Divine Motivation Theory

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

This page intentionally left blank

ii

8:36

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Divine Motivation theory

Widely regarded as one of the foremost figures in contemporary philosophy of religion, Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski has written a new book that will be seen as a major contribution to ethical theory and theological ethics. At the core of the book lies a new form of virtue theory based on the emotions. Distinct from deontological, consequentialist, and teleological virtue theories, this one has a particular theological, indeed Christian, foundation. The new theory helps to resolve philosophical problems and puzzles of various kinds: the dispute between cognitivism and noncognitivism in moral psychology; the claims and counterclaims of realism and antirealism in the metaphysics of value; and paradoxes of perfect goodness in natural theology, including the problem of evil. A central feature of Zagzebski’s theory is the place given to exemplars of goodness. This allows the theory to assume discrete but overlapping forms in different cultures and religions. As with Zagzebski’s previous Cambridge book, Virtues of the Mind, this new book will be sought out eagerly by a broad range of professionals and graduate students in philosophy and religious studies. Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma.

i

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

ii

May 7, 2004

8:36

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Divine Motivation theory linda trinkaus zagzebski University of Oklahoma

iii

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521828802 © Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2004 isbn-13 isbn-10

978-0-511-21170-6 eBook (EBL) 0-511-21347-6 eBook (EBL)

isbn-13 978-0-521-82880-2 hardback isbn-10 0-521-82880-5 hardback isbn-13 isbn-10

978-0-521-53576-2 paperback 0-521-53576-x paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

For Ken

v

May 7, 2004

8:36

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

I think he would need time to get adjusted before he could see things in the world above; at first he would see shadows most easily, then reflections of men and other things in water, then the things themselves. After this he would see objects in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night, the light of the stars and the moon more easily than the sun and the light of the sun during the day. – Of course. Then at last he would be able to see the sun, not images of it in water or in some alien place, but the sun itself in its own place, and be able to contemplate it. – That must be so.

Plato, Republic 516a-b

vi

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

page xi xv

Part I. Motivation-based virtue ethics 1. Constructing an ethical theory I. Value concepts and the metaphysics of value II. Three puzzles to solve III. Some confusions I wish to avoid IV. A taxonomy of ethical theories V. Exemplarism 2. Making emotion primary I. Starting with exemplars II. What an emotion is III. Emotion and value judgment IV. The intrinsic value of emotion V. Conclusion 3. Goods and virtues I. The good of ends and outcomes II. The good of pleasure III. The good for human persons IV. Virtues vii

3 3 8 18 29 40 51 51 59 74 82 95 96 96 107 110 118

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Contents V. Defining the kinds of good VI. Conclusion 4. Acts and obligation I. Acts and the exemplar II. Obligation III. Defining the concepts of act evaluation IV. Moral judgment Conclusion to Part I

130 133 137 137 145 159 166 174

Part II. Divine Motivation theory 5. The virtues of God I. A brief history of the imitatio Dei II. The personhood of God III. The emotions and virtues of God IV. The motives of God and the Creation V. The metaphysical source of value 6. The moral importance of the Incarnation I. Must Christianity be an ethic of law? II. The Incarnation as an ethical doctrine III. The imitation of Christ and narrative ethics IV. Divine Motivation theory and Divine Command theory compared 7. The paradoxes of perfect goodness I. Three puzzles of perfect goodness II. The solution of Divine Command theory III. The solution of Divine Motivation theory IV. Does God have a will? V. Is the ability to sin a power? VI. Love and freedom VII.Conclusion 8. The problem of evil I. The intellectual problem of evil II. Divine Motivation theory and theodicy III. Objections and replies IV. The problem of suffering Conclusion to Part II viii

187 187 191 203 213 223 228 228 231 247 258 271 272 278 282 290 295 298 301 304 304 313 318 324 339

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Contents Part III. Ethical pluralism 9. Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity I. The problem of moral disagreement II. Ideal observers III. Ideal agents IV. Rationality in the second person: Revising the self V. Religion and the task of developing a common morality

347 347 349 359

Bibliography Name index Subject index

389 405 408

ix

372 382

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

x

May 7, 2004

8:36

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Preface

There are two very different sensibilities out of which moral discourse and even entire moral theories arise. One is the idea that morality attracts. The other is the idea that morality compels. The former focuses on value, the latter on obligation. The former is optimistic enough to think that human beings are drawn to morality by nature and by the good and bad features of the world. The latter is pessimistic enough to think that only law – which is to say, force – can be the source of morality. This is not a negligible difference; it grounds the difference between virtue theories and duty theories. I have occasionally heard philosophers wonder whether there is any significant difference between the two kinds of theory and whether the difference matters. For many of the purposes of morality, it is useful to ignore the differences or to conceal them; the theory of this book is meant to reveal them. The theory is a strong form of virtue theory with a theological foundation, although I will begin with a general framework that can have a naturalistic form. There are many different ways in which God can be related to morality, but the one that has received the most attention in the history of ethics is Divine Command theory. This is surprising, because quite apart from the famous objections to it, Divine Command theory has rarely aspired to be a complete moral theory. At best, it gives ethics a theoretical foundation, but it is difficult to see how we can move from a foundation xi

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Preface of that kind to a theory with anything but the most meager normative content. However, my own reason for looking elsewhere for the foundation of ethics has nothing to do with these shortcomings. Divine Command theory is an ethic of law, of obligation. It is an ethic based on compulsion, not on the perception of value. I want to investigate a theological virtue ethics in which morality is driven by the attractiveness of the good. The theories in which morality attracts are usually forms of theories that we have inherited from ancient Greece. Theories in which morality compels make up most of modern ethics. Natural Law theory was a brilliant attempt to have it both ways. That is how I read the ethics of Aquinas. Aquinas claimed that morality is law, but it is a law based on human nature, a nature that contains an innate propensity toward the good. When sufficiently developed, however, it turned out that there was nothing especially natural about natural law. That is not to say that Natural Law theory should be dismissed. In fact, I believe that it is one of the most viable of all the kinds of ethical theory, and one of its most appealing aspects in its Thomistic form is that, unlike Divine Command theory, it gives a theological foundation to a full ethical theory. Nonetheless, it is not the kind of theory I will pursue, because it also is fundamentally an ethic of obligation, and my purpose is to see how far we can get with an ethic of the good. Another brilliant attempt to have it both ways is the Kantian idea of morality as autonomy: Morality is a law I give to myself. Presumably, if I give a law to myself, that mitigates the sense in which morality is force. This is not an ethic of attraction, but at least it does not subject us to the tyranny of external law. Kant’s ethics is surely one of the most important ethical theories under discussion today, but I have chosen not to pursue a version of this theory, and again, my reason is that it is essentially an ethic of obligation. In my view, Kantian ethics does not give a sufficiently prominent place to the attractiveness of the good. In Plato, the good attracts, and one of the most potent and enduring Platonic images of the good is the sun. I find it revealing that the sun not only attracts but also diffuses. The Earth does not have to move toward the sun in order to reflect its light. Plato’s xii

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Preface analogy suggests that the good is not exclusively something external to us that draws us toward it. The good may also be something we receive. It might even be in ourselves, diffusing itself through our acts. We too may have the capacity to bestow good upon the world. Hopefully, the obvious impertinence of this thought is mitigated by the further thought that we are not the original bestower of value. My purpose in this book is to present an ethical theory driven by the concept of the good. In what follows, I propose an idea for the consideration of the community of philosophers. The full theory as it appears here is proposed to the community of Christian philosophers, but I have given a lot of attention to its naturalistic version, which is a form of nonteleological virtue ethics. I hope to engage Kantian, consequentialist, and neo-Aristotelian virtue theorists in a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of ethics, whether or not they are committed to any religious beliefs. Some ethicists find theory of any kind problematic. It must be admitted that theory always sacrifices something – richness of detail, a certain kind of subtlety, and sometimes clarity. But I am convinced that there is a deep human need to theorize. What is wonderful about theory is that it compensates for the finitude of the human mind. It is our human misfortune that we are not capable of conscious awareness of very much at one time, and so we try to streamline conscious reality so that as much as possible can be packed into a single act of understanding. Theory extends the scope of our understanding. At its best, it gives us the maximum possible scope consistent with maximum clarity. But theory involves abstraction from particulars, and the act of abstraction necessarily leaves something behind. What is left behind might be important, and if so, that ought also to be the object of investigation. A good theory should be compatible with work on the particulars of the subject matter, and it should give that work a simple and natural structure. We want it to clarify and resolve the muddles we get into when we focus on one particular at a time, and above all, a theory should strengthen our grasp of the whole. What we should scrupulously strive to avoid is a way of theorizing that leaves behind what is most important. Bernard Williams xiii

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Preface claims that that is what has happened with the most abstract ethical concepts – right, good, and duty, what he calls the “thin” ethical concepts. But even if moral practice could survive the elimination of these concepts, how could we understand such a morality? Abstraction gives us scope, and thinness is the price of scope and a certain kind of understanding. Some philosophers would gladly sacrifice scope for something else that they value – richness, thickness, imaginative power. I suspect that this difference in values can be largely explained by differences in philosophical temperament. What is depth? Do we understand moral reality more deeply when we concentrate on what theory leaves behind and try to reveal that part of reality that resides in the most subtle detail? Or does theory have its own kind of depth? The theory of this book is designed to honor both theory and narrative detail by explaining the importance of narrative in the structure of the theory, but I will not tell many stories. I will attempt to situate the idea of the paradigmatically good person within the metaphysics of morals. The theory proposes that the most basic moral feature of the universe is the way such a person perceives the world, a kind of perception that is affective and that is expressed in “thick” concepts. An affective perception of the world is what I believe constitutes an emotion. What follows is an ethical theory based on the emotions of a perfect being. Norman, Oklahoma May 28, 2003

xiv

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Acknowledgments

The idea for this book originated in a response I gave to a paper by Bill Rowe on John Hick’s way of handling the problem of evil, at a conference on Hick’s work at Claremont McKenna College, April 7–8, 1989. At that time, I was writing a book on the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge, and I decided to leave for another time the task of investigating whether the idea had any merit. Since then, I have worked on parts of the theory in a number of papers and have been influenced by the work of many philosophers, sometimes without realizing it until I read their work a second time. I know that this is true of the influence of Bob Adams and Bill Alston. It is no doubt true of many other people whom I cannot name. I especially want to thank Tom Carson, whom I have never met. He read and commented on the entire manuscript, and during the course of e-mail correspondence we discovered many mutual interests and ideas. I wrote a first draft of the book during the academic year 1998– 99, while I was on leave from Loyola Marymount University as Senior Fellow in the Lilly Fellows Program at Valparaiso University. I am grateful to Loyola Marymount and to the Lilly Foundation for support during that year. In the fall of 1999, I began teaching at the University of Oklahoma and taught a graduate seminar on the manuscript. I thank the students in that seminar for their many probing questions and objections. On April 19–20, 2001, the xv

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Acknowledgments Philosophy Department and the College of Arts and Sciences at OU hosted a conference on my work to inaugurate my chair. Bill Alston gave a paper at that conference critiquing Divine Motivation theory, which was invaluable in getting me to introduce the theory in a different way. I spent May 2000 as a guest of the Theology Department at the University of Uppsala. Some of the work of this project was presented there, and I thank my hosts, Eberhard Hermann and Mikael Stenmark, and the Swedish government for bringing me there for a month of interesting conversation in a beautiful place. I also thank John Hare and Calvin College’s Center for Christian Scholarship for bringing me to Calvin for a week of philosophical conversation in August of 2000. John Hare, Bob Roberts, and I read large portions of each other’s related book manuscripts and enjoyed a lively week of discussion and debate. In the spring of 2002, I had teaching leave from OU to work on the manuscript, and I thank the Philosophy Department for its support. I also thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for a Summer Stipend for the summer of 2002, during which time I wrote a completely new draft of the first eight chapters. Baylor University graciously invited me to spend several days there in talks and private discussions with members of the Philosophy Department in March 2003. I am especially grateful to Bob Roberts, Jay Wood, and Steve Evans for their comments on several chapters of the book. Finally, I want to thank my research assistants, Kyle Johnson and Tony Flood, who provided me valuable bibliographic assistance and help with preparing the final version of the manuscript. Ideas from a number of my previously published papers are used in various chapters of the book: Portions of “Emotion and Moral Judgment,” Philosophy and Phenomenological 66:1 (January 2003), pp. 104–124, appear in Chapters 2 and 3. Ideas from “The Virtues of God and the Foundations of Ethics,” Faith and Philosophy 15:4 (October 1998), pp. 538–552, appear in Chapter 5. xvi

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

May 7, 2004

8:36

Acknowledgments Portions of “The Incarnation and Virtue Ethics,” in The Incarnation, edited by Daniel J. Kendall and Gerald O’ Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), appear in Chapter 6. Some of the ideas in “Perfect Goodness and Divine Motivation Theory,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 21 (1997) (Philosophy of Religion), pp. 296–310, are used in Chapter 7. Fragments from “An Agent-Based Approach to the Problem of Evil,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 39 (June 1996), pp. 127–139, appear in Chapter 8. Some of the principles of rationality proposed in Chapter 9 come from “Religious Diversity and Social Responsibility,” Logos 4:1 (Winter 2001), pp. 135–155; published in Spanish in Comprender la religion, edited by Javier Aranguren, Jon Borobia, and Miguel Lluch, Eunsa (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 2001), pp. 69–85. Some discussion of the Divine Command theory of Bob Adams in Chapter 6 is taken from “Obligation, Good Motives, and the Good” (symposium paper on Robert M. Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64:2 (March 2002), pp. 453–458. I thank all those from whom I benefited in writing these papers as well. Many people have encouraged the development of my ideas; some keep me within the bounds of critical normalcy; most do both. I am very grateful for all of these friendships.

xvii

P1: KcS Aggragation.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

xviii

May 7, 2004

8:36

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Part I Motivation-based virtue ethics

This book exhibits a way to structure a virtue ethics with a theological foundation. Since the foundation is an extension of virtue discourse to the moral properties of God, the theory might be called a divine virtue theory. In Part I, I give the framework for a distinctive kind of virtue ethics I call motivation-based. This type of theory makes the moral properties of persons, acts, and the outcomes of acts derivative from a good motive, the most basic component of a virtue, where what I mean by a motive is an emotion that initiates and directs action. Chapter 1 raises the central problems involved in providing an adequate metaphysics of value for virtue theory and proposes the methodology of exemplarism. Chapter 2 gives an account of emotion and its intrinsic value. Chapter 3 defines a good end, a good outcome, the good for a human being, and virtue in terms of a good emotion. Chapter 4 shows how the moral properties of acts can be defined in terms of a good emotion. In Part II, I will propose a Christian form of the theory according to which the motivations of a perfect Deity are the ultimate foundation of all value. I call the enhanced theory Divine Motivation theory.

1

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

2

April 18, 2004

11:44

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Chapter 1 Constructing an ethical theory

The virtuous person is a sort of measure and rule for human acts. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics X.5

i value concepts and the metaphysics of value Let us begin with good and bad. One of the things I will argue in this book is that the ways of having value are not all forms of good and bad, but because good and bad are as close to basic as we are going to get, I begin with them for simplicity. One of the most obvious but also most troublesome features of good and bad is that they apply to things in a variety of metaphysical categories: objects of many kinds, persons and their states and traits, acts, and the outcomes of acts. We also call states of affairs good or bad apart from their status as act outcomes, and we call certain things designated by abstract names good – life, nature, knowledge, art, philosophy, and many others. Some of the things in this last category belong in one of the other categories, but perhaps not all do. Do the items in these different categories have anything nontrivial in common? One plausible answer is that they are all related to persons. That answer applies to states of persons such as pleasure or happiness, character traits, motives, intentions, acts and 3

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics their outcomes, and states of affairs that are valuable to persons in some way, whether or not they are produced by human acts. But even if human persons did not exist, some of the items of value just mentioned would still exist and would still be valuable – for example, life and nature – so the suggestion that everything good or bad is related to persons is too limiting. But in another way, it may not be limiting enough, since ultimately everything is probably of some concern to persons. Traditional ethics has been much more restrictive. It focuses on the human act and that to which an act is causally connected, either forward or backward.1 For the most part, I will follow common practice in limiting my subject matter in this way, although I am not convinced that there are especially good reasons for doing so. My focus will be mostly on the states of affairs to which human agents respond when they act, the psychic states and dispositions that produce acts, acts themselves, and the outcomes of acts. Moral philosophers have generally regarded these objects of evaluation as particularly important. They are also thought to be intimately related. It is hardly controversial that a good person generally acts from good motives and forms good intentions to do good acts and, with a bit of luck, produces good outcomes. What is at issue is not the fact that such relations obtain, but the order of priority in these relations. The question of priority arises in more than one way. One is conceptual: Is there a relation of dependency among the concepts of good person, good motive, good act, and good outcome? If so, what is the shape of that dependency? Is one of these concepts basic and the rest derivative from it? Notice that this is a question not of conceptual analysis but of theory construction. Theories do not describe so much as they create conceptual relations. The theorist is concerned with whether a good person should be defined as a person who acts from good motives, or as one who produces good outcomes, or as one who does good acts. Should a good act be understood as an act done by a good person, or as an act 1

The new field of environmental ethics may indicate that contemporary ethics is moving away from a focus on human beings, but even that is unclear, because environmental ethics usually emphasizes the ways the environment is impacted by human acts.

4

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory done from a good motive, or as an act that produces good states of affairs? Is a virtue a quality that leads to the performance of good (alternatively, right) acts, or one that leads to good outcomes, or is a virtue more basic than either acts or outcomes? Of course, these are not the only options for the relationships among these concepts, but they are among the simplest. A related but distinct question is this: Is there a relationship of metaphysical dependency among the different categories of things with value? Are some bearers of value or some moral properties more basic than others? If so, which is the most basic, and how do the things in other categories derive their value from the more basic ones? According to consequentialism, an act gets its moral value (generally called rightness rather than goodness) from the goodness of its outcome or the outcome of acts of the same type. Consequentialism may be intended as an answer to the first question and hence as a conceptual thesis, but it can also be intended as a thesis in the metaphysics of value. If it is the former, it is the proposal that we ought to think of the rightness of acts as determined by the goodness of their consequences; this way of thinking is recommended as preferable to alternatives. If the thesis is the latter, it is the claim that the value of an act actually arises from the value of outcomes. Similarly, the thesis of a certain kind of Kantian ethics can be understood as proposing either a conceptual or a metaphysical priority between the value of an act of will and the value of the end the will aims to bring about. If it is the latter, it is the thesis that the value of the end of an act arises from the value of a property of the will that produces it. Christine Korsgaard expresses this position when she says value “flows into” the world from a rational will.2 Here, Korsgaard’s thesis is one about the source of value, not about how we ought to define the concept of a good end. It is a thesis in moral ontology. Conceptual order may or may not be isomorphic with ontological order. It would be helpful if it were, but it is also possible that our concepts do not map ontology. In the first part of this book, I will argue for a certain way of conceptualizing morality. I will propose a theory in which good motives are conceptually more 2

“Kant’s Formula of Humanity,” in Korsgaard (1996a), p. 110.

5

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics basic than good traits, good acts, and good outcomes of acts and will outline a metaphysical theory to accompany it. In Part II, I will propose a more substantial theory in theistic metaphysics according to which the motives of God are the ontological basis for the value of everything outside of God. The two parts of the book are detachable, but together they outline a moral theory whose conceptual structure is mirrored in the metaphysics of value. The realm of value is usually considered to be broader than the realm of moral value, since aesthetic value, epistemic value, the values of etiquette, and perhaps the values of health and happiness are nonmoral values. That is possible, but I will have very little to say about the distinction between moral and nonmoral value in this book, both because I have never heard of a way of making the distinction that I found plausible and because I do not think the distinction is very important. Since the theory of this book is structured around the traditional units of moral theory – acts, motives, ends, and outcomes – the values discussed are mainly moral values, but I will sometimes venture beyond the traditional category of the moral without comment. It is sometimes said that what makes the territory of the moral distinctive is a strong notion of obligation. I see no reason to think that is true, but the relationship between value and obligation has been an important issue in modern moral theory. The categories of the obligatory or required and the wrong or forbidden are distinct from the axiological categories of good and bad. So in addition to sorting out the relationships among the various kinds of things that are good and bad, there is also the problem of specifying the relationship between the good and bad, on the one hand, and the required and forbidden, on the other. Again, this question can be about either conceptual or ontological priority. Value is presumably broader than the required or forbidden, since it is usually thought that the latter applies only to the category of acts and intentions to perform acts.3 Persons and states of affairs can be good or bad, but they cannnot be required or forbidden. An act can be 3

A notable exception is that Christians may say that we are obligated to love. But it is rare in moral philosophy to make an emotion, or any psychic state other than an act of will, a matter of duty or obligation.

6

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory good or bad, but it can also be required or forbidden, obligatory or wrong. Presumably there is some connection between the two kinds of evaluation. There are moral philosophers who have maintained that requirement is conceptually more basic than good and have defined good as that which requires a response of a particular kind – for example, the attitude of love.4 Others have maintained that good is conceptually more basic than requirement and have defined wrong and the obligatory in terms of the attitude or behavior of good (virtuous) persons.5 Both of these positions are conceptual, not metaphysical. Robert Adams (1999, Chapter 10) has recently argued that the good is ontologically more basic than the obligatory, but that the latter is not derivative from the former. Of course, there are many other options. I will propose an account of the way in which obligation derives from value in Chapter 4. Moral theorists who ask questions about the priority of one moral concept over another give radically different answers, but they all share the assumption that it is a good thing to attempt to construct a conceptual framework that simplifies our thinking about the moral life. I will go through a series of alternative frameworks in section IV, but as I mentioned in the Preface, some writers doubt the wisdom of any such project on the grounds that theory distorts morality.6 I have said that I regard theory as a good thing. I do not deny that it distorts the subject to some extent, but in compensation, theory helps us understand more with less effort. I mention this now, not to defend the project of developing conceptual frameworks, but to point out that while it can be debated whether conceptual moral frameworks are a good thing, the same debate does not arise about the metaphysics of morals. The questions of what value is, of where it comes from, and of whether value in one category arises from value in another are all 4 5

6

See Chisholm (1986), pp. 52ff. Rosalind Hursthouse does this in several places, most recently in her book On Virtue Ethics. I present a similar way of defining a right act in Virtues of the Mind, at the end of Part II. I will pursue a version of this approach in Chapter 4 of this book. There is a substantial literature on anti-theory since Williams (1985), which has been very influential in leading some ethicists to eschew theory. See also the collection by Clarke and Simpson (1989).

7

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics important philosophical questions. Of course, we may doubt that we will ever get plausible answers to these questions, but that is not the worry that the anti-theorists have about theory construction. In what follows, I will present both a conceptual theory and a metaphysical theory of value. Objections to the two projects will differ, but my intention is to enhance the plausibility of each by its relation to the other.

ii three puzzles to solve There are three sets of puzzles that drive the project I am describing in this book. One of my purposes is to propose a theory that solves, or at least makes it easier to solve, these three sets of puzzles. The first set of puzzles is in moral psychology. The second is in the metaphysics of value. The third is in natural theology. Each of these puzzles has a large literature, and my purpose in this section is not to discuss them in any detail but rather to call attention to them and to the way the need to resolve them constrains what is desirable in an ethical theory. 1 A puzzle in moral psychology: cognitivism versus noncognitivism One of the most enduring legacies of David Hume is his claim in the Treatise of Human Nature that cognitive and affective states are distinct and independent states. The former is representational, the latter is not (Book II, section 3, p. 415). The latter motivates, the former does not (p. 414). The terminology for describing psychic states has changed since Hume, but the moral commonly drawn from Hume’s arguments is essentially this: No representational state (perceptual or cognitive) has the most significant property of affective states, the capacity to motivate. An affective state must be added to any cognitive state in order to motivate action, and the motivating state and the cognitive state are always separable; they are related, at best, causally. This position immediately conflicts with the intuition that moral judgments are both cognitive and motivating. Moral judgments seem to be cognitive because they are often propositional in form, have a truth value (and are not always false), and when 8

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory a person makes a moral judgment, he asserts that proposition and others may deny it. On the other hand, we typically expect moral judgments to be motivating. A simple way to see that is to consider our practices of moral persuasion. If we want to convince someone to act in a certain way for moral reasons, we direct our efforts toward convincing her to make the relevant moral judgment herself. If we can get her to do that, we normally think that she will thereby be motivated to act on it. Of course, we know that she may not be sufficiently motivated to act on it, because she may also have contrary motives, but the point is that we think that we have succeeded in getting her to feel a motive to act on a moral judgment as soon as we get her to make the judgment. If the Humean view is correct, however, a moral judgment can motivate only if it is affective – that is, noncognitive. The Humean view therefore compels us to choose between the position that a moral judgment is cognitive and the position that it is motivating. The problem is that we expect it to be both. The phenomena of moral strength and weakness highlight some of the problems with the Humean psychology. It often happens that a moral agent struggles before acting when he makes a moral judgment. Sometimes he acts in accordance with his judgment and sometimes he does not, but the fact that he struggles indicates that a motive to act on the judgment accompanies the judgment. When he is morally strong, a motive sufficient for action accompanies his judgment; when he is morally weak, a motive insufficient for action accompanies his judgment. Either way, we think that a motive in some degree accompanies the judgment. But if the making of a moral judgment is a purely cognitive state, and if cognitive and motivating states are essentially distinct, the motive must come from something other than the judgment, something that is not an intrinsic component of it. Moral strength and weakness therefore pose a problem for cognitivism. It may also happen that the agent acts on a moral judgment without struggle, but that case does not help the cognitivist, because we tend to think that when struggle is unnecessary, the reason is that the moral judgment carries with it a motive sufficiently strong to cause the agent to act without struggle. So whether or 9

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics not there is struggle, and whether or not the agent acts in accordance with her judgment, there is a strong inclination to expect moral judgments to be motivating. Among those who accept a Humean psychology, the noncognitivists are better placed than the cognitivists to explain moral strength and weakness, since the former see moral judgment as intrinsically motivating. But noncognitivists face a related problem, the problem of moral apathy.7 The morally apathetic person makes a moral judgment while completely lacking any motive to act on it. Given what has already been said, we would expect this phenomenon to be rare, but it probably does exist, and it is a problem for both cognitivism and noncognitivism. Given that the cognitivist maintains that a moral judgment is a purely cognitive state, he has the problem of explaining why we find moral apathy surprising. But the noncognitivist cannot explain why it exists at all. There should be no such thing as apathy, according to noncognitivism, insofar as noncognitivism takes the motivational force of a moral judgment to be an essential feature of each such judgment. The Humean view on the essential distinctness of cognitive and motivating states forces us to give up something in our ordinary ways of thinking about moral judgment, yet I believe that that view is less plausible than what it forces us to give up. Nonetheless, the phenomena of moral strength, weakness, and apathy suggest that what we intuitively expect is complicated. It should turn out that a moral judgment is both cognitive and intrinsically motivating in enough central cases that we can see why we find the phenomena of strength, weakness, and apathy surprising. These phenomena indicate that the strength of the motivational force of a judgment varies, and that it is possible for the motive to disappear entirely. In what follows, I will aim for an account of moral judgment according to which there is a primary class of moral judgments that express states that are both cognitive and intrinsically motivating. I will later give an account of the “thinning” of moral 7

Alfred Mele (1996) calls this problem “moral listlessness.” See also Michael Stocker (1979).

10

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory judgment that permits the motivational force of a moral judgment to be detachable from it in such a way that moral strength, weakness, and apathy may occur. 2 Some puzzles in the metaphysics of value Philosophers often find evaluative properties more problematic than descriptive properties. The reason for the worry is unclear, but perhaps we do not need reasons to find something peculiar. Peculiarity is only one of the problems, however. Even if there is nothing especially odd about value, valuable objects, or evaluative properties, there is something in need of explanation if some things (properties) are evaluative and some are not. At a minimum, we want to figure out where value comes from and how it relates to the natural or descriptive – or to whatever value is contrasted with. If the evaluative differs from the nonevaluative in some significant way, that may mean that we come to know it in a different way. The issue of the way we come to make value judgments is therefore related to the issue of the nature of the objects of such judgments. Difficulties in finding a plausible account of moral judgment are closely connected with difficulties in finding a plausible account of what those judgments are about. The problem in moral psychology of choosing between cognitivism and noncognitivism therefore leads us into the problem in metaphysics of choosing between value realism and value antirealism.8 Value realism is the position that value properties exist in a world independent of the human mind. I assume that value realism is the default position for the same reason that realism about sensory properties is the default position: Objects outside the mind plainly appear to have (some) evaluative properties just as much as they appear to have (some) nonevaluative properties. If I see someone taking advantage of a weaker subordinate, it may be just as apparent to me that there is badness in the act as that the act 8

Realism about value is commonly called “moral realism,” but the issue is more general than the nature of moral value.

11

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics causes distress. The judgment “That act is bad” is on a par with the judgment “That act causes distress” in the clarity of its meaning and the conviction of its truth. There is allegedly a puzzle about the grounds for the truth value of the first judgment that does not arise about the second, but I am not much taken by this worry. I do not see anything more mysterious about the reality of value than about the reality of causes. What does sound mysterious is the intuitionism that usually accompanies value realism, for we plainly don’t have an account of how we come to make value judgments to anything like the extent to which we have an account of how we come to make descriptive judgments, particularly the subset of descriptive judgments that are perceptual. For this reason, I think that a theory that explains our ability to detect value without referring to unanalyzed intuition has an advantage, and in what follows I will attempt to begin identifying the capacities and processes through which we form moral judgments. The more serious problem for value realism is that evaluative and nonevaluative properties appear to differ in a way that needs explanation. Nonetheless, the distinction is not clear-cut. Consider the following list of properties: square, salty, yellow, smooth, reliable, brutal, honorable, contemptible, pitiful, offensive, funny, exciting, nauseating. Which properties on this list are evaluative and which are descriptive? Most of them appear to be both, which raises the further question of how the two aspects come to be combined in so many properties if they differ in some metaphysically fundamental way. But they do seem to differ, and it is commonly thought that they differ in that some exist in a world independent of the mind, but most do not. Furthermore, it is also commonly thought that their degree of independence of the mind is related to their degree of perceiver variability. Allegedly, the less variation there is among observers in the perception of a property, the more independent of human minds the property is, and hence the more real it is in some pre-theoretic sense of the real. Usually, this view is thought to have the consequence that square is more real than any of the other properties on the list, that yellow is less so, that pitiful is even less so, and that nauseating is least of all. It is surprising that this conclusion is so common, since it depends upon at least two disputable theses: (1) that perceptual variability is inversely 12

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory proportional to degree of existence in a mind-independent world (apparently there are degrees of reality), and (2) that square is less perceptually relative than the other properties on the list. The simplest form of value realism is the position that value properties are like square. This is highly implausible, but not because it is obvious that value properties are not as much a part of an independent world as is square, nor because the thesis that value properties are like square must reject at least one of the assumptions just mentioned. Simple value realism is implausible because it attempts to maintain the reality of value properties by ignoring the differences between evaluative and descriptive properties. The properties on the list differ from square and from each other in a number of ways. Some are more observer-variable than square. More importantly, many of them are not detectable through sensory powers alone. To say that contemptible is like square does not explain what value is, and more importantly, it does not explain the fact that whatever value is, it is contrasted with something that is not value. It seems to me, then, that the project of defending the place of value properties in a mind-independent world should not depend upon the view that there are no significant differences between value properties and nonvalue properties. For this reason, the situation is no better if we go the other way and claim that value properties are like nauseating or exciting in that they are not part of an independent world. This is often associated with the further position that value properties express or project properties of the observer. Again, this is highly implausible, not because it is obvious that these properties are part of an independent world, but because this position does not explain the fact that the properties on the list are not all the same. They are not all detectable through the same faculties, and we need an explanation for this difference. This seems to me to be a more serious problem than the objection commonly given to antirealism about value, namely, that it makes value trivial. If value properties are nothing but properties expressing a response in or an attitude of the observer, then, the objection goes, there is no more reason to be interested in them than there is to be interested in what is nauseating or exciting. My interest does not extend beyond what is nauseating, exciting, good, or bad to me. I find this objection 13

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics unconvincing. It seems to me that the position that value properties are projections or expressions of observer responses in fact guarantees that these properties are of interest to us, the observers. Of course, it follows on the antirealist position that value properties are not of interest from Sidgwick’s “point of view of the universe,” since they are not in a mind-independent world. But it is not obvious that we should care about that more than we care about what is nauseating, exciting, boring (etc.) to ourselves. I am not denying that an argument can be given that we should care about that, but it does take an argument. And whether or not one can be satisfactorily given, the fact that the properties on the list are not all on a par remains a puzzle in need of explanation. Many moral theorists aim at a position somewhere between realism and antirealism. This seems sensible if we take the conservative approach of accepting both the thesis that degree of reality in an independent world is inversely proportional to degree of perceiver variation, and the view that the evaluative properties on the list are somewhere between square and nauseating in their degree of perceiver variation. I have already said that I find both assumptions questionable, but what makes this task particularly daunting is that it is very hard to see how there can be any such position. The reason is that realism is usually associated with cognitivism, and antirealism with noncognitivism. Granted, there is no necessary connection between the metaphysical thesis and the thesis in moral psychology, but suppose that we accept the Humean position that cognitive and affective states are necessarily distinct, and suppose also that we assume that the objects of cognitive states are necessarily distinct from the objects of affective states, if the latter have objects at all. Suppose also that according to value realism, moral properties are the objects of cognitive states, and that according to value antirealism, moral properties are the objects of, or are constructed out of, affective states. It follows that we have to choose between realism and antirealism for the same reason that we have to choose between cognitivism and noncognitivism. This argument also has disputable assumptions, but one way to avoid the conclusion is to begin with the desideratum I identified from the first puzzle. If I am right that there are moral judgments 14

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory expressing states that combine the cognitive and the affective in a way that is not simply causal, the objects of such states may also differ from the objects of purely cognitive or purely affective states. If so, this would give us hope of getting a theory that is genuinely distinct from both realism and antirealism. One of my purposes in this book is to propose a way to think about value and the detection of value that leaves intact the pre-theoretic intuition that evaluative properties are properties in an independent world, but that also explains the difference between descriptive and evaluative properties. 3 Some puzzles in natural theology The first two sets of puzzles are problems with the property of goodness and related properties. The third set of puzzles are problems with the property of perfect goodness. The idea of perfect goodness has a long history in Christian philosophy, one with strong Platonic roots. Usually, but controversially, perfect goodness is thought to entail the maximal degree of goodness. In addition, perfect goodness has traditionally been thought to entail impeccability, the property of being unable to do anything bad. But impeccability appears to conflict with the attributes of omnipotence and freedom. If God is impeccable, there are things he cannot do, namely, acts that are evil or that express evil traits. But for the same reason that perfect goodness is thought to entail the maximal degree of goodness, omnipotence is thought to entail the maximal degree of power. There are many different accounts of what maximal power consists in, but it has often been understood as something close to the power to do anything possible.9 But since doing evil is a possible thing to do, if a perfectly good being lacks the power to do evil, such a being lacks the power to do something possible, and hence is not omnipotent. This puzzle was brought into the contemporary literature 9

This assumption has been challenged by many writers on omnipotence, but it is important to see that it is an assumption that is given up only because of logical puzzles. The starting point is the assumption that omnipotence entails the ability to do anything possible.

15

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics by Nelson Pike (1969), but it was discussed in the Middle Ages, and Aquinas’s way out is well known (ST I, a. 3, q. 25, obj. 2 and reply). The reasoning behind the alleged incompatibility of perfect goodness and omnipotence leads to a second puzzle. Under the assumption that a perfectly good being is incapable of doing evil or of willing anything but good, the will of such a being does not appear to be free in any morally significant sense. On a standard interpretation of the conditions for moral praise and blame in the human case, persons are morally praised because they choose the good when they could have chosen evil, and they are morally blamed because they choose evil when they could have chosen good. Of course, the understanding of moral praise and blame as conditioned upon the ability to do otherwise is a modern idea, and the idea that the ability to do otherwise is morally meaningless unless it includes the ability to choose something with the contrary value is open to dispute, but both of these assumptions are ones that many philosophers accept. But if perfect goodness involves the inability to choose evil, a perfectly good being is not free in the morally significant sense. Further, it follows that a perfectly good being cannot be praised in the moral sense of praise and hence cannot be good in the moral sense of good. This leads to a third problem. If the concept of perfect goodness is meant to include moral goodness, and yet the concept of perfect goodness is inconsistent with the concept of moral goodness, as allegedly demonstrated by the foregoing argument, it apparently follows that the concept of perfect goodness is self-inconsistent. An even harder problem for the attribute of perfect goodness is the apparent incompatibility between perfect goodness and omnipotence, on the one hand, and the existence of evil, on the other. Not only is the problem of evil the single most difficult problem in natural theology, it also poses a serious challenge to the religious belief of ordinary people. The logical form of the problem is the putative conceptual inconsistency among the following propositions: (1) A perfectly good being would be motivated to eliminate all evil.

16

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory (2) An omnipotent being would be able to eliminate all evil. (3) There is a being who is both perfectly good and omnipotent. (4) Evil exists.

It is now widely held that these propositions are not logically inconsistent, and in recent years greater attention has been focused on the problem that these propositions seem to be jointly improbable. They therefore pose a problem for the rationality or justification of religious belief even if they are not logically inconsistent.10 The apparent inconsistency or joint improbability of (1)–(4) needs to be resolved. There have been many attempts to show that (1)–(4) are not jointly improbable or that it can be rational to believe them. I find some of these arguments plausible, and I would not find it surprising if there is more than one way to show the rationality of a given set of beliefs, even a set as apparently threatening as (1)–(4). But as I see it, the problem of evil is serious enough that the more central to the theory of value a given solution is, the better. It is important that the rationality of believing (1)–(4) not be an ad hoc solution invented to fix the problem, but rather that it follow naturally from the theory itself. I will aim for an approach of that kind. The same point applies to the problem that perfect goodness appears to be incompatible with omnipotence and divine freedom, and that the concept of perfect moral goodness appears to be selfinconsistent. If the metaphysics of value in conjunction with an account of the divine attributes generates a puzzle that can be solved by amending something either in value theory or in natural theology, that may be acceptable; but it would be preferable if, given the metaphysics of value and natural theology, the problem did not arise. I will aim for a theory on the nature and origin of value from which the puzzles do not arise, or do not arise in their most threatening form. This will be the task for Chapters 7 and 8. 10

This has been recognized from the beginning of the contemporary discussion stemming from J. L. Mackie’s famous paper (1955). More recent examples appear in Howard-Snyder (1996); see especially the paper by Richard Gale in that volume.

17

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics

iii some confusions i wish to avoid 1 States of affairs versus outcomes I want to make it clear at the outset that I do not think of an outcome as the same as a state of affairs. The outcome of an act is a state of affairs, but there are states of affairs that are not the outcomes of acts – for example, a meteor crashing into the Earth. Of course, nobody is likely to confuse an astronomical event with the outcome of an act, but the confusion is just as mistaken when a state of affairs is also the outcome of an act. The same state of affairs can be evaluated either as an act outcome or independently of its status as an outcome, that is, as a state of affairs simpliciter. Consider the state of affairs of some human or animal feeling pain. I would agree with most others that that is a bad state of affairs. It is bad no matter where it comes from, and we know that because we say it is bad without first inquiring into its origin. But suppose that the pain is the outcome of an act. Suppose, in fact, that it is intentionally inflicted by a human agent. We can evaluate that state of affairs as the outcome of an act, and as an outcome it is bad in a different way. It has another sort of badness than the badness of the mere state of affairs of someone’s feeling pain. It does not actually matter for my point that it is a different sort of badness, although I think that it is. What matters is that it is an additional badness. The evaluation comes out differently when the state of affairs is evaluated as an act outcome than when it is not. In both cases, it comes out bad, but as an outcome it has an additional badness that it would not have if the pain were accidental. The analogous point applies to pleasure. Pleasure intentionally produced is better than pleasure accidentally produced, even when the state of affairs is otherwise the same. There is one state of affairs of Eve’s feeling pleasure at a particular time, but that state of affairs can be evaluated as the outcome of Adam’s act or just as a state of affairs simpliciter.11 11

The analogous point applies to true belief. I have argued elsewhere that in order to understand what makes knowledge better than true belief, we need to look at the source of true belief in human agency. See Zagzebski (2001a, 2003a)

18

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory This point will be important when we get to my account of human acts in the rest of Part 1. I will argue that typically an act is a response to the affective perception of some preexisting state of affairs, and that the act produces another state of affairs that is its outcome. The evaluation of the outcome of the act is different in kind from the evaluation of the state of affairs to which the agent is responding. The former is evaluated in relation to the prior act that produced it; the latter is not. 2 Intrinsic good versus the good of ends Christine Korsgaard (1983) has reminded us of the distinction between intrinsic good and the good of ends in a very interesting paper, “Two Distinctions In Goodness.” Later, I will argue that the concept of intrinsic good is ambiguous, and the sense Korsgaard uses is not the one I will use. But the point I want to make initially is just that an intrinsic good should not be confused with a good end, and that this is the case whether we mean “end” in the sense of a natural telos, or “end” in the sense of a conscious aim. The difference between intrinsic and extrinsic goods is a difference in the location of value. An intrinsic good gets its goodness from itself; an extrinsic good derives its goodness from something else. By contrast, the difference between goods as ends and goods as means is a difference in the way we value things. It is a distinction in goods considered as objects of desire or choice. Something can be valued as an end in itself – that is, not as a means – even though it is not an intrinsic good. For example, Korsgaard says that happiness is such a good according to Kant. That is because happiness is sought as an end, not as a means to something else, even though the value of happiness is conditional, and Korsgaard infers from that that it is extrinsic. I will argue later that Korsgaard is mistaken in thinking that something is an extrinsic good because its goodness is conditional, but she is right that happiness can be good as an end and not as a means and yet be good extrinsically as long as it derives its goodness from something else – for example, a good will. So something can be good as an end even though it is not intrinsically good. I also maintain that something can be an intrinsic 19

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics good even though it is not good as an end, although Korsgaard does not discuss that possibility.12 For one thing, there are intrinsic goods that ought not to be ends of action. Pleasure for oneself is often in this category, as well as many good emotions. (Think, for example, how odd it is in most circumstances to aim at feeling love.) There are also things that are both intrinsically good and good as ends, but even then we should distinguish the two ways in which they are good. God is said to be a final end, not desirable as a means to something else, but to say that God is intrinsically good is not to say that. It is to say that God is not made good by anything else. In addition, there may be intrinsic goods that are not the sort of thing that can coherently be considered something we choose or at which we aim. The beauty of nature may be an intrinsic aesthetic good, but ordinarily it cannot be good as an end because it cannot be an end, since we cannot choose means to bring it about.13 The goods of fortune (such as health, long life, and the absence of war and strife) may also be intrinsically good, even though it is very difficult, and in some cases impossible, for them to be the objects of our aims – although they can be ends in the related sense of objects of desire, and according to Aristotle they are components of eudaimonia, our natural end. I would also propose that the value of personhood is intrinsic, but it does not make sense to say that it is desirable as an end in itself, because personhood is not the kind of thing that can be either chosen or desired, and because nothing is a means to it, nor is it a natural telos in the Aristotelian sense.14 12

13

14

Korsgaard has said in correspondence that she does not think that there can be intrinsic goods that are not good as ends; in fact, she now thinks that there are no intrinsic goods at all. Not even a good will is intrinsically good. All value is conferred by human choice. But as we will see, Korsgaard means something different from what I mean by intrinsic good. See Korsgaard (1996b) for the development of her view on intrinsic goods since the publication of “Two Distinctions of Goodness.” Actually, we can, up to a point, bring about the beauty of nature by cultivating gardens. But the result is no longer nature, but nature improved by art. Kant, of course, makes the idea that persons are ends in themselves a cornerstone of his theory. But in making that claim, Kant is referring to the way persons ought to be treated. Since it is possible to treat persons as

20

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory The mistake of confusing intrinsic good and the good of ends is typically made by assimilating the former to the latter. Korsgaard discusses the way in which this error has arisen in recent philosophy, but it can also be found in Plato and Aristotle. Plato says that the good is what every soul pursues (Republic, Book 6), and Aristotle begins the Nicomachean Ethics with the pronouncement, “Every craft and every investigation, and likewise every action and decision, seems to aim at some good; hence the good has been well described as that at which everything aims” (emphasis added). By claiming that the good just is the good of ends, Aristotle and Plato ignore intrinsic good. Many contemporary philosophers make the same mistake. The conflation of intrinsic good with the good of ends is partly responsible for J. L. Mackie’s famous complaint about the oddity of morality. Mackie says: The Form of the Good is such that knowledge of it provides the knower with both a direction and an overriding motive; something’s being good both tells the person who knows this to pursue it and makes him pursue it. An objective good would be sought by anyone who was acquainted with it, not because of any contingent fact that this person, or every person, is so constituted that he desires this end, but just because the end has to-be-pursuedness somehow built into it. (Mackie 1977, p. 40)

It does seem odd that a property in the world could be essentially magnetic to any perceiver of it, but the peculiarity arises largely because Mackie assumes that objective value is the value of ends, means, to say that a person is an end in Kant’s sense is just to say that he ought not to be treated that way. The good of ends in the Kantian sense, in the Aristotelian sense, and in the sense of aims must all be distinguished from intrinsic good, since the former have to do with the way we value things rather than with the source of the value. This may be less clear in the Aristotelian sense of “end” than in the other two. That is because an Aristotelian telos is given to us by nature and we need not be explicitly conscious of it, although Aristotle thought that we do consciously aim at our telos, eudaimonia, but with only a dim awareness of our target. People all agree that we’re aiming at eudaimonia, but disagree about what it consists in.

21

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics of objects of pursuit. If value is objective, he assumes, it must exercise its motivational force from outside the mind. But there is also the possibility that there are things that are intrinsically – and hence objectively – good, but that are not ends. They may also motivate, but as forces inside the mind moving the agent to act rather than as magnets attracting the agent to them. I see no reason to deny that there are states in the mind that are intrinsically good. Many philosophers already think that there are states in the mind that have intrinsic epistemic value – for example, true beliefs. Why not think that there are other psychic states with intrinsic value as well, even moral value? I will argue in Chapter 2 that emotions can have intrinsic value. I do not expect readers to be convinced yet of the truth of this claim, but only of its possibility. However, its possibility will not occur to anyone who does not distinguish intrinsic good from the good of ends. 3 Motive versus aim A related confusion is that between motive and aim. It is often convenient to identify a motive by its end, since we name a motive in the context of giving an explanation for an act, and an easy way to explain an act is to show how that act constitutes the specific means to some specific end of the agent. For example, the agent’s searching behavior is explained by pointing out that she aims at finding her keys, and this can be expressed by saying that her motive is to find her keys. Or her behavior of preparing her r´esum´e and reading the classified ads is explained by saying that her end is getting a job, and so it is said that her motive is to get a job. But it confuses the nature of motives to identify them by their ends, for several reasons. For one thing, more than one motive can have the same end; there is more than one motive aimed at getting a job. More importantly, even though motives have characteristic ends, the intentional structure of a motive is quite different from the structure of a psychic state that aims at a particular end. We can see this by comparing motive explanation with means-end explanation of human action. Means-end explanation tells us why an agent acts under the assumption that he has a certain end, but a further explanation is needed for the fact that he has the end 22

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory that he has. Motive explanation tells us why the agent does x, not because x leads to y and the agent aims at y, but because x-behavior exhibits motive M (love, jealousy, compassion, etc.), we understand what it is like to be in state M, and we see that x-behavior is part of a pattern of behavior exhibiting M. Motive explanation explains a much wider range of an agent’s behavior than means-end explanation. This is why insight into the motives of characters in novels explains so much of their behavior, and why insight of this kind allows us to predict the future behavior of others. Motives are essentially pushing states, not pulling states, and they push the agent to perform a variety of different acts in different circumstances and to adopt a variety of different ends. A jealous lover sometimes tries to harms his rival and sometimes harms his beloved or himself instead. We understand this because we understand that the intentional object of jealousy (he is jealous of her) is distinct from the end of jealous action (to harm the rival, or her, or himself). So more than one motive can have the same end, and the same motive can have different ends. The value of the aim of an act and the value of its motive can differ, so the difference between motive and aim can make a moral difference. In the scene in which Elizabeth Bennett meets Mr. Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, he tells her that Mr. Darcy’s good acts – indeed, good aims – are motivated by pride: “It has often led him to be liberal and generous – to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor. Family pride, and filial pride, for he is very proud of what his father was, have done this” (Chapter 16). We find out later that Wickham has been grossly unfair in his description of Darcy, but the person he describes is a possible one. There are various motives for the aim to give to the poor – one might give out of pride, or fear, or simply because their suffering sickens one – and not all of these are morally laudable. In fact, Elizabeth is horrified at Darcy’s alleged motive. In each case, the motive can be the cause of the act without being the aim. A man can have the same aim as the compassionate person – to alleviate suffering – without acting out of the motive of compassion. His motive is not as good, and arguably his act is not as good either. But 23

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics that difference cannot be explained if motives are confused with aims. The confusion of motives with aims leads to a problem in explaining the source of the value of a motive. It is common and not unreasonable to think that the value of aiming at some end derives from the value of the state of affairs at which the agent aims. It is good to aim at relieving suffering, because the relief of suffering is a good thing. It is bad to aim at punishing the innocent, because the punishment of the innocent is a bad thing. But if a motive is not defined by its end, there is no temptation to think that the value of a motive derives from the value of an end. A given motive is not identical to whatever state it is that has a given end. The value of the motive, therefore, cannot be explained by the value of the end but must be explained in some other way. I have already mentioned in passing the possibility that a motivational state such as love is an end itself. It is possible to aim to produce love or compassion in oneself. In that case, a motive would have the kind of value that ends have. Its value would not come from an end; it would be an end, and its value would be the value of ends.15 A moment’s reflection, however, reveals that this is not typical. We do not often act in order to produce certain motives in either ourselves or others, and in any case, the evaluation of motives is not limited to those cases in which we do. Ordinarily, a motive is neither identical to whatever state it is that aims at some end, nor an end itself. If intrinsic good is confused with the good of ends, the apparent conclusion is that motives have no intrinsic value. In Chapter 2, I will argue that this is a mistake, but in order to identify the mistake we need to clear up the confusion between motive and aim as well as that between intrinsic good and the good of ends. 15

The idea that virtuous motives should be the ends of the moral life is a form of perfectionism. An interesting and rarely discussed example of a theory of this kind appears in Josiah Royce’s The Philosophy of Loyalty. Royce makes the motivational state of being loyal central to his theory. As I read Royce’s account, he sees loyalty as both intrinsically valuable and valuable as an end. Loyalty is the only ultimately proper object of loyalty. Good causes and bad causes are distinguishable in that the former are all forms of loyalty to loyalty. See Royce (1916), pp. 118ff.

24

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory To summarize, a motive is not the same as the state of aiming to bring about a certain end, nor is it typically an end itself. Its value does not derive from the value of a state of affairs at which it aims, nor is its value typically the kind of value that ends have. A motive is a psychological spring of action with an intentional structure, and the kind of value it has needs to be determined. I will argue in Chapter 2 that emotions can have intrinsic value. 4 The myth of value bipolarity The fourth confusion is related to the previous two, but it is the mistake not of confusing two things for one but of confusing many things for two. The mistake is in thinking that value is bipolar. Almost everyone assumes that there are two values, good and bad, which fall on opposite ends of a spectrum, and it is almost as common to think that the appropriate response to the former is attraction and to the latter repulsion. I want to insist not that the good/bad bipolarity is a mistake, but only that it might be. I am, however, convinced that the attraction/repulsion bipolarity is a mistake, both as a way of explaining the meaning of value and as a way of explaining the appropriate response to it, and I have not found any other bipolar response that applies to all value. Consider the following ways of having value or disvalue: peculiar, humorous, awesome, enviable, ugly, contemptible, unjust, pitiful. If the only values are degrees of good and bad, and if the good is the attractive and the bad the repellant, these properties should differ only in their descriptive components and in the degree to which they attract or repel. I doubt that that is true of any of them, but perhaps the clearest cases are the last two, the unjust and the pitiful. I would not deny that there is something unattractive about both, although there is probably also some feature of both of them that is attractive. In the case of the unjust, we may be attracted to the victim with whom we identify; in the case of the pitiful, the quality that makes a person pitiful rather than contemptible might attract us. And we probably also feel repelled by persons we perceive to be pitiful or unjust. But turning away is not the appropriate response or even the natural one; at least, it is 25

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics not the dominant response. We do not always turn our backs on the pitiful and the unjust, nor should we.16 Perhaps there is some other bipolarity of appropriate response to value. Another candidate is promotion and elimination. Perhaps we aim to promote the good and to eliminate the bad. This does seem to apply to the unjust and the pitiful, since the appropriate response is to eliminate them, usually by eliminating their causes. But while promotion/elimination applies to some of the values on the list, it is doubtful that it applies to all of them. Is the appropriate response to the awesome to promote it or to the enviable to eliminate it? I do not think so. We now have two bipolarities, and neither appears to be reducible to the other. But perhaps both are reducible to a third. Attraction/repulsion and promotion/elimination have this in common: We are glad that the object of the first response in each pair exists, and we are sorry that the object of the second response in each pair exists. That does seem to come close to a commonality in the two pairs of value responses, and arguably it applies to all of the values on the list; but it does not apply to all values. There are forms of good and bad about which gladness and sorrow seem to be beside the point – in fact, about which all responses seem beside the point. Would we say that the appropriate response to a life of Aristotelian eudaimonia, a life that fulfills human nature, is gladness? The problem is not so much that gladness is the wrong

16

Aristotle and other Greek writers classified pity as a form of pain, and so they attempted to put it into the category of the repellant. In his study of pity in ancient thought, David Konstan (2001, p. 11) speculates that the biological evidence might explain why the Greeks classified pity as a painful emotion. Joseph LeDoux (1996, p. 165) argues that basic emotions, such as fear, involve parallel transmissions to the amydala from the sensory thalmus and sensory cortex. The subcortical pathways are faster, but more accurate representations of the external cause of the emotion come from the cortex. Konstan proposes that pity might also involve an initial aversive reaction followed by a more subtle and accurate assessment of the situation processed by the cerebral cortex. If so, pity would be initially experienced as painful, and the Greeks would be partly right.

26

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory response, since gladness is probably as good as any. The problem is that the whole question of response seems inappropriate when applied to certain kinds of value. A person who is eudaimon has a good life whether she is glad about it or not. She might not even think about her life as a whole. (Maybe when it is good enough, she has no reason to do so.) You will reply that if she were to think about it, she would be glad. Perhaps so, but I doubt that that response is related in any significant way to what a good life is. Furthermore, there are value properties, such as the pitiful and the contemptible, toward which the appropriate response is complex, much more so than any of the pairs of responses we have considered. These considerations affect the way in which a moral theory ought to be constructed. A satisfactory theory should make room for value of many different kinds. Some value properties are those that attract or repel us. Others are those we aim to produce or eliminate. Still others are those we admire or find reprehensible. Some may not be related to human responses in any interesting way, such as what is good for us. Some value properties do have appropriate responses, but the responses are complex. Since a theory ought to be as simple as possible without unnecessarily distorting its subject matter, it would be helpful if it revealed both the differences between and the relations among these different types of value. I will aim at a theory that has this feature. 5 Direct and indirect value of acts Sometimes we evaluate an act not on the basis of its actual properties, but on the basis of the properties of a class of acts to which it belongs or the members of that class. So we may ascribe value to an act because acts of that type generally have good consequences in circumstances of that kind, or because it follows a rule the general following of which has a good property that the act itself does not have, or because it is an act of a type a rational person would do or a virtuous person would do. In each case, the act gets value indirectly. Either it gets value from the value of a property most of the acts of a certain class have, or it gets value from the value of a 27

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics property possessed by the class of acts itself. If it is the former, the act inherits value from a valuable property other individual acts that are relevantly similar to it have (e.g., good consequences). If it is the latter, the act inherits value from a property that is valuable when possessed by a class of acts, such as the class of acts that follow some rule. It is interesting to consider the question of why we attribute value indirectly in this way. It may have something to do with conceptual economy, although I doubt that that is the entire explanation.17 In any case, my interest here is not in explaining why we attribute value to acts in this way; I merely want to call attention to the fact that we do so. In addition to the indirect value we attribute to acts, we also attribute value in virtue of properties the act actually possesses. The rule consequentialist attributes value to an act either because it is a member of a class of acts most of which have good consequences, or because it follows a rule the general following of which has good consequences. But the consequentialist cannot let it go at that. Surely, of two acts both of which are of the right consequential type, if one actually has good consequences and the other does not, the former is a better act. The actual consequences can enhance the value of the act whether or not the act also has value in the indirect way just described. The same point applies to Kantian deontology, as Kant himself recognized. There is a difference between an act that follows the Categorical Imperative and an act that is actually motivated by the Categorical Imperative. An act follows the Categorical Imperative when it is a member of a class of acts that could be willed by a good will. Such an act is right (not wrong). But it is even better if a given act is actually willed by a good will. The latter has what Kant considers distinctively moral value. The virtue theory that I prefer also has this difference. An act has a form of value when it is the type of act a virtuous person would do, but it is even better 17

Indirect value is sometimes attributed to beliefs as well as to acts. Reliabilists attribute value to a belief on the basis of the fact that it is a member of a class of acts most of which produce true beliefs. On one form of coherentism a belief gets value (often called justification) on the basis of the fact that it is a member of a coherent set of beliefs.

28

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory if it is actually produced in the same way that a virtuous person produces it, that is, with a virtuous motive. I do not think that direct and indirect value are systematically confused, but the relation between them is often unclear. In particular, it may be unclear whether they pertain to different kinds of value or just to different degrees of the same kind of value. Indirect value is most often used in discussions of the deontic properties of right, wrong, and duty. An act is right or wrong because of features of a class of acts to which it belongs. This seems to me to be correct, although I have no considered position on why it is correct. Direct value may be more appropriate in discussions of the praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of an act, although that needs investigation. One confusion that ought to be avoided is that between right in the sense of not wrong (permissible) and right in the sense of commendable. The two senses of right need to be kept distinct whether or not the difference is connected to the difference between indirect and direct value.

iv a taxonomy of ethical theories A moral theory is an abstract structure that aims to increase our understanding of the moral realm by systematizing the concepts we use in moral evaluation. John Rawls (1974–75) once proposed that we compare theories by the different ways in which they relate the basic concepts of a virtue, a good state of affairs, and a right act.18 This approach may be a good place to begin, but it is too simple to do justice to significant differences between kinds of theory. For one thing, it ignores the distinction between a good state of affairs and a good outcome.19 For another, it ignores the kind of good that is basic in Aristotelian and Thomistic virtue theories: the good for beings of a kind – most especially, for human beings. It also ignores such goods as knowledge, love, 18

19

Rawls actually says “moral worth” instead of “virtue,” but the two concepts are obviously connected. Rawls seems to have outcomes in mind when he says “states of affairs,” and this confuses matters. I will have more to say about this in the discussion of Watson.

29

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics happiness, and life, which do not fall easily under either traits of persons or states of affairs, although many of them probably fall under the category of goods for human beings. There may also be a distinct category of goods that Nagel calls perfectionist values – such things as aesthetic value, scientific discovery, and the exploration of outer space. These allegedly differ from goods such as personal knowledge and love in that they are good apart from what is good for human persons.20 The issue of whether there are such goods is an interesting one, but since these goods are not connected to the evaluation of human agents, human action, or a good human life, I will give them only passing attention. The good for a being of a kind is an important one, however, and it should not be ignored in any ethical theory that purports to be complete.21 Some philosophers have wondered whether there is any form of virtue ethics that is interestingly different from consequentialist and deontological theories – that is, different in structure from the other two types of theory. This question is important for the purpose of deciding among competing theories. If virtue theory does not offer a distinctive structure, then it does not compete with consequentialism and deontologism in the same way that the latter two compete with each other. As already noted, some virtue ethicists reject the idea of theory altogether, and so they are not concerned to show that virtue ethics is capable of offering a different theoretical structure. But it seems to me that virtue ethics is much more interesting if it does compete by offering a distinctive theoretical structure as well as a different (and richer) substantive content. 20

21

Nagel (1979) does not explicitly distinguish perfectionist values from goods for human persons, but he does identify them as those that are good apart from their value to the individuals who experience or use them. He says, “They are thought to have an intrinsic value, so that it is important to achieve fundamental advances, for example, in mathematics or astronomy even if very few people come to understand them and they have no practical effects.” Apparently Nagel believes that these goods are good apart from the way in which they are good for individual human beings, although he may not have ruled out the possibility that they are good for human beings collectively. I thank John Zeis for reminding me of the importance of this sense of good.

30

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory Gary Watson has made a helpful study of the structural differences between virtue theory and other kinds of theory, particularly the class of theories that he calls an ethics of outcome.22 His worry is that virtue ethics is more likely to collapse into consequentialism than into deontologism. I doubt that that is true, but in any case, Watson says some interesting things about the taxonomy of ethical theories in the course of identifying what it would take for a virtue theory to be significantly different from an ethics of outcome. The theory I am proposing in this book is a radical type of nonteleological virtue theory that I call motivation-based. In placing motivation-based virtue ethics on the theoretical map, I will use some of Watson’s distinctions. I also want to show that motivation-based virtue theory fits the description of the kind of virtue ethics Watson thinks would be truly different from both a deontological ethics and an ethics of outcome, even though his criteria for being significantly different are unusually demanding. Early in his paper, Watson identifies two important theses that putatively distinguish a virtue theory from other theories. The first is a thesis about the relation between a right act and a virtue. The second is a thesis about the relation between a virtue and the good. This is not exactly the way Watson puts it, but I find this way clearer, particularly if we start, like Watson, with Rawls’s classification.23 After considerable discussion, Watson identifies the second thesis as the one that must be modified in order to make the resulting theory significantly different from an ethics of outcome. In going through his taxonomy of theories, Watson considers several theories that differ from an ethics of outcome in one way or another, but it is only when we get to a theory in which the good of outcomes makes no sense at all at the foundation of the theory that we get to a theory that Watson thinks gives us a new face on the theoretical scene. Act consequentialism is the foil for the theories of virtue that Watson considers. In act consequentialism, the basic concept is 22 23

“On the Primacy of Character,” reprinted in Statman (1997). Watson calls the thesis that a right act is explained in terms of virtue “the thesis of explanatory primacy.” The second thesis, he says, is an account of virtue that explains what makes a virtue an excellence (a good).

31

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics that of a good outcome. A right act is defined as an act that produces a good outcome, and a virtue is defined as either a quality that leads to the performance of right acts or a quality that leads to the production of good outcomes directly.24 (Note that “right act” is used throughout Watson’s discussion in the sense of “right” that implies the commendable rather than the sense of “right” that means the permissible.) One of the tenets of virtue theory is a claim about the relation between right acts and virtue that differs from that given by act consequentialism. Virtue theory maintains that a right act is what expresses or displays a virtue, or is in accordance with virtue, or is what a virtuous person would do. In other words, a right act is defined in terms of a virtue rather than the other way around, and the relation is not one of promotion. But, as Watson points out, if we begin with act consequentialism and change only the thesis about the relation between right acts and virtue, we do not get a form of virtue ethics; instead, we get character utilitarianism. That theory also says that a right act is what expresses virtue or is in accordance with virtue, but it is a form of utilitarianism because it includes the thesis that a virtue is what promotes the good in the sense of a good outcome.25 The second tenet of virtue theory is that virtue is a constituent of the good or is otherwise related to the good in some way other than by promotion. But if we begin with act consequentialism and modify only the thesis about the relation between virtue and the good, we do not get virtue ethics; instead, we get perfectionism. 24 25

Watson, “On the Primacy of Character,” p. 56. For the source of character utilitarianism, Watson refers to Robert Adams (1976). But Adams does not mention anything called “character utilitarianism” in his paper, nor does he discuss the place of virtue in utilitarianism. The theory he discusses is one in which the principle of utility is applied primarily to a person’s motivation patterns, and in which acts are right if they are in accordance with the motives that have greatest utility. Probably what Watson has in mind is that a modification of the theory could be made in which the principle of utility is applied to a person’s character traits. Since motivations are the primary constituents of character traits, in my view, the result would not be very far from motive utilitarianism, and I agree that this is a form of an ethics of outcome.

32

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory That theory also says that virtue is a constituent of the good, or even that it is identical with it. A right act is what promotes the good in that sense. For this reason, perfectionism is an ethics of outcome, not a virtue theory. So far, the argument shows that neither the thesis on the relation between the right and virtue nor the thesis on the relation between virtue and the good is sufficient to produce a virtue theory.26 But here Watson draws a surprising conclusion. He says that even if a theory accepts both of these theses, it is still an ethics of outcome – one that is like character utilitarianism in its theory of right/virtue, and that is like perfectionism in its theory of virtue/the good.27 But why think that? Neither component of such a theory is like that of act consequentialism. In fact, there is no consequentialist component in the theory at all. So why say that it does not differ from an ethics of outcome? All that such a theory specifies about the good at the foundation of the theory is that it is basic and that virtue is a constituent of it. On such a description, the good could be something like eudaimonia, a life Aristotle describes as good taken as a whole. At a stretch, a life of eudaimonia might be considered a state of affairs, and it is an end in the sense of a telos or natural purpose, but it is not an outcome. I see no reason to deny that a theory of this kind is a virtue theory and, in fact, a virtue theory in a pure form. I surmise that it is, in fact, Aristotle’s theory, although it does not matter for my concerns in this book whether or not Aristotle had a pure virtue theory. An interesting recent theory with this general structure is that of Rosalind Hursthouse (2000), whose theory bears little resemblance to consequentialist theories. So far, then, we have four theories: act consequentialism, a form of virtue theory, and two hybrids. Using the taxonomic scheme 26

27

What I called a pure virtue theory in Virtues of the Mind (1996) is neutral on the relation between virtue and the good, including character utilitarianism. I said there that the thesis on the primacy of virtue over right is sufficient for a pure virtue theory. I am now inclined to think that Watson is right that that thesis alone is not sufficient to produce a pure virtue theory, but I don’t think anything important hinges on the notion of a pure virtue theory, and I will not pursue that issue in this book. Watson (p. 64) does not put his point this succinctly, but this way is clearer.

33

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics we have been considering, we can compare them in the following diagrams illustrating four different ways in which virtue (V), the good (G), and a right act (R), can be related. In each case, the concept at the bottom of the diagram is at the foundation of the theory, and each concept above it is defined in terms of the ones below it. I will use arrows to indicate the direction of a definition. So “A → B” indicates that “A” is defined in terms of “B.” I will use the symbol “< ” to mean “is a constituent of.” Act Consequentialism

Character Utilitarianism

V

R

↓ promotes

↓ expresses

R

V

↓ promotes

↓ promotes

G

G

Perfectionism

First Form of Virtue Ethics

R

R

↓ promotes

↓ expresses

V< G

V< G

By contrast, the structure of deontological ethics, or what Watson calls an ethics of requirement, is as follows: Deontology28 V ↓ promotes or expresses G [good will] ↓ R 28

Clearly, a number of different types of deontology can be distinguished using the form of this diagram, but I will not pursue that issue here.

34

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory Watson is not satisfied that the first form of virtue ethics is sufficiently different from the other three theories in the first set of diagrams to merit attention as an interestingly different kind of ethical theory. What seems to bother him is that the theory of the good in all four of these theories makes the good look too much like an outcome. As I have said, I do not see how outcomes play any role in the first form of virtue ethics, but I’ll let that pass, because the second form of virtue ethics that Watson identifies clearly is different, different enough that nobody would mistake it for an ethics of outcome. In order to get that difference, Watson says, it must be clear that the good is nothing like an outcome, and in order to get that, the good of outcomes must be defined in terms of virtue. The good of states of affairs is what reflects virtue or is otherwise defined in terms of virtue.29 But how can the good of a personal trait be explained in a way that makes no mention of good states of affairs? The answer that Watson suggests is that a personal trait is good because it is what is involved in living a characteristically human life. What is distinctively human is permitted to play a foundational role in the theory, and Watson says that this makes the theory genuinely naturalistic (p. 65). The virtue theory that Watson thinks would be interestingly different has the following structure: There is such a thing as living a characteristically human life. The qualities of such a life are virtues. What is right is what expresses a virtue, but more importantly, what is good is defined in terms of what virtuous persons care about. The foundation of the theory is genuinely naturalistic, Watson says, because the good is not at the foundation of the theory, although a kind of good slips in. Watson says: [I]t will follow from an ethics of virtue that virtuous people care about certain things (and outcomes) for their own sakes (as final ends in themseves). There is no further commitment, however, to the idea that these concerns are virtuous ones because their objects are inherently valuable or desirable for their own sakes. 29

Watson sometimes slides from the notion of an outcome to that of a state of affairs. He seems to want to limit states of affairs to outcomes, although that is not always clear.

35

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics Nor, more generally, is there a foundational role for the idea that living a characteristically human life is intrinsically good. Perhaps it will follow from the theory that the virtuous person will desire to live such a life for its own sake, and in that sense such a life can be said to be desirable for its own sake (the virtuous person being the standard), but that will be because such a desire is part of human excellence, rather than the other way around. That appraisal is made from the standpoint of virtue and is not its basis. (p. 64)

The form of such a theory is as follows: Second Form of Virtue Ethics R

G



 V

Watson’s second form of virtue ethics does give us an interesting alternative to both deontological and consequentialist ethics, but it will not do without modification. First, there is a problem with his description of the foundation. It seems to me that a characteristically human life is a life that includes going wrong in characteristically human ways; it cannot ground the virtues or the good in any sense. What Watson seems to have in mind is a life that is good for human beings on account of their being human, and that is what he suggests in a footnote: Insofar as virtues must in the end be characterized by their contribution to the good for human beings, the notion of the good will be primary relative to virtue. But there would still be a point to thinking of the theory under consideration as an ethics of virtue, since virtue still remains basic relative to the concepts of right and a good state of affairs. In the classification to which I refer at the beginning, I suspect that Rawls understands the concept of the good in that context as what is ultimately worth choosing, aiming at, seeking – that is, in effect, as the finally good outcome. So understood, on the theory I am trying to describe, virtue is prior to that notion, and so the priority claim is maintained. (p. 70, note 19)

36

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory We can now make an addition to the diagram of the theory Watson desires: Second Form of Virtue Ethics R

G



 V ↓

G for H

But there is a problem with the status of goods for human beings, since Watson wants to maintain both that the foundation of the theory is naturalistic, by which I take it he means that there is nothing evaluative in the foundation, and also that there is a sense of good at the foundation. The fact that he minimizes the sense of “good” in “good for human beings” is no doubt due to the fact that he is working with Rawls’s suggestion; Rawls also ignores that sense of good in his tripartite schema.30 However, Watson is right that whatever we say about the status of the good for humans, it is not an outcome, and so the theory is different from any form of an ethics of outcome. But it is not obviously different from the first form of virtue ethics he considers, which, as I have already objected, does not think of the good as an outcome either. In fact, eudaimonia can be understood as precisely that life that is good for humans. To clearly distinguish the second form of virtue ethics from the first, Watson seems to want a theory in which virtue is more basic than either the good of outcomes or any other rich form of the good, such as a life of eudaimonia. Virtues are not derivative from the good in the most basic sense; they are the good in the most basic sense. The answer to the further question, “What makes a 30

Rawls discusses what he calls human goods as well as happiness in A Theory of Justice (1971), but he does not make the concept of the good for human beings one of the basic concepts of a moral theory in his APA presidential address.

37

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics trait a good, and hence a virtue?” has something to do with human nature or what is good for human beings, where the latter is not the same as eudaimonia. It should turn out, then, that the most basic evaluative concept in the theory is that of a virtue, and whatever grounds virtue is naturalistic. He does not tell us what it takes to be naturalistic, nor does he address the important issue of how the gap between nature and value is bridged, but I am not concerned with that question now. It suffices to say that a theory that makes the good of virtue more basic than either the good of outcomes or eudaimonia or any property of acts is quite a different kind of theory than those we usually encounter. It differs not only from the varieties of deontological and consequentialist ethics, but also from Aristotle.31 There is another and more serious oversight in Watson’s account. He fails to distinguish between intrinsic goods and goods as final ends. This distinction is important for Watson’s second and preferred form of virtue theory, since he wants to say that on that theory, the good of outcomes is derived from the desires of virtuous persons, whereas the value of a virtue does not come from anything else at all (p. 65). This implies that a virtue is intrinsically good, but that the value of an outcome is not intrinsically good, although it may be good as a final end. This position makes sense only if we make the distinction between intrinsic goods and goods as ends.32

31

32

Watson says that he doubts that Aristotle’s theory fits his description of the second kind of virtue theory (pp. 70–71, note 26), although he is unsure. I think it is unlikely that Aristotle’s theory is of this kind if Aristotle thought that nature grounds eudaimonia and eudaimonia is more basic than virtue. Instead, Watson seems to be looking for a theory in which nature grounds virtue directly, not by way of some other form of the good. Watson briefly mentions Korsgaard’s distinction, but his comment indicates that he does not appreciate the import of the distinction. Watson says: Christine Korsgaard (1983) has pointed out the importance of the difference between the concept of the intrinsically good and the concept of what is desirable in itself. For my purposes here, however, I do not think it matters which way I put it. An ethics of outcome may be stated either way. On the second account, an ethics of virtue has no use for the

38

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory With this distinction in mind, the kind of theory that would be interestingly different from deontological, consequentialist, and Aristotelian ethics, according to Watson’s proposal, is the following: Virtue is intrinsically good and explanatorily basic. What makes a trait a virtue and hence good is that it is associated with what is good for human beings, where “good for human beings” is left unanalyzed but is intended to be naturalistic and more basic than Aristotle’s eudaimonia. The good of outcomes and the evaluative properties of acts are derivative from the good of virtues. These other goods are therefore extrinsically good, although some of them may be good as final ends. The theory I call motivation-based virtue theory has the feature Watson thinks would make a theory interestingly different, since the good of outcomes is not in the foundation of the theory, nor is eudaimonia. But it has another feature that makes it more clearly different from the first form of virtue ethics than the theory Watson describes: What is good for human beings is not in the foundation of the theory either. It is a nonteleological virtue theory in which the basic component of virtues – motivation – is fundamental. The theory is neither deontological, consequentialist, nor teleological. All of the concepts that Rawls identifies as crucial to the structure of an ethical theory are defined in terms of a good motive: good outcome, right act, virtue, and eudaimonia. In Chapter 2, I will give a naturalistic account of a good motive according to which a good emotion, like a true belief, fits its object. former and explains the latter by appeal to the desires of the virtuous person. (p. 70, note 18) Watson’s claim that an ethics of virtue has no use for the idea of intrinsic goodness is surely mistaken, given his own statement that virtues themselves do not get their value from the value of anything else. That is what I mean by an intrinsic good. And since Watson says that what is desirable in itself (as an end) is explained by the desires of virtuous persons, it follows that what is good as an end is derivative from the good of virtue. What is good as an end is, therefore, an extrinsic good. The fact that the theory includes goods as ends in themselves that are not intrinsic goods does not make sense without the distinction between intrinsic good and the good of ends.

39

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics The basic structure of motivation-based virtue theory is the following; Motivation-Based Virtue Theory G

R

−− −− − −− −→

→ −− −− −− −− M

<

V

An alternative diagram can be used after we get to the importance of exemplars in section V:

M

<

V

<

R −−−−−−−−−→

G (outcome) −−− −− −− −− −− −− −− −− −− −→

G (person)

In the rest of Part I, I will present the framework of the theory in greater detail, with particular attention to the foundation.

v exemplarism The issue of the relative priority of theoretical judgments and particular moral judgments is a widely discussed matter in metaethics. I accept the common position that we ought to use certain particular judgments as tests for the acceptability of a theory – for example, the judgment that the infliction of pain requires a justifying reason, or that it is always wrong to intentionally punish an innocent person. Other examples may be that it is wrong to tell a lie or to break a promise with exceptions permitted only in extraordinary circumstances that are themselves dictated by strong 40

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory moral considerations. If a theory entails that one of these judgments is false, the theory must be rejected, since these judgments dictate the contours of the discourse that the theory is attempting to explain. Any such theory is not just wrong, it fails in a more radical way; it fails to be a theory of our actual ethical practices, and hence it is not a theory of the subject matter of ethics. I suggest that among the particular judgments that we may use in testing a theory are judgments about the identity of paradigmatically good persons. Almost everyone knows about some of the paradigms – Jesus Christ, Socrates, the Buddha – but there are also paradigms who are known only to a small circle of aquaintances. My position is that we may be mistaken about some of them, but we cannot be mistaken about very many. If a theory has the consequence that neither Jesus Christ, nor Socrates, nor the Buddha is a good person, we should question whether the theory is a theory about what we call a good person. There is a breakdown at the conceptual level, not simply a disagreement about cases. The issue of the multiplicity and variability among good persons is a matter to which we will return, but at the outset I want to insist that even if cultural variability poses a theoretical problem, it is a problem that is unavoidable because the identity of exemplars of goodness is not merely contingently related to our general moral judgments and the construction of a moral theory. The particular judgments to which a moral theory must conform include judgments about the identity of paradigmatically good persons. This is an application in ethical discourse of a point made by Thomas Kuhn (1969, pp. 200–201) about exemplars in scientific discourse. Kuhn says that terms such as “element,” “mixture,” “planet,” and “unconstrained motion” are learned from direct application to exemplars. When problems arise in the application of these terms, the problem is not one that can be resolved by applying to the dispute criteria accepted in a neutral language used by both sides and adequate to the statement of both theories. If the concept of an element arises from a primitive grouping of exemplars without an answer to the question, “What makes each one an element?,” it is likely that the concept of good person arises from exemplars in a similar way. We do not have criteria for goodness in advance of identifying the exemplars of goodness. The same 41

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics point probably applies to badness, although I will give exemplars of badness less attention than exemplars of goodness. There is another metatheoretical reason for taking the approach of identifying exemplars of good persons in advance of formulating a theory. We cannot define everything in a fixed domain using conceptual analysis. Unless we are willing to accept conceptual circularity, either some moral concept or concepts will be basic, or the foundation of the theory will refer to something outside the domain. That means that either something is good in the most basic way and we cannot expect a defense for its goodness, or the structure of moral theory rests on something (allegedly) outside of ethics – for example, God’s will, human nature, or rationality. But if reference to exemplars of good persons can be incorporated into the foundation of a theory without going through concepts, that would permit us to avoid the problems with a purely conceptual foundation. We have a model for constructing a theory of this kind in the theory of direct reference, which became well known in the seventies as a way of defining natural kind terms such as “gold” and “water.”33 I propose that we adapt this approach to the need to define the foundational concepts of ethics. Leaving aside differences among the different versions of the theory of direct reference, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Keith Donnellan, and others have proposed that a natural kind such as water or gold or human should be defined as whatever is the same kind of thing or stuff as some indexically identifed instance. For example, gold is, roughly, whatever is the same element as that, water is whatever is the same liquid as that, a human is whatever is a member of the same species as that, and so on. In each case, the demonstrative term “that” refers to an entity to which the person doing the defining refers directly, typically by pointing. One of the main reasons for proposing definitions such as this was that Kripke and Putnam believed that often we do not know the nature of the thing we are defining, and yet we do know how to construct a definition that links up with its nature. We may not know the nature of gold, and for millennia nobody knew its nature, but that 33

This theory originated with Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity (1980) and Hilary Putnam’s paper “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” (1975).

42

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory did not prevent people from defining “gold” in a way that fixed the reference of the term and continued to do so after its nature was discovered. In fact, the discovery of the nature of gold implies that modern speakers are knowledgeable about the nature of the same stuff of which premodern speakers were ignorant. So the theory of direct reference permits the referent of the word “gold” to remain invariant after the discovery of what makes gold what it is. If “gold” did not refer to the same thing both before and after such a discovery, it is hard to see how we could claim that there is something about which the discovery was made. This proposal began a revolution in semantics, because it meant that competent speakers of the language can use terms to refer successfully to the right things without going through a descriptive meaning.34 “Gold” should not be defined as whatever satisfies a certain description, nor should “water.” An important consequence of this theory is that it is not necessary that speakers associate descriptions with natural-kind terms, and it is even possible that they succeed in referring to water and gold even when they associate the wrong descriptions with terms like “water” and “gold.”35 What is required instead is that they be related by a chain of communication to actual instances of water and gold. It is not even necessary that every speaker be able to identify water and gold reliably themselves, as long as some speakers in the community can do so and the other speakers rely on the judgment of the experts. A second consequence of this theory is that a definition through direct reference is only a contingent truth. It is not part of the meaning of “gold” that what I am pointing to right now is gold, nor is it a necessary truth. Of course, if I am pointing to something 34

35

Initial discussion focused on natural-kind terms and proper names, but later the theory was applied to a broader class of terms. The extent of the class of terms that can refer directly is not important for my purposes in this book. On one version of the theory, natural-kind terms have no meaning; they are purely denotative (like Mill’s theory of proper names). On another version of the theory, natural-kind terms have a meaning, but meanings are not in the head. That is, they are not something a speaker grasps and through which he finds the referent. See Putnam (1975).

43

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics gold and if it is essential to anything gold that it is gold, then it is essential to the thing I am in fact pointing to that it is gold. However, it is not a necessary truth that I am pointing to this thing, and so it is not necessary that I am pointing to gold. Hence we must accept either that some definitions are not necessary truths, or that the way we connect words with their referents in the type of “definition” we have been considering is not a definition. It may be more common to take the second option, although I am inclined to take the first. Nothing in what I am proposing turns on that choice.36 If we look carefully at the way Aristotle defined phronesis, or practical wisdom, I think we find a remarkably similar demonstrative procedure, but without the well-developed semantics of the theory of direct reference. Aristotle has quite a bit to say about what the virtue of phronesis consists in, but he clearly is not confident that he can give a full account of it. And what is more important for my purposes here, he thinks that fundamentally it does not matter, because we can pick out persons who are phronetic in advance of investigating the nature of phronesis. The phronimos can be defined, roughly, as a person like that, where we make a demonstrative reference to a paradigmatically good person. So Aristotle assumes that we can pick out paradigmatic instances of good persons in advance of our theorizing. Aristotle does not even think it necessary that every competent speaker of Greek be able to identify the phronimoi reliably, as long as they are recognizable by the community.37 36

37

Robert M. Adams (1999) also makes an analogy with the way natural-kind terms are defined in the theory of direct reference in his account of good (p. 16), but Adams pursues the analogy in a different way than I do. He says that the meaning of “water” is a role that the nature of water is to play in our discourse. In the case of water, the role is that of accounting causally for the observable common properties of identified samples of water. The meaning of “good” is also a role played by the nature of the good, but the role is quite different from that of natural kinds. Since Aristotle thinks that the virtue of phronesis is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for having the moral virtues, the truly phronetic person will always be paradigmatically good as well as paradigmatically practically wise.

