Virtue Quest

Have I mentioned how much I love the book I’m reading? The Sources of Christian Ethics by Servais Pinckaers. And it’s not just because the author’s last name sounds just like “pink hairs,” either!

A history lesson

The middle section of the book gives a quick history of major ideas in morality from Plato to the present. The very short version is that in the fourteenth century (that’s AD 1301-1400) an English Franciscan named William of Ockham (famous for “Ockham’s razor”) began pushing the theory that the will was more important than the intellect, and that freedom was the greatest of all goods – greater even than truth.

Ockham’s ideas caught on, and in the next couple hundred years transformed the way people thought about ethics and morality.

Instead of being about the pursuit of goodness, happiness, and excellence, morality became a struggle between freedom and law, between choice and obligation.

Don’t impose your morality on me!

There’s a lot packed into that history, but something that struck me very personally was that law is something imposed on me from outside, whereas virtue is something I develop from within myself.

Now, being a basically lazy man, I’ve spent vast portions of my life waiting for somebody else to make me do things. I’d put off homework till the teacher sat me down and watched me do it. At work, I would only get things done if the boss was around to make me look busy. Heck, even at home, I only bother to pick the place up if there’s company coming over.

In other words, I’ve been defining my freedom as avoiding the imposition of law – and I associated doing anything at all with the obligation of law. Even things I know are good for me, I need someone to “make” me do them.

The approach of virtue is altogether different. It recognizes that freedom is at the service of a person’s ability to act, to do stuff. And it is a person’s mind that figures out what’s good to do. The will follows the mind and moves us into action.

Right, totally abstract. Let me see if I can give an example.

An example

So I’m sitting on my bed looking at the mess that is my bedroom. Papers piling up on the desk. Clothes strewn all over the chairs and the corner of the bed – not yet on the floor, but that’ll come soon if I don’t do anything about it. A bowl and a glass from when I ate lunch in my room a week and a half ago.

But something in me says, I don’t have to clean my room. Nobody’s going to make me. You’re not the mom of me!

So, instead of cleaning my room, I read a book. Yep, The Sources of Christian Ethics. And it occured to me that I could choose to clean my room – not because someone was forcing me to, but because it was good to. I could clean my room simply because I enjoy having a clean room.

So I stood up and started clearing off my desk.

Those who cling to freedom will lose it

It’s ironic that, by clinging to a false freedom – refusing to let anybody “make” me clean my room – I actually lost a true freedom: the ability to clean my room and to enjoy it. But that’s what happens when a good thing gets put in the wrong place.

Freedom is not the highest good, and is not something to be grasped with both hands. If we hold it lightly, and use it to grow in virtue, then it blossoms itself and makes everything we do truly free.

Friday, my dad hosted a poker party at his house. A couple uncles were there, and some other friends. Just nickel and dime stuff, but real money on the table. We drank. We swore. We laughed an awful lot. A good guy’s night.

Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’ve been looking for a good day job. I have a solid gig for the moment, but it’s seasonal work and in April I’ll be “unemployed” again. So I’m sending out resumes and making calls and hoping for something to materialize before May arrives.

Now, there are two strong possibilities at present. One is in sales: I’m going in for a third interview later this week. But I’m not a natural salesman, and the company is looking for somebody “hungry”. I know that I could do the work, but I don’t think I’d like myself coming home each day from asking people to buy something that they didn’t necessarily want.

The other possibility is to be a dealer at a local casino. The wage isn’t much above minimum, but the tips can add up to a decent living. I’d enjoy it. I’d meet a wide variety of people, and hear some great stories, I’m sure. But I’m not sure that gambling is necessarily a good job for someone trying to pursue a life of virtue, and trying to encourage others to do so as well.

These aren’t the only options. I’m applying to various other places, including retail; but these are the only responses I’ve had, and I’m fairly sure that both these places are willing to hire me. Now, both would require me to go through some training up front that I would have to pay for. That’s fine; it’s not much training, I have enough cash in the bank, and the hire is guaranteed afterward.

