Elation: A Christian Evaluation of Positive Psychology’s New Emotion

Positive psychologists are the psychological community’s optimists.  One of the goals of positive psychology is to reevaluate human nature and human potential in order to draw out the more positive aspects like compassion, self-sacrifice, and the capacity for self-transcendence.   The new thing in the field is an emotion called “elevation,” or “the Obama factor” as University of California-Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner calls it, described in this Slate article.  Keltner tries to study the emotion of “elation” by reproducing it in a lab.  Ordinarily, this is easy to do.  If you want to study disgust, show video of  someone vomiting and then proceed with a brain scan.  If you want to study compassion, video of a starving child in Africa with flies in his eyes normally does the trick.  But elation, it turns out, is a lot harder to coax in the lab . . . that is, until Keltner got the idea of showing video of Barack Obama’s victory speech.  Turns out, our president-to-be was just the stimulus needed to recreate “elation” in the minds of Keltner’s subjects.

You probably haven’t heard a lot about the emotion called “elation.”  The word was coined by positive psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who I have written about here.   Haidt describes elation as that strong motivational tendency towards moral improvement that comes from the feeling of being “lifted up” in an optimistic response to some elevating stimulus.  The emotion elation is elicited by witnessing acts of virtue or moral beauty, or as Haidt describes, “a manifestation of humanity’s ‘higher’ or ‘better’ nature.”

Haidt got the idea of elation from reading Thomas Jefferson’s letters, who he feels perfectly encapsulates the characteristics of elation:

[E]very thing is useful which contributes to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue. When any … act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also. On the contrary when we see or read of any atrocious deed, we are disgusted with its deformity and conceive an abhorrence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an exercise of our virtuous dispositions; and dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise (emphasis mine).

In Thomas Aquinas’ philosophical anthropology (also called his “moral psychology”), emotions are called “passions,” from the Latin word passio meaning “suffering,” but connoting the idea of “being acted upon.  According to Aquinas, a passion is a movement of the sensitive appetite (the appetite that perceives and responds to sensory perception) either towards or away from some perceived  (sensory) good or evil.  For example, fear is the sensitive appetite’s movement away from some perceived evil, whereas desire is the sensitive’s appetite’s movement towards some good (see I-II, Q. 59, art. 1 for a good summary of what the passions are).

In and of themselves, the passions are neither good nor evil.  In fact, many of the same passions seen in human behavior are also evident in the behavior of animals.  The difference between human passion and animal passion is reason.  Aquinas thinks that all human passion must be subordinated to reason (or the intellect).  This subordination to the rational appetite  is not in the way a slave subordinates himself to a master, what Aquinas calls a “tyrannical rule” over the passions whereby the passions do only what the intellect tells them to do.  Rather, the process is more dialectical, a process Aquinas calls “political rule.”  The sensitive appetite perceives some sensory object like a suspicious stranger or a beautiful sunset and in the process of this perception, is moved to feel something like fear or joy.  This is called the “antecedent movement of the sensitive appetite.”  If all is right within the person, the sensitive appetite then presents the perceived object to the intellect for evaluation, which then gives the passion a moral quality.  If the intellect determines that the sensitive appetite responded to the perceived stimulus correctly, the passion is deemed morally good; if the intellect determines that the sensitive appetite’s response was inadequate, the passion must be changed or else it becomes immoral.

An example may help clarify things.  If I see a tall black person walking on the street at night and I clutch my purse tighter, I am acting out of a passion called fear.  In an of itself, this passion is neither moral or immoral.  When  my sensitive appetite presents this object to the intellect, however, my intellect may determine that I don’t act out of fear when I come across tall white men at night and that I probably responded in fear due to some latent racism.  The intellect then tells the sensitive appetite not to be afraid.  If the sensitive appetite obeys, then the internal moral mechanisms in me are in order.  If I continue to feel afraid unnecessarily due to my latent racism, I am then indulging an immoral emotion.

Another example might be the joy I experience when I eat Jelly Belly jelly beans.  As I am experiencing pleasure and joy from my candy fix, my sensitive appetite is continuously presenting the object of my enjoyment to the intellect.  The intellect determines what degree of enjoyment is moderate, or temperate, and then informs my sensitive appetite when my enjoyment is getting excessive like when I start eating too many delectable beans.

The point is, emotions themselves are neither good nor bad until they are evaluated by reason.  The emotion of joy is only a good emotion if the object of enjoyment is good, like a conversation with a friend.  Joy becomes immoral when the object of enjoyment is bad, like mocking a person or gossiping.  The danger with introducing an emotion like “elation” is mistaking this emotion for a prima facie good.  Elation is fine and moral if I experience this feeling of transcendence and human excellence when I watch a video on Mother Theresa or read a newspaper article about a fireman going back into a burning building to rescue someone.  However, if I experience elation when listening to a white supremacist, the emotion becomes quite immoral.

This brings me back to Dr. Keltner.  I am not so convinced that Barack Obama should be the preferred stimulus for inducing the feeling of elation.  Barack Obama is inspirational in some ways, especially in his historic status as the first black American president.  Surely it is a great feat for the United States to move so quickly from legislated segregation only a few decades ago to having the majority of the country vote for a black man.  But Barack Obama is also a political figure who has to compromise himself in many ways to get the job done (what Michael Walzer calls getting “dirty hands”).  He also holds some questionable views that Christians at the very least should have some distaste for, like supporting the legalization of partial birth abortion and other views regarding the protection of the pre-born.

However, the bigger issue that I am concerned about is that people are moved emotionally by political figures like Barack Obama and celebrities like Oprah (one of the tests Haidt used to study elation involved exposing lactating women to an episode of Oprah’s talk show), but these stimuli are largely phantasms.  No matter how strongly you feel about Barack Obama, chances are, you don’t know the guy.  You don’t know what kind of president he will be.  You probably don’t know what kind of senator he was.  No matter how inspiring you may think Oprah is, you probably know nothing about her but the image she puts on.  She could be a wretched person to her staff and family and friends, and you wouldn’t know at all.  So you have to ask yourself–is elation the appropriate response to the stimulus of Barack Obama or Oprah?

For Christians, I think our experience of elation should often be reigned in, knowing what we know about the sinful and fallen state of the world.  Surely, there are many great moral examples to follow, and many witnesses to the human capacity to transcend our fallen natures, but more often than not, human beings are selfish and self-justifying.  The white supremacist probably experiences elation when she listens to a David Duke speech.  The secular humanist probably experiences elation when he listens to Paul Kurtz or reads Nietzsche.  They experience elation because the stimulus is self-justifying.

Christians have long had a sense of the importance of elation for the moral life, however.  The writing of the Gospels was largely because Christians felt elated and were inspired to rise to new moral heights when they heard the story of Jesus.  The “Imitation of Christ” is a highly regarded spiritual tool for much of the same reason.  The stories of the saints were used to induce “elation” and compel Christians to become more virtuous, compassionate, and loving individuals.

The difference between Christian elation and what Haidt and Keltner are studying is that Christian elation is stimulated by God’s love for humanity and his mercy towards us, rather than what human beings achieve on their own.  The witness of Christ, the great saints of the Christian tradition, and holy men and women of today is not to the capacity that human beings have to transcend, but rather, they witness to the height, depth, and width of God’s love.  It is this stimulus alone which we know is always morally good, and which should compel the greatest experience of elation from us.

I am reading a book right now called The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination by Dale C. Allison which argues that the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew is not just about internalizing the Jewish moral code or about advocating some perfectionist ethic, but is also a summary of Jesus’ deeds and a witness to his character.  Allison writes, “the First Gospel is about a figure who imaginately and convincingly incarnates his own moral imperatives.  Jesus embodies his speech; he lives as he speaks and speaks as he lives.  It is not going too far to say that Matthew 5-7 proclaims likeness to the God of Israel (5:48) through the virtues of Jesus Christ” (22).  Allison concludes this section of the book by stating, “If Aristotle regarded ‘the good man’ as the canon in ethics, in Matthew, Jesus is the canon of Christian morality.”  Christians should pay attention to what the positive psychologists tell us about elation, but they should strive to cultivate this “new” emotion in response to Christ, who alone is “praise, adored, and loved with grateful affection, even to the end of time.”

