Office Space

Great news. I got some office space from the Department of Theology that is in the heart of downtown Helsinki, on Aleksanterinkatu 7. The Faculty of Systematic Theology, my faculty, is on the 6th floor. I'm very happy about this, for it gives me an opportunity to study in a very productive and supportive atmosphere. In addition to fulltime research I will be teaching philosophy and ethics for a small group of first-year students. This will keep me pedagogically active, so I don't totally neglect my teaching vocation.

Discussion Continues...

The first of my three political theory questions that I posted some time ago has received several new comments.

Do contribute to the discussion, everybody! This is a joint venture.

Click here.

Virtuous Leadership

Updates on two Virtuous Leadership related projects:

(1) Virtuous Leadership blog

The blog Hyvejohtajuus (Virtuous Leadership in Finnish) a couple of good friends and I launched a little over a half a year ago is doing great. We can see from the visit statistics that readership is steadily growing. At start it was mostly our friends and acquaintances. Now, more and more people are finding it, and, what is important and encouraging, they are returning to it every week (the articles are published weekly).

We have four regular contributors - an economist/lawyer, an engineer, a political scientist/business major, and a theologian - and a monthly Guestbook-article is written by specialists of various fields. The articles, both the regular articles and the Guestbook-articles, deal with leadership and ethics in various fields like economics, family, education, politics, religion, and - perhaps most importantly - the ordinary life.

The articles are in Finnish because we want to promote discussion in Finland and in Finnish (virtue ethics, though ancient wisdom, is not familiar to the Finnish society at least as far as terminology goes).

Here's a few published topics: "Marketing - Virtue or Vice?", "On Forgiveness", "Disturbing Fatherhood", "The Secret and Gift of Joy", "The Profile of the Healed", "How To Strengthen Virtues?" etc.

We have some extremely interesting Guestbook-articles coming up. I personally can't wait.

(2) Virtuous Leadership translation project

Alexandre Havard's Virtuous Leadership is being translated into a dozen or so languages, Finnish included. I've been lucky to be a part of the Finnish translation team.

The translation has been ready for some time, but we want to make it perfect so we've been proof-reading it over and over again.

Let's see how things take off. I'm very optimistic. Virtuous Leadership is a jewel, but we want to pass the blessing around so that everyone can benefit from it.

Curiositas vs. Studiositas

Escapism: a topic I've been thinking a lot of lately. The temptation to escape reality is almost inescapable. It takes a thousand and one forms. Most people can detect and name their most common way of escaping reality. But for some, it is almost unconscious. Perhaps a lot of our TV and Internet activity (emails, Facebook) - and even reading, whether book reading or magazine browsing - comes down to this.

Below is a very long quote from Josef Pieper, a German Christian philosopher, who passed away a few years ago. He wrote a lot about virtues. This passage includes a lot of longish and difficult sentences, but it really merits careful reading. In fact, I've printed it out and laminated two copies as bookmarks, one of which I gave away. That way I can meditate on it more thoroughly. I strongly recommend thinking about it.

There is a lot of hidden wisdom here. And surprising insights. What parts speak to you specifically? I at least found a few sentences that were incredibly meaningful.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[The original meaning of sight and its distortion]

There is a lust for seeing that perverts the original meaning of sight and casts a person into disorder. The meaning of sight is the perception of reality. However, the “lust of the eye” does not seek to perceive reality but rather just to see. Augustine notes that the “lust of the palate” does not attain satisfaction but only results in eating and drinking: the same holds true for curiositas (curiosity) and the “lust of the eyes”. In his book Sein und Zeit (Being and time), Martin Heidegger says, “The concern of this kind of sight is not about grasping the truth and knowingly living within it but is about chances for abandoning oneself to the world.”

[The root of the distortion]

The degradation into curiositas of the natural desire to see can thus be substantially more than a harmless confusion on the surface. It can be the sign of one's fatal uprooting. It can signify that a person has lost the capacity to dwell in his own self; that he, fleeing from himself, disgusted and bored with the waste of an interior that is burnt out by despair, seeks in a thousand futile ways with selfish anxiety that which is accessible only to the high-minded calm of a heart disposed to self-sacrifice and thus in mastery over itself: the fullness of being. Since such a person does not truly live out of the wellspring of his being, he accordingly seeks, as again Heidegger says, in the “curiosity to which nothing is closed off”, “the security of a would-be genuine ‘living life’”.

[The effects of the distortion]

The “lust of the eyes” reaches its utmost destructive and extirpative power at the point where it was constructed for itself a world in its own image and likeness, where it has surrounded itself with the restlessness of a ceaseless film of meaningless objects for show and with a literally deafening noise of nothing more than impressions and sensations that roar in an uninterrupted chase around every window of the senses. Behind this papery facade of ostentation lies absolute nothingness, a “world” of at most one-day constructs that often become insipid after just one-quarter of an hour and are thrown out like a newspaper that has been read or a magazine that has been paged through; a world which, before the revealing gaze of a sound spirit uninfected by its contagion, shows itself to be like a metropolitan entertainment district in the harsh clarity of a winter morning: barren, bleak, and ghostly to the point of pushing one to despair.

[The heart of the problem; a "summary", if you will]

Still, the destructive element of this disorder, born out of and shaped by illness, is found in the fact that this disorder obstructs the original power of man to perceive reality, that it renders a person unable not only to attain his own self but also to attain reality and truth.

