Category: Catholic Morality

Socrates

The intrusion of the systematic exigence into the realm of common sense is beautifully illustrated by Plato’s early dialogues. Socrates would ask for the definition of this or that virtue. No one could afford to admit that he had no idea of what was meant by courage or temperance or justice. No one could deny that such common names must possess some common meaning found in each instance of courage, or temperance, or justice. And no one, not even Socrates, was able to pin down just what that common meaning was.¹

Socrates (470-399 BC), age 70 at the time of his death (as recorded by Plato) had a father who was a mason; his mother, a midwife. He was known to be extremely ugly: potbellied, with bulging eyes, and a snub nose although the inside was said to be “perfectly delightful.”² “You can seek him in the present, you can seek him in the past, but you will never find his equal.” He never wrote anything. He lived in Athens during her bloom around 450 BC and at the time of her decline toward the end of the century. He was a strong enigmatic figure who spent most of his time talking with people in the marketplaces and squares of Athens and who was subject at times to fits of abstraction lasting for hours on end: on the value of understanding the world of physical nature, “the trees in the countryside can teach me nothing.”³ As a young man in his 20’s, he turned away from cosmological speculation to an interest in the problem of man since he felt that what Anaxagoras had to say about mind or nous did not go far enough. Citing Cicero on Socrates: he “called philosophy down from the sky and established her in the towns and introduced her into homes and forced her to investigate life, ethics, good and evil.”⁴ While initially he was thought to be a sophist, in fact, he became or was their bitterest opponent in his belief that , indeed, “there really was such a thing as justice and injustice, right and wrong, truth and falsity” and that “they were supremely important” and “could be known.”⁵ For Socrates, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”⁶

Calling himself a “philo-sopher” as “someone who loves wisdom,” he began to go his own way, noting to himself: “One thing only I know, and that is that I do not know anything.” The Oracle at Delphi had said to him: “None is wiser than Socrates” which he, in turn, interpreted as meaning that he is wisest who realizes that, like Socrates, he has little wisdom. He would try to make his fellow men aware of his own ignorance by asking questions and meeting objections. For instance, Socrates said that, if there was an afterlife, he would pose the same question to the shades in Hades. He wanted to base all argumentation on objectively valid definitions which focused on knowing who man is. Since he was a man who would listen to his own inspiration and who in turn inspired others, he had more followers than students. Hence, he was a danger to the establishment. He claimed to have a “divine voice” inside him. He refused to be involved in condemning people to death and to inform on political enemies. A parallelism exists between Socrates and Christ:⁷ both were enigmatic; neither wrote anything forcing us to rely on accounts written by their followers; both were masters at the art of discourse; both had a personal sense of authority; both believed that they spoke on behalf of something greater than themselves; both challenged the power of the community; and both died as martyrs after trial (in both cases, with the possibility of evasion).

Our knowledge of Socrates is beset by the Socratic problem of sources that differ much on him. Hence, where do we go for an accurate portrait of Socrates’s character and ideas since he wrote nothing himself? There are four main sources given as follows.

(1) Plato was the most important source since he was a student of Socrates when Socrates was in his 50’s. Through his dialogues, the early and middle dialogues supply much of the information that we have on Socrates. But, there is a problem: according to Aristotle, Plato uses Socrates in conversation as an instrument for presenting his own ideas, employing a literary technique that was often used at that time (a technique that was also employed by the students of Pythagoras). It is difficult to distinguish between Socrates and Plato. Two schools of thought exist on who was the real Socrates. On the one hand, Copleston argues that the Platonic Socrates was not the real Socrates since we must trust what Aristotle says. Since Aristotle had been first trained in Plato’s school where the doctrine of ideas as taught occupied a central place, he must have known what was actually Plato’s teaching. But, on the other hand, Burnet and Taylor argue that neither Xenophon nor Aristotle sufficiently understood Plato since Xenophon was too simple in his journalism and Aristotle erred in his views of Plato. While Plato could have been somewhat poetical in his expression, this is no argument in favor of inauthenticity. Only in his later dialogues does Plato develop his own ideas. The metaphysical doctrine of the forms was Socratic essentially although it received a Platonic development. In conclusion, while Copleston prefers the Aristotelian Socrates, most historians argue for some sort of compromise between these two positions. Mlle De Vogel argues that Plato tried to give a realistic portrait of Socrates but that Plato was less of an historian and more of a poet. Aristotle should not be neglected.

(2) Xenophon as a journalist (and also as a general) reported conversations with Socrates in his Memoirs of Socrates although perhaps he did not understand Socrates correctly.

(3) Aristophanes as a playwright of comedies who caricatured Socrates in The Clouds as a comic figure of the late 5th Century. He presented Socrates pejoratively as a sophisticated sophist.

(4) Aristotle knew Plato (d. 348 BC) but did not know Socrates and thus the question arises if he truly understood the witnesses of Socrates. He made a few remarks that are important since they help us determine what Socrates’s actual teaching was: he claimed that Socrates did not separate the forms which make the doctrine of separate forms a distinctly Platonic contribution.

On the character of Socrates, Plato knew him best as a person. As noted, physically Socrates was an ugly little man. As a former soldier, he was physically fit and was known for courage in battle. He was somewhat ascetical in his way of living although he could drink. He was shabbily dressed and always barefoot. He loved to spend his time arguing in the market-place and streets of Athens. He possessed a strong moral character and was fearless about what he said. Since he said what he believed to be true, he got into trouble as a non-conformist. He was deeply concerned with asking ethical and moral questions and he looked for universal definitions with respect to the just, the true, and the good. Philosophy was a way of life for him and not simply a profession.

