Virtue Quest

Last night, I attended a talk (not a lecture) by Prof. David Whalen at the Seattle Chesterton Society discussing John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University.

Newman’s Idea doesn’t apply merely to academic life, though. He’s describing way a fully human life requires the mind, and the whole mind. Prof. Whalen put it something like this: we encounter the world as one, as a universe of reality; but in order to think about it, in order to understand it, we have to break it down into little pieces, like slicing up a pie. We can call those slices “economics” and “engineering” and “ethics” and, if we’re adventurous, can even use words that don’t begin with “e” such as “theology.” But it’s important to realize that each piece is just that – a piece, not the whole pie, not the whole of reality.

So it’s critical that we make sure that all the pieces are there, and that each piece is in the right place. Otherwise, our ability to understand and relate to the real world becomes distorted. If ethics is lost, other disciplines over-extend themselves to fill the gap: politics, economics, psychology, psychiatry – all of which touch on ethics, but none of which are really competent to describe human life in a particularly ethical way. And meanwhile, people grow more and more confused about how to act ethically.

A fully human life needs to make sure that all the different ways we understand the world really fit together, so that our understanding keeps in sync with the world itself.

The rubber meets the road

Newman describes an ideal education for a full human life. But he was aware that in his day, as in ours, that ideal is nowhere close to becoming a reality. Then, as now, people were increasingly focused on practical matters: making a living, increasing efficiency, solving problems. Schools were shifting their focus from educating for character to training for productivity. The human person was viewed a “resource” for economic growth.

Now, the fact is, economics is a real and important part of life. I need to put food on my table, and pay my rent, and keep clothes on my back. And our social structures provide a way to do that. But that way is founded on a narrow and limited idea of what human life is all about.

Newman, and other people I’m reading, promote a better way of living, one in which the economic and practical needs can be met without degrading the human person, turning us into mere cogs in the machine of “progress.” Progress toward inhumanity is no progress at all.

But how do we get from here to there? Or, as a reader on another blog I write for asks:

How do you take usury out of a market grounded on usury? How do you take materialism out a market grounded in materialism?

Looking for a solution

One proposed solution is called Distributism. The idea is to use the freedom we have as individuals and small communities to make small but significant changes in our own lives and in our immediate surroundings.

This looks to me like a real possibility: a kind of “Think globally, act locally” approach that goes beyond environmentalism. Our economy and government is massively corrupt; so, to the extent that is possible, I will minimize my interactions with corrupt businesses, use my vote and my voice to encourage more honorable government, and establish as fully human a life as I can in my own neighborhood.

The major obstacle, it seems to me, is my own sloth. This course of action would require me to work harder, to take risks, and to live without a number of luxuries I take for granted (things like cheap clothes or out-of-season food or super-fast internet). In other words, it’s easier to take the benefits of this skewed society and pretend that the detriments are not as harmful as they really are.

It’s easier, but it’s not really better. In the end I find myself less and less able to deal with reality, and my efforts increasingly backfire. So, today, my goal is to find some small way to refocus my perspective, so that I can take those small actions to make my life and the life of my community more human.

Before I got sidetracked by technical wonkiness, I was reading over a bundle of articles spawned by an opinion piece that Princeton professor of philosophy Kwame Anthony Appiah published in the Washington Post. He asked the big ol’ question: What will future generations condemn us for?

He lists four contenders, and challenges others to add to it. His list:

1. Prisons: way too many prisoners in America, and conditions are inhumane
2. Industrial meat production: eew
3. Institutional and isolating treatment of the elderly: we’re lacking in filial responsibility
4. Environmental destruction: especially desertification

Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan take up his challenge, adding:

5. Abortion (Douthat)
6. Any meat consumption at all (Douthat)
7. Therapy for homosexuals (Sullivan)
8. Torture under Bush and Cheney (Sullivan)

Will Wilkinson notes that all these “predictions” line up pretty well with the author’s current political or moral standards; therefore, they have no predictive value in themselves. He adds:

If we don’t assume that history is a story of progressive evolution, we could ask a different but parallel question. Which of today’s practices would our ancestors condemn? This is a much easier question, because we know what they did condemn. The harder related question is why it is that we are so sure that we know better than they did, and that our grandchildren will know better than we do.

