A Christian Understanding of Virtue Ethics
A CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING
OF VIRTUE ETHICS
Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB
It would seem that ethics cannot be
spoken in isolation from Christianity. The moral teachings of Christianity is
so essentially linked with the complete package of Revelation that all attempts
to separate it from that wider context are futile and this is precisely because
Christianity alone addresses human beings as they actually are, revealing them
their true destiny and good. Thus can we speak of a philosophical ethics that
is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus? To respond to that, we would have
to look at how philosophy was during the medieval period. The medieval period,
which was otherwise known as the dark ages, was a time that was given the tag, “Fuga mundi” or ‘going away from the world’ and perhaps this may serve as a clue to
the answer to the above question. Some of the prominent thinkers of this period
were Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas. For Bonaventure, it would be difficult to
find among his works anything that could be called philosophical or purely
philosophical. Thomas Aquinas, the angelic doctor, was no exception to this
either. Thus, can we conclude that what was going during the medieval period
was theology and not philosophy? According to Etienne Gilson, philosophy during
the medieval times was not an activity carried on independently of theology.
The philosophy of a thinker like Bonaventure is embedded in his theology and
the same is true of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Such men developed a
Christian philosophy not to be confused with their theology, even though it was
done in the course of their theologizing. Theology and philosophy might be
distinct but they are not separate. This response by Gilson is indeed a well balanced approach since it brings to
mind the relationship between faith and reason. Besides, it is important to
have something to philosophize about. Philosophy cannot take place in isolation
or in some vague abstraction. Thus, it is important to understand something in
its context or else it could lead to a rash judgment.
Having therefore stated that there
must be something to philosophize about, when we speak about ethics, we are not
talking about which actions are right or which are wrong but our discussion
over here is on a broader platform – it is about why are certain actions
considered right and why are some wrong. Thus, to begin with the question, “Why do we need categories such as ‘right’
or ‘wrong’ or a moral scheme?” If a person were to enter a rickshaw and
have no point of destination, then travelling in a rickshaw would be the
biggest mistake in the first place or even if he had a point of destination but
there were no traffic rules on signposts for direction, it would be equally
harmful. Ethics is something like that. It provides the framework that gives
meaning to our actions. It is indeed a broad field and so I wish to tackle one
aspect of ethics, namely, virtue ethics.
We are human precisely because we
are rational beings and rationality implies the ability to choose. An animal
acts out of its instincts and so there is no rational element. It is for this
reason that we can truly say that we act in pursuit of something. For instance,
I drink a glass of water because I choose to drink a glass of water or I go to
work because I choose to work. These and many more examples can be given. Even
if a person does not choose to do something, he has to make the choice not to
do that particular thing. Thus, we see that human life is governed by choices
and these choices are based on the goals or the ‘tellos’ that is set before us.
One question that we can raise in
this regard is, “Can a person have more
than one goal or many goals at the same time?” As human beings, we can have
many goals like riches, honour, fame, glory, power, health and pleasure, but
then another question that we could ask is, “How
much of this will guarantee lasting happiness?” It is over here that
Aquinas tells us that the ultimate goal is that which lies beyond this physical
reality which is God. By this, he does not mean to discard material things or
pleasures but it is just that we cannot consider these as ends in themselves.
Virtue ethics is one of the means of understanding the pursuit of this ultimate
reality.
Virtue ethics is indeed a broad
topic and this entails that each person should have the necessary conditions,
motivations and emotions in being good and doing right. Virtue ethics is about
being rather than doing. This is not to say that the ‘doing’ aspect is not
important. It is important indeed but what is the point if one does ‘good’
actions but inwardly, he is full of rot and filth. To illustrate this point,
here is a story that will shed some light. Once there lived two brothers, Jim
and Jack. Jim was a splendid fellow, kind and compassionate, almost saintly,
always sacrificing for the poor and helping others. In fact he was too good to
be true. But his brother Jack set him up for a serious crime which he did not
do and consequently he was arrested. In prison, he had to face all kinds of
torture and when he was released, he was practically living like a beggar.
People avoided Jim whenever they could for he looked dangerous although in his
heart, he was as pure as he was before.
Jack, who was his older brother, the
one who set him up and got him arrested, was ‘successful’. He was respected in
every sense and was well to do in society. Yet his success and wealth was
obtained by ruthlessly destroying people who trusted him. He was, in actual
truth, an evil man. This therefore brings us to the question, “Is it enough to
do good actions or do we necessarily have to be good in order to do good
actions?”
In Aristotle’s classic work on the
virtues, written more than three centuries before the birth of Christ, the
virtues are simply the characteristics that enable individuals to live well in
communities. To achieve a state of well – being, a proper social institution is
necessary. Thus, the moral person cannot really exist apart from a flourishing
political setting that enables him or her to develop the requisite virtues for
the good life. For this reason, ethics is considered as a branch of politics.
