First off, I just want to say, “Thank you!” to readers Jeana and bob, who in the past week or so have helped me fulfill one of my goals for this blog: to generate provocative and intriguing conversation. Thanks!
In principium, Deus creavit...
Actually, I’m serious. By “order,” I mean specifically teleological order. In non-techno-babble, that means, whether things are in and of themselves directed to an end beyond themselves. The classic example is the eye: the eye is ordered toward the sense of sight, and so an eye that does not see is a “bad” eye.
Order and morality
Now, someone might object that you can’t blame the eye for being blind. And that’s true. So it’s important to distinguish between what’s called “ontological evil” and “moral evil.” “Ontological evil,” or evil in “being,” is simply the lack of full existence or perfection in a thing. A diseased tree, or a collapsed bridge, or a blind eye is “bad” because it lacks the fullness of what it is to BE a tree, or a bridge, or an eye.
“Moral evil,” on the other hand, involves the freedom of the will. Without personal freedom, there can be no “bad” or “evil” except in the ontological sense. For something to be evil in a moral sense, it must be a bad choice
Now, according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and those who follow their tradition, the mind has several major parts, two of which are the intellect and the will. The purpose of the intellect is to understand things abstractly. The purpose of the will is to choose freely. If the intellect has a problem – for example, my intellect has great difficulty grasping poetry and metaphor, but thrives on mathematics – then we recognize that as a problem in the mind. I tell people that I’m “bad” with poetry, and they know what I mean.
If the will has a problem, it affects a person’s ability to choose freely. Sometimes this is a mental illness; for example, a psychopath is not free to act empathetically, or even responsibly. But often, we limit our own freedom by our very choices themselves. If I choose to insult you, I am no longer free to be your friend.
The slavery of vice
Now, part of the nature of the will is to develop habits. Habits are to the will what memory is to the intellect: they keep us from having to re-invent the wheel every time we hit the road. So, a virtuous habit is one that protects, or even extends the freedom of the will. Vice, on the other hand, increasingly limits the will’s freedom.
But this freedom is not freedom to do anything at any time; it is freedom to fulfill the nature of the person. It is freedom to pursue the good.
The best image I’ve found is that of a piano keyboard. Anyone at any time is free to hit any key or combination of keys on the keyboard. (This is what Pinckaers calls “freedom of indifference.”) But only someone who has practiced a great deal is free to play Debussy, or to compose an original work of music.
Now, every moment of every day, our will faces at least 88 possible choices of what to do next. If we practice making those choices well, with an idea of harmony or rhythm or beauty in mind, then we will develop habits that allow us to make more interesting and more complex and more, well, good choices. The will really does become more free, more fulfilled in achieving its purpose.
But if we simply hammer away at life according to mood or blind emotion, like a piano student who refuses to adopt proper posture or fingering, then we limit our freedom and risk hurting both ourselves and the instrument – that is, everybody around us.
Natural morality
This view of the human person, one who has a purpose or an end in both being and acting, and whose purpose is to pursue greater and greater goods, is the foundation of any theory of natural rights, or natural law, or natural morality of any kind.
Some thinkers have tried to do away with “human nature” without losing universal morality, but I haven’t found any of them (that I’ve read) to be convincing.
Others have noted that it’s incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what’s involved in “human nature” and have accepted that rejecting nature also means rejecting any universal morality. But then why do even they act as if moral questions remained vital? Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment is a brilliant exploration of the problems with this way of thinking.
So that’s largely why I’m convinced that there really is such a thing as human nature, and that the nature of the will is to choose freely, and that virtue is the true path to freedom and fulfillment and happiness.
But I’ve been talking too much. Looking forward to continuing the conversation.
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[...] Amy noted that some of the posts and comments were becoming “a bit too philosophical for [her] bent.” By that, I think she meant that the conversation had grown so abstract that it was no longer connected to real life. [...]
Interesting. I read my way through a very long string of posts on a Fb page where various Thelemites and others were discussing (and usually not quite arguing) A. Crowley’s take on Will, intellect, morality, choice, etc., only a couple of minutes before reaching your post and reading your take on the same topics, plus following the comments of others. I wonder if The Powers That Be are trying to get my attention?
I read more than I comment here. Glad there are those willing to continue the discussion sometimes.
A few comments:
First, I think there is some confusion about the distinction between Natural Law and Natural Rights. In your original post you objected to MacIntyre’s rejection of natural rights. But that is not the same thing as Natural Law — at least not in all conceptions of it. MacIntyre accepts the teleological perspective, which you here identify as “natural law”, but he still rejects the idea of natural rights (inalienable rights that exist in each individual prior to their engagement with society).
