Ethics and a Human Telos

Is the point of morality to justify yourself? Because if you know the truth of how to act, then a necessary by-product of that is an attitude of judgment, condemning those who act wrong and feeling good that one acts right. If the point of morality and the study of ethics is to study how to act, then what is the point of claiming to not know the rules? Of not knowing how to act? If you say “well, we can’t know about morality”, then what’s the point of studying? Ethics seems to vacillate between both extremes: dogmatism and skepticism. Dogmatism makes us judgmental and critical, whereas skepticism leads us to apathy and despair. Surely, there is some middle-ground between the two. I suggest that one way in which ethics can strive for the middle ground is to discover goals for how to live without offering prescriptions for how to get there. And if one allows great ignorance in how to live, then one cannot have any set rules (without corresponding justification or judgment), which encourages a mindset of exploration and openness. That mindset is, to me, very valuable. By giving us a telos toward which to strive, but while allowing a number of paths to use to get there, we can avoid the problems of despair and apathy. How is one to discover a telos? Is it by reason, emotion, common-sense? Is it by cultural values and mores? Is it by metaphysics or a philosophical or theological anthropology? The Greeks were perhaps the first people (that we have records of) to emphasize goal-oriented behavior, argued that the good life is fulfilling one’s role. According to the Greeks, humans were made with reason to guide, and so the goal of human living is to live a life guided by reason. They used metaphysical assumptions regarding human nature to guide and shape their understanding of telos. Likewise, Karl Barth, the famous Protestant theologian, argued for love and freedom as our telos because of a metaphysics he derived from revelation concerning Jesus Christ. Both of these ethical systems, or anthropological systems, or as I term them “anthropo-ethical” systems are agent-centered because they are grounded in what it means to be a person and judge morality according to the fulfilled human life as an human agent. There are other systems of morality that are not agent-centered. For instance, utilitarianism (Mills or Bentham) and deontology (Kant) are not agent-centered. Do they involve metaphysical assumptions concerning human nature? Utilitarianism argues that the moral act is the act that maximizes utility (and they loosely claimed utility was happiness). There are various groups within utilitarianism – some advocate utility of all life, some for all sentient life, some for all human life. Some groups define pleasure as the operative principle, others invoke a more nuanced account of “flourishing”. What are the assumptions? First, there is a single scale of happiness on which there are quantitative but not qualitative distinctions. Secondly, pleasure is worth increasing, regardless of personal benefit or harm. But if one asks why pleasure is to be expanded, the typical reasoning (at least for Mill) is that all ethical reasoning and examples are essentially based on expanding pleasure. Utilitarians believe that our thoughts on most ethical issues are grounded in reality, and they find the principle of utilitarianism to be a rule that justifies and clarifies our already-accepted conclusions (at least if we were consistent and rational, they say). Utilitarians don’t necessarily believe that our sentiment (i.e. our feelings concerning moral approval or disapproval) is grounded in some metaphysical grounding concerning the universe, but they are commited to the view that human sentiment aligns with their view. Kantian deontology believes that truly-ethical rationality must be universal and objective. True moral reasoning must be based on a universal and necessary form, which guarantees its objectivity, but also must be empty in content which guarantees its universality. He believed that properly-moral behavior will have no bearing on one’s emotions. Kant came up with at least three distinct formulations of his categorical imperative, the first two being the most well-known. The first formulation basically says that pure reason requires us to act in a way that can be universalized into a rule without contradiction. Thus, if I wonder whether or not I can lie, I have to consider the consequences of universalizing the scenario. When I lie, I want the other person to trust me (presumably because I always tell the truth). But their trusting me requires me to always say the truth and never lie. Therefore, it would be contradictory for me to lie according to this universalizable rule. And therefore, I can never lie. His second formulation is that one must act in such a way that one treats others as ends and never as means. There are lots of rules that if universalized, do not lead to a contradiction – such as “always wear red” or “never drink orange juice” that don’t lead to a contradiction. But to ensure that these rules were ethical, he applied them to all reasoning agents (claiming that we must treat other reasoning agents as ends and never means). His ethics was grounded in a particular understanding of reason that required objective universality, whereas other competing interpretations of reason may not (for instance, Aristotelian teleology doesn’t require objectivity: in fact, it cannot support objectivity because it’s grounded in human behavior and habits). Kant’s ethics only required an assumption of human beings that are able to use reason to guide their motives. And if a human doesn’t have the potential to reason in that sense, for whatever reason, then Kantian deontology treats them as non-reasoning animals, like the rest of the non-human world. Thus, it seems that of the 4 aforementioned ethical