claim to wish only to please, but in return for their goodness they expect to be loved and cared for” (67). If such people are to achieve happiness, and to permit those close to them to be happy, they need to make it clearer to themselves and others what they are really up to.8 8 I conclude that difficulties about the foundations of ethics are largely artifacts of mistaken philosophies. We can be as attentive, intelligent and reasonable as to what fosters the happiness of sensitive and rational agents, consistently with fairness, as we can with respect to any other matter of fact; and by being so, we come to know what is really good.

Notes 1

Cf. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic and Stevenson, Ethics and Language. For ‘prescription,’ see Hare, The Language of Morals. 2 Many years ago, I saw a splendid film about a Nazi attempt to remove French art treasures from France to Germany. The attempt was foiled by a French railway worker, who arranged to divert the train that was carrying the plunder by night, and changed the names of the various stations that the train was going through, to make it look as though it were moving towards its intended destination in Germany. Here the relevant sensory cues were deliberately set up in such a way that a fairly intelligent and reasonable person, the Nazi officer, would be liable still to fail to get at the truth. 3 I do not believe that the famous ‘wave-particle duality’ is really relevant here. What is at issue is not the sorts of entity of which we cannot decide whether they are rather waves or particles, but those which have some of the properties of each, and are therefore to be thought about in terms sometimes of the one analogy, sometimes of the other. 4 I do not wish absolutely to exclude the remote possibility that some human beings might achieve a degree of happiness without being cared for or caring. 5 G. K. Chesterton wrote of “the easy speeches / That comfort cruel men.” 6 The pictures that had been seen were of babies in trashcans.


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The reader should not infer from this discussion that I am an extreme pro-lifer; only that I am opposed to the extreme pro-choice position. The question of when, if ever, abortion is other than a moral abomination, is at best extremely difficult. And any man who has the temerity to discuss this issue should constantly bear in mind, that it is women, and women only, who have the agony of having to face the problem at first hand. 8 For a superb and highly readable analysis of the way in which such people spoil their own happiness and that of others in this sort of way, see Berne, Games People Play.

References Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. and Introduction David Ross. London: Oxford University Press, 1954. ———. Metaphysics. Ed. and trans. John Warrington. Introduction Sir David Ross. London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1956. Ayer, A. J. Language, Truth and Logic. New York: Dover, 1950. Berne, Eric. Games People Play. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1978. Collingwood, R. G. The Principles of Art. Oxford: Clarendon, 1938. Fekete, John. Moral Panic: Biopolitics Rising. 2nd ed. rev. Montreal: R. Davies, 1995. Freud, Sigmund. Two Short Accounts of Psychoanalysis. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1962. Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA; Cambridge University Press, 1982. Hare, R. M. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon, 1952. Hartshorne, C. and P. Weiss, ed. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931-58. Hume, David. Treatise of Human Nature. Reprinted from the original ed. 3 vols. Ed. with an analytical index, L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon, 1928. Kenny, Anthony. “Aquinas and Wittgenstein.” The Downside Review. Autumn 1959. Lewis, C. S. That Hideous Strength. London: Pan, 1956. Lonergan, Bernard. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. ———. Word and Idea in Aquinas. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1968. Moore, George Edward. Principia ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903. Nielsen, Kai. God and the Grounding of Morality. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press, 1991. Patai, Daphne and Noretta Koertge. Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women’s Studies. New York: Basic, 1994. Putnam, Hilary. Realism with a Human Face. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991. Shepherd, J. J. Experience, Inference and God. London: Macmillan, 1975. Stevenson, C. L. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944. Williams, B. A. O. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell, 1958.

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Ethics, the Humanities, and the Formation of Persons

Thomas De Koninck Whatever we decide concerning the foundations of ethics, one thing at least must be clear from common experience: ethical behavior is greatly dependent on the formation received. The basis of ethics in this practical sense, we owe, in other words, to our education. More specifically, we owe it to whatever contributed to our formation as persons. And central here is what is commonly known as the humanities, the vital need for which is all too often misunderstood. The great Oxford English Dictionary defines the humanities as “learning or literature concerned with human culture”—rather than just “polite scholarship” as the Oxford Concise Dictionary would have it. For Webster, they are “the branches of learning regarded as having primarily a cultural character and usually including languages, literature, history, mathematics, and philosophy.” Le Robert refers one back to the beginning of the sixteenth century: “studia humanitatis, lat. class. humanitas ‘culture.’” In a word, then, our topic is human culture. This is an immense theme. One’s conception of it depends on no less than one’s understanding of human beings as such, of the meaning or absence of meaning of our human condition, of human knowledge, of art, of science, of the task of our teaching institutions including those of higher learning. Education has always been acknowledged to be one of the chief challenges to the human condition; Kant thought it “the greatest and the most difficult problem that can be posed to man. For discernment (Einsicht) depends on education, and education, in turn, depends on discernment.”1 The presence of students in universities or colleges makes all the difference, and the profound ethical and cultural crisis the present world is undergoing concerns the young at least as much as their elders. What can an educator who wishes to be faithful to his craft and to his responsibilities do in the present crisis? The answer or prescription if you like, first requires a good diagnosis. There are few things

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worse than a decision that defies a crisis by ignoring it. “‘Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill’” (Macbeth III.ii.55); rather like those cancers which become incurable for want of timely and proper identification: a wrong diagnosis is again proof, if need be, of the practical consequences of mistaken or right knowledge. Hence the following three parts to our exposé: I. A few useful reminders, to clarify the meanings of the words we use when discussing such issues; II. The present crisis; III. Prerequisites for a solution.

I. Reminders 1. Culture The formation of persons is the result of culture. By ‘person’ here I mean the whole human being, of course, but considered primarily in her or his chief traits: one who perceives, thinks, loves in a manner familiar to us all since we all experience it ourselves. The excellent word «culture» refers us at once not to some artificial, external model, but rather to the only adequate model, that of the living organism, which, as Goethe pointed out, cannot as such be measured by means of something outside it, but “must itself provide the gauge” for this measure. It suggests the continuity of growth proper to life, as well as autonomy; but also fragility and dependence on the environment. The fundamental meaning of ‘culture’ is the one defined by Cicero: cultura animi, i.e., the growth and bloom, not of a mere plant, but of the human spirit itself—heart and mind—to its highest potential; in other words, the very life of a human being as such: “a field, however fertile, will not be productive without cultivation, nor will the soul without teaching (doctrina);” nature and nurture need one another and are both impotent without the other (utraque res sine altera debilis); and, Cicero concludes, “But the cultivation of spirit is philosophy.”2 We are speaking, in fact, of the education to freedom. The full, effective exercise of liberty requires discipline and enough discernment or critical sense to enable one to integrate the panoply of knowledge usefully—all of which can only be acquired through culture. The quality of life for persons and societies alike is a matter of culture; indeed it depends on it.

2. Instruction To be satisfied with teaching how could not, then, suffice, since in that case one would risk transmitting nothing but techniques. The life of the mind obviously cannot be reduced to techniques, nor is

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there, for that matter, a technique for everyday living. It was really such ‘technical knowledge’ which was provided by the Sophists of old: how to speak well, so as to seduce and persuade, how to perform this or that mathematical operation, for example the «squaring» of the circle (as attempted by Antiphon the Sophist). The answer would take the form: “do as I do.” Take nowadays a problem in chemistry, physics, mathematics; or consider writing a novel, a literary essay; the teaching method would consist in saying: you do it this way, imitating me, and you will become like me, through exercise and practice. Mimesis, “imitation,” provided it is repeated, will make you a success. Heidegger’s famous saying, “science does not think, it calculates,” reminds one of that equally famous remark by Plato—inordinately fond of mathematics though he appeared to be in the eyes of some of his critics: such mathematical sciences as “geometry and the studies that accompany it,” he wrote, are “dreaming about being, but the clear waking vision of it is impossible for them as long as they leave the assumptions which they employ undisturbed and cannot give any account of them. For where the starting point is something that the reader does not know, and the conclusion and all that intervenes is a tissue of things not really known, what possibility is there that assent in such cases can ever be converted into true knowledge or science?” (Republic VII.533 b-c). To the extent to which I might not be critically aware of what I am doing, failing to—or unable to— question the foundations, or merely the assumptions, of my mathematics, say, I am daydreaming or indeed sleepwalking while performing this or that mathematical operation. Such remarks do apply no doubt to what is nowadays called “techno-science,” but they would be unfair as regards science proper, witness its ability to create new theories that advance knowledge. Thoroughly to understand the basic problems of one’s discipline, and its fundamental assumptions, is an essential prerequisite for a scientist—to quote one obvious case— who will effectively renew her or his own discipline, even establish it on new grounds, as, in our time, Einstein, Heisenberg, and many other genuine scientists have plainly succeeded in doing? But the question is, can that be taught and, if so, how? Nor does that imply that one should depreciate all those diverse forms of instruction that contribute to ‘accuracy of mind;’ quite the opposite. As Newman aptly put it, “one main portion of intellectual education, of the labors of both school and university, is to remove the original dimness of the mind’s eye; to strengthen and perfect its vision.” It is essential “to give the mind clearness, accuracy, precision;


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to enable it to use words aright, to understand what it says, to conceive justly what it thinks about, to abstract, compare, analyze, divide, define, and reason, correctly” (272-73). A number of elementary studies, grammar and the like, are thus, like logic itself, vital to the formation of persons. For they are essential, as we said, to achieve accuracy of thought—both theoretical and practical; the incidence on a full and genuine exercise of freedom ought again here to be obvious (cf. Republic and The Idea of a University).

3. The Zest of Life In Whitehead’s fine terms, “Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth. What we should aim at producing is men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction.” One should above all beware of “inert ideas,” that is to say of “ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.” As Whitehead explains very well, intellectual education is useful because thought is useful. In order to make one’s students aware of this, it is of the utmost importance that the teacher be ever conscious of this usefulness. The understanding to be sought is an understanding of “an insistent present. The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. No more deadly harm can be done to young minds than by depreciation of the present. The present contains all that there is. It is the holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.” Such institutions as universities are justified, as Whitehead again emphasizes rightly, insofar as they preserve the link between knowledge and the “zest of life.” They unite the young and the old in “the imaginative consideration of learning.” They will impart information but they will do so “imaginatively.” Should they fail in this respect they would have no reason for existence. What ought to transform knowledge is “this atmosphere of excitement, arising from imaginative consideration.” A fact is no longer bare: “it is invested with all its possibilities.” In a word, “a university is imaginative or it is nothing—at least nothing useful” (cf. Whitehead, Education 13-15, 93, 97).

4. “Practical Men” The more immediately practical endeavors, in appearance at least, such as business schools, are no different. There one has to succeed in forming administrators, for example, who will not only be more

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dynamic but also better in personal relations, more imaginative, more creative. Whitehead is again very good on this. Life’s adventure, he points out, cannot be severed from the adventure of the intellect. One of the chief difficulties that confronts education is the fact that it provides qualities that prove essential later in a career, whereas they are seldom seen as such at the initial stage. “Necessary technical excellence can only be acquired by a training which is apt to damage those energies of mind which should direct the technical skill. This is the key fact in education, and the reason for most of its difficulties” (Cf. Whitehead, Education 94-96).3 So-called “practical men” might usefully be reminded of the fact, famously restated by John Maynard Keynes in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, that the ideas of economists, and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back…. Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil. (403)

5. Wonder Today the challenge to teachers is surely greater and more inspiring than ever, provided they be themselves concerned with culture and passionate in their quest for knowledge. A modicum at least of experience at research appears essential, since a lively sense of what remains still unknown, of genuine, real questions in other words, can be achieved solely through personal experience of inquiry. In Einstein’s words, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed” ([1979] 304). Einstein saw meaning in “the mystery of the eternity of life” and in glimpsing “the marvellous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature” (Einstein 1979, 304). More recently, a number of scientists of a variety of sciences have likewise expressed their wonder at the universe as “streaming with intelligence” (Delumeau 37). But the greatest wonder of all


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might well be the very experience of thinking: “A thought is a tremendous mode of excitement” (Whitehead, Modes 36). Now, if you had never experienced any of this personally, how could you communicate it to others? To those who are “as good as dead,” one might join a favorite target of Nietzsche: those who are running away from their own lives, escaping from themselves. “A traveller having seen many countries and nations and several continents was asked what quality he had everywhere encountered among humans; he replied: an inclination to laziness.” That laziness makes them unable “to feel their lives, owing to the constant dispersion of their thoughts;” that “dispersion scattering an individual to the four winds” gives an air of strangeness to the nevertheless most indispensable questions for an adult, free, life: “What am I living for? What have I to learn from life?” “To think about oneself ”—and about others—in that sense, is the greatest and the hardest challenge of all in fact (cf. Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations III, opening sentence, ff.). A ‘workaholic’ might be quite lazy in that regard.

II. The Present Crisis There has, of late, been no dearth of diagnoses of our civilization and our culture. Repeated emphasis has been put on the lack of ideals, on the extraordinary indigence of “inner life» and of self-images in consequence, on a growing disgust with the political; on the simultaneous emergence of a compensatory narcissism: heroes and living ideals have been replaced by actresses or actors (the Greek word is hypokritoi), that is to say by people—doubtless often very fine people—who are admired for excelling at not being themselves, at seeming to be someone else, who, like Iago, could say: ‘I am not what I am’” (Othello I.i.66). Michel Henry points out that a new mediation has taken hold which separates human beings even more than before from their own selves, “that of the medias precisely which to the free play of life and sensitivity substitutes everywhere an unreal universe, artificial, stereotyped, degrading, where life can only run away from itself instead of fulfilling itself ” (129). And Tony Anatrella has very forcefully argued that the young having been left to themselves now find only themselves—mistakenly—to blame when they despair; hence the record number of suicides and of other forms of self-destruction among them, in comparatively opulent societies such as our own (cf. Lasch; Taylor; Anatrella).

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Cultural void—wherever content is systematically evaded—fosters a deep lack of motivation. Can any form of human society long subsist with a void at its core? One is rightly alarmed at the unprecedented rate of dropouts from public schools in North America, hardly surprising though it is. No less alarming is the fact that too many of our young are often scarcely able to express, even in their own language, what they feel and what they think, and frequently experience difficulty at spelling (in more than one sense) the very words they write in their own native tongue. Many have stupidly been deprived, by the so-called “educational system,” of even the study of history. It is almost as if one had forgotten what happens to individuals who lose their memory: they forget who they are; the great suffering caused by the Alzheimer calamity surely ought to make us more wary of attempts to eradicate memory in whichever form. To quote Fernand Dumont, “A person has a future by giving itself projects; but this would be impossible for it without a feeling of its own identity, without the ability to attribute a meaning to its past. It is no different as regards cultures” (103; cf. 105; 224-25). At the heart of the contemporary crisis one detects a new ignorance accompanying the splendid progresses of scientific knowledge and of technology. Edgar Morin discerns a new obscurantism favored by the mutilation of knowledge: “our incredible gains in knowledge are paid for by incredible gains in ignorance” ([1986] 13sq.). Scientific knowledge reveals to us everyday new marvels on the cosmos, on matter, on life, on the human brain, and yet this formidable enrichment “brings with it a formidable impoverishment of knowledge,” and indeed “a new and redoubtable ignorance.” If such specifically modern ills as pollution, ecological degradation, the increase of inequalities in the world, the thermonuclear threat, appear inseparable from progresses in scientific knowledge, if the powers to enslave and to destruct stemming from scientific knowledge escape our control, it is because each one of us “becomes more and more ignorant of existing knowledge” of “what science is and does in society” (Morin [1991] 65-72). With humour and panache, Milan Kundera considers that “Flaubert’s discovery is more important for the future of the world than the most startling ideas of Marx or Freud”: for “Flaubert’s vision of stupidity is this: Stupidity does not give way to science, technology, modernity, progress; on the contrary, it progresses right along with progress!” Modern stupidity means “the nonthought of received ideas,” whose “irresistible flood” is “programmed into computers, propagated by the mass media.” Hermann Broch had already observed the encroachment of kitsch; but it has gotten worse fifty


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years later. In order to please, one must “put oneself at the service of received ideas.” And “the word ‘kitsch’ describes the attitude of those who want to please the greatest number at any cost;” hence that kitsch should have become the aesthetic of the mass media. “Today, modernity is fused with the enormous vitality of the mass media, and to be modern means a strenuous effort to be up-to-date, to conform, to conform even more thoroughly than the most conformist of all. Modernity has put on kitsch’s clothing” (Kundera 162-64). A more classical way to say substantially the same thing would be to evoke that “double ignorance” (diplê agnoia) which Plato saw as “especially earning the title of stupidity (amathia)” and as “the great source of all the errors of the intellect,” i.e., “when a person supposes that he knows and does not know” (Sophist 229 b-c). How could one indeed otherwise describe a «scientific» knowledge that would not only ignore its own becoming (or history) and its role in society, and which, in the absence of any critical reflection, would ignore its own limits, its own methodological assumptions, and would consequently not know itself? The least one can say is that education and a fortiori wisdom would then be missing. For education is meant to teach us how to use knowledge. And wisdom is manifest in the way we consider knowledge; in the free discernment which we are able to exercise in the presence of knowledge, and which alone enables us to “master” it and make profitable use of it (see again Whitehead, Education, esp. 16 and 40). In the words of Edgar Morin, “the intellectual faces less and less the resistance of the real. Essayism will risk more and more arbitrariness, extravagance, blindness.” It is too easy to get out of it by rejecting general ideas, since that rejection is itself “the hollowest of general ideas. And, besides, no specialist is free from general ideas: no one can do without ideas about the universe, life, politics, love. Finally, instead of reducing hollow general ideas, the reign of specialists increases them” (Morin [1991] 68). The operative word here, of course, is ‘specialists.’ “For me,” wrote Karl Popper, “both philosophy and science lose all their attraction when ... they become specialisms and cease to see, and to wonder at, the riddles of our world. Specialization may be a great temptation for the scientist. For the philosopher it is the mortal sin” ([1968] 136). John Kenneth Galbraith rightly remarks that “One of the astonishing and little examined aberrations of academic, professional, and business life is the prestige that is accorded without thought to the specialist.” In medicine, for example, he goes on to say, the specialist is apt to be considered as far superior professionally and socially to

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the generalist. And so in science, economics, business, in academic life. Yet “specialization is the parent not only of boredom but also of irrelevance and error. Certainly this is so in all practical matters.… The specialist, by his or her training, righteously excludes what it is convenient not to know.” (20) With ever more disastrous consequences, one is forced to add. Must one consider inescapable Ortega’s famous predictions, in La rebelíon de las masas, well over half a century ago, castigating “the barbarism of specialization,” which allows “ignorant-scientists” (thus hyphenated, which is important, since genuine scientists are the first to deplore the phenomenon) to benefit from the credulity of the masses? (c. XII). David Bohm, the physicist, has to be right: “What is primarily needed is a growing realization of the extremely great danger of going on with a fragmentary process of thought” (19). T. S. Eliot warned that “cultural disintegration may ensue upon cultural specialization: and it is the most radical disintegration that a society can suffer;” adding, “whatever be cause or effect, the disintegration of culture is the most serious and the most difficult to repair” (98). What is being denounced here is abstraction, whose natural opposite is concreteness—from the verb concrescere, meaning, “to grow together,” as Hegel kept reminding his students. The abstract is reached by isolating one aspect of the concrete, separating it in mind from other aspects of the real thing. Now a hand severed from the living body is not a hand; in that sense the whole is in the part, for the latter invariably presupposes it; should you then try to consider the part while omitting the whole, you would be considering an entirely different thing. But this is what any reduction does, which verges on the unreal so soon as it is mistaken for the concrete, as frequently happens in so-called scientific discourse. The assertion “man is a nervous system” is true enough, but if you go on to say, instead, “man is nothing but a nervous system,” then you commit the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” (Whitehead, Process 10). Of course each and every particular science deals with its own abstractions, since such is the very condition of our knowledge and of its progress. We possess this prodigious faculty of not only being able to consider a part or an aspect of a thing separating it in mind from its other parts or aspects, but even of founding a whole science upon it: thus mathematics, that “sublimely pure,” infinite world of “supreme beauty,” where, however, “we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true,” to quote some of Bertrand Russell’s justly famous remarks. Error starts as soon as we forget the initial abstracting; if we do so completely, we fall into one


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form or other of reductionism—in ordinary life as well: seized in its spontaneous immediacy, our daily life is most often abstract, for want of reference to some global, ultimate meaning. The isolated “particular” is perforce abstract. Nothing is more disastrously abstract than short term pragmatism; one of the most obvious lessons of the intelligent study of history—especially of political history, where it is, Plato would say, spelled out in bigger letters—consists in the repertory it offers (greatest in this twentieth century) of so many utter calamities imposed on nations, on millions and millions of human beings, by leaders whose near-sightedness, however severe, was, for a time at least, taken for practical genius. The problem, in brief, is fragmentation. It is gaining the world in which we live, impregnating the lives of more and more humans. The progressively marginalized geography of the places where we none the less pretend to ‘live together,’ the cities, is a first reflection of this; the ‘dead space’ of American cities where diversity is no longer lived concretely but passively rather, by spectators of mass medias; as Richard Sennett observes, we do not live the complexities of society directly and physically: in the places in which we walk, in those we see, in what we touch (3). The best artists never fail to remind us of this increasing abstraction: as if in a distorting mirror, sending back with scrupulous care an infinity of details the signification of which escapes us, they put before our eyes the question of meaning, or of its reverse, nihilism, as experienced by so many of today’s women and men. Think a moment of Picasso, for example, of Kafka or Beckett, of so many more among the best-known contemporary geniuses. Since it comes from elsewhere, authentic art may thus open our eyes to what goes on within us, to life and sense. James Joyce is said to have made the admirable remark: “Literature deals with the ordinary; the unusual and extraordinary belong to journalism” (see Barrett 140). But then “it is the everyday which is abyssal.... It is mystery which is so terribly concrete” (Steiner 15).4

III. Prerequisites for a Solution 1. Discernment Hence it is that the primary task of the teacher would appear to be, today more than ever, to help cure ‘double ignorance’—admittedly an impossible task for one afflicted with the same malady. The teacher ought to keep in view the Greek ideal of the pepaideumenos, namely of the cultivated woman or man—adapting it, of course, to our time: the explosion of knowledge makes such an ideal harder to realize

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than ever, yet all the more necessary. Its chief manifestation is discernment. It implies that one has learned to distinguish between the different orders of discourse and of reality; between what is really known and what is not yet known, or cannot be known through the more usual methods; that one is aware that far from being univocal, criteria of validity and of relevance may sometimes differ totally from one field to another: ethics, for example, as opposed to mathematics. The chief betrayal of the lack of culture is some foolish form or other of reductionism, entailing intolerance and intellectual inertia. We may choose to reduce reality to a sound capsule, as George Steiner brought out so forcefully in the last section of his book In Bluebeard’s Castle. Or we may, through want of education, have very limited interests or concerns, confining our range of information to one corner. Parents have sometimes used the so-called freedom of their children as a pretext for leaving out whole areas of essential learning; you’ll be free to choose later, they said, as if one could choose an object without a minimum of information regarding it. That is in effect a mockery of liberty. Variety and richness in food are as essential for the mind as they are for the body; in neither case can you live on milk alone forever. “La subjectivité humaine ne peut se développer que dans la mesure où un matériel riche et varié lui est proposé pour l’éveiller, la stimuler et l’occuper. Faute d’objets à partir desquels un travail intérieur peut s’opérer, ce sont les émotions et les représentations les plus archaïques qui vont s’imposer, quitte parfois à cohabiter avec un fonctionnement rationnel très sophistiqué” (Anatrella 54). The human mind must be trained to digest hard foods. Though less apparent, mental intoxication is no less mortal in the end than physiological intoxication; in both cases, discernment is a matter of life and death. The Greek verb krinein (meaning “to separate,” “to judge,” “to decide”), from which are derived “critical,” “criteria,” and so forth, refers first of all to a most basic physiological function, that of eliminating harmful substances from the organism: if my kidneys fail, I die. The Latin verb cernere, contained in the word “discernment” follows the same pattern: the good and the bad must be sorted out at all levels. Excrementum has the same root; Kundera’s just perception of this is almost uncanny: “kitsch is the absolute denial” of excrementum, “in both the literal and figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence” ([1984] 248). Besides, “if there is no difference between the sublime and the paltry,… then human existence loses its dimensions and becomes unbearably light” (Kundera [1984] 244).5


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Another prevalent form of reduction concerns language itself. The power of words is so great that, throughout history, tyrants, dictators, totalitarian regimes and the like (certain bureaucracies, for instance) have always feared them above all, as much as they have feared thought and truth; intellectuals who are good at words—poets, philosophers, journalists, etc.—are invariably the first to be suspect and, whenever possible, brutally suppressed. Language itself must accordingly, in their view, be reduced and narrowed, as “totalitarian kitsch” (Kundera [1984] 251-54) just referred to, illustrates well. “Incapable of transforming reality,” writes Rémi Brague, “ideology acts on the words which name this reality.... For language is the first link between human beings, as it were the blood of social life. To poison it is to poison the latter. To pervert language is hence the first condition of the destruction of the real civil society” (5). The totalitarians are indeed ‘realists,’ as George Orwell’s classic satiric novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four underscored so well: “If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality” (171); “that is called ‘Reality Control’” (44). “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words” (Orwell 46). In fact, “the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking. Orthodoxy means unconsciousness” (Orwell 61). The advantage of dealing with people from the proles, the proletarian class, was that they had no general ideas, so that “the larger evils escaped their notice” (Orwell 61).6 The essential interdependence between culture and freedom is thus again brought to the fore, this time by those who most detest both; to deny one without denying the other is in fact impossible.