Why Religion Might Make You Better Behaved and Happier

University of Miami researchers David McCullough and Brian Willoughby have issued a report claiming that religion promotes self-control, described in this recent New York Times article.  The article, written by a non-religious person, evaluates the claim backed up by other research that religion makes people better-behaved and overall happier that non-religious folk.  The most fascinating part to me was that McCullough and Willoughby do not conclude that the success religious people enjoy is attributed to  obedience to external rules imposed by a religious belief system, but rather to an internal strength that religious people have: “Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there’s a lot of activity in two parts of brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion,” McCullough said. “The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control.”  I think an alternate explanation may be what Aquinas calls “infused moral virtues.”

In Thomas Aquinas’ system, a moral virtue is a good habit by which a person is disposed to act well as if it were second nature.  A virtue is formed by acting well over and over again.  He thinks that the development of  virtue is something that both believers and non-believers can do.  In other words, there is nothing specifically religious or theological about the moral virtues.  Anybody can theoretically discipline their passions to be virtuous, though in practice, the development of virtue is difficult and frequently unsuccessful.

However, there is another category of virtue which Aquinas calls “infused moral virtues.”  The infused moral virtues are not caused by acting well over and over again.  Thomas says that the moral virtues must ordinarily be “acquired” through the arduous process of habituating ourselves to the good.   Rather, the infused moral virtues are implanted  in us by God through grace.

Infused moral virtues are similar to their acquired counterparts.  We can still speak of infused and acquired temperance, for example, and both are habits that perfect the concupiscible appetite which is the appetite for things like food, drink, and sex.  However, there are two major differences between acquired and infused virtues, besides how they are caused.  The first difference is the matter with which the virtues are concerned, what Aquinas calls the object (materia circa quam):

the object of temperance is a good in respect of the pleasures connected with the concupiscence of touch. . . it is evident that the mean that is appointed in such like concupiscences according to the rule of human reason, is seen under a different aspect from the mean which is fixed according to Divine rule. For instance, in the consumption of food, the mean fixed by human reason, is that food should not harm the health of the body, nor hinder the use of reason: whereas, according to the Divine rule, it behooves man to “chastise his body, and bring it into subjection” (1 Corinthians 9:27), by abstinence in food, drink and the like” (I-II, Q. 63, art. 3).

So the object of acquired moral virtues is some earthly good like health according to what human reason dictates, whereas the object of the infused moral virtues is obedience to the command of God.  The second difference is that the infused and acquired virtues are directed towards different things.  The acquired virtues are directed towards are directed towards earthly goods that make people good “citizens of earth,” whereas the infused moral virtues are directed toward spiritual goods that make one a good “citizen of heaven.”

We need the infused moral virtues because human beings are given a supernatural end of eternal happiness (beatitude), which we cannot reach by our own effort, as well as a natural end of happiness in this life, which we can achieve based  on our own effort and cultivation of virtue.  Just as the acquired moral virtues habituate us to behave virtuously  and flourish in this life, the infused moral virtues habituate us to flourish in the next life as well.

We receive the infused moral virtues through grace.  We receive grace by going to church and worshiping collectively, by receiving the sacraments, and by praying.  Their source is religious in nature–Thomas does not think that pagans can receive the infused moral virtues.

The infused moral virtues could explain why religious people tend to be better at self-control as well more successful and happier than their non-religious counterparts.  Virtue is very difficult to acquire and most people are unsuccessful.  If a person through grace is infused with temperance, this will still manifest itself as self-control towards food and drink, even if on their own, they  were unsuccessful at developing temperance through acquisition.

Why Thomas Aquinas May Agree with a Fat Tax

After reading this article, I got to thinking about how a Thomist would approach the question of a tax on high-calorie drinks and foods lacking in nutritional value.  I think a lot of Thomists tend to be more conservative (like myself) and would be surprised that there is much in this proposal that Aquinas would agree with.

First, the proposal has the advantage of still allowing people to choose to drink soft drinks.  This is important because according to Thomas, doing the right action or observing the mean are not sufficient criteria for the notion of virtue.  Virtues, in addition to producing good actions that observe the means must also be “elective habits,” that is, habits operating from choice.  Mere obedience and impassioned impulse are not sufficient for acquiring virtue.  Circumstances that provide choices whereby an agent can elect to do the good in the midst of other options, however, are more likely to cultivate virtues.  Think of prohibition.  Making alcohol illegal did not make people more temperate drinkers.  It just kept them from drinking (or made it very difficult to find drink).  If anything, prohibition produced less temperance toward drink.  However, by making alcohol available and providing education programs about moderate consumption (as well as virtuous examples of drinking in moderation which our society could definitely do a better job of), people get to elect to drink in moderation, thereby making them more likely to develop temperance.

In a similar way, a tax on soft drinks accompanied by information about the negative impact soft drinks have on health gives people the opportunity to choose water or other healthy beverages in lieu of soft drinks, not because they are being forced to, but because they choose to.  Now, ideally, what you would see is people choosing against drinking soft drinks because of the disincentive of extra cost, but eventually declining their Coke because they desired healthier beverages instead.  This is the goal of virtue education–not just to get people to make the right decision, but also to desire the right decision.  A tax on soft drinks just might make that task a little easier.

Another thing Thomas might approve of is that a tax on soda, like cigarettes, would shift the cultural attitude toward soda as being an unhealthy luxury or an unnecessary indulgence.  When things are considered a “waste of money,” they frequently become also the objects of shame.  Cigarettes have become shameful, not just because they are bad for health, but also because people pay so much money for them.  This is definitely a cultural shift from when cigarettes were much cheaper and considered not so much a luxury, but a staple (cigarettes were actually included in soldiers’ rations).  With the increase in price, less people smoke and more people are likely to consider them an indulgence (you definitely won’t see the government providing our troops with Marlborough Lights).

A similar thing could happen with soda.  If soda becomes more expensive, it is likely to be less available.  No more free refills on Coke in restaurants, no more soda at social functions, fewer options at grocery stores and maybe even the total disappearance of soda in many other food-supply stores.  Over time, this may lead to a cultural evaluation of soda as an excess, an indulgence, a luxury, and a waste of money.  This would result in the consumption of soda as being shameful to some degree.

Shame is important in virtue theory because as Aquinas says, “being frequently ashamed causes the habit of an acquired virtue whereby one avoids disgraceful things which are the object of shamefacedness, without continuing to be ashamed in their regard” (II-II, Question 144, article 1).  If sodas become shameful due to some shift in cultural perception, people are more likely to avoid them.

Moreover, a good government’s main task, according to an Aristotelian insight that Thomas affirms, is to produce virtuous citizens.  If “fat tax” is initiated for the purpose of cultivating virtue among the American citizens, it could be a very good use of government.

All this being said, there are lots of reasons to oppose a fat tax.  I am distrustful of any initiatives of the government beyond the bare minimum legislative, judicial, and executive tasks largely because I am aware of the prevalence of sin in the world, and the tendency of sin to be more powerful in collective action, especially collective action from the government.  This is an insight from Reinhold Niebuhr I think Aquinas would be comfortable with.  With this in mind, I seriously doubt that the main motivation of advocating a fat tax is for the purpose of developing virtue in the American people.  I am also wary of the arbitrariness of a fat tax.  Should candy and sugary fruit juices and Pop Tarts and potato chips be taxed as well as soda?  Where do we draw the line in deciding what is unhealthy enough to tax and what is not?

Lastly, the purpose of eating food is not just for nutritive value.   Some foods (and drinks) are consumed simply because they are pleasurable.  Beer, for example, is not healthy in any real sense of the word, but it is not intemperate to consume beer in moderation per se.  Some people just enjoy the taste and the experience of drinking beer.  Many others are the same way when it comes to soft drinks.  My mother savors every sip of every Dr. Pepper she drinks.  My fiancé drinks a ginger ale at night with the same relish that I drink my red wine.  Both drink soda in moderation and neither are obese.

However, maybe a fat tax will encourage more people to have the attitudes and behaviors that my mom and fiancé do toward soda, which I would argue is quite consistent with virtue.  Then again, maybe it will be yet another opportunity for people to rely on the government to do what they refuse to do themselves–take responsibility for their own behavior.

