Do you trust me?

James Chastek has been noodling questions of epistemology, that is, how do we know what we know. He’s been examining the basis of scientific evidence and certainty, which is fascinating stuff, but much of it is over my head. Again, this guy is a real professional philosopher.

But he recently had a post on belief and faith that caught my attention. His basic point is that the word “belief” has a very broad range of meaning, and that the word “faith” should be kept distinct from it. Some snippets:

There are certain beliefs that, though reasons can be given for them, do not need to be believed for those reasons; and/ or which should be believed before the reasons are known. Good reasons can be given for why a child must listen to his parents or a tribesman should love his tribe, but the virtues of piety, patriotism, obedience, etc. do not require that the one with the virtue know the reasons for his action. A child who listens perfectly to his parents or teachers would be viewed as having a virtue even if we did not know if the child had a reason for what he was doing; and you can love your family or children even apart from any evidence that they are lovable.

And so there is a sort of belief that gives a certain perfection to a person (a virtue), even apart from his believing it for a reason. The virtue of faith is this sort of belief. Faith adds to this idea that we believe the thing unconditionally.

Now, Mr. Chastek* is a very suggestive sort of writer. That’s my polite way of saying he doesn’t draw out all the conclusions I wish he would, so I have to think through them myself.

So, thinking through it, I notice that belief (and faith specifically) is about actions more than about ideas or propositions. He speaks of children obeying parents, of citizens loving their country, and so on; these are all actions in response to something which calls for belief. It is not fully belief unless it leads to action.

However, some of the actions he mentions are a little bewildering to me. For example,

There would be something perverse in a mother who waited to love her children until she saw a reason to love them more than the other persons she loved;

Who is believing whom or what, in this case? Is the mother “believing” that her child is lovable? I suppose so, in the sense that the mother acts “as if” her child is lovable, even before seeing any evidence of it. (Indeed, seeing some evidence to the contrary, in the diapers and so on.) But is this a matter of belief? Or is it a matter of will: I love my child.

But suddenly I find myself in the trap I’ve been warning others of: the will always follows on the intellect. I can’t love something or someone until I know it/him/her.

Still, belief (or faith specifically) is not the only kind of knowledge. It seems Mr. Chastek takes belief as acting as if there are reasons for doing something without know what those reasons are. And faith specifically is unconditional belief. I’m not sure I buy that.

It seems to me that the distinguishing feature of belief is that it is personal: I believe (in) a person; and therefore I accept what they say is true, and I act accordingly. This is even true of a child. If you ask, “Why did you do that?” most children would reasonably answer, “Because Mommy said so.” The relationship, the trust in another person, is the source of the belief.

Faith, it seems to me, adds not that the belief is unconditional, but that the relationship is unconditional. I can have faith in my spouse – so I am faithful to her and she to me – because only death can part us. I can have faith in my friend, insofar as our friendship does not depend on any conditions or requirements. I can have faith in God, because God is infinite and beyond any conditions I can place on him. There is no limit to the relationship, so there is no limit to what I will believe and act on.

But it is the relationship that is primary, not the propositions I am asked to accept, or even the particular actions I am led to. The knowledge of belief and faith is, first and foremost, that this person is worthy of my trust, calls forth my love. Based on this knowledge, I place my trust in this person, and I offer him or her my love. Specific “beliefs” and actions follow on the knowledge of the person, and of the relationship.

* His About page notes that he is a Ph.D. candidate, but also notes that he “plans to defend [his] dissertation in late 2009.” So, if he has attained his doctorate, I apologize for using the wrong title.

Ought is ought; but it comes from is.

… on some reading. I want to point out a very interesting post by Dr. Edward Feser, who is a real professional philosopher, on the question whether morality depends on God. As he puts it, yes, but

Not the way many people think it does.