2. Bewilderment As was so well brought out by Lewis Thomas, a biologist and doctor by profession, there is at least one plain bridge between the socalled “two cultures,” the humanities and the sciences, which he terms bewilderment: “It is the family secret of twentieth-century science, and of twentieth-century arts and letters as well. Human knowledge doesn’t stay put. What we have been learning in our time is that we really do not understand this place or how it works, and we comprehend our own selves least of all. And the more we learn, the more we are—or ought to be—dumbfounded” (157, 162). This bewilderment concerns familiar realities as well as apparently more remote ones. The formidable array of diseases for which there are still no cures is an indication for everyone that medical science, in

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spite of some indisputable conquests, could do with a far better understanding of biological life itself than we yet possess. Or to take another example: through their complete failure, contemporary attempts by scientists or technicians to unravel the mystery of the mind and of consciousness by sole recourse to the neurosciences or to ‘artificial intelligence’ have brought out more clearly still how total that mystery remains.7 Music itself is, as much as before, a profound mystery for both the sciences and the humanities—“the invention of melody” being a “supreme mystery” for the human sciences, according to Lévi-Strauss’s celebrated remark. To confine oneself to the sciences or to the humanities is to cut oneself off from reality. To quote Lewis Thomas again, “the sciences and the humanities are all of a piece, one and the same kind of work for the human brain, done by launching guesses and finding evidence to back up the guesses” (150). Twentieth-century science has revealed better than ever before how ignorant we are concerning nature. But even if it should eventually succeed in producing glimpses of understanding for the strangeness of nature, it will never produce anything approaching the full meaning. For a better grasp, “we shall need minds at work from all sorts of brains outside the fields of science, most of all the brains of poets, of course, but also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers in general” (151).8 A fine scientist is here acknowledging the extreme importance of poets and of other artists dealing chiefly in words. The reason is simple and was best formulated, I think, by Iris Murdoch: “Words are the most subtle symbols that we possess and our human fabric depends on them” (34). In actual fact scientists too need them in order to understand their own work and to communicate their own knowledge and its significance; and they are, like everyone of us, moral agents. But as Murdoch goes on to say, “the most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations. We are men and we are moral agents before we are scientists, and the place of science in human life must be discussed in words. This is why it is and always will be more important to know about Shakespeare than to know about any scientist; and if there is a ‘Shakespeare of science’ his name is Aristotle” (34). Literature indeed shares with philosophy the search for meaning that makes life worth living. The special significance of art is brought out in the love of free contemplation manifest in the love for beauty and for play. We love to play, said Plotinus, because we love to contemplate. We are made, thought the ancient Greeks, to enjoy leisure as best we can: that was


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to them the chief aim of education; hence again, if the Greeks were right in thinking so, the inestimable role of culture in the civilization of leisure we appear to be seeking. In myth and metaphor, as Northrop Frye so aptly pointed out, “we are in a completely liberal world, the world of the free movement of the spirit” (16). Be that as it may, one important consequence of this new awareness of the present limits of knowledge, which should bring hope rather than pessimism, is that we now see better how simplistic ‘total’ visions, including philosophical ‘systems,’ have been—they too were a prey to reductionism; whatever the term ‘post-modernity’ may really mean, to have at last discarded such modern grands récits, grand tales or stories, ideological or other, is a step forward. Greater respect for complexity is realistic and an excellent thing (Whitehead [1968] vii, 171-74).9

3. Necessary Changes But this in turn must entail necessary changes in the manner of teaching. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Lord Kelvin, great scientist though he was, thought of physics as an almost completed science; in 1877, Ernst Haeckel had no trouble dismissing in the following terms the complexity of life—revealed today in the intricacy of the genetic alphabet: “the cell consists of matter... composed chiefly of carbon with an admixture of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur. These component parts, properly united, produce the soul and body of the animated world, and suitably nourished become man. With this single argument the mystery of the universe is explained, the Deity annulled and a new era of infinite knowledge ushered in” (see Eiseley 191). The heir to such simplistic views might today be science as an institution. But as Loren Eiseley remarked, “similar tendencies can be observed among those of the humanities concerned with the professional analysis and interpretation of the works of the creative artist. Here too, a similar rigidity and exclusiveness make their appearance…. Too frequently they afford an excuse for stifling original thought or constricting much latent creativity within traditional molds. Such molds are always useful to the mediocre conformist who instinctively castigates and rejects what he cannot imitate” (191). The actual deployment of scientific research contradicts those pretensions. In physics, in chemistry, in neurobiology, in genetics, and so forth, a scientific periodical is apt at any time to turn upside down hitherto unshakable views and to substitute new dogmas instead.

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Rather than paralyzing them with mountains of what Henry Adams called “inert facts,” unusable in any case and soon obsolete, why not give young minds at once a taste for the high adventure of science, letting them into the arguments concerning the theory of evolution, say, or the puzzles of cosmology, the paradoxes opened up by quantum theory; showing them without delay what we yet don’t understand about the cell, or about the incredible stability and balance of the earth’s environment; concentrate, in other words, “the attention of all students on the things that are not known” (Thomas 143-63). This is no other than the spirit of philosophy itself from the beginning. The authentic tradition was never the transmission of a sort of settled, ready-made knowledge, but rather of the seed of that tireless wonder for which the Greeks provided an unequalled example. “‘Solon, you Hellenes,’” says the Egyptian priest in Plato’s Timaeus, “‘are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.... In mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age’” (Timaeus 22b). As Karl Popper took great pains to show, the “simple, straightforward rationality” exemplified by the Presocratics was manifest in the “simplicity and boldness of their questions,” but “the decisive point” is “the critical attitude” (Popper [1968] 136). For Aristotle at the opening of his Metaphysics, “it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.... And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant” (cf. Plato, Theaetetus 155 d; Aristotle, Metaphysics A, 2, 982 b 12sq.) First, then, one must learn to see how the knots are tied: For those who wish to get clear of difficulties it is advantageous to state the difficulties well; for the subsequent free play of thought implies the solution of the previous difficulties, and it is impossible to untie a knot which one does not know. But the difficulty of our thinking points to a knot in the object; for in so far as our thought is in difficulties, it is in like case with those who are tied up; for in either case it is impossible to go forward. Therefore one should have surveyed all the difficulties beforehand, both for the reasons we have stated and because people who inquire without first stating the difficulties are like those who do not know where they have to go; besides, a man does not otherwise know even whether he has found what he is looking for or not; for the end is not clear to such a man, while to him who has first discussed the difficulties it is clear. Further, he who has heard all the contending arguments, as if they were the parties to a case, must be in a better position for judging. (Aristotle, Metaphysics B, 1, 995 a 27-995 b 4)


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As one can see, no one was less dogmatic in his approach than Aristotle, “maestro di color che sanno” though he may have been according to Dante (Inferno IV.131). The impostors are invariably those parasitic epigones who congeal the teachings of those they claim as their masters; this was done, of course, for millenaries to Aristotle himself, in matters of science particularly, in defiance of his own example. The genuine teacher uses dialogue, “calling into witness the faculty of judgement of his interlocutor—namely his ‘reason,’” and proposes a rational explanation rather than obliging the other “simply to take it or leave it” (Conche 5-11).10

4. The Joy of Discovery Although no doubt in a sense different from his, since he was a poet, everyone would in the end have to say, like Homer’s Phemius, Aujtodivdakto~ eijmi, “‘I am self-taught’” (Odyssey xxii.347), i.e., an autodidact. This applies to the student as well as to the teacher before him. Newman does not hesitate to say, with reason, “self-education in any shape, in the most restricted sense, is preferable to a system of teaching which, professing so much, really does so little for the mind” (VI.10 131). To be effective, teaching must foster the student’s autonomy, which can only be done by helping him to see with his own eyes whatever is most worth seeing, but with the concern above all to awaken in him the passion for knowledge, the sense of the urgency of fundamental questions, while providing him, of course, with the necessary tools for «accuracy of mind» mentioned earlier. Which takes us back to the maieutic mode, the art of the midwife to which Plato’s Socrates compared his own; the concrete guise it takes on is no other than the art of putting questions, the point of departure of the whole life of the mind. But it evokes at the same time the self-development that defines life, and accordingly, we saw, culture.11 How can that be done? To take an example from literature this time: why not have faith in the mind and sensibility of the student and encourage in every possible way her or his active reading, enlivened by questions, of the works themselves? Inciting them, in other words, to live with and befriend the masterpieces of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Cervantes, Dostoyevsky, and so many others: there is an excellent chance that they will quickly recognize their own deepest concerns, initially not so well articulated, no doubt. In my modest experience, the huge existential questions found in

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such works, that of good and evil to begin with, never escape the young: they come out stimulated and overjoyed, feeling improved in mind and spirit. Now if Lewis Thomas is right in claiming that the worst thing about science education is that “the great fun has gone out of it” (154), the same might unfortunately be true of literature if texts have become pretexts for “prefabricated non-readings,” as George Steiner claims (12), and if commentaries take the place of the works they are about. “Knowledge does not keep any better than fish,” as Whitehead says. How can it last, then? The answer is interest: to cultivate it by all possible means, to provoke above all the joy and romance of discovery. Whitehead is right: “there can be no mental development without interest. Interest is the sine qua non for attention and apprehension.” There is no better incentive than enjoyment. The whole process of learning ought to be natural and pleasurable. “Joy is the normal healthy spur for the élan vital” (Whitehead, Education 98). The teacher should always maintain “a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with… It is the function of the scholar to evoke into life wisdom and beauty which, apart from his magic, would remain lost in the past” (Whitehead, Education 41). No one indeed has summed up the core points with greater felicity than Whitehead: The principle of progress is from within: the discovery is made by ourselves, the discipline is self-discipline, and the fruition is the outcome of our own initiative. The teacher has a double function. It is for him to elicit the enthusiasm by resonance from his own personality, and to create the environment of a larger knowledge and a firmer purpose.... The ultimate motive power, in science, in morality, and in religion, is the sense of value, the sense of importance. It takes the various forms of wonder, of curiosity, of reverence, or worship, of tumultuous desire for merging personality in something beyond itself. This sense of value imposes on life incredible labours, and apart from it life sinks back into the passivity of its lower types. The most penetrating exhibition of this force is the sense of beauty, the aesthetic sense of realized perfection. This thought leads me to ask, whether in our modern education we emphasize sufficiently the functions of art. (Whitehead, Education 49)

To the small-minded, to Nietzsche’s man of ressentiment, such a sense of beauty must seem somewhat unreal. The opposite is the case for those who have experienced the life of the mind—witness what


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the great scientists and artists tell us. You might as well try to dissuade them as to attempt to convince lovers that their love does not matter. The light and the attractiveness of beauty increases as one’s search deepens—perhaps the most significant experience ever given to human beings. Not for nothing did Plato describe philosophy as the highest form of eros, of passionate love.12 Here as always “security is mortals’ chiefest enemy,” to quote Shakespeare again (Macbeth III.v.32-33; cf. Whitehead, Education 42-45). The dullard who kills wonder deserves to be cursed as the worst kind of assassin. For his victim is the very breath of the human life, if the search for meaning is indeed what makes life worth living. With this in view, it becomes clear that the responsibility of parents and educators is incalculable, since the later life of the young person in their care is in the balance, for better or for worse, in its most essential dimensions: to feel, to think, to love; to say nothing of the choices which will determine the rest of that person’s life. Taking up once again Einstein’s remark about those who are “as good as dead,” it would not be too much to say that the risk of failure here is that of premature death—of self-destruction in one form or another: drugs, violence, criminality, or plain suicide. The ever-rising statistics concerning all those forms of self-destruction in our midst should give us pause. We have become more sensitive to the plague of iatrogenic (from the Greek iatros, “physician,” or “doctor”) diseases; they can be caused by indiscriminate use of medicine, but also by a doctor’s ignorance, negligence or impatience; the doctor may thus, even within his or her own field of competence, be the cause of grave sufferings; yet we know the doctor may on the other hand cause just as much joy and happiness by being conscientious and tactful. Why would the consequences of negligence and of ignorance, active or passive, be any different in matters of human culture? Could one hold forth very long the opinion that incompetence and lack of concern in the face of the quest for meaning which defines human persons are irrelevant and without impact? I submit that in fact they bear the chief responsibility for the present crisis. The link between illiteracy and criminal violence is well established (and goes without saying); but it is merely the tip of the iceberg. Learning to enjoy the extraordinary beauty of the life of the mind is a natural fruit of education; we have no right to deprive anyone from it, least of all those who expect it from us. To lend a narrow utilitarian sense to the universal right to culture is not only a contradiction in terms, but also an insult to the humanity within each one of us as well as to human liberty.13

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My suggestion, in conclusion, is that a denial of the relevance of the humanities would stem much more from laziness in the sense stigmatized by Nietzsche, or worse still, from a form of apaideusia, of stupidity or «double ignorance» of the kind Plato put at the bottom of his famous cave, than from realism. The heart of the contemporary crisis is in education, and in the failure to see the remedies, which a proper understanding of the significance of human culture would offer. The humanities are as vital for the future as is the universal recognition of human dignity. Nothing indeed brings out human dignity better than does culture—at least in the full sense of that term we have been considering here.

Notes 1

“Daher ist die Erziehung das grösseste Problem, und das schwerste, was dem Menschen kann aufgegeben werden. Denn Einsicht hängt von der Erziehung, und Erziehung hängt wieder von der Einsicht ab” (Über Pädagogik AK IX.446). When citing texts in languages foreign to English, I quote from easily available standard translations whenever possible; translations are mine however when no other indication is given. May I be allowed to express here my gratitude to my former student and friend Gabor Csepregi for his invaluable assistance in these reflections. 2 Cf. Goethe, Studie nach Spinoza: “Ein lebendig existierendes Ding kann durch nichts gemessen werden, was ausser ihm ist, sondern wenn es ja geschehen sollte, müsste es den Masstab selbst dazu hergeben “ (840), adding immediately: “dieser aber ist höchst geistig und kann durch die Sinne nicht gefunden werden” (841). See also Cicero, Tusculans II.4.13; the last quoted sentence reads, “cultura autem animi philosophia est.” The word used by Cicero is not anima, “soul,” but animus, better rendered by “spirit,” adding the emotional and moral dimension—the “heart”: passions, desire, courage and the other virtues—to the intellectual dimension. On cultura animi, on the all-important faculty of judgment or discernment, on the “love for beauty the Greeks possessed, of course, to an extraordinary degree” (Arendt 213), see further, especially, Arendt 197226. 3 See also Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead: “The emphasis of [Dewey’s] thought is on security. But the vitality of man’s mind is in adventure” (206). 4 I translate from the preface added to the French translation. 5 On “totalitarian kitsch” see Kundera [1984] 251-54; “Kitsch is a folding screen set up to curtain off death” (253). 6 Cf. Confucius, The Analects: to take control of the administration “the one thing needed, replied the Master, is the correction of terms” (VII.xiii.3). 7 For a brilliant recent assessment, see Fodor 5-6. 8 See also 164, 163; and see Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail: “The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant of nature. Indeed, I regard this as the major discovery of the past hundred years of biology.... It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-


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century science to the human intellect. We are at last facing up to it.... Now that we have begun exploring in earnest, doing serious science, we are getting glimpses of how huge the questions are, and how far from being answered” (73-74). 9 On the place of esthetics, see the remarkable text by the young Schelling xi-xiv; and of course Schiller’s Briefe über die aesthetische Ereziehung des Menschen. On postmodernity, see Jean-François Lyotard: “En simplifiant à l’extrême, on tient pour ‘postmoderne’ l’incrédulité à l’égard des métarécits. Celle-ci est sans doute un effet du progrès des sciences; mais ce progrès à son tour la suppose” (7). 10 See Conche, concluding: “C’est très tardivement, après bien des siècles de nonétonnement où l’humanité avança “les yeux fermés,” comme dit Descartes, que l’homme, auprès du plus familier, apprit à s’attarder pour s’étonner—s’étonner d’être, de l’être, de ce qui était là. Alors, pour la première fois, les réponses furent précédées par des questions” (11). 11 In the strictest sense of the term only a few could of course be “autodidacts,” as Kant rightly points out; as he goes on to say, in the formation of reason one should use the Socratic method (cf. IX.477); on this method, on maieutikê, the basic text is Plato’s Theaetetus (148 e-151 d; cf. 160 e-161 b); for an excellent commentary, see Burnyeat, The Theaetetus of Plato. The best account I know of the priority of the question, and of what it means to “put” a question well, is Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method 325 sq. [Wahrheit und Methode 344 sq.] 12 Cf. Chandrasekhar; Plato, Phaedrus 249 d sq.; Symposium 201 d-212 c; Plotinus, Enneads V.6.5; Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses 401A-405A; Schelling; Schiller. See also the conclusion of Popper’s intellectual autobiography, Unended Quest; and Russell, Mysticism and Logic: “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty, a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture,... sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show” (57).

References Anatrella, Tony. Non à la société dépressive. Paris: Flammarion, 1993. Arendt, Hannah. Between Past and Future. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1977. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Trans. Sir David Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952. Barrett, William. Time of Need. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984. Bohm, David. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Ark, 1990; 1980. Brague, Rémi. Preface. Joseph Tischner, Éthique de Solidarité. Paris: Criterion, 1984. Burnyeat, Miles. The Theaetetus of Plato. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1990. Chandrasekhar, S. Truth and Beauty. Aesthetics and Motivation in Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987 Cicero. Tusculans. [Tusculanarum disputationum]. Ed. Thomas Dougan. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905-34. Conche, Marcel. Anaximandre. Fragments et témoignages. Coll. “Epiméthée.” Paris: PUF, 1991. Confucius. The Analects. Trans. W. E. Soothill. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937. Dante. La Divina Commedia. Inferno. Delumeau, Jean, ed. “Le Savant et la foi.” Paris: Flammarion, 1989. Dumont, Fernand. Raisons communes. Montréal: Éditions du Boréal, 1995. Einstein, Albert. Einstein: A Centenary Volume. Ed. A. P. French. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.

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———. The World as I See It. New York: Covici, Friede, 1934. Eiseley, Loren. The Star Thrower. Introduction W. H. Auden. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1978. Eliot, T. S. “Notes towards the Definition of Culture.” Christianity and Culture. The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes towards the Definition of Culture. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1968. Fodor, Jerry. “West Coast fuzzy. Why we don’t know how mind works.” The Times Literary Supplement. (Aug. 25, 1995) 5-6. Frye, Northrop. The Double Vision. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. Galbraith, John Kenneth. The New York Review of Books. Nov. 22, 1984. Goethe, J. W. Studie nach Spinoza in Sämtliche Werke. Zurich: Artemis-Ausgabe. Vol. 16. 1970-86. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. New York: Crossroad, 1975. [In German: Wahrheit und Methode. Tübingen: J C. B. Mohr, 1960.] Gregory of Nyssa. [De vita Moysis] Life of Moses. Trans. A.J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. Henry, Michel. Voir l’invisible. Paris: Bourin, 1988. Kant, Immanuel. Über Pädagogik. Vol. IX in Gesammelte Schriften. / hrsg. von der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1900. Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London, 1936 Kundera, Milan. The Art of the Novel. Trans. Linda Asher. New York: Grove, 1988. ———. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Trans. M. H. Heim. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism. New York, Norton, 1979. Lyotard, Jean-François. La condition postmoderne. Paris: Minuit, 1979. Morin, Edgar. La Méthode 3. La Connaissance de la Connaissance. Paris: Seuil, 1986. ———. La Méthode 4. Les Idées. Paris: Seuil, 1991. Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970 Newman, John Henry. The Idea of a University. Ed. I. T. Ker. Oxford, 1976. Ortega y Gasset, Jose. “La barbarie del especialismo.” La rebelíon de las masas. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1930. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1954. Plato. The Republic of Plato. Trans. With Introduction by Francis MacDonald Cornford. Oxford: Clarendon, 1941. ———. Timaeus in The Dialogues of Plato. Trans. B. Jowett. 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1871. Plotinus. Enneads. Trans. S. McKenna. 4th ed. London: Faber, 1969. Popper, Karl R. “Back to the Presocratics.” Conjectures and refutations: the Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Harper, 1968. ———. Unended Quest. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1976. Russell, Bertrand. Mysticism and Logic. New York: Anchor Books, 1917. Schelling, F. W. J. On University Studies. Trans. E. S. Morgan. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966. Schiller, Friedrich. Briefe über die aesthetische Ereziehung des Menschen. [1795]. Munich: Fink, 1967. Sennett, Richard. “The Body and the City.” Times Literary Supplement. Sept. 18, 1992. Steiner, George. Preface. Réelles Présences. Les arts du sens. Paris: Gallimard, 1991. [Trans. from Real Presences. London: Faber and Faber, 1989.]


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Taylor, Charles. The Malaise of Modernity. Toronto: CBC Massey Lecture Series, 1991. Thomas, Lewis. Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. New York: Viking, 1983. ———. The Medusa and the Snail. New York: Viking, 1979. Whitehead, A. N. The Aims of Education. New York: Macmillan/Mentor, 1929. ———. Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead. Rec. Lucien Price. New York: Mentor, 1956. ———. Modes of Thought. New York: Free Press, 1968. ———. Process and Reality. New York: The Free Press, 1929.

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Personal Identity and the Sense of Duty

Elizabeth Trott I have often been struck by the puzzled looks on my students’ faces when I introduce the word ‘duty’ into the lecture, but then I grew up in the post-war flush of civic pride accompanied by the moral discourse of gratitude. Freedom had been earned, not awarded; responsibility included the future, not just the present. Talk of rights sounded faintly arrogant and a little too individualistic. Our language of public morality has changed. This is not to say that we use different words. It is to say that the meanings and uses of words fluctuate. One thing is clear. The role of moral discourse in our lives is increasingly obscure. There are several sources of the obscurity: 1) Debates about ontology; 2) The role moral language plays in decision-making; 3) The conventions that enable us to use moral language. Consider the first source. Answers to questions about reality must precede efforts to locate moral language. That is, certain features of existence must be recognized and shared for people even to hope that others recognize what they are saying when they use moral words. The relevant features of existence could be facts about persons that cause responses on the part of others: likes, dislikes, pleasure, pain. Features of existence could also be concepts: rules, conventions, and practices. Consider for example, Immanuel Kant: Kant thought of law as ordering principles of the mind, experience, and human practice. Others such as H. L. A. Hart and D. Hume conceived of law as rules of convenience. The presumed clarity of such ideas (law, justice, good) rested on a paradigm of existence—that there was a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. Let me expand a little. The part-whole paradigm has found a variety of conceptualizations and metaphors: caves, sunlight and forms, God, Heaven and Hell, the One, the Transcendent, the Logos. The cultural descriptions of this whole have varied enormously: turtles, nature, Olympus, yet the sense of a place for humans has not. We are here and not there. Even current explorations in philosophical cosmology presume a point can or cannot be made by engaging in such theorizing. More often than

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not, when recognizing a whole greater than the sum of its parts, as we at present know them, and when situating ourselves in relation to this whole, a sense of purpose has been projected onto the metaphysical vision. The projection of purpose, one might suggest, requires moral discourse. Moral discourse helps to express a relation between the idea of a being with a place in a larger whole, and the presumption that his or her activity has something ‘to do’ with the continuing existence of that whole. Perhaps one’s place is essential to the functioning of the whole. If people can be convinced of that then they should be willing to defend or die for the whole, because they see themselves as part of it. Tony Hiss in his eloquent book The Experience of Place, quotes Roger Hait, a Director of Children’s Environmental Research at a New York City university: “Part of being a responsible adult is having a sense of responsibility for the environment, and you can only care for something you’ve grown to feel a part of ” (181-82). Place is more than material. It is conceptual and the conceptual arena for developing moral responsibility is as large or as small as one’s experience and education reveals. Within the whole-part paradigm moral language is useful and lawlike. Moral motivation stems from the need to secure one’s place within the whole and moral consequences re-enforce the authority of commands. When complex ideas, such as truth, beauty and justice are defining features of the whole a new requirement emerges. One might have to die not only in defence of one’s own place, but because someone else’s place is threatened. To promote that requirement, the idea of the whole has to have two corollaries: Members have to see themselves both logically and intrinsically as part of the function of the whole, not just as incidentals who have a place but can be pushed around. The purpose of the whole, (to glorify God, to seek justice and freedom, etc.), has to be coherent, as a universal principle and as the only universal principle. All others must be seen to be false, contradictory, or both. If one cannot grasp such a metaphysical truth as universal, why would one want to die to save someone else’s family or cornfields? Thus far, it has not been my intention to be laudatory, or critical of visions of the whole, or of the sophisticated or wildly implausible ideas that have informed the concept of a whole from time to time.