Using Virtue Ethics to Read the Bible (Without Falling Into Anti-Nomianism)

There are lots off good reasons to read the Bible.  The reasons would vary depending who you polled–some “secular humanists” would say that the Bible should be read for cultural literacy or for its literary value as a great book.  Christians would say that the Bible is the Word of God and tells us how to get to heaven, or that the Bible tells us God’s will for our life.  Lots of people would say that the Bible has many good moral lessons like love of enemy, care for the poor and marginalized, and other norms dictating good behavior.

If Christians believe that the Bible is a good source of morals, they are faced with the challenge of figuring out how to move from the Scriptural witness to their own moral inquiries.  This is no easy task, and Christian history is full of different ways to answer the question of the relationship between the Bible and ethics.  My fiancé is part of the Church of Christ tradition that has a very handy little system called “Command, Example, Necessary Inference.”  What this means is if the New Testament commands something, you obey (like baptism and the Lord‘s Supper).  In the absence of a command, you follow any provided example (like taking the Lord‘s Supper every Sunday).  And if there is neither, you follow necessary inference (like the use of church buildings).  For issues specifically addressed in the New Testament, Churches of Christ have a pretty coherent way of forming their views, but for issues not found in the New Testament (like surrogate motherhood, for example), their approach can be pretty unsystematic and haphazard.

Other Christians have a “cafeteria approach” to Scripture, keeping what they like and rejecting what they don’t.  You see this in a lot of the more liberal-minded groups that like things like love of enemy, but don’t really think Paul’s condemnation of homosexual behavior is all that relevant or that the Bible’s teaching about divorce should really be taken all that seriously.  This approach has the advantage off avoiding a dogmatic and unilateral approach to Scripture, but it is often quite arbitrary in what it takes seriously from Scripture and what it dismisses.

What both of these approaches have in common is that they look to Scripture for norms or rules about how to behave.  This might be called a deontological approach to Scripture which means that Scripture provides certain duties for those that follow it, and only these duties are relevant to Christian ethics.  As a virtue theorist influenced by Thomas Aquinas, I find such an approach deficient.  Ethics is not just about rules and duties, but also about character and leading a good life.  Virtue theory provides a way of using the Bible for ethics, not just for the derivation of rules, but also for a witness as to what sort of people we are called to be.  The Bible tells us what sort of character Christians should have.

Some people like the idea of using virtue theory to bridge ethics and Scripture because it makes their “cafeteria” approach more systematic.  Such people say something like “the rules in the Bible are not all that important, only the virtues like kindness and justice.”  This approach looks a lot like anti-nomianism, or the rejection of the relevance of rules (anti=against; nomos=laws).  These people tend to want to use Scripture without dealing with the parts dealing with tricky issues like homosexuality, divorce, and women.  They want to say that the overall trajectory of Scripture shows us the sort of people that we should be (kind, tolerant, just, etc.) but the details aren’t all that important.

I don’t fall into this camp.   I think the Bible shows us what sort of character we should have and what sort of virtues form that character, but it also tells us how these virtues are developed.  Aristotle tells us (and Aquinas agrees) that virtues are formed by acting well.  The virtue of justice, for example, is developed by acting justly over a period of time, such that you start doing just acts as a second nature.  But how do we know what just acts are, before we develop the virtue of justice?  One way is by following just people, but another way is by obeying just rules.

Think of a parent raising a child.  If that parent wants the child to be fair, he puts in place certain rules to encourage fairness, like sharing toys or taking turns with fun activities.  What the parent hopes is that eventually, the child will act fairly even when there  are no rules forcing them to, or no person to enforce the rules.  But the child will get to that state only if he obeys the rules about fair activity over and over and over again and by imitating the example of fair people.

Scripture can be thought of in a similar way.  God wants us to be certain people, and he has provided us with commands and examples of people to follow in order to become the people he calls us to be.  For example, he want us to be people who are wise.  Scripture tells us that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  What does acting out of fear of the Lord look like?  It looks like following God’s commands.  For example, in Exodus 9, God commands that all the livestock be brought under shelter to protect them from the coming hailstorm He is sending.  The officials of Pharaoh who fear the Lord obey, and their livestock is saved, but those who do not fear the Lord ignore the command and suffer the consequences.  The rule God gives us is to “obey his commands” and he provides many examples like these servants for us to imitate.

Another examples of what God calls us to be is loving people.  We only become loving people, however, by performing acts of love like taking care of the widow, the resident alien, the orphan, and even our enemies.  We become loving people by not resisting evil, but by “overcoming  evil with good” as Paul tells us in Romans.  These rules are supplemented by examples of loving people, the paradigmatic one being Jesus himself, but also figures like Mary and Paul who are paradigms of love that we can imitate.

If the commands in the Bible must still be taken seriously, one might ask what the difference between a deontological approach to Scripture and a virtue-based approach.  The answer is that a deontological approach to Scripture sees obedience to the rules as an end in itself.  God commanded us to obey, and we do so accordingly.  A virtue-based approach sees the rules as a means to becoming the people that God calls us to be.  The rules are not arbitrary commands of God, but tools that God gives us to develop the sort of character we need to follow him.  If we are successful, we no longer follow the rules out of slavish obedience, but out of love of the Good that is behind the rules.  The goal of virtue theory, unlike a deontological theory, is not just be obedient, but to be good like God is good so that we may no longer be called servants, but friends of God.

At the same time, using a virtue-based approach to Scripture means that  when we come across a contemporary moral problem like in vitro fertilization or global warming, we don’t have to look at Scripture to see what is specifically commanded or what rule can be inferred.  We can also look to Scripture to see what kind of people God is calling us to be and how the dilemma at hand compares.  This will not protect us from diversity in our ethical views (some people may say that using in vitro fertilization is consistent with becoming the sort of person God wants us to be while others will disagree) but it will allow us to take seriously the Scriptural witness for the way we think about ethics without falling into unilateral dogmatism or arbitrary picking and choosing in the process.

Beatitude

Aquinas’ ethics begins with and is founded on the end.  He introduces the Secunda Pars of the Summa Theologica with a treatise on man’s last end which he describes as “last in the order of execution but first in the agent’s intention.”  What he means is that the end of an action is the last thing achieved in acting but the reason for acting is nevertheless the end.  Think of spending several hours baking and decorating cookies, which I recently did for Christmas.  The time mixing the dough, rolling it, cutting it into shapes, baking the cookies, and finally, painstakingly decorating them was all motivated by the last thing “in the order of execution of baking cookies,” which is the eating and enjoying of them.  In the same way, Aquinas says that the ultimate end of all actions, which he will define as beatitude ,is the first in the order of intention for all human action.  In other words, all human action is motivated by the desire to be happy.  The reason I baked the cookies at all is because in some way, I thought that baking cookies, and watching my family enjoy eating them, would make me happy.

Another way of stating this is that the final cause is the first in the chain of causes.  We think of what we want to achieve by acting before we act.

Aquinas says that there are two ways to think of the end.  The first is the thing itself in which the end exists (beatitude) and the second is the use or acquisition of that thing.  A glutton’s end is food, and the use of that end consists in the pleasure that comes from eating.  According to Aquinas, the ultimate end of human existence in the first sense is God “who alone by His infinite goodness can perfectly satisfy man’s will.”  In the second sense, the last end for human beings is the enjoyment of this last end which Aquinas calls “beatitude.”

The word beatitude is a difficult word to understand in English.  Sometimes it is translated as “happiness,” but beatitude is a long-lasting happiness, not something that can be easily lost.  “Happiness” does not connote the steadfastness of beatitude.  Sometimes beatitude is translated as “flourishing” which again does not fully convey the full meaning of what Aquinas means by the word (mainly because we don‘t really use the word flourishing in our everyday speech and nobody really knows what it means).  What we can do is identify what beatitude is not.  Aquinas says it is not wealth, honor, fame and glory, power, good of the body, or pleasure.  It is not something external, not something that can be easily lost, not something arbitrary like luck, and not any created good.  Beatitude, according to Aquinas, is not even a good of the soul because if it were, the object of happiness would be human beings, which would mean that human beings could be loved for their own sake, which is contrary to what Christians hold to be true.

Beatitude, is, however, uncreated.  It is not something we have, it is something we do.  Aquinas speaks of beatitudes in two senses–its cause or object and its use.  Beatitude in the first sense (the thing in which beatitude consists) can only be God, and in the second sense, beatitude can only be the enjoyment of God:

“Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence.”

