Virtue Quest

First off, I just want to say, “Thank you!” to readers Jeana and bob, who in the past week or so have helped me fulfill one of my goals for this blog: to generate provocative and intriguing conversation. Thanks!

So, in continuing the question of whether there’s any such thing as “natural rights” – or, more generally, what Thomists call “natural law” – the next step is to consider … the Order of the Universe!

Actually, I’m serious. By “order,” I mean specifically teleological order. In non-techno-babble, that means, whether things are in and of themselves directed to an end beyond themselves. The classic example is the eye: the eye is ordered toward the sense of sight, and so an eye that does not see is a “bad” eye.

Order and morality

Now, someone might object that you can’t blame the eye for being blind. And that’s true. So it’s important to distinguish between what’s called “ontological evil” and “moral evil.” “Ontological evil,” or evil in “being,” is simply the lack of full existence or perfection in a thing. A diseased tree, or a collapsed bridge, or a blind eye is “bad” because it lacks the fullness of what it is to BE a tree, or a bridge, or an eye.

“Moral evil,” on the other hand, involves the freedom of the will. Without personal freedom, there can be no “bad” or “evil” except in the ontological sense. For something to be evil in a moral sense, it must be a bad choice

Now, according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and those who follow their tradition, the mind has several major parts, two of which are the intellect and the will. The purpose of the intellect is to understand things abstractly. The purpose of the will is to choose freely. If the intellect has a problem – for example, my intellect has great difficulty grasping poetry and metaphor, but thrives on mathematics – then we recognize that as a problem in the mind. I tell people that I’m “bad” with poetry, and they know what I mean.

If the will has a problem, it affects a person’s ability to choose freely. Sometimes this is a mental illness; for example, a psychopath is not free to act empathetically, or even responsibly. But often, we limit our own freedom by our very choices themselves. If I choose to insult you, I am no longer free to be your friend.

The slavery of vice

Now, part of the nature of the will is to develop habits. Habits are to the will what memory is to the intellect: they keep us from having to re-invent the wheel every time we hit the road. So, a virtuous habit is one that protects, or even extends the freedom of the will. Vice, on the other hand, increasingly limits the will’s freedom.

But this freedom is not freedom to do anything at any time; it is freedom to fulfill the nature of the person. It is freedom to pursue the good.

The best image I’ve found is that of a piano keyboard. Anyone at any time is free to hit any key or combination of keys on the keyboard. (This is what Pinckaers calls “freedom of indifference.”) But only someone who has practiced a great deal is free to play Debussy, or to compose an original work of music.

Now, every moment of every day, our will faces at least 88 possible choices of what to do next. If we practice making those choices well, with an idea of harmony or rhythm or beauty in mind, then we will develop habits that allow us to make more interesting and more complex and more, well, good choices. The will really does become more free, more fulfilled in achieving its purpose.

But if we simply hammer away at life according to mood or blind emotion, like a piano student who refuses to adopt proper posture or fingering, then we limit our freedom and risk hurting both ourselves and the instrument – that is, everybody around us.

Natural morality

This view of the human person, one who has a purpose or an end in both being and acting, and whose purpose is to pursue greater and greater goods, is the foundation of any theory of natural rights, or natural law, or natural morality of any kind.

Some thinkers have tried to do away with “human nature” without losing universal morality, but I haven’t found any of them (that I’ve read) to be convincing.

Others have noted that it’s incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what’s involved in “human nature” and have accepted that rejecting nature also means rejecting any universal morality. But then why do even they act as if moral questions remained vital? Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment is a brilliant exploration of the problems with this way of thinking.

So that’s largely why I’m convinced that there really is such a thing as human nature, and that the nature of the will is to choose freely, and that virtue is the true path to freedom and fulfillment and happiness.

But I’ve been talking too much. Looking forward to continuing the conversation.

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.