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).