[The cure]

If, therefore, a fraudulent world of this kind threatens to overrun and conceal the world of reality, then the cultivation of the natural desire to see assumes the character of a measure of self-preservation and self-defense. And then studiositas (diligence) means especially this: that a person resists the nearly inescapable tempation to indiscipline with all the power of selfless self-protection, that he radically closes off the inner space of his life against the pressingly unruly pseudo-reality of empty sounds and sights---in order that, through and only through this ascetism of perception, he might safeguard or recoup that which truly constitutes man's living existence: to perceive the reality of God and of creation and to shape himself and the world by the truth that discloses itself only in silence.

--Josef Pieper, A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart, pp. 39-40

Is Richard Dawkins Still Evolving?

Two first-rank Oxford scientists, Dr. Richard Dawkins (atheist) and Dr. John Lennox (theist, Christian), debated Darwinism in Oxford two weeks ago. Dr. Lennox, a kind grand-father type figure, challenged Dawkins on his own scientific grounds. Astonishingly, Dawkins - for the very first time - said:

"A serious case could be made for a deistic God."

Melanie Phillips, a Spectator columnist, listened to the debate and interviewed Dawkins after it. "Is Richard Dawkins Still Evolving?" is the topic of her article. She speculates whether Dawkins' "theory is now in the process of further evolution -- and whether it might even jump the species barrier into what is vulgarly known by lesser mortals as faith."

It wouldn't be the first time a prominent atheist scientist turns to faith. Phillips writes: "Anthony Flew, the celebrated philosopher and former high priest of atheism, spectacularly changed his mind and concluded -- as set out in his book There Is A God -- that life had indeed been created by a governing and purposeful intelligence, a change of mind that occurred because he followed where the scientific evidence led him."

This was the second intellectual dual between the two men. The first debate, in which they debated Dawkins' most recent book, The God Delusion, can be seen here. The quality of the sound and the video is super.

Media Hypocricy?

Does the media reflect popular sentiment or produce it?

The question of the media's relationship with reality, whether it is reality's faithful mirror or one of its chief architects, resurfaces every now and then, especially after tragedies that are human in nature. The question is posed as a simple either/or question, but the truth, one suspects, is much more subtle and complicated. The answer to the question is certainly: both. But the more precise in and outs of the relationship remains unexpressible, at least for me.

However, one curious phenomenom can be detected.

When the question is asked in a frustrated or angry manner, as in -- "Do you not realize that your yellow journalism, your conflict-seeking headlines etc., cause strife in society and undermine public wellbeing, especially that of the young?" -- the media responds by denying responsibility and seeking refuge in the "the media reflects reality" answer.

This is a half-truth, which is to say it is a lie. The media does, indeed, reflect reality, but it also creates it.

On the other hand, when the question is asked in a sympathetic and praising manner, as in -- "What role did you have in exposing the misuse of public funding?" or "The media has helped to advocate tolerance, hasn't it?" -- the media responds by "humbly" accepting responsibility and concurs with the "the media effects reality" assertion.

So by alternating between two part-truths, two sides of a greater truth, the media can avoid blame -- yet attain praise.

But you cannot have one and not the other, because blame and praise are interdependent, and they both imply freedom, freedom to act in a proper or improper way. If you are nothing but a faithful mirror, you can earn neither praise nor blame. But if you are something more than a simple mirror, if you wield responsibility, it is possible to praise you. But if you can be praised, you can be blamed too.

TriaLogos in the Old Town of Tallinn

Taking the ferry across the Gulf of Finland today to attend the TriaLogos festival in the Old Town of Tallinn. The festival's program is very interesting again this year (last year I didn't make it).

I'm looking forward to many presentations, especially: Jeffrey Langan's "St. Augustine's City of God: Empire vs. Civilization", Robert Sungenis' "The Effect of Secular Philosophy on Art, Architecture, Culture, Music, Movies, Television and Literature, from Kant to the Modern Age" and "The Religion of Scientism", and James Larson's "What is Truth?".

TriaLogos is more than a seminar, it is a festival, and as such it includes plays, concerts, etcetera. I'll be back late Friday night.

Political Theory - Q#3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

The third and final theoretical question concerning politics I have labeled as the "Christian Politician's Dilemma". In truth, it is a universal dilemma pertaining to everybody, Christian or not, but Christians, I suspect, may be more aware of it.

As noted earlier, democracy does not guarantee just legislation, just as legislation does not weild the authority to say what is wrong or right objectively. It is the job of democracy and legislation to attempt to protect objective truth. But objective truth remains objective truth whether or not democracy has succeeded in enshrining it in legislation or not.

Now, there are two levels to morality in relation to legislation. The first level constitutes both what is morally wrong and what is legally wrong. Here morality and legislation meet. Examples of such are, for instance, theft, murder, and the like. Theft and murder are objectively wrong, and all countries acknowledge them as legally wrong too. The second level of morality, however, constitutes what is wrong morally, but not legally. Here morality and legislation may not meet. Examples of these are, for example, adultery (in Western societies) and hurting another person's feelings. Cheating and malevolent insults are both morally wrong, but you don't go to jail for them.

My question is: How is one to decide what things should belong to the first (both morality and legislation) and what to the second (only morality) levels? On what basis is something made illegal and another not, though both are wrong?

This distinction is a "Western" one, I think. As far as I understand Muslim theology, it makes little or no distinction between religion and society. Sharia law is the perfect integration of Islamic Quranic precepts into the legislation of the society. Thus, our example of adultery, among many other things, would be punishable by law too. This was quite common in ancient Judaism, and in Christianity not long ago.

