Experimental Social Psychology, Situationism, and Creating a Virtuous Character

In an New York Times op-ed a couple of weeks ago, David Brooks drew on the work of Princeton philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah in order to suggest that the philosophical view of character and virtue is now being replaced by the “psychologist’s view” that there is no such thing as character. Instead of thinking of character as a firm and stable disposition to act and feel a certain way, Brooks explains that experiments in psychology suggest that character is actually more contextual, failing to exhibit what psychologists call “cross-situational stability.”

The psychologists thus tend to gravitate toward a different view of conduct. In this view, people don’t have one permanent thing called character. We each have a multiplicity of tendencies inside, which are activated by this or that context. As Paul Bloom of Yale put it in an essay for The Atlantic last year, we are a community of competing selves. These different selves “are continually popping in and out of existence. They have different desires, and they fight for control — bargaining with, deceiving, and plotting against one another.”

The philosopher’s view is shaped like a funnel. At the bottom, there is a narrow thing called character. And at the top, the wide ways it expresses itself. The psychologist’s view is shaped like an upside-down funnel. At the bottom, there is a wide variety of unconscious tendencies that get aroused by different situations. At the top, there is the narrow story we tell about ourselves to give coherence to life.

Brooks goes on to explain that philosophers see the development of character as a matter of “direct assault,” using reason and strength of will to distinguish virtue from vice. Psychologists, on the other hand, see the development of character as a more subconscious, indirect process:

In the psychologist’s version, the good life is won indirectly. People have only vague intuitions about the instincts and impulses that have been implanted in them by evolution, culture and upbringing. There is no easy way to command all the wild things jostling inside.

Brooks’ conclusion suggests that the psychological view may be more accurate, that the good life is not won through “heroic self-analysis but through mundane, self-forgetting effort, and through everyday routines.”

Brooks, in his use of Appiah, is referring to a debate that has existed for some time in moral philosophy over the “situationist” account of character. Situationists see the conclusions of experimental moral psychology suggesting that behavior changes according to situations in conflict with the philosophical view that behavior can be largely predictable due to stable virtuous and vicious dispositions in one’s character.

Some moral philosophers who embrace situationist social psychology argue that the conclusions drawn in empirical research have radical implications for virtue ethics. Gilbert Harman, who has written extensively on the implications of experimental social psychology on moral philosophy, argues that if we take a virtue to be a stable disposition to act in certain ways, than empirical studies indicating that human behavior is largely determined by the situation cast doubt on whether or not there is such a thing as a firm and consistent character, or whether or not character can be developed at all.

John Doris does not go so far as Harman in questioning the existence of character, but he does argue that situationist social psychology indicates that habits of character tend to be narrow rather than broad. That is, a virtue is not a general disposition to act in a certain way, but a disposition to act in a certain way under quite specific circumstances.

Doris and Harman both draw similar conclusions about the usefulness of virtue ethics. If there is no such thing as a virtue, meaning a firm and consistent disposition to act a certain way in a wide range of situations, than virtue ethics is not a useful moral theory and we would be better suited given the reality of our human nature to adopt a more deontological and utilitarian moral theory. In essence, virtue-based moral theories are more idealistic about human nature than the evidence tends to support. Situations, rather than character, are better predictors of behavior.

However, both Doris and Harman, and interestingly enough, David Brooks himself, have an inadequate understanding of character as it is conceived in traditional virtue ethics.

The understanding of characters offered by the situationists and traditional virtue ethics are not the same. The character traits that situationist psychological experiments investigate are dispositions to behave a certain way, apart from the reasoning process. They are studying character traits, such as the tendency not to lie or the tendency to help out strangers. These specific behaviors, however, are not the same as “character” understood in a more Aristotelian sense. Virtue ethics offers a more holistic view of character that is something more than particular traits, but rather consists of a complex set of desires, beliefs, and goals that dispose the person to act in certain predictable ways. That is, a person may consistently provide aid to a stranger in need not because of a disposition to help strangers, but rather because of an overall disposition of generosity and kindness. To pass by a stranger in need, for example, due to a hurried mood, a temporary bad mood, or any of the other factors that situationists claim cause us to behave unpredictably does not indicate that this person’s character is not generous and kind. It indicates rather that this person is acting out of character.

