The Ethics of Golf

My esteemed adviser and I have been in an ongoing debate over the steamy summer months about the essence and ethics of golf. Initially, our conversation focused on whether or not golf was a sport. I argued based on the etymological root of “sport” coming from “disport,” meaning “to be lively or frolic” or “spiritus” meaning “life, breath, or wind” that to be a sport, a certain degree of liveliness, vigor, and activity that transcended that of ordinary activity, was necessary for the essential nature of a sport. Football, basketball, and hockey were clearly included; baseball was more tenuous. Golf, because the level of activity was lacking liveliness and vigor, could not be included.

My adviser argued (I think rightly) that the level of bodily motion of a golf player in full swing was both “aesthetically beautiful as well as intellectually complicated.” He went on to argue (I think wrongly) that such motion included a certain degree of liveliness, at least in the moment of the swing, that led gold to be rightly categorized in the realm of sport.

After a long discussion with my husband, we have established the following three essential criteria for a sport: (1) physical activity which, if using an instrument, requires that the instrument not be capable of acting on its own (baseball bats are acceptable; Nascar vehicles are not); (2) competition. That is, sports are something that are played against another party. So competitive golf could potentially be a sport whereas golf played alone or casually with a few buddies who don’t keep score may be an activity, but is not a sport. And finally, (3) a set of rules that maintain the integrity of the game and allow for clear winners and losers without a judge acting as a third party. So basketball is in, but gymnastics, which requires a judge to determine winners and losers would be an athletic activity but not a sport.

The debate about whether or not golf is a sport is fun, but my real vocation is in the realm of ethics. Thus I find this article from the New York Times Ethics Columnist Randy Cohen much more up my alley. Cohen examines the recent vote to include golf in the 2016 Olympics and the subsequent protests from Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez who, in response to the Olympic committee’s decision, denounced golf as a bourgeois sport and took measures to close some of Venezuela’s courses. My adviser wanted to know whether I had more in common with Chavez than I did the Olympics Committee.

Cohen, if you read the article, introduces his argument with some pretty arcane points like the facts that golfers are overwhelmingly upper-middle class, male, and conservative. He brings these issues up because they are probably what Chavez is referring to when he calls golf “bourgeois.” But the people playing golf are accidental to the ethics of golf in itself. So in that sense, I disagree with Chavez.

What I find much more convincing is the arguments (which Cohen raises though Chavez does not) is that golf in environmentally unsound. He writes,

Unesco warns of the lamentable consequences of building golf courses to attract international tourists: “An average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 1500 kg. of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers.” Some courses have become more frugal with water, and a team of British scientists argues in “The Biologist” that “many golf courses actively promote nature conservation and harbour some of our rarest plant and animal species.” But it is hard to believe that the best-designed nature preserve includes 18 putting greens, or that even the most sophisticated golf course is better for the environment than no golf course at all. These considerations are putatively important to the Olympic Movement, which declares its intent “to encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues, to promote sustainable development in sport.”

An extraordinary amount of natural resources and labor go into maintaining golf courses, which are largely private and available to only a select few who can pay the extraordinary fees to gain the “rights” to play on such prime property. While some public course are available (16,000 nationwide, as Cohen notes), they still require exorbitant green fees. The golf course nearest to me charges anywhere from $25-50 in green fees, clearly precluding the vast majority of people from participating. From a market perspective, it makes sense to charge such high fees to participate–the upkeep of the course probably requires it.

But let’s think about what this upkeep entails. The course constantly needs to be watered, which, for 18 holes, is already quite a strain on at least one valuable natural resource. The green needs to stay green, which in most cases requires pesticides and fertilizers, which not only pollute the natural environment, but also cause chemical run-off that also contaminates neighboring environments and water supplies. And to build golf courses in the first place, you have to cut down trees and destroy existing ecosystems. As this article points out, golf courses cover more than 1.7 million acres and soak up nearly 4 billion gallons of water daily. All of this to feed an upper-middle class desire to play a game.

When ethicists talk about consumption of the environment and of natural resources, a word they throw around a lot is “sustainability.” Sustainability is based on the principle that current consumption practices in no way limit the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The question about the ethics of golf, to me, boils down to the question of sustainability. Obviously, there is no way to tell if future generations are being deprived by present golf practices. But we can say that generally, golf courses consume environmental resources without contributing anything in return. A farm which cuts down trees and uses fertilizer and consumes water at least produces a product that in some way allows that use of natural resources to be sustainable in the long run. But a golf course, at least as far as I can tell, contributes nothing accept some pleasure and some minimal athletic activity to mainly upper-middle class suburban folks.

The question of sustainability is also a question of virtue. Are we a society that is flourishing? That is, are we a society who is practicing social activities in such a way as to support and build up the common good? A society which is only interested in its present needs, and especially of meeting the need of satisfying the appetite of middle and upper-class individuals at the definite expense of the environment and the probable expense of the good of future generations is probably not a society which is striving for the common good.

Let me be clear. I am not saying that if you play golf and if you enjoy it and if you want to keep playing in the future you are in some grave way an unethical person. I am simply asking that we look at a widely-accepted society practice and question how this practice is forming us as a society. I am not convinced that a practice like golf, which consumes resources without contributing any resources in return, and which is a luxury that can only be enjoyed a select few with the prerequisite financial resources and leisure, is a practice that is making us a more virtuous society. Maybe Chavez has a point.

How do Academicians Become Holier? Renewing Hagiography for the Professional Ethicist

In New Wine, New Wineskins, Christopher Steck, SJ has an article entitled “Saintly Voyeurism: A Methodological Necessity for the Christian Ethicist?” In this essay, Steck notes the lack of attention to the personal qualities and character of the professional ethicist, and argues that contemporary Catholic moral theology should incorporate of his proposed method of “saintly voyeurism” into moral education. “Saintly voyeurism” according to Steck is a return to concrete models of Christian holiness as found in the stories of the saints in order to facilitate a neglected goal for the moral practitioner, namely, their own holiness.

Steck’s concern is that contemporary moral theologians are not sufficiently rooted in and transformed by the Christian story. On an institutional level, Steck complains that that there is insufficient support both from the church and the academy to support the development of catholic ethicists own development of Christian disciples as they practice their trade. He writes,

Achieving such a vision [of Christian discipleship for the professional ethicist] is complicated in the academic culture in which Catholic ethicists practice their trade. That culture is given shape by a constellation of values whose form does not align well with that of the field of Christian ethics, especially insofar as it is concerned with questions of what constitutes the holy life. This misalignment, I argue, is due in part to the dominance of rationalistic and acutely critical modes of contemporary research, along with a lack of concern for the personal moral character of the one engaging in research. . . More though needs to be given too how Catholic moral theologians can ‘form’ themselves into Christian ethicists and address issues of Christian discipleship and the holy life.

In essence, Steck’s concern is that not enough attention is being directed towards making ethicists more ethical, and within a Christian context, more holy. Instead, the virtues of the professional ethicists encouraged in the academy are the virtues which Steck identifies with scientific rationalism. They are

• Agorism: the virtue of argumentation and debate, or the “need to position one’s work in opposition to someone else’s and disprove others’ arguments in order to be original, [to] make a contribution and demonstrate intellectual ability” (28).

• Circumscription: the inclination against universalist or comprehensive claims

• Unmaking: a kind of hermeneutic of suspicion or “belief that truth claims conceal subtle and pernicious advancements of self-interest (whether personal, group, social, or institutional) and unconscious desires of power” (28-9).