Politics, as we know, is all about morality. Taking care of the common good. Rarely does one hear the naive call to "Keep morality out of politics!" anymore. However, "Keep religion out of politics!" and "Keep the Bible out of politics!" are still trendy accusations. These two can be stated in a more satisfactory way. What is meant by them is: Keep those parts of your religion or your holy book out of politics which we disagree with. For, of course, no one would say we need to legalize theft because it is forbidden in the Bible.

The reason I mused about the Christians being, perhaps, more aware of this question (two levels of morality) in society is that Christians follow the Bible. The two levels become more apparent to them because of this. The Christian Politician, as s/he pursues to uphold justice in the society, has to decide the criteria for judging whether a certain niche of morality ought to be "elevated" to the level of legislation too.

I once put this question to the ex-Chairman of the Christian Democratic Party in Finland. He acknowledged the two levels after he understood that making, say, adultery illegal would be problematic. But he admitted to me that he had never thought about this question before. "Well think about it, and I might vote for you," I said with a smile. A friend of mine told me St. Thomas of Aquinas has given this question some thought, but I haven't been able to locate where.

Political Theory - Q#2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

It is no secret that democracies don't always work by majority vote and are no secure defense against error or wickedness. As regards the first, influential lobbyists and the "court of public opinion" can so affect government that its laws and decisions do not, as they ought to, faithfully reflect the thoughts and beliefs of the people. As regards the latter, even when the first danger has been avoided, in other words even when the outcome of a vote is a true depiction of the people's will, it may still be blatantly erroneous or downright evil. Slavery was legal in the U.S. over the period of several consecutive presidencies, Hitler rose to power by majority vote, and so on. Examples of both vacuous prohibitions and wicked liberties are easy to come by even in today's societies.

This does not mean that democracy is not a good form of government. It does mean that it has its own hangups and defects. One (neutral) difference is that the responsibility of serious blunders is more evenly distributed than in, say, dictatorial monarchies. This is because more people exercise freedom and take part in the decision making.

One could argue, based on what has been said, that to improve a democracy is to minimize the risk of these two problems: (1) the misrepresentation of collective beliefs, and (2) the sanctioning of misguided (evil) collective beliefs.

The second of the three political dilemmas that bother me relates to (2) above. How does one contribute to the defense of truth in a democratic society? What role does law, private/public conscience, and their interplay have in this?

These are huge questions, and an exhaustive answer is beyond my powers. I take it for granted that, as the building blocks of society are individual human persons, change must begin there - here, within ourselves. It has become a platitude (at least among Christians) to say that the quickest and surest way to better the world is to better oneself. But surely this is the case. To live by virtue (whether this takes a conscious religious dimension or not), to raise one's children to recognize truth, beauty, and goodness, and to live a life that requires an answer -- i.e. inspires onlookers to think, "I want what s/he has." Over time, many would catch this "good infection" and goodness would permeate human life collectively as well.

Now, when private beliefs change, public belief changes - and when public belief/opinion changes, a pressure builds to bring legislation on par with the new situation. Initiatives are made, individuals rally and speak in unison, and once all the appropriate procedures (bureaucracy or revolution) is dealt with new laws are passed and reinforced. They must be reinforced because, as we remember, a minority - perhaps a considerable number - voted against it.

But then something happens. Often, over time, the critical voices disappear one by one. Public opinion changed and changed the law, but now a changed law changes public opinion. For unreflective people, the mere fact that something is officially illegal is enough to convince them that that's how it should be. Many Finns, for instance, think a 3-month-old fetus is not a human person because the law says it is not. Or consider the law prohibiting the physical discipline of your children. This has been illegal only a few years, yet the number of people who think this is an excellent law has grown considerably since it was passed. When a moral obligation or what is considered a fact is expressed, defended, and reinforced publicly, public opinion tends to conform.

In a nutshell, both - public opinion and legislation - affect the other.

What more can be said of this interplay? How far can we elaborate? What can be learned from it? How ought it affect the thought and work of a politician, Christian or not? For example, if there is danger of a bad law being passed, should the "wiser" politician use all means necessary, even overriding public opinion (see (1) obove), to defend reason and goodness, while trusting that eventually public opinion will catch up, as it were? Etc.

Political Theory - Q#1: Matter vs. Spirit

(or Externality vs. Internality)

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

My thoughts are still very muddled, but I thought I'd anyways give it a go and try to communicate the first of the three theoretical problems in politics as I see them. I'm hoping that even a semi-successful formulation of the issue will help me proceed a few steps towards its solution.

The dilemma arises out of two truths that, taken separately, seem intuitively quite solid but that, taken together, seem contradictory. If it's a real contradiction one of the truths is a fallacy. If it's only an apparent contradiction - that is to say, a paradox - my anxiety is lessened but I'd still very much like to get to depths of it.

The first truth is this. A perfect society shall never come about by simply making some adjustments, rearranging society here and there, or fixing other external factors. The other side of this truth is that the problems of society can never be reduced to (explained by) simply societal maladjustments, disorganization, or some other superficial factors. The belief that they can is a key fallacy of all secular world-views, be they Marxist or western democratic utopias that stem from Enlightenment ideas.