People may act “out of character” when their appetites conflict–say when a person’s emotions overcome his or her reason. A person may also act “out of character” due to competing obligations and the lack of resolutely good choices. Say our kind and generous individual in the above example has promised to give an important talk at a university about generosity and is running late. She may pass by a stranger in need because another obligation, an obligation she considers important because of her character, but which competes with another obligation to help a stranger in need. She may still be kind and generous, but the object of her kind and generous actions today is the university audience she has obligated herself to, rather than the needy stranger that passes her way.

What experimental social psychology provides moral philosophers like myself is not a challenge to an Aristotelian understanding of character that thereby undermines virtue ethics, but rather a warning that the temptations humans face in the goal to act virtuously comes not only from our own vices, but also from situations that we face, sometimes unconsciously, that challenge the sort of behavior that we would want to consider distinctive of our character. For example, I may be more prone to snap at my husband impatiently because somebody snapped at me impatiently earlier in the day. This tendency does not mean that my character is impatient (although in my case, it most definitely is), but rather that this external situation or getting snapped at predisposes me to act out of character. Once I become aware of the role this situation plays in determining my behavior, my reason can help resist such tendencies in order to allow the expression of my character to gain more cross-situational consistency.

So Brooks is wrong to suggest that the creation of the good life comes from self-forgetting. It is rather quite the opposite. The good life comes as a result of becoming conscious through the development of character of those situations when self-forgetfulness leads to out-of-character behavior, of rationally becoming aware of the inconsistencies of one’s actions with one’s desires, beliefs, and goals. Experimental social psychology does not challenge a virtue-ethics understanding of character or the existence of vice and virtue, but rather illuminates specific ways in which acts do not correspond to a person’s habits. Experimental social psychology is an ally in understanding character and virtue ethics, not a competitor.

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.

Aquinas on the Wilderness of Childhood

This article by Michael Chabon in the most recent edition of the New York Review of Books somewhat nostalgically muses on the adventures of childhood and whether the widespread desire to protect our children from the dangerous vicissitudes of modern life is making childhood a relic of a former world:

The thing that strikes me now when I think about the Wilderness of Childhood is the incredible degree of freedom my parents gave me to adventure there. A very grave, very significant shift in our idea of childhood has occurred since then. The Wilderness of Childhood is gone; the days of adventure are past. The land ruled by children, to which a kid might exile himself for at least some portion of every day from the neighboring kingdom of adulthood, has in large part been taken over, co-opted, colonized, and finally absorbed by the neighbors. . . .

This is the kind of door-to-door, all-encompassing escort service that we adults have contrived to provide for our children. We schedule their encounters for them, driving them to and from one another’s houses so they never get a chance to discover the unexplored lands between. If they are lucky, we send them out to play in the backyard, where they can be safely fenced in and even, in extreme cases, monitored with security cameras. . . .

Chabon wonders about the impact of overprotecting our children from the world’s ills is having on the imagination of our children, but I have a different concern. Chabon’s article got me thinking about how the overprotection, over-scheduling, and rigorous micromanaging of our children’s lives might be impacting their moral development.

For Aquinas, morality is primarily about the development of virtue. Virtues are simply good habits that incline a person to action, and specifically good actions. The English word for habit is misleading because it connotes something automatic, unconscious, and almost Pavlovian. We might say, “I have a bad habit of biting my fingernails when I am nervous.” The implication is, when I experience stimulus X (i.e. nervousness), I automatically respond with reaction Z (i.e. biting fingernails). This meaning of “habit” has a very different meaning than the sense in which Aquinas uses it. For Aquinas, the word habit is a metaphysical category that indicates a durable part of a person’s character, inclining the person to certain kinds of actions and feelings.

For his definition of habits, Aquinas draws heavily on Aristotle, designating habits as qualities with are (1) durable (meaning they don’t change easily), and (2) incline a person toward either good or evil. The moral virtues like justice, temperance, and fortitude are simply good habits.