Second, while I can probably get on board with taking a teleological view of things that have clear functions like, say, a telephone (a phone that works is “good”, a phone that doesn’t work is “bad”), I’m not at all convinced that it makes sense to take a teleological or functional view of everything or that nature is inherently teleological. What is the function or “end beyond itself” of an elm tree? What distinguishes a “good” elm tree from a “bad” elm tree? The amount of shade it produces? The number of leaves? Its height? How rotten it is so as to provide food for insects? How solid it is so as to provide foundations for bird nests? How straight it is? How aesthetically curvy it is? How in the world could we ever define the “natural goodness” of an elm tree?
Similarly, if you are going to take a teleological view of people, you run into the problem of how to define what the “end in itself” is of being a person — and so, the problem of how to define what makes a “good” person and what makes a “bad” person. Presumably this is where your discussion of virtues and choices is going.
But how are we to recognize which of our choices are “more interesting and more complex and more, well, good choices”? Backing up, how are we even to recognize which choices are questions of virtue and morality and which are not? Is every choice we make a question of virtue? Do I need to consider which shoe I should tie first in such terms? Which color shirt I wear? If the answer is yes, then I think it can only paralyze us. If the answer is no, then we need some criteria for recognizing which choices are matters of virtue and how to adjudicate between “bad” and “good”. Appealing to feelings of “harmony or rhythm or beauty” doesn’t seem to be very helpful, given that everyone has different ideas of what is beautiful, harmonious, etc.
Ultimately, the teleological view of people is derived from Aristotle. Here are some examples of what he considers to be “good” or “virtuous” men:
Aristotle described what he called the “Magnificent Man”, whose virtue lies partly in his spending loads of money on spectacular public displays of wealth. The poor, alas, because they have no money are largely unable to achieve magnificence.
Another good or virtuous person he described was the “Magnanimous Man”, who because he is so virtuous recognizes that he is superior over the bulk of the population, and consequently restrains himself from talking to these lowly people so as not to make them feel bad. He will, however, reluctantly accept all of the honors that they bestow upon him because his virtue allows him to see that they do not have the money or intelligence (or virtue?) to deal with him as equals, and this is the best they can do — even though it is not nearly good enough for someone so Magnificent.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t find either of those characters particularly appealing as role models for humanity. And if we don’t accept Aristotle’s list of virtues, which list should we accept instead?
This brings us back to the question of whether it even makes sense to think of people from within a teleological framework in the first place.
What is the function or “end beyond itself” of an elm tree? What distinguishes a “good” elm tree from a “bad” elm tree?
Telos or “end” is not “function.” The end of an elm tree is to be an elm tree; that is, a mature exemplar of what an elm tree is. A particular form of tree. For living things, broadly speaking, the final and formal causes are often the same, or closely related.
Otherwise, we see that physical system in general move so as to occupy equilibrium points in state space. For example, a falling rock will move toward the minimum achievable gravitational potential. A planet will move in an orbit. These correspond to what are called “attractor basins” in parameter space. Sodium and chlorine will under specific conditions move to become salt. Species move toward greater fitness in their niche. There would be no natural laws in science if there were no finality in physical processes.
Sorry, I forgot that I had one additional comment on your statement that:
“Others have noted that it’s incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what’s involved in “human nature” and have accepted that rejecting nature also means rejecting any universal morality. But then why do even they act as if moral questions remained vital? Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment is a brilliant exploration of the problems with this way of thinking.”
Is it really so absurd to think that people would still consider moral questions to be vital even if they do not accept a universal morality? Heck, it seems to me that if you reject a universal conception the discussion of morality becomes even more vital not less, simply because it will always be in flux. If you accept that morality is culturally constructed, then it will always be necessary to consider and discuss what actions we should and should not collectively agree upon as moral. If, in contrast, you accept a universal morality, what is left to discuss? If morality is already defined by you in nature, then further discussion seems unnecessary — all that is left to do is live up to those universal principles.
I really like your piano analogy and plan to use it next time I’m talking to somebody who thinks that morality restricts freedom. I can agree that human nature exists, however difficult it may be to pinpoint exactly what it encompasses, and I can agree that virtue comes from seeking to do what we were created to do, and true freedom comes from developing virtue. I can also agree that there is a difference between virtue and natural law (and natural rights), but I’m still unclear on what this difference is. Is it virtuous to water a plant? Is it immoral not to? Is it wrong to eat candy or just virtuous to follow a diet that will nourish our bodies to do what they were created to do? Is following your vocation a virtue or a moral necessity? Is there a natural right to life, or is it merely virtuous to defend creation?