To expand a little:

Now, natural law theory as understood in the Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) tradition presupposes this understanding of natural objects. Human beings, like every other natural substance, have a nature or substantial form, and what is good for them — what constitutes their flourishing — is determined by the ends or final causes that follow upon having that sort of nature or substantial form. But just as we can normally determine the efficient causes of things without making reference to God, so too can we normally determine the final causes of things without making reference to God. And thus, just as we can do physics, chemistry, and the like without making reference to God, so too can we do ethics without making reference to God, at least to a large extent. For we can know what is good for a thing if we can know its nature, and we can know its nature by empirical investigation guided by sound (A-T) metaphysics. At least to a large extent, then, we can know what the natural law says just from the study of human nature and apart from any sort of divine revelation. That’s why it’s the natural law.

But this pushes back to the question where human nature comes from, which is where God comes in as the creator of human (and every) nature.

Dr. Feser also wrote another post in which he assures me that I am not alone: when faced with the multitudinous problems of modern society, the best policy is blame William of Ockham.

Disconnected from reality, pride always takes a fall

I’ve been in San Francisco this past week, and it’s been impossible to ignore the preparations for “Pride!” this weekend. Trust me, I’ve tried to ignore it. But one reason I can’t is that the whole thing is deeply problematic, right at the root.

I’m not talking about homosexuality. That’s another topic entirely. I’m talking about pride.

Pride has been growing for a while: “I’m proud to be an American” and “proud parent of an honor student” and “say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud” and so on. Even the brand of hand soap where I’m staying is “Pro Pride.” The LGBTQWERTY movement has simply capitalized on it to a greater extent than anyone else, and maybe has cornered the market at this point.

But pride is not a virtue. It’s a vice. It’s the foundational vice, the root of the seven deadly sins.

Not “pride” but joy

Now, I don’t think all the advocates of pride are aiming to “overstep beyond” what they are, which is how Thomas Aquinas defines pride. I think most of them are simply asserting that they are good people. They’re opposing some social stigma, or outright oppression; they’re fighting against depression; they’re demonstrating their competitive advantage or their unity as a group. Whatever it is, they’re trying to say that who and what they are is good.

And they’re right to do so. To forget that it is good to exist, that it is good to be myself, is to neglect the truth and believe a lie.

But pride neglects one important fact: as good as I am, I am neither the source nor the perfection of goodness. I have faults, and I make mistakes, and I even do things I know are wrong. Even if I didn’t, I’m not as capable a mechanic as my uncle, and not as gifted a musician as my friend, and I don’t have the magnetic personality of my cousin – nothing wrong with me, but just limits on what is good. I have gifts that they don’t have, for example, the compulsion to read philosophy, which really is a gift. Really. It is. But that doesn’t make me better than they are, or make them better than I am. It means we are good in different ways.

My response to recognizing my gift in study is not (or shouldn’t be, anyway) pride, but joy.

After all, it really is a gift. Sure, I’ve put some effort into it myself; Thomas Aquinas isn’t always easy to understand, and Hegel is nearly incomprehensible. But neither the desire nor the ability are things I’ve created for myself any more than my friend created her sense of rhythm and melody, or (for that matter) another friend created his own tin ear. There’s the gift of nature, and then there’s what we do with it.

And the first thing to do with a gift is to be happy I’ve been given it. Any child knows this: it’s why birthdays and Christmas are joyful occasions. A gift is worth celebrating.

The thing not to do with a gift is to reject the giver. Thomas follows Pope Gregory I in listing four kinds of pride:

There are four marks by which every kind of pride of the arrogant betrays itself; either when they think that their good is from themselves, or if they believe it to be from above, yet they think that it is due to their own merits; or when they boast of having what they have not, or despise others and wish to appear the exclusive possessors of what they have.

In other words, pride claims control over the gift, whereas joy simply claims the gift is good.

Gifts and giving

So, for example, “Black is Beautiful” makes lots of sense: it’s a simple truth, and counters a prejudicial lie. “I’m Black and I’m Proud” doesn’t make sense, because the color of one’s skin is a gift, just like any other. It’s not something someone can control.