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But it is obvious that those of our species, who have championed the concept of a whole with its intricate networks of concepts that ground moral language, have also embarked on pretty intense campaigns to sell others on the merits of this vision. Freedom, justice, rights and democracy have been campaigned for as if they were universal truths. Thus the commitment to universal validity underlies these campaigns for better or worse. This commitment is equally strong for those with different agendas. The logic of the conception, regardless of the content remains the same—a whole, and our place within it. Thus the second of the above corollaries seems sound— that the paradigm has had universal appeal. Enough people have died (we talk of just wars, not successful ones) for one to think they have grasped the legitimacy of a universal truth (whatever it says) as a reason to live or die, as a purpose, a link to the whole. But what about the first principle: that members see themselves as conceptually part of the whole? By this I mean that someone else’s fate becomes at least at the conceptual level one’s own fate. This requires not just that I am a rational being but a certain kind of rational being. The other person must be a part of my sense of identity, of who I am, for me to risk life and limb. To fight for his life is to save my own; to die with him is not to die without reason or alone; to die for him is to save a part of myself. These are tall orders. They are not puzzling claims at the micro-level—at the level of parent and child, bone marrow transplants, organ sharing, or heroism. We can grasp the extended concept of self at work. Heroes seldom describe their acts as moral duties. The sacrifice of life for a loved one is not the stuff of duty-bound behavior, or discourse. At the macro-level of being willing to die for one’s place in the whole the metaphysical motivation of being intrinsically related to self and other, does not act as a cognitive lure to most people. Even philosophers who must be credited with the best (and worst) efforts to articulate the part-whole phenomenon of human experience are not all Hegelians. So what moves people to act in support of the universal principle they have been encouraged to accept? I pose this question not to social scientists, who would offer up a range of emotional and psychological terms as answers. I pose this as a purely rational question. If I grasp universality as a condition of justification for action what else must I grasp that gives me a reason to act? Until recently we have lived in general compliance with moral discourse as meaningful, authoritative and occasionally law-like. A moral duty was a law to be obeyed—something that needed to be done for


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some reason other than self-aggrandizement. Within religious contexts the consequences of failure to do so ranged from myth to metaphor to horror scenarios. As religion has faded, or become multifariously polemical, other supreme gods have replaced religious ones: the state, the organization, the community, the corporation, the family. Failure to comply with the commands of moral duty as expressed by the supporters of these gods can result in expulsion from the group, censure and punishment, or attacks on one’s sense of identity. The last consequence is the oldest and it is most closely associated with our mysterious feelings of guilt. Consequences that affect my sense of place are usually effective. Consider guilt as a consequence. Guilt motivates because the distress is one’s own. Guilt is a life long affliction for those of us inaugurated into moral discourse without moral support systems (God, State, Church, Family). Guilt is failure to be the person you aspire to be, or want to promote in the eyes of others. Failure to help little old ladies across the street is their problem. Guilt is an identity crisis. Phrases such as ‘You should be ashamed of yourself ’ seldom prompt people to shout ‘why, what do you mean?’ Shame is the act of valuing or devaluing knowledge about one’s identity. For this mechanism to work, for guilt to move me, I must have a sense of identity that I like, but more so, which I believe is public, knowable, documentable, and able to be judged. I must have a public sense of self. And I do my duty to avoid a sense of identity—destruction brought on by the capacity of others to have knowledge of my public self. Failure to act can be an act of moral omission. Such an act is open to censure and suffering in the same way in which legal jurisdictions recognize negligence as a crime. Moral duties are easily learned when there are commonalities shared by public selves. Citizens, soldiers, students, workers, parents, etc.—all, in virtue of their shared identities can recognize as meaningful shared moral duties and the fact that moral laws not only apply to them, but also define them. In acting in accordance with moral laws, in acquiring moral habits people flesh out and express their identities for others to see. In short, they constructed their public sense of self as a moral self. T. H. Green has expressed this phenomenon in his work Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation. Charles Taylor (Sources of the Self ) also acknowledges the public self: “The very way we walk, move, gesture, speak is shaped from the earliest moments by our awareness that we appear before others, that we stand in public space, and that this space is potentially one of respect or contempt, or pride or shame”(15). Taylor’s language (respect, contempt, pride, shame) is inherently moral; he

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did not write admiration, distaste, awe-inspiring or weird —evaluative terms with much different imports. But Taylor is not sure that the language of the public self is bolstered by the whole-part paradigm of reality. Even if language and thought constitute reality something is causing the so constituted reality to change. Taylor introduces this idea of fragmentation with the metaphor of frameworks. These signify a multiplicity of logical commitments, or paradigmatic conceptualizations of experience.1 Frameworks signal the dissolution of the traditional dialectic of wholepart. There is a plethora of arenas for the public self and the chaotic proliferation of such frameworks feeds the angst behind Taylor’s quest. This shift in metaphysical metaphors—from whole-part to parts— may help to explain the shift in the meanings and role of moral discourse in our lives (the second reason suggested in the above introduction). Consider: Often when beginning a teaching semester, I remind my students that they have a duty to the taxpayers not to waste time, to work hard. My students gaze back, befuddled. They might disagree but my fear is that their silence hides a different truth. They don’t understand what I am saying or the words that I use in the way that I do. The moral words I use are not part of the moral vocabulary that constructs the experiences of their present day culture. And it’s not just the words, it’s the role they play in building the world my students perceive that differs. Without the part-whole paradigm, the public self dissolves. Without public identity universality has no appeal. What has led to this confusion about identity that underlies public indifference to social duty? Let me offer some suggestions: 1) A general sense of malaise in the philosophical community itself. The mission for philosophy has vanished. It began to do so with the loss of part-whole metaphysics. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard both raised questions about its suitability to the modern world, each retreating to a variation on the celebrity status of the individual. “What Weber called ‘disenchantment,’ the dissipation of our sense of the cosmos as a meaningful order, has allegedly destroyed the horizons in which people previously lived their spiritual lives” (Taylor 17). The promotion of universal truths also brought ironically the challenge of reason to historical structures. Some wholes had to go. Some parts had to be reconceptualized. Perhaps universal visions were not logically coherent. To have a just society did you have always to be truthful? Did rights claims always promote moral beauty? The part-whole schemata invited competing visions of what the world should be like;


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it was obvious that though the universality of visions was recognized no universal methods or contents or goals seemed forthcoming. Rather than offer up holistic scenarios, philosophers retreated into contemplating the structure of parts; the individual, language, the logic of science, the rootlessness of moral language. The enterprises of the new inquiries did not have to relate one to the other, the methods shared no common ground, the peripheral fringe players worrying about purpose, or consciousness or good were ignored and marginalized. Alasdair MacIntyre has documented this gradual abandonment of philosophical duty towards ethical theorizing in his wellknown book After Virtue (1-22). Charles Taylor gives us the Malaise of Modernity, not its joyous liberating freedoms. Iris Murdoch in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals writes a eulogy to the loss of our identities without a sense of metaphysical place. John Ralston Saul in Voltaire’s Bastards targets the concept of the individual as the greatest marketing hoax that has made fools of us all. The end result of studying parts is that no celebration of important truths can be heralded. We can no longer say there are any truths because we have now abandoned the contexts of their legitimacy. 2) The second factor contributing to moral confusion is the increasingly hollow ring of being an individual. We seek to differentiate ourselves from others but have no ideas with which to do so. Philosophers risk censure if they suggest some ideas might be better than others. 3) The language of our moral identities has changed. The contemplative language of evaluation of the ‘good man,’ or ‘everyman’ has been swallowed by the rhetoric of business and technology. Patients are clients, the art of healing is now a product to purchase, gun ownership is a right of free choice, not a social responsibility. Identities are commercially sold. No one recognizes the sad little joke when he or she talks about developing a whole person. How would one know when that might have happened? There are no standards, no heroes, no role models, no citizens who serve. Armies offer careers. No one really expects to get shot. Yet the yearning for wholism surfaces when educators talk about wholistic schools, and planners refer to total environments (see Hiss 181-83). What follows is that with no sense of public self, or identity, there is no foundation for shared moral discourse. This is an example of the third source of obscurity. Personal identity is a convention underlying moral discourse. We may recognize the kind of language another uses, as urging us in a certain direction, but we don’t recog-

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nize it as meaningful to us because we can choose not to do so. The pure individual is all-powerful with nowhere to go. Anthony Grayling in his little book, Wittgenstein writes of cognitive relativism as a possible metaphysical residue of Wittgenstein that helps to clarify this modern perspective. “It is the view that there are different ways of perceiving and thinking about the world or experience, ways possibly so different that members of one conceptual community cannot at all grasp what it is like to be a member of another conceptual community” (105). We simply can’t access the world of others. Grayling quickly observes: One thing that follows from this is of course that “truth, reality, knowledge, moral value, and the like are... relative” (106). There are as many truths as there are forms of life. There exists only relative truth, in a conceptual community at a period of time. Language games, so integrally connected ‘determine’ reality which taken to the extreme can be highly personalized and individual. Moral rules, if one even claims to recognize them, are arbitrary. Iris Murdoch cites Derrida as part of this slide into metaphysical relativism (190-95). The irony now is that from the structuralists’ perspective the individual vanishes. Derrida asserts that structures of meanings are indifferent to individuals, and thereby abandons the sense of personal identity as informed by moral discourse. Furthermore literature and art are not what they seem—commentary on, or reflections of human values in complicated constructions of the imagination. The structuralist, or deconstructionist creates a work by revealing the language systems seething beneath its deceptive manifestation. Murdoch observes: “Value, morality, is removed by the structuralist picture if taken seriously” (190). “These systems represent new forms of determinism. Determinism is always reappearing in new forms since it satisfies a deep human wish: to give up, to get rid of freedom, responsibility, remorse, all sorts of personal individual unease, and surrender to fate and the relief of `it could not be otherwise’” (190). Murdoch goes on to observe that the structuralists and their deconstructionist associates argued that “meaning” was entirely enclosed in the self-referential system of language. “This is the crucial move which, in the structuralist theory, separates meaning from truth, outlaws the idea that truth rests on some kind of relation with a non-linguistic reality, and in effect removes the concept of truth altogether” (193). According to Murdoch when you lose truth you lose morality. “Hegelian and Bradleian coherence theories point, as does Kant’s ‘Kingdom of Ends,’ toward some sort of moral ideal situation where adjustment and development of partial truths emerge into an ideal harmony which


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alone is entirely true.... The metaphysical deification of truth in coherence theories derives its plausibility from the recognizable moral effort demanded by the continued search for coherence” (195). Once, philosophy had a moral mandate, students understood that the study of philosophy might reveal wisdom, or a clearer picture, or a least a reason to grapple with the paradoxes of life. But now the universality of language, the science of language beyond a wholistic view, not only denies the individual a place within the whole, a role, a telos, but suggests as do all deterministic theories, that he or she is but an innocent participant in experience, if not victim (Murdoch 214). Not surprisingly Murdoch urges a re-thinking of the celebration of indifferent systems constructed out of parts of human experience. I, on the other hand, fear the damage is already done. If truth has no meaning (or at least if that message is promoted) then nothing matters more than anything else. How one thinks of oneself is arbitrary and freely chosen. In short, there is no social order that supports the public self. Bradley gathers dust on the shelf. And without a public self to be authenticated in a human world, moral discourse need not be part of my identity. It can be, but it is not required for my sense of being a person. Furthermore, no one can tell me otherwise. Certainly humans are at a crossroads of competing world-views. On the one hand modern intellectual trends, from deconstructionism to extreme forms of political correctness, exhibit a weariness “with the old metaphysical world with its continually defended systematic rationality and its ancient superannuated God and its grand self-conscious conceited art” (Murdoch 214). Intellectuals freed from the burden of history can play at their newly invented ‘headgames.’ But Murdoch warns us that the suspicions of non-intellectuals that intellectuals “are merely playing about instead of serving society can stabilize a tyranny as well as prompting a revolution. Here the severance of meaning from truth, and language from the world can be seen, not only as philosophically baseless and morally intolerable, but as politically suicidal” (Murdoch 214). On the other hand the result of this historical casting-off both elevates or debases the concept of the individual: elevates him/her in the emancipation of the individual from the old orders, debases in the sense of loss of fixed and publicly recognized conceptual reference points whose moral currency transcends the individual and his or her cultural context. We herald the individual, but his/her rich distinctiveness is a sham. Without evaluative schemata that are not context driven rebellion against a suffocating tradition is mere whimsy and arbitrariness.

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The individual is now free, but has no agenda. The individual used to be someone who understands what is moral, and monitors his own conduct (blessedness suggests one relies on God). He sees himself as part of a whole, but is free to carve out the role he will play, or the changes he will make. He recognizes a public world. John Ralston Saul suggests that that public recognition also motivates the individual to have the means to control the public world’s power over him. This is largely done by becoming a specialist, an expert, a person who can determine an event, not just participate in one. If one cannot and will not seek to live according to standards beyond the self, one can create a narrow personalized set of limits that one’s specialty purports to enjoy. Saul writes, “The dialects of political science and sociology, for example, are increasingly incomprehensible to each other, even though they are examining identical areas. It is doubtful whether they have any separate existence one from the other. In fact, it is doubtful whether either of them exists at all as a real subject of expertise” (475). But such boxes of expertise, such frameworks define us as individuals. Beyond our expertise we have only a fuzzy idea of how to display our individuality—so fuzzy that we don’t see ourselves as victims of conformity. We quickly acquire what ever promotes our sense of individuality, confirms our free spirit, and signifies our strength at warding off structures or alternately helps us hide from social responsibility. Thus millions of people wear blue jeans, the original sign of rejection of middle class suits. Absolute conformity is viewed as non-conformity and advertisers have quickly learned the jargon of lifestyles that yearn after non-conformity. They have sold everyone the same thing as a fashion placebo for an identity at sea. The more devastating side of Saul’s irony is his claim that the individual who cannot recognize what to reject, risks his self. Murdoch’s notion of political suicide takes on a chilling air of reality in Saul’s comment that the Western political terrorist of the twentieth century is the “closest thing to an individual that this century has produced” (492). He acts alone, and absolutely. To free himself from reason, the last system of order, he pursues random violence, the logical end of a rebel without a cause. The loss of the part-whole metaphysic is not just a trivial shift in philosophical strategies. We are just beginning to experience the effects of this exercise in remaking the world. By constructing a world of parts so disparate in their identities and so disparaging of public moral language we leave our youth in a moral vacuum. Individuality through conformity, private selves with private languages, and no


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one, as Bradley would say, to rise up and call out in the rot and decay, ‘stinking fish.’ What if someone was offended? The identity of a person devoid of a public moral self is now inaccessible, unpredictable, and dangerous. If he or she confuses individuality with conformity, if the market, not the wise man, creates the symbols of rebellion and acceptance, if language has no relation to truth, because there is no vision to inspire the pursuit of truth, then it is no wonder my students’ eyes glaze over when I speak of duty to the taxpayer. Their sense of identity is boxed and labeled by others and sold in a clever disguise. Individualism is “devotion to style and personal emotions” (Saul 497). There are no standards for evaluation of one’s sense of self, no criticism, no duty to check the content. Nor is there a sense of responsibility on the part of identity makers to improve the product. (How would they know when they had done so?) There is in short no sense of duty in a public world. I am growing to appreciate the gulf between my discourse of personal flourishing and my students’ visions of personal success. On days when I sadly realize they simply don’t understand the language that reflects my metaphysics of identity, I dwell in a malaise of philosophical despair. It’s one thing to play the philosophical game with tools of logic and reason and debate, because the game is thought to be healthy for the human world. It is another thing to take the tools away and expect the pantomime to hold an audience. I no longer know the entities before whom I tell my stories.2 And on days when I repress a fit of moral outrage in the language of duties, the blank faces staring back at me make uneasy and afraid.

Notes 1

In Voltaire’s Bastards, John Ralston Saul uses boxes as his metaphor to argue the same point; see pt. III, ch. 19. 2 With truth as a presupposition of research now sadly undermined, one wonders what is the point of academic research in the humanities.

References Grayling, Anthony. Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Green, Thomas Hill. Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation. In Vol. II of The Works of Thomas Hill Green. Ed. R. L. Nettleship. 3 vols. London: Longmans, 1885-88. 307-553. Hiss, Tony. The Experience of Place. New York: Random House, 1990. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. 2nd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984. Murdoch, Iris. Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. London: Penguin, 1992.

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Saul, John Ralston. Voltaire’s Bastards. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1992. Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. ———. Malaise of Modernity. Toronto: Anansi, 1991.

9 ~ Passing Through: Women’s Experiences and Ethics

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Passing Through: Women’s Experiences and Ethics

Monique Dumais Le féminisme contemporain, tout en prenant en charge la promotion des femmes et l’extension de leurs droits est aussi et surtout devenu une pensée, une morale, une éthique. — Nicole Brossard1

Along with the progress of the women’s movement, ethics points out ways of ‘journeying’ or ‘passing through,’ which allow us to go further. Acknowledging the experience of women leads us to question present-day ‘theoretical space,’ especially concerning the meaning of human life and human behavior in general. In this paper, I want to focus on the necessity of ‘passing through patriarchy’ in order to appreciate what is at stake for women. One of the meanings of ‘passing,’ according to Webster’s Dictionary, is “to go from the control, ownership, or possession of one person or group to that of another.”2 What are we saying, then, when we talk about ‘passing through’ patriarchy? Gerda Lerner devoted an entire book to this question, in order to show that patriarchy was created. She defines patriarchy as follows: Patriarchy in its wider definition means the manifestation about institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general. It implies that men hold power in all the important institutions of society and that women are deprived of access to such power. It does not imply that women are either totally powerless or totally deprived of rights, influence, and resources. One of the most challenging tasks of Women’s History is to trace with precision the various forms and modes in which patriarchy appears historically, the shifts and changes in its structure and function, and the adaptation it makes to female pressure and demands. (239)

Lerner argues, then, that patriarchy is a historical system, that it has a beginning in history, and that it can end.

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Feminism seems to me to be a breath of fresh air that is inspiring a new ethics. It is a fundamental questioning which has, as its aim, the denunciation of a social system—patriarchy—and it supports certain values for women and expresses strategies for action. Feminism, in its demands and its militancy, affirms an active role for women, and presents ways of communicating their will-to-life and their search for self-determination (see Dumais [1987-88]; Dumais and Roy). Thus, Maria de Koninck provides an assessment of feminism in Quebec, asserting in “What do feminists really want?” that: The Women’s Movement is a collective movement that supports collective values.... Feminists demand an improvement in the quality of life, in order that human relationships, for which they so long have been responsible, be included in our conception of the world—that is to say, for instance, that the existence and the needs of children and non-autonomous persons be taken into account in social organization, whether it be at the level of creating or developing space for activities, or in the organization of work and social services. However, the search for a better quality of life implies collective choices other than those which currently prevail. These choices concern, among other things, the use of resources. (5, 7-8)

I now want to introduce three women thinkers—Mary Daly, Rosi Braidotti, and Marilyn J. Legge—whose work gives us a means to ‘pass through’ and beyond a scientific world stamped by patriarchal ideology. Their understanding of women’s experiences creates an opportunity for questioning scientific development up to now. Let us start by making some distinctions concerning the nature of women’s experiences.

1. About Women’s Experiences Although the concept ‘experience’ is difficult to define, it is this concept that will enable us to make radical transformations at the level of epistemology. According to D. Lecourt, “experience” is sometimes the reference for the evidence of “common sense,” and the point at which the philosophical traditions of rationalism and empiricism find the origin of their divergence, and experience seems to escape from its destiny of being an always refutable phenomenon only in the context of scientific practice, where, given the strict protocol which regulates it, it acquires the function of a methodological principle and the apodictic value of a proof. (851)


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In trying to show its importance in the domain of knowledge, JeanPierre Jossua indicates that the notion of experience includes at least five aspects: a) a grasp of reality; b) a real participation in what is happening; c) a specific awareness; d) an interpretation of what is perceived and grasped; e) a general and encompassing character in the understanding of a part of existence (55-71). The considering of women’s experiences constitutes an original contribution to knowledge and science. The Indo-Germanic root of erfahren (to experience, experiri) which means “to learn in journeying” and to appropriate “experimentally” (Mieth 55-71), suggests to us the possibility that a new route is opened with the understanding of women’s experiences. Indeed, within women’s studies, the concept of “women’s experiences” has been kept “as a point of departure, not as an abstraction but as actuality, as practice” (Dagenais 52; see also Descarries-Bélanger and de Sève 60; Collin 242-73; Decerf ). There is a “need for re-definition,” because of the “inadequacy of terms for describing the female experience” (Lerner xiii).

2. Mary Daly Mary Daly is one of the leading feminist thinkers in the United States. Her work focuses on “an exclusive utilization” of women’s experiences, because she wishes to give them a new meaning beyond that which would be possible in a patriarchal discourse. Although educated first in theology and only later in philosophy (Daly, Beyond God the Father 6), she considers herself to be primarily engaged in doing philosophy; this is clear from the titles of her books: Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, and Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Daly identifies herself as a “radical feminist” (Gyn/ Ecology 1).3 It is not without a certain irony that we can say Daly has succeeded in making a fervent denunciation of the patriarchal system.4 Indeed, she describes her method as “gynocentric”: “Gynocentric Method requires not only the murder of misogynistic methods (intellectual and affective exorcism) but also ecstasy, which I have called ludic celebration” (Gyn/Ecology 23). But she also commits the “crime of methodicide”—announced first in Beyond God the Father (Daly 12) and confirmed in Gyn/Ecology—which is a “form of deicide” (23). Method has the status of a god in patriarchal thought, and in Pure Lust Daly speaks about “the tradition of methodicide” (30).

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Daly’s method consists in going out from patriarchy in order to give a deeply positive meaning to all that is involved with women’s experience—in short, to display “gynocentricity.” She frequently denounces ‘necrophoric’ forms of patriarchy that attempt to erase or destroy women in various ways. In Beyond God the Father, Daly points out how “in a sexist world, symbol systems and conceptual apparatuses have been male creations. These do not reflect the experience of women, but rather function to falsify our own self-image and experiences “ (7). In Gyn/Ecology, she engages in an intense study of five specific rites where women’s bodies have been massacred and are still massacred: Indian suttee, Chinese foot-binding, African genital mutilation, the European witch burnings, and American gynecology (111). In Beyond God the Father, she points out how the patriarchal system attacks women’s bodies, by inflicting “gynocidal atrocities,” such as rape, battering, incestuous abuse of female children, and pornography (xiv, 118). In this outburst against patriarchy, Daly turns towards the exaltation of the four primordial elements: fire, air, earth, and water, which constitute “the deep Realms of reality with which our senses are naturally and Wildly connected” (Pure Lust 11). In recognizing this, women can recover their roots and their ‘race.’ This implies undertaking the difficult task of exorcising all that has been imposed on women, beginning with Eve, who traditionally has been blamed for the ‘Fall’ of humanity from paradise (see “Exorcising Evil from Eve: The Fall into Freedom,” Beyond God the Father 44-68), and learning to give a positive meaning to certain words, by situating them in their etymological context. For instance, the word “lust,” derived from the Latin lascivus, is double-edged. In the patriarchal context, the retained meaning is: “sexual desire, especially of a violent self indulgent character: lechery, lasciviousness,” whereas there are other meanings, such as: vigor, fertility (the increasing lust of the earth or the plant [as in Francis Bacon]); an intense longing: craving, eagerness, enthusiasm (Pure Lust 2-3). In Beyond God the Father, Daly emphasizes the positive aspects of the word “lust”: Primarily, then Pure Lust Names the high humor, hope, and cosmic accord/harmony of those women who chose to escape, to follow our hearts’ deepest desire and bound out of the State of Bondage, Wanderlusting and Wonderlusting with the elements, connecting with auras of animals and plants, moving in planetary communion with the farthest stars. This Lust is in its essence astral. It is Pure Passion: unadulterated, absolute, simple sheer striving for


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abundance of be-ing. It is unlimited, unlimiting desire/fire. (3; see also Notes 10)

As well, Daly indicates that she employs the concept ‘women’s experiences’ in a distinctive way when she opts for the hyphenated form of the word be-ing in order “to signify that it is intended not as a noun but as a verb, meaning participation in the Ultimate/Intimate Reality: Be-ing, the Verb” (Pure Lust 2). It is also important for her that we use the active sense of a word rather than an abstract or passive one.5 And, further, in Pure Lust, Daly uses the word “Metabeing”: “The word Metabeing is used here to Name Realms of active participation in the Powers of Be-ing” (26). This acknowledgment of women’s experience in the making of “Be-ing” is designed to give women wholeness. Similarly, the use of the word “Re-member,” in a hyphenated form, allows us to grasp its sense of ontological recovery. ‘Passing through’ is considered by Daly as something that has been accomplished. Women had the “existential courage to confront the experience of nothingness,” to get rid of patriarchal definitions and models, and to attain a more complete level of participation in their own self-realization (Beyond God the Father 23-24). She invites women to commit themselves—to invest in another reality: “Spinning new time/space” (Gyn/Ecology 313-424; this is the third passage). And, particularly, she calls out for “enspiriting”: Enspiriting is breathing, be-ing. The Self enspirits the Self and others by encouraging, by expanding her own courage, hope, determination, vigor. To enspirit is to be an expressive active verb, and Active Voice uttering the Self utterly, in a movement/Journey that spirals outward, inward. In this Active Voicing, the Self Spooks the spookers. She affirms the becoming Self who is always Other. She dis-covers and creates the Otherworld. (Gyn/Ecology 340)

Daly, then, wishes to contribute to the establishment of a “biophylic consciousness” (Notes 5; cf. “biophilia” in Pure Lust (25); Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary 67) that is to be developed among women as a ‘sisterhood.’ It is through this contribution that Daly sees herself struggling against patriarchy, considered as a system of death.

3. Rosi Braidotti The title of Rosi Braidotti’s Nomadic Subjects indicates the orientation and particular character of her scholarly approach to feminism.

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Braidotti draws on her own nomadic life—born in Italy, raised in Australia, educated in Paris, currently a professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands—to present ‘nomadism’ as a theoretical option. In this volume, she explores the notion of “nomadic subjects” as “a suitable theoretical figuration for contemporary subjectivity. The term figuration refers to a style of thought that evokes or expresses ways out of the phallocentric vision of the subject. A figuration is a politically informed account of an alternative subjectivity” (Braidotti 1). Braidotti has chosen to speak about the “nomadic subject” precisely because her understanding of the subject in general, and of the feminist subject in particular, is situated in the post-modern, and is culturally differentiated. This allows her to deal with the plurality of the subject as it is constituted by such differentiating and yet interrelated factors as class, race, ethnicity, gender, and age: “The nomadic subject is a myth, that is to say a political fiction, that allows me to think through and to move across established categories and levels of experience; blurring boundaries without burning bridges” (Braidotti 4). Braidotti’s general framework is that of embodiment and sexual difference; when dealing with the body and the embodiment or the subject, she is not referring to a biological or sociological category but rather to a way of thinking that extends to the physical, the symbolic, and the sociological. In the chapter entitled “Ethics Revisited,” Braidotti opens the debate on women and Western philosophy by providing us with an overview of, and leading us through, the cultural appropriation of rationality. She clearly shows that our culture established a very rigid dichotomy between the feminine and rationality: the feminine has been depicted from Plato to Freud in terms of matter, physis, passions, emotions, and the irrational. This persistent polar opposition between feminine values and rationality is linked to the question of power and its corollaries: domination and exclusion. She maintains that “it is not because they are rational that men are the masters, but rather that, being the masters, they have appropriated rationality as their own prerogative” (Braidotti 216). The feminine was reduced to ‘the other’ and what makes the feminine distinctive was then presented in pejorative and subordinating ways. What emerges from her discussion is the conclusion that the theoretical model of classical rationality is inadequate because “it is oblivious to sexual difference in that it mistakes the masculine bias for a universal mode of enunciation” (Braidotti 217).


