Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Virtue

Evidence for Stoicism

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Stoicism claims that virtue is the only good and therefore the highest good.

Is there any evidence for this? People really do not live like virtue is the highest good. But, do they live as if the respect virtuous people? Do people live like they want to be known as good people? Yes:

Human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—like Amnesty International—provide a signaling service to their donors. Donors purchase this signaling service, paying for the ability to show the world they are prosocial, open, multi-cultural, compassionate, empathic, and politically liberal. The primary product on offer is a badge outwardly signaling that the wearer is a person who is associated with the broadly known values of the human rights NGO. For the donor, the benefit is prestige and status that comes with associating with the organization. The NGO, for doing its part, receives money, status, and authority.11
The NGO world is a crowded space. Donors have millions of charities from which to choose. An organization does not need to convince donors to change their minds to attract their donation. Instead, the NGO can convince donors that it represents their views and will provide assistance in signaling their commitment to these views and loyalty to their community.
Corporations have discovered the power of virtue-signaling. In a New York Timesarticle, Paul Sullivan writes, “Firms learn that as they help charities, they also help their brands.” For example, Subaru chose “well-known, noncontroversial charities,” such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Meals on Wheels. On the other hand, Discovery Communications, which produces Shark Week, began a wild tiger conservation program.
Companies also signal their virtues in advertisements. Gillette’s viral commercial “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” was a calculated virtue-branding effort destined to annoy some and attract others, a worthwhile trade for a declining brand. Amnesty International USA, in a rare endorsement of a corporation, tweeted in support of Gillette: “People are upset about the Gillette ad? Repeat after me: We want a world without #ToxicMasculinity.” The international Twitter account for Amnesty likewise supported the ad: “The [world] will be a better place without #ToxicMasculinity.” In a response to an NPR query, a Gillette spokesperson said, “No longer can companies ‘just advertis[e] product benefits.’ These days ‘brand-building’ also means taking a stand on important societal issues, controversial as they may be.”
A study on corporate social responsibility found that 87 percent of study respondents reported “they would buy a product because of something the company advocated.” However, if the company advocates (signals) the wrong cause, 76 percent said they would boycott the product. This consumer demand produces an incentive for companies to learn what their customers want to signal and enhance their brand through the power of signaling.12

The Virtue Economy by Suszie Mulesky

We live like we know virtue is the most important thing, we just wish to be known for it rather than engage in it.

Two Types of Honesty

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There are two types of honesty:

  1. Frankness: Saying what you think/feel is true, simply. When one is being frank, you could speak complete untruths (objectively speaking) while still being honest.
  2. Scientific Accuracy: This mode of honesty is intentionally humble in the sense that you say what you think could provide evidence for, qualify what you mean, and admit which elements of what you say are unclear to you.

Each mode seems to have its weaknesses and is more appealing to those of certain personalities and occupations.

Adler’s Moral Axiom

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As far as I can tell, there are three major problems in ethical thinking today:

  1. Disconnecting ethics from happiness and therefore thinking that personal well-being and pleasure have nothing to do with ethics.
  2. Hedonism: The idea that right and wrong is only a matter of what leads to the highest personal pleasure. In social ethics, this means allowing people to do whatever they think/feel will make them feel the best. We might call this unscientific utilitarianism (because it isn’t based upon actual knowledge of what is good for the individual or collective human organism.
  3. The is/ought problem: That since knowledge is all descriptive, no understanding of what is can lead to a conclusion about what one ought to do.

In my opinion, all three of these problems are solved in one way or another by Mortimer Adler’s one self-evident moral premise: We ought to desire whatever is really good for us and nothing else.

Below are the paragraphs where he introduces the axiom in his book, 10 Philosophical Mistakes:

The two distinctions that we now have before us, distinctions generally neglected in modern thought—the distinction between natural and acquired desires, or needs and wants, and the distinction between real and merely apparent goods—enable us to state a self-evident truth that serves as the first principle of moral philosophy. We ought to desire whatever is really good for us and nothing else.

The criterion of self-evidence, it will be recalled, is the impossibility of thinking the opposite. It is impossible for us to think that we ought to desire what is really bad for us, or ought not to desire what is really good for us. The very understanding of the “really good” carries with it the prescriptive note that we “ought to desire” it. We cannot understand “ought” and “really good” as related in any other way.[1]

While Adler’s claim is presented as an axiom, a truth about which one cannot accept the opposite proposition, it can probably only be accepted once it is properly understood. Here are some questions to help us think it through:

  1. Is it possible for there to be desires that are bad for us?
  2. Are there desires that are good for us but desired wrongly?
  3. Are there desires that are more important than others?
  4. We desire food, but is there a reason to desire food?
  5. We desire to live, but is there a reason we desire to live?
  6. We desire pleasure, but is there a reason we desire pleasure?
  7. We desire sex but is there a reason for sex?

