Virtue Quest

Words do not suffice

My aunt recently passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. Needless to say, her death has affected the entire family, but my uncle and cousins most of all. Now, our whole family tends to meet difficulty with humor, so there’s been lots of laughter; but I’m sure when I’m not around to see it, there are tears as well.

Still, they put what’s called “a good face” on the matter. At the funeral, we sang songs like “Rejoice and be glad,” and at the reception the line was, “She wanted it to be a joyful occasion.” And she did. I think she wanted a celebration of life.

Being a Christian, I see a certain reason in that: there’s hope for a greater joy in heaven than there ever was on earth. Even from a purely natural perspective, there’s a certain gratitude for all the good that she brought to our lives: her sharp wit and quick smile and constant love as a wife and mother.

But the loss is real. I remember a few years ago when one of my best friends was diagnosed with cancer; she’s currently in remission and is doing well, pursuing a career and so on. But there was a stark moment for me when I realized that I couldn’t take her for granted, that at some point she might be gone from this world. And if I felt like a piece of myself was being torn away just at the possibility of losing my friend, I can’t imagine what my uncle and cousins must be enduring at the real loss of my aunt.

The problem of evil

It’s times like this that, philosophically, the so-called “problem of evil” comes to the fore. How can we understand, or explain, or just deal with the painful and grievous events that happen every day in the world around us? Whether it’s disease and death, or inhumane crime, or natural disaster … where does it come from, and what does it mean for how we live our lives?

Voltaire (to grossly oversimplify) suggested that we simply “cultivate our own gardens,” that is, do the best we can with what we’ve got, and not pretend the world is any better than it is. It’s a kind of detachment from those things that are beyond our ability to control.

Buddhism goes even further, if I understand it rightly. It advocates a radical detachment from all things, good and evil. For even good always leads to evil, when it is lost. So if we avoid attachment to all things, we will never have cause for grief. Both these approaches share the great insight that good things, good people, are ultimately limited and vulnerable. They fail to meet that unlimited longing for good that lives within our hearts.

But their solutions strike me as, well, cowardly. Grief, at least, has the courage to stand in the face of loss and acknowledge just how good this person, this relationship, is that has been lost. Grief is the act of love in the face of loss.

The “problem” of goodness

I think it goes deeper still, though. Grief demonstrates that our very awareness of evil is dependent on the existence of good. It is very possible to experience good without evil, such as on a wedding day when even clumsiness and tears are causes of joy; but it is impossible to experience evil without good. No one would attend a funeral unless the one who has died was a great good in their life.

It’s easy to answer, where does evil come from? It comes from the loss of something good. The greater question is, where does good come from?

How is it possible that wonder and beauty and joy and a profound connection between persons enters into the world? Why do I experience a painting (a mere arrangement of colored globs) or a gesture (a simple mechanical motion) or a person (just another animal, after all) as something that gives meaning to life, that organizes my priorities, that I can only describe as “good”?

This is the great mystery of life, it seems to me. And it is a mystery that is celebrated rather than solved, celebrated even in times of loss and grief.

House and Cuddy, clearly in love

Among my many addictions is the TV show “House, M.D.” (available here on Hulu). For those not similarly addicted, the show revolves around a genius doctor, Gregory House, who refuses to play by the rules – either medically or socially. He’s also addicted to Vicodin. He would have been fired, friendless, and finished long ago if not for the codependent friends who surround him his incredible genius.

It would take too long to bring non-watchers up to speed, so suffice it to say that the show is really soapy, and that a major theme has been that House has a crush on his boss, Lisa Cuddy. But, like a bully in the schoolyard, he shows his affection with meanness.

For reasons beyond my kenning, Cuddy ended the last season by confessing her love for House. The new season began with them taking a day off of work to, um, cuddle in House’s apartment. Great soap opera stuff. But toward the end of the episode, House told her, “This isn’t going to work.” Why? Because, he said, I’m never going to change. I’ll always be the vindictive, manipulative, irresponsible, misanthrope that audiences love to hate.

Cuddy had a great come-back: “I don’t want you to change.” Then she kissed him. *aww…*

Okay, have you wiped away your tears yet?

Good. Because they’re both wrong – at least as far as human beings go.

The more things change…

The fact is, we’re always changing. Some changes we can control: for example, I can choose to ride my bike rather than drive my car today. Other changes are beyond our control: I can’t choose whether to have my appendix burst or whether I get hired at that job I applied for.