Such critique-oriented rationalistic virtues have their advantages in the academy and particularly for scholarly research, but Steck worries that such virtues are not in themselves sufficient for the development of the scholar, and particularly the Catholic ethicist. That is, such virtues encourage intellectual competency but neglect other fundamental parts of the academician’s character. As Steck puts it, “Our ends [as scholars] are not just intellectual ones; they have to do with what brings us emotional well-being, psychological peach, and deep satisfaction about a life lived well” (30).

What we need in the academy, argues Steck, are spiritual practices that nurture a more comprehensive vision of the Christian life for the professional Catholic ethicist. That is, the Catholic academy needs institutionalized ways of encouraging Christian discipleship and Christian holiness among its professional ethicists.

What Steck recommends is a sort of “saintly voyeurism,” or as he describes it, “ethical reflection on the ordinary acts of a holy existence to better understand the demands of Christian discipleship” (36). Concretely, this takes the form of a kind of revised hagiography, a study of the lives and actions of the saints with an eye toward discerning which actions are most consonant with a saintly life. He quotes Richard McCormick who says “that the meaning of Christian discipleship is best gathered from the lives of the saints” (37):

Elizabeth of Hungary’s disobedience of her husband’s wishes in order to serve the poor, Elizabeth Ann Seton’s engagement with religious antagonism of her time, and Ignatius of Loyola’s apostolic choice to minister not only to the poor but to the powerful represent choices that raise interesting ethical issues for those wishing to better understand the saintly life.

Steck does not recommend an exact imitation of the saints, but rather a “casuistry at a distance,” that is, an observation of what sort of actions might be considered saintly in a given situation in order to train the ethicist’s own vision of holiness. This moral tutoring through hagiography can occur in five ways, according to Steck:

1. It can confirm for the ethicist the viability of the Christian vision, and strengthen the ethicist’s commitment to living as a Christian disciple even in the face of great adversity
2. Studying the lives of the saints can reemphasize the theological dimension of the Christian life by emphasizing such features as surrender, obedience, participation in the paschal mystery, and trust in the abiding power of love
3. The saints can offer new paradigms for how Christian discipleship can be lived out in changing historical situations
4. The lives of the saints can offer a context for examining how holiness can break through the trial and limitations of creaturely existence.
5. Finally, the saints challenge us always to respond to the situations we find ourselves in, rather than passively accepting the lot we are given. The saints give us options for our own lives for how to live out a life of holiness.

Steck concludes:

Christian moral theology is not simply a deductive or rationalistic science. It requires that its practitioner have a well-formed heart that is attuned to the Gospel and the values at its core. In an ideal world, Catholic moral theologians would be saints and scholars. However, Catholic ethicists now perform their trade in a context that often does not sustain the kind of Gospel vision associated with a saintly existence. The indifference of the academy toward traditional virtues and the loss of preconciliar spiritual practices within Catholicism leave Catholic moralists more susceptible than moralists of an earlier generation to an almost exclusively secular and narrowly rationalistic formation. . . . Scriptural mediation, prayer, devotional practices, and liturgical participation are just some of the practices that form the Christian into a disciple. But examining the lives of the saints, ordinary people achieving great moral character, is one practice that allows ethicists to practice their art—that is, scholarly reflection on human action—and thus represents a distinctive resource for moralists.

I think Steck is right on the money. I would recommend two developments to his argument. First, I think we need to accept the fact that much of the lives of the saints can be psychologized in today’s rationalistic environment, but that need not deter us from recognizing moments of great holiness or the fact that God has worked throughout history through very flawed individuals. My pet example is St. Catherine of Sienna who allegedly went seven years eating nothing but the Eucharist and occasionally some bitter herbs. Clearly, this part of her life seems psychologically unsound, and for good reason. However, the important point to be gleaned from a study of her life is that God inspired her to do great feats of holiness requiring great courage, like caring for victims of the plague and confronting the pope concerning matters of politics, despite the fact that she was a flawed, psychologically fragile and vulnerable individual. Clearly, a great lesson for us all.

Second, I would encourage Catholics to look beyond the boundaries of Catholicism to identify both historical and contemporary saints that were not necessarily a part of the Catholic faith. Due largely to my husband’s influence, I consider the Christian singer Rich Mullins a great saint. Mullins, inspired by the Christian message and anxious to live a life of Christian witness, gave his profits from his singing career to charity, and dedicated large portions of his life to charitable activities not associated at all with his career, like moving to a Native American reservation to teach the children there about music. When I listen to Rich Mullin’s music, I cannot help but be inspired by the vision of the Christian life he encourages both through his music and the story of his life. Clearly, Rich Mullins can be considered a contemporary saint for Catholics today.

I’m interested for all the professionals or soon-to-be professionals reading this post: (1) what role do the lives of the saints play in your own professional and personal life, and (2) what ways institutionally can you think of that you are encouraged to live a life of holiness within your profession, rather than a life of pure academic achievement?

Learning Ethics from Les Miserables

Everydaythomist is going to take a small break from discussing scripture and metaphysics in today’s post. But don’t worry—we will come back to some of the same topics we have been discussing on Thomas Aquinas’ use of metaphysical speculation to understand God as revealed in scripture.

Today, however, we are going to look at a well-known story, popularized by the musical, of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. I watched and discussed the Dreamcast version of the musical last night with my church small group. We aren’t going to rehash the whole story here. If you don’t know it, go out and get the DVD immediately, and then be sure to read the book as soon as you can. In this post, we are going to look at the various ethical theories which different characters represent, and what the story overall can tell us about ethics.

One of the ethical theories the movie portrays is what is called a deontological, or rule-based theory, most clearly represented by the police inspector Javert. Deontological ethical theories say that the moral thing to do in any given situation is to follow the rules, to obey the law, to do your duty. Deontological theories tend to downplay the relevance of consequences. This means that if there is a rule not to lie, it is immoral to lie, even if lying will help a lot of people.

A famous hypothetical scenario to illustrate what deontological theories look like if taken to an extreme is the “Nazi at the door” scenario. It goes as follows: say you are hiding Jews in your basement to protect them from being sent to a concentration camp. A Nazi comes to the door and asks if you have any Jews in your house. You know that lying is wrong, but you also know that if you do you obey your duty to tell the truth, the Jews in your basement will probably die. A deontological theorist would say that even in this scenario, lying is immoral.

In contrast, a utilitarian approach to ethics looks at the consequences of actions to judge their morality. Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism and tends to say that what is moral in any given situation is to maximize the good effects. So a utilitarian would say that more good can be done by lying to the Nazi officer and saving the Jews than can be done by telling the truth.

Javert is a deontological thinker par excellence. In his first stage encounter with Jean Valjean who is just getting released from prison, Javert tells Valjean that he is thief who has been justly punished for his offense. Valjean explains that he stole a loaf of bread to save his starving niece who was close to death. Valjean is using utilitarian reasoning here—he broke the law because doing so could potentially bring about more good (saving his niece) than obeying the law could. He appeals to Javert for compassion, “We were starving . . .” but Javert gives a deontological response:

You will starve again, unless you learn the meaning of the law!

Obeying the law comprises the totality of morality for Javert. His solo “Stars” illustrates how important the law is for him. The law maintains order. Without the law, there would be chaos, and so Javert insists that the law must be upheld regardless of the consequences, and if the law is broken, justice demands punishment. Even when he encounters Fantine who is clearly on the brink of death and requests only a little time to make sure her daughter is safe does not sway his commitment to the law:

I have heard such protestations
Every day for twenty years
Let’s have no more explanations
Save your breath and save your tears
Honest work, just reward,
That’s the way to please the Lord.