At his trial, he comes across as the victim of an anti-intellectual spirit in Athens where he was charged with teaching false doctrines, impiety, and corrupting the youth at the end of the 5th Century BC. He was brought to trial by a number of powerful figures in Athens who had hoped to humiliate him by forcing him to grovel and beg for mercy. But, instead, he humbled his persecutors and angered the unruly jury of 500 by lecturing them about the extent of their ignorance and selfishness. Also, when asked to suggest his own punishment, he recommended that the Athenians build a statue in his honor and place it in the main square. The enraged jury, by a slim margin, condemned him to death by a vote of 280 to 220. While the jury soon was ashamed of their act and embarrassed that they were about to execute their most eminent citizen and while they were prepared to look the other way when Socrates’s prison guard was bribed to allow him to escape, he did not flee when he could have done so since he had always insisted on obedience in his life and therefore he would not flee despite the pleas of his friends. He claimed that if he were to break the law by escaping, he would be declaring himself an enemy of all laws. Therefore, he drank the hemlock and he philosophized with his friends until the last moment, talking with them about the immortality of the human soul and the blessings of death when now a philosophic soul is able to enter into a realm of being where wisdom is found in all its clarity and fullness.⁸ In death, he became the universal symbol of martyrdom for the sake of Truth.

On the elements or the tenets of Socrates’s thought that we are sure about (the conclusions or the beliefs that are to be associated with his life and work), the following four points should be mentioned:

(1) Man is to be equated with his soul since man is his soul (it is the source of all truth). In describing the soul as the intellectual and moral personality of man, Socrates became the first philosopher to give a clear and coherent conception of the soul, the word he used being “psyche,” a term previously used by poets before the Pre-socratic philosophers but referring to a general live force which is needed for life that, as a substance, penetrates everything. Socrates transformed it from that which had existed as a shadowy reality to become a personality where thus man’s first task is to care for his soul. To harm the soul through an unjust act of evil deed is far worse (we inflict a greater injury on ourselves) than to harm or hurt our bodies.

For Plato, the soul and its care was the only important part in man. In the context of his own thought, Plato later gave a metaphysical explanation of the soul in terms of its pre-existence and so education serves to remind us of what we have seen in a previous life.

(2) Man takes care of his soul when he knows what is good. “Knowledge is virtue and ignorance, vice.”⁹ In attempting to try to define what is good by asking questions that elicit universal definitions, Socrates emerged as the father of moral philosophy. “The crown of all philosophy, of all wisdom, is a philosophy of morals.”¹⁰ Knowledge enjoys a kind of prior necessity since to have a good personality requires a prior knowledge of that which is good.

(3) When you know the good, you will act well and do good (ignorance or lack of knowledge being the overriding cause of Evil): “He who knows what good is will do good.” Here we have the Socratic paradox in a statement that sounds contradictory: the wise man is virtuous since no one is voluntarily evil but, to do good, one has to know the good. Knowledge of the good is both the necessary and the sufficient cause for doing the good although, since Socrates was not stupid, such a claim causes us to ask about what Socrates could have meant when speaking about “knowing the good.”

To explain a bit more here: apparently, in terms of his own personality, for Socrates, knowledge does not exist as a purely intellectual thing since another form of knowledge exists which is charismatic or inspirational. In deference to the teaching of Bergson, it is claimed that Socrates had an intuitional contact with virtue that attracted people to him. Since he was in contact with virtue, he stressed the value of education through virtue which, for him, consisted of words and a certain inspiration that united the intellectual aspects with an intuitive dimension. Hence, virtue is knowledge which cannot simply be taught by a teacher unless the teacher also inspires his pupils toward virtue, a life of virtue. Socrates’s theory of knowledge existed as a kind of midwifery where the teacher seeks to awaken something which is inside a student since truth is something that sleeps in our souls from the time of birth until later teaching makes it conscious and then the student begins to learn. Real understanding must come from within a person and, by using our innate reasoning, we can begin to grasp the being of philosophical truths. In general, in the kind of education that we have in Socrates, in education we have both an implanting and an awakening. Knowledge of good and evil lies within an individual and not within a society.

(4) In Socrates one finds belief in immortality, Socrates being the first Greek philosopher to believe in immortality as can be seen in Plato’s Apology of Socrates which recounts the story of his trial where he declares his hope of seeing his friends again in another life though he also voices an agnostic touch when he says “I hope” and “maybe.” For the first time in Greek philosophy, the final good is related to the being of another, other life.

On the significance of Socrates’s methodological achievements as this refers to the development of a form of scientific inquiry as this applies to a possible understanding of who or what we are as human beings, in the structure or the form of Socrates’s Socratic dialogue, a species of method or technique is employed within the practice of philosophy (and thus within science) where “knowledge was to be sought [from] within the [dynamics or the life of the individual human] mind.”¹¹ Distinguish a “way of thinking” as one form or mode of human cognition from a “way of observing” external data as this is given to us through our different acts of human sensing (a second form or mode of human cognition).¹² With respect to the way of thinking that is to be associated with the kind of analysis which exists in Socrates, a positive relation or a connatural relation can be admitted if we admit that, in the concerns and interests of mathematics, in the ingress and development of mathematical speculation as we find this among the Pythagoreans and their work in mathematics, a degree of distance or a distancing is assumed or it is undertaken from the mere givens of sense and perception when mathematicians work with imagined numbers and figures in order to raise questions and solve problems that are not immediately applicable or which are not immediately relevant to any function or purpose which exists for us within the context of our concrete human living. In the kind of adaptation that we find in the structure of Socrates’s method (in his characteristic mode of inquiry), a dialectical form of argumentation that distinguishes between the truthfulness of a particular thesis and the probable error or wrongness of another teaching or thesis is joined to displays of irony within the structure of this form of argumentation. An ironical form of argumentation exists within the general form of the dialectics of Socrates’s argumentation. Throughout, thus the ultimate aim or purpose is (1) to expose fallacies which exist in all false claims to wisdom and knowledge and then, from there, (2) to encourage or move a person towards a new way of thinking which could possibly lead or internally engender a knowledge of man’s human nature in a way that would be undoubtedly true and not false (although, for Socrates and perhaps also for ourselves, apprehensions and realizations of truth are only possible for us after much hard work in the context of a life that is given to an ongoing, lifetime quest that is geared toward a possible discovery of universal definitions that can articulate the meanings of terms or concepts whose meaning or intelligibility is desired or sought by us within the context of our own inquiries). As Socrates had noted toward the end of his life at the time of his trial in 399 BC, “Athens is like a sluggish horse and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.”