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Radical feminism calls certain notions into question; it refutes the notion of universal truth, it deconstructs metadiscourses and affirms the priority of multiplicity over linear discourses. “To sexualise a discourse is therefore a practice of disclosure of vested interests” (Braidotti 220) in order to discover who is speaking, and for whom. Braidotti does not avoid these questions, and she asks: “Can rationality be freed from its hegemonic connotations? It is possible to take the theoretical and political standpoint of feminism to bring out another regime of truth?” (220). Feminism has the power to provide women with the critical distance from these power and knowledge structures in which they are trapped. To this end, Braidotti proposes a political analysis of sexuality, like the one outlined by Michel Foucault in his History of Sexuality, where sexuality is a totality which interrelates power, knowledge, and structures of desire that are focused on the body (Braidotti 223). Refraining from adhering to a fixed identity in the sexual, cultural, and political domains is stressed as an essential step toward a critique of rationality as a normative notion. This ‘passing through’ rationality allows us to add the missing link to the theme of women and philosophy. It opens new paths already pointed to by Adrienne Rich. In Of Woman Born, Rich writes, I am convinced that there are ways of thinking that we don’t yet know about. I take those words to mean that many women are even now thinking in ways which traditional intellection denies, decries or is unable to grasp. Thinking is an active, fluid, expanding process; intellection, “knowing” are recapitulations of past processes. In arguing that we have by no means yet explored our biological grounding, the miracle paradox of the female body and its spiritual and political meanings, I am asking whether women cannot begin, at last, to think through the body, to connect what has been so cruelly disorganized. (290)

4. Marilyn J. Legge Marilyn J. Legge, a theologian and a professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, draws on the method of liberation theologies in her work. In her book, The Grace of Difference, she argues that “our primary transformations as persons come from conversion and a commitment to the other, to those deemed insignificant and pushed to the margins of our society and to marginated and oppressed peoples of the world” (12). Legge has identified three feminist ethical principles. The first one, “moral agency,” allows us to live as self-defin-

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ing, accountable persons. It lets us achieve “the enhancement of personhood, defined as the capacity for responsible selfdirection” (Robb xvi). Solidarity with those who suffer injustices is the basis for a feminist ethics. The second principle is “embodiment,” for feminist theologies are sensual in so far as they are characterized by “experiences of ‘epistemological rupture’ from dominant, dualistic ways of seeing and living in the world which devalue the body and the material world, overemphasize the mind, and define spirituality in opposition to eros” (Legge 14). It is in just this way that Beverly Harrison, an American ethicist, also describes a non-dualist epistemology in which the human body [is] the integrated locus of our perception of all reality. Through it, by touch, sight and sound we experience our relations to the world. Through our deep responsiveness, our passion, we experience longing for connectedness to the whole. But our passion is more than this. It is also the source of our energy, which is to say, our power to act. ([1980] 20; see also Harrison [1983])

Thus, it becomes important to free ourselves from dichotomical thoughts that separate: mind-body, subject-object, public-private. The third principle recognizes “moral accountability for our world, within the limits sets by our relatedness to others and to our environment” (Legge 16). That is the right way to affirm “our power of relation.”

Conclusion Que veut une femme? Moins arriver à quelque chose que s’arriver à soi-même. Se démythifier, pulvériser l’idée ghetto qu’On se faisait du féminin; se disséminer dans l’aire du temps sans qu’il reste d’Elle la moindre relique, la moindre parcelle de virginité, le moindre piège posthume où sa nature humaine puisse encore faire l’ombre d’un doute. En finir avec la muse, la muselée, avec “la sainte de l’Abîme.” (Lejeune 15)6

These words by the woman poet and philosopher, Claire Lejeune, aptly describe the whole meaning of passing through that women have undertaken with a full consciousness of their predicament. Mary Daly, Rosi Braidotti, and Marilyn J. Legge, each in her own manner, have made their contribution to the fulfillment of this ‘passing through.’ Specifically, they point out various aspects of the critique to be carried out.


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Passing through is a process of crossing a space, be it physical or, as in our case, psychological, anthropological, and cultural. This process has become a necessity for women and also for men. It allows us to make a critical assessment of thought where men held a dominant place, to admit that there has, in fact, been a very definite orientation to this thought, and to question that heritage by ascertaining its progress and its limits. It shows the need to open the closed patriarchal system and to bring women’s experiences into the development of culture, given their creativeness and their valuable contribution. To do so is to adopt an ethical position which will radically change the current discourse, and which will instill a new dynamism into ethics.7

Notes 1

“L’angle tramé du désir” 14. In this essay, Brossard points out how, with the promotion of women’s interests and extension of their rights, contemporary feminism became an ethics. 2 Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 859, 7. The original version of this text was in French; there, I used the word traverser. 3 Few books on these themes have been translated into French: e.g., The Church and the Second Sex as Le second sexe conteste. 4 Here I draw on some elements of my paper, “Le concept, ‘expériences des femmes’ dans l’avènement d’une théologie féministe.” 5 This is the explanation given by Michèle Causse, the translator of Gyn/Ecology (26). 6 Lejeune asks, “What does a woman want?” and answers by listing ways of women’s self-assessment. 7 Translated by Monique Dumais with the assistance of William Sweet and Ursula Fabijancic.

References Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Brossard, Nicole. “L’angle tramé du désir.” La théorie, un dimanche. Montréal: Les Éditions du remue-ménage, 1988. Collin, Françoise. “Différence et différend. La question des femmes en philosophie.” In Françoise Thébaud, ed. Histoire des femmes. Le XXe siècle. Paris: Plon, 1992. 242-73. Dagenais, Huguette. “Quand la sociologie devient action: I’impact du féminisme sur la pratique sociologique.” Sociologie et sociétés. Numéro spécial. XIII.22 (1981). Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. Boston: Beacon, 1973. ———. The Church and the Second Sex. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968. [Le second sexe conteste. Paris: Mame, 1969. Re-issued with a new post-christian, feminist Introduction by the author. New York: Harper and Row, 1975.]

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———. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon, 1978. ———. Notes pour une ontologie du féminisme radical. Trans. Michèle Causse. Montréal: L’intégrale, 1982. ———. Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Boston: Beacon, 1984. ———. Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1987. Decerf, Anne, ed. Les théories scientifiques ont-elles un sexe? Moncton: Les Éditions d’Acadie, 1990. Descarries-Bélanger, Francine and Micheline de Sève. Bilan et perspectives de recherches féministes. Perspectives féministes, no. 3. Ottawa, ON: ICREF/CRIAW, 1985. Dumais, Monique. “Féminisme et approches éthiques.” Feminist Ethics. 2.2 (Winter 1987-88) 9-11. ———. “Le concept, ‘expériences des femmes’ dans l’avènement d’une théologie féministe.” Gender, Genre and Religion. Feminist Reflections. Ed. Morny Joy and Eva K. Neumaier-Dargyay. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press (with the Calgary Institute for the Humanities), 1995. 89-93. ——— and Marie-Andrée Roy. “D’une morale imposée à une éthique autodéterminée.” Souffles de femmes. Lectures féministes de la religion. Montréal: Éditions Paulines et Médiaspaul, 1989. 109-34. Harrison, Beverly W. “The Dream of a Common Language: Towards a Normative Theory of Justice in Christian Ethics.” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics (1980) 20. ———. Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics. Ed. Carol S. Robb. Boston: Beacon, 1983. 12-15. Jossua, Jean-Pierre. “Expérience chrétienne. II Élaboration théologique.” Dictionnaire de théologie. Paris: Cerf, 1988. 55-71. de Koninck, Maria. “Que veulent donc les féministes?” Paper presented in Quebec Mar. 1992. Lecourt, D. “Expérience.” Encyclopaedia Universalis. Vol. l. 851. Legge, Marilyn J. The Grace of Difference: A Canadian Feminist Theological Ethic. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992. Lejeune, Claire. Âge poétique, âge politique. Montréal: L’Hexagone, 1987. Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Mieth, Dietmar. “Vers une définition du concept d’’expérience’: Qu’est-ce que l’expérience?” Concilium 133 (1978) 55-71. Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born. New York: Norton, 1976. Robb, Carol. Introduction to Making the Connections. By Beverly W. Harrison.

10 ~ Ladrière’s ‘Eschatology of Reason’ and the Foundation of Ethics

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Ladrière’s ‘Eschatology of Reason’ and the Foundation of Ethics1

Louis Perron An investigation into the foundations of ethics is confronted with what is at once both one of the major events and one of the great challenges of contemporary philosophy: the critique of the notion of foundations—indeed, the impulse to abandon every notion of foundation. This critique has its warrant in the alleged impossibility of reaching any foundation and the apparent irrelevance of the foundational effort. It radically questions the possibility of a knowledge that contains within itself the principles of its own justification in the sense of an ultimate basis for reality or experience (Préface, L’inflation du langage II). This problem concerning foundations loses none of its force in the domain of ethics. On the contrary, one can easily argue that it is all the greater. This problem, in so far as it is a major characteristic of our spiritual situation, manifests itself there in all its radicality. This is, perhaps, puzzling. On the one hand, ethics appears to be, by definition, unconditional and obligatory, and it arrogantly asserts itself throughout our culture. On the other hand, ethics is continually confronted with the relativity of moral norms. Ethics incessantly collides with historicity, even though there is an imperative to formulate an ethic—if not several ethics—capable of responding to the often unspoken needs of our times. In our days, the more that the need for an ethics—a renewed ethics—is called for and asserts itself, the more the possibility of an ultimate, universal foundation appears to elude us. One can, it seems, conclude that this difficulty related to foundations is at once both an aspect of a much larger phenomenon, the destabilization of the field of ethics and the perplexity it arouses (“La déstabilisation de l’éthique” 57-73), as well as a characteristic which structures our historical experience in its global dimensions. The loss of foundations that is experienced today is directly linked to the emergence of the idea of historicity. It is appropriate, then, to attempt to explain this destabilization of ethics through a reinterpretation of the notion of foundations that takes historicity into account. In so doing one will be able to confront the heart of the diffi-

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culty raised by the problem of foundations. This involves, then, overcoming the paradox of the idea of a foundation that integrates historicity within itself. In other words, one must rethink speculative reason in terms of historicity, or, at least, in a way that is oriented to it. The difficulty of this approach is more than simply refusing to abandon the notion of foundations for the sake of its even simpler and non-critical renewal, and this difficulty is compounded because here it is a matter of ethics, where it is hard to see how the notion of foundations can be justified. That is why the second and third sections of the present paper will be concerned with the explanation of the unconditional character of the horizon of ethics on the one hand and with its necessary historical mediation on the other. Once this problem is grasped in all its radicality, it will be possible to provide the outline of a “foundational framework” along the lines of what the Belgian philosopher Jean Ladrière calls “the eschatology of reason.” This theme describes Ladrière’s approach to reason. It asks us to think the radicality that animates reason on the horizon of its historicity.

1. The Challenge to the Idea of Foundations and Its Reinterpretation The disturbance provoked by contesting the idea of foundations is a paradoxical event which in a radical manner determines the actual status of reason and which no doubt has not yet run its full course. This questioning has hence found itself incapable of reaching an ultimate foundation, at once radical and universal, and it consequently doubts the pertinence of an effort to ascend to a foundation now considered superfluous. Is it really necessary to return to a foundation? Does not the claim of furnishing an ultimate, foundational discourse, equipped with total apodicticity, need to be recognized as illusory? Contrary to accepted beliefs, which until now have animated the project of rationality and according to which this project thought it could ascend to an incontestable and irreducible datum supporting all theoretical and practical enterprises, the idea has emerged that it is impossible to arrive at presuppositions which are certain of guaranteed justification. The foundationalist pretensions of reason, indicated by such expressions as “ultimate guarantee,” “foundational necessity,” “definitive mooring,” or “radical reflexive justification,” is currently suspect (“Le christianisme” 216). The agreement based on the authority of these principles is followed by that founded on the


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procedures aiming precisely at producing this agreement. But such procedures always remain uncertain, complicated, and all justification appears necessarily held in suspense. Given the uncertainty of the foundational context it finds itself in, critical reason presents itself in frail terms and appears more inclined to determine the limits of its claim to validity than to justify speculatively the normativity which carries and animates it.2 This calling into question reverberates through all the traditional understandings of the idea of reason, leading to a dispute and reinterpretation of its status. For the idea of foundations, beyond its modern radicalization, refers back to the idea of a grounding principle (archê) as to the very axis structuring the thrust of occidental philosophy. It is this very thrust in its globality, in so far as it is inspired by this regulative idea, which is thus called into question. In effect, from its earliest beginnings, the philosophical project has largely been understood according to the architectural metaphor of foundations. ‘Foundation,’ in its most general sense, is that which underlies and supports that which is constructed since it itself is not constructed and self-sufficient. In so far as it itself subsists, the foundation is the thinkable which allows that which is thought to be thought. A foundation presupposes the introduction of a qualitative difference between its own status and that which is constructed, a difference that radically separates the manifestation from its source or ontological origin. Ladrière refines the notion of foundation as follows: The metaphor itself...makes us see that the status of foundations is radically different from that of construction: thus the latter rests on the foundation and receives from it that which permits it to maintain the consistency of its being and the visibility of its figure, whereas the foundation finds its consistency from itself, retrenching itself so to remain in its nature as a support, and by this very fact holds itself on this side of visibility where the constructed shows itself. (“Le destin” 165)

The notion of foundation seeks to clarify the idea of a grounding principle, which is its source of inspiration. Philosophy, even in its most recent developments, has always been guided by the notion of a grounding principle that plays the role of a regulative idea. In this perspective, the task of reason is twofold. At the level of understanding, it is conceived as “a project of return to grounding principles,” that is to say, as a departure from phenomenality back to a first element which oversees the receding process. At the level of action, the task is conceived as a justifying enterprise aiming at accounting for

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the normativity of norms by bringing to light the principles from which this very normativity originates. The extrication of this “region of principles” is an effort marked by the seal of radicality: in effect it aims at fastening the conditioned to the unconditioned, that is to say to redirect it to the autonomous force from which it proceeds, which force maintains its own power to absolutely be for itself by virtue of its own priority, and which places the entire field of manifestation in the whole of its unfolding. The idea of principle, as a process of departure away from the visible towards the invisible, expresses a distinct conception of reason that accentuates its specifically speculative dimension. In a typical passage, Ladrière writes: It is thus in the sphere of the influence of this idea (of foundations) that reason started to become aware of itself reflexively as the power in us which allows us to attain, not only that which gives itself immediately in the perception or spontaneous evidence which accompanies all presences, but to the very process in and through which the immediately given is constituted, in and through which the totality of the world — the entire field of experience — unfolds, in and through which is constituted, in things themselves, that which allows thought to recognize the trace of that from which it receives its own enlightenment, the light of intelligibility. (“Le destin” 165)

This conception of reason presents itself in the form of a phenomenological reinterpretation of the traditional idea of reason as the capacity to transcend the empirical towards the universality that founds the cause: Reason reveals itself in this way as singularly exceeding the capacity of reasoning, in which it nonetheless received its first witness to itself: it is, in the human spirit, the power which permits the human spirit to go beyond appearance, the empirical, the sensible, and the immediacy of the purely given towards the non-immediately apparent, non-empirical, not directly visible conditions which sustain appearances, which render them intelligible, which illumine their origin, their destiny, in short, the how and the why of their appearance. (“Le destin” 165-66)

The challenge to the notion of foundations, around which several dominant currents of contemporary thought crystallize, is directly linked to the various failures which the great and ultimate efforts at foundation, themselves intent on saving the idea of foundation around which modernity’s project of rationality was constructed, led to in


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the first part of this century. The foundational enterprise, as Ladrière mentions, essentially unfolded in four directions: i) the regression towards a constitutive subjectivity, of which phenomenology was the ultimate episode, ii) the implementation of an absolute discourse, iii) the reduction to a radically empirical ground, and iv) the logicist reconstruction of the world (Preface 11). This enterprise has ended thus in failure in each of its attempts. In describing itself as a radical renewal of the Cartesian effort based on the Cogito, the Husserlian project of founding reason on the basis of the reflexivity of the transcendental ego needed to be abandoned on account of the open perspective of the Lebenswelt, whose discovery was the very element which destroyed the transcendental ego. Wounded, according to the beautiful expression of Paul Ricoeur, the Husserlian Cogito experiences itself as an essentially finite, historical subjectivity which is not transparent to itself and whose entrenchment in the world is determined by the subterranean forces which carry it and from which it receives itself without end. The modern project of securing the absolute certainty of knowledge in the form of an absolute discourse has itself also failed. The subject does not perceive itself as a self-positing origin, constitutive of the real, and is discovering that it does not coincide with itself in the absolute transparency of pure reflexivity. There is no identity between the unfolding of discourse and the unfolding of being, in virtue of the irreducible and radical singularity of existence. The empiricist attempts at foundations proposed, in their own regard, to found the process of the legitimization of scientific theories by showing that theoretical terms could finally be reduced to an experiential basis. The entire development of contemporary science, however, has rather demonstrated the impossibility of reducing scientific constructions to a purely empirical starting-point. The internal criticisms which marked the history of the Vienna Circle eloquently attest to the difficulty of effectively accounting for the concrete life of science in terms of a deconstruction aiming at bringing to light irreducible sensible data (indeed irreducible data as such). Logicism, finally, wanted to show that the structure of formal logic forms the constitutive framework of language that a priori determines the effective forms of the real. Logic thereby determined the discourse that revealed the structure of the world, and hence held the key to the principle of meaning. But logic has had to admit that it is incapable of furnishing its own absolute justification, incapable of presenting itself as a pure and necessary system of forms. Logic, no less than ordinary language, cannot entirely absolutize itself: every-

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thing depends on the choice of axioms and rules that in turn permit an infinite plurality of systems. The suspicion surrounding foundations is directly linked to the contemporary critique of classical rationalism, which is constructed around the primacy of the Cogito, whose instance acts as the crystallization of the modern radicalization of the idea of foundations. This radicalization is in effect carried out in the form of the metaphysics of subjectivity, which achieves the fusion of self-consciousness and the foundational subject. Subjectivity thus appears as the pure and absolute constituting force, beyond all configuration, operative in every particular form of consciousness (L’Articulation I.ii-iii, 7-9). It is precisely this reflexive attitude, centred on the act of consciousness understood as a pure transparency to oneself, that contemporary philosophy seeks to surmount in the effort at deconstructing the metaphysics of representation. A shift arises in which the complexity of lived experience substitutes for the simplicity of reflexive experience. Certainly, several influences contributed to the demise of foundations, influences which themselves are foundational currents that structure the contemporary field of philosophy. It is not my concern to review them all here. I will only mention the problematic of language, crystallized around the linguistic turn, which is intimately associated with the devalorization of the self-constituting discourse stemming from the foundational instance (L’Articulation II.203; see 195214, which clarify the problematic alluded to here). Elsewhere, the epistemology of both the human and the natural sciences appear to show that the diverse sciences can legitimate themselves while avoiding the recourse to foundations, at least in an absolute sense.3 In any event, every recourse to extrinsic metaprinciples necessarily proceeding from an a priori order appear to have been abandoned for the sake of internal normativities reflexively gained by epistemological retrieval. The main factor which has led to the retreat, if not the loss, of the idea of ultimate or absolute foundation certainly lies with the emergence of the notion of historicity within contemporary consciousness, as well as the correlative idea of the reciprocal belonging of the ideas of historicity and truth (“Historicité et vérité” 11-52). The idea of historicity undermines the idea of absolute and apodictic reason, and destroys every notion of legality extrinsic to reason. Only a normativity immanent to reason remains thinkable, understood not in the mode of a finalizing principle but in the mode of a kind of regulation, itself constructed, susceptible to revision, and to be identified throughout the always fragmentary constructions of reason. It is thus in the manner of destiny that reason experiences itself. Abso-


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lute reason is yielding to reason as determined by events, to reason as shattered, fragmented, and uncertain of itself. Reason interprets itself as a process of self-construction (self-constitution), as a process of emergence; in short, as a becoming, a dynamism (“Le christianisme” 212ff.). The passage from absolute knowledge to a complex, pluriform, and diversified rationality corresponds to the disintegration of absolute reason: The notion of a self-assured knowledge, organizing itself under the aegis of a concept of truth which authorizes, in principle, a progressive approach to absolute validity, is replaced by the notion of a knowledge always uncertain of its own foundations, aware of its vulnerability, exposed at all times to falsification, and associated to a concept of truth which is formulated in terms of approximations, of probabilities. The latter expresses itself only by means of criteria whose range is itself recognized as essentially relative. (“L’université” 119)

The situation of reason has thus become much more problematical than it was for classical rationalism. On the level of theoretical reason, historicity signifies that reason now discovers itself as hermeneutical and that, in consequence, foundations are not in principle conceptualizable. This recognition of the inescapable character of the hermeneutical circle means that understanding is always an interpretation guided by presuppositions in a pre-given horizon which itself predetermines the effective possibilities of understanding. The surplus of meaning with respect to reason refers reason and its universalist pretence back to the particularity of its genesis and its effective destiny. It shows that the a priori must be reinterpreted in a nonabsolute manner since it is always relative to a cultural horizon, which it constitutes but which remains immanent to it (“L’université” 109). Seen in the incessant flux and multiple directions of meaning, reason cannot be realized in terms of total reflexivity. Practical reason itself also discovers this all-encompassing finitude through the experience “of the limit, of the unforseen, of the indomitable, of failure” (“Le christianisme” 220). It encounters both the resistance of things and the unforseen consequences of its own project. But there is more, and certainly more of a serious nature: the encounter of reason with evil, with hatred at the core of the renewed experience of the tragic, with the inescapable negativity that opposes the project of practical reason as a contradictory force. This experience of evil, directly linked to the experience of contemporary histo-

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ricity, stems from the vanity and perversity which erode reason of its own interiority in the form of the temptation to effective absolutization, the snare of totalitarianism, but also from the alterity that presents itself as the radically evil adversity which menaces total destruction and complete annihilation. Seen in its ensemble, reason is generally encountering the general experience of its limits. The great intuition that animates reason is the conviction, learned harshly through the tragic historical experience of our century, of the impossibility, not only theoretical but especially practical, of all effective totalization, on account of the mortal danger it represents. The unconditioned does not absolutize itself, and the aim of totality, legitimate since it is constitutive of reason, must absolutely remain a limited notion, refusing every will to realization in the form of a determinate historical figure. We thus understand that meaning cannot be totalized. Summarizing the current experience of reason, Ladrière writes: On the side of knowledge, we have learned that the foundational effort, through which understanding hoped to secure its gains and the validity of its operations in a definitive manner, is illusory, and this for basic reasons. We cannot advance except with risk and in a way that is always contingent and hazardous, by introducing corrections which prove to be necessary in the very act of moving forward. On the side of action, we have learned that the force of things is not easily domesticated, that violence is always present as an effective negation and as a menace, and that the figure itself of universal reason can be the pretext for the figure which is its antithesis. (“Raison” 185)

In this situation, marked by the general phenomenon of the retreat of foundations, every ultimate justification remains suspended, all efforts of critical foundation or of radical elucidation or of privileged discourse are immediately discredited, must renounce their pretences, and cede their place to the pluralism of discourse, to the polymorphy and polysemy of experience. If there is no more ultimate instance of reason, if there is no more secure ground or absolute certainty or final recapitulation, the foundation loses its privilege; it must efface itself and cede its place to what Ladrière calls the abyss (“L’abîme” 171-91). Once the notion of the irreducibility and autarchy of foundations, as an ultimate term of regression of the conditioned to the unconditioned, as a purely autarchical entity, self-positing in the unconditional and radically self-sufficing manner, is questioned, the ontological realm becomes a vast place of emergence in unceasing


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movement, where all determination refuses in principle to be rigidified in an ultimate configuration and presents itself rather as the play of fugitive concretions. Phenomenality is restored to a horizon of non-determination. Being thus appears as event, passage, emergence and becoming, occurrence, trace of a surge and pure horizon of nonphenomenality. Manifestation is realized in the absence of supports, in the form of a trajectory that does not lean on any support. In a word, being is no longer thinkable in the mode of substance, but in the mode of becoming or even imminence. Ladrière describes this change in perspective in relation to the real as follows: The essential event, the manifestation, in which reality arises and shows itself, from now on must be itself conceived not an as entry into the field of presence, or as an appearance which asserts itself on the basis of a horizon that itself is the possibility of this insistent self-presencing, but as the inscription of a trajectory amidst an amorphous milieu which is neither a foundation nor a place but an active space, a diffuse energy, replete with invisible potentialities, concentrating its power in the present moment on a figurative trace. (“L’abîme” 187)

What is suggested by this viewpoint is a speculative reinterpretation of the idea of foundations. The task that concretely arises consists of rethinking the idea of foundations in non-totalizing and non-determinable perspective. This view evidently supposes both the abandonment of the ambition to return to a primary support, to an absolute origin or justification and the correlative recognition that reason is not carried by a stable foundation, but has recourse rather “to a non-foundation, which has the pure function of sustenance, absolutely non-conceptualizable” which allows the “metaphor of suspense” to emerge (Ladrière, “Le panaroma de l’Europe” 58). Ladrière proposes to modify the meaning usually associated with the theme of foundation while preserving the very notion which underlies the notion of foundation, namely, the transgression of the immediate, in order to return to the original project of philosophy as an effort of elucidating the process of the manifestation or of the unfolding of being. Deconstruction thus allows the retrieval of the notion of a principle in all its radicality and original content (“Le destin” 165). Foundations can henceforth be thought as a retreat—which category designates the productive energy at the source of the process of manifestation: “it does not arise except in receding, and that is why the event of arising is never but an imminence of occurrence, never an achieved accomplishment” (“L’abîme” 191).4 It is a definitive mat-

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ter, under the movement of the orientation of the operation indicated by the notion of foundations, of being attentive to the event of gift, back to the entrenchment in which the origin discloses itself. At the level of ethics, the question of foundations concerns the justification of ethical norms. In order to establish and determine the contour of this justification, it well appears that one cannot commit to an ultimate good, or to an ideal end, as if it sufficed to have recourse to these. All that remains is the justificatory demand whose breadth and radicality correlatively appears to imply the absence of all particular content and which allows incertitude to persist with respect to the concrete norms that guide human action.