For that matter, even gifts that we can develop, like musical talent or academic smarts, are not ours to command, and they don’t give the authority to command others. I can’t make myself any smarter than I am; I can either use the intelligence I’ve been given to learn, or I can make myself stupid by misusing that intelligence; but I can’t give myself the ability to understand something that’s beyond me. I also can’t make myself smarter than the people around me; if I try, sooner or later, one of them will show me the error of my ways.

But if I simply acknowledge that I’ve been given a gift, then I can use that gift to make my life better … and to help improve the world around me. I can shed a little light from what I’ve learned in the confusion of the world around me. My friend can sing a song that lifts spirits. My uncle can help me fix my car when it’s busted. And we all can be confident that it’s good to be who we are, even if someone calls me a backwards idiot for reading medieval philosophers, or calls my friend a sentimental twit for singing, or my uncle a neanderthal for being mechanical. We know it’s not true. We can rejoice in the truth, and support one another in joy. Because the gift we all share in common is the basic dignity of being human. And that is a gift well worth celebrating.

"Your lovin' gives me a thrill, but your lovin' don't pay my bills..."

I’m giving a talk at my parish tomorrow night (7:00 in the parish hall, if you’re in the neighborhood!) on usury and the morality of economics.

Usury has become a popular word, at least in some circles, for what’s wrong with our current economy. Too many people getting too greedy, and getting bailed out when their greed comes home to roost.

I think usury is one part of the problem, but it’s bigger than that. The other problem is straight up greed, which is not exactly the same as usury. Now, I’m not an economist, and I don’t understand the ins and outs of the whole system. My approach has been to take hold of the basic moral issues involved in economic life. And in my reading and thinking, these two themes have jumped out to center stage.

Reality

It’s no surprise to you who read this blog that I’m a big fan of reality. I think 99% of our problems come from a mismatch between what I think or what I want and what is actually the case.

Usury is an excellent example of this. As far as I can tell, the problem with usury is that the “interest” being charged is not connected to reality. As Thomas Aquinas puts it: “To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist.”

It is not a sin to ask for money to cover expenses that are real, or even to cover profits from lost opportunities. But to charge interest without any connection to some actual cost or loss is simply to demand that new money come out of nowhere. This is wrong because it is, ultimately, false and impossible.

Zippy, who sadly no longer blogs, had a series of excellent posts on why this is the case, and how it applies to our current economy. You can read his analysis, starting here, then part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. He eventually explores the territory of what a creditor has a right to reclaim from a debtor, and a bit on what kinds of “financial instruments” are licit, and why.

Greed is not good!

The other theme that jumped out at me was what today we call “profit motive” and what the medievals called “greed”.

The problem is not that production or trade turns a profit; as many have pointed out, there would be no business or trade without profit. As no less an authority than St. Paul says, “[T]he plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of a share in the crop.”

The problem is, rather, that profit is not good in itself. Profit is only a means to an end. It is both foolish and unjust to try to collect profit for its own sake, whether in the form of money or in the form of houses or artworks or anything else. Profit is meant to be used, not to make more profit, but to give benefit to people.

Now, those people can include oneself. It is good to make money in order to put food on the table. It is good to feed one’s family, too. It is good to feed one’s employees, and one’s stockholders, and their families. All this is putting profits to good use.

Likewise, it is good to use profits to upgrade one’s equipment, or to do research into better ways of making widgets or better ways to bring those widgets to market.

But it is not good to pursue or hold on to profits as if they were themselves the goal, the end of economic activity. In other words, using profit itself as a motive for work or business is greed, avarice, a deadly sin and a mortal vice.

The universal destination of goods

Why is this the case? After all, didn’t I work for that money? Didn’t I earn it? What does it hurt to try to add more to it, or to hold on to it? Am I saying everybody should be poor, or that it’s wrong to be rich?

To answer the last question first: No. Ideally, nobody would be poor, and it’s perfectly okay to be rich.