How does Aquinas back this up?  First, he says that nobody can be perfectly happy as long as there is something left for him to desire.  Nothing on earth leaves us without some other desire to be fulfilled.  It is almost a truism to say that just because a person has everything doesn’t mean that person is happy.

Aquinas’ second observation about happiness is that human beings are constituted to seek out the cause of things.  If we see mold growing on a piece of fruit, we seek out the chain of causes behind this occurrence until we arrive at the ultimate cause.  Our human nature is constituted to seek out the ultimate cause of our happiness.  However, simply knowing that God is behind our happiness is not enough for our intellect; we want to know the essence of God and this is beyond what the human intellect on its own can accomplish.  We need something else, some power outside of ourselves which Aquinas calls grace to elevate our intellect to know God in this way and to open our eyes to see God in this way.

In light of all this, Aquinas thinks that we can never achieve perfect happiness in this life.  We can, however, achieve “imperfect beatitude.”  This imperfect happiness is analogous to perfect happiness.  It is stable and lasting, it doesn’t exist in external goods like money, fame, or power.  Both types of happiness are “operations” or acts, not things.  The major distinction between perfect happiness and imperfect happiness is that perfect happiness consists in contemplating the Divine Essence, which we can’t do on our own, and imperfect happiness consists in the exercise of virtue, which we can do without any external supernatural aid.

Happiness in this life is often unstable and subject to the vicissitudes of fortune.  I knew somebody who had found great happiness–this person this person (we will call him Job) had friends, career success, a comfortable and even  luxurious existence.  People commented on how happy Job seemed going into the holiday season.  About two weeks or so before Christmas, Job suffered a great disaster resulting in the loss of his home and possessions.  Even if Job was a virtuous person and had all the right values and gave thanks to God that he still had his life, Job is still less happy in his homeless, possession-less existence.  Aquinas’ treatment of happiness echoes Jesus saying to “store up treasures in heaven” because only in heaven can we ever find true happiness.  In fact, this is the definition of heaven in Aquinas’ book–total happiness.

Some people say that Aquinas has an otherworldly understanding of happiness that does not allow for any sort of happiness in this life.  I do not believe this is the case.  Aquinas thinks that we can flourish in this life in different ways but he wants to keep us from thinking that this life is it.  No matter what we do, no matter how hard we work and how good we become, there will always be something else that we desire in order to be happy.  Augustine expressed this sentiment in his Confessions when he said, “My heart is restless until it rests in you.”  We always hunger for God as the ultimate Giver of all good things, and until we get him, we stay a little bit hungry.

Can Aquinas Shed Light on Our Current Economic Predicament?

When the House of Representatives first voted on the bill proposing $700 billion dollars to bail out corporations about to sink into the abyss following the decline in value in mortgage-backed securities, I crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t pass.  In the wake of impending financial doom and Hank Paulson’s strangely monotone yet panicked demand that Congress “do something,” I withheld my confidence in the potential success of this plan.  I am no economist and I certainly don’t understand every element of the current economic fiasco, but I was pretty sure Congress didn’t know what they were doing either.  My first clue was that Nancy Pelosi and George Bush actually agreed that the bill should pass.  Clearly, this is a confused bunch of legislators.

It may seem odd in light of my distrust of Congress and my skepticism regarding the prevailing opinion that this $700 billion is a good idea that I would turn to a 13th century thinker for guidance.  But Aquinas lays out some principles of justice that I think do, in fact, shed light on why we are in the economic situation we are in, and what can be done about it.

I. Justice

Aquinas’ treatise on justice is in the “Second Part of the Second Part” (the Secundae Secundae) of his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica.  It is a large treatise, consisting of 79 questions.  As with every virtue in the Secundae Secundae, he defines the object, the subject, the parts, the vices against, and the precepts of justice.  The object of justice is the right, the ius, which Aquinas says is a “work adjusted to another person according to some kind of equality” (II-II, Q. 57, art. 2).  The subject of the virtue, that is, the power of the soul that the virtue perfects, is the will.  So Aquinas defines the virtue of justice as the “habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by constant and perpetual will” (II-II, Q. 58, art. 1).

The general parts of justice are distributive justice, which deals with the just distribution of goods according to some sort of proportionality, and commutative justice, which deals with just actions in exchange and agreement.  There are lots of vices against commutative justice, some of which we will address below, but against distributive justice, there is only one vice which Aquinas calls “respect for persons.”  This vice is characterized by giving to people goods not because they deserve them, but because they are a certain person, such as a person of prominence or a person of wealth.  I am inclined to think that the current bailout is in part a manifestation of this specific vice of respect of persons.  Congress does not bail out Joe Smith when he gambles away his savings at a Las Vegas casino, or Sally Jones when she borrows more than she can pay back.  But the people and corporations currently benefiting from the bailout, even though essentially guilty of the same actions, get special treatment. 

Aquinas says that respect of persons involves a certain inequality contrary to justice “in so far as something is allotted to a person out of that proportion to him in which the equality of justice consists” (Q. 63, art. 4).   Moreover, he says in the objections in that same article that crimes committed against a greater person, and presumably, crimes that severely endanger the common good would be included, deserve a greater punishment.  Distributive justice demands that these bankers, and similarly, these banks, get the punishment they deserve, not the succor that belongs to the vice of “respect of persons.”  The argument that these companies are “too big to fail” is partially a consequentialist argument (i.e. if these companies went under it would be really, really bad) but I think it is also an argument based on the fact that those running these companies are very wealthy, very high-powered individuals with a lot of political leverage that they use in sticky situations like this one. 

II. Question 77: Of Cheating

 The “respect of persons” issue is interesting, but it doesn’t really address the principal reasons why we might be in this mess and what we can do about it.  In order to address these questions, I turn now to Aquinas’ treatment of cheating.

Aquinas asks first whether it is lawful to sell a thing for more than its worth.  This might strike us as odd if we think that things don’t have any inherent value outside of the value the market assigns.  Aquinas thinks the value of something depends on their usefulness to a person and that just exchange serves both parties equally.  Now, if the thing being exchanged is faulty, either because it is broken or because it is not worth as much as may be claimed or because it is of lower quality than may appear, the sale or exchange of that thing is unlawful.  Aquinas says that in all these cases, “not only is the man guilty of a fraudulent sale, but he is also bound to restitution.”  Even if the person selling the faulty good is ignorant of the fault, he is still bound to restitution.  This ensures that the common good is protected by restoring equality where inequality exists.  This means that houses that were sold for more than they were worth were fraudulent sales, even if the real estate agents and lenders and home owners didn’t know that the homes they were selling were overvalued.  It also means that the people who profited on these sales are bound to restitution.  Banks and companies that profited off of mortgage-backed securities that were bought and sold for more than they were worth rightfully should pay to restore equality.

But somebody may respond that it is perfectly reasonable to sell something like a home for more than it is worth, if a buyer exists who will pay the price.  Aquinas disagrees.  First, he distinguishes between two types of exchange.  The first is natural, as when one thing is exchanged for another, or for money equal to the value of the good exchanged.  The second type of exchange is the exchange of money for money or money for a commodity not on account of the necessities of life, but rather for profit.  This kind of exchange “is justly deserving of blame, because considered in itself, it satisfies the greed for gain, which knows no limit and tends to infinity” (Q. 77, art. 4).

 We have been hearing a lot about predatory lending in the subprime community.  What we don’t hear enough about is predatory exchange.  Houses have been greatly overvalued, but so have lots of other things.  Think about how much people spend for food at Whole Foods, for clothing from Neiman Marcus, or for luxury cars.  Obviously, lots of people willfully choose to overpay for these commodities but for Aquinas, that does not matter.  Exchange serves the purpose of supplying for natural needs and the necessities of life.  Profit may be a secondary consequence, but cannot be a primary purpose for exchange.

III. Of the Sin of Usury

Aquinas says that to make money on money lent is unjust in itself, “because it is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice.” Aquinas compares money to wine or wheat whose use consists in their consumption.  It would be wrong, Aquinas says, to sell wine and then to charge for drinking the wine.  Money is like wine in the sense that its use is to be consumed.  Lending money in itself is not wrong, but lending money for the sole purpose of making money off that loan is, as the Philosopher says, exceedingly unnatural.