The other night, a friend suggested that I make a list of pros and cons to help me figure it out. As I was thinking it through, I realized a few things:

• I don’t want a sales job
• I do want the dealer job
• But I’m afraid that dealing casino games would be a temptation against virtue

So, what “pros” means is, dealing cards would not be a temptation against virtue, and “cons” means dealing cards would be a temptation.

Here’s the list I’m starting. It’s an open list: I’ll update it as new ideas or suggestions come to me. So please feel free to make suggestions or give advice in the comments box!

PROS – not an occasion of sin:

• It’s not in-and-of-itself immoral, and the work is flexible enough to allow me to focus on writing and research in my off hours
• I’d be get to know a cross-section of society that I wouldn’t normally meet
• I might have the opportunity to reach out to someone who is reluctant to ask for the help he or she needs
• I would have the fun of gambling games without having to risk my own money
• …

CONS – a near occasion of sin:

• I’d be constantly surrounded by different kinds of temptation: to gamble with my own money, especially when I can’t afford it; to drink to excess; to lust after the provocatively dressed cocktail waitresses
• Secondhand smoke; ’nuff said
• Would I be enabling those who are gambling beyond their means, or are compulsive/addictive gamblers?
• Would it compromise my efforts to write about and encourage people toward virtue?
• …

Again, please comment and offer any advice you’re willing to part with! Thanks!

I’d been having a pretty good month, till about the middle of this past week. I’ve been waking up on time, getting work done, keeping in touch with friends, praying regularly, and so on … but little things slowly began to slip. So, I haven’t really made my bed since Wednesday. I came in late to work a couple days this week – only a couple minutes late, but definitely late. And these past couple days off, I’ve spent more time watching telly and playing computer games than reading or writing, which is what I had planned to do.

The demon despair

Now, my tendency when I find myself slipping into bad habits is just to give up the fight.

That’s because I’m (first) lazy and (second) a coward and (third) prone to depression. Big whoop. I know plenty of people who can identify with those vices, and I know I’m not alone. But that doesn’t make it okay.

So, the question is, what to do about it. How can I overcome the temptation to despair?

I think the first step is to recognize that this isn’t just a minor foible. This is self-destructive behavior in a very literal sense. Despair is just a non-committal form of suicide, and I need to recognize it as a real and present attack on my life and happiness.

Doesn’t matter that the attack comes from within. I need to recognize it as a threat, or else I won’t meet it with the right attitude.

The monk’s solution

I heard a story once about a guy who walked past a monastery every day, always longing to be like the monks inside but thinking he wasn’t holy enough. One day, he met a monk who was sweeping the sidewalk. He asked the monk what he did in the monastery.

The monk said, “We fall down, then get back up. We fall down, then get back up.”

I always thought of that as a smarmy way of saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” But I’m starting to take it a little more literally: think of a boxing match. If you get knocked down, you stand back up. You struggle to your feet by whatever means necessary. If you don’t the fight is over. You’ve lost.

I’ve read enough works by mystics to know that “spiritual warfare” is not just a metaphor for them. I think it can’t just be a metaphor for me, either.

A declaration of war

Therefore I’m declaring war on my vices. I may not win, but my plan is, like Galadriel, to “fight the long defeat.” Or like Rocky, to “go the distance.”

After all, virtue is not about perfection. It is about excellence. It is about settling for nothing less than one’s best.

Sometimes words can hinder clear communication as much as they help it.

I’ve seen many commentators, on this blog and elsewhere, object to the phrase “intrinsically evil” with reference to torture. So I’d like to try to translate and/or clarify what this phrase really means.

Evil

From a philosophical point of view, evil is not a thing itself. Rather, evil is the twisting or destruction or denial of a good thing. Evil must have a good thing to distort; it cannot exist as a separate thing, any more than “big” can exist without some thing to be large.

Keeping that in mind, when we call something “evil” or “bad” or “wrong”, what we really mean is that the thing is not what it ought to be. A “bad” apple is one that has rotted, or perhaps one that has not yet ripened. An “evil” deed is one that fails to enact the love or truth which it should.

Intrinsic

It’s understandable to me that some would consider the phrase “intrinsic evil” to be an oxymoron. After all, what’s wrong with the apple is not that it exists; it’s that it lacks the good that it ought to have.