If Adler’s axiom is axiomatic, we have a proposition upon which to build our ethics, dispute them as our understanding of human nature advances, and upon which to build theological ethics for those who accept divine revelation about the purpose and nature of humanity.

References

[1] Mortimer Jerome Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 90-91

 

Reflections on Abraham

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Abraham and Melchizedek in the Loggia di Raffaello in Vatican City.

What is a father?

Genesis presents Abraham as being the father of many nations.

The whole Bible presents the Israelites as the ‘sons of Abraham’ on multiple occasions.

The New Testament, in particular, presents anybody with appropriate faith in God (whatever that means…but usually faith in Christ) as a child of Abraham.

This is significant for many reasons, not the least of which is that the father in the Bible is a figure for the accumulated wisdom of the past in a way that is indicative of a divine voice:[1]

See: Proverbs 1:8,10,15; 2:1; 3:1,11,21; 4:10,20; 5:1,20; 6:1,3,20; 7:1; 19:27; 23:15,19,26; 24:13,21; 27:11; 31:2.

Why does this matter? Abraham’s story in the Bible could be read as a representation of the ideal life of goodness in a post-catastrophic world. Or in question and answer format:

Q: In a world where evil, disaster, and death are a given, what does it mean to seek the good God has for us in the world?

A: Look at Abraham.

The New Testament does not shy away from this answer, despite having Jesus as an example. Jesus, in John 8 points to the works of Abraham. Paul in Romans 4 and Galatians 3-4 points to the faith of Abraham. Hebrews is largely about Abraham’s patient faith in God. And James 2 points directly at the good works of Abraham as exemplary even for those after the resurrection of Christ.

Below are my reflections on some of the passages that indicate that Genesis means for us to see Abraham as an example of the good life:

Genesis 12:1-3

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. (2) And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. (3) I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

In the passage above, we see that there is an implied condition. Abraham must go to be made into a great nation. That Genesis presents the promise as fulfilled shows that we’re meant to see Abraham as a man who kept a covenant with God. Incidentally, he also took the offer out of self-interest. I’ve written about this before.

Genesis 17:1-8

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, (2) that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” (3) Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, (4) “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. (5) No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. (6) I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. (7) And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. (8) And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

Here, God’s covenant is made more explicit. It’s called a covenant and in it Abraham is promised to be a father of nations. But what is the condition, “walk before me and be blameless.” The reader is to understand that Abraham actually did do this. God promises to make Abraham very fruitful here, which hearkens back to Noah and Adam as the first man and the second first man. While I don’t quote it, the covenant above includes circumcision, which appears to be a civilizational curtailing of sexual obsession. “You’ll be fruitful but there is a limit to that.” I suspect that circumcision goes back to Genesis 2:22-24 to indicate that sexuality is a blessing and a limitation. Abraham is to be the father of many but that understanding is that his sexuality and those of his children be limited by the wound and healing power of marriage.

Genesis 24:1

Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. And the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things.

And this passage shows that by the end of it all, Abraham had been blessed by God in all things. He kept the covenant as best a man can in the circumstances (fallen nature, a barbaric world, and a pagan worldview). And so the indication is that if a reader/listener to Genesis wants to experience the blessing offered to humanity in Genesis 1:26-31, being like Abraham is a stable method of doing so.

This is the affirmation of the Old and New Testaments, of prophets, apostles, and Jesus.

Footnote

[1] Obviously, fathers can also be wrong which is why the Bible commends listening more than tradition, like Scripture and reason to know the truth.

The Creation Narrative and Human Excellence

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Here’s a repost from my old blog:

Before we go on, below is the story of the creation of man in Genesis 1. Go ahead and read it in full as a refresher.