So how do we get these habits? We develop virtue, says Aquinas, primarily through acting. We become just by doing just things like keeping our promises, returning things we borrowed, and giving our superiors the respect they deserve. We become temperate by not eating too much, not getting drunk, and enjoying sex with the right person at the right time. We become courageous by facing our fears.

But habits, and also virtues, are not just about right actions. When Aquinas refers to habits, he is not primarily referring to acts (like respecting our superiors), but rather the inclination to act in a certain way. That is, the habit of justice inclines a person to give respect to superiors when the situation demands it, or to return a borrowed item when the situation demands it. We develop the habit by acting a certain way, but the habit itself is not an act, but rather an inclination.

A virtue is not only a habit inclining a person to act in a certain way, but a habit inclining them to act in a certain way for the right reason. It is not virtuous for a person to respect their superiors because they feel obligated to or because they are feeling forced to, but rather because they want to. The virtuous person wants to do the right thing.

To understand this, imagine you are sick at home and bored out of your mind and your friend comes to visit. You, delighted to have company, praise your friend for his kind act. Your friend, however, dismisses your praise saying that he came only because he felt obligated. “I didn’t want to, but it was my duty,” he says. Would you think your friend virtuous? Probably not.

We initially learn how to do the acts that are conducive to virtuous living by following rules, by being taught by our elders (and especially our parents), but really structuring our lives. To some extent, kids need this. But the interesting thing about moral virtue, at least the way Aquinas conceives it, is that it ultimately has to be learned for oneself. We don’t develop virtuous habits by simply doing what we are told, by following the examples others, or by obeying rules.

Alasdair MacIntyre has a good way of describing this process in his monumental work After Virtue. He describes a child that is just learning how to play chess. His mentor gives the child a reward for obeying the rules and successfully playing the game. At first, the child plays for the reward, the little piece of candy that comes from doing what he is told. But as he progresses, he starts to play the game according to the rules simply because he likes to play. Virtue is a lot like this. We start off doing what we are told; we should end doing what we want.

So what does this have to do with Chabon’s article? The wilderness of childhood, at least as I see it, is meant to be a training ground for virtue. Children need the freedom to act on their desires, right or wrong, to develop the virtues necessary for moral living. They must be given the freedom, for example, to find what it is that they are afraid of so that they can face that fear, again and again and again, and maybe, if all goes right, become courageous in the process. They must have the opportunity to go to excess in food or drink or love so that they also have the opportunity to willingly and voluntarily moderate their desires for such pleasures. They must have the opportunity to be unjust—to cheat, lie, or steal—if they are ever going to learn to be just.

Every child is different. Every child has different fears, different temptations, different strengths and weaknesses. Children need an opportunity not only to explore the imaginative terrain of childhood, but also the moral terrain. Just like they need a chance to fall off their bike, they need a chance to stumble across a temptation, and resist it. They need to be teased by other children, so that they can learn on their own how wrong teasing can be. They need to be confronted with seemingly insurmountable challenges and face such challenges on their own.

And they need to do these things without their parents breathing down their neck, without their parents scheduling every last moment of the day so there is no time for the kid to get into trouble, and without the parents constantly delineating rules to follow in any given situation. Childhood is a moral wilderness, and kids need to be free to explore if they are ever going to develop virtue.

Marriage as Friendship

In Christian theology, marriage is typically thought to have three ends or purposes: begetting children, bestowing grace and providing a remedy for sin, and creating mutuality in interpersonal communion. The first purpose is easy to achieve (though a little more difficult to do well); the second purpose is entirely up to God’s gratuitous action. In this blog post, then, we are going to focus on the last purpose, which does not receive nearly enough philosophical and theological attention. We are going to examine how Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas’ theological and philosophical system allows us to think of marriage as friendship.

Aristotle identified three types of friendship. The first is called a friendship of utility. These are relationships based on benefit and what Aristotle calls eros or erotic love. These are relationships that exist because each party gets something out of it. The friendship that exists between soldiers or co-workers or classmates is an example of such a friendship. Aristotle says that these relationships are impermanent, and they form and dissolve frequently based on changing circumstances. A friendship based on utility does not have to be between people who necessarily like each other, but simply has to serve some benefit.