And Tyler Cowen offers:

I would suggest an alternate query, namely which practices currently considered to be outrageous will make a moral comeback in the court of public opinion.

Prof. Appiah (who seems enamored of lists) does lay out his criteria for predicting barbaric practices:

1. First, people have already heard the arguments against the practice. The case against slavery didn’t emerge in a blinding moment of moral clarity, for instance; it had been around for centuries.
2. Second, defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity. (As in, “We’ve always had slaves, and how could we grow cotton without them?”)
3. And third, supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they’re complicit. Those who ate the sugar or wore the cotton that the slaves grew simply didn’t think about what made those goods possible. That’s why abolitionists sought to direct attention toward the conditions of the Middle Passage, through detailed illustrations of slave ships and horrifying stories of the suffering below decks.

Now, as much fun as it is to list off the worst moral outrages of our time, I think it’s much more important to look at the criteria we use to make moral judgments. After all, it’s possible to be right about one or two issues without having solid principles; but then what do you do when you’re faced with a new moral conundrum? Take a poll?

So, taking Prof. Appiah’s list as a starting point, I’d note that his first criterion is a non-starter: the moral conversation has been underway for millennia, and there’s nothing new under the sun.

His third criterion is a great analysis of shame as both a personal and social phenomenon. Shame avoids the reality of its own guilt. Well noted.

But his second criterion really shocked me. Let me repeat it:

defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity.

Can you guess the portion I object to?

Human nature is the foundation of morality

It is literally nonsense to say that an argument based on “human nature” is not a “moral” argument. There is no moral argument that is not based on human nature, because morality is exactly about human actions. The entire notion of “good” or “right”, morally speaking, is about what is “good for a person” or “right for a person”.

Now, I am guessing that he was objecting to arguments against homosexual behavior which claim that it is unnatural; he states his horror at past punishments of homosexuals. Or perhaps he was objecting to arguments against abortion which claim that the baby is a human person from the moment of conception; though he doesn’t mention abortion in the article.

But the single issue he mentions that doesn’t fit the stereotype of “liberal” or “academic” agendas is the isolation of the elderly. And his argument suddenly becomes personal – that is, it becomes about persons, about human beings, and what is fitting to their nature.

It is undignified for people to abandon the members of their own family. It is inhuman to go off on vacation and let your grandmother die of heat exhaustion. It is unconscionable for a society to neglect those who have given their lives to build up that society.

Why?

Because it is part of human nature to be interdependent, to be social, to live in families and communities where we support one another.

Otherwise, without an idea of human nature, why should we be outraged at all by the mistreatment of our elderly?

Future shock

Now, the whole reason to ask what the future may think of us is to open up a new perspective on what we are doing now. It’s a way of asking, what’s the moral thing to do right now?

I would suggest that the reason we treat our elderly (and our prisoners and our animals and our environment … and, for that matter, our employees or employers and our neighbors and immigrants and so on) with neglect or even disdain is that we have uprooted ourselves from human nature in our approach to morality.

We have replaced human nature with “utility” or “efficiency” or “profit” or some other mechanical notion that treats people like things, that objectifies them. I don’t think we have to wait for tomorrow to condemn such an attitude. I think we condemn ourselves if we maintain it.

The 1967 film version of “Camelot” formed a great deal of my childhood, and still stands close by me today. Indeed, I remember in the 1980′s seeing Vanessa Redgrave in a contemporary film and being shocked because I knew her as the lithe young Guenevere. And I dearly loved the hyper-emotional Richard Harris in every role he played (he was magnificent in “Gladiator” in part because of the resonance between young Arthur and ancient Marcus Aurelius).

But perhaps the most powerful scene, for me, is the one where Arthur goes hunting in the woods, and reminisces of his youthful training under Merlyn (played by Laurence Naismith). Arthur asks Merlyn, “What’s the best thing for being sad?” and Merlyn replies, “The best thing for being sad is to learn something!”