In a method of inquiry that consists of questions and answers, a dialectic of questions and answers (where, like a midwife, Socrates attempts to draw truth from within a person – from within their individual minds – incrementally, through a logical ordering of a series of questions which are posed),¹³ three constitutive divisions or three constitutive elements are to be distinguished within the range or the compass of the kind of procedure which Socrates applies and employs.¹⁴ (1) A problem or question is first posed. For instance, what is justice? What is virtue? What is truth? What is beauty? What is piety? What is democracy? Feigning ignorance in a use or a display of Socratic irony, Socrates would become excited and enthusiastic whenever, apparently, he would find someone who claimed to know something which was allegedly true. (2) He begins then to find “minor flaws” in his companion’s proffered definition and slowly he would begin to unravel it, forcing his dialogue partner to admit his own ignorance. In one dialogue, for instance, Socrates’s partner dissolves into tears. (3) An agreement is reached by the two conversationalists who admit, to each other, their mutual ignorance and who agree to pursue the truth in a serious manner, wherever it leads. The object is a species of universal definition for a given concept, term, or reality which always applies or which always holds whenever a given concept or term is invoked or employed within a given context – whenever the reality in question is being referred to. Instead of a meaning which is somehow added to an understanding which we already have or which enlarges or augments a meaning which is in some way already known, the object is another kind of meaning which has yet to be discovered. A difference in quality is to be adverted to as we move from pragmatic conceptions of meaning and understanding toward a technical formulation of meaning and a species of theoretical understanding which can withstand any possible criticisms that could be launched against its truth or validity.¹⁵ A scientific type of knowledge is to be entertained. It is to be desired and worked towards.

In the employment of this methodology, however, almost all of the Socratic dialogues end in an inconclusive manner since Socrates himself cannot give to anybody any definitions or truths that have been conceptualized into definitions since he does not know these truths himself although, as a consequence of the discussions which have occurred, we should all begin to realize and know that certain laws exist on a higher plane, laws that we might not directly know about through our own acts of understanding but, yet, laws which point to the being or the existence of natures, intelligibilities, or truths which, in their own way, always hold. They are always true and at no time can they ever be false. In this context thus we can understand why, in the context of his day, the Oracle of Delphi referred to Socrates as the “wisest man in Athens because [among Athenians] he was the only one who knew that he did not know anything.”¹⁶ As we have already noted, inI our search for truth, we must each try and find this from within ourselves, within our minds. We cannot be simply told or informed of this truth by other persons as good and as necessary is the help of other persons. We cannot attend

On the influence of Socrates, besides a pervasive influence in the rise of western philosophy since his death, he also exerted some direct influence within the inner dialectic of Greek philosophy not only with reference to Plato but also in a number of small schools that appealed to Socrates’s direct influence even if Socrates’s views were often combined with other elements to suggest, at times, a superficial connection with Socrates’s thought. There are three schools to be distinguished:

(1) the School of Megara (near Corinth) where Euclid, its head, seems to have been an early disciple of Socrates and was apparently present at his death. Though little traditional friendship existed between Athens and Megara, it seems that Plato and other disciples of Socrates fled to Megara to seek refuge after Socrates’s death. Euclid combined certain insights from Socrates and Parmenides (of the Eleatic school) that accepted one universal principle now called “the moral good.” A speciality of the school was dialectical controversy which involved games of reasoning for the reasoner which reminds one Zeno of Elea.

(2) the Cynic School (founded around 400 B.C.) given the fact that, allegedly, one day Socrates stood gazing at a stall selling all kinds of wares and said: “What a lot of things that I do not need.”¹⁷ Its name perhaps came from the fact that its founder Antisthenes (445-365 BC) taught at Athens in a room called the “Kynosarges” or “Hall of the Dog” since Antithenes was not of pure Athenian blood. Antisthenes was a friend of Socrates who admired his independence of character in terms of money and riches although Socrates was as he was because he was concerned with the greater good of obtaining wisdom. Since Antithenes regarded such a freedom from wants and desires as an end in itself, he equated it with virtue and happiness in such a way that it led him to posit virtue as complete self-sufficiency for its own sake (which differs with Socrates’s view of self-sufficiency as a means to something else). Since Antithenes was interested only in the practical side of morality, he opposed the kind of knowledge that Plato looked for in terms of the reality of objectively existing ideas: “I see a horse, not horseness!” He wanted to be able to live independently and he argued that it was impossible to make significant statements. Diogenes (c.350 BC), a pupil of Antisthenes, succeeded as head of the Cynic School at a later date by exaggerating Antithenes’s position into a contempt for current morality which led him to repudiate all civilized customs. He lived a life as primitive as a dog: hence, the Greek kuvikos, meaning “dog-like” from which we derive the word “cynicism.”¹⁸ Legend has it that he lived in a tub, and reputedly owned nothing but a stick, a cloak, and a bread bag. To show contempt for public opinion, he masturbated in the marketplace. Allegedly once visited by Alexander the Great who asked him if he could do anything for him to which Diogenes replied: “Yes. Stand to one side. You are blocking the sun.”¹⁹

(3) the Cyrenaic School (of Cyrene in north Africa) where Aristippos, its head, advocated a hedonism of the moment despite having been in the Socratic school since he seems to have been more influenced by Protagoras’s claim that only sensations give us certain knowledge in life. Although Socrates had claimed that the good must be the goal of one’s life if one is to be happy, Aristippos defined the good only in terms of pleasure and in obtaining as many pleasures as possible: “the highest good is pleasure; the greatest evil is pain.”²⁰ Since the aim of life is to attain the highest possible sensory enjoyment, one’s way of life should seek to avoid pain in all forms.