systems, only Aristotelian and Barthian anthropologies involves metaphysical assumptions concerning human telos. Utilitarianism and Kantian deontology do not. To be fair to deontology and utilitarianism, they do envision a world in which rational agents will flourish. Kant explicitly writes in his 2nd Kritic that for humans to act ethically, practical reason dictates that we assume a moral lawgiver exists who will reward us for our efforts and punish evildoers. (Fichte, his disciple, argued in one of his earliest books that Kant’s system only requires a moral universe, not a moral lawgiver, after which he repeatedly defended himself against charges of atheism.) Mill and Bentham and other utilitarians write that a world governed by utilitarian principles will be a vast improvement over our current world, and some have even written about what that world might look like. However, whereas Barth’s theological anthropology (which argues being fully human entails being fully free and fully loving), and Aristotelian teleology (which says the completely-fulfilled human life involves enjoying one’s habituated and virtuous character in the community of close friends) both unite moral living with the best kind of human life, neither Kantian deontology nor utilitarianism unite the two. A rational person may or may not be rewarded by a moral lawgiver, though Kant believes we must assume so in order to act ethically. And a person guided by utilitarian principles may or may not flourish in this life as a human being. For deontology and utilitarianism, being moral doesn’t make one a better human. For Barth and Aristotle, being moral must make one a better human. How might the differences between our worldviews lead to practical differences on the ground? I believe there are at least 3 relevant points to continue our discussion. 1. Deontology and utilitarianism lose the agent-centered (and human-centered) approaches of Aristotle and Barth. I think this means that they, inadvertently or not, think in terms of rules and abstraction instead of the embodied, complex, and human-faced ethical systems of Aristotle and Barth. There may extend, unconsciously or not, less grace for special circumstances and for the many “gray areas” that many people recognize and accept. 2. Closely related to point 1, deontology and utilitarianism think more in terms of general roles and less in terms of individual persons. More importantly, they think in terms of one specific roles (i.e. a rational agent (Kant), a deliberative agent (utilitarian), etc. instead of the many layers of roles that is prevalent among Confucian culture (i.e. (1) ruler and subject; (2) father and son; (3) elder brother and younger brother; (4) husband and wife; and (5) friend and friend.) What makes humans and human societies and human systems distinct and unique are all erased for deontologists and utilitarians. a. For Aristotle, one can only be a virtuous and fulfilled/happy person within these particular and determinate human communities, relations, and systems. Part of Homer’s brilliance was the way he articulated roles as competing and allowed for tension within these roles. b. For Barth, one can only experience freedom and love through the Holy Spirit who works uniquely and freely within our social relations and situation. God has a particular relationship with us, and for Barth, God approaches us within our concrete and historical existence. 3. Role-based may have the problem of compartmentalizing the roles within one’s identity, but a person-centered approach implies a natural mediation and balancing-act of all the different roles together. 4. Perhaps Confucianism’s view of identity, and virtue, as the fulfillment of one’s numerous roles ends up being more person-centered. In other words, one can be explicitly person-centered or role-oriented or one can end up with a person-oriented system because of the sheer plurality of roles (which are united in a single person…the unity of the multiplicity of roles is the person).

Jesus and Moral Perfection

It seems to me that Christians, though perhaps this could be expanded to other religious groups, are trapped between two horns of a dilemma. On one hand, they want to say that Jesus’ divinity entails some conclusion regarding Jesus’ moral perfection. For some people, like my parents, Jesus’ divinity means that Jesus was morally perfect and blameless. And because their image of Jesus is perfection, I believe their image of moral perfection is wrapped up with a human face. This conscious or unconscious link between a human face and moral perfection may have important ramifications that aren’t being sufficiently appreciated by liberal Christians. I will go into that deeper later; for now, I want to talk about the idea that Jesus’ divinity does NOT entail moral perfection. There are some, like me, who are not concerned with defending Jesus’ behavior and do not care if Jesus does not satisfy my own ideas of moral perfection or justice. Jesus called a woman a “dog” (kind of like calling her a bitch) before he finally relented and gave her healing as she requested, in one story. Jesus may have prevented a woman from being stoned for adultery, but Jesus certainly didn’t do anything to address the systemic and cultural issues that may have forced her into adultery (such as the lack of women’s rights, prohibition on women owning property, lack of ability for women to be witnesses in court, and the plight of the poor under the Roman empire, etc.). In my mind, it’s easy for one to say “your sins are forgiven” without confronting and changing the societal ills and evils. Of course, one might disagree with me on that point, but the simple fact that Jesus didn’t bring about revolutionary changes in the society of the time to enact perfect justice means that I cannot attribute moral perfection to him. I believe we humans are embedded within cultural