The second type of friendship is a friendship of pleasure. Friendships based on pleasure, unlike those of utility, are between people who like each other and desire the other person’s company, precisely because it is pleasurable (and not necessarily useful). The partner in such a friendship is desired for their own sake because it brings so much pleasure. These are the friendships most of us have–our conversation partners, the people who share our hobbies, the people who delight us when we are in their presence. Among this type of friendship, Aristotle includes lovers who find sexual intercourse mutually pleasurable.

The last type of friendship is a friendship of virtue. If friendships of utility are based on material advantage, and those of pleasure are based on pleasures of the body, the last type of friendship is based on the good and the mutual pursuit of virtue. The tie that binds these relationships is not the good received, but the good that is willed to the other. These are friends who want primarily what is good for their friend, even when the pursuit of this good is not always easy or pleasurable. However, this last type of friendship according to Aristotle is indeed the most useful and the most pleasurable in the long run.

For Aquinas, this last type of friendship is the ideal relationship that rational creatures and designed to cultivate. We have the best chance of flourishing intellectually, morally, and spiritually when we have a social life based on this last type of friendship. In fact, without friends, the virtuous person’s life would be impaired. Without friends, a person would lose enthusiasm for virtuous living, and lose the motivation to act in the right way.

Friendships based on virtue allow a person to expand their capacity for virtuous deeds. Say I struggle with temperance but excel in courage. A virtuous friend who excels in temperance can provide me with the much needed motivation to act temperately in a given challenging situation. In turn, I may help this friend to become more courageous by providing her motivation to have fortitude in a challenging situation. Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that in friendships based on virtue, our friends are united to ourselves in such a way that their actions are in some way also our own. The friend is more than an Other. The friend is rather another Self.

My instinct tells me that most people think of marriage as either the first or the second type of friendship. A marriage of utility is one that might be formed because of financial benefit, or because a woman thinks that her child needs a father, or to help someone get immigration status. These marriages used to be very common, but I suspect they still happen an awful lot, especially between single moms and the “nice guy” who is just so good with her kids.

A marriage of pleasure is probably much, much more common. These are marriages formed between people who like each other, who have mutual interests like wine tasting, a love of Irish literature, or jogging. These are marriages that form because after years of dating, the two people still like each other a lot, the sex is good, and marriage is just the logical next step.

For both Aristotle and Aquinas, a friendship based on pleasure is not a bad thing in itself. The problem with these friendships is that they tend to dissolve when the pleasure dissolves. Say the sex stops being good, or every conversation on Irish literature has been exhausted, or knee surgery and pains of aging make jogging an impossibility. When the pleasure subsides or loses intensity, the friendship dissolves. And this is what happens to an awful lot of marriages.

Even marriages that last may still be these ephemeral pleasure-based friendships. This is why people push the contractual nature of marriage–you make a vow with another person to stay with them until “death do you part.” It is these vows which keeps marriages of pleasures together. When the vows are not taken seriously, the marriage simply dissolves. And this is why we have the divorce rates that we have today–a bunch of people who married because of a friendship of pleasure, and when the pleasure died, so did the marriage.

A better way to think of marriage, one that is more theologically and philosophically sound, is as this last type of friendship. According to Aquinas, there are three “acts” or fruits of this last type of friendship: benevolence, concord, and beneficence.

Benevolence signifies the willing what is good for the other, rather than just willing what is good for oneself. Beneficence signifies the doing good for the other, rather than just doing what is good for oneself. Both of these are important, but the truly distinctive mark of this last type of friendship is what is called concord.

Concord is the union of will which sustains common projects. A relationship has concord when the couple enjoys each other’s company, converses with one another, and agrees with one another’s opinions. But just agreeing with one another is not enough for a relationship to have concord, because even strangers may agree. Concord, according to Aquinas, is principally about choice, when two people agree on what is advantageous, believe in the same things, and make decisions based on these common values. Friends need not agree on everything–one may believe that vegetarianism is a better way of life, while the other may love a more carnivorous lifestyle–but they do need to have similar values. For example, they must agree at least that healthy eating is an important value to them both and they must also make decisions with an eye towards living out that value in their practical decisions.