Gen 1:26-31 ESV Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (28) And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (29) And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. (30) And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (31) And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

When we read the Bible, it’s important to remember that the stories, while not always portraying morality or exemplary character, are meant to train us in good works. The stories try to give a picture of the good life as well as the internal and external threats to it. By the time the Old Testament as a whole became known as “the law and prophets” four virtues were recognized as paramount for a life of human excellence and character: courage, justice, temperance, and prudence (see Wisdom of Solomon 8:7).[1]

 

In Genesis 1:26-31 one can easily see how these four virtues must be developed for humanity to fulfill its calling on the earth:

  1. Justice:
    Fundamental to man’s relationship with the world in the passage is that humanity is the likeness of God to the world. In other words, man represents God’s rule over the heavens and the earth in relationship to the other living creatures upon the earth. For this hierarchical order to be expressed, obligations must be met. If human beings are to rule the lesser creatures in God’s stead and presumably relate to other people who do the same, then they must treat one another with justice (fairness, non-aggression, etc). They must also show God his due as the highest member of the chain of being.
  2. Courage:
    Courage is required because, at this point in the story, there is no idyllic garden (that’s in a different version of the creation story a few paragraphs later. There is, instead, a creation full of wild animals and plants that need naming, taming, and understanding. There is also a frightening world full of hostile climates and dangerous geography. And if you think in terms of modern cosmology, there is a universe full of dangerous things that will heartlessly destroy you: stars, space, comets, debris, the sun, and so-on. Man must risk greatly in order to accomplish great deeds.
  3. Temperance:
    Man, if he is to subdue the animals and plant kingdoms, also must subdue himself. The human body is of the animal kingdom. So, man must subdue his mind and body and bring them into a right relationship with God and God’s justice. There are poison berries, cold winters, and people with whom to share and none of these situations can be handled without self-control. This, by the way, is why I tell Christians today that unless it is impossible, they really must do physical exercise. Controlling the body takes work and we walk less, work with our hands less, and go outside less than any previous generation of human beings.
  4. Prudence:
    This is the virtue of understanding the world, discerning good from bad, and acting accordingly. It’s a hard virtue, Hebrews 5 says that it can only be developed by practice. Incidentally, the Genesis 3 fall story is so sad because by refusing to eat from the tree designated off limits, man was learning prudence. Nevertheless, this virtue would have been crucial. To subdue the animals and plants they must be understood, placed into categories, and studied. The same is true of plants. To learn to traverse water, make music, cook, and store food all would require prudence.

In short, one can see how the four cardinal virtue are necessarily a part of man’s vocation as man. They must be developed if one is to have the highest experience of humanity in creation.

References

[1] The case has been made by David Oderberg that these four virtues really do constitute the four pillars of human excellence in a definitive way. David S. Oderberg, “On the Cardinality of the Cardinal Virtues,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 7, no. 3 (October 1999): 305–322.

 

Seek first the Kingdom of God…how?

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A lot of Christian advice boils down to platitudes with neither moral nor practical content. Sadly, our tendency to speak in airy nothings to one another as a time saving mechanism as stripped many of Jesus’ central ideals of meaning and practical content. An example is, “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” People will rattle off this advice in a well-meaning fashion in order to overcome the difficulties of telling other Christians, “You’ve gotta get out of debt, apologize to your spouse, discipline your kids, or organize your life.” What does this command mean?

Right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples and the crowd of potential disciples listening that the trappings of the good life, clothes and food, are not the keys to happiness (remember how Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount offering the blessed or happy life to those who hear). Instead Jesus says to “Seek first the Kingdom of God and its (his) righteousness and these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).

But what does this mean? Is it a mystical promise that God will do miracles to see to the provision of disciples who literally never seek food, clothing, or money?

I think not.

To understand this commandment, we need to determine what the phrase, “kingdom of God” means.

In my mind, Scot McKnight’s observations are the most enlightening:

Kingdom is-almost always, with varying degrees of emphasis- a complex of king, rule, people, land, and law. Church is also a complex: a king (Christ), a rule (Christ rules over the body of Christ), a people (the church), a land (expanding Israel into the diaspora), and a law (the law of Christ, life in the Spirit) …Slight differences aside, the evidence I have presented in this book leads me to the conclusion that we should see them as synonyms.”[1]

Kingdom of God, in the New Testament is referring to the church under the authority of God.

What does it mean to “seek the kingdom of God”?

This has larger implications, but for now, we’re answering this question:

What does seek first the kingdom of God and its (his) righteousness mean?

If McKnight is right,[2] then seeking the kingdom and righteousness takes on a clearer meaning.

To seek the kingdom of God is to seek:

  1. The well-being of the church family
  2. To use the proper means to spread the word of the kingdom (see the parable of the Sower)
  3. To pray to our heavenly Father (see Matthew 6:9-13)
  4. To be a part of the kingdom’s work of worship (See Hebrews 10:24-25, this is one of the most neglected passages in modern Christendom)

What does it mean to “seek the righteousness of the kingdom of God”?