Wow, this part of the blog is getting a bit too philosophical for my bent.
I’ll throw in my 2 bits (again): Sometimes concepts are matters of faith — either you believe them or don’t. Long discussions on definitions doesn’t change that reality. Walk softly and accept life is a whole lot more ambiguous then we’d like it be. *shrug*
I’ll leave you all to carry on. Enjoy!
Well, in some realms I’d be tempted to agree with you Amy, but morality seems like something that needs to be unpacked rather than shrugged at (not that this is what you are actually implying).
Appeals to natural rights, for example, have been used to disenfranchise Native Americans from their land, justify racist and/or exclusionary policies under the claim that property is a natural right, etc. Appeals to particular systems of morality have been used as justification for colonialism, warfare and genocide.
So, I’m not quite willing to accept any system of morality as a matter of faith just yet.
There’s an old Latin saying: abusum non tollit usum, literally, abuse does not take away use.
I don’t think anyone would deny that appeals to natural rights have been abused, any more than anyone would deny that the Bible has been quoted to support wickedness. For that matter, so has the U.S. Constitution, and Darwin’s Origin of the Species. That doesn’t necessarily mean that natural rights are wrong.
But here’s the problem with ditching natural rights (and other universal aspects of morality): if no rights are natural, then who cares if Native Americans are disenfranchised, or Jews are herded into concentration camps, or Europe pillages the Americas for gold, or America drops a bomb on Hiroshima? What is the moral basis on which we can say any of these things are wrong?
For that matter, what’s the basis for saying it’s wrong for me to steal your lunch money, or smack you upside the head, or call you a scruffy-looking nerf-herder?
The fact is, morality is always seen through the lens of particular cultures because it is natural for people to live in a particular place and time and to develop particular customs amongst themselves. We are social creatures, after all. Being social is part of the fulfillment of human nature.
That does not mean that we can’t discover what is truly natural. Rather, it means we see that nature grows in a variety of ways.
Confronted with a piano keyboard, there are infinite pieces of music that one can play on it. But strangely, no matter how you bang on the keyboard, making random noise always seems to sound more or less the same.
Just as we can distinguish music from noise, we can distinguish natural and moral acts from unnatural and immoral acts. I’m not saying that there are no hard cases. Some music sounds very close to noise. But the trained ear – and, more importantly, the trained mind – can both distinguish and describe what makes a discordant theme to be truly musical. Likewise, a virtuous person sees more clearly in particular cases what is moral and what is not.
We rely on exactly the same ability, reason, to make both kinds of distinctions. Reason discovers order and relationship between things. It abstracts from particular sensations – such as red, round, smooth, sweet – and discovers that distinct objects are of the same kind: apple. Over time, reason learns more from more experiences, and is able to make clearer and deeper judgments. We make mistakes, but we learn from them. We learn that some actions really can be called “good” and others cannot. We explore the reasons why, and call these theories or systems of morality. But the foundation is the very experience of “good” and “evil”, and finding that experience both in our own lives and in the stories that other people tell us.
I wish I could just give you a list of what is right and what is wrong, but there is no such list. If there were, if there even could be such a list, what would we need our minds for?
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your reply.
I didn’t point out the misuse of natural rights as an argument against natural rights, but rather as an argument against simply accepting the existence of natural rights by faith alone. Likewise I wouldn’t accept the arguments against natural rights on faith alone.
I’m still not sure I follow your argument.
You seem to appeal to Reason, Natural Rights, and concepts of duty & obligation in your ethical framework, but none of your arguments so far have really taken that form, and all three of these characteristics are usually seen as incompatible with the virtue-ethics framework you seem to favour.
What you seem to promote is virtually the same as what MacIntyre argues for — an Aristotelian teleological virtue-ethics. I see much to commend virtue-ethics as an ethical framework, but to say it is based on Reason, Natural Rights and duty/obligation seems odd. One of the great strengths of virtue-ethics is that recognizes that ethics are uncodifiable — meaning that they cannot be accommodated within any single or small set of rigid rules of thumb. But in order to do this, virtue-ethics theorists happily abandon the notion that there are natural rights (see MacIntyre’s comments as only one example) — because ultimately what are natural rights but rules of thumb (e.g., I have the right to do whatever I want on my property, because property is a natural right).
It was people like Locke who opposed Aristotle’s metaphysics who originally proposed Natural Rights (to life, liberty and property) as an alternative to Aristotelian virtue-ethics. Aristotle would shudder at the notion of rights, as conceived of by Locke.