44

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory I suggest that Aristotle was basically right about this. Just as competent speakers of English can successfully refer to water or gold and make assertions about it whether or not they know any chemistry, so can competent speakers successfully talk about practically wise persons. They can do this even though they can neither describe the properties in virtue of which somebody is a phronimos or even reliably identify the phronimoi in their community. But, like “water,” “phronesis” (or the English “practical wisdom”) is a term that each speaker associates with paradigm instances. The phronimos is a person like that, just as water is a substance like that. It is not a necessary truth that I am pointing to a practically wise person, even when I am pointing to Christ. I can make mistakes in any act of demonstrative reference. But, of course, this is compatible with the possibility that it is essential to Christ to be phronetic. If I am right about this, the traditional charge against Aristotle that his definition of “phronesis” is circular is misplaced. Aristotle may have been attempting a way of defining “phronesis” directly, parallel to the way of defining “water” in the theory of direct reference. Perhaps Aristotle did not actually have this in mind, but he might have. At least, it seems to me to be consistent with Aristotle’s exposition of phronesis, and in any case, I think this interpretation aids his theory. Let us now return to the issue of what a moral theory is and how it should be constructed. A moral theory is a system of concepts. Some concepts in the theory are defined in terms of others. But unless we are willing to accept conceptual circularity, some concept or concepts either will be undefined or will refer to something outside the domain. Most moral philosophers have done the latter. The basic evaluative concept in their theories is defined in terms of something allegedly nonevaluative – typically, human nature, rationality, or the will of God. The alternative that I am suggesting is to anchor moral concepts in an exemplar. Good persons are persons like that, just as gold is stuff like that. The function of an exemplar is to fix the reference of the term “good person” or “practically wise person” without the use of any concepts, whether descriptive or nondescriptive. An exemplar therefore allows the series of conceptual definitions to get started. The 45

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics circle of conceptual definitions of the most important concepts in a moral theory – virtue, right act, duty, good outcome, and so on – is broken by an indexical reference to a paradigmatically good person. Making the exemplar a person has an even more important advantage than its aid to theory. If all the concepts in a formal ethical theory are rooted in a person, then narratives and descriptions of that person are morally significant. It is an open question what it is about the person that makes him or her good. When we say that water is whatever is the same liquid as the stuff in this glass, we are implicitly leaving open the question of what properties of the stuff in this glass are essential to its being water or even related to it. For the same reason, when we say that a good person is a person like that, and we directly refer to Socrates, or to Saint Francis of Assisi, or to Mahatma Gandhi, we are implicitly leaving open the question of what properties of Socrates, Francis, or Gandhi are essential to their goodness. Perhaps there are nonevaluative descriptions of these persons that are sufficient to determine their moral goodness; perhaps not. Perhaps their goodness is not determined by any of the descriptive properties we know how to apply and we need to resort to narratives.38 Perhaps the distinction between evaluative and nonevaluative properties is itself problematic.39 The exemplarist approach has the advantage that none of these matters needs to be settled at the outset. We need to observe the exemplar carefully in order to find out what the relevant properties are. Since narratives can be considered detailed and temporally extended observations of persons, exemplarism gives narrative an important place within the theory. We do not need to choose between theory and narrative ethics. This view commits me to the position

38

39

“Resort” may be an unfair word because it suggests that narratives are something we appeal to as a last resort, and I do not mean to imply that. But I do think that narratives are harder to handle than descriptions. There is a good reason why our language developed thick descriptive terms like “courageous” and “haughty.” It saves a lot of time. I have argued for this in “Emotion and Moral Judgment” (Zagzebski 2003b).

46

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory that ethics is not purely a priori, but that is a reasonable view in any case. One difference between good persons and natural kinds is that in the case of the latter, a single paradigm ordinarily suffices to fix the reference. Water paradigms are virtually indistinguishable, and what differences they have are irrelevant to their being water. In contrast, exemplars of good persons differ from each other in ways that are not only nonnegligible, but also may be vital aspects of their goodness. This makes it important that there be numerous exemplars of good persons, and fortunately there are. The problem is not that there are not enough of them, but that there are too many. Some of them seem to have incompatible properties. I will propose a theological resolution of this problem in Part II, as well as a nontheological approach in the last chapter. One of the most interesting features of Kripke’s theory of natural kinds is that he thinks that once the reference of a natural-kind term such as “water” is fixed by ostension, scientists can then discover the nature of water empirically. Since the nature of water is essential to it, it follows that certain necessary truths such as “Water is H2 O” are discovered a posteriori. It is interesting to consider the possibility that there are also necessary a posteriori truths in ethics and that some of them are discovered in a way that parallels the discovery of the nature of water. Perhaps narratives serve a purpose in ethics analogous to scientific observation about natural kinds. Narratives may reveal necessary features of value by uncovering the deep properties of a good person. The primary purpose of a moral theory is to give us understanding of the moral life, but it is also an advantage if the theory is practically useful. I have mentioned the theoretical advantages of exemplarism, but one of its most important benefits is that it fits smoothly with the ethics of imitation. There is significant evidence in developmental psychology that human infants are born to learn through imitation.40 The imitation mechanism appears 40

See, among others, the research program of Andrew N. Meltzoff at the University of Washington, e.g., Meltzoff (2002).

47

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics to be innate,41 and not only is it critical during early childhood development, it remains an important aspect of social interaction throughout life. It has been argued by A. Bandura (1971, 1986) that most behavior is acquired by imitation. Moreover, he presents evidence that humans model not only overt behavior, but also the attitudes and emotional reactions of others. Given these features of human learning, it is helpful if at least some of the paradigmatic instances used in exemplarist moral theory are real persons who can be imitated. There are exemplary good acts as well as exemplary good persons. My position is that we can group acts into good acts and persons into good persons in advance of having any criteria for goodness upon which the grouping is made. This is analogous to Kuhn’s point about the scientist’s grouping of objects into similarity sets acquired from exemplars without criteria for similarity (1996, p. 200). But the psychology of moral learning suggests that person exemplars are more basic than act exemplars, because the former are imitated in more ways than their behavior. Since imitating other persons includes imitating both their behavior and their emotions, we have a simpler model for understanding human imitation if we think of the primary objects of imitation as being other persons. Still, an exemplarist ethical theory could be formulated in other ways than by making persons the primary exemplars. There could be exemplarist act-based theories, or possibly even exemplarist outcomes-based theories. I will leave it to adherents of theories of these types to pursue exemplarist forms of the theories, if they wish. The theory of this book is an exemplarist virtue theory. The framework for the theory outlined in the rest of Part I defines the evaluative properties of persons, acts, and the outcomes of acts by reference to the exemplar or exemplars identified by the theory. Good and bad traits of character are defined in terms of the traits of character of the exemplar. The moral properties of acts are defined in terms of the actual or hypothetical acts of the exemplar. 41

See research by Maja J. Mataric of the Neuroscience Program at the University of Southern California.

48

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

Constructing an ethical theory Good and bad outcomes are defined in terms of the states of affairs the exemplar aims to bring about or to prevent. Clearly, this is a very general schema that can be adapted to a number of different approaches to virtue ethics. Traditional Aristotelian virtue ethics makes the concept of virtue dependent upon the more basic concept of eudaimonia – happiness or flourishing. Eudaimonia is in turn dependent upon the idea of human nature, understood teleologically. It is well known that one of the stumbling blocks to the acceptance of virtue ethics among modern philosophers is the worry that we will never get agreement on what constitutes eudaimonia, along with their doubts that human nature is teleological, and even more radical doubts that there is any such thing as human nature at all.42 Exemplarist virtue theory has an advantage because it is not teleological in structure and does not refer to either eudaimonia or human nature in its foundation. It is consistent with exemplarism that what makes an exemplar good is that he or she has traits that are constitutive of eudaimonia or that lead to the fulfillment of human nature, but the theory does not require that that be the case. To return to the analogue of natural kinds, we have discovered that what makes something water is that it is H2 O; but that has been settled by scientific investigation, not by the way in which “water” is defined. Similarly, it may turn out that what makes the exemplar good is certain descriptive properties or the fact that he or she leads a life of a certain kind or the fact that he or she fulfills the potentialities of human nature, but that need not be settled in advance of the construction of the theory. We need not refer to any of these features of the exemplar in defining “good person.” This method, in spite of its high metaphysical tone, is consistent with a form of naturalism. I will begin with an examination of the psychology of moral perception. I will argue that emotion is a primary experience that generates our entire practical lives. My model for that is simple and schematized, ignoring a multitude of complications. I begin with moral psychology, because I believe 42

For recent discussion of this issue, see Rouner (1997).

49

P1: JzQ 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:44

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics that exemplary virtuous persons do the same sort of thing that the nonvirtuous do; the former simply do it more accurately and more directly. I will then propose a way of deriving the fundamental concepts used in moral evaluation from the concept of a good emotion. The psychological model is therefore mirrored in the framework of an ethical theory.

50

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Chapter 2 Making emotion primary

No emotional apprehension of an object as frightening, irritating, saddening, etc. can arise except against the background of a complete alteration of the world. For an object to appear formidable, indeed, it must be realized as an immediate and magical presence confronting the consciousness. Jean-Paul Sartre, Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions

i starting with exemplars If a natural kind N is defined by direct reference, it follows that the metaphysical question “What is N?” is not independent of the epistemological question “Can we identify an N?” Direct reference ensures that our semantic community cannot be radically mistaken about the members of the class of N. Water just is the class of stuff like this. Since the semantics guarantees that there is a sense in which we know what N is, it protects against a certain kind of skepticism. We have already seen that this does not mean that we can identify what makes something an N. That is something we have to find out by scientific investigation. But even about that question, we have a safeguard against a form of skepticism. Whatever makes water what it is, it is what makes this kind of stuff what it is, so at least we know what we need to investigate in order to find out the nature of water. 51

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics Exemplarist ethical theory protects against a form of moral skepticism for the same reason that direct reference protects against a form of skepticism about natural kinds. What makes somebody good is having the properties that make that person good. That does not yet tell us what it takes to be good, but at least it tells us where to look. In this chapter and the next, I will propose a theory of the genealogy of morals according to which we learn moral concepts and acquire the ability to make moral judgments from experience. That includes the experience of imitating the way in which paradigmatically good persons form concepts and make judgments. Emotions are ways of affectively perceiving the world around us that have conceptual constituents of a distinctive kind. We have emotions automatically, but we learn them in part by imitation, and they change under the influence of the emotions of admired others. Since young children and other animals learn by imitation, no conceptual conditions are necessary for the operation of the imitation mechanism. Even as adults we often imitate without thinking that what we are imitating is good, nor need we even be aware that we are imitating. Imitation, then, requires neither the concept of imitation nor the concept of good, and it is at least partly unconscious. But since as human beings we are naturally reflective once we get to a certain age, at some point we become aware of imitative behavior as imitative, and we start to ask ourselves, “Why should I do what S is doing?” Perhaps it is one of the sad facts of life that this thought is more likely to occur to us when we become aware that we do not want to be like some other person. Negative models may therefore be as important as positive ones. I suspect that without the former, we might never have the thought that some traits and behaviors are worth imitating and others are not. Plato argued that such a thought would be impossible without a prior implicit concept of the good, but I find that unlikely. It seems to me that evaluative concepts are generated from experiences of the kind I will outline in the next few chapters, and that among the most primitive and important are the contrasting experiences of wanting to be like some persons and wanting not to be like some others. What explains the fact that even a young child can have the latter desire? Why would she want to imitate one person and not 52

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary another if she has no prior concept of the good upon which such a desire rests? One answer is the Aristotelian one that there is a natural desire to perfect one’s own nature, to be a flourishing member of one’s kind. I have no idea how or whether we could show that there is any such innate desire, but the explanation for our ability to judge that some persons are worth imitating and some are not is not critical for the theory. What is important is just that we do have such an ability, and that we have it prior to the development of evaluative concepts. I surmise that the move from “I want to be like R and not like S” to “R is better than S” is not only genetically primitive, but also basic to moral thinking. Clearly, at some point in our development we form evaluative concepts and gain the ability to revise judgments such as “R is better than S.” The judgment is defeasible, and a potential defeater is my own independent judgment that is like the judgment of S but contrary to the judgment of R. One of the functions of practical reason is to bring our stock of evaluative judgments into harmony. There are various sources of moral judgment, but according to the theory of moral psychology I will propose, all of them ultimately rest on emotional experience. I will focus on the ones that are the most primitive: our direct emotional experience of the world, our imitation of the emotional experience of others, and feedback mechanisms by which our emotional experience of the consequences of acting on an emotion leads us to revise the emotion that caused the act. An important issue in the semantics of “good” is the extent to which revisions in judgment can be made without changing the meaning of “good.” If I am right that judgments about the identity of exemplars are members of a set of core judgments that partly determine what “good” means, then if a person denies very many of the judgments, he is not only mistaken in his beliefs, he is mistaken in his concepts.1 We can revise our ideas about 1

This point raises an interesting but difficult issue in the philosophy of mind regarding the priority of concepts over the beliefs that contain those concepts. I have no position on the nature of concepts or on how or whether beliefs are constructed out of them, but it follows from my position that the concept of good is not acquired prior to and independent of every judgment about who or what is good.

53

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics what is good and who the exemplars of goodness are, but only to a degree, because the concept of good is partly determined by the exemplars. Similarly, we may revise our judgments about which liquids in our experience are water, but we cannot revise all of them, since “water” is defined via reference to a set of water paradigms. I maintain, then, that we can recognize a good person or good personal behavior without having a prior concept of good against which a given instance is measured. In the simple cases, we like, admire, appreciate, or want something that we then judge, defeasibly, to be good. Similarly, we dislike or find reprehensible something that we then judge, defeasibly, to be bad. But in the first chapter I alluded to the multiplicity of kinds of value and disvalue, including the pitiful, the contemptible, the unjust, and many others. The way in which we detect these values is much more complicated than liking/disliking, wanting/eschewing, or any other of the bipolar responses that are commonly thought to be responses to the forms of value and disvalue. My position is that the complexity of value detection can be explained by the complexity of emotion. I will try to begin unravelling the structure of emotion in this chapter. The most common exemplars are models for only a limited range of behavior. We have no trouble imitating the outstanding cook when she is cooking, but not when she is disciplining her child. We may find someone exemplary for his insight into injustice but not for his personal loyalty or patience. Someone can be exemplary for courage but not for temperance. This is not a problem for exemplarism, because our ability to generalize from one context of imitated behavior to another is not determined by criteria specifiable in advance. Imitation could not occur if there were not natural ways to generalize behavior from one context to another.2 Of course, I am not suggesting that we always do it 2

This problem is related to the generality problem in epistemology, which I have discussed elsewhere (1996a, p. 310), and I am suggesting the same solution here. Empirical research can tell us how habits form and can identify the generality of the contexts in which a person’s behavior becomes habitual. The point here is not that the natural ways of generalizing are always correct, but only that there are natural ways to generalize.

54

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary correctly, only that there are natural ways in which human beings generalize, and that we can find out what they are empirically. If I am right that people typically imitate a person only in a restricted range of behavior, it is not necessary that a person be imitable in every respect in order to be imitable in some respect. Plato and Aristotle made familiar to us the thesis that the virtues are unified, that nobody can have one virtue perfectly without having all the others; but I doubt that the unity thesis matters either for the psychology of imitating exemplars or for the proposal that “good” is defined via direct reference. If we add exemplars for different virtues and different domains of human living to the model I am proposing, that makes it more complex than the one I am presenting, but it can easily be amended to account for that.3 Whether or not a fully virtuous person must have all the virtues, there is an important tradition in Western philosophy that says it is possible to have all the virtues. That is, there are traditional exemplars who are allegedly good in every respect – the Aristotelian phronimos, the Stoic sage, the Christian saint; and if we move beyond the Western tradition we find, for instance, the Buddhist arahant. These exemplars are said to have reached a level of virtue that allows them to feel and act properly in virtually any situation. This may seem unrealistic to the contemporary mind, since few persons have learned to adapt to more than a very limited range of situations, but there are probably persons who have learned how to handle all of the situations that persons in their culture are likely to encounter. As modern life becomes more and more complex and we increasingly interact with persons of every culture of the world, it becomes more and more difficult for anybody to be an exemplar in this sense. At a very high level of generality most persons probably do encounter every morally relevant situation, but the level of generality at which this is true may not be useful for the purposes of imitation. Granted, everyone encounters suffering persons, everyone suffers, everyone has to decide whether or not to tell the truth and to keep promises, everyone needs to 3

See Badhwar (1996) for an argument that the virtues are unified only within certain spheres of human activity.

55

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics find purpose, love, and fulfillment, and so on. But the moral life becomes difficult in situations that are more specific than that, and for models of good persons in those more specific situations, we need many exemplars. Religious exemplars are sometimes useless for modeling virtue in the messy situations that ordinary, less-than-virtuous persons encounter in modern life precisely because what makes the religious exemplars extraordinary is that they know how to avoid such messes. Some of us want to learn how to avoid the messes, but meanwhile, we have to face them and need exemplars of how to do that. I assume that in addition to exemplars for particular roles or areas of human activity, and in addition to exemplars for particular virtues, there are persons who are exemplary for their lives in general. I see no reason to insist that an exemplar is perfect, however – whether she is an exemplar of all the virtues, or an exemplar of only a particular virtue or set of virtues in a particular area of human living. An exemplar can be defeasibly imitable even if not perfect. I will argue in Chapter 9 that exemplars change, particularly under the influence of other exemplars, but there would be no reason for them to change if they were perfect. Furthermore, an exemplar does not have to be perfectly virtuous in order to function satisfactorily to fix the reference of “good.” It is not necessary that our exemplars of water be pure samples of H2 O in order for them fix the reference of “water,” either. We can identify exemplars without applying criteria, but they no doubt have some properties in common that are signs of their superior goodness. Most exemplars are recognized as exemplars, so they are the persons consulted for advice by others, and to the extent that it can be confirmed by hindsight, their advice turns out to be correct. They are stable and reliable. They usually have a lot of general knowledge. They have peace of mind.4 In typical circumstances, they are happy. But they are also prepared to face tragedy, and when it enters their life, they are good at handling it. Some are good at very simple matters of human interaction. 4

This is emphasized in some traditions more than others. In the West, it is a focus of Stoicism. For interesting discussions of this theme, see Nussbaum (1996) and Sorabji (2003).

56

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary More impressive are those who are consulted about very difficult matters. In short, they are wise. Cultures enshrine the wisdom of exemplars in myths, legends, lives of saints and heroes, and in sacred literature. Since the advent of the modern novel, there has been a notable decline in the depiction of individuals who are morally better than the ordinary, and art no longer has the function of representing moral exemplars. One of the distinguishing features of modern life is that we not only disagree about the identity of exemplars, but some of us doubt that they exist at all. The psychology of this kind of skepticism is interesting, and my conjecture about it is that it is associated with the desire to think of everyone as morally equal. Perverse forms of it include delight in seeing the admired brought down. I suppose that makes the rest of us look better by comparison. My own view is that such an attitude is not very helpful. Everyone imitates anyway. We might as well imitate the right people. I think the examination of the psychology of exemplars is important, but without a targeted program of empirical research, we need to rely on personal acquaintance and literature. What is the explanation for the fact that exemplars act well, give good counsel, have peace of mind? Clearly, they know a lot and they reason well, but that cannot be the full explanation, because they are noticeably better than others who in other respects know just as much and reason just as well. They have insight the origin of which they usually cannot explain themselves. What they often can do is to tell a story about how they arrived at their insight, although if the insight was slow in coming, the story may be very long. Some of the more notable exemplars have sudden conversion experiences. The conversion is not necessarily to a religious belief; rather, it is primarily a conversion to a different perception of the world. What is significant, I think, is the centrality of emotion in perceptions of this kind. One such story is told in The Brothers Karamasov by the priest and monk Father Zossima on the last day of his life. Father Zossima is one of the flashier kinds of exemplars. He is venerated during his lifetime as a saint, and pilgrims come from all over Russia to see him. He is renowned for his wisdom. He has the gift of 57

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics prophecy. He has great power over the hearts of others and is idolized by Alyosha Karamasov, the youngest of the brothers. He has extraordinary insight into the emotions of those he meets, and it is significant that his teaching is primarily a teaching of emotion. According to his own account, the first step in his learning to see life in a new way was the example of his older brother, who died in his teens of consumption. Shortly before his death, Zossima’s brother experienced a sudden and radical change in the way he understood life. A feeling of great joy suddenly came over him, an emotion in which he saw life as paradise, “only we don’t know it,” and he was overcome with the feeling that everyone is responsible for everyone else. Plainly, his state was not a belief – at least not merely a belief – but was directly felt. “You must realize that everyone is really responsible for everyone and everything. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it hurts” (Dostoyevsky 2003, p. 339). As a young man, Zossima had a similar awakening, brought on not by his impending death – although he was about to fight a duel – but by his sudden shame at giving his servant a vicious beating the night before. His feeling led to an emotion very similar to the one his older brother had experienced, and it was so overwhelming that after facing fire from his opponent, he threw away his pistol and asked his opponent to forgive him for insulting him without provocation and forcing him into the duel. He then proclaimed the beauty of God’s gifts and our responsibility for each other in words very similar to those of his older brother many years before. Zossima’s brother’s emotions were never tested, but his own were. Some emotions are trustworthy and some are not, as Dostoyevsky realizes. Zossima’s experience at the time of his duel is confirmed by the subsequent story of his life, the quality of the counsel he gives his followers, and his own subsequent emotions and the emotions of others. His emotions are confirmed by the fact that he is, and continues to be, an exemplar. The monk Zossima is clearly exceptional, but in him we see magnified what ordinary good people do. My proposal is that the psychologically most basic difference between exemplars and ordinary persons is the kind of perception they have in emotion. My thesis, in brief, is this: The emotions of exemplars are trustworthy, 58

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary and what makes them trustworthy is that they fit their intentional objects. Exemplary persons are also exemplary in their practical reasoning and in their subsequent actions, but I propose that the genesis of correct moral behavior is in the experience of emotion. Not only is the nature of emotion critical in an explanation of moral learning, it also sheds light on some of the puzzles we have considered.

ii what an emotion is Recently there has been a burst of interest in the emotions among English-language philosophers, although emotion is still underexplored when compared to the amount of attention given to belief and to decision. For most of the twentieth century, AngloAmerican philosophers ignored emotion; most of the work was done by philosophers on the continent.5 The historical backgrounds out of which the different theories of emotion have emerged vary radically, and at various times emotions have been identified with purely physical states, with states of pure feeling, and with purely cognitive states. My position is that an emotion is a state that has both cognitive and affective aspects that are not separable states. Other philosophers have argued that emotions combine cognitive and affective aspects, but my position is that the two aspects cannot be pulled apart; their connection is not contingent, certainly not merely causal. I will try to explain how that can be. By an affective state, I mean a state whose primary instance is a state of conscious feeling. I do not deny that there are unconscious emotions, but we learn what emotion is from the conscious experience of it, and it is to that experience that we refer when we want to examine its nature. When emotions are conscious, they have a certain “feel” that can vary in intensity from a degree of 5

See, for example, Franz Brentano (1969), Max Scheler, (1973, 1983), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1971). There is a large literature on the emotions among existentialists and phenomenologists of the first half of the twentieth century. Catholic philosophers such as Dietrich von Hildebrand (1953) were influenced by this work and adapted it to the needs of religious ethics.

59

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics strength so strong that it blocks everything else out of consciousness down to a degree so weak that it enters consciousness at all only with effort and help. Since a feeling is a basic item of consciousness, it cannot be explained in terms of anything else that is more basic, but it can be identified in part by the way it is distinguished from other kinds of conscious states. Unlike cognitive states, states of pure feeling are nonrepresentational, and it is possible that all nonrepresentational conscious states are feeling states, although nothing I say here requires that that be the case.6 An emotion is therefore an affective state, which, when conscious, is in the category of feeling. It is distinguished from moods and sensations in that it has an intentional object.7 That is, an emotion is a state of feeling a certain way about something or at something or toward something of a certain description. The intentional object of an emotion is represented in the agent’s consciousness in a way characteristic of the emotion. If we assume that representational states are cognitive, it follows that an emotion has a cognitive aspect as well as an affective aspect. In an emotional state, the agent feels a characteristic way about an object represented as falling under a concept corresponding to the particular emotion.8 The emotion bears an external relation to its intentional object and an internal relation to the conscious construal of the intentional object in the emotional state. It is possible that the intentional object of an emotion is radically misconstrued or does not exist at all; it may be illusory. 6

7

8

An exception to the thesis that all nonrepresentational conscious states are feeling states are states of willing, or conative states. I will briefly discuss choice in Chapter 4, but I will have little to say about the will in this book. The fact that the intentionality of emotion distinguishes it from other affective states was argued effectively by Max Scheler, whose work on emotion I have found very helpful (1973, 1983). A possible exception to the intentionality of emotion may be emotions aroused by music. Perceptual states may be representational also, and in the theory I am presenting here, emotion is a type of perception. But the object of perception is perceived as falling under a concept of a certain kind. The state therefore has a cognitive aspect. It is not a purely sensory state, although sensation is involved in it.

60

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary When an agent is in the state of emotion, she sees the intentional object of the emotion as falling under what I call “thick affective concepts.” Corresponding to each emotion there is a thick concept under which the agent represents the intentional object of her emotion. Examples are rude, dangerous, lovable, pitiful, and contemptible. Pity is an emotion consisting in feeling pity for something seen as pitiful; love is an emotion consisting in loving something seen as lovable; fear is an emotion consisting in feeling afraid of something seen as dangerous; contempt is an emotion consisting in feeling contempt for something seen as contemptible, and so on.9 The thick properties of the situation are properties of the intentional object of the feeling, not of the cause of the feeling. This distinguishes concepts such as rude from concepts that refer only to a certain response in the agent, such as irritating and nauseating. Feeling irritated or nauseated has a cause, but no intentional object. To see the difference beween emotions and feeling states that are nothing but responses to a prior representational state, let us compare two concepts, rude and nauseating. Nauseating does not have any descriptive content other than whatever causes a feeling of nausea. Whatever a person finds nauseating is nauseating. Of course, if someone systematically applies the term “nauseating” to very different things than other persons apply it to, we may doubt that she understands the word. But the mere fact that someone occasionally calls something “nauseating” that most other persons do not neither shows that he misunderstands the meaning of the word nor that he is speaking falsely. If it causes him a feeling of nausea, it is nauseating – to him, no matter what else is true of it descriptively. There is, in principle, no limitation on the kinds of things that can cause nausea. It follows that if I call something nauseating, I am not calling attention to any descriptive features of it other than the fact that I feel nauseated by it. Rude is different. What is rude typically causes a feeling of offense, but it can be rude whether or not it causes offense, and it 9

My account has some affinity with the one given by Robert Roberts (1988, 2003), who defines an emotion as “a concern-based construal.” Roberts does not use the notion of thick concepts, and I do not use his notion of a concern.

61

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics can cause offense when it is not rude. This means that rudeness is something other than the property of causing a certain feeling. Rudeness applies only when certain descriptive properties apply, and when I call something rude, I am, in part, calling attention to those properties, or, to put it more carefully, I am in part calling attention to properties that would not pertain were it not for those descriptive properties. Someone who accepts these observations might reply that this does not yet show there is anything special about rude. If it is not like nauseating, then it is just an ordinary descriptive concept like solid or square, a concept whose meaning has no connection to subjective states at all. But this cannot be right, because feeling offended is intrinsically connected to the meaning of “rude,” just as feeling nauseated is intrinsically connected to the meaning of “nauseating.” I have said that it is not necessary that each and every rude act produce a feeling of offense. In this respect, rude is like red. It is not necessary that each and every red object produce a sensation of red, either. Still, the fact that beings with our emotional dispositions normally have a certain feeling in the presence of rude behavior is part of what it means to be rude, just as the fact that beings with our perceptual capacities normally have a sensation of red in the presence of red objects is part of what it means to be red. The fact that affect is built into the possession of thick concepts in my sense has the consequence that there are concepts the possession of which is not a purely cognitive state. And I also suggest that the fact that there are such concepts should not be so surprising, since the grasp of color concepts also requires that one is in, or has been in, a state that is more than cognitive. The possession of the concept rude is like that.10 This feature of thick affective concepts distinguishes them from the notion of thick evaluative concepts as used by Bernard 10

A number of philosophers have pursued the idea that value concepts have parallels with color concepts. See, for example, John McDowell (1985) and Barry Stroud (1989). I prefer not to tie my view of the ontological status of moral value to the outcome of the debate on secondary qualities. My point here does not depend upon there being a close analogy between rude and red. The similarity to which I am alluding is merely that in both cases the state of grasping the concept is more than cognitive.

62

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary Williams.11 Williams and others following him distinguish thick and thin concepts in terms of the content of the concept rather than the state of possessing the concept. Williams claims that the content of a thick concept is both descriptive and evaluative, where the two aspects are not separable. I do not deny Williams’s claim about the content of thick concepts, but I find it clearer to focus on what it is like to have such concepts and to use them in typical instances.12 Someone might propose instead that rude is simply a conjunctive concept, conjoining having descriptive property R with causing a feeling of offense. For example, Philippa Foot (1978) has proposed that a condition for rudeness is that it displays a lack of respect.13 So the proposal might be that something is rude just in case it displays descriptive property R and causes, or typically causes, a feeling of offense. But this cannot be right either, because it does not explain why there is any difference between this descriptive property that causes offense and other descriptive properties that also cause offense but are not rude. If the relation between descriptive property R and feeling offended is merely causal, it is no different than the relation between other descriptive properties and the offense they cause. This observation forces us to look 11

12

13

Williams (1985) says the idea came from Clifford Geertz (1973), who in turn credits Gilbert Ryle (1971). But my reading of Ryle does not reveal that he was using a concept whose descriptive and evaluative components cannot be pulled apart – the most important feature of the concept as used by Williams – and I’m not even sure about its use by Geertz. Subsequent commentators on the distinction sometimes misrepresent the thesis as the claim that all concepts that combine the descriptive and the evaluative are such that the two aspects cannot be pulled apart – for example, Blackburn (1992). The notion of the content of a concept is a difficult one, and I prefer to avoid it if possible. Part of the problem is that a concept is not clearly distinct from the state of possessing it. It is not analogous to an object that can be passed around from person to person, much less is it an object that can exist apart from its possession by any person. But I will not defend that position here. In what follows, I will focus on the state of possessing thick concepts and argue that that state is one that is intrinsically and inseparably both cognitive and affective. “Moral Arguments,” in Foot (1978).

63

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics closely at the relation between feeling offended and those descriptive properties, and what we see, I propose, is that the feeling of offense in instances of rudeness is not merely caused by certain features of the situation; it is rather a matter of feeling offended at certain features, features that are construed in a distinctive way when they are the object of the feeling of offense. These features of the situation are the intentional object of the feeling, not just the cause of it. Feeling nauseated, by contrast, has no intentional object. Here, then, is the important difference between rude and purely descriptive concepts, on the one hand, and a concept like nauseating on the other. When I see something as rude, I feel offended at the offensive features of the situation, and those features cannot be fully described independently of their being intentional objects of the feeling of offense. That is, there is no purely descriptive feature of the object of offense that adequately captures that which is offensive. This is not to deny that the cognitive grasp of purely descriptive features of some situation, together with my emotional dispositions, causes my emotional response; in fact, I believe that that is probably the case. Nor is it to deny that offensiveness supervenes on those descriptive features, although I am not going to address the supervenience thesis here. It is simply to say that to see something as rude is not just to see it as having those descriptive properties, nor is it to see that something has caused me to feel offended, nor is it to see the two together. It is to see it as the intentional object of the feeling of offense. I do not just feel offended by the rude behavior, I feel offended at it. Rude is, then, a concept that combines the descriptive and the affective in such a way that cannot be pulled apart. The conclusion is that rude is a thick affective concept. I propose that a thick concept is acquired through the experience of having the emotion in situations in which the intentional object is presented to the agent’s consciousness, and that its primary use continues to be in the experience of that emotion. One cannot possess a thick concept without being in, or having been in, a state that is both cognitive and affective. In this respect, thick concepts are analogous to color concepts, which are acquired through sensory states and continue to be applied in their primary use 64

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary when the agent is in a state that is both sensory and cognitive. A person who has not experienced the emotion accompanying the concept could not understand the concept, just as a person who has never had the sensation of red could not understand the concept of red.14 I suspect that each of the emotion words I have used (“pity,” “fear,” “love,” etc.) is actually a generic term for a range of emotions that are very similar. Fear of heights feels very different than fear of losing a job, and the intentional object of the fear is perceived differently in the two cases. Heights are fearful in a different sort of way than the prospect of a jobless future is fearful. Similarly, love of a person feels quite different from love of philosophy, and, in fact, the love of one person may feel quite different from the love of another, even when in both cases it is the same type of love – erotic love, familial love, or friendship. But there may also be emotion terms that name a single emotion rather than a range of emotions. Consider the emotion of awe. It can be felt when standing on a cliff over the Pacific Ocean, when looking up at the soaring vault of Chartres Cathedral, or when witnessing the birth of a baby, but, I think there is a tendency to assume that the feeling of awe, unlike the feeling of love or fear, is the same in each case. Perhaps that is true, or perhaps instead we feel awe so much less frequently than fear or love that we do not notice the differences in kinds of awe. In any case, we should not assume that our emotional vocabulary accurately expresses the way emotions are individuated. The particularity of emotions is due in part to the fact that their intentional objects are situations/objects that are almost always new in some way. We are continually confronting a world that has many features in common with the world we have encountered before, but which nevetheless differs in some respects. This causes us to have new kinds of perceptions frequently, and the combination of our perception of new descriptive features of the world, together with our affective dispositions, which are also changing, 14

This point about the concept of red is disputable, and I make the point only for the sake of analogy. As I mentioned earlier, my position does not rest on a theory of color.

65

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics leads us to construe the world in new, affectively laden ways – that is, in terms of new thick concepts. If that is so, then we have new emotions just as frequently. We are probably in an emotional state of one kind of another most of the time, but we take notice only when the emotion is either unusually intense or unusual in its quality. The consequence is that there are both a multitude of thick concepts and a multitude of emotions corresponding to them. This suggests that there are many more emotions and thick concepts than we can name. What do we call the feeling people have when they roll their eyes? Everyone recognizes it, but I do not know a word for it. Sometimes an emotion is identified by its cause, as when we say we feel betrayed, and sometimes an emotion is identified by its characteristic end, as in feeling vengeful. Sometimes we have a word for an emotion but not its corresponding thick concept, and sometimes it is the reverse. For example, I do not know a word for the intentional object of the emotion of indignation, although I would claim that there is a distinctive way in which the intentional object of that emotion is cognized. Similarly, I do not know a word for the emotion that accompanies seeing someone as rude. I have spoken of feeling offended, since it seems to be in the right family, but “feeling offended” probably refers to a broader class of emotions than those directed at rudeness. Most virtue and vice concepts are thick, and the emotions associated with understanding them are subtle, but their existence is implied by the fact that people tend to change their vocabularies when they no longer have the emotion that goes with the corresponding thick concept. It has been a long time since I heard someone use the word “chaste.” “Liar” is used only by those who find the liar distasteful. If a person wants to excuse himself or someone else for telling a falsehood, he will not call the person a liar. The same thing applies to “dishonest,” “unjust,” “insincere,” and “cowardly.” Similarly, to call someone “gentle,” “compassionate,” or “kind” is to say that one feels certain emotions toward her. It will be objected that the simplest explanation for the way these terms are used is that some of them imply approval and some imply disapproval, but I do not think that fully explains the way we use the vocabulary of virtue and vice. There is a difference 66

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary between the way we feel about a dishonest person, a cowardly one, and a brutal one, and similarly, about a sincere person, a kind person, and a courageous one. It is not simply a matter of disapproving of those in the first group and approving of those in the second. I doubt that our vocabulary is precisely isomorphic with our concepts, thick or otherwise, but differences of vocabulary do suggest that there are differences among the thick concepts for the same descriptive behavior. Consider again the terms for persons who abstain from immoral or unlawful sexual activity. To Aristotle, this is a form of temperance. In traditional Christian ethics, it is the virtue of chastity. Chaste persons might also be called pure, suggesting that they are untainted or undefiled. These concepts might apply to the same behavior and are accompanied by the attitude of approval, but arguably they are not identical. The same point holds for concepts for the opposite vice. Persons can be called lustful, lascivious, lecherous, or lewd. Again, these concepts arguably apply to the same behavior and may be accompanied by the same attitude of disapproval, yet the concepts are not identical. Granted, the descriptive behavior to which each one applies may not be exactly the same, but it seems to me unlikely that that is sufficient to explain the differences among the concepts. My conjecture is that seeing someone as lecherous and seeing someone as lewd are not the same thing, even when there are no differences in the descriptive behavior upon which the thick concepts are based. It is also possible that some of these concepts are not thick in the sense I mean. I do not deny that there is room in our language for terms that do nothing but describe and express a derogatory attitude (e.g., “fat” and stronger slang terms for the overweight). Simon Blackburn has objected that “lewd” is also such a term.15 That is possible, but it does not show that there are no thick concepts in the sense I am describing. Some writers are more skilled than others at conveying the thick aspects of a situation, but professional language tends to 15

Blackburn (1992) claims that the descriptive and evaluative aspects of “lewd” and “fat” can be pulled apart.

67

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics focus much more on the descriptive. For a long time, philosophers were wary of using terms for thick concepts in professional discourse, but there are signs that that is changing.16 It must be admitted that thick concepts are among the most difficult to analyze and to communicate. If I am right that these concepts are partly constitutive of emotions and acquire their meaning from the experience of emotion, communication using thick concepts requires a common experience of the corresponding emotion. Human beings probably have similar enough emotional dispositions that we may presume that their emotion concepts are also similar, but the complexity of emotion and the way in which it is learned probably mean that there is less commonality in thick concepts than in either concepts for sensations such as red or descriptive concepts such as square. The fact that the cognitive and affective aspects of emotion cannot be pulled apart is important for the idea that emotion is a unitary state. My position is that one cannot feel pity without seeing something in a certain way, a way that I have described as seeing it as pitiful, and I am reserving an expression of the form “seeing x as pitiful” for the way in which the intentional object of the emotion of pity is seen. It follows that one cannot see something as pitiful without feeling pity. However, one can see that something is pitiful without feeling pity, and one can feel pity without seeing that something is pitiful. Both of these possibilities arise in ways analogous to our seeing that something is red without having a red sensation, or having a red sensation without seeing that something is red. For example, I may see signs of an object’s redness without the red sensation when I see a traffic sign that has the characteristic shape of a red stop sign but am unable to see the color because of some abnormality in the situation of which I am aware. I might then be able to see that the object is red without having the sensation of red – without, as I put it, “seeing it as red.” Likewise, if I distrust my own color perceptions, I can have a red sensation when looking at a traffic signal even though I see that the signal is green because of its position 16

For a welcome endorsement of thick concepts and the entanglement of fact and value, see Putnam (2002), especially Chapter 2.

68

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary on the light post. In the same way, I can see that something is pitiful without feeling pity if I see signs of its pitifulness, and I can feel pity while seeing that the intentional object is not pitiful if I see signs in the situation that lead me to distrust my own emotion. It is possible to have the ability to perceive the descriptive features of a situation but still be unable to see them as falling under thick concepts. That happens in people who have a type of brain damage that prevents them from feeling emotion. Antonio Damasio (1994) describes clinical cases in which such persons have no trouble recognizing the descriptive features of a situation and understanding that they are thought to be, say, rude, without (as I put it) seeing it as rude. They are unable to see someone as rude because their brain damage affects their ability to feel emotion. They can judge that a person is rude, because they learn to identify the descriptive features of situations that others see as rude, but they do not see anything as rude, and they have no motive to respond in the way people who are offended characteristically do. It is important not to confuse the view I am proposing here with the view that emotions are responses to value. I believe that the emotion of pity is not a response to something seen as pitiful; the emotion of contempt is not a response to something seen as contemptible, and so on. Rather, seeing something as pitiful is a feature of the state of being in the emotion of pity; seeing someone as contemptible is a feature of the state of being in the emotion of contempt. Emotion is a type of value perception that feels a characteristic way. The intentional structure of emotion not only distinguishes emotion from physical sensations and moods, which have no intentional object, but also distinguishes emotion from states such as desire that do have objects, but whose object is not such that the understanding of it is an intrinsic aspect of the affective state. One can be in the very same state of desire for different objects, each of which is cognized very differently by the desirer. All that the objects of desire need have in common – even in the mind of the desirer – is that they are desired. The concepts under which the desirer sees them do not affect the state in any way. Desire is 69

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics desire, whether it is for sex or for chocolate.17 Like belief, desire is not a different state when its object is cognized a different way. Emotion is different. Pity is what it is in part because the object is seen as pitiful. Contempt is what it is in part because the object is seen as contemptible. Pity and contempt are not states identifiable apart from the way in which their intentional objects are cognized. Desire, by contrast, is completely understandable apart from the way its object is cognized. The object of desire is seen as desirable, of course, but the sense in which every object of desire is seen as desirable is merely the sense in which the object of desire is seen as the object of desire. Unlike pitiful and contemptible, desirable is not a thick concept. Furthermore, desire is only one of many affective attitudes a person can have toward the same object, and this also distinguishes it from emotion. In this way, desire is like belief, both of which are often regarded as having propositional objects and possibly even the same propositional object.18 It is common to think that motives are desires, but I think this overlooks some of the most important features of human motivation, since motivation arises on a level that often is subpropositional, both cognitively and affectively. Even though motivations may give rise to propositional beliefs and propositional desires, the motivation arises first in an emotional state whose object may not be propositional.19 In a full account of the nature of emotion, we would have to address many other issues, such as whether an emotion is a state 17

18

19

This is because desire is a purposely reductivist notion. Perhaps we never experience pure desire, because desires are always accompanied by, or are parts of, more complex affective states. My point is that as long as we are talking about desire qua desire, there is no difference between one desire and another on account of their object, even though in the actual case, desires are usually the consequence of emotions, and the emotions have intentional objects that distinguish them. Actually, it takes a bit of work to claim that desire always, or even typically, has a propositional object; nonetheless, the claim is a common one, and I think it does reveal a difference between desire and emotion, even though the difference is exaggerated. I am not denying that emotions can have propositional objects. Regret and guilt do so, and anger often does as well.

70

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary or an act. Some phenomenologists have said that it should be classified as the latter (Brentano, Scheler). I will not examine the difference between a state and an act in this book. When I refer to an emotional state, I am using “state” in its most general sense, which I mean to be compatible with its being an act. In other words, in referring to an emotional state, I do not mean to preclude the possibility that the state is an active one. An emotion need not be purely receptive or passive. Emotions easily become dispositions. Human beings develop patterns of emotional response in similar situations. These circumstance/emotion pairs become part of the person’s character. They express the way she emotionally fits into the world around her. An emotion is motivating because of the combination of its affective component and its intentionality. Affectivity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a state’s being motivating. It is necessary because affect is what gets us going. Hume is usually associated with this point, but so is Aristotle,20 and I believe they are right that no cognitive or purely representational state can do so. It is not sufficient because states of mere feeling – moods, for example – do not move us, except indirectly. This is one of the reasons it is so difficult to get a person who sinks into depression to be motivated to take any definite action to get out of it. There has to be something specific in the world around us toward which affect is directed in order for us to have anything to which to respond. Emotions are motivating because they are affective attitudes directed toward a particular object. In a state of pity, someone is seen as pitiful, and the feeling of pity motivates us to take action characteristic of response to the emotion of pity – typically, to stop the suffering toward which the pity is directed. In a state of love, someone is seen as lovable, and the feeling of love motivates us to treat the beloved in characteristically loving ways. In a state of contempt, someone is seen as contemptible, and the feeling of contempt motivates us to express our contempt in some way. An emotion is not always motivating. There may be no opportunity, or the agent 20

Aristotle says in De Anima: “That which moves therefore is a single faculty and the faculty of appetite,” and “Mind is never found producing movement without appetite” (433a21–24).

71

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics may decide against it for some reason. But emotions are potentially motivating. The emotion provides the force that the agent then either directs or blocks, or circumstances may block it for him. What I call the motivational potential of emotion is similar to what some psychologists call “action impulses.” Lazarus, Kanner, and Folkman (1980, p. 198) define emotion as a process “consisting of cognitive appraisals, action impulses, and patterned somatic reactions.” What I find particularly interesting is the relation between the cognitive appraisal and the action impulse, and my account of emotion focuses on that relation. I agree that when action occurs as the result of emotion, the impulse to act comes from the emotion, but I think that the emotion is not sufficient for action and that therefore the impulse to perform a particular action is not a component of the emotion itself. The emotion can occur without any ensuing action, and while it moves the agent to perform acts with ends characteristic of the emotion, the particular action that follows depends in part upon beliefs and perceptions that are not part of the emotion itself. I call an emotion a motive when it initiates action.21 Emotion can motivate even when it is unconscious, but its motivational power comes from its affective aspect, not its cognitive aspect. Motives are emotions that cause acts, and most acts have ends, but not all do. An end is typically a state of affairs that the act aims to bring about, but sometimes the act itself is the end, or the end may be merely to express the motive, as when we aim to express contempt. An act that expresses a motive is not the same thing as an act that has the end of expressing the motive. For example, one can act out of love or desire without acting to express love or desire as an end.22 Emotions may occur without acting as motives, and we typically call them motives only at the time they are act-directing. But an emotion is not a different emotional state when it acts as 21

22

According to the definition of motive I give in Virtues of the Mind, a motive is an emotion that initiates and directs action toward an end (p. 131). I am now inclined to think that many acts have no end, although they are still motivated. See Stocker (1981) for an argument that there are acts without ends.

72

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary a motive than when it does not. A motive disposition is a disposition to have an emotion that is act-directing. A motive is an emotion that is operating in a certain way – to cause action – and a motive disposition is a disposition to have an emotion that causes action in a way characteristic of that emotion. Although a motive is an emotional state, we tend to identify motives differently than we do emotions because the concepts of emotion and motive are used in different contexts. Emotions are typically identified by the way they feel (e.g., love, anger, regret), whereas motives, like desires, are often identified by their ends (e.g., the motive to find one’s keys). But as I pointed out in Chapter 1, it is a mistake to confuse motives with ends or aims. A motive is a (partly) affective state in the agent’s psyche that moves him to act. That state feels a characteristic way, whether it be love, sympathy, jealousy, or fear. I have said that not all motives have ends. But if I am wrong about that, not much changes in motivationbased virtue theory, although I will argue in Chapter 5 that the Creation makes more sense if God’s act is motivated but has no end. The concept of a motive arises within the discourse of giving reasons in both the sense of precipitating reasons and the sense of justifying reasons.23 A motive may or may not excuse the behavior, but it is often mentioned when excuses are relevant. I am using “motive” in a sense that applies to a state only when it is in fact operative in causing an act. So motives are emotions that are causally operative in bringing about an act, and they are also relevant to the assessment of the act or the assessment of the agent for doing the act. Motive-dispositions are constituents of traits of character. A trait of character is the combination of a motive-disposition and reliability in acting in a way that expresses the motive and reaching the end (if any) of the motive. The good ones are constituents of virtues, and the bad ones are constituents of vices. The class of virtues and vices may not exhaust the class of traits of character, since some traits of character may be evaluatively neutral. Or there may be traits that are evaluatively positive but are not traits 23

See Peters (1958), p. 31.

73

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics that every human being needs in order to be a good person. That possibility arises because some traits of character, in the sense I have defined, probably fall within a class of optional qualities. This class would include such traits as the degree to which a person is extroverted or introverted, physically active or inactive, sensitive or insensitive to different kinds of aesthetic value, and the varieties of senses of humor. In all these areas, extremes are to be avoided, but there is still a wide range of individual differences that might be considered differences in traits of character because they have emotion-dispositions as constituents, but where the traits themselves are either neutral or evaluatively equal to the other traits within the range. Some of these traits could be considered personality traits instead of character traits, but I would not be too quick to eliminate the former from the class of traits of interest to virtue ethics, for reasons that will become clear when we look at the intrinsic value of personhood. I will give a brief account of virtues and vices in Chapter 3.

iii emotion and value judgment 1 Emotions, like beliefs, can be expressed propositionally. One way to do so is to make one’s own psychic state the object of the judgment. So I can say “I feel offended” or “I believe that it will rain today.” Another way is to make the object of the psychic state the object of the judgment, and I can say “That is offensive” or “It will rain today.” When someone says “It will rain today,” we usually take that judgment to be an expression of a belief state, although, of course, a variety of contextual cues may tell us otherwise. Similarly, when someone says “That is offensive,” we usually take that judgment to be an expression of an emotional state, although again, a variety of cues may tell us otherwise. But a simple and standard way of expressing emotion, as in the case of belief, is to utter a proposition of a certain kind. In the case of emotion, what I call the standard proposition expressing it has the form “x is A,” where A is the thick affective concept applying to the intentional object of the emotion. 74

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary When I see something as dangerous, contemptible, charming, offensive, and so on, I am in the corresponding emotional state, but emotion does not necessarily include having a belief about the intentional object of the emotion. For one thing, emotion may not be sufficiently conscious to permit the formation of beliefs (although it is possible that belief has degrees of consciousness corresponding to the degrees of consciousness of emotion). More importantly, as I have already pointed out, I may distrust my own emotion and intentionally refrain from judging that x is A.24 I can even form the judgment that x is not A while seeing x as A. So what I call the standard judgment expressing an emotion is not a judgment that every person in the emotional state is willing to make. Nonetheless, it is the judgment he would make if he were sufficiently conscious of his emotion and sufficiently trustful of it. This account of emotion permits a solution to part of the first puzzle of moral psychology – how a moral judgment can be both cognitive and motivating in a central group of cases. A judgment such as “She is pitiful” is an evaluative judgment expressing the emotion of pity. When the agent makes the judgment, she is asserting a proposition and is in an intrinsically motivating state. Her judgment therefore expresses a state that is both cognitive and motivating in such a way that the two aspects of the state are not detachable. Not all moral judgments express emotions, but my position is that the judgments expressing emotion are primary, both conceptually and in the learning of moral behavior. In the next chapter, I will argue that those moral judgments that are not intrinsically motivating are derived from those that are. The process whereby nonmotivating judgments are derived from the experience of emotion will be described in a process I call the thinning of moral judgment. Let us review the way in which emotion arises. A situation has certain descriptive features D. My sensory and cognitive awareness of D, together with my emotional dispositions, causes me to be in a certain emotional state E. E is an affective 24

I am assuming that believing and judging differ in that judging is an act, whereas believing may not be. If I judge that p, then I believe that p, but the converse may not hold.

75

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics state whose intentional object is the D situation seen as falling under a thick concept A. I cannot see situation D as A without being in emotion E. I can express emotion E by making the judgment, “That is A.” For example, a situation has the descriptive feature of being one in which a person is suffering.25 My awareness of this descriptive feature, together with my emotional dispositions, leads me to be in the distinctive emotional state of feeling pity for the sufferer, whom I see as pitiful. I may express my emotion by saying, “She is pitiful.” A belief is true just in case the belief corresponds to reality. Similarly, I propose that an emotion is good just in case it “fits” its intentional object. An emotion is good or right or fitting just in case a state of affairs has the thick property that the agent sees it as having in the emotional state. This means that emotions have something analogous to truth value. Contempt fits a contemptible object, disgust fits a disgusting object, joy a joyous object, and love a lovable object. Pity fits the pitiful and fear the dangerous, and so on. Another way to put it is that an emotion is good just in case the standard judgment expressing it is true. Propositions of the form “X is pitiful,” “Y is contemptible,” “Z is fearsome,” and so on can be true, and they are true just in case X is pitiful, Y is contemptible, Z is fearsome, and so on. They are not true because an agent feels pity, contempt, or fear. As I have said, the emotion does not cause the perception of the thick property, and the perception of the thick property does not cause the emotion. The perception of the application of a thick property in some situation is a constituent of the emotion. What causes the emotion is the perception of descriptive features of the intentional object together 25

It is interesting to compare the differences in the descriptive features of situations that elicit compassion and those that elicit pity. In both cases, the situation involves a person who is suffering or harmed or whose dignity has been damaged in some way, but there is a difference in the relation between the agent and the sufferer in the two cases. Pity seems to arise when the agent does not identify with the suffering person or perceives him as lower in status than herself. Compassion arises in situations in which the agent does identify with the sufferer or considers him an equal. This is probably the reason why compassion has always been considered a morally good state, whereas pity is morally ambiguous.

76

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary with the perceiver’s emotional dispositions. Although the emotion does not make the thick concept apply, it is true that the thick concept would not apply were it not for the existence of beings with the relevant emotional dispositions. It is also true that the emotion would not exist were it not for the features of the world that make the emotion fit. But fitness is not in the mind of the perceiver. The emotion fits just in case the standard judgment expressing it is true. A person can be wrong in her construal of something as pitiful or contemptible or rude. She might see something as contemptible that is not contemptible; she might see something as offensive that is not offensive, and so on. And she can come to recognize her mistake. We believe we are recognizing mistakes when we change our perception of thick properties without any change in our grasp of the descriptive properties. Of course, we do not always change to a more accurate perception, but we think we do, and part of the time we are probably right. So someone may see another who gets up late in the morning as lazy, but later change his mind. He may think Jane Austen prim the first time he reads Pride and Prejudice, but not the second, or vice versa. Most of us see our parents differently as we age, even while the descriptive features of our parents and our memories of them do not change in any significant way. Given these changes and our sense that they improve our understanding, and given the fact that the change in the perception of thick properties is a change in emotion and is therefore often a change in motive for subsequent action, we must think that we are improving not only our way of seeing, but also our way of acting. Many of these changes in emotion happen automatically through experience and imitation, but some happen through the exercise of practical reasoning, which I will briefly discuss in Chapter 3. The aspects of reality that are detected through emotion and that are expressed in thick concepts are relative to beings with certain kinds of emotional capacities. The emotion fits beings with a certain emotional nature to the world as it is. Similarly, the aspects of reality that are detected through sensory perception and are expressed in descriptive concepts are relative to beings with certain kinds of sensory and cognitive capacities. What we call a 77

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics true belief is a belief that fits beings with our human dispositions to the world as it is. Some beliefs involve thick concepts that apply because of our emotional dispositions. Sensory concepts such as red, descriptive concepts such as volume, and emotional concepts such as pity all apply because of the fit between human capacities and the the way the world is. Experience suggests that there is much more variability in some kinds of perception than in others. Presumably, the dispositions and states of persons that lead them to perceive something as pitiful are much more variable than those that lead them to perceive something as red. This might mean that we are more often mistaken in our emotions than in our color perceptions, but it also raises the question of whether the capacities that make an emotion fit are determined by the species or determined by the individual. Some individual differences in capacities are defects, but some undoubtedly are not. The capacities in virtue of which an emotion fits are probably more variable than the capacities in virtue of which a sensation or a purely descriptive belief fits. This may mean that more than one emotion fits the way the world is. There are many ways to be wrong in an emotion, but there is probably more than one way to be right. In any case, I see no reason to think that there is a one-to-one fit between emotion and world. It may be many-to-one. This is one of the reasons it is usually abusive to tell another person that her emotion is wrong. In short, emotion reveals reality, and part of the reality it reveals is evaluative, and that is a good thing, but emotion does not get its value from the fact that it reveals something good or bad. An emotion is valuable because, like a true belief, it reveals reality to us. A good emotion, like a true belief, fits what it is about. The standard judgment expressing it is true. The idea that true belief is one species of fit of which there are others was expressed by Nelson Goodman (1983) as follows: Briefly, then, truth of statements and rightness of descriptions, representations, exemplifications, expressions – of design, drawing, diction, rhythm – is primarily a matter of fit: fit to what is referred to in one way or another, or to other renderings, or to modes and manners of organization. The differences between

78

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary fitting a version to a world, a world to a version, and a version together or to other versions fade when the roles of versions in making the worlds they fit is recognized. And knowing or understanding is seen as ranging beyond the acquiring of true beliefs to the discovering and devising of fit of all sorts. (p. 138)

My position is that emotions are another kind of representation and that they also can be a kind of knowing. 2 Philosophers who study emotion often come to the conclusion that emotion is connected with the experience of value, but their positions on what value is can be anything from extreme realism to extreme antirealism. In the first half of the twentieth century, philosophers such as Max Scheler (1973) and Dietrich von Hildebrand (1953) identified value with a property of objects or states of affairs in an independent world that is detected through emotion. Other philosophers have identified value with whatever causes a certain affectation of our subjectivity. If it is the latter, it is like the nauseating, and I have already given my reasons for rejecting that option. I have not yet mentioned the other end of the realist spectrum, however, and I want to discuss my reasons for rejecting that alternative in this subsection. Max Scheler analyzed emotion as a form of cognition that allows us to perceive values such as beauty and justice in a world of facts. Values are highly abstract. They are the object of emotion, and an emotion is nonrepresentational (Calhoun and Solomon 1984, p. 225). Dietrich von Hildebrand had a similar theory according to which emotions are proper or improper responses to external value. Value is in the world in the same way that descriptive properties are in the world. We detect these values through the emotions of love and hate. We love value and hate disvalue. The realist theories of Von Hildebrand and Scheler permit a distinction between value properties and descriptive properties – an important desideratum in solving the puzzles in the metaphysics of value discussed in Chapter 1 – but they have a number of other problems. First, as I argued in Chapter 1, values and disvalues 79

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics are not all reducible to objects of love and hate, and the complexity of the objects of emotion requires a similar complexity in the forms of value that are detected by emotion. For example, the object of pity is the pitiful, not the disvaluable. Second, since Scheler and von Hildebrand think of emotion as nonrepresentational, for them an emotion has nothing in common with its object. In what sense does an agent perceive a value in emotion if an emotional state is wholly unlike its object in form and content? The nature of the value which the agent perceives, or to which he responds, is utterly mysterious. Even if von Hildebrand is right that some emotion is an appropriate response to a value and that we could know that that is the case, that tells us nothing at all about what the value is. In fact, we do not even have reason to believe that it is a property. All we know is that the emotional state we are in now is the right one in these circumstances. But that does not tell us what this value, as opposed to some other value or disvalue, is like, nor does it even tell us what ontological category a value is in. Is it an entity, a property, a relation, or none of these? For all we know, “value” is just a word for the entire situation to which we respond. Furthermore, there is no relation between the value and the response in virtue of which it is fitting or appropriate. Appropriateness is a bare metaphysical fact. We expect an answer to the question of what makes it appropriate that a certain emotion – say, admiration – is the appropriate response to some value – say, generosity. In the case of belief, we understand what makes a belief that it is raining the appropriate response to the fact that it is raining. The belief and the fact are thought to have something in common. The belief represents what is outside the mind. Of course, this view of belief may be false. Perhaps there is no relation of representation between a belief and its object. But that is commonly taken to be a problem for our understanding of how beliefs correctly hook up with the world. If emotions are appropriate responses to value, the explanation for the way emotions hook up with value cannot even get going. What is it for an emotion to be appropriate? If the answer is that it is the right response, then the appropriateness thesis is nonexplanatory. It is like trying to explain what makes a belief appropriately connect to the world by 80

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary saying that it is true. That is what needs explaining. So all we can get out of this position is that some emotional responses are right ones and others are not. Even if the value causes the emotion, I fail to see how that explains our knowledge of value.26 Even less does it explain what value is. There must be something in the state of emotion in addition to its affectivity that makes it connect to the world in a way that is like that of a belief. The sketch of emotion I have given is intended to do that. Given the implausibility of views of moral properties that make their detection the product of either ordinary cognition or intuition, it is easy to see why so many theorists propose that moral properties are projections of human dispositions. I have already argued against the crudest version of this position, the idea that values are properties like exciting, nauseating, or irritating. To say that something is nauseating is just to say that it produces in us a feeling of nausea. We have no trouble understanding how it can be true that something is nauseating just in case it causes a feeling of nausea, and because we understand that, we also understand that there is no such thing as the nauseating per se, but only what is nauseating to me or to you. This position is easy to imagine. It is not utterly mysterious. The problem with it is that it is utterly false. It is precisely because we have no trouble understanding what the pitiful, the cruel, and the contemptible would have to be like in order to be like the nauseating that we have no trouble seeing the difference.27 But, of course, expressivist or projectivist theories need not assimilate value concepts to the category of the nauseating. There are more subtle and interesting forms of expressivism, such as the theories of Alan Gibbard (1992) and Simon Blackburn (1998). I will leave it to readers to decide whether these theories are plausible. 26

27

I suspect that the view that the value causes the emotion has the same problem in explaining knowledge of value that the causal theory of perception has in explaining knowledge of physical objects. For this reason, I have no sympathy for a fairly common argument against moral relativism that alleges that it is incoherent. Incoherence might arise at the metalevel, but relativism about the moral properties we ascribe to things is perfectly coherent. It is just because it is coherent that we can clearly see its falsehood.

81

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics Both of them move quite a distance from the default position of realism about value, and for that reason I think that a theory that is compatible with a more realist theory, or at least is neutral on the issue, is preferable. The view I have sketched so far does that. Value is, in the first instance, what good beings see. I have been using “see” in a sense that is not limited to sensory perception, but includes the affective apprehension one has in a state of emotion. The thick properties things have are the properties they are seen to have by beings with our affective dispositions, together with our perceptual and cognitive dispositions. These properties are the objects of apprehension of beings with those dispositions, but the dispositions do not create the properties. We can be right in the thick properties we see things having, or we can be wrong. To see things right is to be in an affective state that is such that the standard judgment expressing it is true. So we can truly say that one person’s affective state is right and another’s is wrong. What we cannot say is that the kinds of dispositions human beings have are the right dispositions to have, as if the dispositions of other imaginable intelligent creatures would be wrong to have. We have these dispositions because that is part of what it is to be human. The dispositions cannot be wrong unless it is wrong to be human, and I assume it is senseless to say that; but for the same reason, it is senseless to say it is right. There is a modest sense of “right,” however, in which it is right that we have the perceptual, cognitive, and affective dispositions that we have because they are capable of putting us in states that fit the world outside of us. Not all other imaginable dispositions could do so, but there are also indefinitely many that could. So they are right in a sense that does not tell us very much. A more direct and explicit grounding of thick properties in something outside of the human world will be given in Part II.

iv the intrinsic value of emotion 1 One of the most important things the paradigmatic good person does is to construe reality correctly in her emotions. Good 82

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary emotions are the emotions of good persons. If we define a good person demonstratively by direct reference to an exemplar, good emotions can also be defined directly by reference to an exemplar. I am not claiming that the emotions of an exemplary good person are good because the person is good. They are part of what makes the person good. It is helpful to define a good emotion as the emotion an exemplar would have in a given situation, but that is not to say that the goodness of the emotion derives from the goodness of the person. In this section, I will argue that emotion is an intrinsic good, by which I mean a basic, nonderivative good. When I say that a good is intrinsic, I mean that its goodness does not come from anything other than itself. It is not good because something else to which it is related is good. An extrinsic good, by contrast, is good because of the goodness of something else. So, for example, beautiful objects are extrinsically good if they are good just because people enjoy them and enjoyment is good. They are intrinsically good if their goodness is not derivative from the goodness of enjoyment or anything else. The value of an act is extrinsic if it depends upon the goodness of consequences or motives. It is intrinsic if it does not depend upon the value of anything else but is valuable just because of properties of the act itself. To the theist, the goodness of everything ultimately comes from the goodness of God, so in a sense the goodness of everything in this world is extrinsic, but it still serves an important theoretical purpose to distinguish the relative basicality of the evaluative properties we apply to this world; and in any case, I want the virtue theory I am presenting in Part I to stand on its own, without making use of any theological concepts. Let me begin the argument for the intrinsic value of emotions by revisiting the distinction between intrinsic good and the good of ends. As I remarked in Chapter 1, not only is it common to think of the good of ends as the most basic sense of good, but “good” is sometimes defined as what is worthy of choice or pursuit, or more naturalistically, as that which we pursue by nature. This is no doubt an inheritance from Aristotle, who gets things off to a bad start in the first sentence of the Nicomachean Ethics when he says that “the good has been well described as that at which 83

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics everything aims.”28 By asserting that the good just is the good of ends, Aristotle ignores intrinsic good, and the good he ignores is more basic than the good of ends. To say that something is that which we pursue by nature, or is that which is worthy of pursuit, is only to say that it is natural to value it or that we ought to value it in a certain way. It says nothing about the source of its goodness. Presumably, if something is worthy of desire or pursuit, there is something that makes it worthy of desire or pursuit. Alternatively, if our nature determines that we have a certain aim, there is something that makes the aim of nature good. The source of the goodness of an end can be in the end itself, or it could be in something else that is good. That is, its goodness can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. Either way, the good of an end depends upon something that is intrinsically good, either itself or something else. Even when good end is also intrinsically good, they are two kinds of goodness, and the latter is more basic than the former. G. E. Moore recognized this clearly. There has to be something that makes a good end a good, Moore argued, and his answer is that it is intrinsically good. Korsgaard criticizes Moore for explaining the good of an end by its intrinsic goodness, because in doing so Moore failed to see the important category of an extrinsic good that is nonetheless good as an end. But in that argument Moore recognized an important problem, namely, that the fact that something is good as an end, even as a final end, does not explain what makes it good. It looks like the good of an end must derive from some intrinsic good.29 If there are no intrinsic goods, the problem of where the good of ends comes from does not go away. It means that a completely different story on the source of value has to be told. We will get to Korsgaard’s alternative below. 28

29

Of course, Aristotle did not mean to identify the good with whatever anybody happens to pursue – a highly implausible view. He meant the good to be what we pursue by nature. Actually, Moore did not always clearly distinguish intrinsic goods and the good of ends. One of the definitions of intrinsic good proposed by Moore (1959c) is “worth having for its own sake,” which he opposes by example to something worth having as a means to learn a lesson. This definition blurs the distinction between intrinsic good and good as an end.

84

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary Let us examine what is and what is not entailed by intrinsic goodness. I have already said that Korsgaard (1983) makes an important point in distinguishing intrinsic good and the good of ends, but there is a problem in her account of intrinsic goodness. She says that something is intrinsically good just in case the source of its goodness is in itself (p. 170). That can mean a number of different things, but I have taken it to mean that its goodness is not derived from the goodness of anything else. The source of an extrinsic good is some other good from which it is derived, but the goodness of an intrinsic good is not derived from any other good. If that is what intrinsic goodness is, something could be intrinsically good even though it would not be good in the absence of its relation to certain other things; in fact, it is possible for something to be intrinsically good even when it is essentially relational. A thing that would not be good without its relational properties can be intrinsically good so long as it is not good because of the goodness of the relata. For the same reason, something could be intrinsically good even though it would not be good in all circumstances or under all conditions, as long as its goodness is not derived from the goodness of the circumstances or conditions. Unfortunately, since the term “intrinsic property” has been used in philosophy to refer to one-place, nonrelational properties, it is tempting to think that the intrinsically good must be the nonrelationally good, and that is how Korsgaard treats it. In discussing Moore, Ross, and Kant, Korsgaard claims that they are all examining intrinsic goodness, even though Moore and Ross are talking about a nonrelational good and Kant is talking about an unconditional good. Let us look first at the idea of an intrinsic good in Moore and Ross. In Korsgaard’s words, “In order to arrive at a correct decision on the question which things have intrinsic value, Moore says that we must consider whether a thing is such that, if it existed by itself, in absolute isolation, we would judge its existence to be good.”30 Likewise, Ross (1955, p. 75) says that intrinsically 30

Korsgaard (1983), pp. 175–176. She cites Moore’s Principia Ethica (1959a), p. 187.

85

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics good means “good even if nothing else exists,” and he uses the term “nonrelational” to refer to intrinsic value. Korsgaard makes no objection to this. In fact, she uses Moore and Ross to explicate the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. But this cannot be right. For one thing, it makes metaphysical independence the condition for intrinsic goodness, and that is surely not what intrinsic goodness is on any definition. Many things cannot exist at all in isolation from everything else, but they are not on that account merely extrinsically good.31 There are other things that can exist in isolation from everything else but are not good in isolation, but that does not rule out their intrinsic goodness either. Consider the good of true belief. The isolation test has the consequence that the truth of a belief is not intrinsically good because truth requires a relation between the belief state and the object of the belief. Many people think that true belief is intrinsically good. They may or may not be right in thinking so, but it is no objection to their position to point out that beliefs are relational. The truth of a true belief is intrinsically good as long as the good of true belief is not derived from any other good, even though what makes a belief true is its relation to the portion of the world that the belief is about. Emotions, like beliefs, are relational. An emotion bears an external relation to its intentional object and an internal relation to the way its intentional object is construed in consciousness. I claim that a good emotion is an emotion a good person would have in the circumstances. A good person’s emotion relates her to the intentional object of her emotion in a certain way. Relationality in emotion does not preclude it from being intrinsically good, any more than relationality in belief precludes a true belief from being intrinsically good. In both cases, they are intrinsically good as long as their goodness is nonderivative, but that is not the same thing as being nonrelational. 31

Because the isolation test is so stringent, it is not clear that anything but God passes it at all. It is revealing that Moore decided that intrinsic goods are usually “organic wholes” – for example, the complex whole consisting of a beautiful object and the appreciation of it by a person. This makes the test of isolating a single object and testing for its goodness somewhat easier by applying the test to larger chunks of reality. Moore’s idea of organic wholes is discussed by Korsgaard (1983, pp. 190–191).

86

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary It follows that Moore is wrong in his isolation test. It is not an accurate test for intrinsic goodness to ask ourselves whether something would be good if it existed in isolation from everything else. The isolation test may or may not be a test for something, but it is certainly not the right test for an intrinsic good, if that means a nonderivative good. In any case, the distinction pertinent to my purposes in outlining the structure of a theory is the derivative/ nonderivative distinction, and the isolation test will not work for that. It also follows that when Ross says that intrinsically good means “good even if nothing else exists,” he and I are not talking about the same thing.32 Korsgaard criticizes Moore’s isolation test when she compares his use of the two distinctions in goodness unfavorably to Kant’s. Moore distinguishes intrinsic good from the good of ends, but he uses the distinction to argue that ends are good because they are intrinsically good. Intrinsic goodness is an attribute a thing has in virtue of which it earns the right to be a final end. Kant, however, separates the two kinds of basic goodness in such a way that he creates an important new evaluative category: those things that are extrinsically good, yet good as ends. I have claimed that the separation also creates another important evaluative category: those things that are intrinsically good, yet not good as ends. Korsgaard 32

It is questionable whether Moore and Ross have settled on the right definition of intrinsic good even for their own purposes. They seem to have been most interested in something that is brought out neither by the isolation test nor by the concept of nonderivative good. They were worried about the view that good is really not an attribute of a thing at all but merely signals our interest or desire or liking for the thing. Since “is liked by us” is a relational property, the possibility that good is just the property of being liked by us can be ruled out by ruling out all relational properties. I have objected that this rules out far too much. But if good is the property of being liked by us, it turns out to be intrinsic in the sense of nonderivative, since the property of being liked by S is not derived from any other good. The problem here is that the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction in neither sense will do the work that Moore and Ross want. If being liked by us fails the isolation test, Moore’s conclusion is that it is an extrinsic good. But if good is the same as being liked by us, it does not follow that it is extrinsic; what follows is that it is not a good at all. At least that is the consequence that Moore and Ross feared.

87

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics is right to criticize Moore’s account of intrinsic value for preventing us from seeing the former category, but I will argue next that Kant’s account prevents us from seeing the latter. In order to see that, let us look at Korsgaard’s treatment of Kant’s idea of an unconditional good, which she sees as the same as an intrinsic good. When Kant argues that only a good will is unconditionally good, he excludes knowledge, power, riches, and even happiness from that category, because he maintains that those things are good only when accompanied by a good will. But here the distinction between an unconditional good and an intrinsic (nonderivative) good is important. If the goodness of knowledge is derivative from the goodness of the good will that it accompanies, then the two distinctions give the same result, and it follows that knowledge is not intrinsically good. What does not follow is that anything that is good in some circumstances and not in others is not intrinsically good. It can still be the case that a good in circumstances C or under condition X is intrinsically good if its goodness is not derived from the goodness of C or X. The goodness of a particular emotion undoubtedly varies with circumstances. Being afraid of real danger is valuable; being afraid of going outdoors is disvaluable. So the goodness or badness of fear depends upon the circumstances, but fear-in-circumstances-C might have intrinsic value or disvalue. Its value or disvalue need not derive from the value or disvalue of anything else, not even from the value of a good person whose value as a good person is partially constituted by the goodness of his emotions. Consider also Korsgaard’s example of the quality of coolness (1983, p. 179), which Kant says is disvaluable in a villain, although, Korsgaard adds, it is usually an excellent thing in a fireman or a surgeon. But why is it an excellent thing in a fireman or a surgeon? Is it because the goodness of coolness is derived from the goodness of surgery or firefighting? Isn’t it rather that coolness-in-firefighting is a good, while coolness-in-committingmurder is not? The fact that firefighting is a good activity and committing murder is the contrary may mislead us into thinking that the value or disvalue of the circumstances transfers to the value or disvalue of the quality of coolness. But that need not be the only explanation of the variability of the value of coolness. 88

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary Perhaps coolness in arguing a case before a certain judge is good, while coolness in arguing before a certain jury is not good. Or coolness when concentrating on a problem in logic is good, while coolness when praying for relief from despair is not good. It just does not follow from the fact that the value of a quality can vary with the circumstances that the value of the quality derives from the value of the circumstances. The value of something may vary with circumstances and still be an intrinsic good. The good in those circumstances can be intrinsic.33 What Kant means by an unconditional good, therefore, does not correspond to an intrinsic good in the sense of a nonderivative good. Korsgaard says that Kant’s notion of unconditional value corresponds to the notion of intrinsic goodness as nonrelational, the sense she has been discussing (p. 178). Perhaps it is the same as a nonrelational good, but it is not the same as an intrinsic good. Neither a nonrelational good nor an unconditional good corresponds to an intrinsic good. This raises the question of whether there are any unconditional goods. The value of persons is the only good I can think of that is clearly both intrinsic and unconditional. There may be others as well, but the notion of unconditional good does not play a central role in this book. Consider now what follows for the value of emotions. It is plausible that emotions are typically neither good as ends nor good as means. It is also plausible that most are neither nonrelationally nor unconditionally good. Most, if not all, emotions fail Moore’s isolation test because their goodness depends upon circumstances, just as the truth of a belief depends upon circumstances. It is good to feel anger, pity, regret, contempt, or compassion in some 33

Korsgaard has suggested to me that the view I am promoting could also be formulated as a view of organic wholes. So, for example, goodness would be a property of the organic whole consisting of an emotion and its circumstances. Pity-in-circumstances-A would be good, whereas pity-incircumstances-B would be bad. Pity-in-circumstances-A might pass the isolation test. That suggestion would go part of the way toward resolving the disagreement between Moore and me, but I hesitate to take that route, since it seems to me that the emotion is the primary bearer of the value, not a complex of emotion and circumstances, just as a belief is the bearer of truth, not the complex of belief and circumstances.

89

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics circumstances but not in others, and in some circumstances these emotions may be neither good nor bad. But none of this has the consequence that the value of an emotion derives from the value of anything else. It is still possible that the value of an emotion is intrinsic. Since an emotion has an intentional object, it might be thought that the value of an emotion depends upon the value of its intentional object. For example, perhaps love is good only when its object is worthy of love, loyalty is good only when its object is worthy of loyalty, and so on. I have argued that the intentional objects of emotions have thick properties – such as pitiful, lovable, fearsome, and so on – that are forms of value and disvalue. And I have argued that an emotion may or may not fit its object. It is good when it fits its object, but sometimes what an emotion fits is disvaluable in some way. Fear is good when it fits the fearsome, but the fearsome is not good. So fear in such circumstances cannot derive its value from the value of its object. The same point applies to emotions whose intentional objects have thick properties that are forms of good. Love fits the lovable and is good, not because the lovable is good, but because love fits it. By contrast, an emotion lacks value even when its object is good when it does not fit. The emotion of compassion does not fit an object that is not suffering, and so the emotion is not good in such circumstances, even though the intentional object may be good. My position, then, is that an emotion is intrinsically good when it fits its intentional object and is not intrinsically good otherwise. I am not denying that an emotion, like anything else, can also have derived value, but the value I am interested in, the fundamental value that emotions have and from which many other important values derive, is intrinsic. Since some emotions are intrinsically good, are other emotions intrinsically bad? I think the answer is yes, but I will not have much to say about bad emotions. If an emotion is good in circumstances of a certain kind, it seems reasonable to think that an emotion can be bad in circumstances of a certain kind. When an emotion is bad in certain circumstances, it is possible that its badness does not derive from the badness of anything else. If so, it is intrinsically bad. If there are exemplars of badness, intrinsically bad emotions 90

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary can be defined by reference to them. The motives of exemplars of badness make them bad (in part), so bad motives are the motives of these persons. The badness of an intrinsically bad emotion cannot be explained by its failure to fit its intentional object. Failure of fit does not seem bad enough to explain what is bad about the emotions of conceit and envy and spite. Of course, many people will say that what is particularly bad about these emotions is that they are bad in all circumstances, but I don’t think the intuition that there is something more than lack of fit that makes these emotions bad depends upon the idea that they are bad in all circumstances. Fear is not bad in all circumstances, but the fear that is a component of cowardice is bad in a way that seems worse than simply its failure to fit its object. Compare fear of spiders with fear of facing danger when something of real importance is at stake. We consider the latter cowardly, but probably not the former, and I assume that the latter is worse than the former. An emotion fits its intentional object just in case the standard judgment expressing it is true. If the standard judgment expressing it is false, the emotion does not fit its intentional object. Such an emotion is not good, but since not everything that fails to be good is bad, there has to be some other feature of a bad emotion that explains its badness. Badness is not simply the lack of good; it is its contrary. An investigation of exemplars of badness may reveal that their motives not only differ from the motives of good persons but actually conflict with them. We are used to thinking that there are emotions that are opposed to each other – love and hate, fear and confidence, sympathy and hostility. Anger, envy, and jealousy may also have opposite emotions, although I do not know of any terms in common usage to express them. Perhaps what we consider bad rather than just not good is a motive that is so distant from the one that fits that it actually is its opposite. This idea is worth exploring, but I doubt that it is enough to explain the difference beween the bad and the not good. A full emotion-based moral theory will have to address this problem, which I intend to do in a later project. For this book, I will leave much unsaid about the bad. The way I will define the bad is by reference to the motives of exemplars of goodness: A bad motive is a motive an 91

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics exemplar of goodness could not have. This way of looking at the bad will be important when we get to the theological version of the theory in Part II. 2 The emotions of different people in the same situation often differ. That suggests, but does not force us to the conclusion, that most of the time our emotions are wrong. I think that most of us have unreflective emotions and are a long way from learning how to apply practical reasoning to them. But it is probably not very useful, either for practical or for theoretical purposes, to judge that most emotions are wrong. What usually happens is that emotions are revised in roughly the way we revise our beliefs. There are feedback mechanisms that change our emotions when the consequences of acting on them are not as expected. We also revise by imitation of the emotions of admired others. Literature is helpful in this respect, because it gives us the opportunity to observe the range of emotions possible in a given set of circumstances without the liability of facing the situation ourselves. In reading a narrative, our consciousness is in the story, but it is also outside the story, at least intermittently. Not only do we have our own emotional response to a character’s situation, our awareness of being outside the story also allows us to critically compare our own emotions and the emotions of the characters in the story. It seems to me that our own future emotions tend to change in the direction of the emotions of literary exemplars. Negative exemplars have a parallel function. When we do not want to be like a certain character, we often see that her emotion in a given situation is one of the things about her that makes us want not to be like her. Think of the featherbrained Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, or the shallow and fickle Isabella in Northanger Abbey. Both of them have many defects. The world they experience is a projection of their own imagination, and in addition to being false, it is much narrower than the world experienced by the other characters in the novel. Neither has a very keen moral sense, and both are incapable of shame when it is obviously appropriate. 92

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary Neither is able to consider what something must look like from another point of view. Both are stupid – Mrs. Bennett so much so that it stretches credibility. It is the kind of stupidity that is willful, not the simplicity of the feeble-minded. But what makes Mrs. Bennett and Isabella Thorpe continually stand out is the clash between their emotions and the emotions of the sensible persons around them. Mrs. Bennett rarely sees what is going on except insofar as it may thwart her desires. The emotions she expresses are not directed to the situation but only to herself, and she is continuously fretting about her “nerves.” Isabella’s emotions seem to have no determinate object; rather, she fixes on an emotion and then imagines that the situation fits it. The heroines of the two novels respond in different ways to these two characters. Elizabeth Bennett understands her mother very well, but Catherine Morland initially finds her friend Isabella puzzling. Jane Austen’s heroines are capable of learning, and Catherine does eventually acquire the ability to read the motives and the character of others. She learns partly from the fact that her predictions of their future behavior are disconfirmed – for example, if she hears a man saying he does not want to dance, she assumes that means he does not want to dance, and is surprised when she sees him a short time later dancing with pleasure. But she also learns by imitating those with more wisdom and experience, such as the level-headed Henry Tilney, the novel’s hero. Catherine has to learn to adapt her emotions correctly to the situation. Since she is quite young and inexperienced, most readers will have already learned what she has to learn and will immediately perceive her emotions as naive. The actions that result from her emotions are naive too, but since she does not do very much, she does not do much that is inappropriate. The inappropriateness of her feelings is enough to show us both how much she has to learn and how important it is to have the right emotions. Catherine learns that her emotions are inappropriate when they fail to give her understanding of others or when they clash with something else – either the emotions of Henry and Miss Tilney or her own later emotions. Of course, when an earlier emotion clashes with a later one, we should not immediately conclude that the later emotion is more correct, but it is probably correct 93

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics for the most part, assuming that emotional experience generally results in a more accurate emotional picture of the world. At least, Jane Austen clearly intends that to be the case for Catherine. Her emotions upon reading Isabella’s letter in which the latter inadvertently reveals her true character strike Catherine with the force of incontrovertible discovery. Austen intends us to judge her new emotions as correct and her previous emotions with regard to Isabella as mistaken. The task of emotional education is a difficult one, and most of the time we are faced with persons and situations much more complex than those described in Austen’s most youthful novel, but an advantage of a novel like Northanger Abbey is that it shows us that even though it is true that when emotions are not right they are apt to lead to actions that are not right either, the wrongness or inappropriateness of the emotion does not simply derive from the wrongness or inappropriateness of the acts that it often motivates. Catherine does very little in the novel besides changing her emotions and the scope of her understanding. Some of her emotions are correct, fitting, or right, while others are not. I do not intend the sense in which emotions are right or wrong to be a specifically moral sense of right or wrong, and for the most part there is no reason to blame those whose emotions are wrong or to feel guilty when one’s own emotions are wrong. My purpose is to push back an account of moral activity to something in premoral experience. The place at which the pre-moral leaves off and the distinctively moral begins is something with which I will not be much concerned in this book. In Part I, I am giving an account of the origin of the experience of value, not of the origin of value. So I am telling a story that lacks a beginning. For those who are naturalistically inclined, the genealogy of morals I am describing can be understood in terms of the attempt of organisms to adapt to their environment, where the explanation of adaptation is another story. Human beings psychically adapt to their surroundings with perceptual states, belief states, and emotions, all of which may or may not fit the environment. Some persons stand out as especially well attuned to the world. They are in harmony within themselves as well as with the world around them. These are the persons I have called exemplars. There are other stories about what makes 94

P1: JzG/jzk/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c02.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

11:51

Making emotion primary exemplars exemplary according to which everything comes from a Creator whose properties are reflected in the Creation.

v conclusion In this chapter, I have outlined an account of emotion according to which in a state of emotion E the agent has a distinctive feeling toward an intentional object construed in a way peculiar to E in her consciousness. In an emotion E, the intentional object x of E is seen as falling under a thick affective concept A. One of the basic features of exemplars that makes them good is that their emotions fit their intentional objects. An emotion E fits its intentional object x when x is A. The agent can express her emotion by making the judgment “x is A.” Such a judgment is both cognitive and intrinsically motivating. This means that the exemplar’s emotions are intrinsically motivating states that fit their objects. When an emotion fits its intentional object, it is good in the same way that true belief is good. Emotions have intrinsic value in this way, but generally they do not have the value of ends. In the next chapter, I will argue that the ends of acts have the value of ends but are not intrinsically valuable.

95

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Chapter 3 Goods and virtues

Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of a Metaphysic of Morals

i the good of ends and outcomes 1 The idea that the good is the object of our aims is deeply entrenched in both ethics and moral psychology. One of the main purposes of this book is to shake that view from its pinnacle of received wisdom by revealing a plausible alternative. The received view has the air of the obvious because there are aspects of it that are obvious, although the obvious parts do not have the metaphysical or psychological implications that are usually taken for granted. Here is a short story of the received view and where I think it goes wrong. When we act, we always aim at bringing about some state of affairs S. We see S as desirable, which is to say, good. As Aquinas put it, we always act under the aspect of good.1 Sometimes we are 1

This idea appears repeatedly in the first twenty questions of Summa Theologica I–II, but see especially q. 10, a. 2, corpus, where Aquinas says that the will always acts under the aspect of good just as sight always acts under the aspect of colored.