Javert is not just being high and mighty in his role as police commissioner. We learn that he also comes from a poor background to criminal parents, but chose to escape his background by strictly following the rules no matter what the consequences:

Dare you talk to me of crime
And the price you had to pay
Every man is born in sin
Every man must choose his way
You know nothing of Javert
I was born inside a jail
I was born with scum like you
I am from the gutter too!

While Valjean occasionally uses utilitarian reasoning in his approach to ethics, he is more representative of a third approach to ethics, a virtue-based approach. If a deontological approach to ethics first asks “what does the law say?” and a utilitarian approach first asks “how can I do the most good?” a virtue-based approach asks “what does this action say about the kind of person I am, and what are the implications of this action for becoming the person I want to become?”

Alasdair MacIntyre, a famous philosophical advocate of virtue ethics, says that virtue ethics can be summed up in three questions:

Who am I?
Who do I want to become?
How do I get there?

Virtue ethics is unique because it sees ethics as concerned not so much about discrete actions (should I do X or not), but how every action fits into a total life narrative. Virtue ethics acknowledges that people change over time—they become better or worse people depending on what they do.

We see Valjean struggling between a utilitarian approach to ethics and a virtue-based approach to ethics in his son “Who am I?” In this song, Valjean contemplates the utility of turning himself into Javert to save a man who has been mistaken for Valjean and arrested. But if Valjean chooses to turn himself in to save one man, hundreds of others will suffer since val Jean is the mayor of the town and the owner of the factory where most of the town works.

I am the master of hundreds of workers.
They all look to me.
How can I abandon them?
How would they live
If I am not free?
If I speak, I am condemned.
If I stay silent, I am damned!

Utilitarian reasoning falls apart for Valjean, and he has already recognized the limitations of Javert’s deontological approach. He understands that weighing the consequences will not tell him what is right in this complicated situation, nor will trying to follow the rules lead him to the right choice. Instead, he turns to his own character and asks “who am I” and “who do I want to become?”

Who am I?
Can I condemn this man to slavery
Pretend I do not feel his agony
This innocent who bears my face
Who goes to judgment in my place
Who am I?
Can I conceal myself for evermore?
Pretend I’m not the man I was before?
And must my name until I die
Be no more than an alibi?
Must I lie?
How can I ever face my fellow men?
How can I ever face myself again?
My soul belongs to God, I know
I made that bargain long ago
He gave me hope when hope was gone
He gave me strength to journey on
Who am I? Who am I?
I am Jean Valjean!

But just because Valjean does not base his decisions primarily on either following the rules or maximizing the good consequences, there are guiding principles that he brings to his deliberation. But they are not rule-based principles like Javert (e.g. don’t steal); rather, Valjean’s guiding principles are the virtues, which are vaguer but which allow Valjean to account for the complexity of each moral dilemma.

Virtues are certain aspects of a person’s character that lead them to do good things. A person develops virtues through actions. One develops justice, for example, by trying to be just and giving to others and oneself what they deserve. One develops courage by facing fear, and by not avoiding good actions even when they are difficult or frightening.

There are lots of different virtues that people develop like temperance (moderation), prudence (right judgment about things to be done), generosity, etc. The dominant virtue for Valjean is love. In each ethical dilemma he faces, Valjean asks “what is the loving thing to do?” Javert asks “what is the right or the legal thing to do?” and as a result, ethical dilemmas are much simpler for him. But for Valjean, things are more complicated. It is not always easy to be loving, and he sometimes has to break the rules to do so, which is how he ended up in prison and an enemy of Javert in the first place.

And this brings us to what I see is the entire point of the story. Ethics is messy. Ethics is complicated. There are so many particular dimensions of each ethical dilemma that we face that we cannot possibly account for them all. And so if we look at ethics as primarily concerned about discrete actions, about what is the right or wrong thing to do in any given situation, we miss the point. Ethics is about becoming a good person. Ethics is primarily about the story of one’s life with all the successes and mistakes taken as a whole. It is about being able to die and say “I lived the best I could, and I am proud of the person that I am.” Rules are important, as is attention to consequences, but both rules and consequence are meant to facilitate the ultimate goal which is living well.

Acknowledging the complicated nature of ethics gives a person compassion for others in their own path to a good life. We see this too with Valjean. He can sympathize with Fantine who has sold herself into prostitution to get enough money for her daughter. He can sympathize with the prisoner who was caught stealing and mistaken for him. He can sympathize with the student organizers and with Cosette and with Marius in his love for his daughter. Because his approach to ethics gives val Jean sympathy, he has relationships that Javert, in all of his uprightness and stalwartness, does not. Because it is so clear to Javert what the right thing to do is, he cannot understand when people do not do it. So virtue ethics provides an approach to ethics that keeps us from judging too quickly.

On a final note, I would say that it is very difficult in any given situation to do the right thing. Even the most virtuous and heroic characters fail in their attempt to do what is best. We see this with Valjean who allows the foreman to fire Fantine because he needs to keep order in his shop. Valjean was not being malicious there—he simply could not account for all the relevant particular factors in the situation. A rallying motto of the virtue ethicist, however, is this: “It takes more than one sparrow to make a spring.” This means that we are not defined as a person by any one particular action. Who we are as people depends on an entire lifetime of actions. So Valjean is not a thief simply because he stole. Nor is he the hardened 24601 that he was in his time in prison. He is simply Jean Valjean, an identity which the audience of the musical does not see in its fullness until Valjean’s death.

What is Morality?

At first glance, the title of this post might seem a little silly. When someone claims to be a moral person, we take her to mean that she’s a decent, law-abiding, good person. When someone calls an act immoral, we take him to mean that the act is wrong in some way. And when someone says they follow their own code of morals . . . well, what should we take them to mean?

Mark Sanford has a moral code, and, according to this Huffington Post blogpost, he had a moral agenda too. But most people aren’t clamoring to defend Mark Sanford as a moral person. Moreover, the parts of Sanford’s moral code that the author Emma Ruby-Sachs has a problem with–opposing gay adoption, for example, is a moral value that a lot of other people espouse. This blogger looks at Sanford’s adultery–something most of us clearly think is immoral–with a “more rational moral code than Christianity” and finds Sanford isn’t all that bad.

Perhaps she is worthy of his love. We do know that she had long been a friend and that this was unlikely to have been a casual love. This may be a very genuine and deserved love and Mark Sanford may love his wife also, for all I know.

People in general like the idea of a “more rational morality” but it still strikes even the most rational person as false that Sanford should get to cheat on his wife simply because some woman is “worthy of his love.”

So maybe this whole business of asking “what is morality” is a more useful inquiry than we thought. Modern moral scholarship has been greatly influenced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. At the end of the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant remarks that “two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” This conception of morality as consisting in a sacred moral law has been the dominant conception of morality in the modern period. We think of morality as some transcendent realm of obligation into which we wander when we run into dilemmas, a code of rules imposed on us from some mysterious ethereal realm. Bernard Williams called this conception of morality a “peculiar institution” which we are better off without, despite its compelling nature.

