What Is Your Fundamental Insight?

  It seems to me that each philosophical or religious school has one basic insight that is the foundation and canon for all the rest of its theory and activity. A life lived according to that insight will be most conducive to happiness. 

For the Epicureans, happiness comes from the satisfaction of simple, natural desires. For the Stoics it comes from going with the natural flow of the cosmos. For the Aristotelians it comes from the fulfillment of one's nature. For the Platonists it comes from union with the God from whom all reality flows. And for the Christians it comes from transformation through union with Jesus.

Talking About Extremism

I try to keep the content of this blog positive. There is so much goodness and beauty in our world, and any sane person would want to keep his eyes on that. Sometimes, however, simple human responsibility impels you to face up to some of the ugliness. Contemporary America is facing a vast increase in ugliness and craziness. Extreme positions are becoming mainstream conversation, and real people are being targeted as threats to decency, America and God.  I’m convinced these voices have to be countered. Someone has to stand up for Reason. 

But there is the challenge facing anyone, anywhere on the political spectrum, who is concerned about the growth of hate and extremism in America - how do you talk about it without sounding hate-filled and extremist yourself? Is it possible to discuss such immoderation in a moderate way? Is it even responsible? Do we risk soft-pedaling the danger when we try to stay cool and detached while reporting on certain figures and groups who are clearly miles from any kind of mainstream?

On the other hand, don't we give them cover by allowing our own speech to drift into their own territory? It's very natural to slip into the language of "threat" and "danger." That's clearly what these people are. They don't believe in democracy (in any meaningful sense of the term); it's too messy and it's too easy for them to lose. They certainly don't believe in pluralism or tolerance. However, if I point out such facts then they (or their sympathizers) can easily accuse me of the same sins and call me "hypocrite." Even worse, they may actually make me a hypocrite! When arguing against voices of irrationality and intolerance it is so easy to become filled with rage, and to actually become your opponent! Then your opponent has won. As the old saying goes, "Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level and then beat you with experience."

Still, as tempting as it is (and it is very tempting!) one can't withdraw into the peace and comfort of an ivory tower and attempt to remain above it all. There are Bad People out there - a few, anyway. And there are many, many stupid, fear-filled people looking for salvation and willing to follow the Bad People if they promise it (in case this state of affairs sounds familiar, it existed in Weimar Germany in the early 1930s). It is neither partisan nor hysterical to tell the truth. All voices are not the same, and the craziest people out there pose the greatest danger our country has seen since the 1850s. 

And we all know how that turned out.

A Thought

Let your thoughts and intentions be coherent and your actions focused  and you will be half-way to leading a good life.

Thoughts on Greenblatt and Lucretius

This morning, on NPR's "Morning Edition," they broadcast an interview with the Always Un-Insightful Stephen Greenblatt, who shared his non-insights on Lucretius' De rerum natura.  

The interview implies that Lucretius' philosophy (which Greebblatt fails to identify as Epicureanism) was stifled in the early centuries AD because it contradicted the dogma of the Christian Church. However, any competent historian of ancient philosophy knows that Epicureanism was always a minor player in the world of Greco-Roman thought - much less popular than its principle rivals, Stoicism and Platonism (in all its various forms). The philosophy of Lucretius failed to catch on not because it was un-Christian, but because pagan Greek and Roman thinkers found its dogma of the Randomness of the Universe so intellectually and spiritually unsatisfying.

Stoicism and Platonism were very different, but both were convinced that we live in a Cosmos, not a Chaos. Our world is not an infinite collection of atoms bouncing around randomly and forming temporary - and meaningless - conglomerates of Being. It is the product of Providential Wisdom. Every being we contemplate - including ourselves - is the effect of Divine Intellect. It has coherence and purpose.

The cosmos is Beautiful and Good, not only because it exists, but because it is Wise.

Altruism?