systems, and no one can be morally blameless if one lives within an oppressive and unjust social system for the simple fact that one’s collusion and cooperation, however tacit or unconscious or latent, will be sufficient to render one “unclean”. For liberals, and others who have a strong sense of “social sin”, Jesus and moral perfection are incompatible. However, I wonder if our strong sense of social sin comes at a cost. For instance, if one views Jesus as morally perfect, then one’s sense of moral perfection has a human face. Yes, the “human face” of justice will be remarkably similar to one’s view of Jesus, which probably conceals our own misogyny, sexism, classism, racism, heteronormativity, etc. but at least one’s sense of justice has a human face. When liberals get caught up in social sin, they may view the world as more complex and they may recognize the embeddedness of humans in their social webs – but do they have the human face when they have an image of justice? Because we liberals emphasize systems of power and oppression, I think that we may be prone to view humans as weak and without agency (including the capacity to resist and oppose systems of oppression). We often seem to encourage or envision vast social changes, even being sympathetic to revolutions, without, I believe, fully appreciating the complexity that accompanies wide changes, such as individuals falling through the cracks or individuals getting overtrodden when they cannot keep up with such changes. I think we liberals secretly entertain simplistic notions of “if this happened, the world would be so much better” even as we oppose “simplicity” when we think it leads to sexism and racism and empire. If and when this occurs, I think that religious conservatives have a lot to teach us liberals. Maybe in our struggle for justice, we lose the human element. Maybe we lose sight of the fact that people are intrinsically free, even free to oppose “universal” and “dominating” systems. I am amazed at people’s creativity in their resistance, and maybe us liberals are slow to recognize it, appreciate it and, hence, to encourage it. We liberals also need to remember to focus on love because sometimes love and justice seem to be opposing – even though they’re not. And when they seem to be opposing, I think our conservative brothers and sisters can remind us that justice, like love, requires a human face. There are dangers to both perspectives. The religious conservatives, who maintain a human face, may unwittingly hold racist, sexist, classist, and empire perspectives because we humans unfortunately view “human faces” like ourselves. The religious liberals, who may struggle to maintain a human face in our justice efforts, may be better at recognizing and calling out perspectives that hinder and silence others, but we may do so at the cost of viewing others as weak and without agency. Moreover, we may maintain justice without love, too easily dismissing those that fall outside of our system(s) (that we’re fixing or replacing). Both sides need each other, and the human life is, in the words of George MacDonald, an oscillation between two extremes. I think he was right.

The Lack of Agenthood in Christian Ethics

The Lack of Agenthood in Christian Ethics I was recently talking with my friend who’s a very conservative evangelical Christian. He told me that he doesn’t judge people even though he holds a very conservative viewpoint. When I asked him what that means, he said that he doesn’t treat people differently, even though he believes they live in a lifestyle of sin. Well, then I started thinking. First, besides holding the obvious contradiction “you’re judging them for being in a lifestyle of sin” while saying that you don’t judge others, I realized that there’s a deeper insight to be gleaned. What my friend means is that he doesn’t treat people differently on the basis of perceived sin. Rather, and which I confirmed with him in a later discussion, he has two ladders in his mind. One is the ladder of morality, where some actions are moral or immoral. This ladder is in accordance with very conservative thought (homosexuality is wrong, sex before marriage is wrong, stealing and lying are wrong in all cases, looking at a woman lustfully is wrong, etc.) However, he has a second ladder, a ladder that doesn’t intersect with the first ladder, and this ladder is the “response” ladder. While he may view someone who has sexual relations outside of marriage as immoral, he won’t treat them differently than someone who does because that action, that lifestyle, that particular sin, has no bearing on his response ladder. However, he would refuse to let a convicted sex offender work with the children’s ministry in his church. He told me it doesn’t matter if that convicted sex offender was a nice person, or claimed to have been healed, or is maintaining proper moral relations (to my friend’s mind) in all other areas of his life. His past is enough to constrain his ministry opportunities in the church. What my friend holds, essentially, is an ethical worldview that is completely divorced from agent-centered ethics. He holds an act-centered ethical perspective – some acts are immoral and some acts are moral. He believes certain things are moral or immoral based on his own reading of the Bible, which is in accordance with very conservative and evangelical thinking. However, when he makes choices regarding how to respond to others, he adopts a very cultural and common-sense approach. Convicted sex offenders, regardless of their current actions, cannot volunteer in the children’s ministry at church. And yet, he doesn’t treat homosexuals any differently than heterosexuals. He doesn’t treat people having sexual relations with others outside of marriage differently than people who are not. One of the potential problems with this perspective is that it’s subject to prevailing