Now, I’ve discovered a number of other things that are good for being sad, and, although things like sitting and talking with a close friend and doing something productive are also very good when I’m sad, I’ve never found anything that would definitively displace Merlyn’s advice about the very best thing for sadness.

Sadness and learning

I’ve had to rely on all these methods over the past week or so. The cause of my sadness has been a number of small, personal events that don’t really need talking about (though it began with that car accident I wrote about last week). But when friends were not available and work was just too difficult, I could always learn something.

I’ve been reading voraciously in Thomas Aquinas’ First Part of the Summa Theologica, specifically what is known as his “Treatise on Man” in which he describes human nature.

What is wonderful about this is, not only was it good learning, but it helped me understand why learning is a solution to sadness.

According to Thomas, humanity stands at a crossroads of creation: we are both material and spiritual beings. That is, we are physical (like stones and shrubs and squirrels) and also intellectual (like angels and God). This puts us at a unique place in the universe, and this uniqueness extends to how we understand (intellegere, in Latin) and how we act.

We do not act in the same way that other animals do, because they are guided by sense and instinct, while we are guided by reason. And we do not understand in the way that pure spirits do, because they apprehend truths directly, while we move from known to unknown by reason. Reason is the unique feature of human nature that sets us apart from everything else in creation.

Sadness (as an emotion, not as the vice of sloth) is an indicator that something is missing from our nature. So when an animal is sad, it seeks something to heal or restore its body (including its emotions). I’m not sure if an angel can be sad, but if it were it would seek something to return it to its direct apprehension of truth and goodness and beauty.

If a human being is sad, the answer lies (at least in part) in reason. The core, the “heart” as it were, of being human is to understand things by coming to know what is unknown. So in sadness, we seek to understand why we are sad, and then to know what we can do about it.

In other words, we learn something.

Even when knowing the source of some particular sadness eludes us, even then learning something brings a kind of healing and restoration and even growth. This is because our nature is (in part) to learn, and any time we learn anything we are fulfilling our nature. We become more happy when we learn because we become more ourselves.

Beyond learning

I said that our nature is in part to learn; that’s because our nature is also to act on what we have learned, to put our knowledge into deeds.

That’s partly what I’m doing here: I’m attempting to share something that I’ve learned with others. But it also means taking action to work better, to play better, to love our friends and family and neighbors better. The more we learn, the better we can act toward others. And, as if in reward, the more we can learn from those we love.

A friend pointed me to a post on one of her favorite blogs, The Gnosis of Now. The author makes an excellent point about a primary aspect of the “American experiment”: that our society is, in a sense, founded on pluralism. The U.S.A. is not a single people, but a collection of peoples. Our social and governmental structures are meant to allow persons from any and every cultural background to live together in peace.

The fact that this ideal has never, even from the very beginning, found full realization raises the question of whether it is at all possible. One could ask whether this is an impossible goal that should be abandoned, or rather an ideal to strive for despite the fact that it is always beyond perfect attainment. One could also argue that, over the past two centuries, a distinctive “American people” and “American culture” has in fact grown and taken root, and that the opportunity for this pluralistic ideal has passed (though the constant influx of immigrants – both legal and illegal – provides new opportunities every day).

In any case, it’s a good reminder to someone like myself who is delving into my medieval and Catholic roots that the Founding Fathers had an entirely different set of problems they were addressing. I’m trying to grow toward personal virtue and social unity; they were trying to find peace and safety for their plurality of faith and cultural traditions.

I suppose I should pray that these are not incompatible goals.

Amy noted that some of the posts and comments were becoming “a bit too philosophical for [her] bent.” By that, I think she meant that the conversation had grown so abstract that it was no longer connected to real life.

There’s probably some truth in her observation. I tend toward abstraction – or, as my grade school teachers put it, I’m a space cadet. At the same time, I insist that abstract philosophy is not, or at least should not be, opposed to practical action in everyday life. My goal for myself is to think clearly and live according to what I think.