1Lonergan, MIT, p. 50.

2Gaarder, p. 63.

3Gaarder, p. 63.

4Gaarder, p. 67.

5Sullivan, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 29.

6Osborne, p. 11.

7Gaarder, p. 66.

8Sullivan, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 38.

9Sullivan, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 31.

10Socrates, as cited by Maluf, Philosophia Perennis, p. 98.

11Collingwood, Philosophical Method, p. 10; p. 17. Please note Collingwood’s argument to the effect that “Socrates…found in mathematics a model for dialectical reasoning.” Developments in mathematics with respect to how mathematics is done in its way of thinking and reasoning as one moves from principles that are postulated to conclusions that are reached leads to possible methodological developments within the practice of philosophy and science. The way of thinking in mathematics suggests a way of thinking that can also exist within the practice of philosophy and science even if it should be the case that the way of thinking which exists within philosophy and science is not to be identified with the way of thinking which exists within mathematics even if it is to be admitted that, at the hands of some philosophers, mathematical ways of thinking have been promoted as the best way to think and reason if, in other contexts, we are to engage in the work of thinking and reasoning. Within this context, we can think about the work of the French philosopher, René Descartes (d. 1650), who had advocated mathematical forms of reasoning within the practice of reasoning in philosophy and science.

12Collingwood, Philosophical Method, p. 12.

13Osborne, p. 12. James Joyce suggested that Socrates learned this method of useful discovery from his wife, Xanthippe. In his “Insight Revisited,” in A Second Collection: Papers by Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S. J., eds. William F. J. Ryan, S. J. and Bernard J. Tyrrell, S. J. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1974), p. 258, Bernard Lonergan suggests that, with respect to this mode of inquiry which consists of questions and answers, we have evidence which points to the validity of an argument that would claim that Plato is to be regarded as a methodologist. As Lonergan attempts to speak about it, Plato’s “ideas were what the scientist seeks to discover” and “the scientific or philosophic process toward discovery was one of question and answer.”

14Palmer, p. 54.

15Collingwood, Philosophical Method, p. 11.

16Sullivan, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 31-32.

17Gaarder, p. 130.

18Osborne, p. 22.

19Gaarder, p. 130.

20Gaarder, p. 132.

Understanding what is Catholic Morality

Robert Spaemann’s Happiness and Benevolence

Chapter 1: Ethics as Teaching How Life Can Turn Out Well

As a point of departure for understanding the meaning of Spaemann’s initial discussion, we can advert to the Socratic moral principle which stays that, if you know the good, you will do the good. Today, this thesis is widely rejected even if we admit that our knowledge of good deeds that should be done does usually condition any subsequent acts of human willing which exist as implementations of a course of action which has been judged good. Our acts of human willing typically occur in a context which refers to our knowledge and understanding of things. Our acts of human willing do not occur in a vaccuum although it is to be admitted that the order of our human knowing does not dictate that which we will or should do in our acts of human willing. Aquinas admitted as much in many of his earlier texts. What we know does not compel what we will do. In the middle of composing his Summa Theologiae, in the prima secunda, it was only there that he began to elaborate a distinct philosophy of the human will. From that point on, he ceased to look at human willing from a context that was determined by the what and whys of our human understanding. Our practical human reason has a life of its own (having its own ends and goals).

However, if we work from a context which thinks of the good as a function of our human cognition, we can understand why, for some moral philosophers, it can be argued that errors in judgment about the truth of things leads to mistaken acts which we would regard as wrong and bad. Admittedly however, the culpability will vary. A person can act in good faith: tentatively. One knows that one is working with a provisional knowledge of reality and the contingency serves to determine the quality of a given response in our moral actions. However, a person can act on the basis of a dogmatic claim to know about what is true or false and the obduracy adds to the wrongness or the badness of the consequent moral actions which are undertaken. If, in any given action, we seek to realize something which does not exist, if we seek to bring into being that which currently lacks being, if we attend to the lack of reality that exists in our misjudgments about things which already exist, then we understand why, in our behaviour, we would be in a state of contradiction. By our actions, we would be realizing conditions or circumstances that are lacking in reality because they are lacking in intelligibility. An absence of rationality in our understanding is being communicated and expressed in ways that would take away from the integrity of our moral actions and so, as noted, we will act against ourselves.

When we attend more closely to the intellectual nature of our human being, we should discover that the ends of our human action are defined or they are known by how we exist as human beings or, in other words, by the kind of nature or intelligibility which we happen to have as human beings. Our proper desires are directed to ends or goals that cannot be willfully chosen. These ends already exist; they are constitutive of who we are as human beings although, as Spaemann notes, we can be in error with respect to our knowledge of these ends and we can also err in terms of the right means that should lead to the right ends or purposes which belong to us as human beings. Our means are right if they have a nature which is connatural with the ends that are to be accomplished. A proper fit must exist between means and ends. Hence, the reference to standards of propriety refers to sets of criteria that exist within the proper ordination which should exist between a set of suitable means and the ends that are to be achieved in a connatural way with the means that best go with the ends in question.

In returning however to the Socratic thesis which avers that, from a knowledge of the good, one will do the good, while it is to be admitted that lack of understanding and knowledge conditions inept moral deliberation and the making of bad decisions, it is possible for us to move from apprehensions that refer to that which exists as “mistakes” to apprehensions of wrong that refer to the existence of evil (moral evil). Evil always, of course, exists as a privation. In the making of mistakes that are based on misjudgments, there exists a privation of reasonableness and rationality (a privation of adequate understanding). However, when we refer to the problem and the mystery of evil, we move from intellectual deficiencies to that which exists as a moral deficiency in the life of our human willing. In the corruption of the moral will, we have evil although, admittedly, failures in our prior acts of understanding contribute to the evil which can exist in distorted forms of human willing. In Spaemann’s exegesis of texts from Plato, he argues that a Socratic understanding of good and evil is not too helpful. Its application leads to too many contradictions. The definition is too narrow. Something is wanting.