Now, banks and companies involved in lending to the subprime community have lent money not primarily for the purpose of just exchange, but rather to make profit.  And many people have made extraordinary profits on these loans, especially in light of variable interest rates that forced poor and middle class people to make house payments that were mainly just paying off interest, not paying off the house.  Is it any wonder that these people have to default on their loans and the banks have to repossess their houses?  Aquinas says that if a person by usury extorts a person house or land, they are bound by the demands of justice to restitution.  This means that the banks who profited so much in the good years cannot repossess these houses simply because the people living in them can’t make the high monthly payments due to the high interest rates.

Now, I understand why people might bristle when reading this, but what I want to emphasize is the fundamental difference with the way we think of economics and the way Aquinas thought of economics.  We think of exchange as serving first and foremost the goal of profit; Aquinas thought of exchange as serving first and foremost natural human needs and the good of the community.  We think the market determines price; Aquinas thought that there were fair prices due to the inherent worth of a thing.  We cringe at making the rich, who profited for so long on practices of unjust exchange and usury, to make restitution to the poor; Aquinas saw this as a fundamental demand of justice.

IV. What should be done?

The reason Aquinas makes all these claims is that for him, justice is fundamentally about establishing equality.  When exchange is unequal, even if inadvertently so, restitution must be made.  So what does that mean for the bailout?  First of all, there is no way that the bailout can be considered just.  Nor do I buy the argument that we have to let some unjust people benefit in order to save our economy.  Justice can only be reestablished by restoring equality.  The bailout increases inequality for the sake of alleged good consequences, namely, saving the economy.  But saving an economy where injustice abounds and which is powered by usurious practices strikes me as ridiculous.  Here are some things we should do:

First, if the government is going to help anybody, it should be homeowners that are the victims of predatory lending practices, especially the elderly, the uneducated, and the handicapped.  How to finance this?  Liquidate the assets of Freddie, Fannie, and every other corporation that profited off of mortgage-backed securities.  Liquidate the assets of the executive members of these companies.  Take their homes, their cars, and every last dime in their bank accounts.  And do the same for every politician that profited either politically or personally from mortgage-backed securities.

Second, we need to challenge the way we think of money and the right we consider ourselves to have to spend our money on whatever we want.  We live in a society where, through unequal exchange, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  And we all participate in perpetuating this system when we spend $6.00/gallon for milk at Whole Foods, while children in our own community have no milk at all.  Whole Foods only gets away with charging such exorbitant prices because people are willing to pay, but that willingness does not remove the fundamental injustice of this exchange.  We need to stop paying, but more fundamentally, we need to stop thinking that a just price is whatever the market will allow for.  Aquinas recognizes that we can’t make it totally illegal to sell a thing for more than it is worth because human law is designed for the virtuous and unvirtuous, so if something is oversold without deceit, like our $6.00/gallon milk, the law looks upon this as licit by not punishing it unless “the excess be too great, because then even human law demands restitution to be made, for instance if a man be deceived in regard to more than half the amount of the just price of a thing.”  I don’t think we use the law to make places like Whole Foods pay restitution, but we can cease our spending of things that cost much, much more than they are worth simply because we can.

Finally, we need to start thinking of money as a means of exchange and not a good in itself.  We need to stop sinking our money into stocks, corporate bonds, and hedge funds in order to make more money from our investments.  We need to stop building up credit card debt and paying huge interest rates for the privilege to do so.  Rather, we need to start investing in our community and spending our money in exchange for goods and services, which not only distributes wealth more fairly, but also uses money in the way it was meant to be used.  Money is a means of exchange, meant to serve other ends, and not be an end in itself. 

The $700 billion bailout bill has passed and still, stocks are on the decline, inflation is rising, and the Fed had to once again cut interest rates to keep people from assuming the sky was falling.  I think it is very possible that we will have hard times ahead.  People will lose their homes, people will lose their savings, people will lose their luxurious lifestyles.  I think we need to make sure that we who have much are providing for those hardest hit, opening our homes to the homeless, our tables to the hungry, and our wallets to the destitute.  I also think that we need to courageously challenge the economic status quo, realizing its inherent injustices, and allowing those unjust sectors of the economy to fail, rather than artificially propping them up with yet another Congressional bailout.

Catholic Social Ethics and the Economy

This is a modified draft of a talk I am giving this weekend as part of an adult education program on Catholic Social Ethics and the economy.

I. Introduction

“Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community.” This statement, from the 1986 US Bishops Pastoral Letter entitled Economic Justice for All, is foundational for understanding what Catholic social ethics is all about.  Generally, ethics is the systematic study of how to live well in light of the various demands of human existence.  The formulation of rules and principles, the evaluation of consequences, the weighing of responsibilities, and the cultivation of virtues are all included under the rubric of ethics.   The more specific genre of social ethics emerges from the insight that as human beings, we are inherently social creatures and that our ability to live well depends on the quality of the relationships which we maintain.

Economic issues have been a particular concern within Catholic social ethics over the last three decades.  In 1986, the US Catholic bishops promulgated a pastoral letter on Catholic social teaching and the economy entitled “Economic Justice for All.”  This letter has been foundational for a moral analysis of Catholic participation in economic life in its emphasis on the common good and concern for the poor, as well as its insistence that the economy should not be measured just by what it produces, but also according to how it treats human dignity.  This pastoral letter was intended not just to form Catholic consciences, but also to influence economic policies and behaviors on a more institutional level, which is what we are concerned about when we go to vote in November.  We will look at some of the major themes and principles set forth in these documents first, and then we will go on to look at how these principles might inform and guide our own economic decisions.

II. Economic Justice for All

“Economic Justice for All” does not embrace a particular economic theory, but it does turn to Scripture and tradition in order “discover what our economic life must serve, and what standards it must meet” (EJA 12).  The fundamental theme of the pastoral letter “Economic Justice for All” and for Catholic social ethics more generally is that as Christians, we do not measure the economy just according to what it produces but also according to whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person.  The economy is not a good in itself, but is judged to be good according to what it does to human beings.  Human dignity can only be fully realized in community, so the economy can be judged further by how it strengthens communities.  More specifically, this means that the economy cannot undermine any groups ability to participate in or contribute to the economy, and it must take special care to support the poorest and most vulnerable in society, such that their most basic needs–life, food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, employment, and rest–are provided for.  Finally, the economy includes both public and private institutions that work together and have a responsibility to enhance human dignity.  The government is not the sole moral agent in this endeavor, and the bishops recognize the inherent limitations of the government, but also its positive obligations to form just laws and to intervene in the economy when when human dignity is not being upheld.  Voluntary and non-governmental organizations play a vital and indispensable role but cannot replace the just functioning of government.  To sum up the major point of the letter, it is “based on a long tradition of Catholic social thought, rooted in the Bible and developed over the past century by the popes and the Second Vatican Council in response to modern economic conditions. This tradition insists that human dignity, realized in community with others and with the whole of God’s creation is the norm against which every social institution must be measured” (25).

The letter also puts forward certain ethical norms in the form of duties, rights, responsibilities, and virtues.  The first of these is solidarity.  Solidarity is social friendship and civic commitment that makes life in society possible.  Solidarity emerges from one’s sense of dependence on society, and one’s obligations towards it.  Solidarity between various social institutions like the government, corporations, and non-governmental organizations involves a recognition that all of these organizations belong to and benefit from the same society, and as a result, they have a responsibility to work for what is good for that society.  United in this orientation towards the common good, different social organizations will play different roles, but the virtue of solidarity ensures that the goal is the same.  The virtue of solidarity is supported by the principle of subsidiarity.  The principle of subsidiarity says that it is wrong to give a larger association a task that can be accomplished by a smaller organization or an individual.  This principle guarantees institutional pluralism, providing for the creativity and initiative of different social agents with different capacities for action.  The principle of subsidiarity strengthens the virtues of public service and responsible citizenship on all levels of institutional life.