But there are two things going on here: first, as I hope is clear from what I wrote above, money is not a good in itself. It is a medium for exchange, and a measure of value. But it has no value in itself; it’s entire worth is that it makes buying and selling easier. If money doesn’t buy and sell, then it loses its entire purpose and value.

Second, and more importantly, my right to own things is not absolute or unlimited. The things I own are derived from nature and labor, from the world and the work we do on it. So yes, I have a right to the products of my labor, and to what I can buy and sell with that. But my right is rooted in the nature of the world, which cannot belong absolutely to anyone. I did not make the earth, and I have no claim to it above anyone else. Nature is a gift to all of us, and each of us has an equal claim to what we need from it.

So, although I can claim the good things I have got by working, my claim stops when someone is excluded or restricted from access to the good things they need to get by. The goods of nature are universal: they belong to everybody.

If my pursuit of profit, or my hoarding of money or products or whatever, prevents someone from working, or eating, or living a humane life, then that is wrong. Profit is meant to support the life and growth of human persons, both individually and as a society. I do not have a right to keep good things away from others, no matter how hard I’ve worked for them.

It is not wrong to be rich; but it is wrong to keep riches all to oneself.

So tempting... but DO NOT TOUCH!

I’m reading a book written by an old friend, Fr. Janko Zagar, OP, titled Acting on Principles. It’s basically a summary of what’s usually called “Fundamental Moral Theology” in seminaries, but it’s written in plain English with concrete examples that make it quite accessible to a layperson.

Early on, he articulates a distinction that has always eluded me: the difference between the “end of the act” and the “end of the agent.”

Okay, yeah, that’s a bit of technical language. But the truly excellent thing is how he translates it in a way I can not only understand, but put into use in my own life.

When an end is not an end

So here’s the bit that has always confused me. On the one hand, it’s pretty basic to morality that “The ends don’t justify the means,” meaning that it’s wrong to steal a cookie even if you’re giving it to your sister. You can’t lie to your spouse just to protect his or her feelings. And so on.

At the same time, it’s another basic feature of morality that “The end specifies the act,” that is, an action is defined by its end.

I hope I’m not the only one who has trouble reconciling those two statements.

But here’s where Fr. Janko comes to my rescue. The word “end” is used differently in these two moral axioms. I had simply assumed that “end” meant “goal” or “intention” in both of them. But the word “end” can also mean “completion” or “perfection” or “accomplishment.”

So the “end of the act” is the completion of that act. It is what the act does when it is fully realized, when it is finished. For example, if I’m playing a song for my friends, they don’t applaud until I’m done. It’s not a complete act, and so not fully a song, till then. If it’s interrupted because I break a string on the guitar, then it’s a failed song. It’s a song, because the end is the complete performance; but it’s a failure exactly in so far as it’s incomplete.

This is the difference between surgery and assault with a knife – a distinction I’ve previously had trouble articulating. In an assault, the act is completed in the wounding. The wound is its end. In surgery, the act is not complete until the wound is sutured and, perhaps, not even until the patient has recovered. The wound is not the end of the act of surgery because it is only a part of the whole act.

So the “end of the act” is an end that defines the act itself. This is what Thomas Aquinas means when he says, “moral acts properly speaking receive their species from the end.”

Very special agents

Now, the phrase “the end of the agent” brings to mind the greatest desire of any enemy of James Bond, or some such thing.

Not exactly. An agent is simply anyone who acts. The Latin shows the connection: to act is agere.

So the “end of the agent,” as Fr. Janko puts it, is “the subjective perception of a built-in end of an act.” That is, it’s what I think I’m doing when I do something. I may think I’m adding sugar to the cookies, even if it’s actually salt; as far as I’m concerned, my act is baking cookies. It’s doomed to failure by my ignorance and my lack of skill, but the act is defined with regard to me as baking.

Two points. First, the major difference is that the “end of the act” is objective, and can (in theory) be determined by any outside observer. My baking “accident” above can objectively be described as “making a mess.” Anyone can see the signs that distinguish surgery from assault, even if they’ve never before encountered such a medical procedure.