96

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues mistaken, but sometimes we are not mistaken. The will or choice or desire to bring about S is good just in case S is a good state of affairs to bring about in the situation in question. When desires or choices to bring about good states of affairs become stable dispositions, they are virtues. Good is reflected backward from states of affairs to states of the agent. I think there are many things wrong with this picture, but I wlll concentrate on two. First, it probably is true that when I act intentionally, I think of what I am doing as good – if I bother to think about that question at all, which I typically don’t. I think of my act as appropriate or desirable or justifiable; that is, I see it as falling under some positive evaluative concept. But that tells us nothing about what makes the act good, desirable, or justifiable. The intentional structure of action is forward-looking, and when challenged, I may justify my act by referring to the goodness of the state of affairs at which I aim, but I may instead refer to the process of reasoning I used in deciding to perform the act, or I may instead simply describe the situation in enough detail that I think most observers would agree that the act fits the circumstances. None of this implies anything about the origin of value or even about the origin of the value of the act. Kant helped to move the core of value a step backward by saying that the only thing good without qualification is a good will, and it may be tempting to think that the source of value cannot be pushed back any farther than that because anything farther back is beyond our control and is of no use to ethics. An additional obstacle to moving the source farther back is that the step back from will is usually thought to be a desire, and desires do not have a plausible claim to be the source of value. The standard view that a desire is good when the object of the desire is good is plausible. But I argued in the last chapter that even though there probably are brute desires, behind which there is nothing of interest to ethics, there are also lots of desires that arise from more basic states of affective perception, and those are the states I propose are the basic bearers of value. A motive is an emotion causing an act. The point of most acts is to bring about some state of affairs that we call the end. Since a given motive can have more than one end, the end is not a 97

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics constituent of the motive, but motives have characteristic ends. It is not likely to be controversial that when a person feels compassion, that typically causes him to act with the end of relieving suffering. When he feels anger, that often causes him to aim at getting back at his adversary. When he feels fear, he generally aims at escaping danger. When he feels love, he aims at benefitting the one he loves. A motive has characteristic ends, but the ends can differ because of differences in circumstances, opportunity, and a variety of considerations that the agent believes to be relevant. Another explanation for the difference may be that emotions are more finely individuated than is indicated by our vocabulary. If so, fear leads sometimes to aggression and sometimes to flight partly because of the agent’s assessment of his chances for success if he fights, and partly because there may be more than one kind of fear. In any case, the motive pre-selects a small set of ends. One of the functions of practical reason is to match the end in particular circumstances to the motive. Not only is motive a cause, it also explains an act and the fact that the act has a certain end. Motive explanation is more basic than means-end explanation. If asked why a person is doing what she is doing, you may reply that she is doing it because she has a certain end, but then you can be asked why she has that end, and that generates a regress. The regress is stopped by referring to the motive. Ends are not self-explanatory except insofar as they are the ends of motives that we expect everyone to have. For this reason, the common view that means-end explanation terminates with the end of happiness is mistaken. If an agent’s act A is explained by the fact that the agent sees A as a means to end E1, and E1 as a means to E2, and so on, culminating in the end of happiness, it may appear that a full explanation for the agent’s act has been given, but it has not been. We still need to know why she aims at happiness, and the answer to that is a motive – self-love, which we assume all agents have. The fact that an agent is motivated by self-love ends the regress of reasons in means-end explanation because it explains why an agent adopts the final end of happiness. The regress in means-end explanation is not the only reason it is necessary to refer to a motive in explaining an agent’s act. If more than one motive can have the same end, reference to the 98

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues end does not explain the difference, and the difference may be important. An agent’s act of self-sacrifice can be motivated by honor (as demanded by the Japanese code of Bushido), by the desire to uphold a principle (like Socrates), by love for the human race (like Christ), or by love of a particular person (like Sydney Carton), and these are all quite different explanations of the same act type with the same end type. I do not deny that if the end in each of these cases were specified in detail we would see differences, but these differences explain differences in the acts only to the extent that they illluminate the differences in the motives for the acts. No amount of detail in the description of the end of an act reveals that the act was motivated by love, yet the fact that an act was motivated by love – love of a certain kind, love directed toward a particular object or person – is much more revealing as an explanation of why the act was done than a description of the state of affairs the agent was trying to bring about. The most basic explanation for both an act and the end of an act is the motive of the act. I propose that the value of an end comes from the value of that which explains it. To be good as an end – worthy of choice or desire – is to be the end of an intrinsically good motive. To be bad as an end is to be the end of an intrinsically bad motive. Intrinsically neutral ends are the ends of motives that are neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically bad in the circumstances. I will make a more complex proposal later, but this is the basic proposal. It means that the good of the ends of human choice and desire are in the category that Korsgaard was concerned to defend in “Two Distinctions”: They are good in themselves, as final goods, but not intrinsically good. The good of an end is extrinsic because it is derived from the goodness of the motive to bring it about. Since states of affairs can be the end of more than one motive, a given state of affairs can be good as the end of one motive but not another. The end of gift giving is good when motivated by generosity, bad when motivated by vainglory. In many circumstances, the end of criticism of another is good when motivated by love, bad when motivated by hate. It is arguable that the end of deception is good when it is motivated by kindness, while deception motivated by virtually anything else is bad. The relief of 99

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics suffering is good as an end when it is motivated by compassion. It is bad when it is motivated by contempt for the sufferer. There is disagreement on the value of the end of relieving suffering when it is motivated by guilt, and I think this disagreement reveals how closely we link the value of an end with the value of the motive. To the extent that a motive is morally questionable, the end it causes the agent to adopt is questionable as well.2 It might be objected that the relief of suffering is always a good end, whether or not it is motivated by a good motive, but that is to confuse what I have called direct and indirect value. In Chapter 1, I applied that distinction to the value of acts, but it also applies to the value of the ends of acts. A person who aims to relieve suffering out of a desire to look good to others would not be praised for it. This particular end, in these particular circumstances, with this particular motive is not a good thing for him to have. His bad motive infects his end, since he has the end because of his bad motive. On the other hand, we may suppose that the end is an end type that a person motivated by compassion would have in relevantly similar circumstances. It is the end of a motive that would be good to have in these circumstances. My claim that an end is good just in case it is the end of an intrinsically good motive is therefore ambiguous, and it means that a given end in a particular case can be both good and bad. It is good in that it is the end of a motive (in this case, nonactual) that would be intrinsically good in these circumstances, but it is bad because the actual agent does not have that motive but has a bad motive instead. The end type is good, but the end token is not. Still, the end token gets indirect value from being of the right type. I find this ambiguity 2

It is not clear to me why people criticize behavior that has the end of compassion but that is motivated by guilt rather than by the emotion called compassion. The motive of compassion may be morally preferable to the motive of guilt, but that is not enough to make the former motive criticizable. Perhaps it is thought that such behavior is hypocritical. Critics might suspect that the agent wants to get credit for being compassionate when that is not her motive. But it seems to me very unlikely that there is anything hypocritical about relieving suffering out of guilt in typical circumstances. As a matter of fact, I think that the incidence of hypocrisy is much less than is widely believed.

100

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues desirable, because it reflects the fact that people intuitively think of the end in that case as good in one way and bad in another. I would express that ambiguity by saying that its direct value is bad, but its indirect value is good. The fact that a directly bad end can be indirectly good also explains why we sometimes think that it is better to aim at relieving suffering from a bad motive than not to do so at all. I would certainly not suggest that this is always the case, but if the indirect value is great enough, we may judge that the world is better off for an act with a bad motive and hence a directly bad end. The world may be better off, but the price may be the moral degeneracy of the agent. There is an interestling line in T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral, in which Thomas Beckett, returning from exile in France, reflects upon his ambitions and the temptations they give him. He says at the end of Part I, “The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason” (Eliot 1962, p. 196). T. S. Eliot may be engaging in hyperbole, but I do not think we should ignore his insight. The disvalue of a motive does not simply cast a pall over a good act with a good end. An act with a seriously bad motive is directly and seriously bad. If the agent thinks otherwise, he is engaging in self-deception. Motives spread their value or disvalue on the acts they motivate and the ends of those acts. The indirect value of the act may excuse it within the area of public discourse that reflects the public interest in agents’ doing acts of the right type and bringing about good states of affairs. But such a point of view does not exhaust the moral point of view, and it certainly does not exhaust the point of view of the agent toward his own acts. Many of the ends at which people aim in their acts become outcomes, and when they do, I propose that the value of the outcome is the value of the end of the motive that produces it. Consider two cases in which an agent succeeds in relieving suffering when she aims to do so. In one case, she is motivated by compassion; in the other, she is motivated by contempt. The outcome of her act in the first case is good. It is extrinsically good because it derives its value from the value of the motive of compassion. The outcome in the second case is both bad and good. It is bad because it is the actual outcome of an actual bad motive aimed at that end. The 101

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics particular outcome of that act, evaluated qua act outcome, is bad. But it has indirect value for the same reason that the end of relief of suffering has indirect value, because it is the outcome that a person motivated by compassion aims to bring about. It is an outcome of the same type as the end of a motive good in those circumstances. Some of our vocabulary for describing outcomes lends support to my proposal that the value of an outcome derives from the value of a motive. We may call an outcome a merciful one, and hence good, because it is produced by the motive of mercy and is the end of that motive. We call an outcome a compassionate one, and hence good, because it is produced by the motive of compassion and is the end of that motive. A given outcome is a loving one, and hence good, because it is produced by the motive of love and is the end of that motive. What we call a just outcome also derives from the value of a motive, but what I find particularly interesting about justice is that the justice of an outcome has indirect value only. It is not the relation between an outcome and the actual motive that produces it that determines whether an outcome is just, but rather the relation between the outcome and the end of the motive of respect for the rights and dignity of persons, a motive that the actual agent may or may not have. An outcome is a just one when it is the end of such a motive.3 What makes an outcome a malicious one is that it is produced by a malicious motive and is the end of such a motive. We do not always name an outcome by the name of the motive that causes it, but I believe it is still the case that when the actual outcome is the same as the end, the goodness or badness of the outcome is derivative from the goodness or badness of the motive that has that end. The states of affairs at which envy, pride, jealousy, spite, and disrespect aim are bad, and when they are the outcomes of acts with those motives they are bad, although it is not common to call outcomes spiteful, envious, jealous, and so on. 3

Justice is distinctive not only because what makes an outcome just is its indirect value only, but also because it is usually thought that there is a unique outcome that is the end of a just motive in any given circumstance. Other motives – love, compassion, loyalty – are compatible with more than one end in a given set of circumstances, but justice is much less flexible.

102

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues Let us now consider a harder case. Suppose that the outcome differs from the end. A person motivated by compassion may have the end of relieving suffering but fail to do so. She may even increase the suffering instead. A person motivated by jealousy may aim to harm his rival but end up inadvertently benefiting her. Again, I think there is an ambiguity in the value of the outcome in these cases that reflects the ambivalence most of us feel about them. If an outcome is produced by an act with a bad motive and a bad end, it is bad because of the badness of the motive and the end. On the other hand, the outcome can indirectly have the contrary value if it is the outcome that a person with a good motive would aim to produce. When the person motivated by jealousy aims to harm another but benefits her instead, the outcome of his act is bad directly, but it is good indirectly. Similarly, when a person motivated by compassion aims to relieve suffering but harms another instead, the outcome of the act is directly good but indirectly bad. The fact that motive, end, and outcome can come apart makes possible a variety of combinations of direct and indirect value. An agent can adopt a good end from a bad motive and produce a bad outcome, or adopt a bad end from a good motive and produce a good outcome, and so on. My proposal is that the motive of an act aiming at a given end directly confers value or disvalue on the actual end and the actual outcome of the act that it motivates; but ends and outcomes have indirect value when they are states of affairs that are the end-types of good motive-types, and they have indirect disvalue when they are states of affairs that are the end-types of bad motive-types. I do not think this is any more complicated than common sense allows. It reflects the fact that we evaluate acts and outcomes in two different ways. We are interested in the actual causal history of an act and its outcome, and we are interested in acts and states of affairs evaluated in abstraction from their particular causal history. When we do the latter, we say such things as that the relief of suffering or the distribution of grades in a class by merit is a good end and a good outcome without reference to any particular agent. If pressed to explain why these are good ends, the ultimate answer is that a well-motivated person would be motivated to adopt them. This may be surprising, given the entrenchment of the backward-looking view of value, 103

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics but I think we should look at this more closely. Consider the state of affairs of a distribution of grades in a class determined by the students’ performance on the work assigned. Why is this state of affairs good? There are many answers to this question, but I think that all of them ultimately refer to what agents of a certain kind – rational or virtuous – would want or will to bring about. If I am right about that, even the standard backward-looking theory of value implicitly refers to states of the agent in justifying the goodness of a fair state of affairs.4 It might be thought that the goodness of the relief of suffering permits a different answer. If suffering is intrinsically bad, and if the elimination of an intrinsically bad state of affairs is a good state of affairs, then the relief of suffering is a good state of affairs, perhaps even good intrinsically. The question we are addressing, however, is not whether the relief of suffering is a good state of affairs, but whether it is a good end and a good act outcome. As we have saw in Chapter 1 (section III), outcomes are not free-floating states of affairs. States of affairs can have value as act outcomes or as states of affairs simpliciter, and these are not the same thing. If it is possible that it is not always good to adopt an intrinsically good state of affairs as an end, then the question “Why is it good to adopt the end of relief of suffering?” is not answered by pointing out that the relief of suffering is an intrinsically good state of affairs. I will argue in section II that the case of pleasure for oneself shows that an intrinsic good is not always good as an end. Therefore, even if the relief of suffering is intrinsically good, that is not sufficient to explain why it is good to adopt it as an end. There must be some other reason, and I propose that the reason is the same as in the case of the end of bringing about a fair distribution of grades: A person with good motives would adopt such an end. 2 I assume that we expect value to be objective, and yet we also expect it to be connected with human feelings, attitudes, and 4

Compare John Rawls’s theory of justice (1971) as what rational persons would choose under the “veil of ignorance.”

104

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues capacities. In other words, value both does and does not depend upon human subjectivity. We want to have it both ways. Some philosophers want to have it more one way than the other, but I take it to be an advantage if a theory can tie value closely to human subjectivity without making its very existence depend upon human mental states. If I am right that the good of ends and outcomes derives from the intrinsic value of the motive to bring them about, their value derives from the value of human subjective states, but it is objective as long as these subjective states have objective value. In the theory I have outlined, motives have intrinsic value, and ends and outcomes have extrinsic value, derived from the value of motives. An end or outcome has direct value/disvalue derived from the actual motive that aims at it or brings it about. It has indirect value/disvalue if it is the end of a motive that would be good/bad in the circumstances in question. The value of ends and outcomes is objective in the same way that the value of acts is objective in consequentialist theories. In the latter theories, acts get their value from the value of their outcomes. The value is derived but objective. If the theory is hedonistic consequentialism, the value is objective but derived from the value of a subjective state. In motivation-based virtue theory, ends and outcomes also get their value from a subjective state that is intrinsically valuable. The value is objective, but since it is derived from the value of emotion, the primary possessor of value is an aspect of human subjectivity. Christine Korsgaard has argued for a structurally parallel position in Kantian ethics. She also defends the view that the value of ends derives from the value of motives, but her account makes the objectivity of the value of ends and outcomes problematic. A form of her position appears in “Two Distinctions” (Korsgaard 1983) and in “Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value,” but it is developed in more detail in “Kant’s Formula of Humanity.” (Both of the latter two essays are contained in Korsgaard 1996a.) In “Kant’s Formula of Humanity,” Korsgaard says that Kant takes the characteristic feature of humanity or rational nature to be the capacity for setting an end (p. 110). Good just is the object of rational desire/choice. What makes the object of a rational choice good is that it is the object of a rational choice. Rational choice 105

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics has a value-conferring status. The value conferred is objective because every rational being has a reason to choose it, but it is not unconditional. In that paper, she says that what has unconditional value is our power to confer objective value. Good “flows into” the world from the rational will. She now says that a rational will is not intrinsically good: There are no intrinsic goods.5 A Kantian rational will and a good emotion in my sense are different ways of understanding what a good motive is. In both theories, a good motivational state is a basic good, and both are sources of the value of the ends of those motives. Korsgaard says that the good of an end is objective because any rational person would have a reason to do it. My position is that the good of an outcome is objective because an objectively good motive aims to bring it about. Korsgaard and I clearly differ on the nature of a motive, but there are two other differences that affect the issue of the objectivity of the value of ends. First, in Korsgaard’s theory a good will brings value into the world. The world is evaluatively neutral until rational human beings come on the scene and endow it with value by adopting ends. In motivation-based virtue theory, good emotions do not endow a neutral reality with value. An emotion is constituted in part by seeing some aspect of the world in an evaluative way, through thick concepts. The emotion does not create the thick property. Second, on Korsgaard’s current view, a good will is not intrinsically good, since nothing is intrinsically good. The value of outcomes is not derived from an intrinsic good. Korsgaard is relying on the idea that rationality is capable of grounding the objectivity of the value of that which is rationally chosen even if it is not intrinsically good. Presumably, rationality just is a power in the world that creates objective value. Perhaps it can do so, but if so, it seems to me the theory makes rationality at least as mysterious as the realist values it was, in part, constructed to avoid. Korsgaard discusses the goodness of ends in another paper, “Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value.” She argues there that 5

Korsgaard (in 1983, last paragraph, and in 1996a, p. 120) treats a good will as intrinsically good, but she has changed her mind. See Chapter 1, note 12.

106

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues both Aristotle and Kant, in different ways, chart a path between subjectivism and objectivism.6 As she describes the conflict, objectivism and subjectivism take opposing views on the relation between goodness and human interest. Subjectivists say that something is good because we take an interest in it; objectivists say that something is good, and so we ought to take an interest in it. The attraction of subjectivism is that it acknowledges the connection of the good to human interests, but its disadvantage is that it cannot explain why we sometimes fail to care for what is good. By contrast, objectivism can explain why we sometimes fail to care for what is good, but it has the disadvantage of divorcing good from interests. “Interest” is a rather vague term for human emotive states and the intentional objects of those states, and it is not a term I use, but I think that the key to this dilemma is the value of psychological states related to what Korsgaard calls taking an interest. If an emotion is the sort of psychic state that fits value, and if it is good when it does fit its intentional object, then it is neither true that something is good because it is related to a good emotion, nor that an emotion is good because it is related to something good. The goodness of an emotion is in the fit between it and value, not in the fact that what it fits is value. The standard judgment expressing an emotion that fits its object is true. This theory does succeed in combining the advantages of subjectivism and objectivism. Korsgaard calls a theory with that aim a rationalist theory. Ironically, that has the consequence that my “sentimentalist” theory that bases value on emotion is a form of rationalism.

ii the good of pleasure In this book, I am concentrating on the intrinsic value of emotion, since emotions are the states that motivate acts, the focus of most of ethics; but there are no doubt many other psychic states with intrinsic value. Intrinsically valuable epistemic states probably 6

This paper is about the goodness of ends. Korsgaard contrasts subjectivism, objectivism, and two forms of rationalism represented by Aristotle and Kant.

107

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics include true belief and understanding, and there may be sensations and moods that have intrinsic value as well. The latter do not have intentional objects, and I have already argued that nonrelationality does not give a thing a better claim to intrinsic value than states with intentional objects. Nonetheless, there probably are sensations and moods with intrinsic value. I will not have much to say about these states in this book, but there is a puzzle about the value of pleasure that I think my account of the value of ends can solve. For the point I want to make, it does not matter what pleasure is. “Pleasure” may designate a category of sensation, or it may designate whatever it is in virtue of which some psychic state feels good, or it may designate something else entirely. My point is formal. I hope to undercut a common reason for resistance to the idea that pleasure is intrinsically good. The good of pleasure is problematic because while many theorists take pleasure to be clearly a good, perhaps a better candidate than any other, other theorists maintain the contrary, usually focusing on the fact that the pursuit of pleasure is morally degrading and perhaps even self-defeating, although they rarely say there is anything morally problematic about aiming at giving pleasure to others. And, of course, eliminating the pain of others is often taken to be the very paradigm of a morally worthy aim. The distinction between an intrinsic good and the good of ends can explain this discrepancy. I think that those theorists who have argued that pleasure generally ought not to be pursued for its own sake are right.7 I also suspect that there is a legitimate insight in the hedonistic paradox: The direct pursuit of pleasure tends to make pleasure slip from our grasp. If Aristotle is right that pleasure accompanies those activities that fulfill our nature, it comes as a side effect of the pursuit of those activities for their own sakes (NE X, Chapter 4). Nonetheless, it is still possible that the good of pleasure is intrinsic. Those who maintain that it is not intrinsic often take the Aristotelian position that it derives its goodness from the goodness of the activities it accompanies. That is possible, but it 7

On the other hand, I think there is nothing wrong with pursuing the elimination of pain for its own sake. This is one of the ways in which pleasure and pain are not ethically symmetrical.

108

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues is certainly not indisputable. I suspect that worries about the status of pleasure as an end have led to the view that it must not be intrinsic, on the mistaken assumption that there are no intrinsic goods that are not good as ends. Alternatively, the intrinsic value of pleasure might be denied because of another mistake we have discussed, that of confusing intrinsic value with nonrelational or unconditional value. It is likely that pleasure is not unconditionally good; it is good only in certain circumstances. So it is often pointed out that the pleasure of a sadist is not good. But even so, it does not follow that the good of pleasure derives from the good of the circumstances it accompanies. We get pleasure in many circumstances that are either evaluatively neutral or only moderately good, but I doubt that we would say that pleasure in neutral circumstances is evaluative neutral, nor that pleasure in moderately good circumstances is only moderately good. It might be argued instead that the good of pleasure is extrinsic because it derives from the good of things that are good for us. But the same response is in order. Many times we get pleasure from things that are neither bad nor good for us, or that are good for us only to a minimal degree. It is implausible that the good of pleasure derives from the degree to which something is good for us. The more straightforward and, I think, more plausible position is that pleasure-in-circumstances-C is intrinsically good, and its goodness is not derivative from the goodness of C, while pleasurein-circumstances-D is intrinsically bad, and its badness is not derivative from the badness of D. So the good of the pleasure of eating does not derive from the good of food or from the fact that food is good for us. Certainly, food is good for us, but the good of the pleasure of eating food can easily exceed the degree to which the food is good for us. And similarly for sex, music, and other delights. It is also likely that pleasure itself is good for us, but again, the good of pleasure can easily exceed the degree to which it is good for us. So even though pleasure is or is attached to something good for us, the good of the pleasure is not derivative from the good of what is good for us. At least, this is a possibility that is raised by our investigation into the relation between intrinsic good and the good of ends. 109

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics It is a puzzling fact that we think there is a morally important distinction between the end of pleasure for ourselves and the end of pleasure for others. Motivation-based virtue theory can explain this difference. Pleasure for oneself is not generally good as an end, because the motive that leads us to adopt that end is problematic. On the other hand, the motive that leads us to aim at bringing about pleasure for others is usually a worthy motive. If the good of ends were not derivative from the good of motives, we could not explain this asymmetry in the intuitive evaluation of the end of pleasure. There is one other common assumption about intrinsic value that I think is mistaken and that may also explain some of the resistance to the idea that pleasure is intrinsically good. That is the idea that intrinsic goodness is goodness to a high degree. What makes a good intrinsic is the source of its goodness; it has nothing to do with its degree. Something can be intrinsically good and not very good at all. For example, I have suggested that every true belief is intrinsically good, but surely not every true belief is very good. Some true beliefs may, in fact, be trivial. So it is possible that the degree of goodness is minimal even when that goodness is not derived from anything else. Perhaps the idea that intrinsic good must be a high degree of good comes from the intuition that since extrinsic good derives from intrinsic good, and since nothing can derive value greater than the value of that from which it derives, intrinsic goods must be greater in value than the extrinsic goods that derive from them. That is probably true, but it does not follow that every intrinsically good thing is good to a high degree. Not every intrinsic good is the basis for many, or even any, extrinsic goods, and the majority of pleasures may be among them. So I see no reason to deny that pleasure is intrinsically good. Pleasure no doubt is not unconditionally good or good in all circumstances, nor is it good as an end for oneself, although it often is good to adopt it as an end for others.

iii the good for human persons At the beginning of Chapter 1, I remarked that there is one category of good overlooked in the scheme used by Watson and borrowed 110

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues from Rawls that has been critical, even foundational, in some theories, and that is the good for human beings. In this section, I want to look at the connection between the motives of the paradigmatically good person and what is good for us. Many good emotions are among the things that are good for us, as are family, friends, health, knowledge, a peaceful and vibrant community, and the virtues, among others. But the fact that something is good for us does not fully explain what makes it good. If something can be good for an x and not for a y, there must be different standards for x’s and y’s, and that standard needs to be specified. We have inherited from the Greeks the idea that the standard is either a telos or an idea of perfection. If it is a telos, then to say that something is good for us is to say that it is good either as a means to reaching the telos or as a constituent of the telos. A telos is a form of good that is more basic than its means or constituents. A telos is a final end, which is one of the senses of an end that we have distinguished from an intrinsic good. I have argued that final ends can never be the most basic form of good; they must always be derivative from some intrinsically good intentional state. So if we have a telos, that end cannot be the ultimate explanation of the human good. The telos must be related to intrinsically good motivational states that have that telos as their end. What is good for us in this sense is extrinsic. I mentioned a second possibility, that the concept of good for is held to a different kind of standard than a telos: a standard of perfection. Iris Murdoch (1970) has argued for this Platonic alternative in “The Sovereignty of Good”: For all our frailty the command “be perfect” has sense for us. The Concept Good resists collapse into the selfish empirical consciousness. It is not a mere value tag of the choosing will, and functional and casual uses of “good” (a good knife, a good fellow) are not, as some philosophers have wished to argue, clues to the structure of the concept. The proper and serious use of the term refers us to a perfection which is perhaps never exemplified in the world we know (“There is no good in us”) and which carries with it the ideas of hierarchy and transcendence. (p. 170)

111

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics I do not know how Murdoch thinks the standard of perfection functions to generate what is good for us, but she clearly thinks of the latter as a derivative good. Presumably, it is good for us to be as close to perfection as possible, and even if the relationship is more complex than that, what is good for us depends upon what the perfect is. On this interpretation also, what is good for us is extrinsic. A third interpretation of what is good for us is that it is a conditional good, and the conditions are simply what human beings are like and what makes us prosper. Korsgaard treats what is good for us in this way. In discussing the value of food, she points out, quite rightly, that it is artificial to see the good of food as a means to an end (1983, pp. 188–189), nor, I would add, is it reasonable to see it as a constituent of an end. Eating is good for us under the condition that we are hungry, or more specifically, under the physiological and psychological conditions that make it both necessary and pleasant that human beings eat. These conditions determine what the virtues of a good meal are. The conditions are not themselves good, but they make other things good. The conditions provide reasons for the goodness of food (p. 189). So according to Korsgaard, food is a conditional good, and what she means by conditional is extrinsic, but the goodness of food is not derivative from any other good. The conditions that make something good for us are just certain physiological and psychological facts about our nature. We should clear up one problem with this position before proceeding. I have already argued that it is a mistake to identify a conditional good with an extrinsic good. The fact that food is good for us only under certain conditions or in certain circumstances is not sufficient to show that it is extrinsic. But in this case the difference between the conditional and the extrinsic does not matter, because I think that if we look more closely at the conditional value of food, we will see that it must be extrinsic, since the conditions that make food good for us are not just certain descriptive facts about our nature, but rather what makes us flourish. What is good for us is good under the condition that a certain state or kind of life constitutes flourishing for us. Flourishing is a good, and it is a good from which what is good for us derives. 112

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues This is not the position that Korsgaard proposes, but it does yield a third interpretation of what is good for us: What is good for us is a conditional good, conditional upon the fact that a certain state constitutes human flourishing. This is compatible with the view that flourishing is a telos, but it does not require it. On this view, the relation between what is good for us and flourishing is neither that of means to end nor that of constituent to end. What is good for us is conditional upon the fact that a certain state constitutes the good of flourishing. So we now have three possible relationships between what is good for us and flourishing: that of means to end, that of constituent to end, and that of the conditional to what it is conditional upon. On every interpretation we have looked at, what is good for us is a derivative good. It is not intrinsic. This brings us back to Watson, who proposed in his preferred form of virtue theory that what is good for us is foundational. There Watson seems to be using “good for human beings” as equivalent to “characteristic of human beings.” I objected that this will not work, since what is characteristic of humans is by no means limited to what is good for us or good in any sense. I propose that in order to make sense of this, we return to the idea of an exemplar of the good person. What is characteristic of that person is capable of playing the foundational role in the theory Watson desires. It also allows us to interpret “good for human persons” in any of the ways we have considered. What is good for us in any of these senses can be derived from an exemplar of goodness. I also think we will see that it avoids a serious problem in eudaimonistic virtue theory. First, the exemplar can serve as a standard of perfection against which the rest of us are measured. The exemplar may not be literally perfect, but he or she is close enough to determine what is good for us, on the Platonic interpretation. What is good for us in that sense is to imitate the exemplar. Second, human flourishing can be defined as the kind of life the exemplar desires or at which she aims. Such a life can be interpreted either as an Aristotelian telos or as the condition that makes the conditional goods of life good for us. If it is a telos, it is the ultimate end of the exemplar. What is good for us in that sense is what is either a constituent of or a means to the life that the exemplar adopts as her ultimate 113

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics end. If instead what is good for us are conditional goods, and if their condition is that a life of a certain kind is a flourishing life, then something is good for us under the condition that a certain kind of life is the life desired by the exemplar. Reference to the exemplar therefore permits us to define what is good for us in all the senses we have considered. Defining human flourishing by reference to the life desired by an exemplar also avoids a problem addressed by Rosalind Hursthouse. Hursthouse is at pains to defend two important theses: (1) The virtues benefit their possessor (they enable her to live a life of flourishing, of eudaimonia), and (2) the virtues make their possessor a good human being.8 If both theses are true, the virtues are good in two different senses. They are good for their possessor – that is, they are desirable – and they also make their possessor admirable. Hursthouse is worried that thesis (1) does not appear to be true across the board, although she argues that it is true in general. Her position is that having the virtues is the best bet for human beings to live a flourishing life, analogous to adopting a healthy lifestyle – exercising, eating a balanced diet, avoiding harmful substances, and so on. The problem is that that is not sufficient to give every human being a reason to be virtuous. I have heard of a family in northern Italy who have a genetic mutation that permits them to consume large quantities of saturated fat without having elevated cholesterol levels or an increased risk of heart disease. Clearly, there is no reason for them to lower their intake of saturated fats. Similarly, the good-looking, charming cad may get away with having few virtues and many vices. He may have friends, fun, interesting work, and good health. Perhaps his charm and good looks are not as dependable as a genetic mutation, but it is still possible not only that he is in a small minority of persons who can get away with being vicious, but also that he is in a position to know that he is in that minority. (Note that the epistemic condition is important, because even if he can get away with being vicious, if he is not in a position to know that or to believe it justifiably, Hursthouse is right that being virtuous will be his best bet for flourishing just as it is for everyone else.) 8

This problem is introduced in her book, On Virtue Ethics (1999), p. 167.

114

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues How can we determine whether the charming cad is evidence against thesis (1)? It seems to me that to say that the virtues are the best bet for leading a flourishing life is already to concede that the virtues are not necessary in order for some individuals to lead a flourishing life. It is to assume that a flourishing life is defined in a way that is independent of living virtuously, and then to frame the question in terms of whether the latter leads to the former. It is very unlikely that every instance of the latter is an instance of the former. If, instead, living virtuously is a component of eudaimonia, as many philosophers have maintained, then it is unfair to interpret the question whether the virtues benefit their possessor as the question whether living virtuously leads to the other components of eudaimonia – friends, enjoyment, good health, and so on. Some readers will no doubt respond that if it is unfair to assume that living virtuously is not part of flourishing, it is also unfair to assume that living virtuously is part of flourishing. I agree with that response. What it shows is that the issue of whether the virtues benefit their possessor is not something we can settle by starting with a neutral conception of flourishing and then doing an empirical investigation of the people who satisfy it and those who are virtuous in order to determine their statistical connection. If we start with a conception of flourishing that leaves out the virtues, we are begging the question against a historically important conception of what flourishing is, a conception that is probably endorsed by many virtuous persons themselves. If, instead, we start with a conception of flourishing that includes the virtues, there is no need for an empirical investigation. The conception of flourishing settles the matter. So what can we do? Should we make any attempt to answer this question at all? I suggest that we back up a step. If we are having trouble resolving the question of whether the critieria for a good life include having the virtues, the problem may be in the attempt to define the good life as whatever satisfies a certain set of criteria. I have proposed that “good” is defined by direct reference. If so, it is plausible that “good life” is defined by direct reference as well. It is a life like that, which is to say that we know it when we see it. It is a life we want to imitate. Describing lives is one of the functions of 115

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics literature and biography. When we read a story about the courageous person’s martyrdom for his beliefs, the question is not “Do I want to die for my beliefs?” but rather “Which of the many lives open to me is most worth living?” A life I consider eminently imitable might be one that includes dying for one’s beliefs, given certain luckless circumstances. I would not want to imitate the bad luck, but I could easily want to imitate a life that would leave it to luck whether or not it ends in martyrdom or some other kind of tragedy. If we define the good life as a life like that, we do not do it independently of referring to persons whose lives we want to imitate. We imitate persons whom we regard as exemplars, and we imitate lives that we regard as exemplary, and these are not independent activities. We identify certain persons as exemplars in part because we find their lives exemplary, and we identify certain lives as exemplary in part because they are the lives of the persons we want to imitate. A person is not independent of his life, although there is a partial independence in the sense that the way a person’s life goes is not wholly under his control. But even if the good life is defined by reference to the exemplar, there is still the objection that the life that is desired by an exemplar may not be identical to the life of an exemplar. That is true. Surely nobody wants to die an early death, even if he is an exemplar. In fact, if he does not mind dying an early death, we may wonder if he is really an exemplar after all. But the issue we are considering is not that one, but rather whether the virtues always contribute to a life of eudaimonia. With respect to that question, there may be no difference between the life of an exemplar and the life desired by an exemplar. And if there is a difference, we have a way to find out. We ask the exemplars. But I strongly suspect that it will turn out that both lives include the virtues. The only difference between the life an exemplar actually leads and the life he desires is that the latter includes elements of good luck that the former may lack. So what is a flourishing life? I propose that it is determined by what the exemplars say it is. Like natural-kind terms for precious metals, it takes an expert to make a final determination, but like water, most of us can recognize most instances of it. The exemplars 116

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues make the determination of good lives in the hard cases. If “good life” is defined by direct reference independently of “good person,” then the life of a good person can come apart from a good life. However, if I am right, that is not the way these concepts work. The lives we want to imitate are lives of persons we want to imitate. The conclusion is that those who say that the life of flourishing cannot be defined from a neutral standpoint are right. As McDowell (1979) has argued, the virtuous person and the nonvirtuous person think of a flourishing life in different ways. The disadvantage of this solution to the problem of the relation between virtue and flourishing is that it seems to make it impossible to construct a eudaimonia-based virtue theory, since it makes eudaimonia relative to a point of view.9 If the concept of eudaimonia varies with the virtue or vice of the observer, then the concept of eudaimonia cannot ground the concepts of virtue and vice or right and wrong acts. But this is not a problem for exemplarist virtue theory, since the latter makes reference to exemplars more basic than the concept of eudaimonia. If all moral concepts are defined by reference to an exemplar, then what the exemplar considers eudaimon is eudaimon. If the exemplar says that she needs to be virtuous in order to flourish, then virtue is necessary for flourishing. If she says that it is not necessary, then it is not necessary. This leads to the issue of variability among the exemplars, which I will address in Chapter 9. I consider it an advantage of the theory that the exemplars differ in many ways and do not all give the same description of a flourishing life. But if the identity of the exemplars is conceptually connected to what we mean by “good” – in a way parallel to the way in which particular portions of water are conceptually connected to what we mean by “water” – then there are serious limitations on the degree of variability 9

Lee Yearley (1993) has proposed “the good person criterion” as the ultimate criterion for human flourishing and has stressed the pluralism of the criterion. He says that versions of the criterion appear not only in the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions but also in the Confucian tradition. Notice that this means that the criterion itself is cross-cultural, even if the exemplars differ across cultures.

117

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics permitted by the concept of good, and that includes the concept of a good life. I have suggested that there are emotions among the things that are good for us. The exemplar’s emotions are good for us if she is motivated to have them. Some of the exemplar’s emotions motivate her to act in ways that sometimes lead to a life that lacks something we would otherwise consider good – a good income, the good opinion of others, a long life. It follows that the exemplar’s emotions are not only intrinsically good, they are also good for her and for us if she is motivated to have them. Presumably an exemplar not only has intrinsically good emotions (motives) but also is motivated to have the motives she has, since that is part of what we mean by integrity in the sense of psychological unity. But if the exemplar is motivated against the possession of certain emotions, they are not good for her or for us, and that is possible even if these emotions are intrinsically good because they fit their intentional objects. Since intrinsic goodness implies neither a high degree of goodness nor goodness all things considered, this should not be surprising. Elsewhere (2003) I have made the parallel argument about true beliefs. All true beliefs have intrinsic value simply in virtue of being true, but not all true beliefs are very good, and not all are good for us.

iv virtues Emotions become dispositions, and emotion dispositions lead to dispositions to act in certain circumstances for certain ends. When the agent sees that his act is successful in reaching its end, the disposition is reinforced. When it is unsuccessful, the act disposition is altered, and the emotion out of which the act arises may eventually change as well. These emotion–act dispositions become an entrenched part of what we call a person’s character. They include virtues and vices, but they probably also include traits that are generally not considered morally relevant, such as the degree to which a person is extroverted or introverted, active or passive, a risk taker or a risk avoider, and a person’s sensitivity to different kinds of art and humor. In Chapter 2, I mentioned that traits in the latter category are often called personality traits. Character 118

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues traits are distinguished from personality traits in order both to distinguish traits that are morally important from those that are not and to distinguish traits that are acquired from those that are allegedly part of an agent’s natural temperament. It seems to me that both character traits and personality traits are partly innate and partly acquired, and while it is probably true that personality traits are not as important for the major concerns of morality as are character traits, they can be very important for a person’s wellbeing, and I would not dismiss them as unimportant for ethics. Nonetheless, I will not have much to say about personality traits in this study but will concentrate instead on the classical virtues whose importance has been recognized for many centuries. I will also mention a few virtues that are not discussed by the classical writers. My purpose, however, is not to give an exhaustive list of the virtues, but rather to give an account of the structure of virtue that applies to as many virtues as possible and that explains what is good about a virtue. The psychological path from the primary emotions described in Chapter 2 to acts with all the important evaluative properties is more complex than the outline I will present here. As emotions become dispositions, they are also overlaid with beliefs, secondary emotions, continuous responses from other persons and the self, and the exercise of practical reasoning, all of which affect the way in which dispositions are formed. What I am going to try to do in this section is to identify the simplest path from emotion to traits of character that is sufficiently robust to show how the evaluative properties of both persons and their acts are generated out of the experience of emotion and reflection upon that experience. I will argue in this chapter and the next that all the evaluative properties relevant to the evaluation of acts can be defined in terms of intrinsically good emotions or, alternatively, in terms of an exemplar of virtue. Our ways of perceiving the world around us are affectively saturated, and we are probably in an emotional state of one kind or another during much of our conscious life. If an emotion has an intentional object that is construed under a distinctive kind of concept in our consciousness, then those concepts have a crucial and primary role in our understanding the world and reacting to 119

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics it. We become habituated to our emotions. We form dispositions to have a similar emotion in similar circumstances. The degree of similarity that a situation has to a past one in which the same emotion type was felt is a subject for psychological investigation, but it is likely that our emotions are generalized fairly widely while we are young and become more differentiated the longer we live. When faced with a new situation, the emotion we feel is typically the one closest to what we have previously felt in the most similar situations, or if there are a number of equally similar past situations that have elicited different emotions, we may feel more than one emotion or may simply be emotionally confused. As we gain more experience in life, we acquire a larger repertoire of emotions and our character becomes more complex. There are individual differences in the patterns in which we form emotional dispositions, and this makes it difficult to identify these dispositions by name, except very loosely. So the disposition of compassion is a disposition to have the feeling we call by that name for persons perceived to be suffering, but as I suggested earlier, “compassion” is probably a name for a set of similar emotions. Compassionate persons do not all have identical emotions in identical circumstances. But since compassion is learned in part by imitating admired others, we must think that some persons are better at it than others; we must think there is something that they are better at. That is, all compassionate persons aim at something, and not just in the obvious sense that compassion leads them to attempt to relieve suffering. Rather, they aim at something in the formation of the emotion itself: They attempt to construe the aspects of the world relevant to compassion correctly. This is how an emotion is like a belief. Emotions are potentially motivating. The emotions that motivate are the ones that have characteristic ends. Some emotions do not have characteristic ends – for example, joy, awe, disappointment, surprise. These emotions are therefore much less likely to be motives, although I do not deny the possibility that each of them can motivate in certain circumstances. But many emotions do have characteristic ends – for example, envy, love, fear, anger, pity, and compassion. In Robert C. Roberts’s detailed investigation of the emotions (2003), he identifies a distinctive end for many of them. 120

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues His “defining proposition” for fear is the following: “X presents an aversive possibility of a significant degree of probability; may X or its aversive consequences be avoided” (p. 195). His definition of anger at S includes the end that S be hurt for his offense (p. 204). His definition of envy of S in respect X includes the end that S appear to be degraded in respect X (p. 262). I would not go so far as to say that these propositions define the emotion; in particular, I have my doubts that anger always includes a desire to see the offender hurt. Nonetheless, Roberts is surely right that the ends he identifies are characteristically associated with the respective emotions. Roberts does not propose that the ends are such that the agent necessarily adopts them as his own ends. For example, the person envious of S does not necessarily aim to degrade S himself. But if the agent does aim to degrade the person he envies, or to hurt the person with whom he is angry, or to interfere with the expected consequences of the object of his fear, we think of the emotion as an explanation for the behavior. We understand why he acted in that way because an act with that end is typically associated with the emotion in question. We often call the ends that arise from emotional states desires. I think that most desires derive from a more basic state of emotion, although there may also be desires that do not, and the causal connection between desires and past emotions is no doubt complex. Typically, though, an emotion gives rise to a characteristic desire, which will become an end of intentional action if the agent’s beliefs, dispositions, and other desires are compatible with it. Good persons not only have emotions that fit the circumstances, they also are good at the practical reasoning necessary to act on an emotion in a way that enables them both to determine the end appropriate to the emotion and to reach the end successfully. The disposition to be motivated to act in a characteristic way in response to an emotion is a motive disposition. My position is that motive dispositions are the primary element in traits of character. In Virtues of the Mind, I investigated the nature of a virtue and the way it differs from other psychic states and capacities, such as skills. The definition of a virtue that I proposed is as follows: A virtue is a deep and enduring acquired excellence of the human 121

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics person that has two components: (1) a motive disposition,10 and (2) reliable success in bringing about the end (if any) of the motive. Some virtues are mostly motive (compassion, gratitude, trust), and others are mostly success (justice, courage, temperance), but I will argue here that all are both. Each virtue has a distinctive motivational component, but it is likely that a number of different virtues arise from a single core emotion. For example, sympathy with fellow human beings is the ground of the virtues of compassion, kindness, generosity, and unselfishness, and the emotions opposed to sympathy are the ground of the vices of cruelty, envy, and selfishness. Respect for persons is the ground of the virtues of honesty, sincerity, justice, and tolerance. Self-respect is the ground of the virtues of autonomy and self-reliance. Each of the vices contrary to these virtues express attitudes contrary to respect for persons, either oneself or others. Love is a deeper and more demanding emotion than sympathy, and each kind of love is the ground of a distinct virtue – friendship, erotic love, familial love, and agape, or Christian charity. This last example is a virtue directed toward all persons. It is such a difficult virtue to achieve that according to Christian teaching it is impossible without grace. In his valuable study of the virtues, Andr´e Comte-Sponville (1996) notes that compassion is the great virtue of the Buddhist East, whereas charity is the great virtue of the Christian West. He remarks that charity would certainly be better if we were capable of it, but compassion is more accessible. The emotional component of most virtues is recognizable from the name of the virtue. But there are two virtues that appear not to have an emotion-disposition as a component because they are almost entirely directed toward the control of emotion – courage, which controls fear, and temperance, which controls the desire for pleasure. These virtues require special attention, since they appear to be counterexamples to my claim that every virtue has an emotion disposition as a primary component. 10

In Virtues of the Mind, I called a motive disposition a motivation. In this book, I have dropped that usage, since readers find it confusing. When I mean a disposition, I will say so.

122

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues Courage requires something in the agent that counteracts fear of pain or death, and temperance requires something in the agent that counteracts the desire for pleasure. These virtues are good test cases for the issue of whether an affective state can be counteracted by anything other than another affective state. I have already said that – like Aristotle, Hume, and many others – I am convinced that an affective state is necessary to motivate. The belief that my fear at this time must be suppressed and that I must act in a way opposed to the way my fear disposes me to act is insufficient to motivate me to choose to act in the way dictated by my belief. Indeed, it is an affective state that motivates me to undergo the process of practical reasoning leading me to the belief that this fear must be suppressed now, a belief that I may choose to follow or not. The process of practical reasoning leading to choice presupposes a prior set of emotions that includes my seeing certain things as dangerous, certain other things as lovable, as admirable, as objects of my loyalty, respect, or devotion – in short, states consisting of my caring about things in various ways. A courageous act is one in which the agent acts out of one of these emotions and not out of fear. In order to act courageously, the agent must have a strong emotion-disposition opposed to her disposition to feel fear, and the former disposition must be operating at the time of her act. In order to do that, she may have to visualize the objects she values in such a way that she sees them in her imagination as falling under the thick concepts that dispose her to act against her fear – as lovable, admirable, and so on. She may have to reflect upon her view of herself, a self that she also sees under thick concepts. And she may have to use her practical reason in a number of ways, including the prediction of consequences for various alternative courses of action. All of this is in service to her past emotions, which are ways in which she has affectively perceived the world and which are now calling upon her to act in a way opposed to her present fear. But suppose I am wrong about that, and no affective state is necessary to motivate an agent to act on any particular occasion in which courageous action is called for. It is still the case that the virtue of courage has an emotion-disposition as a component. That is because courage is a disposition to have a certain attitude 123

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics toward the agent’s own fear. Aside from the issue of the place of emotion in causing an agent to act virtuously at any particular time, the virtue of courage is a disposition to have a second-order emotion directed toward one’s emotion of fear. An agent can reject her own emotion. The feeling of fear may fit the circumstances in the sense that the circumstances really are dangerous, but she may have another emotion that fits the larger circumstances also, and when the act dictated by fear conflicts with the act dictated by the other emotion, the agent has a third emotion with that conflict as its intentional object. Whether or not it takes an emotion to actually act, the courageous person is courageous because she has a certain emotion, the emotion underlying courage, that makes her construe the entire situation with herself and her emotions in it in such a way that it may dictate that she act against her fear and in accordance with her other emotion – typically, loyalty, love, respect for human rights, or concern for her own future welfare. The parallel points apply to the virtue of temperance, which is the disposition to have a certain attitude toward one’s own pleasures. Pleasure may well be an intrinsic good, and the desire for pleasure in some circumstances may be appropriate in the narrow sense that the fear of danger is appropriate, but the acts dictated by love of pleasure can conflict with the acts dictated by some other emotion that also fits the circumstances. Temperance is the agent’s disposition to construe the entire situation with herself and her emotions and desire for pleasure in a certain way, and temperance dictates what she does. It does not always dictate that she act against the desire for pleasure, just as courage does not always dictate that she act against the feeling of fear. But it often does so, and so it is a difficult trait to acquire. Courage and temperance therefore have higher-order emotions as their primary components. They are emotions whose intentional objects are situations that include the agent’s own emotions. I will return to the psychology of emotions directed toward a situation with the self in it in the next chapter, when we investigate the origin of the sense of obligation. Intellectual virtues are also sometimes thought to have no grounding in emotion, but I have argued elsewhere that these 124

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues virtues are grounded in the core emotion of love of true belief or love of other intrinsically valuable epistemic states such as understanding and wisdom, as well as in the emotion of disdain of falsehood. Intellectual virtues are not simply the disposition to follow the rules of reasoning, although they include following rules where there are rules to follow. But intellectual virtues are much broader than the disposition to follow rules. They enable the agent to determine what to believe when the rules are not sufficient and a proposition can be neither proven nor disproven. There are intellectual virtues that help the agent to determine what the options for belief are, what to investigate and how far to go in the inquiry, how careful and thorough is careful and thorough enough, who counts as a trustworthy authority, and most importantly, the value of truth and the disvalue of falsehood in any given instance. The value of getting truth can differ significantly from the disvalue of getting falsehood, and the motive to discover truth differs from the motive to avoid falsehood.11 These two motives both operate in intellectual virtue, but they do not operate in the same way. As William James (1979) argued, the former leads to greater risk in belief formation than the latter. When the desire to avoid falsehood dominates, the epistemic agent is more cautious and thorough, pursues inquiry further, and may demand a higher degree of evidence for a proposition than when the desire for truth dominates. The latter desire leads the believer to fear losing a truth in some case even more than getting a falsehood. The way an agent weighs the desirability of truth against the undesirability of falsehood in any given set of circumstances rests upon her emotions of loving truth and disdaining falsehood. The fact that the two emotions differ complicates the account of intellectual virtue, but it also highlights the emotional basis of intellectual virtue. Another important virtue that may seem to have no emotiondisposition as a component is phronesis, or practical wisdom. In Virtues of the Mind, I argued that practical wisdom is a higher-order virtue that has a number of functions, including adjudicating the 11

I argue for this in “Intellectual Motivation and the Good of Truth” (Zagzebski 2003c).

125

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics competing demands of the individual virtues and assessing a situation as a whole – that is, in all its morally relevant respects. The phronimos is good at the practical reasoning that leads to judging that a particular act with a particular end is the one most appropriate for a given situation, all things considered. In a worst-case scenario, a given situation could include all of the following: a vicious and vindictive person with considerable power; a fearful and cowering victim unable to protect himself; distant third parties, including both more potential victims and more potential abusers; and a practically wise agent whose own life obviously includes interests other than protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. Clearly, my description so far is grossly inadequate to determine a particular course of action for the phronimos, so many more details need to be given. When the details are given, perhaps we will find that there is nobody with the ability to judge the most appropriate response. If so, there are situations beyond the reach of the wisdom of any human agent. But there is something that practically wise persons do when assessing such situations, even if there are cases in which they do it inadequately. Of course, they are good at getting accurate information and predicting the consequences of various courses of action, but they are good at something else that has an emotional component. They can fit together a number of thick concepts that pertain to the various aspects of a situation into a picture of the whole. They see the relevance of the victimhood, cruelty, vengeance, self-sacrifice, and so on to the situation in all its aspects, and the emotions that consist in perceiving each of these thick properties are subsumed under a higher-order emotion. Most of us in such a situation are just emotionally confused. There are too many emotions vying for our attention. The practically wise person has the ability to look at the entire situation with herself and her own emotions in it. She must be able to treat her emotions as objects in the situation toward which a higherorder emotion is directed. In situations of crisis, we sometimes see persons who have clarity and singleness of vision without ignoring any relevant aspect of the situation. My conjecture is that the entire situation is the intentional object of some emotion. If so, practical wisdom does not have a particular emotion disposition as a component; rather, it includes the disposition to have 126

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues emotions corresponding to the affective perception of a situation as a whole.12 The second component of a virtue is the success component. A virtue includes reliable success in bringing about the end, if any, of the motivational component of the virtue. The emotion dispositions of some virtues may have no other end than that of expressing the emotion. Gratitude is probably in that category; love, compassion, and loyalty also sometimes aim only at expressing the corresponding emotion. There may be other virtues that have no end at all, not even the end of expressing the emotional component of the virtue. Empathy may be in that category, since it is doubtful that an empathetic person aims at expressing empathy, although I do not deny that he might. Trust and repentance often have no ends, either. Some philosophers have objected to the success component of my definition of virtue.13 To some extent I think we should admit that there is no determinate answer to the question of whether virtue requires reliable success in reaching its end, if it has one, because the concept of virtue, like most interesting concepts, is embedded in a complex set of social practices that serve many different purposes. It may not be possible to identify a concept that is faithful to all of these purposes and, at the same time, meets our theoretical desire for a simple and illuminating way to understand the ethical life. But I think there are two main purposes of moral evaluation to which we ought to be faithful in an account of virtue. On the one hand, we think that the moral evaluation of persons is directed at assessing the condition of their hearts. On the other 12

13

Bob Roberts and Jay Wood have objected to me that humility is a virtue that has no motivational component, not because it does not have an emotional component that is potentially motivating, but because there is no single motivation characteristic of acting humbly. A humble person has a certain attitude about herself in her relation to others that takes different forms in different circumstances. Roberts and Wood may be right about that, in which case humility, like practical wisdom, needs a more complex analysis than is captured by the model I have proposed. William Alston objects to the success component of my definition in the symposium on my book Virtues of Mind (Zagzebski 2000a). Jorge Garcia (1998) objects to it also.

127

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics hand, we think that one of the most important reasons we have moral practices at all is to make the world a better place. Morality has a practical aim, and that aim is directly related to our evaluation of persons, since it is persons who implement it. If moral evaluation were only concerned with assessing the motivations of individuals and identifying them as virtuous or nonvirtuous, it would seem to follow that moral evaluation is about something that is nobody’s business. But moral evaluation is public business, at least in part. That is because morality has a common end, and moral evaluation includes evaluating persons on how well they do in contributing toward that end. Those who have the virtue of compassion do not simply try to relieve suffering, they do relieve suffering. Those who have the virtue of generosity do not simply try to give to the needy, they do give to the needy. Those who are just do not simply try to bring about a just state of affairs, they do bring about a just state of affairs. Those who are temperate do not simply try to control their desire for pleasure, they succeed in controlling their desire for pleasure; and so on. Let us look at the matter from another direction. Success is better than failure. Success at a moral endeavor is not just better, it is morally better, because that is the way good persons perceive it. A virtuous person who tries and fails considers himself a failure in his moral aim, and he considers himself a moral failure for that reason. This is not to say that he feels or ought to feel guilt rather than regret. The emotion of guilt does not straightforwardly map onto moral failure. My point is just that there is something morally missing when a person is not successful in the aim of generosity, courage, compassion, justice, temperance, or charity. The full possession of a virtue requires not only a way of looking at the world that motivates one to have a morally worthy end, but also being reliably successful in reaching that end. Part of virtue is having the good sense to be effective. This is expressed in ordinary parlance when we say a person “means well” in order to indicate that she has a good motive but that her behavior is not admirable, perhaps even irresponsible. Such a person is not unqualifiedly good, and she is not unqualifiedly virtuous. Of course, if the world were ruled by an evil demon, we would be systematically ineffective 128

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues and unable to discover our mistake. We would be moral victims, and the world would be a moral horror, but victimhood does not make us virtuous. Vice has a reliability component for the same reason. A person who has vicious motives but does not act on them, or does not act on them in a way that reliably brings about the end of the vicious motive, is not fully vicious. He is not as bad morally as one who is reliably successful in reaching the vicious end. We blame someone who sexually abuses children much more than one who is so inclined but does not act on the inclination, even if the reason is lack of opportunity, and the same point applies to our attitude toward those who sympathize with terrorism. Actual behavior and its actual consequences lead us to praise or blame the agent for being virtuous or vicious, and justifiably so. At the beginning of this section I suggested that virtues in the sense relevant to ethics may include some traits usually considered personality traits. The moral virtues are often thought to be traits that all human persons need in order to be morally good or to lead good lives, but I see no reason to limit virtues to such traits. There are no doubt virtues that everyone needs in order to lead a good life or to act morally, and I have followed tradition in concentrating on those traits, but I think it likely that there are also traits that enable some persons but not others to act morally or to lead a good life. Some of the traits that are role-specific would be in this category – traits that enable a person to be a good engineer, a good artist, a good judge, and so on.14 But I think that in addition to role virtues, some traits are virtues for some persons and not others because of differences in personality and temperament. The virtues of extroverted persons may differ somewhat from those of introverted persons. The virtues of friendship apply to both, but I doubt that friendship is a single virtue, and the friendship virtues appropriate to a particular person may depend in part on that person’s natural temperament. I suspect that the same point applies to persons who differ in their tolerance of risk. Both risk avoiders and risk takers should train themselves to avoid the extremes, but it is 14

Jorge Garcia (1998) stresses the importance of roles for an understanding of the virtues.

129

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics doubtful that there is a single attitude toward risk characteristic of virtuous persons. If different degrees of acceptance of risk are compatible with virtue, there may also be traits that are virtuous for the risk takers but not for the risk avoiders, and vice versa. I will argue later that what gives persons dignity is in part their differences from each other. There is much more to a good person than the virtues that appear on traditional lists with all their variations – compassion, love, justice, courage, temperance, generosity, practical wisdom, the intellectual virtues, and humility – and there is more even if we add Aristotle’s social graces, good humor, and the ability to handle money correctly. Some of the traits of a particular good person would not be good if possessed by some other good person who has a different personality. Narratives display individual variations in traits of character better than didactic prose, and one of my purposes in this book is to show the importance of narrative within a theoretical framework that serves the purposes of philosophical ethics. Exemplars are the link between narrative and the theory I am outlining. Exemplars differ in temperament and personality, as well as in their social roles and in the historical contexts of their lives. Narratives reveal these differences.

v defining the kinds of good We are now ready to look at a set of preliminary definitions of the kinds of good. Let us go back to Aristotle’s idea of the phronimos. Aristotle thought that the determination of what virtuous conduct is is ultimately up to the phronimos or phronim¯e. What is most important about Aristotle’s view for my purposes is not his particular account of phronesis, but the fact that he finds it necessary to refer to an exemplar of virtue in defining virtue and virtuous conduct.15 Virtue is a mean between extremes “as the man of practical wisdom would determine it” (NE 1107a). This definition 15

I have discussed Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s accounts of practical wisdom and proposed my own account of its place in a theory of virtue in Virtues of the Mind (Zagzebski 1996a), Part II, section 5.

130

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues is structurally similar to the indexical definitions of natural-kind terms. These definitions do not tell us what it is about something that makes it water or virtue, but they do tell us how to find out what makes something water or virtue, under the assumption that we can find an exemplar. So when Aristotle tells us that the virtue of courage is a mean between cowardice and foolhardiness as the phronimos would determine it, that gives us a procedure to follow to find out where the mean is, but it does not tell us what it is that the phronimos does to determine the mean. And, in fact, the phronimos himself might not be able to tell us, although we might get some important information about that by observing the phronimoi. Similary, water is defined by indexical reference to portions of water, but we find out what water is by investigating the stuff in the glass. I am using the same procedure. The value concepts we have considered so far can be defined indexically, but I have also begun an explanation of what it is that the good person is doing that determines the content of the concepts defined. In this section, I will propose a set of rough definitions that indicate the direction of the theory. The indexical definitions. First, we identify an exemplar of a good person. A good emotion is an emotion a person like that would have in a given situation. A virtue is a disposition to have emotions like that and to be motivated to bring about the ends that good persons with such emotions aim to bring about, and to be reliably successful in doing so. States of affairs have the thick properties that are perceived in emotional states just in case the good person who understands the descriptive features of the situation would perceive the state of affairs as having such a property. To say it in a different way, a state of affairs has the thick property perceived in an emotional state just in case the emotion is good in those circumstances. So an object is pitiful just in case the good person would perceive it as pitiful. It is pitiful just in case pity is a good emotion in the particular circumstances. An end or an outcome is good just in case the good person would be motivated to bring it about. A good end or outcome is the end of a good motive. The evaluative properties of acts can also be defined indexically as what the good person would, would not, or might do. We will get to that in the next chapter. 131

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics The substantive definitions. A good emotion is an emotion that fits its intentional object. An emotion is good just in case the thick concept under which its intentional object is perceived does in fact apply to the intentional object. To say it in a different way, an emotion is good just in case the standard judgment expressing it is true. Good persons are good, in part, because they have good emotions. A person is more than a set of emotions, and there are other states of a person that are intrinsically good and in virtue of which she is good, but emotions are particularly important because they are the ground of her action. An emotion motivates a person to act in a certain way. When it does so, it is a motive. A virtue is a good motive disposition and reliable success in bringing about the end, if any, of the motive. A good outcome is the end of a good motive. Concepts of act evaluation are defined in terms of what is contrary, is not contrary, or expresses the virtuous self. This also will be addressed in the next chapter. The indexical definition of a good emotion is structurally parallel to defining water as stuff like that, where we point to a portion of water. The substantive definition is parallel to defining water as H2 O. I take the indexical definition to be basic; the substantive definition offers a metaphysical explanation of what it is about the emotion of an exemplar that makes it good. We could, in principle, find out that our molecular theory is mistaken and someday revise the judgment that water is H2 O. We would do that if we found out that this stuff is not H2 O after all. Perhaps it has a deeper structure that is causally related to being H2 O, and we decide that the deeper structure is what makes water water, not being H2 O. The substantive theory of good emotion is significantly more tenuous than molecular theory. The relation between emotion and object that I have roughly characterized as “fit” may turn out to be quite different than I have surmised, and it may turn out that the psychic structure of good persons is completely different than what I have proposed in these chapters. The idea of fit between a psychic state and its object is now familiar. Elizabeth Anscombe proposed the idea of two possible directions of fit between a psychic state A and some object B. One of either A or B comes first, and the agent attempts to make the other match it. Allegedly, belief states attempt to fit their objects, 132

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues whereas desires are states in which the agent attempts to make their objects fit them. Simon Blackburn says the two directions can be illustrated by two uses of a list of items of purchase. One is a list of items to purchase, where the agent attempts to make the objects purchased fit the list. The other is a list of items that have been purchased, where the agent attempts to make the list fit the objects purchased. This way of looking at fit can be useful, but I think it is important that fit does not have to be a copy of something. Consider how clothes fit. We each have one body, and there are many articles of clothing we could buy, so the clothes have to fit the body, but the thing that fits is not a copy of what it fits.There are also ways things fit together – such as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle – that do not have a direction. In this case, there is no direction, or rather, the direction goes both ways. What our emotions fit are circumstances that we do not attempt to change in order to fit the emotion, and in this respect the direction of fit of emotion to states of affairs is like that of belief. But there is no reason to think that an emotion is like an item on a list of items one has purchased. It is not a copy of something. It might fit the way a piece of clothing fits the body. Or perhaps that analogy is inapt as well. A deeper explanation of the connection between emotion and world would require an adequate theory of perception, which I do not have. I have proposed a theory according to which judgments expressing emotion can be true or false, but I have left unexplained the relationship between mind and world required by the truth of such judgments. I hope that this theory can be combined with a good theory of sensory perception in a general account of the mind, but I do not have such a theory.

vi conclusion In this chapter, I have discussed a number of categories of good: good ends, good outcomes, the good for human beings, pleasure, and good personal traits. I have argued that pleasure is intrinsically good, but that pleasure for oneself does not typically have the value of ends. The ends of acts have a distinctive kind of value, but they are not intrinsically good. Their value derives from the value of motives. One sense of “end” is that state of affairs at which 133

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics the agent aims. She aims at the end because of her motive, and the end is good when the motive is good. The outcome of an act is the actual state of affairs that the agent brings about. It is good when it is the state of affairs at which the agent aims when she is acting from a good motive. So an outcome also gets its value from the motive of the act that brings it about. Both an outcome and an end can get indirect value in virtue of being the type of end that a person with a good motive would have in the same circumstances. So a given outcome is indirectly good when it is the state of affairs at which a good person would aim in the same circumstances. An end is indirectly good when it is the end a good person would have in the same circumstances. The indirect value of an end or an outcome can therefore differ from the direct value it has derived from the actual motive of the agent. What is good for a person is also good extrinsically. If human nature has an end in the sense of a telos, then the telos, its constitutents, and the means to it are good for us. Alternatively, what is good for us is conditional upon the fact that the human telos is what it is. In all of these interpretations of what is good for us, it is an extrinsic good. A life of flourishing, or eudaimonia, is the life that a good person aims to have. It is the life desired by a person whose emotions fit their intentional objects. The difference between the life that an exemplar desires and the life that she actually has is due to elements of luck that are independent of the exemplar’s agency. The lives of exemplars are imitable. What we imitate is what they are, what they feel, what they do, and what they aim at. We cannot imitate their good or bad luck. The Platonic sense in which it is good for us to be perfect is also extrinsic in that the standard of perfection is the intrinsic good from which derives the good for persons who imitate it. I suggest that we think of the exemplar as the standard, which means that it is good for us to imitate the exemplar. This position on the good of ends, outcomes, and the good for human beings requires making a number of distinctions – between intrinsic good and the good of ends, between motive and aim, between outcomes and states of affairs, and between direct and indirect value. Our basic relation to value is in the experience of emotion in which we perceive thick properties affectively. Thick properties 134

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

Goods and virtues are not simply forms of good and bad combined with descriptive properties, and our primary relation to these properties is not a bipolar response such as approval/ disapproval or love/hate. Our relation to these properties is one not of response but of perception, and the state of perceiving has an intentional structure that is both cognitive and motivating. An emotion moves us to impact the world in ways characteristic of each emotion. An emotion is a reason for acting in both the justificatory sense and the causal sense. The emotion causes the agent to act in a way that is directed toward a characteristic end, and the fact that she has the end is explained by the fact that she has the emotion. If asked to explain why an agent has the end of relieving someone’s suffering, the reply may be that she feels compassion for him. If asked to explain why an agent has the end of causing suffering to another, the reply may be that she feels jealous of him. Emotions become habitual, and we become habituated to adopting the characteristic ends of our emotions. An emotion may have more than one characteristic end, and the end adopted by the agent depends upon circumstances and some features of the emotion itself. For example, jealousy sometimes leads the agent to adopt the end of harming his rival and sometimes to adopt the end of harming himself or his beloved, because there is more than one emotion that we call jealousy. Furthermore, the emotion will not lead the agent to adopt any end at all unless the circumstances make it feasible to act. But often the circumstances are propitious for adopting the characteristic end of an emotion or one of the characteristic ends, and so the emotion disposition leads to the development of particular act dispositions. A trait of character is a disposition to have a particular emotion and to act in a way that is motivated by the emotion, aiming at a characteristic end of the emotion. A virtue is a deep and enduring acquired trait consisting of a disposition to have a good emotion that leads to the performance of acts aimed at a characteristic end of the emotion, and reliable success in reaching that end. A vice is a deep and enduring acquired trait consisting of a disposition to have a bad emotion that leads to the performance of acts aimed at a characteristic end of the emotion, and reliable success in reaching the end. According to these definitions, not all traits of character are either virtues 135

P1: KaD/JZY P2: KaD 0521828805c03.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:4

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics or vices. Some traits may have as their basic component an emotion that is neither bad nor good, or the emotion may be one or the other, but the agent’s trait may not be deep and enduring or it may not reliably reach the end characteristic of the emotion. My position is that virtue originates in the affective perception that constitutes emotion. Good emotions give us a grasp of evaluative features of the world, although it is no doubt a stretch to say that a good emotion is a form of knowledge. Emotion has an inadequate claim to be a way of knowing moral reality, since (a) the agent’s emotion may be insufficiently conscious to meet the conditions for knowledge expected by most epistemologists;16 (b) even when it is conscious, the agent may not trust it enough to be willing to express the emotion in the form of a judgment; and (c) even when she is willing to express the emotion in a standard judgment, her state may be analogous only to true belief rather than to knowledge, since she may not meet the conditions of justification or intellectual virtue or reflective endorsement – whatever feature knowledge has in addition to true belief. Nonetheless, if we probe more deeply into the behavior of virtuous persons, I think we will discover that the foundation of their moral knowledge is analogous to the foundation of empirical knowledge about the physical world. There is a form of perception upon which practical reasoning and judgment rests. Even if the foundational states do not themselves satisfy the conditions for knowing, knowledge would not exist without them, and the epistemic states that derive from them are not trustworthy unless these states are trustworthy also. Moral knowledge requires that there be epistemically trustworthy emotions, just as empirical knowledge requires that there be epistemically trustworthy sensory states. 16

But the beliefs that are components of knowing states are often unconscious also, so it is not obvious that the first defect of emotion is sufficient to preclude it from being a form of knowledge.

136

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Chapter 4 Acts and obligation

Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful. Hobbes

i acts and the exemplar Our consciousness of the world is not merely receptive and representational; it is also laden with feeling that moves us to impact that world. Hence, we act – sometimes with forethought, usually not. Some springs of action may be purely internal, and these are often called drives, but many others arise from emotions or combinations of emotions and beliefs, both of which are derived from, or are part of, our consciousness of the external world. I accept the position that anything motivating must have an affective aspect, but pure affect cannot motivate, because it has no object. When motivated, we may or may not act on the motive. An account of why we sometimes do and sometimes do not leads directly into one of the most difficult issues in the metaphysics of the human person, the problem of free will. I will not attempt an account of human freedom in this book, but will merely mention the step that sometimes comes between the desire to bring about a certain end and the act: choice or decision. I believe that the importance of choice has been exaggerated in moral philosophy. 137

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics Virtues and vices are not primarily patterns of choice, but rather patterns of feeling and acting, some of which, but not all of which, involve choice. Modern ethics has focused excessively on choice because of the modern shrinking of the range of responsibility. It is thought that each of us controls very little of what makes us the person that we are, but there is one thing that we do allegedly control – our will, and so it is thought that our will just is the person that we are in the sense that is relevant to ethics. If I am my will, I control who I am.1 The modern focus on choice is accompanied by a focus on what immediately follows choice: the act. The importance of acting is also exaggerated in modern ethics, in my view, but I doubt that we can get a balanced view on the importance of the act without an account of the relationship between the act and the self, which I will not attempt here. Acts are surely significant in one important respect. The act is the causal link between the world of a person’s consciousness and the world she wants to change in some way. To the extent that ethics has to do with the relation between persons and the world around them, action is the first place to look, because the act is the most obvious way in which persons relate to the world. Acts are significant in another way: They display the personhood of the person. They do not do this with unqualified accuracy, but they are the principal way in which a person’s character is revealed. The act is morally important, but its importance is compromised by the fact that acts are often described in a causally extended way, and the extension is generally causally forward rather than backward. A particular act may be variously described as pulling a trigger, shooting a person, killing a person, or ridding the world of a tyrant. Each succeeding description spreads the act out to include more and more of its consequences. Granted, we often add the word “intentional” or “unintentional” to our 1

The aim to keep the self outside the realm of luck may be misguided, but it is also misguided to think that the aim succeeds if the self is the will, since there is room for luck even in what the will wills. See Joel Feinberg (1970).

138

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation description of an act, and to say that an act is done intentionally tells us something about what went on in the consciousness of the agent prior to the act, but it is true nonetheless that the description of the act itself – what follows the word “intentional” – is as I have described. We tend to think of the act as a process beginning with overt behavior and extending to what is clearly outside the agent altogether. There is a theoretical motive for describing an act in a way that includes its consequences. Moral theorists aim to classify acts with particular attention to distinguishing right act-types from wrong act-types. In doing so, they almost always identify an act by those features of it that are thought to be most relevant to evaluating it as right or wrong. If it is thought that the consequences of an act are relevant to its rightness or wrongness, there is a temptation to think of the act itself as including the morally relevant consequences. It is common, then, to think of an act not as a discrete event on a causal chain but as a certain portion of that chain. If that is the case, we could just as well describe acts by extending the causal history backward rather than forward; acts could be identified by reference to their motives rather than their consequences. I am not advocating the practice of identifying acts by their motives; I am only pointing out that it makes as much sense to identify them by their motives as to identify them by their consequences. The choice would depend upon a prior position on whether motives or consequences are most relevant to the evaluation of acts. I have argued elsewhere that the moral properties of acts are derived from the moral properties of persons (1996a, p. 79). One point in favor of my position is that the concept of an act is derived from that of a person. An act is something done by a person, so the concept of person appears in its definition, whereas the concept of act does not appear in the definition of a person. But one need not accept my position on that in order to define moral properties indexically. Whether or not the moral concepts applied to acts are derived from the concept of a good person, moral properties of acts can be defined indexically as the properties of a person like that. In the last chapter, I presented two sets of definitions of kinds 139

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics of good – one a set of indexical definitions, and the other a set of substantive definitions. We can do the same thing with definitions of the concepts of act evaluation. The indexical definitions should be based on an indexical reference to a good person, where it is left open what constitutes good personhood and how it relates to good motives and good acts. These definitions are neutral on the metaphysical question of which of these is basic. The second set of definitions will explicitly derive the moral properties of acts from good motives. I will propose these definitions in section III. Indexical definitions of concepts of act evaluation First, pick out an exemplar of a good person. This person has good emotions, since good emotions are the emotions of such a person, and these emotions are motives when they lead to action. If we accept that exemplars have the virtue of phronesis, we can use the phronimos or phronim¯e as the paradigmatically good person for the purpose of defining concepts of act evaluation, but I do not insist upon that. The advantage of using the phronimos is that he has all the virtues, including the intellectual virtues, and therefore has both the background beliefs necessary for acting appropriately on an emotion and the necessary ability to reason about alternatives. l will present the definitions by referring to the phronimos, but they can be modified by direct reference to exemplars identified in some other way. I propose that the concepts of evaluative properties of acts can be defined by what such a person would characteristically do, would characteristically not do, or might do. There are degrees of strength in what the phronimos would do that will require special attention. There are things the phronimos would or would not do, but he would have no characteristic emotion if he did the contrary. The concept of duty and its contrary, wrong, need to be defined in a stronger way than simply what the phronimos would or would not do. An exploration of that feature of duty will be the topic of the next section, but we can begin with the indexical definitions: A right (permissible) act in some circumstances is an act the phronimos might do in like circumstances. That is, it is not the

140

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation case that he characteristically would not do it. If he did it, he would not feel guilty.2 A wrong act in some circumstances is an act the phronimos characteristically would not do in like circumstances. The phronimos would insist upon not doing it and would feel guilty if he did. A moral duty is an act the phronimos characteristically would do in like circumstances. The phronimos would insist upon doing it and would feel guilty if he did not.3

In Virtues of the Mind, I proposed parallel definitions for the properties of epistemic evaluation.4 Vicious persons characteristically perform wrong acts, but so do persons who are neither vicious nor virtuous, and virtuous persons also may perform wrong acts, but uncharacteristically. I am assuming that an act can be right even though it is not virtuously motivated. For example, a person has done the right thing 2

3

4

Note the similarity between my definition of a right act and that of Rosalind Hursthouse (1999). The difference is that she is defining right in the sense of commendable, whereas I am defining right in the sense of permissible. But the substance of our definitions is very close. Hursthouse does not include the emotional response of the virtuous person to violating a duty. I am defining duty and wrong act in part by reference to the emotional response of guilt. In the next section, I will explain why I think this emotion may be too restrictive and why the emotion of shame may also be the appropriate emotional response to failure to meet obligation. The definitions I am proposing for the concepts of wrong and duty are stronger than those I offered in Virtues of the Mind (1996a, Part II, section 6.1). In that book, I did not add the sentences about the feeling of guilt for violation of a duty or for doing what is wrong. A justified belief – the counterpart of a right act – is what an intellectually virtuous person might believe in like circumstances. It is not the case that she characteristically would not believe it. An unjustified belief is a belief an intellectually virtuous person characteristically would not believe in like circumstances. An epistemic duty is a belief an intellectually virtuous person characteristically would believe in like circumstances. In Virtues of the Mind, I did not have any clause about the characteristic emotional responses of intellectually virtuous persons to failure to do their epistemic duty or to having unjustified beliefs. Feelings of guilt do not seem appropriate, although shame might be. In any case, there are no doubt some characteristic emotions that accompany the awareness of being epistemically unjustified that would be worth exploring.

141

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics if he keeps his contracts and tells the truth even when he is not at all motivated by moral concerns. Right is therefore the weakest concept of act evaluation when used, as I am using it, in the sense of permissible, not in the sense that implies the commendable. We can also define stronger concepts of act evaluation. An important way to evaluate acts includes the factor of the agent’s motivation. An act that is virtuously motivated deserves credit, although we almost always qualify that credit if the act does not also involve doing what virtuous persons characteristically do. This makes a number of different levels of moral praiseworthiness of persons for their acts possible, but I will propose just one central one: A virtuous act in some circumstances is an act that is virtuously motivated and is what persons motivated in that way in those circumstances characteristically do.

We may define yet stronger conceptions of a morally good act, since an act may be evaluated positively on grounds of motive as well as on grounds of what is done and yet still not have everything we want morally in an act. Even when an act is motivated virtuously and is what the phronimos would characteristically do in like circumstances, it may fail in reaching the end of the act. When this happens, the act lacks something morally desirable. We evaluate moral success positively even though that is to some extent out of the hands of the agent. It is one of the ways in which we are victims of moral luck. I might be motivated by compassion and act in a way characteristic of compassionate persons in some particular circumstance in an attempt to relieve someone’s pain, but if it turns out that my efforts are ineffectual, we would think that there is something morally lacking in my act. I am not suggesting that I would not be deserving of praise, but my act would not merit the degree of praise due it if my efforts to relieve pain were successful. In addition, success in reaching the end of a virtuous motive in the particular case is not sufficient for the highest praise of an act, even if it also has the other praiseworthy features just identified. It is important that success in reaching the end be due to the other praiseworthy features of the act. In the morally best act, we reach 142

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation the end because of these other features. This makes the success of the act truly the agent’s doing. For the act with all its good features to be credited to her and to earn her the highest praise, the good aspects of the act must be connected in such a way that the value of reaching the end is explained by the other praiseworthy features of the act. This leads to a way of defining an act that is good in every respect: An act is good in every respect just in case it arises from the virtuous motive the phronimos would have in like circumstances, is something the phronimos would characteristically do in acting on that motive in those circumstances, and is successful in bringing about the end of the virtuous motive because of these features of the act.5

In other words, an act good in every respect is a virtuous (phronetic) act and is successful in reaching its end because it is a virtuous (phronetic) act. Notice that these definitions are neutral on the metaphysical question of whether the phronimos has phronesis because of the morally good properties of his acts or whether his acts have positive moral properties because they are done by a person with phronesis. As indexical definitions, they require that we be able to pick out the phronimos independently of evaluating his acts, but there is no commitment to the idea that our basis for doing that tells us anything about what is metaphysically basic. We can pick out water fairly reliably at an early age, long before we learn its nature at the time we study its chemical structure. Water has the properties we use to identify it because of its chemical structure; it does not have its chemical structure because of its identifying properties. Similarly, it is possible that the phronimos has his identifying properties because of the effects his past good actions have 5

In Virtues of the Mind (Part II, section 6.2), I called this “an act of virtue” rather than “an act good in every respect.” I used “act of virtue” as a term of art for acts that have every good feature relevant to their moral assessment. Some readers have been confused by the term, so I have changed it. In addition, I have modified the definition in the second clause. The act is not only what the virtuous person would do, but also what the virtuous person would do when acting on the virtuous motive in those circumstances.

143

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics on our way of identifying him. It need not be the case that his acts have good moral properties because of the identifying features. Even more likely, neither the properties of acts nor the properties we use to identify the phronimos are that in virtue of which he possesses phronesis. That is something else entirely. I have proposed that the primary difference between the exemplar, or the phronim¯e, and everyone else is that her emotions fit their objects. The phronim¯e is aware of all the morally relevant features of a situation because she possesses phronesis. Persons who are good in the ordinary way can reliably perceive what is rude, contemptible, pitiful, dangerous, threatening, lovable, dishonest, trustworthy, and so on. But it takes an exceptional person to see not only the pitifulness but also the lovableness of the same person at the same time. Or to see not only the dishonesty but also the pitifulness, or to see the fact that someone is both dishonest and trustworthy at the same time, but in different ways. The phronim¯e takes in the entire situation in all its morally relevant respects and responds to that. Perhaps no one can take in the entire situation in all its morally relevant respects. If so, morality is not fully achievable, at least not by any human person; but that is probably true in any case. The bridge between emotion and act is the thick property perceived in a state of emotion. Thick properties give us reasons to act and are often sufficient to justify the act to others. So if asked to justify an act of treating a person coldly, the agent or others may simply point out that he is contemptible. Similarly, it is often sufficient to justify the ensuing act to point out that someone is pitiful or lovable, or that some situation is dangerous or unfair. I have already remarked that not all thick properties have names, but many do, and they are relevant to the justification of an act. The perception of the thick property therefore can both motivate the agent and give him a justifying reason for his response. The problem of explaining the relation between motivating and justifying reasons is difficult and well known. The account of emotion I have given has the consequence that in the primary experience of emotion, the motivating reason can also be a justifying one. Of course, the thick property perceived in emotion is not sufficient to justify every act that the emotion may cause. A rational person 144

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation does not act without reasoning about options and taking other relevant beliefs, including moral beliefs, into consideration, and that is what the exemplar does, but the alternative responses to a situation with a given thick property are often clear enough that the thick property is sufficient to justify the response. And even when justification requires reference to ancillary beliefs, the route from the properties of the world to which we respond and the justifiability of the response in action goes through human emotion.

ii obligation 1 The sense of obligation probably does not require very complex cognitive abilities. I suspect that even dogs have a sense of duty. Occasionally I have seen them pull themselves up and go through the motions of barking at passers-by with an air of forebearance and no evidence of inclination. I am not suggesting that dogs have a sense of moral obligation, although the psychology I will outline here will show some of the difficulties involved in attempting to distinguish between moral and nonmoral obligation. But I will not pursue that issue very far, since I do not think the distinction between the moral and the nonmoral can be made independently of a normative moral theory, nor do I think the distinction is very important. What is the place of obligation in an ethic based on the good? One answer is “none.” As Elizabeth Anscombe (1958) noted in her plea for a return to an ethics of virtue, the example of Aristotle shows that it is possible to have an entire ethical system without obligation. Bernard Williams (1985) has gone further and argued that we are better off without it,6 and Charles Taylor (1995) has blamed the modern tendency to identify the moral with the obligatory on the naturalism and skepticism of the times.7 In other words, if you cannot be sure that there is any substantive good, 6 7

See Chapter 10, “Morality: The Peculiar Institution.” Taylor says that his paper is a footnote to Williams, but it includes much of his own view of the misadventures of modern moral philosophy.

145

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics then define good procedurally; and what you get when you do that is obligation.8 Taylor is probably mistaken in his conception of obligation, but he is no doubt right about the modern suspicion of the good. My position is that obligation is derived from value. This may seem impossible if the good is the attractive and obligation is the compulsory, since the compulsory certainly seems to be in tension with the attractive, perhaps even antithetical to it. But there are two considerations that alleviate this problem. One is that obligation is not necessarily experienced negatively, as an external force to which we must submit. An emotion (motive) directed toward a potential act or omission can sometimes be experienced not only as strong but as leaving room for no other option. More importantly, my position is that obligation comes not from the good, but from value, and that includes the bad as well as the good in all its forms. Obligation comes out of emotion and the perception of thick affective properties. I will assume that the concept of obligation is logically connected to the concept of ought. The only difference between the moral use of “ought to” and the moral use of “is obliged to” is that the former can be weaker than the latter. I will also assume that obligation and duty are the same thing, which means that given the definitions I proposed in the last section, which included a definition of duty, the concepts defined there are also logically connected to the concept of obligation. One of my purposes in this section is to fill out those definitions by examining the origin of the sense of obligation in emotional experience. Some moral theorists treat the concept of obligation in such a way that it logically entails law. It is evident that the modern notion of obligation is understood legalistically. What is unclear is whether the connection really is conceptual or whether those who have a particular theory of obligation are mistakenly labeling those who disagree with them substantively as guilty of a conceptual error. Bernard Williams has argued convincingly that we should not think that the only moral imperative is the modern one of law. The Homeric heroes and the Greek tragedians did 8

Taylor (1995), p. 137.

146

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation not develop their sense of obligation out of the law, but rather out of situations to which they had strong emotional responses. Their sense of obligation is not that of the categorical imperative, but it would be fatuous to deny that it is moral. As Williams remarks, when Achilles refuses Hector, or when Ajax, after deciding on suicide, says that he must go, the sense of “must” cannot be dismissed as pre-moral: What necessity are they expressing? It is an important question, and it is easy to go the wrong way towards answering it. The influence of modern morality and Kantian ideas encourages one to ask first whether this is the “must” of duty, the categorical imperative of morality. The answer to that comes readily: the courses of action that some of these characters are taking, and the reasons they give for them, are enough to show that this is not what is at issue. But if that is so, then all that is left on the Kantian story is that this should be what Kant called a “hypothetical” imperative: a “must” that is relative merely to what the agent wants to do, as when one says, “I must go now,” meaning by it no more than that he must go if he is to do whatever it is he intends to do. Now it is obvious that the Sophoclean heroes do not straightforwardly mean this. Ajax or Oedipus is capable of having the thought that some step is necessary merely in the sense that it is required by some objective he happens to have; but this is not the thought of either of them in these cases. They do not happen just to have some objective to which these actions are necessary; their heroic “musts” are not experienced as hanging from an “if” at all. The “must” seems, indeed, categorical, and when Ajax says he must go, he means that he must go: period. It looks, then, as though this “must” represents neither of Kant’s imperatives.9

If Williams is right in his interpretation of Homer and Sophocles, there is a form of moral obligation even there, but my purpose is not to endorse his interpretation of particular texts, but rather to use this passage to describe a way in which moral imperatives can be derived from emotions that fit their objects. I think 9

Williams (1993), pp. 75–76.