But, while we find tensions in Plato’s analysis of good and evil, it is to be admitted that, in it, we can find developments which point to a species of resolution when we see that he argues the case for employing the realm or the notion of the beautiful as a transcendental (as a very general category) that he uses (which we can use also) to subsume nuances of meaning and differences when we attend to certain distinctions which must be made when we attend to the ups and downs of our human moral life. In the context of his own day and time, in the commonsense understanding of good and evil as this existed amongst the Greeks, that which is good was not necessarily that which was beautiful. The two can exclude each other and often exclude each other. However, if we move into a deeper understanding of these two variables, we should find that they can refer to each other or include each other. A more comprehensive theory can be constructed if we adopt the form of beauty, the attribute of the beautiful, and use it as a general form for discussions and considerations about the good that should exist in our human lives. All instances of good suggest or point to the existence of beauty and, if anything is truly beautiful and luminous, good is present within it. In Plato’s analysis, in attempting to suggest how a systematic viewpoint can be constructed, moral reflection tends to be less circumstantial (it tends to be a bit more abstract). The object is an explanatory apprehension even if we can argue that, in Plato, we find a method of analysis that is judged by some to be a bit too removed from the human experience of conflicts and difficulties when concrete moral decisions need to be made within a given set of concrete circumstances. Is Plato’s approach too idealistic? And yet, in Plato, if, heuristically, we can have a solution or a means that, if implemented, can reduce the extent of ambiguity that often plagues our human moral lives, we can have this by turning to philosophical inquiry and by asking philosophical questions in further acts of inquiry that we can possibly move us toward lesser, fewer degrees of ambiguity.

As we shift then into the kind of moral analysis that we find in Aristotle, we find a methodology that can make finer distinctions. If, for instance, in Plato, contradictions or unresolved tensions exist about the nature of a “mistake” (“mistakes” occur within different contexts: we can err on the side of execution and we can err in our choice of means to attend certain ends or goals; we can also deliberately make bad decisions and we can make bad decisions without realizing what, in fact, we are doing), in both Aristotle and Aquinas, we can distinguish between that which exists as an act qua act and that which exists as a means that is selected to reach a given end. Within a context that is specified by the kind of metaphysics that we find in Aquinas (a metaphysics of act), we can distinguish between the kind of perfection which exists in the execution of a given act or action and the lack of a connatural relation which exists between the selection of a means to realize an end and the kind of end that we would like to have. To give an example: in order to obtain money to pay our bills and meet the cost of living, we could decide to rob a bank and we could carefully and intelligently rob a bank. The act of robbery possesses a perfection which belongs to it merely or precisely as a physical act. We say here that a given act or a given series of act is blessed with a kind of metaphysical perfection which properly belongs to it. But, when we move from the perfection of a given act to how it is ordered to an end which is not connatural to the means that we have selected in a given situation, we move from that which possesses a degree of ontological perfection to that which is lacking in a degree of moral perfection. It is a good thing to have money to pay one’s bills and meet the cost of living but a connatural relation does not exist between the value of this end and the disvalue of engaging in a bank robbery. Hence, the robbing of a bank is usually to be seen as an act which is lacking in moral worth or quality although, on the other hand, in Aquinas, the robbing of a bank can be a good moral act (it is not lacking in possible moral perfection) if, in a given context, no other means exists for maintaining one’s physical and biological health. A given person as a living person has a right to food and drink and if a person is deprived of food and drink, it is not wrong to steal the food that he or she needs and the drink that he or she needs to remain alive. If we attend to what kind of relation exists between the ontological goodness or the ontological perfection of a given act and the moral goodness or the moral perfection which could belong to the same act, in moving from one to the other, we should find that moral attributes or moral qualifications add a specification to the goodness of ontological acts in a way which points to moral determinations as itself a larger, more comprehensive good. Efficiency or success in execution is certainly a good but this good is qualified when we ask about how a given act can add to the realization of goods which refers to the ultimate ends or purposes of our human life. The ultimate ends or purposes of human living exist as a greater good. They are constituted by conditions which refer to a sound knowledge of reality that is joined to realizations of choice that are truly ordered to fitting achievements of the kind of good that is intended by how we exist and live as human beings. Hence, with respect to the lower orders of good that exist within this kind of ordering, metaphysical specifications of good exist as a lower level. The moral choices that we make to realize higher orders of good also exist (relatively) at a lower level. To these lower orders of good, a relativity can be ascribed. That which exists as the ends or purposes of authentic or good human living cannot be described as relativities. When we attend to the final goods of our human living, we come into the presence of absolute goods and these lack relativity.

Spaemann distinguishes three levels or three orders of meaning in our analysis of moral activity as this exists for us as human beings: (1) the objective goal of the action to be done; (2) the subjective goal of the agent or responsible subject; and (3) the union which exists between these two goals, the union which exists between objectivity and subjectivity since, by such a union, we can speak about how, in our lives, we can move as subjects into a higher order of being which refers to objective specifications of good. As Bernard Lonergan would argue: through authentic subjectivity, we move into objectivity. No gap necessarily exists between that which exists as subjectivity and that which exists as objectivity.