Second, even the “end of the agent” is not the “goal” of the action. It is still an end that defines the act. It simply defines the act subjectively, according to the limited perspective of the person acting.

The word used to describe the “goal” or the “purpose” or the “reason” for an action is usually “intention.” Sometimes it is called the “remote end,” that is, the end beyond the action itself. This is the end that cannot justify the means. The end of the act itself is what defines whether an act is good or bad; the end of the agent is what defines how responsible someone is for what they do. The intention or motive or “remote end” can make an act more noble or more reprehensible, but it cannot change the nature of the act itself.

An example. Robin Hood robs from the rich to give to the poor. Everybody cheers except the Sheriff. But Robin Hoods excellent motives do not change the nature of the act. The question is, in taking the Sheriff’s taxes, were those taxes justly collected? If so, then he is a thief, no matter how many people he helps with the money. On the other hand, if the taxes were unjustly collected, then Robin is the hand of justice restoring stolen property.

Likewise, in a case my friend Mark has been working through here, here, here, here, and here, a lie to expose some horrible injustice is still a lie and is still profoundly wrong.

Clarity at last!

This distinction between ends of acts, of agents, and intentions turns out to clear up all sorts of moral conundrums and “hard cases” that I’ve had difficulty working through before. The traditional justifications of self-defense, the various arguments about usury, and the absolute condemnations of acts such as torture, murder, theft, all make more sense to me than they ever did before. Thank you, Fr. Janko!

Who wouldn't want to wear one of these fancy hats?

When talking politics with people, I often mention that I’m in favor of monarchy. It’s half-joking: my last name is King, after all, and I do answer to “Your Majesty.”

But it’s only half joking.

With a monarch, especially a hereditary monarch, you’re under no illusions that the guy (or gal) on the throne is there for any reason other than the luck of the draw. He’s not king because he’s smarter, or more popular, or more effective than anybody else. He just happened to have the right parents.

That said, you also have a pretty good idea if somebody’s in the running to be king from childhood, and you can educate the kid accordingly. So you can give him the best chance at being a good ruler that anyone can have.

I’m not saying there are no problems with monarchy; there are plenty, and when it goes bad a monarchy becomes the worst form of tyranny. But I like to stir up a discussion, and I’m far from convinced that “democracy” – especially as practiced here in the U.S. – is the best solution for every time and place. That rather knee-jerk adoration of democracy seems to be one of the few things Democrats and Republicans can agree on, which is one of the many reasons I don’t trust either major party.

So imagine how delighted I was to run across some well-reasoned articles by a smarter guy than myself, John Médaille, on the notion of monarchy. He’s planning a three-part series, and has published the first two here (1) and here (2). The second, especially, is worth a read because he lays out some of the differences between monarchy and the early modern abuses of it which tainted our ideas of the institution. I’m looking forward to his third installment!

Can you tell if this artist is moral?

I’m not much of a sports fan, but I heard a story on the radio the other day about Michael Vick, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles who took a break from football in federal prison but now is a contender for MVP of the NFL. The story revolved around the question of whether it was okay to cheer for Vick and the Eagles, to acknowledge Vick’s incredible skill as a player, in light of his less-than-upright past. The reporters admitted to a certain pressure to portray great athletes as morally good people.

In a similar way, I have friends who tell me that they just can’t watch some actors in any movie or TV show because they know too much about that person’s private life.

Thomas Aquinas points out, however, that art and morality are distinct categories – and for the sake of argument I’m including “sports” as a kind of art. The difference is that art is good or bad specifically in the work itself, whereas moral acts are good or bad in the act of working.

In other words, at a certain level, it doesn’t matter who paints a picture or throws a touchdown pass; you can say, “awesome” or “lousy” about the picture or the pass itself. On the other hand, it’s a moral question whether it was a good thing for that person to paint this or to throw that pass. Moreover, no matter how amazing a painter or player someone is, it doesn’t necessarily make that person any better a person. Talent or genius are, in themselves, incapable of bestowing wisdom or happiness.