In other words, the highest form of friendship is characterized by a union of wills. One’s choices should align with one’s friends, and not just occasionally, but habitually. And if the friendship is a true one, these choices should be virtuous ones. Say one person in the couple always wants to drink and party to excess, whereas the other one wants to drink and party in moderation. This is a relationship lacking in concord, and thus, not the sort of friendship we are looking for. This is why Aristotle and Aquinas say that friendships based on virtue need to be between people who are of similar levels of virtue.

So how does this play out in marriage? A virtuous marital relationship is one that forms because two people share similar values, and they act on those values. Pleasure, of course, is part of the equation, but it is not the most important factor. That is, a virtuous marital relationship is not based on the fact that two people enjoy the same things (although they probably do in a lot of cases) but because they believe in the same things.

The important thing to realize is that a relationship with concord is not a static one, not formulaic, and always changing as circumstances change. Aquinas says that the realm of the particular–that is, the realm of concrete action–is infinite in possibility, even though the virtues and values behind such actions remain constant. There are innumerable ways, for example, to be courageous in any given situation.

To go back to our original example of sharing values about healthy eating. The vegetarian and the carnivore may have different ways of living out their values, but they agree on the values behind those lifestyle choices. As they both grow and learn more, the way they continue to make decisions to live out their values will change. They may come to find that processed foods are most detrimental to their health, and they may resolve together to cut back on or avoid all together the processed snacks they love so much. They may find that the temperate enjoyment of fine wine fits in nicely with their resolve to eat healthy, and they may take a wine tasting class or a trip to visit vineyards in order to learn more about their new hobby. They may have conversations and debates about the health value of genetically modified foods, or share health articles like this one from the NYTimes. But what is important to the friendship (and to the marriage) is that they embark on these things together, sharing together their effort to live a healthy life. They learn from one another, they strengthen one another, and they grow closer to one another in the process.

A marriage based on this type of friendship is not fleeting. It’s foundation is much more than just utility, and more also than fleeting pleasures. This is a relationship that grows, develops, and strengthens because the people in it grow, develop, and strengthen one another. This is a relationship that changes without ending because the people in it change, and yet their beliefs and values remain constant. This is a relationship in which there will always be something to talk about and something to do because the people in it are constantly seeking for ways to live out a virtuous life. This is a relationship where two people walk together toward a common goal, helping each other along the way.

On a final note, a marriage will face certain challenges that other friendships of virtue will not face. For example, a married couple may face financial difficulties, reproductive difficulties, or mental illness or depression. And unlike other friendships, married people have to live under the same roof, face the same challenges, and bear all the same burdens. Partially for this reason, Aquinas calls marriage a sacrament, meaning that in the institution of marriage, God offers the grace necessary to endure the difficulties the couple will face on their path to their ultimate goal–union with God.

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.

Religion as a Virtue

“There’s probably  no God.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”  So says the advertisement placed on over 800 buses in England as part of the atheist bus campaign, featured in this New York Times article.  The ad campaign was initiated to respond to advertisements sponsored by this website, quoting John 3:16 and listing the website.  The website, I think, is what is often called a Roman Road website, which my esteemed fiancé addresses in this blog post.

My intention is not to talk about atheism or the problems with the Roman Road mentality (which my fiance does a very fine job addressing), but rather to talk more generally about what religion is, which I hope may clear up some misconceptions between atheists and Christians.

Aquinas says that religion is a virtue which is characterized by giving due honor to God.  Because religion is about “giving what is due,” Aquinas includes it as a virtue of justice, which is defined as the habit “whereby a man renders to others what is due to them by a constant and perpetual will.”  When I repay a loan, I am giving what is due to a person, which is an act of justice.  When I punish a misbehaving a child, I am giving what is due, which is an act of justice.  When I give God gratitude and worship, I am giving God what is due, which  is an act of justice.

Habits are differentiated according to their objects.  The theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) have God as their object while the moral virtues have a natural or human good as their object.  The object of temperance, for example, is pleasures of touch.  The object of fortitude is the arduous good.  The object of religion is “reverence to one God under one aspect, namely as the first principle of the creation and government of things” (II-II, Q. 81, art. 3).