What seems so remarkable to
contemporary ethicists is that Aristotle hardly mentions principles. It was not
that he thought them as unnecessary; they are implied in what he says. What is
emphasized in place of principles is the importance of good upbringing, of good
habits, of self – control, of courage and character, without which the ethical
life is impossible. A person of moral excellence cannot help doing good; it is
as natural as the change of seasons or the rotation of the planets.
Most of us learn by watching others
and imitating them; this is a hallmark of virtue ethics. Rules cut up morality
in fragmented and unnatural ways but lives exhibit appropriate attitudes and
dispositions in holistic fashion. The lives of Socrates, Gandhi, Mother Teresa,
Fr. Maximillian Kolbe and others provide examples of moral excellence and
inspire to become ideal types. Albert Schweitzer, who with two PhDs and a promising
musical career in Europe, renounced fame and fortune to open up a medical
clinic at his own expense in Lambraine, French West Africa and who developed
the concept of reverence for life, is one of the most important and neglected
role models of our time, far more important and interesting than the Hollywood
characters or athletics lionized by culture. These are the modern saints who
put us to shame for being satisfied with our spiritual mediocrity. They
challenge us to aspire to moral heights and thus the lesson of these ethical
stalwarts from which we can draw out is, “If
they can overcome temptations and live a deeply moral life then so can I.”
But what is it that made them to act this way? Did they have nothing else to
do? No, certainly not! They had a vision, a goal, a “tellos”.
It is important to have a goal or a
vision in life as that is what gives a sense of direction and purpose in life.
But does this ‘goal’ or ‘tellos’ have to be religious in nature? Some secular
ethicists would want to think that we can have ethics without having any
recourse to religion or a God to ‘dictate’ terms and conditions as to what is
right and wrong. This sort of a position is held by philosophers such as
Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and others for whom morality depends on the self
and not on some absolute law. In fact, we come to know this from one of
Russell’s own statements which goes thus, “Nature,
omnipotent but blind, in the revolution of her secular hurrying through the
abysses of space, has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her
power, but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the
capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking Mother?” Such a
position is indeed intriguing! Christian philosopher George Mavrodes has
criticized Russell’s secular view as puzzling. If there is no God, then does
not secular ethics suffers from certain inadequacy. Mavrodes argues that the
Russellian world of secular morality cannot satisfactorily answer the question,
“Why should I be moral?” for on its
account, the common goods at which morality in general aims are often just than
we sacrifice in carrying out our moral obligations. Why should we sacrifice our
welfare or self – interest for our moral duty?
Leo Tolstoy once said, “The attempt to found a morality apart from
religion are like the attempts of children who, wishing to transplant a flower
that pleases them, pluck it from the
roots that seem to them unpleasing and superfluous and stick it rootless
into the ground. Without religion there can be no real, sincere morality, just
as without roots there can be no real flower.” Immanuel Kant would speak on
similar lines as is seen in the following words, “Christianity has enriched philosophy with far more definite and purer
concepts that it had been able to furnish before but which, once they are
there, are freely asserted to by Reason and are assumed as concepts to which it
could well have come of itself and which it could and should have introduced
….. Even the Holy One of the Gospels must first be compared with our ideal of
moral perfection before we can recognize Him as such.” From these two
statements, it would seem that perhaps no figure has served as an exemplar for
more people than the personhood of Jesus Christ, not just for Western culture,
but for the world at large. An example of how His message has helped formed the
moral conscience of individuals is related to the biography of agnostic
ethicist G. E. Moore which is as follows, “The
habit of examining one’s conscience by asking one’s self ‘What would Jesus do?’
is conducive to the frame of mind
required to enable one to ask one’s self, “What is the right thing to do?” And
it is only a short step from asking oneself what Jesus would do to the
realization that one is not asking a historical question such as ‘What in fact
did Jesus do?’ but a question that means ‘What would Jesus have done in these
circumstances?’ In the end …. he is appealing to the idea of Jesus as a
perfectly moral being to give him ethical standards.” The saints and moral heroes are the salt by
which the world is preserved.
Thus we see the importance of having
goals in virtue ethics as it is the goals that we have that shape us. But how
does one attain this goal? In this regard, virtue ethics can be compared to
learning a particular skill like playing the piano or soccer or the guitar or
any other skill. One becomes a master at it by practice; it is by doing that we
arrive at mastery. The same can be said of becoming good and that is one
becomes good by doing good deeds and forming the right habits that would help
him gradually to become genuinely good as it is written in the letter to St.
James, “My friends, what good is it for
you to say that you have faith but your actions do not prove it? Can that faith
save you? Suppose there are sisters or brothers who need clothes and don’t have
enough to eat. What good is there in your saying, ‘God bless you! Keep warm and
eat well!’ if you don’t give them the necessities of life? So if faith is alone
and it includes no action, then it is dead.” (James 2: 14 -17).