Some changes are harder than others: changing my habits of eating are very difficult to change, and require an active effort of mind over a long period of time. Changing the way I respond to people who annoy me requires both a strong desire and the quickness of mind to catch myself before I utter than snarky remark.

However difficult, such changes are possible. But some changes catch me entirely off guard. When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of processed cheese. Now I can’t stand the stuff. On the other hand, I used to hate the taste of tomatoes, but now I’m a big fan – except for ketchup which still makes my tongue curl.

The point is: change is inevitable. The change I can control is how I deal with the changes that are beyond my control.

… the more things stay the same

That said, it’s always the same “thing” that undergoes the change: me. I am the same person who used to hate tomatoes and love processed cheese. I am the same person who used to weigh 150 pounds – or, for that matter, 8 pounds 11 ounces. And my ability to change is restricted by the fact of who and what I am.

I am, first off, a human being. Any attempt to live in some other way, as a plant or as a space alien, will only cause the kind of change called “damage.” I’m also a bookish nerd with a weak back and knees. I’ve tried both playing football and digging ditches; both resulted in unexpected injuries, because my body just isn’t built for those kinds of activity.

My mind, on the other hand, can’t stop asking the sort of questions that drive other people crazy. (A friend visited my apartment for the first time and commented on my bookshelf: “Did you really read The Illiad and The Odyssey for fun?” Well, yes – but only in English translation.) So it’s natural for me to focus my energy on learning and passing on what I’ve learned.

Indeed, it would be unnatural for me to repress that drive in myself, just as it would be unnatural for my athletic friends not to go out for six-mile runs or for my gregarious friends not to check Facebook and call their friends twice a day.

Virtue – mainly the virtue of prudence – lies in recognizing what will change, what can’t change, and then choosing how to live in the midst of it all.

Eileen Nearne

I ran across this eulogy of Eileen “Didi” Nearne, an agent of Britain’s Special Operations Executive charged with maintaining communications with France during World War II.

She worked cleverly and faithfully, but ultimately was captured and tortured by the Gestapo (apparently using a technique similar to waterboarding). She was interred in a concentration camp, but escaped and hid until the Allies arrived.

I tend to imagine a war as a highly dramatic situation where the moral lines stand out more clearly; but Didi’s work, for the most part, took a much more everyday aspect. She operated a wireless set. She held down a day job. She had to decide when to tell a lie and when to tell the truth. She had to make difficult choices with uncertain consequences. Her stakes were, in some ways, higher; but the nature of her choice was not very different from the kind of choices I face each morning.

She maintained her cover as long as she could, but when captured she refused to contribute her labor to the Nazi war effort suffered greatly for her stand on principle. She managed, not only to escape herself, but to help others to escape with her. This required both prudence and courage in choosing just how best to combat the evils she faced.

When she returned home, she also returned to a more “normal” life. She did not cling to either the pain or the glory of her work during the war. She lived with her sister, and made the best contribution she could to her community. She continued to suffer what we now would call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from what she endured during her captivity. But she resisted the temptation to leverage her heroism or her suffering for personal benefit.

Her service was to God and Country, and she left it at that. She may not have been a saint, (or maybe she was); but she certainly was a model of courage and prudence, and is a good reminder to me that simply doing my work quietly can sometimes help change the world for the better.

Other information is available:

• Her biography at Wikipedia
• Obituary in the London Telegraph
• Obituary in the New York Times

Ice cream, puppy, what's not to love?

English is a tricky language, and especially around this word, “love.” It can mean anything from simple enjoyment (I love ice cream) to affection (I love these puppies) to romance (I love you, and only you, forever and ever) to sacrifice (I will lay down my life for those I love).

Latin makes things a little easier. Thomas Aquinas describes amor as a passion which we share with other animals, but when he speaks of human virtue he uses the word caritas. The latter is usually translated as “charity,” but these days “charity” is mainly associated with giving money or second-hand stuff to poor people. And while assisting the needy is certainly a loving act, it hardly expresses the full range of what caritas means.

Meanwhile, amor usually gets Englished simply as “love,” which doesn’t convey the specific kind of love that is amor. Even so, amor and caritas, like the Greek words eros and agape, have great areas of overlap, and find their way into each other’s territory. And occasionally English can help out Latin: there is no Latin verb form of caritas, but in English I can tell someone how much I care for them.

Passion

Even the word “passion” means, in contemporary English, almost the opposite of what its Latin origin, passio means. Passio means “to endure” or “to suffer” – hence, Jesus’ torture and execution are called his “passion” – but in everyday speech we generally use “passion” to mean a driving desire, a kind of obsession that moves us to action.