T. S. Eliot expressed it this way: "Some dream of a such a perfect society, that it is no longer necessary for us to be good." Herein lies the wisdom that counterbalances secular thinking's folly. The problems of life are not ultimately technical, they are moral. They stem from the heart of man, the disorder from within, not the disorder from without. Christian tradition calls it the Original Sin. No matter how great the structure, no matter how educated, wealthy or cultured the society, everything comes tumbling down eventually. And the corrupt people make it to the top, or the top corrupts the people that make it there, whichever way it is.

The second truth is this. Taken the fact that the ultimate source of human misery, both on the individual and collective level, is a fundamental flaw in us, it is yet true that in some societies it is easier to be a "good person" than in others. Some have expressed it this way: a good society is a society in which the good man finds it easy to be good, and a bad society is a society in which the good man finds it difficult to be good.

Take, for instance, a country where a given vice is prohibited. I would suspect that in this country it is easier to avoid the vice and practice the virtue opposite to it. Or take a wealthy country - chances are that there is less social unrest or war in that country than in its poor neighboring country. Poverty is a cause of other social problems. Take away poverty and various blessings will follow. All this, however, seems to suggest that there is an element of truth in Marxist etc. ideas.

Now, at first the first truth - that perfecting society on the structural level won't erase wickedness from life - seems to present the legislator or politician (or any good willed person, for that matter) a problem. If it won't work, what's the point in trying to perfect society then? I have explained here why I think we ought to do our best to work for a better society and why a certain form of "perfect society" does, in fact, exist logically and potentially in practice too. But this is not the point I'm trying to make here.

The first truth - perfecting society won't erase wickedness - seems to be in contradiction with the second truth - perfecting society will lessen wickedness (make it easier to be good).

What's up with this? Is one mistaken? If not, can their interplay be explained more satisfactorily? What constitutes the apparent contradiction? Is there a level to this paradox that simply must be accepted by faith, or can we by making qualifications weaken the aura of mystery? What effect (if any) ought it have on the politician's thinking and acting?

I find this whole question very difficult. I'm not even sure that I nailed it. Hopefully I'll do a better job with the two other dilemmas to which I'll return later.

Political Theory

In theory, if I were to venture into the world of politics one day, say in twenty years or so, some questions concerning politics would have to be clear by then. In addition to the one hundred and one questions I have concerning specific concrete legislations, there are some theoretical - that is to say, more profound and urgent - questions to be answered first. Three general questions (or dilemmas), to be precise. I could not even contemplate a role in politics before I had settled them.

And as it will become clear in the following posts, there are some high ranking politicians whom not only do not have an answer to the questions - they haven't even asked the questions in the first place. To me that's mind-boggling. It's like sailing without a map when the destiny of so many people depend on your seamanship.

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

I will try to formulate my thoughts and write separate posts on each. The first is blank because I find it difficult to even formulate a topic that would capture the heart of the subtle problem. Working on it. Posts forthcoming.

Edit: Title added to first.

Human Language

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has these kinds of moments. Every now and then, when you're thinking about a familiar word, any word, thinking about what it means, how it's spelled, what it sounds like when it's said aloud, maybe repeating it a few times - an odd thing may happen. Suddenly, you see it in a new light. This word, used thousands and thousands of times in the past, now seems, looks, and sounds ridiculous. You think to yourself: “Ha, what a dumb word!” (Not the thing the word symbolises, but the words itself.)

Two minutes later, it doesn't seem so stupid anymore, it's returned to its normal familiar state.


I wonder whether on these rare occasions we actually feel the truth which we generally know to be true: that words are merely symbols we quite arbitrarily choose for realities?

The words vary from language to langauge and evolve within each language over time, but the reality remains the same. The thing itself is real, the word is not. But through endless repetition the word and the reality it symbolises have fused into one so that speaking the word immediately brings forth the picture of the reality. But on rare occasions they're detached for a brief moment. And during those moments when the link between the thing and the symbol is not apparent, we realise how inadequate and clumsy the symbol is in comparison to the thing itself.

Perhaps someone can draw even more fundamental conclusions. I don't think trivial phenomena like these are trivial at all: very often they're an echo of an intriguing secret. That makes them so fascinating and worth reflecting on.

Virtuous Leadership

I'm involded with two projects this summer that deal with the new kind of leadership culture called "virtuous leadership". Firstly, I'm translating Alexandre Havard's brilliant Virtuous Leadership into Finnish.

It is currently being translated into four or five different languages (following successful sales in the US), and we hope to find a major published next fall or winter. Alexandre Havard is the multilingual director of the European Center of Leadership Development (ECLD). He was born in France, lived in Helsinki for eighteen years, and now works out of Moscow. The man holds seminars in English, Finnish, French, Spanish, and Russian.

Secondly, to help stir virtue-related discussion in the Finnish society, a few friends and I have begun a new blog (in Finnish): www.hyvejohtajuus.fi. It's part of a bigger project of which more will be said in due time. Meanwhile, I encourage all the Finnish speakers to partake in the discussion. Questions, comments and all forms of critique are highly welcome! We are all novices here. There is a lot to learn for everyone.

After Virtue - part 6 (of 6)

1. Where Are We Now, and Why?
2. “Enlightened” Europe
3. Turning point: Nietzsche or Aristotle?
4. Pagan vs. Christian Virtues
5. After Virtue
6. MacIntyre’s Answer


6. MacIntyre’s Answer

The finale looms near. In the last chapter title the author asks: “After Virtue: Nietzsche or Aristotle, Trotsky, and St Benedict?”

All secular accounts of morality have failed. Nietzsche’s negative proposal of debunking morality altogether is, MacIntyre admits, plausible. But only if moral tradition cannot be vindicated. If Nietzsche wins, he wins by default (others lose). His apparent honesty is his most attractive quality.