Perhaps it’s because of two centuries of Kant, but there’s a definite tendency to hold up altruism – disinterestedness – as a moral ideal. Doing our duty can only be truly moral if it is done for its own sake, and its own sake alone. Any hint of reward is enough to call into question the most virtuous act or the most sincere religious sentiment. This is a major critique of virtue ethics – we are told that morality pursued for the sake of our own eudaimonia is no morality at all. Even the natural desire for happiness is enough to taint the most virtuous act.

We are told, in short, to be like God. He, as most of our theologians insist, gives with no thought of return or reward. All his acts are purely for the good of the other – of us – with no benefit redounding to himself. And how else could it be? God, we are assured by these same theologians, is 100% self-sufficient and self-contained. In full possession of every perfection, there’s no benefit he does receive or can receive by his actions. He can have no goal of his own; it is our good he selflessly seeks.

But what if this isn’t true? What if even God longs for something, and acts with a goal in mind – a goal for himself? In his poem ‘The Recovery’ Thomas Traherne makes this almost-blasphemous suggestion:

“Yea more, His Love doth take Delight
To make our Glory Infinite
Our Blessedness to see
Is even to the Deitie
A Beatifick Vision! He attains
His Ends while we enjoy. In us He reigns.”

Traherne’s God is not the God of Aristotle – “Thought Thinking Itself” – fully self-sufficient and self-satisfied (in the true sense of that phrase). He isn’t even Plotinus’ God – eternally pouring himself out with no need or desire of return. This is a God of mutual giving – we receive our fulfillment in adoring God, and God receives his fulfillment in our fulfillment!

So perhaps altruism is a false value; false because impossible and false because undesirable. Perhaps altruism (seeking to give with no return) is actually the vicious extreme opposite to selfishness (seeking to take with no return)? Giving to another’s benefit while also receiving benefit from that other is the place where relationship and mutuality lie.

Without mutual benefit there is no mutuality - and no relationship. We’re left only with the cold, detached altruism of Kant.

Giovanni GABRIELI= Canzon duodecimi toni

Is Virtue Ethics Selfish?

I'm a student – and teacher – of virtue ethics. I follow that trend in moral philosophy that reaches back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who taught that the purpose of ethics is to foster human happiness and well-being by developing human excellence. Virtue ethics isn't focused on the rightness or wrongness of actions. Rather, it's focused on the improvement of the character of the actor.

This school has had a major revival over the last few decades, partly because it is seen as offering a valuable alternative to the previously dominant ethical schools of deontology (“I must do this act because it’s intrinsically right.”) and consequentialism (“I must do this act because it will have better consequences than any alternative.”) However, virtue ethics does have its detractors, and one of the critiques is that it’s egoistic and selfish.

Anyway, I once had an interesting conversation about virtue ethics and its perceived “selfishness.”

A student and I discussed how a follower of each of the three ethical schools might behave the same way but for different reasons. A utilitarian consequentialist would “help the less fortunate” because to do so would contribute to “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.” A deontologist would do so because “Doing unto others” is a moral duty, regardless of consequence. The virtue ethics thinker, on the other hand, would do so because performing generous actions would foster the virtue of generosity, improve his character, and increase his eudaimonia.

My student was bothered by that, and definitely did see such a motive as selfish. She wanted an ethic that was oriented towards others, and not towards improving herself.

So I asked her why she, herself, was moved to help the less fortunate. She said that her experience as a health care worker showed her the suffering people go through, and that she wanted to alleviate it. “So,” I replied, “can you imagine another person seeing that same suffering and not wanting to do anything about it?” “Yes,” she said. “Then,” I asked, “what’s the difference between you and that other person?” She had no answer. I replied for her, “Doesn’t it come down to the difference in your characters? You see suffering and want to help. The other person sees it and doesn’t. Isn’t that because of the kind of persons you two are?” She said, “I guess so.” “So a society filled with people of good character is going to be better – more humane, more kind, more honest – than a society filled with people of bad character, right?”

She agreed.

It seems to me that no action is more socially beneficial than the improvement of one’s own character.