To seek the righteousness of God (of God’s kingdom) requires a little more context to fully understand[3], but even without the extra explanation seeking the righteousness of which Jesus speaks means:

  1. Seek the character traits about which he had been teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17-20)
  2. Be willing to do deeds of righteousness solely because they are right and to please God (Matthew 6:1-18)
  3. Extend kindness to those outside the kingdom and even those who are opposed to it (Matthew 5:41-47)
  4. Be like God (Matthew 5:48)
  5. Learn to treat others as you wish to be treated (Matthew 7:12)
  6. Base your character, as far as you can and as you understand it, on the teachings of Jesus (Matthew 7:13-28).

What does it mean to seek “kingdom” and “righteousness” first?

The word first probably can be taken metaphorically: seek them as the main priority:

  1. Try to make the church successful, not merely yourself. The financial principle for success known as “pay yourself first” should be “pay the church first” or “pay the Lord first.” In Scripture, this might mean anything from showing hospitality, to feeding the poor, and paying pastors.
  2. When a choice comes between doing the right thing and gaining some other good, choose to be righteous rather than receive good.  [4]
  3. This might be too literal, but start your day off with prayer.
  4. Jesus may also couple kingdom with righteousness here to remind us that the kingdom should only be pursued “righteously.” The ends don’t justify evil means in God’s kingdom.[5]
  5. It means to seek the other things, “not as the gentiles do,” in other words seek clothes, but not obsessively. Seek money, but like Proverbs says, “know when to desist” (Proverbs 23:4). Get property, but use it to bless others (see Proverbs 31).

What does “all these things will be added to you” mean?

In the ancient world, there were competing theories of what caused true human happiness or “the good life.”

For instance, Aristotle thought that we needed good of the body, external goods, and goods of the soul to have true happiness. The Old Testament has a similar picture in that the good life consists in health, family, honor, land, righteousness, and relatedness to God.[6]

The Stoics, on the other hand, thought that the good life/happiness consisted solely in having virtuous character.

Jesus appears to agree with the Old Testament version of the good life here because he uses the bodily and material blessings as motivation for putting righteousness and the kingdom first. Life is more than food and clothes, but it isn’t less than food and clothes.

While one can have true happiness without possessions, health, and so-on, Jesus acknowledges that these things are often necessary for life and important for happiness. Thus, he shows that one can have them without making them your main priority in life.[7] Elsewhere, Jesus makes this claim: “And all who leave houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29). In Mark’s gospel, two things are added: “persecutions” and “in this life and the life to come” (Mark 10:28-29).

The point seems to be that loyalty to the kingdom of God and participation in the church (a group of people who are trying to care for one another the way Jesus loves us) even when things get hard, will lead to being taken care of. There’s not some mystical hope for magic provisions here (though the Lord can do that). There’s also not a woefully disregarded or infinitely deferred promise to make people happy. Instead, Jesus is saying that the fact of the matter is that kingdom people will take care of each other and virtue often leads to provision, and those facts are part of what makes the gospel good news.

Conclusion

Seeking first the kingdom and righteousness is not just “woo-woo” speech or meaningless Christianese for “being spiritual.”

It is a practical command that has real world application and is meant to be put into practice in our relationship to the church family of which we are a part and to the sort of habits and character traits we acquire for ourselves.

Also, the command is related directly to the human pursuit of happiness by dislodging external and bodily goods from the center of happiness while still giving them due place in the taxonomy of goods that make us happy.

References

[1] Scot McKnight, Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church, 2014, 205-206

[2] He is right and if you request it I’ll catalog his evidence and add some of my own.

[3] Virtues like justice/righteousness in the ancient world were understood to be in relationship to one’s citizenship. Jesus means, “The righteousness appropriate or proper” for a citizen of God’s kingdom. It’s not just “universal righteousness,” but righteousness that can only make sense in the context of living in the kingdom of God now.

[4] Don’t buy into the lie that doing the right thing always has a negative result. That is a whiny mindset that will give you a defeatist attitude and it simply isn’t always true. Goodness is not always a tragic sacrifice.

[5] There are exceptions to this in Scripture, wherein the Lord will use evil people to accomplish good, but when the Bible tells us to imitate God is always about his mercy, holiness, or love. It is never with respect to God’s manipulation of specific historical events.

[6] Perhaps the best book on the nature of happiness in the Bible is R. N Whybray, The Good Life in the Old Testament (London: T & T Clark, 2002). Every chapter is filled with sound interpretive wisdom.

[7] Observe that making food and clothes one’s main priority can jeopardize one’s eternal happiness. The value tradeoff makes no sense.