However (I am drastically simplifying here), Nietzsche is debunked. His “great man”, too, is exposed as a pseudo-concept. MacIntyre concludes that for 300 years there has been no coherent account of liberal individualism. But Aristotelianism can be restated.

One final possible objection, the salvific claims of Marxism, is rejected. Marxisim, upon closer examination, turns out to be Kantian and utilitarian, which both had been rejected earlier. Also, Marxism in power is Weberian, which was rejected as well. To sum up, MacIntyre lets Trotsky speak: “The Soviet Union is not socialist … the so-called illumination led to darkness.”

In this final chapter just before the Postscript, MacIntyre draws a now famous parallel. He claims that the Western world (Europe and North America) is the Roman Empire – just before, or during, or right after (it is hard to tell), it fell.

After the fall of Rome, St Benedict launched a program that enabled the cultivation of virtues to move from the imperial (now in rabbles) to the community (namely, monastic community).

We have reached a similar turning point. If intellectual and moral life are to be sustained during our “dark ages”, MacIntyre states, we need another “St Benedict” to guide us through.

At the beginning of this series I mentioned that my Master’s thesis ended with a reference to After Virtue. Pope John Paul II’s theological anthropology had been my work’s focus. He, like MacIntyre, felt that modernity was in crisis. At the root of the crisis, the pope believed, was a false anthropology, a false humanism. In order to counter it, he attempted to restore a holistic view of man (virtues and teleology, but also the “image of God” in man, included).

Many are attracted to the “theological painting” the pope designed. In fact, the professor of theology and John Paul II’s biographer George Weigel draws attention to MacIntyre’s last point in After Virtue. “Another – surely a very different kind of – St Benedict is needed,” MacIntyre had concluded.

Weigel himself along with many others (for example, the Polish philosopher-priest Jarosław Kupczak) have speculated on whether John Paul II, or his legacy, will meet the criteria. Time will tell.

After Virtue - part 5 (of 6)

1. Where Are We Now, and Why?
2. “Enlightened” Europe
3. Turning point: Nietzsche or Aristotle?
4. Pagan vs. Christian Virtues
5. After Virtue
6. MacIntyre’s Answer


5. After Virtue

At this point, there are four chapters (16-19) remaining in the book. The author must make some preliminary conclusions - and he does. Chapter 16 is called From the Virtues to Virtue and After Virtue – hinting at the book’s name, After Virtue.

If is hasn’t before, it becomes clear by now that the meaning of the title is twofold. On one hand, After Virtue is a history of the philosophy of ethics, which includes the modern period after the loss of virtue. On the other, the author is dissatisfied with modern academic philosophy and seeks after virtue. It is one thing to say, “After you, my lady,” and another to say, “I ran after my lady.” (As a side-remark, I must say that the Finnish translation, Hyveen jäljillä, is not horribly unsuccessful.)

What happened to the unity of life? We already know about the loss of teleology. But MacIntyre points to another interesting phenomena: production moving out of the household.

“Practice” isn’t good in itself anymore, and work and pleasure are divided. It is the (emotivist) bureaucratic manager character, not the people in households, who organizes modern work. We live in a linguistic mélange – moral, virtuous, duty, obligation, human rights and so on, are all pseudo-concepts, because they are detached from the unity of life, from teleology.

Surprisingly (and I may add, exhilaratingly), MacIntyre names Jane Austen (1775-1817) as the last great imaginative voice of tradition.

The telos of her heroines is marriage and life of the household. The household is the arena of virtue. Production, sadly, has left the household leaving womanhood split in two: the minority of the leisured (“causing bad novels and gossip”) and the majority of the domestic service, or factory, or prostitution.

For Austen, happiness is Aristotelian. Teleology is restored. Her heroines, as said, seek good through their own good in marriage. Important virtues are true Amiability and Practical Intelligence. We say true Amiability, because Austen introduces a new focus: fake virtues (counterfeits). Self-knowledge which is found through repentance is another new virtue (linked to the New Testament). But the central virtue is Constancy (fin. uskollisuus). It includes both Patience and Courage.

Now, MacIntyre notes (and I detect a certain concurring) that, for Austen, the true genre is not tragedy after all, but comedy. Why so?

Because for Christians, the ultimate reality consists of hope and goodness, or hope in goodness. Dante provides the exemplar.

Chapter 17 is a rather political one. It certainly addresses political theory, namely, the concept of Justice. MacIntyre is dismayed (but not surprised) to note that no mutual conception of Justice can be found. And this, he says, can be considered a real threat to today’s society.

Analytic philosophy sought a foundation. Two accounts stand above all others: (1) Robert Nozick’s (1974) and (2) John Rawl’s (1971) accounts. For the political-minded reader, the right-left division is apparent. Rawl’s “veil of ignorance” stated that Justice is the even distribution of goods. For Nozick, Justice is what is originally acquired justly. These are mutually exclusive accounts, MacIntyre says. The tradition of virtues, he adds, is at odds with both.

Virtue is totally at odds with the whole modern economic order: especially individualism, acquisitiveness (usury), and elevation of market values. Again, why so? The answer is simple. Because modern politics is built on the rejection of virtue (teleology).