We think of morality as that area of study concerned with dilemmas like “is it wrong to have sex with a woman that is not my wife” or
“do I have an obligation to carry my unborn child to term?” But the original use of the word “morality” had a much wider concern than just specific dilemmas or problems. The term “morality” is actually not etymologically related to the word for rules or obligation. It comes from the Latin word mos (plural mores) which is more properly translated “custom” or “practice.” We tend to think of morality as a body of normative precepts or a “code,” as I indicated earlier, that exists as an entity on its own right, but the original use of the word “morality” meant something different. Morality was a way of living life, and particularly, of living life well. Bernard Williams argues that in light of this, we should broaden the scope of morality to answering the question “How should I live?” rather than “which rules should I follow?”

This is how Thomas Aquinas thought of morality. Of course, rules and obligations were part of the picture, but rules and obligations do not give us the full breadth of morality’s essence. Morality for Aquinas is about how to achieve happiness, completion, and well-being.

Some readers will object to this as wishy-washy or bordering on relativism. One might ask, “If Mark Sanford is made happy by cheating on his wife, should he do it?” If morality is about happiness and well-being, by which standards should we hold people accountable?

Aquinas was by no means a relativist, nor did he think that people should get to choose arbitrarily which things make them happy. Morality for Aquinas is about doing what is good. Moreover, Aquinas’ moral theory is grounded in a general metaphysical theory of goodness. This term requires some clarification.

In response to the question “what does it mean to choose the good?” Aquinas asks “what do we even mean by goodness?” This is the metaphysical question, meaning that it is a question about ultimate reality, not just about the physical universe around us. Goodness, according to Aquinas, is a transcendental (this is why his idea of goodness is called a metaphysics of goodness, since transcendentals are by definition not physical). Transcendentals are certain entities which capture the complex ways in which created things exist. Besides goodness, truth, unity, and beauty are transcendentals–they describe some dimension of existence that lots of different things share. What do all “good” things share? According to Aquinas, all good things are in some way desirable. Thus the good, piggy-backing off of Aristotle “is what all things desire.”

This concept requires some explanation. Why do I read? To make myself smarter, because I enjoy reading, because I have to in order to get a doctorate. The good, therefore, is whatever is the object of desire. But we have lots of desires, and some are clearly better than others. Mark Sanford had a desire to have sex with his Argentinian lover, but he also had the desire to fulfill the duties of his gubernatorial office, sans scandal. This morning, I had the desire to exercise, but I also had the desire to sleep in. In so far as all of these various things fulfill mine or Mark Sanford’s desires, they are, in some way, good.

But if goodness is something so general, it loses its meaning. Why bother talking about Mark Sanford choosing to have or resist an affair if both are good in some sense of the word? Aquinas is aware of this objection. He argues that goodness is used most properly to refer to something that is perfected, something that is doing what it is designed to do. A pen is good if it writes well. A table is good if it doesn’t wobble. Goodness for each thing is most properly the perfection of its own proper act of existence.

For human beings, existence is complex. There is not just one thing we need to do to exist well, like a pen just needs to write well in order to achieve the perfection of its existence. Human beings need to have and do lots of different things to fulfill the perfection of their existence. They need health and all the accompanying material goods that go into creating health like food and shelter and clothing; they need a certain amount of intellectual stimulation; they need relationships, and leisure and art. Human beings desire all these things because they are good, they satisfy desire, and they allow human beings to be what it is that they are supposed to be.

But there is a certain ontological and circumstantial hierarchy to these goods. That is, certain goods are better than others. And certain goods are better than others under certain circumstances. Food is a good, but learning is a much better good. Relationships and art are both goods, but if art were to ruin all of a person’s relationships, we might not consider it so good. Love is good, as is serving well in one’s political office, but if love gets in the way of proper service, as it did with Sanford, we no longer consider it so good.

Morality is about figuring out goodness. It is about figuring out what a person needs at any given time to be a full, complete, satisfied person. And this is why morality is not, in Aquinas’ thought, just about rules. Mark Sanford broke a rule, but what is more important for a moral evaluation of his act, at least in the Thomistic sense, is what his actions did to him as a person. Mark Sanford is somehow less of a person. He’s less well-off, less-complete, flourishing less.

So what is morality? Morality is a practical form of knowledge, what Aristotle called a science. It is that complex inquiry into the dynamism of practical action and what it is that human beings need to flourish, to be happy, to succeed in being human. Morality is not its own discipline which has as its specific focus the study of rules and obligation, but is rather the complex study of anthropology and metaphysics and sociology and psychology. Morality is simply what we do as human beings, trying to be good at what we are.

An Ethical Response to the Fragility of Human Life

Human life is a fragile thing. The goodness of human life is dependent on (or threatened by) external circumstances such as wealth, health, beauty, talent, and simple luck. Since antiquity, people have pondered how to factor in the seeming necessity of external contingents into an ethical account of the “good life.” The Stoics were notorious for their conclusion that external contingents like health, wealth, friends, and family were not relevant factors in the formula for a good life. For the Stoics, all that mattered was virtue. If you were a virtuous person–that is, a courageous, temperate, just, and prudent person–you could lose your home, your friends and family, all your possessions, and even your health and still, if you kept your virtue, you would still be happy.

Although most of us probably feel that the Stoic response is somehow not really human, we can be sympathetic to what this school of philosophy was trying to achieve. Bad things happen to good people. Even in antiquity, this was a truism. In light of this, the task of ethics is to keep good people from turning into bad ones when disaster hits. The Stoics concluded that detachment from the need for external goods was the only way to stay good in a world full of badness. “Love only virtue,” was the Stoics’ rallying cry. If you loved only virtue, you could lose a child and remain unfazed. If you loved only virtue, you could get a cancer diagnosis and not be troubled. In the face of any adversity, you stayed stoic, and most importantly, virtuous.

The alternative to the Stoic conception of happiness and morality in light of the fragility of external goods is Aristotle’s way. Aristotle said that we need more than just a virtuous character to be happy. As humans, we need food and shelter, we need a certain degree of wealth and life success, we need good health, and we need relationships. No amount of virtue will create a happy life if we are missing any of these things.

The Stoic tendency shows up a lot in history, Christianity included. Christian morality is often caricatured as teaching the saints live an austere life, indifference to grief, joy, pleasure, or pain. I want to argue, however, that the Christian conception of happiness is much closer to the Aristotelian notion than the Stoic, namely, that we need certain external goods to be happy.

Enter Job. Job is a righteous man, and blessed by God. He has a big family, robust health, a huge estate with lots of animals, and quite a bit of wealth. Not only is he a happy guy, he’s virtuous as well.

But then he gets tested. He loses his animals, his children die, his home is destroyed, and eventually, even his health goes. Poor Job is sitting on the ash heap covered with boils and sores, and he is miserable. Not only is he miserable, but he wants answers from this alleged “good” God that has allowed him to suffer so.

And God gives an answer:

Then the LORD addressed Job out of the storm and said: Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance? Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answers! Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its size; do you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it? Into what were its pedestals sunk, and who laid the cornerstone, while the morning stars sang in chorus and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:1-7)

I heard my husband preach on this text this weekend, and he brought Job into dialogue with Paul in 2 Corinthians 6 who is not, unlike Job, complaining about his suffering, but actually boasting and rejoicing in it. My husband pointed out that there is a major difference between Job and Paul when they confront the contingency of external goods, and the terror that comes with losing them. The difference is that Job has something to lose, but Paul, as well as the other apostles, have already given everything up. They have left their homes and their families, and given up any hope of being rich. With nothing to lose, suffering does not present the same sort of problem for the disciples of Christ as it does for Job.