The problem of role models

So it makes perfect sense that someone who has some great gift might also be an alcoholic or drug addict, might blow all their money on gambling, or might be even be violent. There’s no necessary connection between genius and virtue.

But one of the ways human beings learn is by imitating others. So when I see someone doing something I really want to do myself, I tend to imitate everything about that person. I make that person an ideal, a model for the role I want to play. It’s easy to forget or overlook the difference between a person’s accomplishments and the actual person.

It’s even easier if that role model’s vices match with my own temptations. Someone who is promiscuous (whether apologetic, like Tiger Woods, or unapologetic, like James Bond) gives me an excuse to go easy on my own lust; someone who indulges greed, like Vick, or wrath, like Mel Gibson, lets me think that maybe I can get away with greedy or violent activity.

Now, if I want to throw a football, I can still learn a lot from Vick about how to excel at quarterbacking. If I want to be an actor, I shouldn’t ignore what Mel might have to teach. But I need to distinguish their skill at their arts from their virtue as human beings. I can learn tactics from Napoleon or rhetoric from Hitler, but I need to make sure I’m not imbibing grandiosity or insanity or inhumanity along with the expertise.

Putting art and life in right relationship

All that said, the question of whether it is good to throw a football or to attack an enemy or, for that matter, to do anything at all must come before that question of how to do it well.

When I’m watching others, I do my best to keep their work distinct from their person. I try to “judge not, lest I be judged.” I’m not perfect at this kind of detachment, but it’s my goal.

But when I’m doing work myself, whether it’s writing a book or talking with a friend, I do my best to do what is good and beneficial, and I try not to let fear or pride about how well I can do it interfere with the decision to do it or not.

As G.K. Chesterton famously said, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” But it is also worth doing as well as I can manage to do it.

For me? Aw, you shouldn't have!

I had one of those “a-ha” moments over the weekend. I was thinking about words, as I often do, and I was trying to find a way to articulate the difference between recognizing life (or a friend or a privilege or whatever) as a gift and taking life for granted. And I realized, the phrases look roughly identical.

A grant, after all, is a kind of gift. It is something given to me by someone else.

So I started exploring whether there are any words we use for that sense of entitlement we call “taking something for granted” that don’t in fact refer to receiving something from someone else. Even the word “entitlement” refers to the granting of “title” or ownership of something by whomever has the authority to give it. The only words I could think of are words like “possession” or “ownership”, which really don’t convey the kind of presumptuous attitude I’m trying to describe.

Maybe presumption is itself the word I’m looking for. It literally means “taking something before,” that is, before it is given. It is taking something as if it had been granted, even when it has not. And that’s where the problematic attitude lies: it’s a lack of recognition that something is genuinely a gift. It’s the idea that I am completely and independently capable of getting everything I want or need entirely on my own without any help from anyone else ever. Ultimately, that attitude is founded on falsehood.

Gratitude: recognition of my need for others

I’m concerned about this attitude because it’s one I struggle with all the time myself. I remember as a child needing to be told to say “thank you” at Christmas or on my birthday, and thinking that I didn’t really feel grateful. I felt like I deserved the toys, or maybe even deserved better loot than I’d got. So I went through the motions and held onto presumption in my heart.

But that led me to a bitter and lonely place. I alienated many of my friends. And then something rather odd happened: when a friend did show a kindness to me, even a tiny one, I found myself utterly overwhelmed with gratitude far out of proportion to their act. It was as if all that repressed recognition of others’ gifts to me came bursting out at once. So then I had friends saying, “Enough thank yous, already! It was really nothing!”

Well, it wasn’t nothing. But it also wasn’t the thing I was most grateful for: I was most grateful for the ability to acknowledge my dependence on other people.