This is also where we get the very sane requirement to love a sinner (because he or she is good, being a creature of God) and to hate the sin (because such actions distort or pervert the goodness of being human).

Now, some evils are accidental. If I step on my co-worker’s toe because I wasn’t watching where I was going, I harm the health of my co-worker and the camaraderie between us; but that is easily remedied by an apology and (if I was wearing my steel-toed boots) an ice pack.

But other evils are actions whose entire purpose is to distort the good. A deliberate lie, for example. Or, if I were to stomp on my co-worker’s toe out of spite. Whatever good thing I might be seeking (safety or advantage or even a vengeful kind of justice) is itself ruined because my action is itself meant to harm. The intention is to attack what is good, such as truth or health, in another.

And this is what “intrinsically evil” conveys: an act with the direct purpose of attacking, distorting, twisting, breaking down, or altogether destroying some good thing. That is, the evil is intrinsic (rooted inside) the action.

Torture

Now, just as human life and human dignity is perhaps the greatest good we have in this life, attacks on human life and dignity are some of the greatest evils.

This is why torture, which directly attacks the dignity of another by physical and mental and spiritual torment, is considered an evil so great that it is absolutely prohibited. It is not an act that one can commit accidentally. It requires someone to twist and distort some part of his or her conscience in order to do it. It is literally inhuman.

Now, I’m happy to concede that there are limits to the usefulness of the phrase “intrinsically evil”. But an objection to the phrase cannot be an excuse for a twisting of one’s conscience to the point that torture becomes an acceptable practice, under any circumstances.

Cross-posted from Coalition for Clarity.

Yesterday was my day off from Working for the Man this week. I slept in a bit, read some of my favorite blogs that I haven’t read for a while, watched some TV, and played a lot of those addicting online games – the stupid ones that aim as much at making you laugh or grossing you out as they do at challenging your skill.

Never mind that my room was a mess, and I had unopened mail piling up on my desk, and I had three different articles I wanted to write and/or research, and… you get the picture.

I didn’t shower till 4:45. Yeah, that’s P.M.

Stopping the vice of sloth

Call it laziness, call it procrastination, whatever you like. Among the seven deadly sins, it’s known as sloth or (for the etymologically minded) acedia. The closest twenty-first century word might be, depression. In any case, it’s the despair of anything in the world having value. And it gives rise either to doing nothing, (because nothing’s worth doing,) or compulsive activity, (because you’re distracting yourself from your fear of worthlessness.)

Anyway, I was supposed to go to a lecture on Greek culture last night with a friend (yes, I’m a nerd; get over it) but instead I asked her to come over and sit with me while I tried to get my life back on track.

It wasn’t until I had someone else there, someone to get me out of my head and the whole spiraling cycle of unanswered questions, that I was able to actually do anything.

Replacing vice with virtue

So what did I do? I mostly got my room cleaned.

Kind of an aside: I find my mental state often manifests itself in my physical state. If my thinking is muddy, I tend to let my room and general surroundings devolve into chaos. The external disorganization reinforces the internal messiness, and sometimes the best way to reset the mind is to reset my surroundings. That’s why I focused on cleaning my room.

I’m still behind on the unopened mail, but it’s within the realm of possibility now. By shifting from doing something bad to doing something good, I’ve taken a step in the right direction.

And that’s a step I couldn’t have taken without my friend’s help.

How a friend helps

My friend didn’t take much action. She helped me fold up my bedspread, and then sat and laughed at me while I scurried around my room throwing junk from one pile into another.

But she was there.

I’ve said many times that virtue is all about taking action appropriate to reality. In sloth, I was caught up in fantasy, an endless stream of “what if’s” and “why’s”. These are questions that can’t be answered by statements or by thoughts. They are questions that need to be answered by actions, by engaging the real world.

My friend, by being there, reminded me that there was a world beyond the confines of my skull. And that’s exactly what I needed yesterday.

So, Tammie, thank you very much!

An article in the Daily Mail also notes that, if there’s infidelity in a marriage, it’s the woman who pays the greatest price.