The moral lesson of the story, according to this sermon, was to be preemptive when it comes to losing the external goods that cause so much suffering by giving up these goods voluntarily. If you don’t want to be afraid of losing your money, give most of it away. If you don’t want to suffer badly when you lose your job, don’t get to attached to it.

That sounds nice in theory, but Paul’s boasting in his suffering and the disciples’ total renunciation of worldly goods is not the way most Christians live. And it sounds a little too Stoic for my taste. Plus, it is fine to talk about the renunciation of external goods like property and wealth, but what about external goods like relationships and health? Surely Christians are meant to have at least some attachment to these external goods. So how are Christians to make sense of external goods that the world offers, and which sometimes are cruelly taken away?

Thomas Aquinas is Aristotelian in his approach to the question of external goods. This means that he is not going to recommend detachment from externals, like the Stoics or some Christian interpretations of the command to “hate the world.” Instead of detachment, Aquinas recommends “ordered love.” External goods can be loved, but they have to be loved in the right way. This means that goods like a nice home, a reliable car, a big family, and a sound bill of health are all goods that we can and even should desire. We just may not desire these goods as ends in themselves. Ordered love prefers always the greatest good, which is God, to all other lesser goods.

We pervert the proper order of love when we either love lesser things inordinately, like loving someone loving their car so much that they go bankrupt in taking care of it, or we pervert the proper order of love when we don’t love greater goods enough. The greatest good being God, all other goods should be subordinated to Him. This means that it is disordered to love your friends so much that you skip worship to spend time with them. It is disordered to love our health so much you spend all of your money on gym memberships and supplements and health food, to the neglect of other financial pursuits like charity and tithing.

But what is important to note about this idea of ordered love is that according to Aquinas, Christians can still love the goods of this world, and be attached to them, and mourn them when they are lost. It is good and proper to mourn for a lost loved one, and it is appropriate to worry about losing your home and possessions during tight economic times. Aquinas recognizes that we need these things to be happy, that is, to lead full and flourishing human lives. Aquinas’ way is not a way of detachment, but rather of proper attachment. Aquinas recognizes that becoming a Christian disciple does not necessarily prevent you from becoming Job yourself, sitting on top of an ash heap and mourning the fact that you’ve lost everything against your will.

Life on this earth is full of contingents. Sometimes things work well for us. Sometimes, we get to marry the person of our dreams, land a dream apartment in a cool city, get a job that is not only a career but a vocation, and surround ourselves with friends and family that love and care for us. At other times, we may have to deal with the mess of losing our job, or having a spouse lose their job. We may have to face a debilitating illness or watch a loved one succumb to a terminal disease. We may lose our home to the force of nature, become victims of violence, or find that the love we once thought was strong has grown dim or even disappeared. A good ethical response to the fragility of life on this earth is not detachment from external goods, but rather, fostering the sort of attachment that allows you to desire and love and mourn properly, without losing your desire and love for the greatest good—the God who is the source of all good things.

Should Christians Want to Pay More Taxes?

Today, on Divine Mercy Sunday for Catholics and the first Sunday after Easter for Protestants, the Lectionary presents us with a challenging reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all. There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need. (Acts 4:32-35)

This is a challenging reading because it smacks in the face of typical American economic sentiments that are based on the rights to private property and capitalism and a strong aversion to anything that smacks even remotely of communism. Moreover, this passage goes against sheer pragmatism. How could society function if this is the ideal?

The type of sermon you might hear on this passage depends heavily on what type of church you attend. Many choose not to preach on it, especially since the Doubting Thomas gospel passage offers an opportunity for a more irenic message from the pulpit. But this passage also presents the opportunity to give a heavy-handed political message, a message that is especially relevant in light of the dire state of the economy right now, and followed so closely on the heels of tax day. What I am referring to is an argument akin to the one Diana Butler Bass makes in this piece for Sojourners Magazine.

<blockquoteWednesday morning, at 9 a.m. sharp, I took my tax payment to the local post office. When I handed it to the clerk, she said, “I hate tax day.” I replied, “Not me. I don’t love parting with the money, but I kinda like it. That check is a bargain — roads, schools, medical care, social security, and the freedom of living in the greatest country in the world. It is patriotism by checkbook. Why should I hate it?” She replied, “Why, I’ve never heard anybody say that! It isn’t such a bad deal when you put it that way.”

No, taxes aren’t such a bad deal. Nor are they, as might have been heard at the ersatz “tea parties” around the country, at odds with Christianity. Indeed, tax day is a day that progressives should celebrate — as we participate in one of the greatest social reforms of the 20th century: the progressive income tax.

Her argument is essentially that a progressive tax is an expression of Christian love and a fulfillment of the economic demands of Jesus. Moreover, a progressive tax is a way of taking care of the poor, of providing relief to the suffering, of instituting reform that all Christians should be on board with, like universal health care, welfare reform, and education. What true Christian would not want to pay more taxes?

The problem with Bass’ argument on this point is that she has a view of the government which is thoroughly unscriptural. As I heard so aptly expressed today in church by someone who I am sure will not mind me borrowing his words, people like Bass want to “separate Jesus’ ethics from his apocalypticism.” Jesus’ ethics were beyond progressive. They were radical, even if for Christians they are so familiar as to be paradoxically comfortable.

• “Go, give everything you have to the poor.”
• “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
• “Blessed are you that are poor for yours is the kingdom of god, but woe to you who are rich for you have already received your comfort.”
• “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”

But Jesus’ apocalypticism is a little harder to swallow. Apocalypticism is a way of explaining the state of the world and why so much suffering seems to exist. According to the apocalyptic worldview, God had temporarily relinquished the world to the evil forces that opposed him, a situation which would in some future eschatological battle be reversed and God’s sovereignty restored. Apocalypticism is closely associated with dualism, with the division of the world into light and darkness, good and evil, the realm of Satan and the realm of God, the present age of wickedness and suffering and the age to come of glory. In this apocalyptic worldview, there is no middle ground, no neutral territory. People are either on the side of the Good, or they are opposed to it. If you are on the wrong side of things, you had best repent and turn your attention to walking in the light, or else be vanquished in the coming eschatological battle where God’s kingdom will be restored.

Jesus’ apocalypticism is a little hard to swallow because it makes him out to be a little less nice, a little less civilized, a little less progressive than we typically think of him:

• “Therefore everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Matt. 10:32-33
• “So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous” Matt. 13:49
• “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I choose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you” John 15:19

Jesus thought the world was under the dominion of evil. His coming was not only to usher in the Kingdom of God, but also to set apart some who would be “children of the light.” Jesus’ ministry was not about changing the structure of the government or about initiating a political revolution. If anything, Jesus expected the governments to be a source of persecution for his followers, not a source of godly support. He says to his disciples in Matthew: “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. . . You will be hated by all because of my name.” (Matthew 10:16-22).

So let’s return to this passage in Acts and the question of a progressive tax. It does not say in Acts that the community of believers sold all they had and gave it to the emperor. It does not say in Acts that the community of believers put the welfare of the poor into the hands of the government. It says that the community of believers would sell their property or houses and bring the proceeds at the feet of the apostles. The community of believers was not clamoring for government reform. Rather, with “one heart and mind . . . [they] bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” The community of believers is at odds with the government, not collaborating with it. Earlier in this chapter of Acts, we read that they are citing Psalm 2 which in no way indicates that the apostles or their burgeoning community think that Christian reform either starts or ends with the government: “the kings of the earth took their stand and the princes gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.”