(1) With respect to the objective goal of the action to be done, we refer to a concrete deed which realizes some kind of effect, product, or result. That which is brought into being enjoys an ontological, metaphysical kind of existence. Whether it is the making of a car or a bomb or an act of kindness which is extended to another, purely as an act, as we have already suggested to some extent, it enjoys an independence which distinguishes it from any agent or agents which have brought it into being. That which is brought into being can exist in a perfect degree of condition or in a manner which is unfortunately defective in some way. (2) Turning to the subjective goal of the agent or the subjective goal of the responsible subject, we refer to the subjectivity of a given agent which can be distinguished in terms of two states of mind or two conditions of consciousness: one is deliberate and subject to conscious control and the other is without care and without a consciousness which would lend itself to a possible degree of conscious control. Where self-consciousness exists and a degree of deliberation, choices can be made and, in the making of choices, a human subject experiences his or her own personal freedom. Now, as Spaemann notes, when a subject does something which is wrong (that which is a “mistake”), two states of mind are possible: one is deliberate and the other is lacking in deliberation. Now, if someone does something that he or she knows to be wrong (if it is a mistake), then a person can make changes later to change what has been done. The presence of deliberateness indicates a degree of self-control and self-control is a plus if persons are to have a point of departure for future changes that could be made. If, on the other hand however, a person does something wrong without realizing this (without knowing about it), then the person is in a worse situation. A person could keep doing something that is objectively wrong and not be in a position to effect any corrective changes. The lack of self-knowledge is too great. (3) Turning to the shift which occurs as subjectivity moves into objectivity, the question of doing “something well,” this shift varies if we attend to the doing of a subject as a maker, artisan, or technician and the doing of a subject who exists as a moral agent or moral subject. We recall Aquinas’s distinction between that which exists simply as an act and that which exists as a moral choice. Behind this distinction we recall Aquinas’s distinction between that which exists as the act of the man and that which exists as a truly human act. When a man is bothered by a fly while he is attempting to concentrate on some kind of task, he shoos it away. He takes a swat at it. Cows do the same kind of thing when they swing their tails. One is the act of a man; the other is the act of a cow. The same kind of act exists in both cases. But, on the other hand, when a human being engages in an act that involves deliberation on his part and a knowledge of options or possible choices, the investment which exists in terms of understanding points to acts which exist properly as human acts (acts which are not the acts of an animal, acts which are not the acts of an indifferent human being). Moral acts differ from other kinds of act since, in a moral act, rational elements are to be found as these are joined to the intentionality of a human agent. An intrinsically moral act is a reasonable, responsible act. Hence, if we return to man as an artisan and man as a moral agent, it is not good if, as an artisan, a man does something bad or something which is defective in an involuntary way (without any deliberation or foresight) since this indicates that he is not a good technician. He does not know what he is doing given the absence of thought and self-direction. He is not using his intelligence to produce something that is entirely lacking in any defects. However, if, as a moral agent, a man does something which is bad or defective in a voluntary way (in other words, with deliberation), then he is a truly bad moral subject. He is using his intelligence not in order to function as a source of value and goodness. Evil is done deliberately (with full knowledge). Hence, it is better for a moral agent to do something bad in an accidental way and not in a way which is consciously deliberate. It is better for an artisan, however, to do something bad in a deliberate or thoughtful way rather than in an involuntary or accidental way since, if deliberation is present, we know that the worker in question knows what he is doing as an artisan. For some reason that is perhaps known only to him, he decides to do something badly at the present moment because he wants to effect some other good that cannot be brought into being other than in the way that he is currently choosing and then doing it. A good technician could deliberately make a defective bomb, for example, so that, in fact, it will not explode and cause harm to other persons. However, a good moral agent cannot deliberately do something that is defective from a moral point of view and, at the same time, remain a good moral agent. When we attend to the ordering of our acts to who we are as human beings, we must always attend to the finality of our human existence, since we always desire that which we believe to be good for ourselves. And so, in this type of situation, we never do anything which is knowingly harmful to ourselves. As we have perhaps already noted, harm comes to us when we lack in our self-knowledge. We misjudge what exactly is our true and proper good as human beings.

With respect to the question of working with an eudaimonistic ethics, an ethics which speaks of the good of human life in terms of eudaimonia, commonly this term has been translated from Greek in terms of happiness. All men desire to be happy. All men want to be happy. But, as Spaemann notes, this is a subjective interpretation/translation and it can be countered by a translation which speaks of eudaimonia in terms of “a life which turns out well.” An objective emphasis or an objective orientation is given since no one wants to live in a way which acts against this principle (against the good that, by nature, we all seek) and so, as a result, if, in fact, some human beings live a life which does not turn out well, the explanation is a lack of understanding or insight on their part. A person has misunderstood a given situation and has make decisions and taken actions on the premiss that he or she is doing the right thing since it is unthinkable to behave in some other kind of way: in a way which consciously acts against one’s well being and a life that “turns our well.” Hence, the absence of a desire to engage in evil deeds takes away from the evil of actions which should not have been undertaken. It can be argued that intrinsically evil deeds do not exist since they are never intended and, in a way, they can never be intended. However, if we adopt this kind of standpoint, we can run into difficulties if we should want to distinguish between the virtue of a good deed and the evil of a bad deed. We can say, yes, the evil exists as an omission but, for some, this might not be too satisfactory. If we always intending to do what is right and good, our degree of culpability cannot be very great (if it exists at all). Eudaimonistic ethics comes across or can come across to us as an individualistic ethics (it is too individualistic) since little attention is paid to moral norms or moral values that apply to all persons, serving as a point of departure for moral criticisms that could be made by others of others with respect to what has been their behavior.

As a kind of summary then, if errors of one kind or another lead to immoral actions and if these errors cannot be adequately understood (every effort would lead to a kind of infinite regress), the only way that any headway can be made is by means of a deepening of our self-awareness in a way which leads us to self-knowledge, greater measures of self-knowledge. A life best turns out well to the degree that it is characterized by greater awareness or greater consciousness. The greater consciousness creates conditions that lead to greater measures of self-control and, even if we must admit that growth in self-knowledge introduces order and reason into the conduct of our lives, if our understanding is to emerge as a species of new first cause or new first principle (the reception of a given understanding leading to the possible reception of another understanding), before this type of thing can truly happen, something must be given to us from some kind of external agent: something that comes to us from God or from the love and gift of other human beings. We recall in this context that that which exists in a condition of potency cannot realize itself and shift into a condition of act. Potencies do not realize themselves.