That’s why I say “almost the opposite”: it is the object of our passion, whether that object is chocolate or one’s spouse or a Beethoven composition, which incites us, which moves us, which forces us to respond to it. After all, the other common English word that derives from passio is “passive.”

So the connections is that we don’t initiate a passion ourselves; passion is thrust upon us by some object that draws our desire. Our action is a response to the desire that we endure or suffer or (less dramatically) receive.

An example: when I was in college in snowy Colorado Springs, there was a local ice cream shop that made fresh ice cream right on the premises. They offered a punch-card to customers so that, when you filled the punch card, you received a free ice cream cone. Normally, you received one punch for every purchase you made; but you would receive more punches as the temperature grew colder, and if it was actually snowing at the time of your purchase you would get a full card’s worth of punches. Now, years later, I still salivate for ice cream like Pavlov’s dog whenever it snows.

No one would deny that love has this element of passion to it. We don’t really choose who or what we love; our beloved (in a way) chooses us. But virtue is not really about our passions; it’s about our actions.

Virtue: our response to passion

Of course, I would be even fatter than I already am if I indulged my passion for ice cream every time it came over me. And I would be even more emotionally scattered (and scarred) than I am if I pursued every person I found attractive in any way.

Fortunately, I have a mind that puts my passions in order and shows me how to respond to my desires in a fully human fashion. The virtue of love is not only to desire and to enjoy what is good, but to see our desires in the context of the rest of the world.

The more I see and know, the more I love, because love is attracted to any and every good thing. But in a human being, a person who has both reason and emotion, love is able to recognize that the greatest good is a life with all the smaller or temporary goods ordered toward the greater or more permanent goods. Ice cream is a very good thing, but it is better when it is dessert than when it is the whole of my diet. And it is far better when it is something I share with my friend or my spouse, rather than something that distracts me from those people.

Find the right tool for the right job

My grandfather was an engineer, and one of the things he taught me was how to use a tool. “A tool,” he’d tell me, “is designed to make the job easier, not harder. If the job is too hard, either you have the wrong tool for the job or you’re using the tool the wrong way.”

I think this is one of the best ways to describe the moral and social principle of subsidiarity.

What is subsidiarity?

I don’t like to use technical terms or jargon because, nine times out of ten, they muddy things up rather than bringing any clarity. But “subsidiarity” is a really useful term, and I haven’t found a more common synonym to use. I think that’s because subsidiarity is a principle that’s almost entirely forgotten in modern American culture.

The short definition is: in social or political structures, the bigger or “higher” structures exist to support the smaller, more local, or “lower” structures – because it’s at those local structures that the concrete problem actually needs to be solved.

If there’s a bridge that needs to be repaired, you can’t repair it with a national policy. You need to repair it at the bridge itself.

A real classy party

Now politics isn’t my strong suit; but political involvement is a responsibility that comes with American citizenship, so, I’m striving to educate myself politically. Friends who know this recommended to me this article from The American Spectator (printable version here), a magazine that has (I think it’s safe to say) somewhat conservative leanings.

At the heart of the article, though, is a startlingly “leftist” assumption: that the world consists of two classes of people, the “Ruling Class” and the “Country Class”, and that these classes are opposed to one another. This is too bad, because this faux-Marxian notion undermines some very wise insights. For example:

When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences “undecided,” “none of the above,” or “tea party,” these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while most of the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well.

From this foundation, he builds an argument (which I find rather compelling) that the Democratic Party is the real political power in this nation (even when not in office), and that the Republican Party has largely succeeded by imitating Democrats tactically while opposing them rhetorically.

However, an increasing number of people find the tactics of American politics – whether handled in an amateur way by the Democrats or in a clumsy way by the Republicans – to be out of touch with down-to-earth, day-to-day life. In particular, they find it problematic that every problem, no matter how big or how small, needs a political solution.

• There’s a hurricane or an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico! It’s up to the president to solve the problem.
• Homosexuals want to “marry” each other and lots of people see problems with that. Better pass a law, or file a lawsuit!
• I’m having trouble finding a job! It’s those dratted {insert reviled political opponents here} who ruined the economy!

Subsidiarity: an alternative to political solutions

It seems to me that we would have better politics if we didn’t try to solve so many problems politically – especially at the national scale. In other words, perhaps we should pay more attention to the principle of subsidiarity.

The only problem with this is that we all, individuals and businesses, local governments and churches, charities and non-profits, all of us would have to shift our entire economic model and most of our structures for getting things done.