147

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics that obligation can be perceived in emotional experience. After outlining a way in which that might occur, I will return to Williams. It seems to me that it does not take a law or an authority to go from the observation that a person is suffering to the perception of an obligation to help her, nor does it take a law to go from telling someone I will do something to feeling that I ought to do it. In these cases, obligation can be affectively perceived in a given situation without any general law standing behind it. Certainly there are laws that produce oughts and obligation, but I do not think that obligation logically presupposes law. My position is that laws are generalizations of particular obligations and that obligation logically precedes law. An argument for the contrary position might go as follows. Take the move from “She is suffering” to “I ought to help her.” If this move is an inference, and if inferences always use or presuppose general principles, then there is always a general principle behind any such move. Furthermore, we usually express the relationship between “She is suffering” and “I ought to help her” by saying that the former is a reason for the latter. Her suffering is a feature of the situation that provides the reason for me to help her. But any such feature is repeatable. Other persons may suffer in the same manner, or they may suffer in some other manner. Either way, the reason can be generalized. If it is really her suffering that gives me a reason to help her, then anybody’s suffering anywhere would be a reason for me to help them. If it is her suffering in this manner that gives me a reason to help her, then anybody’s suffering anywhere in this manner gives me a reason to help them. Perhaps, though, it is her suffering that gives me a reason to help her. Even so, we need to examine that reason for an implicit wider generalization, since the reason her suffering provides me a reason to help her may be that the suffering of a person who is related to me in a certain way provides the reason – the suffering of a family member, friend, coworker, student, and so on – and she fills one of those roles in relation to me. We seem to be pushed to wider and wider generalizations once we begin reflecting on the nature of a reason for action. And even if we can stop the move to wider generalizations, we cannot stop the generalization entirely. The 148

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation only issue is how far we are logically committed to generalizing our reason for action. I think this argument is roughly correct, but it does not show that obligation presupposes law or general principles. It is true that once we reflect on the nature of a reason for acting in a particular case, then if we are obliged to be consistent, we are obliged to act in like manner in other situations that are suitably similar to the one with which we are confronted. So if I am obligated here and now to help this person, I am also obligated to help this person or other persons at other times. But it is not because my obligation here and now can be generalized that I am obligated here and now. Even if my obligation now could not be generalized, that would not eliminate my obligation now. It is probably true that if the move from “She is suffering” to “I ought to help her” is an inference, then it uses or presupposes a general principle or law. What I dispute is not that, but the nature of the relationship between my observation of her suffering and my sense of an obligation to help her. When I see that a certain person is suffering, I may feel compelled to help her without drawing any inference from one belief to another. In fact, I may have no belief at all. Just as I can feel pity without the belief that the object of my pity is pitiable, I can feel obliged to act a certain way without the belief that I am obliged to act in that way. And even if I do form the belief “I ought to help her,” that belief need not be an inference from “She is suffering.” My judgment that I ought to help her, like my judgment that she is pitiful, may be an expression of emotion, and my willingness to make the judgment means that I trust my emotion to be veridical. That is, I trust that it fits the circumstances. If asked why I think that it fits the circumstances, I will no doubt refer to the woman’s suffering, but my judgment that I ought to help her need not be an inference from my belief that she is suffering, any more than my judgment that she is pitiful need be an inference from my belief that she is suffering. If I see her as suffering, I may see her as pitiful, and I may see a potential act in response as obligatory. Obligation is perceived in particular circumstances as what is definitely to be done or what is most definitely not to be done. This perception is probably learned in part by imitating the responses 149

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics of parents and others who say “Do not do X” or “Do Y.” But it does not follow that obligation logically depends upon such commands. The commands are used to get the child to see the situation and his potential responses to it a certain way. The parent sees doing X (say, hitting his little sister) as ruled out, and she wants the child to see it as ruled out also. This explains why it is natural for the child to (eventually) internalize the obligation not to do X, which he may express in his consciousness as a command to the self: Do not do X. But the move from the parent’s command to the child’s sense of obligation is not required by the logic of obligation. If by some miracle the child saw hitting his little sister as ruled out without any command or judgment from the parent, the parent would be delighted that the usual parental interference was not necessary. She surely would not say, “My child does not have the sense of obligation not to hit his sister because he does not see it as coming from a command by an external authority.” Commands and external authority are not logically connected to the sense of obligation, although they most surely are required in the usual course of events as aspects of moral training. It is also inessential to obligations that they be lawlike. Most obligations are negative. There are certain acts that are ruled out as appropriate responses in any situation, with possibly a few exceptions: Do not lie, cheat, steal, kill. From that, I think we can see that obligation applies to acts in response to a situation that either are ruled out or are the only response that is not ruled out. When only one act is an appropriate response, or when an act of some kind is ruled out as an appropriate response, we are obliged to do it in the first case and not to do it in the second. When acts of some kind can be generalized to a wide range of circumstances – even, perhaps, to all circumstances – then we can safely say “Do not do X,” and it is not necessary to list the circumstances in which it is not the case that one ought to do X, since they include all or almost all circumstances. But that does not mean that the perception of obligation arises in a different way than the perception of appropriate or inappropriate response to circumstances. It means that some responses are seen very clearly and very forcefully as that which should be done now or that which should not be done 150

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation now. They acquire the form of law and sometimes are inscribed in positive law because their application is so general. Once we acquire experience in practical reasoning, we realize that if our sense of obligation fits some particular circumstances, it also fits other, relevantly similar circumstances, and so we conclude that if we are obligated in these circumstances, we are also obligated in others. Rationality leads us to see that obligations can be generalized, but generality is not a condition for the obligation to obtain in any particular case. When the agent does not act according to obligation, the appropriate emotional response is guilt or, if Williams is right, shame. The sense of obligation therefore arises between two emotions – the primary emotion of detecting the thick affective property of some situation, and the emotion of guilt or shame when the agent does not respond to the situation by acting in a certain way. The question we are investigating, then, is what emotion is experienced in between and what can make it appropriate. 2 Philosophers commonly believe that the obligation to keep a promise differs in an important way from the obligation to help the suffering. The former is called a perfect duty. It is a requirement that permits of no alternative at a particular time. By contrast, the obligation to aid the suffering is said to be an imperfect duty. It is also a requirement, but not a requirement that admits of no alternative at any given time. We are allegedly obligated to help the suffering now and then, but at a time of our choice. The obligation is not to do this act at this time, but to do acts of a given type at some time or other. There is probably a sense of obligation of both sorts, since we have emotions directed at act-types as well as at act-tokens, and sometimes we have an emotion directed toward the act-type but not toward some token of that type. Many acts of compassion or generosity are probably in this category, as the theory of imperfect obligation maintains. But I very much doubt that our sense of the obligatory divides neatly into perfect and imperfect duties in the standard way. A particular act-token of 151

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics compassion can be such that there is no alternative to it. It may be experienced as a mandate, and I see no reason to deny that there are times when it is appropriately experienced as a mandate. It is also possible that a given token of an act-type that is generally classified as a perfect duty – for example, keeping a promise – is not experienced as the only alternative and hence is not perceived by the agent as a perfect duty. Furthermore, the lack of alternatives may admit of degree, and so there may be degrees of perfection of a duty. For example, according to Aquinas, some instances of works of mercy are precepts or commands, whereas others are a matter of counsel (ST. II. 32.5). The difference between a precept and a matter of counsel is one of degree. The degree is determined by the degree of the giver’s connection to the proposed recipient, the extent of the giver’s resources, the degree of the recipient’s need, and the likelihood that the recipient will be helped by the giver. Whether I perceive a particular act as a mandate or as a token of an act-type that I perceive as a mandate, the object of my sense of obligation may or may not satisfy the requirements for being a Categorical Imperative. But in neither case is it merely a hypothetical imperative, because what it is contingent upon is not the fact that I want something, something that I might just as well not want. It is contingent upon the fact that the situation I am in is a certain way, a way that is partly evaluative, and I did not decide to make it that way. I did not decide that the appropriate act in response is one that appears to me to admit of no alternatives, or that there is no alternative to performing acts of a certain type. That is simply the way I see it. As I have said, it is not even necessary to the experience of the obligatory that I believe that the act is the only alternative in the situation, for the same reason that it is not necessary that I believe a person is cowardly when I see him as cowardly; but to see an act or an act-type as obligatory is to see it as admitting of no alternative. Let us look more close at the phenomenology of seeing an act as admitting of no alternative, as a mandate. I have said that this is a way of seeing, not a belief. If the state of seeing an act in this way is an emotion, there must be a way of feeling that is directed toward acts that are seen in this way. The feeling arises 152

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation because of the relation between the agent and the act. In order to understand this feeling, let us go back to Williams’s discussion of necessity in Greek tragedy. Williams suggests that we understand how Greek heroes experience the necessity to act in certain ways in terms of the mechanisms of shame.10 The source of the necessity is an idealized other whose attitude the agent respects. The other is internalized, but it is genuinely other in that it embodies a real social expectation, and, as such, it explains how the members of a whole culture link their conceptions of what they are and how they are related to each other with the same idealized other. Ajax’s conception of himself is of someone who can live in certain social circumstances and not in others. There is no doubt that Ajax experiences obligation. Whether it is moral obligation depends upon the extent to which the unique mechanisms separating guilt reactions from shame reactions are necessary for morality. As Williams reads the experience of Ajax, his sense of necessity is grounded in his sense of identity. I take that to imply that the sense of obligation is what one experiences when one is threatened with a loss of self if one does not act in a particular way. That self is primarily socially constituted in some cultures; in others, it is not. In the culture of the Homeric Greeks, the self was largely determined by social roles and social expectations. The contemporary American self is much less socially constituted than the Greek self, but I doubt that that is sufficient to lead to the conclusion that one of the cultures is lacking the concept of moral obligation. A threat to the self is a threat to the self. In the Greeks, the mechanisms of response to the threat are those of shame; in our culture, they are more likely to be those of guilt, although we are not immune to shame.11 10 11

Williams (1993), Chapter 4. Robert C. Roberts (2003) argues that shame is the response to a perceived defect in myself, whereas remorse is the response to a sense of wrongdoing, and feeling guilty is directed not toward my sense of acting or failing to act morally but toward my low moral status. The difference between a defective self and a guilty self would have to be explored in order to get a more nuanced account of obligation. It seems to me that feeling remorse or guilt is not necessarily directed toward immoral acts or a status of immorality. Some people feel guilt, not shame, when they

153

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics When Korsgaard explains her Kantian idea of obligation as the reaction against a threat of a loss of integrity, her account is not very far from the way Williams describes the reaction of Ajax: It is the conceptions of ourselves that are most important to us that give rise to unconditional obligation. For to violate them is to lose your integrity and so your identity, and to no longer be who you are. That is, it is to no longer be able to think of yourself under the description under which you value yourself and to find your life to be worth living. . . . When an action cannot be performed without loss of some fundamental part of one’s identity, and an agent could just as well be dead, then the obligation not to do it is unconditional and complete. . . . Actually, all obligation is unconditional in the sense I have just described. An obligation always takes the form of a reaction against a threat of a loss of identity.12

The conception of obligation described in this passage is a part of our moral experience, and the fact that it is related to the kind of obligation experienced by the Greek heroes suggests that it is not Kantian in origin but is instead a deep part of morality. For the purposes of this book, it makes no difference whether Korsgaard’s view would be accepted by most neo-Kantians or even whether I am right that Korsgaard and the ancient Greeks are not so far apart.13 What I am arguing is that there is an emotion directed toward our own actual or potential acts that are construed in the distinctive way we call the obligatory, and that is closely associated with a sense of self.

12 13

don’t exercise, but their guilt feelings are nonetheless a response to what they perceive to be a violation of an obligation. They think that they have an obligation to exercise. They experience the imperative to exercise in the same way that they respond to a moral imperative, although they would probably agree that it is not moral in content, as the latter is normally understood. Korsgaard (1996b), p. 102. I have already said that I see no reason to think that the theory of this book must accept the conception of obligation as the Categorical Imperative, but it is interesting that Korsgaard mitigates the conception of the categorical when she says that all obligation is unconditional in the sense that she describes.

154

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation 3 Let us now consider the objectivity of obligation. Certainly, the sense of obligation does not guarantee that an act one experiences as obligatory is obligatory or that an act is obligatory only if one experiences it that way. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, the heroine, Sethe, feels no alternative to killing her child; she sees the act as obligatory. The novel succeeds in making her way of seeing plausible, but surely the correctness of her emotion, of her way of seeing, is disputable. I have defined objective duty (obligation) indexically in terms of what the phronim¯e (exemplar) would do and how she feels about it. How would the phronim¯e act in Sethe’s situation? I think that if we see Sethe as practically wise, or if we can imagine a practically wise person in her situation acting and feeling as she does, we are inclined to judge that her perception of the situation is correct. More likely, we can imagine that a practically wise woman might act and feel as Sethe does, in which case we would judge her act right (not wrong), even if not obligatory. It is important to be able to explain the difference between (a) acts that a virtuous person might do in some situation, (b) those acts that she feels are appropriate, and (c) those that she feels are required. In other words, there ought to be an explanation for the differences in the exemplar’s ways of perceiving a right act, a virtuous act, and a duty. If a good emotion is a state that fits the circumstances, we need some account of the circumstances that are such that the virtuous person’s emotion in such a situation fits. What is it in a situation that fits her feeling that if she does not act in a certain way, she would feel guilty? In the last subsection, we looked at the sense of a loss of self if an obligatory act is not done, one that would ground the sense of guilt or, alternatively, shame. But is a threat of a loss of self something objective in the world that such a sense fits? This is another question that highlights the need for an account of the moral self. In Williams’s exposition of the Greek heroes, there is an idealized self that sets a standard to which Achilles and Ajax submit. The requirement is, fundamentally, to be that self. The idealized self is, in some sense, more real than the self that acts. That is an important theme of the Gorgias, where Socrates 155

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics urges the discovery of the self that the Delphic oracle exhorts us to know and that is promoted through the elenchos.14 For the Greeks, shame is the emotion that fits the situation when the acting self is not the idealized self. Compare the form this idea takes in Christian thought. Paul says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15 [NIV]). Paul takes his guilty self to be distinct from his real self. Guilt for Paul is an emotion that fits the situation when the acting self is not the ideal self. Both Paul and the ancient Greeks have an ideal self, although the ideals differ. The emotions that fit the failure to be the ideal self also differ, and that may mean that the requirement to be the ideal self is a different sort of obligation in the two cases, but I see no reason to deny that they are both moral. If one of them is moral and the other is not, we will need an account of why one of the failures to be the ideal self is moral and the other not. I suspect that there is no such account, but if there is, my theory of obligation can be suitably modified. What is objective in the ideal self, and what is not? Objectivity need not be grounded in something outside the self. Think about the child Asher Lev in Chaim Potok’s novel My Name is Asher Lev. He draws obsessively, sometimes without any awareness that he is doing so. His compulsive drawing is very much like addictive behavior, except that we realize that it is a requirement of his nature, of his true self, not something destructive. There can be no doubt about that, since he becomes a great artist and never repudiates in even the slightest degree what he feels he must do as an artist, even though that means he must make substantial sacrifices. There is no question of law, no external authority, not even the internal authority of choice. He may have the obligation of vocation, but I suspect that “vocation” is a word we use when we think that something that appears to have a subjective origin has objective force.15 That does not explain why it is objective; it is just a way of declaring that it is. Asher Lev is a Hassidic Jew, but he 14

15

For comment on this theme in the Gorgias, see Brickhouse and Smith (1994), p. 102. See Robert Adams’s illuminating chapter on vocation in Finite and Infinite Goods (1999), in which he argues that vocation is the source of obligations.

156

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation does not think of his art as a calling from God. Of course, it could be a calling without his recognizing it as such, but the way I read the novel, it would be an obligation regardless of whether it is a calling. If he did not satisfy that obligation, the proper response would be guilt or shame, probably the former. I propose that if the proper or fitting response to the failure to act in a certain way is guilt or shame, then the obligation to act in that way is objective. There are also obligations that are objectively grounded because they clearly are callings from the outside, and for some of them, the fact that a failure to satisfy the obligation is a failure to be an ideal self seems to be beside the point. When Abraham heeds God’s call to leave his country and found a new nation (Genesis 12), it would be inane to say that he is being his ideal self. Still, it is easy to slide from the will of a god to fate to a demand of the self. It is the will of Jupiter that Aeneas leave his ruined city of Troy and found Rome, but Virgil closely identifies Jupiter with providential fate (cf. 1.262ff.), and modern readers tend to internalize the idea of fate. Contemporary people usually do not care if Aeneas was destined by a god, by fate, or by the demands of his own need for a purpose in life. They think it all comes to the same thing. If so, the obligation comes to the same thing, too. My point is not that Aeneas’s calling does not make an objective demand on him. In the context of the epic, it clearly does. My point is that if there is no Jupiter and no fate, something internal must be capable of grounding objective obligation. The objectivity of the obligation is not a matter of the externality of the source. If it were, modern readers would pay more attention to the source. A case in point is the treatment of Sir Thomas More by Robert Bolt. In the introduction to his play A Man for All Seasons, Bolt says that he is portraying More as a hero of selfhood rather than as a Christian saint. More’s execution for refusing to sign the oath of allegiance to Henry VIII – recognizing him as the supreme head of the church in England – made him a Catholic martyr, but Bolt sees More’s heroism in the mere fact that he refused to act against his conscience. He believed in something strongly enough to die for it, and he recognized an oath for what it is – an act that puts one’s self behind one’s words. Bolt remarks that the taking of an oath has lost meaning in the modern world because the modern person 157

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics believes in nothing strongly enough to die for it. As a result, most of us have no real self. For Bolt, obligation is sufficiently grounded in the self; it matters not whether the belief is true. And clearly, the obligation has the force of an objective imperative. If Abraham failed to obey the command of God, his proper response would be guilt. If Aeneas failed to found Rome, what would be his proper response? That depends upon the relation between Aeneas and his destiny. If the latter arises from a personal god, then the appropriate response would no doubt be guilt. If the source is fate (whatever that is), I find the appropriate response unclear. If the source is internal, the proper response might still be guilt, as the example of Asher Lev suggests, or it might be shame. In any case, I doubt that the difference between shame and guilt matters for the objectivity of Aeneas’s obligation. I cannot say whether it matters for the distinction between moral obligation and some other strong kind of objective obligation, but since we do not have a word for the latter (“nonmoral” is surely not adequate), I will leave the matter at that. Those who think it is important to mark out the territory of distinctively moral obligation may wish to investigate the distinction between guilt and shame much further. Mundane examples of obligation have little to do with an idealized self. If I fail to steal my neighbor’s property, I am hardly honoring an ideal. All I am doing is failing to follow the antithesis of an ideal. But in these cases, there is still a connection between the obligation and the agent’s view of the self, except that the obligation does not arise from a standard that one seeks to reach but from an anti-standard that one seeks to avoid. It would be interesting to compare the sense of obligation when avoiding an anti-ideal to cases of attempting to reach an ideal. It seems unlikely that the same emotion is appropriate for failure in both cases, but it also seems unlikely that there is a clear distinction between them. When Jane Eyre discovers at the altar that Mr. Rochester is already married, she feels an obligation to flee as soon as possible. Her sense of obligation is so urgent that she takes nothing with her and suffers extraordinarily because of it. Is she guided by the pursuit of an ideal or by the avoidance of an anti-ideal? Either way, she is guided by a sense of self. 158

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation All of the cases of obligation that we have considered involve a potential attack on the self by the self that, if it occurs, results in a virtuous person feeling guilt or shame. Guilt or shame is the appropriate response. Sometimes the attack is only indirectly on the self and is more directly an attack on a relationship one values, as in the case of Abraham’s relationship with God. But even there, the relationship with God is part of what makes Abraham who he is. He cannot live with himself if he does not follow God’s command. In summary, I propose that the objectivity of obligation can be explained in terms of the appropriateness of the emotion of guilt or shame. The sense of the obligatory is the emotion one has when one considers a potential act (or omission) by oneself that would be an attack on the self.

iii defining the concepts of act evaluation The substantive definitions of act evaluation are attempts to explain the indexical definitions by identifying what it is that the virtuous person is doing when he perceives acts as right, wrong, obligatory, or virtuous. An act of duty is an act the exemplar would characteristically do and that is such that he would feel guilty if he did not do it, and I have proposed an explanation for the guilt he would feel if he acted contrary to his duty. A virtuous act, in contrast to a duty, follows more straightforwardly from the moral psychology described in Chapter 2. It is an act arising from a virtuous motive – that is, an emotion that fits the circumstances – and it is what virtuous persons who have the disposition to have that emotion in relevantly similar circumstances characteristically do. Here, then, is another set of definitions of the concepts of act evaluation. Unlike the indexical definitions, these definitions are all given in terms of virtue or the virtuous self rather than in terms of a paradigmatically virtuous person. Substantive definitions of concepts of act evaluation An obligation (duty) is a requirement of virtue (the virtuous self). It is appropriate to feel guilty for not doing it. A right (permissible) act is an act that is not contrary to virtue (the virtuous self). It is not a requirement of virtue and is not

159

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics an expression of vice. It is not appropriate to feel guilty for doing it. A wrong act is an act that is contrary to virtue (the virtuous self). It is against a requirement of virtue. It is an expression of vice. The appropriate response to doing it is the emotion of guilt A virtuous act is an act that expresses a virtue, that is to say, it is virtuously motivated and is an act that expresses the virtuous motivation.

Some virtuous acts are duties and some are not. The definition of an act good in every respect need not be modified: An act is good in every respect when it is a virtuous (phronetic) act and is successful in bringing about the end of the virtuous motive because it is a virtuous (phronetic) act.

An act does not have to be an instance of a duty to be good in every respect. Let me now put both the definitions from Chapter 3 and the definitions listed here together, highlighting the logical form of each definition. A right act = an act that is such that it is not the case that the phronimos characteristically would not do it = an act that he might do = an act that does not express a vice = an act that is not against a requirement of virtue (the virtuous self). The phronimos would not feel guilty if he did it. A wrong act = an act that the phronimos characteristically would not do, and he would feel guilty if he did = an act such that it is not the case that he might do it = an act that expresses a vice = an act that is against a requirement of virtue (the virtuous self). A duty = an act the phronimos characteristically would do, and he would feel guilty if he did not = an act such that it is not the case that he might not do it = an act that is against an expression of vice = an act that is a requirement of virtue (the virtuous self). A virtuous act = an act that is virtuously motivated and is characteristic of persons so motivated = an act that expresses a virtue. 160

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation One of the deepest problems in ethical theory is that of explaining the place of the admirable or virtuous in a theory of right and wrong action, and the place of both of those in a theory of the good life. Of course, the problem could be posed the other way: What is the place of the good life in a theory of right and wrong, and what is the place of both of those in a theory of the admirable or virtuous? The choice of starting point is not trivial, because we always start with what we think is most important, and we do that because we do not want to have to adapt the important to the demands of something less important. If you start with right and wrong, then the virtuous and the good life have to adapt to whatever theory of right and wrong you start with. If you start with the virtuous, then the good life and right and wrong have to adapt to whatever theory of virtue you start with. Of course, we are capable of revising as we go along. Something in the theory of right and wrong may lead us to change the theory of virtue, or conversely, but I don’t think it can be denied that the starting point drives the theory in a certain direction – a revisable direction, but a direction nonetheless. I think that exemplarism is as close to a neutral starting point as we can get. From the indexical definitions we could move in a number of different directions, because indexical reference to an exemplar of a good person is neutral with respect to the question of whether her life taken as a whole is basic, or whether instead it is her acts or her traits of character. I have proposed that what is most basic is her emotions, and her emotion dispositions are constituents of her traits of character. Her traits of character are more basic than the evaluative properties of her acts, and what constitutes a good life for her – what is good for her – is defined by reference to her good emotions. The good and the obligatory appear to be different sources of ethical concern because they do different things. As I have said, the one attracts, the other compels. Bernard Williams (1985) identifies the moral project with the latter, and that leads to the tension he identifies between the good life and the moral life.16 I find this way 16

Thomas Nagel discusses this in The View from Nowhere under the heading of “Williams’ question” in Chapter 10.

161

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics of looking at the matter a problem for ethics. Not only should value and obligation not conflict, there should also be a rational and understandable relation between them. I am not denying that there can be moral dilemmas, but the structure of ethics should minimize conflict from within the structure itself. Notice that value is capable of grounding obligation, but obligation is not capable of grounding value. An obligation needs grounds, but a value is as close to ground level as we can get in the ethical domain. Obligation generates a regress; good does not. That is because when I ask for a justification of obligation – “Why must I do this?” – the answer will always be something that generates the same question: “Why must I do what is right?” “Why must I obey authority?” “Why must I obey a legitimate authority?” This last question can be asked even when the legitimate authority is God. The question may be impious, but it still makes sense. The Kantian stops the regress at the self. If I command myself, presumably, it is incoherent to ask what gives me a reason to obey. Autonomy may or may not stop the regress, but it is important to see that unlike obligation, good does not generate a regress. The goodness of some things, of course, is explained by the goodness of others things, but the idea of an intrinsic good, something whose goodness is not explained by the goodness of anything else, is perfectly coherent, and it ends any threatened regress. By contrast, the concept of an intrinsic obligation is at least an oddity and probably senseless. And even if intrinsic obligation exists, I see no way in which it could ground the good. If one grounds the other, value must ground obligation. There is another possibility, and that is that both value and obligation derive from some third source outside of morality. This brings us to the will, probably the most common candidate for this function. I find it mysterious that a will can create value. In any case, it is much more plausible to see the will as the source of obligation than to see it as the source of good. Even when the will in question is divine, and even when a doctrine like Aquinas’s doctrine of simplicity permits him to say that God wills his own goodness, that same doctrine makes it incorrect to say that God’s will is the source of his own goodness. Of course, a creator-God is the source of the existence of all contingent beings, and that 162

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation includes all contingent goods. What is mysterious is not that, but that a creator-God can make something that otherwise would not be good, good. Divine Command theory, then, has always had much more plausibility as a theory of the metaphysical basis of obligation in the form of law than as a theory of the metaphysical basis of good. It is worth noting that during the Enlightenment, the human will replaced the divine will in the theory of obligation but less commonly in the theory of the good, although Korsgaard (1996b) is willing to say that the human will creates both value and obligation. The differences here are clearly deep, rooted in part in changing worldviews, but only in part. Nobody would ever have thought that the human will creates obligation, much less value, if a previous era had not thought that God’s will had that function. The idea is that if value and obligation can be created at all, why not by ourselves? The oddity of that idea has been observed before, but what Iris Murdoch (1970) has to say about it is particularly forceful: The centre of this type of post-Kantian moral philosophy is the notion of the will as the creator of value. Values which were previously in some sense inscribed in the heavens and guaranteed by God collapse into the human will. There is no transcendental reality. The idea of the good remains indefinable and empty so that human choice may fill it. The sovereign moral concept is freedom, or possibly courage in a sense which identifies it with freedom, will, power. This concept inhabits a quite separate top level of human activity, since it is the guarantor of the secondary values created by choice. Act, choice, decision, responsibility, independence are emphasized in this philosophy of puritanical origin and apparent austerity. It must be said in its favour that this image of human nature has been the inspiration of political liberalism. However, as Hume once wisely observed, good political philosophy is not necessarily good moral philosophy.17

Murdoch reveals some of the weaknesses in modern moral philosophy, but I also believe that post-Kantian ethics has an 17

Murdoch (1970), pp. 101–102.

163

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics important insight that ought to be included in any viable contemporary theory. It is easy for Christian ethicists to dismiss the modern ascendance of the idea of autonomy because of its alleged origins in a rejection of theism – the human will replaces the divine – but I believe that the idea of autonomy is an important Kantian insight, one that can be detached from the Kantian idea of moral obligation as the Categorical Imperative. I have rejected Kant’s idea that the autonomous will grounds morality, but there is a deeper and more important source of the idea of autonomy, and that is that the human will itself is a good candidate for something with intrinsic value. What I find objectionable about the idea that morality is grounded in my will is not that it is grounded in my will, but that it is grounded in my will. The difficulty, as I see it, is that value does not come from a will, and since obligation must come from value, obligation does not come from a will either, at least not ultimately. But if we leave aside the problems with the will and what it can and cannot do, there is still something left of the idea of autonomy, and that is the intrinsic value that Kant ascribes to human persons. I would like to conclude this section with a comment about that value, since I think it must be included in any adequate moral theory. As Korsgaard observes, Kant ran together the ideas of humanity, rationality, and personhood. That confuses the distinction between a person and an instance of human nature, which I will argue in the next chapter is critically important to ethics.18 But Kant’s distinctive account of the dignity of a human person is important. He explains dignity in contrast with price in a famous passage of the Groundwork: “. . . everything has either a price or a dignity. If it has a price, something else can be put in its place as an equivalent; if it is exalted above all price and so admits of 18

In the Groundwork, he interchanges “humanity” and “rational nature,” and he rarely speaks of persons at all, but when he does, he generally equates personhood with humanity and rational nature. Christine Korsgaard (1996a, p. 114) remarks that in the Critique of Practical Reason (C2 87), humanity in one’s own person and personality are treated as the same thing, but the distinctive feature of humanity, as such, is simply the capacity to set an end, whereas personality is the capacity to set ends for moral reasons.

164

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation no equivalent, then it has a dignity.”19 Kant’s idea of a dignity implies two different things. One is that anything with dignity is more valuable than any number of things with a price, no matter how high the price. The other is that things with dignity cannot be compared in value to anything else, not even to other beings with dignity. That means that we can never make up for the loss of an individual with dignity by replacing that individual with another or even with many others. The value of a person has no equivalent. Kant apparently thought that the two aspects of dignity go together, but in fact, one can be possessed without the other.20 I have argued elsewhere that the two aspects of dignity are actually inconsistent. It is impossible that the same thing can be the source of both aspects of dignity.21 Being human grounds the infinite value of human persons, and being a person grounds their irreplaceable value.22 19 20

21

22

Kant (1958), p. 77. Kant argues that being infinitely above price confers non-substitutability. Right after the passage quoted in the text, he says that whatever has relative value has market price, presumably meaning exchange value, whereas whatever has dignity is non-substitutable; nothing can be put in its place. Since the latter is infinitely above the former, infinite value and non-substitutivity are connected, although not conceptually identical. My thanks to John Hare for conversation on the interpretation of this passage. I argue this in “The Uniqueness of Persons” (Zagzebski 2001b). This paper was presented as my Inaugural Address as Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at the University of Oklahoma, April 19, 2001. The argument to which I allude here is, in brief, that nothing has infinite value unless its value is comparable to the value of other things. Something with infinite value has infinitely more value than something with finite value and is equal in value to other things with infinite value. But incomparability or irreplaceability is a type of value that prevents something from being compared in value to anything else. Its loss cannot be measured as being equal to or greater than something else. These two kinds of value not only are logically distinct, but also are incompatible. The only way a human person can have both kinds of value is if each person is a combination of something with infinite value and something with incomparable value, and that is possible if humanity is distinct from personhood. Actually, I point out in “The Uniqueness of Persons” that it does not matter for the value of dignity that the component of dignity that comes from

165

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics My purpose here is not to examine the nature and ground of human dignity, but to note the way in which the dignity of the human person can be treated in motivation-based virtue theory. If the human person has intrinsic value simply in virtue of being a person, he or she is not good as an end in my sense, although a person can be an end in the Kantian sense of meriting a certain kind of treatment. My argument in Chapter 2 led to the conclusion that goods as ends are not basic goods; they are always good because they are derived from some intrinsic good. I propose that personhood is an intrinsic good. It cannot be an end in the sense of an object of aim or desire, but it can merit a certain type of treatment – respect or something similar; treatment of a certain kind is appropriately directed toward persons. In Divine Motivation theory, Kant’s idea that persons are ends in themselves can be expressed as the idea that the emotion of respect for persons fits its object. Respect for persons is an intrinsically good motivational state, and the acts to which it leads can be described in Kant’s terms as treating persons as ends in themselves. The end of that motive is to treat persons in the way Kant describes as treating them as ends in themselves. Just what that treatment consists in is something we learn by observing the exemplars. I propose that the recognition of personal autonomy is the same thing as the recognition of the intrinsic value of persons. That autonomy is a value that attaches to personhood rather than to human nature requires further argument distinguishing persons from instances of a nature, and I will defer that argument to the next chapter. For the purposes of this chapter, I want to make it clear that whereas I am rejecting Kant’s notion of obligation, I am not rejecting his view on the value of autonomy.

iv moral judgment Let us now return to the nature of moral judgment. In this part of the book, I have begun to outline a model of moral learning humanity is infinite, as long as it is very high. The critical component is the one that comes from personhood.

166

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation according to which the primary moral concepts are thick affective concepts acquired in the emotions one has when faced with concrete, here-and-now situations. In a state of emotion E, the agent perceives the intentional object of E as falling under a thick affective concept A. In emotion E, she feels in a way distinctive of E about the object perceived as A. She can express her emotion propositionally by making the judgment “That is A.” I called this the standard judgment expressing emotion E. The agent need not believe the judgment when she has the emotion, but if her emotion is sufficiently conscious and she trusts it, she will assent to the judgment. The state of emotion is both cognitive and intrinsically motivating because it includes two inseparable aspects: (1) construing the object of the emotion under a distinctive concept and (2) feeling a certain way about that object. The first component is cognitive, the second is affective and hence potentially motivating, and neither can exist without the other. For simplicity, I will call judgments of this form ground-level value judgments. It is very important for human knowledge that our concepts are stored in our memory and can be used in situations in which the object to which the concept applies is not here and now. We can judge that someone is courageous, dishonest, or priggish, or that a situation is dangerous, unfair, or offensive without feeling the emotions that correspond to each of those concepts. We need to make judgments of that kind in order to engage in moral reasoning and discourse with others, but when we do that, something is gained and something is lost. What is lost is motivational force. The process whereby the motivational force is sheared away from the judgment that originally expressed an emotion is what I call the thinning of moral judgment. I cannot see something as unjust without feeling indignant in the characteristic way that goes with injustice, but I can see or judge that something is unjust without feeling indignant. I cannot see someone as lovable without feeling love, but I can see that he is lovable without feeling love. When I judge that someone is lovable without feeling love, my judgment that the property applies depends upon a prior experience of love. Similarly, when I judge that something is red without having a red sensation, my 167

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics judgment that the property applies depends upon a prior experience of the sensation of red. When I make a judgment without the emotion or sensation, it is likely that I must still be able to imagine seeing something as lovable or as red, but even imagining requires a faint copy of the feeling of love and the sensation of red in my mind. (Hume makes this point convincingly at the beginning of the Treatise.) We need to be able to do this in order even to understand what is said when someone judges that something is red or lovable. Without a memory trace of the sensation or feeling, we cannot understand the judgment. It is possible to use thick concepts without the corresponding emotion when the object of the judgment is before us, but it is necessary to use thick concepts in this way when we want to talk about persons we have only heard about – or we may think of a person hypothetically, or we may read about one in a novel, or the person may have existed in the past. The same point applies to situations – to anything to which thick affective concepts apply. The ability to make a judgment such as “He is pitiful” without feeling pity or a judgment such as “That is an unfair situation” without feeling indignation is necessary for much of our discourse, even though I have proposed that we learn the concepts from groundlevel, here-and-now situations. There is nothing aberrant about such judgments. They are the first step in the thinning of a moral judgment, and I call them level 2 judgments.23 It follows that the words “She is pitiful” can be used either to express a ground-level judgment that is an expression of the emotion of pity, or merely to express the proposition that the object is pitiful. Analogously, the words “That is red” can be used either 23

This raises the question of the psychology of judgments about characters in novels. I suspect that it is similar to the psychology of judgments about actual persons. Such judgments can be ground-level, at least at the time we are reading the novel. But if imagination is typically thinner than perception, level 2 judgments about fictional characters would also be common even at the time of reading. The fact that the thinning process permits degrees of variation between levels 1 and 2 can explain the fact that there seem to be cases that fall between feeling a full emotion and merely judging that the intentional object of the emotion has the requisite thick property.

168

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation to express a judgment that includes the sensation of red, or merely to express the proposition that an object is red. So the same words can be used to express either a level 1 or a level 2 judgment. There is also a difference between the statements “She is pitiful” and “I pity her.” Either one can be used to express the emotion of pity, but there is a difference in intent and ontological commitment. When I say “She is pitiful,” I am willing to assert that the intentional object of my pity has the property of being pitiful, whereas if I only say “I pity her,” I am calling attention to myself and my emotion, and this may indicate that I am unwilling to say that I have construed the intentional object of my emotion correctly. It is even possible to say “I pity her, but she is not pitiful.” We cannot make statements like that without higher-order reflectiveness on our own emotional states and their intentional objects. A statement such as “I pity her, but she is not pitiful” is like “I have a red sensation, but that object is not red.” We understand how it is possible to make such judgments because we also understand how they are descendants of the ground-level uses of the concepts red and pity. I call a judgment that something is pitiful without feeling pity or a judgment that something is lovable without feeling love a level 2 judgment, because it is one level removed from groundlevel judgments. Level 2 judgments also utilize thick concepts, and I have said that the agent cannot understand these concepts without having had the feelings that go with them when they are part of level 1 judgments, and I have conjectured that she probably must have a memory of those feelings, a memory that gives her a faint copy of those feelings, even though she does not have the feeling at the time she makes a level 2 judgment. Level 2 judgments are necessary because it is important to engage in moral discourse about situations that are not here and now, and we want to be able to examine the logical consequences of our judgments, which is often more difficult to do with level 1 judgments. But these judgments are motivating only to the degree that a faint copy of the motivating feeling remains. Level 2 judgments are clearly essential, but if we make only level 2 judgments and rarely make the ground-level judgments that express emotion, we lose emotional practice. Level 2 judgments might be compared to 169

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics judgments about color or musical sound or the taste of wine carried on without seeing color or hearing the music or tasting the wine. There are advantages for our memory and cognitive economy in doing so, but we also lose something vital that connects us to the world we are talking about. In section II, I proposed that the sense of obligation is an emotion directed toward my own potential acts in response to some situation. These judgments also can be either level 1 or level 2 judgments. The former express emotion, whereas the feeling is thinned out of the latter. Bernard Williams calls the concepts right, wrong, duty, should, ought, and good “thin evaluative concepts” because they have very little descriptive content. Williams distinguishes thick and thin concepts in terms of their content. The thick ones are partly descriptive and partly evaluative in such a way that the two aspects cannot be pulled apart. The thin ones are almost purely evaluative. By contrast, I have been calling certain concepts thick affective concepts because the concepts are acquired in a state of emotion and are used in the primary sense when the agent is in a state of emotion, a state that is partly cognitive and partly affective. These concepts can be thinned of their affectivity and hence of their motivational force, although I have said that there probably always remains a weak link to affectivity in that the corresponding emotion is preserved in memory. The same point applies to the set of concepts involving obligation – right, wrong, and duty, or obligation. These concepts are not thick in Williams’s sense, since they have little if any descriptive content, but I have proposed that in their primary use they are thick, since there is an emotion that consists in seeing some act as an obligation or as wrong. That emotion has as its intentional object an act of the self, and an act or its omission can be perceived as threatening to the self. But these concepts also can be thinned. Judgments such as “I must do something to help her” or “It would be wrong of me to lie” can be thinned and hence can be level 2 judgments. I have argued that an emotion is present when making these judgments in certain immediate, here-and-now situations, but even in such situations the judgment can be made in the absence of the emotion, just as the judgment “She is pitiful” can be made in the presence of a pitiful person without the emotion 170

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation of pity. More commonly, we make judgments of the form “A has a duty to do X” or “It would be wrong of A to do Y” when we are not confronted with the situation to which the act is a response, and when I am not the agent. We need to make such judgments for both theoretical and practical purposes. For one thing, we have a need to understand the connections among the different thick moral properties that objects and situations can have. It is likely that the pitiful, the contemptible, the honorable, the rude, the dishonest, and so on have little in common. But what they do have in common is that they call for responses of various kinds, and the responses can be categorized as those that are required, those that are such that it is required that they not be done, and those that are neither the one nor the other. The concepts of act evaluation mentioned categorize situations according to the categories of our response. Acts can also be categorized using virtue and vice concepts – dishonest, courageous, unfair, and so on. The emotions involved in perceiving acts under these concepts are much different than the emotions involved in perceiving acts under the concept of the obligatory. But judgments using any of these concepts can be thinned.24 Typically, discussions of the issue of whether moral judgments are motivating take ought or duty judgments as examples, and the examples make it obvious that the judgments are what I call level 2 judgments. It is no wonder, then, that many theorists feel forced to deny that moral judgments are intrinsically motivating, since these are cases in which the judgments are made without the feeling of obligation. But I have argued that judgments made without emotion are not basic, so whereas they are not themselves motivating, they are derived from a class of judgments that are motivating. Moral discourse would be impossible without judgments that have been thinned of affectivity. But even thin judgments 24

I argued in “Emotion and Moral Judgment” (Zagzebski 2003b) that there are three levels of moral judgment and that judgments of right, wrong, and duty are what I called there level 3 judgments. I have changed my mind about the nature of judgments of duty. I now think that the concepts of wrong and duty can be either thick or thin, either level 1 or level 2. I no longer think that it is useful to distinguish a third level of moral judgment.

171

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics typically retain a degree of motivational force inherited from our past moral experience. The thinning of moral judgment makes possible moral strength, weakness, and apathy. In situations of moral struggle, a person making a level 2 judgment is not sufficiently motivated to act on it because the emotion that provides the motivational force is weak. But if I am right about the thinning process that produces these judgments, we can see why the agent struggles. Struggle presupposes that some motivational force still attaches to the judgment. Since the original judgments are expressions of emotion, emotion is part of the point of making moral judgments, even those judgments that are derivative. This would explain why we find moral strength and weakness surprising, even while we acknowledge how common it is. Not only does a flicker of emotion commonly remain in level 2 judgments, but the judgment does not make sense without a tie to a more basic judgment in which emotion is present. So even level 2 judgments of acts are linked to emotion in that they use concepts of response to situations that fall under concepts whose ground-level use involves emotion. The morally strong person does not have sufficient motivation arising from the judgment itself to act on the judgment and must rely on additional sources of motivation that are also part of moral training. Training in what used to be called “will power” has that function. The morally weak person is in the same situation except that she lacks sufficient additional sources of motivation to act on the judgment. The weak motivational force of a level 2 moral judgment can sometimes be reduced to none at all, which is what happens in the morally apathetic person. The causes of apathy are typically other emotional or physical states, such as depression and weariness, that are strong enough to completely blot out the motivational force of some moral judgment. Since the apathetic person lacks all emotional connection to the judgment she makes, she even lacks the motive to call on the additional sources of motivation commonly used by the morally weak and strong.25 25

This account may also explain the psychology of amorality and some forms of wickedness. An amoral person has never learned thick affective concepts but may know the appropriate use of concepts of right, wrong,

172

P1: JZH/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805c04.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:22

Acts and obligation Moral motivation is confusing because we cannot account for the connection between our motivating emotions and our judgments by one single mechanism. Nonetheless, our psychology is economical. There is an important class of cases in which the judgment itself is motivating because these judgments are expressions of emotion. Those moral judgments that are not expressions of emotion are the descendants of those that are, and while they require the development of a backup mechanism of motivation, they are not wholly devoid of the motivating force of those judgments from which they derive. The account of the origin of moral concepts I have offered in the last three chapters is intended to explain a number of aspects of moral judgments that are otherwise puzzling. It explains why moral concepts differ from purely descriptive concepts such as weighs four pounds and yet are used in judgments with a truth value. It explains why judgments using moral concepts are motivating in their original and central uses, but can be thinned of their motivational force. It begins an explanation of what moral reasoning is reasoning about in a way that is compatible with the view that evaluative properties are properties in an independent world. It explains the importance of imitating virtuous persons and why moral error is not primarily error in reasoning, but occurs prior to reasoning. It explains the importance of perception in the moral life. and duty (although one may doubt that he really understands them). The same point applies to the form of wickedness in which a person sees the bad as good. There is another and more interesting phenomenon discussed by Michael Stocker (1979), which he calls desiring the bad – indeed, desiring the bad under the aspect of bad. The psychology of this is clearly complex, but my conjecture is that it involves seeing “the bad” not merely as bad but as falling under distinctive thick concepts such as the shocking or the disgusting, where the attraction is not to the bad as such. In other forms of desiring the bad, an agent may react to certain negative features of the good, such as those characterized by Nietzsche, so that he is rejecting not the good as such but the good as included in certain unappealing thick concepts. For example, many people find a person who turns the other cheek unacceptably wimpy.

173

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

Conclusion to Part I

The ethical significance of motivation has generally been misrepresented by the major ethical theories. Classical utilitarianism and social contract theory have vastly underestimated its importance, while the theoretical friends of motive have tended to make implausible claims that either, like those of Hume, exaggerate the function of motive, or, like Kant’s ignore all motives but one. Consider classical utilitarianism. Bentham applies the test of utility directly to motives: “If they [motives] are good or bad, it is only on account of their effects: good, on account of their tendency to produce pleasure, or avert pain: bad, on account of their tendency to produce pain, or avert pleasure.”1 Robert Adams (1976) says that Bentham is inconsistent in his approach to the evaluation of motives, since Bentham also says that motives are to be evaluated by the utility of the intentions to which they give rise.2 But, as Adams points out, the consequences of the intention to which a motive leads are not identical to the consequences of the motive itself. Mill, on the other hand, barely treats motive at all, and when he does mention it in a footnote (in Chapter 2 of Utilitarianism), he says that the motive of an act counts not at all toward the morality of the act, although it 1 2

Bentham (1961), p. 102. Ibid., p. 120.

174

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

Conclusion to Part I is important in the evaluation of the person who performs the act: The morality of the action depends entirely upon the intention – that is, upon what the agent wills to do. But the motive, that is, the feeling which makes him will so to do, if it makes no difference in the act, makes none in the morality: though it makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the agent, especially if it indicates a good or a bad habitual disposition – a bent of character from which useful, or from which hurtful actions are likely to arise.3

We have, then, two models for the utilitarian treatment of motives. On Bentham’s account, a motive is evaluated either by applying the principle of utility directly to the motive or by applying it to the intentions to which the motive leads. A third possibility is to apply the principle to the acts to which the motive leads. In each case, a motive is neither good nor bad in itself. Its goodness or badness derives from the goodness or badness of its consequences, or of some subset of its consequences. But this is exactly what our ordinary concern about motive denies. My concern for whether an acquaintance’s behavior toward me arises out of gratitude or empathy or envy is not a concern about the consequences of the present or future intentions to which these emotions lead, much less about the long-term consequences of her emotions – although I may, of course, be concerned about that also. What I am primarily interested in is the emotional state itself. On Bentham’s account, we are forced to conclude that if the very same act or intention to act could have arisen from two distinct motives, there is no moral difference between them. But that is completely foreign to our ordinary ways of thinking about the importance of motives. I do care whether my acquaintance’s act springs from envy rather than empathy, and I see no reason to think that this concern of mine is unjustified, nor do I see any reason to think that it is outside the concerns of ethics. 3

Mill (1979), p. 18, note 2. This footnote does not even appear in the early editions of Utilitarianism. Mill seems to have added it as an afterthought.

175

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics Mill offers another utilitarian model for evaluating motives. He indicates in the passage just quoted that we ought to separate the evaluation of the agent from the evaluation of the act. This suggests that we use the principle of utility to evaluate acts, while treating the evaluation of motives as a separate and independent part of morality. This idea could be used to avoid the implausible claims about the dependence of the evaluation of motives on the evaluation of consequences, but the rest of the quoted passage indicates that Mill was probably unwilling to take that route himself. In any case, the cost of this move is to give up hope of having a unified ethical theory. The classical proponents of the place of motives in morality are also unhelpful. Hume exaggerated the importance of motive by reducing the evaluation of an act to the evaluation of the motive for the act. Hume writes: ’Tis evident, that when we praise any actions, we regard only the motives that produced them, and consider the actions as signs or indications of certain principles in the mind and temper. The external performance has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality. This we cannot do directly; and therefore fix our attention on actions, as on external signs. But these actions are still considered as signs; and the ultimate object of our praise and approbation is the motive, that produc’d them.4

Here Hume ignores some of what we care about morally. Whereas Mill evaluates us on the basis of what we bring about by our acts and ignores our motives in doing so, Hume evaluates us on the basis of our motives and ignores what we do and bring about. Furthermore, when Hume made motive his pivotal ethical concept, he did so in a way that suggested to subsequent readers a necessary connection between such an approach and antirealism or noncognitivism. This has no doubt discouraged many moral philosophers from placing the concept of motive at the foundations of a theory of ethics. Kant, by contrast, gives a central place to motive, but it is only the particular motive defining the Kantian good will – to do one’s 4

Treatise, Part II, Section 1 (Hume 1967, p. 477).

176

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

Conclusion to Part I duty out of a motive of duty – that gets the credit for underlying moral theory. Some writers on the moral significance of emotion have objected that such a motive is not an emotion and that Kant does not recognize the place of emotion in morality, but it does seem to me that he gives one emotion a central place: the respect for the rationality of persons. But other motives have no moral value in Kantian ethics except insofar as they are derived from the value of the motive of a good will. In the ordinary conduct of our lives, all of us care a great deal about the motives of others. One reason is that we think of motives as exemplifying the state of our relationship with them, and we care about our own motives for the same reason. In fact, motives are not merely symbolic; they are partially constitutive of the relationship between persons. This is most obvious in the case of personal and professional relationships, but it is not totally absent in our relationships with strangers and with a moral community. Modern ethical theory concentrates so much on producing a system of rules designed to avoid conflict and to handle conflict when it arises that the value of motive has almost disappeared from ethical debate. But even when the focus of the discussion is on the creation of a system of rules intended to govern the way all persons treat one another, it is likely that the value of the motive for behavior is bypassed only because the aim in the first instance is the minimal one of avoiding the worst cases of human disharmony. When I lived in Los Angeles, I was satisfied if I was not violently attacked on the streets, even if the motives of potential attackers for eschewing violence were not ones I would otherwise praise. But this is not to say that I do not care at all about the motivational states of strangers with regard to me, nor that I care about them only insofar as they lead to treating me decently. In a better world, there would be better other-regarding emotions. Perhaps our social problems are so pressing that we need to devote much of our attention to those other matters, but the better world is still better, and we still care that the better world is not this one. Another reason we care a great deal about motives is that emotions, whether motivating or not, are partly constitutive of the person, and good emotions are part of what makes a good 177

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics person good. I have proposed that emotions are primary in three senses: (1) They are genetically primary. They are the first step in the acquisition of moral concepts and beliefs, and they operate almost continuously throughout life in providing the primary motive to act on moral judgments. We learn emotions by imitating other persons. Emotions can be revised, and we need practical reason in order to determine the right way to act on them, but they occur prior to the operation of reason. (2) Emotions can serve as the primary concept in a comprehensive moral theory. I say “can” rather than “must” because I think the choice of theory is largely determined by the level of understanding that a theory provides. I am sure that there is more than one adequate moral theory, although good theories are usually good in different ways. In this part, I have set up the structure of a strong form of nonteleological virtue theory that is not based on eudaimonia or on what is good for human beings, nor on ends or outcomes of any kind, nor on acts or intentions to perform acts that follow principles of a certain kind. All moral properties of persons, acts, and the outcomes of acts are derived from good emotions. A good emotion is what paradigmatically good persons would have in the circumstances in question. I believe that this way of conceptualizing the relations among moral concepts gives us a better way of understanding those concepts than the standard ways, but I am not arguing for that in this book, except indirectly. My main purpose is to lay out the theory for the consideration of readers. (3) The value of emotion is metaphysically prior to the value of traits, acts, ends, and outcomes of acts. All the standard objects of evaluation of persons, their acts, and the consequences of their acts come into the world from good emotions. I have not said that the value of emotion is prior to the value of states of affairs. I have purposely refrained from saying where the value of the thick properties that we perceive in our emotions comes from. That issue will be addressed in Part II. The emotions that good persons have are emotions that fit the circumstances. A good person perceives the thick properties of the world around him correctly, and that includes his perception of the world with his self in it. Emotions are potentially motivating 178

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

Conclusion to Part I and provide reasons to act. A motivating reason can also be a justifying one if the motive fits the circumstances and the end is one a person of practical reason would have in the circumstances. Emotions can also give rise to a perception of obligation, a demand that certain acts are incompatible with the self. The good person is autonomous both because the source of moral properties is in part within the self, and because each person has intrinsic value in virtue of the distinctiveness of persons. The theory that I have outlined makes sense only if intrinsic good is distinguished from the good of ends, motives are distinguished from ends or aims, and states of affairs are distinguished from outcomes. Another distinction necessary for the plausiblity of the theory is the distinction between the direct and the indirect value of acts. If the value of an act derives directly from the value of the actual motive of the act, we are forced to overlook another important distinction – that between doing the right thing and doing the right thing from the right motive. A contemporary friend of motives, Michael Slote (2001), faces this problem in his theory, since he defines the rightness of an act solely in terms of the agent’s actual motives for the act.5 In motivation-based virtue theory, the rightness (permissibility) of an act is defined by what the virtuous person might do in relevantly similar circumstances, regardless of motive. This definition preserves the intuition that there is a sense of right that is unconcerned with the agent’s actual motive. We do the right thing, in this sense, as long as our behavior meets certain external criteria. The way I put it is that the act has value indirectly from its relation to the acts of virtuous others. But we do care about the actual motive for an act, and the actual motive can make the act praiseworthy or blameworthy, virtuous or vicious. It can have value directly. This distinction is important whether the act is a merely permissible one or one that is characteristic 5

This objection to Slote appears in a paper by Michael Brady (2002). Brady objects that Slote’s position has the consequence that there is no difference between doing the right thing and doing the right thing for the right or wrong reason, but by “reason” Brady clearly means “motive.” I think that Slote’s problem can be avoided by distinguishing the direct and indirect value of acts and the two senses of right.

179

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics of virtuous persons. For both kinds of acts, there is a difference between doing the right or virtuous thing and doing the right or virtuous thing from a virtuous motive. In Chapter 1, I said that the project of this book is driven in part by the need to resolve three puzzles. My approach to resolving the first two puzzles has been outlined in this part. Much more needs to be done on both of them, of course, but the overall strategy should be clear. The first set of puzzles is in moral psychology. The problem is that there is a strong inclination to think of moral judgments as both cognitive and intrinsically motivating, although this is impossible on the standard Humean psychology, according to which cognitive and motivating states are necessarily distinct and connected, at best, causally. Furthermore, the phenomena of moral strength, weakness, and apathy indicate that we cannot maintain the intrinsic motivation of moral judgment unreservedly, although the fact that we consider all three of these phenomena problematic indicates that we have a prior expectation that moral judgments are motivating, even in those cases in which we recognize that they are not. A common approach to resolving this issue is to claim that moral judgments are motivating for persons who are rational or virtuous. In my opinion, this strategy is nonexplanatory. The problem is not that it’s false that the judgments are motivating for the rational or virtuous; the problem is that we still need to find out what it is about being rational or virtuous that makes such a person motivated while others are not. John McDowell (1979) accepts Aristotle’s position that whereas the virtuous person and the akratic person know the same thing, in a sense, the latter does not appreciate the morally salient features of the situation because his judgment is clouded by desire. The virtuous person’s perception of saliences silences considerations that are not silenced for the continent or akratic person.6 The problem with this approach 6

McDowell makes essentially the same point in “Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?” (1978, p. 28): “The way out is to attenuate the degree to which the continent or incontinent person’s conception of a situation matches that of a virtuous person. Their inclinations are

180

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

Conclusion to Part I is that the perception of a salience is presumably a cognitive state. I find the notion of salience vague, but I assume that the salient features of a situation are those that stand out or are especially vivid. If so, what makes the virtuous person’s judgment motivating and the akratic person’s similar judgment not motivating is that the former’s cognitive state is especially vivid. But those philosophers who find it hard to believe that a cognitive state can motivate are not going to find the view that an especially vivid cognitive state can motivate any more convincing. If cognitivity per se does not motivate, it will not become motivating by becoming more intense. What McDowell wants, I think, is a view of the perception of a salience according to which, although it counts as knowledge, it is not a purely cognitive state. In order to resolve this problem, I have aimed for an account of moral judgment according to which there is a primary class of moral judgments that express states that are both cognitive and intrinsically motivating. I have proposed that an emotion is such a state, and if a moral judgment expresses an emotion, then it expresses a state that has the properties we are looking for in a moral judgment. A thick affective concept is perceived to apply to the intentional object of an emotion. Such a concept is not simply a descriptive concept with an affective tone, or a descriptive concept plus an attitude of some sort, pro or con. A thick concept applies to an object toward which an affective state distinctive of the particular emotion is directed. The state is potentially motivating, since affectivity is a moving state, and it has a cognitive aspect. Many emotions have characteristic ends, and emotions motivate the agent to act in a way that aims at reaching those ends. Not every instance of a moral judgment is motivating, but I have proposed that the ones that are not derive from the ones that are. In my account of the “thinning” of moral judgment, the motivational force of a moral judgment is detached from it, making moral strength, weakness, and apathy possible. The detachment occurs because we are capable of storing thick concepts in memory in a aroused, as the virtuous person’s are not, by their awareness of competing attractions: a lively desire clouds or blurs the focus of their attention on ‘the noble’.”

181

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

I. Motivation-based virtue ethics way that is similar to the way we store sensory concepts in memory. We can judge that someone is pitiful without feeling pity in a way similar to our ability to judge that something is red without having a red sensation. A thin concept is the result of the fading of affectivity from a thick concept. A particularly important concept, according to many moral theorists, is the concept of obligation, which I propose is the thick concept that corresponds to the emotion of feeling compelled to do or not to do an act, where failure to act on the compulsion results in the feeling of guilt or shame. This concept is not complex in content, but its object is potential acts by the self in situations that in their primary occurrence are seen as falling under thick concepts. The thinning of a judgment of obligation is perhaps the most frequently used type of moral judgment, for obvious reasons: These judgments are the ones with the most wide-ranging practical importance. The second puzzle is the problem of the nature of value. Neither realism nor antirealism seems altogether plausible, although my own view is that the former is the default position. Like realism about perceptual properties, value realism is strongly supported by common sense, and we move away from it only when forced to do so by incongruities in the position. There is nothing innately incongruous about value realism, but there is the problem of explaining the difference within the class of real properties between value properties and nonvalue properties – those often called descriptive. This leads to the problem of explaining how we know value, since if value differs from what is not value, the way we know the one probably differs from the way we know the other. A difference in ways of knowing is not entailed by a difference in the ontological category of the object, but I think that we expect a special explanation for our ability to detect value. One answer that has received some attention from time to time is that value is detected through emotion. The problem with that is that emotion does not seem at all like a faculty – as, for example, eyesight is. Emotion may reveal value, but it cannot do so in the simple way in which the senses allegedly reveal sensory properties of physical objects. Another answer that has received considerable attention is that value is related to emotion, not 182

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

February 15, 2004

6:20

Conclusion to Part I because the latter reveals the former, but because the former just is the sort of thing that merits affective responses of certain sorts. Suggestions typically include attraction/repulsion, love/hate, and admiration/contempt. I have argued that no particular bipolar response is the appropriate response to value, and that some values are too complex to be explained by the fact that some response is appropriate. The value properties that I believe are basic may call for particular responses, but they are nonetheless perceived through affective states that are not reducible to attraction/ repulsion, love/hate, and so on. These are the thick affective properties, and they are experienced in the state of emotion. If I am right that these properties are basic, that would explain the difficulty in reducing value to good/bad, right/wrong, or any other pair of value responses. An ethic based on exemplars of good persons can be as culturally pluralistic or as monistic as you please. There is nothing in the structure of the theory that requires that the exemplars in all cultures be exactly alike. In fact, if I am right about the uniqueness of persons, the exemplars will not be alike, even within the same culture. Nor does the theory specify that there is any one supreme exemplar, although that will be the case in the Christian version of the theory to which we turn in Part II. I have intended the theory of Part I to be compatible with a wide range of background views about the ethical life, whether religiously inspired or not. An ethic based on exemplars has both the advantages of thickness desired by the anti-theorists and the advantage of aspiring to a high level of comprehensiveness, as desired by the theorists. An ethic of imitation of the paradigmatic good person has another important advantage in that we do not need to decide in advance what range of behavior is morally important. The paradigmatically good person can show us not only which emotions are good ones, how we should perceive things, what we must and may do, and what outcomes are good to bring about, but also what we should care about. The paradigmatically good person can show us what wisdom is.

183

P1: JzG 0521828805con1.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

184

February 15, 2004

6:20

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

Part II Divine motivation theory

There have been two general approaches to the connection between God and morality in the history of Western philosophy. According to what is usually called voluntarism, God created morality by an act of his free will and imposed it upon us. For us, morality is obedience to a divine sovereign; for God, morality does not clearly apply at all. According to intellectualism, there are eternal moral truths that God did not create and that are valid for God as well as for us. God commands us, but God’s commandments come from his intellect’s knowledge of these truths. In both approaches, morality is law. In Part II, I will propose a third alternative. God is essential to morality, not because it comes from either his intellect or his will, but because it comes from his motives. God’s motive dispositions, like ours, are components of his virtues, and all moral value derives from God’s motives. There are many exemplars of goodness in ordinary life, but the ultimate paradigm of goodness and the source of value is God. The moral properties defined in Part I ultimately refer to the motives of God.

185

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

186

April 18, 2004

12:35

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

Chapter 5 The virtues of God

This good and that good; take away this and that, and see good itself if you can; so you will see God. . . . Augustine, De Trinitate VIII, 3

i a brief history of the imitatio dei The idea of imitating a god and the divine world was widespread among ancient peoples, who thought that through imitation they could share in the gods’ power, thereby compensating for the fragility of human life. The world of the gods was both an ideal and a prototype of human existence. Some even thought that everything in the human world was a replica of something in the divine world. This belief informed the mythology and ritual of ancient peoples and continues to be strongly held in more traditional societies today.1 We have already noted that imitation is a basic way in which humans and other animals learn, but to imitate a perfect being sounds incredible. Paradoxically, the more worthy 1

Armstrong (1993), p. 5. Armstong notes that in ancient Persia, every single person and object in the earthly world (getik) was thought to have a counterpart in the archetypal world of sacred reality (menok) (p. 6). Apparently, Plato’s world of the Forms was not merely a philosopher’s invention.

187

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory of imitation a deity is, the harder it is to see how any finite human can aspire to its likeness. This is one problem faced by the idea of imitating a god. Another is that it was sometimes thought to exhibit hubris to aspire to be like the gods. “Do not try to become Zeus,” warns Pindar, “for mortal things suit mortals best.”2 Here Pindar expresses an opposing strain in Greek thought that existed alongside the desire to imitate the gods – the idea that imitation is irreverent.3 The tension is felt in Christian thought also, but the idea has persisted. Ultimately, the problems with imitating a perfect deity in Christian theology are resolved only in the doctrine of the Incarnation, to which we will turn in Chapter 6. The pre-Socratics transformed the idea of a deity into a single being of unsurpassed metaphysical perfection. Anaximander referred to the Boundless, an everlasting being from whom all things come, and who has the power of a monotheistic God.4 Xenophanes says there is “One god, greatest amongst gods and men, in no way similar to mortals either in body or in thought,” immovable and morally as well as metaphysically perfect.5 In Parmenides, Being or the One reaches a pure form of metaphysical perfection, but it is not a person and clearly cannot be imitated. To Plato, what is perfect of a kind is a nonpersonal Form, and the Forms are exemplars. But there are also numerous places in which he says that the highest human good is to be like God.6 In the Republic, we are told that to be virtuous is to be like God, who takes good care of those who are like him (Republic X, 613s-b), and in the Laws the Athenian claims that “the moderate man is God’s 2

3

4 5 6

See John Passmore (2000), p. 30. The first two chapters give an enlightening history of the idea of imitating God or a perfect being. In his lovely essay Reverence (2001), Paul Woodruff notes that the reverence of perfection is contrary to tragic reverence. The one urges people to emulate the gods, the other forbids them to do so (p. 144). Passmore (2000), p. 35. Ibid., pp. 36–37. Daniel C. Russell (unpublished) has made a very helpful study of this idea. Russell argues that Plato’s idea of likeness to God is not just metaphoric, nor is it as otherworldy as is usually thought. The idea is best understood as recommending a transformed set of priorities for engagement with life in this world. The passages I quote or mention in this section are taken from Russell’s paper.

188

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God friend, being like him” (Laws IV, 716b-d). The following passage from the Theaetetus is particularly telling: [I]t is not possible, Theodorus, that evil should be destroyed – for there must always be something opposed to the good; nor is it possible that it should have its seat in heaven. That is why a man should make all haste to escape from earth to heaven; and escape means becoming as like God as possible; and a man becomes like God when he becomes just and pure, with understanding. . . . In God there is no sort of wrong whatsoever; he is supremely just, and the thing most like him is the man who has become as just as it lies in human nature to be. (176a-b, c)

The idea that our highest good is likeness to God also appears in the Phaedrus (246d, 248a, 249c), Timaeus (47c), Phaedo (78b–84b), and Philebus (28c–30e). Perhaps Plato was aware of the tension between imitating a perfect exemplar and imitating a being whose likeness to ourselves is close enough to make imitation possible, for in the passage from the Theaetetus just quoted he says that we imitate God by acquiring virtues that are within the reach of human beings – justice and purity. This idea recurs in the philosophy of the Stoics, who made the idea of virtue as likeness to God a central component of their ethics. Rationality is what is divine in us, and the soul regains its original divinity in pursuing rationality for its own sake. This is expressed in Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius 92: But where “virtue and spirit are present in his frame” [Aeneid 5.363] a man is equal to the gods. He remembers his origin and makes it his goal.7 It is never wrong to attempt to regain the heights from which you have descended. Why should you not believe that there is an element of the divine in what is part of god? The totality in which we are contained is one, and it is god; and we are his partners and his members. Our spirit is capacious, and its direction is toward god, if vices do not press 7

When Russell quotes this passage, he refers to Timaeus 90d for comparison to Seneca. That passage contains the idea that rationality amounts to a return of the soul to its original condition.

189

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory it down. Just as our bodily posture is erect and looks toward heaven, so our soul, which may reach outward at will, was fashioned by Nature to desire equality with the gods. (92.30)

Some of the Stoics also must have sensed a tension between imitating God and imitating a being more like ourselves. When giving practical advice, some of the Stoics counseled imitation of a wise human rather than imitation of God. Epictetus says that when you are interacting with another person, particularly a superior, you should “set before your mind the question, what would Zeno or Socrates have done?” And he says, “If you are not yet Socrates, you still ought to live as one who wishes to be Socrates.”8 But imitating human exemplars is presumably a way of imitating God, since Zeno and Socrates have the divine quality of rationality to a greater degree than the ordinary. In the Hebrew Bible, it is clear that humans are made in the image of God. God is clearly a person and nothing like the Greek ideal of metaphysical perfection. The image of God in each individual human meant that each person was sacred and that offenses against a fellow human amounted to offenses against God himself – acts of blasphemy. Thus, murder was a sacrilege: “‘Scripture instructs us that whatsoever sheds human blood is regarded as if he had diminished the divine image.’”9 The negative moral doctrine of the Hebrew Bible is thus a warning to respect the image of God in others. The positive moral doctrine is the imitatio Dei, the atttempt to become as much like God as is humanly possible. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2). But in the Hebrew Scriptures, human beings become like God, not by imitation, but by following God’s commandments. Hebrew morality is a morality of law, of carrying out the divine will.10 8

9 10

Epictetus, Enchiridion 33, 51, trans. J. Passmore, quoted in Russell (note 29). Russell argues that it is doubtful whether there is any real difference between Plato and Epictetus on this issue, since Plato was not given to offering advice about everyday matters, whereas such advice was typical of Epictetus. Armstrong (1993), p. 78. She is quoting Mekhilta on Exodus 20:13. For a concise summary of the Hebrew view of morality for non-Jews, see Menachem Kellner (1991).

190

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God But it is also an ethic in which the force of law is mitigated by friendship through the important idea of a Covenant between God and the Jews. The concept of likeness has a philosophical history that will be important when we get to the issue of likeness to the Christian God. Likeness is always in some respect or other, and the particular respect in which likeness is relevant is important for an ethics of imitation. In Plato and the Stoics, the respect in which likeness to God is our highest good is rationality or virtue. Those are the divine qualities whose imitation fulfills or perfects our nature. As I understand Christian theology, however, the fact that the Christian God is a person (persons) and not a set of qualities (rationality, goodness) is not incidental to the sense in which we ought to seek to be like God. The fact that goodness ultimately comes from a person is crucial to the form of ethical theory I am proposing here. I will not offer a theory of persons in this book, but in the next section I will raise the issue of what makes a person different from a nonperson. I believe that that difference is both metaphysically and ethically significant. If God is not a person, imitation of God is quite a different matter than if God is a person(s). And if God is personal, there is still the issue of whether God’s personhood is part of what should be imitated. If there is value in personhood, that affects both the way in which the virtues are constituted and the way in which we ought to think about imitation.

ii the personhood of god Patristic studies done during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries purportedly revealed that “persona” was used by the church fathers in the first and second centuries as an exegetical tool in interpreting Scripture, and that the concept of a person was developed in the course of debates on Christology and the Trinity during the third and fourth centuries.11 Philosophers took up the concept of person from its use in these theological controversies, resulting, by the sixth century, in Boethius’ famous definition of 11

See Stanley Rudman (1997), who cites H. Reinfelder (1928), p. 356, note 11. Peter Geach (1977b) makes the same point in Chapter 1, “Faith,” pp. 41–2.

191

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory “persona” as “an individual substance of a rational nature.”12 In Aquinas’s discussion of “persona” (ST 1 q. 29, a.1-4), he frequently cites Boethius in both the objections and the replies. Like Boethius, Aquinas stresses that God is a substance, but he also indicates that “person” can convey “relation” as well as “substance” (art. 4). After Aquinas, some philosophers continued to use the Boethian definition, with its stress on substance, whereas others emphasized individuality or uniqueness as a distinguishing characteristic of persons.13 Clearly, there was some disagreement about the features that constitute personhood, but what I find particularly striking about the history of the use of “persona” from the early Christian period onward is that if the patristic scholars are right, we have inherited a concept of person that was shaped by the doctrine that there are three persons in one God and that Jesus Christ was one person with two natures. The question of whether God is a person (or persons) is therefore a peculiar one when set against this background. Of course, the concept of a person has undergone further development since its use to explain the Trinity and the Incarnation, but it seems to me that we should conclude that there is at least a strong prima facie case for the position that the Christian God is personal. Arguably, we would not have the distinction between a person and an individual instance of a nature were it not for these Christian doctrines. In this section, I want to call attention to five aspects of personhood that I think are central and that are arguably entailed by the traditional conception of the Christian God. I do not claim that each of them is a necessary condition for being a person, but they are present in all central cases of personhood, and their joint possession is surely sufficient for personhood. Interestingly, only the first is included in the Boethian definition. I will give particular attention to the last one, which has received little attention, although I think it is the most important one in the metaphysics and theology of value. 12 13

Opuscula Sacra (Theological Tractates), fifth tractate. Rudman (1997), p. 139. Rudman cites C. Morris (1987) for the view that both the substance approach and the uniqueness approach to defining a person led to the idea of a person as an individual.

192

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God First, as Boethius says, a person has a rational nature. Many philosophers find the idea of a nature suspect, but rationality comes close to being a universally acknowledged mark of personhood. Rationality is attributed to things in at least two senses, however. Sometimes we call something rational because it expresses rationality, even though it does not have rational capacities. In this sense, a plan of work, a building or other artifact, and perhaps even nature can be called rational. Boethius surely is not thinking of a rational nature as rational merely in this sense. A rational nature is not a nature that expresses a rational design or source. It is a nature that includes certain characteristic capacities of reason and choice. We need not linger very long over the precise list of capacities possessed by a rational being, since God is not a borderline case. He presumably possesses all the rational capacities, and He possesses them in a degree high enough for personhood. A more interesting question is whether even the highest degree of rationality is sufficient for personhood. The closest thing Aristotle has to God is the Unmoved Mover – a changeless, eternal being without parts that is pure thought thinking on itself. The Unmoved Mover moves everything in the universe by attraction, like a giant metaphysical magnet. Aristotle says that it is living but that it has no relationships with anything outside of itself, nor is it even aware of anything outside of itself. It has no emotions, although we are told that it enjoys thinking on itself. It does not act to produce anything and has no intentional effects.14 Is Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover a person? I find it rather doubtful, but it is as fully rational as a being can be. If I am right to hestitate in attributing personhood to the Unmoved Mover, it would also be right to hesitate to attribute personhood to God solely on the grounds that He has the feature of rationality in the highest degree. In any case, having a rational nature is not sufficient to explain what makes a person different from an instance of a nature, the key distinction in both the doctrine of the Trinity and that of the Incarnation. Second, a person possesses subjectivity. Subjectivity is a modern notion and is not explicitly included in traditional doctrines 14

Metaphysics, Book XII, Chapter 7.

193

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory about God, but it seems to me to be implicit in the way Christians conceive of God. Subjectivity has two aspects that may be logically distinct. A subjective being is self-conscious in the sense that it is conscious of being conscious. Second, subjectivity involves the experience of being a conscious self, thinking of oneself as “I.” To think of onself as “I” is to be conscious of the difference between oneself and other selves as well as of the difference between oneself and nonselves. I conjecture that these two aspects of subjectivity are logically distinct, because while Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover may be self-conscious in the sense of having reflexive consciousness – thinking that it is thinking – it lacks the consciousness of selves outside of itself, and it is a stretch to say that it thinks of itself as “I.” Unlike the Unmoved Mover, God is conscious of himself in a way that implies consciousness of a difference among the persons of the Trinity as well as consciousness of a difference between each person of the Trinity and nondivine persons and nonpersons. There are, of course, many theological interpretations of the Trinity, but both self-consciousness and consciousness of the difference between self and other are common to all of them. Debate focuses on the individuation of the divine self or selves, not on whether there is one. Third, a person has relationships with other persons. This feature depends upon contingent features of a person’s environment that could be missing in unusual cases, but their presence is a mark of personhood. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures clearly has relationships with human persons, and there are personal relationships within the Godhead, according to Christian doctrine. In fact, commentators on the concept of person (e.g, Rudman) sometimes claim that Trinitarian theology is largely responsible for the view that relationality is a distinguishing characteristic of personhood. Fourth, a person is free. I will not venture an account of freedom here, but I am relying on the admittedly vague intuition that there is a difference between the state of being free and the state of being nonfree and that the former belongs to persons exclusively. A discussion of God’s freedom in the Creation will be taken up in section IV. Divine freedom is problematic, since the modern 194

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God idea of freedom differs significantly from the sense of freedom that Aquinas attributes to God. If freedom entails the ability to do otherwise in a morally significant sense, which allegedly entails the ability to do evil as well as good, it appears that God cannot be both free and essentially good. This issue involves a conflict between a putative aspect of God’s nature and a particular interpretation of an aspect of personhood. This problem will be addressed in Chapter 7. At this point, I will withhold judgment on the issue of whether God is free in a “morally significant” sense. But I see no reason to deny that the Christian God is free in whatever sense is necessary for personhood. In any case, if there is a conflict between the lack of divine freedom and the requirement that persons be free, we are as likely to be wrong about the latter as about the former. Fifth, a person is incommunicable. This is the feature of personhood that I find most significant. The interpretation of incommunicability I am about to give is my own, and I do not claim that the church fathers had this in mind when they were developing the idea of the divine persons. My purpose is to interpret incommunicability in a way that ties it conceptually to the contrast between person and nature, the central distinction in the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. According to the first doctrine, God is three persons but one individual divine nature. According to the second doctrine, Jesus Christ is one person with two natures. Both of these doctrines require a distinction between a person and an instance of a nature. What I mean by incommunicability is whatever it is about a person that distinguishes a person from an instance of a nature. Secondarily, I am assuming that the difference has a special value that explains why the idea of a person is so important in moral philosophy. The term “incommunicability” is used by John Crosby (1996, p. 1), who adapts it from the aphorism of Roman law: Persona est sui juris et alteri incommunicabilis (A person is a being which belongs to itself and which does not share its being with another.)15 15

The Roman law no doubt formulated this aphorism in order to distinguish persons under the law from slaves, but I think that Crosby is right that there is a deeper metaphysical distinction implicit in that maxim.

195

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory Crosby takes this to mean that persons are not replaceable specimens of a kind. Their value is not exhausted by the value of the kind of which they are an instance.16 In spite of the fact that “personhood” is an abstract noun, it does not designate a certain type of nature. The point is both metaphysical and ethical. To be a person is to have value in addition to whatever value a person has because of her nature. The value that a person has qua person is grounded in an ontological difference between persons and nonpersons.17 Crosby quotes a passage of Saint Thomas that he interprets as showing that Aquinas recognizes a difference between the ways in which human persons and nonhuman animals are related to their natures: Now, a rational creature exists under divine providence as a being governed and provided for in himself, and not simply for the sake of his species, as is the case with other corruptible creatures. For the individual that is governed only for the sake of the species is not governed for its own sake, but the rational creature is governed for its own sake, as is clear from what we have said (ch. 112). And so, only rational creatures receive direction from God in their acts, not only for the species, but for the individual.18

Crosby believes that this passage shows that Aquinas thought of human persons as incommunicable. I would not claim that Aquinas thought of incommunicability in the same way that I do, but in this passage he does attribute to human persons a value that is not simply the value of human nature. If the identity of a human person were exhausted by the set of properties she has qua instance of the natural-kind human being, plus accidental properties, it is hard to see why she would be governed for her own sake, since it is implausible that her accidental properties are such as to be 16 17

18

Crosby (1996), Chapter 2. Several people have observed to me that “incommunicable” is an ugly word. I agree completely but have not been able to find another word that conveys the same meaning. Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, Chapter 113, para. 1. Quoted and discussed in Crosby (1996), p. 20.

196

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God valuable for their own sake. There must be something about her as an individual that has a special, perhaps intrinsic, value. Since almost all kinds can be instantiated in more than one particular being, a tempting but misleading way to explain incommunicability is to say that it is that in virtue of which a person is unique. Uniqueness, however, can easily be interpreted to mean singularity of a quality; but if incommunicability is that which makes persons different from instances of a nature, and which furthermore grounds their value as persons, it cannot be a quality. In fact, even a property that is such that it is necessarily instantiated uniquely is insufficient to make the individual that possesses it incommunicable. In order to see this, consider first a property that is uniquely instantiated but only contingently so: natural satellite of the Earth. Such a property clearly does not pick out something that is unique in the sense in which persons are thought to be unique. There is nothing special about the object that instantiates that property simply in virtue of the fact that it is the only one that does so. This might suggest that we are looking for a property that is necessarily instantiated in exactly one object. One example of a property of that kind would be the 314th copy of the Times for March 30, 2002.19 This property differs from natural satellite of the Earth in that it is not possible that it be instantiated in more than one newspaper. However, it need not be this newspaper rather than that that has the property. It is not part of the essence of the 314th copy of the Times that it be the 314th copy of the Times. This suggests an even stronger way in which an object can uniquely instantiate a property. An object may instantiate a property that is essential to it and that is such that it is impossible that anything else instantiate it. Such a property is an individual essence. An example is even prime number. Not only is it necessarily the case that that property is instantiated in only one number, it is also necessarily the case that it is instantiated in the number 2. It is essential to the number 2 that it possesses the property even prime number. Being the even prime number is an individual 19

This is a modification of Crosby’s example in The Selfhood of the Human Person.

197

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory essence of the number 2. Many objects have individual essences; perhaps all do.20 Anything that has an individual essence is unique and necessarily so, but the uniqueness that follows from having a nature that can be instantiated only by a given particular being cannot be what is intended by incommunicability, because it does not distinguish person from nature. A nature does not cease being a nature by having only one member, nor is there any reason to attribute a special value to the object that instantiates such a nature. The objects instantiating the properties just discussed clearly are not persons. This kind of uniqueness is not sufficient to distinguish persons from nonpersons, nor does it explain the difference between person and nature as used in the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. In spite of these difficulties, however, I think that there is a sense of uniqueness that persons have and that is lacking in all of the properties just mentioned. The properties natural satellite of the Earth, the 314th copy of the Times, and even prime number are all qualitative properties. They are conceptually general, even though they are instantiated in a unique object. In each case, the content of the property refers to nothing about the individuality of the object that instantiates it. Each of them is a kind property that is general “in principle,” even though uniqueness is entailed by the content of two of them. It seems to me that if there is a difference between a person and an instance of a nature, the difference must be related to nonqualitative uniqueness. When we say that persons are irreplaceable, what we mean is that when a person is lost to the world, something of irreplaceable value is gone.21 It is not the instance of a quality that is lost, but something else. I am using the term “incommunicability” to refer to whatever that is. 20

21

I argued that every object has an individual qualitative essence in “Individual Essence and the Creation” (Zagzebski 1988). This is one of the two aspects of dignity identified by Kant in the Groundwork, discussed in Chapter 4. But Kant did not draw the conclusion that persons are nonqualitatively unique. As I mentioned in that chapter, he is not interested in distinguishing persons from instances of human nature.

198

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God I think that incommunicability is close to what some philosophers have had in mind when they have argued that if we love a person only as the instantiation of a set of qualities, we do not love the person. This is the complaint of Gregory Vlastos (1981, Chapter 1) about the Socrates of Plato’s Symposium. Vlastos argues that the speech of Socrates shows that he never learns what it means to love a person – an individual – rather than the properties that the person instantiates.22 What a person is, other than the instantiation of a set of properties, he does not say. The idea of a haeceeity, or nonqualitative thisness, was proposed during the medieval debate over universals and particulars, but that idea was intended to apply to all particulars. It was not used to distinguish persons from nonpersons. Elsewhere (Zagzebski 2001), I have outlined an idea on the nature of subjectivity that, if successful, would explain (a) what distinguishes a person from a nature, (b) what distinguishes one person from another, and (c) what makes a person the same person from one moment in time to another. For the purposes of this book, I do not insist upon any particular theory of the distinction between persons and natures, but only that there must be one. What I mean by incommunicability is whatever it is about a person that permits that distinction to be made.23 God has attributes that are like even prime number. The properties of God’s nature are conceptually general, even though they are necessarily instantiated in the one God and only the one God, who possesses them essentially. Omnipotent being, all-perfect being, and self-existent being are all properties like even prime number. There 22

23

Martha Nussbaum (1979) argues that if this is a complaint against Socrates, it is not a complaint against Plato, who is the author of Alcibiades’ speech as well as the speech of Socrates. It is clear in the former speech that Alcibiades does love Socrates as a person, not merely as the instantiation of a set of qualities. Nussbaum’s discussion also supports the idea that knowledge of the uniqueness of a person comes from intimate acquaintance not mediated by conceptual categories. Bob Roberts has pointed out to me that the Vlastos complaint against the speech of Socrates on love also applies to love of one’s country. Like a person, a country is not reducible to the instantiation of a set of properties; yet a country is not a person. My conjecture about this observation is that some nonpersons have something like incommunicability by virtue of being composed of or closely associated with persons.