After Virtue - part 4 (of 6)

1. Where Are We Now, and Why?
2. “Enlightened” Europe
3. Turning point: Nietzsche or Aristotle?
4. Pagan vs. Christian Virtues
5. After Virtue
6. MacIntyre’s Answer


4. Pagan vs. Christian Virtues

The relationship of pagan and Christian virtues was more than a theoretical question. Society was affected, too. What were the churchmen to teach believers?

The backdrop of the Christian standpoint is: unity of things according to reason. This found its supreme expression in Dante and Aquinas.

Christianity, as said earlier, required not only the concept of character defects (vice), but also breaches of divine law (sin). Christianity understood that virtues and vices were, to some extent, both internal and external, but that the true arena of morality was is the internal will. How, then, is law related to virtues? The answer of the movement of synthesis was to keep the tension. (Not an untypical Christian answer. For instance, the unity of body and soul, human and divine, freedom and truth, and so on.)

Christianity brought to the discussion new virtues as well, which were unheard of for Aristotle.

Charity (agape love), above all. The New Testament’s “love thy enemy” found no resonance in Aristotle’s “a good man cannot be a bad man’s friend”. Also, forgiveness was presented as an alternative to revenge. Later, Aquinas was to redefine the cardinal virtues to contain Patience and Humility. (Humility, for Aristotle, was a vice and not a virtue!) Even more, the dimension of evil was something new. (Augustine and Paul: “We delight in evil.”)

In the end, teleology remains, but with two differences: eudaimonia (happiness or human flourishing) was (1) for everyone (not just the “haves”) and (2) could be pursued everywhere (not just in the polis).

The author of After Virtue seeks to find a core in the different outlooks of virtue. Accounts of social and moral life differ but, the author – who now believes to have found the core – draws attention to the fact that all have some account. In Chapters 14 and 15 he explains the “three stages” of all accounts of the nature of virtue.

All accounts (1) are related to practices, (2) presuppose the unity of life, and (3) hold fast to some form of moral tradition.

Of the first, a succinct definition suffices. The first universal definition of virtue could be: Virtue is a quality that enables goods which are internal to practices.

The idea of the unity of life has two obstacles: a social and philosophical obstacle. As regards the first, modernity partitions life into segments (work/leisure, private/public etc.). As regards modern philosophy, we are taught to think atomistically – true complexity of life is simplified (or reductioned).

Virtuous anthropology (my concept), however, sees life as a unity, and unity as a narrative (MacIntyre's concept). It links birth to life, life to death. The beginning, middle, and end, are treated as a whole. If life is narrative, MacIntyre continues, the true genre of life is tragedy (or drama). Human beings are actors (constraints on a stage), but also co-authors (we presuppose freedom).

Linked to the unity of life is another important concept: personal identity. It is not a psychological continuum of self (see Locke, Hume). It is twofold. First, I am a subject of a history – with a telos. Personal identity presupposes unity of character. Secondly, it is correlative – I am a subject of their story too, the narratives are interlocked.

Consequently, the third stage, tradition, basically states that the self cannot be separated from community socially or historically. This is at odds with modernity, which says: “(American) I didn’t own slaves”, or “(Englishman) I didn’t mistreat the Irish”, and so on. We are part of a tradition, like it or not. (A Christian reader speculates here whether MacIntyre is smuggling in the concept of Original Sin.)

After Virtue - part 3 (of 6)

1. Where Are We Now, and Why?
2. “Enlightened” Europe
3. Turning point: Nietzsche or Aristotle?
4. Pagan vs. Christian Virtues
5. After Virtue
6. MacIntyre’s Answer


3. Turning Point: Nietzsche or Aristotle?

Chapter 9 marks the midpoint of After Virtue, both as regards its scope and argument. “Nietzsche or Aristotle?” the author asks in the chapter’s title. Society is out of control. Who will lead the way?

The contemporary vision of the world is Weberian (following the father of sociology Max Weber): plurality of values, with a bureaucratic and managerial outlook. Yet it is, as said, rationally unsustainable. (MacIntyre notes that, if all is will, the obvious rejoinder question is whose will is it? He is thankful that in this book he needs not answer this sinister question.)

Nietzsche (1844-1900) is one of two genuine theoretical alternatives to analyze our culture, he says. Nietzsche understood clearly that appeals to objectivity were (in fact) expressions of will. He rejected the use of the words good, right, and obligatory.

The most powerful pre-modern mode, on the other hand, is clearly Aristotelian. (The “Christian mode” MacIntyre counts as Aristotelian.)

How ought we to choose between these two – modern and pre-modern – modes?

For deciding either-or, “a short history of virtues is necessary”, the author announces. In truth we are talking about several chapters, nearly the rest of the latter half of the book. In Chapters 10 through 13 he travels through Heroic Societies (in Greek fiction), Athens, Aristotle, and the Christian Medieval era to see how the understanding of virtue (lat. arete) has developed.

Stories were the chief means of moral education in the olden times: Homeric and Icelandic sagas, and the Biblical narratives. Role and status prescribed conduct – or virtue. Courage was important, so was Friendship. For women in the household, Fidelity was the key (remember Penelope?). There was no theory-practice distinction: action was required – man is what he does. Uncontrollable powers, like passions, gods, and Fate, posed a challenge in life. Life, the supreme value, ended in death, which ended all.

Plato, it is known, wanted to expel Homeric inheritances. The conception of virtue changed, it became detached from particular roles. One must note, MacIntyre reminds, that no “Greek view of virtue” exists in reality. There were many views: the Sophist, Plato’s, Tragedians’ (Sophocles), and Aristotle’s. But all shared the context: the milieu is polis. A good man was a good citizen.