That’s not impossible, but it’s hardly easy, and I don’t have a complete solution. But I am increasingly convinced that the way we’ve been doing things is running us all into the ground, and that the principle of subsidiarity is one essential piece of the solution.

James Chastek, a guy who is much smarter than I am, noted a fascinating distinction:

St. Thomas divides human beings from the animals saying that man is a dominus of his own action. Man is lord, and from his being lord it follows that he should be rational and volitional.

Emphasis is in the original.

This struck me in a profound way when I read it. I had always assumed (even having read the passage Chastek refers to) that our moral responsibility derived from our rationality; but it’s a whole different picture to look at reason and will as the tools we need in order to fulfill our calling to bear responsibility for our actions. For example, it explains why we’re still responsible for unintentional actions, like this: Actually, this is the kind of thing that could open the door to being real BFFs, because it gives the opportunity for genuine acts of humility, care, and honesty. But that doesn’t make it right that the guy smacked the girl upside the head.

It’s just that, being lords of our actions – even though we’re not 100% in perfect control of our actions – we can take responsibility for what we do and develop enough command of our emotions and our gestures to bring some good out of bad situations.

That’s a pretty lordly thing, if you ask me.

40 Days for Life is an internationally coordinated, yet community based, campaign to peacefully raise awareness of the consequences of abortion for neighborhoods, for friends, and for families. There have been six coordinated campaigns since 2007. This time around, the campaign will run the 40 days between September 22 and October 31, 2010. 40 Days for Life follows a three-pronged strategy:

1. Prayer and fasting
2. Peaceful vigil
3. Community outreach

The prayer and fasting acknowledges that human action alone is insufficient to overcome the widespread assumption that abortion is a reasonable option. The peaceful vigil aims at letting a clinic’s employees and clients know that there are alternatives to abortion, and at letting the wider community know about the activity of an abortion clinic in their neighborhood. The community outreach educates people about the reality of abortion through church, media, and campus outreach.

It’s easy to get involved, and it’s a great way to grow in the virtues of justice, fortitude, and charity.

Is this what virtue looks like? I don't think so!

In a comment on a previous post, Paul writes:

I looked up a contemporary definition to establish a framework as to what is virtue. Then I had to wonder “is virtue, in the ‘doing good easily and often’ practicable and important?”. Morality yes but virtue, I’m undecided. Can one use virtue to navigate the world as it exists? There are a lot of instances in business, social interactions, maintaining or improving ones place within a civilization in which a virtuous person would be vulnerable to all kinds of abuse, deception and repression. Is virtue a weakness?

This is a great question. But in order to answer it well, I’ll have to ask Paul a question right back.

What, in your mind, is the difference between morality and virtue?

I ask this because you seem to place them in very different categories. In the tradition I’m writing from, Thomist Catholicism, that difference doesn’t make much sense. Morality is the theory, and virtue is the practice. “Morality” is the word for how we recognize good (and evil) and “virtue” is the word for how we do what is good (and avoid what is evil). So, when you say, Morality yes but virtue, I’m undecided, I’m not sure I follow your meaning.

Virtue and vulnerability

That said, I think I can speak to the question of whether virtue (or moral behavior) makes a person weak or vulnerable. The short answer is: Yes.

But yes only in a sort of tunnel-visioned way. Virtue opens someone to attack or harm from one small and specific direction: injustice.

In chess or poker, in love or war, if you play fair and others cheat you will suffer harm. You will probably lose the game. But you will save your dignity.

One of the oldest sayings of philosophers is that it is better to suffer evil than to commit evil. And that’s what’s really going on here: if you refuse to commit evil, if you cling to what is good, then odds are that someone will try to commit some evil against you. It might be as small as a white lie or as big as theft, adultery, or murder. And it’s possible they’ll succeed.

Strength to endure whatever may come

However, from the broader perspective of a whole human life, virtue is exactly what gives a person the strength to endure injustice rather than to be broken by it. After all, one of the first lessons of virtue is that life ain’t fair. We’re confronted by all the same “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that tempted Hamlet to suicide and that tempt me to sloth, but that motivate the truly virtuous to rise to the challenge and stand fast in their humanity.

Whether those challenges come from a natural disaster or from the unjust acts of another person, virtue enables a person to prudently sort out the real dangers and the genuine options; to respond in a just and even loving manner; to take those actions courageously despite the hardship or danger; and to temperately refrain from the easy escapes that tempt us (well, me, at least) to avoid facing the sea of troubles in our lives.