2. Ethics as a Profound Dimension In Ladrière, whose Kantian inspiration is evident, ethics, understood as an essential dimension of the human existent, summons together through its own orientation the correlative notions of unconditionality, radicality, and universality. Ethics as an idea evokes the idea of surplus. Ethics can be seen in its essential determination as a will for the universal: it unfolds only in reference to the universal, since the universal is the catalyst of action just as it also is the capacity to posit ends. In effect, action is the capacity for the universal and orients itself only in the horizon of the totality to which it is immediately linked. In other words, action is the will for the whole. Its intention is expressed in the foundation of a universal ethical order, of a system of ends that can sustain the implementation of determinate institutional forms. Ethics appears also as an unconditional demand, pure and infinite, as a concern for radicality, which seeks to express itself in all its plenitude, to be equal to its fullness in the effectiveness of objective institutions. Ethics aims at the implementation, through action, of a practical world in the form of an order of human interactions determined by reason, that is to say, in the form of authentic community. In other words, the concern of ethics is to establish and realize justice. This concern is animated by the formal representation of a reconciled humanity.5 To illustrate ethical finality as a finality internal to free will, one can appeal, following Ladrière, to the Kantian parables of nature, of the kingdom of ends, and of the mystical body (“Éthique” 23ff.; cf. L’Articulation II.328). The ethical ideal is expressed in these parables as a regulative horizon for moral living. The first parable expresses the notion that the moral world is governed by laws, like the physical world, except that the law is now an instance of a radical requirement


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expressed according to reason in universal maxims. The moral end is in a relational order governed by laws that express the relations between freely willing agents among themselves. The second parable has recourse to the notion of (political) community, to the ideal kingdom of ends, organized according to the laws it has prescribed for itself. Here the objective conditions of social organization are supposed to be the adequate conditions for the realization, in the exteriority of inter-subjective relations, of the law of liberty. The parable describes the conditions for the emergence of a society of reciprocity according to the ideal of realized liberty. The third parable suggests that the attainment of a moral ideal must reunite humanity in a spiritual unity. The realization of such a community, which goes beyond the law to make room for the reign of the spirit, is the aim of the ethical ideal. The notions of universality and the unconditioned thus refer to the notion of foundations, which in turn has recourse to the ensemble of the most original values, to the directive norms that determine action in its general orientations (see Les enjeux 137ff.). These values, true principles of an axiological quality, exercise a double function: the function of constitution, as sources of criteria for ethical judgment, and the function of justification, as the reasons for concrete criteria invoked in ethical decisions. They play an inspiring role, and it is precisely this that confers on them their foundational character. Not explicitly formulated, these principles form an ensemble that operates in the manner of an immanent, constitutive activity, as a secret power which allows and supports the effort of inventing concrete norms for action. This inaugural force is nothing other than voluntary volition as the capacity for self-determination and self-legislation, as the capacity to give itself its own principles. The law expresses a requirement of autonomy, of the reconciliation of volition with itself in a kingdom of liberty that remains summoned because it is not yet realized. The constitutive principles of reason rest on the internal demand of free will understood as a requirement of autonomy, as a call to the world of liberty teleologically postulated and expressing the condition of realized liberty. The moral law is posited by voluntary volition itself, in virtue of its own liberty, and expresses the finality of this free will (practical reason), which is thus itself its own end: the end, namely, of being fully realized in the effective harmony of liberty with itself, that is to say, in the mutual and reciprocal recognition among liberties, in the effective realization of liberty in all concrete beings, and in the promotion of the order of liberty in its entirety. This is the height in which the ethical requirement must be

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situated if one does not want to see ethics slide into the anarchy of the exclusive rule of force or of the singular bondage of interests. As Ladrière notes, free will is foundational in two ways: on the one hand it is the origin of the ethical dimension itself, and on the other hand it founds the concrete norms which both express the fundamental aim of ethics and orient action in its struggle with the world. How is this problematic of the foundations of ethics to be clarified, and, above all, how is this problematic to be radicalized along the lines of what has just been indicated? One can follow the indications furnished by Ladrière in his analysis of the ethical dimensions as the axis which structures existence.6 The ethical dimension refers back to the human existent who carries responsibility in so far as he or she is endowed with the capacity to orient moral action as a function of ostensible ends. These finalities impose themselves from the place where the ethical dimension originates and is capable of founding ethical judgment. In this originating place the problem of foundations presents itself and leads to giving an account for the ethical order, basing itself on recourse to the regulative force of a principle expressed by the notions of justice and liberty. The ethical requirement manifests itself as an organizational force which is always beyond concrete ethical applications but which is at work in all efforts of particular application. Here we encounter the notion of radicality and we see the foundational dimension of the law (nomos) appear, which connotes the “organizational force” operative in every effort of the historical concretization of the ethical requirement in objective reciprocity. The organizational force “is an original form of the unfolding, in which the original unfolding refracts as a regulative role and as the source of the political diversity of states...it is a matter of a dimension, which one can designate by the term nomos, on the condition of making it signify not a determinate law (even of a superior level) but a principle in virtue of which one can attain an order according to the law” (“Philosophie et langage” 30-31). Indeed this inaugural dimension opens out towards an even more radical origin, towards a completely sovereign order that reverts to the law of the polis as its judicial authority. What emerges in this shift towards a superior form of legislation is the very condition of the ethical dimensions of existence, “the original force of normativity.” Ladrière clarifies as follows the quality of this authority situated above the political: This sovereign order, which presents itself at the most profound level of the nomos, imposes itself on human beings from a place


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which escapes their capacity for decision and which they can but recognize its authority. That which derives from this place imposes itself with the force of the sacred. It is not, however, a matter of exterior constraints, as if it were a foreign power which one was obliged to acknowledge and with whom one entered into more or less costly compromises. That which is thus imposed is what solicits the specifically human dimension in existence to such an extent that it is only in the questioning which the primordial law addresses to them that human beings open themselves to the most authentic dimension of their being. (“Philosophie et langage” 32)

Throughout this dimension the source of being itself is recaptured, displaying the religious dimension of existence as a primordial determination which structures all the other constitutive dimensions of existence (Préface, Approches 5-26; cf. “La pensée” 64ff.). Indeed it is this dimension which foresees the presence of the abyss previously alluded to, which is the dimension of “the withdrawal bestowing being and meaning” which announces itself only the incessant call of an enigma stemming from the roots of the creative source itself. This place is precisely where practical reason is led to the principle governing its capacity for implementation, that is to say the otherworldly horizon that gives meaning to the effective applications in which the ethical requirement resides. The ethical outlook is essentially inexhaustible. It is always situated beyond the concrete efficacies that it sustains, residing in them only partially, without exhausting itself in them. Its movement is always beyond the singularities, which it influences in exceeding them. That is why the ethics of duty can only express itself in the form of images. Ineffable, it cannot be represented except in the form of a pure horizon of possibility, an unrepresentable horizon because it is situated beyond the world. Ethics is a self-transcending requirement awaiting a constantly suspended plenitude. It belongs to an order of fulfillment, of harmony with oneself, of perfection. In addition to the formal indications furnished by the Kantian parables previously alluded to, one can, following Ladrière, describe the finality inscribed at the core of ethics as a realized plenitude, as the fulfillment of all the infinite range of the requirement which constitutes it, and, more precisely, as the arrival of the truth of existence in transcendent joy and beatitude, as the presence of the absolute in the finite, transcending its own capacities for determining existence (“Vie sociale” 104). The aim of ethics, in its infinity, is one of hope, whose fulfillment always appears delayed, transferred outside the spatio-temporal conditions of worldliness, but tenaciously awaited. Unable to be

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absolutized, it is founded on a non-fulfillment awaiting transfiguration and presents itself, in its very own constitution, as a teleological structure. If, however, one cannot represent the ethical impulse except for in a formal mode, if one cannot furnish a phenomenal description of it, it is because this non-thematic form is not given—it can only be invented in action. The ethical life presupposes a concrete actualization to which it is linked, in which the empirical accord between the goal which animates it and the effectiveness it attains is sought. In this accord the aim of ethics empirically equals the fullness of which it is the trace. The aim expresses itself in this trace in all its plenitude through the form of its own fulfillment in the epiphany of truth, which it is. This requires a renewal in concrete history of the virtue of this tendency, this structuring movement, a renewal that is effected in action and in ethical decision, that is to say, in the acceptance of responsibility. The ethical impulse, in its infinity, must commit itself, concretize itself, in finitude. It must always be mediated in concrete singularity. That is why ethics appears as the requirement of the determination of law, that is to say, in the form of a creative requirement: “The ethical dimension presents itself in the form of a path, or, more exactly, of a movement towards an end which is not in the order of the given” (La science 157; see esp. 157-59, 167ff. Cf. L’Articulation I.157-58). It is a progressive integration of the law in ethical effectiveness, a transition from the form to the content, the progressive completion of an inexhaustible impulse that presents itself in the form of a telos. That is why it is a relation to an end that is to come, which remains real and also indeterminate, a relation to a reality already in one sense present yet at the same time situated beyond what is present. It is not simply the end of a path, its product or even its result, but that, which announces itself in it in the form of a call or premonition. One can thus understand why the ethical experience is lived in the mode of suspense, of what is yet to happen, of anticipation, and even of enigma. We are touching here on the heart of the problematic of the foundations of ethics: it is because the ethical requirement is as radical as it is without content that it is supremely effective at the same time as it is non determinate and shapeless.

3. The Historicity of Ethics To say that ethics is a process of invention, a place of creativity, is certainly to say that it is historically determinate, but above all that it


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is radically marked by historicity. To the degree that ethics is unconditional, it is marked by the seal of historicity. It is precisely at the heart of this paradox that the crux of the foundation of ethics is situated. Ladrière explains with finesse: The ethical dimension...manifests itself in so far as it exercises and establishes an authority. It does this in an unconditional and in some way intemporal manner. To speak of the historicity of ethics is, apparently, to directly contest this authority, since historicity introduces difference, variation, and hence relativity. Nonetheless, if it is true that historicity is a constitutive dimension of existence, there must necessarily be a historicity of ethics. This is a structural requirement; in no way is it a contingent property or a purely exterior characteristic. (“Philosophie politique” 222)

The historicity of ethics can be understood in two ways: first, ethics evolves, which implies a certain relativity; and second, it is only in its historical forms that ethics acquires its effectiveness. Truly speaking, it is only through lived ethics that the ethical requirement manifests itself, for the ethical concern does not reveal itself except in situations. Concrete criteria, the particular values required at the level of effective determination, are not given a priori; they can vary according to cultures and the times. There is a necessary indeterminacy of concrete norms as well as a historical evolution of normative principles (Les enjeux 142). As the ethical pluralism which shapes our culture has gratefully displayed, ethical values appear not to receive their value except from themselves, and never from any a priori system; they do not even need to make an appeal to a foundation (“Le panorama” 55-57). The evidence suggests that there is no pre-established harmony regarding a system of values, which it suffices to recall. The proof for this is that axiological consensus remains problematic. This situation indicates that the intentionality at work at the heart of ethical concern remains mysterious; it opens to an enigmatic future that always precedes current projects. Ethics is continuously taking shape and can never present itself as a definitively and effectively constituted whole. It is thus by virtue of the unfathomable character of the ethical experience—as it is of all experience in general—that an irrevocable and fundamental incertitude persists, both with respect to the future of the ethical tendency as well to that which founds it in truth.7 The insertion of historicity at the heart of ethics surfaces what Ladrière calls the paradox of action, that is to say the fact that the universality aimed at by action must necessarily invest itself in singu-

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larity and subject itself to the burden of relativity: “while aiming at a quality which exceeds all particularity, (action) must invest itself in the tissue of events and in a concrete context that inevitably charge it with contingence and pull it towards naturalism” (“Raison” 184). It is at the heart of this transition, which opens up the whole possibility of the mediations of ethical intentionality, that the essence of striving and of ethical questioning can be perceived (“Ethique” 27). Since the ethical inquiry remains formal, the real problem of mediations persists, there where the fate and the quality of free will are truly decided (Les enjeux 140). The entire ethical problem resides in the completion of this intentionality through positive determinations, which determine action in a direct and concrete manner. It is a matter of modifying the universal by means of its modalities, of its concrete specifications of realization; in a word, to inaugurate the concrete universal. If this is the case, one can see how ethics is a domain always open, never predetermined, where the hesitation and incertitude inherent to action hold sway. The criteria that one can invoke at the level of the exercise of ethical judgment are always surpassed; the rule can never express but a requirement which is sedimented in itself and which must be actualized over and over again (“La science” 175-77). It is for this reason that ethics does not correspond to a schema of aleatory emergence, nor to the law of an essence (“Vie sociale” 122). If the norms are but approximations of the ethical impulse, then there can be no absolute norms, and ethics will have to be conceived as a succession of responses evoked by the call underlying them.

4. The Foundational Impulse As an Eschatological Structure of Reason If the characterization of ethics, as I have developed it, is justified, the conclusion arises that it is necessary to undertake the foundational project anew at least in the manner of a partial elucidation of the ethical enterprise. This elucidation must simultaneously be able to clarify and articulate the radicality of the ethical call and the historicity of ethical norms. How do we proceed from here? The way proposed by Ladrière, as I have previously noted, consists of retaining the transgressive intention contained in the notion of foundations while renouncing the possibility of arriving at a first principle. One cannot justify its contents, but one can account for the radicality of the unconditional


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requirement of the ethical call as this prospectively surfaces at the core of experience in the mode of the impulse. The possibility remains of positing a finality, in terms of Kant’s kingdom of ends, which has recourse to the teleology that carries practical reason by virtue of the categorical imperative. One finds in Kant a certain conjunction of ethics as a form and as a historical process: ethics binds action to the kingdom of ends, which is a pure and incommensurable horizon with respect to the actual course of history according to which action must inform and determine itself (see “Philosophie politique” 23033).8 The regulative Idea of an end, which is the arrival of realized freedom, de facto implies a relation to a horizon. This relation can be refined by the phenomenological notion of horizon, which historicizes it by orienting it towards the teleology linked to the development of reason (“Vie sociale” 19ff.). To account for this teleological and historical orientation of reason, Ladrière proposes to retrieve the eschatological structure of Christianity, prescinding from all theological connotations, and analogically transpose it to reason in order to uncover the eschatological structure unique to reason (“La perspective” 188). This strategy makes it possible to account for the historicity of reason, that is to say, of the principle that determines the emergence of reason as a historical process (“La perspective” 179; cf. “L’université” 113). In other words, it allows us to consider the transcendence of reason, identifiable at the very heart of experience itself, and to orient towards the meaning that finds and surpasses it (“Raison” 189). This transposition evidently rests on the presupposition that reason, in its concrete unfolding, is carried by the historical structure of Christianity which it has inherited (see “Historicité” 17-18). The notion of the eschatological structure of reason makes it possible to clarify the meaning of the internal normativity of reason, such as it allows itself to be discovered in its very own development. It is precisely this structure which is brought to light by ethical intentionality. This comes as no surprise since the ethical impulse is carried itself by the project of reason in its practical mode. The salient features of the eschatological structure were previously indicated as specifying that which is inherent to the status of action. This structure in effect discloses itself as the declaration of a future event, at once imminent and deferred, suspended. This event remains indeterminate, incapable of representation or illustration; it is a pure openness, at once a pure horizon of indeterminacy and fulfillment, which engages an entire space of expectation and creativity. The eschaton is a horizontal reality which acts in the manner of an invitation, a mo-

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bilizing call, an inspiring source: the self-constitution of reason, its own emergence, is nothing other than the response it makes to this call. In so far as anticipated, it gives meaning to the creative effort which “is at once the realization, the position of effectiveness, and expectation” (“Le panorama” 61). In other words, while remaining withheld, it opens, in so far as it is the pure condition of opening up the field of effective action as well as in virtue of its own effectiveness, the field of possibles, of effective operations “ensure that historicity is a creative historicity” (“Le panorama” 62). The eschaton, in so far as it arises from the event and from liberty, and not from a necessity of nature, qualifies the development of reason as a historical becoming, as a destiny, and not as a mere teleological mechanism in the strict sense of the term. This requires that the telos of reason must be understood as “an immanent normativity which orients, without turning it into the expression of a finalizing principle, in the sense of an immanent project” (“Le christianisme” 217).9 The eschaton cannot but let itself be inferred, as that which attests itself in the very anticipation of reason, as that which at once declares itself and is already at work in reason. It can only be indicated from afar, by conceptual “indices,” to use the expression of Ladrière, such as truth and justice. There can be no total instance of the eschaton, since there can never be a perfect identity between effective action and the dynamism which carries it along. Irrepresentable, one can only speak of it metaphorically, Ladrière claims, as an intentionality rendered visible and grown effective, real, a kingdom of meaning, a vision of truth or even an event of meaning itself, of an integral and absolute epiphany. This is the moment where the just and the true will arrive, in the mode not of a progressive unfolding or of the manifestation of a secret presence at work in history, but as a pure event of gift in which “the work of reason abolishes itself...and [whose] content finally appears beyond all illustrations and forms, a content which never ceased to anticipate its inaugurations” (“Raison” 191). Because it does not stem from the order of phenomenality, the eschaton is not the object of a vision; the rapport it enjoys with reason is a rapport of hope, and not a rapport of evidence, nor even, strictly speaking, of belief. That is why the eschaton is situated in the order of promise, not of representation; it pertains to the register of affectivity or even of desire. This coming event-emergence is always in question, and continually remains problematical, improbable. The eschaton is the hope of reason, the patient and obscure anticipation of an event; it expresses this effort and prompts reason to responsibility. The eschaton is a


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reality which manifests itself in the mode of “already” and “not yet,” both as present and as absent, mysteriously and extremely close as well as at the same time infinitely distant as that which is always yet to come. It is always active and arriving, real and yet still to be inaugurated; it is at work in the present, where it makes its provocative power felt, while being removed in an otherworldly horizon, since its complete totality is not actually present at this moment. The mode of the eschaton is that of presence in the inaccessibility of retreat, inspiration which is beyond us: “it is in the mode of that which is always yet to come, as the remote which remains unattainable” (“Raison” 173), as the plenitude of meaning which confers significance on historical awakenings. The eschaton expresses an occurrence which simultaneously presents itself as an achievement and completion as well as a rupture, a radical discontinuity with the present; in brief, as a novelty, Ladrière insists that the eschaton, as an ultimate end, isolated in its difference, situates itself in total discontinuity with that which precedes it, all the while gaining itself from the autoconstitution of reason, since it is reason’s animating source. It inspires every effort and at the same time is constituted by the efforts that it inspires. The following passage skillfully summarizes what Ladrière understands by the eschaton of reason: In the context of a reflection on reason, (the eschaton) signifies the event of the realization of reason as an event to come but not identifiable, giving meaning to every event in which reason constructs and discovers itself, operating now in terms of coming towards us from a future which is not homogenous in the present, at once visible in so far as it is an inspiring force of effective initiatives, and enigmatic in so far as it declares itself always only in a directive appeal and never with a predetermined content (“L’université” 114).

Conclusion In this study I have attempted to show that the eschatological structure of reason makes it possible to account for ethical experience as a continually constituted process “based on the ground of a horizon which is the pure ethical life, finally established in its effectiveness” (“Le panorama” 56), and to furnish a “foundation” that is adequate both to the radicality which characterizes it and to its inevitable historicity. The reinterpretation of ‘foundation’ proposed here is nothing other than the elucidation of the very structure of this ethical

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experience sustained by an anticipating aim. The eschaton appears as a non-objectifiable end that mobilizes and inspires reason in terms of normativity. It is the non-totalizable condition of the effective implementation of ethics. The interests of ethical reason become transparent in the eschaton, which itself constitutes ethical reason as a task by bringing it back to its responsibility. From the point of view of the eschatology of reason, the justification demanded by reason never takes place, and yet reason continues to expect it in the hope that one day it will take place, assuming the risk inherent in any effort of pure trust. Thus reason appears as the unfounded hope of its justification: Reason, as a process of its own constitution, always arising, always different, is suspended in the non-justifiable, non-representable occurrence of that which, from now on, effectively gives it meaning. It is the very hope of that which, out of its non-identifiable future, supports it in so far as it is hope...Its present unfolding is suspended, as a declaration, towards an event which always is yet to happen, already present and yet always awaited, in the fragility of an unfounded hope. (“Le christianisme” 217-18)

Ethics is nothing other than the waiting for the parousia of justice, the “foretaste of a future always in suspense” which is its wholly enigmatic and yet very close goal, and which it prefigures, from afar, in every one of its initiatives (“Les figures” 127-28). Ladrière emphasizes that the status of the eschaton is of a structural order. More precisely, this status derives from the transcendental, in the sense that it belongs to the constitution of reason. It does not stem from the phenomenal, nor is it noumenal; reason on its own cannot explicate the content of the eschaton. The eschaton designates an event occurring in a totally unexpected and gratuitous way in the order of gift. This accomplished totality—this recapitulation of all the instantiations of reason understood as so many provisory illustrations of the universal—is the final event which marks the end of the development of reason and is reason’s “fulfillment-event” in the form of a concrete universal. This event, which goes beyond the structural capacities of reason, will be noumenal, opening into the radical alterity of reason and consequently into a perspective which surpasses the pure ethical problematic of duty and is directed towards a soteriology focused on the future of the very truth of the constitutive structure of reason.


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The paradoxical status of reason is to live in a tension which, carrying reason towards its ultimate instance, is the mysterious anticipation, in it, of an encounter which absolutely exceeds the conditions of its own constitution, in such a way that its effective realization finally reveals itself as being nothing but the instance of that which, without knowing it, it has ever thus been called to be. (“Le perspective” 190)

Reason thus seeks in a tenacious way to give an account of the ineradicable hope which animates it, and in which it aspires to discover the promise of an apocalypse of meaning related to the proclamation of a Word.

Notes 1

Translated by Derek Simon. In the pages that follow, my account is influenced by “Le destin de la rationalité” 161ff. 3 Concerning the humanities and the problem of foundations, see Vie Sociale et destinée 198-210. For the natural sciences, consult “La perspective eschatologique” 183 ff. 4 “That which must be preserved is the foundation as the act of founding, or more precisely as the transgression of the immediate. According to the proposed viewpoint, a foundation can no longer signify the disclosure of an ultimate instance of support, but the effort to pursue the indications of traces that stand out in the space without the figure of manifestation, in the space above the abyss” (“L’abîme” 190). 5 “The matter under consideration, consequently, is the implementation of an order of interhuman relations in which concrete human beings can mutually recognize one another in their liberty, can treat one another as free beings, and hence as ends each for the other, in no way whatsoever as means. More precisely, what needs to be considered is the elaboration of an institutional system which would be adequate to the requirements of liberty, and which could serve to support an order of reciprocity” (L’Articulation II.327). 6 I draw here on “Philosophie et langage” 21-38. Cf. “Philosophie politique” 212 ff. 7 “This helps us understand... that ethics is not a closed realm, but, to the contrary, a field always open, both because the constitutive requirement which promotes it is always infinitely above the approximations by which it is mediated, and because situations change and demand re-evaluations… There is thus an essential element of novelty and of creativity in ethics” (Les enjeux 142). This situation does not prevent us from discovering an immanent teleology common to the different ways in which ethical insights may be expressed. 8 See L’Articulation du sens: 2

The concept of an order of ends is pertinent because it allows us to think justifiably, but not in a utopian manner, of an ultimate horizon of reason, considered in its practical dimension. This concept does not risk overwhelming time and immediately placing itself at the end of history. It

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Louis Perron constructs itself entirely in terms of the present, in terms of an analysis of the internal structure of free will. But it helps us understand how, through its very structure, free will—and hence human reality in its most essential core—is, in its current efforts, both the requirement and the anticipation of a state of affairs to be realized which also presents itself as the horizon of its action. It is from this horizon that it receives its meaningfulness, it is in terms of its that its tasks are clarified. There is, in the actuality of volition, a relation which is truly constitutive of a future world, whose realization depends on what it will make of itself and which nevertheless, in a sense, is already there as an indication of the requirement which precisely founds the obligatory character of the moral law. (II.329)

9

Also, “Historicity can no longer be thought either as the progressive manifestation of original potentialities, or as a projection into exteriority of constitutive requirements, or as the temporal advancement of a subject, or as a process governed by an intrinsic or extrinsic finality” Ladrière. “Le christianisme” 217. See also “Raison et eschatologie” (189ff.) and “La perspective eschatologique” (186ff.).

References Ladrière, Jean. “L’abîme.” Savoir, faire, espérer; les limites de la raison.Vol. I. Bruxelles: Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, 1976. ———. L’Articulation du sens. 2 vols. I: Discours scientifique et parole de la foi. II: Les langages de la foi Paris: Cerf, 1984. ———. “Le christianisme et le devenir de la raison.” Christianisme et modernité. Ed. R. Ducret, D. Hervieu-Leger, P. Ladrière. Paris: Cerf, 1990. ———. “La déstabilisation de l’éthique.” Variations sur l’éthique. Hommage à Jacques Dabin. Bruxelles: Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, 1994. ———. “Le destin de la rationalité. Bulletin Académie Royale de Belgique. Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques. 5 (1992) 161ff. ———. Les enjeux de la rationalité. Le défi de la science et de la technologie aux cultures. Paris: Aubier/UNESCO, 1977. ———. “Éthique et politique.” Communio 6 (juillet 1976) 23ff. ———. “Les figures de la raison.” Figures de la rationalité. Études d’anthropologie philosophique. IV. Ed. G. Florival. Paris/Louvain-la-Neuve: Vrin/Peeters/Éditions de l’Institut supérieur de philosophie, 1991. ———. “Historicité et vérité. Approche philosophique.” Le Supplément 188-89 (janv-juin 1994) 11-52. ———. “Le panaroma de l’Europe du point de vue de la philosophie et des sciences de l’esprit.” La Nouvelle Europe. Défi à l’Église et à la théologie. Ed. P. Hünermann. Paris: Cerf, 1994. ———. “La pensée scientifique et l’intention apologétique.” Communio 3:4 (juillet 1978) 64ff. ———. “La perspective eschatologique en philosophie.” Temps et eschatologie. Données bibliques et problématiques contemporaines. Ed. J.-L. Leuba. Paris: Cerf, 1994. ———. “Philosophie et langage.” Philosophie et langage. Bruxelles: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1982. 21-38. ———. “Philosophie politique et philosophie analytique.” Fondements d’une théorie de la justice. Essais critiques sur la philosophie politique de John Rawls. Ed. J.