In other breaking news, scientists are astounded to discover that fire is hot!

I’ve had much fodder for reflection on procrastination in the last week or so. I’ve managed to avoid both desired and necessary tasks (such as writing or laundry) while still staying awake till the wee hours with the important work of advancing yet another level in an online game.

If there’s one thing I’m truly expert at, it’s putting off what needs doing.

The nature of my procrastination

I used to describe my procrastination as “not wanting to do something.” As in, “I don’t want to do laundry; I’d rather advance yet another level in this stupid online game.” I would think of it as a competition between an immediate pleasurable good and a remote and/or difficult good. My vice lay in preferring instant gratification.

But this past week, I noticed something. It’s not so much “I don’t want to do {X} (because I’d rather do {Y})” as it is “I want NOT to do {X}.” That is, I’m actively avoiding some activity {X} that I know is good and even necessary – even enjoyable! – and will accept nearly any substitute {Y}, even things that are less enjoyable than {X}, rather than do what is good.

I’m avoiding laundry. I’m running away from laundry.

So … am I afraid of laundry?

Procrastination and fear

I honestly don’t know what I’m afraid of. My shrink calls this, “self-destructive behavior,” which is one of the few psychological terms I comprehend immediately.

But it is absolutely clear to me that I am not “preferring” one good over another. Instead, I am fleeing headlong from something I know to be good, and using whatever excuse is at hand to aid my flight.

It seems that I am intent on sabotaging my own desire and efforts at happiness. There is something about happiness, virtue, goodness, that utterly terrifies me and that I am unwilling (as yet) to face directly.

Virtue and psychology

Psychology and virtue approach the problem from almost opposite angles. Psychology starts with understanding the problem, its roots and causes, and proceeds to prescribe a cure. Virtue, on the other hand, starts with action, and expects understanding to follow upon developing a habit of right action.

I think both approaches are valuable – at least, they have been to me. They both have given me tools to live a better life than I have before, and to hope for a life better still in the future.

But neither of them works alone. Psychology without virtue leads to navel-gazing. And virtue without psychology leads to ignoring the underlying causes so long as they can be covered by mechanical action.

I know I’m over-simplifying. Classical virtue ethics, after all, is all about the formation of one’s character – and not about the mechanical “rightness” of one’s actions. And psychology ultimately seeks a healing of the whole person, including one’s choices and behavior.

Where I am, right now

So I have no profound advice to give here. All I have today is a new recognition of where I am, and a hope that this recognition will allow me to stand fast in the face of my laundry.

One of these days, I’ll have to write a post on procrastination. I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it. Probably as soon as I finish explaining all the virtues in copious detail, finish writing my novel, get to the weekend, or maybe just as soon as I finish lunch.

I’m not even including the stupid excuses, like: as soon as I finish this game of solitaire, or, as soon as I finish watching this TV show.

It’s always “as soon as I….” It’s like a disease. And, as I was describing it to my friend the other day, she came up with a name for the disease: assoonasitis – a chronic inflamation and swelling of “as soon as I” in one’s vocabulary, leading to gross inactivity, perpetual vegetative state, and ultimately death.

Is there a doctor in the house?

I’ve never found a cure, and I don’t claim to be an expert on treating this disease, but I’ve lived with it all my life and I’ve tried all sorts of ways to overcome it, or at least to manage it.

I have only found two methods that consistently work.

• Regular accountability therapy with a trustworthy friend
• Immediate application of action at the first sign of an “as soon as I” flare-up

These methods need to be used together. Holding myself accountable to a friend gives me a consistent sense of motivation, as well as feedback on what I’m doing well and where I need improvement. I have one friend that I call every week, on a schedule. I have another friend whom I usually run into at least a couple times a week, and we both take the opportunity to catch up with each other.

This reduces the “as soon as I” impulse, but it doesn’t eliminate it entirely. That’s why the second method is just as important: in the very instant I find myself making excuses, right away I need to start doing something active and productive and useful. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the exact thing I’m avoiding; but it does need to be on the list of tasks I need to accomplish that day. It can be as simple as taking a shower, or as complex as driving across town for a project. The important thing is that I stop thinking up excuses in my head, and start doing something good with my body.