My illusion of fierce independence had been (and still is, in parts of my life) a kind of cage that kept me from the real world as it actually is, and from connecting to the real people who live in it. So finding a way to relate – simply by acknowledging the relationship – was a tremendous good that I could never have simply acquired for myself. I am glad my mother taught me how to say “thank you” all those years ago.

Gratitude and justice

It’s interesting that Thomas Aquinas lists gratitude as part of the virtue of justice, while generosity or giving gifts is part of the virtue of charity or love. That is, even though gifts are given freely, the acknowledgment of the gift is something owed by duty.

At first, this seems odd, and a little bit like extortion. But my own experience shows me why it’s a matter of justice. To refuse to acknowledge the gift and the giver is to deny the reality that I have received something I could not have without that other person.

I could not have received life without my parents. I could not have received friendship without my friends. Even in relationships where there is a “business” aspect, there also is a gift; I could not have received my education without my teachers’ willingness to give what they also had received. Gratitude, giving thanks for what has been granted, is simply a matter of seeing reality for what it is.

I’ve mentioned before some of the principles I wish were more prevalent in political conversation. Here’s the list again, for those who hate clicking on links:

• Common good
• Subsidiarity
• Interdependence, aka, Solidarity

Many more good things worth talking about certainly belong on the list, but this is as far as I’ve gotten in trying to articulate some essential political principles.

However, while I generally like to focus on the positive, it’s important to recognize the genuine evils out there which undermine any possibility of real human life, liberty, and community.

Recognizing evil

A quick reminder: evil is not any thing in itself. Evil is the distortion or destruction of something good. So when my anger starts rising up, I have to remind myself to look for the good that’s being distorted. I have to remind myself that whoever is committing or supporting evil is actually trying to accomplish something good, albeit in a twisted way.

In other words, if there’s a way to achieve the good without distortion, then I have made my enemy into my friend.

A good thing, like a virtue, can be distorted in at least two ways: too much (excess) or too little (defect). There may be other dimensions of distortion out there, but I’m not wise enough to talk about the much. In any case, a good always falls into the category of evil if either A) there’s just not enough to actually be the good it’s trying to be, or B) it so overextends itself that it ceases to actually be that good thing.

An example: the dignity of the human person is perhaps the fundamental good that government exists to protect.

It is evil when the government fails to actually protect that good, in cases like physician assisted suicide or unjust war, or even in less clear cases like lack of enforcement of environmental or food health regulations.

It is also evil when the government extends the protections of human dignity beyond the human person, for example giving corporations “rights” under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, or giving teachers greater rights than parents over the education of children.

Support an imperfect good, but never support evil

Now, no law is perfect, just as no individual person is perfect. We all make mistakes. We disagree about what the best course of action is.

Thomas Aquinas notes that the moral obligation is to seek the good, not necessarily to seek the best. The best isn’t always possible, and the best isn’t always clear. But it usually is clear when a good is so minimized or so distorted that it ceases to be good anymore.

My friend Mark notes that “10% less evil than the other leading party” is still evil, and therefore not worthy of a vote or any other form of support. He writes in a candidate if both the major party candidates take positions in support of some evil: for example, a Democrat may support unlimited access to abortion while the Republican opponent may support the torture of prisoners. Both positions are distorted at their core: they reject the good of human dignity in favor of some lesser or dependent good – say, convenience or security; so these core distortions are called “intrinsic evils”. Therefore, he won’t consider voting for either of those candidates, and will seek someone who at least does not support some intrinsic evil, even if there’s not much else to agree on.

It’s the least we can ask of our public officials, that they do not promote anything intrinsically evil.

My evil list of evil

I’m putting out here a list of things that are absolute deal-breakers for me. These are things so obviously and intrinsically evil that, if a politician is in favor of them – or even not opposed to them – I cannot in good conscience lend them any support. Sadly, this leaves me with almost nobody in the major parties today that I can vote for. Like Mark, I fear I’ll be writing in most of the candidates I’m voting for this election.