Another important principle emphasized in the letter is the virtue of justice.  There are three different manifestations of justice.  The first is commutative justice which demands that human beings are treated fairly in agreement and exchange.  This includes respect for promises, fairness in contractual agreements, and appropriate compensation for work through just wages.  The second manifestation of justice is distributive justice which demands that the earth’s resources be fairly allocated such that all person’s can have their material needs for food, clothing, and shelter provided for.  Taxation and welfare policies are a matter of distributive justice.  Finally, social justice demands that persons participate in the life of society, and also work for conditions so that those who are excluded from participation may be integrated.  Social justice requires that everybody participate in working for the common good, specifically by organizing economic and social institutions that enable people to participate more fully in building up a just society that respects the fundamental dignity of each individual.  Social justice also demands that we not sit back and wait for the government to solve our social and economic woes, but rather, examine and change when necessary our way of living in light of the needs of the poor, limiting our consumption and expanding our generosity.  Social justice requires this not just on the individual level, but also on the institutional level, making cultural and economic institutions more supportive of the freedom, power, and security of individuals and families.

III. Looking at the Issues

It is not the Church’s job to create or promote a specific political or economic system.  Rather, the Church encourages all reforms that may transform economic arrangements into a fuller realization of the common good, and challenges all practices and institutions that detract from this goal.  Catholic social ethics is useful in its provision of the principles that we have just laid out that allow us to evaluate a particular economic system or policy whereby we ask “what is the impact of this system on people and does it support or threaten human dignity.”

Right now in the United States, we are potentially facing a grave and complex economic situation that will have vast repercussions throughout the economy.  Catholic social ethics does not provide the resources to solve the current economic problems, but it does provide resources for evaluating how to move forward as individuals, as organizations, and as a nation with prudence and justice.

Human Dignity: First of all, it is important to realize that our current economic situation will potentially have a large human impact.  Families have already and are continuing to lose their homes.  Small businesses are unable to get the credit they need to conduct their affairs.  People are losing their jobs and their savings.  Economic arrangements must have as their primary purpose the protection of human dignity.  Any government-level solution that does not provide for those hardest hit by the economic crisis is inadequate.   Citizens often feel far-removed from the political process, but I would recommend writing and calling legislators, writing letters to the newspaper, and taking other initiatives to inform legislators and voters that the primary goal of any proposed legislation must be the protection of human dignity, especially of the poorest and most vulnerable.

Responsibility and Accountability: The reason that we have seen so many banks in recent weeks collapse, gravely endangering our economy, is due to the irresponsible and reckless behavior of both private investors and government.  The sub-prime mortgage industry was fueled by some good intentions to provide homes for the poor and some imprudent legislation that made this goal a reality but also encouraged irresponsible lending practices.  It was also fueled by the greedy exploitation of many vulnerable people, as seen in the manipulative lending practices of certain banks.  Regardless, business people who took unnecessary risks or engaged in such exploitative behavior should not be rewarded or allowed to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, and any legislation put forward should take special care not provide benefits to the wealthiest individuals while neglecting the poorest.   Additionally, any financial assistance legislation should be accompanied by reforms promoting transparency and accountability for both business people and the government officials who form such legislation.  I am also highly critical of the way government officials have conducted themselves in recent years, despite warnings that the economy was in danger, and the recent failure to draft a bill that could get through the House, despite bi-partisan efforts to do so, clearly indicate that the government does not have a good idea of how to move forward.  It would be irresponsible and imprudent to give too much power to the government at this time.  This includes handing our Secretary of the Treasury a check for hundreds of billions of dollars when he has admitted that he does not know if it will work to fix our economic problems.  The call for responsibility and accountability must extend to government officials as well, and Catholic voters should be wary of giving too much power to the government without ensuring that this power will be well-used to promote the common good.

Organization and Subsidiarity: The social ethics tradition of the Church strongly emphasizes the right to organize, which is often taken to mean the right to form labor unions, but organizing also extends to forming social organizations like Catholic Charities and the Catholic Worker Movement.  This goes hand in hand with the principle of subsidiarity.  Again, this principle says that all levels of societal organization have a responsibility to participate in work for the common good, and that the power of individuals and small organizations to provide for a need in society should not be taken away and given to a larger organization like the government.  More practically for our current economic situation, this means that Catholics have a responsibility to work within already-existing organizations like Neighborworks America and to form new organizations where necessary to come to the aid of people in need.  This includes providing shelter for the homeless, and financial support for those in danger of losing their homes.   The Catholic Church has a wonderful history of providing for the needy, especially in this country, rather than relying solely on the government.  We must, as Catholics and as disciples of Christ, take the initiative, make the sacrifices, and innovatively persevere in continuing this tradition of social justice.  At a time like the present, when there is so much uncertainty about what is prudential on a large scale, Catholics are called to even more responsibility on a small scale.  I am much more interested in what Catholics are doing to help the poor and homeless in their own community than I am in hearing how they are voting.

Again, the Church does not affirm one specific economic or political theory, nor does she have the technical resources to put forward a specific legislative solution.  Some may think that the most vulnerable in society can be protected by keeping taxes low for business to provide jobs and stimulate the economy.  Others may think that raising taxes, especially for those in the highest income bracket, would best serve the country’s economic needs at this time (although both Obama and McCain support cutting taxes for the middle class).  There are different possible solutions to our current economic woes, but Catholic social ethics teaches that there are some things that are clearly not allowed, and some things that are clearly required.  As Catholics, we are called in this election season and at all seasons to examine our own actions, the actions of the businesses and organizations that we participate in, and the actions of our government and ask “How is this protecting human dignity and advancing the common good?”

Making Virtuous Sense of Public Opinion

I have been hearing a lot in the last week or so about the importance (or unimportance) of public opinion in political matters.

• On Wednesday, September 3, Sarah Palin gave her speech at the convention accepting her nomination as John McCain’s running-mate. One of her themes was public opinion: “Here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to win their good opinion.” She’s in good company among her running mate who is known as a contrarian, often irreverent straight-talker who doesn’t care what you or anybody else thinks so long as he is getting the job done.
• President Bush is unpopular. We hear about it all the time. Throngs of Obama supporters shout “We want change,” every time the good senator tries to make a speech, and McCain has become increasingly emphatic that he too is a change candidate. Nobody wants to be associated with the guy who is obviously in the wrong. But according to an op-ed in the Boston Globe on Thursday, while Bush’s approval ratings may only be 30%, the Democratic-controlled Congress has a 9% approval rating.
• On Thursday, September 4, I read a fascinating op-ed in the Boston Globe entitled “Bush’s enduring legacy in Africa.” The article was providing a counterpoint to those who bemoan the wide-spread animosity towards the United States President Bush has fostered abroad. The article claims that polling data from the Pew Foundation indicate this fear and loathing of the US is not as widespread as we may think: “Approval ratings for the United States exceed 80 percent in many African countries, some with large Muslim populations. In Darfur, many families name their newborn sons George Bush.” The article goes on to say that Bush’s humanitarian and economic initiatives—such as quadrupling foreign aid to more than $5 billion, providing peacemaking assistance in Sudan, and providing HIV-riddled countries with anti-retrovirals—are responsible for Bush’s popularity in Africa. The article concludes, “While Bush’s critics have given him little credit for his African initiatives, they will be among his most enduring legacies in a region of the world neglected by policymakers from both parties for too long. Africans will long remember what Bush’ critics have ignored.”
• Last week, I watched Obama’s DNC speech with two Obama supporters, neither of which is particularly enthusiastic about voting for him, but think that he is better than the alternative. When I pressed them on what precisely made him better, one of the things they emphasized was that Obama would be more successful in making the United States more popular abroad. Public opinion matters, they argued, and Obama is more likeable than McCain to our European friends.

How important is public opinion, especially from a moral perspective? John Locke, in his “Essay on Human Understanding,” seems to have a strong view of the relationship between morality and public opinion:

For though men, uniting into politic societies, have resigned up to the public the disposing of all their force, so that they cannot employ it against any fellow-citizen any further than the law of the country directs, yet they retain still the power of thinking well or ill, approving or disapproving of the actions of those whom they live amongst and converse wit and by this approbation and dislike they establish amongst themselves what they will call virtue and vice. . . No man escapes the punishment of their censure and dislike who offends against the fashion and opinion of the company he keeps and would recommend himself to. Nor is there one of ten thousand who is stiff and insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club. He must be of a strange and unusual constitution who can content himself to live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular society. Solitude many men have sought and been reconciled to but nobody that has the least thought or sense of a man about him can live in society under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars and those he converses with.