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Ladrière and P. Van Parijs. Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1984. ———. Préface. Approches contemporaines de Dieu en fonction des implications philosophiques du Beau. J.-D. Robert. Paris: Beauchesne, 1982 ———. Préface. L’inflation du langage dans la philosophie contemporaine. By G. Hottois. Bruxelles: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1971. ———. “La problématique actuelle de la philosophie chrétienne.” Il senso della filosofia cristiana. Brescia: Morcelliana, 1978. ———. “Raison et eschatologie.” Revue de l’Université d’Ottawa–University of Ottawa Quarterly 55: 4 (October-December 1985) 173 ff. ———. La science, le monde, et la foi. Tournai, Belgium: Casterman, 1972. ———. “L’université catholique et l’intelligence de la foi.” Défis présents et à venir de l’université catholique. Actes du colloque international du centenaire de l’Université Saint-Paul (28-31 août 1989). Ed. J. Croteau. Ottawa, ON: Université SaintPaul, 1990. ———. Vie Sociale et destinée. Gembloux, Belgium: Duculot, 1973.

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The Foundations of Ethics and Moral Practices1

William Sweet One of the long-standing concerns in philosophical ethics has been the discovery of, or the establishment of the basis of, moral principles or standards. Recently, however, there has been some question whether such an enterprise is even possible. Several authors have argued that moral standards, and the arguments for them, are contextually determined, and some have concluded from this that there are no objective ethical standards or moral principles, and that we are led to either skepticism, relativism or perspectivism. An exception to this latter view is found in the work of Alasdair MacIntyre.2 What I wish to do here is, first, briefly outline MacIntyre’s view and some of his arguments for it. Next, I raise a few problems with his alternative, suggesting that his approach might force him to the relativism that he is anxious to avoid. But I will also argue that MacIntyre’s view is instructive, for it draws our attention to the importance of moral practices and the institutions and traditions that support them. I shall suggest that, if we look closely at such practices and institutions, we will arrive at certain ideas that would allow us to maintain, not only that objective moral standards are possible, but that we can provide reasoned argument for them.

I Why is the claim that it is impossible to demonstrate moral standards considered by many to be objectionable? (By ‘demonstrated,’ here, I mean ‘shown to be true independently of the context or set of practices in which such standards are observed’). The presumption seems to be that if moral standards (and the arguments for them) are contextually determined and lack rational foundations, then we can never be certain that the standards held by any community are legitimate or justifiable, and we have no method by which we can critically evaluate other (or rival) moral standards and practices, or by which we can prefer one set of standards over another.3 In other words, we end up in relativism or perspectivism.

11 ~ The Foundations of Ethics and Moral Practices

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Now I think that there are reasons why we are not forced to a relativistic result—though I do not want to refer to them yet. For there is one approach in recent moral philosophy that denies the preceding presumption. This is the view of Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre claims that he can affirm the antecedent of this presumption, and deny the consequent—that is, maintain that moral theories are contextually fixed, not demonstrable and even incommensurable with one another, and yet insist that this does not lead us to relativism (see MacIntyre, Whose Justice 352ff.) and does not forbid us from engaging in the evaluation of moral systems (for example, asserting the superiority of some moral systems over others). It might be useful to give some background here. As is well known, MacIntyre is a critic of much of the philosophy (and especially the moral philosophy) since the Enlightenment. Specifically, he attacks three principles which he thinks central to post-Enlightenment thought: first, that there is a model of rationality as dispassionate and formal, which provides a set of rules or procedures that will enable all thinking beings to arrive at universal and objective truth; second, that one can speak of a disinterested and neutral thinking subject, able to make judgments independently of his or her place in society and in history; and, third, that these first two claims can be extended to ethics—that is, that human beings can find or establish a set of ethical rules and procedures that are impartial, universal and absolute such that, by following them, they can determine or do what is ‘right’ or ‘just.’ MacIntyre argues that these features of post-Enlightenment thought not only continue to influence, but lie at the core of, contemporary moral philosophy. Yet it is clear that this ‘Enlightenment’ model has failed—particularly in setting up standards for rationality and morality. MacIntyre points to apparently interminable ethical debate and argues that this is largely due to an inability to arrive at rational criteria for securing moral agreement. But this is not the only reason for the failure of moral philosophy, for the discussion of moral issues has become increasingly problematic. Our moral discourse includes reference to virtues (derived from an Aristotelian ethic), ideals of altruism and self-sacrifice (based on Judeo-Christian divine law theory), an emphasis on nature and natural law (derived from the Stoics and the medievals), demands for rights (a product of early liberalisms), talk of common goods, and so on. But what is absent from our discourse are the respective contexts in which all of these values initially appeared and have their proper place.

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The net result of this is that, when it comes to discussions of morality and to moral philosophy, all one finds are just ‘values’ floating around in moral space. Because these values have been taken out of the contexts in which they had their meaning and force, what we are left with are sets of incomparable or incommensurable preferences. This reduction of values to mere preferences is what MacIntyre refers to as ‘emotivism’—that is, to say that something is good or evil is simply to indicate one’s approval or disapproval of it. And if values are just preferences, there is no reason why one person’s preferences should be judged better than, or worse than, anyone else’s. For some, what is important is ‘doing good;’ for others it is ‘being virtuous;’ some insist that what is good is what respects our rights; others insist that rights are limited by the good. Thus, we can no longer take for granted that there are any universally recognized moral values or principles. Moreover, while the way we approach questions of morality suggests that there are solutions to these matters, MacIntyre holds that there can be none, since contemporary moral philosophy lacks a unified context that allows us to understand and give adequate weight to the various values present in its discourse. In short, MacIntyre’s assessment is that contemporary society and contemporary moral philosophy are in a state of confusion, and that the Enlightenment strategy (which underlies our current philosophical approaches to ethics) is asking us to do something that simply cannot be done, sc., rise above our historical and cultural context to criticize and evaluate our and others’ values. Even if the Enlightenment approach were possible, it and its ‘values of autonomy and authentic choice are not grounded but are themselves only the preferences of an individualist culture’ (Kelly 130). At the very best, it gives us just another system among the large number of ethical systems that have arisen in the course of human history. Consequently, it can neither set the standard for morality nor provide us with a proof or demonstration that could establish that such a standard is binding on all human beings. But does this denial of the possibility of proof or of rational foundations not constitute a problem for moral philosophy and for morality as a whole? In the first place, MacIntyre would say, a demand for proof in ethics (at least in the sense described above) is something odd; it is certainly not a question that would have been raised by a classical philosopher like Aristotle. Aristotle was not concerned with proving that one should be moral, but rather with describing how one could lead a moral life and what such a life was like. The absence of ‘philosophical demonstration,’ then, does not require one to aban-


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don morality. Besides, MacIntyre would add, the attempt to prove the existence of universal and objective moral standards in some neutral way obviously hasn’t panned out. So perhaps one simply can’t produce such a proof. Any worry one may have about this is, no doubt, just a hangover from an intoxication with the spirits of the Enlightenment. How are we, then, to avoid relativism and skepticism? MacIntyre says that we should return to principles present in pre-Enlightenment views. We must, to begin with, reintroduce the notion of teleology into our vocabulary. Actions, MacIntyre notes, do not make sense unless they are put in the contexts of their purposes—that is, what they are is intelligible only in light of why they are done. The same thing holds true of moral practices (like the exercise of virtues). This notion of ‘moral practice’ is central to MacIntyre’s account. According to MacIntyre, a practice is: any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of ends and goods involved, are systematically extended. (MacIntyre, After Virtue 187)

Thus, throwing a football is not a practice, “but the game of football is.... Bricklaying is not a practice; architecture is.... So are the enquiries of physics, chemistry and biology, and so is the work of the historian” (MacIntyre, After Virtue 187). And so, presumably, is morality. If we employ this notion of ‘practice,’ while there cannot be a demonstration of moral principles, there can be a justification of one’s actions. But justification of actions occurs ‘internally.’ When we look at the actions that occur within a practice, we see that ends and means cannot be described independently of one another, and ‘ends’ or ‘goods’ themselves are determined within or defined by the practice. Neither ends nor actions nor the practices as a whole need to be (or even can be) legitimated by meeting some external standard or norm. Actions, then, must be understood within the context of a practice or an activity; it is that which aims at a particular end. And, by looking at moral actions from such a teleological perspective, MacIntyre would say, we avoid the challenge of Hume’s division of ‘ought’ from ‘is.’

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According to MacIntyre, we must, moreover, employ a broader conception of reason—at least, as it applies to ethics—that is, revive what is often called ‘practical reason.’ Rather than adopt a formal and procedural view of reason and rationality (i.e., one that proposes to find, or to set up, a series of rules, independent of some particular good to be achieved, whose ‘product’ is ‘the good’), we should look for a model of reason that is more substantive. Besides, MacIntyre argues, it would be impossible to specify a set of moral rules that were fully explicit and exhaustive (Taylor 28). We cannot, as the Enlightenment approach suggests we can, take account of all values and find a set of rules that can help us to priorize these values while at the same time recognizing them for what they are and giving them their moral weight. Moreover, a ‘rationalistic’ procedure based on the mere following of certain rules falls short; what we need instead is the development of skill in judgment—something suggested by Aristotle’s model of the practically wise person, the phronimos. Here, reason leaves room for the notion of ‘insight.’ What MacIntyre proposes, then, is not another ethical system governed by a series of rules or principles, but a virtue-based ethic, where what ought to be done cannot be derived deductively from rules and precepts and, hence, cannot be the product of proof or rational demonstration. Here, moral practices and values can be said to be ‘reasonable’ in the sense that they are seen as ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’ by those who are proficient within the practice. (To see what is meant by ‘appropriate,’ we can think of what counts as a good move in a game—which is usually something more than simply following a specific rule or rules). Indeed, philosophical ethics turns from a focus on right action or ‘doing good,’ and moves to a concern with ‘right living’ or ‘being good.’ But how, one might ask, does this avoid the consequence of relativism? Isn’t it true, for example, that what is appropriate in one practice and in one culture may not be appropriate in another? Good strategy in ice hockey—e.g., roughing up your opponent—is not good strategy in chess. In fact, isn’t MacIntyre just giving us yet another model of a moral system? Here, it is important to understand MacIntyre’s notion of ‘tradition.’4 MacIntyre describes it using the language of narrative; a tradition is “an argument extended through time in which certain fundamental agreements are defined and redefined” (Whose Justice? 12) “about the goods the pursuit of which gives to that tradition its particular point and purpose” (MacIntyre, After Virtue 222).5 Particular moral beliefs and practices are constituted or formed by the tradi-


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tions in which they are found. But although a tradition has “its own standards of rational justification... its set of authoritative texts and... expresses itself socially through a particular kind of hierarchy” (MacIntyre, Whose Justice? 345), and although it is embodied in distinctive institutions and practices and forms of activity, we can still talk of the superiority of one tradition over another. How is this possible? MacIntyre points out that traditions may experience ‘epistemological crises’ (see e.g., Whose Justice? 361)—times when practices or the tradition as a whole seems to run into a dead end. And even though we are all rooted in a specific tradition, should we ever be confronted with certain grave problems or limitations, he writes, we might find ourselves turning to another outlook or tradition. But this is ‘not because this other view possesses some sort of transcendental truth or objective validity,’ but simply because it enables us to address problems in our own view, “and so constitutes an advance on it, in relative but not absolute terms” (Stern 151). It is when a tradition in crisis recognizes that there is something in other traditions that would enable it to respond to the problems it is experiencing, and uses this to respond, that we have ‘progress.’ Such a move is ‘rational’—something that a practically wise person would see—though the notion of rationality, here, remains internal to a tradition. And so we can talk about ‘rationality’ and ‘progress’ in ethics. In fact, to attempt to talk of ‘rationality’ or progress in any other way cannot but fail. Thus, MacIntyre writes, [w]hat rendered Newtonian physics rationally superior to its Galilean and Aristotelian predecessors and to its Cartesian rivals was that it was able to transcend their limitations by solving problems in areas in which those predecessors and rivals could by their own standards of scientific progress make no progress. So we cannot say wherein the rational superiority of Newtonian physics consisted except historically in terms of its relationship to those predecessors and rivals whom it challenged and displaced. Abstract Newtonian physics from its context, and then ask wherein the rational superiority of one to the other consists, and you will be met with insoluble incommensurability problems. (After Virtue 268)

MacIntyre uses a similar example in Whose Justice? (365), and other illustrations of this model of ‘progress’ might be taken from the history of art6 and from the development of Christian dogma (see the reference to Cardinal Newman in MacIntyre, Whose Justice? 353-54). More generally, MacIntyre says that for us to determine whether there has been ‘progress,’

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William Sweet this in some ways radically new and conceptually enriched scheme... must furnish a solution to the problems which had previously proved intractable in a systematic and coherent way. Second, it must also provide an explanation of just what it was that rendered the tradition, before it has acquired these new resources, sterile or incoherent or both. And third, these first two tasks must be carried out in a way which exhibits some fundamental continuity of the new conceptual and theoretical structures with the shared beliefs in terms of which the tradition of enquiry had been defined up to this point. (Whose Justice? 362).

But, of course, in some cases one will have to acknowledge that by embracing the beliefs of an alien tradition, one cannot return to one’s own—that its principles and beliefs are no longer ‘true’ and that “the alien tradition is superior in rationality and in respect of its claims to truth” than one’s own (MacIntyre, Whose Justice? 365). So, even though on his model of moral philosophy there are no self-evident first principles, no axioms of ethics and no demonstration, MacIntyre insists that it does not follow that ‘anything goes’ or that there can be no progress in ethics or no reason to prefer one system or theory over another. Nor does MacIntyre think he is just giving us just another moral theory. Rather, he argues that he is providing us with an approach that can incorporate all other theories and recognize the weight of the values contained within them. It is by understanding ‘rationality’ as ‘that which a wise person would do’ and by understanding ‘progress’ as ‘what results when a tradition deals with its problems by looking to resources in other traditions,’ that we can talk of one tradition as superior to another. This ‘superiority’ is shown by means of a narrative; it does not entail approximation to some external, absolute standard. And, similarly, when it comes to discussing traditions or theories, we can construct a narrative—a story—in which we can see shifts from one set of activities or values to another or within which actions or practices are seen to be justified. Indeed, MacIntyre says that we can still maintain that there is ‘truth’ (Whose Justice? 363-65). For if a theoretical standpoint can explain why it disagrees with other traditions or rival points of view, it “will be in a position to vindicate its claim to truth” (MacIntyre, “A Partial Response” 297). And it is because “Thomist-Aristotelianism enables us to achieve an adequate understanding both of our own history and that of others” that “it vindicates its claim to have identified the standards by appeal to which all practices and traditions are to be evaluated” (MacIntyre, “A Partial Response” 300).


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II A number of criticisms have been, or might be, raised concerning MacIntyre’s project. Some have dealt with the adequacy of his description of the Enlightenment tradition and its putative failings; others have addressed the intellectual ancestry of MacIntyre’s own view; yet others have challenged MacIntyre’s insistence that rationality and ethical standards are definable only in terms of a specific tradition. But what is more relevant for our present purposes is whether MacIntyre has correctly stated what the moral situation is, whether his view can do what he claims it does, and whether his view—or any such similar view—successfully avoids collapsing into relativism or perspectivism, or leading to skepticism. Now, some questions or criticisms are obvious. To begin with, is the current situation in morality and in moral theory as MacIntyre describes it, are his problems with contemporary moral philosophy warranted, and do they lend credence to the kind of alternative he proposes? The mere fact of the diversity of moral discourses or of the continuity of debate does not prove MacIntyre’s claim of the irresolvability of issues in the present moral climate; the justification for his abandonment of proof in ethics is, as it were, underdetermined by the evidence. What such continued debate may suggest, however, is that, when we are presented with controversial questions, discussion rarely starts in the most productive place and disagreement quickly tends to confrontation. And even if it is true that there will never be general or widespread consensus or agreement about many ethical problems, it does not follow that the ‘rationalist’ approach is useless or irrelevant. It is not obviously the case that, to have rationality in a field, we must—as MacIntyre’s remarks suggest we must— also be able to agree in advance on the weight to be attached to any given relevant consideration and have agreement on the conclusions.7 Again, need we admit that moral theories are as historically and contextually bound as MacIntyre says? MacIntyre rightly draws our attention to the fact that our moral discourse—like all discourse—is rooted in a particular historical and social context. But it is an old saying that the fact that we learn about certain values or engage in certain practices within a particular historical context does not prove that these values or practices are based on, and have sense alone in, such a context. (For example, one might say that many beliefs about agriculture are transmitted in and through a culture, though they have their origins and truth independent of that particular culture.) Though history and social context are undoubtedly involved in the

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awareness or articulation of ethical beliefs, MacIntyre has not established that moral theories or values are entirely constituted by the traditions in which they arise and, hence, why we must abandon foundationalism and ‘rationalism.’ Other criticisms of MacIntyre’s analysis of moral philosophy focus on his description of the relations among ethical theories and among various traditions (e.g., that moral theories are ultimately incommensurable) and on his account of the nature of ‘progress.’ First, MacIntyre’s remarks on the relations among ethical theories seem inconsistent. If we are as historically bound as he says we are and if ethical theories are incommensurable, then it is unclear how anyone could ‘look beyond’ his or her tradition to find solutions to its problems in other traditions. Perhaps one can say that contact with other traditions may provide the psychological occasion to attempt to deal with epistemic crises, but it would seem that MacIntyre cannot consistently say that one has done so as a result of understanding something in those other traditions. For how could one have a sense of what these other traditions have to say unless we can establish, in some way, comparability or commensurability between them?8 Indeed, if one cannot do so, it is difficult to imagine how one could construct a narrative (or even a series of intelligible vignettes) of these different ethical discourses. Second, does MacIntyre’s analysis in fact allow us to speak of progress? While practices may change—and even if we could describe such change by means of a narrative—is the fact that epistemological crises appear to have been (or are believed to have been) addressed, any evidence that there has been progress? Certainly not enough. To say that there is progress because practitioners agree that there is, is, for example, insufficient. Even though one may look for evidence of progress by looking at the impact of new data on one’s beliefs or practices, the judgment that there is progress here (as distinct from ‘change’) appears to require criteria external to the tradition. Nor would the appeal to ‘narrative’ guarantee that one could show that there has been progress. If we think of those occasions when practices change radically, it is difficult to describe them as just ‘improvements’ or as mere instances of ‘progress,’9 and thus it does not seem that there could be any narrative to relate them to one another beyond saying that one practice or tradition followed another in time. Furthermore, while it is true that MacIntyre gives his readers several putative examples of development and progress in traditions, it is curious that these examples are drawn primarily, if not exclusively, from the history of science (see After Virtue 268; Whose Justice? 363).


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But it is not at all obvious that we talk of ‘progress’ in moral philosophy, or art, or literature in the way in which we talk about progress in science.10 The fact that one moral theory follows another moral theory in time is not even a prima facie indication of its being an improvement, nor is the issue of whether one theory allows us ‘to do’ something that prior theories did not obviously relevant. What is more plausibly relevant to seeing an ethical theory as ‘making progress’ would be whether there was greater coherence with beliefs outside of ethics (e.g., religious and empirical beliefs) than a knowledge of when it was articulated or of what the context was in which it arose. Moreover, when we do speak of progress in ethics or ethical practices, it is not just that our practices are internally more coherent—i.e., that we have met the standard of an internalist account of truth—but that our beliefs and practices show an awareness of problems in the world and go some way to helping us deal with or address them, and this is quite distinct from whether one’s moral view has or can overcome ‘epistemological crises.’ Again, one might ask whether MacIntyre is correct in claiming that practices must be evaluated in terms of their (internal) ends and not by reference to anything external to them. It seems that some practices are formed by, or are called to respond to, a factor or purpose that is quite independent of whatever internal goals they may come to have. Moreover, practices have their origin in, or are the result of, actions that individuals choose to engage in. These actions, however, would seem to be the appropriate objects of a moral evaluation external to the practice that they establish. And, further, MacIntyre’s views on practices would suggest that it does not make sense to ask what the good of a practice may be, and exclude the possibility that there may be goods (e.g., human self-realization) which determine but which also transcend all our practices (see note 13). Yet there is no obvious reason to accept either of these consequences. Finally, even if we allow that MacIntyre’s proposal is coherent and plausible, is it one that would enable us to ‘bring together’ or give adequate weight to the different values one finds in moral discourse? As noted above, the model of ‘reason’ that MacIntyre describes is that instantiated by the phronimos—the person of practical wisdom. The practically wise person will have insight, but that insight, on MacIntyre’s view, is determined by criteria within a tradition, and it is itself based on only that tradition. Would the practically wise person in one tradition be a person of ‘insight’ or have much relevant to say in another tradition? Moreover, it is not at all obvious how a practically wise person (particularly one as historically constituted as

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MacIntyre says we all are) could go beyond his tradition in any radical way, and it is certainly not clear, given MacIntyre’s assumptions, whether different practically wise people from different traditions would ever come close to arriving at similar insights. Again, to insist on the independence and the incommensurability of traditions or moral theories suggests that even new experience or new phenomena not only need not, but cannot, prove that one should abandon a system of belief, and such a view also seems to prevent us from saying that when one adopts a new system of belief, it is not merely different, but better. Despite his efforts to the contrary, the model of moral philosophy that MacIntyre proposes appears to be little more than another competing moral theory. Admittedly, MacIntyre would respond that he can reply to (at least some of ) the preceding charges, but if practices and traditions cannot be evaluated externally, if moral theories are incommensurable with one another, and if there is no narrative that can adequately comprehend all moral systems, it is not obvious that he can avoid relativism. Moreover, if his own alternative is no more successful at establishing unity or consensus in moral debate than those of (post) Enlightenment moral philosophy, it is difficult to see how we might not find ourselves skeptical about the possibility of progress or truth in ethics. MacIntyre’s analysis does not, then, provide a satisfactory alternative to the theories he demurs from.

III Nevertheless, there is something in MacIntyre’s anti-foundationalist analysis of reason and of ethics that may, in fact, lead us to a more fruitful model of moral philosophy that has many of the features found in ‘traditional’ accounts. So, even if there may be ‘external’ grounds for insisting, contra MacIntyre, that classical moral theory and argument are possible, there are also elements within his professed view that would suggest that there can be objectivity and proof in ethics. Let us grant, for the moment, that MacIntyre is right in claiming that one should not assume that there is a foundation or basis to ethics, in the sense of there being a set of self-evident axioms from which all ethical principles or judgments can (or must) be derived (i.e., there are no ‘first principles’ and there is no deduction of one’s moral obligations), and that we should focus instead on the phenomenon of moral practices and on ethical or moral activity. What sorts of things do we see?