The moral virtues are about the moral good according to human, not divine standards.  The acts conducive to the development of the moral virtues are in accordance with the dictates of natural human reason.  So Aquinas, by listing religion as a moral virtue, is saying that religion is a natural, human virtue, not something supernatural.  He says, “the good to which religion is directed is to give due honor to God.  Honor is due to someone under the aspect of excellence: and to God a singular excellence is competent, since He infinitely surpasses all things and exceeds them in every way.  Wherefore to Him is special honor due: even as in human affairs we see that different honor is due to different personal excellences, one kind of honor to a father, another to the king.” (I-II, Q. 81, art. 4).

What Aquinas is saying here is really quite remarkable–religion is something everybody should practice, not just select people who believe in God.  Moreover, religion is not about our human state of mind, but about giving God what is due to him as God.  Good, or virtuous religious practice does not give God worship in order to avoid Hell, as this http://www.jesussaid.org/gods-wrath-against-sin.php Roman Road website suggests, and atheists often assume.  Virtuous religious practice recognizes God as the giver of all good things and believes he should be given gratitude and honor as a result.

So what about the Atheist Bus Campaign’s claim that all those religious people should “stop worrying and enjoy life?”  Or what about the Australian atheists who wanted to advertise for their point of view with the appeal “Atheism: Sleep in on Sunday mornings.”  You get the impression that atheists are the happy, carefree ones and religious people are uptight, paranoid, and miserable.  Aquinas would disagree.  “the direct and principal effect of devotion is the spiritual joy of the mind . . . Caused by a twofold consideration: chiefly by the consideration of God’s goodness, because this consideration belongs to the term, as it  were, of the movement of the  will in surrendering itself to God, and direct result of this consideration is joy. . . Secondarily, devotion is caused by the consideration of one’s own failings; for this consideration regards the term from which man withdraws by the movement of his devout will, in that he trusts not in himself, but subjects himself to God” (II-II, Q. 82, art. 4).

Good and virtuous religion, whereby God is praised and adore as the supreme principle of all being, and the giver or all good things is not a burdensome act, according to Aquinas, but one which humans are meant to enjoy.  This is consistent with his idea that virtue is not just when we do good acts against our inclinations, but when our inclinations align with good acts: “we must allow that sorrow for things pertaining to virtue is incompatible with virtue: since virtue rejoices in its own. On the other hand, virtue sorrows moderately for all that thwarts virtue, no matter how” (I-II, Q. 59, art. 4).

Most of us, however, do not have the virtue of religion.  It is hard for us to wake up on Sunday mornings, we do get bored in church, and we almost always have other things to do besides pray.  Almost all virtues are difficult to develop at first.  It is hard for an alcoholic to be temperate towards alcohol, there is always an excuse to not justly give money and time to different charitable activities as an act of justice, and judging by the divorce rates in this country, lots of oaths are being broken.  Yet it takes virtuous acts like keeping promises and giving money to the poor to develop the virtue of justice.  It takes virtuous acts of moderation towards food, drink, and sex to develop the virtue of temperance.

My point is that most of us are not virtuous people and so we find it difficult to do virtuous things.  But Aquinas’ psychology says that the more we grow in virtue, the easier it is for us to continue to act virtuously.  So also is the case with religion.  We start off practicing religion because it is our duty, but as we revere and honor him, “our mind is subjected to Him; wherein its perfection consists, since a thing is perfected by being subject to its superior” (II-II Q. 81, art. 7).  As we become more religious, we become sanctified, or made holy,  whereby we give God not only what He is due in worship, but also as we refer to God “the works of the other virtues.”  In like manner, “man by certain good works disposes himself to the worship of God” (II-II, Q. 81, art. 8).

So religion and other good acts are related in Aquinas’ systems because religion itself is a virtue.   And virtues dispose their owner towards more and more good acts.  So don’t sleep in on Sunday mornings, but look at going to church and worshipping God as just another part of enjoying life, and more importantly, as part of becoming a better person.  And above all, remember that in the end, the worship you give isn’t about you and what you are getting out of it, but about what you owe God.