199

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory is no reason to think that the uniqueness of the object instantiating such properties is sufficient to make God a person, nor does it explain what is good about the personhood of God. None of the traditional attributes individuates God as personal, much less as three persons. None of them expresses the unique goodness or lovability of a person. There is even a sense in which the being instantiating the traditional attributes is replaceable. To put it crudely, one omnipotent being is as good as another. I think there is a sense to this point, notwithstanding the fact that omnipotence is necessarily instantiated in a unique being. Even the Deity lacks the value of a person unless there is something about the Deity that outstrips its nature. I conclude that if God is a person, it cannot be because his nature can be instantiated by only one being.24 The persons in God are each incommunicable. Aquinas has no hesitation in attributing to God most of the characteristics of personhood I have mentioned, albeit in an analogous sense, since in Aquinas’s theory all properties that we attribute to God only apply analogously. The Thomistic God is obviously a rational being, is conscious of His selfhood, is free (in some sense), and has personal relationships both within the Trinity and with human persons, most especially through the Incarnation. It is doubtful whether he attributes to God incommunicability in my sense, since Aquinas maintains that God is identical with His nature (ST I, q. 3, a. 3).25 At the beginning of this section, I referred to the claim of some patristic scholars that the idea of a person developed in the course of debates over the nature of God. The doctrines of the Trinity 24

25

For a contemporary discussion of personhood and incommunicability, see Lossky (1975) and Zizioulas (1975), pp. 401–447. Stanley Rudman (1997) discusses the views of Lossky and Zizioulas on pp. 139–144. Aquinas is not talking about the divine persons of the Trinity in that part of the Summa, but about the one God, so even the Thomistic claim that God is identical with his nature may not be incompatible with my position that the divine persons are incommunicable. Crosby says that if God is identical with his nature, that is sufficient for incommunicability (Chapter 2). I disagree with that conclusion for the reasons I have given. Subsequent correspondence with Crosby leads me to think that he agrees with my position in this section.

200

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God and the Incarnation require the distinction between a person and an instance of a nature. If a person is in a different ontological category than an instance of a nature, then the ontological difference must obtain even when the nature is an individual nature. If that is the case, the work of traditional natural theology on the divine attributes is independent of God’s personhood and therefore leaves aside what is valuable about the persons in God qua persons. What I have called incommunicability is that which persons possess and which instances of a nature do not, and I have conjectured that it is something like nonqualitative uniqueness. It must be nonqualitative in order to be distinguishable from an instance of a nature. Uniqueness is what makes it irreplaceably good. My position, then, is that if there is a personal God, God is incommunicable in the sense that God is more than an instance of the divine nature, even assuming that His essence can be instantiated by only one possible being. God’s essence is insufficient to tie Him to this person, to the particular who rather than what that each person in God is. This raises questions about the relation between a person and an essence. A particularly interesting one is the question of whether the divine nature could be possessed by different persons than the three persons of the Trinity. I will leave that question aside for now, but will return to it in a later chapter. According to the doctrine of the Trinity, three persons have the same divine nature, but not in the same way that human persons have the same human nature. Human nature admits multiplicity because of the limitations of that nature, but divine nature does not admit multiplicity as such. Divine nature entails uniqueness, and yet the doctrine of the Trinity maintains that there is nonetheless multiplicity of personhood within the Trinity. As far as I can tell, this makes sense only if personhood always outstrips nature, even a nature that entails uniqueness. It follows that the doctrine of the Trinity gives us good reason to think both that God is personal and that personhood outstrips what is included in essence or nature of any kind, even individual essence. In this section, I have explored the idea that God is personal. I have not argued that because God has rationality and subjectivity, freedom, relationships with other persons, and incommunicability, He therefore is personal. I have suggested that these aspects of 201

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory personhood are included in the traditional Christian conception of God, but I have also said that I think our criteria for personhood are partially derivative from that conception. There are other putative aspects of personhood that God lacks – for example, having a body and existing in time. Other philosophers have discussed these problems at length, and since I am not tempted by the position that personhood requires either temporality or a body, I will not address them here. One objection to the personhood of God that I find particularly interesting is that the kind of consciousness entailed by the high metaphysical view of God found throughout the Middle Ages – the view that I have been implicitly accepting – is incompatible with personhood. The consciousness of an omniscient and omnipotent being seems to be so far removed from the limited and focal consciousness of human persons that it does not seem to be that of a person. This problem has been addressed by others in other contexts.26 For my purposes here, I want to say that I believe that this problem is one of the reasons that the doctrine of the Incarnation is so important. The extreme distance between us and the perfect being of traditional Christian theology is made manageable by that doctrine, which, quite apart from its theological and ethical importance, is a metaphysical doctrine of the harmony between the transcendent and earthly realms. One of the tensions within Christian theology has always been that between the transcendence and the immanence of God. Sometimes the apparently anthropomorphic passages in Judeo-Christian revelation have been thought to be an embarrassment by those who hold the view of the nature of God favored by philosophers throughout the Christian era; but they are an important way to convey to us the personhood of God.27 We understand God in part through understanding His likeness to ourselves. On the other hand, we understand ourselves in part through understanding God. If those 26

27

Dorothy Emmet (1998, Chapter 7) discusses this problem. That chapter is a short but nice discussion of whether God is a person. A form of this problem is the issue of whether God’s beliefs can be anything like ours. This problem has been treated in the literature on omniscience; see, for example, Alston (1986). Crosby (1996) makes this point also (p. 298).

202

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God scholars who maintain that persona originally came from theological disputes are right, we owe the origin of the idea of the person to ideas about God, even if later discourse developed it in directions that have no theological associations. There is one more point about personhood, taken from Crosby’s book, that I want to use for Divine Motivation theory. Crosby distinguishes pure perfections and mixed perfections, a contrast he finds in Scotus. A pure perfection is one that does not depend upon finitude or imperfection for its existence. A mixed perfection is a perfection that would not be needed at all by a perfect being, – for example, cunning. Crosby argues in his last chapter that personhood is a pure perfection. I will not examine Crosby’s claim here, but it is illuminating to consider the consequences of his view. Not only does it mean that a perfect being must be a person, it also means that the personhood of humans is one of the ways – perhaps the most significant way – in which humans are like God. Rationality has traditionally been thought to be the mark of humankind that distinguishes us from other animals, and that view has continued up to the present. But even if that is the case, it does not follow that rationality is the highest or most characteristic mark of human persons. I believe that our personhood gets that distinction. Feuerbach and Nietzsche objected to the idea of thinking of human beings in relation to God on the grounds that this drains us of our dignity and strength, since when we transfer these qualities to God he is magnified at our expense. But what theonomy reveals is not that God is strong and we are weak, but that we are like God in our personhood. And if personhood essentially includes incommunicability, there is something about each person that is not shared by any other person, not even God. That forever changes how we look at ourselves.

iii the emotions and virtues of god 1 All accounts of virtue in the history of ethics agree that virtues are excellences; they are good personal traits. Most accounts also 203

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory presuppose that they are good human traits, since philosophical ethics rarely considers the possibility of the existence of nonhuman persons. For this literature, then, the difference between personhood and human personhood is not relevant. But it is interesting to consider whether virtues arise only at the level of human personhood or whether they go deeper than that. Are traits of character aspects of our humanity or of our personhood? If the value of persons is grounded in their incommunicability – in that which makes them different from instances of a nature – we would expect the good of human traits to be partly associated with that distinctiveness. If God is a person, then God also has an incommunicable personal character that has value. If that is the case, then God has the virtues that are expressive of his personality, not just of his divine nature. We would expect God to have virtues for another reason: Virtues are the traits of good moral agents. The more perfect the moral agent, the more perfect the virtues. God is both a moral agent and a perfect being. Therefore, God has perfectly good moral traits – perfect virtues. Like all moral agents, God has motives, where motives function both as explanations of and justifications for an agent’s acts. God does not have motive dispositions, if a disposition is a trait that is actualized only now and then; if God lacks potentiality, then God lacks dispositions. But even so, there are things that God would have done if the actual world had been different, and what God would have done is grounded in something analogous to what we call dispositions. We have no reason, so far, to deny that God has motives and virtues. Since God is the perfect agent, God’s motives are the perfect motives. God’s love is the perfect motive of love; God’s compassion is the perfect motive of compassion; God’s mercy is the perfect motive of mercy, and so on. In humans, the motives of compassion, love, mercy, and so on are emotional states. Whether these motives are emotions in God depends upon whether emotionality is an aspect of our nature or an aspect of our personhood. If it is the latter, or in part the latter, God’s compassion, love, mercy, and so on are perfect emotions. If it is the former, God’s compassion, love, and so on may not be emotions, but they are still perfect motives that are components 204

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God of God’s virtues. Either way, God’s motives and virtues can have the function that Divine Motivation theory says they have. God’s virtues, like our virtues, include a component of motivation, a state that is act-directing, as well as reliable success in bringing about the aim of the motive, if there is an aim. God’s motives are perfect, and His success is perfect as well. God is not just reliable, He is perfectly reliable. A divine virtue, then, is the combination of a perfect motive with perfect success in bringing about the end, if any, of the motive. This raises questions about what counts as perfect success. It cannot be the highest possible number of successes, since there is no such number. At a minimum, we can say that it is impossible for God to try and fail. God’s perfect compassion means that whenever he attempts to act compassionately, he succeeds in his aim. There is no mismatch between the end of God’s compassion, or of any other divine motive, and what He brings about. There is also a sense of “end” in which God may have ends that He cannot bring about directly – for example, getting us to accept His love. Some of God’s motives probably include ends in that sense, and His motives in that sense are not always successful. His lack of success in that sense follows from the freedom intrinsic to human personhood, and that problem will be addressed in Chapter 7. Still, God possesses perfect virtue in that he never fails in bringing about anything that He is motivated to directly bring about. In spite of the fact that Divine Motivation theory does not require the view that God has emotions, I believe that having emotions is part of what makes a being a moral agent and that it is an intrinsic part of personhood. I will not go very far in defending this position, since the theory does not require it, but it is clearly an advantage for Divine Motivation theory if God has emotions, since the more we are like God in those aspects of us relevant to the moral life, the easier it is to see how morality as we know it can be grounded in God. I suspect that the reason so many Christian philosophers have denied the emotionality of God is not that they thought it was theologically or biblically preferable to deny it, but that they thought they were committed to denying it by the traditional view of divine perfection. In the next two sections, I 205

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory will consider objections to the view that God has virtues that arise from that view, and I will defend the position that God has both virtues and emotions. 2 Let us first consider the objection that God cannot have a virtue, if a virtue includes a motivational component and a motive is an emotional state, since God has no emotions. The idea that a perfect being cannot have emotions can be traced back to the preSocratics. Melissus of Samos says that the deity cannot feel pain or grief, for if it did it would no longer be One (Freeman 1966, p. 48). He also rules out emotions because of the eternity, power, and immutability of God: “Nor does it feel pain; for it could not Be completely if it were in pain; for a thing which is in pain could not always Be. Nor has it equal power with what is healthy. Nor would it be the same if it were in pain; for it would feel pain through the subtraction or addition of something, and could no longer be the same” (p. 49). This brief argument led to one strand of the rejection of God’s emotionality in the Christian tradition – the idea that emotion is incompatible with perfection and in particular with eternity, immutability, and power. There are two aspects of this line of thought in Melissus that were developed in medieval philosophy. One is that emotions are either defects or signs of defects. The other is that emotions are passions, ways of being acted upon – a view that was thought to be incompatible with immutability and perfection, since perfection precludes the possession of any unactualized potentiality. Aquinas argued that a perfect being must be Pure Act, which means that God is never acted upon by anything else; God is impassible. Another strand of argument for rejecting the emotionality of God arises not from what is allegedly entailed by his perfection but from the Aristotelian idea that emotions involve the sense appetite and require a body, and God has no body or sensory appetite. Aristotle is willing to conclude from this that a divine being has no moral virtues, since he believes that a moral virtue has an emotional component. So Aristotle argues that moral 206

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God excellence presupposes the rational mastery of bodily appetites (NE 1102b, 1103a). A nonbodily rational being is beyond the possibility of moral excellence or defect.28 That is why he says that the typical acts of moral excellence cannot be conceived among the gods. They are capable only of intellectual excellence. (NE 1177–1178). Let us first look at the objection that emotions are defects. Melissus of Samos mentions pain and grief. Pain is a sensation, not an emotion, so we need not consider it, but grief is an emotion. Grief seems to be a defect, or at least an imperfection, if we think of a perfect being as one whose states are perfectly good in both the sense of the admirable and the sense of the desirable. Grief, like all forms of sorrow, is undesirable in that nobody would desire to feel grief, since it “feels bad,” although there are plenty of cases in which grief is admirable and the lack of it lamentable. This might indicate that the desirable and the admirable can conflict. But in motivation-based virtue theory, the good in the sense of the desirable is defined in terms of what is desired by admirable persons. In that case, it would follow that even grief can be a desirable state if admirable persons desire it. I cannot say whether God desires to feel grief, but I do not think it is ruled out as impossible by His perfection. In fact, His perfection might require it. Certainly, there are particular emotions that do seem to imply defect – for example, fear, hope, jealousy, envy, hatred, and bitterness. But if these emotions imply defect, it is not because they are emotions but because of the particular emotions that they are. Notice that the defectiveness of these emotions does not correspond to the distinction that is sometimes made between positive and negative emotions. Some negative emotions, such as sadness and grief, may imply no defect, whereas defect is implied by some positive emotions, such as hope. That indicates that while we do 28

Crosby (1996) considers this point as a possible objection to his view that personhood is a pure perfection. The argument would be that moral excellence is itself a mixed perfection for the reason given by Aristotle, and since personhood includes moral excellence or defects, personhood must also be a mixed perfection. This is not a very good argument and, unsurprisingly, Crosby rejects it (p. 295).

207

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory not yet have a reason to deny that God has emotions, He does not have the range of emotions that human beings have. The second aspect of the objection from divine perfection relies on a deeper metaphysical position, that emotionality is not the sort of capacity that a perfect being would have, since emotion requires passivity and change. Emotions were traditionally called passions because they were understood as ways of being acted upon rather than as ways of acting. But in the theory of emotion sketched in Chapter 2, emotion is passive only in the sense in which belief or knowledge is passive. It is a way of construing something outside of the agent. Even the high metaphysical view of God’s nature is thought to be compatible with the idea that God has beliefs. Consider that on Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy, God’s beliefs are beliefs only in an analogous sense of belief. In that case, I see no reason why God cannot have emotions in an analogous sense of emotion. God can construe the intentional object of His emotion as falling under the thick concepts constitutive of each of His emotions in the same way that He can construe any object as falling under ordinary descriptive concepts. In both cases, it is probably not accurate to say that God relates to the world outside of himself in the way we do, through concepts and propositions, but I see as much reason to think that God can know that a person in some circumstance is pitiful as to think that He can know the person is wearing a red shirt. What is objectionable, presumably, is the idea that God has affect directed toward the object. But why should affective representation be any more a violation of perfection than conceptual representation? Both are usually understood as passive in some sense, but since I have already acknowledged that God’s mode of knowing is completely different from ours, there is no special problem with the passivity of emotion. Emotion per se is no different from belief either with respect to imperfection or with respect to passivity. The literature on omniscience includes discussion of the alleged incompatibility between omniscience and immutability. The problem is that it seems that an omniscient God would know such truths as that today is Friday, but that kind of knowledge changes from day to day and hence entails mutability. Some philosophers of religion have attempted to show that an immutable God can 208

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God know what we know when we know what day it is.29 I believe it can be shown that God has seemingly mutable emotions in the same way that he has seemingly mutable knowledge. It is true that emotions appear to be “here and now,” but so do many true beliefs. In fact, the distance between believing a mutable truth and having an emotion is not very great. Compare believing that a painful medical procedure is over to experiencing relief that it is over. I see no reason to deny that God can have states like the latter if he can have states like the former. Furthermore, there is no logical problem of the compatibility of immutability and passibility if God has immutable emotions. Perhaps God immutably feels grief over the foolishness of humans and joy over their redemption.30 It might be objected that this is not emotion in a sense close enough to what humans experience as emotion. That is possible, and it is one of the reasons many theorists on the nature of God believe that God is temporal and mutable. If they are right, most of the objections to the emotionality of God we are considering can be bypassed. If they are wrong, I argue that it is still possible that God has emotions, but God’s emotional states would differ from ours in many significant ways. But all of God’s psychic states differ from ours in signficant ways if God is timeless or immutable. My point is that there is no special problem for God’s emotionality on the grounds of his immutability and perfection. The second kind of objection to God’s emotionality is the Aristotelian–Thomistic view that emotions require a sensory appetite and a sensory appetite requires a body, but God has no body. This objection rests on a particular position on the relation between consciousness and a material body according to which some states of consciousness require a body and some do not. Aquinas thought that cognitive states and states of will do not require a body, but that emotions are essentially connected with the senses and cannot exist without a body. I have proposed that an emotion includes 29

30

This position has been defend by Edward Wierenga (1989), pp. 180– 186. For a similar argument, see Brian Leftow’s entry on “immutability” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy < http://www.plato.stanford.edu> .

209

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory both a cognitive aspect and an affective aspect; it has a certain “feel.” I see no reason to think that emotions have a sensory component in their phenomenology, if we mean by “sensory” a state that is of the same kind as states of consciousness that arise from the five senses or that are physically localized, such as the sensation of pain. Furthermore, the position that even sensory states of consciousness are possible without a body is one of the most well-known positions on the mind/body relation, and I do not consider the matter settled. But suppose we grant the objection. Suppose we agree with Aquinas that God has no passions (passiones), since these belong to the sensory appetite and the sensory appetite requires a body. Aquinas agrees that God does have affectiones, since the latter admits of two kinds, sensory and intellective. God has intellective appetites (affectiones) that belong to the will. In this category are included states that we call emotions, states such as love and joy. Aquinas says that rejoicing is not a passion but is in the will. Furthermore, Aquinas accepts that emotions of that kind are included in virtue, quoting Aristotle: “No man is just who does not rejoice in his act” (ST, q. 59, a. 5). We see, then, that there are two words that refer to affective states in Aquinas, “passiones” and “affectiones.” “Passiones” may be translated “passion” or “emotion,” whereas Norman Kretzmann suggests “attitudes” as the translation for “affectiones.”31 As Kretzmann translates Aquinas, then, God has certain “attitudes” of love and joy, but Kretzmann says that these states are not emotions, since he maintains that Aquinas maintains that God has no emotions. But a case could be made for translating “affectiones” as “emotions” if it is true that, even in us, states of emotion are not necessarily sensory. If some of our emotions are, or could be, intellective affectiones, that would mean that the sensory aspect of an emotion is not essential to a state’s being one of emotion. If so, a state could not be denied the categorization of an emotion on the grounds that it is not a sensory state. Thus, even if God has no sensory states, it would not follow that he has no emotions. 31

See Norman Kretzmann (1997) for a detailed commentary on Aquinas’s natural theology. The translation to which I refer appears in Chapter 8.

210

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God I have already said that it is not necessary for the argument of this book to accept that God has emotions, in spite of what I have said in reply to this objection. Even if God does not have emotions, God nonetheless has states that are the counterparts of the states that, in us, are emotions. God has emotions in at least the same sense that God has beliefs. God’s emotions may not be just like ours, but God’s cognitive states are not just like ours either. What is of particular importance for Divine Motivation theory is not that God’s emotions are similar to ours in the way they feel, but that the divine states that are the counterparts of human emotions are motivations. That much should not be controversial. Since God is a moral agent, God acts from motives, and among those motives are compassion, forgiveness, and love. 3 Some objections to the position that God has virtues do not involve objections to God’s emotionality. One of the most common views about virtues, deriving from Aristotle, is that they are habits that involve overcoming contrary temptations and that they take time to develop. If so, it could be argued, virtue makes sense only when attributed to imperfect beings like us, who undergo change. But God does not develop his traits and has no contrary temptations; He is perfect and unchangeable. Using the Scotist terminology introduced in section II, it can be objected that virtues are mixed perfections. In response to this objection, it should be noted that while Aquinas says that virtue is a habit, “habitus” to Aquinas means fundamentally the same thing as “having.” The dispositional aspect of a habitus is important in his account of human virtues and vices because of our temporality and imperfection, but the idea of a disposition or habit is not essential to a habitus as Aquinas means it and does not prevent God from having qualities that, in us, would be habits or dispositions. For example, knowledge is a habitus, and most human knowledge is dispositional. But the fact that God has no dispositions does not prevent God from having knowledge, nor does it prevent God’s knowledge from being a habitus, since God’s knowledge is the eternal having of all 211

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory truths.32 Similarly, even though a virtue such as compassion is a habitus that, in us, requires development over time culminating in a disposition distinctive of the virtue of compassion, that does not prevent God from having compassion, nor does it prevent compassion in God from being a habitus. God eternally has the emotion of compassion, not as a disposition, but as an eternal motive-in-act. Another objection is that virtues are traditionally explained teleologically by reference to the natural end of a thing of a certain kind, an end that is not already actualized. If so, virtue presupposes potency. The virtues are goods for a thing as a member of a natural kind. But God is not lacking anything and has no potency, nor does God belong to a natural kind. It is hard to see how anything could be good for God. If a natural kind is a species, then God is not a natural kind, although God does have a nature, and God is a certain kind of thing, namely, Absolutely Perfect Being, or Necessarily Existent Being. Each of the traditional arguments for the existence of God identifies a kind of thing that must be God – a kind of thing that, it needs to be argued, can have only one member. Some divine virtues express the perfections of the kind God. There is no potency in God, but we can see that there is nothing inconsistent in the claim that a being with no potency has virtues, since if, per impossibile, a human being reached full actualization of her potential with respect to some virtue such as compassion, we would not on that account deny that she is compassionate. Furthermore, the way in which a virtue is acquired is not essential to the virtue itself, although it may be essential to beings with a human nature to acquire virtue in a certain way. This means that there is nothing good for God if that means an extrinsic good that God needs for actualization, but there is still a sense in which God’s virtues are good for Him, since even in the human case we do not cease claiming that what is good for us is good for us once it is attained. It is good for a human to have knowledge even when the knowledge is possessed; and it is good for God to be perfectly just, merciful, and so 32

I am grateful to the late Norman Kretzmann for pointing this out to me as a way of handling this objection.

212

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God on.33 In one of the interpretations of “good for x” in Chapter 3, it is good for x to meet a standard of perfection for x’s. Clearly, God meets such a standard, since He is the standard. There might be a doubt that it is a good for a standard to be a standard, but I don’t see that that leads to any problem about the goodness or virtue of the standard.

iv the motives of god and the creation 1 If God is a person, then God acts; and if God acts, then God has motives, whether or not His motives are emotional states. In Divine Motivation theory, God is the paradigmatically good person of motivation-based virtue theory. Human motives are good insofar as they imitate the motives of God as those motives would be expressed in finite and embodied human persons. This proposal will need to be qualified when we get to Chapter 6, since some motives are good because they are what God is motivated for us to have rather than what God is motivated for himself to have. So the way in which human motives imitate the divine motives will need to be examined in the light of the Incarnation, and we will see the need for human exemplars in the practical life. In this chapter, I want to look at God’s motives in the Creation, the primary act relating God to us. The desire to understand God’s motive for creating the world has always been important for natural theology, because it can shed light on the nature of God and the problem of evil. The latter problem will be the topic of Chapter 7, but my interest in this section is ethical: What can God’s motive in creating the world tell us about good motives? What can it tell us about good personhood? Norman Kretzmann (1991) has written two helpful papers on the motives for the Creation that I want to use as the basis for pursuing this question. In the first paper, “A General Problem of Creation: Why Would God Create Anything at All?,” Kretzmann 33

I thank Norman Kretzmann for suggesting this line of reply to the objection that nothing is good for God.

213

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory argues that God was not free not to create because of the Dionysian principle that goodness is essentially self-diffusive. Nonetheless, God created “willingly.” In the second paper, “A Particular Problem of Creation: Why Would God Create This World?,” Kretzmann argues that God was free to select which possibility to actualize for the purpose of manifesting His goodness. Since the manifestation of God in the Creation is the manifestation of love between persons, the Creation must include created persons with free will who are capable of entering into a freely chosen relationship of love with God. Working from Aquinas’s position, Kretzmann identifies two competing strands in Thomas’s thought that derive, not from competing Jewish and Greek elements in Christian theology, but from competing elements in Greek philosophy. The first, coming from Plato, is necessitarian in that it sees goodness as essentially selfdiffusive. This makes it necessary that a perfectly good God create. The second, coming from Aristotle, is libertarian. God is selfsufficient, needs nothing outside of Himself, and consequently creates not out of any necessity of His nature, but out of free choice. Kretzmann argues that Aquinas was not able to reconcile these competing elements, stressing the Aristotelian libertarian line against some of his own neo-Platonic inclinations. Kretzmann then proposes that Bonaventure’s solution is a better way to retain both strands without inconsistency. I think that Kretzmann’s solution to the apparent inconsistency between self-diffusiveness and divine freedom is correct, but I will argue that he gives too much credit to the alleged inconsistency between self-diffusiveness and self-sufficiency. Here is the problem. If God creates because goodness is necessarily self-diffusive, it appears that God needs to create, which is to say, it appears that God needs created beings. This apparently conflicts with his self-sufficiency. Furthermore, if the Creation is the result of an act of the divine will, and if God creates out of necessity, it follows that His will is necessitated, and that apparently conflicts with divine freedom. But I do not see that it follows from the fact that God’s goodness is necessarily diffusive that God needs to create. Creating is necessary for God in the sense that it is a necessary expression of God’s nature. It is not necessary in the 214

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God sense that there is some lack in God that creating a world fulfills. Compare the fact that acting is necessary for humans. It would be very odd to say that acting is a need for humans, something we have to do to make up for a lack of some kind. We would not take the fact that our nature is to be active as an indication of our lack of self-sufficiency. Of course, we do lack self-sufficiency, but not because we are active beings by the necessity of our nature. For the same reason, it is odd to say that we will to be active beings rather than not to act. Being active most of the time is not the result of an act of will, which is not to deny that we can will to act on particular occasions. But we could never make ourselves beings who are always inactive by an act of will. Nobody would think that it is incompatible with our freedom that we do not have the power to become completely inactive, that we are active by the necessity of our nature and not as a result of an act of will. Our freedom comes from a choice about which acts to perform, not about whether or not to act. Similarly, the fact that God is a continually creative being could be part of His nature in the same way that being active in some way or other is part of human nature. If so, we should not expect such a property of God to be the result of an act of His will. So even if God does not have the power not to create, even if He creates out of the necessity of His nature, that is not a lack of freedom in God. Kretzmann is right, I think, that if God does not have the power not to create, that does not jeopardize God’s freedom. Kretzmann argues that even though God does not have libertarian freedom with regard to creating or not, he is free even there in the sense that he is a willing creator. That presumably is because in Aquinas’s metaphysics God wills his own essence. He therefore is willingly what he is. But it does not require any special Thomistic metaphysics to make this plausible, since even in our case we are active beings willingly.34 That is to say, we are willingly human. I 34

Perhaps it is possible for somebody to be an active being unwillingly, which is to say, an unwilling human, but that is highly perverse. (Bob Roberts has suggested to me that Kierkegaard discusses such cases in Sickness Unto Death.) In any case, we do not think it is any infringement of our freedom if we do not have the power not to act.

215

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory conclude that it does not follow from the assumption that God’s nature necessitates that he create that he is either unfree or lacking in self-sufficiency. There is a deeper problem in the theory of action, a problem found in Aquinas and in most philosophers before, during, and after the medieval period. That is the assumption that acting always has an end. Aristotle says in the Physics, “Now intelligent action is for the sake of an end” (Book II, Chapter 8). Likewise, Bonaventure says that “[a]n efficient cause does not produce an effect except for the sake of an end” (Kretzmann 1991, p. 227). But this position creates a problem not just for the view that God acts freely, but also for the view that God acts at all. If God must act for an end, the very fact that He acts implies that He is trying to accomplish something, something that would not be accomplished if He did not act. Whatever reasons there are for thinking that the necessity of acting is incompatible with self-sufficiency are likewise reasons for thinking that any acting for an end is incompatible with self-sufficiency, whether free or necessitated. Aquinas attempts to blunt the force of this problem by saying that ultimately God always acts for His own sake (p. 215). But it is not at all clear that that makes sense, given that it is an important dictum of Thomistic metaphysics that God is self-sufficient. God could not act for His own sake in the way that we do – to fulfill a need or desire of our own. A being that has no needs or desires does not clearly have a “sake” for which something is done. Moreover, if God’s acts of love for humans are ultimately done for His own sake, that prevents all such acts from fully being acts of love for us. No act of love of A for B is fully an act of love if it is ultimately done for the sake of A. The idea that all of God’s acts are for His own sake is therefore so implausible that the only explanation for postulating such a view is the further view that all acting must be for an end. And that is precisely what I think ought to be rejected. In Chapters 1 and 3, I objected to the well-entrenched Aristotelian view that the good is defined as that at which all things aim. Not only does this overlook the intrinsically good, but, as I argued earlier, the good of ends cannot be the basic category of good. The good of an end at which persons aim is derived from intrinsic goods; in particular, I have claimed that it is derived from 216

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God good motives. The good of outcomes derives from good motives, which is to say, the motives of paradigmatically good persons. In the case of the Creation, it follows that the outcome of the Creation, the created universe, is good because it is the end of God’s motive in the Creation. God did not survey the possibilities and choose to create the world that he created because it bears the property of goodness, much less because it bears the property of some determinate quantity of goodness. The goodness of the world is consequent to God’s creative act: “And God saw that it was good.” God had a motive to create, but it is a mistake to look for God’s motive in something about the end at which he aimed or the outcome that he was attempting to achieve. God did not create because he was trying to accomplish something. I argued in Part I that not all motives have ends. Motives are states that, in us, are emotions; and they are pushy states. They bring about action. God’s motives bring about God’s acts also, but like some of our acts, they need not have an end. I contend that God’s motive to create was what it was simply because God is God and because as God He possesses certain motives, that is, certain states that impel Him to act. But He need not thereby be attempting to bring about something by His act. Of course, when God acts, He does bring something about – a created universe, in the first instance. But that need not mean that his motive included the desire to create an end that satisfies a certain description. I have been mostly concerned to argue against the standard view that God creates in order to make a good world, but the opposite mistake is worth mentioning as well, since it suggests a divine psychology distinct from both Divine Motivation theory and the standard view. In Robert Musil’s novel The Man without Qualities (1965), Ulrich as a young student causes a stir when he writes in an essay that, “even God probably preferred to speak of His world in the subjunctive of potentiality . . . , for God makes the world and while doing so thinks that it could just as easily be some other way” (vol. 1, p. 15). This suggests not only that God had no end in view in creating the world, but also that He did not have any motive to create this world rather than some other that is such that it made him especially pleased with the product. This is an interesting idea, because I think it is true that 217

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory the created world is no better than many other possible creations of God, yet it is important that God’s thought while creating and immediately afterward be “What a good world!” rather than a thought comparing its goodness to other possible creations. Its most salient feature is its goodness, not its lack of superiority to some other world. The reason why this is important is no doubt due to the psychology of love. One would wonder at a parent’s love for a child if the parent’s first thought upon viewing the newborn baby were “Another baby I might have had would have been just as good.” My position, then, is that God did not create randomly. He did have a motive to create the particular world he created in the same way that an act of love of one person for another is motivated and is not random, even though the act does not aim at some end. The position that God created because He was motivated to do so but not for the sake of an end is a consequence of Divine Motivation theory. I also believe it is the only position that is clearly compatible with God’s self-sufficiency. I have also claimed that this position avoids making the morally unacceptable claim that when God acts for the sake of those He loves, He is ultimately acting for his own sake. If God does not act for His own sake when He acts lovingly toward us, then he does not act for his own sake in creating the world, either. When Christian theologians propose an end for the Creation, it is supposed to give the created universe a point. Instead, any suggested end tends to diminish the dignity of the Creation. One of the most plausible such ends is for God to have an object of his love other than himself. So sometimes it is suggested that God created because He wanted friends. But the objection to this view is the same as the objection to the idea that God’s loving acts are ultimately for His own sake. Think what it would be like to be created so that someone would have you to love. Sometimes a couple decide to have a second child in order to give their firstborn a companion. Even if that aim includes the intention that the second-born will be loved by the older sibling, the second child is being used for the sake of the first. In Kantian terminology, the second-born is not being treated as an end in itself. And the situation is no different if the creator is party to the relationship. If a couple have a child in order to have someone 218

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God other than each other to love, the child is being treated as a means to the love between parents and child. Love between parents and child is a wonderful thing, but it is no less a treatment of the child as a means when he is treated as a means to a wonderful thing. It is to put insufficient value on his personhood.35 Kretzmann has a more subtle view that attempts to retain the idea that God acts for His own sake without its morally distasteful implications. He emphasizes the Dionysian principle of goodness as self-diffusive and says that God acts for the sake of manifesting His own love (1991, esp. p. 223). I agree with Kretzmann that the Creation is explained by the fact that the goodness of God is selfdiffusive and that God manifests His love in the Creation, but I deny that the Creation is done for the sake of manifesting His love. I find that view also morally unacceptable. To return to the parental analogy, think of a couple who have a child for the sake of manifesting their love. To have a child for the sake of the parents, for the sake of the relationship between parents and child, or for the sake of manifesting their love is in each case to treat the child as a means. It seems to me, then, that the Creation was not done for the sake of anything. Just as we as humans cannot help but act, but we do not act for the sake of acting, God cannot help but manifest His love, but he does not do so for the sake of manifesting His love. He does it because it is His nature. God’s motive is love, but He has no end. Love in us is an emotional state, and I have argued that there is no reason to deny that it is an emotion in God also, although I do not insist on that point. But I do insist that it is a state with phenomenological content. I am not arguing that God has emotions only in an analogous sense, but if he does, that is good enough for the theory. 2 Let us return to the theme of the imitatio Dei. Good motives for us are forms of imitating the divine motives. The motive that is most 35

The examples I have given in this paragraph are common and, as far as I know, result in no harm to the second child. That probably means that the initial motive for having the child has little bearing on the way the child is subsequently treated.

219

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory clearly divine according to the Christian tradition is love. Motives such as mercy, forgiveness, generosity, and loyalty derive from the central motive of love. We imitate God by loving what God loves.36 An interpretation of what this means that is very close to Divine Motivation theory was given in the early decades of the twentieth century by Max Scheler (1983): The love of God in its highest form is not to have love “for” God, the All-merciful – for a mere concept, in effect; it is to participate in His love for the world (amare mundum in Deo) and for Himself (amare Deum in Deo); in other words, it is what the scholastics, the mystics and Saint Augustine before them, called “amare in Deo.” If we wish to ascribe the highest of moral qualities to God, in the infinite mode of being, we can only do so by following Saint John and Saint Augustine, in treating love as the inmost essence of God Himself, and identifying Him as infinite Love. It is to this heart and centre of the Divine activity that His infinite mercy and absolute moral perfection belong as attributes. Hence there is but one basic moral relationship between men of good-will: as fellow-servants, partisans of a common Ideal and co-partners in a common Love. (p. 164)37

The ethical model this suggests to me is that God creates us out of love, but not in order to bring about an end. In imitation of God, we try to love as he loves, not for the sake of something else, not even for the sake of the love itself, but just because the love of God has the power to attract us, to make us want to imitate God. To learn to love like God is to learn to love just because we want to, and that means learning to become the kind of persons who love just because they want to. It may be difficult to understand how God is loving in Divine Motivation theory, because we are used to thinking of a loving being as one whose love consists in desiring the good of those they love. But if the good for human beings and other creatures derives from God’s love, that cannot be what God’s love consists 36

37

Compare Robert Adams’s position that good motives are forms of loving God (1999, p. 185). The translation I am quoting uses the word “co-partners.”

220

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God in. Further, as long as the lovingness of God is very different from the lovingness of creatures, it is hard to see how we can imitate God by being loving. Thomas Carson (2000) addresses the first problem with respect to his own divine preference theory of value. According to that theory, God’s preferences are the ultimate standard for the correctness/rationality of human preferences and for the goodness or badness of things. Specifically, if God exists, it is rational (correct) for a person S to have a certain preference p if and only if God prefers that S have p.38 Carson poses the problem I am addressing here as follows: “We cannot say that God’s being loving consists in the fact that God desires what is good for earthly creatures. It would be viciously circular to say that what is good and bad is determined by what a loving God desires and then to go on to define what it is for God to be loving in terms of what is good and bad for humans (independently of what God prefers)” (p. 246). Carson finds this problem particularly acute because he says that “it is likely that any plausible account of love (whether human or divine) presupposes independent notions of good and bad or welfare” (p. 248). Carson’s answer is that God has certain descriptive features – for example, being kind and sympathetic – that are sufficient to explain what it is for God to be loving without presupposing an independent notion of human welfare. Divine Motivation theory also includes the idea that God has properties of kindness, sympathy, mercy, and so on, but I do not think we need to refer to these properties to solve Carson’s problem, because the real issue is what love consists in, not whether a loving being has certain desires as a consequence of loving. Carson is right that it is common to think that love consists in desiring the welfare of the loved one, but it seems to me that such a desire is an effect of love, not a defining characteristic of the state of love itself. We do not think that it is constitutive of love in general that it includes desiring the welfare of the object, since it is perfectly reasonable to speak of loving objects that have no welfare. Someone may love philosophy, art, scientific truth, and many other things 38

Carson (2000) states his final version of the divine preference theory on p. 250.

221

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory that are not such that something can be good for them.39 I assume that love of persons and love of philosophy are both love in that they consist in the same type of emotion toward their objects. Differences between them obviously arise because they are different kinds of objects. Nonetheless, I see no reason to think that one consists in a desire for the welfare of the object whereas the other does not. However, love has characteristic ends, just as pity and anger have characteristic ends, and the characteristic end of love of persons is probably different from the characteristic end of love of philosophy. I have previously argued that emotions are not defined by their characteristic ends. Love is not identical to the state of desiring that something happen; it is an emotion directed toward an object that feels a characteristic way or, more accurately, a set of closely connected ways. Love is an emotion consisting of feeling a characteristic way toward something or someone seen as lovable. The object of the love of persons is the incommunicable personhood of the other. Such a state leads to a number of desires, including desiring the person’s welfare, but desiring the person’s welfare is not a constituent of the emotion. In the case of God’s love for His creatures, His love not only does not consist in desires for those creatures, but the desires to which his love leads are not desires for their welfare as such. God does not aim at whatever is good for us qua good for us. Rather, God has particular aims for us – that we have certain beliefs (true ones), that we have certain emotions (ones like his), that we use our practical reasoning in putting our motives into action, and so on. He also wants us to be healthy, to have friendships with other creatures and with himself. All of these things are good, but there is no need to say that God desires them because they are good or because they are good for us. He desires these things because that is what loving beings desire for those they love. What is good 39

Of course, there are things that are good for the discipline of philosophy, and someone who loves philosophy as a discipline will no doubt want the discipline to thrive. The case I am considering, however, is one in which a person loves philosophy itself, whether or not she also loves the discipline.

222

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God for us is just what God desires for us. I see no problem, then, in explaining what it is to love and to desire without a previous concept of good.

v the metaphysical source of value Motivation-based virtue theory is an ethical theory based on good emotions, the emotions of a paradigmatically good person. There are many such persons, but if there is a creator-God who both is a person and has a nature close to that described in the Christian tradition, then God is the ultimate paradigm of the good person. That is to say, God is both the ultimate paradigm of goodness and the ultimate paradigm of personhood. But as creator, his relation to the created universe differs significantly from the relation between good human persons and that universe. A good human person is confronted with a world that already possesses thick properties. She did not make the world have such properties, even though their existence requires a relation to beings with affect. The Creator is in a different position, since He is not confronted with a preexisting world. How is it that God creates a world with the thick properties that it has? If God did not create for an end, then He did not create in order that the world should have the thick properties that it had when it was created. As God’s creation, the world is an expression of His goodness, but as long as there are many possible worlds that God could have created, there are many worlds that are compatible with His nature and hence would have been expressions of divine goodness. Good therefore extends not only to whatever God is motivated to bring about, but also to what God could have been motivated to bring about. Evil is whatever is contrary to anything God could have been motivated to bring about. The reason that this world exists rather than some other world compatible with God’s motives is not explained by its goodness, but by God’s personhood. I suggest that this particular world is an expression of God’s personality, of his incommunicable individuality, not just an expression of his essential goodness. Aquinas argues that the Creation was the common work of the three persons of the Godhead, a view I see no reason to dispute (ST I, q. 45, a. 6). The Creation is 223

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory therefore the result of the personalities of all three persons of the Trinity. The incommunicable personhood of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is reflected in the world they created.40 The existence of the particular world that was created is therefore not entailed by the perfect goodness of its Creator. Many other possible worlds would have been compatible with the nature of God. But this world reveals the personality of the persons of the Trinity as well as the goodness of divine nature. We understand the divine personalities in the world itself and through Revelation. By contrast, the function of natural theology is to study the divine nature. Let us look a bit more closely at God’s emotions. The thick properties that the world has are those perceived by God. Their existence depends upon God’s affective perception. The lovability of the world comes into existence with God’s loving it; the despicability of certain features of the world comes into existence with God’s hating those features, and so on. Love has the distinction of being a central motive of God, and so lovability is a central thick property of creatures. My position is close to a well-known view of agape defended by Anders Nygren. Nygren (1953) writes: Agape is creative love. God does not love that which is already in itself worthy of love, but on the contrary, that which in itself has no worth acquires worth just by becoming the object of God’s love. Agape has nothing to do with the kind of love that depends on the recognition of a valuable quality in an object; agape does not recognize value; but creates it. Agape loves, and imparts value by loving. The man who is loved by God has no value in himself; what gives him value is precisely the fact that God loves him. (p. 78)

I think Nygren is right, at least in part. I agree that the love of God for human creatures does not depend upon the recognition of a valuable quality in creatures present in advance of the love. But what seems to me mistaken in the passage just quoted is 40

In “Christian Monotheism” (Zagzebski 1989) I argue for monotheism on the grounds that God has an individual essence. I think now that what is most interesting about the individuality of God is not his essence but his personhood. Even though God no doubt has an individual essence, it is his personhood that is the source of his incommunicability.

224

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God the implication that the dependence goes the other way: that the quality of lovability depends upon God’s love, which occurs in advance of the lovability of the creation. I am not certain of my interpretation of Nygren, but I think that Nygren believes that God creates a contingent world and then loves it, and the loving endows it with value. In my view, that is at best misleading. The property of lovability is the intentional object of the divine emotion of love; it is not caused by the emotion any more than the emotion is caused by lovability. Let us return to a comparison of thick properties to sensory properties. I have suggested that many, if not all, properties that we attribute to objects in the world are perceiver-dependent to some degree. Sensory properties are properties that we truly attribute to an object when there is a fit between our sensory dispositions and the way the object is, independent of us. Emotional properties – what I have been calling thick affective properties – are properties that we truly attribute to an object when there is a fit between our emotional dispositions and the way the object is, independent of us. Now consider color properties such as red. Does God perceive red things as red? Does God perceive smooth things as smooth, salty things as salty, musky things as musky, and melodious sounds as melodious? These properties seem to depend not only upon the observer’s having sensory faculties, but also on the particular sensory faculties that humans have. Note that the question I am asking is not whether God can know that red things are red or that salty food tastes salty. I assume that that question can be answered in the affirmative. What I am asking is whether God perceives red things as red, where I have been using the expression “as red” only for cases in which the perceiver has a sensation of red. If God does not have sensations but does have certain emotions, such as love, and if the way God perceives things is more real or more objective than the way we perceive things, it follows that lovability is more objective, more real, than redness. I find this an interesting consequence of Divine Motivation theory. What about God’s own thick properties? What does it mean to say that God is lovable if that does not mean deserving of love or having a property in advance that makes him lovable? It means that God loves himself, and his lovability is a constituent of his 225

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

II. Divine Motivation theory loving himself. God’s mercifulness is a constituent of his feeling the distinctive way toward himself that a person with the right emotion has when she perceives a merciful person. God sees Himself as merciful. And similarly for God’s other thick properties. With God as the ultimate exemplar, we can give a more complete answer to the question of what makes the paradigmatically good person’s emotions good ones. The answer given in motivation-based virtue theory is that those emotions fit their intentional objects. The more complete answer is that those emotions imitate the emotions that God has toward those objects. All moral properties are ultimately grounded in the emotional experience of God. The value of a human emotion in a given situation is limited by the emotions that God would have if He were in that situation. The anchoring of good emotion in the emotions of God makes Divine Motivation theory more clearly realist than motivationbased virtue theory would be without a supreme exemplar. In Divine Motivation theory, there is a metaphysical unity among paradigmatic good persons, since they all imitate God in their own way. The space of human autonomy is the range of difference among paradigmatic good persons. If there are nonhuman moral creatures, their paradigms also imitate God, but in a way that is characteristic of their species. Since humans imitate God only in a very partial and limited way, this means that God’s virtues correspond to only some of the traits that we consider human virtues. God’s virtues include not only the perfections of human traits, but also the perfections of the traits of any other moral creatures in existence. The same position is expressed by Aquinas: For just as God’s being is universally perfect, in some way or other containing within itself the perfection of all beings, so also must his goodness in some way or other contain within itself the goodness of all things. Now a virtue is a goodness belonging to a virtuous person, for “it is in accordance with it that one is called good, and what one does is called good” (NE 1106a 22-4). Therefore, in its own way the divine goodness must contain all virtues. (SCG X. 92.768).41 41

Translation by Norman Kretzmann, quoted in Kretzmann (1997), p. 251.

226

P1: Kcz/Jzy P2: Kcz 0521828805agg.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

12:35

The virtues of God God contains the perfections of all persons, human and nonhuman, but God does not have the perfections of every human trait. God has such virtues as justice, benevolence, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, love, compassion, loyalty, generosity, trustworthiness, integrity, and wisdom. God does not have courage, temperance, chastity, or piety, nor does He have faith or hope. Each of the virtues in the latter group involve handling emotions that are distinctive of limited and embodied creatures like ourselves. Sexual feelings make no sense when applied to a disembodied being, and since God does not have to deal with fear, the awareness of inferiority to a superior being, the sense of powerlessness, or the need for faith in Himself, it does not make sense to say that God has the virtues in this category. The human virtues that God does not have are mixed rather than pure perfections. This is a problem for Divine Motivation theory, because it is hard to see what it could mean for a human trait to be an imitation of a God Who does not have such a trait. What would it mean for a human virtue to be a trait that God would have if He were human? In addition, there is the problem that the divine virtues seem to be so metaphysically rarified that they lack those features of virtue that make it most advantageous – complexity, richness of detail, and narrative contextuality. It is hard to see how the virtues of God could have these features, yet these are the features that make the divine virtues most interesting and useful to us in living a moral life. We learn virtues by learning social practices and imitating virtuous persons, not by learning theology. I will argue in Chapter 6 that one of the purposes of the Incarnation is just this ethical purpose. Divine Motivation theory gives the Incarnation a central place in ethical theory.

227

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

Chapter 6 The moral importance of the Incarnation

In His immeasurable love He became what we are in order to make us what He is. Saint Irenaeus, Against the Heresies

i must christianity be an ethic of law? Christian theological ethics has usually been an ethic of law. It is worth considering why this is so. Is there something about Christian doctrine that requires it? Elizabeth Anscombe (1958) implies an affirmative answer in her classic paper, “Modern Moral Philosophy” (p. 30). There Anscombe argues not only that Christianity has a law ethic, but also that the favorite concept of modern British moral philosophers – obligation – makes no sense except within a law system of ethics.1 She goes on to argue that an ethics of law makes no sense without a divine lawgiver, so her conclusion is not only that Christian ethics is an ethics of law, but also that any philosopher who wants to retain the concept of obligation as developed within Western philosophy is logically committed to 1

Anscombe writes that “between Aristotle and us came Christianity, with its law conception of ethics [emphasis in original]” (p. 30). She goes on to say that it is not possible to have a law conception of ethics without believing in God as a lawgiver (p. 31).

228

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation the existence of God (p. 31). Unsurprisingly, most contemporary philosophers have rejected her second claim. Here I want to reject her first. The connection between Christianity and law-based ethics may be largely owing to historical contingencies that connected the development of Christianity with Roman law, but I wonder how deep the connection is in Christian doctrine. Since the alternative that I am proposing is a Christian virtue theory, it is startling to find Jerome Schneewind blaming Christianity’s promotion of morality as law for the earliest and most important “misfortune” that virtue ethics encountered.2 Schneewind does not give a theological argument for the antipathy of Christianity to virtue ethics.3 The closest he comes to doing so is his well-taken point that for many centuries Catholics were trained to think of sin as a discrete act in violation of God’s law: “From the earliest days of the practice of confession in the sixth century through the great flowering of casuistry in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries, Catholic moralists were preoccupied with specific acts which might or might not be sins, and with the appropriate penalties for them if they were.”4 If this is the reason for the Christian rejection of virtue ethics, it is a reason that no longer exists. For several decades, there has been a shift of focus from the idea of sins as discrete acts to the idea of sin as a pervasive individual and social condition. Sin is now seen as less like a crime and more like an orientation of person and community away from God, an approach that is more amenable to some form of virtue ethics.5 But there is a deeper reason for associating sin with a law-based conception of morality that Schneewind does not mention, and 2

3 4

5

J. B. Schneewind (1990), pp. 180–181. See also Schneewind (1998), p. 287, where he says essentially the same thing. For that matter, Anscombe (1958) gives no argument either. Schneewind (1990), p. 81. In a footnote, he cites John Mahoney (1981), especially Chapter 1, in support of this point. See, for example, the entry “sin” by Se´an Fagan, S.M., in The Modern Catholic Encyclopedia, edited by Michael Glazier and Monika Hellwig (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1994). The author says, “Sin is not seen so much as disobedience to law but as refusal to grow in humanity and into the likeness of Christ” (p. 808).

229

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory that is the doctrine of the Fall. This doctrine leads to a pessimistic view of the human condition that arguably prevents morality from attracting us. In the Prologue to her Tanner Lectures, Christine Korsgaard remarks that the Christian doctrine of the Fall led to a dissociation between reality and the good. Thereafter, morality was seen as something that has to be imposed on a recalcitrant nature.6 If morality has to be imposed on us, it is law. Once humans understand that they have fallen from grace, the glory days of ancient Greece when the real and the good were identified are over, or so it is argued. It seems to me, however, that morality as law cannot be seen merely as the result of the Fall, since in the story of Adam and Eve God gave them a command in advance of their lapse. It was, in fact, their disobedience to a divine command that constituted the Fall. So the Hebrews must have understood morality as intrinsically lawful. And the Greeks did not. More significantly, the Greek identification of reality and the good was not given up in subsequent Christian philosophy. Augustine and Boethius and Aquinas did not give it up – and they knew about the Fall.7 The experience of a Fall leads us to look outward for a way out of the human predicament, but it need not lead to a view of morality as something that has to be imposed upon us. As Korsgaard realizes, there is a form of the doctrine of the Fall even in Plato, the first and best theorist of morality as attraction rather than compulsion.8 The myth of the charioteer and the pair of winged horses in the Phaedrus poses the problem of why, if the human soul strives for perfection, it inevitably fails. “And now let us ask the reason why the soul loses her wings!” (246) The soul is eager to behold the plain of truth and is nourished there, “but when she is unable to follow, and fails to behold the truth, and through some ill-hap sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice, . . . her wings fall from her and she drops to the ground” (248). But in the next breath, Plato offers the possibility of ascending 6 7

8

Korsgaard (1996b), p. 4. For a good collection of contemporary papers on the relation of being and goodness in medieval theology, see Scott MacDonald (1991). Korsgaard (1996b), p. 3. She mentions the Platonic fall but not the rebirth.

230

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation again: “Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can return to the place from whence she came. For she cannot grow her wings in less; only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the soul of a lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire wings in the third of the recurring periods of a thousand years” (249). The Platonic fall comes from a failure in the pursuit of perfection. That is not experienced as sin, but only as deficiency. In the Christian story, the Fall is much worse, but the Redemption does much more than to raise human beings back to their prelapsarian state. The Incarnation and death of Christ make possible a higher level of perfection than was possible for Adam and Eve before the Fall. The Christian story combines the depths and the heights that humanity can reach with and without grace. So the imitation of Christ is not only an ethic meant to overcome the effects of the Fall; it is an ethic of perfection with both Greek and Roman roots.

ii the incarnation as an ethical doctrine 2 It seems to me that a moral theory that is Christian in any important way should refer to the person of Jesus Christ and the stories about his life, particularly as they are found in the Gospels. The reference to Christ ought to be an essential aspect of the theory. Christ is not just the instantiation of a set of virtues, and his life is not just an illustration of a set of general principles. If that were the case, someone else could have filled the role instead.9 This raises an interesting theological question: Should Christians think of the Incarnation as a central event in human moral awakening, or was its purpose limited to atonement for sin? For Anselm, the Incarnation was a drastic move in response to sin. It was not part of the original divine plan, and its primary purpose was the atonement. In the thirteenth century, Robert Grosseteste rejected Anselm’s view, contending that God would have become incarnate even if the human race had not fallen. 9

David Fergusson (1998, p. 56) makes this point.

231

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory The Incarnation would have perfected the human race and all of creation because it would have been a manifestation of divine goodness, wisdom, and power.10 Notice that the aims that Grosseteste identifies are not distinctively moral ones. God would have become incarnate for the sake of the order and excellence of the universe, a purpose that sounds more aesthetic than moral. Bonaventure was sympathetic with the positions of both Anselm and Grosseteste and declared both to be defensible, but he decided it was more consonant with piety to regard the Incarnation mainly as a remedy for sin.11 Aquinas concurred.12 However, Scotus enthusiastically adopted the view that God would have become incarnate even if Adam had not sinned. The hypostatic union is a proximate means of enlarging the Trinitarian community of co-lovers, and this was settled by God prior (in the explanatory order) to the Fall and God’s foreknowledge of the Fall. Scotus’s reason for rejecting the Anselmian/Thomistic position is particularly interesting: If the Incarnation were motivated only by the sin of Adam, then the best thing God does in Creation would be motivated by the worst thing creatures do, and that would be irrational.13 It seems to me that the Incarnation did have a moral purpose, whether or not it was the primary purpose and whether or not it was the only way God’s moral purpose for human beings could have been realized. For my aims in this book, the Incarnation provides a crucial link between the metaphysics of God described in the last chapter and exemplarist virtue theory. In discussing the doctrine, I am not going to address the coherence of the idea of one person and two natures or the religious significance of the Godman. Instead, I will focus on the implications of the Incarnation for a Christian virtue ethics. My thesis is quite simple. For Christians, Jesus Christ is the central paradigmatic good person. If, in addition, exemplars of good persons have the function that motivationbased virtue theory says they have, then the evaluative concepts 10 11 12 13

See Marilyn McCord Adams (1999). Adams (1999), p. 27. ST III, q. 1, a. 3, corpus. See Adams (1999), p. 51. Adams (1999), pp. 69–70.

232

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation defined in terms of the good person in Part I can be made richer and more concrete when understood with reference to Christ. The imitatio Christi has advantages over the imitatio Dei, particularly if we adopt the lofty metaphysical view of God inherited from the Greeks that I endorsed in Chapter 5. The more worthy of adoration a being is, the less like human beings it is. We cannot imitate a being too far above us, and it is hard to have a relationship with a being who is not human.14 Arthur Holmes (1997) explains how this problem of imitation was handled in Christian theology by (perhaps ironically) adopting a Platonic theme: A salient Middle Platonist theme that attracted Christians was of course the divine Logos within an eternal trinity. This provides the needed link between a transcendent God and his creation, one that ascribes to God himself the rational ordering of creation. It involved changing the Stoic view that corporeal seeds of the cosmic Logos govern nature into a more Platonic or Pythagorean view of logos as immaterial forms immanent in all finite things; thereby both the world and the rational souls participate in eternal archetypes in the divine Nous or Logos. Christ is then the Logos both of human knowledge and of creation. (p. 37)

The imitatio Dei is made possible by the imitatio Christi. The divine nature is so far above human nature that the only way human persons can imitate God is by imitating a person who combines the divine nature with human nature. This leads to the theological issue of the relationship between the historical Jesus and the Christ of subsequent theology. That is an extremely important question, but I will not address it in this book. My objective is to show how the traditional doctrine of the Incarnation can be integrated into Divine Motivation theory. That can be done in a number of different ways, and as I go along I will refer to the work of theologians whose work I find particularly relevant to the purpose. Irenaeus and Bonhoeffer are separated by eighteen centuries, but I find 14

I am not denying that we have relationships with dogs, cats, horses, and a few other animals, but then the distance between us and them is not really so great.

233

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory both of them helpful for their interpretations of the significance of the Incarnation for virtue ethics. The work of moral theologians in narrative ethics is also important, but I see no reason to try to duplicate it. Instead, I will indicate how that work can be given a theoretical structure. The traditional doctrine that Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity incarnate, brings together exemplarist virtue theory and a metaphysics of value grounded in the creator-God. Christians generally agree that there is some sense in which Jesus Christ is God or “the Son of God,” and some sense in which he is human or “the Son of Man,” although there are differences of interpretation, which I will try to avoid. Even fictional persons can act as exemplars, but the traditional doctrine that the Christ of subsequent theology was a real historical person identical to Jesus of Nazareth is important for the ethical theory of this book for many reasons, among which is the fact that the value of the incommunicability of persons is difficult to see and to defend if the exemplar is not also an incommunicable person. So while it is not essential that the theory use the high Christology I am adopting, it is important both that there be an historical exemplar about whom we have vivid descriptions, and that that exemplar bear a special relationship of identity with, or at least resemblance to, God. I assume identity, but resemblance will serve the purpose. The imitation of Christ is an important way in which Christians get their Christian identity. The God of the philosophers may not be a person with whom most persons feel they can have a relationship, but Jesus Christ is different. Even if there are doubts about the personhood of God, there can be no doubt about the personhood of Jesus. Even those theologians who doubt that the historical Jesus was God and rose from the dead do not doubt that he was a person who had an incredibly powerful effect on the people who knew him. He was paradigmatically good.15 At a minimum, he had as good a claim to being a paradigmatic good person 15

Those who do not identify Jesus of Nazareth with the Christ of Christian theology can adapt this theory by recognizing two paradigms. Christ is an abstraction, the preeminent paradigm; Jesus is the closest approximation to Christ that we know of.

234

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation as any outstanding holy person in history. Most non-Christians probably can agree with that,16 although they also have other exemplars. Christians have other exemplars, too, but Christ is preeminent. The idea of imitatio Christi is so deeply embedded in the practice of the Christian religion that it is wise to remind ourselves that its centrality is not a license just to interpret it in any way that happens to be edifying, certainly not if our purpose is to do ethical theory. Iris Murdoch (1970) complains that in the later work of Kierkegaard the imitatio Christi degenerated into romantic selfindulgence, and whether or not that is a fair criticism of one of the most interesting Christian philosophers, I think that as a general caution, Murdoch’s point is well taken.17 The imitation of saints, heroes, sages, and even Nietzschean supermen has many hazards. Not only is there the danger of romanticizing the object, there is also the danger of a kind of inverted egoism: In identifying with my hero, I may begin to think that I am he. The danger of romanticizing is enhanced when the idea of imitatio Christi is combined with another one of my theses – that in the Incarnation, God reveals to us His primary motive in the creation, the central emotion in His nature: love. Christians have been talking about love for two millennia – and, of course, non-Christians have been talking about it much longer than that – but much of this discourse is unhelpful for the philosophical purpose of understanding the structure of the moral life. It is very difficult to say anything about love that is clear, true, and new. What I will try to do here is not to say anything specific about love that is clear and true, much less new, but to do something that I think can make the true expositions of others clearer and more persuasive than they would be otherwise, at least for those readers who expect ethical claims to be clearly related to a system of ideas that we use in ethical evaluation – in other words, to philosophers and those who think like philosophers. Love may be critical for a moral life, 16

17

An exception is Michael Martin (1991, Chapter 6), who objects to the character of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels. Murdoch herself says that she hesitates to criticize Kierkegaard when he suffered so much for telling people some important truths (pp. 102–103).

235

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory but it is more authoritatively so if a believable theory has a place for it. I have expressed a worry about the dangers of any attempt to make imitation a central feature of my theory, but that worry is not insurmountable. A harder problem arises from another of Murdoch’s comments in the same paper. She remarks on how riveting Kant is when he says that even when confronted with Christ, a man still consults his own reason: How recognizable, how familiar to us, is the man so beautifully portrayed in the Grundlegung, who confronted even with Christ turns away to consider the judgement of his own conscience and to hear the voice of his own reason. Stripped of the exiguous metaphysical background which Kant was prepared to allow him, this man is with us still, free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, brave, the hero of so many novels and books of moral philosophy. (p. 101)

And, I would add, he is clearly recognizable as an American folk hero. But rather than delving into the ethical intricacies of American mythology, let us look at the rest of Murdoch’s paragraph, which is revealing: The raison d’etre of this attractive but misleading creature is not far to seek. He is the offspring of the age of science, confidently rational and yet increasingly aware of his alienation from the material universe which his discoveries reveal; and since he is not a Hegelian (Kant, not Hegel, has provided Western ethics with its dominating image), his alienation is without cure. He is the ideal citizen of the liberal state, a warning held up to tyrants. He has the virtue which the age requires and admires, courage. It is not such a very long step from Kant to Nietzsche, and from Nietzsche to existentialism and the Anglo-Saxon ethical doctrines which in some ways closely resemble it. In fact Kant’s man had already received a glorious incarnation nearly a century earlier in the work of Milton: his proper name is Lucifer.

Murdoch goes on to say that the center of this way of looking at ethics is the notion of the will as the creator of value. I hope it is 236

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation clear that one of my purposes in this book is to shake that notion, but I also want it to be clear that I know what the alternative to my view is, and how attractive it is in its own way. 2 The Incarnation shifts the ethical direction. Christ is the Word made flesh, the perfect revelation of the Father, which means that to the Christian, God is most perfectly revealed, not in a set of commandments or in any written or spoken words, but in a person. Jesus says he comes to fulfill the law, not to destroy it (Matt. 5:17). Through him, we have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature. (See Eph. 1:9.) We do that by imitation. “In a word, as God’s dear children, try to be like him, and live in love as Christ loved you” (Eph. 5:1). The whole law is summed up in love (Romans 13:8–10). So Paul tells us to imitate Christ. In doing so, we imitate the Father: “Be perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Following Paul, Aquinas argued that the New Law is a fulfillment of the Old Law of the Hebrew Scriptures: As the father of a family issues different commands to the children and to the adults, so also the one King, God, in His one kingdom, gave one law to men while they were yet imperfect, and another more perfect law, when, by the preceding law, they had been led to a greater capacity for Divine things. (ST 1a2ae, q. 91, a. 5)18

Paul argues that we enter into a new type of humanity through Christ, the new ad¯am (Rom. 5:12–14). We “put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27) as members of a redeemed species: If in union with Christ we have imitated his death, we shall also imitate him in his resurrection. We must realize that our former selves have been crucified with him to destoy this sinful 18

The family analogy is interesting, since in modern Western families the father of a family does not command adults. Only the children get commands.

237

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory body and to free us from the slavery of sin. When a man dies, of course, he has finished with sin. But we believe that having died with Christ we shall return to life with him: Christ, as we know, having been raised from the dead will never die again. Death has no power over him any more. When he died, he died, once for all, to sin, so his life now is life with God, and in that way, you too must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 6:5–11)

In the letter to the Philippians, Paul quotes (or possibly invents) a very early Christian hymn in which he tells his converts that they must have the same attitude of self-sacrifice that Christ did. Just before reciting the hymn, Paul says, “In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). Then he launches into the hymn, which moves from Christ’s divine preexistence, to his kenosis (self-emptying) in the Incarnation, to his further kenosis in death, and then to his glorification and adoration by the cosmos: His state was divine yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself, to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross. But God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:6–11)

238

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation Here we see both the theme of imitation and the idea that Christ preexisted his earthly life. Some forty years later (ca. 100 ad), the author of St. John’s Gospel has a similar idea: “In the beginning was the Word (logos)” through whom all things were made.19 We will return to the Johannine theme when we look at the dramatic Christology of Irenaeus. Given the hold that Divine Command theory has had on a good portion of Christian ethics, I find it illuminating to note how little there is of commandment and law in the New Testament, and how much there is of the imitation of the virtues of Christ. The New Testament does not rescind the Ten Commandments, which give the content of morality, but the issue is whether we are to think of the commandments as constitutive of morality. Even when Christ gives commands, his injunctions generally call us to have motivations, the basic components of virtues, as in the Beatitudes and the two great commandments of love (Matt. 22:37–40). So even when commands appear in the New Testament, we are typically called not to will, but to be motivated in a virtuous way. So Saint Paul says, “Owe no one anything but to love one another” (Rom. 13:8). The Golden Rule appeals to a motive and only secondarily to a volition. We imagine how we would want to be treated and imaginatively project our own wants onto others. This leads us to have an emotional response to other persons that motivates our treatment of them. In the Gospels, we see Jesus in a variety of human circumstances that produce recognizable human emotions, including weariness, anxiety, sadness, anger, joy, sorrow, love, something close to despair, and the feelings that accompany temptation. Jesus, “the man of sorrows,” clearly has emotions, and not all of them are positive. We are called to imitate his emotions and their expression in action, and this appears in the liturgy. When Christ washes his disciples’ feet, he says, “You should wash one another’s feet” (John 13:13– 14); and the celebrant of the Easter Vigil service, whether Pope or humble parish priest, does that every year. The New Testament 19

We cannot conclude from these texts in which Paul and John speak of the preexistent life of Jesus that they were thinking of him as a divine person in the later Trinitarian sense. (See Amstrong 1993, p. 89.)

239

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory focuses primarily on emotions as motives that give us both an impetus to act in characteristic ways and a new way of looking at things. If we had the emotions of Christ, we would see things differently, and that is why we would act differently. In the New Testament, our motive for loving and forgiving is not that we are to follow God’s commands, but that God himself loves and forgives. We see that there is no limit on the forgiveness of injuries because it corresponds to God’s forgiveness of us, not because it will win over the offender or because God wills it (Matt. 18:21ff.). The motive for imitation is that what we are imitating is love we have already received. Love is naturally imitative. “We love because He first loved us” (I John 4:18). “God is love” (I John 4:16). We forgive because we have been forgiven, and we love because we are loved. The ethics that we learn from the New Testament can be systematized into a deontological theory only with great difficulty. It seems to me that the message is primarily one of transforming our vision of ourselves, the world, and our relation to God. In seeing things differently, we become differently motivated, and in being differently motivated, we act differently. Action is the fruit of a deeper way in which the person is transformed. “Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:24). 3 One writer whose interpretation of the Incarnation fits well into the structure I am proposing is the first great Christian theologian, St. Irenaeus, who was born in Asia Minor around 130 ad, became Bishop of Lyons, and died a martyr. In Against the Heresies, Irenaeus uses the Johannine theme to combat Gnosticism and its flight from the world and the body. Jesus is the incarnated Son of God, the Word and image of the Father; therefore, man is the vessel of God and the earth his dwelling place.20 The world has 20

Compare Thomas Langan’s (1998) use of the lovely phrase “the supreme miracle, the divinization of matter” (p. 24).

240

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation been redeemed by Christ’s suffering in the flesh and continually receives God’s gift of eternal life in the Eucharist. The profound mystery of the Incarnation – and that which makes it such a scandal to the Gnostics – is that the gulf between humanity and God has been bridged. “In His immeasurable love He became what we are in order to make us what He is.”21 Irenaeus was also concerned to combat the Gnostic idea of a secret knowledge available only to the few. Ultimately, God can be known only through God, a revelation for all humanity, so we know God through Christ: “No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known” (John 1:18). From the beginning, the Son is the revealer of the Father, since from the beginning He is with the Father. At the fitting time, and for our profit, He has shown the human race, in a rational and harmonious way, the prophetic visions, the diversity of graces, His own ministrations, and the glorification of the Father. For where there is rationality, there is harmony, and where there is harmony, there is a fitting time, and where there is a fitting time, there is profit. That is why the Word became the dispenser of His Father’s grace for the profit of men. It was for them that He accomplished such great dispositions, showing God to men, presenting man to God. He safeguarded the invisibility of the Father, lest man become the despiser of God, and so that he might always have something towards which he could advance. At the same time He made God visible to men through many dispensations, lest man, wholly bereft of God, should cease to exist. For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God. (Irenaeus 1981, p. 44)

Irenaeus then tells us how the image of God is shown through the Incarnation in a way that reinterprets the imitatio Dei of the Hebrew Scriptures: The truth of this was shown when the Word of God became man, assimilating Himself, so that, by His resemblance to the 21

Irenaeus 1981, p. 54.

241

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory Son, man might become precious to the Father. For in times past it was said that man was made in the image of God, but not shown, because the Word, in whose image man was made, was still invisible. That is why man lost the likeness so easily. But when the Word of God was made flesh, He confirmed both things: He showed the true image, when He Himself became what His image was; and He restored and made fast the likeness, making man like the invisible Father through the visible Word. (p. 56)

Irenaeus’s answer to the question “Cur Deus Homo?” – why did God become man? – is not just that he had to in order to atone for the sins of man. Irenaeus gives an explanation that refers to the ethics of imitation: There was no other way by which we could learn the things of God than for our Teacher, who is the Word, to become man. No other could have revealed to us the secrets of the Father, none but the Father’s very own Word. “For who (else) has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor?” (cf. Rom. 11:34). Again, there was no other way for us to learn than to see our Teacher and hear His voice with our own ears. It is by becoming imitators of His actions and doers of His words that we have communion with Him. It is from Him who has been perfect from before all creation that we, so lately made, receive fulfillment. (p. 57)

Irenaeus stresses that the Revelation appropriate for us is a Revelation for children, and his view of the atonement for the Fall of Adam and Eve expresses the same sensibility. He says: It was for this reason that the Word of God, though perfect, became a child in solidarity with mankind. He did not do this for His own sake but because of the state of childhood in which man then existed. He wanted to be received in a way that suited man’s capacity to receive. (p. 66)

Irenaeus’s Chrisology is stunning for its transformation of the story of human tragedy into glory. As Hans Urs von Balthasar 242

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation (1990) says in his Introduction to the recent editon of the work of Irenaeus from which I have been quoting, “Everything in Irenaeus is bathed in a warm and radiant joy, a wise and majestic gentleness. . . . He does not try to persuade by means of syllogisms; he lets the truth shine and warm like the sun. . . . In the noblest sense of the word he is na¨ıve, as na¨ıve as God’s Word was in human form. In this sign he ‘overcame the world’” (pp. 9–10).

4 I would like now to comment on the theological ethics of another martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died at the hands of the Nazis. Bonhoeffer’s ethic is meant for a redeemed humanity, and it has much of the liberating luster of Irenaeus. In the opening sentence of his Ethics (1995), he says, “The knowledge of good and evil seems to be the aim of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to invalidate this knowledge.” We discover what he means by this in the way he tells the story of the Fall. Bonhoeffer puts the methodology of ethics into his story, so that ethical theory itself is one of the things that needs redemption. He says that in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve did acquire that knowledge, a point that is often lost in the countless retellings of the story. But he says it is a knowledge we are better off without. In trying to be like God, not only have we been cut off from God, we have also succeeded in acquiring the mind of a judge; our very conscience is a mark of what we would never have needed in our innocence. So the project of doing Christian ethics is a product of the Fall. Ethics arises from conflict, from disunion. “All these disunions are varieties of the disunion in the knowledge of good and evil. ‘The point of decision of the specifically ethical experience is always conflict.’ But in conflict the judge is invoked; and the judge is the knowledge of good and evil; he is man” (pp. 29–30).22 The remedy 22

Bonhoeffer quotes from Spranger, Lebensformen, 7th ed., p. 283. (No other bibliographic information is given.)

243

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory is not more refined moral judgment, but reconciliation, and that is the theme of the New Testament: Now anyone who reads the New Testament even superficially cannot but notice the complete absence of this world of disunion, conflict, and ethical problems. Not man’s falling apart from God, from men, from things and from himself, but rather the rediscovered unity, reconciliation, is now the basis of the discussion and the “point of decision of the specifically ethical experience.” The life and activity of men is not at all problematic or tormented or dark: it is self-evident, joyful, sure and clear. (p. 30)

So as Bonhoeffer interprets the Fall, one of its results was gaining the knowledge of good and evil, becoming a judge, acquiring a conscience – and that must be redeemed. Bonhoeffer says it is “Jesus Christ [who] occupies within him (the redeemed human) exactly the space which was previously occupied by his knowledge of good and evil” (p. 45). In making this remark, Bonhoeffer is also doing the conventional thing, centering Christian ethics on the person of Christ. “The point of departure for Christian ethics is not the reality of one’s own self, or the reality of the world; nor is it the reality of standards and values. It is the reality of God as He reveals Himself in Jesus Christ” (pp. 187–188). Centering Christian ethics on Christ is important, but it is not unusual. What is unusual is Bonhoeffer’s assertion that Christ is a replacement for what ethics normally aims to achieve – the knowledge of good and evil. Bonhoeffer does not remove God’s will from his ethic, but it is not a will that commands and promulgates law. “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the will of God” (Rom. 12:2). Commenting on this passage, Bonhoeffer says: Now how does a man set about this “proving” what is the will of God”? The crucial precondition for this is that this proving takes place solely on the basis of a “metamorphosis,” a complete inward transmutation of one’s previous form, a “renewing of mind” (Rom. 12.2), a “walking as children of light” (Eph. 5.8). This metamorphosis of man can only be the overcoming of the

244

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation form of the fallen man, Adam, and conformation with the form of the new man, Christ. (p. 42)23

This is an important point, to which I will return when we talk about what we imitate when we imitate Christ. The imitation of Christ involves the attempt to become a new self, a self that is clearly myself, but also the self that I recognize that I am not yet. In Chapter 4, I argued that what is common to the experience of obligation is seeing oneself in a situation that demands a certain response with respect to an ideal self. The trouble is that our ideal self is partly obvious from the inside, from “inside our skins,” but partly not. We need something on the outside to show us the way to that self. The ideal selves of others are not the same as my ideal self, and the difference is important enough that I will return to it. What I want to concentrate on now is the respect in which all ideal human selves are the same. And Christians believe that that has already been revealed: The will of God, therefore, is not an idea, still demanding to become real; it is itself a reality already in the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. . . . After Christ has appeared, ethics can have but one purpose, namely, the achievement of participation in the reality of the fulfilled will of God. But this participation, too, is possible only in virtue of the fact that I myself am already included in the fulfillment of the will of God in Christ, which means that I am reconciled with God. (p. 209)

Here Bonhoeffer is not rejecting the centrality of the will of God, but he is arguing that it is not primarily expressed in commandments. Since the Incarnation, the will of God is both perfectly expressed and perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Our job is to recognize that we are reconciled with God, to see reality in a different way. “Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the 23

Wai-tung Cho has pointed out to me that the last sentence quoted from Bonhoeffer is important. Bonhoeffer did not see himself as promoting an ethic of the imitation of Christ, since that suggests that we are more selfinitiating than we are able to be. Instead, he saw his ethic as one of conforming to Christ through the grace of God, which expresses our position as receptive of divine grace in the transformation of the self.

245

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory world around you, but let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do” (Rom. 12:2).24 We see the world and ourselves as loved and reconciled to God. Only in Jesus Christ do we know what love is, namely, in His deed for us. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.” (I John 3:16). And even here there is given no general definition of love, in the sense, for example, of its being the laying down of one’s life for the lives of others. What is here called love is not this general principle but the utterly unique event of the laying down of the life of Jesus Christ for us. Love is inseparably bound up with the name of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God. The New Testament answers the question “What is Love?” quite unambiguously by pointing solely and entirely to Jesus Christ. He is the only definition of love. But again it would be a complete misunderstanding if we were to derive a general definition of love from our view of Jesus Christ and of His deed and His suffering. Love is not what He does and what He suffers, but it is what He does and what He suffers. Love is always He Himself. Love is always God Himself. Love is always the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. (pp. 53–54)

Perhaps Bonhoeffer would think that what I am doing in this book represents a search for the knowledge of good and evil and is therefore one of the things that needs to be redeemed. But his view that the person of Christ takes the place of abstract concepts fits the structure of exemplarism very well. Bonhoeffer concentrates on love, and it is doubtful whether an entire ethical theory can be based on the love revealed in a particular person. But that person exemplifies other motives than love: He has virtues, he acts, and he adopts particular ends. Bonhoeffer does not reject ethical inquiry as such – presumably that is what he is doing in his own 24

This is a different translation of the same verse that Bonhoeffer quotes and comments on two pages earlier. Mine is the translation from the Jerusalem Bible.

246

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation book – but he argues that ethical inquiry should be conducted through a different kind of activity than the purely cognitive activity of ordinary philosophy: All concepts of reality which do not take account of Him are abstractions. When good has become reality in Jesus Christ, there is no more force in any discussion of good which plays off what should be against what is and what is against what should be. Jesus Christ cannot be identified either with an ideal or standard or with things as they are. . . . The irreconcilable conflict between what is and what should be is reconciled in Christ, that is to say, in the ultimate reality. Participation in this reality is the true sense and purpose of the enquiry concerning good. (pp. 192–193)

I find Bonhoeffer’s thought conceptually slippery, which is probably purposeful, and it may be more compatible with his view of ethics to give an example of a person who lives the ethics he is describing than to try to explain how we can define love by pointing to a person, or how we can manage to do philosophy without the knowledge of good and evil. This brings us to the crucial role of narratives.

iii the imitation of christ and narrative ethics 1 What would it be like to see one’s world as redeemed? I can think of one character in literature who fits Bonhoeffer’s description. Flaubert’s novella A Simple Heart is the story of a housemaid, F´elicit´e, who is a child of light. Her world is encompassed by hard work, religious observance, the simple pleasures of domestic life, and her love for her nephew and the two children of her rather cold mistress, whom she serves with serenity and grace. F´elicit´e loses everyone she loves. The boy she falls in love with in her youth marries someone else, her nephew and the little girl die, the son of her mistress goes away and forgets her, and she loses her pet parrot, the comfort of her old age. Near the end of her 247

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory life she goes deaf, and one day, while walking along a road, she is unable to hear the shouts of an approaching driver, who lashes her with his whip as he goes by in anger at her for obstructing his passage. She is shaken, and her pain reminds her temporarily of all the pains and losses of her life, but she does not see her life as painful. She soon regains the way she had always perceived her life, as redeemed, although she clearly does not have the theological concept of redemption or any other abstract theological concept. For F´elicit´e, Jesus Christ occupies the place of the knowledge of good and evil; she lacks the mind of a judge; she feels no conflict or disharmony, either within herself or with others. She loves in a Christlike way, and although she suffers repeatedly, she does so with acceptance and without anger. She is a happy person, and she dies in the peaceful vision of the love that has allowed her to live in a world most of us do not recognize. The simplicity of F´elicit´e is a virtue, but nobody who hears about her and understands what she is could be like her. To understand is already to be a different kind of person. This was Tolstoy’s problem in My Confession. He could admire the simple faith of the peasants, but he could never imitate it. Perhaps that means that one cannot lose the knowledge of good and evil once one has it. Or perhaps it means that there is a difference between recaptured innocence and the innocence of those who have never lost it. Bonhoeffer is speaking of the world of the former, not the latter, and F´elicit´e’s innocence may be too close to the latter to serve as a model for the people who read Bonhoeffer. I doubt that there is anything we can do about that, and I doubt that we would want to, because we would not want everyone to be as simple as F´elicit´e. Our problem is that seeing the world as redeemed is only one of the things we have to accomplish. We also have to live with those who do not see the world the same way. Naivet´e does not make good politics. A different approach to the imitation of Christ is given in the fourteenth-century classic Meditaciones Vite Christi, long attributed to Saint Bonaventure but actually composed by the Italian Franciscan John de Caulibus, who wrote it to serve as an inspiration for a Poor Clare nun for whom he was spiritual 248

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation advisor.25 Caulibus describes scenes from the life of Christ as if they were eyewitness accounts. He adds vivid physical details and additional conversations that expresses the inner feelings of the participants, and he expands on the narratives with the intention of getting the reader “to notice every detail as if she were present” (quoted in Hundersmarck [2003], p. 53). In his retelling of the Gospel stories, he emphasizes the woman’s point of view and the poverty of Christ, in this way bringing the life of Christ alive for the Poor Clare nun in a way that spoke to her directly in the role she had chosen in life. The book became immensely popular, and it is thought to have influenced Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. This powerful influence of Meditaciones Vite Christi shows the importance of narratives that approach direct experience as closely as possible. But a good narrative has some advantages over direct experience. Even with a wealth of detail, a narrative is selective. A real eyewitness might not notice or give sufficient attention to the important details. Moreover, a real eyewitness can witness an event only once. Afterwards, the event is only as alive to her as her own memory and imagination permit it to be. A good narrative recreates the event over and over for the imaginative reader. The life situation of a fourteenth-century Poor Clare nun is not very similar to the lives of very many people in the twenty-first century, not even the nuns. The efforts of Caulibus presumably had a strong impact on the way our nameless nun lived her life, but their effect on us, while inspirational, is less likely to have much influence on what we do from day to day. Thus, the gap between the Gospels and twenty-first century fiction is much greater than that between the Gospels and fourteenth-century fiction. This is as it should be, given what we are. But it does not mean that Christ cannot be seen in twenty-first century lives, fictional or otherwise. More demands of imagination are made on us, because we have to see the essence of a life as something that has less to do with the 25

See the fascinating account of this work by Lawrence Hundersmarck (2003), from which the description I give in this paragraph is taken.

249

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory story line itself and more to do but with the motives and virtues it expresses. 2 At the beginning of the Introduction to his monumental work Christ, Edward Schillebeeckx (1981) says: It began with an encounter. Some people – Aramaic – and perhaps also Greek-speaking Jews – came into contact with Jesus of Nazareth and stayed with him. This encounter, and what took place in the life of Jesus and in connection with his death, gave their personal lives new meaning and new significance. They felt that they had been born again, that they had been understood, and this new identity found expression in a similar solidarity towards others, their fellow-men. This change in the course of their lives was the result of their encounter with Jesus, for without him they would have remained what they had been (see I Cor. 15:17). (p. 19)

Christians will assuredly agree with Schillebeeckx that the encounter with Jesus transformed the lives of the people who knew him. The experience was significant enough that its effect continues to this day. Even apart from theological doctrine, that is enough to lead many Christian ethicists to emphasize that Christian ethics is rooted in a person rather than in principles or in virtues considered as abstract qualities of character. But there are other reasons for using Christ as an exemplar. Keith Ward (1970) argues that an exemplar unifies values in a coherent and integrally related pattern. A list of abstract values does not tell us what is morally demanded; that is revealed in the life of an exemplar.26 My own view has already been explained. We have a practical need 26

See Ward (1970), Chapter 6, “The Christian Exemplar,” esp. section 3. But Ward argues that Christ embodies the perfect moral response that the rest of us are not able to figure out on our own. “It is because men cannot discern the moral demand in its true nature that some guide is needed as to just what attitudes are demanded. And it is at this point that lists of abstract values lack the unifying and coherent character of an exemplary life” (p. 96). This implies that we would not need Christ as exemplar if we

250

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation for exemplars because we learn by imitation, and there is a theoretical advantage in understanding moral concepts by reference to exemplars. Persons are best known by direct acquaintance, but they are also revealed in stories, so it is natural for Christian ethicists to be attracted to the narrative approach to ethics, particularly narratives about the life of Christ. Learning by imitation is possible through stories, not through discursive reasoning, and narratives impact our lives more fully than does ethical theory. That may be so obvious that there is no point in commenting on it. But what I find worrisome is that the narrative approach to ethics is often thought to be in conflict with theory.27 I have insisted that the human need to theorize is an important one. The challenge, as I see it, is to produce an ethical theory that shows the importance of narrative within the theory. If narrative illuminates the ethical life, a theory should explain why that is the case. Philosophers do not tell stories – at least not good ones – but we can tell where the story fits. When early Christian writers wrote homilies that encouraged the faithful to imitate Jesus and the prophets, and when later writers wrote inspirational lives of the saints, Christians were following an ethical tradition that has existed since before the invention of written language. In the century before the birth of Christ, Plutarch argued in his classic Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans that virtue is learned by imitation: “Virtue, by the bare statement of its actions, can affect men’s minds so as to to create at once both admiration of the things done and the desire to imitate the doers of them” (p. 183). Aristotle had observed that virtue is learned by imitation of the virtuous person and had argued for the superiority of moral knowledge acquired by observation of the particular. In concluding his definition of “virtue” in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says, “For among accounts concerning actions, though the general ones are common to more cases, the specific ones are truer, since actions are about particular

27

had greater moral insight. My position is stronger: The moral life involves imitation of exemplars anyway, not just because of our stupidity. For a recent example, see Levine (1998).