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We notice that those who engage in such practices act on what we might call basic ethical beliefs. Some such beliefs are (non-reflectively) recognized as ‘true’ or are ‘triggered’ in us (e.g., a belief like “It is morally wrong to beat an infant” might be triggered on seeing or on hearing of such a thing). Some might be said to be self-warranting (such as “Good is to be done and sought after, and evil is to be avoided” (Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q. 94, a. 2, resp.). Some are ‘intuited’ (e.g., “It is good to help one who is in pain”)—we might understand some instances of ‘conscience’ in this way. And some are characteristic of life in a particular community or tradition (e.g., beliefs about who one can engage in sexual activity with, and when). In general, these beliefs are beliefs which one holds without evidence, and they serve as the basis for other beliefs. But they are more importantly ‘framework beliefs’—beliefs that we grow up with or into, and which constitute (at least in part) our ethical noetic structure. The fundamental character of such beliefs is shown by our acting on them—and perhaps having always acted on some of them— without being conscious of doing so. If we look at basic beliefs about the world, for example, we notice that those who engage in practices such as counting, talking to others, building, and so on, act on— and, if asked, would unhesitatingly admit—such beliefs (e.g., that the world is extended, exists over time, consists of a plurality of objects, and so on). And they would say that these beliefs command their assent. The same could be said for the preceding ethical beliefs. (This does not entail, however, that these beliefs are innate, nor does it mean that the propositions expressing such knowledge are logically self-evident or that such beliefs are infallibly true.) MacIntyre would, of course, insist that we should not be misled by the number or kinds of ‘basic’ ethical beliefs. For example, the recognition of a belief as true or of it being triggered in me, he would argue, already depends on one’s participation within a practice—that is, the practice provides or is the framework by which the belief is intelligible and is the context on the basis of which we can act on it, call the attention of others to it, and so on. Still, one cannot deny that in any system of ethics or in ethical practices there are such framework beliefs. We also notice that there are non-basic ethical beliefs. Some are ‘derived’ from basic beliefs (e.g., I may believe that capital punishment is wrong because I believe that all killing is wrong and because [analytically] capital punishment requires killing). Some are ‘seen to be true’; after some reflection—though not in any particularly explicit or deductive way—one might say, “I see that I ought to be-

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come a vegetarian.” And other non-basic beliefs can lead us to ‘go beyond’ present practice—though not arbitrarily so. Consider, for example, the previously mentioned phenomenon of ethical insight. Here, beliefs or practices may be articulated or developed that are quite novel in light of current ethical practices. A few comments might be made here. First, when we look at basic—or, to be more precise, these ‘framework’—beliefs, we see they are not only presupposed in ethical practices but are present in social structures and institutions. The connection between such beliefs and practices or institutions is very close—these beliefs not only reflect but, in some sense, determine traditions and institutions—and one might even say that practices and social institutions are the concrete manifestation of ethical belief. Second, consider those non-basic beliefs that reflect one having gone ‘beyond’ current practices. We see that they come to exist because of the ‘open’ nature of human experience; changing events in the world may occasion a new ethical response. (It has been suggested, for example, that the abolition of slavery was not incidentally connected with the development of technologies that rendered such labour unnecessary or uneconomical.) While such ethical insight is possible only because there are pre-existing practices on the basis of which it develops, these beliefs are not (simply) the result of inferences from basic beliefs, and they need not be understood as approximations to an absolute ethical standard. The recognition of these features of certain ethical beliefs, then, attests to the fact that there can be things outside of a practice that influence the beliefs within a practice. Now, in light of this description of ethical belief and its relation to practice, how is one to understand the claim that ethical beliefs are meaningful and, further, true? It is not necessary to say that this is a matter of the ‘correspondence’ of these beliefs with the world (e.g., that beliefs are true because they ‘mirror’ what is or what happens in the world); one could well say that this is, rather, a matter of coherence. And this does not seem too distant from a view that MacIntyre could adopt. For example, he would allow that for an ethical belief to be meaningful, it cannot be self-contradictory or inconsistent, and that it or its negation must be coherent with other beliefs in that sphere that are said to be true. Furthermore, it seems obvious that the meaning of an ethical belief will be affected (e.g., deepened) by its relation to one’s other beliefs and by the nature of one’s experience and maturity.11 If it is the case that the meaningfulness and meaning of ethical beliefs involves coherence and that, when we speak of ‘coherence’ we


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are referring to the relation of beliefs within a set of beliefs—here, a set of beliefs where some constitute the framework of, and where others describe, ethical practices—it is not surprising that truth also will be determined (in the first instance) within practices. Indeed, there we find public criteria for truth and falsity, correctness and incorrectness. But, as noted above and as MacIntyre himself recognizes, practices, in turn, exist within an institution12 or a tradition. Ethical truth cannot be a feature of purely private practices or forms of life; subjectivism, in other words, is ruled out. And so, starting with some features of ethical practice (specifically, the character of beliefs involved in it), we are—like MacIntyre—led to acknowledge the importance of traditions and institutions. But does this mean that we must see ethical belief, practices, traditions, and institutions in just the way that MacIntyre does? Let us return to the notion of practice. To begin with, even if (as MacIntyre insists) one must grant that the recognition of a moral belief as true depends on one’s participation in a practice such as an ethical discourse—because, say, the practice provides the context in which the belief is intelligible—all this shows is that we need that practice in order to understand the belief; given the preceding observations concerning beliefs and practices, it does not follow that the truth of the belief rests on that practice. For example, to understand that torturing babies is wrong, one has to be familiar with ethical discourse, but the truth of such a belief does not rest on one’s adoption of a particular ethical discourse like Kantianism.) Moreover, the practice that is the means by which a belief is intelligible need not be an ethical one—it could be just a linguistic practice that would allow for making sense of the beliefs which would underlie an ethical practice. Thus, ethical beliefs can have meaning outside the ethical practice or discourse in which they appear. In fact, from what we have seen above, it seems that in order to know the meaning and truth of an ethical belief we sometimes must refer to data or criteria outside of ethical practices. For example, if we look at such beliefs, we see that we expect them to cohere not only with one another—i.e., ‘internally’—but with other beliefs (e.g., beliefs arising out of our religious commitments or empirical beliefs). The meaning and truth of an ethical belief is, as noted earlier, involves coherence, but it is a coherence with beliefs both within and outside the sphere of ethics. More substantively, given the preceding comments on the relation of framework beliefs to practices, it is not obvious that we must adopt

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the view that goods or ends are simply internal to practices.13 It may be true that what counts as winning at chess, and what counts as being an excellent chess player, are matters determined ‘internally’ to the game. But is there any reason to assume, as MacIntyre appears to, that moral practices are similar in this regard?14 Not all goods are internal to particular practices; some games, for example, are designed to develop skills that are quite independent of the game. (Remember the puzzle called ‘Rubik’s cube’? It was said, at the time, that it had been designed so architecture students could develop their abilities in dealing with perspective.) Thus, some practices are designed to respond to or produce a good external to them. Again, since neither practices nor traditions arise in a vacuum, it seems that there would have to be goods or standards or values that give rise to such practices and, hence, are external to them—for example, ‘human wellbeing’ and ‘development.’ Such goods can define practices, so to speak, and are therefore not exhaustively defined by them. And if this is so, it follows that ‘goods’ can lead us to adopt, or can justify, some practices over others. One can, it seems, legitimately ask on many occasions, ‘What is the good of this practice?’—and a MacIntyre-style internal ‘justification’ cannot, by definition, provide an answer to this. And so, given the existence of ‘goods’ that are independent of and external to practices, when it comes to ethics it seems as if we can evaluate practices and theories by reference to these broadly shared, even if vague, values—values that are not obviously exclusive to or already defined within particular ethical practices or traditions. Furthermore, given the similarity in content of many beliefs found in ethical practices and traditions, it is not obvious that these beliefs and practices are so different from one another that some broader moral theory might not be able to bring them into coherence. MacIntyre allows that practices involve at minimum an acceptance of the laws of logic (MacIntyre, Whose Justice? 351), that we can join them in a narrative, that it makes sense to speak of some as having led to others, and that a movement to one is explainable in terms of what preceded it. But if all this is true, and if (as even MacIntyre allows) we can have some understanding of different moral communities—that they are not completely unintelligible to us—and if we can draw on other traditions to address problems in our own, is there any reason to deny that there may be more than incidental contact between them? In other words, if many moral practices in different traditions are not all that distinct from one another, then we cannot exclude the possibility that there is a standard (for example, a telos), external to practices or systems or narratives, which explains this (even


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if limited) commensurability among practices, and which could be a feature or element of an overarching moral theory. The post-modern critic might object here that such commensurabilities are incidental or coincidental or even illusionary. Nevertheless, note that even as committed a post-modern as Richard Rorty acknowledges that “the world... can cause us to hold beliefs” (6). But, if this is so, are not at least some views of that world excluded? And could this not be a basis for at least ‘narrowing in’ on a general model of what kinds of beliefs and practices are legitimate and which are not? In short, then, observation of moral practices and the preceding account of how one determines the meaning and truth of ethical beliefs suggest, contra MacIntyre, that conceptions of the good and ethical value are not necessarily (or not obviously always) internal to practices, and that we can talk of an ‘external’ justification of both certain ethical beliefs and of practices themselves. One can, however, go further than this. What it is that makes practices possible, besides institutions and traditions, is the existence of ideas that are controlling or dominant in human consciousness. To see this, consider those cases where there is interaction or activity with those outside of one’s traditions and practices. Imagine two pretechnological communities coming into contact with one another for the first time, and suppose that each decides to try to join forces with the other to hunt for food. Such an undertaking presumes the prior existence of a large number of ideas—ideas that must be found in both groups—concerning, for example, what kinds of beings one can enter into relations with, what it is to be a potential friend or ally, what it is to be hungry and what would be needed to satisfy that hunger, what the object of the hunt is, the ways in which one might need, or can give, help, and so on. These ideas are ‘dominant’ because they provide the parameters for the practice of hunting for food. Similarly, the kinds of activities in which we can engage, and the kinds of beings with whom we can engage in them, are determined by ‘ideas’ that all parties recognize, and that are not unique or specific to a particular practice, institution or tradition. Those dominant ideas that must exist in consciousness in order for practices to be possible are not innate; they simply precede the existence of those practices that depend on them. Nor does their existence mean that there is some epistemologically neutral ground to which individuals can ‘come’ and where they explicitly agree to act together with others. Still, the possibility of common action does suppose that there is a range of fundamental and shared ideas that have meaning and are

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understood, independent of some prior practice in which the individuals concerned are already participants. To the extent that we can recognize others as being like us, and not like lions or plants or stones, and as having minds, we share certain dominant ideas and we can enter into practices (including ethical practices) with them. And the preceding observations show us that how our minds function and how they relate to other minds set limits on what practices are possible and how they can be pursued. If, as suggested earlier, institutions, traditions, and practices, are the product, or the manifestation, of relations among minds, it seems clear that the fact that institutions work in certain ways (and not others) is due to something about the nature of mind. The existence of these controlling ideas does not, of course, constitute a foundation from which one can deductively infer what practices one must engage in, what one ought to believe, or what one ought to do. These ideas serve, rather, as a basis for conversation; they are thereby a means by which apparent incommensurability among traditions can be overcome. Thus, decisions about what to do (and, ultimately, activities and practices) do not have to be—and, generally, are not—derived or deduced from a set of universally true ethical principles or axioms; there is no reason why they cannot be arrived at via conversations as a terminus ad quem. Indeed, it is in this way that individuals who disagree can together attempt to uncover or discover what they ought to do. And, hence, one can hold that there can be answers to ethical problems that are not relative to a particular practice or tradition. Of course, in this life, such answers may be provisional, for new situations arise and new participants become involved in the discussion. Moreover, sometimes in conversation people will disagree about what the next step in a line of argument or a course of action should be (e.g., one may say “I don’t see how that follows from where we started”), or perhaps the conversation comes to a dead end—for example, because of a subtle difference in how the interlocutors understand certain concepts. Still, these facts alone do not preclude, pace MacIntyre, the eventuality of agreement nor, indeed, objectivity in ethics. Nor does an absence of agreement support the claim that no rational answer is possible. An argument can have rational force without being conclusive, and the fact that it does not convince every participant in a discussion does not mean that it should not.


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IV How do these remarks about beliefs, practices, institutions, and traditions bear on the more general issue of foundations or bases in morality or ethical theory? Because morality is not something separate from moral practices and traditions, ethical theory requires understanding what is involved in engaging in these practices. I have suggested that, beginning with the observation of moral practices, we see that there are beliefs, goods, and values external to them, which give rise to and which can serve to justify some practices over others. We also see that these practices are determined by features about the nature of mind or human consciousness, that—again—the values or goods reflected within these practices are not purely internal to them or arbitrary, and that, therefore, we have a way of responding to concerns about incommensurability among practices or traditions. But there is, as I have indicated above, more to morality (and, hence, ethical theory) than participation in established moral practices. So what more is there to morality than doing what our practices, culture, and tradition require? And what more is there to moral philosophy than describing these practices? It is not, I would suggest, simply following MacIntyre’s example of constructing a narrative. It is, rather, to demand that we attempt to attain coherence—a coherence of our ethical beliefs with our beliefs about the world and about other things (and with our attitudes or feelings about things, and with states of affairs in the world). In this sense, without alluding to specific final causes, we can even talk about the presence of a teleology in ethics. This view of morality and moral philosophy is able to incorporate some of the insights of MacIntyre’s analysis. It recognizes, for example, the importance of moral practices and the necessity of understanding these practices as existing within institutions and traditions. It can also acknowledge that there are ‘epistemological crises’ within traditions, and that participants must turn to other traditions to respond to these crises. But, unlike MacIntyre’s view, it holds that traditions may not only be brought into contact, but into coherence. This allows that some of the beliefs that are held within a tradition can be shown to be false—and that some traditions should be abandoned—as a result of their coming into contact with other traditions. Admittedly, a proposition’s truth-value (or what we take it to mean) may change as new phenomena are discovered or as present ones come to be better understood. Or sometimes beliefs will change or individuals will mature in their ethical understanding, and yet

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these individuals may continue to profess allegiance to the same set of practices. The results of a process of coherence in belief at a particular point in time, then, may not be definitive. One must not forget, however, that according to the view presented here, while the meaning and truth of ethical beliefs are established through an appeal to a standard of coherence, truth is not a simple matter of agreement or consensus among beliefs, or among members of a community; ethical beliefs must also cohere with ‘the world’— with ‘what is.’ For example, as we have seen above, practices do not stand by themselves; they are connected to other practices—they form a web of practices—and, if a practice is to be legitimate or warranted, it must be consistent with the world. At the most basic level, it is clear that a moral practice that says that one ought to do x implies that one can do x, and the fact that one can do x means that the doing of x is consistent with the set of practices in the world. But, at a more complex level, we see that individuals become worried if their ethical practices lead to problems in other spheres—e.g., in their relation to the environment or in religion. The fact that these and other phenomena may cause us to re-evaluate our ethical beliefs shows that ethics must be commensurable and consistent with the world. Again, even though practices exist only within ‘traditions’ (i.e., sets of practices) or institutions (i.e., relations among minds), a tradition itself is a response to the world, and so a practice must cohere with that world as well. Similarly, institutions can correct practices, and so practices must cohere with institutions. But institutions themselves are not ‘complete,’ for they, too, respond to changing conditions in the world. Finally, when we consider the phenomenon of ethical insight, we see not only that such insight must always be based on a previous tradition or practice, but that there must be coherence—not just with other ethical beliefs, but with the world in which ethical belief and ethical practice takes place. (Of course, it is true that few people are able to get far in their ethical understanding beyond what is explicitly endorsed in their tradition, and we might even be somewhat suspicious of those who claim that they have—for they would, to paraphrase F. H. Bradley, be more like prophets than ‘practitioners.’15 ) Thus, moving beyond a practice requires more than an understanding of that practice and the tradition in which it occurs. It presupposes an understanding of beliefs present in other (e.g., scientific, religious) practices and in other traditions about ‘what is.’


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The present view, then, allows us to say that some practices are more consistent with the world than others. And, further, while beliefs and practices in some traditions may, by themselves, seem incommensurable with those in others, when we situate the practices and traditions within the world, we can come to see some as superior to others. In short, then, ethical beliefs can be recognized as meaningful and true even for those outside the practices in which these beliefs appear, and there is no a priori reason why one could not claim that some act, or activity, is ‘objectively’ right or wrong. I have suggested above that this coherence can be described as ‘teleological,’ and we can also speak of ethical discourse and ethical practice as teleological, in the sense that actions and practices have purposes—a claim that is consistent with MacIntyre’s own understanding—and that these purposes can be justified in terms of external goods or ends (although this does not necessarily mean that such practices were designed for that particular purpose). Thus, while morality—ethical belief—can change, it doesn’t change randomly and it certainly doesn’t become incommensurable with other beliefs. And this ‘teleological’ approach allows us to address Hume’s challenge of the gap between the ‘is’ and the ‘ought.’ But there is one further point that should be noted. By this focus on coherence—that ethical beliefs must cohere not only with (propositional) beliefs and attitudes or trusts but also with the world—we are reminded that the present view is fundamentally metaphysical, and not epistemological. And it is because of this that it has the resources to avoid some of the criticisms of ethical theories that presuppose the primacy of epistemology in philosophy.

V To conclude: I have argued that, even if we begin with the kinds of claims that MacIntyre makes about moral practices, we may in fact be led to a much less historicist (and, despite his comments to the contrary, relativist) result than he proposes while, at the same time, still being able to incorporate a number of his insights. Specifically, if we focus on the phenomenon of moral practice and notice that the meaning and truth of ethical belief requires coherence, not only with other beliefs but with facts about the world, we find that we may be able to construct a unified ethical theory of a teleological character. The kind of view presented above does not claim that there can (in our time) be demonstration of ethical beliefs in a hard sense, i.e., from a set of self-evident axioms. But neither

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does it limit one to providing a justification that is said to be appropriate only within a context or set of practices. There can be, in other words, argument and proof. While proof isn’t central to morality, it isn’t (as MacIntyre would appear to insist) beside the point either. Despite the similarities with MacIntyre’s view, the account provided in sections III and IV does not assume the priority of epistemology. MacIntyre’s objections to traditional ethical theory, and the formulation of his own ethical view, still seem to center on the issue of what a subject can know or can demonstrate—not on the real. If such an alternative analysis of ethical practice is indeed legitimate, we not only do not have to give up the possibility of progress or criticism in ethics, but we may even have a basis for saying that moral standards are not exhaustively determined or set by the historical context in which they arise, and that there may be reasons, external to a practice or tradition, for preferring one practice over another.

Notes 1

I wish to thank the University Council for Research, St Francis Xavier University, for financial support under grant # UCR 1082. Previous versions of this paper were presented at meetings of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, held at the University of Queensland (Australia) in July 1996, and at a symposium organized by the Canadian Jacques Maritain Association at the Université du Québec à Montréal (Québec) in June 1995. I am grateful for the helpful comments of the audience. 2 See his After Virtue; Whose Justice?; First Principles; Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry; “A Partial Response” 283-304. 3 Admittedly, defenders of this view hold that this does not entail subjectivism, since we are all in this practice and context. Moreover, as Richard Rorty insists, we can set up certain standards within a moral discourse via consensus, and the community here serves as “the source of epistemic authority” (188). 4 MacIntyre distances himself from the Burkean definition of a tradition as something that is static and that exists in contrast to reason and conflict (After Virtue 222). 5 MacIntyre argues that there are three stages in the development of a tradition (see Whose Justice? 355ff). 6 For the alleged appropriateness of such an analysis to the history of art, see Stern 155, 153; and see Charles Taylor on practical reason, cited in Stern 160. For comments on how this model might be applied to Christian dogma, see my work in the philosophy of religion—particularly, “Empiricism, Fideism and the Nature of Religious Belief.” in Sophia. 7 See Mulhall. “Liberalism, Morality and Rationality” 212. 8 MacIntyre attempts to address this issue of the impossibility of translation in Whose Justice? (384-87); it is not clear, however, that his discussion would affect the point being made here.

11 ~ The Foundations of Ethics and Moral Practices 9

241

Admittedly, MacIntyre seems to recognize this when he distinguishes the development of a tradition (of enquiry) from ‘abrupt general changes in belief’ (Whose Justice? 356), but to pursue this matter would go beyond the limits of the present paper. 10 Robert Stern suggests that a MacIntyrean-internalist view could be used to describe progress in the arts. As I will note in a moment, I do not see that this option can succeed. For the moment, I simply draw the attention of the reader to the fact that his argument on this point focuses on the history of the arts and not engaging in them (see Stern 155). 11 This is a point that the ‘foundationalist’ Jacques Maritain acknowledges as well. See his La loi naturelle ou loi non-écrite, leçons 5 to 8; “On Knowledge through Connaturality.” The Range of Reason 22-29; and my “Can There Be Moral Knowledge?” 159-90. 12 By ‘institution’ MacIntyre has in mind things like “a university ... a farm, or a hospital” (After Virtue 222). An institution is “the bearer of a tradition of practice or practices, [and] its common life will be partly, but in a centrally important way, constituted by a continuous argument as to what [the institution itself] is and ought to be” (After Virtue 222; see 194). Such entities are “characteristically and necessarily concerned with ... external goods” in order to “sustain not only themselves but also the practices” which they reflect (After Virtue 194). As I note in more detail below, this reading of the character of ‘institutions’ and of the relations between institutions and practices, is too narrow. Specifically, MacIntyre ignores that institutions are not static entities any more than practices or traditions are. A better understanding of institutions—one that can help us to see more clearly how it is that traditions continue to live and how new practices (and beliefs) can come to be—is that they are fundamentally relations of minds, that undoubtedly are manifested in external and concrete objects, but which are always importantly more than those objects. (See Bernard Bosanquet’s account of the ‘institution’ of a school in The Philosophical Theory of the State.) On Bosanquet’s view, “[t]he actual reality of the school lies in the fact that certain living minds are connected in a certain way” (170). This is consistent with the comment made earlier in this essay, of practices and institutions being the concrete manifestation of ethical belief, since beliefs, practices and social structures alike reflect and make possible relations among persons. 13 MacIntyre refers, of course, to “external goods,” but has in mind something gained from participation in a practice, such that “the more someone has of them, the less there is for other people” (After Virtue 190). The sense of ‘end’ or ‘good’ used in the present discussion is clearly quite distinct from that employed by MacIntyre. 14 On a similar point, Miller argues that we can distinguish between self-contained and purposive practices. Non-purposive practices (i.e., those that have an internal good) are, he notes, not basic—‘they are pursued only once the more basic social functions have been performed’ (Miller 252)—and they tend to become deformed without that contact with external goods. Thus, he concludes, we need “purposive practices... which, although having internal standards of excellence, serve broader social ends and are therefore open to critical review” (Miller 254). 15 Bradley writes that “We should consider whether encouraging oneself in having opinions of one’s own in the sense of differing from the world on moral subjects, be not, in any person other than a heaven-sent prophet, sheer self-conceit” (200).

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References Bosanquet, Bernard. The Philosophical Theory of the State. Ed. William Sweet and Gerald F. Gaus. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes, 1999. Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1927. Horton, John and Susan Mendus, ed. After MacIntyre. Cambridge: Polity, 1994. Kelly, Paul. “MacIntyre’s Critique of Utilitarianism.” After MacIntyre. 127-45. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 2nd corr. ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984. ———. First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Issues. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1990. ———. “A Partial Response to My Critics.” After MacIntyre. 283-304. ———. Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and Tradition. London: Duckworth, 1990. ———. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Maritain, Jacques. La loi naturelle ou loi non-écrite. Fribourg, Switzerland: Éditions universitaires, 1986. ———. The Range of Reason. New York: Scribners, 1952. Miller, David. “Virtues, Practices and Justice.” After MacIntyre. 245-64. Mulhall, Stephen. “Liberalism, Morality and Rationality: MacIntyre, Rawls and Cavell.” After MacIntyre. 205-24. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Stern, Robert. “MacIntyre and Humanism.” After MacIntyre. 146-60. Sweet, William. “Can There Be Moral Knowledge?” Etudes maritainiennes/Maritain Studies XI (1995) 159-90. ———. “Empiricism, Fideism and the Nature of Religious Belief.” Sophia. XXXI.3 (1992) 1-15. Taylor, Charles. “Justice After Virtue,” After MacIntyre. 16-43.


243

Contributors Leslie Armour is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa and Research Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican College of Philosophy and Theology, Ottawa. He is author of “Infini Rien”: Pascal’s Wager and the Human Paradox (1993), Being and Idea: Developments of Some Themes in Spinoza and Hegel (1992), The Faces of Reason: an essay on philosophy and culture in English Canada, 1850-1950 (1981), The Idea of Canada and the Crisis of Community (1981),The Conceptualization of the Inner Life (with Edward T. Bartlett) (1980), Logic and Reality: an Investigation into the Idea of a Dialectical System (1972), The Concept of Truth (1969), and The Rational and the Real: an Essay in Metaphysics (1962). He has recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Thomas De Koninck is Professor of Philosophy at Université Laval, Québec, Canada, and author of La Question de Dieu selon Aristote et Hegel (1991), Urgence de la philosophie (1986) and, most recently, De la dignité humaine (1995). In 1996 he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques de la République française by ministerial decree for his services to French culture, and is also the recipient of the Prix La Bruyère of the Académie française. Lawrence Dewan, O.P. is Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican College of Philosophy and Theology, Ottawa, and author of articles in The New Scholasticism, Laval théologique et philosophique, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Modern Schoolman, Dionysius, Dialogue (Canada), and other journals. He is a past president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association and of the Canadian Jacques Maritain Association. Monique Dumais is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Ethics, and Director of the graduate program in ethics, at the Université du Québec à Rimouski, Québec, Canada. She is author or editor of Diversité des utilisations féministes du concept: expériences des femmes en sciences religieuses (1993), Droits des femmes (1992), Femmes dans la Bible: expériences et interpellations (1985), Femmes et pauvreté (1998), La mire dans la société québecoise: étude éthique (1983). She is also editor of the journal, Ethica, and has published on feminist philosophy in Feminist Ethics, Souffles de femmes: Lectures féministes de la religion (1989), and Gender, Genre and Religion: Feminist Reflections. Hugo Meynell is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary and author of Postmodernism and the New Enlightenment (1999), Redirecting Philosophy: reflections on the nature of knowledge from Plato to Lonergan (1998), Is Christianity True? (1994), The Nature of Aesthetic Value (1986), The Intelligible Universe (1982), Freud, Marx and Morals (1981), An

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Introduction to the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan (1976; 2nd. ed 1991), God and the World (1971), The New Theology and Modern Theologians (1967), Grace versus Nature: studies in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (1965), and Sense, Nonsense and Christianity (London, 1964). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Louis Perron studied philosophy at the University of Ottawa and currently lectures at the Collège dominicain de philosophie et de théologie, Ottawa. He has published in God and Argument (1999) and in Études maritainiennes – Maritain Studies. Kenneth Schmitz is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and author of At the Center of the Human Drama: the Philosophy of Karol Wojtyla /Pope John Paul II (1993), The Gift–Creation (The Aquinas Lecture 1982) (1982), Art and Logic in Hegel’s Philosophy (1980), and What has Clio to do with Athena?: Etienne Gilson: historian and philosopher (1987). He is currently Professor of Philosophy at the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C. T.L.S. Sprigge is Professor Emeritus of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and is author of Santayana: An Examination of his Philosophy (1974; revised 1995), James and Bradley (1993), The Rational Foundations ofEthics (1987), Theories of Existence (1984), The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (1983), and Facts, Words and Beliefs (1970). William Sweet is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St Francis Xavier University. He is author of Idealism and Rights (1997), and has edited several collections of scholarly essays, such as La philosophie de la religion à la fin du vingtième siècle (1993), Religion, Modernity and Post Modernity (1997), God and Argument (1999) and, most recently, Idealism, Metaphysics and Community (2000). He is author of over seventy articles, primarily in the history of idealist political thought and the epistemology of religion, and is editor of The Collected Works of Bernard Bosanquet, 20 volumes (1999). He is President of the Canadian Jacques Maritain Association. Roger Sullivan is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. He has published in The Review of Metaphysics and the Monist, and is author of An Introduction to Kant’s Ethics (1994), Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory (1989), and Morality and the Good Life: a Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (1977). Elizabeth Trott is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Ryerson Polytechnical University in Toronto, Canada. She has published in Dialogue, Bradley Studies, the Journal of Aesthetic Education and in Philosophy after EH. Bradley (1996) and is coauthor (with Leslie Armour) of The Faces of Reason: an essay on philosophy and culture in English Canada, 1850-1950 (1981).