cultural norms that, at least in my mind, need to be deconstructed. How he responds to others isn’t based on the Bible – it’s based on common-sense, prevailing norms of rationality or cultural acceptance, etc. Maybe “common sense”, prevailing norms of rationality and cultural acceptance are good justifications – but maybe they’re not. His view raises the question of how to understand ethics. Is ethics based upon how you respond to others? If so, his ethics is based on cultural norms and values, regardless of his moral beliefs. If ethics is based on morality and what makes actions immoral or moral, then his ethics is divorced from practice in life. Another interesting issue is that he seems to neglect an agent-centered approach that is so important in my own ethical thinking. When I reflect on ethics, my images are of persons, of good character, of virtue. I think that someone who does bad things is a bad person, and so I treat them as such. I think actions reflect on character; therefore, I have a hard time imagining a good person doing bad actions or a bad person doing good actions. If a good person performs a bad action, then I tend to either downgrade how I view them (from good person to bad person) or I tend to dismiss the “bad” action is morally neutral or justified. And, if I reflect on how to treat someone, I do so based on an analysis of their character, asking myself “Are they a good person in whom I can trust?” or “Are they simple-minded and therefore likely to not backstab me for personal gain?” Moreover, I tend to assume that persons with one or two virtues are likely to be virtuous in other senses, even ones that have not been proven to me. For instance, if my friend is very kind to me, then I would tend to assign bravery or temperance to my image of him. And visa-versa. Like the classical Greeks, I tend to have a unified virtue theory of agents – if an agent has one virtue, then they have all of them. To me, wisdom is not easily segmented and boxed. Whereas my conservative friend seems to think that actions do not reflect on one’s character at all (one can be a brave, kind, and temperate homosexual in his mind), I think totally differently. Like my friend, I too have very strong convictions regarding what is moral or immoral. My overriding question for morality is as simple and as complicated as the question: does it promote love and freedom? My view of morality, insofar as it judges actions to be moral or immoral, is based upon whether those actions lead to greater freedom and love for themselves and for others. In other words, it’s consequentialist insofar as it’s agent-oriented. But not just regarding the agent that acts, but also regarding all agents in the world (does it promote love and freedom for all persons who are agents?). I suspect that my friend too has strong convictions regarding what is moral or immoral, but his is based on a particular reading of the Bible, without regard to consequences, to general norms (like love or freedom) and is not agent-oriented. There are at least 3 main areas of divergence that I have come up with between my friend’s ethical account and mine. 1. His is based on timeless decrees based on divine revelation. Metaphysically, he therefore has accompanying problems of how to account for divine revelation as well as a particular conception of God. Practically speaking, his ethical worldview will be rigid and uncompromising. This has important ramifications in the kinds of actions he performs (or is open to performing) as well as the kinds of people he hangs around with (typically people who believe like him since communities that are outside of prevailing cultural values tend to hang out together to reinforce and support that mindset). 2. His outlook will increasingly come under attack as cultural norms shift and change, both because cultural norms change (how we view homosexuality today is quite different from how we viewed it in the ‘80s and the ‘20s). As such, he may struggle with wanting to reconcile the divinely-revealed moral ladder with the how-I-act ladder, even though he has no bridge. 3. His ethics allows for justification pre¬-action. He can feel justified in acting in accordance with his principles of morality. This may lead to sharper feelings of condemnation and dogmatism. My ethical worldview is grounded in a strong commitment to the principles of love and freedom – namely promoting love and freedom for oneself and for all other ethical actors in the world. 1. Mine is based on growth in the Spirit, with the end result of greater experiences of love and freedom for oneself and for others. Because it is based on growth for ethical actors, it will place great weight upon context, trust in my own experiences, and a lack of judgment upon others. Someone with my worldview will be less likely to make moral judgments upon others because they are in a different context than I. My ethical perspective predisposes me against rigid and universal claims, which produces effects in who I hang around with (tend to align myself with open, exploratory, and non-judgmental people) 2. My ethical outlook will welcome deconstructionist and critical theory. Not only am I skeptical of cultural norms and values, apart from direct appeals to love and freedom, but my outlook will tend to be open and exploratory in how I treat people, not according to cultural values but according to deconstructed cultural values based on overriding principles of love and freedom. 3. My ethics does not allow for any justification before I act. Because love and freedom are principles, not easily-deciphered rules, I cannot know what action is the “right” one to do because I can’t know in advance which actions will lead to greater love and freedom for all ethical agents including myself. Rather, I must act given the best information I have and fall on the mercies of God (as Bonhoeffer said).