Virtue Quest

Zeno - founder of Stoic philosophy

Here’s a punchy quote from After Virtue that, I think, summarizes the heart of his argument:

I remarked in Chapter 13 that when teleology [I'll explain this below the quote - RK], whether Aristotelian or Christian, is abandoned, there is always a tendency to substitute for it some version of Stoicism. The virtues are now not to be practiced for the sake of some good other, or more, than the practice of the virtues itself. Virtue is, indeed has to be, its own end, its own reward and its own motive. It is central to this Stoic tendency to believe that there is a single standard of virtue and that moral achievement lies simply in total compliance with it.

Okay, first off, let me translate teleology. That’s philosophical techno-babble for an inherent purpose or direction in things themselves. So, a common example is an eye: the eye is for seeing, so sight is the purpose or end of the eye. An eye is directed toward sight, so sight becomes a standard of goodness internal to the eye itself. The major debate is whether the human person has such an end, and what that implies. Aristotle’s idea was that the purpose of human life is to contemplate abstract truth. Christianity’s idea is usually called “heaven” but is often put in similar terms as Aristotle: to gaze on the face of God.

The Stoics, and their Enlightenment inheritors, disconnected the idea of moral action from any goodness for the moral person. It’s not seen as virtuous to do the right thing if you’re getting anything out of it for yourself.

Major guilt trip

This, more than anything the nuns did to me as a kid, is the source of my own guilt today. I almost feel in my gut that I have to act against my own nature and gifts and joys, that I have to be unhappy, in order to really be good. Sort of like saying that the eye has to avoid seeing and work real hard at hearing in order to be good. Pretty dumb, huh?

But that’s what happens when morality gets divorced from the actual person who is acting morally, and from the situation in which he or she is acting. Morality is reduced to a set of rules, which more and more become arbitrary and unrealistic. No wonder our culture has such an abhorrence of rules and restrictions: we know deep down that there’s something wrong with a demand for obedience for obedience’s sake.

On the other hand, if we recognize that we don’t have to reinvent morality from scratch every second of every day, and that rules are meant to remind us of our nature rather than force us to work against it, then morality becomes much less of a burden. I can relax a little, because I only have to ask, “Does this action fit with my own nature and abilities in this situation?” I don’t have to agonize over whether it’s “right” or not, whether it’s the “best possible action” or anything like that. I’m here. Something needs doing. If I can do it, great! If not, well, not much I can do about it and feeling guilty isn’t going to help matters any.