In Aristotle’s moral philosophy thus, we have a way of thinking and understanding which differs from the theoretical understanding which we find within the sciences. Where, in the sciences, the object is the reality of truth which one grasps in the wake of understanding, in moral reflections or that which exists as practical philosophy, we find an order of reflection that is geared to the virtue of prudence and discovering how we should act to realize concrete goals and objectives: bringing something into being which before had not existed. In the analysis and study of the human good, moral philosophy or the study of ethics is closely tied to the good of political philosophy and also the good of economics. Our individual human lives are realized in the context of a political order and an economic order which already exists. The individual is not a natural unit nor is a given society a mere product of human agreement as if our social order exists as a matter of convention and subject to arbitrary changes of one kind or another. By nature, we are “social animals” and so society or the political order which exists is to be regarded as a species of precondition for the living by us of a good life. In a bad political order, it is difficult to live a good human life although, in the middle of a bad political order, it is essential that human beings live as good human beings if they are not to self-destruct. Because a political order is not constructed by individuals as such but by subgroups or lesser communities which exist with in society, having a dignity of their own and an intelligibility of their own, the polis or the political order cannot be viewed as an order of being which can claim to have too great an authority which would allegedly belong to itself. A good political order recognizes the existence of other authorities and it tries to work with them in a just and amicable way. If moral philosophy is designed to help individuals lead a good moral life and political philosophy is designed to help the life of a given political community, economics plays a role because it serves to encourage the better life of family units (households in Aristotle) since all human beings are born into families and relations of kinship which help them together in their economic life and which also serve to educate individuals for the greater life that awaits them when they enter the greater life of human society as this exists within the polis (the state). However, as Spaemann notes, with the later separation of economics and political philosophy from ethics or moral philosophy, this has led to a greater individualization of ethics since, within this changed context, the individual is more exclusively the focus and not the individual as he exists with other persons in the context of a society which consists of one or more communities that, in their interaction, are constitutive of the existence of a larger social order.

These things being said, it is to be noted that the focus on the worth or the dignity of individual personal morality is something that can be dated from the thought and work of both Plato and Aristotle. The purity of personal motivations finds an echo in both Plato and Aristotle and, with this focus, there is a shift that moves from an eudaimonistic ethics to a Kantian conception which thinks in terms of meeting a transcendent order of obligations: doing one’s duty, fulfilling one’s obligations. If we want to give some content to that which could be meant by a life that turns out well, we must turn to questions of higher duty as a criterion for making our judgments and evaluations. A focus on individual desires for happiness presents itself to us as tending to an overly subjective, relative approach and, if our moral life is to have a more solid foundation, we must attend to values and goods that tend to act against the selfish concerns and interests of individual persons. Only if we begin from this higher perspective can we then turn to turn to our individual claims as this refer to our desire for happiness.

To move away from the subjective bias of eudaimonistic ethics and given Kant’s concerns about the subjectivity of eudaimonistic ethics which tends to associate our happiness with experiences of pleasure, Kant accordingly proposes a reformulation about how we are to conceive of the end or the purpose of our existence as human beings, an end or purpose which is to be expressed in how we are to live as moral beings. From Kant, we get the reformulation that we have been using which refers to eudaimonia in terms which refer to our human lives “turning out well.” Such an emphasis is more comprehensive and abstract. It cannot be so easily correlated with anything that we do as one particular act although, at the same too, it is noted and argued that Kant’s deontological ethics is somewhat abstract although, to his credit, from the viewpoint of an eudaimonistic ethics, Kant notes that, eventually, if we will all focus on meeting requirements that tell against our selfishness, our lives will turn out well and we will know happiness within our present current life. In response to this conclusion, Kant’s moral philosophy was criticized for its inconsistency although, in the end, if we are to conceive of ethics in terms of some kind of pure, abstract morality, we will tend to have something that is a bit inhuman and oppressive: something which perhaps should be done away with (Schopenhauer). The rationalism of Kant’s ethics tends to separate that which is good from that which is beautiful. A point of departure is being used that cannot think these two principles together. And so, in the end, given the concreteness of our human life, the individual human conscience is something that cannot be done away with as it deals with concrete situations that are not readily understood by attempting to apply abstract principles and universal rules. To try to engage in exercises that would try to separate the concreteness of our human living (a life that turns out well) from notions of disinterestedness and duty leads, with Nietzsche, to a kind of emptying which occurs in our subsequent moral reflection. Moral considerations are taken out and the result is a form of reductionism which, in turn, encourages ways of thinking and analysis which do not attend to how we exist within human communities which exist in a way that is more natural and intelligible than the simply being of our individual human existence. As Aristotle would say: we can only be moral within a society (within a social order). Moral considerations join us with other persons and if we attend to this primary condition, we cannot subscribe to an understanding of ethics that is entirely conditioned by an exclusive focus on duties and the performance that we should give to our duties.