The point here, and I think it is one that experience confirms, is that we have a tendency to judge whether we are right or wrong in light of what people think of us, both as individuals and a nation. Want to point out just how bad Bush is? Just look at his approval ratings. Want to prove that the Roman Catholic position on birth control is wrong? Just look at polls showing that the vast majority of Roman Catholics disagree. The problem with this is two-fold. First, public opinion is notoriously unreliable for figuring out what is right and wrong. Second, what people think of you depends on who you ask.

Regarding the first point, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a book in 1932 called Moral Man, Immoral Society that argued that human beings might, by themselves, be very moral people, strongly committed to certain principles like non-violence or social justice, but when put in a society, these principles ceased to hold the same importance for dictating behavior. As a result, you may have ordinarily very good people do ruthless, oppressive, and violent actions when part of a larger group. Niebuhr insisted that people in their social, racial, religious, or political groups could simply not escape supporting and doing immoral things, a view which was validated by the events of the Holocaust and the violence associated both with the civil rights movement and the violence associated with the Cold War in the following decades. For Niebuhr, the highest form of morality was challenging the group and opposing its morality, in the way of Socrates and Jesus. If we go with Niebuhr, we may ask quite simply: if people are less moral in groups, why should we trust public opinion to dictate what is right?

Regarding the second point, experience confirms that we are going to get the answer we want based on who we talk to. If you want to find out if you are drinking too much, best not to ask a frat boy. If you want to point at how unpopular Bush is, best to poll Europeans and not Africans. Regarding politics, our anti-aristocratic tendencies in this country may resist the basic platitude that the opinion of the wise is more valuable than the opinion of the many.

Of course, the realist might point out that the wise are few and far between, and thus, majority opinion is the next best thing. James Madison, in his Federalist Papers #49, is such a realist:

The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious, when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence, in proportion to the number with which it is associated. . . A reverence for the laws, would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side.

The point here is that the foundation of government in contemporary politics, which includes judgment of what is right or wrong, must depend on the opinion of both the wise and the foolish.

Despite all this, public opinion does play a somewhat important role in virtue theory. One way is in the matter of counsel. Aquinas says that a “choice is a judgment of the reason about what is to be done,” but in uncertain cases, reason does not provide a clear judgment without some sort of consultation, and this consultation is called counsel (I-II, Q.14, art. 1) Counsel is specifically about the means, not the end of an action. What this means is that if the end of action is to vote virtuously, counsel may be required to determine how one might go about accomplishing this end, but the end itself (that is, casting a virtuous vote) is dictated by reason. However, prudence dictates that counsel should only be sought from the wise. Aquinas says “It may happen that things which are most certainly good in the opinion of wise and spiritual men are not certainly good in the opinion of many, or at least of carnal-minded men. In such things counsel may be given” (I-II, Q. 14, art.1, ad. 3). The way I take this, Aquinas clearly thinks that majority opinion should be taken less seriously than the opinion of the wise and virtuous. The problem is, how is one to figure out who is wise and virtuous?

One way that Aquinas answers the question is theologically, specifically by identifying counsel as an infused gift of the Holy Spirit. In the Secundae Secundae under the topic of the gift of counsel, Aquinas says that “in the research of counsel, man requires to be directed by God who comprehends all things: and this is done through the gift of counsel whereby man is directed as though counseled by God, just as, in human affairs, those who are unable to take counsel for themselves, seek counsel from those who are wiser” (II.II., 52.1). Quite simply, the Holy Spirit helps the person determine whose opinion should matter about things to be done.

For the less theologically-minded, Aquinas answers the question of counsel from a more classically-oriented virtue theory perspective. In the treatise on prudence considered in itself, Aquinas says that counsel should be sought from those who seek the common good, and these people can be known by the fact that they seek their own good in a virtuous way:

He that seeks the good of the many, seeks in consequence his own good, for two reasons. First, because the individual good is impossible without the common good of the family, state, or kingdom. Hence Valerius Maximus says of the ancient Romans that ‘they would rather be poor in a rich empire than rich in a poor empire.’ Secondly, because since man is a part of the home and state, he must needs consider what is good for him by being prudent about the good of the many. For the good disposition of parts depends on their relation to the whole; thus Augustine says that ‘any part which does not harmonize with its whole, is offensive’ (II-II, 47.10, ad. 2).

On a similar note under the subject of the virtue of magnanimity, Aquinas says that “he that makes good use of great things is much more able to make good use of little things” (II-II, 129.2, ad. 3).

Quite simply, Aquinas is saying that the person most likely to know what is virtuous for the many (like the nation in our contemporary political system) is the one who knows what is virtuous for his own person and family. Plato does something similar to what Aquinas is doing here in the Republic where he says that justice is harmony of parts in a similar way that health is the harmony of parts in a body. A person, or a group of people, that are themselves ordered towards the good (that is, virtuous) and have harmony in their own person and family and community are the people most likely to have opinions useful for the larger common good. Thus, we should seek counsel from them.

How are we to apply this practically, especially in light of some of the examples I gave at the beginning of this rather long blog post? Let’s take presidential and vice-presidential candidates, for example. They may say that they are not going to Washington to win anybody’s good opinion, but they are going to Washington because they think that their opinions matter and that we, the American people, have reason to listen to them. In deciding if their opinion should count for anything, one clue would be to look at their personal lives and see the level of order reflected therein. An alcoholic, an adulterer, or a spendthrift are probably not the sort of people best-suited for figuring out what should be done for the sake of the common good. The level of virtue reflected in the personal lives of our candidates simply does matter for the sort of role they are looking to take on.

As far as nation-wide public opinion polls, I think (and I think Aquinas would agree) that they don’t count for much. In the fifties, public opinion was overwhelmingly in support of pro-segregation legislation. In the months following September 11, public opinion was overwhelmingly in support of Bush. The opinion of the masses does little in helping us discern whether an action or a person is moral. Bush’s 30% approval rating, and the congressional dismal 9% approval rating tell us that people are discontent, but these figures do little to help us determine whether Bush or congress are doing what is right. What we need in the upcoming months, as we prepare for our presidential elections, is less reflection on what people think and more reflection on what is right and virtuous and ordered toward the common good. Only when people think first of what is right and good will it ever matter what they think.

What is Metaphysics and What Use is it for Christians?

The word “metaphysics” has its origins in Aristotle’s corpus, meaning literally “after the physics.” In his treatise On Physics, Aristotle studied the natural world; his concern in On Metaphysics is the world beyond the natural, that is, the immaterial world. Aristotle considered metaphysics the first philosophy (prôtê philosophia) because it had as its object the first causes of things, and he considered it a theological science (theologikê) because it culminated in considerations of God’s existence and nature.

Metaphysics, however, is distinct from theology as a discipline, and the main difference is in their starting points. Theology starts with the authority of God revealed in Scripture and made manifest in the articles of faith. It is a revealed science, meaning that we cannot empirically prove theology’s starting principles such as the incarnation, the resurrection, or the ascension. We take these matters on faith.

Metaphysics takes as its starting point the sensible world, which is the same starting point as physics. The metaphysician studies things which can be empirically validated in the natural world and finds in this intelligible traces of that which is not natural and which cannot be empirically validated—God. It is on the study of God that theology and metaphysics converge while still remaining distinct as disciplines.

One may ask why metaphysics would be necessary at all for those who have faith. The idea behind this objection to the use of metaphysics is that we have the truth concerning God revealed to us in Scripture, and thus we need only study that to know God. This is not a new objection. Thomas Aquinas and his teacher Albert dealt with “some who in their complete ignorance want to oppose the use of philosophy. This is especially true among the Dominicans, where no one stands up to contradict them. Like brute animals they blaspheme against things they do not understand.”

Instead, Albert and Thomas shared a robust confidence in the use of reason to illuminate and deepen knowledge and understanding regarding matters of faith. They thought this possible because they saw faith and reason as two different approaches to the truth. So long as both kept the eternal and immutable truth as their subject, faith and reason could never be contradictory. Moreover, Thomas adamantly advanced the position that metaphysics could greatly supplement theology, and that those who “by bringing [philosophical arguments] into the service of faith, do not mix water with wine, but rather change water into wine.”

