A few entries ago, I entered into a meditation on intent and the problems that come with it. I cannot ever know with full confidence the intent of another, and this has the potential of barring me from ethical judgment. An ethics incapable of judging is an ineffectual ethics.
Our individual lives are threads in the tapestry of humanity. We are dependent upon one another. One version of this notion: Aristotle asserts that one cannot be good, cannot live the good life, in a bad community.
Because of this dependence, it is not adequate to develop an ethics that applies only to one's self in isolation. If an ethical system denies us the authority to criticize unethical actions of others, or to praise the ethical acts, it is not an ethical system at all. It fails the first test of ethics, that it be applicable and true to human experience.
And yet, thus far, I have worked on this issue solely from the perspective of ethics as action. Charles Taylor, in his excellent book "Sources of the Self," concisely points out the problem: "This moral philosophy has tended to focus on what it is right to do rather than on what it is good to be, on defining the content of obligation rather than the nature of the good life; and it has no conceptual place left for a notion of the good as the object of our love or allegiance or, as Iris Murdoch portrayed it in her work,, as the privileged focus of attention or will." (3)
Perhaps focusing on right action is too late in the sequence of cause-and-effect relations to pinpoint ethics. If Taylor is right, the essence of doing right is existing within rightness; doing right is the healthy emanation that results from the proper ontological orientation.
I need to think more on this, but at least on the surface such an approach would explain my earlier questions around why so many who live ethically seem to begin from the premise of "I am not good." Such a statement is rooted in a set of ontological assumptions from which right action might best emanate...
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6 comments:
Your post calls for an aretaic ethics (What does it mean to be good? What does it mean to live a good life?) rather than a normative or deontological ethics (What is good action?) I am in sympathy with this approach. I hope I can add something to your search.
Let me begin with an apology. I approach these matters through a Christo-centric ecumenicalism. I don't want this to sound preachy.
I find a valuable insight in your observation that good people do not wish to think of themselves as good. My experience of humanity concurs with this. Every person I have known who has impressed me with their genuine goodness has refused to call him/herself good. Even Christ refused to call himself good (Mark 10:18). One reason for this is the ingrained sense of humility that all good people share. To call myself "good" is to distinguish myself from the "not-good" and therefore to implicitly call myself "better." This can be the first step on the road to hubris.
Not thinking of oneself as good is not the same as thinking of oneself as not good. I don't believe that these people have an innate sense that "I am not good." I think, rather, that they innately understand "I am not all." To truly internalize this understanding is to be both profoundly aware of one's limitations and to fully realize the possible trap of self-concern (the end extreme of which is solipsism).
These intertwined understandings (which I think are aspects of one thing) are ubiquitous in world religions. Everywhere we are asked to accept our limitations. God chastises Job with the pointed question, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Paul of Tarsus admits the limitations of his understanding: "Now I see as through a glass, darkly." And we are warned of the trap of self. Jesus tells the people that self-concern can be a failure of faith: "Do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'" In the Hindu tradition Siva Nataraja dances the Dance of Bliss on the back of the defeated Muyalakan--the demon of laziness, forgetfulness, and ignorance (pride or self). And Buddha warns us that all suffering emanates from desire (self-concern).
Per your comments on "Not thinking of oneself as good" and "thinking of oneself as not good" -- it's interesting to me because I had been fixated on the difference between "thinking of oneself as not good" and "thinking of oneself as bad".
Inserting "bad" for "good" adds further levels of distinction to what you explore below.
I do however wonder if both the stances you elucidate would not still allow for an ontological stance conducive to ethical action. Neither statement, for example, takes us to the trap of "I am *no* good."
In this view, I particularly like your phrasing, "I am not all" -- my only nit is that such phrasing would still allow for positions such as "I am most, but not all."
I am fascinated your take on God's admonishment to Job, which you read as the supreme statement of human smallness and frailty in the presence of the divine.
I have always taken it as the prime example of God's smallness against the full measure of vulnerable Man -- a grand diatribe (one is tempted to call it a tantrum) in the face of Job's righteous and dignified silence.
Job has already predicted that he will buckle if God chooses the bullying route. He holds up better than he predicts. And God, at least by the end of the book and despite the nonsequitor of His prior dressing down, seems to acknowledge that Job is indeed in the right.
You wonder if my position "would not still allow for an ontological stance conducive to ethical action." I take this question to be equivalent to "can an aretaic ethics be normative as well?" I don't know the answer, but the question is certainly worth asking. I think that's one of the questions you're getting to. I'm interested to see what will develop.
I suppose one could say "I am most" but this still leads to "I am better." The idea of humility is indeed slippery.
I'm not sure that Biblical exegesis is going to get us anywhere, but the lessons of Job have some salience to this conversation.
First, I do not--very decidedly do not--take God's admonishment of Job as a statement of "human smallness and frailty." That is Bildad's mistake (more later). It is a reminder of Job's limitations. There is a significant difference. Also, Job's response is anything but silent, and frankly I don't see it as very dignified either. Don't fall for the old characterization of Job as patient; he is anything but. That notion doesn't come from the Book of Job at all but rather from the King James Version of James 5.11. More modern translations use the word "endurance." Job wasn't patient; he just lasted.
The body of the Book of Job is a discussion on the purpose of suffering conducted among Job and four friends. To put the conversation in terms that will relate to our discussion, Zophar asserts the belief that there is a simple correlation between ethics and outcome. Suffering is the result of bad behavior; reward is the result of good. Eliphaz and Bildad agree. Eliphaz expands upon this belief ultimately asking "can a man be a benefit to God?" Bildad also expands upon the idea, ultimately arguing that in God's eyes man is only a worm. Job rejects the observations of these three but not their argument. He observes that there is not a correlation between ethics and outcome, but he believes there ought to be. His only conclusion is that God has become his enemy or is capricious.
Elihu is the only one who does not see suffering as necessarily retributive. (And it is important to note that he is the only one of the five God does not chastise.) Elihu finds two flaws in the thinking of the others. First, their position does not admit mystery. Elihu argues that humility necessitates renouncing any ultimate cosmological perspective. Second, their argument fails to consider the notion that suffering can be redemptive--not a punishment of transgression but a challenge to grow.
Relevant to our conversation is the fact that Job's last speech (as much a diatribe as any God makes) the speech to which God ultimately responds, is a long list of all the reasons why Job considers himself good!
Per Job's silence, I reference only Chapters 38-41, from God's appearance through the heighth of God's wrath.
During this span, Job says only: "Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further."
I *will* not answer. Not, I *can* not answer. I'm not claiming that Job could hope to respond to the absurdities God puts forth to him: "Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?" etc.
But Job will not answer with the plain fact that God is not in his turn answering the question that Job put forth in the first place? What is the cause of evil in the world?
The text from Chapter 42 becomes still more contradictory. God admonishes Elihu and company and states that "ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job"... But Job has said nothing in the face of God's manifestation.
I should add that from the text it is not clear at all whether God is praising Job's arguments pre-manifestation, his relative silence post-manifestation, or both...
Of still more interest is Job's statement that he is "vile." Perhaps it is only our bourgeouis sensibility that causes us to shy from the possibility that ethical action may indeed stem from the premise "I am bad" -- as opposed to all our fanciful dalliances with "not good" etc. In the face of the ineffable, these parsings appear academic and melt away -- at least in the case of Job.
From a Christian perspective, we are always infinitely fallen in comparison to the perfect Christ... This recognition would seem to mandate self-abasement, as opposed to the self-negation of Buddhism.
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