Interestingly, humility, thrift, and conscientiousness were in no Greek list of virtues.

For various reasons (which I leave out of these posts), MacIntyre sides with Aristotle’s concept of virtues as the highest Greek representative. (The answer to the either-Aristotle-or-Nietzsche question is given later.)

Aristotle is truly the protagonist against liberal modernity. The Nicomachean Ethics is his moral testament.

Aristotle’s ethics presuppose a metaphysical biology. Everything aims at good – everything has a specific telos. Good, or eudaimonia, is blessedness, happiness, prosperity, being well (and in relation to the divine) – in short, flourishing. A virtue is a disposition to act and feel a certain way. Also, virtues enable eudaimonia – and are it (both means and end). But Aristotle is no consequentialist: it is an astonishing fact that, though objectivity is held, rules are hardly mentioned.

There are two kinds of virtues, intellectual and moral (character). They are inseparable – here, too, Aristotle’s thought is at odds with the modern world. MacIntyre commends Aristotle’s (four-part) account of practical reason, but at the end of the day, Aristotle, too, faces challenges. Three, to be precise.

First, MacIntyre rejects the metaphysical biology that states that some are just slaves by nature, that “barbarians” are incapable of virtue because they have no polis. A better teleological account is needed. Secondly, is a polis indeed required? Is virtue exclusive? MacIntyre answers in the negative. Finally, virtue, according to Aristotle, required some flaw. (Personally, I am not sure Aristotle is here interpreted correctly, or, if he is, that MacIntyre successfully argues why this is a “challenge”.)

After Virtue - part 2 (of 6)

1. Where Are We Now, and Why?
2. “Enlightened” Europe
3. Turning point: Nietzsche or Aristotle?
4. Pagan vs. Christian Virtues
5. After Virtue
6. MacIntyre’s Answer


2. “Enlightened” Europe

MacIntyre argues that the Enlightenment Project had to fail. The root of the problem was the “discrepancy between rules and human nature” – in other words a false anthropology and understanding of the interconnectedness of nature and rules.

The paradigm before the Enlightenment was Aristotelian-Christian. Aristotle provided the teleological scheme of man-as-he-is and man-as-he-could-be-telos. Theism added the concept of divine law. Reason and revelation.

However, Protestantism and Jansenist Catholicism devalued reason, the author claims. This secular rejection of theology coincided with the scientific-philosophical rejection of Aristotelianism – telos was eliminated, essential human nature lost.

MacIntyre is adamant of this being a horrendous blunder, not only ethically, but logically.

Interestingly, he says – contrary to much modern philosophical thought – the famous maxim “no ought from is” is mistaken. “No ought from is” not a “timeless logical truth”, as some claim, yet even today it infects moral philosophy. Functional concepts include (intrinsic) value and purpose: man and living well is analogous to harpist and playing the harp well.

“Today’s moral judgements are linguistic survivals from theism which have lost the context,” he writes. What is felt as “liberation” he calls “loss”.

The individual has been freed from hierarchy and teleology. Quite naturally, MacIntyre notes, some new teleology or categorical status was and is needed: utilitarianism and Kant respectively. However, both failed and fail, he says, though they accomplished social transformations. In the end, “pleasure” and “happiness” remain vague and useless pseudo-concepts.

Consequently, autonomous moral agents are now trying to protect their autonomy. Hence the key modern concepts: rights, to protest, to unmask. “Human rights”, too, are only alleged rights – they cannot be demonstrated “as a matter of fact”. Emotivism unmasks arbitrary will and desire in all human activity.

But emotivism, as a theory, has – as all theories have – practical consequences as well. MacIntyre says emotivism “embodies society”. The characters that embody emotivism are, above all, the aesthete, therapist, and manager (or expert). All trade on moral fictions.

In Chapter 7 MacIntyre addresses there other modern concepts, fact, explanation, and expertise. So-called “facts” deserve attention.

“Fact”, according to MacIntyre, is in modern culture a “folk-concept with aristocratic roots”. It is commonly seen that scholastics were deceived by interposing Aristotelianism, but “moderns” stripped away interpretation and theory and found “fact” and “experience” as they are. (I’m afraid Kuhn’s brilliant The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has not, perhaps because of its unwillingness to resort to “truth”, managed to wholly dispel this myth.)

This fallacy is typical to the Enlightenment which, MacIntyre wittily comments, is “par excellence when most intellectuals lacked self-knowledge”. The modern contrast of morality and human science was alien to classicism because the value/fact contrast was also alien.

The following chapter, “Generalizations in Social Science and their Lack of Predictive Power”, was a very intriguing one. Basically, the author claims most social sciences are tautologous!

The task of social scientists is to produce law-like generalisations, he says. But they never do. The predictive ineptitude of the economist he thinks is “innocent”: at least the economist goes public when his predictions fail. The sociologist and political scientist (or futurologists), on the other hand, never advertise failures. Psycho-babble provides the camouflage.

But Machiavelli was different. Why? Because of his concept of Fortuna.

Life incorporates radical sources of unpredictability, and Machiavelli knew this (as did Karl Popper and others). But since the Enlightenment (and Marx) the widespread belief holds that unpredictability will be overcome in the progressive future.

MacIntyre, however, believes that the “bitch-goddess of unpredictability cannot be dethroned”. He believes in Fortuna’s permanence because of empirical facts. Totalitarianism (total predictability) destroys success – Huxley’s and Orwell’s worlds are impossible. Innovation is required. The idea of “bureaucratic managerial expertise” he rejects as illusion. For him, the best bureaucratic manager is (or must be, for no fault of his) the best actor.