So what about taxes? If the government is wicked, should Christians just stop paying taxes? Jesus seemed to think the question of taxes was secondary. “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” (Matthew 22:21). The government uses our tax dollars in a lot of good ways that, of course, Christians can and should support. It is through tax dollars that our roads get built, our public schools get funded, our poor and homeless and handicapped get helped. But our tax dollars get put toward funding an awful lot of wickedness as well. The biggest chunk of the federal government’s budget goes to the military. We have bases all over the world, and two wars (maybe three) raging in the Middle East, wars which Christians have good arguments for thinking are unjust. President Obama’s administration has just bailed out the flailing General Motors with billions of dollars of loans that may never be paid back and a CEO making 1.3 million dollars. And earlier this year, Obama allotted 10 billion federal dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research, which he does not think of as a matter of ideology, even though millions of Americans do.

The point is, Christians have to come to terms with the fact that our tax dollars go to both good and evil things. There is no way to reconcile this fact by saying that your tax dollars go to support only the initiatives that you support—welfare reform, for example, but not the war. No, your tax dollars are sullied by all of the many unethical things that government gets involved in, financed by you, the American people. This does not mean that you should stop paying taxes, but only that you should realize that you do so with dirty hands.

“The community of believers was of one heart and mind . . . with great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all. There was no needy person among them.” Christians cannot expect the government to provide for the poor, to cure the sick, to offer succor to the suffering. This is the task that has been given the Christian community, which, in a sinful world under the control of forces of evil (what Walter Wink called “the Powers that be”) can only be accomplished through the powerful grace of Christ. It is the power of Christ that heals, and the power of Christ that knocks down the sinful and oppressive structures of the world that cause innocent people to suffer. It is the power of Christ that enables sinful and selfish human beings to give all that they have to the poor because it is in doing so that we realize our freedom to follow our Lord.

The Christian should pay their taxes with a heavy heart, not because of money lost, but because of how that money is spent. And with new zeal, the Christian should offer everything else they have—their heart, mind, soul, and possessions to the Christian community, laying all this at the feet of the apostles, and “bearing witness to the resurrection of the Lord . . . [and] distributing to each according to their need.”

Is Christian Realism a Non Sequitur?

In light of the inauguration of Barack Obama who cites Reinhold Niebuhr as one of the most influential theologians on his way of thinking about politics, and in light of the fact that my students have been studying Reinhold Niebuhr, I have been thinking a lot about Christian realism recently. Lots of people, it turns out, have been pondering the meaning, scope, and contemporary relevance of Christian realism. I was assigned a question on my comprehensive exams examining the theological coherence of Reinhold Niebuhr’s political stances, and last week Boston College hosted a conference with Jean Bethke Elshtain, Andrew Bacevich, and Bryan Hehir on the subject of Realism, Ethics, and US Public Policy. So it seems a fitting time for Everydaythomist to explain what Christian realism is, delineate a little bit of its history, and raise a few questions about just how “Christian” it is.

First, we must understand what realism is. Realism is a political theory that views politics as a realm shorn of all moral and ethical constraints. Sometimes called “power politics,” a realist politics is not motivated by concerns for the common good or virtue, but rather by self-interest, necessity, and most of all, maximization of power. According to realism, politics is seen as limited only by power constraints, not by ethical constraints about what may or may not be just. As Michael Walzer puts it, who dedicates the first chapter of his book Just and Unjust Wars to arguing “Against Realism,” realism can be summed up as “they that have odds of power exact as much as they can, and the weak yield to such conditions as they can get.”

Some big names are attached to a realist ethos: Thucydides, who wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thomas Hobbes, and Machiavelli. In some ways, realism is a kind of pre-Christian philosophy. It is the politics of Athens and Sparta and Rome, not of Christendom. In fact, pre-modern and modern advocates of reviving realism have seen Christianity as a threat. Rousseau, for example, said that Christians were wretched citizens, that politically, they were like lambs being led to the slaughter. In the public square, Rousseau wanted Christianity replaced with a hearty civic religion, which espoused virtues more in line with a realist agenda than a Christian one. Christian virtues, of which Nietzsche was so critical, were effeminizing virtues that encouraged citizens to be weak, passive, and unfit for civic life or political leadership.

So how do we get from Christianity being the enemy of realism, to a political theory called “Christian realism?” The first place to look is in the political theory and public theology of Augustine. According to Augustine, the moral vision of Jesus could not provide the basis for a viable political and social ethic. Rather, Augustine argued that the gospel ethic such as found in the Sermon on the Mount (love of enemies, non-resistance, etc.) were rather intended for an interior ethic that would no doubt influence Christian behavior but not wholly dictate Christian participation in the world. In other words, Christian morality sets certain limits on behavior, but the moral vision of Jesus was considered an impossible ideal, not achievable in this world.

The place we see this form of Christian realism playing itself out is in the doctrine of just war. Although it seems as if Jesus’ ethic, and Paul’s as well, would prohibit Christians from participating in war, or any form of violent resistance, Augustine argued against the pacifists of his day that Jesus was actually only talking about one’s inner intention, not one’s behavior when he said to “resist not an enemy.” Augustine thought that Christians could participate in war and kill enemies of Rome, but they had to do so with a inner disposition of love, not of revenge or hatred. Christian realism thus becomes a kind of “ethic of compromise” between the strong realism of the secular order and the non-violent perfectionist ethic of Jesus.

In the contemporary period, the phrase “Christian realism” immediately brings to mind the Protestant Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. According to Niebuhr, conflict and violence are pervasive features of human life. The ethics of Jesus, what Niebuhr called an ethic of agape or Christian love can never provide the basis for a political or social ethic, but an ethic of agape can inform the social and political realm, curbing the inevitable conflict and violence and providing the baseline for a minimal ethic of justice. Like Augustine, Niebuhr thought that Christian ethics could set limits on a stronger realist ethic based solely on power, but Christian ethics could not expect to totally obliterate violent struggles for power. In fact, Niebuhr strongly supported certain struggles for power, such as those between the USSR and the USA as the “lesser of two evils.”

Christian realists are unanimously convinced that Jesus’ standard of morality is an impossible ideal. You simply cannot love your enemy, resist all evil, or go the extra mile in our sinful world. Moreover, Christian realists are unanimously terrified that if Christians did try and live out Jesus’ ethics, the consequences would be horrible. Luther thought, for example, that if Christians tried to live as pacifists, the “ravenous wolves” of the world would take over the Christian church and herald in the reign of Satan. Augustine was terrified of the chaos that accompanied war and other social upheaval and considered such chaos to be antithetical to the Christian life. Thus it was better for Christians to compromise their ethic in order to prevent the greater evil of social chaos than it was for them to live out the moral vision of Jesus. Reinhold Niebuhr was a little more fatalistic. He thought that human beings simply could not live as Jesus had commanded them and to try to do so, like the liberal Protestant followers of the Social Gospel in his day were doing, were setting themselves up for disaster.

In an oft-cited David Brooks’ op-ed from the New York Times, then presidential candidate Barack Obama listed his reasons for loving the realism of Reinhold Niebuhr. When asked what he takes from Niebuhr, Obama responded,

I take away the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away … the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.

The idea is that you cannot rid the world from evil, but you also cannot be afraid of getting your hands a little dirty (as Michael Walzer) says fighting what evil you can. Moral compromises are necessary if you expect to achieve any sort of moral victory, however small it might be.