251

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory cases, and our account must accord with these” (1107a 30). This aspect of Aristotle’s moral philosophy has been extensively explored by Martha Nussbaum (e.g., 1986, 1990). Narrative also has a central place in the ethics of Stanley Hauerwas (e.g., 1981, 1983, 1987) and other Christian ethicists. Hauerwas and the school of thought he represents argue that the church has been shaped by narratives that are not simply used as instances of some universal truth. I have no hesitation in sanctioning an approach to ethics that makes the particular story central and irreplaceable by any other story that allegedly fits some general truth. But I do object to deprecating theory. One of the assumptions behind the anti-theory movement is that there is a narrative/theory dichotomy. Consider the first sentence of the Introduction to a collection of papers on that movement: “Most modern moral philosophers have pursued a common project in ethics: the search for a theory providing universal principles that apply systematically to particular cases.”28 This may be true as a general account of what many moral philosophers do, but it is not the project of theory. Not all theories give definitions, produce principles, and then apply them, as the theory of this book illustrates. Another confusion of the anti-theory movement is the thought that the theory/narrative distinction corresponds to the universal/particular distinction. The editors of the anti-theory volume just mentioned make this assumption. Theory does deal with concepts, and concepts are not particular, but as we have seen, it is possible for certain terms to be defined by direct reference. Defining “water” as “whatever is the same chemical constitution as the stuff in this glass” does not exemplify a move from theory to anti-theory in natural science, nor is defining “good” as “whatever is like a person like that” a move from theory to anti-theory in ethics. The alleged conflict between theory and narrative ethics is always based on a theoretical position of some kind, often the position that the particular is metaphysically primary. There may be some other metaphysical position underlying the position that narrative is superior to theory, but there is always something 28

Clarke and Simpson (1989), p. 1.

252

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation that allegedly makes narrative superior, and that is something theoretical. Theory is used somewhere, even when it is used to cast doubt on the pretensions of theory. I have proposed a metaphysical position on the nature of persons that explains the importance of narrative for reasons that are independent of the debate about theory and anti-theory. That is the view that persons are incommunicable. If incommunicability is what we call that which makes a person outstrip a nature, and if the incommunicability of a person is valuable, then there is a radical particularity in each human person and in every state of affairs that has human persons as constituents. This metaphysical point makes the ethical focus on particular persons and narratives crucial. In my view, then, theory and ethical particularity are not in conflict. The interesting question is which theoretical framework best explains that particularity. It follows that in spite of the fact that theory is necessary for thinking carefully about ethics, theory is not enough for the purposes that ethical theory is intended to serve without narrative – or at least, without something that permits us to capture the incommunicable uniqueness of persons. We cannot understand ethics without reference to particular persons. This would be true even without the Incarnation. There is probably more than one reason for this, but I find the incommunicability of human persons the most compelling reason. We discover the incommunicability of persons best by acquaintance. Narratives give us a facsimile of it, and it is the best we can get for persons with whom we cannot be directly acquainted. Christian writers have often said that the value of our own personhood is revealed in the Incarnation.29 It is hard to believe that an infinite deity could love each one of us, but we can see that love revealed in the act of God sending his Son to die for us. The Incarnation reveals our personhood in another way by showing us the value of being an embodied human with a unique personal history. On some conceptions of the self, its personal history is purely accidental to it. It is doubtful that many people actually believe this, but if they did, it would lead to a curious alienation 29

See Langan (1998), p. 47.

253

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory between a person and his environment. Clearly, the historical life and death of Christ is not accidental to who he is. The Gospel narratives reveal the importance of the historical contingencies that shape who we are, and arguably they reveal the incommunicability of our personhood by revealing the unique personhood of Jesus. Throughout his life, Jesus also models the following of one’s own personal calling – becoming an ideal self, the person God intends each of us to be. There is a cherished view on the status of moral truth that need not be given up with a narrative approach, although many moral philosophers assume the contrary. That is the position that there are necessary moral truths. If moral truths are contingent, it is argued, they cannot have the authority that is the special prerogative of the moral realm. But if necessary truths can be known only a priori, narratives cannot be a way of discovering moral truth, only a way of demonstrating its application. This seems to force us to choose between the position that moral truths are necessary and the position that narratives can give us moral knowledge in any way other than practical application. The theory I have defended in this book permits us to avoid such a choice. Recall that Kripke argued that there are necessary a posteriori truths about natural kinds, of which “Water is H2 O” is a prime example. Presumably, we know some proposition p a posteriori as long as empirical investigation is required in part to know p. p is known a posteriori if it is inferred from a set of premises some of which may be known a priori, but at least one of which is known a posteriori. Assuming that “water” is defined by direct reference, the conclusion “Necessarily, water is H2 O” is known by inference from the proposition “The chemical constitution of these water paradigms is H2 O” and some a priori premises, probably including something like the following: “The chemical constitution of water, whatever it may be, is (part of) what makes water water.”30 The conclusion that necessarily, water is H2 O is therefore reached by combining premises known a priori with 30

I will not discuss the issue of whether “Water is H2 O” is necessary de dicto, de re, or both. I believe it is both, but for those who disagree, the a priori premise and the conclusion can be suitably revised.

254

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation at least one premise known a posteriori, so the conclusion is a posteriori. In Chapter 1, I suggested that if “good” is defined by direct reference to exemplars, the nature of a good person is discovered by investigating exemplars in a way parallel to the discovery that the nature of water is H2 O. Clearly, investigating a good person is not nearly as easy as investigating water, and the a priori premises are also harder to specify. The latter require a theory of the nature of a person to which we can refer in order to determine what to investigate when we investigate what makes a good person good. I have proposed without argument that a person is partly constituted by his emotions and have outlined a theory of moral psychology that describes what emotions are, how they relate to the external world, how they motivate acts, and how they become dispositions that are components of traits of character. I have also proposed that there is more to a person than a nature and that this aspect is also an important object of investigation in determining what makes a good person good. This theory of what makes a person who/what he is is the a priori part of the theory, parallel to the theory that what makes water what it is is its chemical structure. The a posteriori part of the theory is contributed by the careful psychological observation of good persons, particularly through narratives. 3 There are limitations to the narrative. Novels and films give us insight into particular complex and subtle situations, but they rarely give us understanding of the relationships among the parts of the moral life. Theory aims to systematize and connect in a simple and coherent way the enormous variety of things we want to say about living morally. This aim is no less important for Christian ethics than for any other kind of ethics. Basing the moral life on the imitation of Christ does not take away our need to understand the moral life as a whole, to comprehend its structure, to see how one aspect of that life is connected with another – to see how one object of moral evaluation, for instance, acts, connects with other objects of moral evaluation such as persons. If there are obligations, we 255

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory want to know what those are, regardless of whether or not we are Christians. If Christ said nothing about obligation, obligation does not thereby disappear, although that is, of course, a possibility, but it is a possiblity that requires theoretical explanation and argument. Reflective persons have many moral questions. To name a few: Which motivations are good and which bad? Whom should I admire? What should I aim for? What should I regret? When should I feel guilty? What should I do in particular cases where a hard choice must be made? How can I tell the difference between the morally best act or trait of character and one that is morally required? There are no direct answers to these questions in the New Testament, although there are probably indirect answers to some of them. But even indirect answers need the help of the theorist in order to identify them. In Part I, I proposed that the link between the metaphysics of value and the essential importance of the particular is given in indexical definitions of evaluative concepts. We identify a paradigm instance of a good person, the phronimos, and our evaluative concepts are defined by reference to that person. For the Christian, that person is preeminently Christ. This does not mean that most situations call for a unique emotion, since most of the time there is no single emotion that Christ would have in a given situation; but there is a range of emotions that fit the circumstances. That is one reason why a range of emotions is evaluatively permissible. Another reason is that because our ideal self is not identical to Christ’s, we should not aim to perfectly mimic his emotions, even when they can be determined. Christ shows us an ideal self in relation to which we learn how to identify moral properties. Since part of what we learn is the irreducible particularity of persons, it follows that a good motive, a virtue, or a virtuous act cannot simply be an exact imitation of the exemplar. One of the things Christ shows is that there are other exemplars, and they are not copies of each other. Metaphysically minded Christian theologians in the past have said that Christ exemplifies a perfect union of the universal and the particular. I would say that that is explained by his having a human nature in as perfect a degree as possible, and by his being an incommunicable person. The latter is not something that admits of degree. No person is more incommunicable than 256

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation another. The former may have no upper limit in the sense that there may be no insurpassable degree of humanity, and if so, we should not interpret the perfect to mean insurpassable in degree. As human, he is an exemplar of the realization of an ideal self, and his example gives us a method for applying our concepts of the good, the right, and duty. At the end of Part I, I pointed out that motivation-based virtue theory can be interpreted in a way that is as pluralistic or as monistic as you like. There is no commitment to the idea that the exemplars of goodness are alike, although they no doubt are alike in some ways, and the ways in which they are alike ground our common obligations. Divine Motivation theory has less room for pluralism than motivation-based virtue theory, since there is one supreme exemplar, but there is much more room for variation in moral goodness in Divine Motivation theory than one might think. For one thing, variation in the characters of such saints as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Philip Neri, and Therese of Lisieux is so striking that we need not worry that making Christ central in a person’s life leads to a single model of moral excellence, much less to boring conformity. But aside from the obvious differences among our lessthan-perfect exemplars, even our perfect exemplar shows us a wide range of permissible variation. Readers of the Gospels sometimes find it puzzling that Jesus is not portrayed in what they describe as a perfectly consistent manner in his emotional reactions or even in his actions. I find this one of the more ethically appealing aspects of the Gospels, since it shows us that more than one set of emotions and actions is permissible – even, perhaps, admirable. What the imitation of Christ cannot provide is a model of the perfect individual self for each of us. The perfect self for one person differs in important ways from the perfect self for another, and while the lives of Christ and the saints may show us the range of ideally good selves, it cannot show us the ideal self for any particular person. The Christian idea of vocation is a move in the direction of recognizing such ethical individuality, but a vocation is nonetheless an abstract idea, not a narrative of the life of the perfect self of any particular person. And certainly one’s vocation 257

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory can be lived in a multitude of possible lives. We are free to choose which of those lives we wish to live.

iv divine motivation theory and divine command theory compared 1 Divine Motivation (DM) theory has significant advantages over Divine Command (DC) theory. The theories are structurally parallel in that DM theory makes moral properties derive from God’s motives, whereas DC theory makes moral properties derive from God’s will. But DC theory rarely makes all moral properties relevant to the evaluation of human persons derive from the divine will, so, unlike DM theory, it does not offer a global theory of value. That is an advantage of DM theory over DC theory, but I think it is fair to compare the two theories in greater detail. I will end this chapter by comparing Divine Motivation theory to Divine Command theory, both in its generic form and in the form proposed by one of its most important recent adherents, Robert Adams. I will also compare DM theory to the divine preference theory of Thomas Carson, a theory that has some features in common with DM theory and some with DC theory. The most comprehensive form of Divine Command theory makes the divine will the source of moral value. Roughly, good states of affairs are what God wills to exist; bad states of affairs are what God wills not to exist. But DC theories almost always focus on the rightness or wrongness of human acts and sometimes explicitly decline to extend the theory beyond the notions of right, wrong, and obligation, as in the theory of Bob Adams (1999). The theory then proposes some form of the following: An act is morally required (a duty) just in case God commands us to do it; an act is morally wrong just in case God forbids us to do it. Alternatively, an act is morally required just in case God wills us to do it; an act is morally wrong just in case God wills us not to do it. The two versions can come apart, because DC theory could maintain either that a command is simply God’s way of revealing His will, where His will is the actual ground of obligation, or that 258

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation a command is itself the ground. Bob Adams maintains the latter, arguing that there are a number of alternative commands God could have made with respect to such matters as the vocation of a particular person or a calling to a group of people, and that it is the actual command that creates the obligation. The nature of the relation between God’s commands and moral requirements is an important issue for DC theorists. To say that “x is morally required” means “x is commanded by God” is too strong, since that has the consequence that to say “x is right because God commands it” is a mere tautology; it is just to say “x is commanded by God because x is commanded by God.” On the other hand, to say that God’s commands and moral requirements are extensionally equivalent is too weak. That would be compatible with the lack of any metaphysical connection whatever between the existence of moral properties and God’s will or commands. Divine Command theory, then, aims at something that lies between identity of meaning and mere extensional equivalence. It should turn out that God’s will or command makes what’s right be right. Acts are right/wrong and, on some versions, states of affairs are good/bad because of the will of God. God’s will or explicit command is the metaphysical ground of the designated moral properties. This is also the sense in which God’s motives ground moral value in Divine Motivation theory. A famous objection to Divine Command theory goes back to Plato’s Euthyphro, where Socrates asks, “Is what is holy holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy?” (10a). As applied to DC theory, this question produces an important dilemma: If God wills the good because it is good, then goodness is independent of God’s will and the latter does not explain the former. On the other hand, if something is good because God wills it, then it looks as if the divine will is arbitrary. God is not constrained by any moral reason from willing anything whatever, and it is hard to see how any nonmoral reason could be the right sort of reason to determine God’s choice of what to make good or bad. The same dilemma arises for the version of DC theory that applies only to right/wrong. If right/wrong are determined by the divine will, it appears that right/wrong are arbitrary. God could have commanded cruelty and hatred, and 259

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory if He had done so, cruel and hateful acts would have been right, even duties. This is not only an unacceptable consequence for our sense of the essentiality of the moral properties of acts of certain kinds, but it also makes it hard to see how it can be true that God Himself is good in any important, substantive sense of “good.” Some decades ago, Robert Adams attempted to address this problem by modifying DC theory to say that the property of rightness is the property of being commanded by a loving God (1979). This permitted Adams to allow that God could command cruelty for its own sake, but, Adams, argued, if God did so He would not love us, and if that were the case, morality would break down. Morality is dependent upon divine commands, but they are dependent upon the commands of a deity with a certain nature. If God’s nature were not loving, morality would fall apart. It is possible that Adams’s proposal succeeds at answering the objection it is designed to address, but even so, it seems to me that it is unsatisfactory because it is ad hoc. There is no intrinsic connection between a command and the property of being loving, so to tie morality to the commands of a loving God is to tie it to two distinct properties of God. In DM theory, there is no need to solve the problem of whether God could make it right that we brutalize the innocent by making any such modification to the theory, since being loving is one of God’s essential motives. The right thing for humans to do is to act on motives that imitate the divine motives. Brutalizing the innocent is not an act that expresses a motive that imitates the divine motives. In fact, it is impossible for brutalizing the innocent to be right as long as (i) it is impossible for such an act to be an expression of a motive that is like the motives of God, and (ii) it is impossible for God to have a different motive in this regard. The second condition follows from the highly plausible assumption that the motive of love (or whatever motive is inconsistent with the motive of brutalizing the innocent) is a part of the divine nature.31 31

This is assuming, of course, that the motives of which we are speaking are suitably general. Love is essential to God, but love of Adam and Eve is not, since Adam and Eve might not have existed.

260

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation DC theory can also argue that God’s will is part of His nature, and Stump and Kretzmann (1985) have used the Thomistic doctrine of divine simplicity, which has the consequence that God’s will is identical to his nature, to solve both the arbitrariness problem and the problem that God could command cruelty.32 This solution is not ad hoc, but it requires argument to make the needed connection between the divine will and the divine nature. That is because a will is logically separable from its possessor in a way that motives are not. In fact, the feature of a will that led to the theory of the existence of a will in the first place – namely, its freedom – is the very feature that seems to have that consequence. By contrast, God’s love, mercy, justice, compassion, and so on make God what he is. There is no need to overcome by argument, much less by an argument appealing to divine simplicity, a prior expectation that God’s motives are dissociated from His nature, as in the case of God’s commands. That God’s motives of love, mercy, and so on are part of His nature is prima facie plausible. That God’s commands are part of His nature is not. The arbitariness problem may or may not be answerable in a DC theory, but the problem does not even arise in DM theory. That is because a will needs a reason, but a motive is a reason. The will, according to Aquinas, always chooses “under the aspect of good,” which means that reasons are not inherent in the will itself. By contrast, we have seen that motives provide not only the impetus to action, but also the reason for the action. Motives are both initiating reasons and justifying reasons. If we know that God acts from a motive of love, there is no need to look for a further reason for the act. On the other hand, a divine command requires a reason, and if the reason is or includes fundamental divine motivational states such as love, it follows that even DC theory needs to refer to God’s motives in order to avoid the consequence that moral properties are arbitrary and that God Himself is not good. Such a move makes divine motives more basic than the divine will even in DC theory. In this chapter, we have seen another feature of DM theory that gives it an advantage over DC theory, and that is that DM 32

See also Stump and Kretzmann (1988), where they present the same view.

261

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory theory shows the importance of Christology for ethics, whereas DC theory does not. DC theory ignores the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, focusing on the will of the creator-God as the source of moral value. It is, in effect, an Old Covenant theory. The features of Christian ethics that derive from the life of Christ do not appear in the theory, at least not in any straightforward way. The fact that DM theory integrates these features into the theory makes it theologically preferable as well as easier to apply. Divine Motivation theory also has the advantage of giving a unitary account of all evaluative properties, divine as well as human. DC theory is an ethics of law, a divine deontological theory, wherein the content of the law is promulgated by divine commands. God’s own goodness and the rightness of God’s own acts are not connected to divine commands. By contrast, DM theory makes the features of the divine nature in virtue of which God is morally good the foundation for the moral goodness of those same features in creatures. Both divine and human goodness are explained in terms of good motives, and the goodness of human motives is derived from the goodness of the divine motives. DM theory is a virtue theory that applies to both divine and human moral properties. In DC theory, morality is law. God rules, we obey. There is no natural motive to obey God, although, of course, we have a motive to do so if we love him. By contrast, the gap between us and God in DM theory is not the gap between lawmaker and law follower, but the gap between the perfectly good and the imperfectly good. The motive to be Godlike is built into our nature, since God is infinitely more of what we are as created beings. The moral properties of the finitely good are of the same kind as the moral properties of the infinitely good. DC theory has disadvantages, but it also has attractions that permit it to solve some puzzles in natural theology. In the next two chapters, I will discuss these puzzles and show how DM theory shares the advantages of DC theory without the disadvantages. 2 In this subsection, I want to look at the form of DC theory defended by Robert Adams in his recent book Finite and Infinite Goods (1999). 262

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation In that book, Adams proposes an ethical theory in which the good is more basic than obligation, but in which obligation has an origin distinct from the good. Adams argues that unlike the good, obligation arises within a social context. What is obligatory is something demanded by another person in a relationship we value. When we violate such a demand, we alienate ourselves from the other person, who is on that account appropriately angry, and we are thereby guilty and blamed by others. Adams argues that the best candidate for filling the role that he describes is the demands of God. Only God is good enough to make demands that are morally binding, and only God can give obligation the objectivity expected by most ethicists. For us, what is morally obligatory is what God actually commands (demands) that we do. In this new version of DC theory, Adams proposes a broad notion of obligation of which obligations to God are a special case, although, of course, they are not just one case among many. Obligations to God are the basic obligations, the grounding of obligation itself. But the idea of obligation is more general, and Adams relies on the idea that we already understand obligation in other social contexts, so the notion of obligation in the social context that holds between God and us is indirectly defended by its similarity to obligation that arises out of relationships among human beings. What arises in social contexts among humans may not count as obligation in the strong sense, but I think Adams is right that if obligation can be connected to something that clearly exists among human beings, albeit in a weaker form, then the features of the weaker form are indirect evidence for the features of the stronger. If something like obligation arises in loving relationships between human persons, who make demands on each other that, if not met, harm the relationship and make blame and guilt appropriate, then it is only a small step to the view that all obligation arises in a similar fashion. One problem with this approach is that prima facie, making demands is not a loving thing to do. One thinks of a husband’s demanding that his wife iron his shirt. It might even be true that if she does not comply, it harms the relationship, and that he might be angry and she might feel guilty, but most of us think there is something wrong with a relationship in which such demands are 263

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory made. Commands are acts, and acts need reasons. Commands are harsh acts, and they need reasons proportional to the severity of the act. So there must be a reason for the demand, and the reason must either refer to a good of some sort or not. It is hard to see how any reason that does not can be sufficient in strength and kind to justify making demands. On the other hand, if the reason refers to a good, what good is that? Does God demand something because it is good for us? Is it good for the relationship? Is it good simpliciter, perhaps excellent? Perhaps the good in one of these forms provides a reason for the demand. But if so, there is still a metaphysical problem, since, according to Adams, the good in any form is not sufficient to explain the obligatory. Although Adams believes that obligation rests upon the good because the obligatory is what is commanded by a good God, it goes beyond the good upon which it rests. It is important to Adams that the moral quality of obligation is something in addition to the good, something that is not derivable from the good. So even if the good provides a moral reason for making demands, there is still the problem that by making demands, God has decided to transform a good into an obligation. As far as I can see, the metaphysical source of the moral aspect of obligation in addition to the good is still unexplained. Another problem is why the demander should be angry when his demands are not met. This way of thinking makes God sound petulant. Assuming that there is a moral reason for the command, it is reasonable for God to be unhappy, perhaps even angry, that His relationship with us has been wounded, that we are alienated from Him. But it does not take a demand to create the conditions for such alienation. In any case, I think it is important that the anger be over the alienation, not over the fact that He has made a demand that was not met. This leads to the issue of why we have to do what God demands. Clearly, if we love God, we will be motivated to do so. But obligation is not (merely) something we want to do; it is something we have to do. Adams remarks that if one fails to act on what one loves, the appropriate response emotion is shame rather than guilt (p. 240). Perhaps he thinks, then, that anything less than a 264

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation demand will not result in the emotion of guilt, one of the defining characteristics of obligation. If the only act that can result in the appropriate feeling of guilt is failure to meet the demands of a loved one, then Adams is right, but this brings us back to the issue of what it is about the failure to do an act that fits the emotion of guilt. I have suggested that it is something like the failure to be the ideal self, or being instead an anti-ideal self. The ideal self is often socially constituted, although probably not exclusively so. The self is partially defined by relationships we value. Demands can arise from relationships, and I think that is an important insight. What I find doubtful is that the demands arise from the will of the other party in the relationship. Neither partner decides to make it the case that the relationship suffers from certain acts. That simply follows from the nature of the selves in the relationship and the emotions that define the relationship. If I hurt a loved one, I will feel just as guilty as I would had I failed to honor his demand, even assuming that we can get past the problem of why he would make the demand in the first place.33 I think, then, that Adams is right that obligation can derive from the demands of relationships, but I think he is mistaken in thinking that the demands are commands. I also think that there are demands made on the self by the self that are also sources of obligation.

3 This brings us to a theory that makes obligation rest on God’s preferences rather than on God’s demands or commands, the theory defended by Thomas Carson in Value and the Good Life (2000). An advantage of Carson’s theory is that preferences are a little like commands and a little like motives, an appealing feature for those 33

In his response to this objection, Adams points out that in marrying, two people license each other to make demands, and sometimes the demands are implicit (e.g., “Don’t beat me up!”). This is a good point, but then it seems to me that the demand comes from the nature of the relationship, not from a command by the partner. Perhaps we are not very far apart on this matter.

265

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory who are looking for a theory that blends deontology and virtue theory. My objection is primarily that it does not go far enough to avoid some of the problems of DC theory. What Carson designates (rather tongue-in-cheek) the “final” amended version of his theory is as follows: If there is an omniscient God who designed and created the universe and human beings for certain purposes/reasons, cares deeply about human beings, and is kind, sympathetic, and unselfish (in the ways explained [in the preceding section]), then God’s preferences are the ultimate standard for the correctness/ rationality of human preferences and for the goodness or badness of things. (If such a God exists, it is rational (correct) for person S to have a certain preference (p) if, and only if, God prefers that S have p.) (p. 250)

One important feature of Carson’s theory should be noted at the outset. The theory does not say that it is right for us to prefer p just in case God prefers p, but that it is right for us to prefer p just in case God prefers that we prefer p. Carson is right that his formulation is better, and I will argue in the next two chapters that a parallel feature of DM theory helps us to resolve puzzles about perfect goodness. A divine preference theory is not vulnerable to the objection I have just given to Adams. On Carson’s theory, God does not do anything that appears unloving, dictatorial, or fractious. Furthermore, it is much easier to think of reasons for God to have preferences than to think of reasons for God to make demands. In fact, I think a case could be made that persons do not need reasons for their preferences, but that remains to be seen. According to Carson, to have a preference p is to value p as an end. The preferences of God for us therefore determine the correctness of what we ought to value as an end. This is not a theory of intrinsic good, nor of kinds of good other than the good of ends, but since Carson thinks that the good is the same as the desirable or what is good as an end (pp. 158ff.), he clearly thinks his theory is more encompassing than I think it actually is. I will not pursue discussion of this limitation of the theory, however, since the theory is interesting as a theory of the good of ends. 266

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation Like Adams’s, Carson’s theory rests on descriptive qualities of God that are virtues, most of which have motives as components. It is important that God has certain qualities, such as kindness and sympathy and love, that ground the preferences that God has. The fact that God has these qualities aids the theory, but then it appears that at least part of the work of grounding morality is done by the divine virtues and their motivational components. If so, a divine preference is not the deepest feature of God explaining the rationality of human preferences. Presumably, though, Carson thinks that it is important that God has particular preferences, even though they are constrained by His virtues. So even though God’s kindness, sympathy, and love are deeper features of the divine psyche than His preferences, these motives are not sufficient to generate His preferences. If this is what Carson has in mind, the issue then focuses on the relation between God’s motives and the ends he adopts for us. What determines that God prefers that we prefer A rather than B, when both A and B are equally compatible with – and even equally expressive of – his underlying kindness, sympathy, unselfishness, and so on? This question generates a dilemma. Either God’s preference of A over B is determined by His underlying motives, or it is not. If it is, the theory is really a form of Divine Motivation theory, and if so, I have no objection. If instead, God’s underlying motives are insufficient to determine His preferences, then we need a reason for the fact that He prefers A to B. A preference, like a command, needs a reason. By contrast, a motive is a reason. When we give the motive, we give the reason. Our discussion of divine personhood suggests one possible answer to this question that divine preference theory could use. In the last chapter, I argued that God has desires, and hence preferences, that are not determined by His nature, and so he also acts in ways that are not determined by the divine nature.34 The reason is that God is persons as well as a nature, and as persons He has the 34

To my ears, “preference” sounds comparative, whereas “desire” does not. I am not sure why Carson prefers “preference” to “desire” for his metatheory, but I am interpreting divine preference theory in a way that would also apply to a divine desire theory.

267

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory incommunicable uniqueness of personality. Some preferences, at least, are arguably expressions of a person’s personhood rather than of his nature. If so, it is also arguable that a person does not need a reason for having such a preference. This move might avoid the problem with needing a reason for the divine preferences, but it has the consequence that the foundation of morality is God’s personality, not the divine nature. That might be an unwelcome consequence. In Chapter 5, I proposed that God’s personality explains His creation of this world rather than other worlds equally expressive of His nature, but it is less plausible to say that His personality explains why He created morality as it actually is rather than some other morality that would have been equally expressive of His nature. However, I will not press this point, since I do not think it is very serious. Whether or not divine preference theory can escape the problem of reasons for God’s preferences, it lacks one of the advantages of DC theory, namely, an account of obligation. To be fair, Carson did not intend to offer a theory of obligation, but it would be interesting to investigate what such a theory would look like. Carson could avail himself of the account of obligation that I proposed in Chapter 4 if he wishes, since it is general enough to be adapted to many different kinds of ethical theory, including divine preference theory.35 Another option is to eschew obligation altogether, but that would have to be defended. In any case, divine preference theory ought to have something to say about the difference between what God would prefer to see us do and what we must do. In this respect, Adams’s theory of divine demands has the advantage. This creates another dilemma: Either God’s preferences are strong enough to amount to demands, in which case divine preference theory collapses into DC theory, or else God’s preferences are just that – preferences – in which case the theory lacks an account of obligation. Another way in which divine preference theory does not go far enough to avoid the problems with DC theory is that in divine preference theory, as in DC theory, there is a gap between the way 35

Carson, in correspondence, has proposed a tentative account of a divine will theory of obligation.

268

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

The moral importance of the Incarnation in which God is good and the way in which human creatures are good. I do not think the gap is as serious for Carson’s theory as it is for DC theory, since the gap is not that of lawgiver and law follower, but clearly the way in which humans are good is different in kind from the way in which God is good. The goodness of a being who has preferences for other persons is quite different than the goodness of beings whose preferences are those of someone else for them. I find it an advantage of DM theory that human goodness imitates God’s goodness, so that the former is infinitely more of the same kind of good as the latter. In addition, divine preference theory lacks the advantage of having a place for the Incarnation in the theory. That is a disadvantage for a Christian ethical theory, although obviously it is not an objection for a theory that is intended to be generically theistic. In short, I think that divine preference theory has some advantages over DC theory, but it also lacks some of the advantages of DM theory. The problem for a divine preference theory is to ground value in God without collapsing God’s preferences into either His motives or His will, and without ignoring other goods than the good of ends. Suppose, however, that a divine preference theorist or a DC theorist is persuaded that while God’s motives are the basis for his preferences or commands, the former underdetermine the latter, and the latter have moral significance exceeding the significance of the underlying divine motives. Suppose also that the theorist believes that he or she can answer or avoid my objection that the gap between good motive and either command or preference is not filled by anything capable of grounding the extra moral significance of obligation (in the case of command) or correctness (in the case of preference). If so, DC theory or divine preference theory can be added to an underlying DM theory. Divine Command and divine preference theorists need not think that God’s will or preferences are rock bottom features of the divine psyche out of which arise obligation or moral correctness. In fact, I suggest they should not think so. For them, Divine Motivation theory should be interpreted as a theory of the deeper psychological structure of God that links the goodness of the divine nature to the capacity of God’s commands or preferences to create a new category of 269

P1: JzG/JZY P2: Kcz 0521828805c06.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

8:39

II. Divine Motivation theory moral properties. DM theory helps the DC theorist to answer the Euthyphro problem by giving an answer both to the arbitrariness problem and to the problem of connecting God’s commands to God’s own moral properties. Divine Motivation theory is a divine virtue theory. As such, it can be accepted with modifications by those who prefer a different kind of theory that nonetheless gives virtue a significant place in the theory.36 36

I was persuaded that DM theory and DC theory need not be seen as competitors in conversation with Steve Evans.

270

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

Chapter 7 The paradoxes of perfect goodness

How can you [God] be omnipotent if you cannot do all things? How can you do all things if you cannot be corrupted, or lie, or make false what is true – which would be to make what exists into non-being – and so forth? If this is so, how can you do all things? Or is it that these things proceed not from power, but from powerlessness? Anselm, Proslogion

Theological ethics and theological metaphysics intersect at the idea of perfect goodness. In Chapters 5 and 6, I developed the ethical implications of this idea in a new form of theological virtue theory. In this chapter and the next, I turn to the metaphysics of God and the puzzles generated by the concept of a perfectly good being. The difficulty is that perfect goodness appears to be inconsistent with three other divine attributes: omnipotence, freedom, and moral goodness. The apparent implication of the third problem is that the concept of perfect moral goodness is inconsistent. In addition to these puzzles, there is the problem that perfect goodness and omnipotence seem to be jointly inconsistent with the existence of evil. Divine Motivation theory gives us a way to escape these difficulties. I will argue that the problem of evil can be avoided in its standard forms, but that the problem of suffering is not a problem of evil; it is a puzzle about the motives of 271

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory God. This problem requires a different approach than the problem of evil.

i three puzzles of perfect goodness 1 When we think of perfect goodness, we think of something that infinitely transcends the human realm, so it is not surprising that there is disagreement about the extension of the concept perfect goodness. One question that ought to be considered immediately is whether there is a sense of “perfect goodness” that does not vary with the kind of being to which it is attributed. Peter Geach (1968) denies that there is. Geach’s point is not about “perfect” but about “good.” Since “good” is an adjective, it always modifies some noun. In any expression of the form “x is an AB” where “A” is an adjective and “B” is a noun, there are two logically distinguishable uses of “A.” In the predicative use of “A,” “x is an AB” is equivalent to “x is A” and “x is B.” “Yellow” is an example of a predicative adjective. In attributive uses of an adjective “A,” “x is an AB” is not equivalent to “x is A” and “x is B.” “Large” is an example of an attributive adjective. Geach argues that every legitimate use of “good” and “bad” is attributive. Nothing is just good or bad; it is a good or bad such and such. Stuart Hampshire (1971) argues that “good” is sometimes attributive and sometimes predicative. He claims that the two uses are distinguishable but connected. The attributive use is exemplified in “a good play,” and the predicative use in “good news.” In the attributive use, the grounds for something’s being a good x are found wholly in the qualities or features of x and in nothing else. So what makes a good play good are features of the play itself. In the predicative use, the grounds for the goodness of something x are not found within x. Our reasons for calling news good may be drawn from a vast and indefinite range of human interests that permit us to say that it is a good thing to have happened. I am not sure that Geach would agree with Hampshire’s way of drawing the distinction, but the latter’s examples do fit the distinction made by Geach. A good play is something that is good 272

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness as a play, but good news is not good as news. It is good, and it is also news. It seems to me that when we say that God is good or perfectly good, we do not mean good as a deity, or good for a creator, or anything like that. We mean that God is a perfectly good being, where “being” is not a noun that refers to a certain kind of thing, like “dog.” My dog is a good dog, but I can’t say whether he is just plain good. If so, he is not only a good dog, but a good being. A good being is good. If x is a good being, then x is good and x is a being. So “good” is predicative when used to modify “being.” If Geach is right, there is no such thing as a good being. To think so is to misunderstand the logic of “good.” But I see no reason yet to deny that “good being” is a term with sense. And if there is anybody who has a claim to being a good being, it is God. What about the adjective “perfect” and the adverb “perfectly”? Is “perfect” always attributive, or is it sometimes predicative? There are surely uses of “perfect” that are attributive for the same reason that there are attributive uses of “good.” A perfect play is perfect for a play. A perfect dog is perfect for a dog. Neither the play nor the dog may be perfect simpliciter. But if there are predicative uses of “good,” there are also predicative uses of “perfect.” If the grammar of “good” permits the sensibleness of the term “good being,” it permits the sensibleness of the term “perfect being” also. Of course, there may be other reasons why the term lacks sense, but I do not see that the view that “perfect” is always attributive is one of them. I think we can see now that “perfect x” entails “good x” as long as both terms are used in the same way, either both attributively or both predicatively. If something is perfect as a play, it is good as a play. If something is a perfect being, it is a good being. Sometimes the term “perfectly good” is used to make it clear that “perfect” is being used in a sense that entails “good,” but I think the term “perfectly good” is redundant. A perfect play is a perfectly good play. A perfect being is a perfectly good being. Whether “perfect” is used attributively or predicatively, “perfect” entails “perfectly good.” I do not mean this to be an objection to the term “perfectly good”; I am simply pointing out the redundancy. I will continue to use the term in what follows because of its common usage. 273

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory I assume that God is a being whose essence entails that he is perfect – that is, perfectly good – and all that the latter entails. Traditionally, God’s essence has been thought to entail not only perfect moral goodness, but also the perfection of all good personal traits, and that includes omnipotence, omniscience, eternity, and immutability. One of the tasks of natural theology for two millennia has been to investigate the coherence of such a concept. I assume that God is perfect, although Divine Motivation theory does not require it. For the ethical theory of this book, it is necessary only that God is supremely good, not that He is infinitely or perfectly good. Good human motives can imitate the motives of Christ and Christ can be the image of the Father even if neither the Son nor the Father is perfect. Nonetheless, perfection has the capacity to ground value in a way that nothing short of perfection can. Like the sun in Plato’s allegory of good in the Republic, perfect goodness is essentially diffusive, the source of all lesser goods. I have argued that the world is good because God is good. Persons are good because God is good. Motives are good because God’s motives are good. And if God is not only good, but perfectly good, His perfect goodness is the standard for, and the source of, all evaluative properties. However, this ontology of value will not work if the concept of perfect goodness is defective. If there are logical difficulties precluding the instantiation of the concept of a perfectly good being, Divine Motivation theory cannot be based on a perfectly good God. In previous chapters, I have said that God not only is a being whose essence is perfect goodness but also is three incommunicable persons. The problem of this chapter does not pertain to God’s personality; it pertains to his divine essence and the difficulties in attributing perfect goodness to a God Who is good in the moral sense and Who also has the properties of omnipotence and freedom. However, in Chapter 8 I will look at the most serious and long-standing difficulty of all – the problem of attributing perfect moral goodness and omnipotence to a being who creates a world containing evil. The personhood of God will be important for understanding that problem. 274

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness 2 The first problem is the alleged incompatibility of perfect goodness and omnipotence. A perfectly good being was traditionally understood to be one whose will is so fixed in goodness that it is incapable of willing anything other than good, a property sometimes called “impeccability.” It is not obvious why it should be thought that perfect goodness entails impeccability. A perfect x is a perfectly good x, but is it a conceptual truth that a perfect x is incapable of being a bad x? Is a perfect dog one that cannot be a bad dog? I really can’t say whether that follows, but I can’t say that it does not follow, either. Of course, “perfect” in this example is attributive, but I doubt that that matters for the point. Still, I am willing to accept that God is impeccable, whether or not that is entailed by His perfect goodness. If impeccability is not entailed by perfect goodness, then the paradoxes of this chapter are paradoxes of impeccability, not of perfect goodness. Can we say that something is perfectly good just in case it is good to an infinite degree or to the highest possible degree? There are a number of disputable assumptions in such a view. Perhaps goodness does not admit of degree, or perhaps it is not the kind of property that can be summed up, even though aspects of it do admit of degree. Possibly it does admit of degree and can be summed up, but there is no maximal degree of it. Or perhaps there is a maximal degree of goodness, but that is not what it means to be perfectly good. Maybe the supreme way of being good is not the same as the maximal degree of being good. The same questions arise for the idea of omnipotence. It is not obvious that omnipotence is power to an infinite degree or the highest possible degree of power. Perhaps power does not admit of degree, or perhaps there are so many different kinds of power that they cannot be summed up in a way that admits of degree. Possibly power does come in degrees that can be summed up, but there is no maximal degree of power. Or maybe the supreme way of having power is not the same as the maximal degree of power, whether or not there is such a thing as the latter. Suppose, however, that omnipotence is something like the maximal degree of power. Impeccability then appears to conflict with 275

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory omnipotence, because impeccability is defined by what an impeccable being cannot do: It cannot do evil. So if God is perfectly good and hence impeccable, then it appears that God is lacking the maximal degree of power, since a being with the powers of God but with the additional power God lacks would have a greater degree of power. If a greater degree of power makes a being closer to being omnipotent, then the latter being is closer to being omnipotence than God. But the ability to sin or to will evil is a power that some beings have and that God lacks if He is perfectly good. It seems to follow that if God is perfectly good, He cannot be omnipotent. If He is omnipotent, He cannot be perfectly good. So perfect goodness is incompatible with omnipotence, if we assume that perfect goodness entails impeccability, that omnipotence entails maximal power, and that the ability to sin is a power. This puzzle was brought into the contemporary literature by Nelson Pike (1969),1 but Aquinas has a famous discussion of it, which we will examine in section V.2 The reasoning behind the alleged incompatibility of perfect goodness and omnipotence leads to a second problem. Under the assumption that a perfectly good being is incapable of doing wrong or of doing anything but good, such a being does not appear to be free in any morally significant sense. We think that human beings are praiseworthy only if they do good when they could have done evil, and that they are blameworthy only if they do evil when they could have done good. Beings who cannot help doing good are admirable in a different, nonmoral way. Their inability to do evil is a quality like physical beauty or strength. It is a wonderful thing, but it is not the sort of thing for which they are responsible. We admire them, but praise is not something they deserve. Their goodness is not credited to them. Of course, this way of understanding desert, credit, and responsibility is a modern one, and its connection with the freedom to do otherwise is disputable. Much has been written about whether moral praise and blame require alternate possibilities, although it is widely acknowledged that if praise and blame require alternate possibilities, they 1 2

It is also discussed by Peter Geach (1977), Chapter 1. ST I, a. 3, q. 25, obj. 2 and reply.

276

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness require the ability to do something that is such that a blameworthy person could have escaped being blameworthy and a praiseworthy person could have avoided being praiseworthy. That means that if moral praise and blame are conditioned upon the ability to do otherwise, they are conditioned upon the ability to do something with the contrary evaluative property. But, then, if perfect goodness involves the inability to do or will evil, a perfectly good being is not free in the sense relevant to moral praise and blame. Such a being cannot be praised in the moral sense of praise and hence cannot be good in the moral sense of good. That being is not responsible for its own goodness. This leads to a third problem. If the concept of perfect goodness is meant to include goodness in all its forms, including the moral sense of goodness, and if the concept of perfect goodness is inconsistent with the concept of moral goodness because the latter entails the ability to do evil and the former entails the inability to do evil, then it apparently follows that the concept of perfect goodness is internally inconsistent. Given the many disputable assumptions that lead to the dilemma of omnipotence and perfect goodness, there are many ways out of it. Common solutions either take the route of interpreting omnipotence as a trait that does not entail maximal power, or they deny that the ability to do evil is a power, or they reject the claim that a perfectly good God wills the good and only the good out of necessity. Generally, all parties to these discussions assume that a perfectly good God wills the good. This point has nothing to do with the concept of “perfect”; it allegedly follows from the concept of “good” as applied to a person: A good person wills the good. Let us call this Thesis G. The dilemma of perfect goodness and divine freedom is less often discussed, but some of the solutions to the first dilemma apply to the second. Respondents either interpret God’s freedom in a premodern sense that does not entail alternate possibilities, some of which are evil, or they maintain that even though God always wills the good, He does not do so necessarily. On the latter account, God is free to choose evil and has the power to do so; He simply does not. It is contrary to his character, but not a literal impossibility. There are possible worlds in which God chooses evil. 277

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory The third dilemma is harder to resolve. Even though freedom has a number of senses, not all of which require the possibility of doing evil, moral praiseworthiness is less flexible. Perhaps a being who chooses the good and cannot choose evil is free in some sense – for example, free from evil and temptation – but normally we think of moral praiseworthiness as precisely the state that is earned by choosing the good when one could have chosen evil instead. So if God cannot do evil, he can be deserving of moral praise only in an analogous or extended sense of moral goodness, and that is hard to make out, since unlike the concept of freedom, there is no history of the concept of moral praiseworthiness that already includes an extended sense.3 And if God is not good in the moral sense, most people find that that poses serious problems for the worship of God.4 This makes the alternative of claiming that God can, in fact, do evil an even stronger temptation in attempting to resolve the third dilemma than in the other two cases. It is a temptation to which one succumbs only as a last resort. I will argue in this chapter that we need not go as far as the last resort.

ii the solution of divine command theory Let us take a closer look at Thesis G, the thesis about God’s goodness that generates the dilemmas of this chapter: A good person wills the good. As I pointed out at the beginning of Chapter 1, there is a sense in which this is noncontroversially true. It is close to a conceptual truth that good persons have good motives and form good intentions to perform good acts, and that they generally do so. But the thesis that good persons will the good generates a problem of compatibility with omnipotence only if read in a certain direction. When read from left to right, the claim is that the goodness of a person is explained by the goodness of the objects of her will: (G1) A good person is one who is such that she wills whatever is good. 3

4

The same point applies to moral responsibility. Is there an extended sense of “responsible” according to which a person who cannot do evil is responsible for being good? I rather doubt it. Brian Davies (1998, pp. 177–178) disagrees. He says that the goodness of God is not the goodness of a morally good agent.

278

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness If read from right to left, the goodness of what is willed is explained by the goodness of the person who wills it (or, alternatively, by the goodness of her will): (G2) What is good is such that it is whatever is willed by a good person.

The dilemmas of this chapter read the claim that a good person wills what is good in the sense of G1. The goodness of the object of a good person’s will is conceptually prior to the goodness of the person (and her will). We explain what a good person is, at least in part, by saying that a good person is someone who wills whatever is good. Anyone who wills what is bad is thereby a bad person or, at least, less than perfectly good. Perhaps the first theory proposing that Thesis G be read the other way is Divine Command theory. A strong form of that theory has a simple way to resolve two of the three puzzles of perfect goodness and possibly the third. According to that theory, God’s will is logically or metaphysically prior to both good/bad and right/wrong. The objects of God’s will are made good or right by the goodness of God’s will. God’s will is the metaphysical ground of evaluative properties, at least the evaluative properties of acts and the ends of acts. This theory can solve the puzzle of the alleged incompatibility between omnipotence and impeccability, since it can maintain that God has the power to do anything possible, including the things that are, as a matter of contingent fact, evil; but if God were to do such things, they would not be evil. God’s freedom is maintained by the same reasoning. God is free to do what is, in fact, evil, but if he were to do these things, they would not be evil. Hence, the first two puzzles are solved by distinguishing two ways of construing the scope of “could have” in “God could have willed evil.” On one reading, God and evil are such that the former could have willed the latter. On this reading, the sentence is false, since there is no evil independent of God’s will. On the second reading, God and the things that happen to be evil (lying, killing children, etc.) are such that the former could have willed the latter. On this reading, the sentence is true, since God could have willed these things, but if he had done so, they would not have been 279

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory evil. The very things that are, in fact, evil would have been good instead. This strategy works only if being evil is not an essential property of the acts/ends that are evil. That consequence is problematic, and we will return to it, but the immediate problem with this strategy is that it is highly distasteful. Do we really want to assert that God could have willed cruelty for its own sake, and that if he had, cruelty would be good? This is the problem that led Robert Adams to modify DC theory in the way mentioned in Chapter 6. In his modified version of DC theory, morally right and wrong acts are defined by reference to the commands of a loving God. Adams does not deny that God could have commanded cruelty for its own sake, but he denies that if God did so, cruelty would be good. Instead, he says, morality would fall apart. If a DC theorist is willing to go further and say that being loving is part of God’s nature, the problem that God could have commanded cruelty is avoided. But then it is less clear that the theory solves the dilemma of omnipotence and impeccability, since it appears that a limit on one’s power is no less a limit on one’s power when the source of the limit is one’s nature. This leads us away from DC theory to other solutions, such as that of Aquinas. A solution to the third puzzle is more difficult. In the strong form of DC theory that we are considering, God is free to choose anything, good or bad, but there is no evil fixed as evil independent of God’s choice the avoidance of which is a condition for God’s moral goodness. It follows that God is not morally good in the same way that humans are morally good. Perhaps this is an acceptable consequence, since it does seem misguided to think of God’s moral goodness as involving the passing of a test or the meeting of a standard independent of Himself. So if God is morally good in DC theory, it cannot be because good and evil as such are presented to His will and He always chooses the former, although He could choose the latter. But is there any sense in which God is morally good and morally praiseworthy according to this strategy? We have already seen that there is no difficulty in maintaining that God always acts in ways that are morally right or good. We can retain the thesis that good persons do good acts, and since God is a person who does good 280

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness acts, God is good. What we cannot say is that God is good because He does good acts. We must read Thesis G as G2 rather than as G1; nonetheless, Thesis G is true. If a person who always wills good is morally praiseworthy, God is morally praiseworthy. Many people will not yet be convinced. For them, there is another possibility open to this strategy. In DC theory, God is morally good in the sense that His nature is the source of moral goodness. There would be no such thing as moral goodness without God, since it comes into existence through His will. To be fair, we need to add that moral evil would not exist without God’s will, either. God is the metaphysical ground of all morality, both the morally good and the morally bad, the morally right and the morally wrong. Is being the source of morality sufficient to make God morally good and praiseworthy? Perhaps this is a peculiar question, since it is asking, in effect, whether the institution of morality itself is a morally good thing. Is God morally good because he invented morality? Possibly, but not clearly so. If God wills his own nature, that gives DC theory another way to attribute moral goodness to God. Perhaps it is a mistake to think that God creates morality in the same way that He creates the world. Arguably, morality is a product of God’s willing an aspect of his own nature, the moral aspect. God eternally wills Himself to be what He is, thereby willing Himself to be good. God’s own moral goodness, then, would be explanatorily secondary to His will, even though His nature, His goodness, and His will are coeternal. I will leave it to adherents of DC theory to defend any of these strategies, if they wish. In the previous chapter, I reviewed a number of problems and disadvantages of Divine Command theory. Now we see one of its most attractive advantages, although it is an advantage only of the very strong form of DC theory that we have been considering. The theory provides a way to answer at least two of the three puzzles of perfect goodness, but the price is to accept both that the evil of an act is not essential to it and that God could have commanded cruelty. I do not find that acceptable, but I think that DC theory includes an important insight in its interpretation of Thesis G, the thesis that good persons will the good. As applied to God, Thesis G is true when read as G2. The goodness of God’s 281

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory will is conceptually and explanatorily prior to the goodness of the ends of His acts. As I see it, what makes this an important insight is not that it sees a moral property of God’s will as prior to the moral properties of His acts and the states of affairs He creates, but that it sees the goodness of something in God as prior to the goodness or badness of acts/states of affairs. For the purposes of solving these dilemmas, it really does not matter whether that is His will or some other part of His psyche. But if it is His will, then there are all the problems discussed in the previous chapter. Briefly, a will needs a reason for willing as it does, but by hypothesis, it cannot be a moral reason, and it is hard to see how a nonmoral reason will be sufficient. In addition, DC theory seems to make the concept of perfect goodness empty, since there is no content to the property of goodness other than this: Goodness is whatever it is that God wills. Even if God’s will is metaphysically prior to his nature so that He wills his own nature, thereby making it good, there is no reason for God to will His nature to be this rather than that, and so there is no reason for the morally good to be what it is rather than some other thing. Alternatively, on the view that God’s nature is metaphysically prior to His will, to say that God wills it to be what it is is vacuous. It means nothing more than that God is willingly what he would be in any case. In that sense of willing one’s nature, humans can will their own nature, too. The problem, as I see it, then, resides in the idea of God’s will, which is not capable of having the function in the metaphysics of value desired by the strong form of DC theory. But DC’s explanation of the goodness of the objects of God’s will by reference to something in God is an important advantage. I think that the metaphysics of value implied in reading Thesis G right to left, as G2, is importantly right.

iii the solution of divine motivation theory 1 In DM theory, as in the form of DC theory just described, God’s nature is metaphysically prior to morality. In motivation-based virtue theory, the moral properties of acts, ends, and the outcomes 282

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness of acts are derivative from the goodness of motives; in DM theory, what makes human motives good is their similarity to divine motives. God’s motives have the same function as God’s will in Divine Command theory. God’s motivations are an intrinsic feature of His nature and hence good in the primary sense, so the good is not something against which the motivations of a perfectly good being are measured. Instead, the dependency goes the other way. What is good as an end or an outcome is good because a perfectly good being is motivated to bring it about. It is not the case that a perfectly good being is good because His motives are to bring about good. Good qua good is not something that determines God’s motives by attracting him. It sounds odd to say that God is attracted to himself, although he loves himself, but like Plato’s sun, good is fundamentally diffusive. The goodness of God is primarily the goodness of motives that are expressed in His acts and poured out onto the products of those acts. In DM theory, Thesis G is formulated in terms of God’s motives rather than in terms of his will: (Gm) A good person is motivated to do or to bring about good.

Thesis (Gm) can be read left to right, as follows: (Gm1) A good person is one who is such that she is motivated to do or to bring about good.

Thesis Gm can also be read right to left, as follows: (Gm2) What is good is such that it is whatever a good person is motivated to do or to bring about.

According to motivation-based virtue theory, Thesis Gm should be read as Gm2. The sense in which God wills the good in Divine Motivation theory is therefore the following: (Ggm2) What is good is such that it is whatever God is motivated to do or to bring about.

Let us now return to the three puzzles of perfect goodness. First, there is the apparent incompatibility between omnipotence and perfect goodness in a sense that includes impeccability. Given that Thesis Gm ought to be read as Gm2, it is true that a good 283

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory being is motivated to do or to bring about good, but the good and evil of acts and states of affairs do not exist independently of the emotions/ motivational states of a good person. They do not function as a standard determining which beings are good and which bad. The dependence goes the other way, since all moral properties are defined in terms of good motives. What makes motives good is their similarity to the motives of exemplars of goodness, and in Divine Motivation theory, the exemplar is God. God’s motives are good intrinsically; their goodness is not explained by their relationship to anything else that is good. It is impossible for God to do or to bring about evil, since evil just is what it is impossible for God to be motivated to do or to bring about. God can have contrary particular motives – for instance, the motive that leads Him to call Jeremiah, assuming that God could have created a world in which Jeremiah did not exist, or a world in which Jeremiah existed but had a different calling. Acts motivated by God’s motives are good, and their ends are good states of affairs. There is also the category of states of affairs that God could have been motivated to bring about, although He did not. If God is impeccable, then any state of affairs that God could have been motivated to bring about is good. If God had not created Jeremiah, or had created him but not called him, or had called him to do a different mission, all of those states of affairs would have been good. Thesis Ggm2 should therefore be revised as follows: (Ggm2a) What is good is such that it is whatever God could have been motivated to do or to bring about.

An evil state of affairs, therefore, is one that God could not have been motivated to bring about. Such states of affairs are incompatible with God’s motives. If a good state of affairs is one that is the end of a motive of God or the end of a motive God could have had, and if a bad state of affairs is one such that it is not the case that it could have been the end of one of God’s motives, it follows that it is false that what is good could have been evil and what is evil could have been good. Many philosophers have the intuition that this is right, and that the denial of it is a counterintuitive result of the parallel solution in the strong form of Divine Command theory discussed in section II. 284

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness As we have seen, that form of DC theory handles the dilemma by distinguishing two ways of reading the sentence “God could have done evil.” God could have willed things that are, in fact, evil, but if he had willed them, they would not have been evil. This solution works only if the evil of something is not an essential property of it. But how could the evil of torturing babies be an accidental property of those acts? Do we really think that if God had willed the torture of babies, it would not have been evil?5 The parallel question for Divine Motivation theory is whether God could have been motivated to bring about the states of affairs that are, in fact, cruel, such as the torture of babies. If cruelty is contrary to his nature, the answer is no. DM theory, therefore, does not have the problem of solving the dilemma at the price of making the good and evil of acts and states of affairs accidental properties. Alternatively, we have seen that some forms of DC theory maintain that God cannot will in a way that is contrary to His nature and that willing cruelty is contrary to His nature. But this form of DC theory must rest that claim on some feature of God’s nature other than His will, usually love or benevolence, and these are motivations. DM theory has the advantage of grounding value directly in God’s motives rather than in His will. According to DM theory, God is perfectly good in a sense that includes impeccability; and it is not committed to the thesis that God could have made torture good. God is good in the same way that the standard meter stick is one meter long. God is the standard of goodness. The aspect of God from which God’s goodness diffuses is His motives. Since God’s motivations are the ground of all value, they are also the ground of the goodness of His own attributes. If God is motivated to have the attributes He has, God’s attributes are good because 5

Notice that according to Adams’s modified DC theory (1975), the moral properties of acts are accidental because a bad act might not have been bad and a good act might not have been good. An act of cruelty for its own sake might not have been bad, according to Adams, because it is possible that God commands it. What he denies is that if it had not been bad, then it would have been good. Instead, morality would fall apart.

285

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory God is motivated to have them. And since God is also motivated to have the motives He has, His goodness is itself something He is motivated to have. Omnipotence is the perfection of power. I propose that that means power in the highest degree of goodness. Since power may be good in ways other than amount, it may be preferable to express the highest degree of goodness as what is unsurpassably good in every way. An omnipotent being’s power is not only unsurpassable in degree of goodness, it is also unsurpassable in every way that power can be good. That includes its scope, the manner in which a given power is possessed and accessed, and perhaps many other ways. A parallel account can be given for the perfection of each of the other attributes. Omniscience is knowledge that is unsurpassably good in every way – in degree, scope, manner, and so on. God is motivated to have each of His attributes in the degree, scope, and manner in which He possesses each attribute. God is not motivated to have any alleged powers that He does not have, nor is He motivated to have the motive to have powers other than those He has. So if omnipotence is power in the highest degree of goodness, power that is unsurpassably good, it is power in the manner and degree that God is motivated to possess. It follows that omnipotence cannot conflict with perfect goodness; in fact, it follows from it. Problems arise from the idea that perfection is an attribute good in the highest possible degree of that attribute. That is not the same as an attribute good in the highest possible degree of goodness. Perfection is the latter, not the former. Even in the case of human properties, more of a good thing is not necessarily a better thing, or even a good thing. Why think that if x is good, then the maximal possible degree of x is even better? It is interesting to see how power has traditionally been assumed to be a good, and therefore that absolute power must be a perfection of the Deity. But it is much more reasonable to let God’s own motives determine the extent to which power is a good thing. The perfection of power, I submit, is power in the degree, manner, and scope that a perfectly good God is motivated to have. This no doubt is very close to some intuitive notion of absolute power, but it does not include the power to do evil. 286

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness Here is another way to look at the issue. Omnipotence, omniscience, eternality, and so on are thought to be attributes of God because they are perfections. Any definition of “omnipotence” according to which it is not a perfection is not what is intended by “omnipotence.” The concept of omnipotence is conditioned by the concept of goodness. It follows that omnipotence entails goodness. It is, in fact, a form of goodness. If goodness is ultimately determined by God’s motives, then omnipotence is ultimately determined by God’s motives. Whatever we say about omnipotence, it must turn out that God is never under the power of any other possible being. And His ends can never be thwarted. Whatever God attempts to do, God does. Whatever God is motivated to do, God is able to do. God never encounters any hindrance to his motives from either inside or outside Himself. But there is no reason to think that God is motivated to do any possible thing, or even that it is possible that God is motivated to do any possible thing. We need a different model of divine power, not because we have encountered a problem in a plausible concept of perfection of power, but because it is not at all clear that power in the extreme is the same as perfection of power. A plausible source of the idea of divine power is the story of the creation of the world, discussed in Chapter 4. God’s power is creative, and divine creativity ought to be considered one of His essential attributes, allied both to His power and to His freedom. When the Genesis story says that God created the heavens and the Earth and found them good, we might understand that story as a narrative of divine creativity expressing itself. The goodness of the universe is derivative from God’s own nature; the goodness of God’s motivation to create is not derivative from the goodness of the product. 2 Let us now turn to the second puzzle of perfect goodness. That is the problem that impeccability appears to prevent God from being “significantly free.” Of course, God has lots of choices provided that there is no unique choice that is compatible with his complete 287

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory set of motives, but if choosing evil is not one of them, then there is the worry that he is not free in a morally significant sense, that he is not responsible for his own goodness. As I said at the beginning of this chapter, a case could be made that moral goodness requires moral praiseworthiness, and moral praiseworthiness just is the state that is earned when an agent chooses good when he could have chosen evil. If so, we are led directly to the third difficulty for perfect goodness, that the concept of perfect moral goodness is inconsistent. But again, the account of perfection given in DM theory can resolve this problem. God’s perfections are not the highest possible degree of each attribute. God has each of his attributes in the highest possible degree of goodness. The same point applies to freedom. To be perfectly free is to be free in the highest possible degree of goodness. I propose that that means freedom in the degree, manner, and scope that God is motivated to have. God is not motivated to be free to choose evil. Hence, the perfection of freedom does not include the ability to do evil. DM theory rejects the idea that moral praiseworthiness is necessarily a state that an agent earns by refusing to choose evil when he was able to do so. Our standard for moral praiseworthiness – like our standard for perfect power, knowledge, and freedom – is determined by God’s motives, not by a set of independent conditions that an agent must satisfy. God is morally praiseworthy and morally good; in fact, He is morally praiseworthy and good in the highest possible degree of goodness. There is therefore no incompatibility between perfect goodness and moral goodness. This gives us a solution to puzzle (3). If God is not motivated to have the freedom to choose evil, then God’s freedom to choose evil is not a good. But presumably we have such freedom. Recently, Theodore Guleserian (2000) has argued that the theist cannot consistently hold both that God has an essentially good will and that the moral evil humans do is explained by the greater perfection of a human will that has the ability to do evil. A will that is causally determined to do whatever the agent believes to be good is more like a will that is essentially good than a free will is like a will that is essentially good (p. 356). Notice first that while Guleserian is right that there is a property that a causally determined will shares with an essentially good 288

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness will that it does not share with a free will, there are also properties that an essentially good will shares with a free will and not with a causally determined will – in particular, the property of not being causally determined by anything outside of it. Both an essentially good will and the will free to will evil are such that nothing outside of them causes them to will what they will, whereas a will fashioned by God to will whatever the agent perceives to be good is causally determined to will what it wills by God. The issue of similarity, then, can go either way. According to DM theory, the kind of will it is good for humans to have is determined by what God is motivated for us to have. If God is motivated for us to have the freedom to choose evil, then such freedom is good for us to have, even though, by hypothesis, God is not motivated to have such freedom Himself. It should not be surprising that God’s motives with regard to us are different from His motives with regard to Himself. If God is motivated to have powers Himself that He is not motivated for us to have, it should not be surprising that He is motivated for us to have powers that He is not motivated to have himself. Whether the power to sin is a legitimate power will be addressed in section V. My purpose here is merely to point out that even if it is a power, the goodness of the power depends upon the kind of being that has it, and that in turn ought to be determined by the motives of God. It follows from what has been said that God is not free in the same sense that we are, but it does not follow that the sense in which God is free is not a moral sense. If human motives are morally good by similarity to the divine motives, the divine motives must be morally good – in fact, perfectly morally good. But perhaps it is possible that morally good human motives imitate nonmorally good divine motives. I doubt that that is the case, but I concede that I have not closed off that possibility. Throughout this book, I have purposely paid little attention to the limits of the moral, because I have said that I do not think the distinction is very important. The moral can be defined in a restricted sense according to which no person is morally good or bad unless he or she is capable of feeling guilty. A being who cannot sin cannot feel guilty, and that would preclude God from being morally 289

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory good. But I do not consider that an objection. There are no doubt broader senses of the moral according to which God is morally good. But I leave it to others who think this an important issue to resolve it. Ironically, the approach of DM theory brings the sense in which God is good closer to the sense in which humans are good than we get in Divine Command theory. In the latter theory, there is a fundamental difference between the sense in which God’s will is good and the sense in which human wills are good, since there is an asymmetry between the will to command and the will to obey. By contrast, human and divine motives are good in the same sense in DM theory, since human motives are good by imitation of the divine motives. God and human creatures can have the same motives (motive-types), although human motives are obviously imperfect. I find the similarity between moral properties as applied to God and moral properties as applied to humans more significant than the lack of similarity between God and humans in the ability to sin.

iv does god have a will? I have already argued that Divine Motivation theory is preferable to Divine Command theory for a number of reasons. A reason that would be decisive, however, is that God does not have a will. Divine Motivation theory does not require the position that God has no will in order to solve the puzzles of this chapter and the next, but the natural theology that I endorse is simpler and more obviously preferable to DC theory if God has no will. I doubt that humans have wills either, but to argue that would take us even farther afield than we need to go for the theory of this book. If neither God nor humans have wills, the move to a theory of motivation that is not based on the will is mandatory. In this book, I am arguing only that motivation-based virtue theory is an attractive and powerful alternative to existing theories, so I will mention only briefly some of the problems in the notion of the will as applied to God. In the history of philosophy, philosophers have meant a number of different things by “the will,” so when I say that God has no 290

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness will, I want it to be clear which of these I am denying. The will, in the most minimal sense, is whatever leads an agent to act. That could be a motive in my sense of an emotion, or it might be a combination of belief and desire. Thomas Pink begins his entry on the will in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy by saying, “Talk of an individual’s will may mean simply what actions they are motivated to perform. In this sense any performer of actions, or agent, has a will.” I certainly am not denying that God has a will in this sense. The problem is that philosophers have often wanted to identify a mental event that immediately precedes and initiates action. A volition, or act of will, is said to be that event. Labeling that event “an act of the will” suggests that the will is a faculty that performs acts, that precede acts in the overt sense and is their cause. This is a stronger sense of “the will,” and the motivation for it is important. Brian O’Shaughnessy (1988) uses the term “volitionism” for the view that when a voluntary act occurs, it is preceded by a psychological event in the “inner world” that is the cause of the act. The point of volitionism, he says, is to answer the question, “What makes voluntary actions voluntary?” The “volitionist” replies: their volition origin does. That is, the volitionist believes that there is something special about voluntary actions, and that it lies in their possessing and expressing a certain distinctive origin, viz. a volition . . . since that origin is the event of willing, and its expressed effect the willed event, it follows as a matter of course that volitionism endorses the thesis of the reality of the will, which it takes to be a phenomenon of the inner life. . . . . . . the central task alloted to the volition is to explain the existence of that very special usage wherein we say of some φ: ‘I did φ.’ Thus, the theory assumes that there exists an event link between me and a certain φ that is such as to enable me to say of such a φ: ‘It was voluntarily done by me.’ This psychic act of the will is conceived to be a distinctive interior event that is such that, in a special sense of ‘responsible’, not identical with but underpinning many examples of moral responsibility, I can be said to be responsible for φ. (vol. 2, pp. 241–242)

291

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory So according to O’Shaughnessy, the primary motive for the theory that overt acts are preceded by acts of will is the thought that it is necessary to explain human freedom. This idea is particularly tempting if we want to preserve an incompatibilist notion of freedom. If any action is causally explained by such psychic states as desires, emotions, motives, and beliefs – either singly or in combination – then the act presumably could not be free in the incompatibilist sense, and if it is noncausally explained by these states, the causal mechanism of free choice still has to be located in something other than these states. That something is taken to be the faculty of the will. In humans, then, the will has been philosophically important because it is considered crucial to isolate something in human psychology that is the bearer of freedom. As O’Shaughnessy suggests, the bearer of freedom is also the locus of the “I” when we think of ourselves as responsible for our own actions. The will has become, then, both the locus of freedom or voluntariness and the locus of the self in the moral sense. This is a profoundly heavy burden, since the freedom of the human person has been under increasing attack throughout the modern era, and that has resulted in a narrowing of the concept of the moral self and a peculiar shedding of the will’s association with other parts of the psyche, particularly intellect and emotion. As more and more aspects of the human person have been allegedly demonstrated to be beyond the control of the self, many philosophers have reacted by drawing the line of defense around a featureless power of pure choice – the will, which is independent of intellect, emotion, or desire. The idea, then, is that psychologists, neurologists, and philosophers may wreak havoc on the integrity and autonomy of most of the properties we attribute to persons, but there is one thing that they allegedly cannot touch, and that is the will. The will just is the self in the moral sense. This sense of the will is much stronger than mere volitionism, which is neutral on the independence of the will from other parts of the psyche. Aquinas identified will with intellective appetite, and for that reason he thought he had to attribute will to God: “Properly speaking, however, the will is in the intellect.” Then, since God is intelligent, He must be endowed with will (Summa 292

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness contra Gentiles I, ch. 72, § 3). After Aquinas, voluntarists such as Scotus maintained that the will is independent of the practical intellect, but even they did not go as far as those post-Kantians who attempt to make the will fully autonomous from any other part of the person. The most important function of the concept of will in the case of human agency, then, was to preserve human freedom of choice, and during the modern period that has led to a view of the will as increasingly isolated from the rest of the person; at the extreme, it is identified with the moral self in its entirety. Regardless of the merits of this view of human agency, the problems with which are many, there is very little to recommend it in the case of divine agency. Why would God be determined, and hence unfree, if His acts were fully explained by His motives, together with His beliefs, even if His beliefs and motives were sufficient to determine what He chooses? It is not as if God is faced with the human problem that ultimately beliefs and motives are, or might be, determined by events and persons outside of ourselves. There is nothing outside of God at all that is metaphysically or temporally or causally prior to Himself. To say that the divine motives determine what God will do, given any circumstance, is not to say that God is unfree. There is no need for a concept of divine will in order to create a free space within which God can act. God’s motives are as much His own as His alleged will can possibly be. There is no question of God’s motives being put upon him or involuntarily suffered, or the like. If God acts because of His motives, He is no less free and no less perfect and no less himself than if He acts because of His will. There is no need for a will to act as an intercessor between the past and future, and there is no advantage to a will that acts independently of other parts of the divine psyche. Nor does God need a faculty of pure pushiness that is untainted by the influence of emotion or desire and able to supersede it, since God’s emotions and desires are not something that he needs to rise above. If an autonomous will is needed in order to distinguish voluntary from involuntary acts, there is no need for such a will in the case of God, since God performs no involuntary acts. However, leaving considerations of divine freedom to one side, perhaps we 293

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory would want to say that God performs acts of will just because we want to name an event in the divine psychology that initiates divine action. As I have said, I do not deny that God has a will in the minimal sense of an initiator of divine acts. God has motives, and those motives operate to bring about and to explain his acts. I do not even deny that the operation of a motive, together with God’s cognitive states, constitutes an event. What I do not see is the need for God to perform an act of will in addition to his motivational and cognitive states and acts. In order to retain compatibility with divine perfection, any event in the divine psyche that initiates divine action could not be preceded by a period of indecision during which God makes up his mind. Clearly, that is an anthropomorphic view of agency that does not make sense for God. Even under the controversial assumption that God is temporal, there can never be a period during which the decision is “up in the air.” To say that God “initiates” his own actions implies temporality, and any way of explaining God’s acts that does not make that assumption is less like initiation and more like causation. God’s acts are caused by His motives. We saw in Chapter 5 that it has been argued that the concept of a person arose from theological debates. If that is the case, the idea of God’s personhood preceded the idea of human personhood. I find it interesting that the concept of a will does not seem to have a similar history. The concept of a will as a distinct faculty separable from the intellect arose out of a distinctively human psychology and filled a need to explain how human beings, who obviously are not fully autonomous, nonetheless retain a kind of autonomy. My historical conjecture is that the idea of a human will preceded the idea of a divine will. But a will in the fully developed sense that is common in modern philosophy is not necessary for agency – at least not for the agency of a perfect being – nor is there a theological reason to attribute a will to God. Divine Command theory itself might provide such a theological reason. That would be the case if we think it important that God issues commands. Fair enough. But I have already given my reasons for thinking that it is not a good idea for the Christian to think of morality as coming in the form of commandments, nor is it a good idea to think of 294

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness morality as essentially lawlike. God’s will is at best superfluous, regardless of whether or not we humans have wills. By contrast, God’s motives – such as love, mercy, and justice – are an intrinsic and important part of God’s nature.

v is the ability to sin a power? One of the historically most important solutions to the first puzzle is that of Aquinas, who argued that the “power” to do evil is not a power. Since choice is always made under the aspect of good, no one chooses evil except out of ignorance or weakness. Hence, the ability to do evil is a defect, not a power. This solution has a number of adherents. It also has many detractors, usually writers arguing that there is a plain intuitive sense of power according to which the power to do evil is a power. Notice that they need not be committed to the problematic assumptions in my initial statement of the dilemma of omnipotence and impeccability. In particular, they need not insist that omnipotence is the maximal degree of power. Their worry arises not from a positive account of what omnipotence is, but from an intuitive idea of what it is not. If God is unable to do something that ordinary mortals can do, isn’t he lacking in omnipotence? In short, the dilemma need not rest on any account of what omnipotence is, but only on the idea that the ability to sin is a power the lack of which is sufficient to preclude omnipotence. Wes Morriston (2001) has recently presented a version of this way of posing the problem. Morriston acknowledges Thomas’s proposed way out, but in an interesting twist on the argument of Guleserian, Morriston argues that the defenders of an absolutely perfect deity cannot use Thomas’s way out, because the free will response to the problem of evil requires that human beings have the power to sin knowingly. In response, T. J. Mawson has defended Thomas’s solution and argued that it is compatible with the free will defense. In this section, I will argue that Mawson is mistaken in his response to Morriston. The latter is right that there are difficulties in Aquinas’s solution if it is combined with the standard free will defense. I am not going to use the standard 295

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory free will defense in this book, but the deeper issue that Morriston raises still ought to be addressed. Is the ability to sin intuitively a power? If so, what drives that intuition? This is a potential problem for DM theory, as well as for Aquinas and for anyone else who maintains that God is impeccable, quite apart from their attitude toward the free will defense. Mawson (2002) defends Thomas’s position that the ability to sin is a defect, but he argues that it is a necessary defect in the created universe that permits the defender of the defectiveness of the ability to sin to use the free will defense to the problem of evil. Mawson says: On Adapted Anselmian Thomism, for both finite agents and God, the “genuine, active power knowingly to chose evil” is or would be a genuine active liability to be less than omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly reasonable. For created beings, it is a liability they necessarily suffer under; for the Creator, it is one which His divine nature frees Him from. Even when the power knowingly to choose evil is seen as a liability which created beings but not their creator suffer under, perhaps surprisingly, one’s theodicy need not take a different a[sic] shape from that of the traditional free will defence. Why do created beings necessarily suffer under the liability of being able knowingly to choose to perform evil actions? Because it is logically impossible that there be two omnipotent beings. Given that God is Himself omnipotent, He could not create another omnipotent being and thus He could not create creatures who lacked the liability knowingly to choose evil, that is creatures who were themselves less than omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly reasonable. (p. 222)

I think there are serious problems with Mawson’s defense of the compatibility of the free will defense and Aquinas’s position that the ability to sin is a defect. First of all, there are a number of versions of the free will defense, and the position that the ability to sin is a defect is surely incompatible with some of the best-known versions. On one common version, not only is free will not a defect, it is so good that free will when combined with the good to which it leads outweighs the evils to which it 296

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness leads.6 Mawson acknowledges that the adherent of the position that the ability to do evil is a defect cannot use this version of the free will defense. Instead, Mawson’s position is that the defectiveness of a form of free will that includes the ability to do evil is a necessary accompaniment to the Creation, and that “free will is a liability that is necessary for any created being and it’s not so bad, either in itself or given the evils to which it gives rise, that any creature’s life is made overall not worthwhile” (ibid.). As far as I can see, this version of the free will defense is even harder to defend than the more usual versions because it requires that free will is another bad thing in the world that, when added to suffering and the moral evils done freely, does not outweigh the good of each individual creaturely life. It is possible that that is true, but it surely is far from anything I recognize as the free will defense. There is a more important problem in Mawson’s defense of Aquinas. Why does he think that an intelligent being who cannot sin must be omnipotent? I would not deny that an argument for such a view could be given, based on the unity of perfection, but Mawson does not allude to such an argument, or to any argument. Prima facie, a being who cannot sin need not be omnipotent. In fact, a being who cannot sin need not be very powerful or knowledgeable at all. He might be just like the being described by Guleserian who is causally determined to do what he thinks is good. But there is a more straightforward way in which God could refrain from creating creatures with the ability to sin without creating other omnipotent beings. All he has to do is refrain from creating any intelligent beings, or even not create anything at all. I think that a good case could be made for the view that it is a good thing that God created a universe that contains intelligent beings, but absent any defense of the position that the inability to sin entails omnipotence and the position that the good of creaturely lives is both individually and collectively worthwhile given 6

It is generally thought that this view requires that free will be very good, because the evils people do with their free will are at least as great as the good they do with their free will.

297

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory all the evils and suffering in the world – including the badness of the ability to sin – we must conclude that Morriston is right that if the ability to sin is a defect, this leads to serious problems for the free will defense of the existence of evil. Does it follow that Morriston is right that the ability to sin is a power? No, it does not. There is something about the ability to sin that makes it seem intuitively like a power, but there is also something about it that makes it seem intuitively like a defect. The explanation for the intuitive confusion, I propose, is that the ability to sin is in itself neither a power nor a defect. It would be a defect in God, but it is a power in us. If it would be a defect in God, that explains how God can be both omnipotent and impeccable. If it is a good in us, that explains how it can be used in the free will defense – although that is not to say, of course, that the good of free will is sufficient to explain evil. That is only to say that it can meet the objection of Morriston. Morriston is right that defenders of free will as a solution to the problem of evil have to make up their minds about whether the ability to sin is a good or a defect. If it is a good, then an impeccable being is not omnipotent. If it is a defect, then they cannot appeal to its goodness in order to explain the existence of evil. But there is no reason to think that it has to be one or the other. That is, the ability to do evil per se need be neither a power nor a defect. If God is motivated for us to have it, then it is a good in us. If He is motivated not to have it Himself, which is presumably the case if He is perfectly good, then it is not a good in Him. The thesis of DM theory can explain this difference. The intuition that there is something good about the ability to do evil is associated with another intuition, one about the value of love. An objection related to Morriston’s is the topic of the next section.

vi love and freedom Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder (1993) have recently argued that the following propositions are inconsistent: (1) The best sort of love is the love of one person for another, a love that requires the freedom to withhold love.

298

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness (2) The freedom to withhold love entails the freedom to do evil. (3) Love is an essential part of the internal life of God. (4) God is essentially perfectly good.7

The Howard-Snyders find the motivation for (1) and (2) in the theodicy literature, but the problem that they identify is clearly related to the problem we have been discussing in this chapter. Under the assumption that perfect goodness includes impeccability, propositions (1)–(4) as I have formulated them are indeed inconsistent. I have affirmed (3), (4), and the impeccability of God many times, so the focus of my discussion will be on (1) and (2). The Howard-Snyders consider the possibility that (1) is false (“Reply 1”) and the possibility that (2) is false (“Reply 4”). They reject both of these moves, concluding in their last sentence that the “air of incompatibility permeating the Christian theodicist’s appeal to love has yet to be disspelled.” Let us first look at reasons for rejecting (1) as given by the Howard-Snyders and their rejoinder. The objector they consider points out that many kinds of love do not seem to be free – in particular, the love of parents for their children and passionate, romantic love. The Howard-Snyders reject the idea that the best sort of love is of this kind, but they concede that it might be. Perhaps God’s love for us is not free in the sense that it could have been withheld. But if so, they point out, the Christian theodicist cannot use the position that God had to create creatures free not to love Him as a reponse to the problem of evil. If God Himself does not have the kind of love that involves the freedom to withhold it, why should we? This is parallel to the worry expressed by Morriston. Let us begin with the issue of whether God’s love for us is such that He could withhold it in the future or could have withheld it from us in some other possible world. It seems to me that (1) is false for the same reason that God is impeccable. Love is as much a part of God’s essence as goodness. In fact, God’s goodness consists, in part, in being loving. God’s inability not to love is therefore a 7

The Howard-Snyders do not formulate (1) and (2) in the way that I have here, but I find this way of presenting their argument clearer.

299

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory component of God’s inability not to be good. What makes God’s love good is what makes anything good in DM theory: God is motivated that way. God is motivated not only to love, but also to have the motives that he has, including the motive to love. God is neither motivated not to love nor to have the motive not to love, nor could He have had such a motive. Since both the motive to love and the motive to have the motive to love are part of His nature, God is motivated to love us in all possible worlds, and in all possible worlds He endorses His own motive in his secondorder motive. In this chapter, we have defined the perfection of an attribute as the attribute in the highest degree of goodness, which in turn is defined as the attribute in the degree, scope, and manner God is motivated to possess. Given that God is motivated to possess love in such a way that He is not capable of withholding love from us, He is not only loving, but perfectly loving. God has the perfection of love. The reader will realize from the discussion in the last section that it does not immediately follow that this means trouble for theodicies according to which God had to create us with the ability to withhold love because that is the highest kind of love. Love that can be withheld is not the highest kind of love, but it might be the highest kind of love that we are capable of, and there is no reason why God cannot be motivated in a different way for Himself than for us. Human beings are capable of many different kinds of love, some of which are nonfree. The Howard-Snyders mention parental and romantic love as examples of love that cannot be freely withheld. Both kinds of love are indeed wonderful, but it seems to me very unlikely that what makes them wonderful is the one feature they share with God’s love for us – the inability to withhold it. For us, love that can be freely given or withheld probably imitates the divine love for us in other ways. Love of that kind may even be closer to the way in which God loves, even though it lacks similarity in the feature of being unable to be withheld. I don’t even think it is essential to the love theodicy that the kind of love that can be withheld is the highest kind of love of which human persons are capable. There may be no highest, if parental love imitates the love of God in one respect and freely 300

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness given love imitates the love of God in another respect. All that is necessary for that theodicy is that the kind of love that can be withheld is among the highest kinds of love for human beings. I do not see, then, that the Howard-Snyders have convincingly made their case that if the highest kind of love in God does not include the ability to withhold it, then the highest kind of love in humans does not include that ability either. Now what about (2)? The love theodicy that generates the problem the Howard-Snyders discuss requires the truth of (2) as applied to us. Is (2) also true as applied to God? If, per impossibile, God were able to withhold love, would that be a defect in God? This question applies not only to the love of God for creatures, but also to the love of the persons of the Trinity for each other. If the Father failed to love the Son, would that be a defect in the Father? I think there is a strong presumption in the affirmative, if good and bad are defined as they are in DM theory. If the bad is what it is impossible for God to be motivated to do, then if it is impossible for God to be motivated to withhold love, God’s withholding love would be bad. It follows that (2) is true, and since (3) and (4) are true also, the falsehood of (1) is an important consequence of the considerations of this section.

vii conclusion It is fundamentally mistaken to define omnipotence or freedom in terms of what a being can do. The problem is deeper than the logical peculiarities of the idea of maximal power, which is problematic for many reasons extant in the literature. The problem, as I see it, is that neither power nor freedom should be defined by the range of acts that a being with power or freedom can do. If omnipotence is good, which I assume is a conceptual truth, then it should not be defined as maximal power or maximal possible power, or in any way that does not refer to the goodness of the power of an omnipotent being. I have suggested defining omnipotence as “power in the maximal degree of goodness,” or alternatively as “power that is unsurpassably good in every way.” The latter avoids implying that goodness is measured only in degree. With this definition, DM theory has the consequence that 301

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

II. Divine Motivation theory omnipotence is power in the range, kind, and degree a perfectly good being would be motivated to have. An omnipotent being cannot be defined as a being who has the ability to do the acts on a list of acts that count in advance as powers. Nor can an omnipotent being be defined as a being who has the ability to do acts that satisfy some condition independent of the goodness of that being. Omnipotence is not the ability to do anything, nor the ability to do anything possible, nor the ability to do anything that has feature x. Omnipotence should not be defined by what an omnipotent being can do or by the properties of what an omnipotent being can do, but by what an omnipotent being is. Power is a certain kind of ability that is unsurpassably good and that expresses itself in the ability to do a certain range of acts. It is likely that that range is close to what we would intuitively consider maximally great, but that depends upon what a perfectly good being is motivated to do and upon whether the intuitions are right that the greater the range of acts a being can do, the greater the goodness of the power of such a being. A similar point applies to the idea of morally significant freedom, although freedom does not have the peculiar problems that accompany the idea of maximality. If a being is free in the morally significant sense, then presumably that being is free in a way that a perfectly good being would be motivated to be. What that includes is not a matter of definition; rather, it is up to the perfectly good person. The particular problem of divine freedom is not the problem of maximality but the problem that what a perfectly good being is motivated to be, qua good, might be different for himself than for his creatures. I do not see that there is any conceptual problem here, although we would no doubt want to find out why the freedom that is morally significant for us differs from the freedom that is morally significant for a perfect being. The same point applies to the definitions of the other perfections of God, including omniscience, but an analogous point even applies to the definition of perfect goodness. It cannot be any part of the concept of perfect goodness that such a being lacks the ability to do the things on a certain list – for example, that he cannot will gratuitous suffering. I have agreed that a perfect being is impeccable – that is, that he cannot do evil – but the metaphysics 302

P1: JzQ 0521828805c07.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

13:47

The paradoxes of perfect goodness of value I am defending here has the consequence that impeccability is the property of being unable to do whatever a perfect being cannot be motivated to do. It is trivially true that a perfect being cannot be motivated to do whatever he cannot be motivated to do. There is a substantive truth about God’s goodness in His inability to will cruelty, gratuitous suffering, and so on. But that follows from the substance of God’s motives, not from impeccability. Perfection is a wonderful but troublesome idea. It is particularly perplexing when attributed to a being who possesses not just the perfection of this or that but the perfection of every good personal trait – who is perfect simpliciter. One of the ironies of philosophical reflection on perfection is that it seems to lead – not inexorably, but resolutely – to the idea that a perfect being is constrained. To be unable to do evil is to be unable to be nonperfect. And to be unable to be nonperfect may strike some of us as a defect in itself. Hence, it might be concluded that perfection makes no sense. The concept of perfection gives rise to antinomies, and so, at the limit, the concept that is deepest in ethics – the concept of goodness – defeats itself. This possibility may strike us as something that is even more likely if the concepts of good and evil are defined by direct reference. If good is stuff like x and evil is stuff like y, there may be no consistent theory of good and evil that has the consequence that all the stuff like x is good and all the stuff like y is evil. What this teaches us, I think, is that we should be willing to make some revisions as we go along, both in our paradigms of good and evil and in the theory we are constructing. We can expect to encounter both a great deal of intellectual satisfaction and a great deal of mystery in attempting to identify the divine motives. Probably the hardest one of all is the issue of the next chapter: Why would a perfect being be motivated to permit evil?