One of the areas my own thought gets awfully muddy is around the question of what it is to be human. That’s why it’s important to me to make sure my thinking is clear. Otherwise I start acting, well, inhumanely.

The human creature in its native environment

The first thing that I forget about human nature is that I am finite: I am limited, mortal, not self sufficient. Now, all this is normal and natural; it’s actually good, because connection with other people is included in the very definition of humanity. But I find myself awfully attracted to those fantasies of unlimited, immortal, sufficient people like James Bond or Odysseus or Fitzwilliam Darcy. (Granted that none of them are fully self-sufficient or properly immortal, but their stories do not die, and give them the illusion of perfection.)

So when I start acting as if I know everything, or like I am the hero of some grand epic, I wind up looking foolish. I say something stupid, showing the limits of my knowledge; or I do something that hurts either myself or someone else, betraying my lack of heroism.

And the reason this happens is because my actions run contrary to my nature; they defy reality. Reality sets limits to what I can do. Reality demands that I ask others for help, that I admit when I am wrong, that I defer to those more skilled or more experienced than myself. When I refuse to act in accordance with reality, when I contradict my nature, then the inevitable result is failure and harm.

How to know nature

Now, bob (and others) raised a very good point: sure it’s easy to claim something like mortality as a universal aspect of human nature; but seeing how widely human culture varies around the globe, how can we know what really is “human nature” (and therefore what are rights, duties, just laws, etc.) and what is just local custom?

My answer is, basically, not to use the variations as a distraction from what we have in common. All of us are mortal. All of us are dependent on one another. This alone is sufficient, it seems to me, to justify a promotion of community and a prohibition against murder. All of us are dependent on using things: tools, clothing, and other objects; this means that morality has to deal with the notion of property and prohibit theft.

It goes further, though: it is part of human nature to think, to communicate, to engage in relationships that go beyond mere practicality or survival. We have more ways to engage in these human acts than there are grains of sand on the beach, but we all do them. A person who has lost the ability to communicate has lost one of the essential activities that we call “human.” Such a person is tragic, and the magnitude of his or her loss is itself an indication of the centrality of thought, communication, relationship to living a fully human life.

Let me be clear: such a person is still fully human; but handicapped, in the way that an amputee is fully human, but lacking a limb. Morality still applies in a complete way to this person. There is no excuse for considering someone “less than human” or “no longer human” just because he or she is injured or disabled.

But an injury or a disability – by the very fact that we recognize it as “bad” and as a loss – is itself an indicator of where the full nature lies. And this is not something contingent on culture or opinion: there is no culture that recognizes someone with only one arm as “normal,” to say nothing of “privileged.” Whether they treat the disabled with special respect or with derision, the recognition of disability is one of the constants across cultural lines. It is therefore one indicator of the reality and objectivity of human nature.

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.

Jeana left a wonderfully provocative comment on an earlier post. I began to reply in the comments, but I realized that this merited its own post, so here’s a bit of Jeana’s comment, followed by my response:

Perhaps a start would be the argument that there is a natural order to the world, and things work better when we cooperate with it. Plants die without life. Cows were made to eat grass. We live longer if we exercise and eat our veggies than if we sit in front of the TV and eat cookies all day every day. Men’s and women’s bodies each operate in ways that the other cannot.

If you were able to argue that following the natural order is a moral obligation, you could argue that….

This touches on, I think, the different moral roles of virtue and law.

Virtue enables us to realize the full potential of our nature and, according to Catholic teaching, of our supernatural gifts. Law, on the other hand, prevents us from (or at least warns us against) acting contrary to our nature. Virtue motivates us to reach for excellence, but places no obligations, strictly speaking, on us. Law places obligations on us, both positive and negative ones, but only obliges us to a bare minimum.

Law does not ask us to fulfill our nature; it only demands that we not act contrary to it. It does not strive for excellence. It is a stop-gap against excessive vice.