Chapter 2: Eudaimonism

Three theses are stated: (1) we all seek to be happy or, less misleadingly, we want our lives to turn out well; (2) our individual actions exist for the sake of a greater good that is being intended; and (3) we evaluate the morality of a given act to the degree that it conduces to the greater end or good that is being ultimately intended. While each of these positions is questioned and denied by other thinkers and philosophers, it is to be admitted that we tend to seek goals or objectives that, for us, we greatly value and would seem to lead us to that which we would really want. We do this to get that although, often, we find that a given deed or action does not lead to that which we really desire. We are disappointed by our decisions and actions. We experience a certain lack of fulfilllment and we seek more. We move to something else and we often find that we are similarly disappointed. A given good is not really good as soon as we attain it. It might even be evil to some extent although it was intended as a good. Ambiguities are present. We may not have a very clear understanding about the happiness we desire or, more accurately, we might know know exactly what is meant by a life that is “turned out well.” The sense of disappointment that we experience points to something that is missing in our lives…something more that is not understood or attained even if this something more exists in a potential way and as it draws us to try and find ways to move toward it. As we look at our moral agency, we cannot deny that we organize our lives in such a way that we employ means to obtain ends and that, in our acts of moral deliberation, we weigh costs and benefits to each other. Having goals gives a form to our lives even as we realize that personal costs are involved in attempting to reach certain goals. However, if we attempt a deeper reflection, while, yes, we admit that in the tradition (in Aristotle) we have language which speaks about means and ends, it is to be admitted too that, in the tradition (in Aquinas), we have language which speaks about a connatural relation which exists between means and ends. The end does not justify the means. Given the intelligibility of a desired goal, the means that lead to it must participate in the goodness of the intelligibility that is being desired as a greater goal. If one wants to increase one’s income to send one’s children to university, one does not engage in a bank robbery to increase the size of one’s income. A closer look at the relation between means and ends should indicate that a kind of mutual kind of causality or priority exists between means and ends. The relation between parts or elements, the relation between alleged means, determines the end that is brought into being. A greater union exists between means and ends since, in the means, we find the ends. The relation which exists between parts determines that which exists as a whole. Hence, even as we admit that, as human beings, we reach toward ends through means which exist as immediate or proximate ends, the focus shifts from the primacy of ends to the primacy of means. Right ends exist through right actions. The goodness and rightness of our actions is all determinative since the good doing of good actions as means is the means whereby we can possibly think about the realization of that which can exist as a good life: a life that has turned out well. Admittedly however, objective and subjective determinations of good exist with a degree of tension between them since it is possible that we can achieve good actions, do good deeds, and not realize that we have done what we should have done. We can also believe that we have done well when, in fact, we have not done well. It is no easy task to try and move toward a comprehensive view that can know all the variables and give to each variable its due weight.

Chapter 3: Hedonism

If I can begin with a very general summary or overview of Spaemann’s discussion on hedonism, I would say that Spaemann associates hedonism with an animalistic notion of that which is regarded as good although, by the end of his discussion, he indicates how hedonism, as a philosophy, exists in a self-contradictory state. By following lines of thinking and value which exist within it (hedonism as allegedly a philosophy), we are led to points of view which transcend hedonism as a sound moral philosophy. In any case, if we begin with how Spaemann initiates his discussion, he notes that self-questioning in the moral sphere begins when our lives are not entirely subject to meeting external demands and needs. If our physical desires are satisfied and a degree of security exists with regard to their enjoyment, a spirit of inquiry can begin to reveal itself to us and this inquiry can begin to move us from animal apprehensions of good toward apprehensions of good that are connatural to the existence and being of ourselves as human persons who exist with minds that can ask questions and who can come to know about alternative courses of action and the possibility of making a choice among different moral options. Within a hedonistic way of life, yes, as the Sophists had noted, we tend to act out of self-interest. In living hedonistically, we want that which immediately pleases us…experiences of pleasure. But as our self-inquiry begins to identify our motives or our purposes in terms of pleasure, when we ask ourselves if this orientation is sufficient for us or if it truly leads toward our happiness, we begin to find that the goodness of our lives cannot be determined or settled if our object is the constant experience of pleasure. We find that we are not happy (we are ill at ease) if we should find that the purpose of our lives is determined by individualistic desires that are geared toward experiences of pleasure (sensate experiences of good). The implication, for us, is that the dawn of reflective moral inquiry is such that it is geared away from suppositions or assumptions that would correlate that which exists as the good life with that which exists as a life of pleasure. In speaking about a dialectic which exists within hedonism, Spaemann refers to the presence of three contradictions. Firstly, when hedonism as a way of life or as an orientation is conceptualized, when it is articulated in terms which refer to it as a universal truth, a contradiction manifests itself between a focus on subjective well being and a manner of articulation which wants to move beyond the subjectivity of well being toward an apprehension of truth or reality that transcends subjective conditions. The kind of subjectivity that exists in hedonism precludes universalism and apprehensions of truth that are not to be correlated with human experiences of pleasure. In other words, animal apprehensions of good in terms of pleasure do not square with the possibilities of self-transcendence which exist in the life of human beings who live and exist as human subjects. Secondly, another contradiction exists when we think about memories of past pleasures and anticipations of future pleasures. Yes, at times, when we remember past pleasures, we can be consoled. However, in these memories, we can be disappointed or burdened with sorrows as we experience and know that we are not experiencing these pleasures currently. Disappointments can easily attend our memories of past pleasures. Similarly too, when we think about future pleasures, this can be a heartening thing for us. We can look forward to future pleasures but then, there also exists the experience of disappointment and when our hopes are dashed, the fuller or stronger the hope, the more we are disappointed. Our experience of pleasure is turned into experiences of pain. The greater the anticipation, the greater the sorrow and disappointment. Hence, within this context, we find contradictions that exist in an existential kind of way. Thirdly, when we attend to the existence of feelings that exist with a content or with feelings that are associated or triggered by an external object, we deal with feelings that take us beyond ourselves in an existential form of self-transcendence that undermines the subjectivity of pleasure which exists as something that is supposed to be essentially selfish. However, if we attend to the true nature of friendship and when we attend to our desire to have truly good friends, we find that this attainment (its full attainment) requires self-sacrifice on our part. The self-sacrifice leads to enjoyments of deeper fuller friendship and so, as we notice these variables within our consciousness of self, we discover that selfish notions of the good which exist as pleasure cannot be believed or held in a way that can point to the rationality of such a thesis. As we seek to grow in experiences of well being, we find that true well being requires a species of human consciousness that distances itself from sensible experiences of pleasure. Pleasure is to be distinguished from a condition of joy which can include or which includes both an objective and a subjective aspect.

Link on:CatholicMoralityNotes