In a Quodlibet written near the end of his life, Aquinas distinguishes between two types of theological disputes. The first uses only revealed authority to make its arguments, a type of disputation that can only take place among those who accept the given source of authority. For example, Catholics and Protestants can debate about issues like the Incarnation and the Resurrection because both accept Scripture as an authority. However, Christians cannot debate on the same terms with atheists, because atheists do not accept Scripture as an authority. Instead, Christians must resort to the second type of disputation which uses rational philosophical arguments to lead the hearer to truth. As Aquinas says in the opening question of the Summa Theologica, “God is constantly at work in the mind, endowing it with its natural light and giving it direction.”

Although the mind is capable of coming to knowledge of the truth without faith, this knowledge is limited and partial. Metaphysics can tell us something about God—for example, that God is one, that God is eternal, or that God sets creation in motion—but it is the supernatural illumination of faith which strengthens and elevates the intellect so that it is capable to contemplate God face to face. As Aquinas says in the Summa Theologica I, Question 3, art. 1, human intellect may fail and be deceived, “but the light of faith, which is, as it were, a faint stamp of the First Truth in our mind, cannot fail, any more than God can be deceived or lie.”

For Christians in dialogue with Christians, metaphysical language provides a means of deepening our understanding of the tenants of our faith such as the relationship between the three Persons of the one God or the relationship between the two natures in the one Jesus Christ. The very first Christian Counsels relied on metaphysics to develop the creed that Roman Catholics and some branches of Protestants recite in church every week. Metaphysical reasoning can also illumine Scripture. When YHWH tells Moses “I AM who AM,” he is using metaphysical language. The Gospel of John is replete with metaphysics, and without metaphysics, the creation narrative in Genesis is just a myth.

But metaphysics is also indispensable if Christians have any desire at all to converse with their non-believing neighbors. The ability to talk of God as the Unmoved Mover, the first efficient cause, or the only necessary being among contingents (I will explain what these mean in a future blog) will ultimately yield more fruit in bringing the atheist or agnostic to at least acknowledging God as logical conclusion than will citing Scripture. Most importantly, the use of metaphysics will show non-believers and believers alike that theology is not an irrational science.

John Edwards’ Character: What His Affair Reveals About the Connection of the Virtues

On Friday, August 8, 2008, former senator, vice-presidential, and presidential candidate John Edwards admitted to ABC’s Bob Woodruff that he had entered into an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, a former employee in his presidential campaign. “In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs,” Mr. Edwards explained in his statement, “I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public.”

Less than a year ago, former New York attorney general and current governor Eliot Spitzer admitted to having an extramarital affair with a prostitute, ratcheting up a tab of close to $100,000. In 2004, NJ governor Jim McGreevey admitted to having a homosexual extramarital affair. And who can forget the Bill Clinton fiasco in the middle of his second term as president of the United States? My interest in these scandals is heightened by the fact that all these men were admired for their political careers and especially for their commitment to justice. John Edwards ran on the campaign that there were “two Americas” and he was going to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor of this country. Spitzer spent his career as attorney general fighting white collar crime and big business. McGreevey increased taxes for the rich and fought to make homosexual unions legal, which he considered a matter of human rights. And Bill Clinton’s social justice accolades seem endless, both as president and in his post-White House projects.

These men were considered upright, laudable public figures and exemplars of virtue, yet all of them had deeply flawed characters. For a moral theologian interested both in virtue theory and Thomistic moral psychology, cases like Edwards’ are practical examples of the ongoing debate over the theory of connection of the moral virtues. The question at hand is whether one must have all of the moral virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude) if one is to be considered virtuous at all.

The ancient Greeks subscribed to this thesis in various degrees. Socrates and Plato believed that all the virtues were unified into one virtue. Aristotle posited that the different virtues were distinct but connected, meaning that the possession of one entailed the possession of the others. According to Aristotle, this means that one cannot be just unless one is also temperate, courageous and prudent. St. Augustine took a Platonic view of the unity of the virtues, holding that temperance, fortitude, justice, and prudence were all manifestations of one virtue—caritas. Aquinas, on the other hand, appropriated the Aristotelian tradition, proposing that the virtues were distinct but connected.

The doctrine of the unity or connection of the virtues advocated by the Greeks, Augustine, and Aquinas, in many ways, seems counter-intuitive, especially when examining figures like John Edwards who seem to have virtues in one area of life but not others. Martin Luther King Jr. is another example of someone who seems to defy the doctrine of the unity or connection of the virtues. King seems an undeniable example of a just and courageous man who spent his entire life fighting to end the injustices of racism and segregation through peaceful means, even to the point of martyrdom. However, he struggled with serious vicious behavior, most notably extra-marital affairs.

Our experience seems to confirm that the doctrine of the connection of the virtues is false. Nobody is a saint, but some people can excel in certain areas like social and economic justice. It should not surprise us when these people fail to practice virtues in other areas of their life.

One of the more important historical figures to argue for abandoning the thesis that the moral virtues were connected came from a 14^th century theologian named William of Ockham. Ockham’s basic argument against the connection of the moral virtues, found in his treatise entitled De Connexione Virtutum, was that experience confirms that we are not all exposed to the circumstances necessary to form each virtue. A poor person might be exposed to the right circumstances in which to develop courage but not justice or temperance. A middle-class or rich person is often given little opportunity on the other hand to develop courage in their sheltered lives. Yet, they may still be able to develop temperance and justice.

Interestingly enough, Ockham gets this argument from his interlocutor and opponent Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, in his treatment of the topic, distinguishes between common and special-state virtues. The latter are virtues which everyone can have, including the cardinal moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Special-state virtues, on the other hand, perfect a person according to some eminent state such as great wealth or honor. These special-state virtues include magnificence and magnanimity. Obviously, says Aquinas, a person without great wealth can never develop magnificence, which is the virtue perfecting how such wealth should be used.

But Aquinas has a different take on the common-state moral virtues, which he argues are connected because each virtue is a perfection of an appetite, and since the appetites are connected, so too must be their corresponding virtues. That is, my appetite for food, drink, and sex (called the concupiscible appetite) is connected to my appetite for difficult pleasures like exercise (called the irascible appetite) and also to my rational appetite. I cannot be a complete person without all of my appetites in operation, nor can I be a virtuous person without each one of my appetites being perfected.

The thesis of the connection of the virtues has fallen out of favor in contemporary scholarship due largely to empirical evidence provided by figures like John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and Martin Luther King Jr. who obviously excel in some areas of morality like social justice but fail in others like chastity. Societal pressure pushes us to acknowledge that these figures are virtuous but flawed, but I think there is something to be said for looking at virtue more holistically. A virtuous person is one whose whole life is dispositionally oriented towards the good, not someone who does some brave actions or takes on some just causes. Epistemologically, it may be useful to separate the moral virtues into discrete, separate entities called prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance (as Aquinas does in his Secundae secundae) but the lived moral life is more complicated. I argue that there can be no justice without temperance, just as there can be no human person without both will (the appetite perfected by justice) and concupiscible appetite (the appetite perfected by temperance). The just life, and the just person, must also be a temperate life and a temperate person. Everything else is just an act.

Which brings me to my last point about the connection of the virtues, namely, that virtue is more than just a discrete bundle of acts. Virtue, at least in the Hellenistic and Thomistic sense, is a disposition to do the good as a second nature. One develops virtue through practice, that is, by acting well, but the real interest of virtue theorists is the way in which one’s character is formed, and this may or may not be reflected in one’s acts. As Aristotle says, it takes more than one sparrow to make a spring. Or as Maureen Dowd wrote in her column covering the Edwards affair: “in American politics, there is an eternal disjunction between character and achievement. Sinners do good things, saints do bad things.” Dowd probably did not know that she was using virtue language, but she was. Virtuous people sometimes do bad things and likewise, vicious people do good things. It is possible that a man like Edwards could have an impeccable character but still fall into a vicious act, or a series of vicious acts, especially in the face of such stress as the death of a son, a wife’s battle with cancer, and two presidential campaigns. Possible, but in this case, unlikely.

Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter was an unjust act but that does not necessarily make him an unjust person, especially if the rest of his life reflects a dispositional orientation toward the good. But in this case, Edwards himself admitted that the whole of his life reflects an egoism, a narcissism, and self-involvement that led him to believe he could do whatever he wanted without consequences. Coming from a man who felt it necessary to say that his affair took place when his wife was in remission, not still in the throes of a cancer battle, and a man whose commitment to the poor did not prevent him from getting $400 haircuts, I would say that such a self-assessment proves my point exactly.