303

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

Chapter 8 The problem of evil

The Two Ways. One is to suffer; the other is to become a professor of the fact that another suffered. The first is “the way”; the second goes round about . . . and perhaps it ends by going down. Soren Kierkegaard, Journals

i the intellectual problem of evil 1 The most serious challenge to the belief that there is a perfectly good and omnipotent God is the problem of evil. This problem confronts theists both intellectually and existentially. The intellectual problem is that the existence of evil seems to make the existence of a God with these attributes improbable or even impossible. It is therefore an attack on the rationality of belief in God. The existential problem is that seeing and enduring evil makes it hard for humans to trust God even if they come to the conclusion that His existence is not unlikely and that theistic belief is not irrational. The existential problem attacks religious believers’ motivation to go on with their lives in a way that gives them meaning. Philosophers are primarily concerned with the intellectual problem, and I will concentrate on that 304

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil problem in this chapter, but the existential problem is so important that it should never be very far in the background, and although appeal to philosophy is far from the best way to deal with the latter problem, some philosophical positions help more than others. The intellectual problem of evil has two forms, one of which is generally known as “the logical problem of evil,” and the other of which is usually called “the evidential problem” or alternatively, “the probabilistic problem of evil.”1 The problem in its logical form is that perfect goodness and omnipotence seem to be logically inconsistent with the existence of evil.2 The inconsistency is not straightforward but requires supplementation by additional premises that specify what an omnipotent being would be able to do and what a perfectly good being would be motivated to do.3 According to the evidential form of the problem, the existence of evil disconfirms or renders improbable the existence of a perfectly good and omnipotent being. This version of the problem has received most of the attention in the recent literature, signaling a consensus on both sides that whereas the existence of God is not logically inconsistent with the existence of evil, the more serious issue is whether the existence of evil is sufficient to make the existence of God improbable.4 1

2

3

4

I am adopting Brian Davies’ (1998) use of the term “the intellectual problem of evil” for both the logical and evidential forms of the problem. The latter distinction is the most common way to divide the arguments in the literature, but it hides the important fact that the existential problem is a very different problem. Some writers on the problem of evil formulate the logical problem in terms of an alleged inconsistency between the existence of evil and the existence of a perfectly good, omnipotent, and omniscient being. I am leaving omniscience out of my statement of the problem, but it can easily be inserted by those who think it important. Nothing I say in this chapter is altered by that addition. I think that a case can be made that omniscience is entailed by omnipotence. The locus classicus for the logical problem in the contemporary literature is “Evil and Omnipotence” by J. L. Mackie (1955), which has been reprinted many times, e.g., in Pike (1964) and Adams and Adams (1990). Probability can be understood in either an objective sense or an epistemic sense. Much of the recent literature has focused on the epistemic sense.

305

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory In this chapter, I will show that the intellectual problem of evil rests on a metaphysics of value that I have rejected in this book. But since the strength of the evidence of evil needs to be weighed against the strength of the background metaphysics, and since the metaphysics of value of DM theory is clearly arguable, theodicy is still important. By a theodicy, I mean a plausible account of God’s possible motivations for permitting evil.5 I will outline the kind of theodicy that DM theory suggests, and will then turn to the most serious form of the problem for DM theory: the intellectual and existential problems of suffering. The atheist’s argument from evil can be stated as follows: (1) A perfectly good being would be motivated to prevent every evil. (2) An omnipotent being would be able to prevent every evil. (3) So if there were a being who was perfectly good and omnipotent, this being would be motivated to prevent every evil and would be able to do so. (4) If there were a being who was motivated to prevent every evil and was able to do so, evil would not exist. (5) But evil does exist. (6) Therefore, there is no being who is perfectly good and omnipotent. The Christian God does not exist.

My formulation of the argument in terms of preventing evil is only one of several standard ways of attempting to express the relation between a creator-God and evil. The argument is sometimes given in terms of eliminating evil once it occurs. These differences are not germane to the approach that I will take in this chapter, since they presuppose a common metaphysics of value that will be the focus of my objection. It is generally believed that the weakest premise in the atheist’s argument is premise (1) or one very similar to (1). Revisions of the 5

I am using “theodicy” in the traditional sense. Alvin Plantinga and some others following Plantinga have restricted the use of “theodicy” to a doctrine concerning God’s actual reasons for permitting evil. See Plantinga (1974b), p. 192. Richard Swinburne (1998) uses the traditional sense.

306

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil argument generally do not reject (1) outright, but add a clause. Premise (1) typically becomes: (1’) A perfectly good being would be motivated to prevent every evil unless he had a morally justifying reason not to do so.

The logical problem is solved as long as it is possible that there is a morally justifying reason for permitting evil, as Nelson Pike (1963) pointed out four decades ago. It is not even necessary that we can figure out what that reason is or even have a hint as to what it is. And surely it is possible that there is such a reason. There is now agreement on this point, even among the most well-known objectors to theism, who concede that it is possible that a perfectly good being has a morally sufficient reason to permit evil.6 However, if we cannot think of such a reason, that seems to put us in the epistemic position of having evidence that one does not exist.7 This has led to a focus on the evidential form of the argument, resulting in complicated and subtle discussions of the evaluation of probability with or without a background religious belief.8 6

7

8

Mackie (1955) explicitly recognized that himself, saying that the theist has enough maneuvering room to avoid outright contradiction. In a recent statement of the prevailing attitude among nontheists, Richard Gale says, “That the world contains the evils it does obviously poses a challenge to traditional theism. For some it is logical in that a contradiction is supposed to be deducible from the coexistence of God and evil. Almost everyone now believes that adequate defenses have been devised to neutralize this challenge” (“Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil,” in HowardSnyder [1996], p. 206). See William Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” and “The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look”; Paul Draper, “Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists” and “The Skeptical Theist”; and Richard Gale, “Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil.” All of these papers are in the Howard-Snyder (1996) collection. Rowe generally poses the problem in terms of suffering rather than evil. For reasons that will become apparent in what follows, I separate the problems of evil and suffering. William Rowe and Paul Draper give Bayesian versions of the evidential argument in their papers in Howard-Snyder (1996). Responses using Bayes’ Theorem have been given by Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, and others. Some of these papers are also contained in the Howard-Snyder volume.

307

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory The evidential problem of evil, then, focuses on our grounds for believing each of the propositions in the argument given here or a similar argument, and the grounds seem to be weakest in the case of premise (1), which is usually amended to (1’). By far the most common way of attacking (1’) is to say that we may have grounds for believing that evil is morally worth accepting for the sake of some good for which the evil is a necessary condition. Free will is the traditional good so identified. If so, there is the further question whether the amount and kinds of evil in the world are worth accepting for that good or any other good we might think of.9 But in almost all discussions, the heart of premise (1) is accepted, even if a clause is added. Both sides of the dispute assume that an essential component of the motivational structure of a perfectly good being is to produce or permit good and to prevent or eliminate or disallow evil. In other words, good beings are motivated toward good states of affairs and away from evil states of affairs. That is assumed to be in part constitutive of the concept of a good being. Permitting evil could be a part of such a motivational structure only if the motivation toward good simpliciter and the motivation away from evil simpliciter turn out to be incompatible in some way. Evil can be permitted only with a morally justifying reason, and that is interpreted to mean that a good of some kind has to justify the evil.10 This picture of the problem as commonly accepted by both sides of the dispute makes an assumption about the metaphysics of value that I have rejected in this book. As we saw in Chapter 6, Thesis G, “A good person wills good,” can be read in either of two directions. If read from left to right, it amounts to the 9

10

Bill Rowe has pressed the significance of the problem of the amount of apparently gratuitous evil in several papers. In addition to his papers in the Howard-Snyder volume, see Rowe (1991) and my reply (1991b). My idea for Divine Motivation theory originated in that paper. Swinburne’s (1998) approach is a good example of this traditional move. He argues that some good states cannot be achieved without evil, that God has the right to allow such evils, and that the good states God seeks are so good that they outweigh the accompanying evils.

308

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil following: (G1) “A good person is such that he wills whatever is good.” If read from right to left, it amounts to this: (G2) “What is good is such that it is whatever is willed by a good person.” The interpretation of Thesis G in the statement of the problem of evil, as in the paradoxes of perfect goodness, is G1. The assumption is that good and evil states of affairs exist in a way that is independent of anybody’s motivations or will and serve as a standard against which the good or bad of a person or of that person’s will is measured. That Thesis G should be read in this way is a substantive metaphysical claim, not a conceptual claim. The fact that it is not a conceptual claim is demonstrated not only by the theory of this book, but also by the strong form of Divine Command theory, Nietzsche’s theory, and projectivist theories of value such as that of J. L. Mackie, among others.11 The strong form of DC theory claims that good is whatever is willed by God or is in conformity with the will of God. That claim can be intended as a conceptual claim,12 but I have been treating it as the metaphysical claim that there is no good or evil that is metaphysically independent of the will of God. What is good is good and what is evil is evil because of its relation to the divine will. God’s will gives a thing the value status that it has. DC theory in this form may be true or it may be false, but it is not incoherent. It is not a mistake in the use of the concepts of good and evil. The same point applies to Nietzsche and Mackie. When Nietzsche maintains that value depends upon

11

12

It is interesting that Mackie did not seem to realize that his theory of value was inconsistent with his atheist argument from evil. On the one hand, he claimed that the world contains no evil, and on the other hand, he maintained that the existence of evil is a serious problem for the theist. It might be thought that he should be interpreted as maintaining, not that evil exists, but that the theist is inconsistent, since the theist typically believes that there is evil while also believing in God. But that interpretation does not do justice to his text. Nicholas Sturgeon (1995) argues that not only Mackie’s position, but also many other irrealist positions in ethics are inconsistent with the view that evil is a serious problem for theism. G.E. Moore (1959a) interprets it in that way in his discussion of his famous “naturalistic fallacy.”

309

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory the individual will, or when Mackie claims that good and evil are projections of our emotional states onto the world, their claims might be false, but I see no reason to think that either one of them exhibits a lack of understanding of value concepts.13 The connection between value and motives or will is a metaphysical question. But premise (1), even when supplemented as (1’), arises from a particular background metaphysics of value – namely, that evil as such is independent of the motives of good beings. DM theory denies that and maintains that Thesis G should be read as G2. 2 The standard problem of evil arises out of the position that the goodness or badness of ends and/or acts is metaphysically prior to the goodness or badness of motives. The good of ends or acts is determined independently of motives, and the good of motives is determined by their relation to ends or acts. It should be clear by now that my position is the reverse. The good of ends is determined by the good of the motives to bring them about. The evaluative properties of acts are determined by the acts of beings with good motives. I have also argued that the goodness of motives is not prior to the goodness of persons, but rather, that good motives are the motives that the good person would have in the given circumstances. In DM theory, the paradigmatic good person is God. Good and bad outcomes are determined by God’s motives to adopt those outcomes as His ends. Right and wrong acts for humans in human situations are determined by the goodness of human motives, which in turn are determined by their imitation of the divine motives. It follows that even though there is a sense in which it is true that God is motivated to prevent or eliminate evil, it is not the sense intended in the argument given here. It is false that a good God is good in the sense that He is motivated to prevent or eliminate or otherwise disallow evil. But it is true that what is evil is evil 13

Friedrich Nietzsche (1973); J. L. Mackie (1977).

310

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil because a good God is motivated to prevent or eliminate it. The distinction between good and evil is not metaphysically prior to God’s motives. Like Thesis G, premise (1) or (1’) can be read in either of two directions. The direction intended in the argument is the following: (1a) A perfectly good being is one that is motivated to prevent whatever is evil.

(1a) is false. The direction in which (1) or (1’) is true is the following: (1b) Evil is whatever a perfectly good being is motivated to prevent.

According to (1b), to say that God is motivated to prevent evil is just to say that God is motivated to prevent anything contrary to His motives. This premise is true but trivial.14 With (1) interpreted as (1b), premise (2) needs to be read as: (2b) An omnipotent being would be able to prevent whatever he is motivated to prevent.

Premise (2b) is plainly true. Line (3) becomes: (3b) So if there were a being who was perfectly good and omnipotent, this being would be motivated to prevent everything that he is motivated to prevent and would be able to do so.

Premise (4) becomes: (4b) If there were a being who was motivated to prevent everything that he is motivated to prevent and was able to do so, nothing would exist that such a being is motivated to prevent.

Premise (5) becomes: (5b) Things exist that an omnipotent and perfectly good being would be motivated to prevent. 14

Note that there is no need to modify (1b) by adding a clause about morally justifying reasons, as (1) was amended to (1’). Any such clause is superfluous.

311

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory We have no reason to think that (5b) is true. In fact, we have reason to think the contrary. If God’s motives are intrinsically good, and if the value of ends and outcomes derives from the good of God’s motives, the distinction between motives and ends has the consequence that there are three logical categories for the value of outcomes: (1) Outcomes that are such that God is motivated that they exist. Their existence follows from God’s motives. (2) Outcomes that are such that God is motivated that they not exist. Their nonexistence follows from God’s motives. God refuses to permit them to exist. (3) Outcomes that are such that God is motivated to permit them either to exist or not to exist. Neither their existence nor their nonexistence follows from God’s motives. These outcomes come out of outcomes in class (1). Presumably the existence of free creatures is in class (1).

The first category exists, and it is good. Its goodness derives from the goodness of God’s motives. The second is the contrary, and it does not exist. This category is empty. In fact, the argument (1b)–(5b) demonstrates that there is nothing in that category. We probably cannot even imagine what something in that category would be like. The third is the problem category. We call some of it evil, although obviously not all of it. It follows that evil is not the contrary of good, which is not to say that it is not really evil as we mean it. If good and evil are both defined via direct reference, there is no doubt that evil exists, since what we mean by evil is “stuff like that,” where we point to instances of gratuitous suffering, moral wrongdoing, unhappiness, despair, and all the rest. I am certainly not denying that all of that exists. It exists, and it is what we all mean by evil. But it is important to notice that there are actually three logically possible categories of the relationship between ends and God’s motives, and that anything in the second category cannot exist. It follows that (1) is false when interpreted as (1a), the sense intended in the atheist argument from evil. And if (1) is interpreted as (1b), the sense in which it is true, premise (5) must be read as (5b) and is false. Either way, the argument collapses. 312

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil The critical point in this approach to the problem of evil is that God does not permit evil for the sake of some good – the good of free will, the good of the world, or the good of God himself. There is no independent good for the sake of which some independent evils are permitted. Evil is a byproduct of a divine motivational structure that does not include balancing good and evil or permitting the one for the sake of the other. It is a good motivational structure because it is the motivational structure of a perfect being. In describing the Creation in Chapter 4, I said that God does not aim to create a world that he independently considers to be good. His motivation cannot be explained as doing what He does because of considerations of goodness. God does what He does because it is expressive of His nature. God’s actions are like those of the artist who creates works of beauty, but who can hardly be said to create these works because they are beautiful. He creates out of a desire to create, a desire that expresses the inner beauty of His own imagination. In the same way, God does not create because the world He creates is good. It is not as if God sees in imagination that such a creation would be good and then goes about creating it. In the Genesis story, God saw that it was good after he created the universe. It is good because it is the expression of the creative nature of a perfectly good being whose creativity is a component of both His goodness and His omnipotence. The intellectual problem of evil, whether interpreted as a problem of logical inconsistency or as a problem of epistemic probability, depends upon a particular way of understanding the metaphysics of value that is denied by DM theory. A rejection of this way of eliminating the problem therefore requires a direct attack on the metaphysics of value of DM theory.

ii divine motivation theory and theodicy 1 The logical problem of evil is solved as long as the metaphysics of value of DM theory is possible. The evidential problem of evil is harder for any theory that attempts to solve the problem by appealing to a background metaphysical or theological position. 313

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory That is because the problem is generally perceived to be so severe that it takes more than a disputable metaphysical or theological position to combat it. The conviction that evil exists in great quantities and terrible varieties is so strong that the problem simply will not go away unless the background metaphysics or natural theology used to eliminate the problem is bolstered by a compelling theodicy. I am not denying that people have a right to set the strength of their background beliefs for themselves, but to engage in public discourse on these matters requires that we recognize that many people’s belief that there is no morally justifiable reason to permit evil is stronger than their background religious or metaphysical beliefs.15 Therefore, even though particular individuals may be violating no duties of rationality by having background beliefs strong enough to either eliminate or solve the problem of evil for themselves, it is not useful for the public debate on evil and theism to refer to these beliefs without independent support. The fact that people are disturbed by the existence of evil in a theistic universe, and are rational in doing so, suggests to me that they deserve as full an explanation for evil as we are able to give. Theodicy is important, and we should give it as much attention as we can. As much as we can do may not be enough, of course, but we should recognize that we are 15

Alvin Plantinga has used the background belief that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God as a way of undercutting any alleged evidence against His existence by way of the existence of evil. See his “Reason and Belief in God,” section B, reprinted in Sennett (1998). If the background belief in a God of that description is both rational and very strong, no alleged evidence against it will make His existence improbable, since probability is always measured relative to a background. Brian Davies (1998) describes this strategy as the “We know that God exists” approach (p. 168). As Davies puts it, “If I know that it often rains in England, I should rightly assume that something is wrong with any attempt to show either that frequent rain in England is impossible or that there is good evidence against its occurring. In a similar way, so it has been argued, we have grounds for supposing that God’s existence is not impossible or subject to doubt even though evil exists.” While he does not attribute this approach to any contemporary philosopher, Davies says (in note 15, p. 198) that it is implicit in much traditional Christian thinking, particularly in the thought of Anselm and Aquinas.

314

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil deficient when we cannot do it.16 I will try to fill out the metaphysical position I have given with a more detailed story describing how we might think of the motivational structure of a perfectly loving being by using a human analogy. 2 Consider the way parents treat their children. A good parent loves her child and wants him to develop into a full person. She also knows that her child’s personhood has to be cultivated by giving him the space to grow, and that that means gradually giving the child autonomy. The motivation for treating the child in this way need not be that doing so makes the child morally better, nor that autonomy is good, nor that the loving relationship she wants to have with her child is good. Still less need she do it because the overall amount of good in the world will increase if she does so. She does this simply because to love her child is to love a person, and that necessarily requires accepting the necessary condition for personhood, her child’s autonomy. The parent might want this for her child even if the child did not use his autonomy to do good or to be better off, and even if much less good were produced in the world overall. Her treatment of her child is fully explained by the fact that she loves her child, and that is the way loving parents act. It is true that her love is good. But the goodness of her love is not a feature of her motivation. She does not say to herself, “I love my child, and it is good that I love him, and so it is good that I do what love prompts me to do.” Nor does she think, “I want my child to be happy because happiness is good,” nor would she typically think, “I do not want my child to suffer because suffering is bad.” She need not even think, “I want my child to be a full person because full personhood is good.” It is, of course, true that she wants her child to be a full person 16

Richard Swinburne (1998) also defends the need for theodicy in his book on the problem of evil, but his point is somewhat different from mine since he does not appeal to the demands of public discourse but instead argues that “most people need a theodicy.” See Chapter 1, “The Need for Theodicy,” p. 17.

315

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory and not to suffer, but these are not desires she has because of the goodness of the one or the badness of the other. Her love for her child is a motive that leads her to do whatever contributes to the development of his personhood, whether or not it leads to good. Good and evil as ends need not figure into the motivational structure of her treatment of her child as a person. I doubt that any parent would agree to turn her child into a nonperson or even into less of a person in order to prevent her child from being bad or from doing harm. A dilemma arises, however, when her motivation to treat her child as a person and her motivation for him not to suffer conflict. But even then, it is not the fact that suffering is evil and personhood is good that is the ground of the dilemma. The problem is just that loving parents may want conflicting things for their children. We will return to this problem when we discuss the problem of suffering in section IV. Michael Stocker (1976) has argued that a serious problem with many moral theories is that they ignore concern for persons in their concern for moral good. I think this is an important insight that is particularly trenchant if we also believe that persons are incommunicable. There is a difference between valuing persons and valuing persons-as-possessors-of-value, much less personsas-producers-of-value. It seems to me that concern for persons precludes a certain kind of concern for good. My point here is about the motivational psychology of good beings whose goodness includes loving other persons. It is not that such beings are motivated against good and for evil or anything like that. It is just that a concern for good, as such, does not enter into their motivations in certain contexts, those expressing love for persons. Good can be an end, but good in the primary sense is not an object of motives, human or divine; it is, rather, a property of the motives of beings who are good in the basic sense. Love is a motive that is good in the basic sense. Its goodness is an intrinsic feature of it, not a feature of it insofar as it is related to external good. Love for persons does not derive its goodness from the goodness of the persons who are loved. If it is really intrinsic, its goodness is not derived from anything at all. 316

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil If we can understand how the motivation of love of a human parent for her child might not involve any considerations of good and evil and yet still be a good motive, we must conclude that promoting good and preventing (or eliminating or not permitting) evil is not necessarily part of the motivational structure of a good being. If the kind of love I have described is not a deformity of love but a plausible interpretation of what love is, then even a perfect being might love in such way that he would be willing to permit any amount of evil, not for the sake of some good, but out of love for persons. Again, I am not saying that a perfectly good being would be motivated to permit evil per se; that is, I am not suggesting that the permission of evil is built into the intentional structure of the motive. God does not weigh the evil He is permitting against something else. Instead, I am suggesting that the intentional object of love is a person as a person. The incommunicable personhood of the beloved is not an accidental feature of him. It is that which makes him the unique person that he is. The incommunicable personhood of a person requires freedom to develop. Allowing persons to develop their personhood is justified, not because the existence of persons or free persons is good, nor because love is good, nor for the sake of good in any other way, but simply because loving persons is something good persons do and because loving persons in such a radical way that any evil is permitted for the sake of their personhood is something a perfectly good being would do. This approach to the problem of evil utilizes the necessity of free will but not in the standard way, since the goodness of free will is not the issue. It also has a kinship with John Hick’s soul-making defense ([1978], reprinted in Adams and Adams [1990]), according to which God gives us the freedom to make choices and to do evil in the process of turning us into the kind of beings who can enjoy a personal relationship with God. But again, the difference is that Hick claims that God permits evil because of the good of soul making. I say that soul making is an intrinsic part of the motivations of a loving God, but not because soul making is good. In Chapter 5, I argued that God does not create us to serve ends – not the good of ourselves or of the created universe, nor the good of our 317

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory relationship with God, nor the good of God Himself. To do so would be to treat persons as means to an end. DM theory undercuts the basis for using the existence of evil as grounds for rejecting the existence of an omnipotent and perfectly good God. The theory can be criticized, of course, but its existence shows that we cannot simply say that the state of the world is a bad thing according to an ends-based or act-based theory and then conclude that we have evidence against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God. I conclude that DM theory can eliminate the intellectual problem of evil in both its logical and evidential forms. An attack on its way of doing so requires an attack on its theory of value. I will try to defend that theory of value in the rest of this book.

iii objections and replies One objection to the approach of DM theory to the existence of evil is an objection to the nature of the motive that would lead God to tolerate evil for the sake of our personhood. I have said that the motive is love, the fundamental motive in God’s nature. But it could be objected that the motive I have described is not love but respect, and respect for us does not seem to be as central as love in the divine nature. There are times when they might even be incompatible. Western ethics is heavily influenced by the idea of respect for persons, the main impetus behind the Western tradition of human rights and arguably the West’s greatest contribution to world civilization. Respect is different from love. Usually we associate caring about the autonomy of another and a concern for another’s personhood with respect rather than love. Respectful persons are more concerned about the autonomy of others than about their suffering. Loving persons are more concerned about their suffering than about their autonomy. Perhaps we could use a lot more love and a lot less respect from the deity. If respect is the motive of God in permitting evil for the sake of our personhood, the way in which respect can conflict with love might make the moral status of respect dubious. To put the objection another way, whatever the motive is that leads a person to value the autonomy of another – no 318

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil matter how that motive is designated – it is not clearly a motive we would want to attribute to a deity whose primary motive is love. Furthermore, autonomy is a recent invention, and it is not clearly Christian. Or so it can be argued. Let me begin with the last point. Jerome Schneewind (1998) has argued that the concept of autonomy developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not as an effort to secularize morality, but as a part of debates among religious philosophers over the relation between God and morality.17 The implication of Schneewind’s study is that the idea of autonomy does not conflict with Christian belief, although it is not entailed by it either. If that is true, it might be concluded that any value, such as love, that clearly is Christian trumps the value of autonomy when they conflict. I think this objection deserves careful attention for both its historical and its conceptual points. It seems to me that it is not an accident that the idea of autonomy that has developed within the Western world had its roots, in part, in the Christian idea of the dignity of persons, or that autonomy in the sense of self-governance appears in Greek, Hellenistic, and medieval philosophy.18 The issue, however, is not whether the idea of autonomy is distinctively Christian, but whether it is compatible with Christianity and the latter’s focus on the value of love. The issue, then, is whether there is sufficient moral reason for a loving God to permit suffering for the sake of autonomy. The objection assumes that to love a person is to care more about his suffering than about his autonomy. Alternatively, it assumes that the motive that would lead a person to be concerned for the suffering of another is more central in the divine psychology than the motive that would lead him to be concerned for the autonomy of another, whether or not either motive is the motive of love. Since both of these assumptions are problematic, 17

18

This theme is present throughout Schneewind’s book, but see especially p. 8. Anthony Flood argues in his Ph.D. dissertation (University of Oklahoma, 2003) that the sense of autonomy as self-governance is an important part of the ethics of Aquinas, with roots in the work of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Augustine, and early medieval philosophers.

319

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory it is up to the objector to defend them, but I will comment on them briefly. To love a person involves both wanting that person to be happy and not to suffer and wanting that person to be a full person. Sometimes these motives can conflict. I have already argued that the intentional object of love is a person qua the individual person that she is, so the motive to permit, encourage, and cultivate the development of the loved one’s individual personhood is primary. The motive to make the beloved happy and to prevent or eliminate her suffering is a derivative motive, since it presupposes the personhood of the beloved as the intentional object of the motive. Respect for the personhood of another is presupposed in love. Nonetheless, suffering can inhibit personhood in various ways, although it can also sometimes contribute toward it. One problem for the loving human person is to distinguish the one from the other. Sometimes very hard, even tragic choices have to be made. But when a person chooses to permit the beloved to suffer rather than permit a loss of personhood, we can still understand the choice, even if we disagree with it. That indicates that human persons are aware of a strong moral pull in the direction of valuing personhood and the autonomy it requires, even at the price of suffering. If the lover is a person with infinitely greater wisdom than ourselves, we should go further than that and should recognize that values that are difficult for us to reconcile are reconciled by a divine mind. And even if we cannot abide the idea that autonomy trumps suffering, we ought to at least see how problematic both assumptions are. It is not at all clear that a loving person is more concerned to prevent the loved one’s suffering than to permit the development of the loved one’s personhood, and it is also unclear that the former motive is more important ethically than the latter. The fact that the motives can conflict, however, means that we need a theodicy of suffering. There are horrible amounts and kinds of suffering that seem to be out of proportion to what a loving God would permit, even taking into account His concern for the personhood of His creatures. The more horrendous the evil, the more critical it is that we can think of plausible stories to explain it. Theodicies can only go so far. At some point, we are going to 320

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil have to admit that we do not understand it. But we should still try to go as far as we can. Suggestions on how to proceed will be the topic of section IV. A second line of objections focuses on a possible conflict between God’s sovereignty and God’s goodness. If God is sovereign, nothing happens contrary to God’s motives. But even if evil is only a byproduct of God’s intrinsically good motives, we expect that there is some sense in which the evils that God permits are contrary to God’s own motives. He would surely prefer that creatures not sin and that they not suffer. If God truly does not care about the former, then it looks like God’s motives do not ground the morally good and bad, and if He does not care about the latter, then it looks like God is not loving. This objection exactly parellels a common objection to any traditional Christian theory that includes an omnipotent and providential creator-God. Christian theology has always maintained that since God is sovereign, ultimately everything in the universe is under the control of God. So in a sense, nothing goes on contrary to God’s will, motives, or nature; but in another sense, which each theory attempts to explain in its own way, evil exists and is contrary to God’s will, motives, and nature. When Divine Command theory says that good is what is in conformity with God’s will and evil is what is contrary to God’s will, the theory also maintains both that evil exists and that ultimately everything is in accord with God’s will. The problem, of course, is to explain how that can be. When Aquinas says that good is being and evil is nonbeing, he does not mean that there is no evil, but rather that evil is a negation of the realization of the natural end of a being. And, of course, Aquinas still affirms God’s sovereignty. DM theory accepts the traditional doctrine of the sovereignty of God, which means that everything in the universe is ultimately under divine control. Evil is in the category of what God permits either to exist or not to exist. The motivational structure of a perfectly good being justifies the permission of evils because justification, like all moral properties, is defined by reference to the divine motives. The worry that is expressed by this objection is that God would prefer that He didn’t have to permit evil, that 321

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory he has to put up with it for a reason that only He understands. I have already explained my position that there cannot be a reason that makes God put up with evil for the sake of some good, but I think it is also a mistake to think in terms of His having to make compromises with His own motives, whether or not the compromise is for the sake of some good. God would not prefer to have different motives. So if the motives he does have permit certain evils to occur, we should not think of that as a situation in which God accepts evils because of one of his motives, but accepts grudgingly because of another. He really is motivated to have a world in which evils may occur and which, if He has infallible foreknowledge, He knows with certainty will occur. And it does not follow that He is motivated for us to put up with evils, since, as we have seen several times in the last two chapters, God’s motives for us may differ from His motives for himself. What about the permission of natural evils – the pain and suffering of humans and other animals? In discussions of the problem of evil, the distinction between moral and natural evil is commonly made, because the two kinds of evil seem to require different responses. At least that is the case if the traditional free will defense is employed, since that defense clearly applies only to moral evils.19 But suffering certainly seems evil in the sense that it is a bad thing to have in the world, quite apart from any considerations of morality. A world with no humans and no morality but with lots of suffering animals would be a bad world. In our world, pain and suffering are often causally connected with moral evil, but not enough to make moral evil wholly responsible for the natural evils that occur. Suffering cannot be blamed on all the bad people in the world. The moral/natural evil distinction is allegedly a distinction between kinds of evil, but the distinction hides an important asymmetry. Moral evil is evil by definition; natural evil is not. What 19

But Alvin Plantinga refers to an old tradition that natural evils might also be attributed to the free will of created beings. He says it is possible that the fallen angels are responsible for natural evils on earth. See “The Free Will Defense” in Rowe (2001), a selection reprinted from his The Nature of Necessity (1974b).

322

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil we mean by moral evil is being vicious, doing wrong, violating a duty. Anyone who denied that being vicious or doing wrong is evil would be guilty of a conceptual error.20 No substantive acts, states, or traits of character are included in the concept of moral evil. But natural evil is different. What people mean by natural evil is suffering, and suffering is a state that is defined phenomenologically; the concept of evil is not included in its definition. It may be obvious that suffering is evil, but the fact that it is evil is not a conceptual truth, and some have denied it. They may be making an error, but not a conceptual error.21 This asymmetry between the evil of suffering and moral evil is important. Different answers must be given to the problem of suffering and the problem of moral evil, not only because some solutions apply only to freely chosen evils, but also and more importantly, because the problem of evil, moral or otherwise, and the problem of suffering arise in different ways. The problem of evil is the problem of evil as such, regardless of the nature of particular evils. This problem applies to moral evil, natural evil, and any other kinds of evil that exist insofar as they are evil. To say it a different way, the problem of evil is the problem of the evilness of whatever is evil, whatever that may be. It really does not matter for this problem what the evils are, although I have already said that it matters that doing the wrong thing is evil and being vicious is evil. But what that amounts to is irrelevant to the problem. As we have seen, DM theory has a way of eliminating that problem, including the problem of suffering, insofar as suffering is evil. 20

21

The denial of evil to particular classifications of viciousness is a borderline conceptual case. So if someone denies that injustice or cowardice or brutality or hatefulness is evil, she may be making a conceptual mistake, but since the concepts injustice, cowardice, etc. are thick, they include more than the purely evaluative, so when someone says cowardice is not bad she may be objecting to the connection between the evaluative and nonevaluative aspects of the concept cowardice. In doing so, it is possible that she is making no conceptual error. Some people reserve the term “evil” for moral evil but say that suffering is “bad.” This does not affect the point I am making. Acting viciously or violating one’s duty is bad, as is suffering, but the former are bad by definition; the latter is not.

323

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory The problem of suffering arises in a different way. The problem is that quite apart from considerations of good and evil per se, the permission of suffering seems incompatible with the motivations of a perfectly loving being. This problem cannot be avoided by a particular metaphysics of value, since the connection between motive and value does not enter into the problem, at least not directly. The problem of suffering therefore differs from the problem of evil. The former also has both an intellectual and an existential form. In DM theory, what is evil is evil because of its relation to God’s motives, but suffering is not suffering because of its relation to God’s motives. DM theory needs a different solution to the problem of suffering.

iv the problem of suffering 1 In DM theory, God’s primary motivation toward His creation is love. Good and evil are not the objects of that motive, but happiness and suffering surely do seem to be essentially connected to the motive of love. A loving creator wants His creatures to be happy and not to suffer. I have denied that motives are defined by their ends; nonetheless, there are ends that are characteristic of certain motives, and the motive of love is characteristically connected to the end of desiring the well-being of the beloved. In the last section, I argued that the motive of love is not necessarily stronger than the motive of respect for creatures’ autonomy. Nonetheless, God is loving, and loving persons do not want the beings they love to suffer. This means that even if DM theory can bypass the problem of evil because of its distinctive metaphysics of value, it is not just evil per se that bothers us; suffering does also. Leaving aside any talk of evil, suffering is a problem for the theist. The atheist’s argument from suffering can be posed as follows: (1) A perfectly good (i.e., loving) being would be motivated to prevent all the suffering of his creatures.

324

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil (2) An omnipotent being would be able to prevent all the suffering of his creatures. (3) So if there were a being who was perfectly good and omnipotent, this being would be motivated to prevent the suffering of his creatures and would be able to do so. (4) If there were a being who was motivated to prevent suffering and was able to do so, suffering would not exist. (5) But suffering does exist. (6) Therefore, there is no being who is perfectly good and omnipotent. The Christian God does not exist.

If premise (1) is amended in a way parallel to the amendment of premise (1) in the argument from evil, that would give us: (1’) A perfectly good (i.e., loving) being would be motivated to prevent the suffering of his creatures unless he had a morally sufficient reason to permit it.

This is probably not the strongest premise for the atheist to use against DM theory, however. Since the theory maintains that the motivational structure of a perfect being does not necessarily appeal to considerations of good and evil, a better premise is as follows: (1”) A perfectly good (i.e., loving) being would be motivated to prevent the suffering of his creatures unless he had another loving motive that led him to permit it and unless the most loving thing to do, all things considered, was to permit suffering.

As with the argument from evil, it is possible that there is such a loving motive that, all things considered, would lead a perfectly loving being to permit suffering. So the logical problem of suffering is resolved in the same way as the logical problem of evil. This leads us to the evidential problem of suffering – that suffering is strong evidence against the existence of an omnipotent and perfectly good God Who is motivated by love. Even though it is possible that there is a sufficient motive for a loving God to permit 325

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory suffering, if we cannot think of such a motive, it seems unlikely that one exists. DM theory cannot solve the evidential problem of suffering by its metaphysics of value, since it does not define suffering in relation to God’s motives. Premise (1’‘) is apparently true. Hence, if the rest of the premises of the argument are true and the argument is valid, we must conclude either that God has a motive to permit suffering, which is the most loving thing to do, all things considered, or else that there is no God. The probability of the former may be higher than the probability of the latter – and I will explain in the next section why we should think that it is – but first I want to comment on the principle that if we cannot think of a motive for a loving God to permit suffering, there probably isn’t one. This is a version of a principle used by William Rowe and that Stephen Wykstra calls the “Noseeum Principle”: “If you don’t see ‘em, they ain’t there” (Wykstra 1996). Sometimes if we lack evidence for the existence of something, we are justified in concluding that it probably does not exist, but sometimes not. Stephen Wykstra uses the following analogy. Suppose that he looks around his garage and, seeing no dog, concludes that there is probably no dog in the garage. This response is justified, assuming that there is sufficient light, that there are no places where the dog could hide, and so on. But suppose that he looks around and, seeing no fleas, concludes that there are probably no fleas in the garage. That clearly is not justified; and the reason it is not, says Wykstra, is that the situation would look the same to him whether there were fleas or not. Wykstra argues that if theism were true, human minds would be incapable of discerning the purposes of God in permitting instances of suffering. The world would look the same to us whether there was a reason for the suffering or not. Since we should not expect to detect a reason, our epistemic position is like the position of the person who looks around the garage and, seeing no fleas, concludes that there are probably no fleas. Howard-Snyder and Bergmann propose the following principle to distinguish the cases in which we are justified in inferring the probable nonexistence of something for which we do not 326

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil discern any evidence from those cases in which we are not justified in doing so: THE NOSEEUM PRINCIPLE: When we do not have evidence for the existence of R, we are entitled to claim “R probably does not exist” only if it is more likely than not that if R existed, we would be able to detect it. (Howard-Snyder, Bergmann, and Rowe 2001, p. 143)

Let us now consider two paradigm cases of suffering introduced by Rowe: Let E1 be a case of a fawn trapped in a forest fire and suffering a slow, painful death. Let E2 be a case of a five-year old girl who was raped, severely beaten, and strangled to death by her mother’s boyfriend in 1986. Rowe’s argument is as follows: (1a) So far as we can tell, there is no reason that would justify God in permitting E1 and E2.

So it is more likely than not that (1b) There is no reason that would justify God in permitting E1 and E2.

So it is more likely than not that (1) There is no reason that would justify God in permitting certain instances of intense suffering. (Howard-Snyder, Bergmann, and Rowe 2001, pp. 145–146)

In response, Howard-Snyder and Bergmann apply the Noseeum Principle and argue that Rowe is not justified in concluding that there probably is no reason that justifies God in permitting E1 and E2. Rowe is conclusion follows only if it is more likely than not that if such a reason existed, we would be able to detect it. But, they argue, it is not more likely than not that we would be able to detect such a reason if God had one. There is no reason to think that our human powers would permit us to understand, much less to detect, such a reason. Hence, we are not justified in concluding (1). 327

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory What should we say about this response to the evidential problem of suffering? Howard-Snyder, Bergman, and Wykstra are surely right that when we do not have evidence for the existence of something, sometimes we are justified in inferring its nonexistence, and sometimes not. And they are also right that background knowledge of the extent of our human powers to detect the type of evidence in question is important in determining whether we should expect to have the evidence. But here’s a problem with the Noseeum Principle as defended by HowardSnyder and Bergmann. Compare the Cartesian hypothesis of an Evil Genius who is always fooling you about the existence of an external world with the hypothesis that there is no Evil Genius and that there is an external world that is more or less the way you think it is. The world would look the same to you either way. So the following two inferences are parallel, according to the Noseeum Principle: (1) Evidence of suffering + lack of evidence of a justifying motive → There is gratuitous suffering. (2) Evidence of a table + lack of evidence of being fooled by an evil genius → There is a table here.

If there is an Evil Genius, we would not expect to find out that we have been fooled. The world would look the same to us whether or not we have been fooled. Hence, according to HowardSnyder and Bergman’s Noseeum Principle, we are not entitled to say that we have evidence that we have not been fooled, and the conclusion that there is a table here is blocked. Cartesian skepticism follows. The principle that blocks the conclusion in (1) also blocks the conclusion in (2). The Noseeum Principle succeeds in blocking the inference that it is probable that there is gratuitous suffering, but it also blocks some inferences most of us think are justified, such as that there are physical objects around us. If the two inferences are not on a par, the Noseeum Principle does not explain the difference. It seems to me that what this shows is that the prior probability of R must be taken into consideration, and that there is a radical difference between the prior probability of R in these two cases. To see why this must be so, let us alter the cases to make the 328

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil prior probabilities equal. Suppose that millions of people all over the world believe in the Evil Genius (EG) and have practiced an Evil Genius religion for millennia. The EG religion includes an elaborate structure of prayers, rituals, a code of conduct to appease the EG, and institutions of education to promote investigation into EGology. If that were the case, I would submit that the prior probability that the EG exists would be much higher than if his existence were merely a logical possibility, and I would think that the inference in (2) might be unjustified. At least, it would be much less clearly justified than we think it is, given the absence of any background belief in an EG. Similarly, the inference in (1) is not clearly justified, because belief in God is an important background belief against which the problem of suffering is an attack. We can equate the background probabilities of R from the other direction instead. Suppose that there were no theistic religion and that nobody believed in God, but that the possibility of the existence of God had been postulated by a particular philosopher, Des-smart, who used the hypothesis for his own philosophical purposes. When confronted with all the suffering in the world, some people then reasoned as follows: Suppose, as Des-smart has postulated, that there is a God who is omnipotent and perfectly loving. Suppose also that this God has an indiscernible loving motive for permitting suffering. The world would look the same to us whether this motive existed or not. Hence, we cannot conclude that gratuitous suffering exists. I think we would reject this argument for the same reason that we would reject the skeptical argument that there is no table in the room. In this situation, the prior probability that there is a God with a loving motive to permit suffering is too low to block the inference that there is gratuitous suffering. For the same reason, the prior probability that there is an EG is too low to block the inference that there is a table. I conclude that Wykstra, Howard-Snyder, and Bergman are right that the inference in (1) is too hasty, but that the Noseeum Principle is not adequate to distinguish cases in which that form of inference is reasonable from those in which it is not. The difference is tied to the prior probability of the truth of a theology. The more extensive, detailed, coherent, and long-lasting the theology, the 329

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory higher its probability of being true. It is not necessary that this theology explain the motives for a loving deity’s permission of suffering, but a plausible theodicy of suffering clearly increases the probability that there is a morally sufficient motive for a loving God to permit suffering. The greater the number of plausible motives we can think of, the more likely it is that there is one, even if it is not any of the ones we consider. Perhaps it is easier to think of a reason why a loving being would permit the suffering of those he loves than to think of a reason why a perfectly good being would permit evil. If so, the problem of suffering is less of an intellectual threat to theism than the problem of evil, but the experiential problem might be even worse. In any case, it is important to investigate the question of why a loving being would permit those he loves to suffer. 2 Before speculating on why a loving God would permit his creatures to suffer, I want to raise one question. How can we expect to figure out why God would be motivated for us to suffer when we cannot figure out why he would be motivated to suffer Himself? But he clearly was motivated to suffer Himself, in the redeeming suffering of Christ. It is not enough to say that that suffering was necessary to save us, because the motive was not merely instrumental. We could have been redeemed in other ways that did not involve divine suffering. So whatever the motive is, it clearly exists, and if God has a motive to suffer Himself, it should not be surprising that He would have a motive for us to suffer also. I am not suggesting that if God is motivated to suffer himself, then he would necessarily be motivated for His creatures to suffer, since God’s motives for us are not always the same as His motives for Himself, as we have already seen. But if God is motivated in a way that involves His own suffering, that shows that such a motive is compatible with love, since presumably God loves Himself. The view that God suffers has become increasingly popular in recent years, although it also has faced some major challenges from defenders of the traditional view that suffering is 330

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil incompatible with the nature of God.22 One form of this theodicy is that God, like us, is a victim of evil and suffers along with us. This type of theodicy has been defended by the German theologian Jurgen ¨ Moltmann and the Latin American liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, but it can be found earlier in one of Bonhoeffer’s last letters. All three of these theologians were willing to conclude that God is not omnipotent. One writer who defends a form of the suffering God theodicy without denying His omnipotence is Marilyn Adams. In this subsection, we will look briefly at this type of theodicy. The idea that God can suffer has been rejected by most traditional Christian philosophers on the grounds that it is incompatible with God’s perfection. In Chapter 5, we looked at one line of argument for this position, which maintained that perfection requires immutability and that the latter requires impassibility. To suffer is to be passible, to be affected by something else. I have already said that I see no reason why a being cannot be immutably passible, but I have agreed that there may be particular emotions – such as hope, trust, and fear – that are incompatible with perfection. I did not address the issue of whether perfection excludes suffering. Quite apart from the Thomistic argument connecting perfection with immutability and impassibility, suffering has sometimes been thought to be incompatible with perfection. Spinoza argued that joy is of the very essence of the deity and that sadness is the contrary. He says: “[T]he greater the joy with which we are affected, the greater the perfection to which we pass, that is, the more we must participate in the divine nature” (Ethics IV, P45, schol).23 It is extremely difficult to address the metaphysical status of suffering simpliciter, but particular forms of suffering are somewhat easier to discuss. I see no reason to deny that God has the emotion of compassion; in fact, I believe there are strong reasons to say the contrary. But if God feels compassion, then God suffers with another sufferer. If God suffers in one way, I see no reason 22

23

Weinandy (2000) defends the traditional doctrine that God does not suffer in his divine nature but that the Son of God suffers as a human being. Translated by Edwin Curley (1994), p. 224.

331

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory to deny that he suffers through other emotions as well. Nonetheless, it must be admitted that to propose that God suffers rejects an important element of the Christian theological tradition. In Chapter 5, I said that DM theory does not require that God’s motives are emotions, but the theodicies that I want to consider here do require that God suffers. I cannot say whether we will find a plausible theodicy without a feeling God, but it may be that the existential problem of suffering is more apt to lead to this conclusion than the purely intellectual problem. Suffering people much prefer a compassionate God, and they are quicker to identify with a suffering God than to trust in the abstract good intentions of a God who does not know what it is to suffer. We find a move in this direction in the late writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1971), who, shortly before his execution, wrote from prison: God lets God’s own self be pushed out of the world on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which God is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering. . . . Only the suffering God can help. (p. 181)

Jurgen ¨ Moltman (1974), who may have been influenced by Bonhoeffer, makes the suffering on the cross the pivotal event between Father and Son. It is not just an experience of Christ in his human nature; it is a Trinitarian event within the divinity. Both the loving Son and the grieving Father suffer on the cross: If one describes the life of God within the Trinity as the “history of God” (Hegel), this history of God contains within itself the whole abyss of godforsakenness, absolute death and the non-god. . . . Because this death took place in the history between Father and Son on the cross on Golgotha, there proceeds from it the spirit of life, love and election to salvation. The concrete “history of God” in the death of Jesus on the cross on Golgotha therefore contains within itself all the depths and abysses of human history and therefore can be understood as the history of history. All human history, however much it

332

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil may be determined by guilt and death, is taken up into this “history of God,” i.e. into the Trinity, and integrated into the future of the “history of God.” There is no suffering which in this history of God is not God’s suffering; no death which has not been God’s death in the history on Golgotha. Therefore there is no life, no fortune and no joy which have not been integrated by his history into eternal life, the eternal joy of God. (p. 246)

The Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino (1978) argues for a new Christology that shows the historical relevancy for Latin America of Christ as liberator. Sin brought death to the Son of God, and sin still brings death to many children of God. Sobrino proposes that this calls into question the view of Christ as the embodiment of universal reconciliation. Christ is embroiled in the conflict-ridden toils of human history, which continue to rage in our present day.24 Christ in the Trinity suffers still. Two of Sobrino’s last three theses on the death of Jesus make theodicy crucial, not just for the traditional problem of this chapter, but also for knowing God: Thesis 12: The cross calls into question all knowledge of God based on natural theology. Knowing God means abiding with God in the passion. The question of knowing God must be posed in terms of theodicy, in terms of our experience of evil in the world. (p. 221)

In explaining this thesis, Sobrino says: “The whole question of God finds its ultimate concretion in the problem of suffering. The question rises out of the history of suffering in the world, but it finds its privileged moment on the cross: If the Son is innocent and yet is put to death, then who or what exactly is God?” (p. 224) Thesis 13: On the cross of Jesus God himself is crucified. The Father suffers the death of the Son and takes upon himself all the pain and suffering of history. In this ultimate solidarity with humanity he reveals himself as the God of love, who opens up a hope and a future through the most negative side of 24

Preface to the English edition (Sobrino 1978, p. xvii).

333

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory history. Thus Christian existence is nothing else but a process of participating in this same process whereby God loves the world and hence in the very life of God. (p. 224)

In his final thesis, Sobrino says that the cross is not the last word on Jesus because the Father raised him from the dead. The theodicies of Bonhoeffer, Moltman, and Sobrino do not resolve the puzzle of how suffering can exist in a world created by an omnipotent and perfectly good deity, since they are willing to give up the view that God is omnipotent. They have, in effect, concluded that that puzzle cannot be solved, and have turned to a Christology in which the intellectual problem of suffering disappears; nobody thinks that the existence of suffering is a problem for the existence of a non-omnipotent God. Brian Davies mentions the theodicies of Moltman and Sobrino and rejects them for just that reason (p. 176). I find it particularly interesting to consider the possibility that God suffers but is also omnipotent. That is the position of Alvin Plantinga and Marilyn Adams. Plantinga says very little about the suffering of God, and his proposal is not bolstered by an extensive theology like that of Moltman or Sobrino, but here is what he says: As the Christian sees things, God does not stand idly by, coolly observing the suffering of his creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross. Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God’s capacity for suffering, I believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours. Christ was prepared to endure the agonies of hell itself; and God, the Lord of the universe, was prepared to endure the suffering consequent upon his son’s humiliation and death. He was prepared to accept this suffering in order to overcome sin, and death, and the evils that afflict our world, and to confer on us a life more glorious than we can imagine. . . . 25 25

Adams, “Self-Profile,” in Tomberlin and van Inwagen (1985), p. 36.

334

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil Marilyn Adams (1986) says that God is dealing with the problem of suffering through the cross.26 Christians see in the cross of Christ a revelation of God’s righteous love and a paradigm of his redemptive use of suffering. Christian mysticism invites the believer to hold that a perfectly good God further sanctifies our moments of deepest distress so that retrospectively, from the vantage point of the beatific vision, the one who suffered will not wish them away from his life history – and this, not because he sees them as the source of some other resultant good, but inasmuch as he will recognize them as times of sure identification with and vision into the inner life of his creator. (p. 267).

Adams suggests that suffering is logically connected with a great good, but not as a logically necessary means or consequence. Suffering is a vision into the inner life of God, whose inner life includes both deep agony and ecstatic joy, so the relation between suffering and a great and incommensurable good is one of identity. In another place, Adams (1988) raises a possibility that connects the problem of suffering with the value theory of this book: In my judgment, only religious value-theories contain anything valuable enough to defeat the evil of horrific individual suffering. Following medieval Christian philosophers, we could identify that valuable with God Himself. Distinguishing the good that God is in Himself, His essential metaphysical or natural goodness from those relative properties of God that characterize His behavior towards others, medievals identified the divine essence as the infinite being and therefore the infinite (immeasurable) good, the Supremely Valuable Object. On the basis of such a value-theory, one could maintain that a face-to-face vision of God is an immeasurable good for individual created persons. . . . (p. 136)

Divine Motivation theory is a religious value theory of the kind Adams thinks is needed to address the problem of suffering. God 26

Adams does not distinguish the problem of suffering from the problem of evil. I am interested in her theodicy for the former problem.

335

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory is the supreme good and the source of all value in the universe. All the good with which we are familiar is good because of the goodness of God, from which it emanates. All suffering with which we are familiar is bad because of its contrariness to the divine goodness. So both the badness of suffering and the goodness of familiar goods are relative goods and bads. The reason why God permits suffering is a mystery, but the terms of the problem are different for the theist than for the nontheist, since the good of union with God is infinite. There is an important difference between the kind of theodicy urged by Adams and that suggested by DM theory, however. Adams believes that on the Christian view, the good that exists is very different for the Christian theist than for the nontheist. The good of the Beatific Vision functions to help resolve the problem of suffering because it is a good. Of course, I do not deny the good of the Beatific Vision, but DM theory does not see the vision of God or the sharing in divine suffering as a good against which the evil and suffering of the world are to be compared. Suffering is not justified by good, whether it is a greater good or an incommensurable good. What makes the Beatific Vision a candidate for resolving the problem of suffering is not that it is good, but that any person would be motivated to put up with suffering for the sake of possessing it. The point is not the goodness of union with God, but the fact that union with God is the object of a good motive. A good motive is the motive that any person would have if his or her emotion fit the circumstances. Any person who understood the nature of the universe would be motivated to be united with God in the Beatific Vision. Therefore, what justifies suffering is not that it is for the sake of something immeasurably good – although, of course, it is immeasurably good – but that each person would be motivated to permit his own suffering for the sake of that vision if he truly knew its nature. 3 Philosophers generally agree that the problem of natural evil (suffering) and the problem of moral evil are distinct problems because the best-known solution to the second is not a solution to 336

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

The problem of evil the first. I have said that a distinction in kinds of evil is not a good way to divide the problems, although there are two problems. One is the conceptual problem of why a perfectly good God would permit evil qua evil. This applies to evils whether they are caused by nature or by free human choices, and that problem can be resolved by the metaphysics of value in Divine Motivation theory. The second is the problem of why a God with the particular good motives that we believe him to have – in particular, love – would permit suffering. In this form of the problem, it is not pertinent that suffering is a kind of evil; the problem is that there appears to be a direct conflict between the existence of suffering and the motives of a loving God. But the distinction between moral and natural evil hides a commonality in their origin, according to the Christian story of the Fall. It is an important part of that story that suffering enters the world with a human free choice. In the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, the Christian story of the origin of suffering is depicted in two gorgeous early fifteenthcentury frescoes of Adam and Eve – one set before and the other after the Fall. To the right of the chapel entrance is Masolino’s painting The Temptation. Adam and Eve stand elegant and serene, somewhat apart and not looking at each other, their faces beautiful, but with a rather vacant expression. Satan hovers over them with the face of a woman and the body of a snake, but she must not have spoken yet, since Adam and Eve do not appear at all tempted. They are gloriously self-contained and at their ease. The mood of the Masaccio fresco on the opposite wall could not be more different. In The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve’s faces are full of anguish and grief. To my eye, they appear more ashamed than guilty, but their suffering is what is most excruciatingly vivid. Adam covers his face; Eve feebly attempts to cover her body, her head thrown back in pain. They seem more together in their distress than in their cool contentment in the Masolino painting. They are still beautiful, and they are whole, not debased. There is no suggestion that they have lost their dignity. The Fall does not introduce evil into the created universe, since the rebellion of Lucifer precedes it, but the Fall of Adam and Eve does introduce evil onto the Earth, and simultaneously, suffering 337

P1: KaD 0521828805c08.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

9:3

II. Divine Motivation theory enters the world. In the Christian story, the origin of suffering is the same as the origin of moral evil or of any evil qua evil. What is particularly interesting to me is the question of what makes Adam and Eve suffer, as Masaccio understands it. The suffering on their faces is not the look of people caught disobeying an order, or upset because they have made God angry and are being expelled from paradise. Nor is their suffering inflicted upon them as a punishment. It is the natural consequence of their act of eating the forbidden fruit. As Bonhoeffer remarked in the passage discussed in Chapter 6 (section II.4), when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they did get the knowledge of good and evil, and that is why they are suffering. They acquired the mind of a judge, and that is one of the things that needed to be redeemed. Does the knowledge of good and evil make humans suffer because it is knowledge that only God should have, and we are not able to handle it? Or does even God suffer from having that knowledge? What about suffering that does not appear to be caused by knowledge of good and evil – suffering from injury, disease, natural disasters? And even if God suffers, why should it be any comfort to us to know that suffering extends so widely in the universe that it extends even to God? Whatever we say about the problem of suffering, we should avoid the “misery loves company” solution, or the idea that two bads make a good. Our attitude toward suffering should imitate the attitude of Christ, and that attitude is complex. It combines acceptance of suffering for himself with the desire to heal the suffering of others. The right emotion, including the right emotion toward our own emotions, is the emotion an exemplar would have. Exemplary persons display complicated and sometimes puzzling emotions directed toward suffering. I suspect that suffering is ultimately a deeper mystery than evil.

338

P1: JZH 0521828805con2.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

14:11

Conclusion to Part II

Divine Motivation theory gives virtue ethics a foundation in a theological metaphysics of value. It has a number of advantages over the generic form of motivation-based virtue ethics outlined in Part I, and I would like to conclude this part of the book by comparing them. In motivation-based virtue ethics, emotions have intrinsic value or disvalue in a way that parallels the intrinsic value or disvalue of beliefs. Beliefs are good when they fit what they are about, and when they do, we call them “true.” Emotions are good when they fit what they are about, although we do not have a word for a good emotion other than “fitting” or “appropriate.” There is a direct connection between good emotions and true beliefs, because when an emotion is good, the standard proposition expressing it is true. The intentional object of the emotion has the thick property that the agent sees it as having in the state of emotion. In addition to beliefs and emotions, there are other things with intrinsic value. I have briefly discussed pleasure and mentioned that epistemic states other than true belief probably have intrinsic value – for example, understanding. I have not ruled out the possibility that many other states of persons have intrinsic value, and there may be objects other than persons that are good intrinsically, although I have not discussed them in this book. Intrinsicality pertains to the source of the value of a thing, not to its degree. Something can be intrinsically valuable but not 339

P1: JZH 0521828805con2.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

14:11

II. Divine Motivation theory valuable in a very high degree. No doubt many true beliefs are in that category, as well as many good emotions. And, of course, many pleasures are trivial. Some things with derivative value might have greater value than some things with intrinsic value, but I will not have much to say about degrees of value. Degree of value is important, however, when it comes to the value of persons. Persons have intrinsic value, but they also have very great value, perhaps infinite in degree. The value that Kant called dignity is possessed by persons and only by persons, and I have pointed out that Kant’s definition of dignity implies that it has two components – infinite value and the value of irreplaceability – and these components are independent. Persons have infinite value because of the infinite value of their nature; they have irreplaceable value because of the incommunicable uniqueness of persons. There are many unanswered questions about the source of value in the generic form of motivation-based virtue theory. Why does the universe contain persons as well as ordinary objects, and what explains the dignity of persons? Perhaps some things just are the way they are, and we should let it go at that, but it is puzzling nonetheless. There are also numerous questions about the states of persons with intrinsic value – in particular, their beliefs and emotions. There is an intuitive sense of good or right according to which it is right or good that a mental state fits its object. Any state that has an intentional object aims to be a certain way, so belief aims at truth simply in virtue of being a belief. The emotion of fear aims at the dangerous, love at the lovable, anger at the hostile, and so on. But there are many questions left unanswered about these states, including the question of why the world should be arranged in such a way that the beliefs and emotions of human beings fit it. This leads into one of the hardest questions of all, which is the question of where the thick properties come from. Why should there be properties such as pitiful as well as properties such as square? What kind of world would contain both of these properties as well as creatures with the capacities to detect them? And why should they be detected in part through different capacities? In addition to these questions, there are many problems about the exemplars of goodness. What kind of world would contain 340

P1: JZH 0521828805con2.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

14:11

Conclusion to Part II exemplars, and why should the rest of us have the capacity to recognize them? Why don’t we always agree about the identity of exemplars? As long as there is more than one, there is no single standard against which all of them are measured. If there is a God roughly like the traditional God of Christianity, then we have some answers to these questions. The Christian God comes with some additional mysteries, but a few of those can also be answered by combining motivation-based virtue theory with Christian theism. There are persons in the world as well as objects with a nature because the origin of the world is a Creator Who is both persons and an instantiation of a nature. We can still ask why God is what He is and who He is, of course, but it aids our understanding of the ontological multiplicity of the world if we can see how it comes from a single Being who contains within Himself both nature and personhood. The value of persons is explained analogously. Human persons have dignity because persons have a value like the value of the persons of the Trinity. It is a different kind of value than the value of objects – the value of irreplaceability. States of persons, such as beliefs and emotions, have intrinsic value because they are in part constitutive of the person. All valuable properties of states of persons get their value from their similarity to the properties of states of God. Beliefs are good insofar as they are like God’s beliefs; emotions are good insofar as they are like God’s emotions. Perhaps what we mean by belief and emotion does not apply to God. I have two reactions to that possibility. One is that unless we are willing to go so far on the route of negative theology that we are prevented from maintaining that the created world imitates the divine persons, we ought to be able to say that God has both beliefs and emotions in just as good a sense as we can say that God the Father is a person. Second, the caution that we ought not to anthropomorphize God is good counsel, and it affects the way we think of the problem of moral realism. We should not be too sanguine about the independent reality of anything we perceive in the way we perceive it, whether it be the contemptibility of an individual, the cubical shape of a box, or the measured volume of a gas. The fact that other observers measure the same volume but may not observe 341

P1: JZH 0521828805con2.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

14:11

II. Divine Motivation theory the contemptibility of a given individual leads some theorists to worry that there is a special problem about the reality of properties such as the contemptible that does not exist for shapes and volumes. This is a serious problem for any theory, but from what we have done so far, I think we can see that DM theory has an advantage over motivation-based virtue theory in this respect. If there is no external standard for the rightness and wrongness of perception of thick properties, all we can do is to put greater trust in those perceptions that are shared among as many people as possible, and likewise, less trust in those perceptions that are more variable individually and culturally. That leads to the conclusion that the volume of a gas is more real than the pitifulness of a person – more real in the sense that it is there in the world rather than in us. But if there is a God who created the gas as well as human persons, the way things really are is the way God perceives them. That may have little to do with the percentage of human perceivers who perceive the property a certain way. If we approach the reality of properties in this way, it is much less tempting to conclude that volume is more real than pitifulness, although we cannot conclude the contrary, either. But we do have an explanation for the source of the value of thick properties. They are there in the world originally because God perceives the world as having such properties. DM theory also has an advantage over generic motivationbased virtue theory with respect to the problem of the diversity of exemplars. This is a problem that I will address further in the next chapter, but in motivation-based virtue theory there is no ground for choosing among competing models of moral exemplars. There is plenty of evidence of cross-cultural commonality among exemplars, but there is obviously a difference between Mahatma Gandhi and Achilles or a samurai warrior. If exemplars are all exemplary insofar as they imitate God, that puts limits on the range of acceptable variation. Variation deriving from the incommunicable uniqueness of persons is acceptable; in fact, it follows from the theory. But no exemplar will be vicious, and what counts as vicious is what is contrary to the image of God. In the last two chapters, we have looked at the advantages of DM theory for natural theology. A series of problems arising from 342

P1: JZH 0521828805con2.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

14:11

Conclusion to Part II the idea that God is perfectly good can be resolved in this theory: that perfect goodness is incompatible with omnipotence, that perfect goodness is incompatible with freedom, that perfect goodness is incompatible with moral goodness, and that perfect goodness when combined with omnipotence is incompatible with the existence of evil. What the theory does not answer is the problem that suffering seems to be incompatible with the motivations of a loving God. A possible partial response is that suffering is compatible with the motives of God because God suffers Himself. This immediately raises a problem for the position that pain is intrinsically bad, which I defended in Part I. If pain is intrinsically bad, then suffering is presumably intrinsically bad as well. But if God suffers, is He motivated to suffer also? If God suffers, then either God has states that He is not motivated to have, or God is motivated to have states that are intrinsically bad, or suffering is not intrinsically bad. Each of these possibilities is highly implausible, but perhaps no more implausible than the existence of suffering in a world under the care of a loving God.

343

P1: JZH 0521828805con2.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

344

April 18, 2004

14:11

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Part III Ethical pluralism

The theory of this book defines moral properties by reference to exemplars of goodness. Exemplars differ in significant ways, and that is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that the theory recognizes more than one way for an individual to live a good life and for a society to organize itself in a system of good moral practices. The disadvantage is that exemplars can conflict with each other in emotions and behavior. Some of these conflicts need to be resolved, although not all do. So far, the theory has given no way to resolve conflict between exemplars or even to explain how conflict can occur. The purpose of this last chapter is to answer these questions. I will begin by comparing the Ideal Observer theory with the form of exemplarism I have endorsed, an Ideal Agent theory, and will give reasons for prefering the latter. I will then propose some principles that can be used to resolve conflicts between ideal agents.

345

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

346

April 18, 2004

16:36

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Chapter 9 Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity

How love the totally other without losing identity? Vincent Cronin, The Wise Man from the West

i the problem of moral disagreement One of the most difficult problems for moral philosophy is unresolvable moral disagreement, either between persons in the same culture or between persons in different cultures. This problem is modern in origin. Clearly, that is not because disagreement has only recently been discovered, but because it was not previously thought to be a problem. The difference in attitude reflects an evolving view on the nature of the self, a change from which there is no turning back. We now commonly view the beliefs of others as being prima facie as rational as our own, so if our considered judgment is that they are not rational, we need a reason to think so. The mere fact that our beliefs are ours and theirs are theirs is not a sufficient reason to think that ours are more rational than theirs. And any reason to which we can point in support of a judgment that our beliefs are more rational than theirs all too often can be turned against us, sooner or later. The result is a sense of the fragility of our beliefs, including the moral beliefs that ground our acts, and some of these beliefs are closely connected to our sense 347

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism of self. We are more conscious of self than in previous eras, largely because we are more conscious of the threats to it. The self is constituted in part by certain kinds of beliefs – moral, religious, philosophical; beliefs about oneself; beliefs shared by one’s family about one’s family; and many other beliefs that are components of loyalty. Our dilemma is that even though such beliefs are partial constituents of one’s identity, no one wants to be constituted by false beliefs. The self that we aim to be requires both support and revision from the outside, but the degree to which the self permits revision has limits. The third-person perspective is allegedly higher than the perspective from inside one’s own head because of its impartiality and greater scope, yet many postEnlightenment philosophers resist the identification of the point of view to which we should aspire with that of a disinterested spectator. The self is threatened by the third-person perspective just because it is third-personal. No matter how valuable it is, that perspective is not mine. I think the problem of perspectives is a genuine dilemma. We should admit that the disinterested spectator has a broader vision and that her impartiality is an important good. From that perspective, the view from inside one’s own head can appear ludicrously narrow, biased, and blind to large portions of reality. But we can understand why a person can reasonably respond, “Why should I assume a point of view that ignores some of the essential features of being me?” The dilemma is even more acute when the issue is not the perspective I ought to adopt on the world without, but the perspective I ought to adopt on myself. My position is that the ideal perspective on the self is not the perspective of a disinterested spectator on one’s self. It is not the perspective on the self from the outside, but a perspective that the self has on the self that is like the perspective of the ideal agent on the ideal agent’s self. One of the most important of the exemplar’s imitable features is the way in which he recognizes when he is probably wrong and the way in which he goes about altering his own character. Wise persons change, and an important impetus for change is their encounter with other wise persons. I think that ultimately, we cannot resolve the problem of ethical pluralism without a theory of the 348

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity self and the way in which the self revises itself. This chapter is intended to be a prolegomenon to such a theory. My proposal is that the revision of the self is best approached from neither the first-person nor the third-person perspective, but from the secondperson perspective, the perspective of others with whom we are intimately engaged and whose views of us can be internalized. But let us begin with one of the most important third-person perspectives, that of an ideal observer.

ii ideal observers 1 The idea that moral judgments can be explained by the attitudes of an ideal observer (IO) is a powerful one. Even philosophers who do not define moral concepts by reference to the responses of an ideal observer often refer to an IO as a metaethical test for the acceptability of normative ethical claims. Consider how Kant defends his famous claim at the beginning of Chapter 1 of the Groundwork that there is nothing good without qualification except a good will: The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness. (Kant 1958, p. 61)

What is particularly interesting about Kant’s use of the IO in this passage is that he neither defends the appropriateness of appealing to an IO, gives criteria for being one, nor indicates how he knows the IO’s response. And that is not unusual. Many philosophers appeal to an ideal observer in their arguments without support for the method, presumably because they think it is unnecessary, and some think they are able to judge how an ideal observer would react in particular cases, as Kant does in the passage just quoted. A few seem to have enough confidence in this method and in their ability to apply it that they use it to reject common 349

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism moral beliefs that are prima facie justified. The approach has even been used to argue that Jesus Christ is not a moral exemplar.1 The relationship between the responses of an ideal observer and a normative moral judgment is subject to at least three interpretations, parallel to the three ways of understanding Divine Command theory discussed in Chapter 6. The weakest relationship is mere extensional equivalence: A moral judgment is true in all and only those cases in which an ideal observer would have a favorable response to the content of the judgment, and the weakest such response is simply one in which the ideal observer is willing to make the judgment himself. This is not very interesting, since it verges on the trivial position that a judgment is true just in case persons who know the truth would make the judgment. More interesting versions of this position require an affective response from an ideal observer, generally approval or disapproval. So on this version of the theory, a person/act/state of affairs is good or right just in case an ideal observer would approve of it; it is bad or wrong just in case an ideal observer would disapprove of it. This version of the IO theory connects the truth of moral judgments to affective states, but since the connection is merely extensional, there is no explanation for the relationship between the feelings of a being with certain attributes and the truth of moral judgments. The connection may be quite indirect, in which case something else is doing the work of connecting the two. I have no objection to the position that, for example, a virtuous act is an act that is like the act of an ideally virtuous person in the circumstances in question. It is virtuously motivated when it is motivated by the emotion of a person like that in circumstances of this kind. But that does not tell us what makes an emotion virtuous. Presumably, it is the same thing that makes the emotion of the virtuous person virtuous, and we still need an account of what that is. So even if there is an extensional equivalence between the expression of the emotion of an ideally virtuous person in a moral judgment and the truth of the judgment, that is not enough to explain what it is about an affective state of the virtuous person that 1

Michael Martin (1991) uses an ideal observer theory to object to the behavior of the Jesus of the Gospels.

350

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity ties it to the truth of a moral judgment. That must be explained in a theory that connects affectivity to moral judgment. Furthermore, there is reason to think that there will not even be an extensional equivalence between moral judgments and the types of affective responses typically discussed in the IO theory: approval and disapproval. In Chapter 1, I argued that value cannot be correlated with any pair of bipolar responses, and certainly not with any single pair of bipolar responses such as attraction/ repulsion or approval/disapproval. Consider again the following properties: peculiar, humorous, awesome, enviable, ugly, contemptible, unjust, pitiful. If the good is what attracts the IO and the bad is what repels him, these properties should differ only in their descriptive components and in the degree to which they attract or repel the IO. I doubt that that is true of any of them, but the properties that are perhaps most telling are the last two, the unjust and the pitiful. It surely is not the case that something is unjust just in case it has certain descriptive properties and the IO disapproves of it or is repelled by it. Even more obviously, the IO’s responses to the pitiful will be neither approval nor disapproval, attraction nor repulsion. But if I am right in the analysis of emotion I gave in Part I, the IO will have the emotions that fit their intentional objects; she will feel pity for the pitiful and indignation toward the unjust. There will, then, be an extensional equivalence between the emotions of an IO and the truth of moral judgments. But notice that then the IO will be in a motivating state and no longer merely an ideal observer; she will be closer to an ideal agent. The strongest interpretation of the relationship between the IO’s response and a moral judgment is identity of meaning: A judgment of the form “x is bad” means “An ideal observer would respond negatively to x.” But this cannot be right, for reasons given by Simon Blackburn (1998) against response-dependent theories in general. When I judge that a painting is beautiful, I do not mean to say that the experts have a favorable aesthetic response to it. What I am doing is giving a verdict on the painting. I am expressing my own aesthetic response.2 Similarly, I would say that when 2

See Blackburn (1998), Chapter 4, section 5, especially p. 110.

351

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism I judge that something is pitiful or contemptible or beautiful or good, I am expressing an emotion. I am not judging that an exemplar would have my emotion. My emotion is accurate just in case it is like the emotion of the exemplar in the same circumstances, but both the exemplar and I are accurate for the same reason: Our emotion fits its intentional object. There is a third interpretation of the Ideal Observer theory that is immune to Blackburn’s objection. Blackburn looks only at response-dependent theories that analyze the meaning of moral judgments in terms of emotional responses. But as Robert Adams has argued in his modified Divine Command theory (1979), when I say that an act is right just in case God commands it, I need not intend to identify the meaning of a judgment that gives a verdict on an act with a description of what God does. Instead, I may mean to trace the metaphysical source of the normative property of the act to something God does. Similarly, the defender of an IO theory may intend to be tracing the metaphysical source of the evaluative property of an act, person, or state of affairs to an emotional response in an ideal observer. A problem that immediately looms for this version of the theory, however, in that it is hard to see how an ideal observer can be the metaphysical source of anything if there is no ideal observer. One option is to identify God with the ideal observer, as Charles Taliaferro (1998) has done, in which case the IO theory comes close to Carson’s divine preference theory discussed in Chapter 6. 2 A version of IO theory that I find particularly interesting is that of William Frankena (1976), who avoids Blackburn’s objection without employing an actual ideal observer, and in so doing moves some distance toward the ideal agent theory of this book. Frankena justifies the appeal to an ideal observer on the grounds that the IO’s point of view is constitutive of the moral viewpoint: When one says “p is a principle of morality” one is taking or purporting to take the moral point of view, subscribing to p from that point of view, and claiming that p is rationally justified by

352

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity the facts as seen from that point of view or that everyone who views the facts carefully from that point of view will eventually also subscribe to p. (p. 173)

According to Frankena, a moral judgment is intended to hold up on the Day of Judgment, a model that suggests both a reason to refer to an IO and a principle for determining the IO’s features: They are the features that make a being the supreme judge, and they are features that permit the masses of the judged to see the correctness of the judgment. They are therefore not only features that make a being ideal as an observer, but they are features that permit the resolution of conflict. All who hear the verdict of the supreme judge and who themselves assume the standpoint of the moral point of view will come to agree with him. This is not the uninteresting claim that all who come to be ideal observers themselves will agree with the verdict of the ideal observer, since clearly the vast majority of human beings assembled on Judgment Day are not ideal. But under the influence of the supreme judge, they no longer have the features that prevent agreement. That those features include ignorance, obtuseness, selfishness, partiality, inconsistency, and so on is a matter for debate, but Frankena has offered a useful model for the Ideal Observer theory that gives us criteria for picking the criteria for being an IO as well as a reason to refer to one. The reason that moral judgments can be defined by the responses of an IO is that we see when exposed to an IO that those are the judgments that we ultimately would make ourselves if we assumed the standpoint at which we are implicitly aiming. The features that make a being an IO are therefore the features that make him a judge who judges in such a way that those who experience his judgment want to assume his point of view and will see from that point of view that the judgment is correct. Frankena makes an amendation to the IO theory that is important for avoiding Blackburn’s objection to response-dependent theories. He says: [W]hen I say “Morality requires . . . ,” etc., I am not merely asserting that an Ideal Observer, however he or it may be defined, does or will or would approve or agree. I am not that purely cognitive or spectatorial; I am, as I said before, speaking as an insider, I

353

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism am taking a pro-attitude myself, I am myself subscribing to approving at least in intention or promise – in short, I am trying to be an Ideal Observer taking the moral point of view and I am approving or disapproving on the basis of what I then see. (p. 176)

Notice that Frankena’s ideal observer is an exemplar, not just an observer. When I make a moral judgment, I aim to take the point of view of the IO. This theory has important implications for the nature of the self, since when I make a moral judgment, I am expressing a judgment not from my actual point of view, but from the point of view to which I aspire. Yet I assert it. I endorse it. I claim it as my own. So the features of the IO must be features that I would have if I were to reach the standpoint to which I aspire. I may not know what those features are, but I think it is important that when I see them exemplified, I quite naturally desire to imitate them and accept the judgment that they produce. When God speaks on Judgment Day, no one protests, not only because protest would be useless, but because all endorse the judgment. Frankena says that ideal observers do not have to be actual persons. Even an atheist can agree that the principles of morality are those that would be sustained by God (p. 183). According to Frankena, then, a moral judgment is performative, but the agent takes himself to be assuming a certain point of view in that performance, a point of view to which he can aspire whether or not there is any actual being who has that point of view fully. This assumes that we can identify that point of view without an actual exemplar. Possibly the Kantian view that we can find it within ourselves is correct. But even so, it is easier to imitate an actual person, as long as the IO is a being who reveals himself in a way that can be imitated. A more important drawback of a nonactual IO is that we can surmise his response only to the extent that we think that we ourselves approach the standpoint of the IO, at least in imagination. Sometimes we think that we can do that, at least temporarily, and so we treat Kant’s claim that a happy person without a good will gives no pleasure to an impartial spectator as a discussable item in classrooms and at conferences. But IO theorists typically include more than impartiality in their list of the attributes of the 354

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity IO, and it can be very difficult to imagine how a being with such attributes would respond. For example, in Roderick Firth’s (1952) version, when we make a judgment of moral requirement we are saying that the acts or principles in question would be approved by a being who is omniscient of the nonethical, omnipercipient (imaginatively appreciative of all that is involved in or affected by the act or principle), disinterested, dispassionate, and consistent. But even if impartiality is something that anyone can adopt by effort alone, it is considerably harder to imagine being omniscient and omnipercipient, much less to imagine what our responses would be if we had those attributes. If there existed an actual being of that description, we would not need to guess his responses. Of course, there remains the problem that God does not reveal His attitudes about everything; hence, the need for human exemplars. Another problem for postulating a nonactual IO is that it means the criteria for being an IO must be determined a priori rather than by experience. There have been debates about these criteria. For example, Thomas Carson (1984) argues that the relevant attributes of the IO need not include disinterestedness, dispassionateness, or omniscience. It is very hard to see how such disputes can be settled a priori, although I would not deny that there can be plausible a priori arguments in support of some of them. But it seems to me preferable if exemplars are actual persons identifiable in advance of an account of the features of them in virtue of which they are exemplars, as Aristotle thought we could do with the phronimos. I argued in Chapter 1 that an advantage of exemplarism is that a host of issues need not be settled before giving the foundation of the theory through direct reference to exemplars. The features that make the exemplar exemplary can be discovered in roughly the same way that the essential features of water can be discovered. I would propose that if the exemplars are impartial or disinterested, then the proposition The exemplar is impartial is a necessary a posteriori truth for the same reason that Water is H2 O is a necessary a posteriori truth in Saul Kripke’s theory of natural kinds. Disinterestedness, impartiality, emotional appreciation, wide knowledge of the nonmoral facts, and many other qualities are candidates for the properties that make an exemplar 355

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism exemplary. Whether exemplars actually do exhibit these qualities seems to me to be something we can investigate. In order to avoid Blackburn’s objection, the IO must be an exemplary agent, but this makes the fact that the IO is an observer superfluous. Let me explain by returning to Frankena’s theory. According to Frankena, when I make a moral judgment, I am trying to be an ideal observer, taking the moral point of view, and I then judge from that perspective. When I make a moral judgment, I am asserting that some person, act, or state of affairs has a certain moral property, but I am certainly not asserting that somebody else – the exemplar, the IO, or God – asserts the same thing. I may, of course, believe that the exemplar or God does assert the same thing, but there is no reason to think that I am asserting that when I make the judgment myself. My judgment is first-personal, not third-personal. I am, as Blackburn points out, rendering a verdict myself, not announcing that some other being gives the verdict. For the same reason, I am not announcing my own affective responses when I assume the standpoint of the ideal observer. A moral judgment is not a report about somebody’s response, whether my own or another’s. Blackburn is right that a moral judgment is performative. It is an expression of an affective state, yet it also has a cognitive meaning. My account of moral judgment in Chapters 2 and 3 is designed to explain that. One of the most important features of the IO, according to Frankena, is the IO’s capacity to settle disagreement. When a person makes a moral judgment, he is “taking the moral point of view,” the view of the IO, “the moral action-guide to which all those who are fully rational within the moral point of view will eventually agree” (p. 173). The implication here is that the IOs agree with each other in their moral judgments and that anybody who disagrees with the judgment of the IO is making a mistake. He or she is not taking “the moral point of view.” Most defenders of the IO theory maintain that the IOs cannot disagree (e.g., Taliaferro [1988] and Firth), but Thomas Carson argues to the contrary (1984, pp. 75–76). I think that Frankena has identified an important feature of moral exemplars. They have practical wisdom, and if anybody is 356

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity able to resolve conflict among competing moral judgments, it is a person with practical wisdom. But I do not think we can claim a priori that moral exemplars never make conflicting judgments. Life would be easier if that were so, but I see no reason to think that it is so without empirical evidence. And the anecdotal evidence does not seem to support it. I think, then, that we should allow for the possibility that moral exemplars may make conflicting moral judgments and may act on such judgments. If so, the next question to ask is whether we should think of that as a problem. I will argue in the next section that the urge to resolve moral disagreement is rational and important, and I will propose some principles for resolving disagreement, but I also think that the urge to get agreement is one of the things that needs to be tempered by the judgment of persons with phronesis. Not only are there times when it is unlikely that we are going to get agreement between persons in very different cultures any time soon, there are also times when the attempt to get such agreement can be counterproductive. There might even be reasons why we would not want complete agreement in an ideal world. In recent years, the idea that the most rational or objective or ideal point of view is external to the self has been under sustained attack. This is no doubt an overreaction, as the first-person perspective is narrow, usually selfish, and frequently wrong, and there is something to be gained by taking the third-person perspective. Nonetheless, we ought to find any view suspect if it demands that we aspire to forgetting who we are when acting morally. One form this debate has taken focuses on impartiality as a moral ideal. The problem is that some virtues consist in part in treating some persons with partiality – family, friends, and loved ones – yet the moral point of view allegedly demands that we treat all persons in the same way.3 This problem can be finessed to some degree by the argument that it serves the general welfare if each person treats a few other persons with special love and concern, but even if that is the case, the point of view of the moral agent 3

See, for example, Stocker (1976) and Blum (1980). Kant’s view is defended against the charge that he cannot account for the partiality of love by Velleman (1999).

