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).