• Abortion – it’s murder, and I can’t condone it; this includes IVF, and any research that takes a human life
• Physician-assisted suicide, aka, euthanasia – again, murder is unjustifiable, for any reason
• Unjust war – I follow the basic criteria laid out by Thomas Aquinas and others; the Iraq invasion was manifestly unjust; the current Afghanistan situation has only the slenderest chance of meeting Just War criteria
• Torture – they’re human beings, even if they’re our enemies

Again, this list is incomplete, but it’s as far as I’ve sorted out at this time. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments.

Classical virtue - very classy

I was talking with a friend this weekend, and she said that she was a little confused when she first visited my blog because it wasn’t clear what kind of virtue I was talking about. So I took another look at the page, and I realize that the words “classical” and “cardinal” are entirely missing from the page.

I’ll rectify that soon, but in the meantime I realized that it never hurts to take another look at the big picture.

The classical virtues

The main reason I’m writing this blog is as a kind of public self-improvement exercise. I’ve found that the classical philosophy of virtue describes my strengths, my faults, and my potential. It also gives a very practical structure to work on overcoming my weaknesses and to work toward my potential.

These virtues are traditionally grouped under the four “cardinal” virtues and the three “theological” virtues:

• Cardinal virtues
  • Prudence, AKA Wisdom
  • Justice
  • Fortitude, AKA Courage
  • Temperance, AKA Self-control
• Theological virtues
  • Faith
  • Hope
  • Charity, AKA Love

Each of these virtues describes a different way to achieve a certain excellence or fulfillment of human life. They are ways to become more human, and more humane.

Habits of life

A virtue is a habit of life, that is, it is an inclination to live and act easily and effectively. It’s not a “natural” inclination, in that no one is born with it. We acquire the virtues, mainly by practicing the kinds of actions associated with them. For example, I develop an inclination to courage by taking standing fast in the face of danger and difficulty, even when I am terrified; as I grow in courage, I find that facing danger is easier and less intimidating – if not actually less frightening. I grow in both confidence and ability.

On the other hand, a virtue is exactly a “natural” habit because it is fulfills my nature as a human person. It is part of human nature to grow, to develop, to learn, to interact with other people, and so on. Virtues are the habits of living a fully human life: wisely, justly, lovingly. Practicing virtue helps me to become more myself.

It is something like the habit of playing a musical instrument: at first, the actions don’t feel natural; but with practice, they become a kind of “second-nature”. Playing music becomes easy and enjoyable. Virtues are habits that apply, not just to a single activity like music, but to every aspect of life.

Vice

A vice is essentially a bad habit: it is an inclination to act less than human, or even contrary to human nature. We all have them. My own main vice (as far as I can tell) is sloth: I’m lazy, and I also tend to be skeptical about whether something is worth doing. It takes a lot to get me moving. This means that I spend a lot of time and energy complaining or looking for escapist entertainment rather than actually facing reality or doing something positive.

Generally speaking, every virtue has at least two vices: too much and too little. Taking courage as an example again, it’s possible to be too timid, or to be to rash. Courage is bold, but not brash; it’s cautious, but doesn’t hesitate.

Overcoming vice and growing in virtue go hand in hand.

That whole “theological” thing

The “cardinal” virtues were taken for granted by the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and it’s possible to find similar ideas in most ancient cultures. In the middle ages, Christian philosophers like Thomas Aquinas added three “theological” virtues mentioned in the Bible. These virtues are acquired, not only by practice, but by a gift from God.

I include them in this blog, not because I want to push a Christian agenda, but because I think there is a natural aspect to these virtues that fills out the cardinal virtues. Love resolves the conflict between justice and mercy, hope gives purpose to courage and temperane, faith extends rational prudence into deep relationships.

That said, I’m a practicing Catholic myself, and many of the people I read approach these virtues from a Christian point of view. It would be silly to try to hide that. My goal, though, is to propose rather than to impose, to share the wisdom I’m learning without expecting it to be the final word.