Now, ever since the so-called “Enlightenment” (if I understand my history correctly) western culture has been obsessed with the notion of law, and has largely forgotten the idea of virtue. This is why “morality” immediately brings to mind the idea of obligation.

But virtue sets a higher standard. Or, to put it another way, it opens up a broader field of possibility. Morality is not just about jumping through hoop X and avoiding pitfall Q. Morality is about living my life in a way that fulfills its potential, that brings to reality the potential good that is within me.

And that good is both for me and from me. It is good for me to be healthy. It is also good for me to serve my neighbor with whatever gifts I have. Indeed, serving my neighbor with my gifts is good for me as well, because it exercises and brings to greater perfection those gifts themselves. And it feels good to do so, which is a sign of health in using those gifts.

When we’re focused on obligation, feeling good is taken as a sign of not meeting an obligation. But when we’re focused on excellence, feeling good is a sign of health, of growth.

So much more to say, but I also want to prepare a reply to bob. So, till soon…!

A reader named bob commented on a previous post:

Simply asserting that rights are moral concepts does not make them so, otherwise I could assert anything.

This followed on an argument about whether “I have a right” could imply an “ought”, such as, “you ought to respect my right.”

My point was that it is one thing to say, “I have a right to free speech,” and another to say, “I have a wicked left hook.” Both are assertions of fact. But the first is a moral assertion whereas the second is merely descriptive. This is because (as I stated in my reply to bob) “right” is itself a moral concept: like justice, or love, or honor, the term itself contains “ought” as well as “is.”

Now, I think bob took me to be saying that “right” is a morally good or valid concept. So he gives the following examples:

By declaring “rights” as inherently moral, just because we define them as such, we open the door to use that language to justify anything. I have the right to eat ice cream. I have the right to drink beer.

I had no intention of playing either Tweedle-dum or Tweedle-dee. Rather, I meant that by using the language of rights, we automatically involve judgments about obligations and relationships between persons, because such judgments are contained in the definition of “right”.

That doesn’t mean we have to assent to every claim of a right. It only means we need to take it seriously as a moral claim, and judge whether the claim is true or not.

Natural rights and civil rights

Now, I take it for granted that we can all agree about civil rights. Civil rights are rights granted by the State, such as the right to vote or the right to remain silent. These rights can be revoked. They may be limited to a certain group of people such as, citizens, or adults over the age of 18, and so on. The question of whether so-and-so has a civil right to such-and-such can be determined in a court of law.

What bob calls into question is whether there are (or can be) natural rights, also known as “rights of Man” or “human rights.”

It’s a good question. In my previous post, I stated that a right is sort of the flip side of a duty. If you have a duty toward me, then I have a right to what is due me. If I have a right, then someone has a duty to respect that right. So, even though I think there’s far too much talk these days about rights, and far too little about duty, I’m willing to fight for the reality of rights. If there are no such things as rights, then it seems to me that there are likewise no such things as duties.

Now, a natural right (or a natural duty) is one that follows from nature. That is, the basis and foundation of these rights (and duties) is my human nature.

But a right is a kind of ownership of something, and a duty is a kind of debt. Both are kinds of relationships to other people. They do not exist in an isolated individual, but they necessarily exist in a community. You cannot interact with other people for very long without agreeing about who may or may not do this or use that.

So, the question is, is human nature essentially communal or individual? Are we meant to live together in mutual support, or are we independent and therefore competitive when we encounter one another.

That’s a critically important question, but I’ll leave it for another post.

Here’s a punchy quote from After Virtue that, I think, summarizes the heart of his argument:

I remarked in Chapter 13 that when teleology [I'll explain this below the quote - RK], whether Aristotelian or Christian, is abandoned, there is always a tendency to substitute for it some version of Stoicism. The virtues are now not to be practiced for the sake of some good other, or more, than the practice of the virtues itself. Virtue is, indeed has to be, its own end, its own reward and its own motive. It is central to this Stoic tendency to believe that there is a single standard of virtue and that moral achievement lies simply in total compliance with it.