357

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism is not the third-person point of view that justifies her behavior, since clearly, few moral agents favor their loved ones over others because it serves the general welfare to do so, nor would we think they ought to have such a motive for their partiality. This is a problem for Frankena’s form of the Ideal Observer theory, because even though a moral agent’s acts of love and friendship might be approved by an IO, it surely is not the case that they are good because they would be approved by the agent who herself aspires to the viewpoint of the IO. I argued earlier that Frankena’s move of putting the agent within the perspective of the IO answers Blackburn’s objection that a moral judgment is a verdict, not a report about somebody else’s verdict, but that move does not explain why we think that sometimes it is not a good thing to aspire to that perspective. In summary, the IO theory is wrongheaded if “x would be approved by an IO” is intended to be the meaning of “x is good/right,” and it is uninteresting if the two are intended merely to be extensionally equivalent. It is more interesting if the theory claims that the attitude or emotion of an IO is the metaphysical ground of moral goodness or rightness, a claim parallel to that of Robert Adams’s modified Divine Command theory. An interesting version of IO theory is one in which moral judgments are expressions of the emotion of an IO, a being who has “the moral point of view.” This requires that the IO be an ideal agent, not just an observer, and it is preferable if the IO is a real being. There is disagreement about the qualities that make a being an IO, and disagreement about whether ideal observers can have conflicting moral responses. Exemplarism avoids both problems. It maintains that exemplars can be identified in advance of identifying the qualities that make them ideal. This is particularly important when it comes to the quality of impartiality, the importance of which has probably been exaggerated. Observation will also settle the issue of whether the judgments of exemplars can conflict. More attention should be paid to the issue of whether such conflict is a problem and to the extent that it is a problem, how it can be resolved. I will address these issues in the next two sections. I will also address the problem that a moral judgment must express the point of view of an ideal agent, not simply report it, yet the point 358

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity of view expressed need not always be an impartial, third-person perspective.

iii ideal agents 1 The IO theory assumes that there is a point of view from the outside that constitutes the moral point of view and to which moral agents aspire. In the previous section, I argued that problems within an IO theory push us in the direction of exemplarism, a theory that I have defended in this book for independent reasons. A moral judgment is correct to the extent that it approximates the judgment that would be made by an ideal agent in the same circumstances. In Divine Motivation theory, the ultimate ideal agent is God, Who is the metaphysical source of value in the world, not just a standard against which we can measure our judgments. Human exemplars imitate God, but it is also true that their emotions are good because they fit the circumstances, and since they are ideal in practical reasoning, they are good at fitting the act to the motive. I have suggested that the issue of whether ideal agents can make conflicting judgments should be left to investigation. But several times in this book I have proposed that there is no reason to think that there is always a unique emotion that fits the circumstances, and similarly for an appropriate act. However, I argued in Chapter 4 that there are acts that no ideal agent would do in relevantly similar circumstances, and there are acts that appear to the ideal agent as demanded, not just as properly fitting. This raises a number of questions about the identity of the moral self, the range of acceptable variability in emotions and acts, and the issue of how an agent ought to go about revising her beliefs, emotions, and acts if the exemplars vary among themselves. The first issue I want to discuss is a problem with any external standard for moral behavior, whether the standard be an ideal observer or an ideal agent. Why think that a moral agent ought to be like some other agent, even if that agent is ideal, and even if there is more than one such agent one may choose to imitate? 359

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism As I mentioned in the first chapter, the psychological literature supplies us with ample evidence that imitation is natural and largely unconscious, but that is not sufficient to demonstrate that imitation is ideal, or even a good thing. The ideal moral self might be something that precludes any attempt to be like another self. This worry is expressed by Iris Murdoch in a passage I quoted in Chapter 6. There, she reminds us of a striking passage in which Kant argues that even when confronted with Christ, a person still ought to consult his own reason. She says: Stripped of the exiguous metaphysical background which Kant was prepared to allow him, this man is with us still, free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, brave, the hero of so many novels and books of moral philosophy. (1970, p. 101)

I have no doubt that the man Murdoch describes is attractive, even exemplary in a certain way, but I suspect that what attracts us is the embellishment given by Murdoch, not the mere fact that he turns away from Christ and consults his own reason. A person who is unmoved by the sight of a hero or saint whose beliefs and acts differ from his own in important ways is not virtuous, does not exemplify proper humility. I have argued that there is something about each person that is unrepeatable and that gives each person incomparable value, but when a person consults his own conscience, he should not delude himself that that is what he is consulting. What he is consulting has already been largely constituted by imitation of others. When he consults his conscience, he is no more consulting something that is uniquely his than he would be if he consulted a wise mentor. The issue of whether the virtuous person considers himself the last word on how he should think, feel, and act is best left to investigation of exemplars. What I think we find is that the virtuous person does not consider himself the last word on how he should think, feel, or act. He does not turn away from Christ and other exemplars and consult his own reason. In recent years, there has been considerable debate about whether the first-person perspective is privileged over the thirdperson perspective, an issue that is particularly acute when we are examining perspectives on the self. To say that the ideal 360

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity perspective on oneself is the perspective from without is implausible, given that the first-person perspective on the self is prima facie more immediate and authoritative than the view of the self from without, which is not to say the first-person perspective is infallible. An oddity of the idea of self-knowledge is that whatever special privilege or authority the first-person perspective has seems to be lost as soon as we treat ourselves as an object of knowledge, an act that involves thinking of ourselves in the third person.4 The problems here are extensive and deep, and I will not try to solve them, but I want to propose that the method of exemplarism can be put to some use in guiding us through these problems. If our model is the perspective the exemplars have on their selves, I think we discover that exemplars revise the beliefs, emotions, and values that define themselves through encounter with others, particularly other exemplars, including exemplars in other cultures. This is to say not that the perspective of exemplar B on exemplar A is superior to the perspective of exemplar A on exemplar A, but that the attitude of A toward herself tends to be revised through intimate contact with exemplar B. What that should mean for us is not that we should try to adopt the attitude toward ourselves that an exemplar has toward us, much less try to become the self of some exemplar, but that we should try to adopt the attitude toward the self that the exemplar has toward the exemplar’s self. My hope is that this will lead to a promising way to resolve the conflict between first-person and third-person perspectives on the self that has seemed unsolvable in post-Enlightenment philosophy. There are a number of issues about the exemplar’s behavior that I would like to address in the rest of this chapter. One is how practically wise persons respond when faced with moral disagreement among exemplars, including disagreement about their own moral qualities, and perhaps even disagreement about the deepest parts of themselves, their emotions and attitudes. There is then the issue of whether and how they resolve disagreement among themselves, and how this involves revision in the emotions, beliefs, and attitudes that constitute the exemplar’s self. There are probably 4

See Christine McKinnon (2003) for a virtue approach to self-knowledge.

361

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism situations in which exemplars aspire to a neutral third-person perspective to resolve disagreement, but I think it is unlikely that all disagreements are resolved in this way. One of the most interesting questions is what they do when they do not aspire to a third-person perspective. A good way to find a model for the behavior of wise persons in cases of conflict is to examine the participants in interfaith dialogue. Religious beliefs can be deep and involve the kind of commitment that religious persons take to be partially constitutive of their selves. The clash between religious beliefs is obvious and is often considerably greater than that between moral beliefs, since the former usually include many metaphysical beliefs in addition to moral beliefs. Conflict over religious belief is generally harder to resolve than issues about the proper treatment of human beings,5 yet there exist serious efforts to engage in exchanges between persons of different faiths, both in order to discover the extent of their common beliefs and to generate ways to deal with those beliefs about which there is unresolvable disagreement. In addition to these exchanges, there is a small body of literature in philosophy of religion on religious exclusivism, one form of which is about truth and another form of which is about rationality. The exclusivist about religious truth, maintains that the doctrines of her own religion are true, on the whole, and that all other religions are false insofar as they have incompatible teachings. The exclusivist about rationality maintains that belief in the doctrines of her own religion is rational and that belief in the incompatible doctrines of any other religion is either irrational or, at best, less rational. Debates over exclusivism of either kind sharply reveal the clash between first-person and third-person perspectives. They also reveal the difficulty of resolving the issue of exclusivism without a resolution of the background problem of clash of perspectives. In the rest of this section, I will look at the debate over exclusivism, since it reveals the extreme positions. We will then turn to models for the ideal perspective on one’s own moral beliefs 5

It is interesting that the Dalai Lama (1999) says that the value of compassion is universal but that the distinctive metaphysical beliefs of different religions are their internal business.

362

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity taken from the literature on encounters between wise persons of different religions. 2 Consider the situation of a person who is a devout member of one of the world’s major religions. She has adopted the values taught by that religion, has religious emotions shaped by the cognitive content of her religious beliefs, and is knowledgeable about the teachings of her religion to the degree that is necessary in order for her to profess a number of beliefs taught by her religion in explicit propositional form. That is to say, she takes these propositions to be true and their negations to be false. Suppose also that she is aware that there are intelligent and sincere persons who believe the negation of what she believes. She may meet and talk to some of these people and feel sympathy toward them. She may even consider some of them friends. Let us leave open for now the issue of how practically wise our hypothetical person is. I will assume that she is not exemplary, but that, like most of us, she is reasonably intelligent, rational, and virtuous and can recognize an exemplar when she encounters one. This situation is difficult, although it has not always been perceived to be so. I find it instructive that the closer and more extensive the interaction with persons of other faiths, the more likely it is that she will revise in some way her own beliefs about religion. I am not suggesting that she will probably revise the beliefs that are central teachings of her religion, but it is very unlikely that her encounters with others will leave her general system of beliefs untouched, at least not if she is open-minded and sympathetic. Something will almost certainly change. The issue is what changes and how we can tell whether it is a good thing that it does. Wilfred Cantwell Smith has attracted attention with the charge that in such a situation, the moral person will have to give up her belief that those who believe the negation of those propositions taught by her religion are believing something false: Except at the cost of insensitivity or delinquency, it is morally not possible actually to go out into the world and say to devout,

363

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism intelligent, fellow human beings: “ . . . we believe that we know God and we are right; you believe that you know God, and you are totally wrong.”6

Unfortunately, by indulging in hyperbole Smith has made it far too easy to reply to his attack, thereby avoiding the more serious issues, for (1) the issue is not what we say to devout and intelligent persons of other faiths, but rather what we ourselves believe, so insensitivity is not relevant, and (2) the wrongdoing with which we are threatened is less likely to be anything as strong as moral delinquency – whatever that is – than something much more subtle. We should ask ourselves whether we are acting virtuously if the moral and/or religious views of other persons have no effect on our own views, particularly when we recognize those persons as having practical wisdom. I suspect that the answer to that question is no, even when we are not guilty of arrogance or delinquency in believing ourselves to be in the right. Whether the answer to that question is really no depends upon how practically wise persons actually behave when faced with conflicting beliefs on the part of other practically wise persons, and we will get to that presently. But first, consider the following response to Smith by Plantinga: I must concede that there are a variety of ways in which I can be and have been intellectually arrogant and egotistic; I have certainly fallen into this vice in the past and no doubt am not free of it now. But am I really arrogant and egotistic just by virtue of believing what I know others don’t believe, where I can’t show them that I am right? Suppose I think the matter over, consider the objections as carefully as I can, realize that I am finite and furthermore a sinner, certainly no better than those with whom I disagree, and indeed inferior both morally and intellectually to many who do not believe what I do; but suppose it still seems clear to me that the proposition in question is true: can I really be behaving immorally in continuing to believe it? I am dead sure that it is wrong to try to advance my career by telling lies 6

Quoted by Alvin Plantinga (2000), p. 176.

364

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity about my colleagues; I realize there are those who disagree; I also realize that in all likelihood there is no way I can find to show them that they are wrong; nonetheless, I think they are wrong. If I think this after careful reflection – if I consider the claims of those who disagree as sympathetically as I can, if I try [sic] level best to ascertain the truth here – and it still seems to me sleazy, wrong, and despicable to lie about my colleagues to advance my career, could I really be doing something immoral in continuing to believe as before? I can’t see how. (Plantinga 2000, p. 179)

There are a number of problems with this response. First of all, thinking the matter over and trying to be sympathetic with those with an opposing viewpoint is surely insufficient to avoid wrongdoing, whether moral or epistemic. If a person who is closeminded or bigoted or an hysterical fanatic thinks the matter over carefully – even if he is as sympathetic as he can be, which might not be very sympathetic at all – he is not likely to think or act in a virtuous manner. If he begins by thinking that suicide bombing is a good thing to do, then thinking the matter over and listening to the objections of those who think differently is not likely either to change his mind or to lead him to act in a blameless fashion. He should not think that suicide bombing is a good idea, and one of the reasons he should not think so is that so many virtuous persons think otherwise. He might not be guilty of arrogance or egotism, but he is guilty of wrongdoing. This leads to the more central problem with Plantinga’s position as articulated here. It is not mere disagreement that generates the problem, but disagreement on the part of persons whom we recognize as wise and virtuous. Plantinga says that many of the persons who disagree with him on various issues may be better than he is morally and intellectually, yet he goes on to give an example of disagreement over the issue of whether one should lie about one’s colleagues in order to advance one’s career. I would be very surprised if Plantinga thinks those who disagree with him on this issue are his moral and intellectual superiors, since surely they are not. 365

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism Again, I propose that the way to determine the virtuous response to moral disagreement among persons with practical wisdom is to look at how they handle it themselves. One thing I think we see is that they do not typically switch sides on an issue for the sole reason that many practically wise persons are on the other side. As Plantinga points out, they cannot consistently do that, since they will again be in the position of believing something with which many practically wise persons disagree (p. 178) – including, I would add, their former selves. Of course, it is right to switch sides when all the practically wise persons have a view contrary to one’s own – as they do when one believes that it is a good thing to lie about one’s colleagues in order to advance one’s career. But the interesting cases are not like that. The more important question is how a person should respond when she becomes aware that there are many practically wise persons whose belief differs from her own and that there are also many practically wise persons who agree with her. Practically wise persons do not typically switch sides, but they may still change. The important issue is whether, why, and how they change. One way in which the problem of religious diversity is posed by persons who live in close and sympathetic contact with members of other religions is that they find they can imagine what it would be like to be in their place, to believe what they believe, and to have the emotions that they have. They often then say something like, “There but for an accident of history go I.” Plantinga considers a response like this to be an attack on the warrant of one’s own religious beliefs. Of course, it need not be an attack at all. More commonly, I think, the point of view expressed in this way is the opinion that there is, or may be, epistemic parity between oneself and others. This could mean that both sides are equally unjustified or unwarranted in their beliefs. Plantinga takes the position to be an attack on warrant, a particular type of epistemic value.7 As an attack on warrant, the sensibility just expressed above can 7

What Plantinga means by warrant is whatever it is that when added to true belief yields knowledge. Warrant comes in degrees, he says, and a belief constitutes knowledge only when it is both true and warranted in a sufficient degree. Warrant is distinct from justifiedness.

366

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity be formulated in a thesis I will call the Religious Diversity thesis (RD): [RD] If S’s religious or philosophical beliefs are such that if S had been born elsewhere or elsewhen, she wouldn’t have held them, then those beliefs are produced by unreliable belief-producing mechanisms and hence have no warrant. (p. 188)

Formulated in this way, the position is easy to attack, for no matter what my religious beliefs, if I had been born “elsewhere or elsewhen” I would not have had them, and hence all religious beliefs are unwarranted according to the above position, as well as the belief that all religious beliefs are false.8 Plantinga asks, “What can we infer from it [the antecedent of RD] about what has warrant and how we should conduct our intellectual lives? That’s not easy to say. Can we infer anything at all about what has warrant or how we should conduct our intellectual lives? Not obviously” (p. 188, italics in original). Plantinga says that it is not obvious that anything follows about how we should conduct our intellectual lives from the point of view expressed by the person who says, in sympathy with devout believers whom he respects, “There but for an accident of history go I.” I suppose Plantinga is right that it is not obvious, yet it is common enough among intellectually virtuous persons – particularly those who have extensive and sympathetic contact with devout believers of other religions – that I think we owe them a careful examination of what they think follows from such an observation. Once again, I think we should make this an object of empirical investigation, but I think it will turn out that the evidence indicates that the beliefs of such persons change. The issues involved here are not limited to the choice of continuing 8

A modification of RD would also rule out the warrant of withholding belief about religious matters. The amended version of RD would be the following: If S’s epistemic attitude toward some religious or philosophical proposition p (believing p, believing not-p, neither believing p nor believing not-p) is such that if S had been born elsewhere or elsewhen, she wouldn’t have had that attitude toward p, then her attitude toward p is produced by an unreliable belief-producing mechanism and has no warrant.

367

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism to believe, disbelieving, or withholding belief. The relevant issues include the way in which they hold their beliefs and their attitude toward those who think differently; why they continue to hold their beliefs, assuming that they do; whether they are open to reasons for disbelief; whether they seriously search for a position that is compatible with both their own beliefs and those that apparently conflict with them; whether they truly appreciate why others think differently, and many others. The ground of these issues is an attitude that virtuous persons have toward conflict in belief: They experience it negatively. Not only the intellectually virtuous, but also the masses of ordinary rational persons, such as the hypothetical person we have been imagining, adopt moves that are ultimately aimed at resolving conflict. Conflict in belief is experienced as a bad thing, not only because it often leads to other bad things – such as the disruption of friendship and, at the extreme, acts of violence – but also because it is an epistemically bad thing itself. It is a bad thing for us as an epistemic community when there is disagreement among the members of the community. When the disagreement appears to be unresolvable, that is a very bad thing. 3 Religious disagreement would not be experienced as a bad thing were it not for the fact that we think of all other human persons as epistemic partners, as members of a single community. Of course, there are smaller and closer communities whose members share certain beliefs, and sometimes a community is defined in part by the sharing of such beliefs. For most of human history, it would never have occurred to most human beings that the fact that persons in another part of the world disagreed with them about religion, morality, or anything else was a problem. But now most of us believe that the fact that we are able to think of all human beings as having much in common and forming a community is a mark of moral progress, and one of the effects of that progress is that we experience certain of our differences as problems. Differences in moral and religious beliefs are among the most serious of the differences that we consider problematic. Ultimately, it is 368

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity the attitude of the exemplars, the persons with practical wisdom, that determines the right attitude to take toward any particular disagreement, but I want to propose some principles that I believe follow from the fact that all human beings are epistemic partners in a community of truth seekers, principles that can serve as the basic presuppositions for the resolution of conflict in belief among the members of that community. Each of them is open to revision by the persons who actively engage in relationships with members of other religions, particularly those whom we recognize as exemplars – persons of practical wisdom. These three principles represent only a first attempt at identifying the principles with which they operate. The Need to Resolve Conflict Principle: Persons should attempt to resolve putative conflicts of beliefs between different cultures and different religions.

The Need to Resolve Conflict Principle may seem obvious, even trivial, but I want to reiterate two points about it. First, it would not have been accepted or even entertained until some time during the Enlightenment, and even now it would not be accepted in many parts of the world. Second, there is not much hope for resolving conflict if the value of doing so is not recognized. In Frankena’s version of the Ideal Observer theory, the IO has the features that permit the resolution of conflict, and the point of view of a being who has these features just is the moral point of view, according to Frankena. This position on the moral viewpoint presupposes the desirability of conflict resolution, at least about moral beliefs. I propose that the Need to Resolve Conflict Principle is one of the deepest principles underlying our common membership in the human community. The Culture Sensitivity Principle: Persons should treat the members of other cultures and religions as though they were prima facie as rational as themselves.

One of the forms of religious exclusivism mentioned earlier is exclusivism about rationality. I doubt that very many people are consciously and explicitly exclusivists about rationality, but subtler forms of rationality exclusivism can be tempting. When first 369

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism confronted with a culture whose beliefs deviate in important ways from one’s own, one may think not only that they are mistaken, but also that they must be guilty of an intellectual lapse of some sort. We suspect that they have made a mistake in reasoning, or that they have not considered all the evidence, or that they have not been open-minded or fair to their opponents (us), or that they are self-deceived, or that they are indulging in wishful thinking, and so on. In short, it is tempting to think that they are mistaken because they have some intellectual vice that explains why they believe what we take to be false. Now it may turn out that our considered judgment is that they are irrational or express intellectual vice in their belief. What the Culture Sensitivity Principle rules out is the position that the mere fact that our beliefs are ours and their beliefs are theirs is sufficient for us to be justified in concluding that ours are more rational than theirs. In the absence of good reasons to think the contrary, we should assume the rational equality of every culture’s distinctive beliefs. The principle does not tell us what counts as a good reason to think the contrary, but it tells us something that counts as a bad reason: that our beliefs are ours and theirs are theirs. Notice that the Culture Sensitivity Principle puts constraints on the methods used in following the Need to Resolve Conflict Principle. Culture is a good thing, and conflict is a bad thing, but cultural differences make conflict more likely. Respecting the prima facie rational equality of culture-specific beliefs that conflict with each other sets the rules of engagement in a way that does not allow us to favor ourselves when attempting conflict resolution. This is not to say that all parties to the dialogue should attempt to assume a common neutral standpoint from which to adjudicate the dispute. It is possible that such a standpoint can resolve some conflicts, but I have already said that I find little reason to think that it will do so in many of the deepest and most important disputes. It is critical, however, that there are persons on each side who are recognized by the other side as capable of both appreciating and correcting their own beliefs and acts. I assume that over a reasonable period of time, in all cultures of a substantial size, there are persons with practical wisdom. They are recognized as exemplars in their own cultures, and it is possible for persons on 370

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity the outside to recognize them as exemplars as well. This leads to a third principle of cultural engagement: The Rational Recognition Principle: If a belief is rational, its rationality is recognizable, in principle, by persons with practical wisdom in other cultures who are engaged in sympathetic contact with persons who hold the belief.

It is important to see ourselves as practically wise persons see us when they are in direct, sustained, and sympathetic contact with us. Their perspective respects the distinctiveness of our firstperson perspective while providing a check on the rationality of our beliefs, as we provide a check on theirs. Since most persons are not exemplars of practical wisdom but are merely rational to some degree, we ought to take into account the extent to which we trust their degree of rationality and approximation to practical wisdom when we find that they disagree with us in a way that seems unresolvable. Disagreement between us and ordinary persons who are rational in an ordinary degree should bother us, and we should take it seriously. Disagreement between us and persons whom we recognize as exemplars of practical wisdom should be taken very seriously. The Culture Sensitivity Principle tells us that the members of different cultures are prima facie equally rational in their beliefs, and the Rational Recognition Principle has the consequence that the practically wise members of A and B are capable of recognizing that fact. When their beliefs conflict, it follows from the Need to Resolve Conflict Principle that they find that disquieting and in need of resolution. I have proposed that how, when, and why they change their beliefs is a matter for empirical investigation, but I think we can tell from our considerations so far that it is generally not going to help to eliminate conflict if practically wise person A gives up her own beliefs and adopts those of some other practically wise person B, since B is in the same position as A. But there are different degrees and kinds of conflict resolution, not all of which involve giving up one belief and adopting another. One of the most important features of practically wise persons is their ability to see the world and themselves through the eyes of another without threat to their own identity. Doing so inevitably 371

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism changes a person, and I believe that the most important lesson of the phenomenon of moral and religious diversity is the way in which it leads one to revise the self. Practically wise persons in different cultures are remarkably alike in virtues and habits of mind, in spite of the fact that they usually continue to believe different things even after extensive dialogue. There are ways to confront diversity of belief that resolve the tension of conflict without resulting in one party to the dialogue rejecting her own beliefs and adopting those of another. The resulting changes may actually be more radical than changes in belief, however, so my suggestion is by no means a compromise or a pretense that conflict has been resolved when it has not been. What really changes is the self and the first-person point of view on the self. In the next section, I will propose a model for responding to the diversity of moral beliefs according to which the ideal perspective on the self is neither the first-person perspective nor the third-person perspective of an impartial observer. It is the perspective on oneself that one gets from close interaction with others, particularly those others who are wise and who know us intimately. I call this the second-person perspective.

iv rationality in the second person: revising the self 1 Moral and religious beliefs are a flashpoint for the conflict between first- and third-person perspectives because many of them are partially constitutive of the self. By that I mean: (1) They are not merely beliefs, they are commitments. One puts oneself on the line for such beliefs. (2) One cannot give up one of the beliefs in this category without undergoing major revisions in the rest of one’s system of beliefs, as well as in one’s emotions and ends, and some of these other changes are also changes in basic components of one’s identity. But this does not mean that these beliefs should be treated as immune to revision. One of the mysteries of the self is that it is capable of changing under its own direction. Change 372

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity occurs in large part through interaction with other selves, and that includes the experience of seeing one’s self through the eyes of another. It is a paradox of the self that it is possible for someone else to know me better than I know myself in some respects, even though I am the final authority on my self. But it is not easy to say what that authority amounts to, since I am convinced that it does not mean any of the following: I cannot be mistaken in my beliefs about my self; I cannot be mistaken in my belief that I have certain beliefs, emotions, or commitments; I cannot be mistaken when I believe that I should continue to believe what I believe or have the emotions I have or be committed to what I am committed to. What I think it does mean is that when we take away from our reasons for our moral and religious beliefs those reasons that could be shared by any person of a general description that suitably describes me, what is left over is not limited to ways in which I can be mistaken. The conditions for believing correctly are not fully determined by conditions set forth from a third-person perspective, not even the perspective of a third person who is as much like me as another person can be. But doesn’t this ruin the thesis of exemplarism, which I have presented throughout most of this book as giving preeminence to the perspective of exemplary persons, persons with practical wisdom? I have defined good motives, virtues, good and right acts, and good ends as motives, qualities, acts, and ends that an exemplar might or would have in certain circumstances. This theory makes the standard a perspective that is unmistakably thirdpersonal, and for the most part, I think we should continue to think of moral concepts in this way. But I want to propose an alteration of the theory that reflects the difference between two alternative ways of making an exemplar the standard. Compare the following: (1) An act (belief) is right (justified, rational) just in case it is an act that the phronimos might do (a belief that the phronimos might have) in relevantly similar circumstances.9 9

When I say “The phronimos might have belief B,” I mean “It is not the case that the phronimos would not have belief B.”

373

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism (2) My act (belief) is right (justified, rational) just in case it is an act that I might do (belief that I might have) were I to acquire phronesis and be in relevantly similar circumstances.

For many purposes, the differences between (1) and (2) are negligible, but the difference can be important in certain sorts of cases, and some of the cases that generate the problem of moral and religious diversity are cases in which the difference between (1) and (2) is significant. Principle (2) reflects the value of retaining my own perspective even when I acquire the virtues, whereas (1) does not. I learn emotions and acquire beliefs and qualities of character in part through imitation of virtuous others, but I do not aim to acquire their distinctive first-person point of view. Persons with practical wisdom are not all alike, and each person who acquires practical wisdom will differ from all the others in some way – a way that resists explanation, but that I have loosely characterized as a unique point of view, a window on the world that nobody else has or could have. How, then, does a person with practical wisdom change? If the first-person perspective is frequently mistaken, change is necessary, but the third-person perspective is not the ideal. The model that I think we should adopt is second-personal. Those who have a deep and sympathetic understanding of another person do not see him or her as an impersonal “he” or “she,” but as “you.” The deeper the understanding, the more they are able to appreciate the other’s first-person perspective, but with the advantage of the external viewpoint, which, while not impartial, is broader and more balanced. I think that this perspective is as close to the firstperson perspective as is compatible with an external point of view. Of course, a friend often does not candidly express to her friend how she sees the other in some situation, but merely expresses sympathy with the other’s viewpoint, and I do not deny that that can be beneficial. But it is helpful for self-knowledge and for revising our beliefs and emotions to see ourselves as intimate friends see us. This can sometimes amount to a startling revelation, as we see in the story of David and Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1–6). When David comes to see himself through Nathan’s eyes, he acquires deeper self-knowledge involving an emotional change that leads 374

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity him to repent for his sin. This is not to say that the point of view of a friend is always superior to the first-person perspective, even if the friend is wise and understanding like Nathan, but seeing ourselves from the second-person perspective generally leads to an improvement in our view of ourselves. It is more common and less threatening, of course, for friends to talk to each other about the beliefs that each have regarding a variety of matters that vary in their degree of centrality to the self of either friend, rather than to express their points of view about each other. I think that the more we trust the wisdom of a friend, the more we should take her beliefs that conflict with our own seriously. What makes the conflicting belief of a wise friend more important than the conflicting belief of a wise stranger is that the former appreciates what it is like for me to be me, what it is like to see the world from my distinctive perspective. Assuming that she takes me as seriously as I do her, knowing my perspective should change her point of view as well. Admittedly, it can be hard to know whether or how she changes her point of view in encounter with mine, but the model I am proposing operates only if she does. If a wise person with a belief conflicting with mine does not change under the influence of understanding my firstperson perspective, I should treat her point of view in the same way that I would treat the conflicting point of view of a wise person who is not a friend. It is another third-person perspective on the issue. What I am calling the second-person perspective involves an encounter between two persons’ first-person perspectives where each of them understands and appreciates the other. Each also has a first-person perspective on the other’s first-person perspective, which the other can then come to understand and appreciate. This model assumes ideal conditions of communication, which we are rarely able to enjoy. Nonetheless, I do not think that the less-thanideal conditions that we actually face falsify the point of the model. They just make it more complicated and more difficult to apply. Let us now look at how the second-person perspective can be used in dealing with conflicts between moral and religious beliefs. Exemplarism defines moral concepts by direct reference to persons like that. Concepts of epistemic appraisal can be defined in the same way. I have just suggested that a right or rational belief 375

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism is one that I might have if I were to acquire phronesis and be in relevantly similar circumstances. In this Principle of Rational Belief, I am using “right” and “rational” in the weakest sense of both terms, meaning “permissible” or “nor wrong” or “not contrary to rationality.” I have also suggested in this book that the behavior of exemplars is a standard for virtuous or praiseworthy behavior, including the formation and maintenance of beliefs. Virtuous or praiseworthy belief can be defined via reference to exemplars of phronesis: (3) My belief is epistemically praiseworthy (virtuous) just in case it is motivated by a motive characteristic of a person with phronesis in relevantly similar circumstances and is a belief that such a person would characteristically have in such circumstances.

We modified (1) to get (2) in order to retain the idea that exemplars are not all alike; we want to respect the distinctive perspective that a person retains when she becomes virtuous. We can amend (3) in the same way: (4) My belief is epistemically praiseworthy (virtuous) just in case it is motivated by a motive that I would characteristically have were I to acquire phronesis and be in relevantly similar circumstances and is a belief that would be characteristic of me in such circumstances.

Concepts of epistemic appraisal are defined by reference to what would or might be believed by a person of a certain sort in the circumstances in question. The sort of person is transcultural, assuming that there are phronimoi in all cultures, but the circumstances may be such that they arise only in a single culture, and they may be circumstances that I will never encounter. This complicates the evaluation of beliefs that are culture-specific. Principles (1) and (3) give a criterion for the evaluation of my own beliefs by reference to what a person with phronesis might or would characteristically believe in my circumstances, and presumably that includes what phronimoi outside my culture might or would believe were they in my circumstances. So under the 376

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity assumption that there are persons with phronesis in other cultures, (1) has the consequence that my belief is rational just in case it is a belief that a person with phronesis outside my culture might have if she were in my circumstances in my culture. Similarly, her belief is rational just in case it is a belief that I might have if I acquired phronesis and were in her circumstances in her culture. But since she will never be in my circumstances and I will never be in hers, the only way to determine whether or not she would believe what I believe in my circumstances and whether or not I would believe what she believes in her circumstances is direct personal engagement in extensive and sympathetic dialogue. Perhaps the closest we will ever get to being in the circumstances of the people in a different culture is to visit them and live with them for an extended period. It may happen that some of their beliefs and practices seem silly at the beginning and continue to seem silly after extended contact, but other beliefs and practices will begin to look more and more reasonable as understanding deepens. At some point, visitors from another culture commonly find that they can easily imagine themselves believing what the natives of their host country believe if they had lived there from the beginning. Granted, it is possible that the thought “There but for an accident of history go I” expresses gratitude for one’s singular blessedness, but it more commonly expresses respect for the epistemic parity with oneself of members of other cultures and religions. We have seen that (1) and (3) can be used to judge the rationality or epistemic virtue of beliefs in one culture by the responses of those with phronesis in another culture, but I do not see how to apply (2) and (4) to exemplars outside my culture in a parallel fashion. If the conditions for believing rationally or virtuously are not fully determined by conditions set forth from a third-person perspective, there ought to be an amendation of principles (1) and (3) to account for first-person authority. Principles (2) and (4) will not work, but this is where I think the second-person perspective becomes significant. When persons from different cultures engage with each other intensively and sympathetically, they learn how to see their own culture and their own culture’s distinctive beliefs from the point of view of the sympathetic other. The point of view of the sympathetic other does not trump the first-person point of 377

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism view, but if the engagement really is open-minded, sympathetic, and extensive, each party to the dialogue will change. The beliefs each adopts under these conditions are rational, and if the parties to the dialogue are also practically wise, the beliefs each adopts under these conditions are virtuous. The diversity thesis I want to propose as an extension of principles (1)–(4) can then be expressed in the following principle: (5) When persons with phronesis from different cultures engage in sympathetic and extensive dialogue with each other, fully understand the beliefs of the other that conflict with their own as well as the other’s beliefs about their own beliefs, the beliefs that each of them adopts as the result of this encounter are virtuous.

There will need to be various qualifications and amendations, of course, but (5) expresses the main idea of the second-person perspective on moral and religious diversity that I endorse. A weaker principle would replace “persons with phronesis” with “rational persons” in (5) in order to get a criterion of rational rather than virtuous belief. Such a principle would need even more extensive amendations, but I think it is roughly correct. More complicated principles would relate (5) to the situations of other persons in the cultures of each party to the dialogue. I think that when the beliefs of practically wise persons change as the result of intercultural dialogue of the sort I am describing, that has implications for the virtuousness, and perhaps the rationality, of the beliefs of other persons in their respective epistemic communities. Let us now go back to the three principles of rationality proposed in section III as constraints on how diversity should be treated. First, the Rational Recognition Principle is respected by (5), since (5) makes the response of persons with phronesis in other cultures a criterion for epistemic appraisal. It also respects the Culture Sensitivity Principle, since it presupposes that there are phronimoi in all cultures. Principle (5) rules out two forms of cultural imperialism. One is the view that rationality is defined by what my culture believes.10 The second is the view that my own 10

This form of imperialism is discussed by Hilary Putnam (1982).

378

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity culture is prima facie more rational than all others, even though the rationality of others is not ruled out by definition. Principle (5) also respects the Need to Resolve Conflict Principle. If any two persons in any two cultures can reach agreement, it is the phronimoi in both, but they also know when the differences are too great to make consensus realistic. Virtuous beliefs are the beliefs that they have as the result of extensive dialogue, but there is no guarantee that they will reach the same belief, and no doubt often they will not. It is significant that both parties to the dialogue and other persons in both cultures usually consider any consensus as a good thing, but what is more likely to happen is that they will gain greater understanding of each other’s conflicting beliefs and will come to see many of those beliefs as virtuous, even though each continues to regard the conflicting beliefs of the other as false. This means that principle (5) is compatible with exclusivism about truth and is compatible with belief in exclusivism about truth. The extent to which persons with practical wisdom are exclusivists about religious or moral truth is yet another matter that needs to be settled by investigation of their actual beliefs, but I see no reason to think that the usual or even the common response among those who were exclusivists before dialogue is to reject exclusivism as a response to dialogue. I have suggested, though, that investigation will reveal that they always change in some way as a result of intercultural dialogue, so I think it will turn out that the type of exclusivists who respond to religious diversity by failing to change their beliefs at all probably do not meet the conditions for virtuous believing. 2 A person who exemplifies the perspective I am proposing here is Matteo Ricci, the sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary to China. Ricci saw that Christianity could never succeed in China without adaptation to the culture. From the beginning, he expended enormous effort to respect Chinese sensibilities. He mastered the Chinese written and spoken language, meticulously followed Chinese rules of etiquette, and dressed in the Chinese manner. 379

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism Ricci taught the Chinese what they wanted to know from him, not only what he thought they ought to learn, sharing with them his vast knowledge of Western science, technology, and mathematics. He was an expert cartographer and clock maker who fascinated the emperor with the clocks he made and the maps he drew. His Chinese hosts came to regard him as a wise man. Under his influence, not only did the Chinese come to have a great deal of interest in the West, but Westerners also developed a great deal of interest in China, a land where a virtuous emperor was not a Christian – a discovery that came as a great surprise to many of them. What aroused bitter controversy was Ricci’s position that converts should be permitted to fulfill their traditional duties to venerate Confucius and the deceased members of their families. Ricci believed that it would do irreparable damage to prevent converts from engaging in rituals that were central to their view of themselves as part of a great and enduring culture. After Ricci’s death, there followed one of the most tragic mistakes in the history of Christian evangelization. Other missionaries entered the country and often engaged in a direct and uncompromising method of proselytizing. Cronin’s (1955) biography of Ricci reports that the Spanish Franciscans and Dominicans walked through the streets holding up crucifixes, and many had to preach through interpreters. The Spaniards did not hesitate to proclaim that the long line of Chinese emperors were all burning in Hell and hotly contested the “tainted” form of Christianity endorsed by Ricci (pp. 279–280). The controversy was brought to the Vatican, and Cronin describes what transpired: Nine Cardinals appointed to decide between the conflicting views held their fateful sitting on November 13, 1704. All were Italian, . . . none had ever visited the East. Yet the dilemma they faced was the same which Ricci’s life had so triumphantly solved: how love the totally other without losing identity? A week later the Cardinals issued their decree, confirmed by Pope Clement XI. They had chosen to be rigidly inflexible. Their guiding principle had been that integrity must precede charity; the missions must be free not only from formal superstition, but from the

380

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity very suspicion of such a thing. The veneration of Confucius and dead ancestors was almost without qualification declared superstitious and Christians forbidden to practice such ceremonies. (p. 281)

Of course, scholars often have conflicting views on historical figures and events and their effects, but I have become convinced of the wisdom of Ricci’s approach as depicted in the biographies I have read, the success of which is not measured by numbers of converts but by the growth in wisdom and holiness on both sides of the encounter. In this approach, the issue is not whether I am doing anything wrong if I am an exclusivist about religious truth and believe that my beliefs are the ones that are epistemically privileged. Even less is the issue how best to convince believers in other religions or no religion that my beliefs are right and theirs are mistaken, apart from any concern for what this conversion does to them as persons. The ethics of encounters with persons of differing beliefs requires that both sides have responsibilities and that both sides be open to change. Earlier I suggested that even though there is no doubt some interesting sense in which the first-person perspective is authoritative, it probably does not include authority over the content of one’s beliefs or emotions. This possibility is worth investigating, particularly for the way in which one’s own beliefs can be revealed through encounters with insightful persons with very different backgrounds. I suspect that when our beliefs become transparent to the mind they tend to change for the same reason that our emotions tend to change when we become fully conscious of them, and an important impetus for bringing beliefs and emotions to consciousness is close and trusting dialogue with persons whose own beliefs and emotions contrast with ours. The fact that the contents of our own minds is not transparent also suggests that we cannot take the apparent conflict between the contents of our own minds and that of others at face value. In many ways, we are probably more alike than we thought, but then there may also be ways in which we are even more different than we thought. I have proposed here that the right or virtuous thing for me to believe is not always identical to what any other person should 381

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism believe who fits a general description that suitably describes me – even, in fact, if the description is of a person who is as much like me as another person can be. What is distinctive about me is not exhausted by the ways in which I am distinctively wrong. This constrains the way in which we should respond to diversity in beliefs. Conflict in belief is experienced as a bad thing in general, even among the wise, but the painstaking process of revealing and understanding the conflict may reach a point at which differences in emotion or belief between two persons no longer seem to be a bad thing; indeed, the differences may no longer constitute a conflict. The Trinity may provide a model for the way in which difference between persons is not always a conflict. Presumably the Persons of the Trinity are “of one mind,” meaning just that they agree when they act. But I see no reason to think that they have identical first-person perspectives. The differences among the Persons of the Trinity are reflected in the differences among individual human persons, some of which are expressed in different propositional beliefs and in different emotions. The way in which the mind maps reality is an extremely difficult and important question for philosophers. Good maps are not all identical, even though there is a difference between a good map and a bad one. If a map includes something that no other map could contain even in principle, that makes the conclusion that good maps are not all alike inescapable.

v religion and the task of developing a common morality In the concluding paragraph of Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit (1984) says: There could clearly be higher achievements in the struggle for a wholly just world-wide community. And there could be higher achievements in all of the Arts and Sciences. But the progress could be greatest in what is now the least advanced of these Arts or Sciences. This, I have claimed, is Non-Religious Ethics. Belief in God, or in many gods, prevented the free development

382

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity of moral reasoning. Disbelief in God, openly admitted by a majority, is a recent event, not yet completed. Because this event is so recent, Non-Religious Ethics is at a very early stage. We cannot yet predict whether, as in Mathematics, we will all reach agreement. Since we cannot know how Ethics will develop, it is not irrational to have high hopes. (p. 454)

Parfit is welcome to his hopes, but I see no more reason to think that there will be a convergence of ethical judgment among nonreligious ethicists than to think that such convergence will occur among religious ethicists, whether on the theoretical level or on the level of particular judgments. In fact, what convergence there has been in the last half-century or so is not primarily due to the work of nonreligious ethicists. One of the best signs of convergence during the twentieth century was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1947. The irony for Parfit’s viewpoint is that that declaration was strongly influenced by the important Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain, whose work in drafting the charter of UNESCO was appropriated by the commission writing the Universal Declaration.11 Maritain’s natural law approach to ethics certainly did not prevent the free development of moral reasoning. Parfit takes for granted that agreement is our goal. In this chapter, I have agreed that practically wise persons and persons who are rational but less than wise think of disagreement in moral matters as a bad thing, but I have made it an open question whether practically wise persons adopt the goal of reaching agreement in particular cases. I am not convinced that it is important that everyone agree on the foundation of ethics or on the substantive goal at which the moral life aims, nor is it important that everyone have the same motive to be moral. It is not even important that everyone think of wrongdoing in the same way – as a sin, avidya, a violation of someone’s rights, or something else – as long as they agree on what is wrong (and they only have to agree on that within a limited core area of human behavior). As Maritain realized in 11

See Michael Novak (1999) for an interesting commemorative essay on the writing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its fiftieth anniversary.

383

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism drafting the UNESCO charter, people can agree on a practical code even when agreement on principles and worldviews is out of the question. A common declaration of rights is such a code. It is not intended to constitute a list of all the moral duties, much less a blueprint for a good life. But the goal of discourse is not limited to the attempt to reach consensus on that core. It also includes checks on the rationality and virtuousness of each other’s beliefs outside the core. If we can hope for a common morality that goes beyond the agreement to a set of rights, it will not be one based on divine commands, reason as Kant understood it, or any theory of philosophical ethics. One of the lessons of cross-cultural experience is that people find the metaphysics, theology, and to a lesser extent the morality of other cultures difficult to accept, yet they can usually relate to the important narratives of other cultures and can understand their paradigms of good persons. The exemplars are not identical, of course, but for the most part we have no trouble understanding why most of them are worthy of being imitated. Even the alleged exceptions, such as terrorist leaders, prove the rule, since they get a very different reaction from those outside their own extremist groups than do the more standard moral exemplars in the major religions. It is likely that a wide range of virtues is represented by all or almost all of the moral paradigms in the major cultures, both religious and nonreligious, in different parts of the world, even though there are some differences in the particular acts that are thought to express the virtues. A common morality would in principle be that morality that derives from the overlapping character traits of moral exemplars in a wide range of cultures. Particular moralities distinctive of individual cultures would include the nonoverlapping traits of their exemplars, but I have proposed that dialogue about these culturally distinctive beliefs is important also. Religiously based moralities have an important function to serve in the development of a common morality because they have richly described moral exemplars. By contrast, secular ethics in the Western world differs from religious ethics, not so much in having different exemplars, but in not having exemplars at all. This is particularly true of consequentialist and deontological ethics, both of 384

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity which aim for universality by constructing entire moral systems out of the thinnest of moral concepts. If the aim is universal agreement, that is the wrong way to go about it. Granted, full universal agreement is impossible and not even desirable, but a workable common morality is more likely to arise from dialogue between believers in richly developed religious moralities than between those who develop the most abstract systems and everyone else. If that is right, religious ethics has an important function in society quite apart from its importance within religious communities. Perhaps the hardest task in understanding conflict in moral beliefs is tracing the source of the disageement. In the first part of this book, I proposed a theory of moral development according to which the learning of moral concepts originates in the experience of distinctive emotions. Emotions are no doubt produced by some combination of our emotional dispositions and our circumstances, including the circumstance of those around us whose emotions we imitate. Presumably, the emotions of one person are in part like the emotions of many other persons, perhaps even all others, but they may also be in part unlike the emotions of any other. If that is the case, we can no more expect everyone’s moral judgments to be exactly alike than we can expect their emotions to be exactly alike. But we also can expect their judgments to be just as much alike as their emotions. It is questionable whether we would even want very much convergence of emotion, but I leave that issue open. The attempt to understand our emotions, to rationally criticize them, to compare them to the emotions of others, and to deliberate about how and whether they are best expressed in action is a critically important component of the moral life, but it is not one that has been given a lot of attention in philosophy until recently. My position is that we cannot understand practical reasoning, deliberation, choice, or action until we first understand emotion, because emotion is the material with which reasoning, deliberation, and action operate. Emotion is materially basic. I have also taken pains to show in this book that we can think of it as conceptually basic. We can understand all the principal concepts of interest to ethics by reference to the concept of a good emotion: a virtue, a right act, a virtuous act, an obligation, a good outcome, and the good for 385

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism human beings. In addition, I have argued that a good emotion is metaphysically basic. Good emotions are intrinsically good and confer value on the acts and outcomes that they cause. Ultimately, all value outside of God derives from the emotions of God. Exemplarism enters the theory both in a semantical and a metaphysical version. The semantical proposal is that “good” is defined by direct reference to an exemplar rather than through a set of properties. This proposal is detachable from the substantive theory of this book, which is an account of what it is about a good person that makes him or her good. So someone could accept the semantical theory of exemplarism about value terms but reject the substantive theory, just as someone could accept the position that “tiger” is defined as “member of the same species as that” but reject some account of what it takes to be a member of the species of tigers. Semantical exemplarism can be combined with traditional forms of virtue theory; in fact, it can be combined with virtually any ethical theory, since “good act” and “good state of affairs” can also be defined by direct reference. The metaphysical version of exemplarism is the proposal that the metaphysical source of value is the exemplar. It is generally not thought mysterious that a perfectly good deity can confer value on the world. More problematic is whether human exemplars are able to do so, although there are philosophers, such as Korsgaard, who think that human beings do have such a capacity. I think the metaphysical question of the origin of value ought to be given much more attention than it typically gets from moral philosophers. It is always mysterious how value can move from A to B, and the mystery is not lessened if A is extremely good – even perfectly good – since the problem is how value can move from one thing to another at all. Throughout this book, I have spoken of how one kind of thing derives value from something else, and while I think it is both intuitively right and theoretically advantageous to say that, say, an act gets value or disvalue from its motive, and that an outcome gets value from the motive to bring it about, there is the deeper problem of how anything can derive value from anything else. Value is not a physical property that rubs off on what it touches. The answer implied in this book is that effects inherit properties from their causes, but that requires 386

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

Ideal observers, ideal agents, and moral diversity an account of how causation operates, an account that should be inclusive enough to apply to God’s causal relation to the world as well as to the relation between motives and acts and acts and their outcomes. Such an account would explain what I called in Chapter 1 direct value, but it would not explain indirect value, the kind of value that something can get from being of the right type, such as an act that an exemplar would or might do. It does matter metaphysically what God might have done or would do in counterfactual circumstances, and similarly for human exemplars, but the mechanism whereby counterfactuals explain value needs investigation. As I argued in Chapter 1, this is a problem for all the theories that recognize indirect value. Compare the following pairs of principles arising from different kinds of ethical theories: (A) A state of affairs is good just in case it is approved by an ideal observer. (A’) A state of affairs is good just in case it would be approved by an ideal observer. (B) An end is good just in case it is the end of a rational will. (B’) An end is good just in case it might be the end of a rational will. (C) An act is virtuous just in case it is an act that exemplifies a virtue of the agent. (C’) An act is virtuous just in case it is an act a virtuous person would characteristically do in relevantly similar circumstances.

The second principle in each pair extends much more widely than the first and is not dependent upon the existence of beings of a certain kind in particular circumstances. There is presumably much greater commonality in the ends that might be adopted by beings with a rational will in different cultures than in the ends that they actually adopt. Similarly, while the actual behavior of virtuous persons in different cultures differs in various ways, I assume that what virtuous persons in different cultures would do were they in the same circumstances is more likely to coincide. 387

P1: JZH 0521828805agg.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 18, 2004

16:36

III. Ethical pluralism The first four principles of rational belief that I have proposed in this chapter are principles by which a moral belief gets value indirectly. The form of these principles is similar to that of (A’), (B’), and (C’). I assume that there is broad overlap in what persons with phronesis in different cultures would believe had they been brought up in the same culture and encountered similar circumstances, and that there is even greater overlap in what they might believe in such circumstances. But we have no way to find out whether this is the case apart from their own testimony when they engage in extended sympathetic dialogue. I think that we ought to take their judgment about what they would or might believe in different circumstances very seriously. We also should take very seriously the pattern by which their personal beliefs change as the result of these experiences. That is what I propose in principle (5). I suspect that one of the first things that changes when persons engage in the kind of cross-cultural dialogue I have described is their emotions. The value perceptions that are components of these emotions underlie changes in their beliefs, and their beliefs may be difficult to appreciate without attention to their emotions. Emotions are probably the most intimate part of a person’s psyche, but they are our window onto the world of value. The window is often murky, but it is the only one we have. I am convinced that the best way to understand the metaphysics of value is through a close investigation of the nature of emotions, the way in which they are acquired and revised, and the way in which they motivate our acts. As Martin Heidegger (1993) has said, Thinking does not overcome metaphysics by climbing still higher, surmounting it, transcending it somehow or other; thinking overcomes metaphysics by climbing back down into the nearness of the nearest. (p. 231)

I believe that emotions are as important as beliefs in a general theory of mind and reality. What is closest sometimes has the farthest reach.

388

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography

Adams, Marilyn. 1986. “Redemptive Suffering: A Christian Solution to the Problem of Evil.” In Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment, edited by Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Adams, Marilyn. 1988. “Problems of Evil: More Advice to Christian Philosophers.” Faith and Philosophy 5:2 (April), pp. 121–143. Adams, Marilyn. 1999. “What Sort of Human Nature? Medieval Philosophy and the Systematics of Christology.” Aquinas Lecture, Marquette University. Adams, Marilyn, and Robert Adams, eds. 1990. The Problem of Evil. New York: Oxford University Press. Adams, Robert. 1975. “A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness.” In Religion and Morality, edited by G. Outka and J. R. Reeder. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press. Adams, Robert. 1976. “Motive Utilitarianism.” Journal of Philosophy 73 (August), pp. 467–481. Adams, Robert. 1979. “Divine Command Metaethics Modified Again.” Journal of Religious Ethics 7, pp. 66–79. Adams, Robert. 1999. Finite and Infinite Goods. New York: Oxford University Press. Alston, William P. 1986. “Does God Have Beliefs?” Religious Studies 22 (September–December), pp. 287–306. Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press.

389

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Annas, Julia. 1999. Platonic Ethics: Old and New. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy 33 (January), pp. 1–19. Reprinted in Crisp and Slote (1987). Aquinas, Thomas. 1947–8. Summa Theologica, 3 vols. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Bengeger Bros. Aquinas, Thomas. 1997. Summa contra Gentiles I. Translated by Anton Pegis. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Aristotle. 1941. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Edited by Richard McKeon. New York: Random House. Aristotle. 1985. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett. Armstrong, Karen. 1993. A History of God. New York: Ballantine. Audi, Robert, and William J. Wainwright, eds. 1986. Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Austen, Jane. 1961. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Signet Classics. Austen, Jane. 1989. Northanger Abbey. New York: Signet Classics. Badhwar, Neera. 1996. “The Limited Unity of the Virtues,” Nous 30: 3 (September), pp. 306–329. Bandura, A. 1976. Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. 1986. Social Foundations of Thought and Action. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Baron, Marcia, Phil Pettit, and Michael Slote. 1998. Three Methods of Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Beaty, Michael, Carlton Fisher, and Mark Nelson, eds. 1998. Christian Theism and Moral Philosophy. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press. Bentham, Jeremy. 1961. An Introduction to the Principles of Moral and Legislation. New York: Hafner. Blackburn, Simon. 1992. “Through Thick and Thin.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society supp. vol. 66, pp. 285–299. Blackburn, Simon. 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Blum, Lawrence. 1980. Friendship, Altruism, and Morality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bolt, Robert. 1966. A Man for All Seasons. New York: Vintage. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1971. Letters and Papers from Prison, enlarged edition. London: SCM Press. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1995. Ethics. Translated by Neville Horton Smith. New York: Touchstone.

390

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Brady, Michael. 2002. “Against Agent-Basing.” Presented at Pacific Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association, March. Brentano, Franz. 1969. On the Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. New York: Humanities Press. Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith. 1994. Plato’s Socrates. New York: Oxford University Press. Bronte, Charlotte. 2003. Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin. Brummer, ¨ Vincent. 1987. “Moral Sensitivity and the Free Will.” Neue ¨ systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 29, Zeitschrift fur pp. 86–100. Burke, Kenneth. 1969. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Calhoun, Cheshire, and Robert C. Solomon, eds. 1984. What Is an Emotion? New York: Oxford University Press. Carson, Thomas L. 1984. The Status of Morality. Dordrecht: Reidel. Carson, Thomas L. 2000. Value and the Good Life. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Chisholm, R. M. 1986. Brentano and Intrinsic Value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke, Stanley G., and Evan Simpson, eds. 1989. Anti-Theory in Ethics and Moral Conservatism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Comte-Sponville, Andr´e. 1996. A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues. New York: Holt. Cottingham, John. 1998. Philosophy and the Good Life: Reason and the Passions in Greek, Cartesian, and Psychoanalytic Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Couture, Jocelyne, and Kai Nielsen, eds. 1995. On the Relevance of Metaethics: New Essays on Metaethics. Calgary: University of Calgary Press (Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary volume 21). Creel, Richard. 1986. Divine Impassibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crisp, Roger, ed. 1996. How Should One Live? Oxford: Clarendon Press. Crisp, Roger, and Michael Slote, eds. 1997. Virtue Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press. Cronin, Vincent. 1955. The Wise Man from the West. New York: E. P. Dutton. Crosby, John. 1996. The Selfhood of the Human Person. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

391

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Curley, Edwin, ed. 1994. Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Dalai Lama. 1999. Ethics for a New Millennium. New York: Riverhead Books. Damasio, Antonio. 1994. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New York: Putnam. Dancy, Jonathan. 2000. Practical Reality. New York: Oxford University Press. Davies, Brian. 1998. “The Problem of Evil.” In Philosophy of Religion: A Guide to the Subject, edited by Brian Davies. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. De Sousa, Ronald. 1987. The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Donagan, Alan. 1999. Reflections on Philosophy and Religion. Edited by Anthony N. Perovich, Jr. New York: Oxford University Press. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. 2003. The Brother Karamasov. Translated by David McDuff. New York: Penguin (reissue edition). Eliot, T. S. 1962. Murder in the Cathedral. In The Complete Poems and Plays. New York: Harcourt Brace. Emmet, Dorothy. 1998. Outward Forms, Inner Springs. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Engstrom, Stephen, and Jennifer Whiting. 1996. Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feinberg, Joel. 1970. “Problematic Responsibility in Law and Morals.” In his Doing and Deserving. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Fergusson, David. 1998. Community, Liberalism, and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Firth, Roderick. 1952. “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12 (March), pp. 317–345. Flanagan, Owen. 1991. Varieties of Moral Personality. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Flaubert, Gustave. 1996. A Simple Heart. Translated by Arthur McDowall. New York: New Directions. Flood, Anthony. 2003. “Self-Governance in Aquinas and Pre-Modern Moral Philosophy.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma. Foot, Philippa. 1978. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. The title essay, “Virtues and Vices,” is reprinted in Crisp and Slote (1997). Foot, Philippa. 2001. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

392

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Frankena, William. 1970. “Prichard and the Ethics of Virtue.” The Monist 54, pp. 1–17. Frankena, William. 1973. Ethics, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Frankena, William K. 1976. “The Principles of Morality.” In Perspectives on Morality, edited by K. E. Goodpaster. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Freeman, Kathleen. 1966. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. French, Peter, Theodore E. Uehling, and Howard K. Wettstein, eds. Moral Concepts (Midwest Studies in Philosophy Volume 20). Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Gamwell, Franklin I. 1996. The Divine Good: Modern Moral Theory and the Necessity of God. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Garcia, Jorge. 1998. “Interpersonal Virtues: Whose Interest Do They Serve?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, supplement 71, pp. 31–60. Geach, P. T. 1968. “Good and Evil.” In Theories of Ethics, edited by Philippa Foot. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geach, Peter. 1977a. Providence and Evil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Geach, Peter. 1977b. The Virtues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books Gibbard, Allan. 1992. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambrige, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Goodman, Nelson. 1983. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett. Gracia, Jorge. 1988. Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics. Albany: State University of New York Press. Greenspan, Patricia. 1998. Emotions and Reasons. London: Routledge. Griffin, James. 1996. Value Judgement: Improving Our Ethical Beliefs. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Griffiths, Paul E. 1997. What Emotions Really Are. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Guleserian, Theodore. 2000. “Divine Freedom and the Problem of Evil.” Faith and Philosophy 17:3 (July), pp. 346–368. Hampshire, Stuart. 1971. “Ethics: A Defense of Aristotle.” In his Freedom of Mind and Other Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hare, John. 2001. God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, and Human Autonomy. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans.

393

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Hare, R. M. 1997. Sorting Out Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Harrington, Daniel, S. J., and James Keenan, S. J. 2002. Jesus and Virtue Ethics. London, Md.: Sheed and Ward. Harris, George W. 1999. Agent-Centered Morality. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hauerwas, Stanley. 1981. A Community of Character. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Hauerwas, Stanley. 1983. Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Hauerwas, Stanley, and Charles Pinches. 1997. Christians among the Virtues. Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press. Heideger, Martin. 1993. “Letter on Humanism.” In his Basic Writings, edited by D. Krell. New York: HarperCollins. Hewitt, Harold, Jr., ed. 1991. Problems in the Philosophy of Religion. London: Macmillan. Hick, John. 1978. Evil and the God of Love, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan; New York: Harper and Row. Reprinted in Adams and Adams (1990). Hildebrand, Dietrich von. 1953. Christian Ethics. New York: D. McKay. Holmes, Arthur F. 1997. Fact, Value, and God. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans. Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed. 1996a. The Evidential Argument from Evil. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and Frances Howard-Snyder. 1993. “The Christian Theodicist’s Appeal to Love.” Religious Studies 29, pp. 185–192. Howard-Snyder, Daniel, Michael Bergmann, and William L. Rowe. 2001. “An Exchange on the Problem of Evil,” in Rowe 2001. Hume, David. 1967. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by L. A. SelbyBigge. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hundersmarck, Lawrence F. 2001. “The Use of Imagination, Emotion, and the Will in a Medieval Classic.” Logos 6:2 (Spring), pp. 46–62. Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irenaeus. 1981. The Scandal of the Incarnation: Irenaeus against the Heresies. Selected and introduced by Hans Urs von Balthasar, translated by John Saward. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. James, William. 1979. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1958. Groundwork of a Metaphysic of Morals. Translated by H. J. Paton. New York: Harper and Row.

394

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Kant, Immanuel. 1997. Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Mary Geagor, Introduction by Andrews Reath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kellner, Menachem. 1991. “Jewish Ethics.” In A Companion to Ethics, edited by Peter Singer. Oxford: Blackwell. Kent, Bonnie. 1995. Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. Kierkegaard, Soren. 1959. Journals. Translated by Alexander Dru. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Konstan, David. 2001. Pity Transformed. London: Duckworth. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1983. “Two Distinctions in Goodness.” Philosophical Review 92:2 (April), pp. 486–505. Reprinted in Korsgaard (1996a). Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996a. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996b. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996c. “Kant’s Formula of Humanity.” In Korsgaard (1996a). Kretzmann, Norman. 1991. “A General Problem of Creation: Why Would God Create Anything at All?” and “A Particular Problem of Creation: Why Would God Create This World?” In Macdonald (1991), pp. 208–249. Kretzmann, Norman. 1997. The Metaphysics of Theism: Aquinas’s Natural Theology in Summa Contra Gentiles I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Blackwell; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Kuhn, Thomas. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langan, Thomas. 1998. The Catholic Tradition. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press. Larrimore, Mark, ed. 2001. The Problem of Evil: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. LeDoux, Joseph. 1996. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Simon and Schuster. Levine, Peter. 1998. Living without Philosophy: On Narrative, Rhetoric, and Morality. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lewis, C. I. 1962. An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.

395

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Lichtmann, Maria R. 1989. The Contemplative Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Lossky, V. 2003. In the Image and Likeness of God. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladmir’s Seminary Press. MacDonald, Scott, ed. 1991. Being and Goodness. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1980. After Virtue. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Mackie, J. L. 1955. “Evil and Omnipotence.” Mind 64, pp. 200–212. Reprinted in Pike (1964) and Adams and Adams (1990). Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Mahoney, John. 1987. The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, Michael. 1991. The Case against Christianity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Mawson, T. J. 2002. “Omnipotence and Necessary Moral Perfection Are Compatible: A Reply to Morriston.” Religious Studies 38:2 (June), pp. 215–223. McClendon, James W. 1986. Ethics: Systematic Theology, vol. 1. Nashville: Abingdon Press. McDowell, John. 1978. “Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 52, pp. 13–29. McDowell, John. 1979. “Virtue and Reason.” The Monist 62, pp. 331– 350. Reprinted in Crisp and Slote (1997). McDowell, John. 1985. “Values and Secondary Qualities.” In Morality and Objectivity, edited by T. Honderich. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. McGinn, Colin. 1997. Ethics, Evil, and Fiction. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McKinnon, Christine. 2003. “Knowing Cognitive Selves.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, edited by Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McNaughton, David. 1988. Moral Vision. Oxford: Blackwell. Mele, Alfred. 1996. “Internalist Moral Cognitivism and Listlessness.” Ethics 106 (July), pp. 727–753. Meltzoff, A. N. 2002. “Elements of a Developmental Theory of Imitation.” In The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution, and Brain Bases, editied by A. N. Meltzoff and W. Prinz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

396

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Mill, J. S. 1979. Utilitarianism. Edited by G. Sher. Indianapolis: Hackett. Moltman, Jurgen. ¨ 1974. The Crucified God. New York: Harper and Row. Moore, G. E. 1958. “The Conception of Intrinsic Value.” In his Philosophical Studies. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Moore, G. E. 1959a. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, G. E. 1959b. “Is Goodness a Quality?” In his Philosophical Papers. London: George Allen and Unwin. Moore, G. E. 1959c. “Is Goodness a Quality?” In his Philosophical Papers. New York: Macmillan. Morris, C. 1987. The Discovery of the Individual, 1050–1200. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Morris, Thomas V., ed. 1988. Divine and Human Action. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Morrison, Toni. 1998. Beloved. New York: Plume (reissue edition). Morriston, Wes. 2001. “Omnipotence and Necessary Moral Perfection: Are They Compatible?” Religious Studies 3, pp. 143–160. Mouw, Richard. 1990. The God Who Commands. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Murdoch, Iris. 1970. “The Sovereignty of Good.” In his The Sovereignty of Good. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Reprinted in Crisp and Slote (1997). Musil, Robert. 1965. The Man without Qualities. Translated by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. New York: Capricorn Books. Nagel, Thomas. 1979. “The Fragmentation of Value.” In his Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, Thomas. 1986. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1973. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Norton, Robert E. 1995. The Beautiful Soul. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Novak, Michael. 1999. “Human Dignity, Human Rights.” First Things 97 (November), pp. 39–42. Nussbaum, Martha. 1979. “The Speech of Alcibiades: A Reading of Plato’s Symposium.” Philosophy and Literature 3, pp. 131– 172. Revised and reprinted as Chapter 6 of her The Fragility of Goodness. Nussbaum, Martha. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

397

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Nussbaum, Martha. 1990. “The Discernment of Perception: An Aristotelian Conception of Private and Public Rationality.” In her Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 1996. The Therapy of Desire. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 2001. Upheavals of Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nygren, Anders. 1953. Agape and Eros. Translated by Philip Watson. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Ogden, Schubert. 1982. The Point of Christology. San Francisco: Harper and Row. O’Neill, Onora. 1996. Towards Justice and Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Shaughnessy, Brian. 1988. The Will: A Dual Aspect Theory, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Outka, Gene. “Following at a Distance: Ethics and the Identity of Jesus.” In Spiritual Authority and Narrative Interpretation, edited by Garret Green. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. 1973. The Idea of God and Human Freedom. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Passmore, John. 2000. The Perfectibility of Man, 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Paul, Ellen Frankel, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul, eds. 1998. Virtue and Vice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peter, R. S. 1958. The Concept of Motivation. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press. Pieper, Josef. 1997. Faith, Hope, Love. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. Pike, Nelson. 1963. “Hume on Evil.” Philosophical Review 72, pp. 180– 197; Reprinted in Adams and Adams (1990). Pike, Nelson. 1969. “Omnipotence and God’s Ability to Sin.” American Philosophical Quarterly 6, pp. 208–216. Pike, Nelson, ed. 1964. God and Evil. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall. Plantinga, Alvin. 1974a. God, Freedom, and Evil. New York: Harper and Row. Plantinga, Alvin. 1974b. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Plantinga, Alvin. 1985. Alvin Plantinga. Edited by James E. Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen. Dordrecht: Reidel.

398

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Plantinga, Alvin. 2000. “Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism.” In The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, edited by Philip L. Quinn and Kevin Meeker. New York: Oxford University Press. Plato. 1974. Plato’s Republic. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett. Platts, Mark. 1979. Ways of Meaning. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Plutarch. 1932. Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. Translated by John Dryden, revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. New York: Modern Library. Porter, Jean. 1999. Natural and Divine Law. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans. Potok, Chaim. 1972. My Name Is Asher Lev. New York: Knopf. Putnam, Hilary. 1975. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning.’” In his Mind, Language, and Reality (Philosophical Papers, vol. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, Hilary. 1982. “Why Reason Can’t be Naturalized.” Synthese 52, pp. 3–23. Reprinted in his Philosophical Papers, vol. 3: Realism and Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Putnam, Hilary. 2002. The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Quinn, Philip L. 1978. Divine Commands and Moral Requirements. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Rawls, John. 1974–5. “The Independence of Moral Theory.” (APA Presidential Address). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 48, pp. 5–22. Redding, Paul. 1999. The Logic of Affect. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Reinfelder, H. 1928. Das Wort, Persona. Halle. Roberts, Robert C. 1988. “What an Emotion Is: A Sketch.” Philosophical Review 97:2 (April), pp. 183–209. Roberts, Robert C. 2003. Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rooney, Paul. 1996. Divine Command Morality. Brookfield, Vt.: Avebury Publishing. Ross, W. D. 1955. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rouner, Leroy S., ed. 1997. Is There a Human Nature? Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.

399

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Rowe, William L. 1991. “Paradox and Promise: John Hick’s Solution to the Problem of Evil.” In Problems in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Harold Hewitt, Jr. London: Macmillan. Rowe, William L. “Divine Freedom.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, < http://www.plato.stanford. edu> . Rowe, William L., ed. 2001. God and the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Blackwell. Royce, Josiah. 1916. The Philosophy of Loyalty. New York: Macmillan. Reprint edition, Vanderbilt University Press, 1995. Rudman, Stanley. 1997. Concepts of Person and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Russell, Daniel C. Unpublished manuscript. “Plato and Seneca on Virtue as ‘Likeness to God.’” Paper presented to the University of Oklahoma Philosophy Department, September 2001, and to the Society for the Contemporary Assessment of Platonism, APA Pacific Division meetings, Seattle, March 2002. Ryle, Gilbert. 1971. “Thinking and Reflecting” and “The Thinking of Thoughts.” In his Collected Papers, vol. 2. London: Hutchinson; New York: Barnes and Noble. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1962. A Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Translated by P. Mairet. Paris: Editions Gallimard. Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey, ed. 1988. Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Scheler, Max. 1973. Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Value. Translated by Manfred Frings and Roger Funk. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. Scheler, Max. 1983. The Nature of Sympathy. Translated by Peter Heath. Hamden: Shoe String Press. Schillebeeckx, Edward. 1981. Christ. New York: Crossroad. Schneewind, J. B. 1990. “The Misfortunes of Virtue.” Ethics 101, pp. 42–63. Reprinted in Crisp and Slote (1997). Schneewind, J. B. 1998. The Invention of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sennett, James F., ed. 1998. The Analytic Theist, an Alvin Plantinga Reader. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans. Sherman, Nancy. 1997. Making a Necessity of Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slote, Michael. 2001. Morals from Motives. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Michael. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.

400

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Sobrino, Jon, S. J. 1978. Christology at the Crossroads. Translated by John Drury. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. Song, Choan-Seng. 1979. Third-Eye Theology: Theology in Formation in Asian Settings (revised 1990). Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. Sorabji, Richard. 2003. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Statman, Daniel, ed. 1997. Virtue Ethics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Stocker, Michael. 1976. “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories.” Journal of Philosophy 73, pp. 453–466. Reprinted in Crisp and Slote (1997). Stocker, Michael. 1979. “Desiring the Bad.” Journal of Philosophy 76, pp. 738–753. Stocker, Michael. 1981. “Values and Purposes: The Limits of Teleology and the Ends of Friendship.” Journal of Philosophy 78, pp. 747–765. Stocker, Michael. 1996. Valuing Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stroud, Barry. 1989. “The Study of Human Nature and the Subjectivity of Value.” In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, vol. 10, ed. G. Peterson. Salt Lake City, pp. 213–259. Stump, Eleonore, and Norman Kretzmann. 1985. “Absolute Simplicity.” Faith and Philosophy 2:4, pp. 353–382. Stump, Eleonore, and Norman Kretzmann. 1988. “Being and Goodness.” In Divine and Human Action, edited by Thomas V. Morris. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Sturgeon, Nicholas. 1995. “Evil and Explanation.” In On the Relevance of Metaethics, edited by Jocelyne Couture and Kai Nielsen (Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary volume 21). Alberta: University of Calgary Press. Swinburne, Richard. 1998. Providence and the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Clarendon. Talbott, Thomas. 1988. “On the Divine Nature and the Nature of Divine Freedom.” Faith and Philosophy 5:1 (January), pp. 3–24. Taliaferro, Charles. 1988. “Relativising the Ideal Observer Theory.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49: 1 (September), pp. 123– 138. Taliaferro, Charles. 1998. Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Taylor, Charles. 1995. “A Most Peculiar Institution.” In World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams, edited

401

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography by J. E. J. Altham and Ross Harrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tolstoy, Leo. 1983. My Confession. Translated by David Patterson. New York: Norton. Tomberlin, James E., ed. 1992. Ethics (Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 6). Atascadero, Calif: Ridgeview Press. Tomberlin, James E., and Peter van Inwagen, eds. 1985. Alvin Plantinga. Dordrecht: Reidel. Vacek, Edward Collins, S.J. 1994. Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Van Inwagen, Peter. 1988. “The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: A Theodicy.” Philosophical Topics 16:2 (Fall), pp. 161– 188. Velleman, David. 1999. “Love as a Moral Emotion.” Ethics 109 (January), pp. 338–374. Villanueva, Enrique, ed. 1993. Naturalism and Normativity (Philosophical Issues 4). Atascadero, Calif: Ridgeview Press. Virgil. 2003. The Aeneid. Translated by David West. New York: Penguin. Vlastos, Gregory. 1981. Platonic Studies, 2nd ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. von Hildebrand, Dietrich. 1953. Christian Ethics. New York: David McKay. von Hildebrand, Dietrich. 1972. Ethics. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press. von Hildebrand, Dietrich. 1977. The Heart. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press. Ward, Keith. 1970. Ethics and Christianity. New York: Humanities Press; London: George Allen and Unwin. Ward, Keith. 2002. God: A Guide for the Perplexed. Oxford: Oneworld Publishers. Warnock. G. J. 1967. Contemporary Moral Philosophy. London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press. Watson, Gary. 1997. “On the Primacy of Character.” In Statman (1997). Weil, Simone. 1962. “Human Personality.” In her Selected Essays, 1934– 1943, translated by Richard Rees. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weinandy, Thomas G. 2000. Does God Suffer? Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Wierenga, Edward. 1989. The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

402

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Williams, Bernard. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Williams, Bernard. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Woodruff, Paul. 2001. Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. New York: Oxford University Press. Wykstra, Stephen J. 1996. “Rowe’s Noseeum Arguments from Evil.” In Howard-Snyder (1996). Yearley, Lee. 1993. “Conflicts among Ideals of Human Flourishing.” In Prospects for a Common Morality, edited by Gene Outka and John Reeder, Jr. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Yearley, Lee. 1994. “New Religious Virtues and the Study of Religion.” Fifteenth annual University Lecture in Religion, Arizona State University. Zagzebski, Linda. 1988. “Individual Essence and the Creation.” In Morris (1988). Zagzebski, Linda. 1989. “Christian Monotheism.” Faith and Philosophy 6:1 (January), pp. 3–18. Zagzebski, Linda. 1991a. The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge. New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, Linda. 1991b. “Critical Response to Rowe: Paradox and Promise.” In Hewitt (1991). Zagzebski, Linda. 1996a. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, Linda. 1996b. “An Agent-Based Approach to the Problem of Evil.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 39 (June), pp. 127–139. Zagzebski, Linda. 1997. “Perfect Goodness and Divine Motivation Theory,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 21 (Philosophy of Religion), pp. 296–310. Zagzebski, Linda. 1998. “The Virtues of God and the Foundations of Ethics.” Faith and Philosophy 15:4 (October), pp. 538–552. Zagzebski, Linda. 2000a. Book symposium on Virtues of the Mind in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (January), pp. 169– 219. Includes papers by William Alston, John Greco, Amelie Rorty, Jonathan Kvanvig, and Hilary Kornblith and my responses. Zagzebski, Linda. 2000b. “The Incarnation and Virtue Ethics.” In The Incarnation, edited by Daniel J. Kendall and Gerald O’Collins. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

403

P1: JZH 0521828805bib.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 20, 2004

19:32

Bibliography Zagzebski, Linda. 2001a. “Must Knowers Be Agents?” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, edited by Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski. New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, Linda. 2001b. “The Uniqueness of Persons.” Journal of Religious Ethics 29:3 (Fall), pp. 401–423. Zagzebski, Linda. 2001c.“Religious Diversity and Social Responsibility.” Originally published in Logos 4:1 (Winter 2001), pp. 135–155; published in Spanish in Comprender la religion, edited by Javier Aranguren, Jon Borobia, and Miguel Lluch, Eunsa. Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra. Zagzebski, Linda. 2002. “Obligation, Good Motives, and the Good” (symposium paper on Robert M. Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (March), pp. 453–458. Zagzebski, Linda. 2003a. “The Search for the Source of Epistemic Good.” Metaphilosophy 34:1–2 (January), pp. 12–28. Zagzebski, Linda. 2003b. “Emotion and Moral Judgment.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66:1 (January), pp. 104–124. Zagzebski, Linda. 2003c. “Intellectual Motivation and the Good of Truth.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, edited by Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zizioulas, J. D. 1974. “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood.” Scottish Journal of Theology 28, pp. 401–448.

404

P1: JzG/KjR CY457ind-16.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 13, 2004

14:28

Name index

Abraham, 157 Adams, Marilyn, 232, 335–336 Adams, Robert M., 44, 174, 220, 258–265, 285 Aeneas, 157–158 Alston, William, 127 Anscombe, Elizabeth, 145, 228 Anselm, Saint, 231, 271 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, xii, 29, 96, 152, 196, 200, 214, 226, 232, 237, 276, 292–293 Aristotle, 2, 21, 26, 29, 44, 83–84, 106–107, 123, 193 Armstrong, Karen, 187, 239 Augustine, Saint, 187 Austen, Jane, 23–24, 92–94 Badhwar, Neera, 55 Bandura, A., 48 Bentham, Jeremy, 174–175 Bergmann, Michael, 326–329 Blackburn, Simon, 67, 81, 133, 351–352 Blum, Lawrence, 357 Boethius, 191–192 Bolt, Robert, 157 Bonaventure, Saint, 214 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 243–247, 332 Brady, Michael, 179 Brentano, Franz, 59 Bronte, Charlotte (Jane Eyre), 158

Carson, Thomas, 221–223, 265–270 Caulibus, John de, 248–249 Cho, Wai-tung, 245 Comte-Sponville, Andre, 122 Cronin, Vincent, 347, 380–381 Crosby, John, 195–198, 202 Dalai Lama, 362 Damasio, Antonio, 69 Davies, Brian, 278, 305, 314 Donnellan, Keith, 42 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 58–59 Draper, Paul, 307 Eliot, T. S., 101 Emmet, Dorothy, 202 Epictetus, 190 Evans, Stephen, 270 Fergusson, David, 231 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 203 Firth, Roderick, 356 Flaubert, Gustave, 247–248 Flood, Anthony, 319 Foot, Philippa, 63 Frankena, William, 352–358 Gale, Richard, 307 Garcia, Jorge, 127 Geach, Peter, 191, 272, 276 Geertz, Clifford, 63 Gibbard, Alan, 81

405

P1: JzG/KjR CY457ind-16.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 13, 2004

14:28

Name index Goodman, Nelson, 78 Grosseteste, Robert, 231 Guleserian, Theodore, 288, 295 Hampshire, Stuart, 272 Hauerwas, Stanley, 252 Heidegger, Martin, 388 Hick, John, 317 Holmes, Arthur, 233 Homer, 147 Howard-Snyder, Daniel, 307, 326–329 Howard-Snyder, Daniel and Frances, 298–301 Hume, David, 8, 123, 168, 174, 176 Hundersmarck, Lawrence, 249 Hursthouse, Rosalind, 114, 141 Irenaeus, Saint, 228, 240–243 James, William, 125 Jesus of Nazareth, 231–237, 250–251 Kant, Immanuel, xii, 19, 28, 87–89, 96, 106–107, 164, 176–177, 349 Kierkegaard, Søren, 215, 235, 304 Konstan, David, 26 Korsgaard, Christine, 5, 19, 38, 85–90, 105–107, 154, 164, 230 Kretzmann, Norman, 213–219, 226, 261 Kripke, Saul, 42–47, 254

Morriston, Wesley, 295–296 Murdoch, Iris, 111–112, 163, 235–236, 360 Musil, Robert, 217 Nagel, Thomas, 30 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 203, 310 Novak, Michael, 383 Nussbaum, Martha, 56, 199, 252 Nygren, Anders, 224 O’Shaughnessy, Brian, 291 Parfit, Derek, 382–383 Passmore, John, 188 Paul, Saint, 156, 237–238, 240 Peters, R. S., 73 Pike, Nelson, 276 Plantinga, Alvin, 306–314, 322, 334, 364–367 Plato, xii, 21, 155, 188–189 Plutarch, 251 Potok, Chaim, 156–157 Putnam, Hilary, 42–47, 68

Langan, Thomas, 240, 253 LeDoux, Joseph, 26 Levine, Peter, 251 Loyola, Ignatius, Saint, 249

Rawls, John, 29, 104 Ricci, Matteo, 379–381 Roberts, Robert C., 61, 120–121, 127, 153, 199 Ross, W. D., 85–87 Rouner, Leroy, 49 Rowe, William, 307, 308, 327 Royce, Josiah, 24 Rudman, Stanley, 191–192, 200 Russell, Daniel, 188–189 Ryle, Gilbert, 63

MacDonald, Scott, 230 Mackie, J. L., 21, 305, 307, 309, 310 Maritain, Jacques, 383 Martin, Michael, 235, 350 Mataric, Maja, 48 Mawson, T. J., 296 McDowell, John, 62, 117, 180–181 McKinnon, Christine, 361 Mele, Alfred, 10 Melissus of Samos, 207 Meltzoff, A. N., 47 Mill, John Stuart, 43, 174–176 Moltmann, Jurgen, ¨ 332–333 Moore, G. E., 84, 87, 309 More, Thomas, 157 Morrison, Toni, 155

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 51, 59 Scheler, Max, 59, 60, 79–80, 220 Schillebeeckx, Edward, 250 Schneewind, J. B., 229, 319 Scotus, John Duns, 203, 232 Seneca, 189 Slote, Michael, 179 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 363–364 Sobrino, Jon, 333–334 Sophocles, 147 Sorabji, Richard, 56 Spinoza, Benedict de, 331 Stocker, Michael, 10, 72, 173, 316, 357 Stroud, Barry, 62 Stump, Eleonore, 261

406

P1: JzG/KjR CY457ind-16.xml

Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 13, 2004

14:28

Name index Sturgeon, Nicholas, 309 Swinburne, Richard, 306, 308, 315 Taliaferro, Charles, 352 Taylor, Charles, 145–146 Tolstoy, Leo, 248 van Inwagen, Peter, 307 Velleman, David, 357 Vlastos, Gregory, 199 von Balthazar, Hans Urs, 242–243 von Hildebrand, Dietrich, 59, 79–80

Ward, Keith, 250 Watson, Gary, 31–39 Weinandy, Thomas, 331 Williams, Bernard, xiii–xiv, 63, 145, 146–148, 153, 155, 170 Wood, Jay, 127 Woodruff, Paul, 188 Wykstra, Stephen, 326–329 Yearley, Lee, 117 Zeis, John, 30

407

P1: JzG/JrT P2: JzG CY457ind-15.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 13, 2004

14:19

Subject index

acts (see also value, of acts), 137–140 adjectives, attributive versus predicative, 272–273 anti-theory, 7 autonomy, 315–316, 318–320

divine goodness, alleged conflict with divine sovereignty, 321–322 divine preference theory, 265–270 divine will, denial of existence of, 290–295

Bible, New Testament ethics versus ethics of Hebrew Scriptures, 237–240 Brancacci Chapel, 337–338

emotion (see also motives), 59–74, 86, 178 intrinsic value of, 82–92 ethical pluralism, 347–349, 372–388 ethical theory constructing an ethical theory, 40–50 taxonomy of ethical theories, 29–40; deontological theories, 34; ethics of outcome, 31–35; eudaimonism, 33–37; motivation-based virtue theory, 40; motive utilitarianism, 32, 34; perfectionism, 32, 34; teleological versus nonteleological, 39–40, 49 eudaimonia, 20, 21, 26–27, 37–39, 49, 114–118 evil, problem of (see also suffering, problem of; theodicy), 16–17, 304–318 atheist’s argument from evil, 306 intellectual versus experiential, 305 logical versus evidential, 305 natural evils, 322–324 exemplar (see also phronimos), 41, 51–59, 92, 116 exemplarism, 40–50, 161

choice, 137–138 cognitivism/noncognitivism, 8–12, 68, 74–79 compassion, 76, 100, 122 courage, 122–124 creation, divine, 213–227 Culture Sensitivity Principle, 369 definitions of moral concepts, 160 indexical definitions, 131, 140–145 substantive definitions, 132, 159–160 desire, 69–70 direct reference theory, 42–47 dispositions, 71, 73 Divine Command theory, xi, 262–265, 278–282 compared to Divine Motivation theory, 258–265 divine freedom, 287–289

408

P1: JzG/JrT P2: JzG CY457ind-15.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 13, 2004

14:19

Subject index God (see also imitatio Christi; imitatio Dei) emotions and virtues of, 203–213 personhood of, 191–203 good, see value “good,” “perfect good,” as adjectives, 272–273 guilt, 128, 141 habits, 120, 135, humility, 127 ideal agents, 359–372 ideal observers (see also ideal agents), 349–359 imitatio Christi, 233–236, 247–258 imitatio Dei, 187–191 imitation (see also imitatio Christi; imitatio Dei), 47–48, 52 impeccability, 15, 275 Incarnation, moral importance of, 231–232 incommunicability, 195–201

alleged conflict with moral goodness, 276, 279–280, 287–288 alleged conflict with omnipotence, 275–276, 279, 283–287 definition of, 275, 286 person, concept of, 192–196 phronesis (phronimos, phronime), 44–45, 125–127, 130–131, 140–141, 371–379 pity, 76, 168–169 pleasure, good of, 107–110, 124 pre-Socratics, 188 practical reason, 116, 123 Rational Recognition principle, 371 Rationality in the Second Person, 372–373 realism/antirealism, 11–15 religious diversity (RD) thesis, 367 religious exclusivism, 363–365 respect, 318–319 reverence, 188 rude, concept of, 61–64

justice, 102 lives, flourishing, 113–118 love, 6, 90, 320 divine love, 220–222 and freedom, 298–301 good of, 316 moral judgment, 74–79, 166–173 moral strength, weakness, apathy, 9–10, 172–173 motives (see also emotions), 72–73, 177 contrasted with aims, 22–25 narratives, importance of, 47, 255–258 Need to Resolve Conflict principle, 369 Noseeum principle, 326–328 obligation, xi, 6, 145–159 omnipotence and ability to sin, 283–287 definition of, 275, 286 outcomes, value of, 312 paradoxes of perfect goodness, 272–278 perfect goodness, 15–17 alleged conflict with divine freedom, 277, 280, 288

Seneca (see also Stoicism), 189 shame, 151–153 states of affairs, contrasted with outcomes, 18–19 Stoicism (see also Epictetus; Seneca), 56, 189–191 suffering atheist’s argument from suffering, 324–325 of God, 330–336 problem of, 324–338 temperance, 124 theodicy, 306, 313–318 Thesis G and variants, 277–279, 283–284, 309, 311 Trinity, 191, 200–201 value of acts: act good in every respect, 143; direct versus indirect, 27–29, 103–104; right act, 140–141; virtuous act, 142 concepts, 3–6, 11–15, 29; thick versus thin, xiv, 12–13, 61–68, 74–79, 134–135, 169–170 of ends, 96–104, 110–113, 134 of ends versus of means, 19–22, 38

409

P1: JzG/JrT P2: JzG CY457ind-15.xml Zagzebski

0 521 82880 5

April 13, 2004

14:19

Subject index value (cont.) good for human beings, 110–118, 134 intrinsic versus extrinsic, 19–22, 38, 82–83 objective, 104–107 of outcomes, 96–104 of persons, 164–166

value bipolarity, myth of, 25–27 vice, 129, 135 virtue, 118–130, 135 intellectual, 134–135 virtue theory, 32–40 motivation-based, 39–40 vocation, 257

410