It’s hard to contemplate American public life in the 21st century and not arrive at the unhappy conclusion that we are led by idiots.
He comes around to virtue after rehearsing some of the obvious debacles.
The piece is called "The Case for an American Revolution in Morals," which is interesting to me because virtue ethics is often thought to be separate (or at least severable) from moral theory. A man can be courageous, moderate, self-disciplined, given to acts of public service, magnificence, even magnanimity without the moral structure that later thinkers added on about guilt, sin, grace, and so forth.
Aquinas as much as Aristotle talked about the virtues, and found ways to link the Christian moral picture to the Greek ethical one: and they are certainly compatible for those who want both halves. Likewise, many a reverent Christian prays fervently for forgiveness for the sins he can't seem to avoid: failing in virtue does not keep him from justification through faith. Striving and failing is acknowledged to be part of the moral life, and even the pathetic sinner may be beloved of God; whereas failing at virtue is vice, and you can't be a virtuous man without in fact exercising the virtues (at least most of the time and to a greater or lesser degree).
Unfortunately the article is mostly behind a paywall, so many of you won't be able to read it. That is an irritating feature of the present moment; they seem to be cropping up everywhere.
6 comments:
This got me thinking- The people that think the Founding Fathers were evil men as slave owners, never seem to take their logic to the present and see that if the Founders were bad, how can you think today's politicians are anything but scum?
...if the Founders were bad....
And how can they think our nation exists today, with all the gains we've made due to the structure those bad men created--strong enough to survive a war over slavery that ended the slavery?
Can Evil do good by design? Can Evil have good as its goal? Seems unlikely to me.
Eric Hines
It's a distinction that maybe most people don't know to make. Were the Founders virtuous men? Yes, obviously: you can objectively show that they were determined, courageous, disciplined, etc. Were they good men? Well, that turns out to be a different question.
Can Evil do good by design? Can Evil have good as its goal?
That question ends up being difficult to answer. Aquinas says that every action aims at some goal, which it takes to be good -- thus, even an evil person acting evilly is aiming at 'some good' he wants to attain for himself (perhaps an increase of money or power, for example).
It also doesn't make sense to aim at evil for the sake of evil on Aquinas' terms because evil doesn't properly exist: everything, being made by God either as an actuality or as a potential you could attempt to achieve, must be at least somewhat good in order to exist. (Aristotle, whom Aquinas is closely following here, doesn't have a concept of evil in the Christian sense at all: he would say that it is possible to strive for vicious things, like constant drunkenness, and that thereby you became less virtuous. Aquinas has to say that by seeking the pleasure of drunkeness -- and pleasure is a sort of good -- you are failing to seek the fullest good that God made possible for you, which is not only vicious but also an evil. Evil is, for Aquinas, a privation from the fullest good rather than a real thing in itself).
Thus you might say that evil can only act with 'some good' as its goal, at least on Aquinas' terms. It just can't aim at Good per se, only a lesser good than what Goodness entails.
even an evil person acting evilly is aiming at 'some good' he wants to attain for himself
This refers to a thing of personal desire. I was referring to a moral good--doing good, not merely achieving some wished-for goal, which you and Aquinas got at later.
Eric Hines
I understood what you intended, which was whether a genuine Evil could aim at a genuine Good. The problem lies deeper. It is the atheist's favorite question: if God created the world, and God is all good, all knowing, and all powerful, how could there be evil?
To grant the existence of an outright Evil means either that God willed evil -- which defies the condition of God being all good -- or that God is not capable of stopping Evil for some reason -- which defies the condition of God being either all-knowing or all-powerful. This is a very deep problem for entertaining the idea of God.
Aquinas' answer doesn't suit you, but it is better than it may seem to you. He proposes that in fact God did not will Evil; in fact, that Evil as such does not exist. It is only that God set up a capacity to attain Good, and also granted his creation free will, and free willed beings don't always attain Good -- they often only obtain 'some good.' Yet even 'some good' is always a kind of good, and thus it is impossible to aim at evil per se (because it does not and cannot exist).
You want an answer more like Tolkien's from the Silmarillion. He offered a mythic account in which the God-figure allowed a Satan-like-figure to exist, who in his pride attempted to bend the sacred song of creation with dissonant notes of his own. Yet God was always able to shape the greater song such that the dissonance ended up added to and deepening the beauty of creation, enhancing the good and even making it greater than it would have been without dissonance.
Yet even there we are back to Aquinas' answer: Melkor was still striving for 'some good' of his own, the ability to create a thing that was something he desired. Now the Good, Aristotle said, is what all things desire; and this is existence, as we can see in how every kind of being who can strive strives both for their own existence and to extend their existence through longer life or reproduction. Melkor was striving at 'some good,' but also the Good, because he was striving to enhance his power to attain things of his own and to shape the world accordingly: a greater and more powerful existence, in other words.
The Lord of the Good is also its master, however: and in striving for 'some good' that is a sort of the Good, Melkor could not ultimately escape the power of the Good. Always his work was reshaped to the will of the master, even deepening the beauty and power of the song.
So you see, the answer to the question you asked -- can Evil have good as its goal? -- is surprising and difficult but true. Evil cannot help but aim at the good; it can only do so in spite of itself. And, exactly thereby, it falls against its will to the deepening of the master's intent.
I think that eloquently speaks to how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That said, it seems to also dichotamize (is that a word?) God from good in a way- hear me out- "good" as it's being described here is *relative* to the person whose values and judgement is being exercised to make that determination. If that's so, then it's not quite the same as 'the good- therefore God', or Godliness. He made us in his image- and we can declare something good! But is it?? If "God is good" in the literal sense, can those things that take you away from God be good, even of a lesser kind of good? Or is there absolute good and evil? I've always liked the model Aquinas gave since I've learned of it, but now in speaking of it, you have me questioning it! Interesting.
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