After Virtue - part 1 (of 6)

1. Where Are We Now, and Why?
2. “Enlightened” Europe
3. Turning point: Nietzsche or Aristotle?
4. Pagan vs. Christian Virtues
5. After Virtue
6. MacIntyre’s Answer


1. Where Are We Now, and Why?

On the very last page of my Master’s thesis on Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body, I quote the emeritus professor of philosophy Alasdair MacIntyre’s (b. 1929) modern classic, After Virtue. At the end of this post series I shall return to this particular reference. What lies between here and there is an attempt to give a relatively brief but nonetheless informative six-part account of the structure and main arguments of After Virtue. I personally look at it as one (if not the only) milestone in modern philosophical ethics.

After Virtue – a study in moral theory (1st ed. 1981) traces the evolution of moral theories up to the modern era. In this sense it is a history of philosophical ethics. But this is only the means to – what I take is – its fundamental task: to make a judgement on this history. The driving motive for writing the book is, according to MacIntyre’s own words, his dissatisfaction in his earlier philosophical work and in “moral philosophy” generally as a (supposedly) independent subject.

In the first chapter, “A Disquieting Suggestion”, the author states his hypothesis: we have nearly entirely lost comprehension of both practical and theoretical morality. The genealogy of morality, if you will, is from order to disorder.

He gives an account of the nature of moral disagreement today and the claims of emotivism. Moral theory is in trouble. We have no rational way for moral agreement in our culture, the author says, and presents, for instance, just war and autonomy of body (abortion) as examples. All sides are logically valid, appeal to objectivity, and all are supported by a historical continuum. Emotivism – the belief that judgments are nothing but preference and feeling – is rampant.

MacIntyre rejects emotivism (as did the analytical philosophers: it is a theory of use and fails as a theory of meaning) but understands its appeal. Most likely the dissatisfaction with “intuitionism” (G. E. Moore 1873-1958 and the “common sense” movement) caused it. Moore’s will had won ground but the “facts” or arguments were unimpressive.

As said, emotivism has won ground. Truth has been displaced as value and replaced as psychological effectiveness. It has “infiltrated both education and religion”, MacIntyre says. Emotivism’s key characteristic is the lack of ultimate criteria.

What, then, had happened?

The answer to this is one of the cornerstones – which the author would like to see resurrected – of his project. What happened is that human telos was abandoned. “Progress” to modernity rejected teleology as superstition. Human life had no instrinsic purpose.

MacIntyre retraces the birth of emotivism to the failure of the Enlightenment Project of justifying morality. He explains what it was, why it had to fail, and what some of its consequences are.

Today’s academic philosophy is marginalized. MacIntyre’s hypothesis is that the roots of the problems of both academic philosophy and everyday social and practical lives are the same: the predecessor culture’s failure to solve its problems. The Enlightenment era sought to found morality on purely rational grounds.

According to MacIntyre, Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was the first to notice the impossibility of the project – he first discovered the concept of radical choice, not rational premises that must lie at the bedrock of morality. We choose our first principles, he argued.

But before Kierkegaard earlier philosophers, too, were reacting to the failure of his predecessors. The genealogy looks something like this: Diderot (1713-1784) said the bedrock or morality desire; Hume (1711-1776) said not desire but passions; Kant (1724-1804) said not passions but reason; and finally Kierkegaard concluded, neither reason nor passion, but choice. Each theory was vindicated by the failure of the previous.

Ultimately, the failure of philosophy (and religion before that) to justify morality is one major cause of the loss of its (morality’s) central cultural role and of it becoming marginal, narrowly academic.

"It's Only Human"

“It's only human.” An expression everyone has heard, and most of us use. But what is its purpose, exactly?

I'd call it a “humane” expression. We often use it as a reassuring comment intended to lift the spirits of a person who is feeling down. But the “downess” cannot have been caused just by any kind of misfortune. If somebody lost, say, their house in a fire, you would not console them by saying, “Don't worry, it's only human.” (“Shit happens,” would be more appropriate, but if the other lacks a sense of humour, not very comforting.)

The cause of the misfortune must be human somehow. But how, exactly?

Could it be a blunder of some sort? I guess if I slipped or bumped my head, you could say, “Poor you. But it's only human.” It is, in fact, quite true: clumsiness is a characteristic peculiar to us humans, most of the animal kindom is not clumsy at all. But still, the expression would ill fit these kind of experiences, even if they are “human” in one sense.

By ruling out non-human and certain types of human incidents, we are near to locating the core of the answer. Isn't it true that the human behaviour we are looking for must be moral behaviour?

“It's only human that I drank a bit too much,” or “It's only human -- how could your wife not understand? -- that you fell in love with this woman,” or “It's only human that you lost your temper.”

And herein lies a danger. It is very true that we do many mistakes or (more often a better word) evil things that are dishonest and/or hurt people. It is, in this sense, human. But we must be careful lest this expression lapses into, not an affectionate way of cheering up a friend, but into a kind of moral “alibi”, a justification for the deed done.

It is also interesting that the expression (“It's only human”) is reserved solely for human blunders. What about human excellences, human achievements?

If I am free of guilt because, after all, “it's only human”, logically I should also be free of merit (e.g. for being a good person, for being multilingual, for making a world-healing scientific breakthrough) because, after all, “it's only human”.