Index

Index

abductive, 15, 145 abortion, 35, 151, 153 absolutism, 128 abstraction, 162, 189 abyss, 204, 209, 217 accuracy of mind, 156, 169 admiration [French], 16, 83, 89, 98 admiration, 73, 104, 107, 180 adventure of science, 168 aisthesis, 27 Angell, James R., 68 angels, 54, 66, 76, 87 anthropology, 38, 42, 43, 131, 139 anti-foundationalism, 17, 229 anti-theory, 23, 38 appetite, 14, 39, 47, 48, 51-55, 60, 63, 69-72, 76, 77 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 8, 14, 18, 39, 40, 44-46, 48, 49, 67, 76, 78, 96, 127, 131, 135, 145, 153, 231 Aristotle, 8, 11, 15, 27, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 41, 46, 49, 52, 58, 64-68, 70, 71, 77, 78, 80, 126, 127, 131, 137, 143, 144, 145, 153, 166, 168, 169, 173, 222, 224 Armour, Leslie, 15-17, 89, 101 art, 18, 75, 76, 91, 117, 129, 152154, 158, 163, 166, 169, 170, 173, 174, 181-183, 225, 229, 240 assassin, 171 Augustine, St., 31, 41, 75, 93 autodidacts, 173 Ayer, A.J., 152,153

245

bonum honestum, 48, 77 Bosanquet, Bernard, 11, 22, 241, 242 Bradley, F.H., 82, 183, 185, 23 8, 241, 242 Brague, Rémi, 165, 173 Brossard, Nicole 187, 195

Cajetan, 49, 50, 58, 70, 74 care, 30, 86, 149, 163, 171, 177 character, 11-14, 20, 21, 28, 30-32, 35, 38, 39, 46, 51, 56, 69, 71, 88, 93, 97, 106, 108, 109, 112, 123, 124, 128-135, 154, 189, 190, 191, 198, 203, 207, 211, 218, 231, 233, 239 Chesterton, G.K., 152 classical moral theories, 13, 23, 25, 30, 36, 230 Collin, Françoise., 189, 195 Collingwood, R. G. 144, 145, 153 compassion, 10- 12, 17, 94, 103 112, 115-118, 120. complexity, 167, 202 concrete actualization, 210 Conrad, Joseph, 148 consciousness, 18, 80, 110, 113, 114, 128, 129, 131-135, 149, 151, 166, 181, 191, 194, 202, 235, 237 contemplation, 61, 62, 63, 73, 167 creator, 40, 45 criminal violence, 171 cultura animi, 155, 172 cultural disintegration, 162 cultural void, 160 bad, the, 44, 65, 142, 164 culture, 9, 18, 21, 86, 87, 88, 126beatitude, 64, 65, 73, 77, 209 130, 133, 137, 139, 154, 155, beauty, 157, 162, 170, 171, 173, 157-159, 162, 164-167, 169, 174, 177, 180 180, 192, 195, 197, 211, 222, benevolence, 29, 88, 108, 110 224, 227, 237 Bentham, Jeremy, 10, 115, 117, 121, culture and freedom, 165 124 bewilderment 165, 166 Dagenais, Hugette, 189, 195 biophylic, 191 body, 19, 56, 57, 76, 82, 93, 136, Daly, Mary, 188-191, 194, 195 151, 162, 164, 167, 175, 192-194, Dante, 93, 169, 173 Darwinism, 70 206

246 Decerf, Anne, 189,196 Derrida, Jacques, 17, 182 Descartes, 15-17, 64, 79-102, 127, 128, 131, 134, 136-139, 173 despair, 159, 185 Dewey, John, 44, 68, 77, 78, 172 dialogue, 169 discernment 154, 155, 161, 163, 164, 172 dispersion, 159 dominant ideas, 235, 236 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 14, 39, 78, 169 double ignorance, 161, 163, 172 dreaming, 156 Dryden, John, 148 education, 18, 130, 137, 138, 154158, 161, 164, 166, 167, 170-172, 175, 177 effectiveness, 20, 206, 210, 211, 214, 215 embodiment, 192, 194, 195 end-result, 127, 129 energies of mind, 158 enspiriting, 191 eros, 171, 194 eschaton, 20, 213-216 esse, 49-54, 68, 71, 72, 74, 75 esthetics, 142, 173 eternal law, 75 ethical finality, 206 ethical postulate, 68 Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, 89, 95, 101 Eve, 190 event-driven, 13, 25 experience of thinking, 159 expert knowledge, 157 fact-value, 87, 141 faith and reason, 34 fallacy of misplaced concreteness, 162 feminism, 19, 21, 101, 149-151, 153, 188, 189, 191-195, 196 feminist ethics, 194

William Sweet: The Bases of Ethics figuration, 192 final causality, 51, 74 finality, 45, 46, 206, 207, 209, 213, 218 formation, 18, 127, 154, 155, 157, 173 Foucault, Michel, 17, 130, 193 foundational framework, 198 foundationalism, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15-17, 20, 21, 228 Fournier, Dominique, 151 fragmentation, 163, 180 free choice, 47, 67, 181 free decision, 58, 74 Freud, Sigmund, 152, 153, 160, 192 function of moral character, 27 Gautier, David, 67 general will, 35 generosity, 15, 16, 79, 83, 84, 85, 92, 94, 96, 97, 99 Gilligan, Carol, 148-153 Gilson, Etienne, 64, 66, 78, 99, 102, 126 goals, 28, 40, 48, 49, 70, 119, 181, 229 God, 10, 14, 22, 30, 31, 33, 39-46, 48-50, 53-56, 59-66, 69-77, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 94-97, 99, 100, 116, 127, 153, 157, 176, 177, 179, 183, 184, 189-191, 195 good, human, 44, 84 good and evil, 97, 170 goodness, 10, 14, 44-49, 51-58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68-70, 72-75, 77, 94, 142, 152 Grayling, Anthony, 182, 185 Greek ethics, 13, 26, 28, 31, 171 gynocentric, 189 Hare, R.M., 24, 152, 153 Hegel, G.W.F., 68, 162 helpful, 25, 27, 32, 33, 38, 42, 43, 46, 108, 240 hierarchy of natures, 56, 57 Hiss, Tony, 177, 181, 185

Index historicity, 20, 197, 198, 202, 203, 210-215, 218 history, 19, 74, 77, 98-101, 107, 126, 135-137, 140, 141, 143, 154, 160, 161, 163, 165, 183, 187, 193, 201, 210, 213, 214, 217, 221, 222, 225-228, 240 Hobbes, Thomas,67, 104, 122 hollow, 161, 181 horizon, 133, 198, 203, 205, 206, 209, 213, 215, 217, 218 human culture, 18, 86, 154, 171, 172 human dignity, 18, 19, 172 Hume, David, 8, 9, 15, 22, 127, 136, 141, 153, 176, 223, 239

247 joy, 73, 90, 91, 105, 109, 110, 113, 114, 116-120, 122, 169-171, 196, 209 judgement 74, 169 Jung C.G., 148

Kafka, Franz, 163 Kant, Immanuel, 8, 12, 15, 18, 20, 26-38, 66, 81, 82, 94, 126-128, 136, 144, 154, 173, 174, 176, 182, 213 Kantian parables, 206, 209 Karamazov, The Brothers, 14, 3 9, 64, 66, 78 Kenny, Anthony, 145, 153 kitsch, 160, 161, 164, 172 knowledge, 14-16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 40-43, 53, 54, 62, 63, 65, 66, identity 76, 77, 83, 91, 99, 103, 104, 108, ideology, 165, 188 123, 126, 136, 138, 140, 145, ignorance, 14, 32, 65, 148, 160, 171, 148, 151, 154-158, 160-162, 164173 170, 174, 179, 182, 189, 193, illiteracy, 171 197, 201, 203, 204, 229, 231 imaginative, 95, 123, 157, 158 imitation, 46, 55, 56, 60, 156 Koertge, Noretta, 150, 153 immortality, 39, 66 impersonal justice, 29 language, 15, 23-25, 91, 92, 100, impostors, 169 101, 131, 135, 136, 152,153, 160, 165, 176-183, 185, 196, 201, 202, increasing abstraction, 163 inert ideas, 157 224 infinity, 48, 67, 73, 75, 76, 79, 85, law, 8, 9, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 37, 39, 96, 97, 163, 209, 210 51, 52, 68, 70, 75, 80, 82, 100, inner life, 159 104, 127, 129, 132, 138, 139, intellect, 14, 46, 53, 54, 57, 60-63, 66, 176, 178, 206-210, 212, 218, 221 73, 75-77, 127, 130, 158, 161, 173 laziness, 159, 172 intellectual virtues, 40, 41 learning, 27, 99, 113, 154, 157, 164, intentionality, 90, 131, 134, 211-214 165, 170, 171, 190 interest, 8, 13, 20, 24, 46, 72, 75, Legge, Marilyn J., 193, 194, 196 82, 108, 127, 158, 170, 174 leisure, 167 interiority, 133, 134, 135, 203 Lejeune, Claire, 194-196 internal normativity, 213 Le Moyne, Pierre, 89, 90, 92, 95, intransigent 28 100, 101 inversion, 127, 129, 132, 136 Levinas, Emmanuel, 97, 99-101 Lewis, C.S., 142,153 Jossua, Jean-Pierre, 189, 196 liberalism, 34, 37, 38, 130, 240 liberty, 32, 61, 82, 99, 132, 136, 138, 155, 164, 171, 207, 208, 214, 217

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Moore, G.E., 23, 24, 141, 142, 144, 153 moral agency, 16, 193 moral goodness, 16, 47, 84, 104, 106, 108, 109, 144 moral judgments, 23, 25, 27, 33, 94, 115 moral philosophy, 7, 10, 12, 17, 25, 42, 67, 106, 107, 127, 136, 142, 143, 221, 222, 226-230, 237 moral theories, 13, 20, 23-30, 32, 33, 35-37, 80, 83, 87, 89, 148, 221, 227, 228, 230 moral world, 26, 28-31, 33, 206 Murdoch, Iris, 166, 174, 181-184, MacIntyre, Alasdair, 9, 10, 13, 20186 22, 79, 88, 102, 181, 186, 220- music, 109, 142, 166 240 mystery, 158, 163, 166, 167 Mackie, J.L., 120 maieutic mode, 169 narrative, 83, 93, 224, 226, 228, Maritain, Jacques, 17, 18, 37, 64, 77, 230, 234, 237 78, 126-138, 240 natural beatitude, 64, 65 Marx, Karl, 32,137,160 natural reasoning, 66 mass media, 160, 161, 163 natural religion, 66 mathematics, 100, 154, 156, 162, Nazism, 87, 124, 152 164, 173 negative, 29, 33, 109, 113, 118 memory, 160 new ignorance, 160 mental intoxication, 164 Nielsen, Kai, 24, 3 8, 67, 78, 145, Metabeing, 191 153 metaphysics, 14, 15, 18, 23, 28, 29, Nietzsche, Friedrich, 17, 193, 104, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 46, 52, 63, 66106, 107, 109, 110, 112-120, 122, 68, 70, 105, 106, 128, 131-133, 125, 13 5, 13 8, 159, 170, 172, 135, 136, 139, 144, 153, 168, 180 169, 173, 180, 181, 185, 186, 202 nomadic, 191, 192, 195 methodological, 128, 161, 188 Milligan, Martin, 141 ontology, 41, 42, 53, 176 minimalist view of the state, 34 original sin, 64, 65 mode, 43, 49, 50, 52, 58, 61, 70, origins, 12, 13, 23, 24, 37, 93, 127, 72, 133, 134, 159, 192, 202, 205, 139, 227 210, 213, 214, 215 Orwell, George, 165, 174 modem culture, 17, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 133, 136, 137 parents, 88, 148, 164, 171, 179 modernity, 17, 18, 19, 79, 126, 128, partial, 30, 85, 183, 212, 226, 240 130, 132, 135, 136, 160, 161, part-whole, 15, 176, 178, 180, 184 175, 181, 186, 200 Patai, Daphne, 150, 153 monism, 105, 121, 122 Peirce, C.S., 145, 153 life of the mind, 155, 169, 171 limited role, 26 limits of knowledge, 167 linguistic analysis, 23, 24, 25 literature, 147, 154, 163, 166, 169, 170, 182, 229 Lonergan, Bernard, 144, 148, 153 love, 8, 10-12, 16, 39, 47, 48, 56, 65, 69-73, 76, 88-94, 96, 97, 100, 136, 137, 147, 148, 161, 166, 167, 171, 172 love for beauty, 167, 172 lust, 107,113, 189, 190, 191, 196 Luther, Martin, 127, 128, 136, 139

Index perfection, 14, 44-46, 48-57, 59, 67, 69-73, 76, 98, 170, 173, 209 personhood, 9, 194 phenomenology, 18, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 201 philosophical wisdom, 40 pity, 10, 11, 12, 17, 70, 103, 104, 107, 109-112, 115-120, 123, 124 Plantinga, Alvin, 9, 22 Plato, 31, 37, 61, 65, 78, 98, 126, 161, 163, 168-174, 192 poets, 95, 100, 166 Popper, Karl, 161, 168, 173, 174 positive determinations, 212 post-modernity, 10, 21, 126, 145, 167, 173, 192, 235 power of words, 165 practical men, 158 practical reason, 25, 27, 66, 134, 203, 207, 209, 213, 224, 240 practical sciences, 76 practical wisdom, 42, 229 preudhommie, 79, 80, 97, 98 prefabricated non-readings, 170 present crisis, 154, 155, 171 primary philosophy, 76 private or personal moral realm, 29 pro-choice, 152 pro-life, 152 providence, 40, 44, 63, 137 prudence, 11, 29, 3 1, 42, 43, 67, 70, 96, 105 psychology, 37, 42, 43, 125 public and the private, 28, 34, 35 public laws, 35 public life, 33, 37, 148 public world, 184, 185 punishment, 46, 64, 65, 66, 179, 231 Putnam, Hilary, 141, 143, 153

249 Rawls, John, 37, 38, 43, 67, 68, 78, 145, 218 real relation, 71 reality, 17, 20, 39, 43-48, 50, 54, 58, 61-63, 67-69, 71, 82, 84, 91, 92, 105, 107, 110, 118, 120, 122, 128, 129, 132, 147, 164-166, 175, 176, 180, 182, 184, 189-191, 194, 197, 205, 210, 213, 214, 218 reasonableness, 40, 65 reductionism, 164, 167 relations between the various theories, 28 relativity, 20, 147, 197, 211 relevance of the humanities, 172 religion, 34, 40, 63, 66, 98, 101,115, 124, 127, 130, 137, 139, 170, 179, 196, 238 ressentiment, 170 revealed religion, 40, 66 right to culture, 171 Rorty, Richard, 17, 18, 22, 235, 240 Rousseau, J.-J., 8, 109, 127, 128, 136, 139 Russian lady (James), 111

sacred doctrine, 66 Saul, John Ralston, 181, 184-186 Sayers, Dorothy, 148 Scheler, Max, 18, 126-128, 136, 13 9 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 17, 91, 103112, 115, 118, 120-123, 125 science, 14, 41-43, 58, 64, 66, 76, 83, 101, 123-125, 129, 141, 143, 145, 147, 154, 156, 158, 160-162, 165, 170, 173, 181, 183, 184, 189, 201, 210, 212, 218, 219, 228, 229 science as an institution, 167 scientism, 141, 143, 145 Rapin, René, 82, 83, 99, 100, 102 security, 171, 172 rationality, 8-11, 17-19, 22, 145, self-destruction, 159, 171 168, 183, 192, 193, 198, 200, self-determination, 19, 188, 207 203, 221, 224, 225, 226, 227, 240 self-education, 169 self-transcendence, 20

250 self-transcending requirement 209 selves, 56, 159, 165, 179, 185 sense of beauty, 170 sense of importance, 170 Shakespeare, 147, 166, 169, 171 short term pragmatism, 163 Skinner, B.F., 143 small-minded, 171 society, 33, 34, 37, 42, 61, 63, 75, 101, 125, 160-163, 165, 174, 180, 183, 187, 193, 196, 207, 221, 222 sociology, 42, 184 solidarity, 19, 110, 121, 194 Sophists, 156 specialists, 161 spirit, 18, 65, 66, 82, 99, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 135, 137, 155, 167, 168, 170, 172, 184, 200, 207 Stoppard, Tom, 142 strangeness of nature, 166 stupidity, 136, 160, 161, 172 subjectivism, 12, 17, 21, 104, 113, 117, 127, 129, 136, 233, 240 subjectivity, 127, 129, 133, 135, 192, 201, 202 sublime, 165 suffering, 17, 82, 98, 104-124, 160, 171, 179 symbols, 166, 185 Taylor, Charles, 159, 175, 179, 180, 181, 186, 224, 240 teaching, 154-156, 167, 169, 180 technique, 42, 43, 48, 66, 67, 113, 156 technology, 35, 160, 181 teleology, 14, 25, 33, 48, 96, 210, 213, 214, 217, 223, 237, 239 theology, 40, 44, 70, 78, 136, 189 theoretical sciences, 76 Thomas, Lewis, 165, 166, 168, 170, 172, 175. Thomistic, 131, 133, 137, 139 totalitarian kitsch, 165, 172 totality, 193, 200, 204, 206, 215

William Sweet: The Bases of Ethics tradition, 9, 22, 30, 31, 33, 82, 85, 99-101, 124, 137, 168, 184, 189, 224-231, 233, 235-238, 240 truth, 7, 14, 19-21, 48, 64, 69, 77, 101, 105, 111, 118, 120, 122, 132-134, 140, 147, 152, 153, 165, 173, 174, 177, 178, 180, 182, 183, 185, 193, 202, 203, 209-211, 214, 216, 221, 225-227, 230, 233, 235, 238, 239 unconditionality, 20, 206 universals, 66, 67 universe, 30, 31, 46, 54, 57-59, 66, 69, 73, 98, 100, 114, 118, 119, 129, 158, 159, 161, 167 universities, 154, 157 utilitarianism, 10, 13, 26, 31-33, 37, 126, 112, 115, 124, 127,171 value, 9, 19, 24, 26, 33, 68, 92, 94, 103, 112-116, 117, 119, 122, 123, 137, 141, 143, 147, 148, 150, 170, 182, 188, 211, 235 variety, 12, 27, 63, 67, 121, 158, 164, 176 Whitehead, A.N., 157-159, 161, 162, 167, 170-172, 174 wide reflective equilibrium, 145 Williams, Bernard, 23, 24, 37, 3 8, 141, 153 wisdom, 14, 23-25, 39-43, 66, 9799, 102, 115, 118, 130, 161, 170, 183 wisdom that pertains to revealed religion, 40 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 10, 145, 153, 182, 185 Wojtyla, Karol, 17, 18, 126-129, 131-136, 138, 139 women, experience of, 19, 187, 190 wonder, 16, 83-86, 90, 91, 93, 94, 99, 100, 140, 158, 159, 161, 168, 170, 171, 185

Index

251 Marquette Studies in Philosophy Andrew Tallon, Editor Standing orders accepted All books available as eBook

Harry Klocker, S.J. William of Ockham and the Divine Freedom. ISBN 0-87462001-5. 141 pages, pp., index. $15. Second edition, reviewed, corrected and with a new Introduction. Margaret Monahan Hogan. Finality and Marriage. ISBN 0-87462-600-5. 122 pp. Paper. $15. Gerald A. McCool, S.J. The Neo-Thomists. ISBN 0-87462-601-1. 175 pp. Paper. $20. Max Scheler. Ressentiment. ISBN 0-87462-602-1. 172 pp. Paper. $20. New Introduction by Manfred S. Frings. Knud Løgstrup. Metaphysics. Translated by Dr. Russell Dees ISBN 0-87462-603X. Volume I, 342 pp. Paper. $35. ISBN 0-67462-607-2. Volume II, 402 pp. Paper. $40. Two volume set priced at $70. Howard P. Kainz. Democracy and the “Kingdom of God” . ISBN 0-87462-610-2. 250 pp. Paper. $25. Manfred Frings. Max Scheler. A Concise Introduction into the World of a Great Thinker ISBN 0-87462-605-6. 200 pp. Paper. $20. Second ed., rev. New Foreword by the author. G. Heath King. Existence Thought Style: Perspectives of a Primary Relation, portrayed through the work of Søren Kierkegaard. English edition by Timothy Kircher. ISBN 0-87462-606-4. 187 pp., index. Paper. $20. Augustine Shutte. Philosophy for Africa. ISBN 0-87462-608-0. 184 pp. Paper. $20. Paul Ricoeur. Key to Husserl’s Ideas I. Translated by Bond Harris and Jacqueline Bouchard Spurlock.With a Foreword by Pol Vandevelde. ISBN 0-87462-6099. 176 pp., index. Paper. $20. Karl Jaspers. Reason and Existenz. Afterword by Pol Vandevelde. ISBN 0-87462611-0. 180 pp. Paper. $20. Gregory R. Beabout. Freedom and Its Misuses: Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Despair ISBN 0-87462-612-9. 192 pp., index. Paper. $20. Manfred S. Frings. The Mind of Max Scheler. The First Comprehensive Guide Based on the Complete Works ISBN 0-87462-613-7. 328 pp. Paper. $35. Claude Pavur. Nietzsche Humanist. ISBN 0-87462-614-5. 214 pp., index. Paper. $25. Pierre Rousselot. Intelligence: Sense of Being, Faculty of God. Translation of L’Intellectualismse de saint Thomas with a Foreword and Notes by Andrew Tallon. ISBN 0-87462-615-3. 236 pp., index. Paper. $25. Immanuel Kant. Critique of Practical Reason. Translation by H.W. Cassirer. Edited by G. Heath King and Ronald Weitzman and with an Introduction by D.M. MacKinnon. ISBN 0-87462-616-1. Paper. 218 pp. $20. Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World. Translated by Katharine Rose Hanley. The Broken World, A Four-Act Play followed by “Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery.” Six orignal illustrations by Stephen Healy. Commentaries by Henri Gouhier and Marcel Belay. Eight Appendices. Introduction by Ralph McInerny. Bibliographies. ISBN 0-87462-617-X. paperbound. 242 pp. $25. Karl-Otto Apel. Towards a Transformation of Philosophy. New Fore-word by Pol Vandevelde.ISBN 0-87462-619-6. Paper. 308 pp. $35. Gene Fendt. Is Hamlet a Religious Drama? As Essay on a Question in Kierkegaard. ISBN 0-87462-620-X. Paper. 264 pp. $30.

Marquette Studies in Theology Andrew Tallon, Editor Standing orders accepted All books available as eBook Frederick M. Bliss. Understanding Reception. ISBN 0-87462-625-0. 180 pp., index, bibliography. Paper. $20. Martin Albl, Paul Eddy, Renée Mirkes, OSF, Editors. Directions in NewTestament Methods ISBN 0-87462-626-9. 129 pp. Annotated bibliography. Paper. $15. Foreword by William S. Kurz. Robert M. Doran. Subject and Psyche. ISBN 0-87462-627-7. 285 pp. Paper. $25. Second ed., rev. With a new Foreword by the author. Kenneth Hagen, editor. The Bible in the Churches. How Various Christians Interpret the Scriptures ISBN 0-87462-628-5. 218 pp. Paper. $25. Third, revised editon. New chapter on Reformed tradition. Index. Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., Editor. Black and Catholic: The Challenge and Gift of Black Folk. Contributions of African American Experience and Thought to Catholic Theology. ISBN 0-87462-629-3. 182 pp. Index. Paper. $20. Foreword by Patrick Carey. Karl Rahner. Spirit in the World. New, Corrected Translation by William Dych. Foreword by Francis Fiorenza. ISBN 0-87462-630-7. COMPUTER DISK VERSION. $10. Available on 3.5 inch disk; specify Macintosh or Windows. By a special arrangement with Continuum Publishing Co. Karl Rahner. Hearer of the Word. New Translation of the First Edition by Joseph Donceel. Edited and with anIntroduction by Andrew Tallon. By a special arrangement with Continuum Publishing Co. ISBN 0-87462-631-5. COMPUTER DISK VERSION. $10. Available on 3.5 inch disk; specify Macintosh or Windows. Robert M. Doran. Theological Foundations. Vol. 1 Intentionality and Psyche. ISBN 0-87462-632-3. 484 pp. Paper. $50. Robert M. Doran. Theological Foundations. Vol. 2 Theology and Culture. ISBN 087462-633-1. 533 pp. Paper. $55. Patrick W. Carey. Orestes A. Brownson: A Bibliography, 1826-1876. ISBN 0-87462634-X. 212 pp. Index. Paper. $25. John Martinetti, S.J. Reason to Believe Today. ISBN 0-87462-635-8. 216 pp. Paper. $25. George H. Tavard. Trina Deitas: The Controversy between Hincmar and Gottschalk ISBN 0-87462-636-6. 160 pp. Paper. $20. Jeanne Cover, IBVM. Love–The Driving Force. Mary Ward’s Spirituality. Its Significance for Moral Theology ISBN 0-87462-637-4. 217 pp. Paper. $25. David A. Boileau, Editor. Principles of Catholic Social Teaching. ISBN 0-87462-6382. 204 pp. Paper. $25. Michael Purcell. Mystery and Method: The Other in Rahner and Levinas. With a Foreword by Andrew Tallon. ISBN 0-87462-639-0. Paper. 394 pp. $40. W.W. Meissner, S.J., M.D. To the Greater Glory: A Psychological Study of Ignatian Spirituality. ISBN 0-87462-640-4. Paper. 657 pp. $50. Catholic Theology in the University: Source of Wholeness. Virginia M. Shaddy, editor. ISBN 0-87462-641-2. Paper. 120 pp. $15. Subscibe to eNews from Marquette University Press Email [email protected] with the word “subscribe” as the subject. Visit Marquette University Press online: www.marquette.edu/mupress/

The Bases of Ethics

The Logic of Knowledge Bases

Molecular Bases of Anesthesia

Biophysical Bases of Electrotherapy

Stealing Bases

Bases Loaded

The Ethics of Liberty

The ethics of ambiguity

The Ethics of Madness

The Ethics of Nationalism

The Ethics of War

The Ethics of Cyberspace

The Ethics of Bankruptcy (Professional Ethics)

The Neurophysiological Bases of Auditory Perception

Broadening the Genetic Bases of Crop Production

The Principles of Ethics

The Ethics Of Liberty

The Retrieval of Ethics

The Ethics of Liberty

The Ethics of Identity

The Ethics of Authenticity

The Ethics of Romanticism

Political man: the social bases of politics

The Ethics of Madness

The Ethics of Voting

The Ethics of Biotechnology

The Ethics of Madness

The Ethics of Memory

The ethics of redistribution

The Ethics of Altruism

The Ethics of Ambiguity

The Bases of Ethics

The Logic of Knowledge Bases

Molecular Bases of Anesthesia

Biophysical Bases of Electrotherapy

Stealing Bases

Bases Loaded

The Ethics of Liberty

The ethics of ambiguity

The Ethics of Madness

The Ethics of Nationalism

The Ethics of War

The Ethics of Cyberspace

The Ethics of Bankruptcy (Professional Ethics)

The Neurophysiological Bases of Auditory Perception

Broadening the Genetic Bases of Crop Production

The Principles of Ethics

The Ethics Of Liberty

The Retrieval of Ethics

The Ethics of Liberty

The Ethics of Identity

The Ethics of Authenticity

The Ethics of Romanticism

Political man: the social bases of politics

The Ethics of Madness

The Ethics of Voting

The Ethics of Biotechnology

The Ethics of Madness

The Ethics of Memory

The ethics of redistribution

The Ethics of Altruism

The Ethics of Ambiguity

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