Okay, first off, let me translate teleology. That’s philosophical techno-babble for an inherent purpose or direction in things themselves. So, a common example is an eye: the eye is for seeing, so sight is the purpose or end of the eye. An eye is directed toward sight, so sight becomes a standard of goodness internal to the eye itself. The major debate is whether the human person has such an end, and what that implies. Aristotle’s idea was that the purpose of human life is to contemplate abstract truth. Christianity’s idea is usually called “heaven” but is often put in similar terms as Aristotle: to gaze on the face of God.

The Stoics, and their Enlightenment inheritors, disconnected the idea of moral action from any goodness for the moral person. It’s not seen as virtuous to do the right thing if you’re getting anything out of it for yourself.

Major guilt trip

This, more than anything the nuns did to me as a kid, is the source of my own guilt today. I almost feel in my gut that I have to act against my own nature and gifts and joys, that I have to be unhappy, in order to really be good. Sort of like saying that the eye has to avoid seeing and work real hard at hearing in order to be good. Pretty dumb, huh?

But that’s what happens when morality gets divorced from the actual person who is acting morally, and from the situation in which he or she is acting. Morality is reduced to a set of rules, which more and more become arbitrary and unrealistic. No wonder our culture has such an abhorrence of rules and restrictions: we know deep down that there’s something wrong with a demand for obedience for obedience’s sake.

On the other hand, if we recognize that we don’t have to reinvent morality from scratch every second of every day, and that rules are meant to remind us of our nature rather than force us to work against it, then morality becomes much less of a burden. I can relax a little, because I only have to ask, “Does this action fit with my own nature and abilities in this situation?” I don’t have to agonize over whether it’s “right” or not, whether it’s the “best possible action” or anything like that. I’m here. Something needs doing. If I can do it, great! If not, well, not much I can do about it and feeling guilty isn’t going to help matters any.

I’ve always preferred playing sports to watching them. In fact, I’ve only ever enjoyed watching sports that I’ve had at least some minimal experience at playing before I’ve watched them.

For me, at least, there’s a level of understanding, a kind of sensual, visceral understanding, that I can’t get from watching someone else or hearing the rules explained.

But beyond this, I think it’s safe to say that the primary purpose of sports is not to be watched; the raison d’etre of sport is playing.

Victory: a common goal

It’s no coincidence that both the Olympic games and the idea of virtue were born in the same place. Both are different ways of striving for excellence, for the best one is able to achieve. They are both about doing something well.

In a sense, the Olympics are about reaching the heights of human ability as it is expressed in the body. It is a delight in the body, a rejoicing in strength and speed and skill. And, in the ancient games, it was an offering of this glory for the honor of the gods. Even today, the victory of any particular athlete or team is bestowed upon the whole nation to which the victor belongs.

In other words, sports teach us that even our greatest achievements are not entirely our own. My glory, my victory, is something that I receive from others, and that I hand on to others.

Virtue and victory

This is the kind of knowledge I feel when playing sports, rather than just watching them. I feel connection – to my teammates, to my opponents, to the field or the court I played on, to my own body. It is a strange kind of finding myself by losing myself in the action.

And, strangely enough, this is the kind of knowledge I sometimes gain when I know I am acting virtuously. I feel connected to the people around me, whether friends or clients or strangers. I feel … how do I put it? I feel my self doing the acts of virtue, whether it’s an act of my mind (like making a good choice) or an act of my body (like doing hard work).

It’s a kind of victory: victory over the temptations of fear or laziness or illusion. This is why we sometimes talk about treating life like a game, or a sport: we’re evoking that sense of challenge and striving for victory. We’re calling on that knowledge that goes beyond the brain to every cell in our bodies.

The moral dimension

The difference, of course, is that a person can be a gold-medal athlete and still be a real jerk. The excellence that virtue seeks is excellence at being human. It’s not about any one action or kind of action; it’s about how we act. Virtue is about doing everything we do in the most humane or human way possible.

The victory of virtue, the prize and the glory, is not what we claim or achieve: it is what we become. Our prize is ourselves.