This all sounds fine and good, except for the fact that it really does not seem consistent with what Jesus expected of his disciples. Reading the Sermon on the Mount, for example, I do not get the impression that Jesus was laying out an impossible ideal for Christian morality, but really and truly telling his followers how to behave. Moreover, Jesus seems to acknowledge that his ethic, while not impossible to live out, will not be an ethics of power, that is, a realist ethic. We see this especially in the reading from Mark 8:27-9:1 where Jesus asks the question, “Who do men say that I am?” Peter gives the correct answer, that Jesus is the Messiah, but errs in assuming that Jesus will be a powerful Messiah, indicated by Jesus’ harsh rebuke to “Get behind me, Satan. For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” As Stanley Hauerwas, one of the most famous Christian advocates of non-violence alive today, writes, “Jesus insists it is possible, if God’s rule is acknowledged and trusted, to serve without power.”

The coercive struggles for power that form the status quo for the world’s political activity, which we have defined here as realism, are not the ways of the Christian. Rather, the cross is the only basis for a Christian realism. The cross reveals the reality of the world, namely, that sin is real and that sin has usurped the rule of God. And the cross also reveals what Christians can expect from the world if they are faithful to their call of discipleship. Faithful Christian disciples have to be prepared to sacrifice themselves, to stretch out their arms and say “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

But as Stanley Hauerwas notes,

Jesus’ cross . . . is not merely a general symbol of the moral significance of self-sacrifice. The cross is not the confirmation of the facile assumption that it is better to give than receive. Rather, the cross is Jesus’ ultimate dispossession through which God has conquered the powers of this world. The cross is not just a symbol of God’s kingdom; it is that kingdom come.”

Jesus does not play power politics. He does not fight the evil of the world on evil’s terms. He does not use violence, power, and coercion to fulfill his mission. Nor does he expect his disciples to. Jesus invites his disciples to his own non-violent love, a love that will indeed overcome the powers of the world, but not through coercion and force.

How Neuroscience is Influencing the Bioethical Debate About Compulsory Treatment for Anorectics

Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric disorder characterized by excessive preoccupation with body size and weight as well as self-deceptive attitudes toward the nature of thinness and emaciation. Treating anorexia is replete with challenges. First of all, treatment is often unsuccessful. Less than 50% of anorectics recover within ten years of the onset of the disorder. About 25% of cases develop into chronicity. Oftentimes, anorexic behavior is replaced by bulimic behavior.

Anorexia is a classic case where the tension between preservation of liberty of the patient and the imperative to treat a severe illness becomes quite acute. In most cases of anorexia nervosa, a well-structured therapeutic program, administered by a multidisciplinary staff experienced in treating eating disorders, is adequate. Even with the best of treatment options, however, avoiding treatment is part of the condition of anorexia. Anorexia is characterized with the obsessive pursuit of thinness and treatment is always aimed at thwarting this goal. The refusal may not be total: many patients accept psychotherapy or family therapy, but may refuse components of treatment likely to increase food intake, reduce physical activity and induce weight gain. In severe cases where anorectic patients categorically deny all treatment oriented toward weight gain, compulsory treatment is usually pursued.

A patient who refuses nutrition despite severe emaciation is generally thought to be behaving without autonomy and is deemed incompetent to consent to treatment. The Mental Health Act Commission allows, “that in certain situations, patients with severe anorexia nervosa whose health is seriously threatened by food refusal may be subject to detention in hospital and further that there are occasions when it is necessary to treat the self-imposed starvation with measures such as involuntary naso-gastric feeding to ensure the proper care of the patient.”

As a rule, most treatment programs resort to compulsory treatment only as a last resort. Compulsory treatment seems to be justified only by immediate mortal danger to the patient, but may also be pursued based on motives of beneficence within the health care system. Nevertheless, the ethics of compulsory treatment of anorectics is hotly contested issue.

Compulsory treatment for anorexia as well as other conditions assumes that the doctor is right about what is in the patient’s best interest. However, in medicine, prognostic ability is a far cry from an exact science, despite the fact that prognoses are usually given in percentages. Moreover, the prognostic difficulties are complicated in psychiatry, with psychiatrists very often incorrect in their identification of danger to the patient.
Moreover, the pursuit of compulsory treatment usually implies that treating the patient against her wishes will help her. A general principle of compulsory treatment is that one must be reasonably confident that the treatment is going to bring about some beneficial effect. In the case of anorexia, the ethics of compulsory treatment are complicated by the fact that the patient must at some point submit to either treatment or resuming somewhat normal eating patterns. An anorectic cannot spend the rest of her life in a psychiatric ward or on a feeding tube involuntarily. At some point, she must cooperate with therapeutic efforts if she is to recover. Compulsory treatment must both aim for, and have a reasonable likelihood of success achieving a state of voluntary cooperation with the anorectic.

New developments in neuroscience are changing our understanding of the role of the brain in mental illness, as scientists rapidly discover minimally invasive and benign techniques for exploring and altering the brain. Brain mapping technologies like positron emission tomography (PET scans) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRIs) serve to identify the brain areas involved in certain behaviors like self- starvation or performing a given task like consenting or refusing to consent to medical and psychiatric treatment.

Neurotechnology offers more advanced scientific data related to specific cognitive deficits relevant to consent, which has a direct impact on psychiatric diagnostic criteria, providing objective bases, derived from the structure and processes of the brain, for classifying a brain as “abnormal.” Standards for determining competence right now in the clinic are unreliable and based on what is called the “reasonable person standard.” With new neurotechnologies, it may become clearer both clinically and legally what constitutes a reasonable person.

Neuroscientific data is also leading toward a richer understanding of the nature of consent which is based on the idea of “degrees” of competence, rather than a simple threshold. Basically, neuroscience is pointing away from a model of consent that views the capacity to consent as an “all or nothing” sort of thing, and towards a model that accepts more or less capacity. That is, capacity to consent lies on a continuum. On a degree notion of competence, patients are never said to be either fully competent or totally incompetent, but rather, as displaying various and changing degrees of competence to consent at various different times.

Most contemporary models and tests for mental competence do not make adequate provisions for the positive influence of emotions in the determination of competence. Recent advances in the neuroscience of emotion provide compelling evidence that the decision-making process, including the act of giving consent, is not exclusively cognitive, nor can decisional capacity be assessed by purely cognitive means such as the Mac Arthur Competence Assessment Tool (MacCAT-T). Integrating more neuroscience studies on the complexity of the consent process is leading to a “multifactorial and qualitiative account of the components of capacity” which could lead to clinical developments that enhance the necessary components to improve decision-making. For example, fear and anxiety may impair an anorectic’s ability to consent to treatment, which may be enhanced by introducing a known and trusted confidant to the consent process who can engage the patient more successfully on an emotional level.

Although the issue of compulsory treatment, including forced-feeding, for anorectics has been greatly debated on the theoretical in bioethical circles, as Simona Giordano rightly identifies in her book Understanding Eating Disorders, the question of compulsory treatment is also, and perhaps primarily, an “empirical” problem:

People with eating disorders are typically intelligent, and are not at all the stereotypical ‘insane’ person, detached from reality. People with eating disorders are generally skilled, intelligent, and able to run their life in many important ways, like everybody else. It is hard to believe that all of them, when they refuse treatment, are incompetent. Given that we are dealing with intelligent and generally competent people, it seems that one cannot assume a priori that every time a person with eating disorders refuses treatment, she is incompetent. It seems that their incompetence should be assessed, not presumed (193).