Virtue: medicine for what ails you

The reason these work is that the best way to overcome a vice is to replace it with a virtue. So, in my case, the vice is sloth and procrastination. The virtue I need is actually prudence leading to justice: it’s seeing reality instead of my made-up excuses, and acting according to that reality.

If you have found ways of overcoming procrastination, please tell us about it in the comment box, or drop me a line. Thanks!

My friends will not be surprised to hear that I’ve been in a heated theological argument this past week. I was on a discussion forum, and someone said something I thought was just wrong, and I responded and he responded and I responded to his response and… you see where this is going.

It took up way too much of my time.

And, at certain points, I admit I lost my temper and wrote disrespectful things.

How to lose your temper

What happened? I mean, I’m the most friendly, even-keeled, rational guy I know … at least, of all the people who are typing on this keyboard right now.

What happened was that I took his critiques of my argument personally, as attacks against me. It’s a little ironic, because at times he did attack me personally; now, when someone says straight out, “You’re an idiot,” it’s easy to dismiss. The poor guy has obviously lost it.

But when he provided good evidence against my position, I said to myself, “You’re an idiot.” And a burning desire flared up in my belly: I wanted to shout back at him some incredibly sophisticated insult to put him in his place. Something like, “Oh yeah? Well you’re an idiot!”

My problem was that I was identifying a weakness in my argument with a weakness in myself. And, rather than acting to correct whatever weakness was there, I tried to blame the weakness on someone else.

Anger: vice? virtue? or passion?

I grew up thinking that anger was always wrong. I’d feel guilty just for feeling mad. Yet there really is such a thing as “righteous indignation”. The question is not so much what I’m feeling, as what I’m doing with those feelings.

Thomas Aquinas defines anger as “the desire to hurt another for the purpose of just vengeance.” (ST I-II q47 a1) By “just vengeance,” he means punishing someone for the harm they have done toward oneself. In other words, anger is the desire to punish a wrongdoer.

So, when I’m getting riled up, I have two questions I need to ask: first, what harm has been done to me? and second, what action would restore justice?

More often than not, I can stop at the first question. I could be imagining that the person is insulting me or means me harm. Or maybe the harm is completely unintentional, or worse, my own fault. The anger doesn’t always go away, but I know that I can’t take it out on someone else.

Calm anger with justice

On the rare occasion that someone really has harmed me unjustly, well, that’s when it’s tough. I feel like I simply want to hurt the other person. We all know that’s almost never the solution. The question is, can the harm be repaired? Can the person who hurt me make restitution? Can what is wrong be made right?

If so, then anger provides the energy and motivation to hold that person accountable – so long as I’m able to keep my anger focused on justice.

But if there’s nothing anyone can do to repair the damage, then the only thing to do is let go. Forgive, if the person apologizes. And accept the simple fact that life isn’t always fair.

Beating up a punching bag may be about as good as it gets. But it’s far far better than taking unjust vengeance. Two wrongs never equal a right.

I don’t know about you, but for me the biggest hurdle to any task is taking the first step. It means work. It means sacrificing some freedom or pleasure. It means change. So here I am, at the beginning of developing virtue in my life, and I’m shaking in my socks.

Am I really going to change my life?

Will it really be for the better?

At this point, I usually make the wrong move. I stop and try to answer those two questions. I worry about whether I’ll be able to stick to my committment, or whether I’ll give up when the going gets tough – like I have so often in the past.

Or I sit around trying to figure what the odds are of the change really being worthwhile. I stare into the future with more intensity than any poker player staring at an opponent’s hand – but with much less insight.

The thing to do is simply to do something.

Anything at all. I just need to get off my buttocks and act. So for me the first step on this road to virtue is hitting the keys and putting out this blog.

Maybe for you it’ll be something different. Maybe it’ll be picking up that pair of pants you threw in the corner last night. Or perhaps it’ll be to pick up the phone and call your mom. Or it might be to drive over to the gym tonight after dinner.

In any case, do something. Something is always better than nothing. Something is a real start.

Otherwise, the questions will simply answer themselves.