Those easy escapes are the sorts of thing that work well for a moment, but have lasting consequences: the quarter-by-quarter greed of Wall Street, the comfort of vegging with a bowl of ice cream or a TV show, the awkward dodge of a white lie. As far as I can see, it’s only virtue, which endures suffering and injustice in the short term, that enables a person to remain true to him-/herself and to avoid the even worse consequences of vice.

Love puts all the pieces together

I’m a big-picture kind of guy. I like to know where things are headed, and why. Only then can I really focus on the particular parts or steps.

So, in looking at living a virtuous life, a fully human and humane life, my first question is, “What makes an action or a habit to be virtuous?”

As far as I can see, there are three contenders for the title of “form of the virtues,” or, to put it another way, “foundation of morality.” They are:

1. Duty
2. Interest
3. Love

Now, before I go any further, I think it’s clear that any coherent approach to human action has to take account of all three of these aspects of morality. But the question of priority, of which one governs the others, is critical. I’m convinced that most ethical problems – both personally and in the public square – would become much more manageable if we had the big picture straight.

Duty and interest: how we think and how we act

When I ask a moral question, I tend to phrase it something like this: “What should I do?” or “What’s the right thing to do?” And the thing that makes me worry or question my decisions is usually a conflict between what I think I ought to do and what I want to do. I want another beer, but I promised to be the designated driver; I ought to treat my boss with respect, but I want to tell everybody what a jerk he/she is; I want that new smart phone, but I know I can’t afford the monthly payments; that sort of conflict.

That sense of duty is strongest (for me, at least,) in the little everyday decisions. I’ll ignore the duty to eat healthy food and get exercise, but I’ll feel guilty about it. When I’m in the checkout line, I don’t even think about not paying for the food or clothes or whatever I’ve bought. It’s a duty, after all.

But whenever I’m not strictly bound by duty, the sense of my own interest becomes more important. I ask, things like: “Do I want to marry this person?” or, “Do I want to take this job?” rather than, “Should I marry so-and-so?” or “Should I work for Mom & Pop Inc.?” The question of desire, of what is in my “best interest” seems to dominate in those kinds of decisions.

Duty is a category of justice: it tells us what we owe (what is due) to each other or, in a reflexive way, even to ourselves. It looks at the world in terms of what is required or necessary in any given situation.

Interest is more personal: it is focused on how to get what is best for me. My will, my desire, is the only standard it recognizes. It looks at the world in terms of what is desirable and possible.

In other words, duty doesn’t know how to deal with optional or free choices; and interest doesn’t know how to deal with obligations, seeing laws or rules merely as obstacles to be overcome. Stated this baldly, it’s pretty clear that neither duty nor interest works as a basis for moral life. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking in terms of duty and from acting in terms of my interests.

Love: forming and shaping desire

This is where the virtue of love shows its ability to support every aspect of human life. I’m not talking about the emotion of love, or affection, or being in love. Love as a virtue shows us the big picture of what is good in life.

Thomas Aquinas notes that “good” has two aspects: “One, the ultimate and universal good, the other proximate and particular.” Love is what shows us the ultimate good, and puts everything else in context. It’s like looking at the picture of a puzzle: it shows where each piece belongs.

If I love the environment, that shapes the kind of transportation I use and how I dispose of my trash and the kinds of things I eat and so on. If I love my spouse, then I look for things we can enjoy together and for ways I can contribute to his/her comfort and happiness.

Duty and interest are both important to help us make choices about particular goods. But Love knows when to call on them, how to balance them, how to choose in optional matters and how to accept obligations and requirements. Love shows us how to be fully ourselves, and fully human. That is why love is the form of all the other virtues.

The past couple months have been a difficult, but fruitful I think, stretch. I’ve been working a full-time temp job, struggling with some family and some personal issues, and scrambling to make progress on a few other writing projects. As I said before, I had too many plates a-spinning, and this blog fell by the wayside.

I promised some new features, and they’re not quite ready for prime time yet. I have an ebook almost ready, essentially a rewrite of my master’s thesis on the nature of love. And I’m planning a series of pamphlets/booklets that I’m calling “Outlines of Aquinas” which will translate some of the major pieces of Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy into contemporary and practical terms, and I hope they’ll be useful for teaching as well as personal edification.

I’m also working on some concrete member benefits. If you’ve already joined the quest, then I have your name and info. You won’t need to re-submit.

Thanks for sticking with me! My progress in virtue is slow, probably slower than most of yours. So thank you for your patience and perseverance!