Obama’s Pledge to Reform Ethics and the Principle of Epikeia

Liberals and conservatives are outraged at Barack Obama’s apparent contradiction of his campaign promises to clean up Washington and initiate sweeping ethical reform. The most recent complaint is over President Obama’s unwavering support for Tom Daschle’s nomination as the new head of Health and Human Services, despite the fact that Mr. Daschle has failed to pay $128,000 in federal income taxes (and the questionable ways in which Mr. Daschle spends his money).

The problem people have with President Obama is that he is making exceptions to the rule, despite the fact that he presented on the campaign trail an uncompromising message of ethical reform. Those who defend Obama say that the exceptions are necessary because certain people who the rule would exclude (lobbyists, e.g.) are needed for their expertise and skill set. Jody Powell, Obama’s press secretary, puts the conflict nicely: “If you set standards, you’re going to fall short on occasion and you’re going to have to compromise on occasion. But you’re probably also going to get more done.”

Seems like a perfect opportunity to talk about the principle of epikeia. Laws, says Aquinas, deal with human actions. As such, laws are about “contingent singulars,” meaning particular situations with particular circumstances. Because laws are about the particular, it is impossible to make laws that can exhaust the possibilities for moral action in every single conceivable case. Legislators, rather, make laws according to what usually happens.

However, there will be cases where even the best law, if applied to a certain case, will do harm to the common good than would be considered just. And since it is the law’s job to protect the common good, the application of the law in the particular questionable situation would be antithetical to its purpose. The example Aquinas gives is the law that all deposits should be returned. It is a good law–if I put a deposit in the bank, I expect to get it back. But, posits Aquinas, what if a madman gives his sword as a deposit, and if he gets it back, plans on going on a murderous rampage? To give him the sword back would be contrary to the common good. The law about returning deposits is still a good law and will have good effects in the majority of cases. In this case, however, applying the law would be injurious and so it is probably better not to follow it.

Another classic example is the person hiding Jews from the Nazis who is confronted by a Nazi and must either lie (and break the rule against lying), or tell the truth in accordance with the law and risk the death of a number of innocent people.

In situations like this, Aquinas says the letter of the law should be set aside in favor of following the dictates of justice and the common good. This decision to set aside the letter of the law is called epikeia, and with Aristotle, Aquinas calls it a virtue. Specifically, it is a subjective part of justice (meaning that it is a part of justice but doesn’t fully encapsulate the meaning of justice) and its object is equity.

Now, epikeia does not set aside the application of a law that is just in itself because of inconvenience or severity. Epekeia, for example, does not allow a person to set aside the letter of the law regarding lying because if he tells the truth, he is going to lose his reputation or suffer some other punishment. Aquinas recognizes that following the law will often be arduous and sometimes will have unpleasant effects. Epikeia simply assures that we see the purpose of the laws as serving the common good and justice, rather than viewing obedience to the law as a good in itself.

To return to Obama. He might have made a rule that no lobbyists would be given political positions in his administration, but if the application of that rule would harm the common good, it would be consistent with epikeia to break it. The burden of the question, therefore, is if the nomination of William J. Lynn III, an ex-Raytheon lobbyist he nominated as deputy defense secretary, is really for the common good.

In a political leader, a healthy sense of epikeia is a good thing, and Obama seems to have it. In fact, his ethics reforms, especially those regarding lobbyists, were not as hard-lined as you might have assumed based on his campaign rhetoric. His rules regarding lobbyists in reality do not ban all lobbyists outright, but rather set conditions on their employment. Obama seems to have been aware that a hard-lined rule against lobbyists would have been counter-productive.

So I think that all the claims that Obama is a hypocrite are unfounded. I think that our president is simply trying to do what all people do–find out how to apply a rule in any given situation so that it is conducive to the common good. As Aquinas says, “Without doubt he transgresses the law who by adhering to the letter of the law strives to defeat the intention of the lawgiver.” However, I think it prudent that President Obama make as few concessions as possible, especially this early in his administration, in order to keep the hope in his constituents alive, and keep people believing that goodness and politics are not antithetical. Is it really necessary for the common good to select Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn for deputy defense secretary, or are their others, less questionable candidates just as suited to the job? I’m betting on the latter. Similarly with Tom Daschle. Obama pledged his “absolute” support for Daschle’s nomination, but I think the common good demands that Obama exercise epikeia here . . . And reverse his support for a far-too questionable candidate.

Thomas Aquinas’ Views Featured in TIME Magazine

I am delighted with the feature article for the most recent Time Magazine.  I love it when an article substantiating everything Thomas Aquinas said 800 years is considered “news.”  The Time Magazine article is all about happiness, which I talked about here in my article on beatitude as providing the foundation of Aquinas’ ethics.  This article, however, is not so much about ethics but rather, positive psychology, which I also talked about here.

Positive psychologists are interested  not just in what makes us depressed, but also in what makes us happy.  Or as Martin Seligman, the new president of the American Psychological Association, describes the goal of positive psychology: “It wasn’t enough for us (psychologists) to nullify disabling conditions and get to zero. We needed to ask, What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?”  Seligman and others like Edward Diener, Ray Fowler, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi have been pushing scientific studies to determine what makes us happy, but for a Thomist, the conclusions are not news.

Turns out, wealth doesn’t make us happy.  As described by this accompanying Time Magazine article, scientific research indicates that people with above-average incomes are not much happier than others and that loss of wealth is usually only accompanied by a short term loss in happiness, if overal happiness is affected at all.

But Aquinas already said that happiness did not reside in the acquiring of wealth (I-II, Q. 2, art. 1) because wealth is meant to serve something else like the satisfaction of needs.  Even wealth that buys us not just what we need but all the things in the world that we may want does not satisfy our insatiable human appetites, as Aquinas explains:

in the desire for wealth and for whatsoever temporal goods . . . when we already possess them, we despise them, and seek others: which is the sense of Our Lord’s words (John 4:13): “Whosoever drinketh of this water,” by which temporal goods are signified, “shall thirst again.” The reason of this is that we realize more their insufficiency when we possess them: and this very fact shows that they are imperfect, and the sovereign good does not consist therein.

Positive psychologists are also discovering that education, fame, goods of the body, and even pleasure don’t make us happy.  All of Question 2 of the Prima Secundae, however,  is dedicated to proving this exact fact.

Positive psychologists have also discovered that friends are conducive to happiness.  Aquinas derives this notion from Aristotle, making this insight even more ancient:

If we speak of the happiness of this life, the happy man needs friends, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 9), not, indeed, to make use of them, since he suffices himself; nor to delight in them, since he possesses perfect delight in the operation of virtue; but for the purpose of a good operation, viz. that he may do good to them; that he may delight in seeing them do good; and again that he may be helped by them in his good work. For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends (I-II, Q. 4, art. 8 )

Religion also seems to make us  happier, which I talked about here.

But it also turns out that even the happiest people are sad some of the time.  According to Aquinas, this is because the happiness of this life is only imperfect happiness.  True happiness consists only in contemplating the Divine Essence, which is the only sort of happiness that cannot be lost.

Like I say, I am delighted that positive psychology is confirming all of these great Thomistic insights.  As valuable as positive psychology is, however, it can only tell us about imperfect happiness, which by its very nature will always be a little dissatisfying.  Maybe those like Martin Seligman and Edward Diener who are on the quest for happiness will, in their dissatisfaction with what positive psychology concludes, lead others to the theology of Thomas Aquinas which concludes that “final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence” (I-II,  Q. 3, art. 8).