Related to your previous comments, I’ll also note that virtue ethics is also generally opposed to the notions of duty and obligation for understanding morality. Such deontological frameworks are seen as too rigid for the realities of moral life. Yet you seem to see virtue-ethics and duty/obligation as compatible.
With respect to the cultural relativity aspect, it seems you are trying to have your cake and eat it too: arguing for universal principles of morality but with “local flavour”. To use your piano metaphor — the piano is the universal principles, but each culture makes their own music. The problem with the metaphor is that, so far at least, you haven’t told us what the piano (general principles) actually is except to say it is “human nature”. But, again, why should we accept a teleological perspective of humanity? What is the “end beyond itself” of an elm tree or of a person? At some point virtue-ethics theorists are going to have to provide an answer to this — otherwise, why should we believe in it instead of other non-teleological frameworks (of which there are several).
“morality is always seen through the lens of particular cultures because it is natural for people to live in a particular place and time and to develop particular customs amongst themselves. We are social creatures, after all. Being social is part of the fulfillment of human nature. That does not mean that we can’t discover what is truly natural. Rather, it means we see that nature grows in a variety of ways.”
But how do we distinguish actions that are simply “nature growing in a different way” from actions that are running contrary to nature? If all cultures see morality through their own lens, then how can someone from any other culture judge their actions? At some point you need to argue for non-cultural “natural” criteria on which to base such judgements. You claim to appeal to Reason for this, but I don’t see any Reason in your actual arguments
Reason is the form of thinking by which we can derive definite conclusions from given premises.
When you make statements like the following:
“Just as we can distinguish music from noise, we can distinguish natural and moral acts from unnatural and immoral acts. I’m not saying that there are no hard cases. Some music sounds very close to noise. But the trained ear – and, more importantly, the trained mind – can both distinguish and describe what makes a discordant theme to be truly musical. Likewise, a virtuous person sees more clearly in particular cases what is moral and what is not.”
you are not appealing to Reason, but rather to some sort of intuitive understanding of right and wrong that is based on experience and teaching within a given cultural context. That’s fine, so far as it goes, but it is certainly not arguing from Reason.
Similarly, to say that “there is no such list” of what is right and wrong, is to deny that definite moral conclusions can even be derived from given premises. It is also to deny that there is any sort of Natural Law. For if we cannot even define something as basic as: “killing is always and definitely wrong”, then we clearly aren’t arguing from a position of Natural Law.
So if there are no criteria for judging right from wrong except for intuitive understanding gained through teaching and experience within our own cultural context, we are still left with the problem of how to apply that intuitive understanding to other cultures who, presumably, have developed their own intuitive understanding gained through teaching and experience.
In any case, it seems we’ve come to an impasse, so I’ll thank you for the discussion.
Good luck with your quest.
@bob – I don’t think we’ve come to an impasse. You raise some very important points, and some of them I don’t have answers to myself. I’m no expert.
At the same time, I do have answers to some.
First off, I don’t think that virtue ethics is based on ideas like “rights” or “obligations” or “duty”. But neither is it opposed to such ideas – at least in the tradition that I’ve been studying.
MacIntyre is the first of the “modern” virtue ethicists that I’ve read, and I have many questions about his approach. I’ve been working from a Thomistic, rather than an Aristotelian, basis. (Even MacIntyre notes that, since writing After Virtue, he has embraced a more Thomistic position.)
So, as to the ultimate foundation for morality, and nature, and even knowledge, I’m going to point to God. This is obviously a debatable point, but it’s one that I personally hold to and can’t see any way of doing without.
As for the “opposition” between virtue and obligation, I noted in another recent post that the Thomistic tradition (as far as I understand it) virtue encourages a person to excellence while law and obligation restrain a person from vice. So Thomistic virtue ethics places a much different emphasis on ideas of duty and obligation without rejecting them.
The real point of difference between us, I think, is the idea of Reason. I said:
The purpose of the intellect is to understand things abstractly.
and you said:
Reason is the form of thinking by which we can derive definite conclusions from given premises.
I think your understanding of Reason is much more focused and specific than mine. Again, I’m not well read on Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment thinkers, but that seems to be the tradition you’re proceeding from. Is that right? Again, I’m working out of a more medieval point of view, in which Reason is seen as being admirably suited to understand the world, and the epistemological issues of Descartes and co. simply are not taken seriously.
This is not to say that I don’t take them seriously; it’s simply to say, I haven’t done enough study and thinking about them to resolve the conflicts they raise.
So, in my longwinded way, I’m saying: please don’t abandon the conversation! I’m learning a great deal from you, and I hope that you’re gaining something from the discussion as well.